by Ellen Potter
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-2859-4
eISBN 978-1-68335-243-3
Text copyright © 2018 Ellen Potter
Illustrations copyright © 2018 Felicita Sala
Book design by Siobhán Gallagher
Published in 2018 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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For Addison, Natalie, Ethan, and Violet Waterman, who are always ready for an adventure in the Big Wide World.
1
Hugo
Deep in the cold North Woods, there lived a young Sasquatch named Hugo. He was bigger than you but smaller than me, and he was hairier than both of us. He lived in apartment 1G in the very back of Widdershins Cavern with his mother and father and his older sister, Winnie.
Even though the apartment was very small, there was a nice little stream that ran right into Hugo’s bedroom. It entered through a hole in the bottom of the stone wall, traveled across the room, and then escaped out another hole in the wall by Hugo’s toy chest.
Hugo had carved a little wooden boat that was small enough to sail in the stream. He pretended that he was the captain of the boat and he was sailing to Bora Bora or Atlantic City or some other mysterious place that his grandfather had told him about. He’d make storms by swirling his hand in the stream, and the toy boat would wobble wildly but wouldn’t topple.
Sometimes little fish swam into his bedroom. They were on their way to Ripple Worm River, which ran through the North Woods. Hugo pretended the fish were sharks and that they were attacking his boat. He made the noise of a shark splooshing out of the ocean and clacking its teeth. (Sasquatches are excellent at making pretend noises. For instance, if you are in the woods and hear a howl, you may, in fact, be hearing a Sasquatch pretending to be a coyote.)
The fish played with Hugo for a while, but in the end they always swam out through the hole in the wall and into the Big Wide World, where Hugo was never allowed to go.
2
Hair Balls
Each morning, Hugo and his sister, Winnie, walked to school. Because their apartment was at the east end of the cavern, and their school was at the west end, Hugo and Winnie had to walk quite a long way. The cavern floor was icy cold against their bare feet, and their breath made cloudy puffs as they walked along.
“Do you think sharks would eat a Sasquatch?” Hugo asked Winnie.
“Don’t be a pinhead, Hugo,” said Winnie. She was always grumpy in the morning. “There aren’t any sharks in a cavern.”
“But I might become a sailor. And if I ran into a shark, I’d like to know if it would eat me.”
“Sasquatches don’t become sailors,” Winnie told him.
“Maybe sometimes they do,” Hugo said.
“No, never,” said Winnie firmly.
Winnie then stopped in front of apartment 1B. She gave a quick rap on the door. The door opened, and her friend Hazel came out.
Winnie and Hazel rubbed their elbows together and bumped their hips together and then said, “Hakkah-makka-momo.”
That’s because they were in a secret club, except it wasn’t very secret since everyone at school knew about it. Anyway, the only thing they ever did in the club was make their own lip gloss.
Right behind Hazel came Hazel’s younger sister, Gigi. She was a small Sasquatch, as Sasquatches go. She had three thin braids down the right side of her head and very good posture.
As they walked along, Hugo asked, “Gigi, do you think a Sasquatch could become a sailor?”
Gigi thought for a minute. She was a slow but excellent thinker.
“It’s possible,” she said.
Hugo’s spirits lifted.
“But,” Gigi added, “the Sasquatch would have to be VERY careful not to be seen by Humans.”
“Of course.” Hugo nodded seriously. A Sasquatch could never be seen by Humans. That was the Most Important Rule.
“He’d need a boat, too,” said Gigi.
That was no problem, thought Hugo. Sasquatches were good builders. They could build just about anything from logs.
“And he would have to bring along five barrels of blackberries and twenty jars of acorn butter for the trip,” Gigi added.
“Right!” said Hugo. He’d bring thirty jars of acorn butter, since that was his favorite thing to eat.
“And do you think a shark would eat a Sasquatch?” Hugo asked.
Gigi snorted. “Of course not! Eating a Sasquatch would give a shark hair balls.”
“Phew, that’s a relief,” said Hugo.
Gigi thought some more.
“There’s something else a Sasquatch would need,” she said. “A Navigator.”
“A Navigator.” Hugo nodded thoughtfully. After a moment he asked, “Is that anything like an alligator?”
“No, Hugo. A Navigator is someone who knows all about the Big Wide World. A Navigator tells you which way to go.”
“Oh.” That might be a problem, thought Hugo. Sasquatches don’t know about the Big Wide World. They only know about caves and trees and acorn butter and berries and the deep, cold woods.
3
The Academy for Curious Squidges
Even though Hugo’s school was in a cave, it was a cozy, cheerful-looking place. Painted in loopy yellow letters above the door were the words THE ACADEMY FOR CURIOUS SQUIDGES. (A “squidge,” in case you don’t know, is what you call a young Sasquatch.) There were three classrooms in the Academy. Classroom One was for the youngest squidges. Classroom Two was for squidges who were old enough to know better. Classroom Three was for squidges who thought they knew better than everyone else but really didn’t.
