“On the internet.”
“Uh-huh. And where’s your computer?”
Peter sighed. “In the kitchen.”
Dill pointed to the study door. “Which is out there with Butt-Ugly Monster Baby. So, you wanna get on the internets, be my guest! Just close the door behind you.”
Peter looked around. Dill did have a point…maybe there was something in here about mushrooms turning babies into horrible, fang-toothed monsters that could crawl up walls.
“Alright, alright. Come on and help me.”
Dill frowned. “Come and help you where?”
“In here – looking at the books.”
“What, are you kidding me? I don’t read.”
Peter frowned in disbelief. “You can’t read? How the heck do you do anything in school?”
“I can read, dummy, I just don’t. You got a TV in here, I’ll watch it for research, but I don’t do libraries.”
“Maybe I should let Beth in here, and then we’ll see if you ‘do’ libraries or not,” Peter threatened.
Dill glared at him like, Oh, so it’s gonna be like that, is it?
“FINE. Where’s the mushroom books.”
“I don’t know, you start looking over there, I’ll start over here.”
Dill grumbled loudly as he took off for the other side of the room.
10
Peter started at the bottom of the stacks closest to the doorway and immediately began to despair. Many of the volumes were so old that the faded titles on their spines couldn’t be read, so he had to pull out each book and look inside for the title page. And even when he did that, most of the books were impossible to understand, either because they were full of words he didn’t recognize – Eternus Pugna Inter Bonus Quod Malum or Die grosse Enzyklopädie über Däumling, Feen und sonstig überirdisch Geschöpfe – or words that kind of looked like English, but not really: The londes of fairie folke can nought be speyde by the eyes of mankynde, except without aide of spelles or sondry thinges in Natur which leade in normal course as doores to swich londes.
“What the HECK?!” Dill shouted from his side of the room.
“What?!” Peter yelled back.
Dill stuck his head around a bookshelf. “This stuff is all gobbledygook! It’s like a buncha monkeys banged on a buncha typewriters and this is the crap they came up with!”
“I think it’s other languages, Dill.”
“This is America! They should write in American!”
Dill walked over to the study door.
“What are you doing?” Peter asked in alarm.
“I’m not reading books in Monkey Talk! I DON’T EVEN READ BOOKS IN AMERICAN! Come on, let’s see if Beth’s still out there.”
“That’s a really bad idea,” Peter warned.
“You know what’s a really bad idea? Sitting inside here with stupid monkey books all day! Jeez, Gramma, come on, let’s just take a look!”
Peter reshelved his own book of ‘gobbledygook’ and joined Dill at the door. Now that Dill actually had his hand on the doorknob, he didn’t look quite so confident.
“Uh…okay…I’m just gonna open the door and we’re gonna peek out.”
“Okay.”
Dill softly undid the deadbolt and pulled the door back slooowly, just far enough so that both boys could see through.
Beth sat upside-down about ten feet away from them, her plastic diapie pants planted firmly on the ceiling. She was next to the lighting fixture outside the study, a hanging lamp with a dozen curved arms that ended in tiny, flame-shaped light bulbs. She was crunching contentedly on one of the glass lights; from the looks of it, she’d eaten about six of them so far.
She saw the boys immediately.
“Raaa-rararararraaaa!” she screeched as she bolted across the ceiling on her hands and knees.
Dill slammed the door and clicked the deadbolt back in place. Up above him, there was a BANG BANG BANG which shook the wooden door like a battering ram.
“Raaa-rararararraaaa!” Beth muttered outside in the hallway.
“I’m just gonna go check out some more deeeee-lightful books over here,” Dill said quickly as he jogged back to the shelves.
11
Peter sank down on his rear end and put his face in his hands. It was hopeless. There must have been two or three thousand books in the room, at least; many of them were on top shelves, far out of reach. They would have to climb to those (which might appeal to Dill). Even if they looked at every single one, it would take hours…maybe even days before they found anything that could help them. By that time Mom would surely have come home, straight into the clutches of a monstrous, rampaging baby.
Peter slowly lifted his head and propped up his chin on one palm. He surveyed the room and racked his brain for a plan. There had to be a better way...
