by Laura Dower
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1 - B-MONSTER BET
CHAPTER 2 - CALLING DR. LEERY
CHAPTER 3 - GET SCARED
CHAPTER 4 - AS GROSS AS IT GETS
CHAPTER 5 - LOCKS AND CLOCKS
CHAPTER 6 - LET ME EXPLAIN . . .
CHAPTER 7 - YO, WHAT’S WITH THE EYEBALL NECKLACE?
CHAPTER 8 - GLOW AWAY!
CHAPTER 9 - “RIVE RIT RACK!”
CHAPTER 10 - BREATHLESS
CHAPTER 11 - RIVER OF TEARS
CHAPTER 12 - TRANCE-LVANIA
CHAPTER 13 - SNAP, KICK, THRUST
CHAPTER 14 - SPAT CITY
CHAPTER 15 - A REEL MESS
CHAPTER 16 - RUNNER-UP, UP, AND AWAY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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For Papa.
—Laura Dower
For Steve: My #1 fan, friend, and twin brother.
—Dave Schlafman
Acknowledgments:
To St. Joseph’s fourth-grade class,
who never met a fairy-tale writing
assignment they didn’t like: Noël,
Estelle, Alena, Claire, Aidan,
John, & Jack.
PROLOGUE
STELLA MIN
I was in the car on the way to my Tuesday night karate class with Mom and all I could think about was this crazy dream I had the night before.
In the dream, I ran up this mountain that looked a lot like Nerve Mountain here in Riddle. Someone was watching me; I could feel it. I ran faster and faster and faster until—whammo!—I tripped and fell into this prickly bush. I picked myself up out of the bush, but just as I was about to make my clean getaway, my left foot got wedged between two rocks! I tried and tried to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge. And then a low, eerie moaning sound filled the air. A giant shadow loomed over me. Quickly, I glanced up and realized (just as quickly) that I was standing eye to eye with . . .
Eeeeeeew!
There were at least one thousand oooey, gooey, squishy, squashy, bloodshot eyeballs staring right at me! I jumped up into the air and twisted around—ready to kick. Unfortunately, before I could scissor my legs, my body got heavier and heavier and eventually I couldn’t . . .
“HOLY SMOKES! I CAN’T MOOOOOOOVE!”
All at once, I woke up, gasping for air. My bedroom was so dark, but then I saw the shimmery outline of my stuffed snake collection at the foot of my bed.
I was not dreaming anymore. I was home in the middle of Riddle. Everything was back to normal; or at least normal for Riddle, which really wasn’t saying much.
Riddle is, after all, home to some pretty weird stuff.
There’s the three-legged dog at the library that growls at kids who have overdue books. There’s the seriously haunted Petroglyph Mall.
And then there’s Oswald Leery, B-Monster movie director, who lives way up on Nerve Mountain in his very own fortress. Leery Castle is this creepy-cool place with turrets and hidden passageways and loads of secrets.
Once upon a time, Leery discovered that when someone watched one of his original B-Monster movie reels, a B-Monster would escape from that scary movie world into the real world. Leery and his associate Walter Block tried to capture escaped B-Monsters, but they just didn’t have the muscle or instinct to get the job done on their own. They needed help! So Leery got a brilliant idea: Gather up a team of kids to catch the monsters on the loose. He called it the Monster Squad and handpicked four of us to be in the group: me, Lindsey Gomez, Jesse Ranger, and Damon Molloy. We’re all in the fifth grade together at Riddle Elementary. When we’re not studying, it’s our job to blast, stomp, or vaporize escaped B-Monsters into oblivion.
Of course it made perfect sense that Leery wanted me to be in the Monster Squad. After all, I’m smart and most kids at school already call me Ninja. Plus, I have serious, personalconnections to the B-Monsters. I’ve seen all of Leery’s B-Monster movies at least twice. I have a collection of B-Monster Galaxymagazines. I’m even relatedto one of the actresses who appeared in the movies. My Great Aunt San San acted in at least sixty-three of them.
And now I was having dreams about them. The weird thing was, I never even saw a movie with the B-Monster from my dream. I had only seen him once or maybe twice—in photographs from my mom’s photo album.
Mom has all these old photos of my Aunt San San, and I think that monster was in a few of them.
Still, it was so random to have dreamed about a monster I’d never even thought about. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign.
Mom floored the gas pedal and I jerked forward. She barely made it through a yellow light and we swerved into the parking lot at Dojo Academy with a loud squeal. Through our car window, I saw the other kids in my class head through the glass doors to the karate school.
“See ya, Mom,” I said, grabbing my stuff, and hopping out of the car.
