Beside me, Kevin wiped his giant, sweaty paws through his long brown fur. I wanted to give him a hug and let him know it was going to be okay, but I needed evidence to convince the Council of Babysitters to launch a full-fledged rescue mission. The council was a gathering of very important babysitters who oversaw global babysitting operations. They have the gear, the power, and the resources to do big things. They’re sort of like Congress for sitters. If I wanted to undertake a major operation to Sunshine Island, I would need their full support. My trembling fingers tapped the record button, and I aimed it at the horrendous ship.
Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.
The deck shuddered, and the mysterious crew ducked from view before I could see if they were human or monster. The costumed frog and dancing sunshine raised their arms up and held them there, like the best thing ever was about to happen.
A figure strutted onto the deck. A great black tail swayed under a long red coat with gold trim and copper buttons. The claws of a black and gray paw strummed the handle of a sheathed sword.
Baron von Eisenvult, aka the Wolf, stood proudly at the top of the gangplank. He combed back his whiskers and snarled a snout full of sharp, gleaming teeth. Though the walking, talking wolf was terrifying, he was also quite handsome. His eyes held the sparkle of a mastermind. He reminded me of fairy tales where the prince eats the princess and there is no happily ever after.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” boomed the Wolf.
He was met with silence, and his great big smile turned to a frown. The Wolf stared down at the old woman. His wet snout sniffed the salty air.
“Where are they?” he asked, his voice echoing across the docks.
From where Kevin and I sat, we couldn’t hear the quiet woman’s response. I pinch-zoomed my camera at the doctor. Her shoulders sagged forward, and she held up the doll as an offering. Von Eisenvult drew his sword and pointed it at the woman’s neck.
“You promised me twins,” snarled the Wolf.
Kevin yelped and pointed. Liz was shimmying up the rope that tied the ship to the dock.
I gulped as she swung herself onboard.
The Wolf’s snout twitched. His eyes narrowed. I could see a smile creeping under his whiskers.
Can he smell us? Does he know we’re here? Liz is going to slip and give us away. I didn’t shower today, and Kevin definitely didn’t. Darn!
“Wait here, Kev,” I whispered. “I have to go save your crazy sister.”
Kevin yowled as I slipped from the van. I made my way to a row of blue plastic barrels and then stealthily tumbled behind a broken dinghy and tried to get a good shot.
“Liz, you knucklehead!” I whisper-shouted.
I could hear the doll doctor begging. “Please, Baron von Eisenvult, I need more of your wonderful materials,” said Wermling, holding up her doll.
The Wolf produced a glowing purple jar. “I held up my end of the bargain. You failed to deliver,” snarled the Wolf. “And so I bid you good night. Doctor.”
Von Eisenvult’s sword slashed. Snikt! Snikt! The soap-opera-blond doctor fell to pieces.
Lullu Belle squealed as Wermling collapsed.
I froze. The Wolf had sliced that lady in half. Stuffing bulged out of the stitches in Wermling’s neck and joints. Her torso was made of cloth. Her arms and legs were sewn on with fine red threads. The doll doctor was a doll!
Lullu Belle fell to her fine china knees and patted her maker’s arm. Dr. Wermling’s eyelids twitched. Her severed hands trailed red thread as they crawled over her body, trying to sew herself back together again. My phone almost slipped from my sweating hands.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” said the Wolf. “And if you wish to stay alive, little doll, next time do as I say and bring me more children. Let’s go, crew.”
The happy lights died and the jolly flags lowered. The costumed frog and sunshine character took off their foam heads revealing the hideous faces of two goblins. The inhuman crew untethered the ropes. Baron von Eisenvult stalked into the captain’s quarters and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Liz!” I hissed. “Get down here!”
Liz clicked her heels together three times and her sneakers lit up. Her rubber soles puckered into suction cups.
“Sitter Sneaks,” Liz said. “Boosted them off Mama Vee.”
She pressed her feet to the bottom of the masthead, and they stuck like glue. Hanging upside down, she looked like a punk rock bat.
