Hugo saw it, half covered by leaves. Its gaping mouth showed two rows of pointed teeth. Its eyes were mean yellow slits, and there was a large spike on its head.
“What is that thing?” asked Boone in a horrified voice.
Hugo knew exactly what it was. He felt his heart begin to beat fast.
“Is it some kind of bird?” whispered Boone.
“It’s not a bird,” Hugo whispered. “It’s a Snoot-Nosed Gint.”
“OOOOOOOMA!” the Snoot-Nosed Gint shrieked.
The hemlock tree branches rustled wildly. Hugo could see the Snoot-Nosed Gint’s eyes staring down at him. Thinking fast, he grabbed the yellow umbrella from Boone’s hands.
“Run!” he told Boone.
“What about you?” asked Boone.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Hugo told him. Boone ran. Hugo turned back to the Snoot-Nosed Gint. He lifted the umbrella in one hand and pointed the tip toward the creature. With one quick step forward and a heave-ho, Hugo launched the umbrella into the air. It flew up into the tree, and a second later the Snoot-Nosed Gint shrieked in pain.
Hugo turned and ran as fast as a sneeze through a screen door.
21
Oooma
Hugo crashed through the woods, running as hard as he could. Behind him he heard the terrible KA-THUMP of the Snoot-Nosed Gint as it leapt down from the tree. Its shrieking call of “Ooooma! OOOOOOOOMA!” was getting closer and closer every second.
Hugo ran through the woods and straight into the Frog Moon Festival.
But the festival was oddly quiet. The Sasquatches weren’t talking or laughing or eating or somersaulting. They were all standing very still, and they were all staring at Boone, who had arrived a moment before Hugo.
“Snoot-Nosed Gint, Snoot-Nosed Gint!” Hugo screamed, warning the others.
Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.
Finally, in a quiet, scared voice, Gigi said, “That’s not a Snoot-Nosed Gint, Hugo. That’s a Human.”
“I don’t mean him!” Hugo said, pointing to Boone. “I mean HIM!” He turned around and pointed to the creature coming right at them. To Hugo’s horror, the Snoot-Nosed Gint was as big as he was. Even more shocking, though, was that it was running on two legs. And it wasn’t scaly, like a regular lizard. It was covered with thick, reddish-brown hair.
“OOOOOMA!” it shrieked, looking at everyone. Now Hugo could see headgear peeping out from the sides of the Snoot-Nosed Gint’s head. Hugo sighed.
“Hi, Izzy,” Hugo said.
“Hi, Yooho.” Izzy removed his Snoot-Nosed Gint mask.
“What were you doing way up in that tree?” asked Hugo.
“Climbing. It was my Act of Bavewy,” he replied. He looked at Boone. Then at Hugo.
“Yooho?” said Izzy. “Who is that oooma?” He pointed at Boone.
It was then that Hugo realized that the cry of “oooma” had only been Izzy trying to say “Human,” which is very hard to say if you are wearing headgear.
“Everyone,” said Hugo to all the Sasquatches, “this is my friend Boone.”
“Hello,” said Boone. Then he bowed to them, very deeply, which was exactly the right thing to do.
22
Peepers
It took a while for Hugo to explain about Boone. He told everyone about the messages in the toy boat and about his ride on the log down the wild river and how Boone had used an umbrella to save him from drowning. While he spoke, the Sasquatches kept staring at Boone, then at Hugo, then back at Boone again. None of the squidges had ever seen a real, live Human before. Some of the grown-up Sasquatches hadn’t either.
When Hugo was finished, Hugo’s grandfather walked up to Boone.
“Careful!” cried Mrs. Rattlebags. “I hear they bite!”
Grandpa looked down at Boone. Boone had to tip his head way back to look up at Grandpa.
“Do you bite?” asked Grandpa.
“No,” said Boone definitely. But then he added, “Well, when I was two, I bit our cat. But only because she bit me first.”
Hugo’s grandfather laughed. Then he shook Boone’s hand—carefully, of course, since Boone’s whole hand was the size of Grandpa’s thumb.
“Pleasure to meet you, Boone,” he said.
“No, no, no!” cried Mrs. Rattlebags. “I don’t like this! He’ll tell other Humans where we live. Then we’ll be chased out of our lovely cave, and we’ll have to live in a nasty, wet hole in a hill.”
