The Monster Detector

by Ellen Potter

  Hugo sighed happily. An Arctic Floof was even better than a bat.

  He sniffed its fur. “It smells like warm biscuits,” he said.

  After a moment, Mrs. Nukluk took the Floof from Hugo, much to Hugo’s disappointment, and put it into Gigi’s hands.

  “We’ll have to name them, of course,” said Mrs. Nukluk.

  “How about Cha Cha and Bumbles?” suggested Hugo.

  “The names should rhyme,” said Gigi. “How about Benny and Penny?”

  “Or Mollie and Ollie?” said Pip.

  “Or Lucus and Mucus,” suggested Malcolm.

  They argued over the names as the little Floof was passed around the class.

  Finally, Mrs. Nukluk came to Boone. Boone cupped his hands together and held them out. Mrs. Nukluk put the Floof in them.

  “Hello, little guy,” he said to it softly. “Or girl.”

  Boone stared down at the Floof. It looked back up at him with its shiny black eyes.

  Boone bent his head down and pressed his nose to the Floof’s fur, sniffing in the warm biscuit smell.

  “Mrs. Nukluk!!” shrieked Roderick. “Stop him, Mrs. Nukluk! Boone is trying to eat the Floof!”

  “No, I’m not!” cried Boone.

  “Yes, you were! You were just about to take a bite out of him!” insisted Roderick.

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken, Roderick,” said Mrs. Nukluk.

  “I’m sitting right next to him! I can see better than anybody. He opened his mouth like this.” Roderick opened his mouth wide enough to fit a Floof in it.

  The class gasped.

  “I only wanted to sniff him,” Boone said. He looked around the class at all the horrified faces. “Because he smells like biscuits . . .”

  Okay, here’s the part that I don’t want to tell you. But I feel like I need to be perfectly honest. Hugo’s face was horrified, too. Because even though Hugo didn’t really think Boone would ever eat a Floof, he remembered what Roderick had said about Humans eating just about anything.

  And though Hugo didn’t really think that Boone had opened his mouth to take a bite out of the Floof, Boone had put his face awfully close to it . . .

  Hugo looked at Boone. Boone looked back at Hugo, and he saw the shocked expression on his friend’s face. Boone sighed. With the Floof still cupped in his hands, he stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. Very carefully, he handed the Floof back to Mrs. Nukluk.

  “I think I’d better go home now,” he said.

  “Oh, Boone,” said Mrs. Nukluk. “I’m sure we can work this out.”

  “Thanks anyway, Mrs. Nukluk.” He put out his hand. Mrs. Nukluk took it in her large hairy hand and shook it.

  Then, after a sad little half-wave to Hugo, Boone headed out of the classroom. All the squidges turned around to watch him leave.

  That’s when two things happened:

  1. Hugo’s Monster Detector started to go CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK!

  2. Everyone saw a grizzly green beast rush through the hallway outside the school.

  10

  The Adventures of Big Foot and Little Foot

  “It’s the Green Whistler!” cried Hugo.

  The squidges screamed and jumped to their feet.

  “Sit down, everyone!” ordered Mrs. Nukluk. “We’ll all stay right here until that creature is caught.”

  “What will they do to it when they catch it?” asked Boone, who was still standing near the door.

  “I’m not sure, Boone,” said Mrs. Nukluk. “Now come back in the classroom please.”

  But Boone shook his head. “Mrs. Nukluk, I am going to be a cryptozoologist,” he said stoutly. “And that thing out there is a cryptid, so I have to help it if I can.” Then he turned and dashed out the door.

  It took Hugo a second to decide what he needed to do. Boone was his best friend. He had once saved Hugo from drowning in the Ripple Worm River. They were Big Foot and Little Foot, future cryptozoologists! If Boone was going after the Green Whistler, Hugo was, too.

  He leapt out of his seat and ran out of the classroom. Behind him, he could hear Mrs. Nukluk yelling for him to come back. He knew he was going to be in big trouble. He kept going anyway.

  “Wait for me, Boone!” he called when he spied Boone up ahead in a passageway. “I’m coming with you!”

