HOW DARK AND STORMY WAS IT? : ‘Slug-Ra’
I never thought it was any big deal to play with garden slugs. At least I didn’t eat them like Laura Palmer did.
I only let them crawl all over me and leave their pretty white slime trails up and down my arms. It looked just like jewelry.
Besides, when all the other kids hate you, you have to make friends somehow, and garden slugs never tease you or beat you up. They just crawl and slime, crawl and slime.
When I woke up that first morning and the slug-slime was still on my arms, I thought I must have gone to bed the night before without washing up carefully enough.
“That’s weird,” I thought to myself. “I’m pretty sure I washed up really well. Mom would kill me if she found out how I spend my after-school hours.”
My mom thought I was in that stupid science club. “Sure,” I sneered. “Who wants to join their dumb club anyhow?”
When the bell rang at 3:10 every day I would walk right past their meetings and go out to the old school garden that nobody ever used, and gather all the slugs I could find and line them up behind the tool shed and tell them about my problems. I’d give my slugs names. Sometimes funny names like Sluggo or Speedy, but sometimes angry names like Kid-Killer or Hate-Head. I’d pretend they could understand me and would talk back to me.
Together, we’d plan how to get even with all my enemies--especially Judd Crespy. I would command my slug army to slither through his bedroom window and slime him in the night. Even in his ears and nose. I’d have them crawl into his refrigerator and slime all over every bit of food. Then in real life I’d put the slugs on my arms and fingers, and strut around the garden like Slug-Ra, ruler of all the slugs. After a while I wouldn’t feel so lonely, and I’d gently put the slugs back into the plants and walk slowly home. I never let anyone see Slug-Ra. Ever.
By the third morning that I woke up with slime on my body, I knew that it wasn’t because I’d forgotten to wash. Something peculiar was happening to me in my sleep. I imagined that my slug friends were finding me while I slept and were crawling all over me. Maybe they missed me. But there were never any slugs in my bed. Just slime.
By the fourth morning it was starting to dawn on me. When I awoke all covered in slime. I saw a thick trail that led from my bed, across the carpet, and over to the windowsill. I leaned out of my second story window and saw a yellowish film oozing down the side of the house and disappearing into the bushes.
That’s when I realized what was happening, and I felt sick to my stomach. I had read plenty of stories about the Werewolf, a tormented human who turns into a wolf at the full moon, but I was worse that a werewolf . . . I was a were-slug.
