My Life as a Human Hairball Read online

  “Aaand theen whaaat?”

  “Let’s see . . . Oh, cool. You get to go back to the heart but to the other side.”

  “Wooondepuul . . .”

  “I’ll save you the gorey details. Let’s just say that after a quick visit to Lungland and a return to Happy Heartville, we were flying in a brand new direction.

  “Hey, check it out,” Opera shouted. “Looks like you’re heading straight for his brain!”

  I could only groan. At last we began to slow down. Through the plasma and past another big red blood cell I spotted Wall Street. I fought against the current, slowing myself until she caught up. When I saw her smiling face, I felt a wave of relief wash over me.

  Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t boyfriend or girlfriend or anything like that. It’s just that we’d put in a lot of time together and I’d hate to have to explain to her big brother how I lost her. (Sometimes big brothers can be a pain—actually, they can give pain—if they think you’ve been inconsiderate toward their little sister. And losing her in some guy’s blood vessel might be considered just a little on the inconsiderate side.)

  “Wow,” she grinned. “Is this awesome or what? It’s like some incredible dream.”

  “Actually, I was thinking more like an incredible nightmare.”

  “Hey . . .” She was already pointing to something else. “Check it out.”

  I looked back over my shoulder. We were traveling a lot slower now, and the blood vessel we were in was a lot smaller.

  “Looks like we’re in another one of those capillary thingies,” she said. As she spoke, the passageway grew narrower. In fact, the walls were so close that we could actually reach out and touch either side if we had wanted.

  If we wanted. But, of course we didn’t. Instead, something else caught both of our attentions. Up ahead, my red blood cell buddy was pressing against both sides of the capillary wall. And, as we watched, the most amazing thing began to happen. The bright red color of the cell started to change. It started to grow darker.

  “Cool,” Wall Street said.

  “What’s up?” Opera asked from the lab.

  I explained to him what was happening, and he quickly searched the files until he found an explanation. “You’re watching something called diffusion. I bet it looks pretty neat.”

  “It would look neater if I knew what it was.”

  “Sorry,” he answered. “If that red blood cell is changing color then I bet it’s passing oxygen through the capillary wall to a body cell that’s breathing it in from the other side.”

  “Breathing it in?” Wall Street said. “You mean cells breathe?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Like people?”

  “Sort of. At least that’s what it says here. Not only do they breathe in oxygen, but they breathe out carbon dioxide,” Opera continued to read. “And it’s the red blood cells that carry oxygen and carbon dioxide back and forth from the lungs.”

  I looked on as the red blood cell continued to grow darker and darker brown. “So,” I asked, making sure I understood, “this red blood cell guy is actually giving the other cell oxygen through the capillary wall?”

  “Kinda like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?” Wall Street asked.

  “Something like that. Only it also sucks out the other cell’s carbon dioxide,” Opera said.

  “Very cool,” I said.

  “But what about all these sparkling lights?” Wall Street asked.

  I looked around. “What lights?”

  “There, on the other side of the wall.” She pressed her face mask closer to the capillary wall. “What are all those lights shooting back and forth? . . . looks like electricity or something.”

  I swam closer to the wall. It was so thin I could almost see through it. She was right. Ever so faintly I could see sparking and flashing on the other side. I moved closer, cupping my hands around my face mask and pressing it against the wall for a better look. The flashings were like little bolts of lighting. But it wasn’t just one bolt. There were hundreds of them flashing everywhere.

  “Opera?”

  “Checking.”

  We waited as he continued to search. “Let’s see, if you’re in the brain looking out at the cells . . . ah, here we go.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “You must be watching the cells in the brain communicate with one another.”

  “No way.”

  “Yup. It says that brain cells talk back and forth to one another with electricity.”

  “You mean, we got electricity shooting around inside our brains?” I asked.

  “That’s what it says. But in very, very small amounts. And when that electricity is firing, that’s when the cells are thinking.”

  “This is incredible,” Wall Street said in quiet awe. And she was right, it was incredible. Everywhere we looked lights were flashing.

  “This guy must be a regular Einstein,” I said.

  “Not really. It says that the average brain cell can fire electricity a bunch of times every second.” “Wow,” I said. “This has definitely got to be one of God’s better inventions.”

  I don’t know how long we floated there staring, but eventually we felt a gentle push. I glanced over and saw that the red blood cell had let go of the capillary wall and was starting to move forward again. So were we.

  “Hey Opera?” I called. “Where are we headed now?”

  As usual, his mouth was full of food, and it took him a moment to swallow. I sort of wished he was as concerned about us as he was his junk food, but I guess some habits are hard to break. Finally, he answered. “According to this chart, that red blood cell is going back to the heart and lungs to drop off the carbon dioxide it just picked up.

  “Been there!” I cried.

  “Done that!” Wall Street agreed.

  “Yeah,” Opera said. “I see your point. If you want, I suppose you can swim back upstream a ways and try out another capillary.”

  I looked to Wall Street. She shrugged. “As long as we hurry. We start getting big again in two minutes and fifty-two seconds.”

