Campfire Stories

by Andres Miedoso

  The campfire crackled even more and grew taller and taller.

  But that didn’t stop Desmond.

  “The spider had legs as thick as my arm,” he said. “And it was so big, it cast a shadow over Hannah and me. I fell down to the ground, and the spider crawled right over me.” Desmond shuddered from the memory.

  I shuddered too, just thinking about it!

  Then Desmond whispered, “You don’t ever want to see the bottom of a giant spider. It’s way grosser than you think.”

  From the look on Desmond’s face, I knew he was telling the truth.

  But now Zax didn’t believe him. “No way!” he said to Desmond. “Some of my best friends are spiders and none of them are vampires. Plus, if it was a vampire spider, why didn’t it bite you?”

  “It wasn’t after me,” Desmond replied. “It was after Hannah. She tried to get away by running up the slide on the playground, but that was a bad idea. I mean, it was a spider. It could climb anything.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  Desmond shook his head. “That’s when it got crazy. Other kids saw what was going on and freaked out. But the spider only chased Hannah.”

  I felt a chill run down my body.

  “So of course I had to chase the spider,” Desmond said. “Then I noticed a smell. A delicious, deep-fried smell. It was Hannah’s extra-large fries. She was still carrying them.”

  “Enough about the fries,” I begged. “What happened to Hannah?”

  Desmond sighed deeply. “She slipped and fell. The spider caught up to her. I watched as it leaned over her and opened its mouth to take a big bite.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WEB OF FRIES

  By now, Zax had floated behind me, and he was trying his best to hide. But it wasn’t working. “What did you do?” he whimpered.

  Zax was a ghost who loved to scare other people, but he got scared easily himself.

  And let me tell you, if you’ve never seen a ghost quiver in fear, you don’t know what you’re missing!

  “I did the only thing I could think of,” Desmond said. “I jumped on the spider’s back!”

  I covered my mouth. But I was not fast enough to hide my squeal.

  “So, I’m riding on the vampire spider’s back,” Desmond said, jumping up so he could show us how he did it. “You guys know I can barely ride a bike, right? Well, riding a giant spider is way harder!”

  “What happened then?” I asked excitedly.

  “Well, I didn’t last long on the spider’s back,” Desmond said. “It threw me off, and I landed on the grass right next to Hannah. Then, when I looked up, that giant spider was standing right over us, clicking its fangs together.”

  “Oh no!” Zax cried.

  Desmond continued. “But it wasn’t interested in me. That was when I solved it: The spider was hungry, but it wasn’t hungry for blood.”

  “What did it want?” I asked.

  “The spider was staring right at Hannah’s fries,” Desmond said. “I yelled for her to throw her fries away from us, but she didn’t want to. And then the spider went after her again, so she had no choice. She threw the fries, which were covered in ketchup, and that spider shot a web that caught every single fry!”

  “Whoa,” I said. This was the strangest story I had ever heard.

  “The giant spider devoured those yummy french fries,” Desmond said. “See, it didn’t have blood on its fangs. It was ketchup the whole time! At least, I hope it was ketchup. And after Hannah saw that giant spider chew up her fast food, she said she was never eating that stuff again!”

  “What about you?” I asked. “You still love french fries.”

  Desmond laughed. “Of course I do! I don’t think anything could ruin french fries for me. Not even a vampire spider!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TOTALLY MADE UP

  As my heart returned to its normal speed, and I was able to breathe again, I couldn’t help wondering if Desmond’s story was truly true.

  I’d been friends with him for a while now, and I knew he didn’t usually make things up.

  But it was hard to believe there was a spider that ate french fries.

  “Come on, Desmond,” I said. “You made that story up.”

  But Desmond didn’t back down. “I can prove it,” he replied. “All I need are some french fries.”

  “We’re in the middle of a forest,” I told him. “Where are we going to get french fries?”

  But Zax was one step ahead of me. That ghost pulled a large order of fries out of nowhere. “Here you go,” he said.

  I stared at Zax. “How?” was all I could ask.

  Zax shrugged. I expected him to tell me it was a ghost secret. But instead he said, “I’m a Ghost Scout. We are always prepared on camping trips.”

  That was when Zax pulled out other things: a pair of skateboards. Two toy robots. Even an ice-cream sundae with a cherry on top. “I told you,” Zax said, smiling proudly. “I’m ready for anything!”

  Seriously, there was a lot I still didn’t know about Zax.

  “Thanks,” Desmond said, taking the french fries from Zax and holding them high in the air. The smell of the fries wafted through the forest.

  We waited, but of course nothing happened.

  “Told you,” I said to Desmond. “It was a good scary story, but it was totally made up.”

  That was when, in the quiet of the woods, a long, slow whisper said, “Ketchup. You need ketchup.”

