Monsterville

by Sarah S. Reida

  “Aww, that’s cute. But bummer about Charlie getting hurt.” I watched my marshmallows bubbling under the heat, turning amber before blackening. “Hey, want to tell ghost stories?”

  “Okay,” Adam said. “I mean, this is the perfect place for it. Who wants to go first?”

  “I will,” Blue said. He’d already eaten three entire Hershey’s bars. The chocolate was smeared all around his mouth. It was a good thing Adam had brought two six-packs.

  “Really, Blue?” I asked. “You know a ghost story?”

  “Well, it’s not a real ghost story,” he said, his tail twitching. “But you’ll think it’s scary. Does that count?”

  “Sure.”

  Blue stared into the fire, which was really crackling by then. One of the wooden sticks shifted, and red embers flew into the air.

  “This is the story—” He hesitated, then swallowed and tried again. “This is the story of how monsters become monsters.”

  I forgot about the marshmallows melting at the end of my stick. My mouth went dry.

  “I don’t know the whole story,” Blue said softly, “but I know enough.”

  “I thought you didn’t remember how you became a goblin, though,” I said, recalling Blue’s outburst.

  “I lied. I knew that if I told, and Atticus found out … bad things would happen,” he finished in a whisper. “But you’ve been so nice, and I know you’d never tell. Right?” He looked up at me with huge, scared eyes.

  “Of course not. You’re safe. I promise.”

  Blue drew in a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. See, monsters live Down Below. And Down Below isn’t safe. There are wars. And accidents, like up here. Monsters don’t die unless something bad happens. But sometimes … something bad happens.

  “Because of that, they need to get new monsters. Ones that are good for Down Below—ones that are smart or special in some way.” Blue stared into the fire. Close to such bright light, his pale skin looked almost transparent.

  “Every year, on Monster New Year, monsters add to their numbers. They scout for kids who would do well Down Below. Kids who aren’t afraid. Who don’t mind change. Kids who are smart and can make Down Below better.”

  Haylie, I thought instantly, and my throat tightened. My shoulder brushed against Adam’s, and I realized I’d scooted closer to him.

  “Before monsters take their targets, they show themselves to see how the kids react. If a kid screams for his parents, the monster leaves him alone. Monsters don’t want to share Down Below with crybabies. But if the kid doesn’t seem scared, that kid might make a good monster. He’ll go on the maybe list, for the monsters’ meeting before Monster New Year.”

  “Meeting?” Adam interjected. “What happens at the meeting?”

  “They figure out how to add to their numbers. They talk about the kids on the list, and they vote on how many and who to take. But it’s not a meeting for all the monsters—only the really important ones, like Atticus. The monsters have a map, and they mark where the kids live. The ones they want to take.”

  “What kind of a map?” I asked. “Of the United States? Or the whole world?”

  Blue’s eyes were sad when they met mine. “The Down Below I know, it’s just the United States. But there are other places Down Below that are underneath other countries.”

  Adam and I looked at each other, horrified. Kid-snatching by monsters was a global problem.

  “Then they decide which monsters will lead the kids Down Below,” Blue continued. “On Monster New Year, those monsters crawl out from under the kids’ beds. Always by midnight—kids can’t be taken after midnight. I don’t know why.

  “The monsters usually send a monster that isn’t scary. A monster that’s big and fluffy and funny-looking, so the kid will want to follow. And then, once he gets Down Below and the kid sees how dark and scary it is, the monster is there to comfort him. It’s like having a really big teddy bear for a bodyguard. One with pointy teeth.

  “The teddy bear monster leads the kids to the Transformation Room. That’s this special place Down Below where new monsters are formed. Or, I guess, transformed. There are games, and magic tricks, and lots of junk food … everything’s used to distract the kids until daylight. Because as soon as daylight hits Up There, the kids Down Below turn into monsters.”

  “But when does daylight hit?” Adam asked in a hushed whisper. “Wouldn’t it be at different times in different places?”

