After about two hours of walking through a fleshwood forest Montana, Vira, and Pucas came to a place where another trail branched off. There was a sign-post with an arrow pointing to the left which read:

  THIS WAY TO PUSSLOIDOPOLIS

  "Oh, let’s head to Pussloidopolis," said Montana, observing the sign.

  “’Kay,” mumbled Pucas.

  “Yip!” yipped Vira.

  As they walked toward Pussloidopolis the fleshtrees became fewer and farther in between. Our friends espied a fulvous lumpy nodule sitting by the roadside. The nodule had a blanket laid out on the ground with bootleg videotapes on display for sale. She also had a half a dozen sideways iguana milk crates full of tapes. Montana tried not to make eye contact.

  "Can I interest you folks in any feature film motion pictures for your home theater or screening room?" asked the nodule.

  "Um, no thanks," said Montana, stopping despite herself. Vira sniffed at the bootlegs.

  "Are you sure? I’ve got some swell romantic comedies a girl like you should love."

  Montana wrinkled up her nose in disgust and asked:

  "Do you know if Pussloidopolis is nice?"

  “Oh, sure. People bring their magic items to Pussloidopolis for repairs, so it’s as busy and prosperous a little city as you would find anywhere.”

  "Are the people friendly?"

  "Oh, very friendly," answered the nodule; "that is, when they're properly put together. But they get dreadfully scattered and splattered and mixed up, at times, and then you can't do anything with them."

  "What do you mean by their getting scattered and splattered?" inquired Montana.

  "Why, whenever any stranger comes near them they have a habit of falling apart. Their heads crack into pieces, their extremities disassemble, all their guts splatter to the ground. That's when they get so dreadfully mixed, and its a challenge to put them together again."

  "Who usually puts them together?" asked Montana.

  "Oh, anyone who is able to match the pieces," said the lumpy nodule. "Sometimes tourists come just to spend a weekend putting Pussloids back together. It’s a very popular pastime. Some scroat herders from North Spertz came here a few days ago and reconstituted a lot of ‘loids. If you go softly, without making any noise, perhaps they won't scatter and splatter. Are you sure you don’t want any videotapes? I’ve got sixty-five different slasher movies and everything Tarantella the Quartz Tarantula ever made."

  The mention of the Quartz Tarantula reminded Montana of the urgency of her finding her way to Schmegma City.

  "That’s a no to the videotapes. I believe we'd better go on," replied Montana. "I'm getting hungry, and we must try to get some lunch at Pussloidopolis. Perhaps the food won't be scattered and splattered as badly as the people."

  "You'll find lots of good stuff to eat and drink there," declared the fulvous lumpy nodule, "They have a fine 24 hour diner, if you can manage to keep the cook together."

  They bid good bye to the fulvous lumpy nodule- who made one last futile attempt to sell them a rare hidden camera recording of a stand-up comedy show by Rockwell the Kicky Sore- and walked up the road and very cautiously approached the group of buildings.

  Soon they saw through the windows of the chalets and chateaus people moving around, while others were passing to and fro in the yards between the buildings. Aside from jagged blackish-red lines indicating the borders of their chunks they seemed much like other humanoids, from a distance, and apparently they did not notice the little party so quietly approaching. Ahead was the Deodato Diner. A neon sign in the window stated the establishment was open 24 hours a day. Our friends entered the diner as quietly as possible but once they opened the door a wild splattering was heard. Montana thought it sounded like a dozen buckets of liver being thrown on a concrete floor, and, knowing that caution was no longer necessary, hurried forward to see what had happened. The eatery’s floor was strewn with pieces of Pussloids. Vira ran forward and began chewing on a hand until Montana stopped her. Pucas stepped forward and tripped on a string of intestines and Montana had to catch him from falling on his face.

  Montana picked up a chunk of face. The piece had an eye, which looked at her pleasantly but with a bemused expression, as if it wondered what she was going to do with it. Quite near by she discovered and picked up a chunk with a nose, and found the two piece fit together.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "If I could find the mouth," she said, "this Pussloid might be able to talk, and tell us what to do next."

  Pucas got down on his hands and knees and began examining the scattered pieces.

  "Found it!" he cried, and ran to Montana with a ragged, queer-shaped piece that had a mouth on it. But when they tried to fit it to the eye and nose they found the parts were different colors and wouldn't match together.

  "That mouth belongs to some other person," said Montana. "You see we need a curve here and a point there, to make it fit the face, and it should have green skin. It must be here some place, so if we search long enough we shall find it." Vira watched them with interest.