Boone stood up very straight, and with as much dignity as he could muster he said, “I promise never to tell a soul.” Then he spit in his hand and crossed his heart.
“That’s good enough for me,” said Hugo’s dad.
And slowly, Sasquatch by Sasquatch, everyone agreed. Except maybe for Mrs. Rattlebags, but that’s just the way she was.
After that, the Festival continued with the Acts of Bravery. Gigi stuck her uncle’s pet rat on her head, and even though she looked like she was about to throw up, she kept him on there for a solid three minutes.
Pip sang a song, badly but loudly. Malcolm started to put a large spider in his mouth, but Mrs. Nukluk stopped him in time.
“We are performing Acts of Bravery, Malcolm, not Acts of Stupidity,” Mrs. Nukluk said.
In the end, Malcolm walked across a narrow plank of wood that was balanced on two boulders, but he looked very disappointed the whole way across.
When everyone had done their Act of Bravery, Pip said, “What about Hugo? He hasn’t done his.”
“Oh . . . I . . .” Hugo stammered. With everything that had happened lately, he had forgotten to choose an Act of Bravery.
“But he did do an Act of Bravery,” said Boone. “He chucked my umbrella at the Snoot-Nosed Gint.”
“It hit my wump,” said Izzy, rubbing at his backside.
“But he chucked it at Izzy, not a Snoot-Nosed Gint,” objected Pip.
“Well, he thought it was a Snoot-Nosed Gint,” Boone argued. “That should count.”
“It does count,” Mrs. Nukluk declared, and no one disagreed.
“Shhh!” said Gigi suddenly. She tapped her ear. “Listen.”
Everyone grew quiet. At first all they heard was the soft rustling of the trees in the night. But then . . . Peep-peep! Peep-peep! Peep-peep-peeeeeep!
“Peepers!” cried Pandora.
“Spring peepers,” Gigi said.
For a while they all breathed in the brand-new spring air while they listened to the frogs making their peeping song. They listened quietly like this until someone’s stomach growled very loudly. For Sasquatches, stomach growling works the way yawns do for humans. It’s very catchy. Pretty soon there were so many stomachs growling that no one could hear the peepers anymore, so it was clear that it was time to sit at the table and eat.
Hugo scooped up a slice of gooseberry pie and put it on Boone’s plate. Then he put one on his own.
Boone took a bite of pie while he looked down the table at all the Sasquatches.
“A guy could never feel lonely here,” he said, then sighed. Half of the sigh was happy, which means that the other half was sad.
Hugo looked down the table, too. There were grown Sasquatches and squidges and even the just-born Sasquatches (which are called chuddles). Everyone was eating and talking and laughing.
Boone is right, thought Hugo. You can’t ever feel lonely here. You could feel frustrated, and you could wish you had adventures in the Big Wide World . . . but you could never, ever feel lonely. And that was something.
“If you come back tomorrow,” Hugo said to Boone, “I’ll show you how to play Five Rocks, Two Sticks.”
“Really?”
“Definitely,” said Hugo.
Boone cleared his throat and in a deep voice said, “After their adventures, Big Foot and Little Foot sat under the starry sky, eating the best gooseberry pie in the whole North Woods and making plans for tomorrow. And that’s the story of how Big Foot and Little Foot became friends.”
He smiled at Hugo. “The End.”
Hugo smiled back.
“To be continued,” Hugo said.
ELLEN POTTER is the award-winning author of many books for children, including the Olivia Kidney series, Slob, The Kneebone Boy, and most recently, the Piper Green and the Fairy Tree series. She lives in Maine.
FELICITA SALA is the self-taught illustrator of many books for children. She lives with her husband and daughter in Rome, Italy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sasquatches know that we all need help if we want to do things right, and that’s why I want to thank my wonderful “Sasquatch Community.” I was lucky enough to have Susan Van Metre as my editor. Thank you, Susan, for your sharp eye, spot-on suggestions, and especially for your kindness. I am forever grateful to my agent, Alice Tasman, who is even better than thirty jars of acorn butter. Thanks to Felicita Sala for bringing Hugo and his friends to life with her beautiful illustrations. I’m grateful for the wisdom of my superstar friends and fellow writers, Anne Mazer and Megan Shull. And finally, as always, thanks to my practically perfect husband, Adam, and my own squidge, Ian.
Big Foot and Little Foot (Book #1) Page 4
