Strange Tails

Squirrel was right. A pristine Aldi sprawled out from the far end of the plaza as if freshly unrolled from its parking lot wrapper. Clearly the plaza had experienced some previous altercation, but fortunately for the Aldi it avoided the fate of Dusty’s nail salon sitting next door, partly demolished, as was the probably-a-pawn shop on the other side. Their eyeless windows contrasted with the shiny and reflective grocery store window like two dim headphones wrapped around a brand-new pair of Ray Bans.

Yup, this one had promise.

Potbelly assumed the usual approach pattern: sticking to abandoned vehicles, shopping carts, and any other debris affording cover. They were never sure why, they’d never actually seen another living creature, at least not a sentient one, but it was their instinct, and their instinct had kept them not dead for some time now.

The small-ish, taupe-brown dog spotted a shopping cart made for toddlers, ornamented with red plastic fire truck parts and black plastic wheels. She wriggled underneath, sneaking forwards, slowly, and with Squirrel still clinging to her back. The wheels skipped against the tarmac making a sound reminiscent of munching crackers in a strong breeze.

Squirrel began to sing.

“You were drivin’ the getaway car, We were flyin’, but we’d never get far.”

“Shh!” scolded Potbelly.

Squirrel found himself looking through the pretend windscreen of the fire truck and experienced a pleasant desire to put one furry forearm on the glass-less side window, nod his head, and bellow out road music.

“Ridin’ in a getaway car, There were sirens in the beat of your heart.”

“Will you quit it?”

“Can’t get that song out of my head. I guess I must have … a one track mind.”

She chose not to reply.

“Come on Potbelly, throw in the scowl. What does it matter? These wheels are making so much noise we may as well be riding a lawn mower.”

“I’m pretending the wind is blowing us along. We’re undercover.”

“We’re under a fire truck. Being under a cover’d be less conspicuous. E.T. got away with it.”

“So we should find a BMX?”

“And ride it how?”

“Rear paws pedaling, front paws steering. Could work.”

“You were in a circus?”

“No, but this is starting to feel like one.”

The fire truck bumped to a halt.

“Fire drill?”

“Yep.”

Potbelly crouched to leave Squirrel enough room to drop to one side of her scrawny paunch, and then she crab-walked out the side of the fire truck and under a neighboring jeep. The rusted out, mid-2020 vehicle rested against the far-left window of the grocery store creating, on closer inspection, not only a vantage point inside the Aldi, but a small hole through its plate-glass window.

“I don’t see anything moving.”

“Forget poignant and touching. Is anything alive?”

“Nothin’s shifting about.”

“Shall we go in?”

“Be kinda pointless if we didn’t.”

“Might be dangerous. Ladies first.”

“And they say chivalry’s dead.”

“Did I mention the sanctity of my cute furry ass?”

Inside, and just a few feet from the heavily tinted window, the store quickly turned to darkness. Potbelly’s unreliable sense of smell, for a dog at least, was still keen enough to pick up the rotten fruit, the fishy pong, and the something unpleasantly tangy wafting from the deli counter.

“Thank heavens dog food lasts longer than human food,” she whispered. “It’s almost like they knew.”

“Find what you can and bring it back to the window.”

“Roger.”

Squirrel departed, and hopped up shelves to the highest point of the grocery store. His night vision was excellent. Immediately he saw his goal: a sign marked Confectionery. Leaping across the aisles and ignoring the many boxes he disturbed, in a matter of moments he was there.

“Nice,” he said, inspecting the wares. “Donut holes. Long shelf life. Hershey’s Kisses, hmm, maybe in a pinch. Reese’s Pieces, excellent, solid addition to a calorie-uncontrolled diet. Mr. Goodbar. Good. Milk Duds. Milk Duds? Cow juice married to a loser? Marketing should be fired. M&Ms, ooh! peanuts, nothing like a little paleo for your health conscious rodent. Come back to those. 100 Grand, probably a time when that was a lot of money. Cookie Dough. Twix. Snick … Hoh boy! Come to papa!”

