The Elephant Tree - seventeen

When the editor arrived at the scene, the local sheriff and his deputy were investigating the reported slaughter of an innocent girl by the marine choppers.

The donkey was setting under a tree hoping that the doll would not be dead.

"Can you fix her? Do you undertake blow-up dolls, Mr. Politician? Do blow-up dolls go to heaven or hell?

"Cheeeesh, donkey," the elephant said. "You heard the clown writer. She just needs some air and she will be fine."

The sheriff and his deputy were taking statements from the naïve undertaker, and the circus farmer.

"So, if I am to believe you, the only thing that was killed was a blow-up doll."

"We never said the blow-up doll was killed," the circus farmer replied.

"We said that the writer said the blow-up doll was killed," the naïve undertaker added.

"Where were you when the terrorists attacked"?

"There were no terrorists and there was not an attack."

"Yes, there was. We were watching it on television. Those Marine choppers must have driven them away."

"You're damn rights," added the deputy. "We've been getting reports of subversive bastards in the area for months."

"Not months, deputy," the sheriff corrected him. It's only been for the past couple of days."

The writer Stumpy, dressed as a clown, realized that trying to sell the blow-up doll as a terrorist casualty might work with the Federal boys but the sheriff obviously was well versed on blow-up dolls and could not be fooled.

He butted into the interrogation the sheriff was conducting.

"She was not real…just part of a circus act…someone in the crowd screamed that the government choppers had shot her and every one panicked. There's no harm been done. We can just blow her up again and continue on with our parade."

"That's not true," the elephant said. "You're the one that screamed she had been shot."

The sheriff decided to arrest the writer for inciting a riot. Ichaposi, the photog, videoed the entire arrest.

Just as Stumpy was being shoved into the police car, the editor drove up with the "Sky 86" chopper pilot and the "eye-in-the-sky" reporter.

"Is the clown one of terrorists," he wanted to know?

"You fat slob. I'm the writer you fired and I have the story and Posi has the film and all you have a big bag of air."

The well endowed ghost writer had been standing back and observing the whole scene. Her object was to get the whole story and get it right. She chose to remain unobserved but found her way to the tree where the donkey and the elephant were being ignored by everyone else.

"Are you the elephant that was in the tree," she asked?

"Yes, and I wish he would have stayed there," replied the donkey. "He has caused us nothing but trouble."

"It's not my fault. You're the one that wanted the politician to hide us."

"Are you really planning on shooting the president?"

"Shoot the president...why would we shoot the president?  Well, maybe the elephant might…but, not me…I love the president."

"I might not think the president is the right man for the job but shooting him isn't the answer…who said we wanted to shoot the president?"

The well endowed ghost writer knew who said it. It wasn't the same person that screamed the government choppers were shooting people.

It was the pompous ass that had just arrived in the limo.


She simply informed the sheriff who simply arrested the editor and put him in the back of the car with Stumpy.


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