Razza Ma'Razza: It's Called a Snuggly Puff, Silly Boy

by Gareth Lewis

  * * *

  “Just the place”, was on the upper outskirts of the upscale central district, where even wealth and privilege could not hold the decrepitude of the city at bay. The pet shop was perched high atop a wobbly looking spire amid a skirting of other overly neglected buildings. Bruze always felt that such squalor was permitted in the heart of the city because even those of the upper crust needed a place to indulge their darker vices without the added danger of actually visiting the meaner slums.

  A rickety sign over the darkened door proclaimed that “just the place” was actually called “Woopjas’ Collectible Critters Emporium”. Leaving Bayob to snooze in the car, Bruze and Razza entered the shoddy establishment. Bruze’s senses ratcheted up into full-on bodyguard mode.

  He relaxed somewhat when he discovered that the shop was occupied by only one other being; a fweelop at that. Presumably he was the shop’s…

  “Mogamigus Woopjas, at your service,” the fweelop announced as he scuttled forward to greet them.

  While it was clear that Mogamigus Woopjas was not a threat to Razza, Bruze felt a mild, though immediate, dislike of the merchant.

  The fweelop approached Razza, his thin, boneless arms wriggling in greeting. “Welcome to my humble… to my hum-bum-bum-ba-ble… By the stars! You… you… you’re… Do you know who you are?”

  Ever the celebrity, Razza giggled coquettishly, waving one delicate hand at the fweelop. “Of course I do, silly boy.”

  Bruze folded his arms and propped himself against the doorframe, partly to bar intrusions, in part to enjoy the moment. At first, Mogamigus Woopjas seemed too star-struck to react. But then, when he realized that Razza was still holding her delicate lavender hand in his face, the fweelop’s beady-eyed expression became one of confusion. Razza waved some more; the wave a bit less patient this time.

  Then, as though experiencing an epiphany, Mogamigus Woopjas gave his saucer-shaped head a clarifying shake. He reached up, took Razza’s hand in his and tried… Hmmm. In spite of himself, Bruze’s dark eyes widened with interest; he had had no idea that fweelops even had lips; much less the means to use them.

  “Eeeew,” whined Razza as she yanked her now slimy hand free. Her outfit, being too scanty for her to wipe her hand off on, Razza proceeded whip her hand this way and that, slinging fweelop spittle in every direction.

  “Bruze!” she barked. “Bop him… a good one!”

  “Ma’am,” Bruze said, “I don’t think that Mister Woopjas meant any offense.”

  “No! No, I swear! I didn’t!” cried the merchant, his nervous eyes locked on Bruze’s hulking frame. “Really, I, I just misunderstood. I’ve never met a celebrity before, especially one as famous and beautiful as you, Mistress Ma’Razza.”

  Bruze could sense that the fweelop’s use of the word beautiful had had a somewhat mollifying effect on Razza. She said, “Well, don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

  Sounding somewhat off his game, the fweelop quickly attempted to shift the focus from his faux pas back to business. “So,” he began, “I assume the Mistress is looking for a pet.”

  Haughtily, Razza said, “Yes. I have it on good…ish…authority that you are a dealer in rare and exotic animals.”

  “Then you have heard right,” the short alien assured with a nod. “I offer only the rarest of the rare, the most exotic of the…”

  Razza interrupted. “I’m in a hurry, Mister Whoopass…”

  “Woopjas,” the fweelop corrected.

  “It’s your name, silly boy, pronounce it however you like. But as I was saying, I’m in something of a hurry. My next show starts in,” she checked her ring-watch. Alarmed , she turned to Bruze, “In less than half an hour!”

  She turned back to the merchant. “Half an hour! I’ve got to have the cutest, snuggliest, puffiest pet you have. And expensive. At least, it has to look more expensive than that…whatever it was, Brock Caster had. ”

  “Ohh,” the fweelop said. “I saw his show. He had a chuckupian sand lizard. Very rare. Verrrry expensive.”

  “And it wasn’t even cute,” Razza added.

  “If you’re looking for a pet in that neighborhood, so to speak, then these over here might suit your tastes.”

  Bruze watched as Mogamigus Woopjas led Razza to a shelf of clear polymer cages. Though they had only moved a few feet further into the shop, Razza was near the edge of Bruze’s personal comfort zone. As her bodyguard, it was his job to maintain an effective proximity to her at all times in public. Not that he minded, of course. By all accounts, his was the most coveted of all jobs in the city and he, more than anyone, could fully appreciate why.

  He walked over to the shelf and stopped a couple of feet from where Razza was pressing her face to one of the cages. He resumed his folded-arm stance and kept one eye trained on the fweelop.

  Razza moved from cage to cage. Her expression was becoming more and more panicked as she neared the end of the shelf. Then…

  “This one! That’s it! That’s what I’ve been looking for all night!”