Squirrel nuzzled into the center of the shelf, leveraging his butt against a heavy bag of Scoop Away cat litter occupying the aisle behind, and began booting off box after box of Twinkies. They formed a disheveled pile on the floor. He rubbed his hands, struck an exaggerated diving pose, and … stopped.

Something moved.

“Potbelly, that you?”

Silence.

“Hey, flea motel. What you doing in this aisle? You get lost?”

The almost imperceptible sliding motion continued for a moment, then stopped.

Squirrel’s eyes narrowed. “You better start talking sunshine else you’ll know the true meaning of a Sour Patch.”

A box of Mike and Ike rustled forward and fell with a dull thud to the floor. Then another, and another. A wheezing-whirring sound came from overhead. Squirrel’s ears pricked up as it grew closer and louder.

“Now where have I heard you before?” he said.

A brilliant light shone through the skylight, bright enough to pierce the accumulated filth upon it, before glass and dirt exploded in a noxious luminescent cloud raining down upon him. The light followed the dirt, or the other way around, Squirrel couldn’t quite tell, but the two struck the floor, with a whoomph, and then coalesced into a shimmering white ghost in the dusty gloom.

The whatever-it-was bowled out of sight, lighting up the entire back half of the store, bouncing from floor to ceiling and back down again. Whirr … Wheeze it echoed, the sound slower than the light, the one chasing the other from shelf to shelf, emptying contents across the aisles until just above Squirrel, opposite and facing him, hovering motionlessly in the air, was a huge and dirty snow globe, maybe seven-feet across, containing a tin-foil squid.

Squirrel took cover behind the Scoop Away. He peered through a sheet of cellophane wrapping that flapped loosely from a broken box of Twinkies. No, he thought, not a squid, and not in tin foil, but a creature, in some sort of silver suit. A space suit. It beat furiously on the clear dome above its … head maybe?

The whatever-it-was span free the top arc of its snow globe, and then immediately after the whole writhing mess crashed finally to the floor.

The curious item coughed and bubbled, like an underwater brass band, writhing and lashing out tentacles so furious Squirrel could barely hold onto his collapsed shelf just six feet away. He sized up a Hail Mary to the ceiling girders, crouched ready to launch, and then hesitated just long enough to be too late, finding himself buried deep under a packaging landslide.

Then just as suddenly as the confusion started, it stopped.

Amidst the landslide, Squirrel’s heart beat fast and strong. He pushed up gingerly with his scalp, periscoping through broken donut holes while licking powdered sugar from his whiskers—waste not want not—until he was peering above the small tunnel he had made.

“And what the unicycling Jehovah are you?” he whispered, though by now he had a good idea. “Potbelly, stay back,” he urged to the darkness, on hearing the unmistakable pitter-patter of her unclipped claws.

“It doesn’t smell like plants,” she answered, ignoring his warning.

“It’s not human. It’s one of them.”

“One of them what?”

“The aliens”

“Oh. Should we leave?”

Squirrel freed himself from his sugar-coated prison. “That, Potbelly, is what’s known in the trade as a bloody good idea.”

“No … please … don’t … ” wafted a small, strained voice, rising up from the dome of the stricken, space-suited creature. The way it spoke unsettled Squirrel—its words seemed to squirt into his mind like they had snuck furtively down the chimney of his skull rather than walking in through the side doors of his ears.

“No one asked you pal,” he replied, backing off.

“Please … not … the Angrothal … here.”

Squirrel set himself to run, testing his footing on an upturned pile of Tootsie Rolls, yet found himself rooted to the spot. It was that voice. It couldn’t be his politeness. Nor his bravery come to that. He paused.

“I don’t know what an angry towel is and I don’t care.”

“No … Angrothal … the alien … it’s dead … I have … for you.”

A narrow light shone dimly from what remained of the alien’s snow globe, just enough to reveal something move next to the head of the whatever-it-was; the Angrothal, apparently. A tiny shape crawled out, or at least dragged one half of itself using the other half. Squirrel perched on the edge of his calorific deluge and peered closer. He saw a spider.

