by Ellen Potter
“Oh.” Hugo nodded. After a minute he asked, “Does it work?”
“It must,” Gigi said thoughtfully, “or else why would they keep doing it?”
7
Big Trouble
After school, Hugo and Winnie went to the Central Cavern District, where their mother and father and grandfather ran the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery. There were lots of other stores in the Central Cavern District. There was a barbershop and a toy store, where you could get things like Stink Sap. There was a bookshop and there was a post office that took your letters to caves that were as far as five hundred miles away.
The little bell on the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery door rang when Hugo and Winnie stepped inside. Their grandfather was behind the cash register, ringing up Mrs. Rattlebags’s order while she complained about the price of hazelnut flour.
“Your snacks are on the table,” Grandpa called to Hugo and Winnie.
Hugo and Winnie sat down at the round café table. On it, there was a stack of acorn butter-and-raspberry cream sandwiches, a bowl of walnuts with the shells still on (Hugo and Winnie like to crack the shells with their teeth), and two glasses of pale-green wild-mint juice. As delicious as it all looked, Hugo had no appetite. He was too worried about Mrs. Nukluk’s note.
“How was school?” Mom asked, as she and Dad walked out of the kitchen, their hands stained pink with gooseberries.
“Hugo got in trouble today,” said Winnie right away. Even though Winnie wasn’t in Hugo’s class, word of bad behavior always spread quickly around their school.
Hugo kicked her under the table, and Winnie screeched.
“Enough,” Mom said to them both sternly. “What happened, Hugo?” Dad asked.
Hugo dug into his backpack and pulled out the note. A note from a teacher is never a happy thing, especially when the note says that your very own squidge was not only spotted by a Human, but was spotted because he laughed at it.
“Laughing at a human, Hugo?? A HUMAN?!” Mom cried after she read the note.
“Humans are no laughing matter,” Dad said. “They’re dangerous creatures.”
“Sometimes I wish I were a Human,” mumbled Hugo.
“What did you say?” his dad asked.
“He said he wishes he were a Human,” Winnie repeated loudly.
“Nonsense,” said his mom.
“But I do wish I were a Human!” Hugo shouted. “Then I could walk around in the Big Wide World without always Sneaking. I could sail ships and see alligators and sharks and maybe even Snoot-Nosed Gints, instead of being stuck in a cave my whole entire life!”
Mrs. Rattlebags gasped at this. “The squidge has lost his mind,” she declared. “To wish he were a Human, of all things!”
“Hmmph,” grunted Grandpa. “I suppose that Humans are no worse than Sasquatches. Some are good and some are bad and some are just a pain in the tush.” He gave Mrs. Rattlebags a look.
After Hugo’s outburst, his parents sent him straight home to his room, to think about what he’d done. Miserable, he sat on the floor by the stream and watched as tiny silverfish swam into the bedroom. He dipped his hand in the water, and the fish swam between his fingers, playing.
“I wish you were sharks,” he said to the fish. They tickled his fingers. “I wish I had a boat and a Navigator and that I could have adventures of my own.” Then he thought of something. If the little Human could make a wish on a dandelion puff, why couldn’t he make a wish, too? Except he didn’t have a dandelion puff. And how could your wish be carried off into the Big Wide World without a dandelion puff to blow on?
He frowned and swished his fingers in the water, making a mini whirlpool, thinking. Suddenly he had an idea. He did have something he could send out into the Big Wide World!
He opened his toy chest and took out his little carved boat. He held it in his hand and closed his eyes, exactly like the Human had done.
Then he made a wish.
“I wish I could have an adventure,” he said. Gently, he placed his boat in the stream and blew on it, just like the Human had blown on the dandelion. He blew and blew until the little boat sailed through the hole in the bottom of his wall and out into the Big Wide World.
8
More Bad News
Nothing happened. Not a single thing. His wish did not come true.
Plus, the next day, there was more bad news at school. Mrs. Nukluk announced that because Hugo had been spotted by a Human, there would be no more Hide and Go Sneak classes for the rest of the semester.
“No fair!” all the squidges cried.
“Yeah! How come we all have to be punished for the dumb thing that Hugo did?” said Malcolm.
