“Kevin, cut it out!” Liz screamed.
Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT! The music grew louder at the Professor emerged from one of the rooms far behind us, cranking his Wonder Harmonium.
Liz looked back at the spectacled, sweaty round man.
“Hang on to him, newb,” Liz said to me. “I’ll be right back!”
“Stop calling me ‘newb’!”
“Stop acting like one!” I heard Liz cry as she released the rope.
“She always has to get the last word,” I growled.
Looking back, I saw Liz charge toward the Professor. Gonzalo calmly swung open a door. An explosion of locusts and cockroaches filled the hall with their chilling shriek: skreeeer-reeee-reee!
“Gonzalo!” screamed Liz.
Relentless, she charged toward the man who had turned her brother into a monster. No way was she backing down. She became pure love and vengeance in a single body, swooping her blades through the storm of insects.
Bug heads rolled.
“Yeah, LeRue!” I shouted over my shoulder as Kevin dragged us down the hall.
“Uh, Kelly?” said Victor, staring ahead.
There was an explosion of colored glass. Rainbow shards flew around me. Kevin and I plunged forward, toppling out of the window. Victor had let go of the rope.
But me? I hit a slanted section of the roof and slid uncontrollably down the shingles.
“This is bad, very bad!” I yelled.
My fingers clutched on to the rain gutter. My legs danced in the wind. The broken obelisk was fifty feet below me. Its jagged tip like a rocky dagger waiting to kabob me.
“Kelly!” I heard Victor yell from inside the shattered window.
At least he was smart enough to let go of the rope.
Kevin’s claws scraped against the shingles like a scared dog. The gutter groaned under my grip. Kevin howled and scrambled up the incline, perching on it like a gargoyle as he stared down at me, his head tilted in confusion about whether to let me live or die.
37
The gutter sprang loose from the brick, spilling snow and muck down my sleeves. I shrieked, ice and sludge pouring down my shirt as I hung over that horrific drop. The sharp metal point of the obelisk beneath my feet waited patiently to run me through. Penelope leapt from my pocket and tried to help me up, but she was too tiny to lift me up.
“I’m coming to get you!” Victor called.
“Don’t! It’s too slippery. That’s an order!”
Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT!
“Babysitter Bop! Hiyaaa!” I heard Liz scream from inside.
There was the sound of shattering pipes and breaking wood. The awful circus music stopped dead.
Crouching over me, Kevin shook his donkey ears, as if the buzzing in his brain had stopped.
Victor climbed out the window. Monster Kev scratched the air at him. Victor recoiled, skidded, and caught the edge of the window.
“Victor!” I cried. “I told you not to come out here!”
“Don’t yell at me!” Victor shouted. “I’m being nice!”
“Well, now we’re both going to die!”
My fingers slipped free. I dropped.
A warm, fuzzy paw grabbed my wrist, and I was yanked to a stop, my sneakers swaying just above the jagged statue. Lightning flashed in the sky. Looking up, I saw Kevin’s snout sniff down at me. He held my fate in his paw, and I had a really bad feeling he was going to choose poorly.
I saw Liz emerge from the shattered window and carefully step onto the roof.
“Move it, Victor,” Liz said.
She approached her brother with something in her hand. Hunched over, the monster wailed as she reached out and jammed her headphones into his donkey ears. Superloud, hard punk rock blasted into his ears. Kevin’s silvery eyes awakened. He looked down at me.
“Please, please, please, please,” I pleaded.
He hoisted me up and over the ledge, setting me gently inside the corridor. The Kevin we knew and loved, the big dumb bigfoot, was back.
Liz embraced her brother. He barked as she removed the lasso from his horns. Penelope rang out happily. We helped Victor inside; both of us were shivering.
At the end of the hall, Professor Gonzalo had staggered to his feet, holding himself up against the wall. He looked at his broken harmonium and scowled.
“You broke my machine!” the Professor sneered. “You wicked children!”
Kevin zeroed in on the pudgy Boogeyman and snarled. He scraped his paws against the floor, as if he were a bull about to charge. Liz took hold of his horns and held on tight to his back.
“Fetch,” she said, pointing at the Boogeyman.
