“Oh, I—I’m terribly sorry,” Max stammered as Mr. Grimsrud leapt to his feet, grabbing at his chest with a high-pitched cry. “I didn’t think anyone would be out here on a Wednesday. Except the wednesdays, you know …” He trailed off lamely.
Mr. Grimsrud, who looked a bit bug-eyed from the shock of being startled, huffed and puffed and dabbed at his brow for a moment before finally answering. “It’s all right, young blue man. It’s just that I’m not accustomed to anyone being out and about, either.” He chuckled strangely and then rapped twice on the side of his head with his knuckles before settling back onto the bench.
Max had asked his mother once why Mr. Grimsrud always knocked on his head like that, but she had only shushed him and told him that the old man had had a sad life and that he shouldn’t stare. That wasn’t an answer at all, of course, but Max hadn’t asked again.
“I’m hunting wednesdays!” Max announced. It struck him at that moment that perhaps he should find a stick or a rock or something to defend himself, just in case. He eyed Mr. Grimsrud’s walking stick and wondered if he dared ask to borrow it for the hunt.
“Hunting wednesdays?” Mr. Grimsrud picked his nose pensively. “Whatever for? They’ve never much bothered me, you know. I don’t really understand what the fuss is all about here every week. I can’t even buy a tin of sardines at the corner store on Wednesdays or have a slice of pie at the cafe. The whole blasted village disappears, and I can’t get a newspaper so I can do my morning crossword.”
As the old man continued to fret about the weekly bothers, Max heard a rustle in the nearby shrubs. “It’s a wednesday!” he cried, snatching Mr. Grimsrud’s walking stick. He ran toward the sound and started whacking at the bushes.
“I say, young blue man, stop that! Stop that right now! You’ll hurt him!” Mr. Grimsrud cried out.
Just in time to avoid hitting it with the stick, Max realized that the creature in the shrub wasn’t a wednesday after all—it was the tiniest, ugliest dog he had ever seen. The miserable-looking animal had patchy fur, lopsided ears, a ratlike tail, and an exceptionally long tongue. The tongue dangled out the side of the poor dog’s mouth and seemed to wag right along with the creature’s skinny tail.
The dog sprang from the bushes and hopped onto the park bench beside Mr. Grimsrud, who patted it gently and fed it a small treat out of his pocket.
“This fine canine is Thursday,” Mr. Grimsrud said, gesturing fondly toward the ugly mutt.
“Why Thursday?” Max asked.
“Because he always goes after wednesdays, of course,” said Mr. Grimsrud, as if it should have been obvious to Max.
“He hunts wednesdays?” asked Max excitedly. “Has he ever caught one?”
“Oh, piffle.” Mr. Grimsrud scratched behind Thursday’s raggedy ear, making the dog’s tongue stick out even farther. “He doesn’t really hunt them—he just chases after them. I get the impression that he doesn’t much like the way they smell.”
Max had to think for a moment about whether this was useful to him or not. He decided that he’d prefer to continue the hunt on his own rather than spend any more time with the homely dog, who appeared to have a mean-looking rash on one flank. “What do they look like?” he asked.
“Who?” Mr. Grimsrud was tap-tapping on the side of his head with one hand and scratch-scratching the dog with the other.
“The wednesdays!” Max said impatiently; he was quickly becoming exasperated with the strange pair.
Mr. Grimsrud shrugged. “I’ve never seen one. Like I said, they don’t come around near me. In fact, I sometimes suspect this entire village has gone half mad, and the people are all imagining things. Either that or they’re all just a lazy bunch of no-goodniks using this wednesday nonsense as an excuse to spend the day lolling about in their knickers. I tell you, back in my day we didn’t abide such foolishness.” The old man’s voice rose, and he seemed to be growing more and more agitated until he tapped lightly on his head and then began again in a calmer tone. “The only reason I think perhaps there may be something out there is because of how excited Thursday gets on Wednesdays.”
Just as he said that, Thursday’s sparse fur stood on end, and the tiny dog bolted into the trees, barking furiously as he ran.