Hugo slumped down in his seat. He’d never felt so terrible in his life.
At recess, no one would play with him. If there was a game of Five Rocks, Two Sticks and Hugo asked to play, the other squidges would say, “Sorry, the game just ended.” And they’d walk away to do something else. Even Izzy was mad at him. Hugo had brought in an extra-rare Monster Card to show him, but Izzy just shrugged and walked away.
“Don’t worry, Hugo,” Gigi said as she patted his back. “By next week the class will forget they’re mad at you.”
He wanted to believe her, he really did. But after all, Gigi was the one who’d told him about wishes coming true if you blew on a dandelion puff. And so far, the only thing that had changed was that everyone was angry with him.
But then, three days later, something finally did happen.
9
Rick-a-tick-tick
Hugo was lying in bed, almost asleep, when he heard it. Rick-a-tick-tick.
At first Hugo thought it was a mouse. Sometimes mice would creep into his room, looking for a warm place to sleep at night. That was okay with Hugo. He didn’t mind mice at all. He closed his eyes and started to drift back to sleep.
Rick-a-tick-tick.
Hugo opened his eyes again. That doesn’t sound like mice, he thought. He sat up and reached under his bed, pulling out his jar of glowworms. He jiggled the jar until the worms began to twist and turn. Gradually the worms started to glow brighter and brighter, until they gave off a greenish light. Holding the jar up to light his way, Hugo hopped out of bed to investigate.
Rick-a-tick-tick.
Quickly, Hugo turned his jar toward the noise. What he saw made him gasp in surprise. Floating on the stream in his room was his little toy boat. It had returned to him. Except now, there was something rick-a-tick-ticking inside it as the boat wobbled in the water.
Carefully, Hugo picked up the boat. Inside it was a little plastic toy in the shape of a Human. Its tiny feet were attached to a funny little board with wheels on the bottom. The wheels even spun.
Who does this belong to? thought Hugo. Not a Sasquatch. Sasquatches don’t have toys like this. It must belong to a Human.
Hugo held the toy in his hand, looking down at it in wonder. Something that came from the Big Wide World was sitting in the palm of his hand! Maybe his wish was beginning to come true. It wasn’t an adventure, exactly . . . but it did seem like the start of one.
10
Secret Project
There was no school the next day. That was a good thing, because Hugo was busy.
All morning long he worked on his secret project. He only came out of his room for hazelnut pancakes for breakfast, which he gobbled down before hurrying back to work.
“What are you doing in here?” Winnie flung open his bedroom door and squinted at him suspiciously.
“Stuff,” Hugo said.
“Stuff? What kind of stuff?” Winnie asked, planting her hands on her hips.
“Hey, Winnie, guess what I found,” Hugo said.
“What?” she asked, perking up with interest.
“Your nose,” Hugo said. “It was in my business again.”
“Ha ha,” Winnie said and slammed the door.
Finally, just before lunch, Hugo finished. He held up his creation and inspect
ed it.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered to it. It was a tiny Sasquatch. Hugo had carved it out of white pine. It was almost exactly the size of the Human toy but much more detailed. You could see the little fingers and toes. You could even see tiny fingernails and toenails. There were little smidgy lines carved into it for the hair, and its face looked a little like Hugo’s.
Carefully, Hugo placed it in his boat. Since he had kept the Human toy, it was only fair to give the Human a Sasquatch toy. It was kind of like trading Monster Cards.
With four or five huffy breaths, Hugo sent the boat sailing out into the Big Wide World once again.
11
Bigfoot
The boat came sailing back into his room the very next day. The carved Sasquatch was gone. In its place was a little jar with a folded piece of paper inside it.
A note! A note from someone in the Big Wide World! Hugo unscrewed the jar’s lid. He tipped the jar upside down and shook out the note, then unfolded it. This was what it said:
MY NAME IS BOONE. I’M ALMOST TEN YEARS OLD. I’M SMALL FOR MY AGE BUT MY GRANDMA SAYS I’M FASTER THAN A SNEEZE THROUGH A SCREEN DOOR. DO YOU BELIEVE IN BIGFOOT?
BOONE
Hugo reread the note a few times. The last question puzzled him. What was Bigfoot? It sounded like one of the monsters in Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards, but he’d never seen a Bigfoot card.
