A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting

by Joe Ballarini

  I stared at the dark laundry room and shook my head back and forth.

  No. No way. Nooooo-hooooo way.

  “You can do this,” Liz whispered.

  She nudged me in the ribs, and I stood up. I looked back at Liz and Penny, and a strange sense of protectiveness washed over me. There was a monster in this little girl’s basement, and if I didn’t do something about it, she might get taken. Just like they took Jacob.

  Not again. Not on Kelly Ferguson’s watch.

  The sickening smell of detergent and bleach greeted me. The air was wet and moldy. The party sounds grew fainter, as if I were walking into a soundproof bunker.

  As I quietly stepped past the washer and dryer, my foot kicked a forgotten Baby Laugh A-Lot doll. The toy giggled and rocked back and forth, looking up at me with its giant, egg-white eyes.

  Ehee-hee-hee!

  I kicked it into the TV room and tried to block its demonic gaze from my mind.

  An empty laundry basket rolled across the floor and then stopped at my feet. Sour dread sloshed around in my guts. I saw a pile of dirty clothes next to a closet door at the very back of the laundry room. Suddenly, a red sweater was sucked under the door. My knees locked at the gobbling sound.

  I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. Bleach and soap would sting it, but unless I forced the Toadie to drink a few spoonfuls, I needed something stronger.

  The only other thing I found in the laundry room was a toilet plunger. Wooden handle, orange rubber stopper. Not exactly a chain saw.

  Crouching down, I held the plunger in my right hand while I slowly reached for the closet handle with my shaking left. I had to time this perfectly.

  The door joggled open, and I jabbed the plunger into a box of Tide on a shelf. The Toadie wasn’t in the closet. I spun around, gripping the plunger like a sword, expecting the Toadie to spring out from behind me. My feet danced in circles as I flailed the plunger in the air.

  Other than cleaning products, there was just an old, dark fur coat scattered on the closet floor, covered with pieces of a half-eaten tube sock and a drool-covered sweater. Something was writhing under the fur coat.

  I thrust out my plunger to knock it aside, and two large green eyes snapped open from under the coat’s woolly folds. An enormous mouth widened, a red sleeve stuck in its silver fangs flapping as it let out a raspy roar.

  I made a kind of quiet squeak.

  This was no fur coat.

  The beast lunged. Snapped the plunger handle off in its mouth.

  I slammed the closet door (as if that would make it go away). Hands shaking, I ran. I looked back to see if it was following me. Black mist slowly crawled out from under the door.

  CLANG! The washing machine’s metal lid flew open. The Toadie popped out, claws full of fresh laundry. It hissed at me. I threw the broken plunger handle at the creep and bolted.

  I dove to Liz’s and Penny’s side. They were watching TV and eating cereal from the box.

  “New m-monster,” I stuttered, trying to hold back my fear. “New monster. Furry. Black. In. Closet.”

  I pointed. Liz remained seated, calm and cool in front of Penny. She swung her backpack onto her lap and slowly undid the zipper with the poise and focus of a samurai. The sound of a happy musical number boomed as I kept my wide eyes on the dark laundry room.

  A gurgling roar shook the shadows. Inky paws and ethereal tendrils of long fur oozed out from the blackness. The noise of the party and the sound of the TV fell away as we stared at a lumbering, monstrous form. Wisps of dark mist wafted from the creature’s fur and pooled into the darkness, camouflaging the four-foot-tall monster among the shadows.

  As the mutant bearlike beast stepped into the light, its green eyes snapped shut, and it shrieked, recoiling from the bright room. It slithered back into the darkness.

  Penny adjusted the tiara on the top of her head while her mouth made confused puttering noises.

  “It’s okay, Penny,” Liz tried to assure her. “We got this.”

  Then the power died, the basement went black, and Penny’s high-pitched scream pierced my eardrums.

  21

  If I had to guess, I would say that the Toadie peed on the fuse box or something because the TV, the music upstairs, and the basement lights all shut down, and we were plunged into pitch blackness. Empowered by the darkness, the monster howled and seemed to grow taller. Long, midnight-black fur floated around the rising creature, as if it were made of a hundred long wigs.