  I nodded. We pushed off and headed back upstream until we entered into another smaller capillary.

  Suddenly, we were surrounded by blinding light. I squinted, trying to make out what was happening, but the capillary was flooded with glaring brightness.

  “What is it?” Wall Street shouted. “Where’s all that light coming from?”

  “Opera!” I yelled. “Where are we?”

  “Looks like you’ve entered this guy’s eye. You’re in a capillary at the back of his eyeball.”

  “You’re kidding!” I shouted. “And all this light is—”

  “It’s what he’s seeing. It’s all coming from the front of his eye.”

  I turned to Wall Street with amazement. “Is this cool, or what?”

  She grinned back. “Maybe cooler than you think.” “What do you mean?”

  “If we’re in this guy’s eyeball, then maybe we can look out of it and see what he’s seeing.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “And if we see what he’s seeing then maybe we’ll be able to figure out who he is.”

  Opera came back on the headset. “She might have a point. If you’re at the right place in the back of the eye, you might be able to see through the capillary and see what he’s seeing.”

  Suddenly, Wall Street shouted. “There!” She had pressed her face mask back against the wall. “I see something!”

  “What?” I swam over to join her.

  “Take a look.”

  I pressed my mask against the wall and all the glaring light started to come into focus.

  “What are you guys seeing?” Opera asked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” I said, squinting. “It’s sort of flat and wavy and—

  “And yellow,” Wall Street added. “Definitely yellow.”

  Then it disappeared. Just like that. But before Wall Street or I could comment, another one came into v
iew. By now I was getting used to all the light, and I could make out more detail. “It looks like . . . Wall Street, is that what I think it is?”

  She nodded. “It might be. . .”

  “Opera?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It looks like some sort of potato chip is coming toward us.”

  “No way,” he said. Suddenly the chip disappeared. “Well, it’s gone now,” I shrugged.

  “You sure it was a potato chip?” he asked through another mouthful of food.

  “I think so.”

  “Wait a minute,” Wall Street said. “Here comes something else.”

  We both watched as a round, shiny something came toward us. “What is that?” she asked.

  I squinted harder. “I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like . . . is that a soda can coming at us?”

  “A soda can?” Opera asked. “How weird.”

  But not as weird as what happened next— because as the can came closer we were able to make out a faint reflection on its shiny surface. In fact, as it was being lifted toward us, we saw what actually looked like a face staring back at us. True, things were kinda blurry, and the entire image was upside down, but it only took a second for us to recognize it.

  I wanted to say something, anything . . . but it’s hard to talk when your heart has leaped into your throat.

  “Hey, guys,” Opera asked, “What’s going on?”

  I threw a look over to Wall Street. She was having the same problem.

  “Guys?”

  I swallowed hard.

  Wall Street swallowed hard.

  “Guys, what do you see?”

  Finally, at the same time, we answered in hoarse, raspy voices: “We see you!”

  Chapter 6

  “Growing UP”

  Ever notice how good friends sort of pick up each other’s habits? Good or bad, we start doing what the other guy does. At least that’s how it was between Opera and me. And, being my best friend for just slightly longer than forever, it was only natural for him to give my world famous screaming a shot:

  “AUGHHHHHHhhhh . . .”

  For the most part, he wasn’t bad. In fact, on the McDoogle Panic Scale of one to ten, he was pushing an eleven. Of course he had plenty of reason. How often do you discover your two best friends are floating around your skull? (Talk about getting inside somebody’s head.)

  The yelling was good. But where my bud really showed his stuff was in all the jumping and bouncing around he was doing. Of course, I would have enjoyed it a bit more if I wasn’t also getting bounced around.

  “Op-er-er-er-a!” I cried. Suddenly, I was slammed against one side of the capillary wall.

  “Someb-b-b-body stop-p-p-p him!” Wall Street screamed until she was suddenly slammed against the other side.

  But Opera was a little too busy with his panic attack to pay us much attention. So there we were getting tossed up and down and back and forth. And just when we were getting used to that, it was down and up and forth and back. Still, despite all the fun and games, I knew something was missing. I mean for an official McDoogle Mishap we needed a little something else. We needed that one, extra catastrophe, that one little—

  BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

  I spun to Wall Street who was flying past me on her way into the opposite wall. “What is that?” I cried.

  “That’s my watch alarm!” she yelled as

  BOING!

  she bounced off the wall and flew toward me.

  Of course, I was busy doing the same thing off of the opposite wall.

  BOING!

  And when we passed each other again in the middle, I shouted: “What’s it mean?”

  BOING!

  She bounced.

  BOING!

  I bounced.

  “I set it to go off when that miniaturization clock ran out of time. It means we’re starting to get bigger!” “That’s just great!” I shouted.

  BOING!

  BOING!

  “Maybe,” she cried as she came back toward me. “What do you mean ‘maybe’?” I shouted. Only this time I slightly changed course and

  K-BAMB!

  “OAFF!”

  The good news was we’d stopped bouncing back and forth off the walls. The bad news was we broke more than our share of bones when we slammed into each other. Still, a few broken body parts seemed a minor price to pay to stop our human pinball imitation.