  Boone turned around, surprised to see Hugo.

  “Are you sure?” Boone asked.

  “I’m totally sure,” Hugo replied.

  Once again, I have to be honest with you. Hugo was not totally sure. He was only mostly sure. After all, they were chasing a dangerous monster. And on top of that, the monster might be a squidge-eating monster, so you can’t really blame Hugo for being a tiny bit not sure.

  Hugo and Boone hurried along the passageway as quietly as possible. A few times, Boone’s sneakers slapped against the floor, but Hugo’s bare feet did not make a sound. Neither did the Monster Detector. That meant the Green Whistler was not nearby. Secretly, Hugo felt relieved.

  The passageway widened, then narrowed, then twisted and turned. Hugo kept listening for the click-click of the Monster Detector or, even worse, the dreaded whistle of the Green Whistler. But the only sound he heard was the growling of his own stomach. It made him think of the acorn butter–and–raspberry cream sandwiches still sitting in his lunch bag back at school.

  “Maybe the Green Whistler went a different way,” Hugo said hopefully.

  “Maybe,” Boone said.

  “Or it might have left the cavern altogether,” Hugo said, his voice brightening.

  But then they heard it:

  Click-click-click.

  Hugo looked down at his wrist. The weechie-weechie moths were flapping their wings. Hugo felt a lump of dread in the place where his acorn butter–and–raspberry cream sandwiches should have been.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” Boone asked.

  Hugo nodded.

  Boone smiled.

  With a deep but whispery voice, Boone said, “In the dark, spooky cavern, Big Foot and Little Foot were hot on the trail of the legendary Green Whistler.”

  “What?” Hugo was confused.

  In his regular voice, Boone said, “This will be a chapter in the book I’m going to write about us one day. You know . . . The Adventures of Big Foot and Little Foot.” He glanced shyly at Hugo. “I mean . . . if you still think that we make a good team and all.”

  Hugo cleared his throat. In his deepest voice, he whispered, “Big Foot and Little Foot were so close to the monster they could smell it.”

  They really could smell it, too. There was a strange odor in the passageway— both sharp and musty. It made their noses wrinkle up.

  Boone continued the story: “The cavern was swarming with poisonous snakes, hissing and slithering across their path.” He looked over at Hugo, because this was sort of a lie.

  “Nice touch,” Hugo whispered approvingly.

  Boone continued in his deep voice: “Still, they had to stop the beast before it hurt someone, or someone hurt it.”

  That was true, thought Hugo. Then he wondered out loud, “But how will we stop it?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Boone said in his regular Boone voice. “When the time comes, we’ll know what to do.” He said this with such confidence that Hugo felt certain Boone was right.

  Hugo continued the story: “Even though there was danger all around them, Big Foot wasn’t afraid, because Little Foot was with him. And Little Foot was the smartest, bravest, and best friend any squidge could ever have.”

  “Thanks, Hugo,” Boone said quietly.

  And that’s when they knew everything would be okay between them.

  11

  Twists and Turns

  Every so often the passageway split into two, and they had to figure out which way to go. They would try one passage, and if the Monster Detector stopped clicking, they would turn back and go the other way.

  After a while, Boone asked, “Do you know where we are?”
/>   Hugo looked all around him. Nothing was familiar.

  “I’m not sure,” Hugo answered.

  The cavern was very large, and they had traveled through so many twists and turns that Hugo had lost track. Now Hugo remembered all the times he and Winnie were warned not to go wandering in the cavern. If they got lost, their mom and dad told them, it might be hours, or even days, before they were found again.

  Or maybe never, a little voice in his head said. They’d be lost and alone with a squidge-eating monster on the loose!

  Suddenly, Hugo stopped walking. He sniffed the air.

  “Do you smell something?” Hugo asked.

  “I can still smell the Green Whistler,” Boone said.

  “No,” said Hugo, “something else.”

  Boone sniffed the air, then shook his head.

  “I don’t smell it,” he said.