  The beast lurched toward us, but Liz scooped Penny under one arm and swung her out of the way. The monster rammed into the TV, creating an explosion of sparks and shattered glass. The creature’s head poofed into mist.

  Penny blinked in utter disbelief. Her fingers felt for the sparkly tiara on her head. Her lower lip shook like the first tremors of a five-megaton earthquake. An ear-shattering siren exploded from her mouth. I plugged my ears with my fingers.

  “TEEEEE VEEEEE!” Penny wailed.

  I heard Snaggle the Toadie scrambling out of the laundry room, up the wall, and into the air-conditioning vent.

  “Toadie’s getting away!” I called out.

  Behind us, spirals of black living smoke re-formed into the Shadow Monster’s head. It was growing with each moment it spent in the shadows. I stared at the beast, my legs turning to mush.

  WHAM, POOF!

  Liz kicked over a bookshelf, slamming it down onto the creature. The Shadow Monster groaned underneath the heavy weight.

  Liz hoisted Penny up the stairs like a screaming sack of potatoes. I quickly followed after her. She swung open the door and then spun around and locked her hand on my shoulder. Her arm was really strong. I mean, she must work out a lot.

  “I’ll handle the Toadie. You handle that,” Liz said, pointing into the semidark basement.

  Me? Handle “it”? Exactly how was that going to happen?

  With a flutter of pages, Liz tossed her red notebook into my face.

  “Check the guide,” she said, and swung out of the basement door.

  “Liz, wait!!!” I said, scrambling up after her.

  Liz poked her face through a crack in the door. “Kelly. Have faith in yourself,” she said. “Or die a hideous death. Your choice.”

  She slammed the door and locked it from the other side. I tugged at the handle, but it stayed shut.

  “Liz! While I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” I called out, banging on the door, “this is not how you treat friends or associates!”

  I kicked the door furiously, but the sound was drowned out by the party music on the other side. The darkness crept up the stairs, and I swung around, back pressed against the door. My breath was all jittery, like I had just sucked down a venti-sized iced caramel mocha with an extra shot.

  I heard a throaty gurgle and carefully peered down into the basement until my eyes readjusted to the darkness. Near the dead TV, mist was blossoming from the fallen shelf, forming into tufts of floating fur.

  Tucking my legs up to my chest to keep from being seen, I huddled against the basement door. The babysitter’s guide crinkled in my sweaty palm.

  You can do this, Kelly. It’s just like algebra. Only not.

  I quickly flipped through A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting, looking for creepy monsters with bad hairdos. Liz’s scratchy writing was hard to read.

  “Closet monster, closet monster . . . ,” I mumbled to myself, tearing past monster entries.

  There were fifty entries under “Closet Monster,” but they all looked like fuzzy splotches in the darkness. I opened my book bag and removed the flashlight Liz had given me in the weapons room back at headquarters. Cradling the notebook on my knees, I shined the light onto the pages.

  Does your closet monster have a dorsal fin?

  No.

  Horns?

  No.

  Scales?

  No!

  Tentacles?

  No!

  Fur?

  Yes!
/>   Long, swirling fur?

  Yes! Yes!

  See “Shadow Monster.”

  Oh, come on! That’s all the way under S! I’ll be dead by the time I flip to that!

  A chilling roar shook the basement. I dared to look down from my hiding spot. The dark, magical creature had re-formed and was sniffing its woolly nose around the basement, searching for fresh meat.

  A hand reached out from the darkness. Fingers grasped my shoulder, and lightning shocked down my spine.

  “Kelly?”

  Victor was leaning over me. “I heard a crash?” he said.

  I shot to my feet so fast that the top of my head smacked into his chin. He lost his balance and stumbled forward. I caught him, and together we fell back, thumping down the steps.

  We landed on the basement carpet in a pathetic heap.

  “Ow,” we groaned.

  I heard the basement door slam and the lock click.

  “Yeah! Seven minutes in heaven,” Jesper crowed from behind the door.

