The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini Page A

fish creature comes up to my wrists, bends down, and licks the blood seeping out from under Officer Tendrile’s coiled tentacle. He nods and grins.
    “Strong blood, strong body,” Officer Tendrile says. “Don’t listen to these conjurer scum. You’re just fine, Mr....”
    “Eckert. Perry Eckert.”
    “That’s better. Guard?”
    The fish creature cuffs my hands behind my back. My blood clings to the cool metal. Do something, Perry! Pekker Cland wouldn’t give up in this situation! He’d bust out with a pep talk from Sam. But now the fish creature is cuffing my ankles. “No, wait, I’m— ow! ” I stagger and fall. I land on my shoulder next to the destroyed remnants of Mortin’s lighter. “My ankle’s injured!”
    “Suck it up,” Officer Tendrile says. “What’s the matter with you?” He puts a tentacle under Ada’s face. “And you. What a well-formed piece of equipment! You could be making big money dancing Upper.”
    Ada moves her lips around like she’s thinking of a witty comeback. I glance at the splintered lighter behind me—a small scatter of wood and metal slivers. I roll my cuffs against it. Some pieces get picked up by the blood that’s congealing on me and stick to my skin. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe I’ll be able to help Mortin put the lighter back together later.Ada unleashes her comeback—but it isn’t words. It’s spit. Splat.
    “Cuff ’er!” Officer Tendrile wipes off his mustache. The fish creature secures Ada’s wrists behind her back and kicks her notebook across the room. He has tawny human feet.
    “Hey!”
    “Get them out of here! Let’s go!”
    “What are we being arrested for?” I insist.
    “For being yourself.”
    The fish creature wraps his scaly arms under my armpits and flings me onto Gamary’s back. I cough into his coarse okapi hair. Ada is next, but she gets tossed on in the opposite direction, so that all I see are her shackled feet. She has normal feet—everyone in this world seems to go barefoot—but her toenails are silver, with small glittering sparkles.
    “I like your toenail polish,” I say. I know it’s good to give girls compliments.
    “Shut up!” Officer Tendrile says. He slaps me across the face with a tentacle. “Move!”
    Gamary lopes forward. Ryu stays at the thakerak. “Well done,” Officer Tendrile tells him. “Have a good time checking out New York, and I wish you luck with your movie-making rock-star career.”
    “Cool, Officer.”
    Punk , I think.
    “It’s not polish,” Ada says quietly. “I’m an attenuate other normal. Our nails are like that.”
    She wiggles her toes. The light that shines through the water glints off them. Despite myself, despite the situation, I blush, and I’m glad she can’t see as Officer Tendrile leads us out of the thakerak chamber into

35
    MOST OF THE TRAVEL THAT TAKES PLACE between Earth and the World of the Other Normals happens in Subbenia, centrally located, where Mortin brought me when he took me over. The city stretches from under the Great Beniss Basin to its shores to the mountains that surround it, and, as is true in New York, cities that are economically dependent on travel and free enterprise are homes for disease, crime, adventure, and very odd smells, which smack me in the face as Gamary carries me down the passage from his thakerak-for-rent to the central market of Penner. Penner is a giant subterranean chamber, two hundred feet tall and several city blocks long, filled with bickering, chattering, otherworldly creatures in an open-air flea market.
    “Jeez,” I say, straining to take it in between coughing fits into Gamary’s hair. It looks like the farmers’ market in Union Square, except instead of just having beards and tribal earlobe inserts, the people are monsters—strange variants of the things I’ve read about in Creatures & Caverns.
    Some look like Mortin, with red skin, yellow hair, and tails—and there are many who smoke pipes like him (althoughI don’t