Worm Story

by Morris Gleitzman

  But that was nothing compared to what he felt when his squiz molecules started to get used to the brightness and he saw what was covering the two hills.

  ‘Are those worms?’ gasped Wilton.

  They looked like worms, white just like him, but much longer.

  Much, much longer.

  The curious thing was that the worms were woven together, like the matted whiskers and dead plasma strands in the old farmer’s coat at home.

  There were thousands of them.

  Wilton gazed up, awestruck.

  This must be how worms hang out together, he said to himself. When there’s more than one of them.

  More than one of us.

  The thought made Wilton’s molecules buzz with joy and dizzy excitement.

  Algy was staring up at the woven worms too.

  ‘Um,’ he squeaked, ‘I think I’ll leave the g’days to you, Wriggles.’

  Algy vanished. His muffled voice came from inside Wilton’s food tube.

  ‘If you need me, I’m in here.’

  ‘Algy,’ said Wilton. ‘There’s no need to be scared. They won’t hurt you, they’re worms.’

  Algy didn’t reply.

  Microbes, thought Wilton, exasperated. Since I stopped being one, I understand them less and less.

  Trembling with anticipation, Wilton wriggled up the hill to meet the worms.

  ‘Hello,’ he said when he got closer.

  The worms didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m a worm too,’ said Wilton, in case the woven worms hadn’t noticed.

  He couldn’t tell if they had or not, because they still didn’t reply.

  Perhaps they haven’t got noise molecules, thought Wilton.

  There was a type of amoeba in the valley at home that didn’t have noise molecules. They were always falling off ledges, even when you yelled a warning at them. Though that was partly because they didn’t have squiz molecules either.

  Wilton wriggled from side to side, hoping the woven worms did at least have squiz molecules and could see he was waving at them.

  Nope.

  They weren’t waving back.

  ‘You’re completely wasting your time,’ said a nearby voice.

  For a moment Wilton thought Algy had come out to help, but then he saw a couple of protozoa on the hillside, peering down their tendrils at him and shaking their scorn molecules.

  ‘Should I go further up the hill?’ said Wilton. ‘Get closer?’

  ‘It’s not a hill, you absurd creature,’ said one of the protozoa. ‘It’s a buttock.’

  ‘A buttock?’ said Wilton, puzzled.

  ‘You’re completely wasting your time,’ said the protozoa, ‘with all that ridiculous waving.’

  ‘Why?’ said Wilton. ‘Are those worms squiz­impaired as well as noise-impaired?’

  ‘They’re not worms, foolish boy,’ said the other protozoa. ‘They’re underpants.’

  ‘Underpants?’ said Wilton.

  He didn’t have a clue what the protozoa were on about.

  ‘You won’t get a conversation going with underpants,’ said the first protozoa. ‘I’ve never heard a squeak out of underpants.’

  ‘Socially,’ said the other protozoa, ‘underpants are very boring.’

  Wilton was very confused. Were underpants a species that went about disguising themselves as worms so they’d be more popular at parties? Or were they huge transparent creatures who just ate a lot of worms?

  Wilton feared that might be it.

  The poor matted worms hadn’t moved at all.

  Backing away from the underpants, Wilton decided to ask the protozoa for a bit more information. But before he could, the protozoa both started shrieking and waving their plasma strands and running off.

  Oh no, thought Wilton, glancing fearfully upwards. The underpants must be hungry again.

  He needn’t have worried.

  The underpants weren’t doing anything aggressive. Just moving and stretching a bit.

  Perhaps I’m wrong, thought Wilton hopefully. Perhaps underpant is simply the name of a type of worm that likes to cuddle other worms in a neat and orderly sort of way.

  It was possible.

  Then Wilton saw what was causing the underpants to move and stretch. What was terrifying the protozoa.

  ‘Arghhh,’ he screamed.

  More worms.

  Completely different ones.

  Five huge pink worms, side by side, hurtling towards him. Gliding between the underpants and the hills.

  They were so massive that Wilton couldn’t move at first. Just gape in stunned terror at their pink hugeness and their gargantuan armoured hoods.

