Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Chapter 87

I STARTED to turbo-climb the cloth cliff of Seth’s white shirt. I was actually on his shoulder blade when I turned and saw his enormous eye staring down at me.

Far off, I watched a claw the size of a two-family house rise toward me. Uh-oh.

Then I jumped! The claw actually brushed my back. It came so close, I almost went flying off Seth altogether.

Almost.

I landed on the side of Seth’s head, next to his ear.

And then I held my breath… and crawled inside.

YUCK!

It was like the most disgusting cave ever discovered. Right in my path was what looked like a tractor trailer’s worth of melted Limburger cheese.

My tick torso doubled over and I started to dry heave. I realized I was standing in Seth’s earwax.

Finally, though, I rose up tall-and shouted!

“On Terra Firma, they have a product called Q-tips. You should look into it, Seth,” I yelled.

“WHO SAID THAT?” he bellowed as I scampered down the curving corridor of his ear canal.

I didn’t stop until I came to a bulging red nodule. It was plugging up the tunnel. Now what?

I shut my eyes and pictured the anatomy of the Verm-gypian head from the diagram on my laptop. Having a photographic memory comes in really handy sometimes.

I realized I was staring at his tympanic membrane, or eardrum. Hmmm. It parted like a curtain as I cut into it with my fang.

Seth howled, so I must have been doing something right.

Next, I wriggled my way into a chamber called the tympanic cavity. Above me was a repulsive bulging, hanging thing that looked like a giant squid. It was Seth’s cochlea, the organ that turns sound into brain signals.

There was a little window in it where a funny-looking bone called the stirrup flickered in and out.

I climbed up and crawled over the stirrup and through the window, into Seth’s inner ear.

“I’m still here!” I reassured him. “This is still a fight to the death!”