"How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"
- When Grandpa arrives at Chief Yookeroo's office, the place is pretty much a dump. Papers are strewn across the floor. The flowers in the vase have wilted. It's a mess. But all's not lost.
- This time, the Back Room Boys have cooked up "a gadget that's Newer than new. / It is filled with mysterious Mook-Lacka-Moo" (165-66).
- The Yooks had some idea what the Blue-Gooer was and what it did, but this new weapon, the "Bitsy / Big-Boy Boomeroo," is a complete mystery (169-170).
- All they know is that it "can blow all those Zooks clear to Sala-ma-goo" (167). Sala-ma-what? Whatever that is, it can't be good.
- The Chief asks Grandpa to run the bomb to the Wall and "Drop this bomb on the Zooks just as fast as you can." Meanwhile, he has "ordered the Yooks to stay safe underground / while the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo is around" (172-74).
- Things just got serious.
- This isn't about showing the Zooks who's boss anymore. It's about destroying the Zooks, and the Chief's tone matches the seriousness.
- Grandpa takes the new bomb and hauls it to the Wall. He passes "every last Yook in our land" as they go into a bomb-shelter, affectionately labeled "Your Yookery" (176). What's a Yookery?
- There's no cheering or fanfare this time.
- But whatever the Yooks are feeling about the continuing conflict, Grandpa is still set on his mission.