Crispy had not expected this. It looked like this madman had been living in the cave for years. Crispy wondered briefly if this man was angry about something, as he was glaring rather evilly at him, and it unnerved him. Now Crispy had to choose: either take off the Doc Martens and swim to safety, or climb out to almost certain death... He laughed slightly and climbed out.

The man growled at him as Crispy clambered to his feet, and took a step backwards. The man looked like a pirate-wannabe, sans eye patch and parrot. Crispy put his best uh-hello-how's-it-going smile on. What he didn't realize was that this particular smile didn't do exactly what he wanted it to, generally. It was the reason the children gave him the aforementioned nickname.

The grizzly man raised an eyebrow and growled at Crispy. He was three times Crispy's size, but then that didn't really mean much. "What be yer business 'ere, yer yella-bellied land-lubber?" he growled. Crispy wasn't sure just how this man knew his belly was yellow, but he didn't question it. Come to think of it, he mused, it's only been yellow since I ate those sausages...

Crispy wondered why those wretched sausages always popped into his mind in the face of death. He laughed slightly. In general, Crispy was a man of few words. So he put out his hands and shrugged, in the universal "I know not of which you speak" code. This action seemed to upset the man even more. He suddenly stepped forward, and grabbing Crispy by the front of his tutu, lifted him clean off his feet, until Crispy's face was level with his. Crispy gulped and stared the man right in the eyes. The man was still growling and looked as though he had every intention of making Crispy a crispy meal. But just then, quite by luck, a loud boom echoed around the small cave, bringing several large rocks down onto the grizzly man, pushing him to the floor. Somehow, every rock missed Crispy, who just stood there with a kind of 'uuuuh??' look on his face as the cave began falling in around him. He knew he couldn't blame this on the sausages.

Crispy fell to the ground, and lying there on his butt, looked around to try to figure out what had just happened. From the corner of his eye, an unusual shimmering distracted him. He looked over to see a strange ethereal figure floating towards him. It appeared to be waving vigorously at him. He laughed slightly. It was the ghost of his biggest fan, Bomb Girl. She waved so hard it seemed like extreme waving, and she grinned widely. But then she got another grenade and threw it against the cave wall, damaging it so the entire cave fell in around him and he merely needed to climb out of the rubble to get back to the beach. He did this and walked merrily across the warm sand. Nobody seemed to question the sight of a thin man in a checked tutu/chastity belt wearing Mr Fussy socks and Doc Martens and a vibrant pink rubber ring (which he had found floating mysteriously nearby), exiting a pile of rubble that had once been a cave, holding a bottle of wine. They thought it better not to.

Bomb Girl floated along next to him before disappearing into thin air. She had congratulated him on his quick thinking on getting out of the cave. She explained that her grenades and bombs were only ethereal, so were all figments of the living world's imagination. If he had lingered, the rocks covering the grizzly man may have disappeared, and Crispy may have been done for. This confused Crispy no end, but a sudden pain in his stomach broke the thought and he promptly forgot about it. Evil sausages, he thought, and laughed slightly.

****