How Wiggles Saved the World

Sometimes the true value of a pet isn’t always readily apparent.

Author: Brian Crenshaw

Brian chooses to not have a social media presence, and instead requests you follow him via his smoke signals and dead drops

Narrator: Hannah Knight

Hannah Knight is an artist, cat lover, and mother to a rambunctious toddler.

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As far as stuff pets do, Sasha thought snails came last at just about everything. When he had asked for a pet, his parents got him a freshwater snail. Ramshorn, pearly blue shell, bright pink body…it was ‘A king among snails!’ his dad assured him. But king or not, it sat doing a great deal of nothing near the top of the water.

Sasha lay sprawled on his ocean-themed bedspread, looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars and moons that speckled his ceiling. Normally, he would be watching cartoons on a Thursday afternoon when his parents worked late and Mom left easy microwave leftovers in the fridge for him. But not today.

Today he was thinking about Alex from down the street and his new puppy. It could bark and fetch and sleep on the bed. And while everyone in his third grade class was ecstatic about Alex’s puppy, no one cared about Wiggles.

He was thinking unhappily of all the ways puppies were better than snails when the message came. It was a tickle in his ear at first, a confusing itch that wouldn’t go away. But soon it grew into a blaring cry. <EMBRACE DEFEAT, EARTHIANS.>

Sasha shot up on the bed. The words echoed through his brain like an auditorium loudspeaker. A frightened, indistinct murmuring answered back, like his brain wasn’t the only one hearing the voice. Wiggles did not react in any way whatsoever.

<LONG HAVE YOU WALLOWED IN YOUR INFERIOR FEEBLENESS. YOUR NEW OVERLORD HAS ARRIVED FROM FARFLUNG, SUPERIOR WORLDS.> Sasha slid down to the foot of the bed, clutched his ocean sheets and pulled them over his head. He thought of Alex hugging his puppy while the voice bellowed. He couldn’t hug Wiggles, not that he would want to.

Through the window he saw lights strobe down from the sky. They came in threes, two bright, flickering lights orbiting a glowing spiral in the center. Storm winds buffeted the yard, the leaves on the trees shushed in the gale of their descent. And then, in a twinkle of rainbow lights, they landed…on the hood of his dad’s old jalopy.

It was five ships in all, the largest no bigger than a dinner plate. Each had two bulbs projecting out on drooping stalks. Now that they were still, the wind died down and he saw that most of the rainbow light came from the bulbs. A much softer glow came from the central light, a conch that wound clockwise for four of the ships, counter-clockwise for the slightly larger one in the center…he thought it must be the Command Conch.

A tiny circular hatch opened in the Command Conch. Sasha held his breath as he watched a large, stately snail emerge, its shell a noisy striped pattern of purple and green. He watched its slow progress from the hatch before looking wonderingly back at Wiggles, who showed no reaction at all, disbelief or otherwise.

A deep, self-satisfied voice rumbled from the snail. Somehow it seemed more like an inside-voice than what he heard earlier in the brain-auditorium. <I, G’boonyatz, Snail Lord of the Jupiterian Moons, set my foot once more upon a conquered world.>

One of the bulbs on its ship arced backward, facing it, and in a softer tone accompanied by a flash of pink light, offered a correction. <Jovian.>

<What?>

<‘Jovian’ is the accurate descriptor for the moons of Jupiter.>

Squinting, Sasha could see the snail’s two tentacles—that was what snail eye-stalks were called—shaking in agitation. The voice got louder and angrier.

<K’gorveks, you pedant! I will NOT quibble over the nuances of this world’s primitive gibbering. I am G’boonyatz, spawn of U’gorr the Infinite! Cracker of a hundred psionic shells! Conqueror of each of the Saturnine moons—>

<Saturnian.>

As the argument went back and forth in his head—it sounded like G’boonyatz was in his right ear and the friendly customer service voice of K’gorveks was in his left—he went looking for the phone his mom gave him for emergencies.

The conversation outside had turned to G’boonyatz commanding his armada to seek Earth’s leaders. The evil voice was going into great detail about scouring the world for enemy strongholds when Sasha finally found the phone. The wind roared outside again a moment later, and he knew the ships were taking off by the squeaking from the rusted jalopy.

The ships whooshed through the sky as he finished dialing his mom’s number and waited for it to ring. It started, and went right to voicemail. He tried his dad and got the same result. Sasha swallowed quickly and made a decision to get help. He wasn’t old enough to go far from the house, but he was allowed to go ask the neighbors. He got on his velcro sneakers and looked out the window by the door.

The Command Conch was still sitting on the hood of his dad’s jalopy! He had heard them leave, but the worst one was still out there! In a moment of quick thinking, he hurriedly threw the deadbolt to make sure they couldn’t come in after him.