  “Opera!” I shouted. “Opera!”

  But he still wasn’t listening.

  “Come on,” Wall Street yelled as she kicked and paddled her way back toward the eyeball. “Let’s see what he’s doing.”

  I followed. We were still getting bounced around pretty good, but I managed to hang on and press my face mask against the wall to take a look. To my surprise, there was Opera, staring straight back at me. He still had his headset on so I knew he’d be able to hear. It was just a matter of waiting until he was done with his little panic attack.

  “Guys!” he shouted. “Guys, are you still there? I’m in the restroom now. I’m looking into a mirror. Guys! Wall Street? Are you there? Wally? Wall Street!”

  He finally took a breath, which allowed me to finally squeeze in a word. “Opera, we’re still here! We haven’t gone anywhere!”

  “How’d you do it?” he cried. “How did you get inside of me?”

  “You must have swallowed us,” Wall Street said. “No way,” he argued. “The only thing I’ve eaten are these chips.” He showed us his fifteenth bag of Chippy Chipper Potato Chips. “And this soda.” He held up the can.

  Suddenly, I had this sinking feeling in my gut. “Opera?” I shouted. “Where did you get that can of pop?”

  “I found it on the floor where the minisubmarine was. It was still cold, and no one was drinking it, so—”

  “Actually,” I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid someone was drinking it.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  “You?”

  “When I climbed up into the submarine, I set that can down on the platform below it.”

  Wall Street let out a loud groan. “Are you telling me that when we got miniaturized . . . we dropped right into your soda pop can?”

  I nodded feeling even sicker. “That would explain all that bubbly liquid we saw.”

  She dully added, “And the round metal wall that surrounded us.”

  Opera took it from there. “So when I picked up that can and drank it . . .”

  “You drank us,” I said.

  There was a moment of silence. I continued looking out the capillary wall as Opera leaned closer to the mirror. Now we were eyeball to eyeball.

  “How come I can’t see you?” he asked. “If you’re really in there, how come I don’t see you?”

  “Because, we’re still inside a blood vessel,” I explained. “Besides, we’re too small.”

  “Not for long,” Wall Street said.

  I turned to her and she motioned to her wristwatch. “The miniaturization process is wearing off, remember?”

  “So we’re getting bigger?”

  She nodded. “Take a look around you. See how small the capillary looks now.”

  I glanced around. She was right.

  “Wait a minute!” Opera interrupted. It sounded like he was getting worked up again. “If you’re starting to grow bigger and if you’re still inside of me . . .” He came to a stop.

  I watched as his eyes widened in horror. Suddenly, I realized what he realized. I threw a look over to Wall Street. She realized it, too. Now, all three of us knew what would happen to Opera if we kept growing inside of him. And with that bit of understanding, we looked at each other and did the only thing we could do. This time in three part harmony:

  “AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  After we finished our little trio, Opera decided to go solo. “What do I do?? What do I do?! What do I do!?”

  The lyrics were a little monotonous so I shouted, “There’s not much you can do! We’re the ones who hav
e to get out of here!”

  “But how?!” he cried.

  “Don’t worry,” I yelled, “we’ll think of something. The important thing is that you don’t panic.” But even as I shouted these words, my head scraped against the top of the capillary.

  So did Wall Street’s.

  We were growing—and FAST!

  “We’ve got to get out of these little vessels,” I shouted. “We’ve got to get into some bigger ones.” Wall Street agreed. We pushed off and started swimming for all we were worth. We had to get out of there, and we had to get out of there now. “Opera,” I called. “You gotta get help. You gotta find Mr. Pocket Protector!”

  Opera yelled back. “Everyone’s gone! They all left!”

  “Keep trying,” I shouted. “We’ve got to get some help. Somebody’s got to—”

  “WALLY!”

  It was Wall Street. I spun around and spotted her several feet behind me. She was no longer swimming. Instead, she was kicking and fighting off one of the white blood cell thingies as it wrapped itself around her leg.

  “It’s got me!” she cried. “It won’t let me go!”

  I quickly swam back to her. Even as I approached the thing was covering more and more of her leg. “What’s happening?” Opera yelled.

  “One of the white blood cells grabbed Wall Street.” “Help me!” she screamed. “Help me!”

  I arrived at her side. By now it had swallowed her whole leg and was moving up to her waist.

  “Opera, get back to the monitors!” I shouted. “Tell us what’s going on!”

  “Wally, get it off me! Get it off me!”

  I grabbed the clear goop, but the cell was like jelly, impossible to get a good grip on. And the more I tried pulling and scraping it away, the more goop swarmed back in its place.

  “Opera!”

  “I’m checking, I’m checking!”

  It was surrounding her stomach now. Like a giant, hungry jellyfish, it was slowly but surely swallowing her whole.

  “Get it off me!” she gasped. “Get it off me!”

  “Opera!”

  “Let’s see . . . white blood cells, white blood cells. Here we go.”

  “Hurry!” she coughed. It had moved up her chest and was starting to cut off her breathing.