The Squatchicorns

by Ellen Potter

  “Here we go!” he said. Crouching down, he dipped his hand into the shallow water and brought up a handful of mud. Then he went over to Boone.

  “Take off your crown for a minute,” Nogg told him.

  Boone took the crown off, and Nogg plopped the mud right on Boone’s head.

  “Hey!” Boone protested.

  “It’s just clay, Boone. Hold still.” Nogg worked the clay into a tuft of Boone’s hair, shaping and twisting until . . .

  “Boone!” Hugo cried. “You have a horn on your head!”

  Boone reached up to touch it, but Nogg warned, “Careful, you have to let the clay dry.”

  “Wait. Is that how you got your horn, too?” Hugo asked, amazed.

  Nogg nodded. “It’s part of our clan’s tradition. We call it the Golden Eye. You use your regular eyes to see the outside world,” he explained. “But the Golden Eye helps you to know things that you can’t see. Like when you get a hunch about something.”

  “Oh! Like when you have a hunch that your sister is going to flick you in the head, so you flick her first?” Hugo asked.

  “Well . . . sort of,” Nogg said.

  “Does it really work?” Boone asked, gently touching the horn to see if the clay was drying.

  “My father says that it works when you most need it to work,” Nogg answered.

  “Could you make a horn for me, too?” Hugo asked.

  A few minutes later all three of them had horns on their foreheads. They looked at one another and smiled.

  “Do you feel any different?” Hugo asked Boone.

  Boone thought about it. “Not really,” he said, “but when I stare at the tip of the horn, it helps me to cross my eyes better.” He demonstrated, and Hugo had to admit he did it really well.

  “So I guess you’re just a regular type of Sasquatch, huh?” Boone said to Nogg. “When I first met you, I thought you were some kind of cryptid. Like Goatman or something.”

  “Or a Snallygaster,” said Hugo, proud that he knew about Snallygasters.

  “Or a Wheezing Mud Bat,” said Nogg.

  Hugo and Boone looked at him in surprise. “How do you know about Wheezing Mud Bats?” asked Hugo.

  “Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards, of course,” Nogg said, smiling. “I’ve got a whole box full of them.”

  “Did you have to leave the cards in Craggy Cavern?” Hugo asked.

  Nogg nodded.

  “That’s awful!” Hugo cried. He himself had been collecting Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards since he was a very little squidge. He couldn’t imagine having to leave them behind.

  “But that wasn’t the worst thing,” said Nogg. “The worst thing was that I left my notebook in my bedroom.”

  Hugo would rather have lost a dozen notebooks than even one of his Monster Cards.

  “You can always get a new notebook,” Hugo said.

  “This was a special notebook,” Nogg explained. “In order to become a Falcon Ranger Scout, I have to earn the North Woods Expert merit badge. Every time I hiked through the North Woods, I took that notebook and wrote down where all the streams and gullies and caverns and cliffs were. I’ve been doing that for a whole year and I was nearly finished . . .” Nogg shook his head. “Without the notebook, I’ll have to start all over again.”

  “Where is Craggy Cavern?” Boone asked.

  “Downriver a little ways,” Nogg replied.

  “Then why can’t you just go back there and get your notebook?” Boone asked.

  So Nogg told him the story about the ghost. When he finished, Boone stood there for a moment, thinking.

  “Let’s go,” Boone said decisively.

  “Where?”

  “To get your notebook. Come on, we can take my boat.”

  “We can’t go back there,” said Nogg. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “There’s a ghost in the cavern, Boone!” Hugo said. “A mean one.”

  Boone picked up his mangled crown and put it back on his head. “I hereby command us to get Nogg’s notebook!”

  There was nothing for Hugo and Nogg to do but follow the King’s orders.

  13

  Craggy Cavern

  Boone’s little rowboat was bright red with the word Voyajer painted in white on its side. It was a sturdy boat, but two Sasquatches was a heavy load for her. When Hugo and Boone both sat in the back, the front reared up out of the water. In the end, Hugo sat in the back and Nogg sat in the front, with Boone in the middle. That balanced things out nicely.

