Leslie picked the empty bottle off the tray. “So that’s why you were always drinking this stuff at the restaurant. Your ‘cooking wine.’ I always thought you were a drunk!”
“No, just a creature.”
In her head, Leslie tried to decide which was worse. Then something occurred to her. “But that means . . . I’m part creature, too?”
Elliot climbed back onstage and put one hairy hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m beginning to think there’s a little creature in all of us.” He smiled weakly at Famous Freddy and then looked down at his hairy bristle-imp body. “Sometimes, a little too much.”
“Don’t you worry,” said Leslie’s grandfather. “I’ve got just the thing for that.”
“You do?”
Famous Freddy nodded. “Dr. Benedict Heppleworth is an old friend. He called me here when Quazicom took over. That was why I left in such a hurry. In my natural form as a creature I was able to hide myself—in that huge aquarium at the Simmersville Inn.”
“So you were there all along,” said Elliot. “You saw us eating when we first arrived.”
“It’s not all I saw. I was keeping an eye on Grinner in the kitchen. I needed to see what went into that ‘Special’ he served you. So I was able to cook up an antidote using all the same ingredients.” He lifted the lid on the bamboo box sitting on the tray. Inside was a dainty ring of six steamed dumplings.
He handed Elliot a pair of chopsticks and said, “That one’s for you.”
Elliot stared at the dumpling.
“And these,” Famous Freddy said to the others, “are for you.”
The other “Specimens” shuffled onto the stage: the creature like a bright red polar bear; the businessman with the head of a giraffe; the four-armed troll; the one-eyed, mostly belly creature; and Emily, the shimmering green lizard. Freddy gave them each a dumpling, and when they ate it, a miraculous transformation occurred. All five of them were human once again!
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Emily cried. She gave Famous Freddy a big hug. “If there’s ever anything I can do to repay you, you just let me know!”
Leslie’s grandfather shook his head. “Don’t mention it. Just make sure the next time you visit Bickleburgh, you stop in for a bite at Famous Freddy’s Dim Sum Emporium!”
Elliot peered into the bamboo box. “There’s only one left,” he said.
“It’s for you,” said Famous Freddy.
Elliot was about to reach for it with his chopsticks, when he stopped. “But what about the snooty waiter?”
“What waiter?” asked Leslie’s grandfather.
Elliot explained how the ghorks had tested their formula on the man—and how it had worked.
“I could certainly try and whip something up,” said the old chef, “but where is he?”
Elliot, Leslie and the creatures looked around the market square but (thankfully) there wasn’t a ghork in sight.
“Poor guy,” said Leslie. “I hope he’s okay . . . wherever he is.”
Famous Freddy squeezed Elliot’s shoulder and pointed at the final remaining dumpling. “Like I said, that one’s for you.”
As he poked his chopsticks into the box, Elliot’s head filled with a whirl of questions. Did he really want to go back to his old self? Hadn’t his parents accepted him as a creature only a moment ago? And wasn’t this what he had always wanted? To belong to the world of his uncle Archie, to the world of creatures?
Yes . . .
Except . . .
Deep down, he knew the truth. As much as he loved creaturedom, he wasn’t truly a creature himself—at least not on the outside. Now that he knew his parents would accept him no matter what, he knew precisely where he belonged.
He plucked up Famous Freddy’s dumpling and popped it into his mouth.
It tasted a bit strange, but as with all of Freddy’s cooking, it was delicious.
He swallowed.
He waited.
At first, nothing happened, but then Elliot felt very strange. A warm, tingling sensation prickled all through his body. The bristling, hedgehog-like hair was sucked into his skin. His eyes lost their yellow tint. His wolfish snout shrunk and vanished, as did his long, shining talons. In seconds, Elliot was back to his old self. But at the same time, he knew he would always be a creature—at least on the inside.
The crowd cheered. They had never seen anything like it. Many of them would remember these transformations as the greatest quick-change illusions they had ever seen (it was simply too much for them to believe it was real).
Gügor lumbered over to Elliot and put one great arm around his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said.
“Watch it,” Elliot responded. “I’m getting crumpled down here! Wait. Thank you—for what?”
“Not you. Them.” Gügor was pointing to Elliot’s parents.
“And you.” Gügor pointed to Famous Freddy.
“You’re welcome,” said Leslie’s grandfather. “But why?”
“Because Elliot’s parents would love Elliot no matter what he looked like, and because Grandpa Freddy loved Grandma Freddy even though she was different from him. If love can happen between such different people then maybe it can also happen between . . . you know.”
“This is it,” Patti whispered to Harrumphrey. “He’s finally gonna tell her!”
