The Wikkeling Read online

  THE

  WIKKELING

  Steven Arntson

  Illustrated by

  Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini

  For my parents,

  HELEN & JERRY

  © 2011 by Steven Arntson

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

  International Copyright Conventions

  Printed in China

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

  ISBN 978-0-7624-3903-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010935091

  E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4249-2

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Digit on right indicates the numbers of this printing

  Cover and interior design by Frances J. Soo Ping Chow

  Edited by T. L. Bonaddio

  Typography: Blackadder, Blavicke Capitals, Praeton, Requiem, Riva

  Published by Running Press Kids an imprint of Running Press Book Publishers

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  2300 Chestnut Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

  Visit us on the web!

  www.runningpress.com

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Efficient Education

  Gary

  Headaches

  The Red Drip

  Sunset

  The Bestiary

  Intentional Detention

  Scaredy Gary

  The Wikkeling

  Through the Windows

  Part 2

  Spike-Tailed Fish and Flesh-Eating Worms

  The Competency Exam

  The Department of Insta-Structure

  Smashed Sidewalks

  The New Route

  Trapped!

  A Death in the Family

  The Escape Plan

  The Cat Hall

  Frightening Friends

  FindEm™

  Attacked

  Distress Call

  The Stink

  Two Wild Housecats

  Explanations

  The Memorial

  The Attic Books

  Back to the Attic

  Acknowledgements

  When a book first sprouts, it feels quite independent, but it is quickly humbled by its needs and indebted for its very existence to those who helped it. Firstly, a thank-you to the members of my writing group for looking at my earliest efforts. My agent, Jenni Ferrari-Adler, went far above and beyond the call of duty in helping me revise and in taking up the cause of the book. My editors Teresa Bonaddio, Marlo Scrimizzi, and Kelli Chipponeri were of tremendous aid in believing in the project and bringing the characters to life through numerous patient rounds of revision. I’d also like to thank Daniela for the beautiful illustrations and Frances Soo Ping Chow for the wonderful cover and book design—they’ve placed me in the enviable position of having my name attached to something much more beautiful than I’d ever imagined. More than anyone, however, I’m indebted to my wife Anne Mathews, who has, during the course of our marriage and friendship, been the greatest influence on how I think and what I think about. Without our countless conversations about life and the living of it, and without her example, this book would not have been conceived. She also gave the manuscript its first real copyedit, caused the sentences to become readable, and pointed out several directions in which I had forgotten to look (as all who know me know, and she best of all, my eyes are very poor). Thank you, for reading.

  Poor kitty,

  poor kitty!

  The Wikkeling chased you

  From city to country

  And back again, too.

  It won’t rest. It won’t weary.

  It will kill you, poor kitty,

  And then all those like you,

  And all those you knew.

  Jump up to my attic

  Poor kitty, and pause–

  Rest here. Recover,

  And sharpen your claws.

  I’ll give you refuge

  For I understand

  What it is to be hunted,

  Unwelcome, unwanted,

  Pursued and tormented

  And fainting from fear

  Every night,

  Every night,

  Every night of the year.

  –Anonymous, from Aristotle Alcott’s

  Riddles and Rhymes of Olden Times

  Prologue

  The Old City lies on a long, low hill. It is dangerous and dilapidated. The buildings are crumbling, moss grows in the streets, and garbage festers in the gutters. There are rumors that people live here secretly, breaking into abandoned apartments and living wretched, illegal lives.

  Adjoining the Old City is the Addition, which lies on a vast, level plain. The Addition sparkles into the haze, its streets as straight as grocery store aisles, its buildings as shiny as pop cans. The Addition contains countless homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals. Skyscrapers rise in lanky rectangles. Sprawling suburban chessboards meet the broad blocks of industry. The Addition is so large that airports operate to fly people from one part to another.

  Between the Old City and the Addition runs a seam, where the decrepit hill meets the youthful plain. Few people know it, but this seam is the kind of place where unexpected things happen. Invisible doors and windows open. Unknown creatures appear. Even now, something strange is afoot.

  It’s past midnight, but this street, called Boardwalk, is crammed with bumper to bumper traffic. Lilac-scented exhaust fills the air and curls under streetlights and headlights as employees commute to night-shift jobs or return from day-shift jobs, parents take sick children to hospitals, and everyone weaves from lane to lane hoping to dodge the next snarl. Delivery vans deliver new shoes, cell phones, and ready-to-eat dinners to one side of the street while garbage trucks collect old shoes, broken cell phones, and leftovers from the other side. Eighteen wheelers stacked with shipping containers, petroleum tanks, prefab houses, cars, and even new eighteen wheelers pass through on their long-distance routes. In a city as large as this one, there is no time of day or night when such things aren’t happening.

