Chapter 1: It was only the beginning...

From this point forward, I shall cease to write in the 1st person, and write as though I were observing the story instead of experiencing it. I feel that would be appropriate because it happened so long ago, and I am hardly the same person I was in the beginning of this epic tale.

As Mr. Gilbert and Marta climbed into the cramped automobile, Marta couldn’t help but feeling some amount of fear. She had packed up and left everything behind before and knew it was a difficult process. Despite her longings to be with her friend Melty, she proceeded to get in the car and travel to far off places to fight the Evil.

“Are you excited to go Marta? I hope you don’t mind us leaving so soon!” Mr. Gilbert said.
“No, no, I’m ready, I wish I could just see Melty one last time…” sighed Marta.

At that moment, a happy faced Melty appeared in the dust and came running to the car.

“Good bye Marta! don’t for get to write to me, I amn’t happy you’re goin’, but Mr. Gil said I’m a bona fide sloth spy now! I get to stay here and take care ah the jack rabbits and such. It’s real important!” explained Melty.
“Well, as long as you’re happy then Melty! Gil says you can meet up with us at any time, so don’t forget to write!” said Marta.



At this point, Mr. Gilbert honked his horn and began to roll out on to the road.

“Good bye Melty! The security of the jack rabbits rests in your hands! You have no idea how important you are to the welfare of the entire world!” yelled Mr. Gilbert, as he sped off into the dusty horizon.

After a mile or two, Marta and Gilbert had settled into their seats and were quite comfortable. All the fear and trepidation that had once crept into Marta were gone. She now felt nothing but excitement and pride. Gil explained that they were going to Mexico, to pick up his friend and accomplice, Silent Spring, otherwise known as Floaty. Floaty was a glorious three-toed sloth. He had remained faithful to the ancient ways and was currently fighting Evil in the jungles of Central America.

Their itinerary went as follows: They were to travel Southwesterly to Mexico, cross the border, and drive to the border town of Ciudad Juárez.

Marta looked in the back of the car to see what her mentor had packed. She had no idea what they could possibly need for their journeys. She craned her neck around and found the following items: Pantyhose, peanut butter, a hi-tech camera {which Gil would use to document every step of their adventures}, a Theremin, an ace bandage, a thermometer, a slingshot, a knapsack full of rat poison, a rabbit foot keychain, a crystal wine glass, an angel for a Christmas tree, a tape recorder, a peach scented candle, a girdle, a sitar, a leather belt, salt and pepper shakers, a lone sock, a tomato plant, a phonograph, a telescope, nail clippers, a suede jacket, a rocking horse, a corn stalk, a Puritan style shoe, a monkey mask, a wooden mallet, and a red yo-yo. Confused by the motley collection, Marta settled with picking up the yo-yo and decided against asking why Mr. Gil had packed such useless items.

Along the way, Gil talked on and on about and assortment of things. After hours of him talking, Marta asked him a question that she had always wondered.

“Where did you come from Gil, I mean, what country. You talk funny!” asked Marta.
“Well, I’m actually from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is a small town in Wales. The name means ‘St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave’ in Welsh. I think it’s the longest town name ever recorded besides one in Thailand! I’m quite proud of it actually. Like you I was an only child. I came to the United States to go to college, and found it a practical place to live. It is a big country, easy to travel through, and close enough to South and Central America to stay involved in the wars,” stated Mr. Gilbert very matter-of-factly.

Marta just sat and tried to comprehend the words he had spoken.
“Well, remind me again of how you got involved with The Great Sloth Wars,” said Marta.

“It was back when I was a child…in the village. I had the most peculiar experience! I was sitting in my garden, and sloth came out of nowhere! He sat down next to me, and he used his skills to put his thoughts into my head. It is a most peculiar sensation.

{Gil's first sloth encounter}

He told me he had come from Costa Rica, and that he needed my help. He had been spying on me for a long time. He found I had the special qualities he was looking for. He hung around with me a lot, and played with my friends and I.


{Sloth teaching Gil's friends how to use a Sloth Snatcher}

He appointed me as an official sloth spy, and I’ve been in The Wars, ever since. We communicated often, and his son is Floaty, the very sloth we are going to pick up. Anyways, the sloth that found me was named Tarter, and he’s since died. He was killed in action actually. He was very brave,” rambled Gil.