  This was followed by “Ooooohs” from the other soccer guys.

  Boys are so dumb.

  “You okay?” Victor asked, pulling his head out from under my back with a dazed look.

  His face was so close to mine that it was blurry and out of focus. His eyes were fuzzy, dark pools. I smelled the Mountain Dew Code Red on his breath, a soda that normally would make my heart feel like it was trying to burst out of my ribs. I had never been this close to any boy before. Things were, like, really warm between us. I am pretty sure this is known as “kissing distance.”

  Victor quietly laughed and then pulled away, checking me for scrapes or bruises. I wanted to stand on my tiptoes and lean in. But I didn’t. I just stood there, holding my freshly bruised ribs.

  The chilling sound of a muffled growl brought me back to reality.

  Victor saw the thick, ten-foot-tall mound of matted black fur dragging along the basement floor. He screamed, high-pitched. I clamped my hand over his mouth.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said. “But right now, I need you to help me get rid of it.”

  “MMPPHHMMM?!” Victor asked.

  “Quietly,” I said, removing my fingers from his warm lips.

  “How?” he asked, catching his breath.

  Read the guide.

  I hurled the creepy Baby Laugh A-Lot toy at the monster. It gulped it down its mouth. If I were playing basketball in gym class, I would have scored major points. I never score points.

  The beast’s huge paws stepped out from under the hem of the ragged fur train swishing around its body. The muffled laughter of the spine-chilling baby toy giggled in the monster’s belly.

  Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!

  I really hated that toy.

  I kicked a pillow in the monster’s face, but it slashed it, feathers raining down on us. The creature batted bits of white fluff from the air, like a puzzled cat.

  I grabbed Victor and pulled him into the small space under the foot of the stairs.

  “We need to run,” he whispered.

  I held up my finger for a second as I flicked through the guide. If Liz said I could do this, then I could do this. The answer had to be in the guide.

  And it was.

  NAME: Shadow Monster, goes by the name Oleg (OH-leg)

  HEIGHT: Changes to fit any dark space or closet

  WEIGHT: Essentially weightless

  TYPE: Closet monster, Class 2 spectral mass

  ORIGIN: Mephistopheles (wherever that is)

  DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Long, smokelike fur that grows the more you feed it. This explains why your socks always go missing.

  LIKES: LOVES the dark

  DISLIKES: HATES bright light

  STRENGTHS: Can transform, dissolve, and re-form into any shape

  WEAKNESSES: Light. Not very strong.

  SMELL: Mothballs, like an old sweater in a closet

  SIGHTINGS: Neighborhood closets

  ALLIES: Grand Guignol

  “It hates light!” I said to Victor, like he should have known exactly what I was talking about. DUH! I reached up and flickered the basement light off and on. And . . . nothing happened because the power was dead.

  Victor was looking at me like I had two heads. He was about to run when—

  The flashlight.

  Where the heck was it? It fell when Victor and I tumbled down the stairs. I scanned the basement and saw a puddle of light on the other side of the room.

  If (a) Shadow Monster is charging at you at thirty miles an hour and (b) flashlight is over twenty feet across the room, how fast does (c) Kelly have to run in order to grab b before being eaten by a?

  Answer: Faster than I’ve ever run before.

  I took a huge breath and launched off the carpet, elbows swinging. The room went bright white, and I saw everything like it was the middle of the day.

  MY EYES! IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN!

  Rushing for the flashlight, I saw the Shadow Monster turn toward me. I dove into the dollhouse wreckage and snatched the light. I rolled over onto my back and aimed the flashlight upward as a mountain of spiky, smelly fur descended on me.

  It threw back its shaggy head and shrieked in a wash of black tendrils. It stumbled, pawing the smoking hole in its shoulder.

  A surge of power lifted me to my feet.

  I gripped the flashlight in my hand.

  “Let there be light!” I said.

  I know it’s supercheesy, but it felt great to say in the moment.

  The Shadow Monster was remarkably fast for something so huge and hairy. Victor jumped out of the way as the beast climbed the basement steps like an escaping octopus.

