The Butter Battle Book

On the last day of summer, ten hours before fall,

my grandfather took me out to the Wall.

For a while we stood silent, and finally he said...

with a very sad shake of his very old head:

"As you know, on this side of the Wall, we are Yooks.

On the far other side of this Wall, live the Zooks.

And the things that you heard about Zooks are all true.

That terribly, horrible thing that they do.

And in every Zook house, and in every Zook town...

Every Zook eats his bread

with the butter side down."

But we Yooks, when we eat,

when we breakfast or supper, we spread our bread right,

with the butter side up.

'Cause of course you remember our bread-spreading rule

that you learned as a lad back in bread-spreading school.

On my honor as a Yook youth, I do solemnly swear...

to spread up on top here, and never down there.

"On my honor as a Yook youth,

I do solemnly swear...

to spread up on top here,

and never down there."

That's the true, honest way.

And all honest folks know that you can't trust a Zook

who spreads bread down below.

Every Zook must be watched.

He has kinks in his soul.

That's why as a young man, I made watching my goal.

Watching Zooks for the Zook-Watching Border Patrol.

With a song in my heart and a spring in my knee.

With a glint in my eye and a hup, two, three.

I strided with pride along that Wall.

And I watched those Zookers, one and all.

And if they got fresh, I just gave them a twitch.

With my tough-tufted prickly Snick-Berry Switch.

For a while that worked fine.

All the Zooks stayed away, and our country was safe.

Then, one terrible day,

a very rude Zook by the name of VanItch,

snuck up and slingshotted my Snick-Berry Switch.

Hoorah for our side,

butter side down.

Why those dirty upside-down butterers.

They can't do that to us.

Why I never saw anything so aggressively affrontable.

It's worse than that, it's acrimonious.

Those Zooks, they're impossible.

And they get impossibler and impossibler and impossibler every day.

Ask me, they're getting too big for their britches.

With a broken-off switch, with my head hung in shame...

to the Chief Yookeroo in great sorrow l came.

But our Leader iust smiled. He said: "Dear boy,

You're not to blame. You simply have suffered a minor defeat...

'cause your Snick-Berry Switch is a bit obsolete.

Their slingshot's more modern.

What we need to get is a weapon that's even more moderner yet.

So I've ordered the Boys in the Back Room to figure...

how to build you some such super-booper-sling jigger."

With my Triple-Sling Jigger I sure felt much bigger.

Okay!

I marched to the Wall with my Triple-Sling-Jigger.

I marched to the Wall with great vim and great vigor...

right up to VanItch with my hand on the trigger.

"I'll have no more nonsense", I said with a frown.

"From Zooks who eat bread with the butter side down."

VanItch looked quite sickly.

He ran off quite quickly.

I'm unhappy to say he came back the next day.

Shoot if you must, with your Triple-Sling Jigger.

But I also now have my hand on a trigger.

My defensive weapon, the Jigger-Rock Snatchem...

will fling them right back just as fast as we catch 'em.

We'll take no more nonsense. We'll take no more gupp...

from you Yooks who eat bread with the butter side up.

Stymied.

Thwarted.

Mission aborted.

"I have failed, sir", I sobbed, as I made my report...

to the Chief Yookeroo in the headquarters fort.

Not at all, my dear boy.

Oh, you did fine, my dear boy.

Oh, but a slingshot... Oh, dear me...

is an old-fashioned toy.

All we need is a... a more modern kind of gun.

My Boys in the Back Room have already begun to think up...

a walloping whizz-zinger of one.

They thought up a great one.

They certainly did.

They thought up a gun called the Kick-a-Poo Kid...

which they loaded with powerful Poo-a-Doo Powder...

and ants' eggs and bees' legs and dried-fried clam chowder.

And they carefully trained a real smart dog named Daniel...

to serve as our country's first gun-toting spaniel.

Then Daniel, the Kick-a-Poo Spaniel, and I...

marched back toward the Wall with our heads held up high.

- It's time that we bop them! - Those monsters that dwell....

- They're fooky and freaky! - They're kooky and sneaky!

- They're rude and they're crude! - They're frightfully lewd.

- It's time that we bash them! - My dear, that's the truth!

- They're ugly, unnatural! - Unkept and uncouth!

- They're weird! - They're suspicious!

- Obnoxious! - Atrocious!

- They're rotten! - Malicious!

- They're gauche and horocious! - Repugnant!

- They're crude! - They're nutty!

They're out of their minds!

- All the things they do. - All the thoughts that they think!

I never have met one, but I hear that they're stinky!

- Ready? - Ready?

Aim.