Squiggle Read online

  Mrs. Sponge was an accountant for a brick-making company. She knew all about numbers and didn’t like anything messy or disorganized. Maybe that was why she clipped and combed her whiskers so carefully every morning. She was a very kind person though, as you could tell by the expression in her eyes. One day she took Squiggle in a canvas handbag to the Squagg’s house.

  “I’m sure,” Mrs. Sponge said, “if I explain to them exactly what happened, they’ll understand.”

  Squiggle crouched in the bottom of the bag. Would her parents ever believe that their daughter had been turned into a monkey? And even if they did believe it, would they want her back? Maybe they would scream and throw things at her again? Her little synthetic monkey stomach began to twist and turn in anxiety.

  When they got to the Squagg’s house, they found a sign posted in the front yard that said “For Sale.” Nobody was home. The house was locked up and dark. Mrs. Sponge banged on the door for a long time, but nobody opened it.

  Although Squiggle had been dreading meeting her parents again, she found it even more awful to find them gone. It made her feel lonely and abandoned.

  “Don’t worry, Dear,” Mrs. Sponge said on the way back home, “you’re one of us now. We’ll be your family.”

  Later that day, Mrs. Sponge picked up the telephone and called around, trying to find out where the Squaggs had gone. But she could not find out anything. Finally she gave up and said, “The poor girl will have to stay with us.”

  Dr. Sponge shouted, “That’s what I said all along. And a good thing you couldn’t track down those horrible parents of hers.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Sponge admitted, “it is nice to have a sweet little girl monkey in the family.”

  Squiggle overheard this conversation from another room, and it made her feel very strange. “I guess I’m Squiggle Sponge for the rest of my life,” she thought. It seemed like a good thing. Her life was better than it had ever been. But deep down, she knew that something was wrong. She didn’t really believe that her parents were such terrible people; maybe she had been a terrible daughter? What she really wanted was another chance to be a girl again. A real, nine-year-old girl. She looked down at her hands, but all she saw were two little monkey paws.

  15

  Because it was summer vacation, Toby was home all day and so he had lots of time to spend with Squiggle. First they tried to teach the octopus to read and write. The octopus didn’t have a name; he was simply ‘the octopus.’

  “He won’t come when you call,” Toby said, “so it doesn’t matter. Maybe he has a name in octopus language, but I don’t know what it is.”

  They decided to teach him with an alphabet primer, and found one that began like this: “A is for Abalone. B is for Bluefish. C is for Clam.” And so on. All of these animals are sea animals. It was a primer for the children of sea captains, so they thought it would be a good primer for an octopus. But the octopus took one look at the appetizing pictures, and ate the book. After that, they gave up trying to teach him.

  Sometimes they went outside and explored the neighborhood. They always did this in the same way: Squiggle would hide in a paper bag with holes cut in it. Toby would put the bag in the wire basket on the front of his bicycle. Then he would ride around the neighborhood, ringing his bell now and then for style. Squiggle loved the feeling of movement and the sight of the crowded street zooming past. It was all new to her.

  (Lobelia had owned a bicycle, of course. Her parents had bought her one. But she had never learned how to ride it.)

  Sometimes they rode to the park, and if nobody was around to see, Toby would open the paper bag and Squiggle would jump out. He and Squiggle liked to climb the huge oaks and maples together. Squiggle was rather better at climbing. She would get into the very top branches and catch butterflies. Then she would put them gently inside her mouth to hold them, and climb back down to show Toby. (I don’t recommend this method of holding a butterfly. It worked for Squiggle because she was a synthetic monkey and didn’t have any saliva, so the butterflies’ wings didn’t dissolve in her mouth.) After looking closely at each new butterfly and trying to understand the pattern on its wings, they would always let the little insect fly away unharmed.

  One day they were on Toby’s bicycle, weaving around the pedestrians on the sidewalk, enjoying the afternoon sun, when suddenly Toby stopped. His breaks squealed and the paper bag almost flew out of the basket.

