by Max Brallier
But it’s not all good news and great progress! It seems that the treacherous, pink-haired Gretchen Grimlock has already knocked a number of contestants out of the race! The Bandini Brothers were spotted on the side of the road with spikes in their tires—courtesy, Gretchen Grimlock.
One reporter even witnessed Grimlock blast a hot-air balloon out of the sky with a cannonball!
My suggestion? Go home, thrill seekers. Grimlock is in it to win it.
Believing in the Unbelievable
When Annie came to, she was lying in a giant, supersoft bed. She didn’t think she had ever been so comfy in her entire life. She opened her eyes and was happy to see she wasn’t staring up at a helicopter, but at a beautiful, ornately tiled ceiling.
It slowly came back to her:
Hot-air balloon.
The contest.
Pink-haired freak!
Cannonball!
And herself—Annie Perkins. Failed adventurer . . .
“You must want that million dollars very badly,” a voice said, “to be taking up the chase all alone.”
Annie shot up in bed. The voice belonged to—she couldn’t believe it—Harold Mews! He was standing at the foot of the bed. She instantly recognized him, clad in his trademark brown fedora, beige suit, and bright red tie. A thin white mustache matched his short white hair.
“Wha—Mr. Mews?” she asked, confused.
He smiled and laughed. “Yes. And you are the young woman who made that most dramatic arrival at my front gate.”
Annie’s face went red. It wasn’t her fault! It was that stupid lady in her stupid jet!
“Oh, no need to be embarrassed!” Harold Mews said. “Your entrance actually reminded me of a trip I once made to the village of Naypyidaw, in Burma. I had just parachuted out of an old triplane with nothing but my canteen, my ferret, Mr. Buckley, and half a chopstick, when—” Mews stopped. “But that’s a story for another time.” He had a reputation for being a bit long-winded when reciting his exploits, but Annie would have happily listened to them all day long.
Annie scratched her head. “So um—where am I?”
“In my home, of course.” Mews chuckled.
“The Mews mansion!” Annie exclaimed.
Mews chuckled again. “Indeed.”
“What happened to me?” Annie asked.
“Gretchen Grimlock happened,” Mews said, scowling. “I feared her involvement. We pulled you out of the sea in the nick of time.”
“That pink-haired woman? That’s Gretchen Grimlock?” Annie asked.
Mews nodded grimly.
“She could have killed me!” Annie exclaimed.
“Gretchen is infamous among adventurers—a ruthless fortune hunter. Winning is all that matters to her—and she’ll stop at nothing.”
Annie shook her head. She was angry at this Gretchen character; but more than that, she was disappointed in herself.
Mews pulled up a chair. “And what about you? As I said, you must want that million dollars quite badly to go it alone.”
“Yes,” Annie said. “I guess I do. But more than that, well . . .”
Annie stopped. She was going to say something very inspiring and dramatic about how she craved adventure and how she had set out on this journey to prove her mettle and how she wouldn’t stop until she had triumphed because she, Annie Perkins, was an adventurer, and she was going to use her adventuring spirit to save the family business. But she felt very silly, all of a sudden. What sort of adventurer was she? She’d made it about one hundred feet and then failed. And what would Mews care about her family’s troubles? He was a millionaire. A billionaire! Bananas, maybe a trillionaire!
“Please continue,” Mews said, smiling warmly.
“It’s nothing really. Just—I believe in your work. In cryptids. I believe,” Annie said, “in the unbelievable.”
Mews was silent for a moment. Then he stood and said with a smile, “Very good. When you’re done resting, come find me.” At the door, he stopped to look back at Annie. “We have work to do.”
Three point seven seconds later, Annie was done resting. She threw on her backpack, slipped on her still-soggy sneakers, and left the guest room.
The Mews mansion was amazing! She couldn’t believe it! The various artifacts, relics, and ornaments were incredible.
