Derwood, Inc: Chapter 1 and 2
From DERWOOD, INC., including The Attack of the Fifty-Ton, Mile-Long, Giant Killer Octopus.
Chapters 1 and 2
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Chapter One
How Everything Started
Peabody, Wisconsin, 1985
A class trip to a button factory may not be tons of fun, but in my book, it's better than math class any day. And this one class trip had its surprises. For one thing, while the thirty–two of us and Miss Creason were waiting inside the lobby of the big old building, we could hear people arguing. It seemed like somebody had forgotten to announce the seventh–grade class of Peabody Christian School.
Then this lady came out of an office. She was wearing a white coat over her clothes.
"Welcome to Peabody Buttons, Incorporated," she said, like nothing was wrong. She smiled at us. "Boys and girls, I'm your tour guide. Walk this way, and please keep your hands and clothes at a safe distance from the machinery."
All of us girls scrunched our skirts in with our hands, and the class followed her out into the factory. At first it was fun to watch the big automatic presses going up and down and in and out, but I got a little thirsty, so I looked around and spotted a water fountain over in a corner. I decided to get a drink.
I leaned over the old cooler, swung my hair out of the way, and took a long drink. Then above the water fountain I noticed a production chart on the wall, and I tried to figure out how to read it. When I turned around to go back , I didn't see my class.
At first I felt scared, like I had been left behind, but then I decided to cut through some of the alleyways between the machines. I thought I would have a better chance of spotting my group.
I tried that for a while, but I got lost. I had just read a book about some guy stranded in the desert who had eaten crayons and flour paste while waiting to be rescued. So I was wandering around in this big building, telling myself I would have to spend my life eating button paste (if there is such a thing) to stay alive until somebody found me. And then all of a sudden our tour guide came tearing around the corner, furious.
I was about to tell her how glad I was to see her, when she picked me up by my coat lapels so that my toes were off the floor, and she pinned me against the wall. I'm not a really big girl, but still, she must have been strong. Her elbows knocked the breath out of me. "What are you doing snooping around here?" she asked. "How did you get away from the others?"
I was scared, especially with her angry breath in my face and her arms pinning me into the wall. "I got a drink," I gasped.
Her eyes stared down into mine, and she looked so cruel and angry that my fear came up in my throat, and I yelled for help. Just as quickly she dropped me back onto the floor, and my teacher, Miss Creason, came around the corner. Miss Creason was stout and strong, and she coached girls' athletics. I was glad to see her.
"Here's your lost girl," the tour guide said, her fierceness turning to sternness. "I caught her trying to play with one of the machines and pulled her back just in time."
"Penny!" Miss Creason started to scold me.
I could have spoken up right then, but I was so scared I didn't say a thing. I just let my teacher reprimand me. But then when she saw how frightened I was, she must have thought she'd been too harsh. She just sort of fussed a little more, patted my hand , and brought me back to the group. But all through the rest of the miserable tour, I felt that tour guide's eyes on me. I was never so glad to get out of a place as I was to get out of that factory. And I was still so scared that I just tried to push everything out of my mind. I didn't tell anybody–not even my brother Jack, and I usually end up telling Jack just about everything. I didn't want to think about that woman and how cruel she looked.
It wasn't until months later that I found out who she was.
Chapter Two
The Attack of the Fifty–ton,
Mile–long, Giant Killer Octopus
That winter my dad took us up to spend weekends at a cottage on Big Sand Lake. One of his clients had rented it to him.
The six of us spent the first morning huddled at the front window, looking out at the wasteland of snow and ice and wishing we were back in Peabody.
"If we go out there," my brother Jack whispered, "our toes will freeze and turn black and drop off one by one."
"They will not," I whispered fiercely.
"They will too. It happened to this guy I read about. He crashed his plane in the snow, and then his toes dropped off one by one."
"Is that make–believe?" my littlest sister wanted to know.
"Yes," I quickly reassured her. "It is not!" Jack exclaimed.
"It is too, even if you don't think it is. You got the story wrong."
"Are there polar bears up here?" Freddy asked. Freddy was five.
"Let's watch and see," I suggested. "And let's all be quiet."
My mom and dad had this thing about fresh air. They were always pushing us out into it. At the moment the air was a little too fresh for me, so I hoped if we were quiet they wouldn't notice us.
For a while we watched the barren snow and imagined polar bears sneaking around the cottage, lurking behind drifts, watching and waiting. Then suddenly the quiet was disturbed by a scratching sound on the door. Freddy squealed.
I said, "Shhhhh!" really loud, and Mom came to the front room and opened the door. She let in Sherwood Derwood, our polar cat, Sherwood meowed and started picking bits of ice from her paws with her tongue and teeth.