  “Sorry!” Toby said. “Wait till you see this, Squig!” He leaped off the bicycle, ran to a nearby brick wall and ripped something off of it. He stuffed the torn paper into his jeans pocket and then rode away again. Squiggle couldn’t talk to him very well from inside her bag so she had to wait to find out what he had discovered.

  Pretty soon he rode between two close buildings, took a hard turn to the right, and stopped. Squiggle jumped out of the bag. They were in one of their special hiding places, a cement alley behind a department store. The cement was cracked and bushes and little trees had grown out of the cracks, forming a snug and secret den. They sat under the bushes and Toby pulled the torn piece of paper out of his pocket.

  “This is too good!” he said. “Squig, you have all the luck. You’re famous now, too!”

  He spread the paper out on the ground. It was a poster that had been taped up at the corners. It read, “Wanted! Escaped Gorilla, considered extremely dangerous.” Then, in smaller print at the bottom, it said, “Has committed nine robberies and three murders in the past week. DO NOT TRY TO APPREHEND THIS PERSON. CALL 911.”

  In the middle of the poster was a black and white picture of King Kong climbing up the Empire State Building.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Toby said, laughing and hugging himself in delight. “It’s just too good! And here you are with me, and nobody knows it!”

  Squiggle didn’t think it was wonderful. She was shocked to find out that she had been blamed for so many horrible crimes. It frightened her. “But Toby, I think I saw that nasty police officer prowling around yesterday, while we were out riding near the harbor. I can’t go anywhere without getting arrested!”

  “You don’t need to go anywhere,” he said. “You’ll stay with me forever, and nobody will ever find out.”

  “But I can’t do that,” she said. “Toby, I can’t stay.”

  Right away, Toby looked surprised and hurt. “What do you mean?” he said. “You can’t leave us now!”

  Squiggle said, “Oh, Toby, I want to stay, but I can’t. Don’t you see? I . . . I . . . oh bother. I didn’t mean to tell you this at all. It’s a secret, Toby. I . . . I have to go to Paris!”

  “You have to go where?” Toby said, beginning to get interested.

  “I told you how I got to be a monkey. Mr. LeFuzz, who turned me into a monkey, lives on the top of the Eiffel Tower. That’s why I have to go to Paris. I want to find him and see if he can turn me back into a girl.”

  Toby stared at her in astonishment. “You want to be a kid again? I wish I was a monkey; I’d trade places with you, any day! But, well, if you want to be a kid again, then of course you have to try.”

  For a little while the two were quiet, thinking. Then Toby said, “But will it work? I mean, do you think Mr. What’s-his-name can turn you back into a girl?”

  “I’m not sure,” Squiggle said. “But what else can I try?”

  Then after another pause Toby said, “Won’t you fall off? If you get turned into a person all of a sudden, and you’re hanging on top of the Eiffel Tower? People are a lot heavier than monkeys.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Squiggle admitted. “I’ll have to be careful.”

  “How are you going to get there?”

  “That’s the hard part. I guess I can ask your dad if—”

  “Don’t ask him! Don’t you know? You can’t tell my parents. My dad wants you for his voyage, and my mom wants to keep you as a monkey daughter
. She thinks she has to protect you, you know, and she’ll never let you go away to Paris, any more than she’d let me ride my bicycle on the roof. If they found out about this plan of yours, they’d watch you double close and you’d have no chance at all.”

  “But this is terrible!” Squiggle said. “I mean, your parents are wonderfully nice to me, but I have to get away. Toby, I really have to. What do I do?”

  Toby scratched his nose thoughtfully. “I have an idea,” he said.

  He and Squiggle stayed under the bushes for an hour, whispering and conspiring and concocting a plan. Every now and then Toby would start laughing and say, “He’s just exactly the person! He’s a terrible villain, but he’s just right for the part!”

