A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting 2
Page 18
“You don’t remember serving someone you called the most beautiful woman in all the world?” I pressed.
“You mean your mother?” my dad asked.
That made Mom smile. Glad his heart was back in the right place.
I folded my hands and took a deep breath. “Mother. Father. Mom. Dad. I need to tell you something.”
I gestured for them to please sit. They did.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I belong to a secret order of babysitters that protects children from the creatures of the night. Last night I took down my second Boogeyperson, Serena the Spider Queen. She sent her spiders to bite you and make you her slaves, which is why the house is such a mess right now. And I am going to continue being a babysitter because Professor Gonzalo, another Boogeyperson, managed to escape. And it’s what I’m good at and I love it, and I want you both with me on this journey because one of the things I realized from this whole catastrophe is how much I love and appreciate you guys. But you’re going to have to start listening to me and not ground me anymore, because I am about to get into some serious trouble, and the only way I can get through this crazy time of being a teenager, getting good grades, getting into college, and fighting monsters . . . is with your help. I need you guys. Are you with me?”
Toast hung from my father’s lips. My mother stared, wide-eyed, as if I had just thrown a bucket of water in her face.
“Maybe we should talk about this later?” I asked respectfully. “When you’ve had time to process.”
My mother and father nodded.
“’Kay, bye!” I downed the last of my milk and headed for the door, wrapping a fuzzy, autumnal-colored scarf around my neck.
“Bundle up!” my dad said.
“Just did!” I called back, slamming the door.
I grabbed my ice skates from the garage and dusted them off as I sprinted down the block. Rooftops peeked out from under mounds of snow as the blinding frost crunched under my boots.
Red and black sleds shot down the hill beside Milton’s Pond. The storm had made the water freeze again. Neighborhood kids were tracing big figure eights across the ice where I had been chased by the Spider Queen, just last night.
As soon as I put on my skates and stepped onto the frozen pond, I realized that my babysitting powers did not include ice-skating. I screamed as I slid across the surface, flailing my arms until I slammed onto my butt.
“K-Ferg in the house!”
Tammy, wrapped in a bedazzled pink scarf and a big fluffy polar bear cap with rhinestones in its eyes, reached down to help me up. Deanna and the Princess Pack were standing at the edge, bored, playing with their phones.
“I haven’t been here since I was six,” I said.
“Me neither! I forgot how much I suck at skating!” Tammy giggled. “This seemed like such a good idea an hour ago. Now not so much.”
“Hold my hand,” I said. “We can make it together.”
We scuttled across the ice, tripping, holding each other up as we pathetically clomped across the ice.
Swish! Victor skated up to us, spraying us with a wave of snow.
“Not fair,” I said, spitting frosty flakes from my mouth. “You’re not allowed to be good at this too, Victor. You’re from a very warm climate.”
“It’s just like roller-skating. No?” he said, offering his arm to me like a total gent.
“It’s way more slippery than that,” I said, taking his arm while holding Tammy’s hand. The three of us wobbled across the ice together, laughing.
On the street, waves of snow parted as the babysitter mobile sped into view.
“Ferguson!” Liz shouted.
Playtime was over. I skated to the shore to change back into my boots.
“Tamara, we are scheduled to go to the mall,” called Deanna. “My daddy hired a snowplow to get us there. Kooky Kelly can come as long as she doesn’t spaz out and wreck the place, and, Victor, if you want to come, there’s always a seat for you in my dad’s Ranger. It’s nice and warm.”
“I have other plans,” Victor said, looking at me.
Tammy shrugged at me. “Wanna come?”
“I do,” I said. “But I’ve got work to do.”
Tammy smiled and waved at the babysitter crew.
“Come by later?” Tammy said, elbowing me. “You can tell me all about this.” She gestured to Victor and me. “And you need to help me clean up the mess Harriet Hargrave made.”
“Deal,” I said. “Maybe even sneak in an episode of A Time of Roses and Cattle!”
