Nightmare at the Book Fair (8 page)

“Here men from the planet earth first set foot on the moon, July 1969
A.D
. We came in peace for all mankind.”

The Legend of Reed McReedy

In the town of Gobbledygook, there lived a young boy who read every book.
His name was Reed, of course. Reed McReedy.
When Reed would read, Reed would read very speedy.

Reed learned how to read before he could crawl, before he could walk or throw a ball.
He would read in his crib and read in his stroller.
He’d read while his dentist pulled out a molar!
Fat books and thin books and long books and shorts, books about dragons and witches and sports, books about horror and natural disasters.
He learned to speed-read so he could go faster.
Fiction and nonfiction, neither one bored ’im.
It was almost as if he simply absorbed ’em.

He read during winter and summer vacation, filling his head with so much information, like the name of each plant from acorn to pine needle.
He could name every planet, state capital, and Beatle.
Biographies! Lie-ographies! Reed was such a book lover, he read every book from cover to cover.

At the library Reed was such a fixture, he even read books that didn’t have pictures.
He’d read while in bed or while going to town.
For the fun of it, he would read books upside down.
He read in silence or when there was a racket.
He never went out without a dust jacket.

In the McReedy household, books were piled all over.
They were stuck in the oven and on the dog Rover.
If a book was silly, Reed didn’t care.
He’d read about captains in their underwear!
While the other kids were out having fun, Reed would read the life story of Atilla the Hun.

Late at night, in his bed, he wouldn’t make a peep, because he had learned how to read in his sleep.
He would read in the car and while he got dressed.
I’m telling you, folks, this kid was obsessed!
If he didn’t have a book, he wouldn’t lack words.
He would just read ECNALUBMA backwards.
Street signs and road maps and magazines, Reed McReedy was a reading machine.
“Soon I’ll know everything,” Reed would crow.
“The more you read, the more you know.”

Well, word got around and soon Reed was famous, Like that cookie guy whose name was Amos, he was written about in all kinds of media, from skywriting to Wikipedia.
People would beg and people would plead, “How much are the tickets to watch you read, Reed?”
He stopped going out; he would decline.
He ordered all his books online.
The tabloids would write in a frenzy of feeding, all about the FREAK BOY WHO CAN’T STOP READING!
“THERE’S A KID,” they’d write, “IN GOBBLEDYGOOK, WHOSE HEAD IS LITERALLY STUCK IN A BOOK!”
Some folks would whisper, “That kid is screwy.
He learned his decimals from some guy named Dewey.”
Reed’s parents would counter, “Our boy can’t fail.
We’ll send him to Princeton, or Harvard, or Yale.”

But after a while, they had to concede, That Reed should do something other than read.
They asked him, “Don’t you want to go out and play?”
“Play?” he’d snort. “Outside? Oh, not today.”
“Let’s go to the zoo! We’ll see lions in cages.”
“No. I have to finish two hundred more pages.”
“Have some fun!” they’d beg. “Go climb a tree!”
“They should cut ’em all down, so I’ll have more to read.”
“Live a little! Get a life!” They would shout it.
“Why get a life when I can read about it?”

To Gobbledygookians, Reed seemed quite odd, as if he ate snakes or lived in a pod.
In private they’d say, “Reed is one fine lad, but he’s so different, and different is bad.
We think that kids should all be the same, and we recommend someone study Reed’s brain.”
So they brought in some experts from near and from far. So they brought in some experts from near and from far.
They came in biddle buses and coodle cars.
They took out their clipboards and puffed out their chests, and said, “We’re going to have to run a few tests.”
“Hmmmmm,” they muttered and “hmmmm” some more, “We never saw a kid read so much before.
It’s bad for his eyes. He should be in bed.
It’s not good to have so much stuff stuffed in one’s head.
Hmmm, I’ve never seen
this
problem before.
Most boys think reading is such a chore.”
So they asked him, “Reed, why do you read so much?
Is it because you’re really out of touch?”
After thinking it over, Reed had to admit it.
“The world is so scary. I don’t want to be in it.
In books I’m safe. I won’t be harmed by a meteor that might fall on our barn.
I can’t be attacked by a wild wazoo or a monster or villain or some tough guy named Lou.
You never know what might end your life, like those tractor trailers that always jackknife.”
“Hmmmmm,” they said and “hmmmm” some more.
“We never met a boy like this before.”

