by George Hagen
The contraption remained silent.
“I like custard,” said Somes. “Hey, Stove, make custard!”
“Yeah, can you make custard, Stovie?” said Abby.
Gabriel raised one of the griddle hatches and talked into it. “Hi in there? Make custard!”
Pamela, who had been watching her friends’ efforts with impatience, finally shook her head. “You’re doing it all wrong.”
“Really?” Somes replied. “How many stoves have you talked to?”
“For your information, I’ve talked to a writing desk.”
Only Somes laughed when she said this. That was because Abby and Gabriel knew that what Pamela said was quite true. The Finley house contained at least one other odd piece of furniture. It was a black writing desk with front legs carved like the talons of a bird. When no one was looking, the desk moved from room to room, evading discovery. The word ASK was inscribed on its polished lid, and if you asked it a question, it might reveal a remarkable answer. Mr. Finley used the desk to hide valuable information, but it was a very elusive, disagreeable piece of furniture, and Gabriel and Abby had once risked great injury trying to get it to reveal its contents.
Quite by accident, Pamela had discovered that the desk was fond of music. She was practicing her violin one evening, and it scurried up the stairs to her room and began dancing on its taloned feet. It was particularly fond of jigs and other Irish tunes.
Pamela explained all this to Somes, but he remained skeptical.
“Can we try talking to it respectfully?” she asked.
“You mean like calling it Mr. Stove?” said Somes.
“Maybe it’s a Mrs.,” added Gabriel.
“Or a Ms.,” said Abby.
“You’re being silly,” Pamela replied. She kneeled before the stove, pulled the oven hatch open, and spoke in a whisper. “Hello. Please, would you be willing to make us some custard? We would all really appreciate it.”
There was a loud clatter. A metal arm holding a wire whisk emerged from one of the recessed holes; it stretched, as if stiff from years of inactivity. Then it knocked sharply on the other holes, as if to wake them up.
A second arm with pinchers extended toward the pantry cupboard. A third one reached across the room for a mixing bowl. In a flash, the arms began pouring salt and sugar. The whisking arm cracked the eggs and whisked them into a froth with dizzying speed. A small pot heated the milk in seconds, and the mixture was ready in another blink. One arm presented a mug of warm custard to Pamela.
She took a sip and uttered a gasp. “Oh, wow!” she said. “That’s so good!”
Another mechanical arm swiftly delivered mugs to Gabriel, Abby, and Somes.
“Yum!” said Somes. “I’m eating here tonight.”
“I wish my sister could make this,” said Abby. “She’s a good cook, but this is awesome.”
Suddenly, a voice called down the staircase. “I smell custard!”
The arms from the stove shot back into their holes, leaving the whisk flipping through the air. It landed in Pamela’s open hand.
Trudy entered the kitchen. She dipped her finger in the custard pot, licked it, then frowned.
“Wonderful, quite wonderful.”
To everyone’s surprise, a sweet, regretful look appeared on her face. “I used to make desserts, long ago,” she said. “Pastries, cakes, custard, and chocolate. Chocolate cookies, chocolate cakes and candies.” She sighed. “Not many people know that chocolate is very bitter to the tongue. It’s unpleasant until you mix it with sugar and a pinch of salt….You might say that chocolate is like love that way.”
This odd remark surprised them all, but none more than Pamela. “Mom?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“Love can be a bitter thing,” Trudy continued. “It breaks hearts all the time. Think of all the sad songs there are about love. Love is only sweet when it’s combined with other things—trust, affection, compassion, and forgiveness.”
Gabriel had never heard Trudy say anything so thoughtful or tender. He wondered if she was sick.
“Tell me, who cooked this heavenly custard?” she asked.
Gabriel decided to tell her the truth. “Actually,” he said, “the stove made it.”
Trudy’s eyes sharpened into needles. “Pardon me? What on earth are you talking about?”
Gabriel shrank back as she glared at him.
Abby rushed to defend him. “Mrs. Baskin, Gabriel was about to explain that this stove is very good for making custard, and Pamela got it to work for us.”
