Iggy Loomis, A Hagfish Called Shirley Read online

  “First, we have to build a maze,” Alistair said.

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “And we’ll need a cookie,” Alistair added.

  “We can get cookies for Slimy!”

  While Iggy and Dottie ran back home to get cookies, Alistair and I began to build our maze. We knew we still needed to rescue Shirley, but we figured we might as well get the experiment started first since it was due the next day.

  A MINUTE LATER, Iggy and Dottie returned with cookies to use as bait for the slime mold.

  We worked fast to build our slime-mold maze, and when we finished Alistair gently picked up the gloppy slime mold from the grass and placed it inside the maze.

  “Next we hide the cookie in the maze,” Alistair explained, placing the cookie on the opposite side of the maze, “and we’ll record how long it takes our slime mold to find it.”

  We both stared at our slime mold, which just sat there in the maze.

  “It isn’t even moving,” I said.

  “It’s going to move very slowly, Daniel,” Alistair reminded me. “We have to be patient.”

  That’s when Alistair and I heard loud squawking sounds overhead: “BAWK! BAWK! BAWK!”

  I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes: Iggy and Dottie were flying around Alistair’s yard!

  Dottie was perched on Iggy’s back as if she were riding a flying horse or a tiny airplane! Alistair and I stared up at them as they soared overhead. Dottie screamed like a kid on a roller coaster as Iggy swooped down low and then zoomed up high, nearly touching the tops of the oak trees in Alistair’s yard.

  How will we ever get Iggy and Dottie down from there? I wondered, panicking. What if they fall? What if Iggy flies far away and gets lost?

  “The odd thing about this,” Alistair observed, “is that Iggy wasn’t even upset about anything this time.”

  With Iggy and Dottie zooming over our heads, I told Alistair how Iggy sometimes transforms when he gets really happy about something, like when he was super-excited to meet Alistair’s new pet.

  “This could be a problem,” Alistair said, sounding more concerned.

  I had a bad feeling that Alistair was right about that.

  Iggy circled overhead and then swooped down low, giggling as he tried to dive-bomb us.

  Instead of ducking, Alistair seized the opportunity to capture Iggy. “Now!” he hissed. “GRAB HIM!!”

  We pounced: Alistair grabbed one of Iggy’s legs and I grabbed the other.

  Dottie screamed. Iggy kicked his feet hard, trying to shake us off. “STOP DAT!!” Iggy shouted. “LET GO!”

  “LAND, IGGY!” Alistair and I yelled.

  Instead of landing, Iggy zoomed straight up in the air like a rocket, with Dottie screeching and clinging to his T-shirt and Alistair and me each hanging on to one of his legs!

  Now all three of us were screaming: “STOP, IGGY! STOP!!”

  I glanced down and felt even queasier than I did when I made the mistake of riding The Dizzy Devil last summer at a carnival. The Dizzy Devil is scary, but it’s nothing compared to hanging on to a crazy preschooler with insect wings.

  “LAND, IGGY!” all three of us shouted. “LAND!!”

  I glimpsed our school from above as Iggy circled over the rooftops and trees of our neighborhood. Then, a few blocks away, I spotted Chauncey leaving his grandma’s house to walk Beanie.

  Beanie spied us zooming across the sky and started barking like crazy.

  Uh-oh! I thought. What if Chauncey sees all of us flying through the air?

  Startled by Beanie’s loud yapping, Iggy made a sharp turn and flew back to the cover of trees in Alistair’s yard.

  A second later, we all crash-landed on Alistair’s lawn, rolling and somersaulting over the grass.

  Once I caught my breath, I stood up, stuck the Human Normalizer into Iggy’s mouth, and got ready to yell at Iggy like I had never yelled before.

  Then something strange happened: a bright light surrounded Alistair, Iggy, Dottie, and me. My skin tingled and itched. I felt weightless: I could see my feet standing on the ground, but I couldn’t move them.

  A moment later, all four of us had vanished from Earth.

  “OH DIS SO AWESOME!” Iggy shouted. “WE FLY TO A BERFDAY PARTY!”

  Alistair, Iggy, Dottie, and I found ourselves in a room filled with colorful balloons.

