ATTIKOL:
Darling?
RAVEN:
Attikol.
A:
[Falling to his knees in front of her.] Give me another chance!
R:
Stand up and face me like a man! I have given you two challenges, Attikol. Tell me, how have you fared?
A:
I…moved all those buildings for you…darling?
R:
[Sweeping her arm out to indicate what we could all see: the El Dungeon, standing firm on its foundations.] Attikol! [In a voice that wasn’t exactly LOUD, but still, a voice I could imagine his ancestors hearing in the depths of hell.] You…have…FAILED!
Attikol cringed.
Then Raven opened her mouth wide in a strange, inhuman way.
And from somewhere deep inside her came this appalling, horrendous bird cry.
I started to sweat again. This wasn’t in the programming. Was she breaking down? I really hoped our big dramatic showdown wasn’t going to end with me performing an emergency tune-up on her.
Then she started flapping her arms, still making the horrible bird cry. And now there was another commotion in the crowd—in a moment I knew why, because there was a second bird cry, and a big white parrot came flying straight for Raven from the direction of the caravan.
That’s when I noticed the strange dark clouds rolling in. Dark clouds…with wings in them. And beady eyes. Huge dark clouds of birds.
Jakey’s parrot (man, I wish I had asked her name…) was the first bird to reach Raven and Attikol. She wheeled around in the air a few feet over Attikol’s head as he cowered like the big man he was. She gave this terrible parrot-battle-call…and pooped on his shirt.
All the other birds were close behind her, and everyone else had noticed them too, and they were all standing around looking up at the sky…with their MOUTHS OPEN…like a bunch of dummies, until someone yelled “RUN” and everyone started scattering, though not before a lot of very fine clothing was ruined with bird dooky. I found some shelter in the doorway of the El D., and stood there with Schneider, watching Attikol get PLASTERED with caca, and loving every minute of it.
Right in the thick of the running, and the screaming, and the cawing, and the defecating, Raven spoke to Attikol one last time.
“Leave this town,” she said, “and never return.”
Attikol turned to go. No inch of him had escaped the poop-storm. He looked back at Raven for a moment, then trudged off to his caravan, a large flock of birds following him all the way.
I forgot for a second that he was my ancestral enemy, and felt kinda bad for him; then I consoled myself that bird poop brings good luck.
Later
Raven and I are hanging out in the El Dungeon by ourselves. Ümlaut has just finished saying his farewells to Raven and is on his sorry way.
He was covered in blood and 20 or 30 birdsplats, but compared with Attikol he looked well-groomed. “Raven,” he said, all mournful-like, with anguished love in his eyes, “is there…do I…can’t we…”
“No, Ümlaut. Not now. But Earwig will be joining your caravan. Keep an eye on her for me, and maybe someday…”
Sheesh! Sappy old golem.
Later
Note to Self: Just because you may have an…unusual…secret closet that makes sleeping and eating unnecessary doesn’t mean you should stop sleeping and eating.
Went and crashed out in the van in great emotional exhaustion, and slept for the first time in, wow, a whole week. Had an excellent dream about the secret closet. It involved the four black cat statues coming to life, frolicking around on the staircase, pulling up the bucket, riding the black rock waves…all the stuff I like to do down there. Also, I had a nice long dream-talk with one of Great-Aunt Emma’s portraits. (I may have forgotten to mention it—but Schneider rescued the paintings before the library and City Hall went down, and now both are hanging in the El Dungeon.)
I don’t actually recall anything we said, but I think she’s pleased with me.
And then I woke up and went into the café for some excellent victory sandwiches with Raven, Hilda, and Schneider. Then we took care of some important town business. Mayor Schneider now has three new councilmembers (Raven, Hilda, and me). Our first official act was to declare it illegal to construct any further buildings in Blackrock.
Good old Schneider. He started to bring up the whole flying incident, but I stopped him with a quick “Ask Great-Aunt Emma.” He seemed to understand. Then I asked him to get in touch with me right away if he saw any sign of Attikol, who may be a little dim, but is bound to get suspicious about the flying sooner or later.
Finally I told Schneider he should move into the Old Museum if he wanted, and he said he already had. Ha! That guy is very mental.
Later
Something extremely strange is happening in Blackrock! There are TREES, really weird beautiful black trees, coming up everywhere. They’re growing so fast you can actually see it happening. And there are birds in all the trees. Man, Blackrock was missing birds in a big way. But they’re here now, loud as can be. My cats are in a shivering, chattering frenzy over it. And are not being allowed outside the El Dungeon right now.
I really don’t know how to explain these trees to myself, so I’m going to try to be content with, “Ask Great-Aunt Emma.”
Good
Stuff.
Later
I’ll give you one guess who sauntered into the El Dungeon an hour ago to take her old job back! Rachel! She doesn’t seem at all fazed by the, uh, changes in Blackrock. She is unbelievably perky. She says she mailed all the postcards I gave her, as instructed; met lots of dashing men; got sunburned; dropped her camera in the ocean; ate lots of shrimps off the barby; etc., etc. She is very grateful to me for the cruise. She looooooves the new furniture in the El D. and thinks we should redecorate the whole place. And she brought her favorite customers souvenir bobblehead koala bears. All of which she gave to me.
