Dignity

I have a book that I keep dear called Henry Graysmith: A Life and Times, and it's not in your local library. You can't find it anywhere, I'll bet. It's about a miner in Kootenai, Idaho who discovers a valuable gem, and the powers that be want to take that gem for themselves, but old Henry -- he was young Henry then -- won't let them. The gem is too powerful, see.

So Henry -- whom we'll call Hank from now on, because we're all well met and aquainted -- sets off in pursuit of the gem's rightful owner, a one-hunert-foot-tall dinosaur also named Hank, but he spells it with a silent P (Phank).

So he meets Phank, and also Strudeldorf, a feral cat-human exiled from Tibet, then to Nepal, and Phank needs a number to unlock the secret door, but neither Hank nor Strudeldorf have it (they lost it while in a nightclub), but Phank lets them pass anyway; he's bored with these bullshit, cookie-cutter creations, and he wants to sleep the sleep of the dinosaurjust.

So Hank and Strudeldorf -- whom we'll call SD from now on, for brevity's sake -- get picked up at sea by a ship of Japanese-Somolian pirates, and boy what a time they have!

Then a dolphin named Maggie rescues them. And she marries Strudeldorf, who can shapeshift. I think I already mentioned that.

The gem? It's safe for now, until I need another paycheck.

High Seas Gremlins: the Search for Strudeldorf, available in paperback in 2005.