Escape from the Drooling Octopod!

by Robert West

  Finally, they came to a yard that reeked of pink. The house — three stories tall plus an attic — looked even more like a pink birthday cake from the higher angle. Feeling a touch of nausea coming on at the thought, she shifted her gaze to the backyard. Smaller pink items were scattered about — a swing, a wishing well, several park benches, a gazebo, even a pink jungle gym.

  The biggest pink thing, other than the house itself, was a playhouse shaped like a castle. Complete with delicate towers, it was perched atop a man-made hill with steps that wound around, leading up to the pink castle gate. Circular stairs in the back led to a second story and up to a tower.

  She must be a little “princess.” Scilla rolled her eyes at the thought. She had run up against them before. Anything they wanted, they’d get, and everything had to be perfect — perfect hair, perfect eyes, and perfect face. They didn’t wear clothes; they wore costumes. This little party was going to be a nightmare!

  She suddenly saw a pair of eyes staring up at them from a tower window. “Hey, y’all — ” she called.

  They heard a scream and saw a girl hurriedly trample around the staircase, out the gate, and down around the winding steps. Scilla rolled her eyes and sighed when she saw the pink dress with all the ruffles.

  “Hey, wait!/Hey, stop!/We come in peace!” Beamer, Scilla, and Ghoulie yelled at the same time as the pink girl ran into the house.

  So much for the damsel-in-distress idea. At the moment, they were the ones causing her distress. Without thinking the situation through, they quickly rustled down the tree, dropped to the ground, and ran after her. They scrambled up a broad set of steps onto a stone patio as wide as the house. Then they shot through a wide set of glass doors and down a broad hallway.

  Before they could skid to a stop, they were in a room right out of Disneyland. The whole front wall was curved and had a row of fancy windows about four times as tall as Scilla. These had half-circle windows at the top with lots of squiggly designs. Chairs, sofas, cabinets, grandfather and mantel clocks, lamps, and bookcases were all delicately designed in shades of pink with lots of curves and squiggles like they’d come out of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin. Some people probably would have called it pretty, but after a few pink dreams and a trip to a pink planet, Scilla just found it sickly sweet. It made her dizzy just looking at them. What she would have given for a few straight lines.

  Everything that wasn’t pink was made of glass. Hundreds of little glass dolphins or unicorns or dragons . . . whatever . . . covered the tables and filled the cabinets. They reflected the light coming through the windows, casting sparkles around the walls and ceiling like a mirror ball at a dance party. Strangely enough, though, Scilla noticed that you couldn’t see a ghost of a reflection in the larger pieces of glass — the glass cases or the windows.

  Everything looked so . . . breakable that she was afraid to move. Scilla slapped Ghoulie’s hand away when he tried to touch the horn of a glass unicorn. But she accidentally knocked off a glass penguin. In the process of trying to catch that, they tipped over still more glass figures. It was like a chain reaction! Before they knew it, they had a full-scale glass avalanche. All three of them ended up doing a major juggling act that involved several incredible jumps and diving catches. Amazingly, nothing was broken, but they were left lying on the floor, sucking their breath in like they’d just come up from a deep-sea dive without diving suits.

  There was no sign of the girl, however. Scilla was relieved that she had, at least, stopped screaming.

  Ghoulie was the first one to finally ask the obvious. “Uh . . . guys, what if she called 9 – 1 – 1?”

  “Yeah, a life of crime isn’t what I had in mind,” Beamer said.

  “I don’t know. I think she’s hiding,” Scilla said as she opened a door. The room behind the door turned out to be a very fancy bathroom — pink, of course, but with gold fixtures, knobs, and holders. “Hey, there’s no mirror in the bathroom,” she called out. “At least something about the place isn’t perfect.”

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Beamer said. He started to run out but suddenly stopped and stared at something hanging above a big fireplace.

