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The Gremlins Complete Text

"There was nothing for the little men to do but to move very quickly out onto a hill near by, where they just sat watching the humans who were destroying their homes. They watched them chopping and sawing until the whole wood had been taken away, including the roots of the trees, which they dug up with picks and shovels. Then they brought huge rollers which rolled the ground hard and smooth, so that anyone seeing the place for the first time would never even have believed that it had once been a most beautiful green wood. And as the days went by, the little people saw a huge factory rise on the spot where the wood had been.

"When at last the factory was finished and smoke came rolling from the chimneys, they thought it was time to act.

"They sent out scouts who crept down to the factory and peered into the windows. At evening they brought back their report: the factory was making airplanes. So that night the leader called a meeting, and after much discussion, a solemn agreement was reached.

"'We will follow those big tin birds wherever they go,' vowed the leader, and he spoke for them all, 'to get revenge for the loss of our homes. We will make mischief for them, and we will harry and tease the men who fly them, until we obtain some satisfaction for all the harm that has been done to us.'

"From that moment on, although for a time not a human suspected it, every plane that left the factory carried on board little stowaways.

"I trust," concluded Gus, "that makes things clear to you two clots. Now pass me the bread, Stuffy, and shut up!"