On a Fool's Moon

A harvest moon, bright and amber, hung low and gentle in the early autumn sky. Opaul and Opaula opossum trotted side-by-side, looking for a late night snack.
They hiked to the far side of Beaver pond to find some frogs. The far side of Beaver Pond was the place where frogs were said to be the stupidest. They hiked through the mud and muck and started to dig around, hoping to stir up some trouble.
Opaul hissed as something jumped out at him. It was a mud puppy. Mud puppies looked like fat brown snakes with four legs. Mud puppies were also known for having an evil temper and mean bites to go along with that temper. Opaul grabbed the mud puppy in his teeth and shook it fiercely.
The mud puppy wriggled in his mouth, trying to get free. Opaul tossed it over his back, where it landed on the shore. The mud puppy got up and ran straight back at Opaul.
He turned to face the little snake, but three more joined from the right side.
Opaul fell to the ground and played dead. The mud puppies began biting him all over. Mud puppies didn’t understand that when Opaul played dead, they were supposed to leave him alone.
"Help me! Help me!" he cried out. Opaula was waiting for the right moment to hop in and help her brother. Opaul quickly galloped away from the brood of mud puppies, trying to escape.
Opaula was already twenty strides ahead of him.
Opaul caught up to his sister, who had circled around to a spot far from the mud puppies.
"Why didja go and do that for?" Opaul asked his sister.
"I didn't wancha gettin’ too hurt," she said.
"You didn't want me to get hurt so ya ran away from me and all those snake thingies? Some help you are."
"Yes, if I had stayed put, they mighta hurt ya even more."
Opaul shook his head in disbelief. "Well, I'm going to get back at him for what he did. Wouldja look at what he did done there?" he showed his sister a badly nibbled right arm.
"Wow," she said.
"Wow is right. We are going to give that thing some payback."
"Whatcha think you're gointa do?" she asked him.
"We're gonna hit him on the head with a thinking stick."
"A thinking stick?"
"Yes. If we hit him with it a few times on his head, he will be thinking about never bothering us again."
"Ah! I see!" nodded Opaula. So, they rummaged around the forest floor, looking high and low for thinking sticks. First, they picked a pair of old ironwood branches and tested them against the trunk of a tree. Both splintered and flew off into separate directions.
"That won't do," said Opaul.
Opaula picked up another stick, this one came from an old hickory tree. She twisted it gently in her hands, then reached back and let it fly into the trunk of the old tree. It made a loud WHACK and Opaul's eyes lit up in amazement.
"Eureka!" he shouted triumphantly.
They marched down to the streambed where the mud puppies were waiting and stopped in the clearing at the top of a small hill. They ducked into a patch of jewelweed and crept towards the streambed. The mud puppies were still there, sound asleep. It looked like this was the opossums’ golden opportunity.
"Okay, so who is going to hit them with the thinking stick?" asked Opaula.
"You are."
"Why me?" she asked.
"It’s your turn."
"My turn? How is it my turn?"
"Look at me, I’m all chewed up."
"That’s your fault. How about we play a game of stone, leaf, and sticks to see who will go hit them with the thinking stick?"
"Okay."
They counted in unison: "One, Two, Three!" Opaula stuck out a pair of fingers while her brother held out a flat hand.
"Woo Hoo! Sticks cut leaf!" I win! I win!" exclaimed Opaula as she did a little victory dance around her brother.
Opaul tiptoed over to the sleeping mud puppies and reached back with the stick. He brought it down with one quick swing. It smacked against the mud, missing all six sleeping mud puppies. Opaul began to draw it back, but the stick was stuck. With all this commotion, the mud puppies began to waken. They saw the intruder next to their den and it was time to protect their home.
First one pup, then another bit into Opaul's soft and tender flesh. He barked in pain, hoping his sister would help him this time. She maneuvered around, looking for just the right moment to jump in.
"Now, Opaula, now!" he screamed, as his arms flailed about helplessly.
"Okay, take this!" she told the mud puppies as she closed her eyes and brought the thinking stick down fiercely. She struck one of them in the head as she heard an 'owww!' She opened her eyes to see the damage she had done.
Opaul was now lying in the mud, just knocked out by his very own sister.
"Omigosh," she exclaimed, then rushed in to help him. Mud puppies stopped biting him and started going for her. She was too busy tending to her brother to mind that, though. She grabbed him by an arm and threw him over her shoulder and lifted him out of harm's way.
Opaula struggled to carry her brother up the hill and away from the mud puppies. As she reached the top of the hill, she threw him down on the bank, exhausted. She collapsed beside him and looked up into the bleak gray sky.
Opaul sat up, a little dazed and confused. He rubbed his head where it hurt.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I saved ya from dem mud puppies down dere," she said.
"Really?"
"Yawp. You woulda been a goner had I not rescued you."
"Thank you,"
"Notta problem," she answered.
"But sis, what's this knot on the back of my head?"
"They musta grabbed up a thinking stick and hit ya with it. Lucky you I got him back."
"Well, didja knock him on the noggin, too?" he asked.
"I think so, Opaul, I really think so."
"Didja knock 'em all in the noggin a time or two?"
"No."
