by H. L. Burke
Absolutely True Facts about the Pacific Tree Octopus
Copyright © 2016 H. L. Burke
Originally published within Fantastic Creatures: A Fellowship of Fantasy Anthology
All rights reserved.
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Absolutely True Facts About the Pacific Tree Octopus
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Absolutely True Facts about the Pacific Tree Octopus
H. L. Burke
“This is going to be the worst weekend ever,” Liesel’s big brother Henry moaned, banging his head against the car window.
Liesel looked up from her notepad and blinked at him. “The worst? Why?”
The trees rushed past them, tall and green, a constant wall of woodsiness. It looked like the pictures in a fairy tale book, and Liesel fully expected to pass the Big Bad Wolf or the Three Bears’ cottage at any moment.
“First things first, Mom took away all my electronics. She said her cellphone may not even work out here.” Henry rolled his eyes. He was twelve, four years older than Liesel, and Mom said “so plugged in it’s a wonder his fingers don’t spark.”
Liesel shrugged at this. She didn’t even own a tablet or a phone yet, though she did sometimes like to watch animal videos and fun facts on YouTube and Nat Geo.
“Secondly, it rains like two hundred inches a year in the Olympic Peninsula. By the time we get home, we’ll probably have webbed feet.”
Liesel gaped. Two hundred inches? She didn’t even think she was that tall ... though that was hard math ... twelve goes into two hundred ... yeah, she was definitely not that tall. “All at once?” she whispered.
Henry snorted. “Yeah, sure, all at once. We’ll wake up one morning, and we’ll be under sixteen feet of water.”
Liesel turned red. “Well, it could happen.” She leaned back to catch sight of the blue sky winking through the treetops. “It’s sunny now.”
“Now.”
“The forecast calls for fair weather,” Mom said from the front seat. “Give it a chance, Hen.”
“Thirdly,” Henry dropped his voice low, eyeing the back of Mom’s head. “There’s absolutely nothing to do here. No rides. No pool. Just trees, trees, trees.”
Liesel held up her notepad. “I think it’ll be fun. I made a list of all the animals I want to see. I went online and found out what kinds live here and how common they are. I want to see an American black bear and a bobcat and maybe a cougar, though those can be dangerous ... but if not a cougar then maybe a pacific tree octopus ....”
“A pacific tree what?” Henry looked at her if she had sprouted those webbed feet right in front of him.
“The pacific tree octopus.” Liesel turned a page in her animal notebook and held out the picture she’d printed off the internet. “They’re awesome. I read all about them on this website. They’re possibly the smartest animal in this area. They can swing from tree to tree with their eight legs and grow up to six feet in diameter. Their tentacles allow for extreme man-u-al dex-ter-i-ty.” She sounded out the big words. “Their only known predators are bald eagles, ravens, and Sasquatch.”
Henry doubled over laughing.
“Stop it.” She scowled at him. “What’s so funny?”
“You ... you ... you are!” His face pinched up like a prune and his whole body shook. “Tree octopus? Even for a little kid, you’re so gullible.”
“What’s gullible?” Liesel whispered. She was beginning to get the feeling that she’d said or done something horribly stupid, and that was not a feeling she liked in the slightest.
“You’ll never know. It’s not in the dictionary.”
Liesel crossed her arms. “Well, if it isn’t in the dictionary, it isn’t a real word.”
In spite of the strength of this argument, Henry laughed harder.
“Stop it!” she shouted.
“Kids, quiet!” Dad said. “Gullible is in the dictionary, Liesel. Henry’s being facetious.”
Great, another big word.
“Facetious means ‘saying something that isn’t true to be funny,’” Mom explained.
“So lying,” Liesel mumbled. She stuck her tongue out at Henry.
“Your sister isn’t gullible,” Mom continued. “She’s just young. Liesel, gullible means easily tricked or lied to. What Henry should have said is that website was a hoax. There’s no such thing as a tree dwelling octopus.”
