The Bog Beast Read online

  “You read Squoosh magazine?” Hugo asked, stunned.

  “I read everything, Hugo,” Gigi replied firmly.

  Gigi suddenly reached out, and with a yank, she pulled two handfuls of green, weedy hair from the beast’s arm. Everyone gasped, including the Bog Beast. Then, to everyone’s shock, Gigi put some of it in her mouth and chewed. After a moment, she spat it out and announced, “Sticky Grass. That’s what I thought.”

  “Does it taste good?” Hugo couldn’t help but ask. It had been a long time since he’d had breakfast.

  “It tastes like spinach and vinegar,” she said, which didn’t sound very appetizing. “Sticky Grass has little burs on it that make it sticky. Watch.” She pressed some of the grass onto her own arm, and it stuck.

  They all looked at the Bog Beast. In the spot where Gigi had pulled off the Sticky Grass, there was thick, reddish-brown hair. Sasquatch hair.

  They had found Annabelle Loody.

  13

  Annabelle Loody

  “I remember how excited I was about Bimbling Day—ooooh yes, so excited!” Annabelle told them when they asked what had happened to her all those years ago. “A whole day outside the cavern, all by myself! And such a beautiful day! The sun was peeping though the trees, and the birds were busy with their nests. Every so often, I stopped to watch the honeybees or to pet a deer.” Annabelle’s voice was dreamy with the memory. “I bimbled and bimbled, and before I knew it, I was completely lost. But I didn’t mind—no, no, not at all. Back in the cavern, I lived with my aunt, who didn’t like me very much. She said I was an odd bird. Loony Loody, she called me. I didn’t fit in at school, either. But the woods! Oh, the woods were wonderful! That night, I slept in the high grass near the bog with the stars watching over me. When I woke up, I was covered with Sticky Grass. ‘Well, I look just like a monster, don’t I!’ I thought. That’s when I realized it was a perfect disguise. So, poof! Annabelle Loody disappeared”—she made a wavy gesture with her hands—“and the legend of the North Woods Bog Beast began.”

  “But wait . . . you can swim,” Hugo said. “You’re a Sasquatch, and you can swim.”

  “Of course I can,” Annabelle said. “So can you. It’s just that most Sasquatches never bother to learn.”

  This was big news for Hugo! He had always wished he could swim.

  “Once I get my Bimble Badge,” Hugo declared, “I’m going to learn how.”

  “I’ll teach you,” offered Boone.

  “And how are we going to get our Bimble Badges if we can’t even get off this island?” Gigi reminded them sensibly as she tucked the Sticky Grass she’d pulled from Annabelle’s arm into her backpack.

  At that moment, Annabelle Loody lifted her chin and began to howl.

  Hugo, Gigi, and Boone all exchanged looks, as if to say, We like Annabelle, we really do, but she may be a little odd.

  Suddenly, little circles began to form in the river, like water circling a drain. Then . . .

  SPLOOSH!

  A huge head rose out of the water. It looked like a horse’s head, only much larger and with a pair of horns. Its neck was long and thick and snaky. Its skin was silver and smooth, glistening with river water.

  “What is that?” Gigi asked.

  “Is that a—?” Hugo started to say, but Boone interrupted him with a whoop of joy.

  “It’s an Ogopogo!”

  14

  Ripple Worms

  “Actually, they’re called Ripple Worms,” Annabelle corrected.

  “I read about Ripple Worms in Dr. Feathergill’s book!” Gigi said. “There are lots of old legends about them. Ripple Worm River is named after them.”

  Boone looked at the creature thoughtfully. “I think an Ogopogo and a Ripple Worm are the same thing. They’re both river monsters. People just gave them different names.”

  The Ripple Worm looked at them with large dark eyes. Then it tossed up its head and snorted a spray of water out of its nose slits.

  Annabelle howled again.

  Another little circle began to form in the water, and then—SPLOOSH!—a new Ripple Worm popped out of the river. This one was smaller, a darker silver, with white speckles on its skin.

  SPLOOSH!

  SPLOOSH!

  SPLOOSH!

