Secret of the Changeling

by Tommy Donbavand

  For lots of people…

  Noah (welcome!)

  Freya (welcome!)

  Barbara

  Nan

  Jordan & Adelaide

  Owen & Louise

  Maia, Sasha & Thea

  Thomas

  Nell

  Previously on Scream Street…

  Mr and Mrs Watson were terrified when their son, Luke, first transformed into a werewolf. But that was nothing compared to their terror at being forcibly moved to Scream Street – and discovering there was no going back.

  Determined to take his parents home, Luke enlisted the help of his new friends, Resus Negative, a wannabe vampire, and Cleo Farr, an Egyptian mummy, to find six relics left behind by the community’s founding fathers. Only by collecting these magical artefacts would he be able to open a doorway back to his own world.

  Just as Luke and his friends finally succeeded in their quest, Mr and Mrs Watson realized how happy Luke had become in his new home and decided to stay on in Scream Street. But the newly opened doorway was becoming a problem – Sir Otto Sneer, Scream Street’s wicked landlord, was charging “normals” from Luke’s world to visit what he called “the world’s greatest freak show”.

  To protect Scream Street, Luke, Resus and Cleo must try to close the doorway by returning the relics to their original owners – and the next recipient is right on their doorstep…

  Chapter One

  The Lesson

  The banshee threw back her head and wailed. Her voice rose and fell, rattling windows and shaking ornaments. A vase of flowers juddered across the sideboard and dropped to the floor with a smash.

  “THANK YOU!” Dr Skully roared over the din. “YOU CAN SIT DOWN NOW!” Favel Tap finally came to a stop and smiled at her new classmates as she sat down at her desk.

  In the front row, Resus Negative cautiously removed his hands from his ears. “Blimey!” he exclaimed. “If that’s how banshees tell you their name, remind me never to ask for her address!”

  “Or be anywhere near when she stubs her toe,” smiled Cleo Farr.

  Luke Watson shifted impatiently in his seat. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Tell me about it,” agreed Resus. “I can’t believe we’re back in school either.”

  “That’s enough chatter, you three,” said Dr Skully. “May I remind you that class has started. Now, let us turn our attention to the world of flora and fauna. Please all open your textbooks at chapter twelve. I’m happy to announce that this morning an expert on the subject of seeds and bulbs will be paying us a visit…”

  The door opened and a large, tattooed man dressed in a pink tutu and tiara squeezed into the room. “Wotcha, kids!” grunted Twinkle the fairy.

  Dr Skully grinned – an eerie sight on a face without lips. “Twinkle has very kindly agreed to tell us everything he knows on the subject of beans.”

  “That’s right,” grunted the fairy, stomping around the class to place a single, brown bean in front of each pupil. “These are magic beans, and even though they’re quite valuable, they should never be taken as full or part payment for a cow or any other farm animal. I once knew an old woman whose son set off to market wiv a cow…”

  Kian Negative raised his hand, interrupting the story.

  “Wot?” asked Twinkle.

  “I’m a vampire!” he proclaimed.

  Twinkle looked confused for a moment, then continued. “So, as I was sayin’, I once knew an old woman whose son…”

  Luke, squashed in next to Cleo at a desk designed for one, sighed heavily. “We shouldn’t be here,” he moaned.

  “I know,” said Resus. “Who wants to learn about this rubbish?”

  “I don’t mean that,” retorted Luke. “I mean that we should be off returning the next relic! Zeal Chillchase promised that lessons would be cancelled until we’d given them all back.”

  “He can’t help it if G.H.O.U.L. is starting to get suspicious,” Cleo whispered. “He said things have to look as normal as possible – and there are so many kids living in Scream Street now, it’d look odd if they weren’t all in school.”

  Luke had to admit she was right. When he had first been moved to Scream Street, Resus and Cleo had been the only other pupils taught by the skeletal Dr Skully. But now there were seven children crammed into the teacher’s dining room. Sitting next to Resus was his young cousin, Kian – and behind them was the ghostly Ryan Aire and his brother, Finn, with Favel Tap perched at the end of their desk. Each of the new pupils was busy scribbling notes into his or her exercise book on the uses of magic beans.

