Kid vs. Squid

by Greg Van Eekhout

  I hurried to the drawer by the sink, anxious to get my hands on a steak knife, at least. Grabbing the first thing available, I spun to face my opponent. He shlurped a laugh. Looking down, I saw that I was trying to threaten him with a potato peeler.

  Abandoning the peeler, I found a rolling pin and brought it down on the jelly’s head.

  “Hey!” he shlobbed. “Ow!”

  I bashed him again. He lunged away but then spun back toward me, his white palm coming at my face in an openhanded slap. Shoal was there in a blur, shoving me aside and taking the slap intended for me across her cheek. It didn’t seem like that strong of a blow, just a glancing strike, but Shoal dropped as if she’d been smashed by a hammer. She writhed on the ground, struggling for breath, her eyes rolling so far back that all I could see were the whites.

  She looked like she was dying.

  CHAPTER 5

  Still wielding my rolling pin, I moved between Shoal and the jellyfish boy who’d slapped her. “What did you do to her?”

  His green white fingers jittered, ink black veins under the skin. “I stung her,” he said.

  “And now we’re taking the witch’s head with us,” said the other jelly. “Try to stop us, and we’ll sting you again and again and again. That’ll be fun.”

  Trudy knelt by Shoal, trying to keep her still as she flailed, clawing at the floor.

  I grabbed the What-Is-It?? and shoved it at the jellies. “Here, take it and get lost.”

  One of the jellies snatched it away from me and cradled it in his weird hands. “We’ll see you again!” they gurgled, taking off through the hatch.

  “Go eat sand!” I shouted to their retreating footsteps. I wanted to chuck the rolling pin at their heads, but better to get them out of here so we could help Shoal. They could have the stupid head in a box, for all I cared. It seemed to be important to Shoal, but now her life was at stake.

  “How is she?” I said, joining Trudy at Shoal’s side.

  “She’s not breathing well, and her lips and tongue are swollen. I think she’s in anaphylactic shock.”

  Shoal’s breaths came in a high, weak whistle.

  Back home I had a friend who was allergic to fish, only he didn’t know it until Bring a Weird Snack to School Day. He had to be carted away by paramedics after taking a bite from a patty smelt. Anaphylactic shock became the unofficial vocabulary item of the day.

  I dug my phone out of my pocket to call 911. There were zero bars. “I’m not getting a signal.”

  “I’ll try mine,” said Trudy. But she didn’t have any better luck than me.

  “Maybe getting them wet fritzed them out.”

  “Impossible. My backpack’s waterproof.”

  Shoal’s hand shot out and grabbed my arm.

  “Pantry,” she gasped. “Silver shell.”

  “What—”

  “Silver shell,” she croaked. “Cure.”

  I raced into the pantry and searched the shelves, passing up jars containing fish with tentacles, fish with three heads, a sea horse with a human-looking face, a tiny creature that looked like a smaller version of Griswald’s Feejee Mermaid… and then I found it: a jar with a thing that looked like a hot dog with beady little eyes, covered in a silver, mirror-bright shell.

  I brought the jar with the hot dog–fish into the kitchen and unscrewed the lid. Dipping my hand inside, I pulled it out. I could see my face reflected in its silver surface. I looked very freaked out.

  “I’ve got the fish, Shoal. What do I do with it?”

  Shoal’s eyelids fluttered, her flesh the color of a dirty tube sock. Somehow, I felt responsible for what was happening to her. I didn’t want her to die.

  “Shoal! Hey! Talk to me!”

  She said something, but I couldn’t understand it. I leaned in closer. “Come on, Shoal. Help us.”

  “Feed me,” she said, her words garbled and thick.

  I touched the fish to Shoal’s lips. With a jerky twist of her neck, she bit down, tearing the fish’s head off. She struggled to chew, nostrils flaring to draw in air. Eyes wide open in pain or panic, she forced the chewed-up head down her throat. I was sure she’d choke. But after a moment, the tension in her arched back relaxed. Her color improved and she seemed to breathe a little easier.

