“Pamela? What’s wrong?” asked the squid monster.

“H-Henry?” Pamela shuddered, realizing that something most foul must’ve happened to her companion.

“Yes! Why, who else would it be?”

Pamela took a few deep breaths as her heart metaphorically rose up out of her cervix and back into the cavity in her chest where it metaphorically and also physically belonged.

“Pamela, do you need a hand?” Henry slopped a dribbling limb on Pamela’s shoulder, “You look a little woozy.”

“I’m…fine. Thanks,” Pamela pushed the seaweedy appendage away, holding her weak gag reflex back with all her might, “I’m…glad you’re alright, Henry. Assuming you’re alright, of course.”

“Alright? Why, of course I’m alright! What might make you think I’m not alright?”

“Have you looked at yourself recently, Henry?”

“Well, no. I guess I could go peer into that winding, binding, babbling creek to see my reflection, but I have suspicion that the naked creek people that live there have impure intentions and might just pull me back in to the murky depths.”

“Ohhh,” Pamela felt the the aha moment relieve some of the disgust she was feeling as she attempted to draw Henry the naked seaweed monster in her notebook. Or was Henry the seaweed monster already naked? She looked at his crotch and couldn’t tell, so she generously assumed the answer was no.

“Pamela, I must say you look absolutely flabbergasted. Which, if I’m being honest, I feel would if anything be a more appropriate response from me in response to you. Seeing that now I know about all the dirty stuff you’ve been putting down in that notebook. Notes indeed, Pamela. Notes indeed.”

“Wha—you know?”

“Oh pish posh flish flosh, Pamela. The whole Fancy Forest knows. Even Leroy the Dandy Toad knows, Pamela.”

“Elroy the Randy Goat?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure he knows too.”

“How, exactly?”

“Why, Pamela, you were connected to the vine and the grandmother tree read your mind. When the grandmother tree reads your mind, Pamela, the whole forest reads your mind. Your dirty, dirty mind, Pamela. Honestly, I ought to feel violated, but somehow I can’t help but feel flattered you’d spend so much effort on my naked form.”

“Now, Henry, if you’ve actually been able to read my mind you’ve got to know that there’s nothing sexual about my notes, and yes, I do still consider them notes. Art, too, but notes can be art and art can be notes, Henry.”

“Pfft. Sure, Pamela, sure. A likely story.”

“Whatever, Henry. I’m still not really sure how you got the opportunity to read my mind, honestly. You said that, erm,” Pamela turned the page to look back at a naked profile of Henry-the-naked-seaweed-octopus-beast, “You said that the, what was it now, oh yes,” she focused on the light sketching of what she’d imagined a seaweed clad penis might’ve looked like,

“You said that when the grandmother tree read my mind, the whole forest read my mind, right?”

“Um, yes, that is what I said. By cock, it’s like I’m speaking to a past version of myself. Fascinating.”

Pamela swallowed air uncomfortably, unsure whether she should be flattered or disgusted by this comment. “Well. So, Henry, here’s the thing. As far as I know, you aren’t really part of ‘the whole forest,’ now are you?”

“Oh, Pamela, Pamela, Pamela,” Henry chortled and placed another seaweedy hand on Pamela’s unwilling shoulder, “I’m as part of the whole forest as a rock, or a tree, or poison ivory, or even the lowly soul mosquitos that so troubled you earlier. At least, I am while I’m under cover here as ‘Henry the Park Ranger.’ As for Officer corporal Sergeant Officer Jarmish, well, I wouldn’t consider him part of the whole forest. But Henry the Park Ranger surely is.”

“Okay, that was a great explanation, Henry, but can you please get rid of the squid now?”

“The what now?”

“The squid, Henry. It keeps staring at my chest. And it’s inked all over you three times now. It’s making me very uncomfortable, Henry.”

“Well dear me. Where is this unbearable, cretinous squod?”

“Squid.”

“That’s what I said. Squod.”

“Henry, you’re not saying squid right.”

“Well where is the squod anywhatways?”

“The squid is on your head. Or covering your head. Honestly I,” Pamela checked another nude sketch to confirm what she had thought before continuing, “I thought your head had been transmuted into a squid when you first revealed your identity to me, Henry.”