  Resus held his bean up to the light and squinted at it. “You’re not telling me there’s a whole plant in there, waiting to get out.”

  “It can’t be any more eager to get out than I am,” hissed Luke.

  “Me too,” said Cleo. “Eefa’s sister is arriving from Australia this morning with her baby daughter. She said I can go over and play with her later.”

  Resus pulled a face. “What is it with girls and babies? You go all loopy at the mere sight of what is basically just a poo and puke machine!”

  “I hope you three are taking in everything Twinkle is telling us,” boomed Dr Skully’s voice.

  The trio looked up to see their teacher glaring at them from his desk.

  “Yes, sir,” fibbed Luke. “Cleo and I were just helping Resus to understand how plants might grow from these beans.”

  Dr Skully gave him a brief nod then turned back to Twinkle. “Please continue,” he said.

  “Then in the morning, both the boy and his mother were amazed to find their humble little cottage in the shadow of a massive…”

  Luke waited until he was sure Dr Skully wasn’t watching them before he continued in a whisper, “Every minute we sit listening to this, Sneer’s charging more normals to come and poke around Scream Street. We have to get out of here!”

  “You’re right, but how?” said Cleo.

  “Leave that to me,” said Resus with a wink, then he began to root around in his cape.

  A few moments later, Cleo raised her hand. “Sir!” she called out. “Dr Skully!”

  The skeleton pulled his attention away from where Twinkle was drawing a golden harp on the blackboard. “Yes, Miss Farr?” he said. “What is it now?”

  “I don’t think Resus is feeling very well, sir!” The vampire was resting his head on the desk and moaning softly.

  The new pupils watched as Dr Skully stood and made his way over to the trio. “If this is another of your jokes, Master Negative…”

  “I don’t think it is, sir,” said Luke. “He said he wasn’t feeling right this morning.”

  Dr Skully’s fingers clicked as he rested his hands on his bony hips. “What’s the matter, Resus?” he demanded.

  A gasp went round the room as the vampire lifted his head to reveal a face covered with fat, glistening molluscs.

  “I think I’ve got slug flu,” he croaked.

  “Slug flu?” said Luke with a smile as he, Resus and Cleo dodged between crowds of normals at the edge of the square.

  Resus grinned back at him. “Yup! The only illness that’s infectious to just about everyone in Scream Street. If Dr Skully hadn’t cancelled class, he’d have had an epidemic on his hands!”

  “But how do you know those slugs weren’t really infected?” asked Cleo.

  “Because they’re not slugs – they’re leeches,” said Resus. “Dave had babies.”

  “Your pet leech had babies?” Cleo exclaimed. “But he’s a boy, isn’t he?”

  Resus shrugged. “I don’t think it matters with leeches. Besides, who cares? Those little fellas are adorable!”

  “Look who’s going gaga over babie
s now,” laughed Cleo.

  “But Dr Skully spent years in a science lab,” said Luke. “Surely he can tell the difference between slugs and leeches.”

  “That was a risk,” Resus admitted. “But I was willing to bet he wouldn’t get close enough to see!”

  As the trio arrived at 27 Scream Street, Luke made sure no one was watching, then he swung open the gate and they stepped through, following the path around to the back garden and stopping in front of a large marble tomb. Above the entrance were inscribed the words:

  The final resting place of

  Femur Ribs

  Cleo sighed. “I come here sometimes just to sit and read,” she said. “It’s comforting to know that one of the founding fathers is just a few metres away.”

  “Most of one of the founding fathers,” Resus corrected her, pulling Femur’s skull out of his cloak and handing it to Luke.

  “Goodness me!” exclaimed the skull. “That sun’s a little bright.”

  “I’m sorry, Femur,” said Luke, turning to shield it from the glare. “I forgot how dark it would be inside Resus’s cape.”

  “Not a problem, young Luke,” smiled Femur. “But what, may I ask, are we doing out here?”