At the end of the hall was a huge grandfather clock with a painting of Bigfoot at the center, the cryptid’s arms functioning as clock hands. Outside the bathroom were stuffed dodo birds—the real things! Lining the halls were globes and maps of all sizes and designs. Authentic Greek statues loomed over railings. Hanging on one wall was what appeared to be a photograph of a woolly mammoth!
Wow, Annie said to herself as she walked the mansion’s long halls. If I had just1 percent of this, I could support my family for the rest of my life!
Annie poked her head into room after room. Rooms with dark mahogany floors and leather-bound books. Everything smelled rich.
“Excuse me, madam, but where do you think you’re going?”
Annie turned, startled. She was looking at Mews’s butler—the man she had seen earlier, outside. He looked positively butler-rific: tall and thin, dressed in a black tuxedo, wearing white gloves, with a smart little mustache beneath a small nose and tiny round eyes. He appeared to be generally dull and unhappy.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop,” Annie said. “I’m looking for Harold Mews. He told me to come find him.”
“Oh, yes,” the butler said, warming up some. “You must be our guest. Annie Perkins, is that it?”
“Um—yes. But how did you know?” Annie asked, confused.
“Mews knows everything,” the butler said. “Please, follow me.”
Annie followed the butler down a long hall, through a dark, oak-smelling billiard room, and then down the mansion’s wide main staircase into the foyer. It felt like it took about an hour. This guy moves like molasses on a cold day.
In the foyer, the butler stopped abruptly beneath what appeared to be a real-deal stuffed Bigfoot.
“Is that—?” Annie began to ask.
“A Bigfoot?” the butler said to Annie.
Annie nodded her head sharply, her eyes wide.
“Just a re-creation. Mr. Mews wishes it were real, I suspect. He’s obsessed with the things. All a little silly, if you ask me.”
Next to the Bigfoot was a very tall and very long bookshelf. Moving slowly and deliberately, the butler took hold of the bookshelf ladder and slid it to the closest end of the bookshelf. Then, again very slowly and deliberately, he climbed the ladder.
Annie was confused. What, this guy decided he just had to read some book right now?
At the top of the ladder, the butler leaned over and reached out to grab hold of the Bigfoot’s ear. He tugged on it twice. Then, the floor began to rumble, and the massive Bigfoot statue opened. It split right down the middle to reveal a dark, winding staircase.
“Oh man. A Bigfoot-ear secret passage?! This is the coolest thing ever!” Annie said. She followed Mr. Butler (that’s what she had decided she would call him, until someone told her otherwise) down a dark, cold, winding stairwell. Annie pressed her hands against the cool stone walls to keep from slipping. She felt like she was walking down into a dungeon.
At the end of the spiral staircase was a large metal door. Mr. Butler opened it, and Annie saw then that their destination was not dungeon-like it all. The door revealed a bright room full of buzzing, whirring, and chirping machines. Bright halogen lights hung from the ceiling, and monitors on the wall displayed satellite images from around the world.
At the center of the room was a massive glass tank filled with water. Annie pushed past Mr. Butler and ran to it. Floating in the tank was a cryptid—a real cryptid.
“Holy tentacles!” she exclaimed. “It’s a giant squid!”
“You know your cryptids,” Mews said. Annie turned to see him watching her from a computer station.
“Of course I do!” Annie said. �
��I’ve followed your career my whole life!”
Annie looked around in awe. Mews had assembled small stations devoted to each of the cryptids he hoped to locate: the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, and more. Annie’s eyes were so wide, she thought they’d pop out of her head.
“Welcome,” Mews said, with a proud grin, “to the world’s only true cryptid museum. Now, it’s not a museum in the traditional sense, because no one visits it. No one except for me, Mr. Butler, and now you.”
“It’s—it’s—it’s all true!” Annie stuttered. “And—wait—your butler’s name is Mr. Butler?”
Mr. Butler nodded. Annie suppressed a giggle.
Mews continued. “Thus far we have only one exhibit in this small museum—the body of the giant squid, recovered last week. But it has given me hope that other cryptids exist. That is why I organized this contest.”