  Sitting across from me, Alistair looked worried. He mouthed one word: “Bumblepod.”

  I had been transported aboard the Spaceship Bumblepod before, and I remembered how the Blaronites had used images from Iggy’s mind to make their alien environment look less scary to Iggy and me. This time, it looked like the Blaronites had added some details from Dottie’s mind, too.

  “IGGY! LOOK!” Dottie jumped up from the table and ran toward a bunch of sparkling dresses, hats, and shoes. “Dese dwesses so booful!” Dottie pulled a pink princess dress over her regular clothes and twirled around the room. She placed a glittering tiara on her head.

  Iggy found a “booful dwess” decorated with a bunch of jewels and even coins. “I having dis piwate dwess!” Iggy shouted.

  “No, Iggy!” Dottie snatched the “pirate-dress” away from Iggy. “Dese booful dwesses all for me!”

  But before Iggy could grab the dress back from Dottie, the two of them stopped fighting and froze, staring at the two enormous rabbits that had just hopped into the room.

  I think rabbits were pretty much the last thing any of us expected to see on Spaceship Bumblepod, and these bunnies were extra-

  surprising since they were about the size of horses or cows.

  “Don’t forget the cupcakes, Miss Bubble,” said the first giant rabbit, who had white fur and pink eyes.

  “Whoops! Be right back!” said the second rabbit, who had light-brown fur.

  Iggy and Dottie just stared with their mouths hanging open. Then they turned to each other and screamed the title of their favorite book: “BIG BUNNY EATS A CUPCAKE!!”

  Now it made sense: The Blaronites must have used Iggy’s and Dottie’s memory of their favorite Big Bunny Eats a Cupcake book to disguise themselves! And maybe the rabbits in Iggy’s and Dottie’s imaginations look way bigger than ordinary bunnies.

  “Welcome to the Spaceship Bumblepod, Iggy, Dottie, Daniel, and Alistair,” said the first giant rabbit. “My name is Commander Stickyfoot, Senior Commander of the Bumblepod, and this is my colleague, Miss Bubbles.”

  “YOUR NAMES IS BIG BUNNY!” Iggy and Dottie shouted, pointing at the two giant rabbits.

  You would think that a giant bunny would be really cute and cuddly, but if you ask me, Commander Stickyfoot was a little scary. For one thing, those rodent teeth of his looked dangerous.

  “Now,” said Commander Stickyfoot, “while Miss Bubbles takes Iggy and Dottie to the Big Bunny Birthday Party, Alistair and Daniel will stay here with me to discuss an important matter.”

  Iggy and Dottie jumped up and down and chanted, “BIG BUNNY BERFDAY! BIG BUNNY BERFDAY!” as they followed Miss Bubbles to some other part of the spaceship.

  “Am I in trouble?” Alistair asked.

  Commander Stickyfoot didn’t answer right away because he was trying to fit his rabbit body into a human-sized chair at the table, while also holding a cupcake in his front paws. Finally, Commander Stickyfoot gave up and decided to sit on the floor, like an ordinary rabbit.

  “Now, Alistair,” said Commander Stickyfoot, in between nibbles of his cupcake, “what makes you think you’re in trouble?”

  “I’m thinking it’s the only reason you would transport me to Spaceship Bumblepod without any warning, isn’t it?”

  “Well, we might bring you here to honor you with a prize for something you did well!” said Commander Stickyfoot.

  Alistair looked hopeful.

  “But a rewa
rd is not why you’re here today.”

  Alistair sighed.

  “Alistair,” said Commander Stickyfoot, “we’ve noticed a couple problems. Number one: you’re allowing Iggy to fly around the neighborhood. Number two: you lost a hagfish in the sewer.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Commander Stickyfoot raised a paw to silence Alistair.

  “Alistair, you must get that hagfish out of the sewer or your mission is over. Understand?”

  Alistair looked pale. “I understand.”

  “And if we hear about any more problems, it’s back to Planet Blaron for you!”

  When I heard that, I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “Just a minute, Commander Stickyfoot!” I interrupted. “If Alistair gets sent back to Planet Blaron, where would that leave me and Iggy?”