“Pamela? Oh, you mean she cooked it? Well, of course, I’m not surprised.” Trudy sniffed. “Another fine cook in the family!”
She took one more sip of custard. “It’s time for me to make dinner, so I’d appreciate it if you would all vacate the premises.”
Gabriel took Paladin upon his shoulder. He was about to lead his friends to his room when Somes pointed to the window. “Look!”
They all turned and saw the silhouette of a robin on the windowsill.
Quickly, they scrambled after it into the backyard.
Confronted by four children and a raven, any normal robin would quickly flutter away, but Snitcher was not normal. As he perched on the windowsill, his nasty little black eyes scrutinized the four friends one by one. He seemed to recognize Gabriel, and threw out his chest boldly. Around his throat, the torc began to glow with a pale blue light.
Paladin uttered a loud CAW! and flew at the robin, but Snitcher eluded him in a zigzag flight over the fence before vanishing into a thick holly bush next door. The children watched the raven circle the bush until the robin flew out and, in a matter of a few seconds, both birds disappeared over a rooftop.
“I hope Paladin catches him,” said Gabriel.
“Did anyone notice the torc?” said Somes. “It glowed.”
“Yeah,” said Abby with concern. “And does anyone feel what I’m feeling?” She looked down at her feet.
A deep rumble filled their ears, and they felt their feet trembling as if they were standing on a subway platform. Gabriel noticed that the soil was also shaking; every particle seemed to be alive.
“Guys!” he cried. “Get back in the—”
Before he finished his sentence, the ground beneath him gave way and he dropped into a dark cavity. It was warm, slimy, and pitch-black, and it closed so tightly around Gabriel that his shout of panic collapsed in a stifled gurgle. He felt wet and enclosed from every side. This is what being swallowed alive feels like, he thought as he struggled. His arms were glued to his sides, and though he could still kick his legs, he felt quite sure that he had only a few breaths left before smothering to death in utter darkness.
“Hey, where did he go?” screamed Abby.
The answer to her question arrived abruptly as a large, segmented pink creature burst out of the hole. Abby thought it was pink toothpaste at first (if there could be a tube as wide and long as a subway car). It kept coming out of the hole, then curled along the fence in the yard, then doubled over itself several times in loops and swirls.
“Oh, my God,” gasped Pamela.
The creature had no limbs and no eyes, just a long, fleshy, pink body glistening with slime and dirt. It squeezed its way out of the hole, undulating and pulsing, and finally settled in a vast, overlapping heap.
“Gabriel!” cried Somes. “Where are you?”
“I know what this is,” said Pamela with disgust. “It’s a humongous worm.”
“Lumbricus terrestris is a worm’s scientific name,” Abby explained, “but this one should have a new name: Lumbricus terrestris giganticus!”
“I’ll bet you the robin wished for it,” said Somes. “Doesn’t it make sense that a robin would wish for a worm?”
“Good point,” said Abby. “Maybe it was only the length of my finger a few minutes ago.”
Abby, Somes, and Pamela ventured nearer the creature. It groaned and twitched in the chill air of the evening, apparently overburdened by its ow
n vast weight.
Somes noticed that one end had a wrinkled hole at the tip. “Gabriel?” he cried. “Can you hear me?”
A muffled cry answered.
“Oh, Gabriel!” cried Pamela. “Are you okay?”
A bulge near the end trembled slightly, a hint that Gabriel was inside, and alive.
“He got swallowed.” Somes aimed a kick at the worm’s midsection, which it absorbed without any kind of reaction. He threw all his weight at the creature. This time, the head reared up at him with a hiss.
“Somes, careful!” cried Abby.
The boy sprang backward as the worm’s head rose above him, then dropped, striking the ground with such force that the three children bounced off the pulverized earth.
Somes retaliated with a fresh kick. The worm shifted with a languid twist, which emboldened Somes to creep nearer.
“Don’t, Somes!” cried Pamela.
“Gabriel’s inside,” Abby reminded him, furiously rubbing her eyeglasses. “A worm has no teeth, but we’ve got to get him out before he gets digested by its stomach acids.”