  More and more Ripple Worms appeared all around the island. Some were bluish gray, some were silver, and some were black as onyx. Their necks were so long that their heads towered over Hugo, Boone, and Gigi, looking down at them with calm, dark eyes as big as bowling balls. Their long, snaky bodies coiled and uncoiled in the water, each coil rising up like a rock in the river.

  It was then that Hugo realized the appearing and disappearing rocks had not been rocks at all. They had been Ripple Worms’ coils, rising up and sinking down in the water.

  “This is their favorite spot in the river,” Annabelle explained. “The rushing water tickles their skin.” She giggled and made tickling motions in the air with her claws.

  “They don’t bite, do they?” Gigi asked nervously.

  “Of course not!” said Annabelle indignantly.

  Hugo and Gigi were not convinced, though. It was Boone who found the courage to walk to the edge of the island, near a dusky-blue Ripple Worm. He stretched his hand up to pet the creature’s head. The Ripple Worm pulled its head back at first. But when Boone kept his hand there, the Ripple Worm lowered its head and let Boone pet its snout.

  “Its nose is sooo soft,” Boone said dreamily.

  Feeling braver, Hugo went up to a sleek black Ripple Worm bobbing in the waves. It swiveled its head around, watching Hugo cautiously.

  “Hi there, fellow,” he whispered.

  “She’s not a fellow!” said Annabelle, aghast.

  “Oops, sorry about that,” Hugo told the Ripple Worm. He reached out and petted her nose. It had a rubbery feel to it. He tickled her, and she made a happy humming sound.

  Gigi kept her distance from the creatures, her hands behind her back. But Annabelle wrapped a green arm around Gigi and led her to a very small and beautiful pale silver Ripple Worm.

  “He’s just a baby,” Annabelle told her.

  Of course, Gigi felt it would be ridiculous to be afraid of a baby. She scratched the little Ripple Worm behind his stubby horn. He nuzzled her neck, nibbling at her hair.

  After a moment, Annabelle said, “Okay, everyone choose one.”

  “What do you mean?” Hugo asked her.

  “Choose a Ripple Worm to take you back to shore,” Annabelle said.

  “Wait. Does she want us to ride these things?” Hugo whispered to Boone.

  “I think so!” cried Boone happily. He patted the dusky-blue Ripple Worm. “I choose this guy!”

  Hugo looked around at all the Ripple Worms. To be honest, he wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of riding one—their bodies looked pretty slippery—but he chose the black one since she seemed to like him.

  Gigi chose the small silver one. Even though he was a baby, he was an awfully big baby.

  Annabelle helped Hugo onto his Ripple Worm first.

  “They have rows of fins on their bellies,” Annabelle instructed Hugo. “You can hook your feet behind her fins to keep from slipping off. Then wrap your arms around her neck.”

  Hugo scooched up the Ripple Worm’s body until his feet met a pair of large, paddle-shaped fins. He wedged his feet behind them and wrapped his arms around the Ripple Worm’s neck.

  Next Annabelle helped Gigi onto the silver baby Ripple Worm. He was squirmy at first, and he coiled up his back, lifting Gigi high in the air. She screeched and flattened herself against the creature, clutching him so she wouldn’t fall off. But after that he settled down.

  “Wait! What about the Voyajer?” said Boone before he hopped onto his Ripple Worm. “I can’t just leave her here.”

  “The Voyajer?” Annabelle looked around the island in case there was someone else she hadn’t noticed.

  “My boat.” Boone pointed to the poor bashed-in boat.

 
“Oh! That’s easy. I can tow her,” Annabelle said.

  She tied the Voyajer’s tow rope to the tail of a dark gray Ripple Worm whose horns were so large that they curled back on themselves, and then she leapt onto its back. With a quick pat on its side, Annabelle whooped a high-pitched cry, and the next moment all the Ripple Worms dove into the wild river.

  15

  SPLASH!

  Hugo hugged the Ripple Worm’s neck tightly as she wound this way and that, slicing through the water. When Hugo began to slip sideways off the Ripple Worm’s back, she coiled up her spine to shift Hugo upright again. Sometimes the Ripple Worm leapt out of the water and plunged back down—SPLASH!—making Hugo laugh and brace his legs against the creature. The wind whipped his hair around, and the water sprayed his face, and all in all it was the most thrilling thing he had ever done in his whole entire life.