  Scilla came over for a look. The fireplace was made of pink stones and had a pink marble mantel. What Beamer was staring at, though, was a large painting of a woman. Nobody probably would have noticed it there in the shadow of the staircase, if it hadn’t been lit by several spotlights. Looking at the lady in the dark, cloudy background gave Scilla a particularly eerie feeling. She heard a girl’s voice and whirled around.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” the girl asked from atop a winding staircase.

  She stood with her head and shoulders in shadow. Beamer walked toward the steps saying, “We’re just kids from down the street. We thought . . . uh — ”

  “We thought you might want someone to play with,” Scilla said when she heard Beamer hesitate.

  “You want to play with me?” the girl said as she stepped toward them into the light. They recoiled from her as if she were a snake about to strike.

  8

  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

  She was very feminine, as Scilla had said she would be. Her blonde hair and clothes were as beautiful as you’d find on a fairy princess. But her face . . . her face was all wrong! She was, in fact — Beamer hated to use the word — ugly! The Wicked Witch of the West had better skin tones! Even the Mummy would have winced at the sight of her. Her skin was as white as a ghost and she looked . . . old! She could rival Old Lady Parker in the wrinkle department, but then Ms. Parker was ninety-three years old and lived in a house that looked like a transplant from Transylvania.

  The girl’s twisted face took on what Beamer guessed was a puzzled look. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You don’t need to worry. I didn’t call the police — not after I saw that you were kids.”

  He swallowed hard, noticing that Ghoulie and Scilla were doing the same. “We didn’t mean to scare you,” he said through a windpipe squeezed so tight he could hardly push his voice through it. “We’re just not used to someone who looks like — ” He suddenly stopped himself, remembering the missing mirrors. Yes, the windows and glass panels. They were nonreflective! She didn’t know what she looked like!

  “He means,” Scilla finished for him, “we’re not used to seeing anyone dressed like a princess. We just wondered if you’d like to . . . play.”

  “I’m not allowed to play with anyone,” the girl said, like it was one of the Ten Commandments. “My father says that the outside world and the people living in it are dangerous and . . . and evil.” She paused nervously a moment then asked, “Are you . . . evil?”

  “Uh . . . no,” Beamer said. “We’re just kids.” Actually, at the back of his mind the same question had been haunting him about her. Was she evil? She looked like it. You could always tell evil by how ugly it looked. An evil witch had twisted features; an evil creature had ugly tentacles or twisted limbs; an evil tree had twisted branches.

  At the moment, none of them seemed to know what to do. The impulse to run away was strong, but there was something about the girl that made Beamer unwilling to do that. She seemed so delicate and innocent, like she might break with the wrong word or look.

  Do evil people have feelings? “I mean, there are bad people out there,” Beamer said out loud to her. “But most people wouldn’t think of hurting anyone. At least that’s what my mom and dad say.” It occurred to him that his parents probably hadn’t been to a school playground lately. Jared is not the only bully in middle school.

  “You have a mother?” the girl asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Beamer answered with a shrug.

  “Mine’s dead,” the girl said with almost no feeling. “That’s her,” she said, pointing toward the large portrait above the fireplace, “in the picture.”

  Beamer was shamefaced at having said something so ignorant. Of course, some people didn’t have a mother or a father. His friend Jack didn
’t have a father; neither did Scilla. Some didn’t have either one.

  “She’s very pretty,” Scilla said, looking at the portrait.

  Beamer looked from the painting to the girl. She looked nothing like her mother, except for the hair color . . . and maybe the eyes. If the woman in the picture was truly her mother, then something must have gone terribly wrong for this little girl.

  “My dad said she was smarter and prettier than any woman in the whole world. He told me I would probably be pretty and smart too.” She seemed at a loss for words after saying that. Finally, she said, “Yes, I would like someone to play with . . . if you are sure that you are not evil.”

  Just then they heard a car rumbling up the driveway.

  “Oh, no, that’s my nanny, Ms. Warrington!” the girl cried. “She can’t see you here! You must go . . . quickly!”

  They sprinted back the way they had come in.