They called in more experts from all over the nation,
and each of them had their own explanation: “His head will explode!” “His brain will leak.”
“We’ll run out of paper!” “The kid’s a freak!”
They called in more experts (and let me just mention, they booked a hotel for an expert convention).
“Hmmmmm,” they said and “hmmmm” some more, “We never met a boy like this before.”

After talking and squawking and lots of confusion, the experts arrived at their final conclusion.
“We’ve studied this matter, and we all agree, books are bad for you, and they’re bad for me.
They cause all the problems of which we’ve been warning, like cellulite and global warming.”
So they informed the people of Gobbledygook, “The solution, we think, is to ban every book.
Yes! Ban all the books! We’ll ban ’em! And then, just to be on the safe side, we’ll ban ’em again.”

So they took all the books and they made a big pile, by Penguin and Simon & Schuster and Dial.
They burned ’em and ripped ’em and bought a big shredder, because they thought that would make things a whole lot better.
And finally, they destroyed the very last book, and people were happy in Gobbledygook.
The library was empty. So was the bookstore.
They wouldn’t have problems with books anymore.
And that McReedy kid who got so much attention was hardly even worth a mention.

Life went on, and the town looked just the same.
The sun still rose; the butterflies came.
But something was different, wherever you’d look.
Something was wrong in Gobbledygook.
Grown-ups would work and children would play, but they just didn’t have all that much to say.

The problem you see, was ideas stopped flowing, ’cause the less you read, the less you’ll be knowing.
And after a while, it just became boring, like a do-it-yourself course on how to install flooring.

This sad, sad story is nearly complete (soon you can go and get something to eat).
But poor Reed McReedy had nothing to do.
He didn’t want to play games or go to the zoo.
He didn’t know how to sing or know how to cook.
All he wanted to do was to read a book.
And the saddest day ever, I think you’ll agree, was the day Reed McReedy turned on the TV.

A Day in the Life of Uncle Miltie and Lucy

I awoke with a sudden
and overwhelming desire to lick myself.

Hmmm, that was odd. I didn’t recall ever wanting to lick myself before.

I looked down.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

My entire body was covered with…
fur
!

I’m a freaking
cat!

Okay, Trip. Don’t panic. You can handle any situation. As some wise man once said, this too shall pass.

How did I turn into a cat? It must have been some genetic accident or human cloning research gone horribly wrong.

Suddenly another feeling came over me. Hunger. Deep, gnawing hunger in the pit of my stomach.
I’m so hungry! Why can’t I be fed
right now?

I think I’m going to lick myself. I’m tired, too. I just want to go back to sleep. Maybe if I sleep, I’ll wake up and this long nightmare will finally be over. I just want to go home. I just want to play lacrosse.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

There’s
another
one! Right over there! A cat that looks just like me except it has a white spot on its neck. It just walked by me, as if it didn’t see me. The thing is enormous, about the same size as me.

“Hissssssssssssssssssssss!” I said. I yowled. My fur was standing on end. I hissed again—a real, threatening, long one.

The other cat stopped, turned around, and looked at me.

“Oooh, I’m
sooooo
scared!” it said sarcastically.

“Who are you?” I asked. I realized we were talking in some secret cat language of meows.

“Very funny, Miltie,” the cat said, as if it couldn’t be more bored.

“My name isn’t Miltie,” I told it. “Really, who
are
you?”

“I’m your big sister, moron,” the cat replied. “Lucy.”