“Are you kidding me?” he said.

“I have a message. Don’t … think … going … to make it.”

There was that voice again, materializing in his head like it was on a Star Trek away mission. He felt queasy.

“A talking spider?”

“You … not only one … with speech. There … others.”

“But you don’t even have a mouth.”

“You must … ”

“Don’t you, like, just have a hole to liquefy things? Sort of suck up the gooey carcass? How do you even make vowel sounds?”

“Who are you talking to?” Potbelly asked, finally locating him in the gloom. “We have to go.”

“It’s a goddamn talking spider.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Shh, shh, you will. Go on creepy boy, say something.”

“Am … in great … pain. Need … you … to … ”

“There! Did you hear it?”

Potbelly pitter-pattered the last few feet, munching on something she’d found nearby. “Still nope. Squirrel, come on.”

“Only you … only … telepathy. Please, I … ”

“Oh, he says it’s telepathy. Like with a cell phone. No wait, that’s telephony.”

“Our minds … we speak … I need … ”

Squirrel whistled. “Wow. Telepathy. You could make a fortune with that. Do you read minds? What am I thinking now?”

“Message … take message … ”

“Nope, not it. I’ll give you a clue. It’s spongy, and when you cover it in gravy it tickles.”

“Feel weak … close … need you … ”

“Squirrel! Come on!”

“You really don’t know what I’m thinking?” There was a note of disappointment in Squirrel’s voice. “I’m not sure this telepathy is all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Squirrel!”

“Potbelly, you really can’t hear this?”

“Do you have a head injury? Quick, something could be coming.”

“Spidey wants me to go down there. What do you have little fella?”

“Come … from home … world … take … message.”

“Message? Where?”

“To Coral … lane.”

Squirrel shook his head. He sat on his haunches and peeled back a Babe Ruth. “Sorry, don’t know where that is,” he chomped.

“Not … place.”

“Then I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Please! Progress … depends … come closer”

“Well—“

“Please!”

Squirrel threw away his empty wrapper, hooked a set of claws onto the pricing bar of a lone surviving shelf, and swung himself down to the floor. Despite the strangeness of that voice echoing in his head, its weak urgency drew him in. A second later he was face-to-multi-eyed-face with the ailing creature—it was pretty big, for a spider.

“Did you kill this thing?” asked Squirrel, nodding to the tin foil squid.

“Yes.”

He squinted at its head. A wide gash ran down one side and sloppy porridge leaked out.

“Did you come out of there?”

“I did … what … what had to be done.”

“Is that really a spider you’re talking to?” asked Potbelly, looming behind Squirrel’s shoulder. Light from the Angrothal’s egg-like snow globe had faded to a dim glow, but it provided just enough illumination to see.

“It’s some sort of assassin.”

“No way.”

“Yep, a small, hairy, ugly as sin little spider-ninja. So what’s your message little ninja? ’Cos we need to split, a-s-a-p.”

“Take … my leg … one … nearest you.”

“Pull you out? Sure. Haven’t trimmed the old claws in a while.”

Squirrel clamped the spider’s leg and tugged gently. “You know, if you let go of the spacesuit you’ll come out easier.”

“Will … die here. Pull.”

“Is this some sort of morbid fart joke?”

“Tear … leg … free.”

“Now that’s just gross.”

“Message … encoded … DNA … pull.”

“Isn’t there some maladjusted kid who can do this? I’m really not the leg-amputating type.”

“Please!” urged the disembodied voice.

Squirrel closed his eyes, yanked hard, and felt a brief, sinewy tear. A muffled yelp of pain blew unwelcomely into his brain.

“Now … find … Coral … lane.”

Squirrel opened his eyes and peered at the small severed limb, black and hairy like a used pipe cleaner.

“I’m going to feel a bit silly waving this around asking where Coral Lane is. How about I leave it in an envelope outside, with a sign?”