“Deal.”
We went our separate ways. Still friends. Just a little different.
I bolted to the van. I looked back and saw Victor standing on the shore, holding his skates by the laces, watching me expectantly.
“C’mon, newb!” I called out.
41
Smoke hissed off the wreckage of our headquarters. The charred, black skeleton of the house jutted up from the mounds of snow. The babysitters stood silently around it, heads bowed.
Curtis’s lower lip trembled, and he saluted the ruins while playing a recording of “Taps” on his phone. Wugnot stood at attention with Curtis, his tail rising up to his eye to flick away a few hobgoblin tears. Mama Vee hid her face. She wanted to be strong in front of us, but the sight of her smoldering home was too much for even her to take.
Madame Moon’s cold facade melted, and she linked her arms with Vee. “It’s just brick and mortar,” Madame Moon whispered. “The Rhode Island chapter of the Order of the Babysitters has more heart and spirit than can be contained in any building.”
Vee smiled.
“You can stay in the Boston headquarters with us,” Madame Moon said. “We’ll keep you supplied. I’ll put in a call to the Chief Childminder in London about helping you rebuild.”
“Thank you, Leanne,” Vee said.
Wugnot heaved Serena’s large skeletal cocoon onto the snow in front of us.
“For starters, you can lock this thing in your basement,” said Wugnot.
“Ahh! Kill it with fire!” screamed Curtis.
“Believe me, I tried,” said Wugnot. “It’s hard as a rock. Best thing we can do is lock it in a cold, dark place and make sure it never falls into the wrong hands.”
Madame Moon nodded, pursing her lips at the scabby blob. “I’ll have our sitters bag and tag.”
Mama Vee looked across the wreckage. “It’s never going to be the same again.”
An ominous wind shrieked through the snow-covered trees as Madame Moon turned to face me. “You did well last night.”
“Doesn’t feel like I did,” I said quietly. “We lost our headquarters. And we almost lost our president.” I looked at Mama Vee. “I’m just glad to have our leader back again.”
“From what I heard, they had a leader with them the whole time,” Madame Moon said. “One who kept spirits up. Was resourceful. Clever. And made sacrifices above and beyond the call of duty.”
I sighed, staring absently at the wreckage.
“You don’t have any idea who I’m talking about, do you?” Madame Moon asked.
I shook my head.
“You, Miss Ferguson. It was you.”
I raised my chin and saw Madame Moon and Mama Vee looking at me.
“Congratulations, Kelly. You’re officially a babysitter,” said Madame Moon.
My eyes widened. “I passed?”
“You more than passed, young lady. You shone.”
The babysitters cheered. I shouted in glee and did a happy dance. “Yes yes yes yes yes!”
Kevin ambled from the forest. He held wild winter flowers that he had plucked himself. Berries, thorny flowers, weeds, dead branches. Kevin howled apologetically and knelt before Mama Vee and the babysitters, laying his monster bouquet at their feet.
Vee sniffed and petted Kevin’s scruffy head.
“You’re a beautiful monster, Kevin,” Mama Vee said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Kevin shook his long, floppy ears
and licked Mama Vee on the face, slurping slime all over her cheek. She smiled and wiped the goo off, flicking it back at Kevin.
“Just ask him already,” Berna whispered to Cassie.
Cassie took a deep breath. “Curtish. Um. There ish thish guy I like.”
“Why you asking me?” Curtis said.
Cassie scowled. Berna gave her an encouraging look. “Becaushe I want your advishe. He doeshn’t know I like him.”
“Just tell him, Cass,” said Curtis. “You’re cool.”
Cassie swallowed nervously. “Sho, you’re shaying, if I like thish guy, I should jusht be shtraighforward and ashk him out?”
“Affirmative.”
Cassie was wringing her hands, biting her lip. “Do you want to go out with me?”
“Yep, that’s exactly how you should ask him.” Curtis nodded.
Cassie stared, dumbfounded. Everyone burst into laughter.