Pamela cupped her hands and shouted, “Gabriel, we’ll save you!”
A weak grunt emerged from inside the worm.
“I hope he’s not getting dissolved yet,” said Somes.
Abby crept closer to examine the bulge near the worm’s puckered mouth. “He must be right here.”
“Maybe we can force its mouth open,” said Pamela. She had noticed the handle of a shovel lying beneath the worm’s coils. Dragging the shovel free, she raised it over her head and tried to poke the worm’s mouth. It opened and, with a sucking noise, swallowed the shovel whole.
Pamela blinked. “Big appetite.”
“I’d probably stay away from that end,” reasoned Somes.
Abby pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to think. “Let’s see…a worm’s body is mostly stomach. It’s going to squeeze Gabriel farther down its intestine until he’s dissolved. I know! We need to make it vomit!”
“Isn’t there something you can get at a drugstore that makes you throw up?” replied Pamela.
“Ipecac,” said Somes. “But we’d need fifty buckets of it.”
“Hey, did you see that?” Pamela pointed at the worm’s undulating segments, which were squeezing in ripples along the length of its trunk.
The bulge—which they guessed was Gabriel—had just moved farther down the worm’s body.
“Oh, this is a nightmare,” said Abby.
This seemed to inspire Somes. He picked up the garden hose that lay in a coil by the wall of the house. Grabbing the nozzle, he turned to the others.
“I’m going to get under that thing and throw the hose to you from the other side.”
“Wait. Why?” cried Pamela.
“Just think ‘tube of toothpaste.’ ” And with that, Somes dove under the worm.
There was a tense moment as the girls waited.
“I made it!” came his muffled voice at last. “Here, catch this and slip it back under to me.”
In a second, the hose nozzle flopped over the top of the worm’s trunk and fell at Pamela’s feet.
She grabbed it, kneeled, and wiggled the hose beneath the worm’s body.
After a few more throws, the creature was encircled near its middle by several layers of garden hose. “Now pull!” yelled Somes from the other side of the worm. “Hard as you can!”
Leaning back, the girls pulled the hose taut with their combined weight.
On the other side of the worm’s trunk, Somes knotted his end around one arm and pulled in the opposite direction.
After several pulls, the worm’s midsection resembled the narrowest part of a link of sausages. It must have been painful because the creature squirmed and uttered a horrific bellow. “Oooiuuuh!”
“Again!” cried Somes, pulling with all his might.
Suddenly, the worm’s head reared up and flailed left, then right, and with a wretched heave, the creature blew a pool of slime from its mouth. This was followed by the shovel, which clattered to the ground. Finally, a large object shot out and landed in a lump on the ground.
It did not move.
Abby flew beside it and began scooping away layers of glistening intestinal mucus until her friend was revealed. “Gabriel,” she said, shaking him. “Are you okay? Are you? Are you?”
“Blech.” Gabriel spat slime out of his mouth.
Abby slumped against him with relief. “He’s okay!”
The enormous worm stirred now. Segment by segment, it slid backward, trying to retreat down its entry hole. This would have been good news, except for the fact that one end of the garden hose was wrapped tightly around its middle and the other end was knotted around Somes’s arm. It pulled him across the patio.
“Somebody grab me!” he cried. He struggled to untie the knot, but he couldn’t disentangle himself fast enough, and slid helplessly toward the hole.
“Oh, Somes!” cried Pamela, running over to anchor him.
Their combined weight was still no match for the enormous creature. Both Pamela and Somes were pulled toward the hole.
Gabriel had just wiped the slime from his face when he saw what was happening. “Where’s the shovel?” he cried. “We’ve got to cut the hose!”
Gabriel tried to get up, but he slipped on the pool of slime beneath him.
Abby sprang for the shovel, seized its slimy handle, and swung it down sideways at the hose. She missed, swung again—and this time cut it cleanly. The severed hose followed the worm into the crumbling hole while Somes collapsed at its edge with Pamela clutching his feet.
As the group wiped handfuls of mucus from their clothes, Somes turned to Gabriel. “First a birdseed storm, then a worm that swallows people,” he said. “What the heck made your dad think that robin was harmless?”