"Why aren't you outdoors in the fresh air?" Mom asked. "I was just going out myself."
Caught again! We struggled into our coats and scarves and went out on the porch. We huddled around the window, this time looking in. Dad came out, bundled up in his coat and hat.
"Nobody, but nobody is up here," he said grandly with a sweep of his arm. "Now for once the Derwood clan has some place big enough to hold them all! I want you k ids to work together on Derwood, Incorporated."
Derwood, Incorporated was Dad's idea. Since almost everybody in my family is a half brother or half sister to everybody else, he wanted us to feel close. That was why he was always calling us Derwood, Incorporated.
It takes some figuring to work out just who is who in the family. My father and mother were married in New York. I was born first, and my brother Jack came a year later. But when I was five years old, my mother died in a car accident, and then my father moved to Wisconsin.
That was where he later remarried a widow with a four–year–old girl, Jean. Jean became my first sister. Dad adopted her so that she could have our same name.
Then my father and my second mother had three more children: Freddy and Renee–the twins–and Marie. That makes six, and that's Derwood, Incorporated.
"You have the whole beach and the woods for hiking and exploring," Dad told us.
"How nice," Jack said politely. "And it's only twenty degrees out here!"
Dad caught the sarcasm, but he was feeling too expansive to comment on it. "Yup, only twenty degrees. Perfect weather, once you've been warmed up by a little exercise. Let me show you, Jack." He handed him a snow shovel. "Go dig out the car. And just remember, I can always find something to keep you warm if it gets too cold for you."
Defeated , Jack shuffled over to the car. Although we had arrived only the night before, the poor car was almost buried.
"Any other comments?" Dad asked cheerfully.
"Oh, noooo, Dad!" the five of us chimed in.
"Good. I'll give you five minutes to start enjoying the great outdoors–or else."
"Or else what, Daddy?" Freddy asked innocently. Freddy was too young to understand hints of possible judgments to come.
"Or else you'll all be shoveling out the state of
Wisconsin!" Dad said, picking him up and swinging him.
"Now, everybody into the snowdrifts! I'll play with you as soon as I shovel a walk for your mother."
We tumbled down off the porch in a hurry. Pretty soon the five of us were building a snow fort while Jack shoveled out the car.
Dad finished the walk about a half hour later. How do you like the weather now, son?" he called.
"Why, it's glorious, Dad, just glorious!" Jack called back. "I feel like a new man already!"
"I knew you'd like it after you thought about it a while." Dad brought the shovel he'd been using on the walk and gave Jack a hand with the car.
The first weekend was a success, but it became clearly understood that we were all going to hate the cabin unless we worked together on liking it. Mom and Dad had snowball fights with us, and we even checked out library books on snow sculpture. After three weekends of struggle and failure, we managed to build a halfway believable snow gorilla. Just before we left that Sunday morning, we all posed around it while Dad took a time exposure picture. Jack even put Sherwood on the gorilla's shoulder. We knew that the sun and wind would probably destroy our work of art before Derwood, Incorporated returned to Sand Lake next Friday.
* * * * * * *
It was on a dreary, barren weekend that Jack invented the fifty–ton, mile–long, giant killer octopus stories. He and I built a bonfire on the beach late that Saturday afternoon just as the sky was clearing and night was falling. When we were all huddled close, he began his story.
"Once upon a time, last month, a mad scientist up the street from us–"
"Is this make–believe, Jack?" Freddy whimpered.
"Yes, it’s make–believe, Freddy. Come sit on my lap," I said.
"Anyway, up the street–"
"The street here, or the street back in Peabody?" Jean asked.
"Back in Peabody, of course," Jack told her. "The big white house on the corner, the one with the windows blocked up with cardboard. Anyway, a mad scientist lived there. He had no hair on top of his head, but all around the sides, it stuck out like bristles. His eyes bulged out like this." Jack pulled the lids under his eyes down. "And his teeth stuck out like this." His upper lip curled up. "And he watches out a little hole in the cardboard over the windows." Jack rolled his eyes back and forth. "He's lookin' for little boys and girls–"
Freddy squealed at Jack and hugged me.
"This guy's supposed to be a mad scientist, not an ogre," I snapped. Creepy stories still made me think back to that factory and the angry tour guide.
"Right," Jack agreed. He went on. "So one day, this traveling salesman knocks on the door: BAM! BAM! It echoed and echoed, like the hallways in that big old house went on forever. BAM! BAM! Bam! Bam! bam! bam!
"And the mad scientist comes walking down the dark steps: creeeeeeak! creeeeak! creeeeeeak! And he says, ‘Who’s there?' And the traveling salesman says, 'Joe Schmoe, the traveling salesman.'
