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"See you, then."
The distraction conquered, Madge brandished her Mighty Sword of the Dusty Floors, testing its weight for the quest before her. Satisfied with the weight and balance, Madge hiked up her skirts and leveled her intentions upon the shrubs, where the furry dragon of the greenery awaited a good flogging. The gnomes watched with reverence their knight errant in her apron, bustling across the lawn like St. George, to deliver them from the evils of the land.
Churril was not foolish, however, so when the woman began stabbing the hedges with the flat end of her broom, he scooted out from his fortress for a gander at her attempts at futility. Stopping up beside one of the gnomes, he picked at a tooth with one of his long claws just as a movie-goer would pick at a popcorn skin that had snuck into the gums. The woman's back end became his movie screen wiggling back and forth with her harried exploration of the hedgerow and he was not going to miss a moment of the show.
"Bloody lovely sight, aren't it?" the gnome asked the smelly stranger.
Churril, unused to talking porcelain dolls, chirruped and took flight. One moment, he was nestled beside the little blue-coated man, the next, he was clinging to something soft and smelling of stale cigarettes that refused to disappear despite the generous amount of jasmine water slathered on to cover it up.
"Gerrof! Gerrof! Gerrof! Anguuus!" Madge shrieked as an outhouse (according to its stench) the size of Missus Macalister's Scottish terrier dug in an entire knife set of talons into her back. Naturally, as she had ‘rat' on the mind, her mental balance tipped well beyond the standard of normalcy. Most people, when faced with danger, panic. Madge prided herself on normalcy, and so panicked. Her only thought was to remove the monster from her shoulder, and lucky for her, she had a nice broom in hand to do so. Screaming bloody murder, she brought the broom down hard, not realizing just how difficult a four foot handle made maneuvering. Intending to hit near the shoulder blades where the bulk of the stinging came, Madge missed by well over a foot, and swatted her own backside. The broom smacked her with enough force to shatter concrete but the cushion under the flower-print dress absorbed the bulk of the blow and sent her tumbling right across the lawn, bowling over two of her precious gnomes like a seven-six slam.
Well, it worked. Churril dislodged his claws and limped for cover, forever more able to answer the question "What's it like having an eighth-ton bowling ball roll over you?" Painful. Cradling his tail – which, incidentally, had been rigid as a broom handle when the woman began her tumble across the lawn and plunged into the dirt like a garden trowel; something it was hardly designed for – his only thought was recovery. A gaggle of gnomes called him over, and desperate now, he hastened over to them and crouched down in the relative safety at the center of their defensive perimeter.
"What in the name of the Virgin's gwan on out here?" Angus mumbled as he scuffled out the door.