  Eventually, she was able to sit slumped against the cupboards, knees drawn into her chest. Trudy gave her some water from a bottle she had in her backpack, but Shoal didn’t seem grateful. She glared at Trudy and me as if we were the ones who’d stung her. “Give me the head.”

  “Can’t,” I said. “I gave it to the jellies.”

  “You what? What kind of crab-brained fool are you?” Shoal tried to stand but only managed to get her butt a few inches off the ground before sagging back down.

  “Hey, don’t get all insulty on me. The head didn’t belong to you in the first place. I gave away property you stole because I wanted to get rid of the jellies before they stung you again, or me or Trudy. And it worked. They’re gone.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve brought yet more doom to my people. I must get the head back.” She tried to stand again, with the same results.

  “Well, you’re welcome,” Trudy said. “We saved your life. Now you owe us.”

  Shoal narrowed her eyes. “I know.”

  “That’s right, and we intend to collect.” She stared down at Shoal like a judge passing sentence. “You can start by telling us why you’re so hot for the What-Is-It??”

  “Actually, seriously, what is it?” I interjected.

  “It is the head of the witch Skalla,” Shoal said. “And she is no bauble to be gawked at. Your uncle is lucky she didn’t curse him and his museum into a hole in the ground, to be eaten by worms all the screaming days of his endless torment. And yours too.”

  “Ah!” I said, unreasonably satisfied. “So it is an important head.”

  “Yes. And I must retrieve it.” Another attempt to stand, and her knees wobbled. She fell back down.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “You should probably see a doctor.”

  “I have no time for your doctors. I must get Skalla back from the jelly creatures. If I don’t, my people will be doomed always to be flotsam.”

  “There’s that word again.”

  Trudy got out her pen and notebook. “You might as well tell us. You’re in no condition to go chasing after jellyfish right now.”

  Shoal gritted her little teeth. She knew Trudy was right, and she hated it.

  “And Thatcher did just save your life,” Trudy prodded further.

  On the other hand, Shoal had also saved my life when she took the sting intended for me. “Shoal, we want you to tell us what’s going on,” I said. “But we won’t force you.”

  Trudy shot me an annoyed look, but I wasn’t going to back down. I didn’t want to take unfair advantage of Shoal, even if she was a thief. I figured we owed each other.

  Shoal swallowed.

  “I am Shoal, daughter of Coriolis the Last, king of a people once proud. Our home was an island-city, a rich place of beauty and music and science. But the witch—the head in the box—cast a curse on us, and the city fell beneath the waves, all its treasures and wonders and beauty—all drowned. The witch’s curse was not just on the buildings but also on us, the people. Now we live most of our lives at sea, drifting in the currents, rolling with the storms in the Drowning Sleep. Then, at summer’s start, on First Day, we land with the waves on Los Huesos beach. We serve the boardwalk. We work the booths and the rides. We draw the tattoos. We grill the sausages and sell the T-shirts and are enslaved until Last Day arrives at the end of summer, when the sun tires and the air begins to chill. Then we turn away from the tourist shops and midway games. We abandon the roller coaster. We leave half-completed tattoos on our customers’ arms. We trudge across the broad beach and walk into the waves, and the water fills our lungs as we drown once more. We have no choice in this. We are Flotsam.”

  Trudy scribbled away like a new
spaper reporter.

  “Whoa,” I said, as gently as I could, because it’s never a good idea to poke crazy people. “It kind of sounds like you’re saying you’re from Atlantis.”

  Shoal thrust her chin out defiantly. “That is what I’m saying.”

  That made Trudy snap her notebook shut and tuck her pen behind her ear. “You’re talking nonsense. Atlantis is a myth. And it was supposed to have been located all the way on the other side of the world. Even if there actually was an Atlantis, it sunk thousands of years ago. How old are you? Twelve?”

  “I tell you, I am the princess Shoal, daughter of King Coriolis, monarch-in-exile of the lost city-state of the last Atlantis. There have been many Atlantises. When the original sunk, we scattered to all corners of the globe and built new cities. Ours was the last one, hidden from the outside world by magic to foil your compasses and satellites. And now even that is gone. We Flotsam are the last of our kind.”

