It doesn't take much to conquer the stupid, the lazy, and the weak.

But he who conquers himself is mighty indeed.

—Lady Blackpool

Far, far away, deep beneath the earth in a fiery cave, two enormous oily purple worms poked their heads up from an ancient, smelly dirt clod.

The larger of the worms, at twelve feet in length, was truly monstrous. He was named Sebaceous Ooze.

The smaller worm was called Fluke Gutcrawler.

And all around the cave were horrible, grotesque creatures. Some were shaped like muddy Pillsbury doughboys, while others looked like spiders or worms, and yet others took forms unlike any creature imaginable to the mind of man. “Slobber goblins,” Sebaceous called them. He had made them from ashes and the slime of his own body, and then had given them life. Now they formed the core of his army.

Sebaceous reared his dark head high in the air. He was a magic worm with tremendous powers, and he towered over the smaller worm. He had an asthmatic condition, made worse by the sulfurous fumes that roiled through the cave, and so he struggled for breath.

Suddenly, his deep voice echoed through the cavern. “Fluke, join me. I am your father, Fluke!”

Fluke Gutcrawler recoiled in horror. “Nooooo!” he wailed as if the words had been torn from his very soul.

“Look in your hearts, Fluke,” Sebaceous demanded. “All nine of them will tell you that it's true!”

“Noooo,” Fluke cried again. “You can't be!”

“Search your feelings . . .”

“But—” Fluke objected, “worms don't have fathers.” Fluke was young. His mind was hardly formed, but he knew that much, at least.

Sebaceous Ooze gasped and sputtered. “I am more than a father to you,” he roared. His deep voice silenced the younger worm. He rolled to his side, displaying a vicious red scar where he'd been sliced in two. “You were once nothing but my tail. I cut myself in half in order to give you life, and thus I claim you for my pains. Join me now. It is your destiny. And with our army of slobber goblins, we'll rule the universe!”

“What if I don't want to rule the universe?” Fluke wailed, cowering. “I mean, isn't it enough for me to be a good son? Do I have to be a screwball tyrant, too?”

“Behold!” Sebaceous roared, pointing toward a side cavern with his snout, “Our slaves are already at work!”

Fluke Gutcrawler trembled in fear. Timidly, he stretched out his body, lengthening it until he could see around a corner, into a dim passageway.

The sight sent a shiver down the entire length of his gut.

Beyond the corner, the cave opened into the sides of a great pit. The walls of the pit rose far, far upward, until in the distance he could see a round opening that yawned wide to the sky.

All around the sides of the pit, a trail wound down like a spiral staircase.

The pit descended far below him, perhaps for a mile or more, until it disappeared in the blackness.

And all along the winding trail, creatures toiled. They were mice, tiny and brown, often with white tummies and paws. They were marching down, down into the pit, taking timid hops. Some had glassy eyes, as if they marched in their sleep. Others marched even though their flesh was rotting away, and little white bones poked out. These last were zombies, mice that kept marching even in death.

And as they marched, the mice, both living and dead, sang:

“Let us burrow, let us delve,

Digging deep like little elves.

Beneath the soil, 'neath the stones,

Beneath the world's very bones.

Picking the ground, like a sore,

Till we reach earth's molten core.

When we strike it, ash will rise,

Roaring like a cloud of flies.”

“What are you doing?” Fluke shouted in horror, glaring at Sebaceous Ooze. “Why do you have an army of mice trying to dig a volcano?”

Sebaceous Ooze gasped and snoggered, then let out a deep, phlegmy laugh. “Bru-ha-ha, ho, ho, ho!” he said, sounding for the entire world like an evil Santa Claus.

At that very moment, back near Ben's house, as the mice sat on the lawn plotting to take over the world, Latonia Pumpernickel peered between the cracks of her curtains through the back window.

She was looking for her cat, Domino. She'd heard the poor animal yowling miserably in the middle of the night, and now it seemed to have run off.

As she spotted the small gang of well-armed mice, she suddenly realized that her poor cat hadn't just run off—it had been chased off!

“How bizarre!” she harrumphed. “An army of mice!”

She was eighty-nine years old, and she'd seen some curious things in her life, but this gang of bloodthirsty rodents was perhaps the strangest.

People said that she was crazy. Down in Mexico, she had once visited a town called Taco Feo. During a big afternoon hailstorm, Latonia had seen an angel fall out of the sky with a busted wing. The angel was a middle-aged woman, plump, with a big stomach. A lightning bolt had knocked her right out of the sky, singing her feathers, which were brown and white, with blue-green eyes on the end, like those on a peacock.

The village women in Mexico had nursed the angel back to health, feeding her tortillas and orchid nectar.

Once the angel flew off, it was said that she carried the townsfolk's prayers back up to heaven, and the following year, all of the old women in the village turned young and beautiful, all of the bald men grew hair, and the town had the best crop of black beans ever!

When Latonia had first moved to Oregon, she'd gone around telling her neighbors about the angel. So of course, folks now whispered, “Latonia Pumpernickel is nuttier than a Snicker's bar.”

And telling stories about an army of mice wouldn't help her situation, Latonia knew.

But she had to do something. There was an army of mice outside. They might well have harmed her cat.

And then there's that poor Ravenspell boy who lived next door, Latonia thought.

Ben had disappeared in the middle of the night, right after buying—a mouse!

And now Ben's parents were going crazy with worry, driving all around town looking for him.

Could it be that these evil vermin murdered the boy? Latonia wondered. Or maybe they kidnapped him. Maybe they're forcing him to dig burrows for them, out in the woods!

Latonia imagined poor Ben, digging some vast tunnel with his dirty fingernails, surrounded by millions of mice, all of them armed with weapons.

They might even have Domino there, too!

This called for dramatic measures.

Latonia raced to her bedroom, dug beneath the pile of dirty clothes in her closet, and got the video camera.

I'm onto the greatest story in the history of the world, she realized. Mice have armed themselves and are banding together to fight. It has to be the greatest advance in the animal kingdom since, since, since . . . the invention of pogo sticks!