  Blue wrinkled his nose. “It’s based on the time zone the Transformation Room is under. One monster said the Transformation Room is under the capitol. Does that mean anything?”

  “Yes! That’s Washington, DC. So Eastern Time, then,” I said. “Same time as it is here.”

  “Anyway,” Blue continued, “the kids don’t become just any kind of monster. Every new monster is a goblin, and later they pick the kind of monster they want to be. You can stay a goblin if you want to, though.”

  Blue fell silent, staring at the marshmallow at the end of his stick. I couldn’t even imagine what he was thinking.

  I looked into Blue’s brown eyes. The first time I’d looked into them, I’d been struck by how human they were. And I realized that during his entire story, he referred to the monsters as they. Not we.

  “You were a kid once,” I whispered.

  SCENE SIX:

  BLUE REMEMBERS

  Adam and I stayed with Blue until after dawn, letting him share what he remembered from his life Up There. Here.

  A lot of his memories were gone, wiped away with each day spent Down Below. This included his name and where he’d come from. This was typical for monsters, and a reason Atticus was so special—he was one of the few whose memories had stayed intact. That helped when the monsters infiltrated Up There each year—Atticus “knew the enemy.”

  Once Blue had escaped to Up There, he stopped losing memories. And some of the ones he’d lost had come back.

  He told us he remembered one thing really clearly—sitting on someone’s lap—a lady with long blonde hair and a huge smile. She loved reading him Dr. Seuss books. No wonder those were his favorites.

  “I think that lady’s my mom.” Blue’s eyes welled with tears. “And I remember my dad, too. He worked in a car shop. When he came home, he always smelled like oil, and his hands were dirty. We kept special soap to wash out grease in our bathroom. It smelled like oranges.”

  I wanted to pull Blue onto my lap and hold him the same way I held Haylie when she was upset or didn’t feel well. Just rock him back and forth and tell him that everything would be okay.

  But I didn’t know if everything would be okay. Blue was a kid, or at least he was before he was taken. He didn’t belong out in the woods with us. He belonged at home in bed, sleeping under rocket ship blankets, with his parents in the next room.

  “Is there anything we can do?” I asked hesitantly. “Is there any way to reverse your transformation?”

  Blue dropped his head. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling horrible. The only thing worse than a terrible situation is knowing you can’t do anything about it.

  “You know, Blue—” I stopped. “You had a real name once. Are you sure you don’t remember it? Maybe if I brought a book of baby names and read them to you?”

  “No.” Blue wrapped his arms around his spindly legs, wiping away tears.

  “Oh, Blue.” I scooted closer to put my arm around him. “It’ll be okay.”

  Adam’s face was pinched. “On Monster New Year,” he said, “the monsters will do this all over again. Steal kids, I mean. What day is Monster New Year?”

  Blue shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “I do!” I exclaimed so loudly that Blue recoiled against me. “Halloween. It has to be Halloween.”

  Adam lit another match and held it to the fire. “Why?”

  I shook my head. “Because Halloween had to have started for a reason. People noticed something weird about that particular day. Something sp
ooky.”

  “Huh.” Adam didn’t sound convinced.

  “Plus, that’s a cardinal rule in monster movies. If something looks or feels wrong, it probably is wrong.”

  “I’ve never liked Halloween,” Adam muttered, poking at the fire with a stick. “There’s always a creepy vibe in the air.”

  “I love Halloween,” I said. “At least, I used to.”

  “Halloween’s coming in two weeks,” Adam pointed out.

  I chewed on my lower lip, thinking of all the kids who would be taken … and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I could protect Haylie.

  “What can we do to help, Blue?” Adam asked. “All this time, we’ve been trying to help you figure out what kind of monster you should be when you shouldn’t be one at all.”

  Blue shrugged his narrow shoulders. “You’ve already done a lot. If you hadn’t caught me, I’d be living off berries and stealing apples. Or in a cage. Or back Down Below.”

  “The others have to know you’re gone,” I said. “Why haven’t they come after you?”