“Those are really cool, but I’m not getting on that thing without a pair. Put a tracker on the ship and let’s go.”
“Great idea, genius! Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, wait. I did. I don’t have one. Do you?”
I patted my jacket even though I knew I didn’t have one. I growled in frustration.
A rusty chain clanked as the ship’s anchor emerged from the inky water. Portholes thunked open, and rows of yellow eyes sparkled in the dark ship’s small windows. Liz looked scared for a second, but then she covered her fear with a scowl.
Oars shot out from the side of the ship and shoved the massive vessel away from the dock. A deep, powerful chant sounded as the rowers strained against the tide.
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream . . .”
Thunka. Thunka. Thunka.
With tiny suctioned steps Liz slowly crawled along the side of the ship to the deck railing. She looked back at me and Kevin. “Hop on, stupid.”
Kevin charged to the edge of the dock. He stopped abruptly at the edge of the water, scared to leap into it.
“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!” chanted the unseen crew.
Liz nervously steadied herself as the ship rocked against the waves. Kevin reached out for his sister.
“Don’t go, Kevin. Liz, check your brain cells. The three of us can’t ride to some monster island tonight. We need a plan. And gear. We need backup.”
“These creeps stole my brother from me, Kelly. It sucked. Now I’m going to burn that stupid island to the ground. With or without you.”
Say what you will about Liz LeRue, but she was a fearless warrior.
I waved my cell phone. “I can show this footage to the council, and they’ll send an army of babysitters to do it right.”
“Those dinosaurs in the head office will never approve it! Trust me, I’ve tried. Now stop being a follower and start being a leader.”
I looked down at the sickly green water. A rowboat was tied to the dock, sloshing in the waves. I loved Kevin and Liz, but they were both a little too insane to pull off this mission on their own. We didn’t have the gear. We didn’t have a plan. I was not prepared for this level of danger. Judging from Kevin’s frazzled, furry expression, neither was he.
Kevin hopped back and forth nervously. Liz shimmied her way to the side of the ship and slipped into an open portal.
“Iiiiz?” he murmured sadly. His giant lower lip trembled.
“Don’t do it, Kevin.”
Kevin looked from the boat to me and back to the boat. He leaned down, kissed me on the cheek, and then took off running.
“Kevin!”
14
Kevin leaped off the dock and sailed through the air, barely catching the edge of the crusty bow.
Boys. They never listen.
“I’ll call you when we dock,” Liz said, saluting me as the ship sailed out to sea.
They’ll be okay, I said to myself. Kevin’s strong. So is Liz. And she knows what she’s doing. And Kevin’s been there before. Then again, there’s a pretty good chance they both could die moments from now. As the ship sailed away, I saw its name written on the back in gold: Serena’s Song.
As in Serena the Spider Queen? As in the bug lady I squished? I thought. That is literally not a good sign.
“You will pay, babysitter!” Lullu Belle’s voice rang out.
The little china doll charged at me on her tiny legs. Her porcelain hands were raised in rage.
I picked up a wooden lobster trap
and smashed it down over her, trapping Lullu Belle inside the rusty crustacean prison.
I was so not in the mood for another doll fight.
She flailed in the lobster trap’s netting as I picked up the trap with the doll inside and tossed it into the back of the babysitter mobile. I scooped up the pieces of the doll doctor and shoved them into the back seat.
“Where’s the Wolf going?” I demanded.
“Like I’m telling you,” Lullu Belle snapped.
“I melted one of you earlier tonight,” I said, shaking the lobster cage. “I’ll do the same to you if you don’t tell me the truth.”
Lullu Belle zipped her lips.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“Can you fix Dr. Wermling?” Lullu Belle asked sweetly.
“Of course we can,” I said, sensing a deal.
I peeled the carpet back from the van floor and placed the lobster cage in a hidden compartment.
“Think about it,” I said, shutting the trap door over the doll’s face.