“I don’t have a sister!” I protested. “You don’t understand. I’m not a cat. I’m a kid. My name is Trip Dinkleman. I was at this book fair, and—”

“Very funny, Miltie,” she said. “All cats think they’re human for a while. It’s just a phase. You’ll get over it. I did.”

“I gotta get out of here,” I said, looking around. “I’m not a cat. I’m human. And I want to go home.”

That’s when Lucy slapped me across the face with her paw.

“Reality check,” she said. “This
is
your home! Look, you’re not human. You’ve never been human and you’ll never
be
human. Deal with it.

There’s nothing wrong with being a cat.”

“But I don’t want to be a cat!” I protested.

“You need to boost your self-esteem, bro,” Lucy told me. “You should be proud of your feline heritage.”

“I have no problem with cats,” I said. “Really. I’m just not one of you.”

“Listen,” she said, slapping me with her paw again. “It’s time you learned the facts of life about cats and humans.”

“What facts of life?” I asked.

“The fact is, we’re better than they are,” Lucy explained.

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

“Well, we see better, for one thing. Six times better at night. We have a better sense of smell too. Did you know that you have sixty to eighty million olfactory cells in your nose? Humans only have a measly twenty million, tops. Our sense of smell is fourteen times stronger than theirs.”

“I didn’t know that,” I admitted. “But humans are so big.”

“Big, shmig,” she said. “Can they rotate their ears independently a hundred eighty degrees? I don’t
think
so. If humans can even wiggle their ears, they act as if it’s some big accomplishment. Like they should call
Guinness Book of World Records
or
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
.”

“Calm down, Lucy.”

“We also have 230 bones, to their pathetic 206. We have five more vertebrae in our spinal column than they do. And in relation to our body size, we have the largest eyes of any mammal.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” I asked.

“Google,” she replied. “Do you think I lie around and do nothing all day like you?”

Just the thought of lying around and doing nothing sounded good to me. I was so tired and hungry. Maybe if I just closed my eyes for a few minutes…

“We can jump higher than humans too!” Lucy said, jolting me awake. “I can jump seven times as high as my tail. Humans don’t even
have
tails. That’s how pathetic they are. And we can sprint over thirty miles an hour. Humans won’t even get off the couch to change the channel on the TV.”

“I get your point,” I told her. “Can I go to sleep now?”

“We can eat ten mice a day,” Lucy went on. “Humans can’t eat even one lousy mouse without throwing up. And I can have eight kittens in a litter and three litters in a year. That’s twenty-four kittens! Humans take nine months to produce one whining baby. And it can’t do anything but cry and drool for two years.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Give it a rest already.”

Lucy was giving me a headache. I guess I
am
a cat. At least temporarily.

“Are there any humans around?” I asked her. “I need to talk to somebody.”

“Talking is way overrated,” Lucy informed me. “Anybody can talk. But can anybody do
this
?”

She climbed up on the top of a tall bookcase Then she put a paw over her eyes and started staggering around up there.

“Oh, I feel faint,” she said dramatically. “I think I’m going to pass out!”

She toppled over backward off the bookcase. Just before she hit the ground, she flipped around in midair so that her feet were below her. She landed on the floor as if it was no big deal at all.

“Psych!” she yelled. “A human could throw us out a window, and we’d always land on our feet. But if they so much as slip on some ice in their driveway, they’re likely to wind up in the emergency room.”

It was a pretty amazing demonstration, I had to admit. But I still wanted to speak with a human.

“They split,” Lucy told me. “The kids went to school. The parents went to work. We have the whole place to ourselves. Like
every
day. Who needs humans, anyway? I’m perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much.”

“Is there any food around?” I asked. No matter what she said, all I could think about was eating and sleeping.

“Just the usual crummy bowl of dry stuff,” she said, pointing to the kitchen.