  “That would leave you both on planet Earth, of course,” said Commander Stickyfoot, totally missing my point.

  “But I couldn’t deal with Iggy all by myself, without Alistair’s help!” I protested.

  Commander Stickyfoot hopped to the other side of the table, leaving a small pile of round rabbit poops behind. He picked up another broccoli cupcake.

  “Daniel,” Commander Stickyfoot said, between nibbles of his cupcake, “it seems that you have more problems when you’re with Alistair than when you’re on your own.”

  “That’s not true,” I argued.

  Commander Stickyfoot stared at me with his pink rabbit eyes. “If Alistair hadn’t given Iggy his hagfish to hold, it wouldn’t have ended up falling into the swimming pool in the first place.”

  “She fell into a toilet!” Alistair blurted, suddenly finding his voice again. “Not a swimming pool!”

  “Swimming pool, toilet . . . same difference,” said Commander Stickyfoot.

  “It isn’t the same at all!” Alistair practically yelled.

  “But Commander Stickyfoot,” I said, trying to keep calm since Alistair looked like he was about to blow a fuse, “the bottom line is that even if a few mistakes happen, it’s really important for Alistair to stay right where he is, on planet Earth.”

  “And why is that, Daniel?” Commander Stickyfoot asked.

  I imagined my life without Alistair. There would be nobody to build awesome Techno-blok models with and nobody to complain to about Iggy when he’s bugging me. I knew why he had to stay on Earth: Because if Alistair got sent back to Planet Blaron,I would miss my best friend way too much.

  “ITHOUGHT OF A WAY we can get Shirley out of the sewer,” Alistair said after we had returned to Earth. “I need my watch back to do it and if the plan fails, it could get both of us in huge trouble.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “Let’s try it.” I knew I had to help Alistair get Shirley back no matter what.

  Alistair lowered his voice and leaned close to me. “My parents keep my watch locked in a safe in their bedroom. Every night, my mom and dad take off their own watches and lock them up for the night in the same safe. So here’s my plan: tonight I’ll spy on my parents and memorize the pass code to the safe. Then, when my parents are asleep, we’ll sneak into their room to steal my watch out of the safe and program it to rescue Shirley!”

  I knew it was wrong of us to sneak Alistair’s watch from the safe where his parents were hiding it. On the other hand, the plan sounded pretty exciting.

  “There’s just one problem,” Alistair said.

  “What’s that?”

  “When we first moved to Earth, Dad trained himself to sleep with one of his eyes open.”

  “How can he sleep with one eye open?” I asked.

  “Well, most of my dad’s brain is sleeping, but his ‘guard eyeball’ stays awake in case of an intruder. It’s sort of like a burglar alarm.”

  “Alistair,” I said, “I don’t see how we’ll be able to sneak the watch from your dad’s room if he sleeps with one eye open.”

  Alistair thought for a moment. “Unless Iggy could help us by creating a distraction.”

  I pictured Iggy getting excited about something and waking up both of Alistair’s parents. “I doubt Iggy would be much help,” I said.

  “But I’m not talking about human Iggy,” Alistair explained. “I’m talking about flying-insect Iggy. And I have a theory that Dottie knows how to make our bug boy fly.”

  “DOTTIE,” ALISTAIR SAID, “how do you make Iggy grow wings?”

  Alistair was determined to figure out the secret to making Iggy sprout wings on command, since we might need “flying Iggy” to help distract Alistair’s dad.

  “My dad won’t wake up if his ‘guard-eyeball’ thinks it’s just an insect flying around his room,” Alistair explained. “Iggy’s job is to keep my dad distracted while I sneak my watch out of the safe.” Then he turned to Dottie.

  If you wants Iggy to fly,” Dottie said, “you has to tickle on his belly button.”

  I caught Alistair’s eye. Was it really that simple?

  “Like dis way.” Dottie lifted Iggy’s shirt and tickled his belly button with her little finger. “Fly, Iggy, fly!”

  Iggy burst into giggles as wings sprouted from his shoulder blades.

  Alistair and I were amazed.

  So it’s true! I thought. Dottie really does know how to control Iggy’s bug traits!!