  Trudy blew air skeptically out her nostrils, but she opened her notebook again. “Okay. But what really happened to your Atlantis? I’m not buying this curse story. Was it an earthquake or a tsunami or something like that? Or was it the result of your scientists delving into arcane areas of knowledge that man was not meant to know?”

  “I’ll bet you a dollar it was the arcane-areas-of-knowledge thing,” I said.

  “I will tell you this only once more: it was a curse, cast by the witch Skalla. Her body was lost, but her head still lives, and we must take it back from the jellies before she can do more harm.” She paused and seemed, of all things, embarrassed. She went on in a softer voice. “I ask for your assistance. Help me recover the witch, and I will answer all your questions.”

  Trudy checked with me, and I nodded.

  “It’s a deal,” I said.

  Shoal forced herself to her feet, Trudy holding her by the elbow, either to make sure she didn’t fall or to prevent her from escaping.

  I wasn’t crazy about the idea of facing the jellyfish boys again, but what else could I do? Go back to my little bed closet in Griswald’s museum and spend my entire summer dusting the exhibits and feeding the cat while Trudy and Shoal faced dangers and mysteries and adventures?

  “What are we waiting for?” I said.

  But apparently I was the only one waiting.

  Trudy and Shoal were already crawling out the hatch.

  CHAPTER 6

  Trying to keep up with Trudy and Shoal, I watched out for stingrays and venomous shellfish and foot-eating eels. Meanwhile, Trudy grilled Shoal.

  “Do you actually live in that shipwreck?”

  “It is a hiding place,” Shoal said, her eyes set dead ahead as she maneuvered around rocks and seaweed. “I have been staying there during the day, concealed from such creatures as the jellyfish boys. But they found me. They always do, Skalla’s monsters. They are her hands, and she never stops grasping with them. Even asleep, she remains lethal and evil.”

  “Where do you go at night?”

  But Shoal didn’t have time to answer. We rounded a big rock, and the jellyfish boys were on the other side, struggling to push their bikes down the beach, their flat tires no doubt punctured on the same sharp rocks and spiny things I was hoping to avoid.

  They heard us coming and turned around. I wished they hadn’t. Griswald would have traded his right arm and tabby cat for the chance to display the jellies in his museum.

  One of the jellies still had the What-Is-It?? tucked under his arm.

  “We will sting all of you,” he called out. “Your throats will swell and close, and you will die fighting for breath, drowning in your own—Hey! Ow!”

  The ow was in response to the rock I’d thrown at him. This time, I wasn’t going to let them get close enough to touch us.

  “Right idea,” Trudy said, firing off a rock with a slingshot apparatus from her backpack.

  “Yes! An excellent tactic! I shall launch projectiles as well!” Shoal joined in, and the three of us kept up a steady bombardment that made the jellies’ stingers useless. Every time I heard a thock or a crack or an owie, I felt gratified.

  We were almost too successful. The jellies turned to run, but they were taking the What-Is-It?? with them.

  I still didn’t quite buy Shoal’s tale of Atlantis and witches and curses, but I’d committed myself to helping her get back the head, and there was no way I was going to let the jellies get away with it. This was one of those times when I absolutely required an athletic success. I’d had one or two in my life. The most recent example I could remember had happened the previous school year on the soccer field. I was the goalie that day, and I was spectacular. Not only did the opposing team fail to score, but I made it obvious they never would. I frustrated them. I humiliated them. I made them weep in their sneakers.

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a championship game or anything like that. It was just a recess game, one of hundreds that year, nothing that would go down in the record books. Probably nobody but me even remembered it. But that one great game? I’d remember it for the rest of my life.

  That’s what I needed right now.

  The jelly carrying the box had almost reached the water when I flung a small round stone. In my mind, it weighed as much as a bowling ball. I nailed him right on the wrist, that bony part that bulges out, and I heard the sound of impact: pain. He yowled and dropped the box in the gravel, and that’s when Trudy got him in the back of the head.

  That was enough for both of them. They splashed into the surf and swam for it until they were finally beyond the range of our whizzing rocks. Their heads ducked under the water and didn’t reemerge, and our rocks kerplunked in the ocean.

