Iggy Loomis, A Hagfish Called Shirley

by Jennifer Allison

  IF YOU COULD REMOVE the entire surface of your body from your hair to your toes the way a scuba diver peels off a wet suit and then hang it over a chair, you might see something like what we saw in Alistair’s parents’ room.

  Seeing those limp “human body disguises” hanging over a chair was freaky enough. I tried not to look up where both of Alistair’s parents were asleep with their baggy bodies stuck to the ceiling and their eyeball stalks all tangled together.

  Now I see why Alistair thinks his pet hagfish is “cute,” I thought. Compared to Alistair’s parents without their disguises, Shirley could probably win a beauty contest.

  “That floating ball over there is the safe,” Alistair whispered, pointing to a transparent ball that floated next to the human disguises. “It’s protected by a force field.”

  I had pictured something a lot sturdier, like a big metal box with a heavy padlock. This thing looked like a transparent bubble with three watches floating inside it—one for each member of Alistair’s family.

  The weirdest part of the whole scene was Alistair’s dad’s single open eye—a giant eyeball that turned in circles and blinked slowly as it tracked Iggy’s insect movements while Alistair tapped the safe’s complicated pass code.

  The plan actually seemed to be working until Alistair’s dad’s eyeball suddenly moved too close to Iggy.

  Instead of flying away, Iggy stung the eyeball with his wasp stinger.

  “No, Iggy!” Dottie yelled. “Dat eyeball monster is Awistair’s dad!

  Now Alistair’s dad will wake up and kill us, I thought.

  But instead of waking up Alistair’s dad, the “security guard” eyeball decided to kill Iggy on its own.

  As Alistair’s dad’s eyeball chased Iggy, swatting at him as he zipped around the room, Alistair kept typing out what had to be the longest pass code in the universe.

  Finally, Alistair managed to open the safe’s force field.

  Dottie and I silently cheered as we watched Alistair reach directly through the clear surface of the safe to remove his watch!

  Without a moment to spare, Alistair and Iggy hurried from the room and slammed the door behind them.

  ONCE IGGY AND DOTTIE were back home and tucked into their beds, Alistair and I went outside with our flashlights and Alistair’s watch. We also brought a weird-looking robot that Alistair had built very quickly using a bunch of Technobloks and bath toys. It looked like a mermaid with crab claws and a motor.

  We took our robot to a storm-drain opening at the edge of the sidewalk and Alistair popped open the clear dome that covers his watch.

  Inside the watch, tiny, multicolored bubbles moved back and forth. “That’s odd.” Alistair frowned as he quickly tapped out a complicated pattern.

  “What’s odd?”

  Alistair looked worried. “We may have a problem here.”

  A small screen on his watch displayed a message in the Blaronite language. Alistair translated it as he read aloud:

  Alistair was so mad, I could practically see smoke coming out of his ears. “I can’t believe Dad changed all the pass codes on my watch!” Alistair plunked himself down on the curb. “Now I’ll end up getting sent back to Planet Blaron just because Dad won’t give me back my watch!”

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe we had just stolen Alistair’s watch only to find out that it didn’t work.

  Alistair stared at his watch for a moment, and then tore it off his wrist. “What’s the point of having this Blaronite technology if I’m not allowed to use it?” He dangled the watch over the storm-drain opening, threatening to drop it down to the sewer.

  “Hey!” I grabbed the watch from Alistair’s hand. “We’d really be in trouble if this got lost!”

  Alistair sighed. “I know. You’re right.”

  “We’ll get Shirley out of there somehow, Alistair,” I promised as the two of us stood up and walked back toward Alistair’s house.

  “I’m not so sure. . . .” Alistair’s voice trailed off because he was staring at something on the ground. “Take a look at this, Daniel,” he said.

  When I saw what Alistair was looking at, I started shouting and jumping around the yard. “It worked! It actually worked!!”

  I could hardly believe it: Our slime mold had actually moved! It had found its way through the entire maze to the cookie!