As I zipped into the building, the woman behind the big, curved oak desk (I fondly call her Front Desk Lady) shot me a look.
“Karateka!” she barked. “Geiko! Go! GEIKO!”
Geikomeans practice and mine was starting right then so there was no time to waste. Quickly, I dumped my grappling bag on the floor and unpacked my ear guards.
Grappling is way more than just karate kicks and chops. It includes some seriously complicated—and dangerous—wrestling moves. That’s why we wear all the protective equipment. Sensei, the head teacher at Dojo Academy, is a firm believer in safety.
Since I’ve been taking karate lessons from the time I was four, I’ve worked my way up the ranks through blue, green, orange, and red belts. Now I’m this closeto getting my black
belt. Sensei says he thinks I’m almost there, but I have to do well at the Dojo Academy Karate Invitational next week. Here’s the rule: At Dojo Academy, no one under age thirteen has ever been permitted to get the black belt. I think I may be the very first eleven-year-old to do it. Fingers crossed.
“Kiiiiiiiiya!”
I bared my teeth and furrowed my eyebrows in the mirror. I had to look as tough as possible to succeed in this class.
“Kiiiiiiiiya!”
“Less wolf, more tiger,” Sensei whispered as he passed behind me. “Nice effort.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. Then I threw my arms up.
Chut-chut-chut-chut.
My hands chopped at the air like a propeller.
“Hey, Min! Not like that!” shouted an annoying but familiar voice.
“Brick! I didn’t see you there.”
“Nice helicopter imitation, Min. Can you do seaplanes, too?”
“Sure, laugh at my moves,” I grumbled. “At least I’m practicing. Meanwhile, you’re just taking up space.”
Brick laughed. His real name is Sebastian, but everyone has called him Brick since last year. He is the only sixth-grader I’ve ever met with genuine biceps. (And I only know this because he flexes them at me all the time.) He got the nickname Brick when he unsuccessfully tried to break a block of wood with his head and had to get twenty-three stitches. Everyone started saying he had bricks for brains and, eventually, they just started calling him Brick. He doesn’t care, though. He wears that scar like a badge of honor and he’s probably just as proud of his nickname.
Brick is always telling the rest of the karate students what to do; me most of all. It can be annoying—except for the fact that he’s usually right on.
“Karateka!”
Sensei clapped and came to the front of the class to get things started.
“Osu,” Sensei calmly said after we’d all lined up.
Everyone bowed back. “Osu,” we all said, except for Brick.
Brick just thinks osu is a joke. He doesn’t really have respect for karate as an art form. He just does it because he gets to show off.
“Osu what, Stella?” he always jokes. “Oh soooooo . . . glad to meet you?”
I hate that lame joke!
Osuis important. Sensei taught us that. It’s the Japanese word for patience, determination, and perseverance. Brick doesn’t have any of those.
Sensei clapped again and asked Brick to demonstrate a kick for the rest of us.
He stood very silent for a moment and then, in a burst of energy, kicked so hard, his entire body flew through the air.
Even I was impressed.
“Nice footwork,” Sensei said. “Stella, why don’t you demonstrate the same kick?”
I stared at Sensei but did not move. I felt my cheeks turn red. Then I remembered my dream. Even in the dream, I was about to thrust a powerful kick into the air—and I couldn’t do it.
What did it mean?
Somehow, I knew that mastering that kick was very important. It would get me my black belt, make me a star in Sensei’s eyes, and maybe even help me get the B-Monster.
I, Stella Min, also known as the Ninja, needed to figure out how to make it really happen.
CHAPTER 1
B-MONSTER BET
Wednesday morning, I was heading to the Monster Squad’s usual table at the back of the cafeteria when something hit my head.
It was a piece of pepperoni.
A moment later, Damon sped by with his tray. That boy was armed and dangerous on pizza day.
“Hey, Stella,” Lindsey said to me when I came to the table. “I can’t believe you got the macaroni and cheese. It glows in the dark.”
I stared down at my lunch tray and shrugged. “I don’t care if it’s radioactive yellow, I’m hungry,” I said defiantly.
As I slid in beside Jesse, he turned to me. “We were just talking about the B-Monsters,” Jesse said. “Which one do you think is next?”
Interesting timing, I thought. Maybe my dream last night really was a clue.
“Last night, Dad and I watched Zattack of the Zombies, which was awesome as usual, followed by the digital, re-mastered version of They Came from Planet Q, including super-scary deleted scenes! I wonder if it’s one of them?”
“Those extra scenes aren’t scary,” Damon groaned. “They’re lame-o. Those robots from Planet Q are for babies!”
“Molloy,” Lindsey warned. “Don’t be rude.”