Kevin thundered toward the Professor. The little man blew into a dog whistle, but Kevin couldn’t hear it. He had his headphones tucked into his ears, blasting drums and bass that provided a hard-core soundtrack for his charge.
“Now, now, Kevin,” mumbled the Professor, adjusting his shattered glasses with an apologetic tone. “I was always good to you!” The mad genius screamed, running down the decayed hall.
Kevin bucked Professor Gonzalo into the air, tearing a hole in his pants and sending him smashing into the ceiling then crashing down to the ground. The Professor crawled desperately toward a doorway. Kevin snorted and planted his giant foot in the sniveling Boogeyman’s back.
“I can help you. Change you back,” the Professor squealed.
Kevin barked, curious. He gruffly thumped his chest, as if to say, You can do that?
The Professor’s shaking hands wiped his goatee, and he smiled cravenly. “Yes! If you let me go, I’ll bring you to my island, and we can run some tests. I have potions and machines that can help you.”
Kevin wailed at Liz. Liz looked at her brother’s big hairy face, his tusks, and his deep-set silvery eyes.
“I love my brother the way he is,” she said.
Kevin roared in agreement and raised his furry paw over the frightened Professor’s face. The desperate Boogeyman flung himself back against the wall and pulled a hidden handle. The wall spun around, taking the Professor into the depths of Hargrave Manor. His laughter echoed through the walls as he vanished from sight, escaping the wrath of the LeRue siblings.
“Coward!” screamed Liz.
I trained my ear on the muffled cackle of the Professor as it wound through a hidden chamber behind the wallpaper. I signaled Kevin and pointed to a spot on the wall. Kevin smashed his giant paw through the plaster. In a burst of dust and crumbling wood, he dragged the Professor out of his secret passageway and thumped him onto the ground, planting his foot on the pathetic man’s trembling chest.
“No one escapes the babysitters,” I said, standing over him. “Now, where’s the baby?”
The Professor pursed his lips
“Kev, rip his head off,” I said. Kevin roared again and grabbed the Professor.
“U-upstairs,” the Professor stuttered. “Third door on the left.”
Penelope rang out a warning cry. Paws thumped down the second-floor hallway. The carnival-masked trolls bounded from the shadows. They looked like the staff of a very fancy hotel had dressed up a bunch of rabid chimpanzees and then set them lose.
Liz cracked her knuckles. “You and lover boy and the lightning bug find the queen,” she said. “Me and Kev will hold these monkeys off.”
As I picked up my sword from the ground, the deranged Professor chuckled. “Try all you want, little girl. You’ll never defeat the queen! She has eight legs. You have two. She is immortal, monster royalty. You are a thirteen-year-old girl. You’re not good enough, and you never will be!”
I tried to think of a cool comeback that would make me sound tough, but deep down, I knew the Professor was right. But my best would have to do.
38
Shafts of moonlight beamed through the wooden slats on the third floor. I crept with Victor toward two giant doors. I looked back at him. He was crossing himself, mumbling.
“Game time,” I whispered. “You ready?”
/> “If I say I’m scared, does that make me a wimp?”
“It makes you normal. I’m terrified.”
“Good,” he said. “Well, not good, but you know what I mean.”
I slapped the hilt of the silver dagger in his palm and closed his fist around the grip.
I put my finger to my lips as I knelt and peered through the keyhole.
I saw banners of thick spiderwebs crisscrossing the darkness.
“Stay low,” I whispered, “and follow me.”
We entered the massive room filled top to bottom with ghostly, shimmering threads. Penelope’s light danced through the webbing, as if it were a chandelier. The design was impeccable, like some kind of fancy-pants jeweler had crafted it.
“Whoa,” said Victor. But in a bad way.
“Eeeeeeooo!” cried Theo.
We found Theo swaddled in spider silk, suspended in a giant cobweb altar. He was crying up at the electric blue mist circling above him that looked as if it was trying to form a connection with his heart. There were fifty feet of sticky webs that separated us from Theo. I wanted to cross it, but I had to be careful.
“Where’s Serena?” I whispered, looking up into the towering lair.