  “No, not that way,” she yelled at them. “She’ll see you in the backyard. This way! Hurry!” She motioned for them to come up the stairs toward her.

  With only a moment’s hesitation, and after taking a deep breath, they scrambled up the steps. Before they got too unbearably close to that distorted face, however, she swung about and ran down a wide hallway. Since straight lines were apparently frowned on by whoever built this house, the hallway was curved.

  “Alana, I’m home,” they heard a voice downstairs call out. “You can come out now. The housekeeper has finished cleaning up.” Her voice suddenly changed. “That’s strange. She didn’t do as good a job as usual — ”

  Beamer skipped up the steps as fast as he could without running over the girl. So her name is Alana. Somehow the name didn’t seem to fit the face.

  Alana led them up another flight of stairs and into another hallway, which ended in front of a large window. She opened it to reveal a small balcony overlooking the backyard. “This way,” she said.

  They all blinked rapidly or rubbed their eyes as they passed her, trying to avoid looking directly at her. A large branch from the tree overhung the balcony.

  “Since that’s the way you came, I guess that’s the way you want to leave,” she said. “And . . . and when you come back, if I’m not in the yard, you can come in this way. This window is never locked, and I am always here. But you must never come when anyone else is here.”

  “How are we to know — ?”

  “Daddy has a flag on the roof. I’ll put a little flag under it when it’s clear. Okay?”

  “Yeah . . . sure,” Beamer said awkwardly. It was a pretty safe bet that none of them ever wanted to come back, but what could he say?

  “We’ll keep a lookout,” Scilla said as she hoisted herself onto the branch. “Bye.”

  “Uh . . . right . . . sure thing!” Ghoulie said, avoiding her gaze.

  The Star-Fighters said almost nothing to each other all the way back to the tree ship. Beamer had no idea what to do. How do you help somebody like her? They had no healing powers that they knew of. Sure, Solomon seemed to be healthier after his trip in the tree ship, but that wasn’t the main thing that had happened. He mainly rediscovered who he really was and found a sense of God’s purpose in his life. But if you were going to heal someone’s body, why would you need to go on an elaborate fantasy? Nothing about this job with the girl made any sense!

  At school the next day, Scilla banged down her pencil on her desk and heaved a big sigh. I hate coordinates — x equals this, and y equals that. Coordinates make sense when I’m the captain of the tree ship, but in the classroom it’s a major bore. She looked over her shoulder at the clock on the back wall. Holy tamole, it’s almost four o’clock! I’m never gonna get out of here.

  “What’s the matter, Scilla?” asked her teacher at the front of the room. “You can do this. I know you can.”

  Yep, you guessed it. Scilla had been kept after school for extra study. Her grades had been falling in spite of the fact that she was in a program for gifted kids. The trouble was, Scilla didn’t feel gifted. Why did they keep insisting that she was? All she wanted was to be left alone. Okay, so my grades aren’t stellar. What’s the big deal? If I don’t care, why should they?

  Her brother was the gifted one. He was actually only her half brother. That’s because, soon after Scilla was born, her mother had married someone who was not Scilla’s father. Less than a year later, her brother was born. Her stepfather didn’t want her living with them, which is why she ended up living with her grandmother. Sometimes, when things weren’t going all that well and she was feeling sad already, she’d cry about being kept away from her mother. But the next day, she’d be the toughest girl in her class and ready to wrestle anyone — boy or girl — to the ground if they crossed her.

  It was funny that she was thinking of her brother just now. There were times when Scilla thought she had a “sixth sense.” That afternoon proved to be one of those times.

  “Hey, big sister, why ya’ comin’ home so late?”

  Yep, it was Scilla’s stepbrother, Dashiell. He had come to visit their grandmother. Scilla groaned. She always seemed to come out on the losing side whenever he was around. Compared to her, he was Mr. Perfect — well-groomed, well-dressed, perfectly polite, athletic, and very good-looking. Oh, and she forgot something else: he was a “gifted” kid in a whole school for gifted kids. Her mother was very proud of him. So was her grandma. Scilla wished she could disappear through a mirror or down a rabbit hole.

