by Jo Nesbo
“That’s awesome!” Nilly cried, howling with laughter.
“What do frogs like to talk about?” Doctor Proctor asked.
“All kinds of stuff,” Gregory said. “Tonight most of them were talking about some strange waffle-eating monkeys that have moved down into the sewers.”
“Say something else in Froglish!” Nilly urged, tears of laughter still pouring from his eyes.
“Hiccup,” Gregory said, and he was laughing now, too. “Hiccup, hiccup, hiccup, hiccup, hiiiiiiiccup.”
“Which means?” Nilly asked.
“‘I only speak a little Froglish, so please speak sloooooowly.’”
And with that, both Nilly and Gregory toppled over backwards on the floor in a fit of laughter. And Doctor Proctor started chuckling as well.
“What I’m wondering,” said Lisa, who was the only one who wasn’t laughing, “is why you were sitting on the sled on the ski slope saying ‘I am invisible.’ That’s what convinced us you were a moon chameleon.”
“Oh, you heard that?” Gregory said. “I . . . uh, was talking to myself about a particular person who . . . well, I seem to be a little invisible to.”
“Gregory, you’re blushing!” Doctor Proctor teased. “You don’t mean you’ve fallen in love again, do you? If you have, well, really it was about time.”
“In love?” Gregory laughed an unusually giddy laugh. “No, no. Hiccup! I . . . uh . . . yeah, I might like someone, but – hiccup! – in love? Ha, ha, ha, well I never!”
The other three looked at Gregory. And if there was one thing that there was no longer any doubt about, it was that Gregory Galvanius was in love. But after reading the letter, Lisa was the only one who knew who he was in love with. And who Rosemarie was. But of course she didn’t say anything.
“Anyway,” Doctor Proctor said. “Now that we’ve established that Gregory isn’t a moon chameleon and also hasn’t been hypnotised, I think we should ask him to help us save the world.”
“Yes!” Lisa and Nilly agreed.
“What’s all this business about moon chameleons?” Gregory asked.
They explained all the business about moon chameleons to him. Afterwards, Gregory summarised: “So, a moon chameleon can disguise itself to look like a person, like any kind of background, basically like anything at all. They eat human flesh more or less the way we Scandinavians eat meatballs. They struggle with double letters, steal socks and hypnotise people to say stuff like ‘sheep sheese’ instead of ‘cheap cheese.’ And in this book you mention, it also says that if you see a moon chameleon in broad daylight, it means that something horrendously bad will happen.”
“Unspeakably, appallingly bad,” Nilly corrected.
“And you’re telling me that you saw moon chameleon tracks in broad daylight, and that this means the end of the world is coming?”
Nilly and Lisa nodded.
Gregory laughed. “It all sounds ridiculous. Don’t you think?”
Lisa thought about it. And realised that Gregory was right. She wasn’t so convinced anymore. Actually, when you got right down to it, nothing very doomlike had occurred. No earthquakes, no volcanic eruptions, not even so much as a meteor shower.
But Doctor Proctor was the one who responded. “I think it’s time you guys knew about the rest.”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“The part that’s not in the book,” Doctor Proctor said with a gloomy expression, “but was included in the rumours I heard in Paris.”
“Is it sc-sc-scary?” Lisa whispered.
“Actually, you’re supposed to be eighteen to hear this,” Doctor Proctor said. “So maybe we ought to turn on a few more lights before I proceed.”
DOCTOR PROCTOR LOOKED somberly at the others gathered around the coffee table in Gregory’s living room.
“I’ve put off telling you this as long as I could. After all, it’s all just rumours.”
“And what are the rumours?” Lisa asked.
“That the moon chameleons are coming to eat us,” Doctor Proctor said.
“Eat us?” Lisa, Nilly and Gregory all asked in unison.
Doctor Proctor nodded, his facial expression gloomy. “The rumours in Paris went like this: Mars used to be inhabited by Martians . . .” he began.
“Sounds logical,” Nilly said. “I mean, if anyone was going to live there, that’s who you’d expect it to be.”