  Hugo did the rowing. He loved to row, and his strong arms made the little boat zip through the water. The river wiggled this way and that, just like a Rippling Worm. Sometimes the riverbanks narrowed and the water rushed faster.

  “Make her fly, Hugo!” Boone cried, and he put his hands in the air and whooped.

  Nogg had never been on a boat before. When they went fast, he held on to the sides at first, but after a while, he let go, put his hands in the air, and whooped along with Boone.

  Sometimes there were rocky humps peeking out of the water where the riverbed was shallow, and Hugo had to go slowly and carefully around them.

  After a while, the river grew wider and the thick woods crept closer to the banks.

  “It’s just up there,” Nogg said, pointing to the right.

  Hugo slowed his rowing and steered the Voyajer to the right. When they were close enough, Boone hopped into the shallow water and guided the boat to shore.

  As they stood at the edge of the woods, Nogg sniffed the air and Hugo listened. No birds sang. The air was still.

  “Wouldn’t you rather make us do something more fun?” Hugo asked Boone.

  “Nope,” Boone said. He turned to Nogg and asked, “Which way?”

  “This way,” Nogg answered, and headed off into the woods.

  Before long, they came to the mouth of Craggy Cavern. Boone reached into his back pocket, pulled out a flashlight, and handed it to Nogg.

  “Stick close and stay quiet,” Nogg warned.

  Hugo was used to Widdershins Cavern, which was a busy and noisy place. Sasquatches were always rushing here and there, shopping or visiting or going to school. Candle lanterns hung on the walls, always lit and giving everything a warm golden glow.

  In Craggy Cavern, however, none of the lanterns were lit, so the passageways were full of dark shadows. As they walked, the only sounds they could hear were Boone’s sneakers padding against the ground, and occasionally a soft, cautious sniff from Nogg.

  After walking down twisting passageways for several minutes, Hugo whispered nervously, “So where is the notebook?”

  “In my bedroom, in the desk drawer,” Nogg whispered back. “Our apartment is just a little farther ahead.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Hugo spotted something behind them. It was a small pale blue light, about the size of a walnut. It bobbed up and down in the dark, moving along the passageway as though it were following them.

  “What is that?” Hugo cried as he spun around to look at it. But the light vanished in a wink.

  “What did you see?” Nogg whispered.

  “A light,” Hugo said in a shaky voice. “The blue light.”

  Nogg shone the flashlight around, but the blue light was gone.

  “We can turn back,” Nogg suggested.

  “No, we’ll keep going,” Boone commanded.

  They continued on until finally Nogg stopped in front of a rough wooden door.

  “This is our apartment,” Nogg said. He pushed the door open and led them down a hallway, past two rooms, and finally into his bedroom. Going directly to his desk, he opened the top drawer to get his notebook.

  Hugo gazed all around, checking for the blue light and listening closely for the sound of knocking. Did the ghost know they were there? Hugo had an uneasy feeling that it did.

  “That’s weird!” Nogg said after a moment.

  “What is?” asked Hugo.

  “The notebook’s gone.”

  “Are you sure?” Boone aske
d.

  Nogg shone the flashlight in the drawer again. “Positive. It’s not here.”

  Just then, Hugo saw the blue light appear again, hovering near the entrance to Nogg’s room, close to the ground.

  “Pssst,” Hugo hissed to the others, then pointed at the light. For a moment, they all stared at it as it hung in the air, bobbing slightly in the darkness.

  “It’s watching us,” Nogg whispered.

  Hugo felt a prickly feeling on his forehead, right on the spot where the Golden Eye was. It might have just been because the clay was drying. Or it might have just been that he had an itch on his forehead.

  But Hugo didn’t think so. Because suddenly he had a hunch.

  The blue light darted away, out of the apartment.

  “Let’s go!” Hugo cried.

  “Where?” Boone called.

  “To wherever the light is going!” Hugo called back.

  14

  The Blue Light

  They chased the blue light as it flew down one passageway and turned down another and then another, staying far ahead of them. All at once it veered left, then disappeared through a doorway.

