The Wikkeling
Authors: Steven Arntson
WIKKELING
Steven Arntson
Illustrated by
Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini
For my parents,
HELEN & JERRY
© 2011 by Steven Arntson
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and
International Copyright Conventions
Printed in China
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.
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ISBN 978-0-7624-3903-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010935091
E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4249-2
9Â Â 8Â Â 7Â Â 6Â Â 5Â Â 4Â Â 3Â Â 2Â Â 1
Digit on right indicates the numbers of this printing
Cover and interior design by Frances J. Soo Ping Chow
Edited by T. L. Bonaddio
Typography: Blackadder, Blavicke Capitals, Praeton, Requiem, Riva
Published by Running Press Kids an imprint of Running Press Book Publishers
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Spike-Tailed Fish and Flesh-Eating Worms
The Department of Insta-Structure
W
hen a book first sprouts, it feels quite independent, but it is quickly humbled by its needs and indebted for its very existence to those who helped it. Firstly, a thank-you to the members of my writing group for looking at my earliest efforts. My agent, Jenni Ferrari-Adler, went far above and beyond the call of duty in helping me revise and in taking up the cause of the book. My editors Teresa Bonaddio, Marlo Scrimizzi, and Kelli Chipponeri were of tremendous aid in believing in the project and bringing the characters to life through numerous patient rounds of revision. I'd also like to thank Daniela for the beautiful illustrations and Frances Soo Ping Chow for the wonderful cover and book designâthey've placed me in the enviable position of having my name attached to something much more beautiful than I'd ever imagined. More than anyone, however, I'm indebted to my wife Anne Mathews, who has, during the course of our marriage and friendship, been the greatest influence on how I think and what I think about. Without our countless conversations about life and the living of it, and without her example, this book would not have been conceived. She also gave the manuscript its first real copyedit, caused the sentences to become readable, and pointed out several directions in which I had forgotten to look (as all who know me know, and she best of all, my eyes are very poor). Thank you, for reading.
P
oor kitty,
poor kitty!
The Wikkeling chased you
From city to country
And back again, too.
It won't rest. It won't weary.
It will kill you, poor kitty,
And then all those like you,
And all those you knew.
Jump up to my attic
Poor kitty, and pauseâ
Rest here. Recover,
And sharpen your claws.
I'll give you refuge
For I understand
What it is to be hunted,
Unwelcome, unwanted,
Pursued and tormented
And fainting from fear
Every night,
Every night,
Every night of the year.
âAnonymous, from Aristotle Alcott's
Riddles and Rhymes of Olden Times
T
he Old City lies on a long, low hill. It is dangerous and dilapidated. The buildings are crumbling, moss grows in the streets, and garbage festers in the gutters. There are rumors that people live here secretly, breaking into abandoned apartments and living wretched, illegal lives.
Adjoining the Old City is the Addition, which lies on a vast, level plain. The Addition sparkles into the haze, its streets as straight as grocery store aisles, its buildings as shiny as pop cans. The Addition contains countless homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals. Skyscrapers rise in lanky rectangles. Sprawling suburban chessboards meet the broad blocks of industry. The Addition is so large that airports operate to fly people from one part to another.
Between the Old City and the Addition runs a seam, where the decrepit hill meets the youthful plain. Few people know it, but this seam is the kind of place where unexpected things happen. Invisible doors and windows open. Unknown creatures appear. Even now, something strange is afoot.
It's past midnight, but this street, called Boardwalk, is crammed with bumper to bumper traffic. Lilac-scented exhaust fills the air and curls under streetlights
and headlights as employees commute to night-shift jobs or return from day-shift jobs, parents take sick children to hospitals, and everyone weaves from lane to lane hoping to dodge the next snarl. Delivery vans deliver new shoes, cell phones, and ready-to-eat dinners to one side of the street while garbage trucks collect old shoes, broken cell phones, and leftovers from the other side. Eighteen wheelers stacked with shipping containers, petroleum tanks, prefab houses, cars, and even new eighteen wheelers pass through on their long-distance routes. In a city as large as this one, there is no time of day or night when such things aren't happening.
Although the Addition seems alive with activity at first glance, it is strangely motionless. Work to home and home to work. Old shoes to new shoes. Delivery and pickup. Repetition becomes stillness, lulling everyone, and this is why no one notices when, in the middle of the street, a shadow the size of a small animal darts from beneath a garbage truck and under a car in the next lane. It dashes across another lane, and then another, camouflaged by a black belch from a tailpipe.
This stretch of Boardwalk is lined with identical, brand-new multi-level houses, constructed of vinyl and glue, sitting behind green plastic lawns. The houses have flat roofs and few windows. They are airtight and soundproof. Someone looking to sneak in would have a tough time. The shadow darts past, slowing at each home and then moving on.
But there is one exception on this block. There's one home made of wood and nails instead of plastic and glue. It's only a single level, and its steeply angled roof rises to a shingled peak, an indication that it was built long ago. Now it's the only one of its kind left here.
The shadow creeps around back, out of the direct glare of the streetlights to a small strip of artificial turf that separates one piece of property from another. It limps, as if injured, but manages a swift, terrific leap to the roof of the old house. It disappears inside through a hole under the eaves.
This old house has a family sleeping within, lying under warm covers, and they are not awakened, soothed as they are by the comforting grind of the endless traffic jam, as monotonous as sheep gliding at intervals over an easy fence. They have no idea that they have a houseguest.
