foot, it was grabbing him by the foot, and it was dragging him towards the edge of the dock.
The photographer threw up his hands and whirled in a dramatic circle. “How am I supposed to work like this? I’m a professional! I want to work with professionals!”
Juju covered the mouthpiece of his phone, not even looking in Bug’s direction. “Bug!” he yelled. “Quit fooling around!”
Bug looked up, a wild and not very regal expression on his face. “I’m not fooling around. Something’s got me, something—”
His last words were cut off as the rope that was truly a tentacle jerked Bug right off the dock. He barely had a second to register that he was in the water before the tentacle was pulling him under the water, into the greyish murk, deeper and deeper. Bug flailed wildly and his lungs burned. His mind screamed silent, hysterical things like WHAT IS IT? and WHAT’S GOT ME? and I’M IN THE WATER!!! I CAN’T FLY AWAY IN THE WATER!!! Whatever held his ankle had him in an iron grip as it dragged him down, down, down.
And then, suddenly, it stopped.
Bug had the sensation of dozens of questing fingers running over his face, but he didn’t dare open his eyes for fear that he’d see a monster there, a monster with arms for legs and teeth for eyes and hooks for teeth and razors where its lips should be. His mind screamed more hysterical things, but these things weren’t words, they were just sounds, just bright bursts in his head, as the arms or legs or suckers of the razor-lipped, hook-toothed thing prodded him like a doctor feeling for swollen glands.
And then, just like that, the thing let him go.
His lungs close to popping, Bug kicked away from the monster and swam up towards the surface of the water. When he got his first lungful of oxygen, he launched his body from the murk like a rocket. Bug hovered in the air a moment before collapsing face-down on to the dock.
“Ow,” he said, and coughed.
“Bug,” said a stern voice.
Bug flipped to his back, still coughing.
“Bug!”
“What?” Bug managed to say. He opened his eyes, which had been squeezed shut, to see a great many very angry people glaring down at him.
Juju’s wrinkled turtle head was even more wrinkled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” Bug gasped. “What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean?” Juju said. “If you wanted to go swimming, we could have gone after the photo shoot.”
“Something pulled me into the water!”
The Skreecher execs shook their heads. “Mr Fink,” said the one with the polar-ice eyes, “we don’t appreciate these sorts of displays.”
“Well, neither do I,” bellowed Juju. “And I assure you it will never happen again. Will it, Bug?”
Bug was astonished. “Didn’t you see?” he said, coughing up more brackish water. “Didn’t you see the tentacle grab me?”
“What are you talking about?” said Juju. “What tentacle? You tripped over a rope.”
Bug squinted, focused in on the photographer. “Didn’t you catch it with the camera?”
“Catch what?” shrieked the photographer. “Who could catch anything with you shaking and dancing around like that?”
Another of the Skreecher execs shook his head. “Maybe we made a mistake hiring someone so young. They can never control themselves.”
“We could still cancel the contract, remember? We’ve got that ‘bad behaviour’ clause,” said Polar Ice Eyes. “I’ll talk to the boss.” He whipped around. “Darn it! Paparazzi!”
Everyone turned to see a small army of new photographers buzzing around like mosquitoes. “Hey, Bug! Look over here!”
“Don’t look!” screeched the Skreecher execs. But it was too late. Bug looked, the photographers snapped, and the execs freaked.
But Juju managed to work his juju. He convinced the Skreecher execs that Bug’s bad boy persona would only bring more street cred to the Skreecher brand.
“What do you mean, bad boy persona?” said Bug. “I don’t have a bad boy persona. I don’t even know what a persona is!”
“Sure you do,” said Juju, giving Bug a wink.
Mr Ice Eyes nodded. “I see what you mean. Skreechers are hip. They’re tough. They’re gritty. They’re mad hot.”
Mad hot? Bug wondered if the guy had eaten some bad clams.
Juju and the Skreecher execs were so excited about their trainers’ new street cred that they forgot all about Bug. He was left to dry alone on the dock like a fish at a seafood market. Even the paparazzi had got bored and moved off in search of other famous people doing humiliating things.
No one else had seen a tentacle; no one believed that there was a tentacle. After all that shrieking and lecturing, Bug was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t got his foot tangled in some rope and fallen into the water. It was possible. The photo shoot had gone on for hours; he was exhausted and distracted; he’d been holding his arms over his head for so long that perhaps not enough blood was going to his brain. Maybe he had got confused.
He should have taken the Bloomingtons’ offer, he realised. Right after Flyfest, they’d asked him to move in with them for a while, just till he got on his feet. But he’d said no. He’d said he wanted to do things on his own. He’d just got Juju appointed his agent and legal guardian, and he said he’d be fine.
Sure. Right. Fine. He was so fine he was conjuring up imaginary tentacles and flinging himself off docks. He could hear his father laughing now. You’re less than nothing, Sylvester. You’re just less, how about that?
Bug sat up. The water lapped gently, laughing at him. Nope. No razor-lipped monsters lurking there.
Geez, what a spaz he was. He made a fist and punched the dock.
Wham!
A strange sucking noise and a briny sort of smell made him glance towards the water.
A tentacle was patting the dock. Patting the dock as if it were looking for something.
Looking for him?
Bug scrambled backwards on all fours as another tentacle flopped on to the dock, then another, and another. As Bug watched in horror, two huge, dark eyes peeked over the surface of the dock. Then the tentacles curled themselves around the wooden columns all around the dock, and the biggest octopus Bug had ever seen – the biggest octopus Bug had ever imagined – hauled itself out of the water. Its skin was a mottled bluish-grey, with a craggy, rocklike texture that was all bumps and gnarls and knobs. So terrified that he forgot he could walk, run or fly, Bug scrabbled off the dock as fast as he could, not able to tear his eyes