“Wow, that’s quite a story Gil! That’s really neat,” said Marta.

They continued on their way, discussing agriculture, sloth claws, hair ribbons, croutons, polyester, and the forces of Good and Evil. After hours of driving, they arrived at Ciudad Juárez.

How it all began:

My main intent in writing this account is to inform and protect the world from these sloth wars going on {although it may end up rather like my memoirs}. I apologize sincerely for the lengthy nature of this writing, but I feel you must know everything to understand anything.

It all started for me many years ago, when I was a child. I lived in the dustbowl region of the United States of America. I had just moved to the states from Stokke, Norway. My paternal grandfather was from Iceland, and his wife was Swedish. My mother was Swedish and Norwegian. We came to live in Stokke because it was the place where my mother grew up. It was a wonderful town. However, my father had always wanted to live in the United States. So away we moved. As we arrived in Kansas, huge dust storms were raging around the region. Everything was barren. All I wanted to do was go back home to Scandinavia. Although I could speak English very well, the move was difficult.

I became chums with a chap named Melty White. He was quite a few years older than me, but mentally, he was quite a few years younger. He was sweet and affectionate, yet always ready for a good time. We enjoyed our times together as best we could. All we did for fun was play with dirt. If we were not playing in it, we were eating it. If we were not eating it, we were breathing it. If we were not breathing it, we were reading about it, or bathing in it, or making dust balls, and having dust ball fights in the backyard. We also played farmer…

He was sort of the town orphan. Everybody took turns taking care of him, but my family took care of him the most. Eventually we let him live in the crawlspace under the porch {We would have let him in the house, but he let off the most unbearable smells}…



This is Melty and me in the early days…Unfortunately, it is the only known picture of him

Then, or lives changed forever.

Mr. Perlin Gilbert moved into our town. He had just won the African Lottery. He came under the disguise of a drug store owner. He opened his shop on Main Street and began to wreak his havoc all over town. Melty and I got jobs in his store to save up some money. Mr. Gilbert proved to be an annoying yet helpful and delightful employer and friend. He made us work hard in the shop, but always rewarded our efforts heartily.

We knew from the start that he was a weird one. First of all, he was obsessed with sloths. He often ran off long anecdotes about these things he called “The Great Sloth Wars”. I thought it was utter nonsense and Melt could only think of giant clapping monkeys. He told me, after a year or two in his service, the real reason he was here. He had come as an agent of The Great Sloth Wars. He was supposed to be spying on the jack rabbits of the area. Apparently, most animal life forms were involved in the war {at least subconsciously}. He wanted to see if he could employ the jack rabbits as spies for the Good sloths. Unfortunately, they proved more unintelligent than he had hoped. However, he did find interest in a lizard specie of the area.

He would tell Melty and me fantastical stories of narrow escapes, turncoat ferrets, and baby sloth deliveries. At first I was disgusted by his naivety but after a while, I wrote him off as a senile old man and just went with his stories. He would go on for HOURS. He told me and Melty that we were the only people in with he entrusted these stories.

Now, whether it was the constant dirt being blown up my facial cavities, the blazing heat, or even my young childlike ways, I will never know; but in the end, I started to believe his stories. In fact, I believed them with every fiber of my being. I became a sloth disciple, adhering to Mr. Gilbert like a dirt to a licked lollipop. Melty was always there with me too. You know I think he believed the stories more than I did.

Mr. Gilbert proposed a deal. He wanted us to come with him around the world to fight the wars. We would come on the condition that we would always stay loyal and do anything we could to win. He even told us our lives may be on the line, but we didn’t care. He told us that we knew so much already, that our lives were already in danger. He even said that we could go with him to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to go reindeer riding. Apparently it was big there. He said that all true Good sloths {and affiliates} decide to go on pilgrimage of their own choice. Mr. Gilbert’s pilgrimage was to Ulaanbaatar. He called it the city of champions. One of his dreams was to return there, after the war and settle down for the rest of his life. This sounded just as good to me.

My father and I had been fighting a lot because we were such lame farmers. In fact, we could hardly stand each other. My mother and I were even more estranged. Mostly this was because she just locked herself in the bathroom to hide her sorrow. The blowing dirt had really gotten to her. I got in fight with my dad because he blamed me for sticking my gum under his reclaimed shed wood coffee table. I suggested that maybe he stuck a little of it under there. Then he denied it and made a big deal about it, so I declared, “ Hey bumfuzzle- you don‘t know my life!!”, and ran into the sunset with my white sombrero, that Melty stole from a peddling gypsy in Nantucket.