Liesel hung her head. “Being gullible wouldn’t be such a big deal if people didn’t lie so much.”
Especially big brothers.
Liesel stuffed her notepad into her backpack and pulled out her Rubik’s Cube. It had been a stocking stuffer that Christmas, and six months later, she was no closer to solving it. Still, she liked turning it and watching the little colored squares click around.
“You’re never gonna solve that thing,” Henry said.
“Let’s be quiet and listen to some music,” Dad said. “We’re almost to the cabin.”
A few minutes later the gentle, steady swish of the tires over the pavement turned into the crinkly crunch of driving over gravel. The feathery branches of the conifer trees swiped at the car like reaching hands. Liesel put down her cube and squinted into the greenery. Was that a bear? Nope, a stump. What about ... no ... another stump.
They pulled up in front of a tiny cabin with a green tin roof. Dad and Mom began to pull sleeping bags and coolers out of the back.
“No internet, no electricity, no indoor plumbing.” Dad snickered. “You kids are in for a rude awakening.”
Liesel wandered towards the edge of the parking area. The gravel had a slick, black sheen, and the whole world smelt fresh and damp. Moss dripped from tumbled down trees. Birds sang a consistent piping noise. A muddy path curved into the foliage before disappearing in a particularly thick grouping of pines. It was perfect. Even if there weren’t tree octopuses, there were bound to be bears or foxes or squirrels ....
Something shook the branches of a nearby tree. Liesel grinned and stood on her tiptoes for a better look.
Her first wild animal. Probably just a bird or a squirrel, but still, a real live animal. Some fir needles shifted, and something slick and shiny peeked through. Black eyes glinted. Liesel’s breath left her. She opened and shut her mouth, wanting to shout for Mom and Dad, but nothing came out. The creature extended a long tentacle.
“Mom! Dad! Look!” Liesel’s voice escaped, much shriekier than she had intended.
The limbs of the tree shook and the fir needles closed around the creature. Then the tree behind it shook, then the next, all in a row, too fast to quite follow ... and it was gone.
Mom came running and grabbed her about the shoulders, Dad and Henry right behind.
“Liesel, baby, are you all right?” Mom’s face had that “mom” look that usually foretold a trip to the emergency room or a long, probing “talk.”
“I saw ... I saw ....” Liesel’s mouth clamped shut when Henry raised a mocking eyebrow. They wouldn’t believe her. She was gullible, and tree octopuses didn’t exist ... still, that thing had looked an awful lot like a tree octopus.
“What did you see? A Sasquatch?” Henry smirked at her.
Liesel’s chest tightened.
“Henry, stop teasing her
,” Dad ordered, but he had a smile at his face. He thought it was pretty funny too, Liesel could tell. She was a silly little girl who had believed in tree octopuses.
But tree octopuses were real. They were, and she was going to prove it.
***
That night Liesel couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed, staring out the window at the clouds drifting across the face of the moon and imagining they were the reaching arms of an octopus. When Dad’s snores and Mom’s whispered breathing rang out from across the cabin, she wriggled out of her sleeping bag and fished a flashlight and her notepad from her backpack.
She turned to the page of notes she’d made on tree octopuses. Each animal got a page, with a printed out picture, and a list of facts that might help her spot them, like whether they were diurnal or nocturnal, where they lived, what they ate. She’d almost torn out the page on the tree octopuses when Henry had laughed at her. Now she was so glad she hadn’t. A smile crept across her face at the thought of those reaching arms and shining black eyes. Henry would sure feel stupid when she caught one.
An octopus is extremely flexible. The only hard part of their body is their bony beak. Because of this, they can slip through any opening that their beak can fit through.
They hatch in water but soon climb onto land. They return to the water only to mate.
They eat small birds, insects, and sometimes rob nests for eggs.
