A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting #3

by Joe Ballarini

  Across the corridor, Liz casually sat in her cell.

  “Liz! You’re alive!” I said.

  “Go team,” Liz said.

  She held her hand out through the bars for a long-distance high five.

  “Where’s Kevin?”

  “With the other mutants. In the mine. Nice mud mask, by the way.”

  “Is your brother okay?”

  “If by okay you mean chained and forced to dig up rocks for twenty hours a day in the mine, then yeah, he’s okay.”

  The nineteen children’s sobbing echoed through the day care–prison. They were relatively quiet for once. Exhausted and shocked into submission. They all looked much younger and very helpless. They were bad kids. But they were just kids. They didn’t deserve to be locked up like this. A heavy feeling sank into my chest.

  “Have you seen Berna and the others?” I asked.

  “Nope. Just you.”

  “Well, I’m not one to say I told you so, but my plan was much better than yours,” I said.

  “The order approved a rescue operation?” Liz asked.

  I raked my sleeve across my face, trying to wipe the soot and dirt from my cheeks.

  “No. They shot us down. We came solo,” I said.

  That made Liz smile. “Check you out. Breaking the rules. Being bad. The student has become the teacher.”

  “They’re coming here,” I whispered. “The Nanny Brigade. They’ll be here by sunset.”

  “Don’t need ’em. I have a plan.”

  “That’s the Liz I know and love!”

  I pressed myself against the bars to listen to her conspiratorial whisper.

  “See the guards at the end of the hall? I’ve been watching them. They take a five-minute break every six hours. That gives us a little window of time to pick our locks and make a run for it. Their next break is in one hour.”

  “Great. How do we pick the locks?” I said.

  “That’s why I need you. There’s a broken action figure in the corner of your cell. See it?”

  She pointed at a twisted little military man on my cell floor.

  “It’s an old school Military Man of Action toy from the seventies. There was a huge recall on them because they were made with a metal frame inside that kept poking kids in the eyes. We can use that to pick the lock. Throw it here.”

  I waited for the goblin guards to look away before I tossed the action figure to Liz. She caught it and smashed the toy against the stones. Liz picked out the metal frame from its plastic bits.

  I beamed. Liz LeRue. My hero.

  Excited, I looked at the nineteen kids. They were locked up now, but if Liz and I fought hard enough, we could get these kids to safety. Outside the dungeon, the sun was rising in the pale pink sky. A little bit of light shined on us.

  “I wish we never came here,” said a little girl in her cell. “I want to go home.”

  “You are home,” said a deep, smooth voice from the shadows.

  Baron von Eisenvult marched down the corridor wearing a camouflage military outfit that shined with medals. A black beret sat tilted on his head.

  “You’ve had your fun. You rode my rides. You ate my candy. You destroyed my property. Well, now it’s time to pay your ticket to the park,” the Baron said. “And it’s going to cost you dearly.”

  “You lied to us!” cried a brave girl. “We didn’t know this place was bad.”

  The Wolf’s tail swished. “Didn’t know this place was bad? Come, come, children. You know when you’re being good and when you’re being bad. And you were all being very bad. I didn’t lie to you. You lied to yourself.”

  The shivering children fell silent.

  “But you didn’t care because you thought you weren’t going to be caught. Well, guess what?” He clapped his paws together. “Now you’re going to work in my mine.”

  “For how long?” asked a girl.

  “Until I get what I want,” the Wolf said rather dreamily.

  An enchanted, strange look crossed over him. It was as if he were listening to music no one else could hear. The Baron held up an old scroll with an image of a green jewel that had a light beaming out of it and showed it to the children.

  “Get a good look, children! This is what you’re digging for,” said the Wolf. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “Why do you want it?” asked the little girl.

  “Because I said so!” replied the Wolf. “Stop asking stupid questions.”

  I narrowed my eyes. I had seen that jewel in the guide. It wasn’t on a test so I didn’t remember all the details, but I had a memory of Cassie pointing out an ancient drawing of the jewel.