“Not know … I’m here … home … saw … must take.”

“Home? Your home? Is that where Coral Lane is?”

“Not where … who … bird … you will know.”

“You may be overestimating my powers of deduction. My specialty is the detection and extraction of high fructose corn syrup. Orienteering, not my thing.”

“East … silence … find … Coral … lane … there … ”

The spider gasped a long slow gasp, drawing in whatever breath it could.

“… there … plans to … ”

The gasp was shallow, almost imperceptible.

“… breed … change … ”

Silence.

Squirrel eyed the small, now clearly dead creature. He examined its thin, disconnected leg. He looked at Potbelly. She wagged her stump of a tail, head on one side, thoroughly confused.

“What the hell you doing, Squirrel?”

Squirrel hopped over the remains of the fallen combatants, grabbed Potbelly’s collar and swung onto her back. Changing his mind he dropped back down, took the broken box of Twinkies, removed one, embedded the spider leg along the length of its squidgy center, and then returned to his perch.

“Giddy up Potbelly. Outside. I’ll fill you in.”

They emerged from the dark cave of the Aldi into a bright sheet of sunshine. Squirrel took time to blink away the edge of a headache—was it because of that voice?—before recounting his experience to Potbelly.

She stared at him. “Coral Lane? Silence? What does any of that mean?”

“Not to mention the DOA.”

“I thought you said DNA.”

“Whatever. It was all very odd.”

“Says he who talks to insects.” Potbelly eyed him carefully. He never seemed to be the sort to lie, even though he was exactly the sort to lie. “So with this thing’s dying breath wish it chose to speak to you, of all creatures, or at least to your bonce, and plopped in it some vague instructions to find a … a what? A something?”

Squirrel shrugged. “I guess. It’s funny that it needed to breathe while ESP-ing. Does it work like normal peeing?”

“I thought you said telepathy.”

“They’re not the same thing?”

“No. You can tell because they’re entirely different words.”

“Oh.”

“With ESP you don’t talk, you just listen.”

“Not something you’d be interested in then.” Squirrel paused to look at the half-splatted Twinkie bar. “What’s worse is, I’m still hungry.”

“You ate, like, five thousand calories.”

“Exactly. Famished.”

In the ensuing silence Potbelly began to consider the information Squirrel had told her. “You know, I’ve always wondered if it was just us, alone out here,” she said. “But if what you’re saying is true then there are others. There must be. How else do you get a talking spider?”

“Some sort of ventriloquism act?”

“I don’t think telepathy is the same as ventriloquism.”

“Does it matter? Squids in snow globes, spacesuits, telepathy, ventriloquism, it might as well all be the same thing as much sense as it makes.”

“I’d never seen one before. Not actually seen one in the … well … flesh.”

“The alien?”

“Yeah.”

Potbelly looked up to the roof of the Aldi, now damaged, with dust still settling from its encounter of the third kind.

“Do you think it came from that spaceship we saw earlier?” she asked. “The spider might be a fighter of some sort. What you have in that Twinkie might be some sort of secret thing.”

“Secret thing?”

“You know, like plans or something. Important plans.”

“See, if you’d said the formula for Twinkies you’d have had me.”

“It’s probably a bit more important than that.”

“Impossible!”

“You know, if you ate something other than candy for a change you’d be a lot more reasonable and a lot less twitchy.”

“Don’t try to change me baby.”

Potbelly tutted, sighed, and gazed off at the nearby stand of carrier bag trees. Thousands of Aldi-branded streamers rustled in the breeze, blown by the wind, attached to each branch. Occasionally one would fly off like a little ghost. At least it looked like they were having fun, thought Potbelly. Squirrel joined her, looking up at them too.

“You want to climb a tree?” he asked. “I wood if you wood. We could branch out.”

Potbelly ignored him. She was thinking. Squirrel knew this to be a worrying behavior.

“You reckon this is something to do with the bipeds, don’t ya?”

She nodded.

