The Squatchicorns Read online

  For Amelia Socorro Boscana,

  who is her very own superhero

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Potter, Ellen, 1963- author. | Sala, Felicita, illustrator.

  Title: The Squatchicorns / by Ellen Potter; illustrated by Felicita Sala.

  Description: New York: Amulet Books, 2019. | Series: Big Foot and Little Foot ; book 3 | Summary: A tribe of odd-looking Sasquatches flee their cursed cave and take refuge with Hugo, but when Hugo invites Nobb, one of the strange squidges to Boone’s birthday party, the result is near-disaster. Identifiers: LCCN 2018028186 (print) | LCCN 2018034679 (ebook) | ISBN 9781683354789 (ebooks) | ISBN 9781419733642 (hardcover) Subjects: | CYAC: Sasquatch—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Blessing and cursing—Fiction. | Birthdays—Fiction. | Parties—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P8518 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.P8518 Sq 2019 (print) | DDC [E]—dc23

  Text copyright © 2019 Ellen Potter

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 Felicita Sala

  Book design by Siobhán Gallagher

  Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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  The Big Foot and Little Foot series

  Book One: Big Foot and Little Foot

  Book Two: The Monster Detector

  Book Three: The Squatchicorns

  1

  Castles & Knights

  Deep in the cold North Woods there lived a young Sasquatch named Hugo. He was bigger than you but smaller than me, and he was hairier than both of us. He lived in apartment 1G in the very back of Widdershins Cavern with his mother and father and his older sister, Winnie.

  It was Saturday morning, and Hugo and his friend Gigi were sitting on the floor playing a game they had made up called Castles & Knights. They used cups turned upside down for the castles. For the roads, they used sticks, and they had painted faces on rocks for their characters. There were smooth bits of red and green and blue glass that Hugo’s grandpa had found in the woods while hunting mushrooms—these were the magic gems.

  “My knight is crossing the moat to attack your castle,” Gigi said, pushing a painted rock forward.

  “Okay, then my wizard is going to open the secret trapdoor,” Hugo said, “and a Snallygaster is going to fly out and attack your knight.”

  Gigi looked at Hugo.

  “A Snallygaster? You can’t make up creatures out of your head, Hugo. Maybe you could use a dragon. Or a Minotaur.”

  “But there really is such a thing as a Snallygaster! Hold on, I’ll prove it.”

  Hugo got up and walked over to his bookshelf.

  Rick-a-tick-a-tick.

  Gigi frowned at the sound.

  From the bookshelf, Hugo pulled out a very thick hardcover book called The Biggest Ever Book of Cryptids. His best friend, Boone, had lent the book to him, and Hugo had been reading it every day. Even when it was past his bedtime, he would read the book under his blankets, using his jar of glowworms for light. The book listed all the known cryptids (which is a fancy word for “mysterious creatures”) in alphabetical order. It had full-color illustrations of each one of them, too. Once in a while, there was a photograph of a cryptid, but those were usually pretty blurry and could just as easily have been something else.

  Hugo walked back to Gigi to show her the book.

  Rick-a-tick-a-tick.

  “Hugo,” Gigi said, staring down at Hugo’s feet, “when was the last time you cut your toenails?”

  “I don’t know. Why?” Hugo sat down beside her and leafed through the book to find the section about Snallygasters.

  “Because your toenails are so long that they’re clicking against the ground.”

  Hugo ignored this. He flipped through the pages, past pictures of creatures that he had never heard of before reading the book. There was an Owlman and Swamp Monsters and Tommyknockers and Globsters. Some of the creatures were no bigger than a pinkie toe, and others were taller than the tallest pine tree.

  “Snallygaster! Here it is!” Hugo pointed at a page with a picture of a snaky-looking beast. He read, “‘A dragon-like creature that is half bird, half reptile, with razor-sharp teeth.’ There! I told you they were a real thing!”

  Right then they heard the noise again.

  Rick-a-tick-a-tick.

  “Well, that’s obviously not my toe-nails,” Hugo told Gigi.

  Hugo stood up and walked over to the little stream that ran right through his bedroom. It entered the room through a hole in the bottom of the wall, then it wiggled across the room and exited through another hole in the wall by Hugo’s toy chest. The little stream was Hugo’s personal floating post office, since that’s how he and Boone sent messages to each other.

  Rick-a-tick-a-tick.

  A wooden toy boat sailed through the hole in the wall and into Hugo’s room. A little bottle was rick-a-tick-a-ticking around inside the boat. And in that bottle was a note from Boone.

  2

  The Absolute Most Perfect Present

  Hugo unscrewed the bottle’s lid and took out the rolled-up note, which was tied with a thin green ribbon.

  “Hmm, this looks fancier than usual,” Hugo said as he untied the ribbon and rolled out the note. It said:

  Dear Hugo,

  You are cordially invited to Boone’s birthday party. (Don’t worry, there won’t be any other Humans there besides me and Grandma!)