Henry burst into a guffawing cackle that was so hearty and hefty that it almost seemed to fling the squid into the air on its own. Then, he reached up to his head and grasped the squid tightly, pulling with all his might.

SHMPFFT

It barely budged.

“Oh dear,” Henry sighed, giving a nervous chuckle. He gave the squid another hood tug. Nothing. “Pamela, might you be able to help me?”

“Ugh. Fine,” Pamela shook her head, set down her notebook and clasped the sticky legs of the squid. “This thing feels disgusting.”

SHMPFFT

Still nothing.

“Yea, it’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“It’s like a giant living booger, Henry.”

SHMPFFT

It was leaning over to one side now, but still latched on quite well.

“I know, I know.”

“How’d you get a squid on your head again?”

SHMPFFT

Now it leaned over to the other side.

“I’m not entirely certain. You might remember I wasn’t even aware there was a squid on my head before you informed me as such, as I’ve been looking underneath the squid through a thick patch of seaweed. That being said, I’ll be happy to tell you what all has happened to me in the brief interim of our separation as soon as we get this cockawful squid unstuck from my cranium.”

SHMPFFT

The squid was now once again centered.

“Ugh!” Pamela walked over to a nearby tree, snapped a branch covered in gold rings off it, and whacked the squid forcefully.

WTT

And yet there it sat.

WTT WTT WTT WTT

“My arm’s getting sore, Henry, and this squid isn’t getting any more off your head.”

“Cock hamn it. If only I’d read the field guide to squid tickling.”

“Squid pickling? I’m sure we scarcely have time to submerge the squid in a vat of vinegar and salt until it locks up and releases you, Henry.”

“No, Pamela, no. Squid tickling.”

“Squid fickling? I mean I’m sure squids are a fickle bunch but I’m not really sure how we’d exacerbate that to the point of convincing this one to unsuction itself from your cranium.”

“Not fickling! Squid tickling! Tickling! Like this!”

Pamela was wondering how on Gurth you could whittle a squid when Henry suddenly reached out a disgusting, soggy appendage. Out from underneath the green mess of vegetation shot five of his fingers, which promptly snaked themselves under Pamela’s armpits and began to fiercely tickle her. She did not react.

“Um, Pamela?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you reacting?”

“Reacting to what?”

“To me? I’m tickling you?”

“You’re pickling me?”

“No! I’m tickling you! T I C—”

“Wha—Henry! How dare you!” Pamela swatted his fingers away and scowled. “You’re lucky I trained myself to become immune to tickling in preparation for joining the Roya—Loyal Gourd.”

“I was just trying to demonstrate!”

“Well, demonstrate on the squid then, don’t be weird.”

“You drew human genitalia on trees, Pamela. You can’t call me weird.”

“That was only out of necessity. Now go on, give your squid a tickle.”

Henry huffed and puffed and gave his squid a tickle, and as a result of that tickle the squid began to giggle. The laughter of the squid was light and airy, though somehow its resonance did manage to carry quite far. Its legs pop popped off the top of Henry’s face and the squid’s torpedo-shaped body began greatly to jiggle. Its tendrils and eyeballs and tentacles flexing with a wiggle, the cephalopod leapt from Henry face with a screech and a lurch and landed in a perfect perch on the dangling end of a nearby tree branch.

“My cock, was that ever effective! I guess lightly skimming the back of the squid ticklingfield guide was enough to absorb all its knowledge through osmosis.”

Pamela shrugged and then gagged as she watched Henry’s true head emerge from the mess of swamp muck coating it. He was covered is bright red suction cup hickeys.

“Oh, Henry,” Pamela shook her head and sighed. Then, she picked her notebook back up and started quickly detailing his facefull of shame.

“Don’t oh, Henry me! Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a short story to tell you. A story about what happened to me when I fell into that winding, binding, babbling creek.”

“Please do,” Pamela chuckled, sitting on a nearby boulder and cracking her knuckles.

Henry took a deep, puffy breath and leaned down on one knee like he was an upper-rich Caldonian who’d paid to shoot and pose with a gigantic acid-spewing hippopotamus in the name of population control, “So, there I was, canonballing into that winding, binding, babbling creek that I mentioned. You were there for that bit, weren’t you? You know, the water was cold as ice. Except not really of course because it wasn’t frozen. It was definitely rather chilly though. Regardless, there I was.