Description: The voice was coming from above. The floor above me. "Help," it was repeating, very calmly - almost dignified. "I say, help . . ." I peered out into the hall. "Uncle Dudley?" I called, hesitantly. Silence. Then again, faintly: "Help . . . I say. Help . . ." My heart began to beat fast. I went to the door to the third-floor stairs. I opened it. I heard the cries, more clearly. "Uncle Dudley?" I called back. "Hello?" Unsure, I started up. Id never heard an adult calling for help before! I waited breathless outside the guest-room door. I called again. The cries repeated. I knocked. With a hammering heart, I turned the handle. I peered inside. The shock I got was so, well, shocking, I dont remember if I was too paralyzed to scream, like in your worst nightmares, and only gasped. But I recall for sure my hair stood on end. There in the dim room on the dim plaid blanket, where yesterday one lonesome tiny head had sat, now sat a second. Regular size. Not a head exactly - a pair of shoulders, from which stuck a neck and a goateed mouth and a nose and cheeks and an ear. And nothing else. "Ah, Duncan, is that you? How nice of you to come," said Uncle Dudley's partial head. "Don't be alarmed. Well, I mean, don't be unnecessarily alarmed. You aren't, are you?" "Wh-wh-wh - " I replied. "Just ran into a bit of complication, you see," the mouth went on. "Hoping you might lend a hand." And it grinned, pleasantly. MY CURIOUS UNCLE DUDLEY by Barry Yourgrau. Copyright (c) 2004 by Barry Yourgau. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

Please Wait