His breaths came fast, but when the evil voice came back into his head it was addressed to the auditorium again, not just him. It was demanding that world leaders reveal themselves and submit to their new rulers. The cartoons he’d left on in the living room were interrupted by the president saying something Sasha couldn’t hear. Text scrolled below him that said ‘World leaders beg parley with invaders from space.’

Sasha retreated up the stairs and into his room. He looked out the window and found the ship still parked on the jalopy’s hood. He looked up and down the street, but couldn’t see anyone. <EARTHIANS, REVEAL YOURSELVES. OUR SHIPS WILL FLUSH YOU FROM HIDING. SURRENDER.>

The voice carried on in the same fashion as before, like a megaphone in a crowded room. Curious, Sasha took a closer look at the Command Conch. Now that it was alone, a cat had taken an interest in it: an old tabby named Oscar that Mom liked to feed. The conch’s two bulbs flared red.

Whatever G’boonyatz did then, Oscar didn’t like it. The tabby arched his back and the fur on his tail poofed out. A moment later he hissed and batted at the spaceship. <You will break, soldier. REVEAL what I want to know!>

Sasha stopped quietly cheering for Oscar. It occurred to him that it would be a great time to escape and look for help. With the snail alien distracted, he went down and slipped out the front door again.

Now he saw movement down the street. Alex and his parents were scrambling from their front door to the family car. The puppy banged along in its kennel as Alex’s parents ushered him and some suitcases into the back. Hope surged in Sasha. They were grownups, they would know what to do!

With a gulp, he came around the garage just as the family was getting the last of its things stowed into the back seat. The car looked like it was about to pop with all of the knickknacks—what Mom called air-looms—crammed in beside Alex and the kennel. Alex’s dad looked down at him and he froze, not knowing what to say.

“Hey kiddo, you’d best get on home to your parents.”

“Um—there are aliens on my dad’s—”

“That’s Talia’s son,” Alex’s mom said beside him, interrupting Sasha. “Where is your mom, Sasha?”

He opened his mouth to explain, but the booming voice of G’boonyatz snarled again, and Alex’s whole family—including the puppy—went stiff with fear.

The puppy barked and Alex’s dad said a bad word. He drove the car out of the driveway before the echoes of the snail lord’s voice left Sasha’s head. Unsure what to do, Sasha stood off

to the side while Alex’s mom called out the open window, her voice shrinking with distance. “Go back inside Sasha! Tell your mom it’s not safe—”

She kept yelling things, but the car vroomed and went off down the road. He didn’t think any of them had seen the Command Conch on his dad’s car. He wondered whether he should do what she said and go back inside. But he couldn’t tell his mom anything if she didn’t answer her phone, and he thought that was probably the important part of the instructions.

So Sasha stood beside the driveway and thought. Sirens howled in the distance. All the grownups were busy. He was alone.

The aliens were very small. Oscar was facing one all by himself, so they couldn’t be that bad. But they were very loud. He didn’t think he would be able to get anyone’s attention with the aliens yelling like that.

Sasha walked back toward his house, noting that Oscar had lost interest in the snails and sauntered to the far end of the yard to clean himself. If he cared about the strange, glowy conch anymore, he didn’t show it. Taking courage from the unconcerned tabby, Sasha furrowed his brow, took a deep breath, and walked up the driveway to his dad’s jalopy. “Hey.”

The ship made no answer.

“Hey, you stupid snail!”

As he reached the car, the two bulbs on the Command Conch flared red and turned in his direction.

“Go away! Get off my dad’s car!”

He looked for something to throw at the ship, but as he stooped to pick up a rock from the yard, the rainbow lights of the ship began to pulse and the bulbs grew brighter. The wind rushed through the trees. The ship hovered a few inches above the jalopy’s hood.

Sasha dropped the stone and retreated. The Command Conch settled back onto its spiral hull, wallowing quite contentedly in its cool light. With a gulp and a scowl, Sasha went into the house to make a plan.

The sirens still rang in the distance. The TV was still on, the President and other grownups were still trying to find something to do. He called his parents again but got no answer. “This is dumb,” Sasha said to himself. Everyone was so eager to do something about the problem that no one was free to help him actually do something about the problem. Doing things was getting in the way of getting things done. If only he had someone who hadn’t run off, then maybe…

And it was at that moment, considering those he knew whose skills were best suited to this situation, that he decided whom he would go to for help.

Less than five minutes later, Sasha walked out the front door holding Wiggles’ bowl. Faint rainbow light strobed over the driveway from the Command Conch. All of it dimmed as he approached, replaced by the flaring red light of the bulbs on alarm.

“I’m here to talk to G’boonyatz, the Snail Lord!”

The wind blew Sasha’s hair into his eyes and the fallen leaves around his ankles. The bulbs waved back and forth, as if studying him from multiple angles.

<You should address your new ruler with more RESPECT, Earthian meat-slave.> <Again, the common parlance is ‘Earthling,’> K’gorveks corrected.

