Iggy Loomis, A Hagfish Called Shirley Page 2

  “Dano!” Iggy interrupted. “Tell Mom to get me one haggie pet for my berfday, okay? Dis da best pet I ever seed!”

  “Iggy, there’s no way Mom will ever get you a pet hagfish,” I told him.

  “YES, MOM WILL GET ME ONE HAGGIE FOR MY BERFDAY!!” Iggy shouted, his face turning red.

  Uh-oh, I thought. Iggy was gearing up to throw a huge tantrum.

  Alistair caught my eye, and I knew what he was thinking: We might have a bug boy on our hands any minute now!

  “SHIRLEY WANTS TO GO back to her bucket now, Iggy,” Alistair said, reaching for his pet hagfish and trying not to upset Iggy. “Shirley’s a little scared.”

  “NO!” Iggy wasn’t about to hand Shirley back without a struggle.

  I grabbed for the hagfish. “Put that hagfish back right now!”

  But Iggy was too fast for me. He sprung up from the bathtub and gripped the bathroom ceiling using one of the bug traits that sometimes pops out when he’s angry: fingers that can stick to anything like Super Glue.

  Alistair and I stared up at Iggy. He gripped the ceiling with one hand and hung onto Shirley with the other.

  “Easy there, Iggy,” said Alistair, in the same patient voice he had used with Shirley. “Let’s gently release Shirley into this nice bucket of water, where she’ll be safe.”

  “Quit acting dumb, Iggy, and just give the hagfish back!” I blurted.

  I should know by now that yelling at Iggy only makes him act crazier, but sometimes I just can’t help it.

  “NO!!” Iggy tried to swing himself away from us, but the hagfish slipped from his hand.

  Alistair lunged to catch Shirley in his bucket . . .

  Unfortunately, Alistair missed.

  Shirley fell into the toilet!

  Everything happened so quickly: We were all shouting as Shirley wriggled and splashed in the toilet bowl.

  The next thing I knew, Iggy had dropped down from the ceiling and before Alistair or I could stop him, he reached for Shirley. But instead of pulling Shirley out of the toilet, Iggy did something so incredibly dumb, Alistair and I could hardly believe what had just happened.

  Iggy flushed Alistair’s pet hagfish down the toilet!

  AFTER WAVING GOOD-BYE to the hagfish, Iggy clapped for himself. “I WIN!” he shouted.

  Alistair just stared into the toilet. I think he was in shock.

  I was about to yell at Iggy, but then I reminded myself how that would probably make more of his bug traits pop out, which was the last thing we needed.

  “Haggie swim down to da poo-poo party,” Iggy said, pointing at the toilet.

  “‘The poo-poo party?’” Alistair’s neck looked blotchy. He stared at me, demanding an explanation. “The poo-poo party?!”

  “It’s a story my mom told Iggy when he was first getting potty trained,” I explained.

  “Come back now, Haggie-Baby!” Iggy called into the toilet.

  Alistair looked totally confused as I tried to explain how, when Iggy was first learning to use the potty, he kept saying his poops were “too scared” to be flushed down the toilet. Then I told Alistair how my mom came up with the idea of telling Iggy that “all the poops get to go to a fun poo-poo party under the city,” hoping that Iggy wouldn’t be scared anymore.

  “But that isn’t true,” Alistair said. “There’s no party under the city. Your mom lied!”

  “Human parents do that sometimes, Alistair,” I told him.

  “They do?! But human parents tell kids not to lie!” he yelled.

  “Well,” I said, “my mom only lied about the poo-poo party because she wanted to help Iggy get potty trained.”

  I couldn’t blame Alistair for feeling confused. I remembered feeling pretty confused myself when I first overheard that weird poo-poo-party conversation between Iggy and my mom.

  “Is the poo-poo party a berfday party for poops?” Iggy had asked.

  “Um, okay,” Mom had said. “I suppose it’s kind of like a birthday party.”

  “Can I go to dat berfday party, too?”

  “No, Iggy,” said Mom. “It’s only a party for poops.”

  “But my poops is scared to go to dat party. Dey wants me to come wif dem.”