At the far end of the museum and laboratory was a large workstation, full of displays and monitors. Photos and maps of forests adorned the walls.
“What’s that one there?” Annie asked.
“That station,” Mews said, “is devoted to my own personal ‘white whale,’ to borrow a phrase: the North American Bigfoot. It is what drives me. As a small child, younger than you, I saw it. I was fishing with my father. I had run off to explore—I was always doing that; the adventurous temperament has been in my blood since birth—and I became lost. Looking for my father, I stumbled upon a cave. Inside was Bigfoot, alone, eating berries. He looked up. He looked me right in the eyes. I turned to call for my father, but when I turned back, the creature was gone.”
“Wow,” Annie whispered.
“My life changed that day,” Mews continued. “I became obsessed. As I grew older, every dollar I made, I put into cryptid research. At last, I was able to build this mansion and this museum and then, finally, hold this contest.”
“The contest,” Annie said, sighing. “Guess I didn’t make it very far, did I?”
“There’s still time.” Mews smiled.
“Time for what?” Annie asked. “Time to almost get killed again?”
“Time to win,” Mews said.
Annie shook her head.
“I won’t lie, Annie,” Mews continued. “Gretchen Grimlock will try to knock you out of the contest again and again. She’s the real monster. She’s the one that deserves to be in a museum—an example of a scientific technique that should be long extinct. That’s why I need you, Annie. Did you see them out there? The contestants? Scrambling and fighting. Do you think for one moment they care about these creatures? That they want to see them helped and preserved and cared for? Of course not. They want the money. Nothing more.”
“Hey, I’m not allergic to money, either,” Annie said. “My family is—”
Mews cut her off. “Don’t be silly, of course you’re not! And the money will be yours. But you said it yourself: You believe. You’re not out there just chasing money, you’re out there chasing truth—scientific truth! And that’s the reason you can win this contest.”
Annie sat down on a small metal bench in front of the giant squid’s tank. “I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t risk my life again.”
“Annie, these creatures are out there. And they will be found. Either by Gretchen or by another contestant. The only question is, what will happen to them when they’re found? Will they be killed and stuffed and sold? Will they be trapped in a tiny zoo? Or can we help them to live free and safe in their natural habitats?”
Annie thought for a long while about her family. And about Gretchen. Annie had dreamed of adventure her entire life. Dreamed of this moment: of meeting Harold Mews and of seeing actual cryptids.
Now it was here, and she was full of fear. But fears are meant to be faced!
Finally, she nodded her head—a quick, hard yes. “I’ll do it.”
Mews clapped his hands and grinned from ear to ear. “Fantastic!”
Loch and Roll
The Mews Foundation’s whirlybird was like nothing Annie had ever seen: a state-of-the-art experimental helicopter with all the trimmings. “No expense spared,” Mews boasted.
Mews gave Annie a crash course in flying the whirlybird, although Annie wasn’t so sure she loved the term “crash course” when applied to helicopter lessons. She was relieved when he showed her the industrial-strength parachute, however.
Annie sat behind the controls and prepared for takeoff. She flicked two green metal switches and the propeller blades began to spin. The whirlybird shook and then there was a roaring, almost deafening sound.
At the center of the flight panel was a monitor that gave Annie direct video-chat access to Mews in the museum. Annie leaned over and pressed a small button, and the monitor flashed on, displaying Mews.
“Oh, Annie, I’m jealous,” Mews said. “If I were a younger man, I would join you! Heading off on your first adventure . . . It reminds me of when I was thirteen and I escaped the African village of Korupr by riding a cheetah across a bridge made of elephant hair. I had to fight off a pack of vultures with only a toenail clipper and a gob of toothpaste!”
“Um, Mr. Mews?” Annie said, trying to cut him off before he got going on another one of his stories.
“Right, right,” Mews said. “Sorry. Are you ready?”
Annie was scared, no doubt about it. Gretchen Grimlock was out there somewhere, and she’d do anything to keep Annie from winning the contest. Annie pushed the thought out of her mind. “Yep,” she said brightly. “Ready as I’ll ever be!”
