He ran to the house. At the screen door, he turned back to Evan. “Don’t go anywhere—okay?”
Evan let out a furious roar, interrupted by a deafening hiccup. “Where can I go?” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. “Where can I—HIC!—go?!”
The door slammed behind Kermit.
Evan let out another roar, clenching his blue fists and shaking his blue arms over his head. He paced back and forth on the driveway, hiccupping every few seconds.
“Try to calm down a little,” Andy called up to him. “People will hear you.”
“I—I—HIC!—can’t calm down!” Evan complained bitterly. “Look at me!”
“But the neighbors will hear you. Or see you,” Andy warned. “They’ll call the police.”
Evan replied with a hiccup that nearly knocked him off his feet.
Kermit came running out of the house. He raised another bottle of blue liquid to Evan. “Here! Try this!”
“HIC!” Evan declared. He grasped the bottle in his blue hand.
Without saying another word, he turned the bottle upside down. With quick, frantic motions, he splashed the blue liquid all over him. Over his cheeks. His forehead. His hands and arms. His chest.
He rolled up his jeans and rubbed the mixture onto his knees and legs. He pulled off his socks and sneakers and smoothed the blue liquid over his ankles and feet.
“It’s got to work!” he cried. “This time, it’s got to!”
Andy and Kermit stared up at him eagerly.
They waited.
Evan waited.
Nothing happened. No change at all.
Then Evan began to feel it.
“Hey—I’m tingling!” he announced happily.
He felt the same electric tingling he had felt before. The itchy feeling he had every time he was about to grow a little more.
“Yes!” Evan cheered. “Yes!”
The tingling grew sharper, stronger, as it spread over his entire body.
“It’s working! I can—HIC!—feel it!” Evan shouted. “It’s really working! I’m tingling! I’m itching! I can feel it! It’s working!”
“No, it isn’t,” Andy murmured quietly.
“Huh?” Evan narrowed his eyes at her.
The tingling became a violent itch. He started to scratch. But pulled back his hand because his skin felt so strange.
“It … didn’t … work …” Andy said sadly, her voice trembling.
“Yuck! He looks so gross!” Kermit declared, making a disgusted face.
“Huh? HIC!” Evan replied.
He uttered a horrified gasp as he stared at his arms. “F-f-feathers!” he stammered in a high, shrill voice.
He checked out his arms. His stomach. His legs.
“Noooooo!” A long, low wail burst from his chest.
His entire body was covered in fluffy white feathers.
“Noooo—HIC!—oooooooo!”
“I’m sorry,” Kermit said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I thought I had the mixture right this time.”
“You look like a big eagle,” Andy commented. “Except eagles aren’t blue.”
“HIC!” Evan cried.
“And eagles don’t get hiccups,” Andy added. She gazed up at him with concern. “Poor Evan. That must itch like crazy. You’re having a real bad day.”
Evan frantically scratched his feathery chest. “It can’t get any worse than this,” he muttered.