I locked it and grabbed Dr. Wermling’s severed, crawling hands away from my neck.
“Not so fast.” The clawing hands swung from their red threads in my fist.
The nearest container I could grab was an indestructible diaper bag. I stuffed Dr. Wermling’s pieces inside. A shudder jolted through my chest. Wermling’s glass eyes were staring up at me as I zipped the bag closed.
I checked the time. Only fifteen minutes left to get back to the Renfields!
I called Mama Vee and gave her the twenty-second version of our night, while texting her photographs of the Wolf’s nightmare yacht. Aside from all this bad news, it was going to take Mama Vee an hour to get to me, but I had fifteen freaking minutes to get back to the Renfields’ house so my dad could pick me up.
Mama Vee put our trusty mechanic and hobgoblin babysitter Wugnot on the phone.
“I’ve got something that might help,” Wugnot said. “It’s new tech from the San Fran office. Installed it last week. Look on the dash and you should see a button called remote drive.”
A piece of tape on the dashboard marked a red button: Remote Drive.
“Buckle up and press it,” Wugnot said.
I pressed the button, and the van’s engine rumbled. A camera fixed to the hood blinked on. The gear shift clunked into drive, and the steering wheel spun around with a life of its own.
“Really been wanting to test this thing out. Hang on!” The excitement in Wugnot’s voice scared me.
“Test it out?”
I buckled up as the gas pedal was stomped down. The van lunged forward, and I was thrown back in my seat. I was being driven by a lead-footed ghost.
“Car! Car!” I screamed. The van veered onto the road, barely dodging a Dodge.
“I got it,” said Wugnot over the van’s intercom.
Rocketing down the street, I gripped the door handle and screamed over the phone at Wugnot.
“Just sit back and relax,” Wugnot said.
I glanced at the clock. One minute left! So not relaxing!
We made it back to the Renfields’ house. I saw my dad’s blue Honda of doom pull around the corner.
“Stop!” I shouted.
My driverless van screeched to a stop.
“I cannot wait to get out of this car,” I said. “Hey, Wugnot! When you get the van back, there’s a nasty doll trapped in a lobster cage and a human-sized one in pieces in the indestructible diaper bag in the back. They might know something so don’t play with matches around them.”
“What are you implying?” Wugnot asked, playfully defensive.
“Mama Vee told me you like setting toys on fire.”
“It’s an artistic hobby,” Wugnot said.
My dad texted me: OUTSIDE.
“Wugnot! We need all the help we can on this. Liz and Kevin could be in huge trouble. I’ve gotta go!”
I sprang out of the van, somersaulted onto the grass, and popped up under my dad’s window before he could honk the horn.
“Gah! Don’t scare me like that!” my dad said, his hands springing into a karate stance.
“You didn’t hear me say hi?” I asked innocently, sliding into the passenger seat.
My dad looked around the Renfields’ front yard. Luckily, the lights were off. “Dad’s getting old, Kelly. Think I’m losing my hearing.”
I put a comforting hand on his shoulder and looked back to see the babysitter mobile reversing down the street. The steering wheel reeled the van into a wild U-turn, and it drove off.
“Was that a karate move you did?” I asked.
My dad gave a slow nod. “I’ve been watching these self-defense tapes. Just in case.”
Just in case of monsters.
“I’ll protect you, Dad,” I said.
He guffawed. “How were the wonder twins?” he asked.
“Double the trouble, double the fun,” I said with a shrug. “We played with their Fancy Lady doll.”
As we drove back over the bridge, I stared out the window, thinking of Liz and Kevin hiding on a boat full of monsters. How long could they hide until they were found?
I typed a superemergency email on my phone, attached every picture and video I had taken of the ship and the Wolf, and sent it to every babysitter I could. Every. Single. One. From Bern to Curtis to the Queen governess herself. Contacting everyone was def going over Mama Vee’s head, but this was a big-time emergency. No time for babysitter hierarchy.