Liesel tapped the end of the flashlight against her teeth. They had eggs in the cooler. They were for breakfast tomorrow, but Mom wouldn’t miss one or two. Liesel could set a trap. She went over and opened the first cooler. The carton of eggs lay on top. Glancing around to make sure her family was still sleeping, she slipped out a pale white egg.
Now what?
She couldn’t go poking around the forest at night, could she? It was cold ... and dark ... and there might be bears. Did bears like eggs too? Liesel shuddered. She’d wanted to see a bear, but not all by herself in the middle of the pitch black woods. Still, how to get the egg to the octopus?
A scraping noise made her jump. She whirled about and shone her flashlight at the nearest window. Tree branches moved against the glass. An idea tickled her mind, and she smiled.
She pulled her sleeping bag over so she could rest her back against the table facing the window. Then she opened the window ever so slightly—if an octopus could fit through small spaces, a crack would be enough—and set the egg on the sill. With that accomplished, she flipped off the flashlight so the octopus wouldn’t see her.
Cold air trickled into the cabin. She pulled the sleeping bag closer around her neck. Her eyes felt heavy. No worries. The octopus would show any moment. It’d see the egg shimmering in the moonbeams and come for it. Then she’d see it. She’d see it, jump up, and slam the window shut, and it would be hers ... any moment now. Any ... moment ....
***
“Wake up, sleepy head. What are you doing over here?”
Liesel jolted awake at Mom’s voice. She struggled out of the sleeping bag and rushed to the window. It was shut, but white flecks were sprinkled over the sill like confetti.
“Darn it.”
It had come. It had come, and she’d missed it.
“Huh,” Dad said from over the camp stove. “I thought this was a fresh pack of eggs. We’re one short.”
“That’s odd,” Mom said.
Liesel gulped down her breakfast.
“What’s your hurry?” Henry asked, looking up from his half-finished eggs and toast.
She shrugged. “I want to spot some animals today.”
He smirked at her. “What animals are you looking for? Bigfoot? The Loch Ness Monster? Oh, I know! Santa Claus.”
“Santa isn’t an animal.” She scowled at him.
“Ha! Liesel still believes in Santa.”
“I do not.” Liesel kicked him under the table. No, Liesel believed in tree octopuses and today she was going to prove she was right.
“Well, Mom and I need to set up the fire pit and gather some kindling if we’re going to have a bonfire tonight,” Dad said. “I’m looking forward to s’mores.”
“Yum, s’mores.” Mom smiled. “You guys want to help?”
“I think I’d rather stay in the cabin and read,” Henry said.
“Oh dang, we’re out of jam.” Dad scraped the last bit onto his toast.
“Can I have the jar?” Liesel asked. It might come in useful for her traps.
“Sure, if you want it.”
“What about you, Liesel?” Mom asked. “You coming with us?”
Liesel bit her bottom lip. Too many people might scare off the octopus. “Can I go for a walk on my own? I want to go someplace quiet to draw and wait for animals.”
Mom and Dad exchanged a look. Dad shrugged.
“Well,” Mom said. “There is a nature path that loops around the cabin. It’s only about a quarter mile, but if you stay on the path, it’s perfectly safe. Why don’t you go with her, Henry? You can read while she watches birds.”
Liesel’s nose wrinkled. She didn’t want Henry anywhere near her octopus, not until she caught it at least.
“Do I have to?” Henry moaned.
Mom gave him “the look.”
Henry groaned and slammed down his fork.
Fifteen minutes later, Liesel followed her brother as he stomped down the path into the woods. With all the noise he was making he’d scare off every tree octopus in the forest. Thankfully, only a few minutes into their walk, there was a bridge over a small creek with a wooden bench in the middle. Henry plopped down on this and pulled a comic book out of his backpack.
“Look, go chase your birds. Just ... you know ... stay on the path or whatever.” With that he stuck his nose in the pages of Super Dude Squad.
Liesel grinned. She wouldn’t go too far from the path. Just a little bit.