I ran all the way to Mr. Gilbert’s drug store. I begged and pleaded for him to take me on our adventures right then, but he was hesitant. He said we needed time to gather supplies and food for our journey. Very unhappy I slumped into the corner and fell asleep.

In the morning, Mr. Gilbert had a very pleasant surprise for me. He had loaded his car, and was ready to depart. I, with only the clothes on my back, clambered in the car, and was ready to go when I remembered Melty. Mr. Gilbert told me that he had already talked to Melty and given his fragile condition, he had decided to stay in the town as an official spy.

So, thus my adventures with Perlin Gilbert the billionaire sloth spy began. At first it was a little strange to be traveling alone with an older man, but I knew he had a heart of gold, with the pure intent of ousting the evil sloths of the world. This was reason enough to follow him to the ends of the earth.

The Great Sloth Wars- What They Are All About

In order for the reader to fully comprehend the severity of the present situation, it is necessary for me to give a brief, yet informative synopsis of the crisis and its history.

Sloth are not what you think they are. At all. At a glance, they are unbearably slow, stupid, and quite frankly, the ugliest creatures to ever roam the earth.



(A typical slothy pose for an unsuspecting cameraman)

On the contrary, sloths are the epitome of clever. They are cunning, swift, and excellent at everything.



(A sloth caught in the act of crossing the finishing line of a 100 yard dash and taking first place. The picture does not show that this particular sloth also was calculating the quantum mechanics of astral plane shape shifting.)

In the first days of the sloths, they were all peaceable and intelligent hard workers, trying to keep their intellect on low profile, as to beguile potential enemies. In the Golden Kingdom of Fur the sloths two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths lived together side by side, discussing string theory, engaging in leg wrestling, and eating peaches. For thousands of years the sloth kingdom thrived in South and Central America.

If any enemies approached the sloth warriors would lure them into a false sense of security, then attack them by surprise. It worked like a charm. Albeit, they needed to engage allies to help them fight evil outside South and Central America. So, they found aid in the black footed ferrets and raccoons of the north.

The system worked perfectly, until the raccoons betrayed them in their great councils and used their smooth talking to persuade the two-toed variety of sloth to join them in their own quest for power. Despite the furry cuteness of the raccoons, they were sheer evil, and had the actual intent of enslaving all sloths, and using them for their intense brain skills. But the three-toed sloth, descended genetically from the original Tree Dwellers, realized the true threat and resisted.

Unfortunately, slowly more and more three-toed sloths became to succumb to the liberal ways of the raccoons. Those who didn’t were brutally murdered. So many tragic deaths occurred that humans put them on the endangered species list. Still, a group of the strong remained. It was also rumored that there were still a few brave two-toed sloths who resisted the tyranny of the raccoons. However, they were looked upon with skepticism and overall mistrust. The raccoons had also gathered many other species to their side, and used them as liaisons to the sloths, as they rarely were able to travel so far south on their own.

Among the righteous sloths who remained, was the Great Guru of Furry History. He was a pygmy monk sloth who lived on the island of Escudo de Veraguas, off the coast of Panama. He was rumored to be omniscient, and a powerful warrior who mastered the art of voodoo karate. He had been forced into hiding by the evil ones. Legend has it that he who finds the Guru will have the power to save both sloth and mankind (the raccoons intended to overthrow the humans in the end). Eventually, the Guru had to leave the island and the Shrine of Slow Moving Wonder and move around as much as possible, so as to evade capture.

All the good and noble sloths and ferrets are on the mission to find the Guru. Some humans have gotten involved as well, such as myself and others. We search amid adventure and gloom; in the trees and the deep. Enemy sloths and allies often cross each others’ paths and thus fight to the death in bloody and terrible battles of unquenchable fury.

Enemy agents are everywhere with misinformation. If you chance to listen, you are lulled until with a swipe of the razor claws, you too must join the thronging spirits in the hallways of the great and dead Furry Fathers.

I have chosen to chronicle the strange struggle, as the Good make every effort possible to stop the Evil and bring the Guru back to the Shrine. In the midst of these pages our tumble through history is told.

-Marta Agnetha