  Dottie told us how to make Iggy grow a stinger; how Iggy can “spin one spiderweb from his bottom”; how to make Iggy grow “sticky, walk-on-the-ceiling toes”; and how to make “booful budderfly wings” sprout from Iggy’s back.

  “This means our plan is a ‘go,’” Alistair whispered as Dottie kept chatting about how to trigger Iggy’s bug traits. “Tonight Iggy will help us steal the watch!”

  IT’S LUCKY my mom and dad don’t believe half the stuff Iggy tells them because instead of eating dinner, he ended up blabbing our secret plan “to sneak to Awistair’s house in da nighttime.”

  I gave Iggy his Human Normalizer while Dottie gave him one of her “kitty-cat head scratchies.”

  Finally, Iggy got calm enough to let me roll him into his bed. He seemed to fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

  Once Iggy fell sleep, Dottie went back to her room and I climbed up to the top bunk.

  After that, I must have dozed off because the next thing I heard was the crackly sound of Alistair’s voice coming through my walkie-talkie:

  I climbed down the ladder from my bed, grabbed my jacket and a flashlight, and put on my shoes. When I was ready, I gave Iggy a little shake to wake him up. “Iggy!” I whispered, “Wake up!”

  I had expected Iggy to bounce right out of bed since he had been so excited about our plan. Instead of waking up, Iggy grabbed my hand and tried to stick my thumb in his mouth like a pacifier.

  “Iggy!” I pulled my thumb out of his mouth. “Wake up!”

  Iggy dove under the blankets.

  I pulled the blankets off Iggy and tried to stuff his uncooperative feet into shoes.

  “Iggy,” I said, “it’s time for our adventure at Alistair’s house!”

  “I tired,” Iggy said.

  “Why Iggy still sweeping?” Dottie peered into our room, all dressed and ready to go.

  “Dottie, maybe you can wake up Iggy,” I suggested.

  “Come on, Kitty,” Dottie cooed, tickling Iggy under his chin. “Let’s go get some cat tweats!”

  Luckily, Dottie’s cat game worked! A minute later, the three of us tiptoed through the darkness toward Alistair’s house.

  BUT WHEN WE GOT TO Alistair’s house, Iggy headed straight for Alistair’s couch and curled up for a nap.

  “Iggy want to sweep,” Dottie explained.

  “We just need your help for a few minutes, Iggy,” Alistair said. “Then you can go back to bed, okay?”

  “Mmph,” Iggy mumbled from the couch.

  “My parents are asleep in t
hat room down the hall,” Alistair explained, pointing to a closed door at the end of the hallway. “Iggy, your job is to fly around and distract my dad while I get my watch, okay?”

  “Smooboof,” Iggy mumbled.

  “Daniel, you and Dottie will stand guard right here in the hallway.”

  “Okay.”

  “I should also warn you that my parents take off their human disguises when they go to bed at night,” Alistair added. “Just remember that the people in that room might look weird but they aren’t monsters.

  “Okay, Awistair,” Dottie said.

  To be honest, I felt a little queasy at the idea of seeing Alistair’s mom and dad without their human disguises.

  “Okay, Dottie,” Alistair said. “Time to activate Iggy’s wings!”

  Dottie tickled Iggy’s tummy, but this time he didn’t giggle. “Stop dat, Dottie!” Iggy grumbled.

  “Come on, little butterfly,” Dottie coaxed. “Wake up and fly!”

  “STOP DAT!” Iggy yelled. Instead of butterfly wings, Iggy’s wasp wings and several stingers popped out.

  Now Iggy was completely awake, but instead of helping us, he was buzzing around the room, knocking books, scientific tools, and potted broccoli plants to the floor.

  “Iggy!” Alistair whispered, “we have to do this quickly!” Alistair’s hand rested on the doorknob to his parents’ room. “When I open this door, you need to distract my dad by flying around until you see me take the watch out of the safe. Understand?”

  Iggy didn’t answer; he just kept buzzing around the room.

  Alistair frowned at Iggy, but decided he’d better go ahead and try to get the watch. He opened the door to his parents’ room. Without hesitating, Iggy zoomed right through it toward Alistair’s mom and dad.