  “Ah,” said Mogamigus. “You are gifted with an impeccable eye, Mistress Ma’Razza.”

  Bruze craned his head to better see into the cage. All he could discern from his vantage was a ball of white fur.

  “What is it called?” Razza asked as she turned to face the merchant.

  “It is a pizin-v’n-gar,” said Mogamigus Woopjas, already leading his customer toward the register.

  As they moved away from the cage, Bruze moved in for a better view of the pizin-v’n-gar. He blinked in surprise. What in the worlds was Razza thinking? As Bruze looked on, the pizin-v’n-gar attacked its empty food dish with a mouth infested with needle-sharp teeth. It rolled with the dish until it crashed into the side of the cage. The vicious fur ball then shook the dish as though trying to shake its brains loose.

  “Pizin-v’n-gar,” repeated Razza. “Hmmm, I’ve never heard of it. Sounds mivrian to me.”

  “It is a word from Hokal, a language native to the pizin-v’n-gar’s home world.”

  “I still say it sounds like a mivrian word. What does it mean?”

  Yes, wondered Bruze, what does it mean?

  If Razza noticed the fweelop’s hesitation, she made no comment. The merchant said, “pizin-v’n-gar means…well it means…Snuggly…puff. Snuggly-puff. Yep, that’s what it means. Pizin-v’n-gar means snuggly-puff.”

  Razza wheeled back to Bruze and shot him her dazzling smile. “I knew it! Just look at the little darling. It just screams ‘snuggly-puff’ no matter what the language.”

  “I’ll take it!” she announced as she returned her attention to the merchant.

  For his part, Bruze looked back into the cage. The fur ball was screaming alright, but it wasn’t screaming ‘snuggly-puff’ as it repeatedly dashed itself, jaws gnashing, against the side of the cage in an effort to get at Bruze.

  He had a very bad feeling about the way that his day was going to turn out. He looked to the counter just as Razza passed her credit-tag across the fweelop’s cred reader.

  “Congratulations,” said the merchant. “You are now the proud owner of Gigajoule City’s one and only pizin-v’n-gar. In fact, it may actually be the only one on the planet.”

  Razza turned to Bruze. “Did you hear that, Bruze? I own the one and only pizin-v’n-gar in the world! Brock Caster is going to be sooooo, jealous. I wonder what he’ll have to say when he sees my new pet.”

  Bruze shrugged. “I’m just wondering who’s going to get your snuggly-puff out of its cage.”

  “Don’t be silly, Bruze, Mister Whoopass will…Hmmm, I wonder where he went.”

  Sure enough, the fweelop had taken his money and run. Bruze made mental note to come back and have a word with Mogamigus Woopjas.

  “Oh well, it doesn’t matter,”Razza was saying.

  Bruze almost gasped as he turned to find Razza lifting the lid of the cage. “No! I mean…,”ah, crap, what am I thinking? Bruze thought to himself even as th
e words escaped his mouth. “Let me.”

  He started to reach into the cage when Razza gently slapped his huge hand aside. “Silly boy, it’s my little darling, not yours.” Bruze squeezed his eyes shut as she reached into the cage.

  When the expected scream failed to split the air, he opened his eyes to find Razza cradling the fur ball in her hands, holding it to her face and nuzzling it.

  As Bruze watched on, amazed, the pizin-v’n-gar noticed him and, though it remained apparently relaxed, in Razza’s palm, it growled at him.

  “Oh, Bruze, listen to it. It’s purring.”

  Bruze followed Razza from the pet shop to the far side of the rooftop parking lot. She was still hugging the psychotic hairball to her cheek. It was still purring at Bruze.

  “We’ve still got time to get to the studio if we hurry,” Razza said as they reached the hover-car.

  Bruze took it as a good omen that Bayob was awake – having apparently caught up on his sleep – and was standing ready to open the passenger-side door for Razza.

  “Oh, how cute,” said the ancient hegamuk as he reached to pet the pizin-v’n-gar. Bruze tried to silently signal Bayob not to by frantically waving his hands. But, it was too late.

  Razza squeaked in surprise as the fur-covered ball of teeth lunged from her grip.

  “Oh look,” exclaimed Razza. “My little snuggly-puff wants to play with…Bayob. Oh my.”

  Bayob’s eyestalks went rigid as the pizin-v’n-gar latched onto his right leg. Splinters began to fly.

  “Stopitstopitstopit!!”screeched Bayob.

  Before Bruze could make a move, an audible “snap” ushered an eerie calm upon the scene. It was short lived. Everyone watched as the pizin-v’n-gar, hissing and snarling, ran in circles with Bayob’s leg in its toothy grip.

  “Holy skweech! That was my favorite leg!” wailed Bayob.

  Razza glanced to Bruze. “Maybe we should have bought Snuggly some sort of chew toy.”