“Hasn’t there been enough trouble already?”

She sighed again. “That’s like asking, hasn’t there been enough sky already. Or enough grass.”

“Are we having a turf war?”

Potbelly let out a long slow groan. Squirrel nudged her. “Come on girl, we have the whole world of mystery meat and tooth rot waiting for us. We’re the lucky ones, the survivors. Why upset the apple cart? Life is a big buffet, old chum.”

“But what if it’s a sign?”

Squirrel followed Potbelly’s gaze again. “Where?”

“What if we’re supposed to be involved? Is this why we’re still here? To continue the fight? To defend the planet?”

“I hate to disappoint you Potbelly, but if we’re the last line of defence, then de-fence all gone. And de-gate, and de-walls too.”

“But if a spider can bring down a spaceship, just imagine what we could do.”

“OK, let’s imagine.” Squirrel closed his eyes. “I’m three seconds in Potbelly, and you’re a small, powdery smudge. Oops, there goes me too. That was fun. Can we go now?”

“No, we should figure this out. Find this silence. Find this Coral Lane. We need a map.” She remembered an old quote that seemed to apply. “We must be the change we want to see in the world.”

“That’s fine, until the change you want to see is more toilet paper.”

“If you don’t want to help me I’ll do it alone.”

“Potbelly, the bravest thing you’ve ever did was remove a hangnail. Even then you grizzled.”

“Didn’t.”

“Did, saw you, look, this spider, whomever it was, knew what it was doing. An attack arachnid. An attacknid. It was trained. You haven’t even been to obedience class. Let’s stick with what we do. Our special training. The detection, identification, and mastication of lightweight snack items.”

“Say you’re right—“

“It is kinda my thing.”

“Say you’re right—how could we live with ourselves, knowing we’ve let down this … this hero? When the going got tough, the fluff went missing?”

“Just look at me,” said Squirrel, miming walking away. “Doing it right now. Piece of cake. All you need to know is if you see me running, keep up.”

Potbelly hung her head, growing weary of the argument. “I guess,” she said.

“Good girl?”

“And you can quit that too.”

Squirrel shivered, as if someone had walked across his grave. “It’s getting chilly. Let’s go back in, grab some goodies.”

“The sun’s gone in. Must be rain coming.” She looked up. “Oh dear, that can’t be good either.”

For the third time Squirrel followed Potbelly’s gaze to the carrier bag trees, but this time she wasn’t admiring the fluttering streamers. Something moved in line with the sun, and it cast a shadowy footprint big enough to stamp down on the whole parking lot. The something was a huge, shiny, circular, and very much revolving spaceship.

Potbelly tensed. “Don’t move,” she hissed. Slowly, she turned her head to Squirrel. He was gone. She saw him ducking under the shopping cart they’d arrived in earlier. “Damn it!” she yelled, her claws scraping hard against the asphalt until finally she joined him.

Through the non-existent rear window of the plastic fire truck they spied the ship gently descend to the Aldi. It was smaller than the one in the cornfield, less like a paper dart, less like a shark, more like a hub cap, but with a rotating center and a blinking light on top. A small hatch opened to reveal a slowly extending tube. From it poured a ray of concentrated green light.

The light sizzled as it met the asphalt. Even Potbelly could detect the rancid smell of toasted oil.

“What do we do?” she whispered.

“We have two options.”

“Aha.”

“We stay here.”

“Aha”

“Or we run away.”

“Right.”

“And so therefore … ”

“Right?”

“We do one of those.”

“You’re a tactical genius, thanks.”

“Or … ”

“Yes?”

“You run for it, and I stay here.”

“Wouldn’t I be revealing myself as a target?”

“You’d be a distraction.”

“You mean a destruction. I’m sticking with you.”

“No problem, just step off my tail.”

“Okay.”

The light beam ran to the Aldi entrance, crept above the marquee, and continued on to the hole in its ceiling. “It must be examining the crash site,” said Squirrel. “Maybe it doesn’t even know we’re here.”

