Cold Cereal Page 11

  Harvey crawled to the entrance of his burrow and looked out at the stars. His nose joggled at the smell of a hot dog, somewhere. A revolting whisper of chemical pork.

  “Thtupid humans and their thtupid hot dogs,” he muttered, and pulled himself out of his hole. Then he crept, wanting a hot dog, to the edge of the park.

  Biggs drove the kids to the border of Avalon Park, where he’d purchased a parking space. Biggs owned an old Citroën 2CV, a ridiculous little car made in France. It was like a curvy little clown shoe, all rust with a black top and fenders and a very earnest-looking grille. It was small by American standards, and with Biggs inside it looked like an optical illusion. Emily sat up front on the passenger side while Erno squeezed himself into the back horizontally.

  Biggs’s home, his tree, was a ten-minute walk into the park grounds. Erno trained his eyes skyward, trying to catch a glimpse of a real house somewhere up among the leaves, but he never saw a thing, even when they came to a stop at the base of a huge oak.

  “Here we are,” said Biggs, looking up.

  “It’s … it’s amazing,” said Emily. “You can’t see it at all.”

  “Thank you.”

  Erno tried not to stare, but Biggs had kicked off his custom-made shoes, and Erno could see his feet. His feet. They were like sides of cooked beef. Their knobby, curling toes splayed outward, too long, and the hair! Like little toupees.

  “Um,” said Erno, trying to prioritize all the questions he wanted eventually to ask, “how do we get up?”

  “I usually just climb,” Biggs answered, scratching his cheek.

  “I’m afraid of heights,” said Emily suddenly.

  “What?” Erno replied. “You are? I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t know either until just now.”

  “Hmm,” said Biggs. “That’s bad.”

  “I can’t go. I CAN’T GO! It’s so high.”

  “I could carry you,” said Biggs. “I could carry you both.”

  Emily let them know, by way of trembling, just what she thought of this idea.

  “I think it’s best, Emily,” said Erno. “You won’t have to even look. Here!”

  Erno removed a scarf from his bag and tied it around Emily’s head.

  “There. You’re blindfolded. You won’t even know what’s happening.”

  Emily’s trembling quieted, then shuddered to a stop. “Okay.”

  Biggs lifted Emily up in one arm, and Erno climbed onto his back as though he were getting a simple piggyback ride.

  “I’ll only be able to use one hand,” Biggs said, “so I’ll be slower than usual.”

  Erno hadn’t the chance to comment before Biggs leaped into the air. He scrambled up the trunk like a squirrel and jumped from branch to branch like an ape. This was slow?

  Emily shrieked. She was beginning to hyperventilate.

  “It’s okay!” shouted Erno. The air whooshed around them as they dipped and lurched ever upward. “He’s really good at this!”

  “Keep talking to me! Don’t stop talking!”

  “Um…”

  “Talk! Tell me a story! Sing me a song!”

  “Uh, okay … um… Rock-a-bye, baby, in the treetop. When the wind blows… Oh, um—”

  “Erno!”

  “WEEE AAALL LIIIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE! A YELL—Oh, we’re here.”

  They were. The tree house had appeared so suddenly that Erno saw it only a moment before he could touch it. It was like a great egg or cocoon, as big as a sailboat, shaped from curved branches and clever shingles that looked like dead leaves.

  It’s a nest. It’s just a big nest, thought Erno; and he began to imagine what life would be like here, huddled among the harsh twigs, probably eating bugs and going to the bathroom God knows where.

  “You go in first,” Biggs told Erno, “and help your sister.”

  “Go … in? I… I don’t see a door.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” said Biggs, and he pulled at one of the branches, indistinguishable from all the rest. A round door, cut neat as you like, swung out from the twig-egg. Inside was a sort of hall leading to the house beyond.

  This looks pretty clean, thought Erno as he took Emily’s hand to guide her inside. Biggs joined them.

  “Do we … do we light a candle?” asked Erno, realizing immediately what a dumb suggestion this was. Light a fire in a tree house?

