Free Peculiar Tales by Ron Miller Page B

of that it hardly seems worth the trouble. My family likes to do things the tried and true Old Fashioned way and when the young Bloods get to the right age we just prune the fingers from one paw. This does’nt hurt them at all and they can still feed themselfs but they can no longer be so mischivous.
    But Bloods can still get into big trouble no matter what because they are maybe pretty dumb but they are clever and sneaky and very mischivous. I know everyone saw on TV what happened this Summer but maybe you have never heard an Eye Witness tell about what happened this Summer. I am that Eye Witness!
    It is only because my Family is honest and has raised me to be honest too that I admit that maybe it was our fault what happened but I personally do’nt think so. Most Blood farmers keep their Bloods in many barns with maybe only a hundred Bloods in each barn. But when you have so many Bloods as my family has this means that there would be too many Barns which would be much trouble and cost a lot of money. It is said that too many Bloods together can get into a lot of trouble but our Family has never had any trouble with its Bloods and my family has been Blood farmers for a very very long time even my Grandfather and my Great grand father before him. But sometimes there is a very bad Blood who is smarter than most Bloods and when you get a Blood like that you are sure that trouble will come sometime.
    One night I was awoke to terrible sounds and when I rushed to my window I saw all the lights on and everyone running around and everyone making lots of noise. I rushed downstairs (after first making sure I was decently dressed, of course!) and when I asked what was going on my Mother told me that someone had let all the Bloods out of their stalls in the big barn and everyone was afraid that all of the Bloods in the other two big barns might get loose too. And I can tell you that 5000 Bloods all going crazy is bad enough but that 15,000 Bloods going crazy would be pretty terrible! You would never think that even one Blood could do much harm seeing how they only have fingers on one paw and are usually pretty fat and lazy and everything but Boy! I can tell you that you’d be wrong to think that! They broke down the barn doors and broke through the fences and were just all over the place making the most awful noises and all kinds of terrible mischive. They hurt a lot of the hands mostly by biting and you never want to let a Blood bite you because even though they do’nt have very sharp teeth or anything they’re bites are almost like poisin and almost sure to make you sick. Their little claws are’nt much either but they can still hurt if they scratch you. But Bloods are just as big as peopel and like I said sometimes a lot fatter so they can really hurt if they jump on you or something. Anyway, they were running around all over the place thousands and thousands of them and it was just an awful mess but Father and the hands finally got them all rounded up again even though there were lots and lots of dead Bloods left all over the place. There were males and females and young and it was kind of sad to see all the dead young ones because like I said they are usually very cute.
    It was really scary for a while though I have to admit because it was dark and everyone was running around and there was lots of yelling and soon there were lots of loud bangs because the formen and the hands were shooting off their guns. The Bloods looked very scary because most of them have very white skin and they kind of looked like really big glow worms in the fire light. I think maybe the dark Bloods may have been even scarier because all I could see was their eyes and teeth kind so they looked kind of like ghosts or something. Lots of the Bloods were yelling things like Death! Death! or Kill! Kill! but I knew they must just be repeating what all the peopel must have been yelling because of course Bloods ca’nt think of things to say on their own because