A few moments later the broken body of the Angrothal drifted into view, elevated along the length of the light beam like a chicken piece along a skewer.

“Goodbye brave spider,” mumbled Potbelly. “Legend.”

“An eight leg-end.”

“Seven, don’t forget.”

“Speaking of, look. Out the side window, to your right.”

Potbelly angled her neck as best she could in the confined space. She saw a cart, a Ford Zinka, another cart, a …

“You dropped it!” she cried. “The Twinkie leg, you dropped it!”

“I panicked.”

“We have to retrieve it!”

“Once the spaceship’s gone.”

“What if it doesn’t go?”

“Wouldn’t it need to find a gas station or something?”

“I mean what if … look!”

Squirrel looked. The spaceship finished levitating its fallen soldier, yet the laser beam still shone. Slowly the green light tracked out to the parking lot. In a sweeping motion it hovered around the entrance to the Aldi, like an elephant’s trunk feeling the ground for fruit.

“It’s scanning,” hissed Potbelly.

“Oh, so you know alien technology now?”

“I have eyes, don’t I?”

“Yes you do. And me too. Attached to my head. Which is attached to my body. I am comfortable with the arrangement. So don’t get any ideas.”

“I’m going out.”

“What did I just say? You’ll be killed. Then who will I annoy?”

“This is important. I know it is.”

“But why do you care?“

Squirrel’s question was lost to Potbelly’s backside as she flipped over the fire truck and leapt, in what seemed a rather self-consciously heroic fashion, upwards, outwards, and towards the stricken Twinkie.

The light beam responded by continuing its steady methodical sweep, seemingly unaware of the selfless act occurring only thirty yards to its left.

Potbelly bounded to her target, her little paunch swinging, as a baby might in a flappy off-pink papoose. Her claws dug into the warming, softening asphalt—it was a hot day—and she harpooned to the beaten, oozing, but still furry-leg-carrying confectionery. The light beam maintained its path, and as Lady Unlucky would have it, traversed a lateral line perfectly in coincidence with her snout.

In her short life, never before had Potbelly so regretted her forebears’ millennia of feckless evolution that so irresponsibly left her without opposable thumbs.

“Where are you Squirrel?” she yelled, not looking around, unable to shift her gaze from the oncoming beam. The only sound she could hear was the soft sizzle of parking lot asphalt under the bright green beam and the occasional tweet of a bird. She edged around the Twinkie to give her peripheral vision some leftward scope. She saw Squirrel, still behind the overturned cart, waving.

She spun round again and saw the sizzle grow alarmingly close. She looked down at the Twinkie. The light from the beam reflected on the shininess of her nose. Time was up. She lapped out a pink and slimy tongue, too large for such a small terrier head, and scooped the Twinkie up whole. The tongue slid its cargo back into the saliva abyss. She gulped.

“Potbelly!” yelled Squirrel. “Run!”

Already on her way, Potbelly leapt backwards from the advancing beam just as it touched the straggliest wisp-ends of her fur, lifting her slightly, allowing her to pirouette with the grace of a hot dog falling from a concession stand, flopping her back onto the floor, facing her the other way, from where, finally, she skedaddled.

Within moments Potbelly tore past Squirrel, who in turn bounded along struggling to keep up, until they disappeared through a hedgerow, and another, and another, winding up in a nettled patch of disguised unseeability.

Somewhere in the distance the laser beam carried along its path, back and forth, entirely uninterested in proceedings.

“I think we got away with it,” wheezed Potbelly. “I did it!”

“Nabbing my Twinkie bar?” replied Squirrel, panting too, attempting to fold his stubby arms. “This’ll rank high in the world’s great achievements. Dog eats candy. Phew, we’re saved.”

“It’s like they didn’t even register us. We’re too small, maybe? Too not-human? Maybe this’ll work to our advantage.”

“Because we need an advantage? We’re cowards remember?”

“Yes, you said, you trained to be a juggler but you didn’t have the balls. But what are you telling me, you have a pressing engagement? You’re too busy?”