  But Sasquatches are very good sniffers, much better than Humans. Hugo did smell something. It smelled like onions and the North Woods on a cool autumn day.

  Up ahead, the passageway took a sharp turn to the right. As they approached the turn, the Monster Detector started click-click-clicking faster and faster. Just as Hugo and Boone rounded the bend, they saw something move in the distance.

  There it was. The Green Whistler.

  In the darkness, they could see the hulking shadowy figure lumbering along. Suddenly, the beast stopped and spun around. It was too dim to make out its face, but they could see the shine of its eyes.

  “It sees us,” Boone whispered.

  Hugo nodded, but was too scared to whisper back.

  The Green Whistler turned, and in a flash it disappeared through an open doorway just ahead of it.

  Hugo sniffed the air again. The oniony, woodsy smell was even stronger.

  Now Hugo knew what that smell was. It was a mushroom tart, just out of the oven. And he knew exactly where they were!

  “Hurry, hurry!” Hugo cried. He took off running at top speed, with Boone close behind him. They ran down the passageway and through the open doorway . . . which just so happened to be the back door to the kitchen at the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery.

  12

  The Dreaded Whistle

  The Green Whistler was standing with its back to them, looking at Hugo’s grandpa. The monster’s green fur was mangy and ratty. Hugo could hear its wheezing breath and could smell its sharp, stinging stench.

  Grandpa was holding a steaming mushroom tart, staring back at the monster in shock.

  “How? I don’t . . . it’s impossible . . .” Grandpa sputtered.

  That’s when the absolute worst thing happened.

  The Green Whistler began to whistle.

  The whistle was high-pitched, and it swooped up and down, almost like a song. Grandpa opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, but no words came out. Hugo’s heart was thumping hard as he watched the Green Whistler move toward Grandpa. Any minute now, it was going to pounce.

  “Do we know what to do yet?” Hugo said to Boone in a panicky voice.

  “Yup,” said Boone easily.

  Boone walked right up to the monster. Before Hugo could stop him, Boone threw his arms around it and hugged it. He hugged it so hard that the Green Whistler said, “Ow, Boone, you’re squeezing! And for heaven’s sake, what are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here, Grandma?” asked Boone.

  Because that was who the Green Whistler was. Only you wouldn’t have known it, because she was wrapped in the wooliest green blanket you’d ever seen.

  “She’s here to see me,” said Grandpa, smiling fondly at Boone’s grandma. “Now get some plates out of the cupboard, Hugo. Nothing goes better with a long explanation than a slice of mushroom tart.”

  13

  Explanations

  After Boone explained to his grandma about squidge school, he folded his arms and said to her, “Okay, your turn.”

  Boone’s grandma swallowed her bite of mushroom tart and began: “When I was right about your age, Boone, and just as sassy—”

  “And when I was a young squidge, a little older than Hugo,” added Grandpa, “Ruthie and I ran into each other in the North Woods by accident.”

  “Do you know what he said to me when he first saw me?” Grandma Ruthie jerked a thumb toward Grandpa. “He said that I looked like a plucked turkey in a dress.”

  “Well, I’d never seen a Human before,” said Grandpa.

  “Anyway, I forgave him. Wasn’t that big of me? And besides, I thought he looked like an overgrown gorilla. In the end, we became best friends.”

  “Like Boone and me,” said Hugo.

  “Exactly,” said Grandpa. “We used to meet in secret, in a little room in the west part of the cavern. I’d know she was there because she would whistle for me.”

  Grandma Ruthie whistled the same tune she had whistled a few minutes before.

  “I recognized that whistle,” Boone told Hugo. “That’s when I knew the Green Whistler was Grandma. She always whistles like that for me when I’m outside and she wants me to come in for dinner.”

  “Yes, and you always pretend you don’t hear,” she said to Boone, reaching out and giving his ear a tweak.

  “Ruthie would bring a picnic lunch and a blanket,” continued Grandpa, “and we would sit in our secret room and talk and laugh and play games for hours. She taught me how to play poker.”

  “I always won,” Grandma Ruthie said.

  Grandpa leaned over to Hugo and Boone and said quietly, “I think she cheated.”