  “What was that?!” I asked, and I froze in place to try and listen.

  Then I heard it again. “Ketchup,” said the whisper.

  Desmond snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah,” he said. “We need the ketchup!”

  And yes, Zax had ketchup. Of course.

  Desmond squirted ketchup all over the fries, and right away, a set of eight eyes glowed in the darkness, just outside of the campfire light.

  Then a giant spider stepped out from the trees and came toward us slowly.

  I screamed. And so did Zax.

  But not Desmond. He threw the fries at it.

  The spider stopped coming toward us, and it began to eat. And it was gross . . . so gross I promised myself that I would never eat french fries again. Ugh.

  But then something way worse happened.

  I know that there aren’t a lot of things worse than a giant spider eating french fries in the middle of a dark forest.

  Well, suddenly, there were lots of spiders.

  “We need more!” I yelled to Zax. “Quick!”

  “We’re in trouble,” Zax said, shaking his head. “I’m all out of fries!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  FRIGHTENED AWAY

  More and more spiders’ eyes lit up the forest around us. They all glowed in the light from the fire.

  “I—I thought there was just one spider!” I whisper-screamed.

  “Maybe that spider had babies!” Desmond replied. “A lot of babies!”

  “But they’re grown up now,” I whimpered.

  Desmond and I tried to run, but it was no use. We were completely surrounded.

  Zax tried throwing the ice-cream sundae to the spiders, but they weren’t interested in it.

  “Try something else!” I yelled to Zax.

  One by one, Zax threw waffles, hot wings, cotton candy, and even meat loaf at the spiders, but they didn’t want any of it. Finally, Zax cried, “That’s all I brought!”

  There was nothing we could do.

  I had been through a lot in my short time in Kersville, but I didn’t think it would end like this! Those hungry spiders were everywhere!

  With nothing left to do, Desmond, Zax, and I huddled together and tried to come up with a plan. I don’t remember it. It was too complicated. We would need grappling hooks, granola bars, soap bubbles, and Swiss cheese.

  Of course, we didn’t actually have any of those things.

  Turns out that we didn’t need them either, because all of a sudden, our campfire started to blaze!
It grew bigger and bigger. And brighter and brighter.

  Then it shouted, “BOO!”

  Now, I had never seen giant spiders before. And I had never seen a talking flame, either.

  And I definitely had never seen a talking flame scare away giant spiders.

  But that’s exactly what happened!

  Then, as the fire cooled down, it asked us, “Hey, do you guys have another story?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE BEST STORY OF ALL

  It turns out that there are campfire ghosts, and they love hearing stories.

  Ghosts live in all campfires, but they only come out if the stories are good enough. And this ghost loved our stories.

  Not only that, but it loved telling stories too.

  Our campfire ghost told us funny stories, scary stories, and even happy stories that made us feel good inside. Our favorites, of course, were the funny stories.

  Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part. The campfire ghost is great at making s’mores. Even after your camping trip is almost ruined by a nest of giant, hungry, french fry–eating spiders, s’mores still make everything better.

  A lot better!

  “Oh wonderful, you boys made s’mores,” Mom said as she and Dad finally came back. “Sorry we had to take those phone calls. Did we miss anything?”

  Desmond and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh.

  “Nope,” I said. “We were just telling stories, that’s all.”

  And we kept telling stories for the rest of the night. Well, between bites of all those s’mores! Yum!

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Andres Miedoso is still afraid of everything as a grown-up, even after all his adventures with Desmond Cole. He lives in New York City with his family, and he remains very close friends with Desmond but returns to Kersville only when he’s needed.

  Victor Rivas was born and raised in Vigo, Spain, and he lives outside of Barcelona. He has been a freelance illustrator for thirty years, illustrating children’s and teen books, concept art for multimedia and animation, and comics.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Andres-Miedoso

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Victor-Rivas

  Little Simon

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LITTLE SIMON

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  First Little Simon hardcover edition July 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Also available in a Little Simon paperback edition.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Designed by Steve Scott

  Jacket illustrations by Victor Rivas

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Miedoso, Andres, author. | Rivas, Victor, illustrator.

  Title: Campfire stories / by Andres Miedoso ; illustrated by Victor Rivas.

  Description: First Little Simon paperback edition. | New York : Little Simon, 2019. | Series: Desmond Cole ghost patrol ; 8 | Summary: Desmond, Andres, and their ghost-friend Zax take turns trying to tell the scariest story of all while gathered around the campfire on a camping trip.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019022096 | ISBN 9781534433502 (paperback) | ISBN 9781534433519 (hc) | ISBN 9781534433526 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Camping—Fiction. | Storytelling—Fiction. | Ghosts—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Readers / Chapter Books.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M518 Cam 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022096