  “Too bad you’re not out for spring vacation yet,” Dashiell said with a mock look of sympathy. “But then I guess that’s not the reason you’re home late.” He chuckled and left the room.

  Scilla dropped her backpack and crumpled to the floor. He didn’t like her any more than his father did. But she really wanted him to like her. Things always seem to go wrong for me when Dashiell is around.

  That’s exactly what happened — right in the middle of that thought. Her grandmother’s parakeet suddenly fluttered into the room. How did he get out of his cage?

  Dashiell suddenly ran back into the room, putting a light jacket on as he headed to the front door. “I think I’ll go outside and play while you’re doing your homework.” He flung the door open and stood in the doorway fumbling with his jacket.

  If Huckleberry gets out the door, he’ll be gone for sure! “Close the door!” she screamed as she leaped around trying to catch the parakeet. Grandma will be totally sick if she loses this bird.

  “Huh?” Dashiell said with an innocent look.

  “Dashiell . . . the door!” Scilla cried again. Scilla finally caught the bird on its glide path toward the door, tripping over a coffee table and falling face-first to the floor in the process. While she was catching her breath, her grandmother’s black shoe buckle suddenly loomed directly in front of her eyes. “Uh-oh,” she said with a gulp.

  9

  Moon Child

  “Scilla!” her grandmother exclaimed. “What are you doing with Huckleberry?”

  Scilla tilted her head slowly upward, scanned up the green flower-patterned dress, past the black velvet belt and the lace collar to the scowl on her grandma’s face. “He got out of his cage,” Scilla said as she got back to her feet while still holding the bird in both hands.

  “Yes, she saved it from getting out the door,” Dashiell said.

  For a brief moment Scilla felt good.

  But then Dashiell went on, “Of course, it would have been better if she hadn’t let it out of the cage in the first place. I didn’t actually see her do it, but you know how she likes to show off when I’m around.”

  “Scilla!” her grandma said through a tight jaw with her fists on her hips. “Put Huckleberry back in his cage and get up to your room right now!”

  “But — ” Scilla started.

  “You know better than to play with Huckleberry out of his cage,” her grandmother added. “Just because your brother is visiting, it’s no time to take leave of your senses.”

  Scilla felt like melting into
the floor. There was no sense arguing about it. She’d fed him in the morning. Maybe she’d left the cage door unlocked.

  Scilla didn’t have to stay late after school the next day, but she wished she had. She hurried in the house to drop off her backpack and change her clothes, as usual. But then Dashiell glided into her room and insisted on telling her the words he’d spelled to win fifteen spelling bees in a row. It was like listening to a talking dictionary. He kept spitting out words until she started seeing them flittering about the room like moths.

  When he finished, she started to move toward the door, but then he had to tell her about their grandma’s tea party earlier that day. He told her how silly the old ladies looked and talked — how Mrs. Jacobs kept pulling up her knee-high nylons, and how Mrs. Hedley tapped on her hearing aid and yelled, “What was that?” after anyone said anything.

  Still, he’d apparently been a hit. Oh yeah, he had schmoozing down to a science. With his perfect looks and charm, he probably had his grandma and the other ladies thinking he was an up-and-coming Cary Grant.

  Scilla finally thumped down the stairs two at a time with him scrambling after her. But before she could get out the door, he said he had a surprise for her. He pointed to an end table across the living room. Sure enough, a chocolate bar lay on top. That was about the only candy she could still stomach eating these days. Wow! Maybe he liked her after all.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him a big smile and walking over to the table. She picked up the candy and started back toward him. Half a second later, her grandma’s crystal lamp spun off the table. She didn’t notice that she had hit it, but she saw it crash to smithereens on the floor. “Eeeeiiii!” Scilla yelped in a squeak dripping with panic. “No! This is Grandma’s favorite lamp!” She was totally worm meat now — maybe even pond scum.