  Then he turned and wriggled for his life.

  But the massive worms were too fast.

  Wilton felt their vast shadows fall over him. He curled himself up tight, hoping somehow he could escape being squashed or crushed or pulverised.

  The giant worms thudded into the hillside just past Wilton. For a fleeting moment he thought they hadn’t seen him. But then, balancing grotesquely on their armoured hoods, all five of them started scraping backwards towards him, making huge indentations in the hillside as they went.

  ‘Algy,’ screamed Wilton. ‘Run.’

  ‘Soon as I can,’ replied Algy’s muffled voice. ‘I’m, er, just finishing a few things in here.’

  Before Wilton could repeat his warning, one of the giant worms smashed into him. For a sickening instant, Wilton thought he was dead. Then he realised he was jammed in a cavity between the tip of the worm and its armoured hood.

  The cavity was about the size of the neighbours’ cave back home.

  Wilton struggled not to think of home and how he’d probably never see it again.

  ‘Algy,’ he screamed. ’Get out. Run for it.’

  The worm was moving at incredible speed. From under the armoured hood, all Wilton could see was a blur of white underpants.

  Algy appeared on his shoulder, looking terrified.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he said.

  ‘Worms,’ said Wilton. ’We’re on one.’

  ‘They’re not worms, you tiresome youth,’ said a nearby voice.

  Wilton peered around. Wedged between the wall of the cavity and his bottom were the two protozoa.

  ‘They’re fingers,’ said one.

  ‘Only four of them are, to be precise,’ said the other. ‘One’s a thumb.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re on a finger,’ said the first protozoa testily. ‘Jammed under a fingernail.’

  Wilton still didn’t have a clue what the protozoa were on about.

  Then everything went so bright it made the brightness of the underpants seem dull and grey.

  Wilton couldn’t see anything for what felt like ages. And when his squiz molecules finally started to make out some shapes, he thought he was dreaming.

  The fingers were attached to the end of a humungous tendril. A tendril, Wilton calculated in a daze, big enough for about a billion farm workers to have their holidays on, including golf.

  ‘That tendril is huge,’ he croaked.

  ‘It is not a tendril,’ said one of the protozoa. ‘It is an arm.’

  Wilton barely heard.

  Because there was more.

  The tendril was attached to a body.

  A body very different to any organism Wilton had ever seen. A body so big Wilton’s think molecules went numb as he stared at it. A body that moved through space with the awesome majesty of an entire world.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ squeaked Algy. ‘What’s going on?’

  Wilton wasn’t sure how to explain it himself.

  It felt crazy even to think it.

  But the truth was here, in front of his own squiz molecules.

  The entire world, the world he’d grown up in, was alive.

  10

  ‘Slithering sludge,’ squeaked Algy. ‘The world’s a very big microbe.’

  It sounded crazy, but Wilton had to agree.

  ‘We’re on th
e end of one of its tendrils,’ squeaked Algy. ‘The world’s alive and it’s got fingernails.’

  It still sounded crazy, but Wilton still had to agree.

  Squiz molecules didn’t lie.

  Not even when they were gobsmacked with amazement.

  The tendril was moving in great whooshing swoops and Wilton’s insides were doing the same, but he could see that the world looming over him in all its vast hugeness did look like a kind of microbe. It had a main body section that was definitely microbe-shaped. It seemed to be going somewhere with huge lumbering strides. In a hurry like half the microbes Wilton had ever met.

  There were a few differences though.

  This microbe was several billion times larger than any microbe Wilton had ever seen. Plus it only had two tendrils for running around on and two for flapping instead of the usual eight or twelve.

  And then there was the extra body section up top. None of the microbes Wilton knew had an extra body section like that. A round one with loads of curly dark plasma strands hanging out the top and holes in the front that blinked and sniffed and sobbed.

  ‘Jeepers,’ squeaked Algy. ‘It’s leaking.’

  ‘I think it’s upset about something,’ said Wilton.

  ‘Not us, I hope,’ said Algy, retreating towards Wilton’s rear entrance.

