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windowsill, but the album cover was gone.
    I heard a rumbling sound behind me and turned to see a giant green lizard—about nine feet long! His mouth was open, and he had rows of little sharp-looking teeth, and a red tongue. “This is it,” I thought. “Either I’m going to die or go nuts.” The lizard was moving down the street a little above eye level. He was roaring—making a noise like a bus. Above his head was printing, and underneath him. He was printed too! Explore the Wonders of the Natural World, it said above the printed lizard. Visit the Hogboro Zoo, it said underneath him. Take the Special Zoo Bus, it said under that. It was an advertising poster. I only thought the lizard was real for maybe a quarter of a second. I was already telling myself that I knew it all along. But my mouth was very dry. The bus with the lizard poster moved away.

Chapter 7
    I got out my notebook:
    7. Realistic Lizard Poster. (Take special zoo bus.)
    My mouth felt really dry. I decided it wasn’t just the surprise of seeing the giant lizard on the bus. It was also the surprise of seeing that someone had removed the album cover. Someone was trying to hide clues. I wondered if it could be the Chicken Man. He had seen me looking at the album cover. Maybe there were a whole lot of people who didn’t want me to find out about the lizards. Maybe the guy at the TV station was lying to me over the telephone. I decided that I’d better get a grape soda.
    There was a little store on the corner. It sold magazines and cigars and candy, and it had a soda fountain. I went in. It was dark and it smelled sort of sweet and damp. They had all kinds of weird candy in jars. In each jar there was a piece of torn-off cardboard and penciled on it was 1¢ or 2¢. There were cards with combs and key chains and corncob pipes and dice and work gloves and little American flags, and all sorts of other stuff hanging behind the counter with the 1¢ and 2¢ candy. A little farther down was this counter made out of black and white stone—marble, I guess. It had stools, and most of them, and most of the counter, had stacks of newspapers piled up. I sat down on the one stool without a stack of newspapers on it. There was a little fat guy moving around behind the counter. He was about as wide as he was tall.
    “Don’t just sit—say!” he said.
    “I beg your pardon?” I said.
    “Say! Say! What do you want? How may I serve you, Your Highness?” The little fat guy made a low bow, and disappeared under the chrome faucets behind the soda fountain. He didn’t come up again. I sat there waiting for him to straighten up. “Thay! Thay!” he groaned. I could hear him sort of grunting and moaning from somewhere underneath the counter. “Thaaay!”
    “I’d like a grape soda, please,” I said.
    The little fat guy popped up like a cork, “Yes sir. At your service! One grape soda for His Majesty! Coming up!” The little fat guy ran to the end of the counter and shouted into a door that was there at the back of the store, almost hidden by stacks of cartons. “A grape soda for the young tsarevich!” he shouted through the door. Then he ran to the front of the store and shouted out into the street, “A grape soda for a prince of royal blood!” Then he reached under the counter and came up with a thing like a little tiny accordion. “Taa ta ta too!” he shouted and squeezed the little accordion thing, which sounded sour. Then the little fat guy dropped the little accordion and ran to the back of the store where there was a soda cooler. He fished out a bottle of grape soda, draped a little towel over his arm, and ran back to where I was sitting. He showed me the label. Professor Pedwie’s Natural Grape Beverage, it said.
    “Nineteen seventy-five, an excellent year,” the little fat guy said. “Does the young gentleman approve?”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “Sure! Sure!” The little fat guy danced around. “He approves! Order the Cadillac limousine and the