“With staying alive, yes! It’s pretty much filled up my entire calendar. And I’ve still hardly eaten a thing.”

Potbelly ignored his complaint, wired now, and with her snout scoping around for what to do next. “It’s alright for you,” continued Squirrel. “You’re on a sugar rush from that Twinkie.” He couldn’t help a smug smile, or his best attempt anyway, the one that made him look like he had toothache. “By the way … feels good, dunnit.”

“We have to get this Twinkie bar to Coral Lane. To the silence.”

“Hate to break it to you old sweet, but you just noshed it. The only place Mr. Twinkie is headed is your lower intestine. Not a journey I’d wish on anyone.”

“I can’t eat sugar, you know that. I’ll be constipated for days. We’ll have time to find whomever it is that needs it.”

“Again, hate to be the one breaking the news, and you may not have paid much attention to this Potbelly for delicate reasons which are highly admirable in a lady, but when that delicious mass-produced bar of gooey joy comes out the other end it ain’t gonna be so full of joy any more. I speak as a man of considerable experience. And the cargo, the spider leg, well, I’d say it now slumbers in that great spidey-parts cemetery in the sky.”

“But what about the spider, what it said to you, the message? It must be inside the leg. It must still be in there, I mean, you know, when it comes back out again.”

“Of that I am not so sure. There are some jobs a fella just leaves to the professionals.”

“Let’s hope they have some at Coral Lane.”

“And pegs for their noses. And if we can’t find this place, or if the … the thing that happens in your nether regions of doom, happens before we get there, then what?”

“Then … I’ll just have to bag it and carry it.”

“Dog scoops own poo. Now we are in unexplored territory.”

Potbelly’s breathing returned to a regular rhythm. Squirrel flopped down next to her, resting his head on her hind quarters. She looked at him. “Do you have any thoughts on what the spider meant by the silence?” she asked.

“Nope. All I know is a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single misstep. And you are about to take one.”

“It must be something to do with … with … oh, I don’t know.” Her voice trailed off. She contemplated the options.

“The absence of noise?” offered Squirrel.

“Yes, exactly.”

“So we just need to head to where there’s a complete lack of the stuff. And I know exactly where that might be.”

Potbelly raised one eyebrow. “You do?”

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“Confectionery aisle. Abandoned Giant Eagle. Must be nearby. These places are always clustered.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yes, but a hungry asshole. Wait, is that possible?”

“If you’re not going to help me, then don’t.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Should I just carry on doing what I’m doing?”

Potbelly rose. “Yeah, carry on doing what you’re doing. Nothing. I’m going to find the silence. And Coral Lane. They have to be around here somewhere.”

“Why do they have to be around here somewhere? A spaceship can travel pretty far. The clue’s sort of in the name.”

“But it crashed nearby. The spider ended up here. It’s fate.”

“The only fete I care about sells home-made muffins and chocolate.”

“Fate. F-a-t-e. Not fete.”

“Well, you say tomato, I say yeuch fruit.”

“You do what you want Squirrel. I’m going to find a map.”

“Look, I get it, you want a voyage of discovery but you can’t find one. It’s ironic, I know, but … ”

… but Potbelly listened no longer. She swished her stubby tail, put her snout in the air, turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, and trotted off in no particular direction. She encountered a wall, then turned another ninety degrees before continuing. Somewhere in the distance the spaceship had already moved on.

“Fine!” shouted Squirrel. “Be Dumbass The Wonder Dog. Just don’t come whimpering to me when you’ve been lasered into a million fur balls.”

Potbelly carried on ignoring him, only changing direction when she encountered a chain link fence, a stand of trees, a creek, and after a complete circuit, and on finding a small hole in the same chain link fence where she’d started, disappeared on through.

“Oh, Potbelly,” muttered Squirrel, watching her the entire time. Slowly he rose, pondering whether to follow. After a few minutes of annoyance he headed in the opposite direction where he damn well knew there’d be a Giant Eagle.