“No one lives there,” Doctor Proctor said. “The moon chameleons ate them all up, because that’s what they do. They travel from planet to planet devouring any intelligent life they encounter. And the most intelligent life on earth is . . . well, us.”
“I agree,” said Nilly, who didn’t seem to have noticed how frightened Lisa and Gregory were.
“By us, I mean all people,” Doctor Proctor said.
“But – but—,” Lisa stammered, “why haven’t we ever heard of a single person being eaten, then?”
“If I’m right, it’s because moon chameleons are pretty clever beasts,” Doctor Proctor said. “They’re planning something, something that will keep us from realising what’s going on until it’s too late.”
“If what you’re saying is right, we need to find out what their plan is,” Gregory said.
“And then those of us who haven’t been hypnotised by the moon chameleons need to organise some sort of resistance movement,” Doctor Proctor said.
“A resistance movement!” Lisa exclaimed. “Like what they had in World War Two!”
“Well, we’re out of cookies,” Nilly said, waving the empty package around.
They all sat there in silence; the only sound was Nilly munching away on the last cookie as they tried to think smart and hit-the-nail-on-the-head kinds of thoughts. And, as we all know, it’s not that easy to do that on command. Finally there was total silence in Gregory Galvanius’s living room. It was so quiet they could hear the faint buzzing sound of the insects in the bedroom; the distant sounds of choral singing from the neighbouring houses, where everyone was glued to their TV sets; and a lone car driving by outside.
Something occurred to Lisa. “I know!” she exclaimed.
Everyone else looked at her.
“I know how people are being hypnotised!”
NILLY’S MOTHER AND sister were howling at the top of their lungs. They had forgotten Nilly was missing, because Hallvard Tenorsen was there. On TV. He was conducting with a broad, gleaming white smile, and they were following his baton with their eyes and doing whatever it said. They were in the middle of the second verse of “Norway in Red, White and Blue,” a patriotic song that had become popular during World War II when Norway was under occupation by Nazi Germany. They were also nearing the end of their third bag of Cheetos when there was a sudden tinkling sound of breaking glass.
And since it was so late in the evening and they were at home in the safety of their own living room, Eva and her mother jumped like crazy. They stared at the large ice-covered snowball lying on the living room floor surrounded by shards of glass from the smashed windowpane.
“Nilly, you gnomified nitwit!” his mother screamed in rage at the hole in the windowpane. “Have you started vandalising windows now too?”
In response, another ice snowball arrived, smashing the rest of the windowpane.
Nilly’s mother and Eva stood up and staggered over to the window. And there, on the other side of the picket fence, they saw six figures.
“Who’s out there?” Nilly’s mother yelled.
“The Norway Youth,” cried a voice that Nilly’s mother recognised right away.
“Truls and Trym Thrane!” she screamed. “Your mother’s going to hear about this in an Oslo minute, you catch my drift?!”
“Send that dwarf out here!” Trym yelled back. “Vee want Nilly! Otherwise vee’ll break the rest of your windows! This is a presidential recommendation!”
Nilly’s mother gave Eva a questioning look, but Eva just shrugged.
“What do you want with Nilly?” his mother yell
ed.
“Vee’re just supposed to bring him to the president, Mrs Nilly!” a high voice called.
“Jeez,” Eva told her mother. “That’s Beatrize’s voice. I didn’t think she was into breaking windows and stuff like that.”
“What does the president want with Nilly?” Nilly’s mother howled.
“Weren’t you listening to the president’s speesh earlier this evening, Mrs Nilly? Everyone who’s really small or really good at spelling has to meet with the president.”
“Why?” Eva yelled at the window.
“Because, as the eighteenth century drinking song that kind of became our first national anthem says, we’re the Birthplace of Shampions, which means no one has any business being small here. I’m sure you’ll get him back after the president has had a serious shat with him.”
“And what about the stuff about spelling?”
“The president doesn’t want a bunsh of pesky, uppity spelling know-it-alls picking on people who occasionally forget to double a letter. Seriously, Mrs Nilly!”