  Why would a Boogeyperson go to such great lengths for some jewel? It had to be special.

  “Liz,” I whispered. “What is that?”

  “Check the guide,” she said.

  “Don’t be snarky.”

  “It’s the Jewel of Orgog,” Liz whispered. “It was lost in the babysitter rebellion that was fought on this island five hundred years ago. Legend says whoever holds the jewel, controls the Great Orgog.”

  My mouth fell open in shock.

  The Great Orgog.

  From A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

  NAME: Orgog the Annihilator, Monster of Monsters

  TYPE: Gigundo

  HEIGHT: 350'. Maybe 400' with heels.

  ORIGIN: Center of the Earth

  AGE: Born before time began (whatever that means)

  STRENGTHS: Destroying villages with one step. Eating dozens of people in one bite. Melting cities with breath of fire.

  WEAKNESSES: Being sneaky. Always loses Hide-and-Seek.

  LIKES: Sleeping for centuries. Long naps.

  DISLIKES: Being woken up

  NOTE: Orgog has not been seen for five hundred years (see Babysitter Rebellion). Rumors about a magic stone/diamond that controls the terrible giant have been around for years, but there is no evidence to support this claim.

  The Wolf paced before the trapped kids. “Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘I’m a child. I’m too weak and small to break rocks all day long.’ And you are right. That’s why the Professor will be paying each of you a visit very soon after he’s tidied up his lab.”

  “No way I’m eating those burgers!” shouted a boy. “Not after what they did to Hudson.”

  The Wolf raked his claws across the iron bars.

  “You eat them or I eat you.”

  The kids’ frightened eyes bulged. The Wolf laughed so hard his tongue wagged.

  “Leave them alone!” I shouted.

  The Baron’s tail perked up. His cold eyes studied me as he combed his whiskers.

  “Kelly the Babysitter,” he said, sauntering up to my cell. “Welcome to Sunshine Island.”

  “Miserable place,” I said.

  He chuckled and licked his chops. “Well, you won’t have to endure it much longer. But I must say, after all you’ve done, I expected you to be taller. But you’re a little girl.”

  “She’s full of surprises,” Liz said.

  As he looked down his snout at me, his lip twitched. “I had a deal with the babysitters. They leave me alone. I leave them alone. But you’ve broken that deal and invaded my island. And now they will all be destroyed.”

  The Wolf shook his head in disgust. “If you had done as you were told, followed the rules, stayed home, shut up, and been normal, none of this would be happening.”

  I shook my head. “You were the one who broke the agreement. Taking more kids.”

  He gave a dismissive wave. “Bad kids no one wants. They’re of better use here.”

  “To dig for your stupid Jewel of Orgog?”

  “I’m the closest I’ve ever been to retrieving the jewel. I can sense it calling me louder every day. Why do you think I needed to go out and fetch more mutant manpower? Monsters don’t come out of exile for no reason, my lady. I needed that extra bit of workforce to retrieve the jewel. Soon it will be mine. And the world will know the destruction o
f Orgog.”

  Darkness crept over me.

  That’s what all this was for. To wake up Orgog. And crush humanity.

  My palms sweated as I gripped the cage bars.

  “It’s like I’ve always said, darling: if you want to annihilate all of mankind, you need a really big monster to do it,” said the Baron.

  My heart sank as I imagined the nuclear bomb of monsters that would stomp my town to pieces.

  “Why do you hate us so much?” I whispered.

  “Because humans have taken everything I’ve ever loved in this world from us. From me,” he growled. “My family. And now my beloved wife.”

  Of course. His ship’s name was Serena’s Song. Serena the Spider Queen was his wife. And I destroyed her. I’d be upset, too.

  I gulped.

  “And now I am going to take everything from you,” he said darkly.

  A goblin unlocked my cell and stepped aside. The Wolf unsheathed his sword. Cold sweat ran down my temples.

  “What should I take first?” he said.

  The shimmering blade hovered around my face.

  “Your nose? Your ears? Your eyes?”

  I held my breath as the steel tip pointed at my eye. My fingers twitched.

