The End of the World. Maybe

by Jo Nesbo

  Lisa was going to protest, but suddenly felt like they should put this silliness behind them. She pulled the door open.

  It was dark in there, but the buzzing noise was intense.

  “Ow!” Lisa yelled, more because she was startled than because the little prick on her neck hurt. Nilly had obviously found the light switch, because just then the light came on in the room.

  Lisa went bug-eyed. Literally.

  “Mosquitoes,” she said, rubbing her neck.

  “And flies,” Nilly added.

  The bare, unfurnished room was buzzing with insects, large and small, apparently all of them able to fly. And now they all swarmed around the lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  Lisa slammed the door shut again.

  “Odd,” Nilly said.

  They walked through the other rooms. It didn’t take long: There wasn’t anything other than a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom with a bathtub that was still full of water.

  “Apart from the insect thing this place really isn’t that weird,” Nilly said after they got back to the living room.

  “Nope,” Lisa said. “Except for something that isn’t here.”

  “Yup,” Nilly said and flopped down, exhausted, onto the sofa. “The guy doesn’t have a TV. That’s almost a little creepy.”

  “I meant a bed. Where is Mr Galvanius’s bed?”

  “Hm,” Nilly said, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “Maybe he sleeps on the sofa.”

  “But he has a bedroom, so why—” Lisa stopped all of a sudden and then exclaimed, “He sleeps in the bathtub!”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “I mean: He sleeps there. Every night!”

  “Quit joking around,” Nilly said with a yawn. “Think about what that would do to his back. We’re talking prolapsed discs, sciatica, luxated funny bone . . .”

  “You’re the one who says he isn’t a normal person,” Lisa said. “Right?”

  But Nilly didn’t respond. His mouth had slid open and at regular intervals was emitting a sound like a gearshift that someone was trying to put in reverse. He was snoring.

  OUTSIDE THE HOUSE it was very still.

  Then the gate made an almost inaudible creaking sound.

  Then more stillness.

  Then a whistling sound, like a lasso being thrown through the darkness. Followed by a little smack, as if something wet had hit the side of the house.

  After that the same whistling sound and then finally a bigger smack, like a pair of jaws snapping shut.

  And then stillness again.

  LISA TOOK A quick tour of the living room while she listened to Nilly’s soft, regular snoring. There weren’t any pictures on the walls, but now she’d reached the desk. And on it sat a piece of paper that someone had started writing on. She picked it up and read it.

  Dear Rosemarie,

  Please forgive me for approaching you in such a forward manner, but what I’m about to write is something I’ve been carrying with me for so long it just has to be said. I love you, Rosemarie. There, I said it. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. There were two reasons that I never dared tell you before. The first is that I haven’t been able to deal with the rejection that I must obviously be the result of my telling you I love you. Of course a poor slob like me could never win the love of a woman like you, Rosemarie. That much is obvious. But there’s also another reason. And that is that I have turned my back on love. Because love has never given me anything but pain. She was from Austria. Her name was Agnes. She left me because she thought we didn’t have anything in common. She moved back home to Salzburg, started dating a guitarist named Bruno, dyed her hair blonde, bought high-heeled boots and started singing in his Austrian dance orchestra. They became world famous and I started drinking and moved to an out-of-the-way place where I got a job as a teacher. A bad teacher. I teach arts and crafts, which I don’t actually know anything about. But I just wasn’t up to teaching biology, because I can’t handle cuting up dead frogs.

  Lisa felt the sweat start beading up on her forehead. She stared at one word: “cuting.” With just one t where there should have been two. That meant one of three things: That Gregory Galvanius was a bit of a sloppy speller, which happens. To err is human. That this wasn’t written by a human at all, but rather by a moon chameleon! That “cutting” was spelled correctly in the actual letter, but that a moon chameleon was standing in between Lisa and the letter right now!

  Lisa dropped the letter with a little scream.

  Nilly emitted a small grunt over on the sofa.

  And right then the light went out.