How can I answer the note if I don’t know what Bigfoot is? he thought.
Then he had an idea. He jumped up and ran out of his apartment. He ran down the long, winding cave hall to apartment 1B and knocked on the door.
The door opened. Gigi was standing there, holding a very fat book called Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Obtuse Triangles, with one finger stuck in the middle to mark her page.
“Hello, Hugo,” said Gigi.
“What’s a Bigfoot?” Hugo asked her.
“I’m looking at it,” she said, gazing back at him.
Hugo lowered his voice. “You mean . . . there’s one . . . is there one here?” He looked behind him nervously.
“You’re a Bigfoot, Hugo,” said Gigi.
“My feet aren’t big. They’re just regular.”
“I’m a Bigfoot, too,” Gigi explained. “We all are. ‘Bigfoot’ is what Humans call Sasquatches.”
Hugo considered that. “It’s not very nice,” said Hugo.
Gigi shrugged. “Any other questions?” Hugo shook his head.
“Okay. See you later, Hugo,” she said and shut the door.
Back in his room, Hugo wrote his reply:
MY NAME IS HUGO AND I DO BELIEVE IN BIGFOOT. I LIVE IN THE NORTH WOODS. WHERE DO YOU LIVE? HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO BORA BORA OR ATLANTIC CITY?
HUGO
He sent the boat out through the hole in his wall and smiled. Knowing someone who lived in the Big Wide World made him feel like he was part of the Big Wide World, too—part of the hills and the fields and Ripple Worm River and Bora Bora and everything in between.
12
Acts of Bavewy
At school, Mrs. Nukluk had a big announcement.
“As you all know, the Frog Moon Festival will be this Saturday,” she said. “Each year, we hold the festival to scare away winter so that spring will come to the North Woods.” Mrs. Nukluk wrapped her feather cloak tighter around her body. “Finally.”
Hugo loved the Frog Moon Festival. It was always lots of fun. The squidges wore scary masks, and there were races and games and loads of good food, like walnut pie and mushroom casserole and acorn-butter cookies and goose-berry pie.
“As usual, one class will perform a special ceremony at the Frog Moon Festival. Who knows what that is?” Mrs. Nukluk asked.
Izzy’s hand shot up. “Acts of Bavewy,” he said.
“Very good, Izzy. And why do we perform Acts of Bravery?”
Gigi raised her hand, and Mrs. Nukluk called on her.
“It’s a rite of passage. It shows that we are brave enough to become big Sasquatches and have more responsibility.”
“Very good, Gigi.” Mrs. Nukluk looked around at all the squidges with an excited gleam in her eyes. “Well, class, at this year’s Frog Moon Festival, our class will be performing the Acts of Bravery!”
Some Squidges cheered, but others looked nervous. The squidges who performed Acts of Bravery had to do something they were afraid to do.
Malcolm raised his hand. “I’ll fight a bear,” he said.
“Think again,” said Mrs. Nukluk.
“Okay, I’ll shove a stick up my nose,” Malcolm said.
“You did that the other day. It didn’t end well for you, did it, Malcolm?” said Mrs. Nukluk with raised eyebrows. Then she glanced around at the rest of the class and said, “For the next few days, you can all think about what you would like to do for your Act of Bravery. In the meantime, we will start making our scary masks.”
Mrs. Nukluk went to the art closet and took out long strips of bark, pots of glue made from pine tree resin, paints made of red and yellow river clay, paintbrushes, and other bits and bobs collected from the woods.
“Remember, everyone,” she said as she handed out the supplies, “your masks must be very scary!”
The class got right to work. Hugo started to make a mask that looked like a shark, with a long, pointy snout and a wide-open mouth full of shark teeth.
“What’s your Act of Bravery going to be?” Hugo asked Gigi. Her mask looked like a crazy bird, with a short, fat beak and black crow feathers glued all over.
“I might let my Uncle Clive’s pet rat sit on my head,” said Gigi. “He’s disgusting. The rat, I mean, not Uncle Clive. What about you?”
Hugo shrugged. “I’m not sure yet.” As he worked, he tried to keep his mind on an Act of Bravery, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Boone.
