My Curious Uncle Dudley

The voice was coming from above. The floor above me. "Help," it was repeating, very calmly almost dignified. "I say, help . . ." I peered out into the hall. "Uncle Dudley?" I called, hesitantly. Silence. Then again, faintly: "Help . . . I say. Help . . ." My heart began to beat fast. I went to the door to the third-floor stairs. I opened it. I heard the cries, more clearly. "Uncle Dudley?" I called back. "Hello?" Unsure, I started up. Id never heard an adult calling for help before! I waited breathless outside the guest-room door. I called again. The cries repeated. I knocked. With a hammering heart, I turned the handle. I peered inside. The shock I got was so, well, shocking, I dont remember if I was too paralyzed to scream, like in your worst nightmares, and only gasped. But I recall for sure my hair stood on end. There in the dim room on the dim plaid blanket, where yesterday one lonesome tiny head had sat, now sat a second. Regular size. Not a head exactly a pair of shoulders, from which stuck a neck and a goateed mouth and a nose and cheeks and an ear. And nothing else. "Ah, Duncan, is that you? How nice of you to come," said Uncle Dudley's partial head. "Don't be alarmed. Well, I mean, don't be unnecessarily alarmed. You aren't, are you?" "Wh-wh-wh " I replied. "Just ran into a bit of complication, you see," the mouth went on. "Hoping you might lend a hand." And it grinned, pleasantly. MY CURIOUS UNCLE DUDLEY by Barry Yourgrau. Copyright (c) 2004 by Barry Yourgau. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.Yourgrau, Barry is the author of 'My Curious Uncle Dudley', published 2004 under ISBN 9780763619350 and ISBN 0763619353.