Sasha gulped, then fought down his fear with a stomp of his foot. “Earth doesn’t need a new ruler! It still has the old one: Wiggles! Uh, LORD Wiggles, Snail Lord of the…um, Glow-in-the-Dark Moons. And Earth!”

Sasha felt an uncomfortable presence, like an angry grownup looming over him. But he stood his ground. Oscar had survived the loud snail, so he and Wiggles could, too. He hefted the fishbowl up to the level of the jalopy hood so that Wiggles would be at eye level with the alien.

Sasha felt it begin. The looming presence shifted away, and an intense focus settled on the bowl in his hands. The sensation was creepy and he would have been afraid, but seeing Oscar face it down gave him courage. He squinted at Wiggles to see how the little snail was doing.

As the alien’s mental presence grew, Wiggles continued to climb up the side of the bowl, unbothered. His pearly blue shell reflected the red light from the bulbs. His little pink tentacles twitched back and forth, just the way they always did when he was looking for food.

Sasha looked up from Earth’s champion to see that the hatch to the Command Conch had opened, and the stately purple and green-striped snail was there, its tentacles quivering in anger. When the voice sounded in his head again, it was tense with effort.

<LONG…has it been…since I faced a foe of your stature.>

<Snail Lord,> K’gorveks chirped, <our scans show no sign of intelligence in—> <SILENCE! Its psionic shell is thick, but I SEE its base functions. Soon…I will see everything…>

As the mental battle wore on, Sasha started to sweat.

<Sir, Lord Wiggles does not scan positive for intelligence.>

Sasha swallowed. He could feel the confusion in the air, as loud in his head as the snail’s voice had been. He almost panicked. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he laughed instead. “Ha! Lord Wiggles is immune to your stupid scans!”

<Nothing alive is immune to a surface level psy-scan,> the voice from the bulb corrected him. <It is less precise, but more reliable than a mindrasp.>

“Well maybe that’s how it is on Jupiter,” Sasha lied as fast as he could, “but on Earth we have better psionic shells than that.”

<Impossible,> G’boonyatz said. <And yet…this pet ape is able to speak, to openly DEFY me, even while I assault its master…>

“What is that Lord Wiggles?” Sasha lowered his ear toward the fishbowl. “You’re taking it easy on this new snail so he doesn’t feel bad? Earth is the best?”

A wave of alien fury swept over Sasha, and he thought he had pushed too far. <K’gorveks, you impudent didact! Tell me, what is the population of this world’s giant primate cattle?>

The bulbs flashed back and forth, from blue to pink to yellow light. <Near eight billion, Snail Lord.>

<The primates read positive for intelligence, Snail Lord. They likely govern themsel—> The little tentacles of G’boonyatz shuddered frantically, and the presence all around Sasha grew both in strength and agitation. It considered him, briefly, dismissively, before passing him over and settling once more on Wiggles.

<RRAAAGH! K’gorveks, fire the photon beam! ELIMINATE Lord Wiggles!> <Snail Lord, please consider—>

<NOW!>

The bulb on the right flared red and a pinpoint of laser light lanced from its tip into the fishbowl in Sasha’s hands. He gasped! Laser beams! The aliens had laser beams! Only…Wiggles was fine. Sasha turned and saw a small scorch mark on the garage door behind him. The fishbowl had bent the beam!

<W-what is the meaning of this?> the Snail Lord’s voice sounded very small. <Recalculating, sir. The material of Lord Wiggles’ conveyance bent our beam.> <A material shield?>

Sasha’s eyes hadn’t moved from the scorch mark on the garage door. That would hurt if it zapped him. He thought fast.

“Lord Wiggles, please stop this new snail. He’s so weak that you could beat him right away if you tried. Please? If he’s not strong enough to bother with, can we drop the invisibility field and send in our battle conches instead?”

Utter quiet from G’boonyatz. K’gorveks was silent as well. Sasha turned his ear to the fishbowl in his hands, then he smiled as convincingly as he could.

“That’s wonderful! The battle conches always make short work of invaders.” All at once, the wind picked up in the yard. The grass whipped wildly on either side of the driveway. Sasha ducked his face from the flashing rainbow lights of the alien ship as it lifted off into the air.

<CURSE YOU WIGGLES!> And then it shot up like a rocket, straight into the air almost faster than he could follow with his eyes. Four bright points joined it high above his house, and disappeared into the nearest cloud. Sasha held his breath until they disappeared completely, and then went back indoors.

The president was still on the screen talking to reporters. The grownups were still making noise, but Sasha didn’t worry about it.

He went back up to his bedroom and put Wiggles’ bowl on the dresser where it belonged. He was smiling, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. Rolling onto his bed, Sasha thought about everything that had happened that afternoon, about his third grade class and about Alan’s new puppy.

Snails didn’t do much. They weren’t cute and they didn’t know any tricks. But he had to admit, Wiggles was a king among snails…or a lord, at least! And as far as stuff pets do, Sasha thought that saving the world was pretty cool.