Zeuglodon Read Free

called him “old son,” which Hasbro very much appreciated. It seemed to me that Mr. Asquith was way too pleasant to take sides with someone like Ms Peckworthy.
    But after Mr. Asquith left, Uncle Hedge called us together for another confab. He told us that we must take Ms Peckworthy very seriously, and not do anything that she could write down in her notebook. Thank goodness, he said, that she didn’t know about our run-in with the Creeper, because that was just the sort of thing that Aunt Ricketts would seize upon to prove that we were living in an unsafe environment. We didn’t want another visit from Mr. Asquith, Uncle Hedge told us, no matter how nice he seemed to be. He said this in a way that made even Brendan look worried.

Chapter 2

    Uncle Hedgepeth, the Guild of St. George, and the Rest of Us
     
    It was Perry’s suggestion that I start this story with rousing action, which is what I tried to do. He says a reader wants some excitement right off, but I say that although that might be true, it’s both necessary and polite to introduce oneself, and that’s what I’m going to do now, because so far I’ve mostly neglected it. You already know about Hasbro, who like I said has some bulldog in him and several other noble things. You also know something about Ms Peckworthy and Aunt Ricketts, although the less you know about Aunt Ricketts the better. I wish I knew less about her.
    At first I thought maybe I should let Perry write all this down, because besides being my cousin, he’s a writer and I’m not. I’m a scientist, although the science teacher at my school, Mr. Collier, says I have too much imagination, but that I might be a scientist when I grow up and forget what I think I know. I say that if a person forgets what she thinks she knows, it’s hardly worth growing up at all. Mr. Collier called that “Peter Pantheism,” but I don’t believe in isms, even if they involve Peter Pan.
    My name is Kathleen, which is an Irish name. Uncle Hedge calls me Kath sometimes, but mostly he calls me Perkins, which is what Perry and Brendan call me, too, and it’s the name I prefer. I’m eleven years old and I’m what is called a cryptozoologist, which is a scientist who studies legendary animals, although the only reason they’re legendary is that they don’t appear very often. But how often does a comet appear? Most of the time it’s out wandering around in space, which is the same with so-called legendary animals, which wander around in the ocean, or in the high mountains, or in some other very distant and lonesome place, like Scotland, and you can hardly blame them. That’s why I carry the evidence camera. You never know when a giant octopus or a mermaid is going to rise up out of the ocean.
    What do I look like, you ask? I’m not very tall, and I have dark hair that I keep short because it’s easy. I have brown eyes, and although Brendan won’t admit it, I’m taller than he is, if you measure carefully and he doesn’t cheat. And I’m older too, by more than a year. In three months I’ll be twelve, and he’ll still be ten, which seems to bother him. But he’s young, and so maybe he’s sensitive. Brendan was named after the great Irish navigator who came to America in a small boat with nothing but a telescope and a fishing pole and who is now a Saint. (I’ll tell you more about Brendan some other time, when he’s not looking over my shoulder to see what I’m writing down, which is rude if it goes on for very long, which it very definitely has.)
    I was named after Kathleen Ricketts, who is also our Aunt Ricketts. Sometimes I wish I were named after Joan of Arc instead. When Joan of Arc went off to war, someone said very rudely that she should stay home to cook and sew, and she told them that there were already plenty of women to cook and spin, which showed a great deal of spirit. Of course later they burned her at the stake, but probably not just because of her comment about cooking and