  “It’s going into our school,” Nogg said.

  A moment later, they stood at the school’s doorway. The blue light had disappeared again.

  “This is my classroom,” Nogg told them, shining the flashlight around the room. There were no posters on the walls or reading lofts, just desks. Hugo thought it wasn’t nearly as nice as his school in Widdershins Cavern.

  “See that?” Nogg aimed the flashlight at the back of the classroom. There were rocks all over the floor, some of them very large. “That’s where the wall caved in after we heard the knocking.” He pointed the flashlight at a desk that was smashed to bits. “That was my desk.”

  “Holy cats,” Boone said quietly.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Hugo spotted the blue light in the next room, darting about wildly.

  “There it is!” he cried. They dashed into the other classroom, but by the time they got there, the blue light had disappeared once more.

  “And poof, it’s gone,” said Boone.

  “This is Yama’s classroom,” Nogg said, pointing the flashlight at the small desks. The cavern’s walls were lined with shelves full of paint and brushes and pots of glue. On a table in the corner was a display of miniature houses.

  Hugo felt that prickly feeling in his Golden Eye again.

  “What are these?” Hugo asked as he walked up to the little houses.

  “Fairy houses,” Nogg told him. “The younger squidges made them.”

  They were built out of bark and moss and clay. Some of them were lopsided and some of them were nothing more than twigs leaning up against one another. But there was one that was very well made and as big as a dollhouse. It had windows with curtains and a little door painted blue. The roof was made of pinecone scales and it had its own chimney that was covered in moss.

  “That’s Yama’s fairy house,” Nogg said when he saw Hugo looking at it.

  Carefully, Hugo wiggled the roof on Yama’s fairy house. It was glued down, but with a few more wiggles, he was able to lift it off the house and look inside.

  “Whoa!” he exclaimed.

  “What?” Nogg rushed over and aimed the flashlight directly into Yama’s fairy house.

  Piled in the house were all sorts of things—candles, a river-stone bracelet, a small fox carved out of wood, a whittling knife, a toy lantern, a wooden spoon, a doll in a green cap lying down on a tiny bed with a handkerchief blanket, a piece of honey-drop candy, and dozens of other things.

  Nogg reached into the house and pulled out a blue sash covered with colorful wooden badges pinned to it.

  “My merit badges,” he said, shaking his head in bewilderment. He put the sash around his neck, then sifted through the pile of things in the fairy house. “There’s Mrs. Wikpik’s bracelet and that’s my dad’s knife, and there’s my cousin’s slingshot . . .” He stopped and sighed. “No notebook, though.”

  “Sorry, Nogg,” Boone said.

  “I guess it must have been Yama who was stealing things,” Nogg said sadly. “I just don’t understand. It’s not like her . . .”

  It was then that Hugo reached into the fairy house, and with the tip of his finger, he knocked the green hat off the little doll’s head. In a flash, the doll leapt out of the bed, bit Hugo’s finger, and snatched his hat from off the fairy house floor.

  15

  The Thief

  They all watched in amazement as the little man put his hat back on and adjusted the small hammer that was tucked in his belt. He was no taller than a squirrel when it sits up on its haunches to eat a nut.

  “He’s real,” whispered Nogg.

  “He’s a Tommyknocker,” both Hugo and Boone said at the same time.

  Boone looked at Hugo in surprise.

  “How did you know that?” Boone asked Hugo. Boone was usually the one who knew all about cryptids.

  “I read about them in your book,” Hugo told him. “See that little lantern?” He pointed to the small brass lantern by the Tommyknocker’s feet. “I think that was the blue light.”

  “Then you knew the blue light wasn’t really a ghost?” Boone asked him.

  “I didn’t know know,” Hugo replied. “But I had a hunch.”

  “What is a Tommyknocker?” Nogg asked.

  “They’re little creatures who live in mines and caves,” Hugo told him. “They like to steal things.” The Tommyknocker made a huffy sound, as though he found this insulting.