Hugo was in Classroom One. Behind the teacher’s desk, colorful letters of the alphabet hung across the wall on a long string. In a corner of the classroom, by a reading loft that looked like a tree house, there were posters of plants and flowers and berries. The posters either said YUM! or BLECH! This was to help squidges figure out what was safe to eat in the woods.
Hugo and Gigi went to their cubbies to put away their backpacks. Their classmate Izzy was there, too.
“Hi, Izzy,” Hugo said.
“Hi, Yooho,” Izzy replied. “I got a new packa monsta cobs.” Izzy wore headgear for his overbite, so it was sometimes hard to understand him.
“What did he say?” Gigi whispered to Hugo.
“He says he got a new pack of Monster Cards,” Hugo translated.
Izzy reached into his backpack and pulled out a small blue-and-yellow rectangular package. On it were the words MAD MARVIN’S MONSTER CARDS. COLLECT THEM ALL!
“Any good ones?” Hugo asked.
Izzy handed the package to Hugo. The
re were three cards in the package plus a flat piece of boysenberry gum. One of the Monster Cards had a picture of a Fish-Tailed Goat, which looks exactly the way you think it would. Another card was of a Lumpen Murch, which is a bumpy black creature that lives in volcanoes and drinks hot lava. The last one was a Snoot-Nosed Gint, a giant lizard with a spike on its head. The picture on the card showed the Snoot-Nosed Gint perched on a tree limb, its mouth wide open to show its sharp teeth.
“Hey,” said Hugo, “I’ll trade you some Stink Sap for the Snoot-Nosed Gint.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a yellowy-green ball. This was Stink Sap. If you rolled it around in your hand, it got warm and squishy and smelled very bad. That was all it did, really, but each Stink Sap smelled different, so that was interesting.
Izzy took the Stink Sap and rolled it around in his hand. Then he gave it a sniff.
“Ewww!” he said. He thought for a moment. “Okay.” He put the Stink Sap in his backpack and handed the Snoot-Nosed Gint card to Hugo.
Hugo read the back of the card: “The Snoot-Nosed Gint spends most of its time in trees. Although its long, sharp teeth look fearsome, its most deadly weapon is the spike on its head, which is poisonous.”
Hugo turned the card over to look at the picture again. “I’m glad Snoot-Nosed Gints aren’t real.”
“Actually,” Gigi said, “someone once claimed to see a Snoot-Nosed Gint right outside their cave.”
Hugo shuddered. Sometimes he wished Gigi didn’t know absolutely everything.
All the squidges rushed to their seats when their teacher, Mrs. Nukluk, walked into the classroom. She was wearing her long white cloak made of goose feathers. She wore that cloak every day, even in the summer. She said it was because she grew up in a cave way down south where it was all sunshiny, and she had never gotten used to the cold North Woods.
“Good morning, class! One, two, three, eyes on me,” said Mrs. Nukluk. “We have lots to do today, so everyone take out your homework.”
Everyone took out their homework and put it on their desks. Everyone except Malcolm. As usual, Malcolm had some of his breakfast stuck to his chest fur. Today, it was granola.
“Where’s your homework, Malcolm?” asked Mrs. Nukluk.
“It’s still in my pencil,” he answered.
Mrs. Nukluk sighed.
The class worked on math first, then spelling, and after spelling came everyone’s favorite subject—Hide and Go Sneak. All the students lined up by the door, hopping with excitement. They followed Mrs. Nukluk down a long, narrow passage under spiky stalactites, which looked just like icicles dripping from the cave’s ceiling.
They turned this way and that through a maze of tunnels. It was easy for a squidge to get lost, because there were many different tunnels that led nowhere at all, and some that led straight back to where you had just come from. But Mrs. Nukluk knew the way perfectly, and finally they came to the cavern entrance. The entrance was shaped like a keyhole, so they all had to turn sideways to get through it. Malcolm and Pip got stuck because they were both trying to get through at the same time, but Mrs. Nukluk sorted them out.
Now they were all outside, in the North Woods.
4
Hide and Go Sneak
Being in the woods was serious business. Everyone had to be very, very quiet in case there were Humans around. First Mrs. Nukluk sniffed the air. Then she took a few sneaky steps to have a look around. Her footsteps made no noise at all. She made a small “Hoot-hoot!” which meant, “The coast is clear!”
It was so exciting to be outside, under the big sky! Hugo loved feeling the cold, fresh air on his face. It was the same air that had traveled over mountains and oceans, from all the faraway places his grandfather had told him about. Just the thought of that gave Hugo a thrill.
The first thing all the squidges did was to jump into the chilly mud pool beside the cave. They smeared themselves with the cold, thick mud from head to toe. After that they rolled around on the forest floor, letting leaves and twigs stick onto their muddy bodies. Soon their long reddish fur was the same brown-gray of a rock or a tree trunk, with bits of leaves and twigs clinging to it.
Mrs. Nukluk inspected all her students.