Nilly’s mother contemplated this. Then she yelled back: “Sounds quite reasonable, all that. And Nilly is lazy, and I’d be more than happy to hand him over to you, tied up if you wanted. But you’ll have to tell the president that unfortunately Nilly isn’t home.”
“Oh well,” Beatrize yelled. “So sorry about the broken window, Mrs Nilly, but vee were told that was the way it had to be done. Vee’ll just come back later.”
Eva and her mother went back to the TV, in time to sing along with the last verse. “Confounded tarnation! Nilly’s going to have to pay for that out of his allowance,” her mother said, and shivered.
“Nilly doesn’t get an allowance, Mum,” Eva said, and hurriedly devoured the last of the Cheetos.
NILLY, DOCTOR PROCTOR and Gregory were all sitting around Gregory’s coffee table looking eagerly at Lisa. They were looking at her eagerly because she had just said, “I know how people are being hypnotised!”
“You asked what we have in common, those of us who haven’t been hypnotised?” Lisa began.
“Yes,” Doctor Proctor said. “If we knew that we could figure out how it’s happening.”
“It’s been right there the whole time,” Lisa said. “Right in front of our eyes. We just haven’t been watching it happening. For whatever reason. And a good thing, too.”
“What is she talking about?” Gregory whispered to Doctor Proctor.
“Shh!” Doctor Proctor said.
“But everyone else has been watching,” Lisa continued. “My mum and dad. Nilly’s mother and sister, Beatrize, Trym, Truls. Everyone in Norway!”
“Of course, it’s obvious!” Nilly said, slapping himself on the forehead.
“Eureka!” Doctor Proctor lit up. “That’s what we have in common! We haven’t been watching!”
“Uh, watching what?” Gregory cried, agitated.
Lisa and Nilly and Doctor Proctor responded in unison: “The NoroVision Choral Throwdown!”
“I wasn’t watching because I was doing my homework and practising for band,” Lisa said.
“I wasn’t watching because I was reading about horrible animals and putting on shadow-puppet shows,” Nilly said.
“I wasn’t watching because my antenna hasn’t been working,” Doctor Proctor said.
“And you, Gregory,” Lisa said. “You weren’t watching because you don’t have a TV.”
ON THE TV screen at Lisa’s house, Tenorsen was on the seventh verse of “Norway in Red, White and Blue” when the glass in the front windowpane shattered.
Lisa’s commandant father stared in astonishment at the shards of glass, the shattered flowerpot and the snowball that were lying on the floor in front of his wingback chair. First Lisa had disappeared and now this!
“My lord, what’s going on?” Lisa’s commandant mother said.
A voice from outside on the street yelled: “Send Flatu-Lisa out here!”
Lisa’s commandant father walked over to the window.
“What kind of hooliganism is this?” he roared. “What did you just say about my daughter?”
“She’s a very good speller!”
“Of course she’s a good speller! And now I’m going to show you how good I am at slapping disobedient shildren upside their heads!”
And with that the large man came trundling out of his living room and started bellowing a ghastly roar that lasted down the front hallway, out the front door, down the walkway, through the gate and out onto the street where the Norway Youth had already long since fled in panic.
Lisa’s commandant father stopped there, gasped for breath and mumbled to himself, “But where is she?”
“IT’S HALLVARD TENORSEN,” Lisa said. “The singing chiropractor. He’s hypnotising everyone.”
“He’s no more a chiropractor than I’m a moon chameleon,” Nilly said.
“This is terrible,” Doctor Proctor said. “We have a man-eating moon chameleon for a president. And he’s planning to start a war against Denmark!”
In silence, they contemplated this grim, deplorable fact for a few minutes.
“All right, all right,” Lisa said. “I think we’d better come up with our plan a little faster than this. I have to go home soon and do my homework.”
HER COMMANDANT FATHER was standing on the front stoop waiting when Lisa got home.
“There you are! Finally.”
He crossed his arms and tried to hide his relief with a gruff expression. “Do you have any idea how worried your mother has been about you?”
