The slimy snot net-turned-flying snot bubble rocketed through the air, its three passengers tumbling around like underpants in a dryer. It had been flying for two days and although the trio enjoyed the getting-to-know-you time they were very, very hungry.

  "I'm not only hungry, I’m frightened!" wailed Tiny Tirdly, who was rolling and bouncing first against the big slug dressed like a man, then against the big nekroklown dressed like a slug.

  "I’m gobsmacked!" giggled Poo-go.

  "Aye-ya!" gurgled Dr. Slugg meekly.

  "I guess U stood for Up. We surely bobbed up this time, didn't we?" Poo-go winked merrily at Tiny Tirdly. "This reminds me of a whoopee cushion balloon trip I once made for the circus. Wonder where we'll land?"

  “Why, here's land now!" exclaimed Dr. Slugg.

  "And we're slowing down!" added Tiny Tirdly. So they were, down- down- down, until they were over a rocky island floating in the sky. When the snot net was almost resting on a little greasy knoll, it burst with a “poot” and dissipated and they fell the last few feet to the sparse green hairgrass.

  Dr. Slugg jumped up first and hurriedly placed himself in front of Poo-Go and Tiny Tirdly. Though he was trembling, he knew that he was a better fighter than this helpless pair. And that there would be fighting he felt reasonably sure, for a great crowd was coming noisily toward them.

  Poo-go nervously helped Tiny Tirdly to his feet and stood beside Lubricious.

  "Let's be ex-treee-mly polite. That's the way to meet strangers," giggled the nekroklown, adjusting his slug headpiece.

  "All right," agreed Dr. Slugg in a rather choked gurgle, "you meet them with politeness, and if that fails, I'll meet them with something else." He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his flask of Psoriasian gunge that temporarily gave him super strength and took a sip, then slipped the flask back into his jacket and balled up his large moist fists.

  The crowd consisted of squat beings with the bodies of squidwarfs, but instead of squid heads they had thick necks topped with large hands with random amounts of stubby fingers. There were tiny faces sticking out of the palms of the head-hands. They wore nothing but puffy shorts and little sneakers, and some held long, pointy spears in their arm-hands.

  “Take a look at these hands!" exclaimed Dr. Slugg.

  As the first of the company reached the foot of the hill Tiny Tirdly gave a little yelp, but Poo-go calmly stepped forward and giggled:

  "Good day, ladles and gentlemensch! Allow me to compliment you all on the impeccable care you obviously take with your beautifully trimmed finger nails. Let me present to you the most famous slug on all of Sifillis, Dr. Lubricious Slugg of Foulfinger University; allow me to present Tiny Tirdly, the brightest little orphan in Krapateria, and allow me to present myself, a harmless Spij?kenian nekroklown named Poo-gofferson whose tricks have astonished the royal Shatius Stoolstrainer, pootentate of Krapateria. Now, if you will allow me to--”

  "Two creatures and a beast," called the leader of the company, interrupting Poo-go in the middle of a sentence. "Two creatures and a beast," repeated the others, staring dully at the newcomers. Dr. Slugg growled threateningly at this and Poo-go began running over all the hand-and-finger-related jokes that he knew. As for Tiny Tirdly, he was too amazed to do anything but stare. He had never seen such creatures before.

  "Could you tell us a little about this interesting country of yours, and the quickest way out of it?" Dr. Slugg inquired politely.

  "'Taint a country, dumb-dumb, it's a skyle," answered the hand-headed guy who seemed to be the leader of the mob.

  "A skyle?" repeated the nekroklown, glancing doubtfully at Dr. Slugg. "What is a skyle?" asked Poo-go curiously.

  "This is," snapped the leader disagreeably. "You're as ignorant as a fish, aren't you, clown? A skyle is an isle in the sky, and anyone who has studied skyography ought to know that. I suppose you don't even know what an skyle is either?" He looked contemptuously at Dr. Slugg.

  "I do. Friends of mine once visited- and conquered- the hovering skyland of Meningioma," gurgled the gastropod. "A skyland or skyle is a small body of land entirely surrounded on all sides by air."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Air!" giggled Poo-go.

  "How does one get off a skyle?" asked Tiny Tirdly timidly.

  "You'll soon find that out!" muttered the head hand-head, and all the others began nodding and snapping their head-fingers, which were as long as Tiny Tirdly was tall.

  "What do you call yourselves?" asked Dr. Slugg.

  "We're Handies, we are, and nobody but Handies are allowed here in Handieland. We'll have to take you along to the handquarters and his royal Palmighty will decide what's to be done with you."