She crossed the bridge and pushed through the fir trees until she found a clearing. Taking the jar from her backpack, she paused. What would she use for bait? Mom had used up all the eggs that morning. The octopuses also ate birds and bugs, however. Maybe she could catch some of those and put them in the jar.
Poking around under rotting logs produced a few nasty looking beetles. She caught one by the thorax and dropped it, squirming, into the jar. She’d rinsed most of the jelly off after breakfast. The beetle tried to climb up the slick sides only to slip back down. It landed helplessly on its back, rocking back and forth and twitching its legs. She placed the jar on the other side of the clearing in the shade of a stooping fir tree.
Now to wait.
Liesel sat with her back against a broad tree. The bark poked into her back at first, but she shifted until her fleece jacket cushioned her shoulder blades. The woods smelled like a mix between moist earth and Christmas trees. In the distance, the creek burbled, and every so often a bird called out.
She scanned the trees, looking for some sign of movement. Occasionally a branch would shake, but a moment later a bird would launch into the air, rather than an octopus swinging among the boughs.
How long until Mom and Dad or Henry came looking for her? She wished she had a watch or a phone ... something to tell time. Were tree octopuses even diurnal? She couldn’t remember if she’d written that down. Her notepad was safely in her backpack, along with some granola bars and her Rubik's Cube.
Liesel took the notepad out and turned to the correct page. Nothing about diurnal vs nocturnal, though she had written down their scientific name of Octopus Paxarbolis. Like she’d ever need to know that.
They’re extremely intelligent and curious.
Clever enough to steal the egg and shut the window behind them. Sneaky octopuses.
She took out the Rubik’s Cube and started to mess with it, first turning it one way, then the other. Every twist made it worse, though. Maybe Henry was right. Maybe she’d never solve this thing.
Twist, turn, look up to check on the jar, twist turn again. Soon she had all but two of the squares on one side yellow. Her
heart thumped. Could she get it this time? Where were those last two yellow squares? Ah, there was one! She turned the cube to get that new yellow square into place, and knocked two other yellow squares onto the blue side.
“Ugh!” She quickly tried to undo the damage, but somehow ended up with a green square smack in the middle of the yellow ones. How had that happened? “Stupid puzzle!” She tossed it across the clearing. It clanked against the jar before landing softly in the moss.
Liesel drew a deep breath in through her nose and counted to ten like her mom had taught her. Silly thing to get frustrated at. It wasn’t like Henry was here, making fun of her ... but he would’ve made fun of her if he had been there, and that on its own was a frustrating thought.
Why couldn’t, just once, she know something Henry didn’t? Why did he always have to be right? Well, he wasn’t right about the stupid octopus. She just couldn’t prove it.
Liesel crossed the clearing and reclaimed the Rubik’s Cube. She’d put it away for later. After all, if she solved it, it would be over, and it might be a while until the octopus showed up.
She turned and froze. There, sliding its tentacles into her backpack, was a small, brown tentacled beast, with shiny skin and black, glinting eyes.
“Octopus!” she gasped.
The creature pulled Liesel’s granola bar out of the backpack. The foil wrapper crinkled as its agile tentacles tugged at it. With a rip, the wrapper revealed its golden contents. The octopus broke off a square and pulled it in towards its chomping beak.
It was smaller than she’d expected, perhaps the size of a dinner plate, though the arms going this way and that made it hard to judge.
The octopus munched quietly, its dark eyes never leaving Liesel.
How was she going to get that thing in a jam jar? Even if octopuses could squeeze into tight spaces, those arms seemed to be everywhere at once. There was no way she could just stuff it in the jar.
Still grasping half a granola bar, the octopus extended a tentacle. It waved the bar at her. Liesel blinked. Was it trying to share?
After a moment’s hesitation, she reached for the granola bar. The octopus released it into her hand. A trace of slime clung to the wrapper, but Liesel forced herself to take a bite anyway. It didn’t seem polite to refuse. Her teeth crunched into the sweet and salty mix of nuts and oats. She couldn’t taste any octopus.