  Blue scratched at his knee. “I worry about that a lot. Maybe because they don’t know where I am, and monsters stick to scouting out houses.”

  “Are you sure?” I didn’t want to scare him, but I was certain the other monsters didn’t want him up here. What if he got caught and exposed them? They had to know he was a risk.

  “Yeah, what if the monsters go on a mission to find you?” Adam asked.

  “Monster prison.” Blue trembled at the idea.

  My eyes felt hot, and I didn’t want to get teary in front of Blue. If he was anything like Haylie, seeing me upset would make him upset.”

  “Don’t worry, Blue,” I said. “We’ll find a way to make things right.”

  But I worried that was a lie.

  SCENE SEVEN:

  A BRILLIANT IDEA

  My feet sank in wet grass as I crossed our yard, squinting at the orange sun rising above the cloud line. The sky was gray—still early, but it was more daytime than nighttime for sure.

  I was totally late—in movies, kids who successfully sneak out at night get back before dawn.

  I crept up the wooden porch stairs, avoiding the second step because it creaked. Slowly, I eased open the screen door, holding on to the doorknob so it wouldn’t slam shut behind me.

  “Someone’s up early.”

  I jumped, my heart thumping. “Mom!” I put my hand over my chest. “You scared me.”

  She sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and flipping through Vogue. “Sneaking in is always stressful.” A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

  I wandered into the kitchen, wrapping my hands around one of our new high-backed chairs. “I just didn’t want to wake anyone up. Adam and I got up early to go … fishing.” I was too tired to come up with a better excuse.

  “Fishing?” Mom raised her eyebrows. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”

  “Gross, Mom.”

  Mom put her coffee cup down. “I’m just kidding, honey. But you’ve been spending a lot of time with Adam. And he is a boy.”

  “Yeah, but not a normal boy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I rubbed my hand across my face. It was too early for this conversation. Or too late. “I just don’t like him that way, okay, Mom?”

  “Sure.” She smiled at me. It was the same way she used to smile at Dad when he said he’d be home for dinner instead of working late again. “Tell you what, honey. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a day together. How about it?”

  “A day?” I repeated. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Maybe we could drive to Algonquin and check out the historic district.”

  All I knew about Algonquin was that it was an hour away. An hour there, an hour back … plus Mom would want to spend at least a few hours there to make the drive worth it. Ugh.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “We don’t have to.”

  “But I want to. And your father has the day off. He can watch Haylie.”

  I sighed. “I’ll go take a shower.”

  Mom was waiting in the car when I emerged from the house. “Yay! A girls’ day,” she said. Gravel flew up from the tires as she put the car into reverse.

  “Yay.” I rubbed at my eyes, which felt gritty. A dull throb pulsed at my temples. I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since last New Year’s Eve, when Casey and Taylor and I had a classic Jim Carrey marathon. Once the sun had come up, we’d immediately passed out.

  “It’s a great day for a drive,” Mom chirped. “All the leaves are changing.”

  She was right. As we wove along country back roads, I stared out the window at the trees. They were all bright October colors—yellow and orange and brown—that blurred together.

  “Isn’t this peaceful?” Mom sighed contentedly. “You know, in New York City, I couldn’t even get behind the wheel without tensing up. Here, a ride’s a great way to relax.”

  “I can see that.” I stifled a yawn, fiddling with the radio dial. Gospel and country music. “Do you have any CDs?”

  “Nothing you’d like. We might have to have an actual conversation.” She smiled at me, the dimple in the right side of her cheek deepening. The blue shawl around her neck matched her eyes and made them look bluer than usual. She looked gorgeous, in a totally effortless way.

  “Wow, Mom. You look really nice.”

  “It’s the fresh air.” She slowed to make a right-hand turn. “It makes me younger.”

  She was kidding, but I believed her. I hadn’t heard her argue with Dad once since the move. The normal reasons they’d argue were gone—Dad didn’t work nearly as many hours at Chester County Hospital. And Freeburg Consolidated School was free.