  16

  Toby and Squiggle went home and said nothing about their plan to Mr. and Mrs. Sponge. At dinner Mr. Sponge talked constantly about his upcoming voyage. He talked with his mouth full, he was so excited. “When you come with me,” he said to Squiggle, grinning as if he were telling her about a wonderful treat, “I’ll put you in charge of finding the Tabatoo Watoo. They live up in trees, you know. They look fierce, but they’re generally not dangerous. Not if you wear a hockey mask and fire-resistant oven mitts. Think of the fun it’ll be!”

  “Jay,” said Mrs. Sponge sharply, “don’t press her. She hasn’t decided to go with you. Besides, she wants to stay right here with Toby and me and help out with the accounting. Just think, she can hold pencils in her hands and her tail, and work a calculator with her feet. Isn’t that right, Dear?”

  Squiggle smiled at her, but was careful not to agree to anything.

  After dinner Squiggle and Toby announced that they were going to teach the octopus how to add and subtract. They went to Toby’s bedroom and closed the door. They claimed that this was to prevent the octopus from getting distracted; but it was really so that they could work on their secret plan without being interrupted.

  First, Squiggle wrote a thank-you note to Mr. and Mrs. Sponge. It said, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sponge, I am sorry that I had to run away. I liked staying with you a lot and wish I could stay forever. But I am going to become a girl again. I mean, I am going to try. I will send you a postcard if I can. Love, Squiggle Squagg.”

  The note said nothing about how Toby was helping her, so that he wouldn’t get into any trouble. They put the note on the windowsill and opened the window, to make it look like she had climbed out and escaped on her own.

  Toby reached under his bed and took out a black briefcase. It was new and had a brass lock that could only be opened with the right combination. His Aunt Daffy had given it to him for his ninth birthday, to carry his eyeball collection in. He had never used it, because the collection was much too big.

  “But it’s the perfect size for transporting a monkey,” he said. He took out a pocketknife and began to bore a small hole through the side. This took a long time because the plastic was extremely hard.

  When the air hole was done, Squiggle got inside the briefcase and practiced getting back out again by undoing the latch from the inside. She had to try this several times, because it was hard to find the right part of the latch in the dark. Finally she got good at it, and was certain that she could get out in any emergency.

  They took some of the towels from the cat bed and arranged them in the briefcase, and also put in a handful of plastic palm leaves. Squiggle climbed in and tried to make herself comfortable. Before Toby closed it on her for the last time, he said, “Squig, this is it. I might never see you again.”

  Squiggle leaped out, wrapped her furry arms around his neck, and gave him as tight a hug as a monkey could. Then she gave him a furry kiss, and jumped back down in the briefcase. She didn’t realize it just then, but it was the first time she had ever hugged or kissed anybody in her life. The lid closed, and she was in darkness.

  Toby put his mouth up to the hole and whispered, “Don’t worry, Squig. You’ll see, he’s a horrible villain. He’s so greedy, he’ll do anything for us.”

  He reached under the bed again, took out a spool of string, and tied one end around the handle of the briefcase. Then he lowered the case out the window. It was a second-floor window and faced a narrow alley between two buildings. When the suitcase had stopped gently against the ground, he dropped the rest of the string after it.

  He turned out the light in the bedroom and sauntered out, closing the door behind him. His parents were in the family room. His mother was reading the newspaper, carefully correcting the typos with a pencil because she could not stand to see errors anywhere. His father was intently reading a book called, The Complete Restaurant Guide to the South Pacific Island of Buttok Buttok.

  “Squiggle’s asleep,” Toby said.

  “Poor girl,” his mother said.

  “Good for her,” his father said. “Sensible monkey! She better rest up, before the voyage.”

  “I’m going outside to play,” Toby said. “I’ll be back before bedtime.”

  As soon as he was out the door, he slipped around to the side of the building and picked up the briefcase. He didn’t need the string anymore, but he wrapped it up and stuck it in his pocket in case it should come in handy again some day. The sidewalk was still crowded, even though it was after dinnertime and dark already. He walked quickly for about five blocks, then turned and went through a maze of side streets. Finally he stopped at a metal door in the back wall of a building. It looked like a janitor’s door, or an emergency exit. There was no sign over it but painted in the center of the door itself, in bright red paint, was an eye with long eyelashes. Toby opened the door (it was unlocked) and hurried inside.

