Squiggle (4 page)

9

Squiggle stopped just inside the door and looked around. The room had a frayed carpet with exotic African designs on it. Along one wall a bookshelf was lined with the most heart-stopping, horrible things floating in jars—bits of people, and bits of sea creatures, eyeballs and fingers and worse things, pickled and labeled, so that the room looked like the larder of a cannibal. In the center of the room was a desk piled high with books and maps and pads and sheets of paper. And sitting at the desk (Squiggle suddenly realized) was a person.

The person had been reading a map. Squiggle could see it was a map because part of it flopped over the edge of the desk. He still had his finger on the center of it, where he had left off tracing a route. But now he was looking directly at Squiggle. He didn't look at all surprised or frightened. That much was good, but that was the only thing about him that was encouraging.

He was a lumpy bulgy man, too short and too wide, with red hair like coat-hanger wire standing out all over his scalp and his chin in twisty directions. Framed in all that hair his face would have been a pasty, disgusting white, except that it was mostly covered with tattoos. The tattoos didn't seem to mean anything. They were mostly triangles and circles. But here and there you saw a frowny-face with fangs or a clawed foot worked into the design. Each of his eyes had a bright red circle and a green square around it that made him look angry—although, when you looked closer he didn't seem to be angry at all. He was hideous. But Squiggle had no time to run back out and try another room. When she heard a trampling of footsteps outside the door, she dove into the wastebasket and pulled a paper bag over her head. (The bag smelled like bologna.)

She couldn't see what was going on but she heard everything. The door banged open and a lot of people scuffled and muttered and coughed.

“Can I help you?” said a voice. It was the strangest voice, and she knew right away that it belonged to the tattooed person sitting at the desk. It was polite in a way that sounded like it would get dangerous at any moment. It was rough and pitted like an old rusty fence, the kind with spikes on top. It sounded like it wasn't used to speaking softly.

The voice must have had an effect on the people in the room because they all went quiet.

“Sir, I think you
can
help us,” said another voice. It was the police officer. Squiggle heard a clink and thought it must be handcuffs. “I'm looking for an escaped suspect. I believe he came this way.”

“A suspect?” the tattoo voice said.

“To be specific,” the officer said, “a gorilla. Considered extremely dangerous.”

A lot of people murmured in the background that it was true, a huge dangerous gorilla had just run into that exact room. Eight feet tall. A thousand pounds. A tail that could choke you from seventeen feet away.

“Are you telling me,” the tattoo voice said, with a harsh gravelly anger just under the surface, “that an eight-foot gorilla with a tail just ran into my office, and I didn't notice?”

Everyone said that, although it was strange, it seemed to be true.

“Consider this,” the tattoo voice said. “Gorillas are among the most peaceful animals on the planet, unless they are cornered by a pack of fools. In that case, the fools will get their arms and legs ripped off.”

The crowd went suddenly quiet again.

“And consider this,” the tattoo voice continued. “Gorillas are apes. Apes don't have tails. And finally, consider this. Since a little monkey did actually just run into my office, jump to the window and leap outside, I strongly urge the rest of you to jump out of the same window. Or better yet, find a window ten stories higher up, and jump out of that one. But whatever you do, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!”

There was a scuffling noise and a few angry voices. Most of the people wanted to run around to the side of the building and continue the chase. “Don't worry about old crabby here,” someone said. “He's told us all we need to know!”

Pretty soon, the office was quiet again.

Then the gravelly voice said, “What strange little creature has jumped into my garbage can?” Something grabbed the top of the paper bag and pulled it off.

 

10

Squiggle stared up into the wild, tattooed, hideous face of the red-haired man. She was about to spring out between his knees, but paused for an instant and looked at him more closely. He wasn't snarling at her, anyway. He looked honestly curious. (Who wouldn't be?)

“Er, please, don't pickle me!” Squiggle said. Her voice wasn't very loud, but it got amplified a little in the metal trash can.

The man cocked his head at her, his hair quivering like watch springs. “Come on out of the garbage,” he said, “and sit on my desk. It's more comfortable, and I can see you better. And,” he added, “don't bother running away. The door is closed. And the window has a metal screen. Not that any of those fools noticed the screen.” He chuckled at that, and suddenly his face looked kind. Rather fierce, and scary, and exciting, and kind, all in one. He reached in with a hairy hand, picked Squiggle out of the trash, and set her on the desk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (on the map) and right under the lamp.

“What did you say about tickling?” he said. He leaned forward to hear better.

“Please, um, Sir,” Squiggle said, “don't pickle me!”

“Don't WHAT?”

Squiggle threw a terrified glance at the glass bottles on the shelves.

The red-haired man looked up at the glass bottles, and looked back at Squiggle, and then burst into a laugh. His laugh was so loud and sudden, and sounded so much like a buzzard being choked to death, that Squiggle jumped back to the far corner of Siberia (on the map, of course). But the laugh didn't sound evil. It wasn't very polite, maybe, but it seemed honest enough. When he was done laughing he wiped his eyes with a fistful of his beard, which looked so wiry that Squiggle thought he might poke out his eye (but he didn't).

