by Ruth Fox
They tried searching the internet on Mr. Morgenstern’s computer, but because of the Edict, they got no hits on any of their search terms. They had more luck with Mrs. Morgenstern’s books on mythology, which were on a separate shelf. There were plenty of monsters in those: sea monsters that swallowed boats whole, fire breathing monsters that hoarded gold, little monsters that sneaked into people’s bedrooms at night and tied all their socks up in knots. There was also an old book, one which Zach had treasured as a child, called Tales of Magic and Wonder; this was a book of fairy tales written by a man named Fredericks, full of stories about dragons and witches and heroes with swords. His favourite had always been The Single Golden Hair, and he was just about to point this one out to Morton when Mr. Morgenstern peeked into the study. “Sorry to disturb you, boys. I have to make a phone call.”
“We should take these upstairs,” Zach said, gathering what they needed. As they climbed the stairs, he was aware that his father’s eyes were on his back; he also had the feeling Mr. Morgenstern was smiling.
In their room, Monster-boy pulled back the blanket of his Cave. He motioned Zach in after him.
Zach dived into the Cave, letting the blanket fall behind him. There were several more Ace Fighter Wars comics neatly arranged at the end of the bed, and the model Strike Eagle, which Morton had repaired with glue, hung from the slats of the bunk above. Morton’s balloon from the Lucky Lanes Bowling Alley bobbed, slightly-deflated, from the headboard. Monster-boy’s eyes were gleaming.
“How well can you see in the dark?” Zach asked.
“Pretty well,” Monster-boy said. “I think I can see better than humans can.”
Monster-boy flicked on a bed-lamp for Zach’s benefit, then Zach opened one of the books and flicked through it. Monster-boy did the same.
“It looks like monsters do exist in the outside world,” Zach said. “But they only exist in stories and books. That’s weird. I wonder if anyone ever knew there were real, actual monsters, right here in Silvershine.”
“You didn’t,” Monster-boy pointed out. “Until the mayor knocked down the Wall, no one knew anything about monsters being on the Other Side.”
“But they must have, once. There was a time when there wasn’t any Wall.” Zach paused on a particularly colourful picture of a green scaled dragon. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
Morton looked at the picture closely. He reached out a clawed hand to touch it.
“Morton?” Zach prompted, wondering why his friend was lost in thought.
Monster-boy shook his head at last, blinking. “There’s a man who lived down the road from me. He had scales like that,” he said. “And he could breathe sparks. But he wasn’t that big.” He turned the pages, stopping at a picture of something called a goblin. “There are creatures like these ones. They’re good at stealing. We had some jars of jam . . .” he trailed off.
“Yes?” Zach prompted.
“Well, I’d gotten it for free. I was working at a cannery—catching rats in the storehouse at night—and they paid me with jam once . . . I took it home—well, my old home, in Avery House on the South Side. I gave a bit to Mum, and she said it tasted like heaven. But one night I left the window of our apartment slightly open. They’re good at climbing, goblins, and they can see well in the dark, too. They probably saw the window was open from the street below and they just came right up the side of the building. They left one jar smashed on the floor . . . the cockroaches got it . . .”
“You didn’t get much to eat, did you?” Zach asked quietly.
Monster-boy shrugged. “Sometimes. I would have liked to eat the jam. But when everyone’s hungry, you can’t say you deserve the food more than someone else . . .”
Guilt twisted in Zach’s stomach. He remembered putting the garlic powder in Monster-boy’s dessert. It hadn’t been that Monster-boy had liked the taste, or had been trying to show Zach up by eating it all without complaining. He probably just didn’t want to say it tasted horrible because it was food, and he didn’t want to waste it.
Zach wanted to ask more—he had a thousand questions about South Silvershine, and why Morton had crossed the Wall, but there was pain in Monster-boy’s eyes. Zach felt uncomfortable about prying further.
He closed the books and put them on the floor beside the bunk. “Didn’t you ever learn anything about your origins when you were at school?”
“I didn’t go to school very often, even before I stopped going altogether.”
“Didn’t your parents ever tell you anything? About where your grandparents came from?”
Monster-boy’s yellow eyes lit up. “Mum gave me something. After my grandfather died. She said . . . she said it was something that had been passed down through our family.”
He looked sad, and Zach thought of something he’d said when he’d first arrived. “You said there was one thing you wished you still had.”
Monster-boy looked startled. “You remember that?”
Zach nodded, feeling ashamed that Monster-boy would think he wouldn’t remember. “What was it?”
“It was a small round . . .” he held up his clawed forefinger and thumb, making a circle around his other wrist. “A silver band . . . A wristband. I never thought it was that important to know what it was, only that it was important to keep it safe. And I didn’t do that. Ms. Cutter took it when I got to the orphanage. She said she’d give it back, but she didn’t.”
“Boys!” came Mrs. Morgenstern’s voice as she knocked on the door. “It’s time for bed. What are you up to?”