"And the scientist says, 'What are you selling?' "And the salesman says, 'Tropical fish!'
"So the scientist lets him in–creeeeeeak!–and then closes the door behind him, and ever... so softly ... he locks it ... click! Then he says to the salesman, 'Pardon me, but what's your hat size?'
"'That's awful personal, why do you ask?' says the salesman.
'"Oh, I was just wondering. I've been doing some brain research upstairs in my laboratory. You have an interesting head, that's all. I suppose there's a brain inside–a nice brain, I mean.'
"'I suppose there is,' says the salesman. 'Could I interest you in some fish? I have some right here in a tank in my briefcase.'"
Jack added a few sticks to the beach fire. The afternoon light was failing, and the sky was nearly clear now.
I wanted to suggest singing or a game or something, but I knew the little kids wouldn't let Jack stop before the story was ended. Soon he continued.
"So the scientist says to the salesman, 'Please sit down,' and they go into the living room. Cobwebs are hanging down, and old wallpaper is peeling off in long strips. The room is dark, too.
'"What sort of fish would you like to see?' asks the salesman in a shaky voice, as he notices the eerie room. "'Well, I'm much more interested in your head, Mr. Schmoe,' the scientist tells him.
'"Oh dear, I couldn't sell you my head,' the salesman says. 'You see, I don't get a commission on that. But I do have a very nice blowfish here–from off the coast of Africa.'
"But now he's scared. He's thinking of how the scientist locked that door. And then the scientist starts taking operating stuff out of his pocket. 'Why, it wouldn't hurt a bit,' the scientist says.
'"You really don't want to buy a blowfish, do you?' the salesman asks. And he laughs real nervously.
'"Why no, l don't. I've caught something bigger than a fish,' the scientist says, and stands up, laughing. He walks towards Joe–creeeeak, creeeeak, creeeeak! But Joe's got a good head on his shoulders, which he plans on keeping. He pulls a baby octopus out of his briefcase and flings it right at the scientist: SPLAT! The octopus lands on his shoulder and wraps its legs around his neck, four on each side." Jack suddenly let out a shriek. Everybody huddled closer to me.
"That's how the scientist screamed! Joe runs to the door, but he can't unlock it. So he runs up the stairs to the scientist's laboratory, and he slings his briefcase through one of the covered windows–SMASH! And he sees trees right by the window, so he squiggles through, climbs down a tree, and gets away. And he has his company bill the scientist for all the fish he lost when he threw his briefcase out the window. The End."
"What happened to the scientist?" Jean asked.
"He finally pulled the baby octopus off and washed it down the sink. Ah! But little did he know! The octopus drank up all the radioactive chemicals the scientist had dumped down the drain. It got washed into the pipes, and its big round head began to pulse and throb: brum brum–brum brum–boom boom–Boom Boom BOOM BOOM! And it grew and grew down in the pipes–"
By this time Renee was in my lap, too. Marie had her arms around me, and I had one around her, and even Jean was huddled up against me. They felt pretty secure all scrunched up on me, but I could hardly breathe. And my legs were falling asleep. It was nearly dark by now.
"And it kept growing and growing," Jack went on, "and swimming around the water system of Peabody, Wisconsin, and nobody really knows much about it. But every now and then .. . when somebody's leaning over a sink brushing his teeth ... a long, thin octopus arm slides up the drain–"
Freddy started crying.
"No it doesn't. No it doesn't, Freddy," Jack said. "It really doesn't."
"It's just a story, Freddy," I told him. "Jack told you at the beginning that it was a once–upon–a–time story." But Freddy was crying in earnest, and the beach had become dark and eerie, so we put out the fire and trudged back to the cottage.
"This is wonderful!" I muttered. "I know where everybody will sleep tonight!" And I glared at Jack.
"See how pretty the stars are, Freddy?" Jack said. Freddy sniffed. "Is Orion's Belt out tonight?"
"Yes." Jack swung him out of my arms, and I picked up Marie. Jack showed us the constellations to calm everybody down.
By the time we got home for supper, Jack had managed to get the little ones calmed down, but they were tired out and clinging to either Jack or me like Velcro on poodle fur.
"That’s what I like to see," Dad said, beaming at Jack and me as we entered. "Everybody having a nice time together."
By dinner time everybody was cheerful, and later I helped Mom put the three younger ones to bed. Nobody said anything about the fifty–ton, mile–long, giant killer octopus, but sure enough, not long after I had gone to bed, Jean came in. "Hi, Penny. Are you lonely?"
"No," I told her. She looked down. "Oh."
"But I guess you are." I knew what she was up to. Hopeful, she looked up.
"Yeah."
"Well, come on. We may as well get this over with." She climbed into the other side of the bed.
