The Wikkeling (25 page)

H
enrietta didn't know she was rushing at the Wikkeling until Al restrained her. “Let him go!” she screamed at it.

“Henrietta, stop,” said Al.

“It's going to kill Gary,” she said.

“Look,” said Al. He opened the book he'd just retrieved from the stacks.
How To: A Book of Instructions
.

Al paged through the table of contents (
How to Fix a Leaky Faucet; How to Carve a Turkey; How to Stop Time
) and then flipped forward to the chapter he was looking for: How to Attract a Wild Housecat.

They skimmed the entry.

Wild housecats are fascinating, intelligent creatures, but tend to be wary of people. The easiest way to attract a wild housecat is to construct a cat hall
—
a wild-housecat-sized doorway built into an exterior wall. Some report advantages from framing the hall, writing a welcome message over the lintel, or otherwise giving the hall an inviting appearance. Once the hall is built, wait six to six hundred weeks, during which time it is likely that a wild housecat will appear.


“Six to six
hundred
?” Henrietta exclaimed.

“Keep reading,” said Al.

If you are in
immediate
need, there is an additional method available, although a cat hall must still be installed. Procure a small amount of dried wild housecat blood (obtainable from many Friends of Wild Housecats societies). Dampen the blood with water and apply it to the entrance of the cat hall. When the wind carries the smell of the blood outside, any wild housecat in the vicinity should smell it and come quickly, assuming one of its kind is in danger. Since this method involves attracting these very intelligent and easily perturbed animals through false pretense, you'd best be ready with a good explanation for your actions when the cat arrives.


“We can make a hall,” Al said, “but what about the blood?”

Henrietta thought of the blood on the attic floor, in her house . . . and her eyes lit up. “Al!” she said. “Do you still have the textbook I gave you?”

Al loped back into the shelves and emerged with the book in his hands. Henrietta opened it.

There it was: the drop of blood, dry and brown now, that had fallen onto her math problem the night she'd found Mister Lady.

“Amazing!” said Al. There was no time to enjoy their good fortune. Al hurried off into the rear room he'd shown Henrietta on her first visit, where he kept his old tools.

Henrietta looked over at Gary. His lips were closed tight, his face screwed up in pain. The Wikkeling's finger was still attached to his forehead, its long arm snaking back to its body at the base of the stairs.

“We've got to hurry,” said Henrietta as Al returned.

“Won't be attractive, but it'll do,” said Al. He handed Henrietta a hammer with a large metal head, then plugged a small power saw into a nearby wall socket. “I'll saw through the wall, and you hit it with the hammer to knock it out.”

The saw whined loudly as Al revved it, dust flying off the long-unused blade. He pressed it into the wall, at ground level outside, and an awful-looking plume of black smoke poured from the slice. He steered the saw through a neat square cut, and then backed away. “Whack it!” Henrietta struck the square with the hammer and knocked it out onto Al's front yard. Evening air flooded in.

“We've got to dampen the blood,” said Al, “and there's no running water down here!”

Henrietta grabbed the textbook, spat on the page, mixed the spit and blood with her finger, and quickly daubed it around the edges of the cat hall.

She and Al turned around just in time to see the Wikkeling's arm retract into its body with a snap, like a measuring tape. It flickered out for a moment, reappeared lying on the ground, blinked out again, and then returned, standing. The proximity to the books seemed to be taking a toll on it.

Henrietta ran to Gary. He was unconscious, but now that the connection to the Wikkeling was broken, he seemed to relax a little bit.

The Wikkeling visibly gathered its strength. It straightened and solidified. The vague circle of its gaping mouth stretched into an empty smile.

I
f anyone had happened to go strolling past Al's house that night, they would have observed a small chunk of the house's outer wall falling into the lawn in a cloud of black smoke; then, a child's hand appearing and smearing something around the edges.

That mixture of blood and spit began to stink, though too subtly for a human nose to detect. The stink wafted across the plastic green grass to the street. It ascended above rooftops and gusted along highways.

It drifted past OK and Oak, deep in the Old City. After leaving Rose, Henrietta, and Gary in the dumpster, OK had called Rose's parents and told them everything, including the children's destination. Rose's parents called Henrietta's parents and asked them if they knew anyone at Sunset Estates. They did. They called Al, but Al didn't answer. They called Gary's mother.

In this manner it came to pass that Rose's parents Sid and Sigrid, Henrietta's parents Aline and Tom, and Ms. Span all headed toward Al's town house in Sunset Estates, along with several police officers and a fire truck that had been summoned when some black smoke had drifted through Al's neighbor's window.

The stink traveled onward on the wind, past the place you've reached in this story and into the next, and the one after, until it finally encountered a nose sensitive enough to smell it.

T
he Wikkeling's smile was the most frightening thing Henrietta had ever seen. Its flickering pink mouth and yellow eyes widened as it raised its arm and pointed its long index finger at her. Its arm began to extend.

“Don't!” Al shouted.

Henrietta scrambled behind the couch. She braced herself.

Then a shadow fell across the cat hall.

A familiar gray head appeared, followed by a pair of shoulders and long legs. Mister Lady leapt silently to the carpeted floor. Then another cat entered. A fat, orange-striped tabby, considerably larger than Mister Lady, squeezed its bulk through, looking strangely dignified as it tumbled down with a graceless
thud
.