Rachel wears me out. I went and hid in the van seven minutes after she arrived. One good thing about her, though: She may be three times my age, but she knows I’m the boss. Great-Aunt Emma must have sent her a letter, too.
Did I mention I still have the amnesia? Am not too worried, though. Today’s the expiration date, and I have just about four hours left until midnight.
Later
As tolerable as Blackrock has gotten in the last day or so, I am really craving HOME, so I’m getting prepared to hit the road just as soon as I know which road to hit.
Have taken a last walk around Blackrock, saying goodbye. (For now.) Bottled up a big jar of liquid rock for home experiments—am excited to see what new uses I can invent for it! Sat on the Emma LeStrange bench at the minipark for a bit listening to bird-calls, and said goodbye to Schneider and Hilda.
I’ll miss them.
This sounds crazy, even to me—but I think I’ve enjoyed being Earwig.
All the same, I am also very anxious to be myself again, so at a quarter till midnight, Raven and I packed up the van, assured Rachel we’d be back in a few months or so, loaded up the cats, and drove away.
Five minutes later
Parked on the side of the road outside Blackrock. Killing time until memory returns. Have interrogated Raven about yesterday’s hijinks. Unfortunately (or fortunately? I can’t really decide) she is back to minimal conversation skills. Our talk went a little bit like this:
ME:
So, Raven.
RAVEN:
Yes?
ME:
Nice showdown yesterday.
R:
Thanks.
ME:
What was up with calling all those birds?
R:
Iono.
ME:
I mean, I didn’t program that. What gave you the idea?
R:
Iono.
ME:
C’mon, did you and Jakey’s parrot plan that together?
R:
Uhhhhh…no.
br /> ME:
So…seriously, what gives? I thought you were, like, under my control, and here you’re calling down epic poopy revenge from the skies on Attikol, and making Ümlaut think he has a chance with you, and NONE of that was in your programming.
R:
Uhhhhhh?
So, I don’t know. Maybe she’s playing dumb. I don’t know if I should punish her or reward her or both or neither. Maybe I should just be thankful we got Attikol out of our lives, and leave it at that.
Later-still parked outside Blackrock. Three minutes till midnight.
Not sure if I am feeling funny because my memories are about to return, or if I am just about to vomit out of nervousness that my memories are never returning, after all.
Am trying really hard to think of what my house looks like. So far, noth—
Oh wait
Oh man oh man oh man gonna have to stop writing in a minute here it comes it is all coming back OH YEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHH
About twenty minutes-twenty lifetimes later-on the road, heading toward home!
Have recovered somewhat from massive, delicious, inundating influx of life memories. Man, it is soooooooooo goooooooooood to be ME again.
Also, am EXTREMELY grateful that the Moon Child is miles away, because there is no doubt whatsoever that I’m Attikol’s ancestral enemy. And a very…UNUSUAL enemy, indeed.
I might even say…STRANGE.
Later-AT HOME!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Things I like best about home:
Mom.
Mom, for not questioning the fact that my only souvenirs from a month-long cruise to Australia were 15 bobblehead koala bears and a jar of tar.
Mom, for making sandwiches that are even better than Raven’s.
Mom, for being agreeable when I asked if Raven could live in the basement.
My stunning collections of rare Paleolithic fossils, spiderwebs, high-resistance ultrapolymer platings, crash-test dummies from around the world, cat whiskers, wallpaper, slingshotting rocks, rock posters, ion grids, cottage cheese containers, ouija boards, gold doubloons, iron maidens…etc., etc., etc.
My beautiful garden of weird weeds, which have clearly missed me and my black thumb.
My personal library, which (Great-Aunt Emma would be proud to see) includes Occult Thermodynamics and You AND Secrets of Golem Dominion.
All my wondrous and soul-soothing music: Dirge Control, Puppy Glove, Furniture That Sings, Doom Valve, Thee Crypt Divers, Stain Spiral, Split Enzyme, the Larry Beatty Disaster Sequence, Not from Heaven, the Riotous Undead, It Isn’t This, Chapter 13 Verse 13, SplatterBoar, etc., etc., etc.
My amazing home laboratory and all the experiments I left in it, most of which have been progressing nicely.
My pet garbage-eating catfish-goat, who cheerfully recycles all my experiments that haven’t progressed so nicely.
My ultra-modded Magic 8 Ball, which gives incredibly accurate and insightful answers to all my questions.
McFreely’s real name, which is Mystery. (Wouldn’t you know, her collar was here at home the whole time, in one of Mom’s kitchen junk drawers.)
And MY name,
Emily!
APPENDIX A:
* * *
Six pages that I tore out from the middle of my notebook, and later discovered in the van’s engine compartment after I got back to Blandindulle.
