We Give a Squid a Wedgie Read online

  Also by C. Alexander London

  WE ARE NOT EATEN BY YAKS

  WE DINE WITH CANNIBALS

  With art by JONNY DUDDLE

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

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  Text copyright © 2012 by C. Alexander London.

  Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Jonny Duddle. All rights reserved.

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  Published simultaneously in Canada. Printed in the United States of America.

  Edited by Jill Santopolo. Design by Semadar Megged. Text set in 11-point Trump Medieval.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data London, C. Alexander.

  We give a squid a wedgie / C. Alexander London ; with art by Jonny Duddle.

  p. cm.—(An accidental adventure) Summary: Eleven-year-old twins Oliver and Celia Navel

  are forced to give up television again, this time for an adventure on a South Pacific island

  surrounded by giant killer squid. [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Explorers—Fiction.

  3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction. 5. Television—Fiction. 6. South Pacific

  Ocean—Fiction. 7. Humorous stories.] I. Duddle, Jonny, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.L8419Wh 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011034404

  ISBN: 978-1-101-57244-3

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  CONTENTS

  1. We Are Over Octopuses Octopi

  2. We Are Nonplussed

  3. We Are Aware of Our Destiny

  4. We Are Definitely Daunted

  5. We Get GAS

  6. We Disagree, Disagreeably

  7. We’re Not Getting Along

  8. We Face Our Friends

  9. We Can’t Stand Sabotage

  10. We’re in Ship Shape

  11. We Sort of Swim with Sharks

  12. We Won’t Jump the Shark

  13. We Slept with the Fishes

  14. We Come in Peace

  15. We Don’t Like What We Hear

  16. We Can’t Catch a Cucumber

  17. We Are Hardly Serene

  18. We Do Not Say Arrr

  19. We Practice Piracy

  20. We Play Chicken

  21. We Will Not Be Chums

  22. We’re All Dressed Up

  23. We Do the Duel

  24. We Get Some Static

  25. We Take a Short Swim

  26. We Have Some Followers

  27. We Are Not Going All Googly

  28. We’re Marooned and Blue

  29. We Sacrifice A Snack Cake

  30. We Learn the Plural of Nemesis

  31. We Look Behind the Bookshelf

  32. We’re Wedgied to a War Council

  33. We Don’t Get a Montage

  34. We’ve Laid Our Plans

  35. We Go Awry

  36. We Go Even More Awry

  37. We Bother Blobfish

  38. We Go to Wedgie War

  39. We Scold a Skeleton

  40. We Follow the Chicken

  41. We Hear a Familiar Hiss

  42. We Sail the SquidDy Sea

  43. We Kibitz with the Kraken

  44. We Won’t Forget Our Friends

  Author’s Note

  To Brian Jacques,

  whom I never got to thank,

  and to Natalie,

  whom I cannot thank enough

  1

  WE ARE OVER OCTOPUSES OCTOPI

  “I THINK IT’S FOOD,” said Celia, studying the flaky brownish lumps on the silver tray in front of her. There were also squishy purple blobs.

  “It doesn’t look like food,” said Oliver.

  “There’s a lemon,” said Celia. “Why would there be a lemon if it wasn’t food?”

  “For decoration?” suggested Oliver.

  “A lemon is not decoration,” said Celia.

  “What about on one of those fruit hats?” he asked.

  “This is a serving tray, not a fruit hat,” said Celia. “It’s food. And it looks gross.”

  Oliver and Celia Navel were at the New Year’s Eve gala for the Explorers Club, the most exclusive party of the year for the most exclusive society of explorers in the world. All of the food at this party was weird or slimy or gross, like caterpillar-stuffed quail eggs and candied shrimp heads. The party was held in the private aquarium of a famous deep-sea diver. He had a shark tank that encircled the whole room and an indoor tropical reef filled with brightly colored fish in a pillar in the center. There was a pool filled with stingrays and a dozen other tanks that Oliver and Celia hadn’t even seen yet.

  They were bored beyond belief.

  Oliver and Celia finally had cable television at home, but instead of sitting happily on the couch watching the old year turn into the new one, they were stuck at a fancy party for fancy explorers surrounded by fancy fish, watching the new year start just like every other year. It was not their idea of fun.

  Oliver poked at the brown lumps on the silver tray. They were crispy and hot. Some of them had little tentacles sticking out. The purple blobs were slimy and they glistened.

  “This is calamari,” said the server, who was holding the tray out to Oliver and Celia and growing quite tired of standing there while they argued.

  Oliver looked at Celia with his eyebrows raised. She was three minutes and forty-two seconds older than her twin brother, which made her the expert on things like the meanings of words and how to escape from a prison fortress in Tibet. She did not, however, know what calamari was.

  Celia shrugged.

