The Magnificent Monsters of Cedar Street

by Lauren Oliver

  Gregory made a careful pile of newspapers, twigs, and leaves in the center of the room, bundling the whole teetering structure together with bits of twine he fished from his pocket. The matchbook in his pocket had gotten damp, and for a terrible moment it seemed that they would have to sleep without a fire. Then the dragon sneezed loudly, expelling several bursts of flame in a row. All of a sudden, a fire was crackling merrily in front of them.

  Instantly, Cordelia felt a hundred times better. The light from the fire chased shadows into the corners and cast the room in cheerful brightness. Soon, she was able to unbutton her jacket.

  Gregory and Cordelia ate dried jerky for dinner, and two stale sweet buns each. Gregory fed Cabal three drops of blood from the pipette, and Icky licked a half-dozen dung beetles straight from Cordelia’s palm. Afterward, Cordelia fed the dragon a handful of peanuts and some dried wormroot and checked to make sure that his splint was still secure.

  Sitting next to the fire, in the big room with its walls covered with moving shadows, made Cordelia feel like she was at the very center of a glass lantern. “I’m sorry for pushing you,” she blurted out.

  Gregory swallowed a big mouthful of jerky. “That’s all right.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t think you’re crazy. If I had a father, I would go looking for him too.”

  Cordelia thought of her father’s button, nestled in her pocket, and the strange note signed by HP. She thought of her home in Beacon Hill, and all the empty rooms where the monsters should have been. She thought of what it would be like to have never had a father at all. She thought of the orphan train, packed with hundreds of frightened children. She thought of those silky words, like the cold, quivering eggs of a lionfish, dropped right inside her eardrum: Every life has value. But some have more value than others. She imagined it was someone like Mr. Wellington who had written them.

  People like that were the real monsters. For people like that, every ugliness that showed in the mirror was just pointing to a danger lurking over their shoulder.

  “What if we don’t find him?” she whispered. “What if we can’t get the monsters back?”

  Gregory reached out and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, Cordelia,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.” She was glad he said it, even though she wasn’t sure if she believed him.

  Gregory lay down on the floor and Icky promptly curled up next to him, though Gregory several times tried to move him off. The dragon slept as close to the fire as he could, every so often exhaling a spark that would intermingle with the other flames and keep the fire burning for hours. Cordelia used her jacket for a pillow and stretched out across the chairs, pulling Cabal up beside her. Even the zuppy felt a little warmer than usual, though his skin was still cool to the touch.

  She thought she would have trouble sleeping in a strange place, with a jacket for a pillow, after a poor dinner of sweet buns and jerky. She closed her eyes and saw flames, and then dozens of dragons, beating the air to shreds under their great wings. Then she felt a great wind and was blown backward, into a place of darkness and dreams.

  Chapter 10

  Cordelia woke up with her teeth chattering and ice coating her eyelashes. Cabal was still next to her, his fur clotted with snow. She sat up, pulling on her jacket with trembling fingers.

  It was just after dawn. The room was filled with long shadows the color of ash. Sometime in the middle of the night, it had begun to storm. Snow had flowed in through the broken window, extinguishing their fire. Gregory was still sleeping, but his lips were blue and he was shaking underneath his coat, which he was using as a blanket.

  The dragon wasn’t moving.

  Cordelia searched the room for the driest twigs and leaves she could find. She piled it all together, as she’d seen Gregory do the night before. His matchbook was still poking out of his pocket. There were two matches left, and neither one felt dry. She put both match heads together and struck them as one, a trick she’d learned from her father. A small flame sputtered to life. She cupped it carefully with one hand and dropped the matches into the collection of dried twigs and leaves.

  For a second, nothing happened. Then the kindling caught, and flames soared upward, and Cordelia could breathe again. She pulled the dragon into her lap, rubbing her hands against his knobby spine, kneading his thick skin, willing him to wake.

  Eventually, after what seemed like forever, he opened one eye, and then the other.

  After another minute he yawned, revealing a mottled pink tongue.

  Cordelia exhaled. She blew gently on the fire, stoking it a little higher, and saw the dragon squirm happily in the warmth.