  “Sir Otto has filled Scream Street with normals,” Cleo explained. “And we have to return all the relics in order to close the doorway and get rid of them.”

  Femur’s skull eyed the entrance to her tomb. “You mean you’re putting me back together?”

  “If you don’t mind…” said Resus.

  “Of course not,” she smiled. “I must admit it has felt a little unusual being separated from the rest of my body!”

  “We’ll have you back in one piece in no time,” Luke assured her. He made his way over to the sealed entrance to the tomb. “Now… How do you open this thing?”

  Chapter Two

  The Tomb

  Luke wedged the crowbar into the thin gap around the edge of the door and pulled as hard as he could. The tool strained against the effort, bending slightly as Luke leant into it with all of his weight. His palms began to sweat – causing the crowbar to slip from his grasp and catapult away from him, spinning past Resus and embedding itself in the wall of the house with a loud boi-oi-oi-oing!

  “Watch it!” cried the vampire, reaching up to check that his ear was still in place. “You nearly took my head off!”

  “Sorry,” said Luke. “I thought I had it moving then.”

  “And did you?”

  Luke shook his head. “Not so much as a millimetre!”

  “No luck here, either,” called Cleo from above them. The boys looked up to see her peering down at them from the roof of the tomb. “I can’t see any way in at all.”

  Luke sighed. The trio had been trying to find a way into the crypt for more than an hour now. The stone door was smooth and cold, with nothing that looked as though it could be used as a handle or lock. No amount of pushing, sliding or lifting would move it. Even worse, a small crowd of normals had begun to watch proceedings with interest over the garden hedge.

  “I wonder if Doug’s having better luck,” said Cleo, using a length of bandage tied around the neck of a nearby gargoyle to climb down.

  As she spoke, the ground at their feet began to rumble and a green fist punched up through the lawn, patting the grass around it until one of the twisted digits made contact with the leather of Resus’s shoe. Satisfied that he was in the right place, Doug the zombie pushed up through the earth.

  “Dude!” exclaimed the living corpse. “Am I glad to get out from under there!”

  “Any way in from below?” Luke asked him.

  Doug shook his head, dislodging a colony of beetles nestled in his greasy hair. “No way, man,” he replied. “That baby’s locked down tighter than a lead-lined blood vault! I broke three fingers just trying to find my way back up.”

  “This is ridiculous,” groaned Resus. “There must be some way in.”

  Doug gazed up at the vampire. “Dude – I heard you got a dose of the slug flu!”

  Cleo rolled her eyes. “That didn’t take long to get out, did it?”

  “I’m fine,” Resus assured him. “The slug flu story was just an excuse to get out of class early.”

  Doug grinned through a mouthful of decaying teeth. “Don’t let the man pin you down, little vampire! Shame about the slugs, though. I was hoping to get one or two from you for an afternoon snack.”

  “There’s Ryan!” said Luke, spotting a young ghost among the rapidly growing crowd. “Hey, Ryan – over here!”

  The spectre shimmered away and then materialized again beside the group gathered by the tomb. “What are you guys trying to do?” he asked.

  “The impossible, by the look of it,” replied Resus.

  Ryan peered at him. “I thought you had slug flu…”

  “Don’t you start!”

  “We need to get inside this tomb,” Luke explained, “but there doesn’t seem to be any way to open the door. Would you mind giving us a hand?”

  “Sure,” said the ghost. “How?”

  “You can float through walls, right?” said Luke. “Can you float through there and see if there’s any sort of mechanism to open the door from the inside?”

  “No problem,” replied Ryan, and taking a deep breath, he lifted his feet off the ground and sped towards the tomb. The watching tourists let out an impressed Oooh! as he sailed smoothly across the garden … and smashed straight into the granite doorway.

  “Ryan!” yelled Cleo, dashing over as the ghost crashed to the ground. Clear ectoplasm ran from his nose like blood. “Are you OK?”

  “I… I think so,” he answered. “I just couldn’t get through. It’s like there’s some sort of force field around the whole thing.”