  “It’s fried squid,” said the server, thrusting the tray toward Oliver and Celia again. “Calamari just means squid.”

  “Why not just say squid then?” Celia said.

  “Calamari is the Italian word,” the server told her.

  “What are th
e purple blobs?” Oliver asked.

  “Octopus,” said the server.

  “Aren’t they the same?” wondered Celia.

  “No,” said Oliver, who felt good knowing something that his sister didn’t for once. He liked watching nature shows. The Squid Whisperer was one of his favorites. “The octopus has a hard beak and the squid doesn’t. They both have eight arms and squishy heads, but squids have hooks in their suckers and octopuses don’t.”

  “Octopi,” said Celia, who knew that the plural of octopus was octopi.

  “Octopuses is right too,” said Oliver.

  “It is not,” said Celia.

  “It is too,” said Oliver.

  “It is not,” said Celia.

  “It is too,” said Oliver.

  “Look, kids, do you want some of this or not?” the server interrupted. “There are a lot of guests who want to eat.”

  “What’s the lemon for?” Oliver asked.

  “That’s for decoration,” said the server.

  “Aha!” Oliver gloated. “I was right! Lemons for decoration!”

  “Whatever,” said Celia.

  “Ahem,” coughed the server, trying to get their attention back on his tray of brownish and purple lumps.

  Celia shook her head at him. “We don’t eat squid or octopi,” she said.

  “-puses,” added Oliver.

  Celia glared at him.

  “We don’t eat anything weird or slimy or gross,” she said.

  “Whatever,” sneered the server. He trotted back into the party, weaving between the guests dressed in ball gowns and tuxedos, eating their squid and their octopi. Octopuses. Whatever.

  Tiger sharks and bull sharks and sleek silver reef sharks swam in never-ending circles around the edge of the room.

  “I can’t believe we’re missing Velma Sue’s Snack Cake Times Square New Year’s Eve Spectacular for this,” Oliver grumbled.

  “It’s called VSSCTSNYES,” Celia corrected her brother. “Vuss-Cat’s-Knees,” she emphasized. It was the television event of the year, but Oliver couldn’t even get the name right.

  “Whatever it’s called, I can’t believe we’re missing it,” he complained, picking at the bow tie on his neck, which was too tight. The rest of the tuxedo was too short. His father, the world-famous explorer Dr. Ogden Navel, hadn’t even noticed that Oliver had outgrown it.

  “We miss everything good,” agreed Celia, slouching against the glass of the tank behind her. She didn’t so much as glance at the grimacing tiger shark as it swam above her head.

  Now, if we were lucky enough to receive an invitation to the Explorers Club gala at the private aquarium of a famous deep-sea diver on New Year’s Eve, we would most likely thrill to find ourselves in the rarefied company of astronauts, explorers, motocross champions, ichthyologists, and deputy editors of assorted discount travel websites. We would, however, have to look up exactly what an ichthyologist or a deputy editor actually does.

  And while we, like Oliver and Celia Navel, would avoid eating the caterpillar-stuffed quail eggs, candied shrimp heads, and fried calamari being passed about on silver trays, we would certainly not linger on the edges without exploring any of the wonderful undersea creatures on display.­

  But for Oliver and Celia, exploration had long ago lost its charm. It had cost them no end of hardship and heartache over the years. Even though they lived on the 4½th floor of the Explorers Club, and even though their parents held the prestigious title of Explorers-in-Residence, Oliver and Celia hated exploring.

  Their mother and father, however, loved exploring. Their mother loved it so much that she had gone off to search for the Lost Library of Alexandria­ over three years ago, and after three years without hearing from her, she suddenly returned to drag her children into a dangerous race to help her find it.

  Their father, determined to make their lives ­interesting, always made them go to his lectures on things like “Ancient Polynesian Navigation” or “Rites of Passage in Seventeenth-Century Samoan Culture,” and he regularly put them in mortal danger with trips to places like Tibet and the Amazon jungle. To make matters worse, they still had to get through the second half of sixth grade.

  “Corey Brandt hasn’t even talked to us all night,” Oliver observed, pointing across the room where the teen heartthrob and star of Agent Zero, Sunset High, and The Celebrity Adventurist was surrounded by a group of crazed fans, who also happened to be professional sumo wrestlers. Every time he tried to get away from them, they blocked his path and asked him about his newest show or his last Christmas special or his hair gel.

  He looked toward the Navel twins and gave them an apologetic shrug.

  “We save his life from an evil Corey Brandt impersonator,” Oliver said, scowling, “and all he gives us is a shrug.”

  “He’s trying to join the Explorers Club,” explained Celia. “He can’t be rude to anyone here. They all get to vote on his application.”

  “Why would anyone want to join the Explorers Club?” wondered Oliver. “All you do is listen to boring lectures and get bitten by exotic lizards.”