  Up ahead, he saw Boone on the dusky-blue Ripple Worm, his arms raised in the air like a daredevil. Hugo turned around and waved to Gigi on the pale silver Ripple Worm. She let go long enough to wave back and flashed a wide smile.

  The ride was over too quickly. The Ripple Worms slowed down when they neared the riverbank, then bobbed in the shallow water as Hugo, Boone, and Gigi hopped off and waded to shore. Annabelle untied the Voyajer and dragged it onto the shore, too.

  “That was so much fun!” Boone said to Annabelle, grinning.

  “The Ripple Worms like you,” Annabelle said approvingly to them. “If you visit me sometime, you can ride them again.” Suddenly, her expression turned serious, and she added, “You won’t tell anyone you met me, right?”

  “Of course not!” they all assured her.

  “The mysterious disappearance of Annabelle Loody will stay a mystery,” Gigi said. “But Annabelle, don’t you miss being home?”

  “I am home!” replied Annabelle, surprised at the question. “And I know we may not look alike”—she gestured toward the Ripple Worms in the water—“but if friends were berries, I’d pick them every time.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Boone, whose own friends were covered with hair and had feet the size of snow shovels.

  “There is one thing I do miss,” Annabelle said hesitantly. “It’s sort of silly.”

  “What is it?” asked Gigi.

  “Well . . . I really miss . . .” She bit her lip and seemed to consider whether she should tell them or not.

  “You can say it,” urged Boone.

  “Okay. Well . . . I really miss acorn butter sandwiches!” she blurted.

  So of course Hugo knew exactly what to do. His belly let out a little growl of disapproval, but he ignored it. He reached into his backpack, and he handed Annabelle his acorn butter–and–raspberry cream sandwiches—all five of them.

  She squealed with delight and immediately bit into one of them.

  “Oh, and by the way,” she said with her mouth full, “there’s a squidge hiding in a log just up the hill. He stuffed himself in there when he saw me a while ago. You should probably tell him that it’s safe to come out.”

  16

  Roderick

  They found Roderick squeezed inside a hollow log. In fact, he had wedged himself in there so tightly that he was good and stuck.

  “I think we should leave him there awhile longer,” said Hugo to Boone quietly. “Just to teach him a lesson for what he did to you.”

  “Nah. If it weren’t for him, we’d never have met Annabelle and the Ripple Worms. And just think—now we have a new chapter for our book!”

  Boone and Hugo planned to write a book called The Adventures of Big Foot and Little Foot. It would be about their adventures as cryptozoologists (which is just a fancy word for people who study cryptids).

  Gigi was looking at her big red book to figure out how to get a squidge out of a hollow log. Amazingly, Dr. Feathergill had a solution for it. They scraped the moss off the log and packed it all around Roderick. That made him slippery enough to be yanked out with a few hard tugs on his arms.

  Roderick didn’t even say “Thank you” or “I’m sorry” or “I’ll never be mean to Boone again.” Instead, he looked all around the woods, his eyes wide with dread.

  “Where is it? Where is it?!” he shouted in a panicked voice.

  “Where is what?” Boone asked.

  “The Bog Beast!” Roderick bellowed. “It was green and slimy, and it had claws . . .”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Roderick,” Gigi said. “There’s no such thing as a Bog Beast.”

  “But I saw it!” He marched around the area, looking behind trees and under bushes.

  “You are doing a lot of stomping,” said Boone.

  “And a lot of loud blabbering,” said Hugo.

  “Kind of like a Human,” said Boone.

  That quieted Roderick right down.

  The day had been so eventful that it wasn’t until they were all back at Widdershins Cavern that Hugo realized something terrible.

  “Oh no!” he cried.

  “What is it?” Gigi asked.

  “We forgot to get our ‘something useful.’ We won’t get our Bimble Badges without it! We’ll have to wait a whole year for the next Bimbling Day.”

  “But we did get our ‘something useful,’” she assured him.

  And when she told him what it was, he shook his head in wonder.

  “You really are the smartest squidge I know, Gigi,” he said.

  Gigi smiled. “Smart enough.”