  The ride didn’t feel like it took an hour, and soon we came to a little green sign welcoming us to Algonquin. We drove through a covered bridge and into a colonial-looking town. Four paths led to a gazebo in the center of a square, and a courthouse with stone steps and a huge Big Ben-esque clock took up one side. It reminded me of the backlot Universal Studios used in the Back to the Future movies.

  “Wow. This is adorable,” I said as Mom parked along the curb of the cobblestone street. “Like stepping back in time.” I opened my door and studied the signs.

  “Most of the buildings around here have been declared historical landmarks,” Mom explained. “Even if someone wanted to, they couldn’t tear them down and build a McDonald’s.”

  “Good.”

  Mom pointed to a restaurant with a green awning and purple flowers lining its walkway. “Brunch?”

  My stomach rumbled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything but marshmallows in almost twelve hours. “Sure.”

  A waitress came outside to refill someone’s water glass. “Sit anywhere,” she said, motioning to the tables covered in red-and-white-checkered tablecloths.

  “Isn’t this nice?” Mom asked as the waitress reappeared, handing us each a laminated menu.

  “What’s nice?” I asked.

  “Going to brunch and getting a seat right away. Back in the Village, we’d wait an hour.”

  “You sound like Adam.” I scanned the menu for French toast.

  “How so?”

  “Oh, nothing. He’s just always going on about how much better Freeburg is than the city.”

  Mom put her menu down and folded her arms in front of her. Her wedding ring glittered. “Sounds like Adam wants you to like it here. Because he likes you.”

  “Yeah, he needs an extra pair of hands to help with the cow tipping.”

  “So you don’t like anything about Freeburg? Like having a big yard instead of a three-foot balcony overlooking an alley?”

  “Well, I have to admit, French toast is way cheaper than in New York.”

  After we ordered, Mom reached for her glass. “Lissa, I want you to know we didn’t move to Freeburg to torture you. Your father and I honestly belie
ved it would be good for everyone.”

  “I know.” I took a sip of my water so I wouldn’t have to say anything else.

  “Being here isn’t so bad, is it?”

  “It’s growing on me, a little,” I admitted. “Like a fungus.”

  Mom smiled when the waitress deposited our food in front of us. It smelled amazing, and the cook had been generous with the powdered sugar on my French toast. It reminded me of the funnel cake at the fair.

  “Let’s not compare Freeburg to New York,” Mom said. “It’s a beautiful day. We’re in Algonquin. Let’s just enjoy it. And then next weekend, we can enjoy New York and your play.”

  My stomach flipped just thinking about it.

  “Okay, fine.” I pointed at a store across the street with my butter knife. “I want to go in there.” According to the sign, it was TOM’S OLD TIME GAME SHOP.” It looked like the type of place that would sell jacks and marbles and discontinued board games.

  “We can go in all the shops. That’s why we’re here.”

  After Mom paid, we hit up a candle store where Mom bought a peppermint candle, an indie clothing place where I bought a pair of dangly earrings, and an antiques shop where everything was too expensive.

  Taylor would’ve loved the indie shop. I clicked a picture and sent it to her.

  When we opened the door to the game shop, a bell tinkled overhead.

  I breathed in a lungful of musty air. “Wow. So this is where old games come to die.”

  The store didn’t look that big from the outside, but inside it was huge, filled with crooked rows of wooden shelves and mismatched tables piled high with thousands of board games.

  It was the kind of place to find a treasure, like the cluttered bookstore in The Neverending Story.

  A gray-haired guy with wire-rimmed glasses stood behind the counter. He looked like he belonged in an old-fashioned candy shop. Or shoppe.

  “Welcome to Tom’s Old Time Game Shop.” He smiled, flashing a gold tooth. “I’m Tom.”

  “We’re just browsing,” Mom said. “Seems like we have a lot to look at.” She glanced around the enormous room.

  “Board games are my life,” the man said.