  Bayob, balancing unsteadily on his remaining leg, cried out, “I don’t re-grow limbs like I used to you know! What am I supposed to do for a month?”

  “Limp?”Bruze said, just as the pizin-v’n-gar finished mulching the last of Bayob’s leg.

  “Very funny wise…Aaaagh!” The pizin-v’n-gar must have enjoyed Bayob’s leg enough to want seconds. In an instant, the hegamuk’s left leg has gone the way of his right.

  “Well,” said Bruze, “that takes care of the limp.”

  “Bruze! Catch it,” Razza cried.

  As reluctantly as Bruze might have carried out Razza’s wish, it didn’t matter in the end for the pizin-v’n-gar came to him! “No. No. Get back,” he stammered as he backed away from the tiny, oncoming fury. In desperation, he tried soothing the animal. “Niiiiice snuggly-puff. You don’t want to hurt ol’ Bruze now, do you?”

  By way of an answer the pizin-v’n-gar buzz-sawed its way up Bruze’s extended arm. It made a beeline for the grethek’s face. “Oh no, not the face. Not the…NOSE! Aaaagh! Son of a…”

  Somehow, Bruze managed to pry a finger between his nose and the jaws of the ravenous fur ball. Nose. Finger. It was all good to the snuggly-puff. Frantically, Bruze attempted to flick the creature away like so much acidic snot. Finally, though unfortunately not before the pizin-v’n-gar had struck bone, Bruze dislodged the psycho pet with one final flick of his wrist.

  “My snuggly-puff,” cried Razza. “Someone catch it!”

  The ball of fur soared up, hissing and snarling in a high, wide arc. It sailed over Bayob’s head, (it would have even if the hegamuk had not just lost a foot of his height), past Razza’s dumbfounded eyes, over the parked hover-car and into the open air beyond the rooftop.

  Bruze peeled off his shirt. He tore it in two, wrapping his mangled middle finger in one piece, and holding the other to his injured nose.

  He joined Razza and Bayob at the edge of the roof. Below them the early morning traffic sailed along, oblivious to the night’s horrendous adventure.

  Razza exhaled a quivering sigh. “I’m going to miss that little guy.”

  “You aren’t serious, Mistress?” grumbled Bayob.

  “Of course I am. The shop keeper has vanished and I don’t have time to find another pet before I go on the air.”

  Worn and weary, the three of them started for the hover-car. “Someone else is gonna have to drive,” griped Bayob. “I can’t reach the pedals.”

  * * *

  “That’s a wrap,” said Razza’s program director from the control booth.

  Bruze stood in his usual spot off stage and watched as Razza approached. “I know how badly you wanted to show off the pizin-v’n-gar in front of Brock Caster but, all the same, your regularly scheduled guest interview went quite well.”

  “Oh be quiet, Bruze. Don’t rub it in,” she sulked. “Oh look, here comes the poo-head now.”

  Bruze glanced up to see Brock Caster making his way toward the stage. Caster’s head and hands were nearly encased in bandages.

  “What happened to you?” Razza asked.

  Caster came to a stop at the edge of the stage. “It was a nightmare. I was driving my convertible hover-car to work when, all of a sudden, someone throws a little fur ball into it with me. The next thing I knew, it was trying to eat me alive. I nearly crashed my hover-car half a dozen times before I managed to toss the little monster overboard. Thankfully some good Samaritan called for help. When I described what had happened, one of the medics said that she had heard of an animal like that. She called it a pizin-v’n-gar.”

  Bruze was nearly blinded by the sudden grin on Razza’s face. “It’s called a snuggly-puff, silly boy.”

  Brock Caster gazed out curiously from the folds of his bandages. “Tell that to my chuckupian sand lizard.”

  “What do you mean?” Razza asked.

  “It’s gone. That ball of hair ate it…leash, perch, cage and all.”

  “The gods of celebrity work in mysterious ways, Brock.” Razza said. And with that she turned and sashayed toward the studio exit. Bruze noticed that her already brilliant smile had gone absolutely nova.

  ‘Well, that’s the end of that little saga.’ Bruze thought to himself as he fell into step behind her. Gigajoule City’s natural order had regained its equilibrium… for the moment anyway.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J. A. Johnson is an Eppie and Ariana Award winning children’s author and artist. With his wife, Min, he is the co-creator, co-author and the illustrator the English and Chinese language comic book series “The Mighty, Mighty Maomi. He is also the author of the epic fantasy of the American Old West entitled “The Wild, Wild Quest”. He also enjoys writing science fiction.

  “Razza Ma’Razza: It’s Called a Snuggly Puff, Silly Boy” is the first short story in the ongoing adventures of Razza Ma’Razza.

  J. A. and Min live in South Carolina. You can keep up with their projects at -- https://thewildwildquest.blogspot.com -- as well as https://the-mighty-mighty-maomi.blogspot.com