“Well done,” she proclaimed. “Now, let’s see you Sneak. Just over to the five hemlock trees, around the burdocks, and back. One at a time, please.”
One by one, the squidges took their turn at a Sneak. First was Gigi. You couldn’t hear her steps at all. But she was always best at everything in school.
Next was Malcolm.
“Your feet are thumping again, Malcolm,” warned Mrs. Nukluk.
“Sorry, Mrs. Nukluk!!” he called back.
“Now you’re shouting, Malcolm,” Mrs. Nukluk said sternly. Then to herself she murmured, “Give me strength.” She said that a lot when she spoke to Malcolm.
After Malcolm came Izzy. His headgear got caught in a tree branch, which snapped back noisily. But that wasn’t really his fault.
Then it was Hugo’s turn to Sneak. He put his left heel down first and then rolled on the edge of his foot till he got to his toes. Then he put down his right heel. Not a single twig snapped. Not a single bush rustled.
When he got to the first hemlock tree, he glanced at Mrs. Nukluk. He was certain that she would be smiling because he’d done such a good job.
But she wasn’t smiling.
She wasn’t even looking at him. She was sniffing the air. Suddenly she made a sound that went, “Knoooodle-knoooodle koooo!” It sounded like a bird. But Hugo knew what it really was.
It was a code for “Emergency! Human is coming!”
5
The Human
Hugo dropped to the ground. He didn’t move a muscle. That was what Mrs. Nukluk had taught all her students to do in an emergency like this one.
All the other squidges had dropped to the ground, too. They kept perfectly still, as only a Sasquatch can. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought the squidges were mounds of muck and leaves.
Hugo listened hard for the sound of a Human approaching. At first, all he could hear was the gurgle and splish of Ripple Worm River, which was at the end of a meadow, just past the five hemlock trees.
Suddenly, though, he heard footsteps. They were not noisy footsteps, but they weren’t quiet either. Closer and closer they came. Hugo knew he was supposed to squeeze his eyes shut, but he also did not want to miss his first glimpse of a real Human. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his stomach felt queasy with excitement and fear. Suddenly, there was a rustle to the left of him. From behind the closest hemlock tree it appeared . . . a real, live Human!
The Human walked slowly, looking around as if it expected to see something interesting. Hugo was surprised at how small it was. Not much bigger than a Sasquatch toddler. And though Hugo expected to be terrified at the sight of the Human, he found he wasn’t scared at all.
Hugo watched as the Human bent down and plucked up a dandelion puff. The Human closed its eyes for a moment, puckered up its lips, and blew. The dandelion puff broke apart and floated off in the wind.
It was such a strange thing to do, and the Human looked so funny—with no hair on its body, except for a messy tuft on top of its head—that Hugo laughed.
The Human looked right at him.
Hugo’s eyes went wide. So did the Human’s. For a moment they were both frozen, staring at each other.
The very next moment rocks began to fly at the Human. Hugo knew it was Mrs. Nukluk throwing the rocks, but she was so well hidden that it looked like the rocks were flying out of thin air. The rocks came close to the Human without actually hitting it, but that was enough to scare it. The Human turned and ran without looking back.
6
Dead Porcupines
Once they were all safely back in the cavern, Mrs. Nukluk turned to Hugo. She was furious.
“In all my years of teaching,” said Mrs. Nukluk, “not one of my students has ever been spotted by a Human . . . until today. A
nd certainly none of them has laughed at the sight of one!” She was so mad that even the feathers on her long cloak were all puffed up, just like those of an angry goose. “What were you thinking, Hugo?”
“I was thinking . . .” said Hugo in a smallish voice, “I was thinking that the Human was funny looking.”
“There is nothing funny about Humans!” Mrs. Nukluk snapped. “You might have been captured. Or worse. I’ll be sending a note home to your parents, Hugo, you can be sure of that!” Mrs. Nukluk took a deep breath and smoothed down the feathers on her cloak. “Now, everyone . . . go wash that mud off.”
The class headed over to the underground pool just beside the classroom. All the squidges were splashing and playing in the cold spring water. They were all having fun, except for Hugo. He was crushed. He’d never had a note sent home to his parents before.
“What did the Human look like up close?” Pip asked Hugo excitedly, as she rubbed mud from the hair on her arms. “Did it have glowing red eyes?”
“That’s just a myth,” Gigi said.
“Its eyes were brown,” said Hugo, “like ours.”
“And did it smell like dead porcupines?” asked Malcolm. “I heard Humans stink.”
Hugo shook his head. “No, it smelled . . .” Hugo tried to remember the Human’s smell but couldn’t. Hugo dunked his head underwater and scrubbed the mud out of his ears. When he popped his head back up, he remembered something.
“Gigi,” he said, “I saw the Human do something strange. It plucked a dandelion puff, closed its eyes, and blew on it so that all the little seeds blew away. Why would it do that?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” said Gigi. “It was making a wish. I read about that once in a book. Humans blow on the dandelion so that the wish blows off into the Big Wide World and can come true.”