  “Naw,” Biggs answered. “I’ll just turn on the lights.”

  He flipped a switch behind Erno’s head, and the foyer was illuminated by a warm amber glow from a glass globe overhead. More lights winked on around the corner, and a stereo on the same circuit started playing something bossa nova.

  “Is it safe?” asked Emily, still blindfolded.

  “It’s … safe,” Erno whispered to Emily. “The shag carpeting is a little thick, so watch out for that.”

  Biggs had to attend to Emily as Erno stumbled through the foyer, bewildered.

  The next room (and, apart from the kitchen, the only room) was very hard on the eyes. It was hard because this room, with its smooth curves and (fake!) wood-paneled walls seemed to have no connection to the rough tangle of limbs and twigs that formed the outside of the house. It was hard on the eyes because beanbag chairs and aquariums are not things one expects to find in a tree. It was hard on the eyes because the green carpet didn’t really go with the orange boomerang coffee table.

  “Would’ve vacuumed,” said Biggs, “if I’d known there’d be visitors.”

  “’S okay,” said Erno. “’S fantastic.”

  Emily, eyes wide-open, brushed past Erno to look out a tiny window.

  “It’s slanted upward,” she said, “so you can see the sky, but people below can’t see in.” Then she scrambled over to a metal post hanging down from the ceiling with two eyepieces like binoculars. “Is this a periscope?”

  “Yup,” Biggs agreed, scratching his jaw.

  “Sooo,” Erno said to Emily, “you’re not afraid of heights anymore?”

  “Oh, probably,” she answered with a wave. “But I can’t tell I’m high up. I can’t even tell I’m in a tree.”

  Biggs grinned and walked into an adjoining room, the kitchen. “I’ll make dinner. Get comfortable. Y’have to lay your sleeping bags out in there,’s only the one room.”

  “Where do you sleep?” asked Erno, seeing no bed.

  “In the corner, standing up.”

  “Ah.”

  Emily was busily unpacking her things. When she came upon her pajamas, she took them behind a Japanese screen made of thick rice paper. Erno went to sit by the screen.

  “Biggs lives in a tree,” he said, as though he was the only one who’d noticed this.

  “Yes,” Emily answered. “I thought he might.”

  “You thought he…? You did not!”

  Emily poked her face around the screen. She hadn’t even a hint of a smile.

  “Sure. I figured it was something like that. I mean, his listed address is a post office box, and, you know, he’s always scratching.”

  “What? Scratching? What does that have to do with anything? He just has dry skin.”

  “Hmm. That, or he’s Bigfoot.”

  “Bigfoot.”

  “Yes. Or a Bigfoot. I don’t really know.”

  Erno waited for Emily to laugh. She didn’t, so he said “What?” again, so high his voice cracked.

  Emily emerged from behind the screen, dressed in her pajamas, and sank into a beanbag chair.

  “Biggs,” she said. “Bigfoot. Get it?”

  “Oh, come on. Just because his name is Biggs—”

  “It’s more than that. He’s huge. His feet are even bigger. He’s always scratching because he shaves his fur. He never makes any noise when he walks. He can smell things happening across the street!”

  Erno didn’t like how much sense she was making. “How long have you believed this?” he asked.

  “I dunno. Since we were six or seven.”

  Erno threw his hands in the ai
r. “I can’t believe you never told me!”

  Emily crossed her arms. “I did tell you! Like, five years ago I told you! You laughed so hard milk came out your nose!”

  Erno winced, then looked down at the shag rug.

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, I figured you were kidding.”

  “Yeah,” said Emily. “I thought you might’ve. Anyway, I realized it was such a crazy idea that I’d better just keep it to myself.”

  “Have you ever asked Biggs?”

  “What, if he’s Bigfoot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course not!” Emily whispered, eyes wide with shock. “It might be rude.”

  “Dinner!” Biggs shouted from the kitchen, and they both jumped.