  She was just debating whether it would be safe to try to sleep for a few more hours when she heard footsteps from the hall. Her heart stopped.

  “Gregory,” Cordelia whispered, as she smothered the fire with her jacket and stamped out the embers that still glowed. “Gregory, wake up.” She took his shoulders and gave him a shake, but he only moaned and swatted her off. The footsteps were getting louder. Someone was heading straight for them.

  She seized her bag and fished out the jar of dung beetles, which had the most awful smell, somewhere between dirty sock, spoiled milk, and rotten cabbage. She opened the jar and shoved it under Gregory’s nose.

  He woke with a start, choking and gagging. “What the—?”

  She clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shhh.” She gestured to the door with her chin. Outside in the hall, they could hear muffled conversation. Gregory’s eyes went wide. Cordelia withdrew her hand.

  “First things first, we got to make a clean sweep o’ the place,” a man was saying in a rolling accent. “Start at the top, head straight to the bottom. There been hobos and crooks makin’ a home in these halls for too long. Crafty as rats after dark, they is.”

  There was a pause. Cordelia thought she heard a snarling sound. Then the man spoke up again.

  “Well, you’re exactly right, o’ course you are. Round ’em up and throw ’em in prison, or ship ’em straight back to where they came from. Turnin’ the station into a muck pit, that’s what they is.”

  There were another few seconds of silence, and then the man laughed—a dry, rattling sound, like leaves blown against glass.

  “Now, now, don’t get upset. There might be one or two juicy morsels for you in it. I’ll make sure you get your feed, boy, never you worry. Who’s to miss a hand or arm or foot from these filthy little night crawlers? That’s one more hand they can’t be thievin’ with, I say.”

  Slowly, careful not to make any noise, Cordelia inched across the room and raised herself onto her knees, so that she could peek through the dirty window that overlooked the hall.

  A man so old and skinny he looked like a walking cadaver was stomping down the hall, pausing every few feet to kick open doors and make a sweep with his lantern.

  With him was the largest, meanest-looking dog Cordelia had ever seen. Its fangs were long, protruding, and webbed with spittle. It kept its nose to the ground, sniffing and snuffling, loud with a wet and excited hunger that made her shudder.

  Cordelia backed quickly away from the door, as if the dog might smell her sooner if she remained where she was. She knew it was only a matter of seconds before they were found. There was no chance of escaping through the hall. She looked frantically around the room and saw, immediately, that there was nowhere to conceal them. Then her eyes landed on the broken window, high in the wall, which was still admitting swirling flakes of snow.

  The window. With any luck, they’d be able to reach it.

  She pointed to the window. Gregory nodded to show he understood. Cordelia shoved the jar of dung beetles back into her bag and put on her jacket. She managed to ease the dragon into one of her larger pockets, ignoring his hiss of pain and simply hoping that his wing wouldn’t get further damaged, then swept Cabal up into her arms. He was stiff with fear; it was like carrying a block of ice. Gregory eased Icky onto his back, and
Icky looped his long arms around Gregory’s neck. Gregory wore the rucksack in reverse, across his stomach.

  “Patience, Crunch, patience, m’boy,” the man was saying. Cordelia assumed Crunch was the name of the dog—it didn’t take much imagination to figure out where he’d gotten the nickname, and she shivered, thinking of the bones in her hand snapping in the dog’s jaw. If only the dragon were full-grown.

  Gregory wiggled a chair underneath the window. Cordelia set Cabal down and maneuvered onto the chair. If she stretched on her tiptoes, her fingers just grazed the icy windowsill. She would need help. Gregory stepped up next to her, and the chair shifted under their weight. Cordelia’s heart stopped. Had they been heard? But the man was still blabbering on. “What’s that yer got, Crunch? Picked up a trail? Lead on, lead on, m’boy. Maybe we’ll catch a big one.”

  “You go first,” Gregory whispered. He webbed his fingers together and gave Cordelia a boost. She hooked both arms around the windowsill and heaved. For a second, her legs flailed uselessly in the air, and the dragon squirmed in her pocket, and her feet scrabbled against the wall, and Cordelia felt a desperate rush of terror. Then Gregory took hold of one of her feet and pushed, and she managed to swing a leg up and out, so she was straddling the windowsill.