  Lisa flung her hands over her own mouth to stop herself from screaming any more. She stared straight into the darkness, but didn’t see anything, just heard. Heard Nilly’s soft snoring plus something else. A sound that made her hair stand on end, first the hair on her arms, then on the back of her neck and then on her head. Hiccups. She heard familiar, croaking hiccups. And they weren’t coming from outside; they were here. Here in the room.

  “N-N-Nilly,” Lisa stuttered, trying to control the trembling in her voice. But instead the trembling just spread to the rest of her body until she felt like she was vibrating like a jackhammer. Because now she could also make out something in the darkness: A pair of large, bulging eyes that glowed, and with eyelids that slid slowly up and down over them.

  “Nilly!!!” Lisa howled.

  The snoring stopped all of a sudden. There were a couple of grunts, and then a sleepy “What’s going on?”

  The voice that responded wasn’t Lisa’s. But a squeaky, whispery voice that lisped, “What’s going on – hic! – is that you’re about to be eaten!”

  It was Gregory Galvanius’s voice.

  Lisa felt something cold and slimy curl around her neck and squeeze. A hand. But not a human hand.

  “Help!” Lisa screamed, flailing her arms, but the hand just tightened its grip.

  “Double help!!” Nilly screamed.

  “There is no help for – hiccup! – thieves.” Mr Galvanius laughed a squeaky and very ominous laugh.

  And just then the light came on.

  “There is too help,” said a familiar voice. And in the doorway stood a familiar tall, thin figure.

  “Doctor Proctor!” exclaimed Lisa in relief.

  “Professor!” Nilly cheered.

  “Vic – hiccup! – tor?” Gregory Galvanius said, tightening the belt on his dressing gown.

  “Quick!” Nilly yelled, bouncing off the sofa, hopping up onto Mr Galvanius’s shoulders and locking his legs around Mr Galvanius’s neck. “Don’t let him camouflage and get away.”

  “Hiccup!” Mr Galvanius whirled around as he tried to grab the pest who was clamped onto the back of his head like a vise.

  “Stop, Nilly,” Doctor Proctor said.

  “We have to save the world from the moon chameleons!” Nilly shouted, pounding Gregory Galvanius’s head with his itty-bitty fist.

  “Ow! Hiccup! Ow!”

  “Stop, I said!” Doctor Proctor shouted. “Gregory is not a moon chameleon!”

  Gregory Galvanius and Nilly stopped all of a sudden, both of them.

  “What did you say I – hiccup! – wasn’t?” Mr Galvanius asked.

  “A moon chameleon,” Doctor Proctor said.

  “If he’s not one of those, then what is he?” Nilly asked.

  “You two detectives really haven’t figured that one out yet?” the professor asked, walking over to Mr Galvanius and helping Nilly down from his shoulders.

  “Maybe not,” Lisa said, squinting her right eye closed. “But it’s starting to become clear.”

  “Exactly!” Nilly said. “Or . . . uh, is it?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “He sleeps in a bathtub and actually ought to be hibernating now. He jumped one hundred and fifty feet on the ski slope with no ramp to take off from. He has a room full of insects. And there’s the hiccuping, which is actually croaking. He’s”—Li
sa pointed her index finger at Gregory Galvanius, who looked at her in terror—“a frog!”

  “A frog?!” Nilly repeated.

  “A kind of frog,” Doctor Proctor said, nodding in confirmation.

  “A fool of a frog, caught in the act,” Gregory Galvanius said, hanging his head.

  “You’re kidding!” Nilly laughed, looking around at everyone else. “Or . . . you’re not kidding?”

  In response, Gregory Galvanius opened his mouth and let his tongue roll out. And out. And out. Until it lay across the length of the room like a red carpet, well, a bluish-red carpet, all the way over to the tip of Nilly’s nose. And there, at the very tip of his tongue, sat Perry, struggling to get any of his seven legs free. They were all stuck in the sticky frog-tongue mucus.

  “I knew it was you when I saw this chap by my doorbell,” Mr Galvanius lisped. “Take him before I eat him. He’s quite a tempting morsel.”