A minute later, Marie came in. Being the youngest, she took the direct approach by crying as soon as she walked through the door and climbing into my arms. "I'm scared!"
"Okay, okay, you can sleep in here." After all, she was only four and not really big enough to handle a killer octopus.
Freddy and Renee, the twins, came tearing in as soon as they heard Marie being allowed in. "We had a bad dream; we had a bad dream!" they wailed.
"Well, get in."
I finally got everybody settled, tucked in, kissed, and comfortable (everybody except me). "I'm glad it's a queen–sized bed," I mumbled. "We've got almost everybody in the whole castle." Just as I lay back down with Marie's elbows in my side and Renee's cold heels in my shins, I heard a long, low, almost musical sound coming from Jack's room. He was snoring peacefully.
This started the reign of the fifty–ton, mile–long, giant killer octopus. Every Saturday afternoon my brother and sisters begged Jack for another story, and every Saturday night at the cottage, guess who had two–thirds of the family sleeping with her?
Jack finally did me a favor by telling the kids that the giant octopus loved sugar more than anything else. People who understood that little–known fact could get rid of the octopus by giving it a few tablespoons of sugar. Soon even Marie felt pretty safe as long as she knew there was sugar in the house to give the octopus in case it should turn out to be real.
Meanwhile, Jack moved his octopus headquarters from Sand Lake to the house in Peabody. It was Jack's job to fill up the bathtub for Freddy's bath. One week night, he tied a cold sponge to the drain in the bathtub. Freddy stepped in that night, and Jack screamed, "Oh no! The giant killer octopus! It's coming up the drain!" just as Freddy's bare foot touched the sponge.
Freddy almost didn't live to be six. He let out a yell and tore down the stairs into the kitchen.
"I–I was just–just kidding!" Jack was gasping with laughter as he followed. "Come back, Freddy. It was a sponge!"
I'd run into the kitchen after Freddy, but I was just in time to see him dart out the other door. He had the sugar bowl.
"Freddy, wait!" I yelled. Too late. He ran into the downstairs bathroom, and I heard the toilet flush. I ran in just in time to see Freddy, clad like Tarzan in his towel, holding the now–empty sugar bowl, looking at us with satisfaction. "I sent it half a bowl. Is that enough?"
A person might think that Jack was cured after all of that, but soon he was ready for someone else to make contact with the fifty–ton, mile–long, giant killer octopus. Only now he knew better than to do it to the three younger kids.
The next Monday morning while he was at the kitchen sink running the water, I came in to get some water for Mom's tea. "Why are you filling the sink so full?" I asked.
"Huh?" He snapped on the light above the sink and looked down. By habit my eyes followed his when he glanced down into the sink.
I screamed at the sight of a green tentacle coming up out of the drain. Next thing I knew I'd flung the teakettle into the water. Jack and I both got splashed, but he was bent over laughing and didn't care. "Man, did you jump! I've never seen anyone jump so high in my life!"
I felt like a fool–after all, I knew the octopus was make–believe. I lifted out the kettle and looked down to see what had tricked me. Jack had fastened a long, narrow spinach leaf to the drain plug. Floating upright in the water, it looked like the tip of a giant tentacle.
"Jack!" I yelled.
"Oh, Penny, it was so funny! C'mon, can't you take a joke? I only did it because I thought you would laugh, too."
"You did it because you thought I would fall for it.
He was apologetic and charming at the same time.
"Let's play the joke on Jean. You get her over by the sink and do what I did to you."
"And what are you going to do?" I asked.
"Hide in the cabinet under the sink and make gurgling noises like an octopus coming up the drain."
"Hmmm, well, okay." I should have known better. Why did I let Jack talk me into things?
Jean would be coming in any minute to set the breakfast table. Jack quickly crawled into the cabinet and shut the doors. I stood over the sink, whistling as I pretended to clean the teakettle. Jean came in and pulled some plates down from one of the cabinets above the kitchen counter. As I watched, I wondered what would happen if she dropped them when she saw the octopus feeler. But then I decided that even Jean couldn't be that jumpy.
"Penny," she said to me, "why are you washing the teakettle before breakfast?" Her eyes glanced at the sink, and she saw the tentacle. Just then, Jack reached out from the cabinet and grabbed Jean's ankle. He was wearing one of Mom's rubber gloves.
"Yagh!" Jean shrieked. I learned right then never to underestimate Jean’s jumpiness. The whole stack of plates flew straight up and came straight down. Somehow I caught them before they hit the edge of the sink.
"Daaaaaaad!" Jean yelled. I could hear Jack in the cabinet, laughing his heart out. Ha ha. I just realized I had been stupid twice. Now we were both going to get into trouble over his octopus jokes.