  “Cabal,” she whispered, perched half in and half out the window. Gregory jumped lightly off the chair, scooped up Cabal, and passed him to Cordelia. It was only a short six feet to the street, which was piled high with new snow. Cordelia launched the zuppy out the window. Icky was next. He was evidently afraid of heights. He whined and clutched Cordelia’s chest and hair.

  “Sorry, boy,” Cordelia said. Down he went. He belly flopped with a whoompf, leaving a filch-shaped imprint in the snow when he managed to right himself.

  The footsteps were right outside the door. “Somethin’ special, is it?” the man was crooning. “Somethin’ large and meaty for you?”

  “Hurry,” she whispered to Gregory. He stood up on the chair, pinwheeling his arms for balance. He stretched a hand up to Cordelia. She wrapped a hand around his wrist. She pulled at the same time that Gregory jumped. The chair toppled and clattered to the ground. For one terrible second, time seemed to freeze, with Gregory’s wrist slipping, inch by inch, from her hand, his feet dangling in midair, and the knowledge, heavy and horrible, of what was waiting for them just outside the door.

  Then the door burst open and time sped forward.

  “Get ’em, Crunch!” the man roared, his mouth wide to reveal blackened teeth, his eyes wide and wild. “Get those filthy, thievin’ rats! Slurp ’em up like stew! Crunch ’em like cookies!”

  The dog, big as a horse, was halfway across the room in two bounds. Gregory was still twisting in the air like a fish caught on a line, eyes wide, face white and terrified, his fingers just grazing the windowsill.

  Cordelia was gripping Gregory so hard she worried that his wrist would snap. Just before the dog lunged, Gregory got his arm over the windowsill. Cordelia leaned back and he rocketed upward as the dog’s jaw closed on the space where Gregory’s foot had been only a second earlier.

  Cordelia lost her balance. Suddenly she was falling, tumbling backward. She landed in the snow, and the air was driven out of her. She saw a massive bird above her, tumbling through the snow, blotting out the early morning sky. Then she realized it wasn’t a bird, but Gregory, who had leapt out of the window after her, coat flapping behind him. He landed next to her and hauled her to her feet. She gasped in a breath. From inside the station came sounds of furious barking, and the man cursing and shouting.

  As the snow spiraled through the air and light seeped back into the streets, Gregory and Cordelia took up their monsters and ran.

  Chapter 11

  At last, when they had left the old rail station behind and crossed over the Fort Point Channel into South Boston, Cordelia and Gregory stopped to catch their breath, hands on their knees, gulping in deep lungfuls of thin air. Cordelia’s thighs ached from the effort of slogging through the snow. All around them, the streets were concealed underneath a thick layer of powder, as though the world had been frosted overnight. Cordelia’s and Gregory’s footsteps—and Cabal’s, plunging alongside them—were the only markings in the otherwise pristine surface of white.

  “What are we going to do?” Gregory asked, jogging Icky a little higher on his back. He toed a bit of snow with his old leather boot. “Fat chance of tracking the monsters through this fluff.”

  With a sinking feeling, Cordelia realized that the snow had completely buried the track they’d been pursuing. If any further evidence of her father and the monsters existed, it was lost to them now, concealed under four inches of new powder. The wind whipped snow down the empty street.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “We’ve lost the trail.”

  “We’re lost, period,” Gregory pointed out.

  So they picked a direction at random and started walking. With each minute, the anxiety in Cordelia’s stomach grew. The sun had risen behind the gray veil of the sky; the city was coming awake. At least the storm was keeping everyone indoors, dawdling in their heated rooms. But although it was possible to keep to the side streets and alleyways, she knew they could not travel for long without being seen.

  The neighborhood grew dingier with every passing block. They skirted a House of Corrections, where all the grimy windows were encased in iron bars. In the distance, a steamer bellied up to the Commonwealth dock. A crowd of new arrivals, exhausted, filthy, and thin from the journey, shuffled down the gangplank toward the inspection checkpoint, which had no windows at all. A newsboy was pacing the corner, huffing on his hands to keep warm. Cordelia and Gregory veered in the opposite direction.

