I am the walrus, p.1
I Am the Walrus, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman
Cover art © 2023 by Jim Madsen. Series lettering by Sammy Yuen. Cover design by Karina Granda. Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Interior design by Carla Weise.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Shusterman, Neal, author. | Elfman, Eric, author.
Title: I am the walrus / Neal Shusterman & Eric Elfman.
Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. | Series: The N.O.A.H. Files ; 1 | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: “Noah Prime discovers he can exhibit the traits and access the abilities of animals and must use them to fight back against those who are hunting him.” —Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022019865 | ISBN 9780759555242 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780759555259 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Genetic engineering—Fiction. | Animal defenses—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.S55987 Iam 2023 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019865
ISBNs: 978-0-7595-5524-2 (hardcover), 978-0-7595-5525-9 (ebook)
E3-20230308-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1: Sitting on a Froot Loop
2: La Dropp
3: Monkey Brains and an Alligator’s Belly
4: The Champagne Brunch Club
5: Just Another Oxymoron
6: Like the Plague
7: Market Research
8: Stop Your Blubbering
9: Capsule Thirteen
10: Not a Squonk
11: Roadkill, Ugly Babies, and One Crunchy Taco
12: The Facts of Life-as-We-Know-It
13: The Cowboy, the Samurai, and Mr. Quiche
14: Squirming Beneath Her Skin
15: Thirteen Hours to Kill or Be Killed
16: A Serving of Ribs
17: Confusion Is My Superpower
18: If He Were Dead, We Wouldn’t Be Here
19: The Miserable Mystery Tour
20: Deadbeat in a Cheap Skin
21: Not Only Don’t I THINK I Can, I Resent Being Asked
22: Are We There Yeti?
23: A Crossroads of Dinosaur Death Marches
24: Welcome to the Rest of Your Life
25: Official Victim and Designated Survivor
26: The Way of the Dinosaurs
27: The Thing About Lemons
28: Human Toothpaste
29: In Plain Sight
30: Mount Arbuckle and the Duck Pond Apocalypse
31: Prepare to Die
32: Idiot’s Guide to the End of the World
33: FOBE
34: I Am He, As You Are He
35: A Perfectly Normal Thing to Do
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
FOR ERIN, JOELLE, JARROD, AND BRENDAN
—NS
FOR ROBBY
—EE
“WELL, AT LEAST NOBODY DIED,” NOAH PRIME SAID.
He offered up a half-hearted grin and tried to shrug, but the various cuffs and chains that held him firmly to the chair made shrugging difficult.
“Believe me, Mr. Prime,” said his interrogator, “in this world, there are worse things than death.”
All he knew about the woman questioning him was her name: Agent Rigby. Noah had never heard of the secret government agency she was with, nor did he know who or how many were watching them through the huge one-way mirror that nearly overwhelmed the small room.
“I suppose you want to know about the volcano,” he said. “And the monsters that crawled out of the duck pond.”
From the look on her face, it was clear she didn’t even know about the monsters yet. Darn.
Even so, she played it cool. “You could also tell me how that Cadillac ended up stuck in a water tower a hundred feet from the ground,” she said. “But let’s start with why you’re dressed as a caveman.”
“Uh… it’s the newest look,” he said. “You should give it a try.”
He heard a muffled guffaw from beyond the mirror—because clearly the idea of Agent Rigby’s intimidating dark suit replaced by prehistoric furs was just too absurd for her colleagues—but she was not amused in the slightest. She sat on the edge of the table, her hard demeanor softening—or at least pretending to soften. “Noah,” she said, “I know this can’t be easy for you. But trust me when I tell you that cooperating with us will be the best thing for you, considering your current circumstances.”
“Aren’t I supposed to have a lawyer?” he asked.
“This isn’t that kind of interrogation,” Agent Rigby said with a little grin.
“So, what kind of interrogation is it?”
“The kind where the uncooperative don’t fare very well.”
Noah took a deep breath, which was also difficult against all his restraints.
“Could you at least tell me where we are?” he asked.
“The Bella Vista Correctional Medical Facility. But where you are is much less important than why you are. Or, for that matter, what you are,” she said. “What are you, Mr. Prime?”
“That’s not an easy answer,” Noah told her. “But whatever you think I am, you’re wrong. Dead wrong.”
1
Sitting on a Froot Loop
BEFORE THE VOLCANO, AND THE MONSTERS, AND THAT MISERABLE business with Stonehenge, Noah Prime sat at the breakfast table, scowling into his Froot Loops.
“So you’ll learn to adapt,” said his mother.
“I don’t want to adapt,” said Noah.