  Dinner was good. This was no surprise: Biggs had always been an excellent cook. There was trouble, however, in suddenly knowing that it might be Bigfoot who made you dinner, that it was Bigfoot who passed the broccoli, that it could be Bigfoot now, shouting, “Who wants SUNDAES?”

  Biggs was clearly happier than normal. Perhaps he was pleased to have the Utz kids in his home, and to be able to see them more than usual, though he seemed occasionally to catch himself smiling too hard, or laughing too loud, and stopped. Perhaps in these moments Biggs remembered the misfortune that had brought them all here. But he could barely contain himself now, scooping out the ice cream, microwaving the chocolate fudge, sprinkling the crushed peanuts. And when he presented the kids with their desserts, Erno thought, Bigfoot fixed me a sundae, and didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Bigfoot fixed me a sundae. The Loch Ness Monster cleaned my room. The Abominable Snowman knitted me a cardigan.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” he said as Bigfoot cleared the table. Erno was a little anxious about this conversation. He’d seen every inch of the tree house—there was an outdoor shower just off the kitchen, but there wasn’t any restroom.

  Biggs paused, the dishwater suddenly still. “You can’t hold it?”

  “H… Hold it? Until when?”

  “Morning.”

  Erno coughed. What happened in the morning? Maybe at midnight the car turned back into a toilet.

  “You don’t have a bathroom,” Emily said. “You work somewhere during the day and you … go there.”

  Biggs nodded. “Library.”

  “You’re a librarian?” asked Erno. “I figured you cleaned other houses … took care of other kids.”

  “Just you.”

  “Well, I have to go too,” said Emily. “And I can’t hold it until tomorrow. Did you see those Porta-Potties by the merry-go-round?”

  There were two Porta-Potties, each an antiseptic blue closet on a particularly lush patch of grass by the quiet carousel. And one of the doors was locked, which was odd. It was the middle of the night—was a vagrant in there? So Erno waited with Biggs as Emily took her turn.

  The merry-go-round looked haunted when it was dark and still. Each of the horses, the unicorn, the giant rabbit and rooster and dragon, were frozen with their necks back, their jaws open in surprise. Petrified. Or maybe they just preferred to breathe through their mouths—in spite of the Porta-Potties, a fair number of people seemed to be using the carousel for a toilet.

  Biggs sidled up. “Have something for you,” he said, and offered a small envelope. It was still sealed and bore the inscription GIVE ONLY TO ERNO in Mr. Wilson’s familiar hand. “Found it on muh fridge this morning. Stuck there with a magnet shaped like a pie. Thought it was part of a new game.”

  “That’s … weird.”

  “Yuh. Don’t even own a pie magnet.”

  “No, I mean … nobody was supposed to know where you lived, right? How’d Mr. Wilson find your tree house, much less get inside?”

  Biggs shrugged. “Known him a long time. From before he was made your foster dad. Might’ve guessed where I live.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “Goodco factory. Was taking the tour. He pulled me out of line, wanted to know all about me. But … don’t like to talk all that much.”

  Erno smiled a little at this.

  “Asked if I liked kids,” Biggs continued. “Knew some babies needed a nanny. Said yes.”

  Erno opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of folded notepaper, and a poem:

  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust

  We push and pull to fill the void

  If change is just, then change we must

  I would not see my work destroyed

  P.S. Your doctor’s a hag—

  Papa’s got a brand-new bag.

  P.P.S. Don’t show this to Emily.

  Erno stuffed the poem into his pocket and sighed. “He left a copy for Emily, I guess?”

  “No.”

  Erno frowned. No? It couldn’t be a new game if he was the only one playing it. Maybe it was something else entirely.

  Emily emerged, and Erno took her place inside the same potty. The other one was still shut tight—he wondered if somebody could be sleeping in there.

  On their return to the tree house Erno noticed Biggs glance over his shoulder a lot. Erno glanced back as well, but couldn’t figure what the big man was looking at—there was nothing behind them but a carousel and two Porta-Potties, both of their doors slightly ajar.