  Although the Addition seems alive with activity at first glance, it is strangely motionless. Work to home and home to work. Old shoes to new shoes. Delivery and pickup. Repetition becomes stillness, lulling everyone, and this is why no one notices when, in the middle of the street, a shadow the size of a small animal darts from beneath a garbage truck and under a car in the next lane. It dashes across another lane, and then another, camouflaged by a black belch from a tailpipe.

  This stretch of Boardwalk is lined with identical, brand-new multi-level houses, constructed of vinyl and glue, sitting behind green plastic lawns. The houses have flat roofs and few windows. They are airtight and soundproof. Someone looking to sneak in would have a tough time. The shadow darts past, slowing at each home and then moving on.

  But there is one exception on this block. There’s one home made of wood and nails instead of plastic and glue. It’s only a single level, and its steeply angled roof rises to a shingled peak, an indication that it was built long ago. Now it’s the only one of its kind left here.

  The shadow
creeps around back, out of the direct glare of the streetlights to a small strip of artificial turf that separates one piece of property from another. It limps, as if injured, but manages a swift, terrific leap to the roof of the old house. It disappears inside through a hole under the eaves.

  This old house has a family sleeping within, lying under warm covers, and they are not awakened, soothed as they are by the comforting grind of the endless traffic jam, as monotonous as sheep gliding at intervals over an easy fence. They have no idea that they have a houseguest.

  PART 1

  Efficient Education

  “SENSIBLE STUDENTS SUCCEED SPLENDIDLY!” said Ms. Span, a primly dressed teacher sitting behind a computer at the front of the class, her thick, black eyebrows arching over the top of her reading glasses.

  “Yes, Ms. Span!” said the students. They sat in neat rows that filled the room, faces lit yellow from the light of their own computers.

  On the wall behind Ms. Span, a large projection displayed the sentence she had just recited. “Let’s begin today’s focus on the letter S,” she said, her voice just loud enough to be heard above the whirring of the fans in all of the computers. The students began to type. Next to each child’s screen, a plastic cradle held a cell phone hooked to the school’s network. The children’s practice sentences were instantly graded and transmitted to their parents’ phones, ensuring that each parent knew, at each moment, how their child was scoring.

  Additionally, all sentences were tabulated, in terms of accuracy and speed, into a data pool describing the class, the school, the district, and the system as a whole. At this moment, every child everywhere was typing “SENSIBLE STUDENTS SUCCEED SPLENDIDLY,” allowing every school to be instantly ranked in comparison to every other school. On Competency Exam days these rankings were used to determine whether or not the school was functioning properly, or whether it should be shut down. Today, fortunately, was not the Competency Exam. It was a Practice Test.

  Ms. Span flipped through the students’ responses on her screen, checking them. She was on edge, even though it was just practice. The thing about Practice Tests was that they led inevitably to the Competency Exam, and if things went poorly then, Ms. Span could be classified a Bad Teacher and lose her job.

  “Very good, Andreas,” she muttered. “Very good, Sasha.”

  Ms. Span projected the next sentence.

  “SENSIBLE STUDENTS ARE SAFE, SECURE, AND SUPERVISED!” recited the students, some beginning to type as they spoke. Because the exercises were timed, there was little opportunity to fix mistakes. Ms. Span reviewed the responses again. Her computer screen reflected on her glasses, rankings appearing there in columns.

  She glanced at the bottom of the stats and winced at the names there, especially at the one at the very bottom. She frowned. She didn’t want to stop the lesson, but the whole class was getting dragged down.

  “Miss Gad-Fly,” she called out frostily. All the children turned toward the rear of the room to look at the object of their teacher’s attention. Some of them snickered. Miss Gad-Fly sat in the back row near the door. She seemed lost in thought, and didn’t notice the attentions of the room until Ms. Span said, “Henrietta!”

  Being singled out scornfully in class wasn’t unusual for Henrietta. Wherever she was and whatever she was doing on any given day, she found herself in a similarly unenviable position. If a poll were to be taken this afternoon by her school, asking all the students in all the grades who was least popular, Henrietta Gad-Fly would win. And that would be the only thing she won all year.

  Henrietta looked a little like a brick—her face and body were squat, thick rectangles. Her ruddy skin was prone to pimples, and flushed red when she was embarrassed, like now. Her small, black, beady eyes were set closely together, which lent her a confused and peevish expression that often caused people to explain things to her twice, and then scold her. Her thin eyebrows made her look a little surprised, which didn’t help matters.

  And yet Henrietta was not a stupid, confused, petulant block. Or at least, she didn’t feel like one. Inside, she was just herself—a person to whom she’d scarcely yet been introduced.

  Henrietta is the main character of this story. This whole book will be about her—and it’s worth mentioning at the outset a few things that aren’t going to happen to her.

  She will not become beautiful when someone gives her a new hairstyle.

  She will not find a miracle cure for her pimples when an angel sees she’s a good girl inside.

  She will not find out that she’s actually a princess, and she won’t become happy forever when a prince marries her.

  Those books are out there, and your school librarian can help you find one. This isn’t it.