A slimy gurgle, like a jar of pudding caught in a vacuum cleaner, sounded on my right. The mushy Sleeknatch barreled toward us, its eyestalks flailing wildly.
“Ahhh!” Victor said.
“Don’t think of it like a monster,” I said. “Think of it like a soccer ball.”
“I can do that.” Victor reeled back and kicked the meatball monster, sending it rolling across the floor.
He dribbled the Sleeknatch down the floorboards, driving forward like (insert famous soccer player’s name here because I don’t know any). The Sleeknatch wailed as it spun. Victor kicked it up onto his knee and bounced it up and down.
“Okay, now you’re just showing off,” I said. “We need to get Theo!”
Victor fired his toe into the Sleeknatch’s side. The monster went airborne with the perfect kickoff. It shot wide, tumbling with great hang time toward the netting.
“Goal!” Victor shouted.
But the Sleeknatch bounced off the webbing like a trampoline and rocketed into Victor’s head, knocking him back.
Victor stumbled and fell through a gaping hole in the floor behind him. I grabbed his hand, but he dragged me down with him. We tumbled into the darkness.
Good news: spiderwebs broke our fall.
Bad news: spiderwebs broke our fall.
Victor and I jerked to a bouncing stop in the echoing chamber, our arms and legs stuck in the gooey threads.
“I can’t move,” Victor said, struggling.
“Me neither,” I said.
Even my hair was caught, and every time I lifted my head, it felt like someone was pulling out strands of my hair. My eyes watered as I hung there, disoriented, immobile. I felt oddly weightless, suspended above a dark cavern.
“Sorry about that,” Victor said. “I got carried away.”
Sometimes boys are so dumb, I wanted to say. But I had to stay positive.
“Penelope,” I whispered. “Can you move?”
A glow brightened from within my jacket, and she rang out. Penelope the pixie set to work hacking her tiny elfin dagger against the powerful silk. In the pixie’s dancing light, I saw a box of Girl Scout cookies hanging from the threads. Thin Mints. A huge bite had been taken out of it.
“The Girl Scout Cookies play,” I gasped. “They’re down here.”
I looked down to where the webs seemed to stretch forever.
“Penelope, shine down there,” I whispered.
In the pixie’s faint, golden lamp, I saw small sacs stuck to the webs like bunches of grapes. Thin, wiry limbs were curled together, floating in murky fluid.
“Spuh-spuh-spider eggs,” I said.
Hundreds of them. Glistening, alive.
Don’t faint. Don’t throw up. Focus on your breathing! They’re just eggs. Not spiders. Still, SUPERGAGGY.
A groan sounded beneath me. I craned my neck and saw Berna bound up and hanging upside down off a strand. She looked drained and pale.
“Bern! Are you okay?”
Berna groaned. “Fabulous.”
Beside her, Wugnot, who was also wrapped up, hung like salami in the window of an Italian deli.
“Have you been bit?” Victor asked.
“No. But Serena fed on us,” whimpered Berna.
“Musta taken a whole six-pack of blood from my veins,” Wugnot moaned. “I’m beat.”
Below them, on another tier of webbing, I saw a human-sized cotton-candy-ball wrapping around Mama Vee. Swaying below her in their own bundles of threads were Cassie and Curtis. I was elated to see their faces, even if they looked drained and unwell.
The gang’s all here.
“They’ve been bit,” Berna whispered. “Only a matter of time before they wake up under Serena’s spell.”
I thrashed angrily. “We gotta get out of here and get Theo.”
“It’s no use,” said Wugnot. “Stuff’s like quicksand. More you fight it, stronger it gets.”
I looked at the web clinging to my jacket. It was like gum stuck to my sleeve, refusing to let go. I looked past the Lone Wolf sword dangling in the webs next to Victor, who was suspended beside me.
“Now do you see why I didn’t want you coming?” I said.
“I’d do it again,” said Victor.
I tried to reach out for his hand, but the gooey tendrils kept us apart.
“Well, aren’t you two just the cutest,” a chilling voice called from above.
Movement stirred the ghostly, shimmering threads. A dark shape floated toward us.