  IN 1991 CONGRESS LAUNCHED A SPECIAL INVESTIGATION into claims that Goodco was conducting secret experiments on human subjects. These experiments were purported to involve chemical additives that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These rumors were supported by public statements made by then Goodco vice president Paul Flanders in the fall of 1990 that the breakfast cereals of the future would “make kids smarter, and better-looking. It’s very exciting,” he continued. “We already have a kind of imitation corn that makes mice glow in the dark.” When questioned by the media, Paul Flanders attempted to clarify his statements: “They … they don’t glow much,” he told reporters. “It’s not like you could read by them or anything.” Later at a formal news conference, Flanders claimed that the whole thing had been a joke, and also that he was retiring from his position at Goodco to spend more time with his family. And indeed he was with his family when they all perished in a hydrofoil accident in March of 1992.

  If there was any truth to Flanders’s statements, it probably wasn’t Goodco’s first attempt at a chemical additive. According to anonymous sources, Goodco experimented in the sixties with a mixture that would “Make You Grow Up Big and Strong.” And it did make its subjects Big, and Strong, and a few other things besides (see Appendix XII, Humboldt County v. Goodco). The advertising department attempted to make the side effects sound like virtues:

  “Goodco cereals!” went one pitch. “They’ll make you Big and Strong and Put Hair on Your Chest!”

  “Goodco! The cure for baldness is here … in a fun-to-eat cereal!”

  But it was eventually agreed that while people want thick, luxurious hair on their heads, they don’t necessarily want it all those other places (see fig. 4.13), and so the idea was scrapped.

  As was the 1991 Congressional investigation, after the lead investigator himself remarked, on camera and while making a rude gesture, that he considered all accusations against Goodco to be “bollocks.” He then abruptly resigned from public office and moved to a goat farm in Pennsylvania.

  CHAPTER 18

  Erno slept fitfully. In his dreams he worked the assembly line at Goodco, watching a shuddering steel bin fart puffed corn through a spray of artificial sweetener.

  He was the only person in the factory. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else there.

  In his dream the corn chute clogged. It continued to tremble angrily as Erno reached his hand up into the nozzle to pull free a small dead rabbit. Its eyes were shut tight, its fur dirty with bits of cereal and … something else. He set it aside and reached into the bin for another. Then a third rabbit, and a fourth—it was a bad clog. Then he heard a noise.

  There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else there. Someone or something was sneaking
around the factory.

  This part of the factory looked like Erno’s house. Which was in a tree. Something was creeping through the tree, creeping through his house. Then he heard a voice, and he woke.

  It took Erno a moment to remember where he was: in a sleeping bag next to Emily, in a living room in a tree house. As he remembered, he realized he could still hear the voice from his dream. It was Biggs’s low bass, rumbling across the floor. Maybe the big man was having a weird dream, too.

  Erno unsheathed himself from the sleeping bag and followed the voice to the kitchen, at which point it fell abruptly silent. Erno entered the dim kitchen to find Biggs watching him from the back door. Alone.

  “Can’t sleep?”

  “I had a weird dream,” Erno told him. “Were you talking to someone?”

  Biggs might have turned his head just slightly and averted his eyes. It was dark. “To an invisible rabbit-man,” he finally answered.

  Erno smiled. “Heh. Okay. Well, I’m going back to bed,” he said, and he did.

  The night passed. It was always difficult for Erno to sleep well in a strange place, and this place was stranger than most. More difficult still is trying to sleep when there’s a bird pecking your forehead.

  “Oh, you scared it,” said Emily when Erno lurched awake. He saw a sparrow flit away and join a crowd of other birds snapping at a pile of seed in the foyer. The front door was cracked open, and Emily was sitting nearby, eating cereal.

  “There are birds in the house,” said Erno, his head full of sleep. “There are birds in the house. Does … does Biggs know you let them in?”

  “I didn’t. Biggs feeds the birds every morning.”

  “Because if he doesn’t they peck him in the head?”