This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 by Simone Lia
Cover illustrations copyright © 2017 by Simone Lia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted,
or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and
recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
This book was typeset in Veronan and WB Simonelia.
The illustrations were done in mixed media.
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
For Timothy
Chapter One
My name is Marcus.
I am a worm, and this is where I live.
My favorite color is brown.
That’s because mud is brown and I really,
really, really like mud.
My favorite things are other worms.
And my hobby is digging holes in the ground.
There is nothing I enjoy more than making a
complicated underground tunnel system.
But when I met Laurence,
everything changed.
Let me tell you about
how I met him. . . .
6
Then, I dreamed I fell out of a can and into a
cereal bowl. Staring at me was a scruffy, fat bird
who looked a lot like a chicken. It was a really
good dream until it got to the bird part. The
bird had intense and menacing eyes.
I was digging a hole, like I usually do (like all
worms do), but I must have fallen asleep, because
the next thing that happened was that I was
flying a spaceship in outer space.
The spaceship was made
out of potatoes.
The worst thing was that the last part of
the dream wasn’t a dream at all. I really had
been in a can, and there really was a big fat bird
staring at me!
What would you do if you were a worm and
there was a bird two inches away from your face,
looking at you with his beak open so wide that
you could see his tonsils?
Maybe you would do what I did. I smiled a big
smile and said in my most cheerful voice,
Good
morning!
8
The bird looked confused. He mumbled “Good
morning” back and then opened his beak again
with his head tilted at a slightly different angle.
Before he could eat me up, I shouted very
loudly and quickly, “MY NAME IS
MARCUS. MY FAVORITE COLOR
IS BROWN, AND MY HOBBY IS
DIGGING HOLES IN THE GROUND.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME, AND DO
YOU HAVE A HOBBY, PLEASE, SIR?”
I added a “sir” at the end to be polite.
The bird seemed taken aback. He closed and
opened his beak.
“My name is Laurence,” he said.
He was about to open his beak wide again.
“AND WHAT about hobbies?” I asked. “DO you
have a nice HOBBY, Laurence?”
Laurence sat down, looked at his fat belly,
and then looked at me again. “No one’s ever
asked me that question before,” he said.
“Really? WELL, take your TIME, and make
yourself COMFORTABLE,” I said, encouraging
him to lie down on the sofa. I positioned myself
a little bit closer to the window. “I’d love to hear
all about your hobby. I’m sure it is very, VERY
interesting.”
10
I didn’t mean to keep shouting, but I was
scared, and I didn’t quite know what I was doing.
Laurence didn’t seem to notice. He obediently
put his feet up.
“My hobby is traveling,” he said.
“How fascinating!” I said, trying not to shout
as much. “And where have you been to?”
Laurence thought for a while. “That’s the
problem,” he explained. “I haven’t been anywhere.
I’m terrible at map reading. I’d love to visit Kenya,
in Africa, but it’s such a long way to fly. I would
definitely need a map to get there.”
I paused to try to give the impression
that I was thinking deeply about what he
was saying. “Why
Kenya?” I asked.
thinking of his answer,
I looked out the
window.
We were in
a birdhouse in a
tall tree. The
latch on the
window was
too high for
me to reach.
Even if I could
have reached
up and pushed
the window
open, I wasn’t
too thrilled
about wriggling
down the tree
from that height.
They didn’t
teach us how
to do that at
worm school.
Laurence was looking at his belly
again. Why did he keep looking at his
stomach? Was it because it was large, or was it
because he was hungry? I decided to keep talking
to distract his mind from food thoughts. “Tell me
what it is about Kenya that you love so much.”
Laurence sat up. “I’ll show you,” he said,
reaching for a glossy travel book
from a pile of books on the
floor. He opened it. “This is
the Maasai Mara National
Reserve. Look at these
beautiful wide-open plains. There are
so many animals that live in the nature reserves
in Kenya. You just don’t see animals like that
around here.” Laurence flipped through pages
with photographs of lions, elephants, zebras,
and wildebeest. He stopped at a page that
had pictures of pink birds
with skinny legs.
13
“This,” he said, slamming his wing on the page
dramatically, “is why I need to go.” Laurence
looked at me. “Do you see what I mean?”
“Hmm . . . yes,” I said, nodding in agreement,
pretending to understand what he meant.
“Thank you. I’m glad that you see it too —
that I am actually a flamingo.”
14
A
FLAMINGO
LAURENCE
MY WORM BRAIN
“A flamingo,” I repeated firmly, trying
my best not to laugh out loud. Laurence
doesn’t look anything like a flamingo.
He looks like a chicken.
“I don’t belong here with ordinary
birds. I belong here”— he paused to
read the caption at the bottom of the
photog
raph —“in the Lake Nakuru
National Park, with other flamingos. That is my
real home, and it is the only place where I can
truly be happy.” He slammed the book shut and
clasped his wings together.
The thing that stopped me from laughing at
Laurence was the fact that I was in a very bad
situation. At any moment he would remember
how hungry he was and slurp me up
like a piece of spaghetti. I needed to
use every part of my worm brain
to come up with a cunning plan
to escape from the birdhouse.
15
“Probably not,” said Laurence, sighing. “It feels
funny eating you for breakfast now that we’ve
had a conversation.”
I almost felt relieved at this, but I was
not reassured by Laurence’s use of the word
“probably.” Keeping the conversation going
seemed like a good idea.
“What’s to stop you from flying to that park in
Lake Nakuru?” I asked.
Instead, I accidentally blurted out my
worst fear:
Are you
going to
eat me for
breakfast?
16
I wriggled across the floor to where he stood,
and said softly, “Laurence, you must follow your
dreams. If Lake Nakuru is where you belong, then
surely there will be a way for you to fly there. . . .