  Wish I had my sword with me. Then this would be a fair fight.

  “Or your friend?”

  The Baron swung around and smiled at Liz.

  “Are you that needy and lonely that you’ll go to such lengths to rescue this worthless waste of a teenager?”

  “She’s worth a million of you,” I said.

  The Baron marched out, slammed the door shut, and approached Liz’s cell.

  “Point that thing somewhere else, dog breath,” Liz said.

  “You both deserve something wonderfully slow and horrible,” said the Baron.

  “I disagree,” I mumbled.

  “Guards!” bellowed the Wolf. “Take them both to the snake pit.”

  Snake pit? As in a pit full of snakes?

  “Can’t we just stay here?” I asked.

  “Why, so you can wait for the guards to take their five-minute break, giving you enough time to pick your locks with your little toy and make a run for it?”

  Liz and I paled. The Wolf’s lips curled into a smile. How did he know that?

  “Do you think I got where I am by being stupid, darlings?” he snapped. “The only way you’re getting out of here is through the digestive tract of a thousand poisonous snakes.”

  33

  Hisses and the slap of slithering tails echoed from deep within a stone well.

  Liz and I tried to fight back, but I was spent. My arms were frozen and weak. I wanted to sleep for days. The writhing pit of a thousand snakes below us wasn’t exactly helping boost my morale either.

  Six goblin guards bound us together with thick rope and then hooked us to a long chain dangling from the top of the well. The Wolf ordered his goblins to unspool the chain, lowering Liz and me toward a pool of twisting black snakes that waited a hundred feet below like a giant bowl of deadly spaghetti.

  “Now this is what I call a party,” laughed the Baron.

  “If I ever see Meatball again, I’m going to grind him into bolognese,” I grumbled.

  “Thanks to you, that traitorous troll is happily behind his computer again. Now, let’s see if you can shout as loud as the sitters from Maine did.”

  My blood froze. He had thrown Emmy and Jenny into this pit. Now we were next.

  “How do we get out of this?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Hey, I came up with the prison break. This one’s all you,” said Liz.

  Clank, clank, clank.

  The chain dropped us closer to the twisting mass of fangs and scales. Snake heads reared up at us. Pink mouths opened wide and shot spurts of venom.

  “Nice knowing you, Ferguson,” Liz said.

  “No way,” I said. “We did not come this far to go out like this.”

  “It’s a pretty cool way to go out if you ask me. Kind of legendary.”

  “Not for me. There’s so much I want to do. I haven’t even been to high school yet,” I said. “I wanted to go to college and be a doctor and start my own company or write a book. Maybe even go to Mars one day.”

  “What are you talking about?” Liz said.

  “I’m talking about not giving up, Liz. There’s got to be a way out of here. You taught me that.”

  “Of course I did. I taught you everything you know.”

  “And Victor,” I sighed. “We never got to go to the dance.”

  “Kevin likes you, you know. Don’t tell him I said that. But we’re about to die so I figure what the heck. If there’s one person I’m cool with him dating, it would be you.”

  Clink!

  We jerked to a sudden stop.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy?” the Baron said.

  I craned my neck to look up. Three goblins covered in black soot and wearing mining helmets showed the Baron pieces of rock. The Wolf’s expression went from angry to very pleased.

  “You’ve found it?” the Baron said. He inhaled deeply. “Yes. I can feel it.”

  Baron von Eisenvult peered down the well at us.

  “Hello down there! I have to go see to my business, but I’ll be right back to enjoy your slow and horrible deaths. So please don’t go anywhere.”

  The Baron marched off with the mining goblins. Liz and I swayed like worms on a hook.

  “Great. He’s going fetch the Jewel of Orgog and destroy the world while we hang out,” Liz said. “This sucks.”

  A memory sparked. I blinked.

  “Sucks. Liz, your suction sneakers,” I whispered. “You can climb us out of here. These stones are smooth enough. It might work.”

  Liz clicked her heels together. Her sneakers hummed to life, and the soles puckered. The battery readout on the side of her shoe was in the red.