“Just reading,” said Zach, reluctantly crawling out of the Cave. “Stuff for school.”
Mrs. Morgenstern looked extremely pleased. Zach had the feeling they’d just made their parents’ day.
As he climbed into his top bunk that night, he couldn’t stop thinking about what Monster-boy had said. A wristband. It had been important to Monster-boy—he could tell.
He knew exactly where it had gone.
“Mon—Morton?” he said in the darkness.
“Yes?” Monster-boy called back softly.
“We’re going to get your wristband back, okay?”
“How? I don’t even know where it is.”
“I do.” Zach smiled grimly. Harrison had told him what Ms. Cutter did with the things she took from the orphanage kids. “I’m not sure exactly how, yet. But we’ll get it back.”
❖ ❖ ❖
The next day was a Saturday. Zach texted Ryder, telling him to bring his stuff to stay overnight. Ryder’s mum dropped him off after lunch on her way to work at the Aroma Café, and only pulled away when Zach had opened the door and waved to her.
“She wouldn’t let me skate,” Ryder said. “Our neighbour’s daughter, Jennifer, Vanished. She’s fifteen. She’s the oldest one so far. So everyone’s wondering if it’s only kids they’re targeting, or if they’re going to start going for adults.”
“Who are they?” Zach demanded. “Who decided it’s a ‘they’?”
“Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? There’s some sort of organisation behind it. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.”
“Whatever,” said Zach. “We’ve got something we need to do. A mission.”
Zach dragged him upstairs, where he found Monster-boy, and they climbed into the Cave, which was the perfect place to plot and scheme. “When I went to the Hope Orphanage that day with my parents,” Zach said, after filling in Ryder with the story. “I spoke to one of the kids. He told me Ms. Cutter keeps the stuff she takes from kids in the drawer of the desk in her office.”
“My wristband?” asked Monster-boy.
“It sounds like she’s been pinching stuff from the kids in the orphanage. So you can bet she’s got your wristband in there, too.”
Zach opened a notebook and drew a roug
h map of the Hope Orphanage, as far as he could remember it.
“This is the front gate and the driveway. These are the stairs she led us up. This is the common room where we met you.” He pointed each of these places out. “I think Ms. Cutter’s office was down here, but I didn’t go in there—” He broke off, remembering how when his mum and dad had gone in there after meeting Monster-boy he’d asked if he could have his dad’s car keys so he could go out and wait outside and brood.
Monster-boy frowned over the map for a minute, then nodded. “Yes. That’s it.”
“Do you know what it’s like inside?”
“Yes,” he said. “There’s a desk here—and filing cabinets along this wall—”
Monster-boy took the pencil from Zach and, balancing it between his claws, marked these in.
“How do we know this Harrison kid can be trusted?” asked Ryder.
“What he said makes sense. She used to be a teacher,” said Zach. “Where do teachers keep stuff they’ve confiscated from students?”
“In their desk drawers,” Ryder replied promptly. He knew this all too well—he couldn’t count how many times he’d had his phone, MP3 player, portable game console, whistles, key chains, rubber balls, and peashooters placed in that very spot.
“Brilliant!” said Ryder. “So all we need now is to figure out how to break into the orphanage . . . and how to get into the drawer. Easy.” He rolled his eyes.
“There are motion-capture security cameras on the gates,” Monster-boy pointed out.
“Harrison told me how to get past those, too,” Zach said with a grin.
Chapter Eleven
“What on earth have you been up to up there? You’ve all been as quiet as mice!” Mr. Morgenstern said when they came down for dinner. He was smiling, but behind his glasses, his eyes weren’t twinkling the way they usually did.
“Just mucking around,” said Zach.
“Good, good,” said Mr. Morgenstern, nodding in that way adults do when they’re not really listening to what their kids are saying. “Well, we’ve got something to talk to you about. Why don’t you all sit down?”
The other two glanced at Zach, as if to say is this normal? But Zach could only shrug. The last time his parents had acted like this, they’d told him they were adopting someone.
Dinner had been set out on the table, and Zach took his usual seat to the right. Mr. and Mrs. Morgenstern sat at either end. Ryder and Monster-boy took the chairs on the other side, and when Ryder reached for the bowl of honey-glazed carrots with an eager look on his face, Mr. Morgenstern coughed. Ryder shrank back in his seat. He kept his eye on those carrots, though.
“We want to talk to you boys about these disappearances,” Mr. Morgenstern said.
“Yes. More and more kids are going missing,” Mrs. Morgenstern added. “We received this in the mail today.”
She put a glossy brochure on the table.
How to Keep Your Family Safe, it said.
“It’s actually very helpful. The mayor has been consulting with the Lower East Primary School Mothers’ Club to make sure all areas are covered.” Mrs. Morgenstern opened it up and pointed to a list of bullet-points. “There has been an informal curfew implemented. Kids shouldn’t be on the streets after dark. In fact, they strongly suggest all children stay inside whenever they’re not under direct adult supervision.”