“See what I mean?” Mr. Grimsrud knocked on the side of his head for emphasis.
Max started after the dog, but then paused as his curiosity got the better of him. Knowing that his mother would be horrified, he turned back to the old man and asked in as polite a voice as he could possibly muster, “Why do you do that? Why do you knock on your head?”
Fortunately, Mr. Grimsrud didn’t seem to mind the question a bit. “Metal plate,” he answered cheerfully. “A souvenir from the war. It makes a lovely dinging sound when I tap it. Can’t you hear? It sounds like the most beautiful wind chime you’ve ever heard. Very soothing.”
Max shook his head as he darted away in the direction the dog had run. It seemed like a strange answer to him, particularly since he certainly hadn’t heard any sort of sound, dinging or otherwise. He couldn’t worry about it now, though—he had his first clue about where he might find the wednesdays.
He watched as Thursday darted behind a clump of trees in the distance, nearly howling in excitement. Max ran off to follow the dog, hopeful that the chase might just lead him directly to the wednesdays.
ax crashed loudly through the tall shrubs surrounding the park, swatting his way through the prickly branches. He hoped that he wouldn’t frighten the wednesdays away with all the noise, but his cowboy boots, which were becoming more and more uncomfortable by the minute, made it altogether impossible to be stealthy.
Max found Thursday sitting in the center of the village gazebo. The large structure was normally used for public concerts and speeches, but on a Wednesday, of course, it was deserted. Thursday howled once, then lifted his leg and peed casually on the gazebo’s top step.
“Stop that!” Max said sternly to the dog. “Show some manners. Now shoo. I’m busy here. Get going!”
The dog trotted off reluctantly, and Max decided to have a look around. He climbed the gazebo stairs, carefully stepping over the wet spot left behind by the dog. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Although he couldn’t explain it, he felt quite certain that the wednesdays were nearby. He crouched quietly in the gazebo for a moment, but he didn’t hear anything at all—even the birds seemed to have stopped singing.
Max realized he still had Mr. Grimsrud’s walking stick in his hand. He hadn’t intended to run off with it, but now he tightened his grip on it gratefully. He didn’t think the wednesdays were dangerous, at least not in a bite-your-finger-off sort of way, but he really didn’t know enough about them to be sure. He did know, however, that whatever they were, they were frightening enough to make all of the grown-ups in the village lock their doors and stay inside each and every Wednesday. Even big Bill Kraussen, their next-door neighbor, who had been a professional wrestler for years, refused to set foot out of his house on a Wednesday. The wednesdays must be at least somewhat dangerous, reasoned Max, if a man like big Bill was afraid of them.
Still, he couldn’t help himself. He just wanted to see one.
He began to wish that he was wearing his comfortable sneakers instead of the cowboy boots, since he didn’t know how fast he’d be able to run in the boots. Not that he planned to run away, but still—always best to be prepared.
He attempted to tiptoe silently down the stairs, but the boots were too stiff. He winced with every CLOMP on each wooden step. With the amount of noise he was making, he was practically inviting the wednesdays to come do whatever it was that they did to him.
Safely back on quieter soil, Max crept around the perimeter of the gazebo. The eerie silence was making him jumpy, so he started to sing quietly under his breath. “Where are you, wily wednesday? I’m weary of your wicked work. I’m waging war on wednesdays, and soon we’ll all …”
He was struggling to come up with more wor
ds that began with W when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something dart under the stairs.
He pounced immediately, no longer caring whether his boots made noise. “I see you, wednesday! Come out of there, right now!” He poked the walking stick through the space between the stairs, jabbing blindly at whatever was under there. It occurred to him—briefly—that he might hurt the thing. He poked again, slightly gentler than before.
Nothing happened.
Max took a step back to ponder his next move. He knew that he had seen something, and his skin was positively crawling. It had to be a wednesday.
But he wasn’t sure that he wanted to crawl underneath the gazebo to find out for certain.