“You like my collection?” he said. “That's nothing. I've got three rooms in the Museum of Natural History. Three rooms, lined with jars! These are only a few damaged specimens, bits and pieces, and also my son's eyeball collection. My son is, well, he likes eyeballs. He doesn't keep them at home because the octopus opens the jars and eats the eyeballs. But don't worry! I never pickle anything that isn't already dead when it got to me. And you're alive, I think. Although I never saw anything like you before. What kind of monkey are you?”

She came forward timidly and held out the tag pinned to her ear.

“A colobus!” the red-haired man said, reading the tag. “That would be an African monkey. Obviously a clerical error. If you're a colobus, then I'm an aardvark. Whoever put you together didn't know what he was doing. You look more like a cebus monkey to me. South American. You have a prehensile tail, anyway. I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Squiggle. Don't look so surprised! Of course I can tell you're a Miss. Girl monkeys have bushy whiskers—and yours are exceptionally beautiful.” He winked at her, and she saw that a picture of a frog was tattooed on his eyelid. “Now! Tell me who you are, and where you come from, and how you got here, and why that pack of fools was following you. I love a story. Put your mouth right up against my ear; your voice isn't too loud.”

Squiggle didn't know whether to trust the man, but felt that she didn't have any choice. He seemed a great deal nicer than he had looked at first.

She put her mouth up to his hairy ear and began to tell her story. She started from when the Lesser Spotted Pickfloo had appeared on her bed, and went right through to the moment she got chased into the man's office.

All through the story, the red-haired man kept grunting and making little noises of amazement. You might think that he didn't believe the story? That he thought Squiggle was either crazy or lying? Not at all. For one thing, he had the evidence right in front of him: a talking monkey. He had a look of wonder on his tattooed face, and he didn't interrupt at all.

When the story was over, he sat back in his chair and said, “That's one of the stranger stories I've ever heard. And I've heard some very strange ones. The first thing, little monkey, is to get you something to drink!”

He opened a desk drawer and took out a tin canteen. It looked battered and scratched, as if it had been on safaris all over the world. “I'm sure you can drink water,” he said. “Most animals do.”

He unscrewed the cap for her and Squiggle took a long drink. It felt like the coolest, cleanest, most wonderful breeze passing through her entire body. That is what happens when you are very thirsty and then get something nice to drink.

“But I'm so hungry,” she said. Then she said, “Please?” which shows that she had made a great deal of progress, and that being a monkey had done her some good after all.

“Food, yes, that is a good point,” the red-haired man said, combing his stubby fingers through his beard. “I don't know what to feed you because I'm not certain what species of monkey you are. South American, probably. Folivorous? That means you eat leaves. But what kind of leaves? I have an idea, Squig, that you should come home with me and sniff through my leaf collection.”

“Oh! Mr., Mr., um, what is your name?”

“Jeremiah Sponge, Ph.D.,” he said, spreading his hand out on his chest and grinning.

“Mr. Sponge, can I really go home with you? I…I don't know where else I can go!”

And that is why, even though she had just met Dr. Sponge and didn't know him very well at all, she found herself crouching in his backpack, peering out through the half-opened zipper, while he locked up his office and left.

 

11

Dr. Sponge was full of energy. He slung the pack over one shoulder and hurried down the stairs. Walking seemed to be too slow for him; he had to jog everywhere. When he got to the ground floor he boomed out a hearty goodbye to the janitor and then jogged out the door.

The janitor called back, “Have a good voyage!”

The janitor's comment gave Squiggle a sudden nasty suspicion. Maybe Dr. Sponge was kidnapping (or monkey-napping) her for some horrible journey he was about to go on. Maybe he had only pretended to be friendly, to entice her into his backpack!

Soon they were out of the zoo and passing through busy streets. The sidewalks were so crowded that Dr. Sponge knocked into people every few steps. He didn't seem to care, and he didn't pay any attention when people turned around to yell at him.

Squiggle bounced up and down and banged her knee against a heavy book that was packed in with her. “This is terrible!” she thought. She considered unzipping the bag, leaping out, and running away. But just then they passed a policeman. Squiggle couldn't see very well out of the little bit of zipper that was undone, but she thought it might be the same officer who had tried to capture her at the zoo. She decided it was better to stay in the backpack and see what happened next.

After a while Dr. Sponge began to talk to her. He spoke in a loud voice so that she could hear him over his shoulder. She couldn't speak up enough to carry on a conversation, so she sat quietly and listened. Everyone on the sidewalk must have thought he was crazy, but he didn't bother with that.