I didn’t see any silverware around, so I stuck my face right in the bowl. Ugh! The stuff was brown and tasted like popcorn that had been cooking in a microwave oven for an hour. I ate some anyway because I was so hungry. Then I lapped up a little water to wash the horrible taste out of my mouth.

Afterward, I found a patch of sun shining on the floor and lay down in it for a while to snooze. Oh man! The patch of sun moved! Do they expect me to move around all day to follow the sun? I wish I had a lap to sit in.

I went back to Lucy, who was clawing at the couch with her paws.

“What are you doing
that
for?” I asked her. “You’re damaging the furniture.”

“I’m sticking it to the Man,” she said. “If they think using lemon scented furniture polish is going to stop me from scratching stuff, they’ve got another thing coming.”

“So is that what you do all day?” I asked. “Claw the couch and google stuff?”

“No, that is
not
what I do all day,” she said huffily. “Here’s my to-do list. First, I wake up. You see, if you don’t wake up, you’re pretty much dead. So waking up should be a high priority every day. That’s my philosophy. And then, after I wake up, I take a little nap because the whole excitement about waking up really tires me out.”

“Okay, I get it,” I said. “You wake up. What next?”

“Then I’ll find one of the grown-ups so I can get fed. If their alarm clock hasn’t gone off yet, I’ll just walk all over them until they wake up. After that, I’ll spend the morning marking some territory just in case any other cats come around looking for trouble. I’ll show them who’s boss.”

Boy, my sister was mean. I wonder where she got that. My parents weren’t mean at all. Wait a minute! What am I talking about? My parents didn’t give birth to cats!

“Then, if there are any humans around and I’m in the mood,” Lucy continued, “I might yowl for a while for no apparent reason. Yowling is fun. It really freaks out humans because they have no idea why you’re doing it, and it sounds as if something is really wrong. I love jacking humans around.”

I didn’t hear the rest of Lucy’s to-do list because I fell asleep while she was talking. I must have been out of it for a good part of the afternoon because when I woke up it was starting to get dark outside the window.

“Miltie! Miltie!” Lucy yelled in my ear.

“What?!”

“Look, I gotta talk to you about something really important. I am totally dissatisfied with our living conditions here. I think it’s time we did something about it.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I’ve prepared a list of demands,” she said.

Lucy did not have the capability of writing her list down on paper, but she had memorized it, and she recited it for me…

While Lucy was talking, I fought the urge to go to sleep. Maybe I’ll take a little catnap and finish this list later. She won’t notice. I let my eyes close…

…Okay, that was refreshing! When I woke up, Lucy was still listing her silly demands.

“Humans are so dumb,” Lucy said. “Things are going to be a lot different after
we
take over, I can tell you that for sure.”

“We’re taking over?” I asked.

“Where have
you
been?” Lucy said, swatting my head again. “Sure we’re taking over. There are more than five hundred million of us in the world, and we can reproduce like it’s nobody’s business. They’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers. Okay, those are my demands. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Then you’ll support me?” she asked.

“Uh, I guess so. What do you want me to do?”

“I was thinking that if they don’t meet our demands,” Lucy said, “the two of us should start peeing on the rug in the den.”

What?!
I had heard of people going on hunger strikes, marching in picket lines, and boycotting certain products. But protest by peeing? It didn’t make any sense to me, and I told her so.

“Have you got a better idea?” Lucy asked. “What do you suggest, that we shed all over the house? Believe me, peeing is a very powerful weapon in the war on humans. They
hate
it. And they
never
get that stink out.”

“It seems a little…petty,” I told her.

“Hey, if push comes to shove, I’ll cough up a hair ball on their bed,” she said. “That’ll show ’em I’m serious. And, word to the wise. We don’t
have
to bury our poops in the litter box, you know. We can leave them
anywhere
.”

“Protest any way you want,” I told her. “I’m tired. Man, it’s been an exhausting day. I think I need to go to sleep again. How come I’m so tired all the time?”