  Age-darkened textile factories blackened the sky with smoke. Foul-smelling fumes rose from the chimneys, and Cordelia heard the rattle and cough of distant machinery. She had the sense of eyes watching her from every smoke-clotted window.

  They entered a narrow street where the buildings were so close together they squeezed the daylight to a fine, narrow shaft. Cordelia felt a chill move up her neck that had nothing to do with the cold.

  “Cordelia?” Gregory said, in a low voice. “You ever feel like you’re being watched?” She opened her mouth to say yes. But before she could answer, there was a shout behind them.

  “There they are, Crunch! The filthy runners. The scummy filches! Get them!”

  Cordelia’s heart stopped. It was the man from the station. He had followed them all this way.

  “Run!” Gregory shouted, and sprinted down the street with Icky, terrified, clinging tightly to his shoulders. Cordelia grabbed Cabal by the scruff of his neck and careened after him, her heart jigging in her throat. Behind her, Crunch was baying furiously, hungry, eager; she heard the continued roar of his owner’s voice—“Get ’em! Get ’em, boy!”—like the noise of a distant ocean.

  Gregory had already turned the corner at the end of the street. Cordelia was falling behind. It was her stupid boots—too big for her feet, they risked slipping off at every step. Her lungs and thighs were burning. She skidded around the corner just in time to see Gregory dart down an alleyway.

  “Come on, Cordelia!” His voice floated back to her.

  She risked a single glance behind her and her heart seized up. Crunch was only twenty—no, fifteen—no, ten—feet behind her, spattering black saliva, his dark gums drawn back to reveal razor-sharp teeth. Even the growrks hadn’t looked so terrible.

  Cordelia’s father had always taught her that no creature was all bad, even the most fearsome-looking ones. Remember, Cordelia, he would say, fear is the only true monster.

  But her father had never seen Crunch. She hurtled around the corner and instantly knew it was a mistake. The alleyway dead-ended at a high brick wall less than forty feet ahead of her. The buildings on either side of her were plastered with flyers and old advertisements, the paper whispering quietly, as if expressing condolences. I’m sorry, they seemed to be saying.


  Gregory had reached the end of the alleyway already and was trying unsuccessfully to scale the wall. Cordelia wanted to scream his name, but the word was frozen in her throat. There was nowhere to go. She kept running, even though she knew it was useless.

  They were trapped.

  Crunch slid around the corner, snarling, and snapped at the air just three feet behind Cordelia’s heels. She could feel the hot blast of his breath. Gregory, she saw, was now trying to wrestle open the door to a shuttered Print Works. The wood splintered and groaned, and she felt a surge of hope. If she could just make it—just a dozen more feet—if they could just get inside, behind that heavy door—

  She slipped. One second she was upright, and the next second she felt her foot fold in the big rubber boot and she was toppling forward. She reached out to steady herself on a wall but managed only to tear away a paper flyer. Then she was plunging face forward into the snow, and Cabal went spinning out of her grip, tumbling a deep channel through the snow before coming to rest near Gregory’s feet.

  Cordelia tasted blood and realized she must have bitten the inside of her cheek.

  Everything hurt. Gregory was shouting to her, but her brain felt fuzzy and she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She tried to push herself onto her hands and knees, but a sudden clamping pain went all the way from her foot to her knee, and she sprawled back into the snow. She twisted around to look and felt a white-hot spark of terror.

  Crunch had her by the foot. Even through the thick rubber, she could feel the sharp points of his teeth, and Cordelia knew that if it weren’t for her boot, he would have sunk his jaw straight through her tendons.

  Panic fueled her, cleared her mind. Now she knew what Gregory had been yelling so frantically: Look out! Look out!

  Gregory was shouting, “Get off her! Leave her alone, you big brute!”

  She managed to flip herself onto her back and was blasted by the stench of the dog’s breath, like the butcher’s shop in mid-July. She didn’t want to think about what he’d been eating. She aimed a kick at Crunch’s nose with her free foot. But the angle was wrong, and she barely made contact. He kept gnawing at her boot, wrestling it off with his mouth. She felt it slipping . . . slipping . . .