His younger sister, Andi, looked up from her cornflakes and shook her head. “Don’t be such a baby,” she said. “Motocross is a waste of time.”
Noah’s instinct was to strike back, but he wouldn’t give his sister the benefit of knowing she’d pushed his biggest button.
Living in Arbuckle, Oregon, home of nothing in particular, with a population of six thousand extremely pointless people, had only one bright spot as far as Noah was concerned: a fantastic motocross course.
Noah had been riding since he was eleven. He loved the noise, and the smell, and the mud. But mostly he loved the total freedom he had on the track, and he delighted in mastering the control he needed to keep from overdosing on all that freedom and wiping out.
Then, a month ago, it was announced that the course was going to be bulldozed to erect condominiums. And if that wasn’t bad enough, someone broke into their garage and stole Noah’s motocross bike.
“Maybe this is all a sign,” his mother had said.
A sign of what? Noah had wondered. That the universe doesn’t like me? But he already knew that. It seemed as if everything had been stacked against him for as long as he could remember. Like when he was younger and they tore out the town’s only ice rink just as he was starting to get really good at hockey. Every time he started to stand out at something, it was taken away before he could truly shine.
“Lemonade, Noah. Lemonade,” said his mother. She often talked like that, using shorthand for longer expressions. She added some extra milk to his bowl, which she always claimed had too much cereal and not enough milk for his growing bones.
“Mom,” he said, “when life gives you this many lemons, there’s only so much lemonade you can make, okay?”
“You’re such a drama queen,” his sister said to him.
“Will you stop it, Andi—this is none of your business.”
Andi turned to their mother and whined, “Mom, Noah’s being disparaging.”
In response, their mother poured a few more cornflakes into Andi’s bowl, which was mostly milk.
“He’s upset, honey,” their mother said. “We’ll cut him one piece of slack.”
Noah gritted his teeth. “Slack doesn’t come in pieces.” He slammed down his spoon, having absolutely no appetite for breakf ast, and knowing that his mother would complain that he wasted so much cereal.
“You know,” she said, “there are lots of other things you could do with your time.”
“Like what?” he said, then turned to Andi. “Study, like her?”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to bring your grades up,” his mother said.
“Dad says my grades are adequate.”
“In case you didn’t know,” explained Andi, “that’s not a compliment.”
“But you know what, whenever I do something better than adequate, it gets taken away from me. I bet if I started getting perfect grades, the school would burn down.”
“Don’t be silly,” their mother said with a grin. “It would just be condemned.”
“Ha-ha.” Then he grabbed his backpack and stood up.
“Leaving already?” his mom said. “Isn’t today a late-start day?”
He could have made a disgruntled comment about not wanting to be at the table with his “perfect” sister, but he didn’t even have the motivation for snark. “I’m going out to Dad’s workshop—I promised I’d help him this morning.”
“Comfy?” Noah’s dad asked.
“Why does it matter?” Noah responded, lying down.
“A thing still matters, even if it technically doesn’t matter.”
“That makes no sense,” Noah said.
“Just tell me if it’s comfortable.”
Noah rolled his shoulders, then moved his legs, feeling how his body swished against the blue silk padding. “Yes,” he told his father definitively. “If I was a dead guy about my size and weight, I’d be very comfortable spending eternity here.”
“Excellent,” his father said, grabbing a tape measure from his workbench. “Now, don’t move; let me take a few more measurements.”
That was okay with Noah. Not that he particularly enjoyed being in one of his dad’s designer coffins, but he wasn’t lying. It was comfortable. Far more comfortable than its future occupant would ever need.
Noah’s father hadn’t set out to be a coffin maker. He was a cabinetmaker of the old Craftsman style, creating museum-quality furniture. Then some terminal rich dude asked him to make a coffin. It was all the talk at the funeral. “My, what a lovely casket,” all the rich and famous had said. “Wherever did you find it?” The widow dropped his father’s name, and within days, orders started rolling in. Suddenly, purchasing your final resting place years in advance became a trendy thing among the movers and shakers. And so ToDieFor Woodworks was born. Today’s model was made of rare knotty alderwood, trimmed in mahogany and gold leaf, for a real estate tycoon who was roughly Noah’s dimensions: a little short, but with broad, muscular shoulders. The guy might not actually cash in his chips for years, but at least now he’d have the peace of mind of knowing he had a comfortable box of fun waiting for him.
“What if the guy gets fat or something before he croaks?” Noah asked. “I mean, this thing is tailored like a suit for him, right?”
His dad winked. “He can always order a new one.”