I wanted to laugh with them, but something was digging into the back of my brain, bothering me.
“Professor Gonzalo and the trolls got away,” I said.
“Probably went back to his island,” said Liz.
“Think there’s more kids like Kevin there? Missing kids? Kidnapped kids?” I asked.
Liz nodded. The thought of a place like that made my fingers curl into fists. I had seen the damage the Boogeypeople could do, and it was time I put an end to it.
“We need to go rescue them,” I said.
The eyes of the babysitters looked at me. They were my friends, but standing there together with them they felt more like family. A family I knew would face even worse dangers, bigger monsters, and viler Boogeypeople. But if we faced those trials and horrors together, there was nothing we couldn’t do.
“Then let’s go find that island,” I said with steel in my voice. “And bring those kids back.”
Acknowledgments
Wow! What a ride, huh? I don’t know about you, but that was intense. Am I right? Could’ve been a little funnier. Little lighter in parts, no? Well, I was in an intense, heightened state when I wrote Beasts & Geeks. My wife had given birth to our son and we suddenly found ourselves in rapturous joy for this beautiful gift of a little person, but I was also pretty scared and frightened. Suddenly Cara and I were responsible for a glowing new life. So this book is all those nerves and fears and fun and craziness of 2017 put into ink and page for your reading pleasure. The glowing light in the dark was always my real-deal, chunky-cheeked chipmunk, who I vowed to protect from the forces of darkness. His incredible mother looked after our boy while I went to fight with monsters and hang out with the cool kids of my imagination. Being a writer is a tough grind, but the girl from East London always keeps my battle-axes sharp and my heart beating.
When I turned in the first draft, Maria Barbo, wonder editor, artist, lighthouse keeper of the flame, sliced over a hundred pages from it. Ouch. Stone-cold! Those were fun pages to write. There was a mummy in the cellar. It was full monster mansion madness. Bye, bye! Slice! But Maria was a hundred percent right. As always. Those pages slowed down the story and were nothing more than whimsy. So you should thank her for sparing you from slogging through a hundred pages that moved like the slow, wheezy mummy all those stupid pages were about. Our editor’s assistant, Stephanie Guerdan, has somehow managed to organize all this chaos and keep our stories straight—all while being delightful and kind to a space cadet on a monster planet. Katherine Tegen, Bawss Queen, thank you for your generosity and love for lost, hairy mutants.
Most of you are reading this book right now because of Vivienne To’s amazing cover and art. Go on, flick through and check it out; I’ll wait. Pretty awesome, right? Vivienne’s work brings Kelly’s world alive in such a butt-kicking and beautiful way. I can’t wait for her to do the animated series.
Alyssa Reuben has been my fairy godmother throughout all these books, occasionally bonking me over the head with her magic wand. Thank you, Alyssa, for being snappy and smart and getting it done. When you dive into the fray, David Boxerbaum, the heavyweight champion of agents, is the man you want at your side. Box can throw down or he can talk about the joys of fatherhood and where the heck to send your kid to preschool.
And finally, and this is cheesy, but I want to acknowledge you, the reader. The best part about writing a book is people reading it and then sharing their feelings about it. I have had a blast hearing what parts scared you silly and what made you laugh. It makes me feel like I’m sitting around a campfire, living my true purpose as a teller of tales. I promise to do my best to empower and inspire you to hope beyond your fears. To be bold and brave for your friends and family and yourselves. You are stronger and bigger and cooler than you could possibly know. So don’t be afraid of the dark and don’t let the Boogeypeople keep you down.
Until next time, my friends.
Books by Joe Ballarini
A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting
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Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
A BABYSITTER’S GUIDE TO MONSTER HUNTING #2: BEASTS & GEEKS. Text copyright © 2018 by Joe Ballarini. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Vivienne To. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art by Vivienne To
Cover design by Joel Tippie
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954124
Digital Edition JUNE 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-243789-1
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-243787-7
1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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