He weighed his options carefully. On the one hand, whatever it was that had squeezed under the stairs couldn’t be too terribly enormous, or it never would have fit into the small crawl space. On the other hand, even small things could certainly be dangerous. He wondered, for the first time, whether wednesdays had teeth.
Max had grown up hearing about the wednesdays, of course. Everyone in the village knew there was something that caused all sorts of problems and mishaps once a week and that it was best to stay locked up inside. But, come to think of it, he had never heard anyone talk about actually seeing a wednesday. Big or small, fanged or not, no one really knew, since everyone just generally avoided them.
I’ll be the first to see one! The very thought was enough to erase any lingering fears. He crouched down, took a small step closer, and peered through the space between the steps.
There was definitely something under there.
A set of large, silvery eyes was staring back at him.
Max leapt backward, only barely keeping his balance. “Aaahh!” he shrieked in a decidedly less-than-courageous pitch.
The wednesday darted back out of sight, and Max realized he hadn’t even managed to get a good look at the thing. Were those sharp teeth that he had seen? Did it have talons? A tail? His imagination began to fill in where his eyes had failed him. All thoughts of gentleness vanished from his mind, and he jabbed his stick frantically at the thing under the stairs. He had no intention of letting any sort of monster get the upper hand—or upper claw, as the case might be—even if it was smaller than him. “Out, you … you thing!” He gripped his stick like a spear and lunged.
But mid-lunge, Max felt his feet slip out from underneath him as if he had stepped on marbles. He lost his balance and tumbled roughly to the ground, losing his grip on the walking stick as he fell. He had jumped to his feet quickly, ready to attack again, when something flew into his mouth.
“Yuck!” Max spit and spit, but he could tell he had already swallowed whatever insect it was that had decided to take a tour of his tonsils. He coughed uselessly, disgusted.
“Yuck!” a voice that sounded an awful lot like his own cried out, almost as if there was a much-delayed echo. A high-pitched giggle sounded from under the gazebo.
The wednesday was mocking him.
“That’s not funny!” yelled Max angrily. “Come out of there!”
The silvery eyes blinked calmly.
Max decided to try a new approach. He dusted himself off and then, using the calmest voice he could muster, asked, “Are you the wednesday?”
There was a long silence. Finally, a whispery voice responded. “I’m a wednesday, same as all of us.”
Max whirled around, half expecting to be surrounded by silvery-eyed creatures. No one—or nothing—else was in sight, though. “Are there more of you under there?” he asked, his voice quavering just slightly. He inched slowly to his right, hoping to grab the cane before anyone else decided to join them.
But just when he was close enough to reach down for his walking stick, the thing under the stairs flew out, heading directly for him.
ax ducked, instinctively shielding his face with his arms as the wednesday leapt out from under the stairs as if propelled by springs. The thing under the stairs popped to its feet and leered at Max, like a nightmare version of baby Leland’s windup jack-in-the-box.
The creature bounced from side to side, moving remarkably fast, and its silver eyes had a sort of hypnotic quality to them that made Max feel slightly off balance. Looking at the wednesday’s eyes was almost like looking into a mirror. They weren’t actually reflective, but they were just silvery and shiny enough that you couldn’t help but search for your reflection in them.
Besides the silver eyes, the wednesday appeared more or less boylike, in a crooked, simultaneously squished-down, stretched-out sort of way. It looked like a proper boy whose arms had been pulled like taffy, while the rest of his body had been scrunched down into a tubby egg shape with springy, squat legs. Max was relieved to see that he was at least a foot taller than the thing that bounced around him.
The creature’s head was mostly head-shaped and -sized, except for the fact that it seemed vaguely square and didn’t appear to have the benefit of much of a neck to sit upon. Overall, the thing gave the impression of being rather puttylike. In fact, as Max watched, the wednesday crept backward and squidged itself into the corner formed by the stairs against the gazebo. Once there, the creature blended into the space until it was almost invisible—all except for its large, slowly blinking silver eyes.