  Wilton didn’t think so. He was pretty sure the humungous microbe couldn’t even see them, but for Algy’s sake he tried to wriggle further under the protective shelter of the fingernail.

  ‘Oi,’ protested an irate voice behind him. ‘Do you mind?’

  Wilton remembered the two protozoa wedged behind his bottom. He wriggled forward as far as he could, which wasn’t far because he didn’t want to fall out from under the fingernail.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  But it wasn’t the two protozoa who dragged themselves out, glaring at Wilton and pushing their ectoplasms back into shape. It was several hundred squashed and surly bacteria.

  ‘Jiffing great fat lump,’ grumbled one of the bacteria. ‘Jiff off. It’s crowded enough under this fingernail without a flabby jiffing lardball like you barging in.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘Go find your own luxury accomodation, you big fat harpic.’

  Wilton ignored them.

  He saw that Algy, who had reappeared on his shoulder, wasn’t going to be as restrained.

  ‘Hey,’ said Algy, waving his tendrils indignantly at the bacteria. ‘We are witnessing one of the most incredible sights in the whole of microbe history. Do you think you could keep a lid on the bickering and insults just this once?’

  The bacteria all stared at Algy as if he was several molecules short of a nucleus.

  ‘What are you on about, handy andy?’ they said. ‘What incredible sight?’

  Algy rolled his disbelief molecules and pointed to the vast heavenly body attached to their fingernail.

  ‘The world,’ he said. ‘OK?’

  The bacteria thought about this, crinkling their ectoplasms in puzzled frowns.

  ‘That’s not a jiffing world,’ one of them said. ‘That’s our Janet.’

  Wilton stared at the bacteria, wondering if he’d heard right.

  ‘Your janet?’ he said. ‘What’s a janet?’

  ‘Surf and ajax,’ said one of the bacteria. ‘You’re really dumb, aren’t you?’

  ‘Our janet’s a giant living organism,’ said another. ‘Carbon based, metabolises oxygen, very intelligent, hates jiffing spinach.’

  Wilton started to understand. He’d heard two wise old patches of slime arguing once about whether there was anything beyond the known world, and one of them had said something about ‘outer space’. Another had used a word that Wilton was pretty sure was ‘janets’.

  He pointed to the huge janet they were orbiting.

  ‘Does this mean we’re in outer space?’ he asked the bacteria.

  He peered around. Outer space was very blue. Except for the lower part which was green. It looked to Wilton like a happy sort of place. He couldn’t understand why a janet floating in it would be unhappy. There might even be worms in outer space.

  The bacteria had crinkled their ectoplasms again.

  ‘Where the domestos did you grow up?’ said one to Wilton.

  ‘This isn’t outer space, toilet duck,’ said another. ‘It’s the park next to the library. Pine-o-clean, what an idiot.’

  Wilton started to ask what a park next to a library was, then changed his mind. There was something more important he needed to know.

  ‘Why is the janet so upset?’ he said. ‘There’s liquid coming out of her upper body section.’

  ‘Oh, lah-de-dah,’ said one of the bacteria. ‘Upper body section.’

  ‘Round here we call a face a jiffing face,’ said another. ’She’s crying. It’s because the others are being mean to her.’

  Others? thought Wilton. What others?

  Then his squiz molecules almost fell out of his ectoplasm with amazement. In the distance, coming into view, were several other huge janets.

  ‘Rough kids from down the street,’ said one of the bacteria. ‘They’re right little napisans.’

  Wilton was totally confused. He could see Algy was too.

  ‘They’re chasing our Janet,’ said another of the bacteria. ‘She’s running away from them. Well, trying to, she’s a bit slow. If they catch her, we’ll all be in the palmolive. When she cries for a long time she rubs her eyes and those salty tears sting like draino.’

  Wilton’s anxiety molecules trembled inside him.

  The other janets were getting closer.

  Algy headed for cover.

  Suddenly it was all too much for Wilton as well. Ever since they’d left the sludge tunnel, everything had been almost too amazing to take in. And too confusing. And too scary.