—
Inside, Trudy had the radio on and was busily cutting up vegetables at the kitchen counter. The group hurried past her and ran up the stairs, two steps at a time. They were dazed, but also giddy at having defeated the worm. In the upstairs bathroom, they crowded around the medicine cabinet and passed ointment and bandages to each other.
“Why is the robin watching you, Gabriel?” said Abby as she placed a large bandage on his elbow. “I mean, there must be a reason.”
Somes smeared ointment on his nose. “To get his revenge, of course,” he replied. “Don’t forget that when Gabriel defeated Corax, the robin lost everything. He stopped being important and went back to being a simple robin—”
“Are you kidding?” said Pamela, taking the ointment from Somes to dab her forehead with it. “Do you think a robin can remember all that, eavesdrop at Gabriel’s window, and arrange a worm attack?”
“Do you have a better idea?” asked Somes.
Abby put a bandage on the bridge of her nose and replaced her glasses. “I think Pamela’s right. This is too much for a robin’s little brain. That bird is getting advice from someone,” she declared.
—
Trudy made seaweed stew that evening. It was every bit as disgusting as it sounds. Three varieties of bulbous seaweed were mixed with rubbery noodles, then topped with small podlike things that resembled dead tadpoles. Normally, Gabriel would spread Trudy’s concoctions around the edge of his plate and empty them into the trash later, but Trudy gave him a large helping and watched him take the first, second, and third bites.
After dinner, everybody gathered to wash and dry the dishes. Aunt Jaz was about to pass the copper pot to Gabriel to dry when she noticed her reflection in it.
She paused, frowning. “Trudy, dear?” she said anxiously. “Do you think I should wear my hair down around my shoulders more often?”
Pamela’s mother gave a skeptical sniff. “You’ve had it pinned up for years. Why change it now?”
Aunt Jaz sighed. “Oh, sometimes I wish I looked…younger.”
Trudy regarded Aunt Jaz suspiciously. “Why? You’re the same age as I am, Jasmine. There’s nothi
ng wrong with our age.”
When Jasmine noticed that Gabriel and Pamela were staring at her, she lowered the pot and smiled faintly. “Don’t mind me, dears. I’m just being vain.”
Gabriel knew that his aunt was not the kind of person who admired herself very often in the mirror. “I think you look nice, Aunt Jaz,” he said.
“Me too,” added Pamela.
“Thank you, both of you,” she replied. Aunt Jaz stole another glance at herself and her little black boomerang eyebrows rose wistfully. “Well, that’s enough daydreaming. I’ve got a long night of homework to correct.”
“And I’m taking a bath,” said Trudy.
Gabriel looked at Pamela after they’d left. “What’s going on with my aunt?”
“Maybe she’s in love,” said Pamela, smiling.
“Do old people fall in love?”
“Oh, Gabriel,” said Pamela.
Gabriel looked at her. “Do you think your mom has ever been in love?”
Pamela shrugged. “She must have loved my dad, but she’s never ever talked about him. He died when I was a baby.”
And with that, she hurried up to the top floor, to her bedroom. Moments later, the sweet sound of her violin echoed through the house.
Gabriel padded up one flight to his father’s study. He’d decided to do his homework there, where he enjoyed the odd smells of varnish, old leather, paper, ink, and cherry tobacco. He entered and curled up in a large leather armchair, hoping his father would get home soon with good news.
But the hours wore on. Gabriel finished his work, and began to doze off.
He was woken by tapping at the window. It was Paladin, who looked breathless and excited.
What a night! exclaimed the raven once Gabriel had let him inside. Every time I thought I had caught that twit, he dodged away. I’ve never known a robin to be so clever. After a while I began to think that he was guided by somebody else.
“Abby thought the same thing,” remarked Gabriel, and he told Paladin about the worm’s attack.
I should have been at your side, Paladin said. What if I’d lost you?
“It’s really okay,” Gabriel said, giving him a gentle stroke.
The two chatted for a few more minutes, and then Gabriel fell asleep in the armchair with the raven nestled in his lap.