I laid out detailed instructions to the nearest chapters prepared for naval assault and asked for them to find Serena’s Song before it disappeared.
Locate this ship and we will find Sunshine Island.
I hit send and heard the satisfying whoosh.
“Did you do anything besides stare at your phone all night?” my dad joked.
I forced a smile.
Now all I have to do is pack my gear; find a boat; make a plan; sneak out; head for Sunshine Island; find Liz, Kevin, and the kids; defeat Professor Gonzalo; not get eaten by the Wolf . . .
The list kept going and going. The one thing I was certain of was that this mission was bigger and badder than anything I had ever done.
15
WHAT IS HER DEAL?
Remove these ugly pics. Please.
#KellyNoFriends.
DEE-LEETE RED!
Ur so gross I can smell u thru my screen.
Why on Earth did I check my Facebook page? Or my Instagram? Or my everything else? That morning there were no messages from Liz or Kevin. But my trolls had multiplied. Like monkey poop on a zoo window, their awful comments were smeared everywhere. Even on my Goodreads page. I mean, who trolls someone on Goodreads?
I felt defeated, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning.
“Kelly. Breakfast,” my dad called.
His voice snapped me out of my scroll trance. I walked down the hall into the kitchen.
“I made blueberry pancakes. I figured since you don’t have to rush off to school and I don’t have to be at the shop for another hour, we could have breakfast.”
I smiled at him. He had a funny way of grounding me.
A melting patty of butter slowly slid down my stack of pancakes.
“What’s wrong?” my dad asked.
“My friends are in trouble and people hate me.”
“No one hates you,” he said. “You’re fantastic! You’re—seriously now, I’m not just saying this because I’m your dad, but because I see you, and you’re doing a pretty good job with the monsters and all. When I was your age the only things I did were play video games and dream about cars.”
He leaned closer.
“You know how many times I got in trouble at school?” he whispered. “Let’s just say, I was not the best of kids.”
My mother whooshed in, dressed in her crisp business best. My father straightened back into his chair.
“Pancakes. Really?” my mom said.
“She’s gotta eat, Lex.”
My mom pursed her lips. “Empty the dishwasher when it’s finished. Take out the trash. Wash your hands. Then start your schoolwork.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said.
She opened the front door and gasped. Three elderly women wearing tweed cloaks and colorful bonnets stood close together with tight, friendly smiles fixed to their faces.
“Good morning, Mrs. Ferguson,” said one leaning on a wooden cane. “I’m sorry to startle you at this hour, darling.”
Her accent was super British. It made everything she said sound really important and really smart. They each held up official babysitter badges.
ORDER OF THE BABYSITTERS
* * *
REGION: UNITED KINGDOM
DIVISION: WORLD HEADQUARTERS - LONDON
RANK: ELDER SECRETARY
“We’ve come all the way from the London World Headquarters for the Order of the Babysitters.” They tucked their IDs back into their shawls.
“I am Elder Pressbury, this is Elder Carbunkle, and that is Elder Doyle.”
The ladies nodded in sync.
My eyes widened. I knew those names. They were the three Elder Secretaries to the Queen governess. The top brass. The big cheese.
Elder Pressbury removed her bonnet and bowed her head.
“Might we come in?”
“Careful, Alexa. Remember what happened last time we let some stranger in the house,” my dad said. He made a “spider leaping onto his neck” gesture.
“Hi, Mrs. Ferguson,” said Mama Vee, stalking up the drive with an apologetic wave.
“I was on my way to work,” my mom said, flustered. “We weren’t expecting company today. What’s this about?”
The three women studied me with their birdlike eyes. I raised my hand.
“Hello” was all I could think to say.
Mysterious smiles crossed their faces.
“There. She. Is,” said Elder Pressbury, clapping her gloved hands together.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I curtsied. It seemed the royalish and British choice. Turns out I was right because the three Elders curtsied in return.
“We were en route from London when our offices received a high alert from you,” Elder Pressbury said, pointing her cane at me.
A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting #3 Page 6