  “Could you materialize inside?” asked Resus.

  “I don’t think so,” Ryan replied. “I get the feeling that whoever sealed this doesn’t want anyone to get in.”

  “We’ll see about that,” grunted Resus, pulling a sledgehammer from his cape. “Let’s try a more direct approach…”

  “You can’t break into the tomb of a founding father!” Cleo cried.

  “Why not?” demanded the vampire, taking a couple of practice swings. “It’d be worth it to get rid of that lot.” The crowd of nosy normals was now backed up along the street. Some of the smaller children sat on their parents’ shoulders, while others tried to find footholds in the garden hedge to get themselves a better view.

  Cleo turned to Femur for support, but the skull didn’t seem worried. “Young Resus is right,” she admitted. “If you want to get Scream Street back to how it should be, you might have to cause a little damage.”

  The vampire stuck his tongue out at the mummy. “There you go,” he grinned. “Straight from the skeleton’s mouth!”

  Cleo lifted up her hands in surrender. “OK,” she said. “Do what you want.”

  Resus cricked his neck from side to side, then, taking careful aim, he swung the sledgehammer round and hit the exact centre of the crypt door. The steel head of the hammer instantly shattered into dust.

  “Ow!” yelled Resus, dropping the handle and rubbing at his wrists. “That’s going to hurt in the morning!”

  “With any luck,” came a satisfied voice from behind them. The group turned to see a smug Sir Otto Sneer pushing his way through the crowd of normals.

  “You’ve done something to the tomb, haven’t you?” Luke demanded angrily.

  Scream Street’s landlord bit down hard on his cigar. “I’m not Sneer,” he hissed. “It’s me, Zeal Chillchase.”

  Luke didn’t look convinced. “Prove it!”

  Sir Otto pulled his cigar from his mouth, and with a sound like running water his facial features rearranged themselves into those of the G.H.O.U.L. Tracker while the rest of him remained identical to Sir Otto.

  “Now, that’s a freaky look,” Resus commented.

  “Why are you disguised like that?” asked Luke.

  “I’m tr
ying to avoid the attention of G.H.O.U.L.,” replied Zeal. He looked up at the ever‑growing crowd on the other side of the hedge. “Something I see you’ve completely given up on!”

  “It’s not our fault,” Luke protested. “We can’t get inside Femur’s crypt! Can you do anything?”

  “Not with the crypt,” said Chillchase. “But I might be able to help with the crowd…” He shapeshifted his face back to that of Scream Street’s landlord and turned to address the normals. “Ladies and gentlemen!” he bellowed. “Follow me for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the sewers. Rats aplenty, and maybe a guffing goblin or two thrown in for good measure!”

  “OK,” sighed Luke as the crowd dispersed, “what do we know about the tomb?”

  “That it can’t be opened,” said Resus. “At least not by anything we’ve tried so far.”

  “There’s no way in from below,” said Doug.

  “Or through the roof,” added Cleo.

  “And I can’t float through the walls or materialize inside,” Ryan finished.

  Luke turned to him thoughtfully. “You said it felt like there was some sort of force field surrounding the tomb, didn’t you.”

  The ghost nodded. “It was as if the whole thing was wrapped in glass.”

  The group stood silently for a moment, stumped. Then, with the flapping of delicate wings, Twinkle the fairy landed among them. “I couldn’t help overhear,” he sniffed. “But it’s not glass – it’s magic.”

  “Magic?” repeated Luke. “The tomb is sealed with magic?”

  The fairy licked his finger and stretched out his tattooed arm towards the crypt. As his hand drew closer, a shower of pink sparks erupted in the air like a miniature fireworks display. “Powerful magic,” he confirmed.

  “Can you break the spell?” asked Resus. “Do you think you can get us inside?”

  Twinkle considered for a moment, then his brow furrowed. “You told Dr Skully you had slug flu…”

  Resus swallowed a frustrated scream. “I haven’t got slug flu, OK?” he snapped. “It was just a way to get out of that boring lesson – no offence.”