  In fact, I was so excited, I even volunteered to make our poster for the project. “This is going to be the best presentation ever!” I told Alistair.

  Alistair nodded, but he didn’t look so happy. I guessed our slime-mold success didn’t exactly make up for our failed attempt to rescue Shirley.

  AFTER SCHOOL, Alistair and I sat on the curb, staring at our slime mold.

  “What do you think we should do with it now?” I asked.

  It was late afternoon, and even though we were both still upset about not finding Shirley, even Alistair had to admit that our slime-mold presentation for Mr. Binns’s class had been awesome.

  “It was like the two of us were the stars of our class for ten whole minutes!” Alistair said.

  “I know,” I agreed. “I loved how everyone said EEEWWW! when we showed them the slime mold for the first time.”

  “And then they all said ‘NO WAY!’ when we told them how the slime mold stretched itself through the maze,” Alistair added

  “But my favorite part was when then the whole class wanted to poke the slime mold with their fingers and scream,” I said.

  “I thought that part was a little annoying,” Alistair admitted. “I don’t think Chauncey liked our presentation.”

  “He was just jealous because Mr. Binns was giving us so many compliments,” I said.

  Alistair tapped a bunch of random buttons on his watch, but none of them worked. “Too bad I won’t be doing any more presentations on Earth.”

  “Of course you will,” I said.

  Alistair shook his head. “Not if I can’t get Shirley out of the sewer.” Alistair sighed and stared up at the sky as if he expected to see the Bumblepod hovering above us.

  That’s when a flash of light caught my attention. It was something on Alistair’s watch.

  “Hey, Alistair!” I said. “I think your dad forgot to deactivate one of your watch functions!”

  Alistair gasped; his watch flashed and beeped.

  But before Alistair and I could decide what to do, we nearly fainted with surprise at the sound of Alistair’s dad running across the front yard and yelling at us: “Alistair! You do not have permission to use your watch! Wait until your mother hears about this!”

  “Dad,” Alistair began, “let me explain—”

  But Alistair’s dad didn’t wait for an explanation; he lunged forward to grab Alistair’s watch.

  At the same moment, Alistair tried to jump to his feet. This caused Alistair to bump into his dad, which caused Alistair’s dad to trip over the our slime-mold maze.

  The next thing we knew, the insta-monster ray shot from Alistair’s watch, blasting both Alistair’s dad and the slime mold at the same time!

  In an instant, Alistair’s dad and the slime mold merged into the strangest creature that has ever crawled across either Earth or Planet Blaron.

  THEN IGGY AND DOTTIE ran out of our house. They both screamed when they saw a hideous monster in their front yard.

  “I’m sorry, Dad!” Alistair shouted as he frantically pushed buttons on his watch, trying to reverse what had just happened. But the rest of the watch was still dead.

  It seemed that Alistair’s dad could no longer hear any of us. In the spot where Alistair’s dad used to be there was only a giant, yellow-green, squishy slime-mold monster that had more eyeballs than I could count.

  For a moment, I worried that the monster would attack us, but instead, it tried to escape by squeezing its
elf into the storm drain.

  “Don’t let him get away!” Alistair shouted.

  Iggy quickly sprouted wings and dive-bombed the slime-mold monster with his stinger!

  Instead of fighting Iggy, the monster rolled itself into a ball and bounced down the sidewalk.

  “Follow my dad!” Alistair shouted, pointing at the slime-mold monster. “Don’t let him get away!”

  The four of us followed the monster as he slithered, stretched, and bounced his way through the neighborhood.

  Farther up the street, I spied Beanie sitting on the sidewalk, chained to a parking meter. The little dog jumped to his feet and growled when he saw the slime-mold monster, a winged boy, and three other kids stampeding toward him.

  Everything happened so fast. In the blink of an eye, the monster snatched Beanie right off his leash!