  “Oh, I did!” Grandma Ruthie said, laughing.

  “We had the best time, didn’t we?” Grandpa said to her.

  “The best,” she agreed. Then her face grew serious. “Until one day . . .”

  “Oh yes,” Grandpa’s face grew serious, too.

  “One day, I was waiting in the room with my picnic lunch and my blanket, whistling for your Grandpa. I was hungry, so between whistles, I nibbled on some fried chicken—”

  “Disgusting stuff!” Grandpa said.

  “Well, I always brought jelly sandwiches for you, didn’t I? Anyway, right then a Sasquatch was walking outside, and he heard me whistling. I spotted him just in time. Right before he peeped into the room, I threw the blanket over my head— yes, it was that very same green blanket. Well, that Sasquatch took one look at me under the green blanket, and then he saw the chicken bones on the ground, and he took off running.”

  “That’s how the story of the Green Whistler got started,” said Grandpa.

  “Soon after that, my family moved to the city. We packed up and left, and I never even had a chance to say good-bye to my friend.”

  “Ah, so that’s what happened,” Grandpa said. “I had always wondered.”

  “Is that why we moved to the North Woods, Grandma?” Boone asked. “So you could find Hugo’s grandfather?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Grandma Ruthie said. “We moved here for the peace and quiet, and because a childhood in the woods is the best sort of childhood of all.” Then she smiled at Hugo’s grandfather. “And we moved here so that I could find my dear old friend again . . . and beat him in a few rounds of poker.”

  14

  The Green Blanket

  It was then that Hugo realized something.

  “I guess my Monster Detector never really worked after all, since you’re not a monster,” he said to Grandma Ruthie.

  “I should say not,” she replied.

  Hugo undid the strap and tossed the Monster Detector on the table in disgust. “I collected all those Monster Card wrappers for nothing.”

  Grandma Ruthie picked up the Monster Detector and examined it with great interest.

  “What are those little white specks behind the glass?” she asked.

  “They’re called weechie-weechie moths,” said Hugo. “They were clicking like crazy the whole time we were following you.”

  “Ahhh!” Grandma Ruthie said as though she understood something now.
Taking the Monster Detector, she went over to her green blanket, which she had left on a stool in the corner.

  Click-click, went the Monster Detector.

  CLICK-CLICK-CLICK!!! CLICK-CLICK-CLICK!!!

  “See!” said Hugo. “It doesn’t work. The blanket isn’t a monster.”

  “Maybe not to you, but it is to the weechie-weechie moths,” Grandma Ruthie said. “Haven’t you noticed the smell?” She picked up the mangy-looking blanket and brought it over to them.

  Hugo, Boone, and Grandpa all wrinkled their noses at the sharp, musty stench.

  “We thought that was the smell of the Green Whistler,” said Boone.

  “It’s the smell of mothballs!” said Grandma Ruthie. “I stored the blanket with them. Moths hate the smell of mothballs!”

  The weechie-weechie moths were flapping their wings so frantically that Hugo took the Monster Detector from Grandma Ruthie, just to rescue them. He put the Monster Detector back on his wrist. He’d grown sort of fond of the weechie-weechie moths. They might even make pretty good pets, he thought.

  “Ruthie, why on earth were you running around with that nasty blanket over you anyway?” asked Grandpa.

  “I always wear it when I come to the cavern,” she said.

  “You mean you’ve been here before?”

  “Many times. I waited in our secret room, but you never showed up. So I figured I’d snoop around the cavern. I knew the other Sasquatches would run away from me if I was dressed like the Green Whistler. Sasquatches are such scaredy-cats!”

  “Not Hugo,” Boone said. “He’s brave.”

  “Well, maybe not totally brave,” Hugo confessed. “I think I’m just mostly brave.”

  “So . . .” Grandma Ruthie turned to Grandpa. “Do you think a plucked turkey and an overgrown gorilla can still be friends?”

  “I’m certain of it,” Grandpa said.

  15

  Floating Post Office

  When Hugo got back home that day he went straight to his room.