Gügor turned to Eloise-Yvette. “Gügor knows,” he said, “that Eloise-Yvette is very different from Gügor. Mostly, it’s a difference of size. Gügor doesn’t think this is a problem. So Gügor wants to say: Eloise-Yvette Chevalier, you are, and have always been, Gügor’s 1TL.”
Patti cupped one hand to her mouth and turned to the audience. “That means One True Love,” she whispered.
“Oh, Googy,” said Eloise-Yvette. “Why would I find that strange?”
“Gügor and Eloise-Yvette are so different.”
As Gügor said this, the lights in the market square dimmed. (This was because the lighting crew, who, like the audience, sensed the romantic climax of the show, thought a bit of mood lighting was called for.) It seemed as though the whole world dimmed, save for a single spotlight. It lanced across the square to hit upon Gügor and Eloise-Yvette, whose wings sparkled like the stars.
“Of course I don’t think it’s strange.” she said. “I’m a fairy-bat, silly! If there’s one kind of creature in all of creaturedom who understands the possibility of love between mismatched couples, it’s us fairy-bats! But Gooey, that’s not the only reason I think it’s perfectly normal.” She flew to Gügor’s face and cupped his enormous chin inside her tiny hand. “When I saw you break your chains and fight single-handed against an army of ghorks to save me, I knew it was true. It made me realize something I should have realized all those years ago, when we sang together in the catacombs.”
“What was that?” asked Gügor.
Eloise-Yvette fluttered forward and gave him a great big (well, “great big” by fairy-bat standards, which was actually minuscule by knucklecrumpler standards, but . . . well, you get the picture) kiss.
“You’re not my brother,” she said. “You’re my ITL.”
“Aww!” went the crowd (the second time) followed by thunderous applause. In fact, Eloise-Yvette’s kiss received a standing ovation.
“I’d say this calls for a song,” said Boris Minor. “Anybody feel like cutting us down?”
Boris and the band took to the stage and played a funky backup to a duet from Gügor and Eloise-Yvette. First, Eloise-Yvette sang:
After sunset, strolling home
Empty streets, I’m all alone.
The sky is deep and full of stars.
There’s nothing like this feeling.
Then came Gügor’s deep, drawling voice:
Beneath a city no one sees
Shadows feel like friends to me.
The earth i
s deep and full of life
My heart could do with healing.
And at last, in harmony:
We’ll have it all, the Earth and sky
When we’re together, you and I . . .
“Yick,” said Leslie, off on the edge of the stage. “Who would’ve thought Gügor was such a sap!”
“I know.” Harrumphrey sniffled. “Such a beautiful song!”
Elliot raised his eyebrows. “Are you crying?”
The fluffy end of Harrumphrey’s tail whipped up to dab at his cheek. “You gotta admit,” he blubbered, “there’s a whole lotta love in the square tonight!”
It was true. Everyone could feel it: Elliot’s parents, who hugged each other and swayed to the music; the professor, Leslie’s mother, and Famous Freddy; Patti, Harrumphrey, and Cosmo Clutch; Reggie, Bildorf, and Pib; Boris Minor and each of the Karloffs; and the whole crowd of festivalgoers, all of them dripping with what had once been their dinners, who had come to the Simmersville Food Festival and witnessed the single finest example of dinner-theatre-style costume cabaret ever performed. All of them could feel the love.
All but one.
There was one person—or rather, creature—who felt nothing but loneliness.
“No!” cried Jean-Remy, covering his heart with his hand. “Bernard! Bernard, it is too much!”
“Who’s Bernard?” asked the festival emcee.
“All of zees love!” cried Jean-Remy. “I cannot take it! I must find her!” Having shouted this for all to hear, he leapt up and soared into the sky.
“Jean-Remy?” asked Gügor. “Where are you going?”
But the fairy-bat was too high to hear.
“I think,” said Eloise-Yvette, “he has gone to find his fairy princess.”
“Hard to blame him,” said Patti, “what with all the love in the square.”
“Do you think he’ll find her?” asked Leslie.
Eloise-Yvette raised her face, searching the sky for her brother. “Yes,” she said at last, “I have a feeling he will.”
Everyone else looked up, too, hoping to see a glimmer from the fairy-bat’s pearlescent wings. But Jean-Remy was gone. All they saw was the sparkle of the stars.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest gratitude to the many people involved in bringing this second Creature Department book to life: My publisher, Ben Schrank, and my editor, Rebecca Kilman, at Razorbill/Penguin in New York; Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists in Toronto; Nick Hooker, Mike Woods, and Meg Diamond at Framestore New York; Simon Whalley, Selena Stokes, and the digital team at Framestore London (who granted me the distinct pleasure of an edifying chat with Gügor); and of course, last but not least, a great knucklecrumpler round of applause for Zack Lydon, the illustrator behind the book’s eye-popping artwork.
Gobbled by Ghorks Page 19