The blob heaved.
Katie half turned—saw the thing—yelped—and stumbled toward shore—each step slow as a nightmare—each step plowing through current—each throwing up a claw of spray.
She struggled toward the bank.
Lily saw the monster flex itself and prepare to engulf her friend. She didn’t know what to do—but she grabbed a stick from the shore and waded in, waving it.
Jasper looked down toward the creek—he saw them. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed. He grabbed his rucksack and began searching desperately for his ray gun. He tore through the useless contents of his pack—he swore by all the major moons of Jupiter in ascending order of their orbits—“Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto!”—but could lay his hands on nothing but beef jerky and plaid underwear. He kept digging.
Lily was almost by Katie’s side, holding the tree branch defiantly. “Get back!” Katie cried to Lily.
And at that moment, the blob lunged.
Lily jabbed. Katie jumped. The butt of the stick slapped into the monster’s clear flesh and knocked it aside for a moment. Katie spun away, and the monster splashed into the water.
Katie and Lily looked down into the river. The monster was translucent—there was no way to see it, once it was underwater. They began to dash for the shore. Katie grabbed another branch trapped in the rocks. She yanked it free and brandished it.
On the shore, Jasper found his travel pillow.
Katie saw a motion—turned her head—and found the monster towering out of the river, its transparent flesh gleaming in the sun.
She poked it with her stick. It moved toward her, wobbling hungrily.
“Side to side!” Lily screamed.
Katie didn’t understand what Lily was talking about. The monster dropped toward her. She tripped backward. It fell on top of her.
The slime was all over her. The world was wrinkled and wavery through the monster’s clear skin. Katie couldn’t breathe. She fell to her knees. She struggled to beat the beast, but it was all around her. She rolled, and was lying on her back, her legs in the water and her head in the blob.
And suddenly she realized what Lily meant.
The blob was trying to draw her completely into itself so it could digest her. If the stick went side to side, she would be too wide. The monster wouldn’t be able to engulf her totally. The blob was folded over her like a pancake, but she was not yet fully inside of it.
She yanked the stick so it went side to side.
The monster struggled to pull her into its flesh. It couldn’t get around the ends of the branch. It was stretching itself thin.
Lily was up above, prying at the thing, using her stick as a lever.
Katie struggled to breathe.
On the shore, Jasper found his sandals.
The monster shuddered and tried to digest. It couldn’t fit Katie. It heaped itself and scrunched. With the shlup of a boot pulled out of Mississippi mud, Katie’s head popped out of the blob.
She was lying, her back on the sand, trying to keep her head above the couple of inches of water. She kicked. She boxed at the monster with her branch. It stretched itself in one direction and then another. She thwacked and pedaled. It warped and leaped. She was disgusted by its clingy, pulpy touch, its writhing and slapping. Lily whacked it with her stick.
The monster bunched. It slithered. It gulped.
Katie thrust out her hand—spread the blob’s flesh—stretched it as thin as pizza dough!
And the blob, pulled out of shape, quivering with protoplasmic rage, dropped off her.
The water ran over Katie, and the monster let itself be pulled away with it. It dribbled downstream.
It was gone.
The two girls crawled out of the river onto the bank.
Jasper finally dodged down to their side, holding his ray gun aloft. He looked around for his enemy. “Dash it all!” he said.
“We’re okay,” said Lily. “Thank you anyway.”
Katie screamed at the old man on the rotting chair, “I thought you said there weren’t any creatures in this river!”
“Excellent, forceful miss, I say that there are only one-cell organism, yes? And that was a one-cell organism. I think amoeba.”
“An amoeba is LITTLE,” said Katie, squinching her fingers together. “Little. Teeny tiny.”
AMOEBA
(Amoeba proteus supergiganticus)
“That one, it seem big to me,” said the old man, shrugging. “Not so tiny.”
“I know,” said Katie. “I was almost drowned by it.”
“Not so tiny, I say.”
Katie exhaled angrily and stomped across the pebbles and up the slope to try and find a towel.
In a minute the monks came back from the inn, carrying sandwiches and drinks for dinner. “Good, good,” said Grzo. “We are done. I hope you have enjoyed . . . You swam? Not so good an idea. Many one-celled—”
“I know,” growled Katie. She shot an angry glance at the old man on the old chair. The old man on the old chair waved an old hand and smiled a young smile.
The moment Drgnan discovered what had happened, he ran down to the riverbank and joined Jasper, peering up and down the current, looking for the blob to bash it.
“Come, children!” Grzo called down to them. “We must hurry if we are to reach Guyencourt on schedule. Just three days, and many miles to cross.”
The boys, disappointed that they didn’t have a chance to whomp a monster, trudged back up to the van and climbed in. Shortly the van was jouncing across the river on a bridge guarded by stone lions.
The old man on his rotten chair watched them go. Then he stood up, lay down his whittling, and scampered into a barber shop. Scissors were clickety-clacking. Bangs were falling. He went into the back and dialed a number on the phone.
In Doverian, he whispered, “Hello. Hello. This is Informant Pmnd. I have been advised to call if any monks of Vbngoom were seen on Route One. I have just seen four monks in the green robes of Vbngoom. They are in a white van with three children. The children are from out of state. I heard them speak. They are all headed north to Guyencourt. They plan to cross the border three days from now. Yes. Yes. Thank you. For my free gift, I would like E-352. That is the watermelon boom box. If supplies have not lasted, I would like the walking-an-invisible-dog trick leash. Number . . .” He pulled out a grimy, wrinkled old catalogue and flipped through it. He left his information and hung up.
He went out again to sit by the river and whittle.
A few weeks from now, he thought, brother, I tell you! I’ll be sitting here listening to some sweet, juicy tunes.