  “Batteries almost dead,” Liz mumbled. “No batteries, no suction.”

  “It’s our only chance.”

  I swung back and forth, rocking us closer to the side of the well. Liz stretched out her feet. The chain creaked as we swayed faster over the swarming snakes.

  “Almost there; get ready,” I whispered.

  My feet kicked off the wall, shoving backward with all my might.

  Thunk! Liz’s shoes stuck.

  Slowly, she began to climb up the stone wall, dragging me behind her. Liz grunted with each vacuumed step while I got a full view of the horrific crawling mass below.

  Gibberish shouts came from above. The goblin guards had seen what we were up to.

  Liz struggled and grunted. “This isn’t easy, y’know. You’re dead weight.”

  “I’d love to help, but my arms are literally tied.”

  There was a loud clank. The chain slackened past my view. The goblins had completely unspooled the chain. If we fell now, we fell into the pit.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “Please tell me that’s not your sneakers dying,” I said.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “What would you like me to tell you it is?” Liz said.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  We had another ten feet to climb but only five seconds of battery.

  Goblins hurled spears down at us, trying to knock us from the wall. Liz managed to scramble up to the very top.

  Her sneaker batteries made a sad, sputtering noise. We fell backward.

  34

  Something snagged my ankles. Liz and I jerked to a stop. Hanging upside down, I saw Berna and Cassie holding my legs. My eyes lit up. The goblins snarled. Something smashed into them from behind. Guards tumbled past us into the writhing pit, revealing Victor wildly swinging his baseball bat.

  “Curtish, give ush a hand!” Cassie yelled as she, Berna, and Victor slowly pulled us up. Curtis stood nearby, still in a trance, absently holding his crossbow.

  They heaved Liz and me onto the floor. Cassie sliced our ropes, and we were free. I threw my arms around them and hugged my p
als.

  “How’d you find us?” I said.

  “We stayed on the ride and got off before the pizza parlor,” Berna said quickly. “We camped out and waited for you. We hiked through the evil woods and saw you and the kids get taken here. So we waited for our chance.”

  “I freaking love you guys,” I said.

  “I love you too,” said Victor.

  Whoa.

  “I mean, like a friend, not like we’ll get married and have babies,” Victor added.

  Liz rolled her eyes. “You just had to bring lover boy, didn’t you?”

  Then the dungeon door swung open and a flood of armed goblins sprang inside.

  Berna threw me my sword. A rush of energy shot up my arms. It was good to have a babysitter blade back. We fell into line and attacked the goblin horde, using their momentum to send them flying into the snake pit. Their shrieks were cut short by snapping fangs.

  “Curtish, be usheful!” Cassie shouted.

  Curtis blinked. Cassie pointed insistently at the goblins. He fired his crossbow and nailed one between the horns.

  “Far out, man,” Curtis said with a smile.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Liz said.

  “The island’sh making him loopy,” Cassie said.

  We finished the guards, but more would be on the way.

  Berna led us through the dark dungeon corridor. She had left tiny globs of bubble gum for us to follow like bread crumbs through a labyrinth. I found the backpacks the goblins had snatched.

  “We spotted a dock where the Baron keeps his ship,” Berna whispered. “There’s other boats there too. We might be able to sail out of here.”

  “What about the trash thingy?” I said.

  “If we’re in one of the Baron’s ships, it might think we’re him and let us pass.” She looked at her watch. “Extraction isn’t for a while. Maybe ten hours, Kelly. It’s a risk we have to take.”

  As usual, Berna was right.

  With catlike silence Liz snuck behind the guards keeping watch over the nineteen kids. From the shadows the rest of us watched Liz creep up to the goblins.

  The guards spun around. Liz knocked their heads together. The goblins dropped and she snagged their keys.

  “Yes! Awesome!” shouted one of the kids.

  Liz put her finger to her lips, instructing the kids to be quiet as she unlocked their cell. We kept careful watch as the nineteen kids silently padded out of their cells.