Mx. Fizzwick was a Cornish Rex with ears like satellite dishes and fur that rippled like the surface of a pond. She lived in a tall, slightly crooked house, and she had decided, some time ago, that she was the finest detective on the street. No one had disagreed. It was nearly bedtime when Fizzwick stopped dead in the hallway. One paw lifted. Nose up. Ears swiveling slowly left, then right. There it was — something green and electric and faintly buzzing, leaking under the spare room door. A smell she had never smelled before.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. Fizzwick pressed her nose to the gap beneath the door. Definitely in there. Definitely new. She nudged the door open with one careful shoulder and slipped inside without a sound. The spare room was dark and smelled of old books and the particular dustiness of furniture no one moves. But behind the wardrobe, something was glowing. A thin, wobbly line of green light, shimmering at the edges like heat above a road. Fizzwick pressed one careful paw against the wardrobe's side and leaned in close.
The shimmer pulsed. And then — plop — a large mushroom cap landed on the floorboards. Then a pebble that glowed faintly blue. Then, with a small yelp and a very undignified thud, a lizard, no bigger than Fizzwick's paw, wearing what appeared to be a folded leaf as a hat. Fizzwick sat back and studied him. He studied her. His leaf hat had tilted sideways in the fall. "Pardon me," he said, in a voice like a cricket. "I am Pip. I am looking for Gerald." Fizzwick blinked slowly. She had many questions. She began with the most useful one. "What is Gerald?"
Pip explained, in a great rush, that Gerald was his pet snail, who had crawled through a shimmer in Pip's world and come out — here. In this room. Pip had followed. The portal, unfortunately, required a snail to close it. Fizzwick's ears swiveled. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Yes. There was something else in the room. A faint, silvery trail on the floorboards, leading toward the curtain. She and Pip looked up at the same time. Near the very top of the curtain, almost at the ceiling, sat Gerald the snail. He appeared extremely pleased with himself. His shell caught the green shimmer light and gleamed like a tiny coin.
Fizzwick considered the problem. Her ears were too sensitive for crashing about — one knocked lamp and she'd be flat on the floor, stunned. So she sat down. She arranged her tail around her feet. She waited. Sniff, sniff, sniff. The green smell was fading very slowly. Pip fidgeted with his leaf hat. Gerald descended at the speed of a secret. Two minutes. Five. Then one small, determined snail reached the floor, and Fizzwick picked him up — very gently, very precisely — in her teeth and set him down in front of Pip. Pip bowed once. Then, as if he felt it hadn't been enough, he bowed again, and his leaf hat fell off. He picked it up with great dignity and tucked it back on his head. He placed Gerald carefully in his front pocket. He stepped back through the shimmer. The portal sealed itself shut with a soft, definitive tick.
The green light was gone. The glowing pebble had gone with it. The mushroom cap remained, but that was a problem for tomorrow. Fizzwick padded back down the hallway to her favorite chair. She turned three slow circles. She settled, chin resting on the armrest, one ear cocked toward the spare room — just in case. The house was quiet. The curtain hung perfectly still.