Opaul still thought the mud puppies should be taught a think or two, but he decided that he and his sister should stop beating himself senseless trying to teach them lessons. He came up with a new idea to get back at the mud puppies. He figured that Madger Badger should help them, because Madger Badger could probably come up with a plan that involved less getting hit on the head.
So, they trundled off to Madger Badger, hip-hopping down the curvy trail that led to his den. He was busy when they shouted down at him.
"Hello! Is anybody in there?"
A big striped nose poked out at them, followed by its owner, Madger Badger.
"Why yes, there is someone in here," he answered.
Opaul gave Madger Badger a strange look then glanced over at his sister and then back at Madger again.
"What do you need?" Madger interrupted Opaul. Madger was afraid that Opaul might explode from all of this thinking.
"We need a plan," said Opaul. Opaula nodded in agreement.
"It seems we all need a plan. What sort of plan do you need today?"
"We need to get revenge on some mud puppies."
"You do, do you?"
"Yes."
"And just what did they do to stir you up?"
"They bit Opaul," said Opaula.
"Yea, look at this wouldja?" Opaul bent over and showed Madger Badger exactly where the trouble began.
"Well, that is some nastiness you ran into this afternoon. Why don't you just let them be and they will let you be?"
"We can’t leave them alone because they bit me, too," answered Opaula. She showed Madger Badger the nasty chunk bitten out of her leg.
"They bit you, too?
"Yessir, they sure did. Opaul was getting ready to whack the big daddy with a thinking stick when the big daddy bit him."
"He was going to hit them with a what-kind-of-stick?"
"A thinking stick. You know, one hit with this stick and they will be thinking about..."
Madger Badger quickly cut Opaul off, "Yes, a thinking stick. I see now. I see where the name came from. It looks like it worked."
"It didn't work as much as we woulda liked, yanno," said Opaul.
I can see that."
"We thought you could help us learn them a lesson."
Madger gave a thoughtful look at Opaul and Opaula then nodded his head. "Yes, learn them a lesson. Let me think about that for a few moments."
The opossum twins smiled and waited for his reply. Madger hunkered over in the dirt and drew up a map of the mud puppy den. It was not a good drawing, but it was good enough for the opossums.
"What you really needs is the element of surprise."
The whatzit of whoozer?" asked Opaul.
You gotta catch them when they ain't looking."
"Of course! But how do we keep them from looking?"
Madger Badger drew up a grand plan for surprising the mud puppies. The only problem was that the plan relied on Opaul and Opaula Opossum to see it through.
The plan began with several lengths of grapevine, some sticks and stones, and two opossums ready to get revenge on a half-dozen sleeping mud puppies.
Opaula strung a piece of grapevine between three trees. Opaul made several slipknots in other pieces of grapevine. He then attached his loops onto Opaula's grapevine. The trap now began looking like a trap, able to catch every last one of the mud puppies.
"Now whaddya we spost tah do with dem twigs and tings?" asked Opaul.
"We’re gonna make us some camel flodge for dah trap. Den dose mud puppies won't know what done hit dem."
They covered the trap with sticks and stones. They added mud and bark until the trap looked like a large triangular bush.
"Wouldja lookat dat?" said Opaula triumphantly.
"Dat dere is dah best mud puppy trap I have every seen," said Opaul.
"Dat is dah only mud puppy trap you have ever seen."
"Dat is still dah best."
They admired their trap for several more moments until some of the mud puppies began to stir in their den.
"Omigosh! We gotta get outta here," said Opaul. As they searched for an escape route, they found they had surrounded themselves with a tall grapevine and hickory branch trap.
The mother mud puppy came out of the den first. She growled angrily at the twins.
Opaul ran one way and Opaula ran the other. Both were caught in snare loops, unable to escape.
"Omigosh! Whaddya gonna did now?" screamed Opaula.
"I am gonna get dis grapevine off dis here leg. Den I am gonna get away from dem dere mud puppies is what I am gonna did."
As the twins tried to escape from Madger Badger's Magnificent mud puppy Trap, the mother barked at them, rousing her children from sleep. The children rose from their beds to see what was going on.
Meanwhile, two opossums swung back and forth above the den. The mud puppies immediately attacked the twins.
At just about the same time, Madger Badger decided to check on the Opossums and his Magnificent mud puppy Trap. He came down the trail to see that the trappers had become the high-flying trappees. The trappees had become quite angry trappers.
Madger Badger hurried to their aid, plucking mud puppies off the twins. As the mud puppies attacked Madger, they met up with his ferocious bite. With each bite, another mud puppy scampered away. Finally, it was just Madger Badger standing alone in the mud pit. Above him, two partially nibbled Opossums swung back and forth in the breeze.
Get down here," said Madger. He unfastened Opaul and Opaula. Each thudded to the ground as Madger loosened the snares. Opaul huffed as he got up and dusted himself off.
"Dem mud puppies are really gonna get it now!" he screamed.
"Don't you think you've had enough for one day?" asked Madger.
"But we…"
"Just leave them alone and they will leave you alone, too.
Madger shooed the twins away from the mud pit. He hoped that in time their wounds would heal and they would remember what today had taught them. Or at least, he hoped they would learn that trying to get revenge on mud puppies is easier said than done.