  Wilton headed for cover like Algy. He apologized to the bacteria and wriggled as far under the fingernail as he could. He was feeling so weak and shaky he was worried about slipping in a puddle of bacteria dribble and skidding off into outer space or outer library park or whatever the jiff it was called.

  All I want, thought Wilton, is something to happen that I can recognise and understand.

  Algy’s plaintive muffled voice came from inside him. ‘Why can’t this janet go faster?’

  ‘She’s too fat,’ said one of the bacteria.

  ‘Way too fat,’ said another.

  ‘A real jiffing porker,’ added a third. ‘That’s why all the others make fun of her.’

  Wilton digested this.

  He stopped feeling sorry for himself and stared at the other janets. They’d almost caught up. Wilton couldn’t understand what they were yelling, but he could tell from the tone of their voices they were probably using words like ’fatso’ and ‘lardbucket’.

  He looked up at his own janet. Her face was wet with unhappiness.

  Poor thing, he thought. I’m only a worm wedged under a fingernail and you’re a mighty janet, but I know how you feel.

  Then one of the bacteria started groaning and hugging itself.

  ‘Blu loo,’ it moaned through its tendrils. ‘It’s happening again. Our Janet’s too stressed. I’m getting a colgate migraine.’

  The other bacteria started doing the same, groaning and lying down.

  Wilton stared at them.

  He remembered the farm workers getting headaches at home. And the livestock. And the slime patches. The neighbours’ cave had even had a migraine recently.

  Suddenly Wilton started to understand.

  11

  ‘Oh scotchguard,’ groaned the bacteria, rubbing their ectoplasms with their tendrils. ‘Our jiffing heads are splitting. Anyone got any aspirin molecules?’

  Wilton felt sorry for them, but not as sorry as he did for the sobbing janet who was carrying them through outer space under her fingernail.

  He gazed up at the janet’s huge unhappy face. Then he squizzed again at the other janets, which were orbiting closer and closer around her, jee
ring.

  Her problem was much worse than a headache.

  It was deeply tragic.

  ‘Algy,’ said Wilton to his tummy. ‘I think I’ve worked out what’s going on.’

  Algy peeped out of Wilton’s rear entrance, looking anxiously at the other janets.

  ‘I’ve worked out what’s going on too,’ said Algy. ‘We’re trapped in the middle of an inter-janetary war.’

  Wilton nodded towards the groaning bacteria.

  ‘I think I’ve worked out what’s causing all the problems at home,’ he said. ‘Stress.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Algy. ‘I’m getting a migraine myself.’

  Wilton struggled to be patient. He reminded himself that he was a worm, not a microbe. Microbes could be excused for panicking because they were so much smaller. To them outer space must seem huge.

  ‘When the other janets give our janet a hard time for being plump,’ said Wilton, ‘she gets upset and stressed. I know exactly how she feels.’

  ‘I know you do,’ said Algy, scampering onto Wilton’s shoulder. ‘When the bacteria called you a great fat lump just now, your food tube went into knots. I nearly got strangled.’

  Wilton tried not to picture it.

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘So imagine how much stress a whole janet must feel. Bulk stress. Enough to cause widespread storms. And sick sludge. And fungus invasions.’

  He could see that Algy was taking this in.

  Wilton’s think molecules were working overtime too.

  ‘Listen,’ he said to Algy. ‘What if we could cheer our janet up? Make her less stressed. That might stop the problems at home getting worse. It might even improve things.’

  Algy rolled his squiz molecules.

  ‘Get real, Wriggles,’ he said. ‘We’re a microbe and a worm. How can two little squirts like us cheer up a janet the size of her?’

  Wilton thought hard.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘We could meet some really interesting and funny worms and introduce her to them and get the worms to tell her jokes.’

  Algy just looked at Wilton.

  ‘OK,’ said Wilton. ‘There would be a small language problem. And she might not enjoy jokes about things crawling out of her bottom.’

  ‘Here’s what I think,’ said Algy. ‘We’re the only ones on the whole janet who know what’s causing the problems back home. We have to get back quick smart and tell the others.’