  “They aren’t scared, Iggy,” Mom said. “It’s fun for them to get flushed down the toilet to the party.”

  “Will dey have cake?”

  I guess Mom wasn’t expecting that question because she didn’t say anything for a minute.

  “Dey wants cake!” Iggy insisted.

  “Okay,” Mom said in a small voice. I think she realized she had dug herself into a hole with this poo-poo-party thing.

  “And dey wants a swimming pool, too,” Iggy said.

  As it turned out, Mom thought she was a genius because her poo-poo-party idea actually worked, and Iggy got potty trained. The problem was that Iggy loved sending a whole bunch of things down to the poo-poo party, including one of his stuffed animals.

  When my dad got tired of hearing Mom yell, “We need the plunger again!” he decided to tell Iggy the truth about Mom’s poo-poo-party story. Dad sat Iggy down and explained that there is actually not a poo-poo party under our city.

  But Iggy liked Mom’s made-up story better, so he decided not to believe a word Dad said. No matter how many times Dad explained that “things in the toilet go down a pipe and then into the sewer, and then into a water-treatment center, AND THEN THAT’S ALL,” Iggy just nodded and said, “Dat where da party is!”

  “So anyway,” I told Alistair, “my mom’s story is probably the reason Iggy wanted to flush Shirley down the toilet.”

  “HAAAAAGIEEEEE!” Iggy yelled into the toilet. “COME HOME NOW!”

  Alistair just stared at Iggy. I figured that by now, he must be pretty disappointed in “human intelligence.”

  “Iggy, things that you flush down a toilet are gone,” I said. “Alistair’s hagfish can’t just come running back up the pipes and into the toilet.”

  Iggy’s lip quivered. “Haggie GONE?”

  “Of course she’s gone!” Alistair snapped. “YOU FLUSHED HER DOWN THE TOILET!”

  Iggy’s eyes grew wide with the surprise of being yelled at by the normally calm Alistair.

  Uh-oh, I thought. At any moment now, Iggy’s gonna blow.

  Iggy threw his head back and howled:

  “

  I’m sorry, Iggy,” Alistair said. “I didn’t mean—”

  I tried to stick the Human Normalizer into Iggy’s mouth, but he just swatted it away.

  Then I remembered how Alistair has a special watch that’s actually a secret alien control panel.

  I had seen Alistair use his watch to turn toys into instant robots and bicycles into helicopters. There must be some way that watch could rescue Alistair’s hagfish! I thought.

  “Alistair,” I said, struggling to be heard over Iggy’s screams. “Can’t you just push one of the alien technology buttons on your watch to get the hagfish back?”

  But then I noticed that Alistair wasn’t wearing his watch.

  “My parents took it away,” Alistair said glumly. “And I have no idea when they’ll give it back.”

  “They took it away?! Why would they do that?” I had never heard of Alistair getting in trouble with his parents before.

  “HAGGIE, HAGGIE, HAGGIE, HAGGIE!!” Iggy bawled. “HAAAAAGIEEEEEEEE!”

  “It’s my punishment for going off-mission and bringing home a pet hagfish without my parents’ permission,” Alistair explained, raising his voice to be heard over Iggy’s sobbing. “My parents said, ‘Your mission on Earth isn’t collecting pets; it’s growing frackenpoy, and that’s all!’ They took away the watch until I show that I’m more focused on my broccoli mission.”

  Ever since an environmental disaster ruined the soil on Alistair’s home pl
anet, Alistair’s Earth mission has been studying the best ways to grow broccoli, which is called “frackenpoy” in the Blaronite language. Broccoli happens to be the only food that Blaronites can digest, so Alistair spends most of his time either growing broccoli plants and researching things that affect broccoli, like insects and the weather.

  “If it’s not about frackenpoy, my parents aren’t interested,” Alistair said.

  “HAGGIE!!” Iggy screamed. “COME! BACK! WIGHT! NOW!!”

  I looked at Iggy and noticed something I had never seen before. Stiff, spiky hairs that resembled hairbrush bristles had popped up from Iggy’s arms. I had seen Iggy sprout antennae on his forehead, wings from his shoulder blades, and a wasp stinger from his butt before, but these things were new.