  “Are they drowning?” I asked.

  “Their kind don’t drown,” answered Shoal, dropping the last rock in her hand. “They are not people. They are not fish. They are both.” She ran up to the fallen What-Is-It??

  Trudy and I traded grins. We’d driven off our enemies! And we hadn’t gotten hurt in the process! This was even better than my day as an awesome goalie.

  Then Shoal had to go and spoil my mood.

  “The box is open!”

  Trudy and I hurried over to her. In the tussle, the box’s lid had come unlatched, revealing the head inside. The face was chalky white flesh. Long gray hair, stiff as wood, fanned out in spikes. The nose was shriveled and narrow, like a fish’s fin. Its eyes were sealed behind puckered, sand-caked eyelids. I realized I was looking at a real human head, and I was sorry I’d ever laid eyes on it. Yet I couldn’t look away.

  “Quickly, we must muffle her!” Shoal said.

  Trudy started rooting around in her backpack. “I’ve got some duct tape in here …”

  But we were too late. The witch’s eyelids popped open, revealing frosted white irises. She blinked twice, and then her eyes focused on me.

  She began to speak.

  Trudy rushed forward with a strip of tape to cover the witch’s mouth, but the witch laughed, and Trudy froze midstride. The laugh started as a good old-fashioned witch’s cackle. Then it rose higher, like a shrieking wind, like shattering glass, like splintering bones. It was a sound of insanity and cruel magic, and when the laugh fell away, the gulls stopped crying. The waves stilled. The beach became so quiet I could hear the click clack of crabs scuttling over rocks.

  Her awful milky white eyes turned toward me.

  “Why, hello, young man. And who are you?” Her voice was like slugs covered in rust.

  “Don’t tell her,” Shoal warned, but she didn’t need to. I’d read stories about witches and evil magicians, and I knew giving your name to these types gave them power over you.

  “Do you think I need something as worthless as your name to net you?” the witch croaked. “The sea doesn’t know your name. The sea doesn’t care. Yet she can still shatter your body against the rocks. She can drive you down into the drowning depths. Did the water-princess tell you what happened to her people? Did she tell you the price I made them pay for their arrogance and tre
achery?”

  Trudy stood poised with the tape, Shoal beside her, but neither of them moved forward. It was as though the witch had frozen them. Maybe with magic. Maybe just with fear. Either was enough to pin me in place, but Shoal had said we needed to keep the witch from talking, so I decided to do what I did best: fill the air with my chatter.

  I spoke in a big rush, not giving her a chance to interrupt.

  “Shoal told us everything. She told us that you weren’t always just a volleyball with eyes and a mouth. You used to have a body with legs and arms and knees and that little dangly thing that hangs at the back of your throat, what’s it called, oh, yeah, a uvula, and maybe you don’t have one now and that’s why your voice screeches like an old chicken.”

  “Thatcher, don’t—,” Shoal said.

  But I was on a roll now. Talking felt like running downhill at full speed. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. I was talking. It was the thing I was best at.

  “It must be really weird, just being a head in a box, everyone looking down on you, leaving their cola cans on your face, not even bothering to use a coaster. It’s too bad you’re just a witch, because I bet there’re a lot of other things you could do for a living. I’m thinking head of cabbage, or soccer ball, or we could drill three holes in your skull and bowl strikes with your head.”

  “Thatcher!”

  This time I caught the alarm in Shoal’s voice. It was too late. My motor was running, and I didn’t even know what I was saying anymore. Just words, filling the air, and it didn’t feel right anymore. I was just blabbing to drown everything out with verbal machine gun fire, and I couldn’t stop.

  Until I followed Shoal’s gaze and saw how she looked down at the witch in wet-eyed terror.

  Only then did I shut up.

  Skalla’s lips were moving, and her voice came from all around us in a storm-wind howl. Sea spray blasted us. Heart-shuddering thunder cracked over the sea. The ground shook beneath our feet, sending loose rocks and sand tumbling down the cliffs. The witch’s withered lips parted to form a smile as a wave crashed, blanketing the beach in sizzling foam.