Ice Snowballs and Brain Sucking

WHEN NILLY WOKE up the next morning, he could tell something was different. He didn’t know what, because pretty much everything was the same as ever. For example, Eva, his big sister, locked the bathroom door and told him to scram and quit bugging her while she made herself beautiful.

“While you pop your zits, you mean?” Nilly asked from the hallway.

“Die, you pathetic little carrot-topped chrimp!” she screamed. “I’m really not in any hurry, you know.”

Nilly went down to the kitchen. There he buttered four slices of bread: He ate one, and he wrapped two in wax paper to take to school for lunch. He put the last one on a plate and carried it up to his mother’s bedroom along with a glass of orange juice and the morning paper. He set everything down on her bedside table and carefully shook her: “Wake up, O mother of all mothers. It’s a beautiful day out there.”

She rolled over in bed, stared at him with suspicion in her bloodshot eyes, and smacked her lips twice before snorting, “You’re lying, the way you usually do, Nilly.”

“It’s going to be minus eight degrees today and sunny,” Nilly read from the paper.

“Shut up and read me the headlines,” his mother said, closing her eyes and rolling back over to face the wall again.

“Hallvard Tenorsen Wins!” Nilly read. “In his victory interview, Tenorsen said that Norway is being mismanaged, that nothing works, that the king and the prime minister are incompetent, and that the proud people of Norway ought to elect a leader who knows how things ought to be done as soon as possible. Someone who knows how to get people to work together. Just like the members of a chorus.”

“Hm. Any other news?”

“Let’s see . . . ,” Nilly said, squinting to read the tiny headline below the enormous picture of Hallvard Tenorsen. “Apparently there was a big earthquake somewhere.”

“Where?” Nilly’s sister shrieked from the bathroom.

Nilly squinted at the letters: “Impossible to say.”

“Boring,” his mother said. “Read me more about Tenorsen.”

“Tenorsen said time is of the essence,” Nilly read. “‘I’m willing to accept the job of steering Norway out of this mess if the people will have me,’ Tenorsen volunteered in his televised interview.”

Nilly laughed out loud.

“What are you laughing at, you nincompoop!” screamed his sister, who had emerged from the bathroom and was standing in the doorway with small, angry red craters all over her face.

“Tenorsen,” Nilly said. “The guy thinks he should be put in charge of the Norwegian government. Can you imagine?!” Nilly wrote in the air, as if he were writing a newspaper headline: “Singing Swedish Chiropractor Takes Charge of Norway.”

Nilly laughed so hard he started hiccuping, but stopped when he noticed his mother and Eva staring at him.

“Who are vee going to trust if not Tenorsen?” his mother asked coolly. “You?”

Eva laughed out loud at their mother’s joke, and their mother laughed louder because Eva had laughed at her joke, and Eva laughed even louder because her mother was laughing because she was laughing. Nilly looked at the time, set down the paper, and went to get his backpack. His mother called after him: “Don’t forget to stop by the store on your way home! We’re out of milk and bread, and could you pick up some sheddar sheese.”

NILLY WAITED OUTSIDE Lisa’s gate as usual until she came out wearing her backpack. And as usual they didn’t say a word, just started walking down Cannon Avenue the way they usually did.

“Everything is normal,” Lisa said as they approached Truls and Trym’s house. “And yet, it’s as if . . . as if . . .”

“As if something is very abnormal?” Nilly said. “You feel like that too?”

“My mom and dad—they kind of didn’t seem normal.”

“Same here,” Nilly said. “Although, of course, it’s normal for my sister and my mother to be abnormal.”

“And almost our whole band quit just all the sudden like that. Do you think that’s normal?”

“No, that is absolutely, unusually abnormal. Eerily abnormal, actually.”

“But everything at the Thrane house is normal, anyway,” Lisa said, nodding at the fence surrounding the ostentatious home in front of them.

And sure enough: Truls and Trym Thrane were hunkered down in their snow fort behind their fence, watching Nilly and Lisa with evil sneers of anticipation, their snowballs at the ready. Lisa and Nilly usually got a few snowballs lobbed at them as they ran by, but they almost always managed to duck out of the way of the feeble throws, because Truls and Trym had gotten so fat in the last year that they couldn’t swing their arms that well anymore.

But Lisa quickly realized that they weren’t going to escape so easily today.

The twins had hopped the fence and were now blocking the sidewalk. Each twin was holding an enormous snowball. And Lisa saw the first rays of the day’s sunlight sparkling off their surfaces and realized that Truls and Trym had poured water on them. Ice-covered snowballs.

Nilly said under his breath: “Don’t worry, Lisa. Let me take care of this.”

Lisa looked down at her itty-bitty friend. He could be irritating, annoying, and run roughshod over the truth. But she didn’t know anyone braver. Sometimes he was so brave you had to wonder if he wasn’t actually a little dumb.

“Good morning, Captain Thrane and Captain Thrane!” Nilly proclaimed with a radiant smile. “Because those are captains’ hats you’re wearing on your heads, right?”

“Chorus uniform hats,” the twins said in unison, looking rather proud. The hats were white with black glossy visors and tassels dangling by cords from the middle.

“Chorus?” Nilly asked. “So you guys don’t just play drums, you sing, too? Who would’ve thought so much talent could fit into such small bodies.”

Truls and Trym stared at Nilly with their mouths hanging open, their breath billowing out as if from two stove chimneys.

“He’s just trying to fast-talk us,” Trym whispered to his brother. “Him being nice to us.”

“But . . . ,” Truls whispered. “I believe him, because he’s saying we’re good drummers, right?”

