Read Online Squiggle by B.B. Wurge - Free Book Online

outside to play,” Toby said. “I’ll be back before bedtime.”
    As soon as he was out the door, he slipped around to the side of the building and picked up the briefcase. He didn’t need the string anymore, but he wrapped it up and stuck it in his pocket in case it should come in handy again some day. The sidewalk was still crowded, even though it was after dinnertime and dark already. He walked quickly for about five blocks, then turned and went through a maze of side streets. Finally he stopped at a metal door in the back wall of a building. It looked like a janitor’s door, or an emergency exit. There was no sign over it but painted in the center of the door itself, in bright red paint, was an eye with long eyelashes. Toby opened the door (it was unlocked) and hurried inside.
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17
    Squiggle could see almost nothing. At first she put her eye to the hole in the briefcase, but it made her dizzy to look at the scenery bouncing and swinging past and she had to look away. The hole let in sound, however, and so she could hear quite well. She heard a metal door squeaking open and banging closed again. Then she heard a high snuffly voice, like an old man with a turnip stuffed up his nose.
    â€œTerrance!” said the voice. “What a surprise! What an honor! What a wonderful. . . . You’ve brought me something, I see? Have you?”
    â€œHow are you Mr. Sclera?” Toby said, in a raised tone of voice that you use when talking to someone who is going deaf. He lifted the case and set it on a hard surface. Squiggle thought it must be on a counter. She peered out of the hole. At first she couldn’t tell what she was looking at; this is because what she saw was so strange that she didn’t quite believe it at first. But the more she looked, the more she seemed to see a fish tank full of swimming eyeballs. Each eyeball had a tail sticking out the back end of it, like a long tapered whip. The eyeballs swam slowly about the tank by wiggling their tails. A sign taped to the side of the tank said, “$15 each!!” She guessed that she was in a very unusual kind of a store.
    â€œWhat’s in the case Tony? What’s there, what do you have?” Mr. Sclera said. Squiggle could hear somebody’s hands running eagerly over the outside of the case.
    â€œNothing much, Mr. Sclera,” Toby said. “Only a few supplies.”
    â€œTools of the trade, is that it?” the snuffly voice said.
    â€œYou might say that,” Toby said. “My dad packed it. It’s got a vacuum-sealed bottle, and the finest dental instruments, and sterile cotton, and a special book of instructions.”
    â€œIs that all, Tommy?” the voice said. “What are you bringing it here for? When you came in the door, I said to myself, he’s got a trade. He’s found a hazel, or a green speckled. And he’s come to trade it. But it isn’t that? You don’t have a nice new eyeball for me? Just a few silly instruments?”
    â€œSorry, Mr. Sclera, not this time. But I need a favor.”
    â€œA favor?” the voice said, suspiciously. “What do I get out of it? What sort of a favor?”
    â€œI need to get this case to a business partner of my dad’s who lives in Paris. It’s terribly important.”
    â€œBusiness partner?” the voice said, sounding more and more suspicious. “Who’s the partner? What kind of business? What kind of favor is this? And what do I get out of it?”
    â€œI’ll tell you that, Mr. Sclera. This man who lives in Paris—I can’t tell you his name, because I don’t know it, and he keeps it secret—he, well, how can I say this? He thinks he’s found a. . . .” Here Toby’s voice sank very low, and he whispered, “He’s found an eye with a pentagonal pupil.”
    There was a silence, and then the snuffly voice screamed in a high, quavery way that alarmed Squiggle