“I can’t help myself,” Damon said. He scratched his head. “Now if you want really scary B-monsters, how about the Martians from Martian Mayhem? Or that mega-beast from Tuskadon? And don’t forget the alien plant life in Wait Until the Earth Explodes. That’s classic.”
“Classic? You have got to be kidding!” Lindsey blurted. “Explodes is the dumbest B ever made.”
They were all getting so off topic and I actually had something relevant to add. I leaned in and whispered, “I dreamed about a B-Monster last night.”
Everyone stared at me. I took in a big breath because I was afraid that what I was about to tell them would sound really crazy.
“No way!” Lindsey said. “Where was it from? What was its name?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. It had something like one thousand blinking eyeballs,” I said. “And it could move surprisingly fast. It made terrible squishing noises when it moved.”
“Well,” Jesse said thoughtfully, “sounds a little like Señor Cyclops, but that B-Monster only has one creepy eyeball, not a thousand. And Señor moved super slow.”
“Hold up!” Damon said. He pulled a very crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He keeps this running list of B-Monsters in his pocket for exactly this purpose!
He’s like the B-Encyclopedia.
“That’s it!” I cried when he read the last name on the list. I remembered seeing the name ‘Beast with 1000 Eyes’ on the back of one of Mom’s photographs of San San.
“Whoa!” Damon said. “The B-monster is from The Beast with 1000 Eyes.But that’s impossible. The movie was never released.”
“And if an original reel was never released, then according to the rules Leery gave us, the monster could not come back to life, right?” Lindsey observed.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “An original reel could still be viewed even if it never was shown in a theater.”
“So what are you saying, Stella? Do you think you can predict the next B-Monster coming to Riddle from some dumb dream?” Damon cracked. “What are you, B-Monster psychic?”
“Damon, stop being so obnoxious!” Lindsey cried.
“I’m not!” Damon went on. “I’m just saying that if we were B-Monster psychics, Leery would have told us that! And he would not make us do research every time there was a new B-Monster in town. We’d just magically ‘know’ how to eliminate the monsters.”
“I don’t know if we’re all psychics. But I still think dreaming about the B-Monster with the eyeballs means something.”
“Yeah, it means you have monsters on the brain. That’s just a side effect of being in the Monster Squad,” Damon said.
“Maybe the dream isn’t psychic,” Jesse said. “But it could still be a hint. We could investigate this Eyeball Beast and see where it takes us . . .”
“Yeah! I think we shouldlook into it,” Lindsey added. “Tomorrow after school, let’s head up to Leery Castle to see what Walter and Leery know about this monster.”
“Fine,” Damon groaned. “But I won’t believe the B-Monster is here unless we get real proof.”
“Proof like what?” Lindsey asked. “Walking, talking eyeballs?”
“Yes!” Damon said. “And lots of them.”
CHAPTER 2
CALLING DR. LEERY
After school on Thursday, the four of us met in the school parking lot and headed to the Nerve Mountain bus stop for our trip up to the castle.
As we rode the bus, sunlight dimmed outside and everything was bathed in a funny, yellow
light. I could just make out the top of the castle turrets as we rounded a bend in the road.
“Do you think Leery will even be home today?” Jesse asked.
“Doubtful,” I said.
We’d already gotten very used to the fact that Oswald Leery was usually out of town. Way out of town. He spoke to us via videophone or online news feeds. No one in the Monster Squad had ever met the guy face-to-face.
When we got to our stop, we jumped off the bus and headed toward the massive gates that circle the castle grounds. We call these gates Crabzilla gates because they have the Crabzilla B-Monster carved into them. We punched in the old password MANTIS from our previous B adventure. It still worked. That meant that Walter and Leery couldn’t have seen the new B-Monster yet. The password only changes once the next monster has been identified.
“Stella! Damon! Lindsey! Jesse! Is that you?” Walter shouted from the front door. He had seen us coming on his security cameras. “What on Earth are you doing here?”
“We need to ask you about the next B-Monster,” I said. Walter looked confused. “Next B-Monster? Already? I’m not sure how much I can tell you, especially with Dr. Leery being in Antarctica right now ...”
“Antarctica?” I laughed out loud. I never thought of Antarctica as a place people actually went to before.
“Come in! Come in!” Walter said. “Let’s talk inside!”
We briskly followed Walter up to the front door and into the castle.
As soon as we got into the castle, Walter passed around an enormous bowl of cheesy-flavored larva crunch. He made the best snacks.
“So what do you want to know?” Walter asked.
“Stella had this dream,” Jesse said. “About a B-Monster we’ve never seen.”
“Yeah, and now she thinks she’s B-Monster psychic!” Damon cracked.
“Hmmmm.” Walter scratched his chin.