  17

  The Bimble Badge Ceremony

  The Bimble Badge Ceremony was held a few days later in Mrs. Nukluk’s classroom. It was in the evening so that all the squidges’ families and friends could attend. Even Boone’s grandma came to the ceremony, wearing her fanciest hat with purple feathers.

  There were lots of refreshments, which were made from the things the class had collected on their bimbles. Hugo’s grandfather brought a barrel of mint-and-honey iced tea made from the mint leaves that Hugo and Gigi had found. Pip’s mother brought soup that she’d made from the wild asparagus Pip’s team had brought back. Best of all, Boone’s grandmother had made huckleberry cobbler. All the Sasquatches said it was the best huckleberry cobbler they’d ever tasted. Well, everyone except for Mrs. Rattlebags, Roderick’s mother. She said she’d had better. But that’s just how she was.

  One by one, each team went up to Mrs. Nukluk’s desk to receive their badges. They were handsome badges carved from wood with tiny woodland animals and plants etched into them. On the tops were the words OFFICIAL BIMBLE BADGE.

  After Hugo and Gigi received their badges and everyone clapped—Hugo even heard Winnie yell, “Nice going, Hugo!”—Mrs. Nukluk said, “I owe Hugo and Gigi special thanks for something they gave me.”

  She opened her desk drawer, pulled out a pair of gloves, and put them on. They were not pretty gloves. In fact, they were very odd looking. They were completely covered with grass.

  “These are grooming gloves. Hugo and Gigi made them out of Sticky Grass as their ‘something useful.’” With her gloved hands, she swiped at her goose-feather cloak, then held up the gloves for everyone to see. The shed squidge hair had stuck to the gloves. Now she could keep her cloak free of hair!

  “Can I have that hair, Mrs. Nukluk?” Malcolm called out.

  Mrs. Nukluk was in such a good mood that she plucked the squidge hair off the glove and gave it to him. He promptly added it to his hair ball.

  “We have one more special surprise,” said Mrs. Nukluk. “Please follow me.”

  They all followed Mrs. Nukluk through the cavern’s winding passageways and out into the North Woods. It was a beautiful warm evening with a starry sky peering through the trees. The chirps of crickets and the weep-weeps of tree frogs filled the air. Mrs. Nukluk sniffed in all directions to make sure there were no Humans nearby. Then she led the group down past the five hemlock trees to the glittering waters of Ripple Worm River.

  There, waiting on the riverbank, was the Voyajer. The little rowboat had been beautifully
repaired and had even been given a fresh coat of paint, which gleamed in the moonlight. Two brand-new oars were lying on her seat.

  Boone yelped with joy at the sight of her.

  “Hugo’s grandfather repaired her,” Mrs. Nukluk explained.

  Even Hugo was surprised. “How do you know how to fix boats, Grandpa?”

  “Sasquatches may not sail in boats,” Grandpa said, “but repairing one is not much different from repairing the wooden barrels I use for my iced tea. They both need to be leakproof.”

  “Sasquatches should sail in boats!” Boone said. “You see all kinds of amazing things when you travel on the water!”

  Hugo and Gigi smiled at each other, both thinking about Annabelle Loody and their rides on the Ripple Worms.

  “Come on!” Boone urged. “I’ll take you all for rides in the Voyajer. Who wants to go first?”

  No one said anything for a moment. The Sasquatches looked around at one another nervously.

  “Boats are for Humans,” declared Mrs. Rattlebags proudly. “Sasquatches don’t like them.”

  But then Hugo’s grandpa stepped forward.

  “I’ll go,” he volunteered.

  Boone helped Grandpa into the boat. He rowed the Voyajer up the river a little and let Grandpa row it back.

  “It is fun! Oh, it really is!” Grandpa called from the boat as he rowed.

  Mrs. Nukluk went next, and after that, all the Sasquatches wanted rides. Well, all of them except Mrs. Rattlebags and Roderick, but that’s just the way they were.

  The Sasquatches took turns riding up and down the river until late into the night. Some asked to ride a second time, then a third, and Boone was happy to oblige.

  If a Human had stepped outside of their house in the North Woods that night, they would have heard strange woop-woops and hooroo-hooroos, and they would have wondered what they were.

  But you and I know.

  We know it was the sound of happy Sasquatches who had just discovered something important: that Sasquatches like riding in boats just as much as Humans do.