  “Hey, wait a second,” Nogg said suspiciously. He reached into the fairy house and yanked the handkerchief off the Tommyknocker’s bed. Underneath was a little black notebook.

  “He was using my notebook for a mattress!” Nogg said, snatching it out of the house. He glowered at the Tommyknocker. “Little thief!”

  In response, the Tommyknocker picked up the honey-drop candy and chucked it at Nogg’s head.

  “I wouldn’t be too mad at him,” said Hugo. “He was trying to help you.”

  “How? By stealing our stuff?”

  “No, by knocking. Many years ago, Humans who worked in mine shafts always wanted to have a Tommyknocker with them, even though Tommyknockers stole things. That’s because mining is dangerous work. Roofs can collapse, rocks can fall on you. But right before something dangerous happened, Tommyknockers would bang on the walls with their hammers to warn the miners.”

  “So that knocking we heard before the rocks fell was the Tommyknocker?” Nogg asked. “He was warning us?”

  Hugo nodded. “And from the looks of your desk, I think he might have saved your life.”

  Nogg stared at the Tommyknocker. The little man was standing in front of the pile of stolen items with his arms crossed over his chest, as if daring them to take back any more things.

  “I’d like to thank him,” said Nogg. “Do Tommyknockers talk?”

  Boone bent over the fairy house and said to the Tommyknocker in a loud voice, “DO YOU TALK?”

  In response, the Tommyknocker picked up the wooden spoon and launched it at Boone, who dodged away just in time.

  “Hard to tell,” Boone said.

  Nogg unpinned one of the wooden badges from his sash and held it up.

  “This is a Ranger Scout merit badge,” Nogg told the Tommyknocker. “This badge is really hard to earn. It’s for Acts of Heroism.” Nogg carefully placed the little badge on the Tommyknocker’s pile of things.

  The Tommyknocker stared up at Nogg. Beneath the bushy brows, his eyes were sharp and bright. Then, as if he understood, he removed his hat and bowed.

  16

  Birthday Wish

  It was a very happy boat ride home. They had faced danger and darkness and a possible ghost, yet things had turned out fine in the end, which always puts everyone in a good mood.

  They were traveling upstream now, so the Voyajer was moving at a leisurely pace as Hugo rowed. Nogg had his notebook open and was
jotting down notes. Boone was gazing up at the wispy clouds and smiling.

  “You know something?” Boone said. “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

  “But I ate your cake,” Hugo said. He had nearly forgotten about that little disaster, and now that he was reminded, he felt bad all over again.

  “It doesn’t matter, because I still got to make my birthday wish. And guess what? The wish actually came true.”

  “It did? What did you wish for?” Hugo asked.

  “I wished for an adventure that we could include in our book,” said Boone. To Nogg he explained, “One day I’m going to write a book about my adventures with Hugo. It’s going to be called The Adventures of Big Foot and Little Foot. Now I can include a chapter about Tommyknockers.”

  “That’s true!” Hugo said, already feeling better.

  “Anyway,” Boone added, “I bet my grandma is baking us a new birthday cake right now.” He tapped his Golden Eye. “Just a hunch.”

  And you know what? He was right!

  17

  The North Woods

  On Sunday morning, Hugo was in the kitchen of the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery. He was helping Grandpa make raspberry snarfles, which are a lot like waffles, except they are shaped like oak leaves. Grandpa was mixing the batter, and Hugo was working the snarfle iron.

  Hugo still had his Golden Eye on his forehead, but the very end of it was bent upward.

  “Looks like your horn ran into some trouble,” Grandpa said.

  “Yeah, and the trouble’s name is Winnie,” Hugo said dryly. “She found out that I was the one who took all the straw out of her pillow, so she bent my horn.”

  Grandpa laughed. “So what did you think of the Human house?” he asked Hugo.

  Hugo considered for a moment. “Well, everything was very smooth and bright. And they have interesting spoons. It was nice, I guess. But I like my own home better.” He opened up the snarfle iron and stacked the steaming snarfles on a plate. “Grandpa, do you think we might have to leave Widdershins Cavern one day?”