  Iggy tried to dive-bomb Alistair’s dad with his wasp stinger again, but he couldn’t make the monster let go of Beanie.

  “Stingers can’t hurt him, Iggy!” Alistair shouted. “We’ll have to think of something else!”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  But before Alistair could answer, the monster opened his gaping slime-mold mouth and dropped Beanie inside!

  We couldn’t believe it: Beanie was gone!

  AS IT TURNED OUT, the slime-mold monster didn’t exactly eat Beanie. We knew the little dog was alive because we could still see him, trapped and whimpering inside what looked like a little cage made of slime mold on the monster’s back.

  “DON’T WORRY, BEANIE!” Dottie shouted. “WE GOING SAVE YOU!”

  “Dad!” Alistair shouted. “Let that dog go! Blaronites don’t have pets!”

  But there was no reasoning with Alistair’s dad now that he had turned into a pet-snatching monster. As Alistair’s monster-dad slithered, stretched, rolled, and bounced his way through the neighborhood, he kidnapped every pet he saw!

  He grabbed a goldfish from an apartment window. . . .

  He scooped up cats napping on the sidewalk. . . .

  He snatched dogs off their leashes, right from under their owners’ noses!

  He hoisted a pot-bellied pig from its home. . . .

  He unloaded a rabbit family from its hutch. . . .

  He stole a guinea pig from a school classroom. . . .

  He shook squirrels from the trees!

  By now, the monster was a slithering, sliding, slime-mold-and-eyeball-covered jail for kidnapped pets. No matter how much the trapped animals howled, mewed, barked, bit, hissed, and scratched, Alistair’s monster-dad refused to let them go.

  And no matter how many pets the monster stole, he always had room for a few more.

  Finally, we caught up with Alistair’s dad and his collection of kidnapped pets at the corner of one of the busiest streets in town.

  “Dad!” Alistair shouted. “You have to listen to me!”

  But instead of listening, the monster bounced across four lanes of traffic, almost causing several accidents as he darted between cars.

  “DAD!” Alistair yelled, “COME BACK!”

  But it was too late: The monster darted into an alley and disappeared from our sight.

  ALISTAIR, Iggy, Dottie, and I walked to a nearby park and sat on a bench to rest for a minute while we thought about what we should do next.

  All over we saw signs posted by people searching for lost pets:

  Sniffling kids and worried adults were calling for their lost dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, and guinea pigs.

  “Our goal was to rescue one animal,” Alistair said, “and instead, a whole neighborhood of pets has been kidnapped.”

  Alistair and I just sat there feeling bad as we listened to all those pet-sad people searching for their animals in the park.

  I noticed clouds gathering overhead and I felt a cold drop of rain.

  Where is Alistair’s dad right now? I wondered. And what will happen to Alistair and his family now that Alistair’s dad is a slime-mold monster?

  As another raindrop fell on my cheek, I realized it was time to face the truth: Commander Stickyfoot will probably send Alistair back to Planet Blaron when he finds out what happened to Alistair’s dad.

  Nearby, Iggy and Dottie were throwing pebbles and leaves into a shallow stream where a trickle of dirty water flowed from a large storm overflow pipe.

  I watched as Dottie began jumping from one stepping-stone to another toward the storm overflow pipe.

  Iggy followed her, but he lost his footing and his feet got wet.

  “IGGY!” I yelled, “Get out of the water!”

  “OKAY, DANO!”

  I was surprised to hear Iggy say “Okay” without arguing. But a moment later, I was amazed that Iggy had figured out a way to “get out of” the water while still staying on top of it.

  I blinked, trying to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me: Iggy had sprouted extra legs—water-bug legs—that enabled him to skitter across the surface of the stream!

  I watched Iggy run across the stream like a giant water bug. Suddenly he stopped moving. Frozen, he stared down into the water.

  I heard a SPLASH! as Iggy grabbed for something in the water.

  “Can you believe that, Alistair?” I said, pointing at Iggy. “Now Iggy has water-bug traits, and he just used his pincers to catch a minnow!”

