Now, after the prior incident with the 747, the whole 7 family had gone ahead and made some changes with a mind to safety, and now each flew with a full suit of chain mail from head to toe and parts beyond, so as to better protect them from tragic events exactly like the one currently occurring, and so when the 747 crashed into the blimp, the 747 was entirely unharmed. As for the blimp, it was little more than a balloon with a few optimistic support structures, and had not armored up in preparation for unforeseen tragedies, and so it instantly burst like the balloon that it was and crumpled under the 747's might, and the gondola plummeted to the surface, and Mario the gondolier also plummeted to the surface, in what would certainly be his demise. Traycup and Ben Garment, however, fared better. Clinging to the wing of the plane would have been foolish, as that's already been done—but what's more, Traycup had learned a lesson from the previous clingment, so while cling they did do, they did do it elsewhere—latching on tight to the 747's long mohawk.

“Release my spectacular mane at once,” bellowed the plane, “or I'll shake you off with a barrel roll!”

“No, you'll not!” said Traycup.

“I will—acause I know the difference between a barrel roll and an aileron roll!”

“It's got us,” said Ben Garment. “Our number's up!”

“There are always more numbers!” said Traycup.

The 747 began to do its barrel roll, a real one, and Traycup and Ben Garment, seeing no other choice, opened up a coffee shop in the baggage compartment, quickly tying on aprons and practicing latte art. They couldn't get the hang of it, but a passing art dealer noticed their work and considered their botched amateur job to be a Dadaist masterpiece commenting on the state of physical affairs between man and his competition, and offered to buy it for seventy-five billion dollars, but there was no time to sign the paperwork, because that's when their first customer arrived—a rocking chair named Kent who had a thirst that a gorilla'd notice.

“Hey,” said Kent, “can I get a... uh, a peppermint mocha cappuccino?”

Traycup and Ben Garment stared at Kent in transfixed bemusement.

“That's almost an inevitability,” said Traycup. “That's so, eh, Ben Garment?”

“It's a thing of no moment,” said Ben Garment. “We've ingredients aplenty, and surely that's a drink that's got some in it!”

“Thanks,” said Kent. “The name's Kent.”

“Oh,” said Traycup. “I'm Traycup. And this is Ben Garment. How d'you do?”

“How do I do what?” said Kent.

“How do you do the trick where your thumb comes off?” said Traycup.

“Like this,” said Kent, demonstrating the magic trick, and his flawless execution and adept misdirection were so effective that the baristas forgot all about the beverage, horse racing odds, and to pay their rent, so before long, the landlady was standing at the window, holding a bushel of raisins, and fuming a steaming smog.

“Kent,” said Traycup, “my compliments on the trick, but we'll to take a rain check on that drink.”

“That's not how rain checks work,” said Ben Garment, but it was too late, because Traycup had already jumped into the secret passage below the bean grinder. Ben Garment didn't know there was a secret passage down there—that's kind of what made it a secret—and so he hemmed and hawed ever so slightly, but when the landlady became made of sieves, he decided Kent was on his own, and managed to follow Traycup mainly by scent. Kent tried to slow the landlady by pulling handkerchiefs out of his sleeve, which did impress her, and so they became fast friends—but the rent was still overdue.

In the secret passage, Traycup and Ben Garment found a series of stables for horses that couldn't see blue, right next to the avocado deliveryperson training school. Traycup smoke signaled Ben Garment to keep quiet, and they crept by with as much silence as they could muster, for horse and 'vocado alike were building a fine mouse of cards, breath-holding all around, and spooking the mouse would surely kickoff everyone's downfall. But, alas, Alfonso McDreidel saw them—possibly due to all the smoke—and threw ten dollars at them, shouting, “Who's got the time for this?”

“Stand back!” said Traycup, shielding Ben Garment from the effects of the money, but it was too late. Ben Garment already knew the exchange rate, and so had no qualms about starting the harvest early.

“You're getting got, and I'm doing the getting!” said Alfonso McDreidel. The trap was sprung—all the horses came out of their stables playing trombones—Ben Garment's third greatest weakness—and Traycup, in the confusion, hid himself in a toaster. Alfonso McDreidel stood triumphantly above Ben Garment and tied him up with a rollercoaster.