  Flashlight beaming in my grasp, I charged after it.

  Floating tendrils slid down the locked basement door, like a runny egg, and squeezed painfully out under the door.

  “It’s out!” I yelled to Victor.

  He looked at me. His face was slack and serious. The pirate’s mustache had been smeared across his top lip in a sweaty streak. His fake parrot was gone. He looked scared. Like a kid who had just seen a Mephistophelean Shadow Monster named Oleg for the first time.

  I wanted to hug him, but there was work to do. That dark beast was out in the party with kids I went to school with.

  I slipped Liz’s babysitter’s guide into my backpack and zipped it up, tightened my grip on the flashlight, and turned the brass door handle.

  Yup. Still locked.

  Brushing his damp hair out of his eyes, Victor followed me up the stairs, muttering in Spanish. He was pale and deep within himself, eyes narrowed. His brain was overwhelmed with processing everything.

  I knew the feeling.

  I gently reached out and touched him on the shoulder. His mumbling stopped.

  “You play soccer, right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “So can you kick the door down?” I asked him.

  “The door?” he said in return, pointing to it.

  “Can you kick it down, please?”

  Victor made the sign of the cross and straightened up, as if he were about to run onto the field. His face darkened into what I can only describe as Victor’s game time face.

  Victor’s knee shot up. His pirate boot heel smashed into the door, and we spilled into the pitch-black house party.

  “Game time,” Victor shouted.

  22

  I squinted around the shadowy living room. Glow sticks danced in the dark. Kids didn’t care that the power was out; it only added fuel to the fire. They were playing music from their phones. A clash of electronic, country, pop, and hip-hop swirled around us. A line of shaving cream shot across the living room, spraying Melissa Beasely in the hair, covering her curls in thick tufts of foam.

  Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!

  The syrupy, sickening laughter of the Baby Laugh A-Lot darted behind a cluster of kids on the couch. I fired the flashlight at it, catching the boys’ eyes.

  “Get that light outta my face!” threaten
ed a kid dressed like the Grim Reaper.

  A dark wind shot past the boy, blasting his hair and his robe aside.

  I saw the Shadow Monster zip along the wall, snaking its hairy mass through the party. With the almighty flashlight I charged forward, elbowing past Deanna and the Princess Pack.

  “Kelly!” I heard Victor call out to me.

  My sneakers hit something slippery on the rug. I whooshed across the Slip’N Slide like a pro surfer.

  “Whoaaa-OOOOOH!”

  At the end, I tumbled into a somersault and landed on my feet in a wobbly finish. That was when I heard the party roar. Everyone was applauding.

  How did I just do that? Where the heck is Liz? She should be seeing this!

  “Ten points for Kelly What’s-Her-Name!” cackled Jesper.

  Camera flashes exploded in my face.

  The Shadow Monster scaled the ceiling and scuttled away from the light above the party, its fur hanging down. I saw that Deanna was about to take a selfie.

  “Deanna!” I warned.

  “Please don’t interrupt,” she sneered, and then made a kissy face at her phone.

  The beast dropped beside her; its shiny, almost aluminum jaws screamed in her face, blasting her hair back.

  Deanna went limp and collapsed on the ground just as she took her selfie.

  Flash! THUMP.

  “Deanna, what’s wrong?” the Princess Pack asked, looking up from their phones. Deanna’s head lolled back and forth as she gurgled. She was going to be okay. Or as okay as she could be.

  “Stairs!” Victor shouted, pointing up the stairs.

  We bolted into the second-floor hallway. It was dark and empty. My heart whumped in my chest, veins pumping blood.

  “That thing is the devil!” Victor said, crossing himself.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “He’s only a class two.”

  “Class what?” Victor whispered.

  I held up my finger and tipped my ear to the shadows. From the dark end of the hall came a muffled, mechanical giggle.

  Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.

  Goose pimples rose across my arms. I beamed the flashlight into the darkness. The Shadow Monster screeched, trailing smoke as it vaulted back up onto the ceiling. My light flickered and died. I banged on the handle and toggled the switch off and on.