“What’s wrong with Goosebury?”
“He hasn’t decided if he’s dead or undead, Lulu. So, whenever Granny announces a holiday dinner I go Gooseburying, because he suddenly becomes extremely agitated.”
“Where is this Goosebury?”
“He lives in West Texas, of course, on a chupacabra ranch. And since the annual Halloween feast is upon us I have decided I must be gone. Relatives are awfully tiring when you actually have to be around them.”
“I want to come,” Lulu demanded stomping her foot meanly. “I want to meet Goosebury.”
“Never, Lulu. He couldn’t survive a day of bratty behavior, especially when undead,” Cybil explained. "Now, I really must go pack. I have special outfits for Gooseburying.”
Lulu took off her bling ring and said: “I don’t think the Witch of West Texas is really Wicked.”
Smoke filled the room and sparks flew as, right in front of Lulu, the Witch materialized.
“I heard what you said, Lulu. You have some explaining to do, since Wicked has always been my name and I shouldn’t want to have any other.”
“I wanted to tell you what Cybil is up to. She says she’s going Gooseburying in Texas and I figured out where Goosebury is.”
The Wicked Witch of West Texas looked at the address. She seemed unusually cross and for someone whose first name is "Wicked" that's saying quite a bit.
“I think we should meet Goosebury, since Cybil is using him as an excuse to miss Halloween dinner.” Lulu continued, thinking about the time not so long ago that Cybil had taken her Bling Ring and tricked her into going to a horridish Wicked Witch party.
“Missing Halloween dinner, eh?” The Wicked Witch of West Texas looked very intrigued. “I say we pay a social call on this Goosebury.” With that the Wicked Witch of West Texas raised her wand and gave a little wave and off they went to Texas.
“I’m here to see Goosebury,” the Wicked Witch of West Texas told the desk clerk at the Menger.
“Who should I say is here?”
“The Wicked Witch of West Texas, of course,” she replied.
“The Wicked Witch of West Texas just went up to see him.”
“No, I’m standing right here. Unless you believe I am bi-locating or that this is another doppelganger event,” the Wicked Witch said.
“I wouldn’t know. Goosebury is in room 420 at any rate,” the man replied. “Schrodinger’s cat seems to have just gone up too.”
“Very interesting,” the Witch remarked.
“You must be Goosebury,” the Witch said to the man who opened the door. Lulu recognized this person as the Snipe from Sugarland Not-Texas, but thought it best not to mention it. The Snipe is, after all, an annoyingly argumentative character.
“Oh, no. Goosebury’s out on a wild goose chase," the Snipe answered. "Who might you be?”
“Dare you ask? I am the Wicked Witch of West Texas,” she replied.
The Snipe looked slightly terrified, which is an entirely appropriate reaction to such an announcement.
“If I were a doppelganger or bi-locating how would I look nothing like myself?”
“Yeah, how?” Lulu put in.
Just then Cybil walked into the room.
“Well, Cybil. Fancy meeting you here,” the Witch said, staring at her not very nice daughter.
“You must be mistaken the Snipe said. This is the Wicked Witch of West Texas.”
“Really? Wicked, eh? You don’t have your Wickidity Warrant. I dare say you haven’t even passed your Portmanteau Primaries,” the Witch stated, giving Cybil and evil look.
“What’s a Portmanteau Primary?” Lulu asked.
“You throw a bunch of words into a suitcase and by magic make them scramble up and take new meanings. Confusing meanings, if you’re skilled. Why, some of my Portmanteaus have yet to be deciphered.”
"Why would you want them to be confusing?" Lulu questioned the Witch.
"Need I explain to you, yet again, my obfuscatory linguistic strategies as they relate to Wickidity?"
"Most people," Lulu said, "want to make themselves easily understood. That's what Granny told me."
"What, my pretty, is the point of understanding things that are obvious?"
Lulu had no answer.
"Now, Cybil. About your use of the title "Wicked.""
“Well, I’m on a Goosebury, and when I am I like to call myself Wicked. That way when news of my deeds reaches Oregon, where I’m know to be quite sweet, everyone assumes the bad deeds were done by someone more Wicked, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” the Wicked Witch answered. “Surprisingly Wicked of you, really. And yet I shouldn’t think that you could really call yourself Wicked. The Very Bad Witch of West Texas, perhaps. Maybe even the Quite Terrible Witch of West Texas.”
“My Wickidity is much enhanced by being in Texas. You know, they do have schools here, but luckily education has no effect in Texas. This enhances Wickidity to such a degree that when I’m here I’m really quite diabolical,” Cybil explained. “It’s all just semantics, anyway.”
“That’s all well and good, but how do you propose to get around the fact that I’m the Wicked Witch of West Texas, meaning that you can’t be, because aside from bi-location or doppelganger situations nobody can be in two places at once.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just another type of bi-location,” Cybil argued. “We’re both here right now and no ill has befallen us.”
“Good point. We can probably do it as long as neither of us bi-locates to the same places at the same time because that would accelerate all of the particles in the known universe causing a black hole like the Large Hadron Collider did.”
“True,” Cybil agreed.
“It’s a terrible bore to have the end of the world twice in one week,” the Witch pointed out. “It’s simply not done in better circles.”
“That would be tiresome,” Cybil agreed.
“Why are we here if the world already ended?” Lulu asked.
“Nobody’s noticed it yet,” the Witch answered. “And I dare say they shan’t.”
Lulu was confused.
“I think you should actually think of another place to Goosebury,” the Witch said, turning to Cybil, “One rather similar in some ways to Texas.”
“Does such a place exist?” Cybil asked, astonished.
“Of course. You’ve heard of Alaska, right?”
”That’s a great idea. Wicked Witch of West Alaska. You can see Russia from there, and when Putin rears his head…” Cybil commented. As she did Schrodinger’s cat slinked from the inner room and gave the Witch a sly smile.
“But what about Goosebury?” Lulu asked.
“I guess he’ll have to be dead for now. Until he can be undead in Alaska.”
“There will be plenty of wild geese for Goosebury to chase. They come in from Canada as illegal aliens,” the Witch said.
“If only he would try a tame goose chase he might actually have the chance to bury one,” Cybil answered. “Can’t tell him that though. Well, we’ve quite killed Goosebury for now so I may as well go home.”
“What about the Chupacabra ranch?” Lulu asked.
“I suppose he’ll have to find a new line of work,” Cybil admitted. “Maybe he’ll start a Sasquatch Spa. Bigfoots can always use a good hotspring soak and a dead sea mineral facial. And of course, a pedicure.”
“Hot stone massage would help too. Every time I run in to a Bigfoot it’s always on edge over those cryptozoologists,” the Witch suggested as she raised her wand zapping them all back to Oregon.
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