Bull Moose Trapped in Skate Park; Wardens Cast Sleep

At roughly the third bell past dawn, a bull moose allegedly strolled into the Hellroarer Skate Bowl in the Montanor town of Red Lodgepole and learned that a skate park is easier to enter than to leave. The moose stayed stuck in the concrete halfpipe for about five hours, the longest anyone has held that bowl without a single trick.

The City Watch got there first. Then came the Montanor Wardens of Wood, Fang & Fen, then the Coalshire Reeve's Office, then what I can only describe as everyone. 'He walked in like he owned the place,' said Orla Pennywick, who was eating a pretzel the size of a shield at the time. 'Then he looked up and the walls were taller than he was.' The moose stood in the bowl and stared at the rim. Several pigeons stared back from the rim. I will not be taking questions about the pigeons.

Plan one was rubber mats. Wardens laid thick ones down the slope so the moose could get some grip, and the moose allegedly looked at them and did nothing. Plan two was ratchet straps and a polite request to use the narrow opening at the bottom of the bowl. He declined that too. 'His antlers won't reach the top,' said Garrick Thistlewhistle, a retired cartwheel balancer, shaking his head like a man who has done the math. 'Deep hole. Big boy. Nobody wins.'

Around the second bell past noon the Montanor Wardens went for Sleep. It took two tries, because a moose is large and a dart is not. Then a dozen volunteers hauled the snoring animal up the slope in a harness while the crowd held its breath, and somebody allegedly said 'on three' and pulled on two. Also, there was a very nice brass padlock on the park gate. Anyway. Back to the moose.

He was driven outside town, checked over, and declared healthy. Once he woke up he shook out his antlers and wandered off with the dignity of someone who has never been near a skate park. No injuries were reported by the moose, the rescuers, or the pigeons. The Watch says no sign is planned, though 'No Antlers' has allegedly been proposed twice. Readers of my report on the couch and the enchanted skates will know the skating scene is already a hazard to traffic and furniture. Now it is a hazard to the wildlife.

— Skritch, on the beat (allegedly)