  “They look like caterpillar stingers,” Alistair whispered. “Quick—we have to move fast!”

  Before I could say anything, Alistair grabbed Iggy and held him tightly, trying to restrain him. “Now!” Alistair hissed. “The Normalizer!”

  Alistair quickly grabbed the Human Normalizer from me and tried to stick it in Iggy’s mouth, but Iggy kept trying to sting Alistair with those scary-looking bristles on his arms.

  It was weird that Alistair didn’t seem bothered by the caterpillar stingers: “No, no, Iggy,” he kept saying, as if Iggy were simply reaching for an extra cookie instead of trying to stab him with stingers.

  Finally, Alistair managed to stick the Human Normalizer into Iggy’s mouth, and Iggy sat down with a thud, looking a little stunned.

  A second later, Iggy crawled back into the empty bathtub and curled up to rest.

  “Didn’t those caterpillar stingers hurt?” I asked Alistair.

  To be honest, I had never even heard of caterpillars with stingers before. All I knew was that I was glad I hadn’t been the one holding Iggy’s wrists because those things looked as sharp as needles!

  “It didn’t hurt much,” Alistair said. “But that’s probably because Blaronites don’t feel pain the same way humans do.”

  “I guess that’s lucky,” I said, trying to think of something that would cheer Alistair up after losing his hagfish.

  “I suppose so.” Alistair just stood there, staring at the toilet. I knew he must be think-ing about his lost hagfish, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would make him feel better.

  “Well,” I finally said, “I guess it’s also lucky we still have the Human Normalizer to help control Iggy even though your parents took away your watch.”

  Alistair nodded slowly. He seemed to be thinking very hard about something. Then he suddenly looked happier. “Daniel, you’ve just given me a great idea!”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Come on,” Alistair said, leading me back to his room. “First, we need to find my old-fashioned tools!”

  ALISTAIR’S HANDS moved quickly over wires and tiny bits of metal, gluing and snapping bits of his “old-fashioned tools” together. Every now and then he asked me to hold something while he worked.

  “If my parents hadn’t taken away my Blaronite watch,” Alistair said, “I would create an insta-robot and program it to go down into the sewer to retrieve Shirley.”

  “That would be awesome!” I said, wishing I could see the insta-robot Alistair would have created. It was so annoying that Alistair’s parents had taken away Alistair’s watch, which happens to be the most awesome gadget in the universe!

  “But since we don’t have the watch, this handmade hagfish rescuer I just invented is the next-best thing.”

  Alistair and I stared at the strange contraption he had created, which looked like a combination of a telescope, a video camera, a laptop computer, and a fishing pole.

  Alistair and I lugged the hagfish rescuer to the bathroom, where Iggy was still napping in the bathtub. I was glad to see that the caterpillar stingers had disappeared from his arms.

  “So what next?” I asked.

  “First, we send an underwater video camera down the pipes and into the sewer to locate Shirley,” Alistair said. “Then we watch what happens on this screen.”

  Alistair showed me the miniature computer screen where we could monitor the action.

  “DAT LOOK SO AWESOME!”

  Alistair and I both turned to see Iggy sitting up in the bathtub, wide awake. You never would have known that he had been sound asleep just a second ago. That’s the funny thing about Iggy: one moment he’s sleeping hard as a rock; the next moment he’s talking and running around as if he just drank three cups of coffee or something.

  “Can I going fish wif dat computer?” Iggy asked, climbing out of the bathtub to get a closer look at Alistair’s invention.

  “This is not a toy, Iggy!” I said. “Alistair built this to rescue his hagfish. Remember? The hagfish you flushed down the toilet?”

  Iggy nodded. “Haggie go to da berfday party in da potty,” he said, as if we would be happy to be reminded of the whole poo-poo-party idea.

  First, Alistair pushed a button and a small video camera moved on a long, stretchy cord, down into the toilet. Next, a fuzzy image of the murky sewer pipe appeared on Alistair’s computer monitor.

  “Oooooooo!” said Iggy. “Dat look scary! Poor Haggie!”