Noah smiled. For a man who had such a morbid sort of business, his dad was the least morbid person Noah knew. He was the kind of guy who happily hummed classic rock tunes while he carved his wood. Although Noah did once catch him humming “Another One Bites the Dust.”
As his father checked around him, measuring the spaces where the padding left little gaps, Noah changed the subject.
“By the way,” Noah said, as if it was something that just casually came to mind, “I checked, and there’s a motocross club in Portland.”
His dad sighed. “Noah, we already discussed this. Portland is more than an hour away.”
“We can always move.”
“You’d really want me to uproot the whole family for this?”
“You can make these things anywhere—I mean, you ship them all over the world anyway, right?”
“Mom would have to start a whole new floral business from scratch. Besides, it would traumatize your sister.”
That made Noah laugh. “Andi wouldn’t be traumatized by nuclear war.”
His father retracted his tape measure and put it on his workbench. “I’m sorry, Noah, I really am. But for the time being, you’re going to have to find a new—”
“If you say ‘hobby,’ I’m going to scream.”
“I was going to say ‘passion.’ I know you think you’ll never love anything as much as motocross, but that’s what you thought about hockey. You’re the most resilient kid I know.”
He looked at Noah, no longer for measurement, but to take in the whole of his son. “I promise that you’ll find something new to throw your heart into—and it will expand you as a human being in ways you can’t even imagine.”
“Blah blah blah.”
His dad sat down next to him, and Noah sat up. “Do you think this is what I expected to be doing?” his father asked. “Creating works of art that will only be used once, and will never be seen again?”
“You always say you love what you do,” Noah reminded him.
“I do,” his dad said. “But it took me a while to get there. I had to accept that this world is an impermanent place. Nothing lasts forever, and nothing should. Things change. That’s not always a bad thing.”
“This time it is,” Noah insisted.
“Maybe you’re right,” his father admitted. “But ask the question again a year from now. Your perspective might change.”
“Maybe,” Noah had to concede, “but a year is a long time to wait.”
His father smiled. “Not in the grand scheme of things.” He stood up and knocked on the casket. It resounded tuneful and true, like the body of a guitar. “I have to head into town for some supplies—do you want me to give you a ride to school?”
“Nah, I’ll walk,” Noah told him. Then he lay back down to experience the zen of his father’s craft.
Noah found himself in a recurring dream. It always seemed to come back when he was stressed by the world. He was in a raging river. Ice-cold water churning, churning. He couldn’t breathe, yet he could breathe. He couldn’t swim, yet he could swim. He kept leaping, then getting smacked back down by the current, until finally he made his way to the surface, but it wasn’t exactly the surface—because water was still pouring onto his face. He leaped again and again, until he realized he was fighting the current of a waterfall. He couldn’t fight the force of a waterfall, yet he could. He was. But it was exhausting, and it felt like it would never end.
“Dreams are random neurons firing in your brain,” his friend Ogden had said. “But those neurons are connected to the ones you’ve been using while you’re awake… so a dream is only one step removed from reality.”
He had told Ogden that, in fact, Ogden was one step removed from reality, and that he had to stop speaking geek, and speak English.
“What I mean,” Ogden had said slowly, as if to an idiot, “is that what you dream is a metaphor for what’s going on in your life. Fighting a current means that you feel like life is pushing you backward and drowning you.”
Noah had to admit that Ogden was right—which he was half of the time. The other half, he was spectacularly wrong. Like the time Ogden convinced himself the beehive on a tree behind Noah’s house was swarming with something other than bees.
“They’re fuzzy like bees, but they have a slender thorax like wasps,” Ogden had said, proclaiming them a new species of murder hornets—which the Primes had taken exception to, since they hadn’t tried to murder anyone yet. In the end, Ogden agreed to charge them with a lesser crime, calling them manslaughter hornets—and he kept throwing rocks at the hive every time he came over, to provoke them and prove his hypothesis.
As it would turn out, that tendency for Ogden to be either ingeniously right or spectacularly wrong was a coin toss that Noah’s life would soon depend on.
Noah awoke from the latest version of his waterfall dream. It took a couple of moments for him to realize he wasn’t in his bed. Where was he? Oh no!
He sat up, then pulled himself out of his father’s latest artwork.
“No! No! No!” It was only the fourth week of school, and Noah already had three unexcused tardies. He pulled out his phone and checked the time. Nine minutes until the bell rang. And his first period was a science quiz he could not miss!
He grabbed his backpack, racing out the workshop door. His mom had already left with Andi, probably thinking that either Noah had walked or his dad had taken him. No one was home to see his morning fail.