  17

  Squiggle could see almost nothing. At first she put her eye to the hole in the briefcase, but it made her dizzy to look at the scenery bouncing and swinging past and she had to look away. The hole let in sound, however, and so she could hear quite well. She heard a metal door squeaking open and banging closed again. Then she heard a high snuffly voice, like an old man with a turnip stuffed up his nose.

  “Terrance!” said the voice. “What a surprise! What an honor! What a wonderful. . . . You’ve brought me something, I see? Have you?”

  “How are you Mr. Sclera?” Toby said, in a raised tone of voice that you use when talking to someone who is going deaf. He lifted the case and set it on a hard surface. Squiggle thought it must be on a counter. She peered out of the hole. At first she couldn’t tell what she was looking at; this is because what she saw was so strange that she didn’t quite believe it at first. But the more she looked, the more she seemed to see a fish tank full of swimming eyeballs. Each eyeball had a tail sticking out the back end of it, like a long tapered whip. The eyeballs swam slowly about the tank by wiggling their tails. A sign taped to the side of the tank said, “$15 each!!” She guessed that she was in a very unusual kind of a store.

  “What’s in the case Tony? What’s there, what do you have?” Mr. Sclera said. Squiggle could hear somebody’s hands running eagerly over the outside of the case.

  “Nothing much, Mr. Sclera,” Toby said. “Only a few supplies.”

  “Tools of the trade, is that it?” the snuffly voice said.

  “You might say that,” Toby said. “My dad packed it. It’s got a vacuum-sealed bottle, and the finest dental instruments, and sterile cotton, and a special book of instructions.”

  “Is that all, Tommy?” the voice said. “What are you bringing it here for? When you came in the door, I said to myself, he’s got a trade. He’s found a hazel, or a green speckled. And he’s come to trade it. But it isn’t that? You don’t have a nice new eyeball for me? Just a few silly instruments?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Sclera, not this time. But I need a favor.”

  “A favor?” the voice said, suspiciously. “What do I get out of it? What sort of a favor?”

  “I need to get this case to a business partner of my dad’s who lives in Paris. It’
s terribly important.”

  “Business partner?” the voice said, sounding more and more suspicious. “Who’s the partner? What kind of business? What kind of favor is this? And what do I get out of it?”

  “I’ll tell you that, Mr. Sclera. This man who lives in Paris—I can’t tell you his name, because I don’t know it, and he keeps it secret—he, well, how can I say this? He thinks he’s found a. . . .” Here Toby’s voice sank very low, and he whispered, “He’s found an eye with a pentagonal pupil.”

  There was a silence, and then the snuffly voice screamed in a high, quavery way that alarmed Squiggle very much. The voice began to cough, as if the scream had irritated its throat. Finally it got over its coughing fit and said, “A WHAT? Timmy, is that what you said? A . . . a . . . no, you’re making it up.”

  Toby insisted it was true.

  “But do you know what that means?” the snuffly voice said. “Trevor, the last pentagonal eyeball was lost in 1754 at Versailles. And you say this man, this, ah, business partner, has found another one? A fresh one? Is it . . . is it actually still in, if you know what I mean? Still in somebody’s head?”

  “I’m afraid it is,” said Toby.

  “And this business partner . . . very smart of him to keep his name secret. . . . I hope he isn’t too shy to . . . that is . . . to remove it? From the, ah, person who currently owns it?”

  “I hear he’s offered a huge amount of money,” Toby said, “and the person who owns the eye is willing to sell it. But only if it’s done with the best instruments. That’s what the case is for.”

  “I see, I see, I see,” said the voice, chuckling now. “Good boy, you’ve come to me, your old friend Sclera, to help you out, because you know how much I like you. Is there any chance I’d get to see this pentagonal? Or bid on it? Or . . . or . . . this is a dream come true, Tyler.”