  Place: Boone’s House

  Day: Today

  Time: Noon, just in time for lunch and birthday cake

  Boone

  Hugo looked up at Gigi. “A Human birthday party!” he exclaimed. “Do you think it will be different from a Sasquatch birthday party?”

  Gigi considered. “Well, I would guess that they don’t pull out three hairs from your chin for good luck,” she said.

  “Probably not. Boone doesn’t have any hair on his chin,” Hugo said. “But do you think he’ll get to be King for a Day?”

  When a young Sasquatch has a birthday, he or she wears a Birthday Crown, which makes them King or Queen for a Day. That means they can do whatever they want to do for the whole day.

  “I’ve read lots of books about Humans, but I’ve never read about Humans having Birthday Crowns,” Gigi said.

  “That’s too bad. Being King for a Day is the best part of a birthday.”

  “I do think Humans get presents, though, like we do,” Gigi said.

  “Oh.” Hugo thought. “I wonder what present I should give him.”

  “You could make him a little book of word puzzles,” Gigi suggested. “Like the one I made for you on your last birthday.”

  “I could do that . . .” Hugo pretended to think about this, but that book of puzzles was now in a box at the bottom of his closet. “Hmm, maybe he’d rather have something else instead.”

  “Well, w
hat does he like?” Gigi asked.

  “He likes cryptids.”

  “You can’t give him a cryptid,” Gigi said.

  “No,” Hugo agreed. He looked around his room for other ideas and spotted a clickity-clack under his bed.

  In case you don’t know, a clickity-clack is a piece of string with a walnut on either end. Holes are made in each walnut for the string to go through. You pick up the string in the middle and bob it up and down to make the walnuts clack against each other.

  “Maybe I could make him a clickity-clack,” Hugo said.

  “Too noisy.” Gigi winced.

  Hugo thought some more.

  “Wait! I know what I’ll give him!” he cried out. “And it’s definitely something he doesn’t already have!”

  When he told Gigi what it was, she had to admit that it was a good present, even if it wasn’t a book of word puzzles. Hugo spent the next hour making Boone’s birthday gift, with Gigi’s help. When they finished, they both agreed it was the absolute most perfect present for Boone. They had just begun to wrap it when the door swung open and Hugo’s sister, Winnie, burst in.

  “QUICK! HIDE!” Winnie shrieked. “WIDDERSHINS CAVERN IS BEING INVADED!”

  3

  The Invasion

  Winnie made a mad dash for Hugo’s closet and slammed the door shut.

  Hugo and Gigi looked at each other.

  Hugo shrugged.

  Gigi shrugged back.

  They both knew that Winnie was very dramatic.

  “By the way, who’s invading us?” Hugo called to Winnie.

  “An army of Sasquatches with unicorn horns on their heads!” Winnie called back.

  “Do they have sparkly rainbow tails, too?” Hugo asked.

  Gigi giggled.

  “Ha, ha, ha!” Winnie shouted angrily. “You two better come in here and hide if you know what’s good for you.”

  “We’re fine out here, thanks,” Hugo said. “Anyway, we’ve never seen a Sasquatch unicorn before.”

  “A Squatchicorn,” Gigi suggested.

  And of course that made them laugh even harder. Winnie popped her head out of the closet and glared at them.

  “Well, if you two don’t believe me, why don’t you just go outside and see for yourselves?” Then she shut herself back in the closet.

  Hugo and Gigi looked at each other.

  “Why not?” said Gigi.

  They marched out of the bedroom, into the living room, and opened the front door.

  Walking up the passageway outside Hugo’s apartment were two Sasquatches whom Hugo and Gigi had never seen before. And sprouting out of each of their foreheads was an honest-to-goodness unicorn horn.

  4

  Squatchicorns

  “They’re real!” Gigi whispered. “Squatchicorns!”

  Hugo started to shut the door, and he would have locked it, too, but the bigger Squatchicorn rushed toward him, calling, “Wait! Are you Hugo?”

  “Yes,” said Hugo cautiously.

  “And you must be Winnie?” the Squatchicorn said to Gigi.

  Gigi was too shocked to speak.

  “That’s Gigi,” Hugo said. “Winnie’s hiding.”

  From the other room, Winnie yelled out, “You get the award for biggest mouth, Hugo!”

  “My name is Nogg,” the Squatchicorn said. He held out his hand, and Hugo shook it. “This is my sister, Yama. Our parents are at your family’s bakery right now. Your mom said we could wait for them here, in your apartment.”

  “Um . . . come in, I guess,” Hugo said uncertainly.

  As the two Squatchicorns walked into the apartment, Hugo spied another group of Squatchicorns walking by in the passageway outside. So it was an invasion! Only, they didn’t seem like very scary invaders.

  Nogg and Yama were both squidges, which is what you call a young Sasquatch.

  Nogg was very tall and looked to be a few years older than Hugo, while his sister, Yama, was a few years younger than Hugo. Their hair was the usual Sasquatch sort of hair, and their bodies were Sasquatchy, too, but their horns were gray and stuck straight out of their foreheads.