  “Henrietta,” said Ms. Span, “you are off task.”

  With the click of a button, Ms. Span displayed the contents of Henrietta’s monitor on the wall screen. Each day contained a moment such as this, in which Henrietta was exposed as an example of the kind of person one should have the common sense not to be. Henrietta, everyone knew, ranked at the bottom of the class in most subjects: writing, reading, math, and even physical safety. Her scores were so low that she was nearly (but not quite) At Risk.

  Henrietta’s sentence read: SE

  What kind of child could so grievously fail in her attempt to type “SENSIBLE STUDENTS ARE SAFE, SECURE, AND SUPERVISED?” The class had a good laugh, but they didn’t laugh as hard as they might have. As with any joke, Henrietta’s incompetence had grown less funny over time.

  “Henrietta, you will stay after class today and retype your practices,” said Ms. Span.

  “Yes, Ms. Span,” said Henrietta, her voice inaudible over the tinny hum of the fans in the computers.

  “What?” said Ms. Span.

  “YES, MS. SPAN!” said Henrietta. She pressed her lips together in a way that made her look angry, but she was actually feeling humiliated.

  “Now, then, everyone,” said Ms. Span, “we’ve fallen behind because of Henrietta. Today is just Practice, but next month is the Competency Exam. If Henrietta delays us then, we’ll have to work even faster, with even more accuracy. Remember, we’re graded as individuals and as a class. We compete against each other to help each other. Right now, we’re in Good Standing. None of you are At Risk, and none are Finished.”

  A chill ran down the spine of every student when Ms. Span said “Finished.” No one wanted that. If the school declared you Finished, that was it. You were kicked out. Your parents would be really, really mad, and you’d become a garbage collector for the rest of your life.

  Typing Practice gave way to Composition, and then Math for the remainder of the morning until it was time for History and Nutrition. Ms. Span removed her reading glasses and bade the class stand, and they lined up and followed her into the hallway, quickly completing the short walk past the mural that read: SENSIBLE, EFFICIENT, EDUCATION (S.E.E!).

  The History and Nutrition Center was a large room filled with four rows of ten divided study carrels. Each seat in each row was cordoned with yellowish brown walls rising from the desktop. Through the rows ran a conveyor belt used to deliver the day’s Approved Nutrition while the students watched various historical videos on the carrel dividers.

  Henrietta’s class entered just as the kindergartners, whose nutrition came a little earlier, were packing up to return to their room. Henrietta waited at the nearest carrel as its occupant prepared to leave: a little girl, who seemed small even for a kindergartner. Henrietta noticed that she was wearing odd clothes. Instead of a polyester outfit with a yellow safety stripe down the back, she wore a brown shirt made of . . . wool? Henrietta had seen wool in a few old TV shows, where people rode on horses or lived on icebergs. It was said to cause rashes.

  The girl’s dark-skinned arms looked painfully thin as she stuffed some papers into her backpack, zipped it up, and pulled it with some effort over her shoulders. She ran to join her class, her curly black hair bouncing as she exited.


  Henrietta settled into the carrel, noting that the one immediately to her left was occupied by the chubby, bespectacled, Clarence Frederick, and the one to her right by the chubby, bespectacled, Clarice Sodje. Both had bullied Henrietta in the past, and she wasn’t thrilled to be between them now.

  History and Nutrition period was the day’s only non-graded learning experience. History, because it wasn’t related to anything, wasn’t tested during the Competency Exam. Ms. Span said history had a “Noninstrumental Positive Impact,” which meant it was good for you but didn’t really matter.

  It was also good to watch movies while eating, because watching discouraged talking, and talking with one’s mouth full was both dangerous and impolite. The History and Nutrition Center was generally very quiet but for the tinny sounds of the movies playing over the speakers in the carrel dividers.

  Henrietta had landed in the HENRIFT ANDI carrel. She’d been in this one a few times before, and had seen the movie already, which was called Founder, Humanitarian, Forward Thinker. As she sat, the movie began. Henrift Andi, a tall, clean-shaven man with a stovepipe hat, was giving a speech to a crowd of fascinated onlookers.

  “We must be courageous enough to look forward without fear, and sensible enough to fear looking backward!” he said, and the crowd cheered through the little speakers. The title came on:

  HENRIFT ANDI:

  FOUNDER, HUMANITARIAN, FORWARD THINKER

  The end of the title was obscured by a little piece of paper. It was a yellow sticky note attached to the screen. Henrietta leaned forward. The square contained a short message scrawled in a beginner’s handwriting.

  henRift and andi

  Henrietta pulled it off of the screen as the movie segued to show Henrift Andi as a little boy, still wearing a stovepipe hat, planting an apple orchard. Henrietta crumpled the note and dropped it in the trash next to the carrel. She thought the kindergartener who had just departed was most certainly the culprit, and she didn’t want the tiny girl to get in trouble for vandalism.