* * *
Day 19
top 13 strangest things in earwig’s room:
sugarcube diorama of the la brea tar pits
mermaid baby in a jar of formaldehyde
origami rulture
lemur bunker
macramé rampire
black hole dart gun
spiderweb collection
rack of custom-built slingohots
portable chasm
apothecary kit
antigravity machine
spare forehead
A bit later-alone finally. Molly is off saying hi to friends.
OK—Molly may be a rebel (a rebel against capitalization if nothing else), but I bet she’s won trophies for spelling. I mean—diorama? Apothecary? Impressive.
OK, also,
!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCLAMATION POINTS GALORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obviously—I have some explaining to do!
Obviously—I have found Molly.
Obviously—I am not Molly.
AND—Molly knows who I really am.
What a day. I found her in the first place I looked. Lucky for me: small town, one overpass.
It’s spine-chilling how much Molly and I look alike. No wonder I was fooled by her photos. She is not much like me, though. I’ve mentioned that she is a popular, well-dressed girl who wins trophies at whatever she does. Also, she smiles a lot. Yeah. Right now she’s making her extended social rounds of the café. Fine. Gives me some time to write.
Anyway, get this. That girl in Zigzag was right on the money about Molly doing a tour of towns with funny names. She’d been to Boring, Oregon; Skookumchuck, Washington; Pickles Gap, Arkansas; Greasy, Oklahoma; Hippo, Kentucky; and Assinippi, Massachusetts, before hitting Blandindulle. She was at a Laundromat washing the dirty half of her extensive traveling wardrobe (she travels with three suitcases, apparently) when this lady came over and struck up a conversation. Said she had a daughter that looked JUST like Molly. (!) This daughter was away on a cruise to Australia (!!) for a month (!!!). Molly convinced the lady she was on some kind of solo field trip, and the lady invited Molly to crash at her house. Which Molly did.
In MY BEDROOM.
Man oh man oh man oh man oh man.
Anyway, we came here to this café (Blandindulle equivalent of the El Dungeon, I guess) to talk it over. And you know, if it hadn’t been for the Sharon and George episode, I probably would have sprinted home without even saying bye to Molly. But if I learned anything from that experience, it’s that I probably left home for a reason; going home was not going to cure my amnesia; I probably still had something to learn or do in Blackrock; and if my home was in Blandindulle today, it would most likely still be in Blandindulle next week.
So, if Molly ever makes her way back to our table, maybe I can start getting some useful information out of her. Like for starters, my real name.
Later
I’ve regained my memories, and what I know makes me want to get amnesia again.
Molly did this to me. I mean the memories, not the amnesia. We were still hanging out at the café in Blandindulle, and she was telling me all this stuff that I of course didn’t recall about MY OWN MOTHER, and then boom, she pops out with—OK, I’m not going to even write it down, JUST IN CASE I read this later when I need to keep my amnesia. Anyway, it’s like our family swearword, which my mom says all the time. And in my GREAT WISDOM, I’d programmed that word as my failsafe, just in case something awful happened.
Well, something awful HAS happened, and I need to get back to my van and get another dose of amnesia AS SOON AS I CAN!!!!
—Gotta go, Molly is heading this way with a bus ticket for me, more later.
Later
Am back on the bus, headed to Blackrock.
After the joy of regaining my identity came the horror of the dangerous knowledge my mind is so full of. And I am LUCKY that it happened in Blandindulle, and not in Blackrock. Just hope I can get back to the van without encountering Jakey.
Anyway, I made Molly swear that if she encountered me again she would not tell me my name or say my mom’s swearword. To give her credit: She felt very bad, and not only paid for my bus ticket back to Blackrock, but promised to come to my aid any time I called. (Let’s hope THAT will never happen!)
While waiting for the bus, I got the following information from her:
Curls/Ripper sucks his thumb while sleeping. Good Stuff!!
She did not tidy my room, under instructions from my mom.
She really thinks I need to tidy my room.
She thinks I should know that there are several science experiments in my ro
om that are looking VERY unsanitary.
She considers me a “creative” type, but she shook her head when she said it.
She was amazed to find only identical black sleeveless dresses in my wardrobe.
She had a really hard time beating any of the high scores on the video games at my house.
She thought all my music was completely unlistenable and does not see how anyone could consider Dirge Control their favorite band.
What she loves about new towns is meeting new people. Meeting…lots…of new…people.
She and Curls/Ripper did indeed meet some elderly lady in Turniptown, Pennsylvania, who said that Molly reminded her of an old friend in a tiny town called Blackrock.
After much argument, Molly finally promised she would NOT show up in Blackrock unless I actually called and asked her to come.
Molly misses Bratwurst and Toulouse Tuffy and Tweety a whole heap of a lot. Belgium, those names.
My mom never mistook Molly for me. Heartwarming.
OK—Bus is pulling into Blackrock! Time to get down to some serious forgetting!!
APPENDIX B:
* * *
Eleven pages that I tore out of the front of my notebook and discovered in the van’s wheel-well after I got back to Blandindulle.