He feels lighter without carrying the old skin around anymore, and there’s a new energy lifting him out of his rumble.
I feel less like a croc and more like a heron with two long sticks for legs.
The Henry-smell that he’d been carrying around is gone, and where it had been his nose finds only clean air.
“This could make it easier to dance,” he mumbles, different songs stumbling their way through his head.
Inside Hooks was a picture painted across the back of the dining area of a pirate ship sailing the high seas. As he walks, another ship emerges from behind a tall building. But as he grows closer, he realizes it isn’t a picture at all, but a large building. Windows glint from cannon ports. A black flag with a human skull and crossbones flies from the top of the mast.
Okay, so did someone bake this? From pictures to real things, right? What menu did this come from?
The mast stretches as high into the sky as the buildings surrounding it. A few people on the street wear something shiny on their heads. The ship-building smells dry, boring, and nothing like Hooks.
He checks Petra’s map. He needs to walk around the bow.
“May the Great Noodly Appendage bend in your favor!” says an older woman who walks by him with a shiny hat on her head. It reminds him of what the chef uses to steam vegetables at Hooks.
“Uh, thank you?” says Big Sal. “You too?”
The woman beams at him. “You know, it’s a special thing to be the new croc at Hooks. Nothing is more Ankerton than the Hooks crew.”
Big Sal shrugs. “Really? I’m just figuring things out as I go.”
“Oh, but we all are. Here at City Hall, we make sure everyone can do that. Tootles and Slightly!”
And with that, she disappears down the sidewalk.
That human smelled like pasta. Like, spaghetti and meatballs. This town is meatballs.
Big Sal makes his way around the bow, passing a couple others with shiny, metallic hats. Once on the other side he sees a giant frog. It sits in a shop window, it’s bored, bullfrog stare fixed on the busy street. A pink tongue drools from its mouth. A plate of insects sits on a table in front of it. Next to the shop window a door sits propped open with what looks like a fabric brick with a plastic antenna. Blinking in the door’s window is a twizzly-smelling sign that says ‘Phone Nerds.’
Big Sal can’t help but look at the frog that is far bigger and juicier than he ever saw in Stinkwater.
“May the Great Noodly Appendage bend in your favor,” he says to the bullfrog.
“RIDDIT,” comes the throaty reply.
It isn’t until he’s inside Phone Nerds that he realizes something.
That frog didn’t even make me hungry.
“Greetings, Mr. Croc!” says a girl’s voice. “Check this out!”
And she twirls the phone in her hand to show him what she’d been looking at when he walked in; the video that he’s already seen of himself walking out of the refrigerated truck carrying a pallet stacked with boxes.
“That’s the best debut for a Hooks croc,” she says. “The last one opened with a dance that was great at first, but then became boring.” Then, with a grin, “Your entrance, like ROAR…”
“Sorry to cut you off,” says Big Sal. “But I need a phone. Can you help me with this?”
“Sorry! Yes!” The girl puts down the phone and starts showing him the phones in a glass case. She takes one out and offers it to him to try.
“Oops,” he says as it slips from his dry hands and hits the floor with a smack.
The scent of vinegar steams out from the girl. Excitement drains from her face. For an instant it says ‘Oh no’ before settling into a placid, bored look similar to the bullfrog.
“Sorry about that,” says Big Sal, leaning down to pick up the phone. “I broke my moisturizer, and….” He sighs. “My hands haven’t been the same.”
Cracks spiderweb across the phone.
He pushes the side button.
It doesn’t respond.
Her cheeks dimple, and she holds out her hand for the phone.
“It’s a floor model,” she says. “Let’s put the next one in a case.”
He points at another one.
She gives it to him and it stays in his hands this time.
“How do you work these?” he asks.
“Tap the screen and it’ll come on.”
He does, but nothing happens. He taps it again. And again.
“That’s weird,” she says. She takes the phone and pulls a spray bottle and cloth from beneath the counter. After wiping the screen, she hands it back.
Again, nothing happens.
With a frown, she reaches out and touches one of his claws.
I’ve never felt anything like that before, he thinks.
“You really need that moisturizer. Either that, or…”
She lets go. Then taps her chin with a finger.
“Just a moment.”
She disappears into a door in the back marked ‘STAFF ONLY’.
Big Sal looks at the claws on his forearms. He touches the glass on the counter, and it’s hard, smooth, and cool.
Usually…
“Here, I found a different one. Let’s try this out.”
The device she removes doesn’t have one large touchscreen the way all the others in the case do. This one has the same buttons found on the sides of the other phones, except these cover half the front, underneath a smaller screen. A few bigger buttons near the bottom have large symbols on them.
“I think this is going to be what you want,” says the girl. “It’s what some might call a dumb phone, but it’s smarter than that. All those buttons you press instead of tapping a screen, and those bigger buttons on the bottom? Push the microphone to talk to the phone, the green button to send, and yeah, it’s pretty self-explanatory.”
Big Sal feels water-return welling up and rushing out of himself.
“Thank, thank you. Thank you so much for this.”
She gives him a smile. “Hey, not a problem. That’s just my job here. Glad we could get you the right device for you.”
She gets him set up with a number. He pays and looks at it.
“Can those numbers be changed to a real clock, one with, uh, fingers?”
“Hands, and yes.”
She quickly sets him up with an analog clock on the much smaller phone display. It’s getting close to ten o’clock. He needs to be moving.
🔍 Want to preview Chapter 24?
Subscribe and it’ll land in your inbox!
🛡️ We respect inboxes. One story, one email. No spam.
Just one offer when an edition is ready.
Chapter 23 podcast drops May 30
Chapter 24 text drops June 7
