Laurie Holman: Comedy Writer, Copywriter, Chocolate Connoisseur

Once upon a time in the village of Winkletoes, there lived an evil orange troll named Pumpkinface who thundered through the countryside spewing puke-green ooze on the villagers. The ooze turned the villagers into warty toads, who were then joined by a band of other warty toads who’d been hiding under the slimy rocks in the swamp at Winkletoes’ edge.

As the warty toads swarmed the village, their ooze spread farther and farther, until it threatened to overtake all of Winkletoes.

The not-yet-oozed villagers attempted to protect themselves with giant umbrellas, with some success — until the toads stole all the remaining umbrellas in the village and hid them in the swamp. “Make Winkletoes Puke-Green Again,” they chanted.

“But Winkletoes wasn’t puke-green before,” the villagers protested. The toads threw poison pellets at them in response. Pumpkinface stalked back and forth on the steel balcony of his castle and watched the chaos he’d created with a satisfied smirk.

All seemed lost — until the Good Warlock Levelhead and his partner, the Good Witch Marmalade, flew into Winkletoes on their electric brooms. “What the f*** is going on here?” they demanded.

Levelhead and Marmalade soon understood the gravity of the situation, and got to work. They sprinkled rainbow dust on the toads and turned them back into humans, who chased Pumpkinface out of his castle, picked him up and tossed him on the lawn, and barricaded the doors.

Marmalade strode over to where Pumpkinface lay sprawled. “You are a festering boil on the ass of this village,” she declared. All the villagers cheered.

“Am not. I’m perfect, and everyone loves me,” Pumpkinface pouted.

Marmalade laughed and flew off in a wave of rainbow sparkles.

Pumpkinface slunk away and burrowed down in a dank underground lair far from Winkletoes, never to be heard from again.

THE END