Once Max got over the shock that he had received when the wednesday jumped out at him, he realized that it didn’t look very scary or even very monster-ish at all. It didn’t have any fangs or claws, for starters, and huddled in the corner like that, it almost looked frightened. Max began to feel slightly sheepish. Monster or not, he hadn’t been very polite to the wednesday.
“I won’t hurt you,” Max said gently, although he once again inched slightly closer to the walking stick on the ground as he spoke.
The creature giggled softly, and then a tree branch fell out of the tree and knocked Max soundly on the head.
“Hey!” Max protested, rubbing the spot where the branch had struck. “That could have really hurt me.” He hadn’t actually seen the wednesday do anything to cause the branch to fall, but Max knew a guilty expression when he saw one, and the bouncing, giggling thing that stood before him definitely looked guilty. “Why did you have to go and do that?”
“I didn’t really do it,” replied the wednesday, who was grinning a mocking, taunting sort of grin. Perhaps that was just the way a wednesday looked when it smiled, but Max didn’t appreciate it either way.
“You did so! You were looking right at me, and then you laughed, and then the branch hit me!” Max thought it was awfully cowardly that the wednesday wouldn’t at least admit he had made the branch fall. But the wednesday just shook his corner-shaped head and giggled again.
Max decided to attempt a different approach. “What’s your name?” He tried very hard not to so much as look in the direction of his walking stick.
The silvery eyes blinked and rippled. “Ninety-eight.”
“Ninety-eight? That’s not a name—it’s a number!” Max protested. He was almost certain that the wednesday was trying to annoy him on purpose.
“It’s better than your name,” the boylike creature said, and then giggled in what Max was starting to think was not a very nice way at all.
“You don’t even know my name; I haven’t told you!” Max started to argue, but the wednesday suddenly darted out of the corner and headed off toward the woods.
“Of course I know your name. It’s Next.” Not having much of a neck to speak of, the wednesday had to pivot around to call back to Max. The creature beckoned for Max to follow him as he started walking on his squat, bouncy legs toward the trees.
“It’s Max, not Next!” Max shouted, but the wednesday didn’t respond. Max shrugged and decided to follow. He was quite certain this would all turn out to be either a very good or a very bad idea. He just wished that he could tell which one.
• • •
Max followed the wednesday through a thicket of trees, across the park playground, and behind the village grocery store. He looked
for Mr. Grimsrud as they passed by the bench where he had been sitting, but apparently the old man had already left the park. Max was disappointed—he had wanted someone else to see the wednesday he was following, if only to prove that he wasn’t imagining things. Not that the crazy old man would be his first choice as a witness, but it wasn’t as if anyone else in the village was likely to be walking about on this day of the week. Besides, he felt guilty for running off with Mr. Grimsrud’s walking stick. He’d have to return it later, though—right now he needed to keep up with the creature that was skittering and bouncing along a few paces ahead.
The wednesday finally stopped near a Dumpster behind the store, and then sort of faded into the corner where the bin met the back of the building. Max could still see him, but just barely.
Max tensed, not knowing what to expect. There was no sound at all—even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. His eyes scanned left and right, searching for wednesdays. There were an awful lot of hiding places in this particular spot. Between the tall weeds, the thick bushes, the stacked cartons, and the parked delivery trucks, there must have been dozens of places where a wednesday could lie in wait.
“What’s going on?” he finally yelled when he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Why did you lead me here?”
The silence continued.
“Come out!” Max shouted again, struggling briefly between fright and annoyance. A giggle from the corner where Ninety-eight—as if that was any sort of a name—had hidden pushed away the fear, though. Nothing dangerous could possibly have such an irritating laugh. He clomped over to a large box and kicked it as hard as he could.
The empty box fell over but revealed nothing—or no one.
He was about to stomp away in disgust when a quick glint of silver caught his eye. There was another, then another, then another. There were dozens and dozens of sets of silver eyes staring at him—they were everywhere! Mirror-like eyes blinked at him from underneath every parked car, behind every tree, and from every corner, alley, and doorway of the surrounding buildings. Max turned around very slowly, confirming that—just as he suspected—he was surrounded by an entire army of wednesdays.
The Wednesdays Page 2