  They must be some sort of cryptid that Boone’s book didn’t know about, thought Hugo. Just like a Snallygaster was part bird, part reptile, Nogg and Yama were part Sasquatch, part unicorn.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Gigi asked, nudging Hugo, because that was really what he should have asked.

  “Sure,” said Nogg.

  He and his sister sat down while Hugo and Gigi went into the kitchen. Hugo opened up the cabinets and looked at the shelves. There were jars of acorn butter and pickled mushrooms and blackberry preserves. There was a wild sorrel-and-onion tart and a gooseberry pie and a bowl of hazelnuts.

  “What do you think Squatchicorns eat?” he asked Gigi.

  “Well, unicorns are sort of like horses,” Gigi said, “and horses eat grass.”

  “I don’t think we have grass,” Hugo said, looking up at the cabinets.

  Gigi thought for a moment.

  “What about pillows? They’re stuffed with straw.”

  “Good thinking!”

  First they went to Hugo’s room to get his pillow. But then he remembered that Winnie’s pillow was fatter than his, so they went to Winnie’s room and took her pillow to the kitchen. Carefully, Hugo pulled apart the stitches. Then he reached inside the pillow, took out handfuls of straw, and divided it up between two plates.

  Hugo and Gigi looked at the plates of straw doubtfully.

  “I wish it looked more delicious,” he said.

  “It may not look delicious to us, but it will probably look delicious to a Squatchicorn,” Gigi said.

  Hugo guessed so. But just in case, he put a few hazelnuts on top of each pile of straw for decoration.

  It would be nice to have a horn on your head, Hugo thought, but he couldn’t imagine life without an acorn butter–and–raspberry cream sandwich every now and then.

  5

  Nogg and Yama

  Nogg looked at his plate of straw with a strange expression on his face. Hugo worried that he could tell it came from a pillow, so he said, “We usually have better straw. I don’t think it’s in season now.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Nogg said. But he picked up a hazelnut and nibbled on that instead.

  Maybe Squatchicorns don’t eat hay after all, thought Hugo.

  Yama, however, didn’t even eat the hazelnuts. She just sat on the floor beside her brother, looking very glum.

  “She’s upset that we had to leave our cavern,” Nogg explained. “Our whole clan left yesterday. We all slept in the woods last night.”

  Hugo knew that sometimes Sasquatches had to abandon their caverns. Usually it was because a Human had found out where they lived, so it wasn’t safe to stay there anymore.

  Hugo couldn’t imagine ever leaving Widdershins Cavern. He loved his room with its little stream running through it. He loved helping his grandpa make snarfles on Sunday mornings at the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery. He even loved his school. It would be awful to have to leave all that behind. And what if he had to move to a cavern far, far away from the North Woods and Ripple Worm River? What if he had to move far, far away from Boone?

  That would be the worst part.

  “All my things are back in Craggy Cavern,” Yama said miserably. “All my stuffed animals, all my drawings.”

  “You’ll make new drawings,” her brother told her.

  “They won’t be as good!” she insisted. “And I had to leave the fairy house I made in school, which was the biggest, most beautifulest one I ever made.”

  “Why didn’t you take them with you?” asked Gigi.

  “There was no time to pack.” Yama’s eyes grew wide and frightened. “We had to leave right away because of the—” But before she could say anything else, Nogg gave her a sharp, warning nudge with his elbow.

  “Shh, you’ll scare them,” Nogg said under his breath.

  Hugo and Gigi ex
changed looks.

  One thing was clear—the Squatchicorns had a secret.

  6

  The Big Wide World

  Hugo’s parents came home looking tired, but happy.

  “Everyone pitched in to find extra dens in Widdershins Cavern, so your clan will all have places to sleep until you can find your new home,” Dad told Nogg and Yama.

  “Thank you,” they said.

  “You and your family are staying just down the passageway,” Hugo’s mom told them. “And you can come to our bakery for lunch.”

  “Lunch!” Hugo cried, suddenly remembering. “Boone invited me to his house for his birthday party today. I was thinking that Grandpa could take me there.”

  “Oh, Hugo, I’m sorry, but Grandpa will be much too busy at the bakery with all our new guests,” his mom said. “So will your dad and I.”

  “Then I’ll go on my own,” Hugo declared.

  “Absolutely not,” his father said. “Young squidges cannot go tromping through the woods on their own.”

  “But it’s Boone’s birthday! I have to go!”

  “I can take him,” Nogg offered.

  Hugo’s mom and dad looked at Nogg, then glanced at each other, uncertain.

  “I’m one merit badge away from being a Falcon in the Ranger Scouts, ma’am,” said Nogg, “and I’ve hiked all over the North Woods by myself. I know every bit of it.”

  An hour later, Hugo, Nogg, and Hugo’s mom stood by the mouth of Widdershins Cavern.

  They were all holding something:

  Hugo was holding Boone’s present.

  Nogg was holding a backpack.

  And Hugo’s mom was holding her tongue.

  She wanted to say, “Don’t go! This is too dangerous!”

  But she didn’t.

  She knew how much Hugo wanted to make this trip to Boone’s house for his birthday.