The directions in
How To
had said you'd better be ready to explain yourself when the wild housecats show up, but Mister Lady and her ample friend seemed to know exactly why they'd been summoned. Mister Lady crouched and then sprang in a fantastic leap, landing right on the Wikkeling's shoulder. The Wikkeling jerked back, but she clung tenaciously and raised a paw, exposing a set of long, razor-sharp claws. She slashed its face, and the Wikkeling's smile wilted as four pale gashes appeared across its cheek and nose. It winked out of existence for a moment, and Mister Lady fell through to the stairs even as it reappeared a few steps above her. The orange tabby stood above it near the top landing, arching his back and hissing. Mister Lady, from below, yowled low in her throat, exposing her long, white teeth.

Henrietta had always heard that cats were dangerous, but when she befriended Mister Lady she'd somewhat forgotten those warnings. Now she saw that they could be dangerous indeed when the situation called for it.

The Wikkeling cast about, trapped between the cats. Its face was bleeding profusely, a clear liquid like corn syrup. With one long finger, it stabbed out at the cats as they closed in.

“Look at its legs,” said Al. At first, Henrietta wasn't sure what he meant, but then she saw that the Wikkeling's legs had stopped flickering. The yellow fabric of its pants was cracking at the folds, like clay.

The Wikkeling began to sweat as it turned upstairs and down, desperately seeking escape, and its face shone in the fluorescent lights. Soon its clothing was wet as well, as if slicked in mud.

“It's getting younger,” said Henrietta. Except for its long hands and fingers, which dangled enormously, the Wikkeling was no longer full-grown. Even as she watched, its stature shrank until it appeared as she'd seen it through the attic windows: a monstrous child.

Next to Henrietta, Rose stirred and sat up. Henrietta held her hand, and together they watched the awful reduction of their tormentor. The child Wikkeling's mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged, just the flickering light in the back of its throat. It looked terrified, desperate.

“What's it saying?” said Henrietta.

“I can't hear,” said Al.

Whatever it was, the Wikkeling repeated it over and over. As it continued to shrink, its features dislodged from their positions on its face. Its mouth drifted up onto its cheek, and its teeth dribbled down its neck. The rest of its body lost cohesion and spread out over the stairs, mixing with its clothes into a yellow soup. In mere moments, only a lumpy puddle remained, with a pair of eyes sinking into it. Then, nothing.

The wild housecats stepped toward one another and sat together on the now empty stair. Mister Lady licked the ear of the tabby and straightened his fur fussily with one paw.

Rose went to Gary. His hands, which had been balled in tight fists, loosened. His eyes opened. “What happened?” he gasped, sitting up quickly.

“The Wikkeling evaporated,” said Rose.

Henrietta turned toward the cats to thank them, but saw only the flick of a gray tail at the edge of the cat door as Mister Lady disappeared after her friend. It was as if they'd stopped by on their way to another engagement—which may indeed have been the case.

Then a knock sounded from upstairs, and a cheerful rendition of “Jingle Bells” began.

“Someone's here,” said Al.

Lots of someones, in fact: Henrietta's parents, Rose's parents, Gary's mother, ten police officers, two police dogs, and five firefighters were crowded on the porch, waiting for some explanations.

T
he children realized that an honest account of their experiences wouldn't be well-received, so they chimed in on an improvised medley of conflicting fabrications (each confirmed by a bemused but willing Al), and the following story emerged:

Henrietta, Gary, and Rose had wanted to borrow some books from Al. Because Henrietta was grounded, they decided to sneak out her bedroom window. They caught a public bus, but accidentally boarded the wrong one and also accidently dropped their phones while trying to call for help. Humiliated and phoneless, they'd ended up at Sunset Estates just as Al was sawing through his wall to . . . deal with . . . an electrical problem.

Of the crowd assembled at Al's door, the firefighters were the first to leave, since there was no fire. The police officers departed next, since there was no crime.

Rose's parents followed, with Rose in tow. They were upset at her, but they knew there was more to the story and that Rose would tell them the details once they'd returned to the Library.

Ms. Span and Gary made their exit. Gary would be grounded for a week. Unlike Rose, he would not be explaining the real story to his mother. To her, the truth would sound more like a lie than the lies did. There was one thing Gary did
want to come clean about, however. As he sat next to his mother while she drove them home, he clenched his hands, collecting his courage. “Mom, I have to tell you something.”

“Are you going to explain why you smell like a garbage pile?” his mother said, turning to eye his pockets as she spoke. “You haven't been collecting again, have you? You know I've expressly forbidden it.”

“Oh,” Gary said, putting his hands around his waist. “I think I sat in something.” In fact, his pockets were bulging with some amazing pieces he'd discovered during the garbage truck ride, which he could hardly wait to catalog.

“You'll scrub the seat when you get home, and shower after that,” said her mother briskly.

“Mom, what I wanted to say is . . .” Gary cleared his throat. “I had a secret. I've been keeping it a long time, but it isn't a secret anymore. So I want to tell you.”

“Oh,” said Ms. Span, and her face showed some concern.

“I can't . . . I mean, I
couldn't
. . . read.”