  "Ugh, another ruler," giggled the nekroklown. After Master Kraka and the lizard queens he had had enough of royalty.

  "Isn't it time to run?" asked Tiny Tirdly, tugging at Poo-go's arm, for the Handies were drawing closer this time, pointing the action-ends of their spears towards our friends. The orphan had noticed some of the Handies wore menacing looking spiked thimbles on the tips of their head-fingers.

  "No use running, Tiny Tirdly. If we retreat we might fall off and be squashed on the ground below," giggled Poo-Go.

  “Perhaps this Palmighty is a better fellow than his subjects. Take us to your leader!" said Dr. Slugg determinedly.

  Snapping and muttering, the Handies formed two crooked lines, and with the three travelers in the center marched away to the handquarters. There were many tall hairless fleshtrees on the skyle of Handie and every treetoptip had a nail on one side and a print on the other like a regular finger.

  The landscape itself was rocky and barren and there seemed to be no farms, buildings nor industries of any kind. "What do you do here for a living?" asked Dr. Slugg, turning to the Handie beside him.

  "Fish, mostly," said the Handie.

  "What for?" asked Dr. Slugg.

  "Birds," sniffed the Handie, looking over his shoulder scornfully. "What did you think we'd fish for?"

  "Then shouldn’t you call it ‘birding’, not ‘fishing’? giggled Poo-go good-naturedly and he began to laugh immoderately. The head Handie’s skull-fingers began to tremble.

  "You're idiots!" he screamed, thrusting his facepalm almost on top of Poo-go's face. "Idiots! Idiots! Idiots!" echoed all the other Handies immediately.

  Not long after that they came to the handquarters. To Tiny Tirdly it looked like a huge barn with four stout finger-shaped fleshtrees growing at each corner. A large fleshy thumb grew up from the front yard.

  The next instant they were in a huge domed hall in the presence of a plump Handie sitting on a smallish throne, kicking his pudgy little legs absent-mindedly in the air. Dr. Slugg thought it strange the ruler of the skyle would have such a vacant look in his slightly crossed eyes.

  There were fierce-looking sharp-nailed guards lining the walls of the chamber. The head of the Handie mob that had captured our friends shouted at the top of his lungs, "The Palmighty, Andee Handyman, King of Handieland Skyle! I present to you three idiots with only eight fingers and two thumbs each." Slugg, Poo-Go, and Tiny Tirdly stepped forward. The humanoid-sized gastropod addressed the Handie on the throne:

  “Excuse me, oh mighty Andee Handyman—”

  “That’s not Andee Handyman!” the head Handie interrupted. That’s MANDEE Handyman.”

  The head Handie guard poked Mandee Handyman with the butt-end of his spear, and the dead-eyed Handie slowly extended their left arm and held their palm up to our three friends. Our three friends saw there was a tiny face on the palm of the arm-hand of Andee Handyman.

  "Welcome, creatures and boy," yawned Andee Handyman in a slightly squeaky voice. Poo-go made a deep bow- doffing and redonning his faux slug head- and Tiny Tirdly and Dr. Slugg waved.

  "How did you come to come here?" asked the teenie-weenie face of Andee Handyman. There was a crown around his middle finger.

  "We didn't want to come here at all," giggled Poo-go hastily. "We were standing under a fleshtree, watching it knit snot into nets- a very strange sight, your Palmighty will agree- and we were caught in one of the knitted nets, and it turned into a snot bubble and flew up and two days later here we are.”

  "A mighty poor catch, I’d call you," muttered the Palmighty complainingly. He turned to his guards to see whether they agreed with him and they all nodded their digits.

  "Could your palmightiest give us a bite to eat?" Dr. Slugg asked. “We haven’t had anything since before the snotnet caught us.”

  "Certainly not," answered the Palmighty, narrowing his beady eyes. "If you're hungry, you’ll have to go fishing, the same as the rest of us do.”

  "Oh!" cried Tiny Tirdly, "I'd love to go fishing!" Andee Handyman smirked and Mandee turned his Andee hand to face a nearby Handie with a hairlip.

  “Skip, give them some rods." The Handie with a hairlip named Skip fetched three rods and reels and handed them to Poo-Go.

  "Where do you fish around here?" asked Dr. Slugg.

  "Just go to any edge of Handieland and drop your line over," said Andee Handyman.

  "Thank you for the poles, your Palmighty. Come on, fellas" giggled Poo-go and, tucking the fishing rods under his arm, waddled toward the door followed by the boy and gastropod. After they had left the throne room Mandee Handyman moved his hand with Andee’s face towards the head of the Handie brigade and snarled "Push them over the edge!"