  Alistair seemed weirdly distracted. He stood very still, as if listening to some secret message. “Daniel,” Alistair said, “I have a feeling that Shirley is close by.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Shirley’s down in the sewer, and we’re at a park.”

  Alistair pointed to a large cement storm-water pipe by the stream. “That storm pipe might lead us to her.”

  Alistair waded through the stream, toward the overflow pipe. “Follow me to that pipe, everyone!” Alistair shouted. “And bring that fish you caught, Iggy!”

  At the storm-water pipe we peered inside what looked like a metal tunnel that was wide enough for Iggy and Dottie to walk through easily. Alistair and I would have to stoop over to move through it. It was starting to rain so we were happy to go inside.

  “SHIRLEY?” Alistair called, ducking his head and taking a step inside. “I just know she’s in here,” Alistair whispered. “We have a chance of finding her here if we go in deeper and explore.”

  “Okay, Awistair!” Iggy zoomed ahead fearlessly walking along the wall with his water-bug legs, which was actually a pretty freaky thing to see.

  Raindrops clattered on the outer surface of the storm-water pipe as we splashed our way through shallow, dirty water on the floor. Soon we couldn’t hear the rain anymore, and Alistair said we must be walking underground, beneath the houses and streets of our neighborhood.

  “Alistair,” I whispered, “I keep thinking about this scary movie about a bunch of kids who have the dumb idea of playing in a storm drain. The kids end up getting trapped when a thunderstorm hits and then the overflow pipe fills with water, and I think one of them ends up drowning. . . .”

  Alistair put his hand on my shoulder. “Listen!” he said. We heard a splashing sound from the darkness.

  “Hey!” Iggy called from farther down the pipe, “Der’s a ladder here!”

  When we caught up with Iggy, we found a landing with enough space for Alistair and me to stand up straight. There were two ladders: one led up to a manhole overhead, and the other led down into the deep, dark sewer water below.

  “We must be under one of the main streets in town,” Alistair guessed.

  That’s when I noticed that the water level below seemed to be rising. It must be raining pretty hard outside if the sewer is filling with water that quickly, I thought, feeling more worried.

  Alistair waved his watch flashlight over the dark water below. “Shirley? Are you there? It’s me, Ali
stair!”

  Something snaked and wriggled beneath the dirty water—something that reminded me of a giant sea intestine.

  “Alistair, look!” I pointing toward the water, “It’s her!”

  “Hang on, Shirley!” Alistair scrambled down the ladder toward the dark water below. “We’re going to take you home!”

  Alistair stood on a rung of the ladder just above the surface of the water, but he still couldn’t reach Shirley. She was too far away and too deep below the surface.

  “Iggy!” Alistair said, “I need your help!”

  “OKAY, AWISTAIR!” Iggy shouted, using his bug legs to walk straight down the wall and onto the water. “I GET HER!”

  Iggy tiptoed across the surface of the sewer water until he reached Shirley.

  “That’s right, Iggy,” Alistair said, lowering his voice. “Offer her that minnow you caught as bait . . . And when she bites it, grab her!”

  We all held our breath, watching as Iggy waited for Shirley to grab the minnow.

  Then, with the perfect timing of a giant water bug attacking its meal, Iggy grabbed Shirley and held her tightly in his pincers!”

  “TA-DA!” Iggy shouted. “I HODING HAGGIE-BABY!!! And I NOT going flush you dis time, Haggie!”

  Dottie jumped up and down. “Hooray for Iggy!”

  Alistair gave Iggy the biggest smile I had seen since the day he lost Shirley.

  Unfortunately, the four of us weren’t able to celebrate Shirley’s rescue for long.

  ALISTAIR suddenly fell silent. “We’re not alone,” he whispered, pointing toward something that lurked in the shadows.

  Then I saw it too: hundreds of slimy tentacles covered an entire cement wall. They stretched toward us, moving faster and faster!