Serena dangled by her thread. She was in her element and excited.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.” Serena smiled, exposing her shining ivory fangs.
I gulped. She was enjoying this.
“At your service, Your Majesty,” I said with a smirk.
She’s not impressed. That was not cool or tough enough.
A moist, twisting noise curled in the shadows. Sacs of spider eggs peeled open. The wet legs of freshly hatched spiders writhed in the air.
“Yes, my children,” cooed Serena. “It’s time to feed.”
“Eeeeeeeeo!” cried Theo above.
Serena’s head jerked toward the ceiling. “Pardon me, I have a ritual to finish. I have to save the monster world from that wretched baby.”
Serena ascended on her thread as spiders pattered up my jeans, their clawed feet pressing down against my jacket. We thrashed, but the webs held us tight.
“It’s like having gum stuck in your hair,” Victor cried.
Gum stuck in your hair . . . And how do you get gum out of your hair? I thought.
“Penelope,” I whispered. “Reach into my pack and get the bottle of baby oil!”
A diligent ring chimed, and Penelope opened the zipper of my pack. The contents tumbled out, catching on the web like a freeze-frame. Penelope snagged the bottle and flew it up toward me, but it was too heavy for her to lift and she dropped it just above my head. The bottle hung upside down, just out of my reach.
“Hurry!” Berna cried out, kicking at the spiders crawling up her hands.
I strained, pulling against the stretchy sinews, my fingers just brushing the cap of the bottle of baby oil.
“Hustle it, Ferguson!” shouted Wugnot.
“No pressure,” I said.
“Eeeee!” Victor’s face was covered in spiders. The whites of his eyes stared at me through their legs, as if a big black hand were holding his face.
My index finger caught the top of the pink cap and flipped it open, spilling it down my arm. Doused in oil, I felt the web give way, and I tore my right arm free. I snatched the sword from its hovering snare and sliced at the spiders swarming up my chest, cutting them in half. I carved through the webs holding down my left arm, and I grabbed the baby oil, spraying it across my jeans.<
br />
“Mmmmffmm!” Victor cried out, his words muffled by the thorax on his mouth.
“Stay still!” I yelled.
I flicked the sword under the spider and flipped it like a pancake.
“Gracias,” Victor gasped.
“I’m coming, Berna!”
I cut off a giant silvery thread and, clinging to it like a rope, swung down to Berna and Wugnot as I wildly chopped the attacking spiders. I doused Berna and Wugnot with oil, and they pulled the sticky lines from their hands.
“Babysitters, attack!” I cried.
Wugnot’s tail snapped a cluster of spiders away. Berna kicked, sending the little beasties squealing.
Trapped in her webbed casing, Mama Vee glared up at us, her eyes alight with horror.
“Surrender to the queen!” screamed Vee.
In eerie synchronicity, Cassie and Curtis opened their eyes, tilting their upside-down heads so they could glare up at us too.
“Shhhhurrender!” screamed Cassie.
“The antidote,” Berna said. “If only I had my tools, I could test your blood and see if—”
“We don’t have time for that,” I said. “Theo’s up there. I have to save him before Serena drains his life force. Can you handle this?”
Berna nodded. “You know I can. Go get that baby.”
I sheathed my sword behind my backpack and scaled the epic spiderweb, with Penelope lighting the way and Victor scrambling beside me.
At the top I caught a glimpse of Baby Theo, stuck in his cocoon, and Serena was circling him, chanting some strange tune. I signaled Victor to stop. I knew from science class that spiders detect the slightest vibration in their webs.
“I’ll distract Serena,” I whispered to Victor. “You grab Theo.”
Victor looked at me with huge worried eyes. No time for pep talks.
“Wait for my signal,” I said. “And I mean wait.”
I ascended the web. When I was near Serena, I furiously shook the line. Serena’s head snapped down at me. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits.
“Oh, Kelly,” sighed Serena. “Why won’t you just die?”
“Not my style,” I said.
I snagged a dangling silk banner, and like I was springboarding with a bungee cord, I swung myself at her. Serena leaped forward, spiraling through her deadly weaves.
A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting 2 Page 16