He began to tell her about all the places in the world he had been and all the strange and wonderful people he had met. Most of the names and places she had never heard of; but, as you know, she hadn't read very much. She had the impression of jungles and a blaring hot sun and mist rising up from the ground, and strange animals, little squeaky ones hiding in the ferns, and big dangerous ones, poisonous snakes dripping off of the trees, and bright green and red frogs that you must never eat or you will die (“I wonder,” thought Squiggle, “if that is a poisonous frog tattooed on his eyelid. And who would want to eat a frog anyway?”). He told her about a secret village hidden in the jungle, where people lived exactly as they had for the past ten thousand years. Except that in the Council Hut, the big one in the center of the village, they kept a fax machine, three Superman comic books, and an empty Coke bottle.

They crossed a street and jogged through heavy traffic. Dr. Sponge's voice got covered up by the clashing, grinding noises of cars and trucks. When they reached the opposite side, he was still talking. He had moved on to another topic. He was telling her about underwater caves. Pictures formed in Squiggle's mind, of floating beautifully through warm water, in dark, craggy stone caverns. Only a beam of light moved around here and there. Strange sightless fish and giant crabs darted about. Feathery plants hung from the ceiling and swayed in the currents. . . .

Then he told her about the dry, unbelievably hot, dusty savanna. You could see only one tree way in the distance, all crabbed up and bent over. And there were elephants everywhere! Thirty of them. And the elephants came closer and turned into polar bears, with humped shoulders and narrow heads, yawning and growling and flapping their wings until they had roosted in the tops of palm trees. Little monkeys were climbing up the palm trees to get coconuts. And peo
ple dressed up in white cloth were standing around under the trees to pick up the snowballs and throw them at each other in the Great Greenland Snowball Festival.

(The jogging motion and the heat inside the backpack were putting Squiggle to sleep. She was getting confused.)

Just as he was explaining how he got the green squares around his eyes (and Squiggle was too sleepy to remember the story) he stopped talking, swung the pack off his shoulder, and said, “We're here!” Then he chuckled and said, “Keep hidden, Squig. Let's give the old lady a surprise.”

Squiggle peered out and saw a wooden door in a brick building. The building was on a busy street. Dr. Sponge took out a key, opened the door, and leaped inside. “Dearest!” he bellowed. “Hirsuita, Darling!” He hung the backpack up on a hook.

“What is all the ruckus,” a voice said. “You never make so much noise, except when you bring home a surprise.”

Squiggle opened the zipper a little bit more to get a better view, and this is what she saw. Jeremiah, standing and grinning, his beard sticking out about a foot in all directions from his chin. And facing him, a dark-haired woman about the same stocky height
and build as him. She didn't quite have a beard,
but her face was very whiskery. She was wear
ing lip
stick, as if she had just been about to go out, and the bright moist red of her lips looked very odd in the middle of that thicket of whiskers. She was wearing a blue dress and enormous fuzzy slippers. The slippers were in the shape of raccoons and had little glass eyes that goggled up at Squiggle, almost as if they knew she was there.

Dr. Sponge gave the woman a kiss. “But Darling,” he said, “I didn't bring anything home. Can't I be cheerful when I come in the door?”

“Cheerful!” she said, giving him a shove. “Usually you are a bear when you come home. Tell me what you brought. Is it something for the voyage?”

“Oh, I wouldn't know that,” he said, grinning.

Squiggle heard more footsteps and a little boy's voice said, “Daddy, Daddy, what did you bring?”

The boy came into view. He was as old as Squiggle. He was about nine and looked very odd standing between his parents, because they were so large around and he was so skinny. You could tell he was going to grow up tall and thin and handsome. But he was just like his parents in one respect—he had a beard. It wasn't very thick yet, just a scattering of hairs popping out of his chin unevenly, some of them only half an inch long, and one of them dangling all the way down to the top button of his shirt. He was unmistakably a Sponge.

“What makes you think,” Jeremiah said, frowning, “that I brought anything? You people are crazy!”

“What's in your backpack?” the little boy said.

“A map!” Dr. Sponge said, doing a good job of sounding irritated. “Only a map! Go look for yourself!”

The little boy reached up and yanked open the zipper. A bunch of books fell out on the floor, and Squiggle fell out on top of them.

Everyone shouted at once.

“A MONKEY!” the little boy shouted happily.

“Easy there!” cried Dr. Sponge. “Don't hurt her!”

“Oh, Jay, how could you bring home another pet!” Mrs. Sponge said.

“Ack! Help!” Squiggle shouted, but nobody heard her.

The little boy danced around in the hallway in glee with his hands up in the air.

“It is NOT a PET,” Dr. Sponge said, stooping down and helping Squiggle onto his shoulder. “She is a person. She has come to stay with us for a few days. Squiggle, this is my wife, Hirsuita, and my son, Toboggan. You can call him Toby. Everybody, this is Squiggle.”

“Um, how do you do?” said Squiggle.

The room was just quiet enough at that moment that everyone could hear her. The little boy stopped dancing and stared. The woman scratched her whiskers and said, “It's a talking monkey?”

“I used to be a person,” Squiggle said, sounding very sad all of a sudden.