  “Now for some bait.” Alistair pushed a button and a fishing pole popped out of his hagfish-rescue invention.

  “WHOA!” Iggy shouted. “WE GOING FISH YOU OUT NOW, HAGGIE!”

  “Iggy,” said Alistair, “can you get me a dead fish from Shirley’s pail of food?”

  Iggy saluted and raced from the bathroom.

  A second later, Iggy skipped back into the bathroom waving a dead fish in the air as if it were a trophy he had just won.

  “Thanks, Iggy.” Alistair speared the dead fish with a hook and then flushed it down the toilet. “That’s our bait to catch Shirley.”

  We all stared at the small computer screen, hoping to see Alistair’s hagfish appear out of the dark water and take the bait.

  “COME GET A SNACK, HAGGIE!” Iggy yelled into the toilet.

  “She can’t hear you, Iggy,” I told him.

  Iggy didn’t care; he was jittery with excitement. “Dis so awesome, Dano!” Iggy grabbed my arm. “WE FISHING IN DA TOILET!”

  I suddenly realized that “fishing in the toilet” was probably the worst example we could set for Iggy, who already seems to think of toilets as some kind of playground. “Don’t ever try this at home, Iggy,” I warned.

  “Okay,” Iggy said. “I only going potty fishing a COUPLE WHILES.”

  “No!” I said, “NEVER do this at our house.”

  “Hey!” Alistair said, pointing to the quivering fishing line. “I think we’ve got something!”

  He was right! Something tugged on the line.

  On the viewing screen, we saw Shirley gnawing on the bait!

  Alistair pulled on the fishing pole. “I think we’ve got her!”

  But as Alistair tried to reel in the hagfish, the fishing line wouldn’t budge. “She’s stronger than I expected!” Alistair gasped.

  Alistair braced himself, pulling as hard as he could.

  I watched Alistair trying to reel in his hagfish, while Iggy pulled on Alistair’s waist.

  They pulled and pulled!

  “I think . . . we’ve almost got her . . .” Alistair gasped.

  But just as we were about to reel in the hagfish, there was an angry knock on the door.

  “Alistair?”

  It was Alistair’s mom, and she sounded worried.

  “What’s going on in there?”

  It was Alistair’s dad, and he sounded angry.

  “Open the door, Alistair! We need to talk to you!”

  Alistair’s parents usually spend their time working in their broccoli garden and not bothering Alistair, so it was pretty unusual to h
ear them yelling at Alistair with you’re-in-big-trouble! voices that reminded me of my own parents.

  “Just a minute!” Alistair yelled back.

  But Alistair’s parents didn’t wait just a minute; they both barged right into the bathroom.

  “Awistair catch Haggie!” Iggy announced, proudly pointing at Alistair’s toilet-fishing invention.

  Alistair’s parents did not look at all happy to see the three of us fishing in the toilet. They just stood there with their hands on their hips, glaring at us.

  “Alistair! Stop this immediately!” Alistair’s dad yelled.

  “But, Dad!” Alistair protested. “I have to rescue Shirley—”

  But just then something terrible happened.

  The fishing line broke and disappeared down the toilet!

  Shirley looked into the underwater video camera with her not-cute face and then swam away, disappearing into the murky water of the sewer.

  Alistair let out a deep sigh. “I hope you’re happy,” he said, “because now she’s probably gone for good.”

  ALISTAIR’S MOM AND DAD led Alistair, Iggy, and me to the living room and told us to sit on the couch. I could tell they were getting ready to give us a big lecture about what we did wrong.

  “Boys,” Alistair’s dad began, “fishing is an Earth pastime commonly done near a pond, lake, stream, river, or ocean. It is never done in the toilet or the city sewer system.”

  “I go potty fishing ONE time,” Iggy declared, pointing a finger in the air.

  “Shush, Iggy!” I hissed.

  “We already know you aren’t supposed to go fishing in the sewer, Dad,” Alistair said.

  “And we weren’t just fooling around for no good reason,” I added, trying to defend Alistair. “We were actually trying to rescue Alistair’s pet hagfish after it accidentally got flushed down the toilet.”