“Hey, Gigi,” Hugo said after a few minutes, “do you think a Sasquatch could be friends with a Human?”
“No,” Gigi said right away, as she painted the beak on her mask.
“But you didn’t even think about it,” Hugo protested.
“I don’t have to. It’s impossible. Humans either want to kill Sasquatches or capture them.”
Hugo didn’t think Boone wanted to kill or capture him. “My grandfather thinks Humans are probably just like Sasquatches. Some are good, and some are bad,” Hugo said.
Gigi put down her paintbrush and looked at him. “When have you ever heard of a good Human, Hugo?”
13
100% True
Hugo sat in his room, trying to do his homework, but he just kept thinking about what Gigi had said. Could it be true that all Humans were bad? Gigi did always seem to know everything. And in all the stories Hugo had ever heard about Humans, they were doing bad things to Sasquatches.
Still, he couldn’t believe that Boone was that kind of Human.
Just then he heard a clink-a-tink-tink sound. He looked down at the little stream in his room. Sailing through the hole in the wall was his little boat, with the jar clinking inside it. Eagerly, Hugo picked up the jar, opened the lid, and shook out the note. It said:
DEAR HUGO,
NO, I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO BORA BORA OR ATLANTIC CITY BUT I HAVE BEEN TO CLEVELAND. I ATE A GOOD CHILI DOG THERE.
GUESS WHAT? I LIVE IN THE NORTH WOODS, TOO, ON THE BANKS OF RIPPLE WORM RIVER. I LIVE WITH MY GRANDMA IN A BLUE HOUSE WITH A RED ROOF. HERE IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE:
NO ONE LIVES AROUND US FOR MILES AND MILES. SOMETIMES IT GETS PRETTY LONELY.
I HAVE SOMETHING ELSE TO TELL YOU. IT’S A SECRET, THOUGH. LAST WEEK WHEN I WAS IN THE WOODS, I CLOSED MY EYES AND MADE A WISH. I WISHED THAT I WOULD SEE A BIGFOOT. WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, THERE HE WAS! HE WAS HUGE AND COVERED WITH HAIR! HE LOOKED LIKE THIS:
DO YOU BELIEVE ME? I HOPE SO, BECAUSE IT’S 100% TRUE.
BOONE
P.S. I’M REALLY GLAD WE’RE FRIENDS, HUGO.
So Boone was the Human Hugo had seen by the hemlock tree! Hugo looked at the drawing of the Sasquatch covered
in twigs and leaves. That was a drawing of him!
He thought of Boone’s funny sticking-up hair and his eyes that looked like a Sasquatch’s eyes. There was nothing scary about Boone. There was nothing bad about Boone. Gigi might be right most of the time, but this time she was wrong, 100 percent wrong.
Hugo wrote back straightaway:
DEAR BOONE,
I DO BELIEVE YOU, BECAUSE THE BIGFOOT THAT YOU SAW IN THE WOODS WAS ME!
HUGO
P.S. WE ARE CALLED SASQUATCHES, NOT BIGFOOT.
14
The Last Letter
After school, Hugo didn’t even stop at the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery. Instead he ran straight home. He flung open his bedroom door and immediately did a whoop of joy. Bobbing on the stream, caught up in a tangle of soggy leaves, was his little boat.
He opened the jar inside the boat and shook out the note. This is what it said:
DEAR HUGO,
I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND, BUT I WAS WRONG. FRIENDS DON’T MAKE FUN OF EACH OTHER. I’M NOT DUMB. I KNOW YOU’RE NOT BIGFOOT. BIGFOOT DOESN’T WRITE LETTERS TO PEOPLE.
BOONE
P.S. THIS IS THE LAST TIME I WILL WRITE TO YOU.
Hugo felt sick to his stomach. He slumped down on his bed and read the note again. Not only had he lost his friend, but now Boone thought he was a liar. The Big Wide World had never felt so far away.
15
Frog Moon Festival
The Frog Moon Festival begins at the time of day called dimmery, which is just after supper, when people like you and me begin to wonder if there is something good on TV. First, Ms. Winterbottom went outside the cave to do some Sneaking. This was to make sure no Humans were around, and there weren’t.
