An Animal You Wish Didn’t Exist. Except Right Now.
“WELL, THIS IS certainly fun, Rolf,” Gunnar said, snapping the handcuffs around the hairy wrists of Yodolf, who was dangling from the ceiling of the tunnel, swaddled in cobweb, down in the sewers. They had put a piece of tape over Yodolf’s mouth after they got tired of listening to him promise them first money, then gold, and even green forestland if they would let him escape, and then—after they politely declined his offers—he threatened to bite off their stupid heads with those stupid hats if they didn’t let him go immediately. Now the baboon couldn’t make a sound, and it was so quiet Rolf and Gunnar could hear the music and cheering from the people aboveground. The celebration had spread to include all of Oslo, yes, even all of Norway, where people were now pouring out onto the streets to celebrate and congratulate each other on being free from Staler the despot.
Rolf wiped his cheek where one of the girls in Palace Square had kissed him.
“Feels good doesn’t it, Gunnar, to have liberated Norway?” He laughed.
“They’ll write epic poems about us,” Gunnar said, fastening cuffs around the unpleasant moon chameleon’s ankles.
“They’ll build a museum in our honor and make movies about our heroic deeds,” Rolf said.
Gunnar tried to prize Yodolf free from the cobweb. “I have to say, he’s good and stuck in this web. Give me a hand here, Rolf, would you?”
“Of course, Gunnar.”
But even together they couldn’t get Yodolf free.
“It’s like glue,” Rolf groaned. “We’re going to have to get some monster hedge clippers and clip him free.”
“Good thinging.”
“I think you meant ‘thinking.’”
“I think you’re probably right about that, Rolf.”
They pulled the tape off Yodolf’s mouth so he wouldn’t suffocate while they were gone, and started wading back the same way they’d come while Yodolf screamed after them, “Numbskulls! Filthy britches!”
Suddenly Gunnar stopped.
“What is it?” Rolf asked.
“Did you see that?”
“In the dark over there. A flash of white. Like teeth in an enormous jaw full of teeth.”
“How enormous?”
“Well. Like an inflatable swim ring.”
“Quit kidding around, Rolf.”
“Uh, you’re Rolf.”
“Gunnar, I mean. You don’t believe that old urban legend that’s going around, about an anaconda living in the sewers under Oslo, the one that’s supposed to be eighteen yards of solid, constrictor muscles with teeth like upside-down ice cream cones. I’m sorry, but if you believe that one, well then you’re more gullible than . . .”
He was interrupted by a loud shriek and an even louder bang.
“What was that sound?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was an enormous jaw suddenly snapping shut and someone making a cry for help.”
“More like half a cry for help.”
“Yeah. ‘Hel—!’ That was it.”
“Yeah. ‘Hel—!’ And then it stopped.”
“As if the cry was cut in half.”
“Hm. Do you hear anything else?”
“No.”
“Exactly. He’s awfully quiet all of a sudden.”
“You mean . . . ?”
They turned around slowly and shone their flashlights at the cobweb. And there, in the middle of the cobweb, where a thrashing, writhing, furious moon chameleon had been hanging just a few seconds before, now there wasn’t one. Not even a cobweb. As if someone had taken a big bite. A bite the size of . . . well, an inflatable swim ring.
“R-R-Rolf?” Gunnar asked as they backed away, shining the light everywhere. “D-d-do you think anacondas like moon chameleons?”
“I—I—I don’t know, Gunnar. I wouldn’t think so. But maybe if they had a little bit of a waffle taste?”
And with that they both spun around and ran as fast as they could out of the sewer and up into the daylight. And there they stood, blinking in the sunshine, surrounded by people dancing, balloons flying, fireworks exploding, and flags waving. And then girls stepped over and kissed both of them on both cheeks—the cheeks with the handlebar mustache and the cheeks with the Fu Manchu mustache—and they joined right in with the dancing and forgot all about Yodolf and at least half about the anaconda.