  A look of disgust came over Nilly’s face and he carefully plucked his spider friend off the long tongue using his thumb and index finger. Perry darted straight up Nilly’s arm and neck and under his hat to safety. Mr Galvanius rolled his tongue back up and closed his mouth with a loud smack.

  “And now,” Doctor Proctor said, clapping his hands together with a smack that wasn’t anywhere near as loud, “I suggest we all sit down and get to the bottom of a few things. Which is to say, we have other things we need to do. And we don’t have much time.”

  “What other things?” Mr Galvanius asked.

  “The usual,” Nilly said, stifling a yawn. “We have to save the world.”

  ONCE THEY WERE all seated around the coffee table in the living room – Doctor Proctor, Lisa, Nilly and Gregory Galvanius – Doctor Proctor explained how he had found them.

  He was working on his balancing shoes and listening to the local news on the radio when Eva, Nilly’s sister, called and asked if Nilly was there. Because they hadn’t seen him since he left for school that morning, and his mother was waiting for him to bring her dinner in bed the way he usually did. Doctor Proctor asked her to check with Lisa and hadn’t given it another thought until he heard the loud voice of Lisa’s commandant father calling from the front porch of her house.

  He understood, from what the angry commandant was saying, that Lisa’s bed was empty, that she had disappeared. Just then the newscaster on the radio said that the residents of a home located at number 24 Andedam Road had reported hearing a violent explosion that had rattled windows throughout the neighbourhood, and had also seen a girl and something that must have been a dwarf breaking the speed limit on a pair of mini-skis. And since Doctor Proctor knew that his old college roommate from Paris lived at number 25 Andedam Road, and that Lisa and Nilly had been talking about Gregory recently, he put two and two together and came up with fartonaut powder. And decided to head down there and see what was going on.

  “We have to go home and let our families know we’re okay,” Lisa said. “They must be worried.”

  “Oh, they can surely wait a little longer,” Doctor Proctor said. “We have more important things to think about than worried parents.”

  “Yup,” Nilly said. “But first we have to find out how someone turns into a frog.”

  “A kind of frog,” Doctor Proctor said. “Why don’t you explain, Gregory?”

  “Alas!” Gregory alassed. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

  “The long version,” Nilly and Lisa said in unison.

  IT TOOK ALMOST ten minutes for Gregory to finish telling them about his childhood at the very southern tip of Norway, about his temperamental father who wanted him to be a professional volleyball player, and how he had defied his family’s wishes and gone to Paris to study biology.

  “That’s where I met Agnes,” Gregory said. “The most beautiful creature on two legs.”

  “Kooky?” Nilly asked. Not because he was asking if Agnes was a little nutty, but because it’s hard to say “cookie” with a mouth full of cookie crumbs. Nilly held out a package of cookies, the only food in the whole house, unless you ate insects.

  “No thanks,” Gregory said. “Where was I?”

  “In Paris.”

  “Right. Yeah, so I was head-over-knees in love, as they say. And then I somehow worked up the courage to invite Agnes to a concert by De Beetels. And can you believe it? She said yes! And as they were playing a song called ‘She Luvs Ya,’ she turned to me and said in an Austrian accent: ‘It eez true, vat day are zinging, Gregory.’ And then she kissed me right on the mouth, as De Beetels sang ‘She luvs ya, nah, nah, nah.’ That was the happiest moment of my life. The minute after that was nice, too. And the one after that. Actually, life was pretty much a long progression of wonderful moments, up until I was so careless as to drink out of that pitcher.”

  “A tragic misunderstanding,” Doctor Proctor said.

  “Misunderstanding?!” scoffed Gregory, his face turning red with rage. “Victor, you were keeping a pitcher filled with a potentially lethal beverage in our communal fridge! Hiccup!”

  “And I’m sorry about that,” Doctor Proctor said. “But you stole it from my shelf, Gregory!”

  Gregory and Doctor Proctor looked at each other. Then Gregory bent his head again and admitted, “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Well, at any rate, you’ve learned,” Nilly said. “You didn’t eat Perry.”

  “Oh, I don’t eat people’s pets,” Gregory said. “That’s over the line.”

