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Mr. Drob

Mr. Drobble living in a log cabin.

He was a Russian cabin dweller.

Mr. Drobski also, with a dirty big black stove.

Once he stopped dancing on the floor and looked up. Two small poke holes in the front of his stove. Thin chimney, too long for a hat. Smoking hard.

Two E Y E S in the poke holes.

Drob screams.

It is a crafty bear, maybe. Somehow wormed its way down the chimney. Bears eyes is.

Maybe the fire is still alive.

Can't find the poker.

Drob sharpens his pencil till it is red hot then thrusts it into one of the poke holes. Two eyes in the other, looking at him softly.

Drob glares back.

Meanwhile the flap further down opens quietly, and Drop is poked in the balls by the real poker. White hot.

Drob reconsiders.

Other eye has now floated back to other hole.

Chimney shakes, soot tumbles off the roof.

Drob secretly beckons to Drobova.

Drobova fetches a piece of pipe. Can't stand those cool eyes.

Stove is curtained off.

Banding noise. Drobova rushes to save the soup.

Curtain burns silently.

Drop left poke hole lunge.

Drobova right,

Suddenly the chimney pipe bulging out as big as the rest of the stove.

Soot falls in the soup. To the rescue. Stove belches.

Drobova spread with soup.

Swollen chimney slides down into stove.

Drob ties knot round chimney. With his braces.

Again.

Knot breaks.

With beating on the swollen sides. Echoes and fire goes out.

Drob bends down to relight it.

Drobova whaks Drop from behind.

Bul ge slides half into stove. Cool eyes appear. Upside down. Watching Drop. Well behaved, quiet, not interfering with the fire.

Stove breathes in (loud sucking sound).

Door flies open. In come robbers.

Drob beaten to death.

Stove settles in for the winter.

Dennis List