There will be a way.”
the way,” said Laurence, standing up and facing
the wall, unable to meet my eyes.
17
Laurence sighed, then looked at me with those
intense eyes. “Tell me about your hobby again,”
he said, beckoning me to sit on the sofa.
You just need
someone to read
a map for you.
It suddenly felt like we were in a movie. It was
an excellent movie.
If Laurence did fly to Kenya, then he wouldn’t
be able to eat me for breakfast or lunch or dinner.
“There must be a way,” I continued.
“Umm . . .” I was a little worried about the look
in his eyes but thought it might be best to keep
talking. “I like digging holes in the mud. It’s very
relaxing, and I make escape tunnels to interesting
places, like near a tree so that I can eat apples
that have fallen on the ground, or near the
compost heap, which is fun. It’s a bit like
going to the beach and —”
19
“Don’t you get lost when you’re underground?”
asked Laurence, interrupting me. “It must be quite
dark down there.”
“No. I always know where I am. I just kind
of feel it.”
“That’s THAT, then!” said Laurence, laughing
triumphantly and clapping his wings together.
“That’s WHAT?”
I asked, feeling quite
worried again.
“You, Marcus,
with your funny
ideas and wonderful
sense of direction —
you can help me fly to
Kenya. You can be the
navigator! And to think
that I almost ate you
for breakfast —”
20
I was shouting again.
We were going to fly to Lake Nakuru National
Park.
I had no choice.
It was either that or be eaten for breakfast.
YES!
I CAN BE
YOUR
NAVIGATOR!
Chapter Two
Laurence was packing for the long journey ahead.
He was excited, singing and whistling as he
hurried around his birdhouse.
I sat on the sofa and looked out the window.
It was a sunny day. I wished that I were outside.
Or at home, under the ground. Or anywhere
that wasn’t here on
this sofa, waiting
to go somewhere I
didn’t want to go,
with someone
I didn’t want to
go with.
22
There was no way for me to escape.
I’d just have to fly to Lake Nakuru
with Laurence and
start a new life. I’d
send Auntie and Uncle
a postcard when I got
there so they would
know where I was.
“I’m just having a DUST
BATH,” shouted Laurence cheerfully from the
bathroom. “I’ll be ready SOON. We’re going to
have so much FUN!”
“YES,” I said. I was really
worried now. Not only did
Laurence think that I could
read a map, but he also seemed
to think that I knew how to fly.
Had he not noticed that I don’t
have wings? What would he do when he found
out that I can’t do that, either?
23
Laurence was ready. He was carrying a big
map and a small leather bag. “Here, you’ll need
this,” he said, throwing the map toward me. “To
figure out the route.”
I looked at Laurence’s bag. A thought popped
into my worm brain. “Do you have everything
you need in that very small and tiny bag?”
24
“I think so. I’ve got a book for reading, a big
sandwich, and my blanket in case it gets
cold at night.”
“Oh,” I said.
“What do you mean ‘oh’?” asked Laurence.
“Nothing. Well. It’s just that . . . it’s a long
way, and you might get bored. I thought you
might need some other things. You know,
for entertainment.”
“I see. Well, I could take my yo-yo.”
“And would you need any of these
travel books? What’s this one?” I asked,
flipping through the pages.
“Yes, I’d better bring that one —
it’s about Paris. That’s the Eiffel
Tower. . . . We’ll probably see
that on the way.”
“And what about the
television set?”
“Do you think we’ll need that?”
25
“Yes. They might not have TV at Lake Nakuru.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Laurence said.
“In that case, I’d better take the computer as well.
And the printer.”
“And you might need some
warm clothes to wear.”
“But I think it will be hot there.”
“Well, you’ll definitely need to take an
electric fan, then. GOSH!” I exclaimed
loudly.
“What?” asked Laurence,
looking worried.
“Toilets!”
“What about toilets?”
“Will there be any on the way?”
“I don’t know! I’d better take my own toilet,”
Laurence replied quickly.
“And what about eating? I mean SEATING,”
I said, suddenly remembering to avoid food-
related subjects.
26
Laurence looked at
me and held his wing
finger aloft.
“Do you mind waiting in
here while I pack some more
things, Marcus?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“Take your time.”
Laurence went into his
bedroom. I could hear him
opening drawers and cupboards.
It sounded like he was pushing
furniture around. Then there
were clanking noises coming
from the bathroom as he
disconnected the toilet
from the pipes.
27
When he returned, he was carrying much
more than his little travel bag.
“Do you think that I’m going to be able
to fly like this, Marcus?”
I looked at him. “Probably not,” I said,
shaking my head sadly. “It might be better
if you don’t go. . . .”
28
Laurence laughed. “Of course we’re going to
go. I probably don’t need most of these things.
I’ll unpack again. Thanks for thinking of me,
though,” he said sincerely.
“No problem,” I said, feeling a bit guilty.
After several hours of unpacking and
reconnecting the plumbing, we were ready
to leave.
Laurence opened the front door.
“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FLY, LAURENCE!”
I shouted up to him. “DO YOU MIND IF I STAY
HERE?”
Laurence laughed
again. “Silly, I know
that worms can’t fly!”
He bent his head
down as an invitation
for me to climb up onto
the back of his neck.
I wriggled up.
“Is that comfortable?” he asked.
“YES!” I said, and I wasn’t lying. I was
surrounded by a million soft feathers. It was like
sitting on a cloud in heaven.
We were ready to leave.
“I’m going to jump from the platform now,
Marcus, and then we’re going to fly up through
the tree. You might feel some leaves brushing past
you as we go. Are you ready for that?”
“OK! I’m ready,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Hold on tight!” he said.