“That’s crazy.” Zach didn’t think his mum could be serious. “They don’t mean we can’t muck around after school,” he went on. “They don’t mean we can’t go to the mall or the park on the weekend. Do they?”
“I think it might be a good idea if you started to come straight home from school instead of hanging out and playing,” Mrs. Morgenstern said.
“But . . . I always have my phone with me . . .” Zach said. “And Mon—Morton will too, when you buy him one. Hey, that’s an idea. You should buy him one this weekend. Lex has been teaching him how to text and stuff.”
“I know it sounds unfair, but really, Zach, you spend a lot of time running around after school. You could spend that time on your homework. Wouldn’t that be good?”
“No,” said Ryder. Then, as both adults turned their gazes on him, he clamped his mouth shut.
“We spoke to your mother on the phone just before, Ryder. She’s in complete agreement with us—another child, Lucas Larkin, has just gone missing, so you and little Miranda will be hearing the same thing when you go home tomorrow.”
“Huh,” said Ryder glumly. The three younger people at the table shared pained glances, but had to keep their protests under wraps until dinner was over.
“This is bad,” said Ryder when they were back in the Cave. “They’re going to make it so that we can’t go anywhere. We’re going to get in so much trouble if they find out we snuck out tonight. Maybe we should forget about this whole thing.”
Zach shook his head. “We have to get Morton’s wristband back. If they’re going to start clamping down, we’ll have to do it tonight.”
“Maybe they’re right, though,” said Monster-boy, agreeing with Ryder. “Maybe it’s too dangerous. It’s not that important.”
“No,” Zach said. Both Ryder’s and Monster-boy’s protests only strengthened his resolve. Morton’s willing acceptance was only a further sign that Ms. Cutter had been taking advantage of him, doing something completely wrong by picking on those who couldn’t fight back. “We have to show her she can’t do stuff like that.”
Ryder nodded slowly. It was true—they couldn’t just stand back and let the woman get away with it. They owed it to Monster-boy.
❖ ❖ ❖
After a lengthy and noisy battle on the SonX—to convince their parents that they would be too tired to get up to any mischief—the three went upstairs for an early night.
They lay in the darkness, too excited to fall asleep. It was suddenly too easy to explode into fits of laughter. One of them would start, and then the others would join in.
“Shhhh-shhh!” Zach would hiss, and they all buried their faces in their pillows.
Ten minutes later, it would happen again.
Finally, Zach heard his parents coming upstairs to bed. He knew their routines by heart. He listened for the hiss of the bathroom taps as they brushed their teeth, then the door to their room clicking shut. He counted to three hundred for good measure, then slipped out of his top bunk.
“Come on,” he whispered, and the others jumped up immediately. They were all still wearing their clothes, Morton with his yellow permit pinned to his t-shirt, and Zach was wearing his really cool watch so they could use the inbuilt torch. They’d taken an extra penlight that Mrs. Morgenstern kept in her odds and ends drawer for emergencies, and filled their pockets with some of Zach’s home-made roasted pumpkin seeds. “You never know when you might need snacks,” Ryder insisted. His older brother Max had been an expert in sneaking out when he still lived at home, and Ryder had learned a trick or two from him.
Zach, who wasn’t as practised at sneaking out, made sure they all avoided the one creaky floorboard in the middle of the room, then opened the bedroom window and looked across the porch roof dubiously. He had gone out this way a few times, but only with his father’s knowledge, to pick plums from the overhanging tree to make into jam. He looked back over his shoulder. The others motioned him on.
Taking a deep breath, he seized the topmost branch of the tree and swung himself onto a lower branch. The tree was thin and swayed under his weight. It was prickly, jabbing his skin and catching his clothes; but it wasn’t too far to climb down. He managed to jump the last little bit, then looked up to see the others following. Monster-boy had the presence of mind to slide the window shut, leaving just enough of a gap to lift it back up when they returned.
Ryder was bigger than Zach, and the branches dipped alarmingly under him. He
reached the ground with a few scrapes. But Monster-boy slithered down as if he’d been doing it all his life. In seconds he was standing on the front lawn beside them, his luminous eyes blinking behind his sunnies. The yellow glow was more noticeable in the darkness.
“How did you—” Ryder asked, but Zach shushed him, then motioned them out onto the footpath.
Out here, they felt more exposed. A car passed, sweeping them with its headlights. Was it Zach’s imagination, or did it slow down a little? Surely not. Still, it would be best if they hurried.
“Come on,” he said.
He and Ryder knew the way to the park by heart, but Monster-boy didn’t have any trouble keeping up with them. He moved quickly and almost silently in his new runners, and seemed to blend with the shadows—except for his eyes, which shone when he looked over the tops of his sunglasses. Those shining orbs darted here and there, flitting over the parked cars and rubbish bins, the fences, catching sight of every startled cat or piece of laundry flapping on a washing line.