“That’s because you’ve been fast-talked,” Trym whispered.

“I’ve been fast-talked,” Truls nodded.

“Let’s crush him now,” Trym whispered. “Crush his head!”

“Yeah, crush that irritating head,” Truls said, raising his hand and the clump of ice in it.

“Let me make that head crushing a little easier for you, my dear Thrane brothers,” Nilly said, pulling off his orange hat.

“Ha!” the twins laughed, bending their arms back as far as they were physically able.

“What’s that on his head?” Trym asked.

“It’s an animal,” Truls said.

“I can see that, but what kind of animal?”

“A small animal.”

“Maybe it’s a flea?”

“Yeah,” Trym laughed. “The gnome has fleas! Crush him!”

“Have at it,” said Nilly, who stood there without moving and smiled. “But as a neighbor I feel I ought to warn you about the consequences of throwing an ice snowball at a seven-legged Peruvian sucking spider.”

“Head crushing!” Truls yelled.

“Wait!” Trym said. “What kind of con . . . congo . . . conto . . . quences?”

“Well,” Nilly said. “Since it’s Peruvian, this sucking spider grew up in the snow-covered Andes Mountains and is quite used to snowballs since snowballs are a very common part of everyday life in the Andes. There are fierce snowball wars up there all the time between rival Inca tribes. Everyone throws snowballs in Peru. Even the llamas. They eat snow and spit it out again as snowballs with spit and snot and whatever else on it. But Perry can take it all. Although, there’s taking it and then there’s taking it. I mean, if he gets hit, it makes him mad. Very mad. And his revenge is grisly . . .”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Lisa, who was surprised to hear her own voice. But continued, “Enraged, the spider will leap onto the snowball thrower’s head faster than you can blink, and slip into the thrower’s ear.”

“His ear?” Truls asked.

“And he just follows the ear canal inward,” Nilly said.

“Ew!” said Trym.

Just the idea made Truls itch, and he tried to stick a finger into his ear to scratch, but forgot he was wearing mittens.

“And when it gets to your brain,” Lisa said, “it starts sucking.”

“Sucking?!” the twins cried in unison.

“Of course. That’s why it’s called a sucking spider,” Lisa said. “It sucks up . . .” She lowered her voice. Truls and Trym couldn’t help but lean in closer to hear her. “. . . your whole brain.” And then suddenly she made a loud slurping sound and the twins jumped back in fear.

“Everything you remember about multiplication tables and the countries in Europe and everything else you ever learned in school disappears first,” Lisa said. When this didn’t seem to alarm them, she continued. “Then you’ll forget how to play the national anthem, all your friends’ names, how to get home, and finally your own names.”

But this just made Trym yawn.

“Then . . . then . . . ,” Lisa said, trying to come up with something else, but drawing a blank.

Truls raised the hand that was holding the clump of ice.

“Then you’ll forget to eat,” Nilly said. “Pizza, french fries, candy bars, you won’t care about them. You’ll be as thin as a string bean and then you’ll die of hunger.”

Truls and Trym stared at Nilly, their terrified eyes bulging wide.

“He’s doing it again,” Truls gasped. “He’s fast-talking us!”

“Nonsense,” Trym said, stretched his hand out to Nilly’s head, pulled it back and opened his mitten. There in his palm sat Perry.

“Ha, ha!” Trym laughed triumphantly. “I took it! It’s just a totally normal everyday spider!”

“Break off one of its legs!” Truls yelled, jumping up and down. “No, break off three legs! Then it’ll be a three-legged Peruvish . . . Peruvic . . . Pe . . . sucking spider!”

“Four-legged,” Lisa said with a sigh.

“Huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “Seven minus three is four.”

“Shut up!” Truls said. “We’ll just break off one more.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Nilly said.

The twins turned to look at him.

“Everyone knows that the three-legged Peruvian sucking spider is three times more dangerous than the seven-legged variety.”

The twins stared at the spider.

“You do it,” said Trym, passing the mitten with the spider on it to Truls.

“Me?” Truls asked, pulling back. “You do it!”

“No, you!” Trym said, waving the mitten around.

“You!”

“I’ll do it,” Nilly said, grabbing the mitten. He carefully picked Perry up and put him back on his head. Then he put on his orange hat and handed the mitten back to Trym.

“But not until later, after I get back home,” Nilly said. “Spider leg operations like that have to be done under controlled conditions with cauterization equipment, anesthesia, and under adult supervision. Okay?”

“Okay,” Trym said submissively.

“Okay then,” Truls said.

“Have an enlightening day,” Nilly said.

And with that he and Lisa rushed off to school.

“I didn’t know you had that in you,” Nilly said once they were out of earshot.

“Had what in me?” Lisa asked.

“That stuff about forgetting your multiplication tables and the national anthem. You’re worse about making stuff up than I am.”

“No one is worse than you, Nilly.”

“Even I wouldn’t have come up with . . .” And he repeated the loud, sucking, slurping sound Lisa had made for the twins.

And that made them both laugh until they were jabbing their fingers into each other jokingly and practically collapsing onto the ice.

And they walked the rest of the way like that, bonking into each other and laughing and making slurping sounds.

IT WASN’T UNTIL well into their first class, when Mrs. Strobe was giving the class an introduction to speech impediments commonly found among Norwegian speakers, that Lisa realized what it was. Realized what was wrong. Why she’d felt like something wasn’t right with her parents. And that they weren’t the only ones. Others too. Truls and Trym. And Beatrize. Actually, now that she thought about it, pretty much everyone around her was affected. And this realization didn’t just make the hair on her head stand up, but even the fine, practically invisible hairs on her forearms.