“I'll to find a way to perform a rescue,” Traycup thought out loud, or, in other words, Traycup said. “I've to save poor Ben Garment,” Traycup said in other words.

Alfonso McDreidel took the tied-up Ben Garment and put him in a potato sack, which was already half-full of potatoes, turning it into a potato-and-Ben-Garment sack, then he put the potato-and-Ben-Garment sack onto one of those flat shopping carts you get at, like, the home improvement stores? And those warehouse club things, y'know, where you have to be a member to shop there? Maybe they don't have them in your area. Anyway, then Alfonso McDreidel wheeled the whole menagerie away into some forsaken part of the plane. Economy class, probably.

Traycup carefully emerged from the toaster, being as blue as he could to bid adieu to the horses.

Meanwhile, elsewhere inside the 747, in the passengerial department, there were a thousand passengers—there was no better place for them. Back then, they didn't have seating in planes—but they did have discos, and so there was music blasting from giant speakers, a lot of flashing lights and colors, and those spinning disco balls, strobe lights going off, and everyone was dancing. It was the only place you could get away with it, up here in international airs, where the only law was not to tear those tags off mattresses. And so the people danced, each dancing a different dance to a different song, and hardly anyone could hear anyone else talking, which was fine, because they had nothing worth saying and nothing worth hearing.

Amongst the dancers was Jum Burie, the most beautiful lady in the world, who had pitch-black eyes and golden hair, and the most enchanting dance of them all, so everyone wanted to dance with her, but they weren't allowed, of course, because she was so important. Not because she was beautiful and a good dancer, but she had a secret—or rather a secret mission—and so was guarded by ten knights, twenty ninjas, and thirty pirates at all times. And Jum Burie was dancing, and while she was dancing she wasn't thinking about anything at all; she wasn't even letting her thoughts wander hither and yon—she carefully kept her mind completely empty of everything but emptiness.

Jum Burie danced and danced throughout the entire flight, and after a while she finally began to grow tired. “I tire,” said Jum Burie to her assistant, Ordval Tuberlone. Tuberlone was a fox with a brain of diamonds, who wore a very handsome suit.

“Then you are nearly complete,” said Tuberlone, “but not quite. Pray continue. The time of cessation will make itself known when the clock strikes right.” Tuberlone looked at its watch, and then at its calendar, and then set up an astrolabe, a sextant, an orrery—all sorts of extremely ornate, outlandish, and old-fashioned pieces of timekeeping and measurement. Not that it was going to use them to measure anything—it had all of that stuff on its phone—but, really, just to show off. All the dancing people came over and asked if they could see the antiques.

“Of course!” said Tuberlone.

All the dancing people asked if they could touch the antiques.

“Of course not!” said Tuberlone.

All the dancing people asked if the antiques were the real deal.

“Of course!” said Tuberlone.

All the dancing people asked if they could take pictures of the antiques.

“Of course not!” said Tuberlone.

All the dancing people asked if zebras were black with white stripes, or white with black stripes.

“I am not so easily dazzled this time,” Tuberlone said, shaking its head. Did the people really think they could fool him with such a classic question? “This can be easily determined with a simple investigation. Firstly, we remove all of a zebra's feathers. Then we can peer upon the naked skin and observe the characteristic.” Nearby was a zebra, who clutched its feathered boa tightly. The people grabbed some acetylene torches and prepared to defeather the equine the traditional way. Tuberlone went and got some tea started while they worked on that.

Jum Burie kept dancing—as one must on a 747. That was surely the reason.

Anyway, back in the bowels of the plane, Traycup was trying to save Ben Garment. While I explained that other part, you missed seeing Traycup storm the corporation headquarters—I don't know which, maybe the sieve company—by scaling the wall with suction cups and then cutting through the glass on the sixty-fourth floor to get into the experimentation chamber, and then start an exciting machine gun fight with all the guards, a lot of pyrotechnics going off, explosions, just all kinds of mayhem and whatever. A bunch of guys got thrown out the window and did the Wilhelm scream three or four times, they kept reusing the same footage for this one explosion—budget, you know how it is—and even a rooftop swordfight in the rain. By now, Traycup was manning the fifty-caliber machine gun on the back of the jeep while Ben Garment drove.

“That was a daring rescue!” said Ben Garment.

“That was a well-fared test,” said Traycup, “but now, steer this fine boy onward!”