  Oliver spoke from experience. He had listened to a lot of lectures and been bitten by a lot of lizards.­

  “Beats me,” said Celia. “But Corey said he’d hang out with us. We just have to wait a minute.”

  “Oliver, Celia!” Their father strode across the room to where the twins were standing. His own tuxedo was too small for him, just like Oliver’s, but his beard was neatly trimmed and his glasses had slid down his nose like they always did when he was excited or being attacked by a yeti. “Isn’t this a wonderful party? Did you try the octopus? Or the fried squid?”

  “They called it calamari,” said Oliver.

  “Yes, of course, the Italian word.” Dr. Navel pushed his glasses back up his nose.

  “We don’t eat squid,” said Celia. “Or octopi.”

  Oliver was going to correct her, but she gave him a look that told him something terrible would happen if he did. He bit his lip and didn’t say a word.

  Dr. Navel shrugged and looked out at the collection of explorers, adventurers, daredevils, and website editors who had gathered to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

  Professor Rasmali-Greenberg, the president of the Explorers Club, buzzed from explorer to explorer, laughing and telling the same joke about a jaguar and Dr. Livingstone in a hot tub. He pulled Corey Brandt away from the sumo wrestlers and dragged him over to meet a group of Rajasthani fire dancers and their escort from the Indian Embassy.­

  “It’s, like, mad tight meeting you nice folks,” Oliver and Celia heard the sixteen-year-old superstar tell the ambassador from India. He had pulled out his cell phone to take a picture with them. The ambassador smiled widely. Like everyone else in the world, he couldn’t get enough of Corey Brandt.

  “Corey is certainly kibitzing with all the right people tonight,” Dr. Navel said.

  “What’s kibitzing?” asked Oliver, who was tired of waiting around for the celebrity.

  “It’s something people do at fancy parties,” his father explained. “It’s like chatting.”

  “Why not just say chatting then?” Oliver asked.

  “Because”—Celia rolled her eyes—“Dad’s an explorer. He can’t talk like a normal person.”

  “I didn’t make up the word kibitz,” his father said. “It’s from the noble language of Yiddish.”

  “That sounds made up too,” Oliver said.

  “Well, it’s not,” his father answered.

  “Well, I don’t want to do any kibitzing with anyone tonight,” said Oliver. “So can we go?”

  “We can’t go yet,” Celia told him. “We haven’t talked to Corey!”

  “Ugh,” Oliver groaned.

  Celia had decided that she was Corey Brandt’s number one fan, but she hadn’t seen him since they’d saved his life after their adventure in the Amazon. The girls at school were starting to think she didn’t really know him. Sixth-graders could be so suspicious.
r />   Tonight she was going to ask Corey to visit her class. That’d wipe the smug grin off Stephanie Sabol’s face.

  “Whose face?” Oliver asked, startling Celia.

  “What?” she said.

  “You were muttering about a face,” he said. “And somebody named Smug.”

  “What? No I wasn’t.”

  “Yes,” said Oliver. “You were. You were muttering. You said smug.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  “Did n—”

  “You did say smug, Celia,” her father agreed with Oliver.

  “Whatever,” said Celia.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to be at this party,” ­Oliver said. “I want to go home to watch Vuss-Cat’s-whatever.”

  “Velma Sue’s Snack Cake Times Square New Year’s Eve Spectacular.” Celia rolled her eyes. “VSSCTSNYES. At least get the name right.”

  “Madam Mumu is going to perform ‘Cheese Arcade Magic,’” Oliver explained to his father. “It’s historic.”

  “That’s true,” Celia added.

  Their father shook his head at his children.

  He was a world-famous explorer. He had dis­covered the royal tombs of the ancient Pyu kingdom in Burma. He had paddled a kayak across the Atlantic Ocean. He’d been to Dayton, Ohio. Twice!

  Yet Oliver and Celia were world-class couch potatoes. He simply couldn’t understand how that had happened.

  “Your show will be there after the banquet.” Dr. Navel sighed. “We have cable now. It’s recording.”

  “But it’s live TV!” Oliver had a way of crossing his arms and pouting that got right under his ­father’s skin.

  “But you won’t miss anything.”

  “But it’ll be in the past when we watch it!” Oliver­ complained. “It’ll have already happened.”

  “So it’ll be like time travel!”

  “Dad, it’s not the same,” Oliver said. Explaining culture to his father was impossible. He had too many college degrees in anthropology.

  “Just be patient, Oliver,” said Celia. Her brother could be so annoying.

  Oliver turned to his sister, shocked. Why was she suddenly on their dad’s side? She was supposed to be on his side. They were twins! She was supposed to want to go home and watch TV and complain about explorers. She was not supposed to stay at some fancy party and make googly eyes at Corey Brandt.