“I’ve entered the coordinates into your GPS,” Mews said, and then asked, “Are you absolutely certain this is the cryptid you want to go after?”
“Positive,” Annie replied.
Mews smiled. “Okay, then, good luck. I’ll check in when you’re close to arrival.”
The monitor flashed off.
Annie pulled back on the control stick, the blades spun faster, and the whirlybird lifted off. Soon, the helicopter was cutting through the air, leaving the small town of Bucky Cove behind, passing over the sandy white shore, and then, finally, out over the water. The Atlantic Ocean spread out ahead—far and wide and deep, dark blue all the way to the horizon.
Annie settled in for a long flight.
The sun was setting, and the sky was a deep, creamy orange color when Annie first caught a glimpse of the village of Drumnadrochit. Neighboring the village was Loch Ness. Annie knew from her research that “loch” was the Scottish word for “lake.” Thick fog rolled in off the lake and made Drumnadrochit look like something out of a dream.
Mews flashed in over the monitor. “How was your flight?” he asked.
Annie yawned. “Long.”
“I once rode a zeppelin from New Zealand to Detroit to Constantinople to Baltimore—all to track down my lucky pants!” Mews said, grinning proudly.
“Um . . . cool?” Annie said.
“Here’s the Fact File info on the Loch Ness Monster,” Mews continued. “But if you’ve followed my work as closely as you say, I assume you’ll already know most of this.”
Mews read the Fact File to Annie:
“‘Scotland’s Loch Ness receives thousands of visitors each year. They come to catch a glimpse of the legendary monster that is said to swim the loch’s deep water. The monster, nicknamed Nessie, is reported to look like a dinosaur with a long neck, flippers, and gray skin like an elephant’s.
“‘There have been many stories, photos, and even films of Nessie over the years. In the seventh century, a writer named St. Adomnán of Iona told a story about a monk named St. Columba who had chased a strange beast at the River Ness near Loch Ness. In 1933, George Spicer and his wife saw a creature that looked like Nessie cross the road in front of their car, then disappear into the loch.
“‘In 1934, a surgeon named Dr. Wilson produced a photo of a long-necked monster. This famous picture convinced many that Nessie was real. Years later a man claimed that he faked the photo using a toy submarine.
“‘Since then, many people have taken video evidence of strange humps moving in the water. Researchers and submarines have used sonar to locate any sign of a large beast. Some say that Nessie sleeps in a small body of water off the loch, one that has never been seen by man.
“‘Still, Nessie has not been found . . . ,’”
Annie was proud of herself—she had done her research, and none of that information was new to her. She knew no one had ever come close to confirming the creature’s existence.
Could she be the first? She wasn’t so sure. Mews’s Fact File offered little help. And she couldn’t very well just dive into the loch and start swimming around trying to find the thing! She’d need to speak with the townsfolk and see what she could learn.
Annie signed off the video chat and set the whirlybird down in a small meadow just outside town. She threw her backpack over her shoulder, shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, and marched through the cool Scottish night. As she made her way along the muddy road, she passed signs proudly boasting of Loch Ness, “the home of ole Nessie.” A few shops sold souvenirs, but there were no tourists out now.
Annie threw a glance behind her. She had a gnawing feeling she was being watched. Or worse, followed. She picked up her pace.
A few boats were docked at the edge of town. She’d need a captain, she realized, to take her out on the water. Annie spotted something that was better than any boat: a small submarine, bobbing gently in the water.
That’s exactly what she needed . . .
Now, to find the submarine’s captain.
A great noise erupted from across the street. It came from Nessie’s Pub. The laughter, roaring, and cheering grew louder as the door opened and a man walked out.
Annie approached the man and stood up straight, trying to look very grown-up. “What’s going on in there?” she asked.
“Y’dun know?” the man said in a thick Scottish accent. “Ole Captain McCullough is throwing darts. Nay a man better in all ’a Scotland.”