  “But what happened when you drank from that pitcher?” Lisa asked.

  “Yes, what did happen?” Gregory said. “I woke up that same night, covered in slime. Oozing from my own skin. I felt the Adam’s apple in my throat moving up and down and felt strangely compelled to search for moths and mosquitoes and ants. The changes weren’t that big in the beginning. But then I got stronger. I could jump thirty feet. Without even getting a running start. I could clean the outsides of my windows on the third floor by standing out in the yard and jumping up and down. I’d turned into a superman! I was sure Agnes would just love me even more. But then one night – oh, that fateful night . . .”

  Gregory paused.

  “What? What happened that night?” Lisa urged.

  Gregory hid his face in his hands. “I was walking her home from the movies and was planning to kiss her. And it was going to be a good one . . .”

  “Eeew,” Nilly shuddered.

  Gregory took a deep breath and continued. “She shrieked when I opened my mouth and rolled out my tongue. I actually hadn’t really realised how long it had got. Plus it was awfully sticky. She squealed like a stuck pig. Then she ran into her House and locked her door behind her. I thought she probably needed a little time to get used to the idea of kissing a guy with a tongue that was so much longer than average. But the next day her landlord said she’d packed her bags and gone back home to Salzburg in Austria.”

  Gregory was quiet. He stared straight ahead and swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving up and down, as if he were trying to swallow his sad reality one more time.

  “Then what happened?” Lisa practically whispered.

  “Then a few months passed with me hoping she would come back. Until the day I happened to turn on the TV. And there she was. With Bruno. They were singing together. And they looked so in love. Their band was called BABA, and the song was ‘Waltzing King.’”

  “Oh, that one is great,” Lisa said, and started singing, “You are the waltzing king . . .”

  “Stop!” Gregory howled, his hands over his ears.

  “Humph.” Lisa pouted, offended. “My singing isn’t thaaaat bad . . .”

  “Well . . .” Nilly said.

  “It’s not your singing. It’s the song,” said Gregory, whose face had suddenly gone ashen. “She broke my heart. I stayed in bed for three weeks after that TV show. Like a feeble, spineless dishrag, barely able to croak. And every time I started to feel better, they would play that BABA song on the radio, and I would
have to lie down again. I just stayed like that until one day Victor came to my room.”

  Doctor Proctor shrugged. “All I did was put on a record to cheer him up.”

  “But it was the right song, Victor.”

  “Apparently,” Doctor Proctor said. “Because he hopped out of bed. And when I say hop, I mean he was bouncing like a rubber ball around the floor, walls and ceiling.”

  “It was ‘She Luvs Ya’ by De Beetels,” Gregory said.

  “I get it,” Lisa said.

  “You do?” Nilly asked, looking at her in surprise.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “‘She Luvs Ya’ reminded you of the happiest moment in your life. When Agnes kissed you. And you got your superpowers back.”

  Gregory nodded despondently. “And it’s still like that.”

  “Aha!” Nilly exclaimed. “That’s why you jumped one hundred and fifty feet up there on the ski slope! Because you were listening to ‘She Luvs Ya.’”

  “Yup. And sadly, whenever I hear BABA, I still go limp like gelatin and can’t manage to do anything.”

  “BUT THERE’S STILL one thing I’m wondering,” Nilly said. “What in the world were you doing in the sewer?”

  Gregory shrugged. “Sometimes it gets a little lonely up here being a frog. Especially now, in the winter, when most of the frogs in Norway are hibernating under the ice somewhere. So sometimes I like to go hang out with the sewer frogs for a little while.”

  “The sewer frogs?”

  “It’s warm down there.”

  “What do you guys do?”

  “Shoot the breeze. Eat a cockroach or a spider. Have a good time.”

  “Double eeew!” Nilly said.

  “Frogs can talk?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” Galvanius said.

  “What language do they speak, huh?”

  “Froglish, of course.”

  “And what does it sound like?”

  “Hiccup!” Gregory said. “Hiccup, hiccup, hiccup.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “‘Could I have a beer, please?’”