Deep in the cold North Woods there lived a young Sasquatch named Hugo. He was bigger than you but smaller than me, and he was hairier than both of us. He lived in apartment 1G in the very back of Widdershins Cavern with his mother and father and his older sister, Winnie.
It was Saturday morning, and Hugo and his friend Gigi were sitting on the floor playing a game they had made up called Castles & Knights. They used cups turned upside down for the castles. For the roads, they used sticks, and they had painted faces on rocks for their characters. There were smooth bits of red and green and blue glass that Hugo’s grandpa had found in the woods while hunting mushrooms—these were the magic gems.
“My knight is crossing the moat to attack your castle,” Gigi said, pushing a painted rock forward.
“Okay, then my wizard is going to open the secret trapdoor,” Hugo said, “and a Snallygaster is going to fly out and attack your knight.”
Gigi looked at Hugo.
“A Snallygaster? You can’t make up creatures out of your head, Hugo. Maybe you could use a dragon. Or a Minotaur.”
“But there really is such a thing as a Snallygaster! Hold on, I’ll prove it.”
Hugo got up and walked over to his bookshelf.
Rick-a-tick-a-tick.
Gigi frowned at the sound.
From the bookshelf, Hugo pulled out a very thick hardcover book called The Biggest Ever Book of Cryptids. His best friend, Boone, had lent the book to him, and Hugo had been reading it every day. Even when it was past his bedtime, he would read the book under his blankets, using his jar of glowworms for light. The book listed all the known cryptids (which is a fancy word for “mysterious creatures”) in alphabetical order. It had full-color illustrations of each one of them, too. Once in a while, there was a photograph of a cryptid, but those were usually pretty blurry and could just as easily have been something else.
Hugo walked back to Gigi to show her the book.
Rick-a-tick-a-tick.
“Hugo,” Gigi said, staring down at Hugo’s feet, “when was the last time you cut your toenails?”
“I don’t know. Why?” Hugo sat down beside her and leafed through the book to find the section about Snallygasters.
“Because your toenails are so long that they’re clicking against the ground.”
Hugo ignored this. He flipped through the pages, past pictures of creatures that he had never heard of before reading the book. There was an Owlman and Swamp Monsters and Tommyknockers and Globsters. Some of the creatures were no bigger than a pinkie toe, and others were taller than the tallest pine tree.
“Snallygaster! Here it is!” Hugo pointed at a page with a picture of a snaky-looking beast. He read, “‘A dragon-like creature that is half bird, half reptile, with razor-sharp teeth.’ There! I told you they were a real thing!”
Right then they heard the noise again.
Rick-a-tick-a-tick.
“Well, that’s obviously not my toe-nails,” Hugo told Gigi.
Hugo stood up and walked over to the little stream that ran right through his bedroom. It entered the room through a hole in the bottom of the wall, then it wiggled across the room and exited through another hole in the wall by Hugo’s toy chest. The little stream was Hugo’s personal floating post office, since that’s how he and Boone sent messages to each other.
Rick-a-tick-a-tick.
A wooden toy boat sailed through the hole in the wall and into Hugo’s room. A little bottle was rick-a-tick-a-ticking around inside the boat. And in that bottle was a note from Boone.
