Escape from the Drooling Octopod! by Robert West

one. Suddenly she was no longer plodding up the tree, but practically dancing. Some of her grandma’s red bougainvillea had wound itself into the tree. Nothing was better than the colors and smells of spring. Best of all, though, were the bright green leaves that waved to her an enthusiastic greeting in the breeze. A gentle cloud of spinning white dandelion seeds also glided by, each sparkling in the evening sunlight. For a moment, she felt like she was in a fairyland where nothing could possibly go wrong.
    Just as she plopped down on the wooden platform next to the tree ship’s door, she saw a patch of pink flapping in the distance. She pulled some branches back for a better look and then gave a heavy sigh — one with a little “eek” in it.

    A few minutes later, the elevator creaked to a halt next to the ship. Beamer and Ghoulie locked the elevator into place, tossed a few yellow-white kernels of popcorn into their mouths, and turned toward the ship. Scilla was sitting, hunched down next to the door, elbows on knees, chin in hands, looking like she was awaiting the end of the world.
    â€œHey, what’s up?” Beamer asked her as he crunched his popcorn.
    She pivoted her head sideways on her hand. “Look for yourself — that away,” she said, cocking a thumb north-ward, up the street.
    Beamer and Ghoulie stopped crunching at the same time and stared. Beamer handed the bowl to Ghoulie and crossed over to push away the branches. Yep, sure enough, there it was — a flag — a pink flag — waving on the roof of Alana’s house. Talk about kicking the joy out of the day; even the leaves seemed to sag.
    Beamer sank down next to Scilla. “Now what do we do?” he asked morosely.
    â€œI don’t think we have much choice,” groaned Scilla. “We promised!”
    â€œHey, we didn’t say the word promise , did we?” Ghoulie argued. But then he saw the look on their faces. “Okay, okay, so we gave her the idea we’d be back. Uh . . . maybe we can keep our promise later,” he said as he sat cross-legged facing them. He tossed a popcorn kernel into the air, caught it on his tongue, and snapped it into his mouth like a frog catching a fly.
    â€œYou know what’ll happen if we don’t visit her,” grumbled Scilla.
    â€œOh, right,” said Ghoulie with a wince, “I almost forgot — more pink dreams.”
    â€œWell, we might as well get this over with,” said Beamer as he stood up.
    Beamer launched up to the nearest branch. “One thing we gotta figure out on the way over,” he said, “is how to play without staring at her face all the time.”
    â€œYeah, she’ll suspect something is wrong if we keep doin’ that,” Scilla agreed. Now that she was more familiar with the route, she skipped from branch to branch like a tree fairy — light as a feather.
    â€œProbably the best approach,” said Ghoulie, “would be to concentrate on what we’re doing and look at her only when we have to.”
    â€œShe’ll notice if we avoid looking at her,” said Scilla, shaking her head.
    â€œThen we’d better come up with a picture in our heads that we can substitute for her real face,” Beamer said as he lofted himself up into the corridor they would travel through the trees.

    Alana heard them land on the balcony and rushed to greet them. Right away they practiced looking straight at her and smiling while imagining somebody else’s face. Beamer used the face of Lisa from the Simpsons — well, they were both blonde, anyway.
    One thing was for sure — Alana was no Cinderella. Her room was actually three rooms — a bedroom, a bathroom, and a huge playroom. It wasn’t as big as Ghoulie’s play-room, but it had everything a girl could want — dolls and stuffed animals, books, art supplies, a computer, more glass figures — kept out of harm’s