“Yes,” she said, knowing that her father must have been at least equally worried. “But I had a good reason for being late, Dad.”
“Oh yeah? And that reason would be . . .”
“I can’t tell either you or Mum. You’re just going to have to trust me, Dad.”
Lisa’s commandant father watched dumbfounded as she marched right past him, into the house and up to the second floor. Her commandant mother came to join him out on the front stoop and asked, “Well, what did she say?”
“That vee have to trust her.”
Lisa’s commandant mother looked at Lisa’s commandant father puzzled. Then Lisa’s father put his arm around Lisa’s mother’s shoulders and cleared his throat. “I have the felling that our little girl isn’t so little anymore, honey.”
WHEN NILLY GOT home, his house was dark.
Nilly opened his sister’s bedroom door a crack and peeked into his mother’s room to make sure neither of them had been eaten by moon chameleons yet. But they were both sleeping – at least judging from the snoring sounds – unconcerned and safe. He was about to close his mother’s bedroom door when he heard her voice.
“There you are, you slacker. I’m too tired now, but remind me that I’m supposed to tie you up and hand you over to the Norway Youth first thing tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay, Mum.”
“But not until you’ve brought me breakfast in bed!”
“Of course. Sleep well.”
“Humph.”
AND THE LAST thing that happened that night was that Nilly put on a short shadow play for Lisa. Not a scary one, because there’d already been enough scary things for one day. It was the longest ski jump in the world, a graceful arc that lasted and lasted, until the ski jumper turned into a bird that, on broad, safe wings, sailed under the moon, into the night and on to the land of dreams, and didn’t land until long after both Lisa and Nilly had fallen asleep.
SYVERTSEN’S PASTRIES IS in the middle of downtown Oslo, right next to the parliament building, three clothing stores, a hair salon and a Freemason’s lodge. Pretentious women from pretentious neighbourhoods sit around its small, round tables on round, slender chairs. They take demure little tiny bites of baked goods named after European cities like Berlin, Vienna and Paris, and sip from little tiny cups of tea from remote places in Asia, while they talk about big children and little grandchildren and little tiny goings-on that are happening in their neighbourhood
s. But on this day three of them were discussing slightly bigger issues.
“Have you heard? The king has gone into exile abroad,” one of them said.
“Yes, to South Trøndelag,” another said.
“South Trøndelag is supposed to be very nice,” the third said.
“Tenorsen moved into the Royal Palace,” the second one said.
“Well, that makes sense,” the first said. “He is the president.”
“It is rather unfortunate that he declared war on Denmark, though,” said the third. “My husband and I, vee had cruise tickets for a little vacation to Denmark, and now of course nothing will come of it.”
“Don’t say such things,” the first said. “Our president knows what he’s doing.”
But the three ladies weren’t the only ones discussing important matters in Syvertsen’s Pastries that day. Four people, seated around a table in the very back of the establishment, were discussing nothing short of the end of the world, man-eating moon chameleons and sock thievery. The four people were none other than Doctor Proctor, Lisa, Nilly and Gregory Galvanius. Three days had passed since Lisa and Nilly had outed Gregory as a frog man.
“Do you think she’s – hiccup! – coming?” Gregory asked, looking at his watch.
“Of course she’s coming,” Nilly said.
And no sooner had he said that than the door opened. In walked a buxom woman, who purposefully and confidently strode over to their table. She stopped, let her glasses slide down to the tip of her nose, scrutinised the four of them, and asked, “And the four of you are going to save the world from certain doom?”
“There’ll be one more of us, Mrs Strobe,” Lisa said.
“Oh?” Mrs Strobe replied. “I’m not impressed. And, I must say, this is a rather unusual place for a resistance movement to meet.”
“That’s exactly the point, Mrs Strobe,” Nilly said. “If we’d met at any of the usual resistance movement places, we would have been detected right away.”
“We’re not forcing anyone to join us, Mrs Strobe,” Doctor Proctor said. “After all, being part of this movement entails a not inconsiderable risk.”