“Gosh,” said the jeep, blushing at the first kind words it'd received since Milwaukee in 1972.

They drove on, past the last line of the guards, who cinematically dove out of the way, and they were free from the compound and out into the alleys. In the urban maze, they could quickly lose their hunters, and once the trail was well-shook, well, the next step'd obviously be to—

“We've to escape the plane entirely,” said Traycup, “and yet without one akin, we've no way to a safer elevation.”

“There's a danger here,” said Ben Garment, “which rings as a pity! Blimpless, this local plane makes for a fine transporter. Alas, it's not Oopertreepia-bound a'tall! We want for alternative locomotion.”

“Me?” said the jeep hopefully.

“Nay, friend, you've not the flight capacity desirous of expedient travel,” said Ben Garment. “I've a finer plan: as we are aplaned, and enfoed to all, let's seal the deal in complete—the time for a hijack's come!”

“Fair Ben Garment's in the mood for a challenge!” said Traycup. “But I've a mind to make amends! We'll have a mutinous journey if we step up the battlescape. Let's call off the hijack and instead let's byejill. It's the thought that counts, after all.”

“Then, it's a plot,” said Ben Garment. “I'm to guess you've got bellows for all, then?”

Traycup indeed had bellows for all.

In short order, Traycup, Ben Garment, and the jeep had concocted a plan to byejill the plane.

“The plan is as follows,” Traycup said helpfully. “First, resurrect Mozart. He's key. We have this quiz of differential equations—”

“You are welcome,” said the jeep proudly.

“—kindly provided by our jeepish friend. Mozart can solve these mathematical acrobatics. While he is distracted, we design new coinage, fit for peasant and prince alike—fine coins bearing the names of clouds and shaped like well-meaning werewolves. But, here's the twist. We'll have the coins stamped on a Tuesday, in a wooden building. That way, barley prices will plummet, and the tropics will see their first snowfall in almost a week! And, last but not least, don't know about socks. This increases our chance of being greased.”

“It's a good plan,” said Ben Garment. “One question.”

“What's that?”

“Yes, exactly.” Ben Garment pointed at something in alarm. “What's that?”

Suddenly—well, not so suddenly, it had been there for a while, but they hadn't noticed it, until “suddenly” their minds snapped to attention and announced the presence of the disembodied floating head that was before them, screaming every swear and also on fire!

“We're as good as pantsless!” shouted Traycup, as the head flew at him and spewed fire, but Traycup could assemble a futon by himself—not that he did, but he could. Ben Garment grabbed the jeep by the hand and ran away with it, leaving Traycup trapped by the monstrous apparition, which was shrieking horribly, gyrating ominously, and behind on its couch payments. It threw its teeth at him, and then had a lot of college degrees—like, way too many, there was no way it got those legitimately. It's got to be a diploma mill or something. No one is ten Ph.Ds.

Backed into both kinds of corner, and without the other option, once more was Traycup bound, and so he stood up twice as tall as someone that was half his height, drew a lengthy breath, and said, “So, listen well—they don't make mountains anymore, and those that are left in the junk drawer have stains and brambles aplenty, enough to feed a platoon, which, by the way, isn't the same as a bread basket! Watch when the ducks cross the road, for they've taken a bath, and know full well how to button both hands of the wrong lady's shirt! As for me, I've got a cough drop left over, but it's half past the middle of the clock, and wouldn't you know it—any lemur can know how to have eyes!”

This silenced the yowling head for long enough for Traycup to escamper away, but soon the head began its bawling anew and burst into flames the color of rainbows. However, the Traycup-Ben Garment-jeep triumvirate had already given it the entire slip, and so it drifted alone in the shadowy, forgotten plains in the dark depths of the wheel housing.

Once safely away, Ben Garment said to Traycup, “That was a fine form, yet we'll have a new pursuer before long.”

“It's a whim,” said Traycup quixotically, “for undestruction, as we'd be better not knowing when the next friend's ready for a snack!”

“Let's get refocused on the plan,” said Ben Garment. “The time for the byejilling is upon us.”

With that, they pushed through the saloon doors and stepped onto the disco floor. They did not notice at the far side of the cabin a door closing as Jum Burie's party parted from the party partly in progress.

“Hello!” said Traycup to the assembled dancing people. “This is a byejilling!”