  Montana fitted an ear on next, and the ear had a little patch of red hair above it. So while Pucas was searching for the mouth she hunted for chunks with red hair, and found several of them which, when matched to the other pieces, formed the top of a green man's head. She had also found the other eye and the ear by the time Pucas in a far corner discovered the mouth, and they found a brain that fit in the reassembled skull nicely. When the head was thus completed all the parts joined together with a nicety that was astonishing. The pieces stuck together due to a sticky pus that lined the edges.

  "Why, it's like a pus puzzle!" exclaimed the tween. "Oh, I get it, pus puzzle, pussle, pussloid. Huh. Let's find the rest of him, and get him all together."

  "Look for the limbs with varicose veins and lots of prison tattoos," said the head which had been put together, speaking in a rather faint voice.

  "Oh! Thank you," said Montana. "Nice to meet you, I’m Montana, Montana Shingles."

  "I'm Lloyd, the cook."

  "Oh, well then, it's lucky we started you first, for I'm hungry, and you can be cooking something for us to eat while we match the other folks together."

  It was not so very difficult, now that they had a hint as to how the man had been dressed, and in about forty Sifillis-minutes they finally had the cook set up complete.

  When he was finished he made them a low bow. Then he put on one of those white puffy chef’s hats and said:

  "I will go at once to the kitchen and make you dinner. You will find it something of a hassle to get all of these chunks together, so I advise you to begin on Lord High Keloid, whose first name is Floyd. He's a bald-headed fat man with a bad spray tan. A piece of his left knee is missing, having been lost years ago when he splattered himself too carelessly. That makes him limp a little, but he gets along very well with half a knee."

  "We will start with him," said Montana; "and thank you very much, Lloyd, for the suggestion."

  Montana was the first to discover a piece of the Lord High Keloid, a big chunk of his bald skull. She and Pucas worked with eager interest, and sometimes Montana would have to scold Vira for playing too rough with the chunks. Before an hour had passed old fat Floyd was standing complete before them.

  "I congratulate you, my friends," Lord High Floyd Keloid the Pussloid said when fully reassembled. "You are certainly some of the cleverest children who ever visited us. I was never matched together so quickly in my life. I'm considered a great challenge, usually."

  "Well," said Montana, "there used to be a picture puzzle craze on Toosh Island, and so I've had some experience matching pieces. But the pictures were flat, while you are all flesh and bones and guts, and that makes you harder to figure out."

  "You’re simply the best," replied old Floyd, greatly pleased. "I feel highly complimented. Were I not a really good puzzle there would be no object in my splattering myself."

  "Why do you do it?" asked Montana, severely. "Why don't you just stay put together?"

  The Lord High Keloid seemed annoyed by this question; but he replied, politely:

  "Madam, you have perhaps noticed that every person has some peculiarity. Mine is to scatter myself. What your own peculiarity is I will not venture to guess; but I shall never find fault with you, whatever you do."

  "This is a queer country, and we may as well take people as we find them," said Montana to Pucas.

  "Aye-ya," said Pucas.

  Then Lloyd the cook came to call them to dinner, and they found an inviting meal prepared for them- scroatato pancakes studded with tree-grown zebra-hog sausage and warmed yellow mayonnaise and poached cockadoodoo terds (“Terds” were what they called eggs on Sifillis). Lord High Keloid joined them in their booth, and the guests had a merry time and thoroughly enjoyed themselves and didn’t have to pay for the food which was good because Montana didn’t have any dosh.

  After dinner they put several diner patrons back together, and this work was so interesting that they might have spent the entire day in the diner had not Montana suggested that they resume their journey.

  "Although I don't like to leave all these poor people scattered and splattered," she said, undecided what to do.

  "Oh, don't mind us, my dear," returned Floyd Keloid. "Every day or so some tourist comes here to amuse themselves by matching us together, so there will be no harm in leaving these chunks where they are for a time. But I hope you will visit us again, and if you do you will always be welcome, I assure you."

  "Don't you ever match each other?" she inquired.

  "Never; for we are no puzzles to ourselves, and so there wouldn't be any fun in it."

  They now said goodbye to the queer Pussloids and left to continue their journey.

  "Those are certainly strange people," remarked Montana, thoughtfully, as they walked away from Pussloidopolis, "I guess putting them together is more fun than shooting craps or mumbletypeg. And we did learn a lot about anatomy. You know what? For my part, I'm glad we visited the Pussloids. Aren’t you?"

  "Don’t know," said Pucas. He coughed until he hacked up a sizzling wad in the back of his throat and then swallowed it.

  Vira farted.