His eyes drifted to a particular wall of books. Speckles of light played across them slowly.
Peter frowned. Speckles of light? Where were those coming from?
He looked up and had an aha moment. The chandelier. The light had to be from the crystal shards that hung from its graceful frame. But curiously enough, no matter where he looked, those specks weren’t shining anywhere else in the room.
Peter stood up and walked over to the shelf. As he got closer, it seemed that a majority of the little pinpoints of light were dancing around one book in particular: a worn, leather-bound giant titled Fairieland: Portals To The Other World And Its Denizens.
Peter heaved the giant volume off the shelf and cracked it open in the middle. The first page he turned to had a picture of an old painting. In it, a mother looked down fearfully into a baby’s cradle, where a toothy, wild-eyed infant snarled up at her.
The baby in the cradle looked unnervingly like Beth. Of course, the baby in the painting was wearing a bonnet, not a pink rainbow t-shirt and plastic potty-training pants. But the mouth – especially the teeth – were the same.
“Dill!” Peter shouted.
“What?”
“I think I found out what happened to Beth!”
12
Peter lugged Fairieland over to Grandfather’s mahogany desk and placed it on top of a pile of already-open books. Dill peered over Peter’s shoulder as he read.
The language was slightly more difficult than what Peter was used to, but a piece of cake compared with the londes and sondry thinges of the other stuff he’d looked at.
“Changelings are the offspring of fairies or trolls exchanged for human children. When a human child is kidnapped, the immature fairie left in its place will assume the human’s appearance down to the smallest detail. Shapeshifting abilities or fairie glamour spells initially allow the supernatural being to look identical. But as time goes by, the changeling will begin to exhibit features – both physical and behavioral – that betray it as inhuman.”
Peter gasped. “Dill – it’s not mushrooms at all! Beth got kidnapped and replaced with a troll baby!”
“Beth’s a troll baby?”
“Yeah!”
“Dude, that makes a ton of sense. When do you think it happened, back in California before you moved here?”
“What? No, doofus, today.”
Dill squinted in disbelief. “I dunno, man. She’s been acting like a troll baby ever since I met her.”
“She never grew teeth like that before!”
“I didn’t say she looked like a troll baby till today, I just said she acted like a troll baby.”
“She never crawled on the ceiling before, either!”
“How do you know? What, were you watching her every single minute?” Dill walked off from the table flapping his arms like wings. “Maybe you go off to school and she’s like, ‘Oh, la la la, time to crawl on the ceiling now cuz I’m a troll baby!’”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m bored. Just tell me the good parts.”
Peter shook his head and started reading aloud. “‘The changeling child will gradually grow uglier in appearance and p
otentially malformed. It will also become ill-tempered and given to screaming and biting.’”
“Duuude, that proves it – she’s ALWAYS been a troll baby!”
Peter ignored him. “‘Beautiful children are in greater danger of being traded for changelings. Beauty, particularly blond hair, attracts fairies and trolls.’”
Dill snorted. “Well, we know a blind troll got her then.”
Peter grew defensive. “Hey, Beth is…cute. She’s a punk, but I think you could call her beautiful…for a little kid.”
“Dude, she’s beautiful like monkeys are beautiful. Maybe they’re beautiful to other monkeys, but that’s about it.”
Peter shook his head and kept reading. “‘In modern times, the stories of changelings have been attributed to various developmental disorders in children. In earlier ages, a child mistaken for a changeling might have simply been mentally retarded.’”
Dill howled with glee. “Ha ha! You’re a changeling, too, dude!”
Peter glared at Dill. “Shut up. ‘The detection of changelings is simple but hazardous. The most reliable method is to throw the changeling in a fire, whereupon the changeling shifts forms and flies up the chimney.’”
“Ooooh, cool!” Dill cried.
“We are NOT throwing it in a fire,” Peter insisted. “Listen to this: ‘However, if the parent is wrong, as could quite possibly be the case with autism or Downs Syndrome, this method often results in the death of the innocent child.’ We are NOT throwing it in a fire.”
“Dude, I think at this point it’s pretty safe to say that thing ain’t Beth. I say we throw it in a fire.”
“I am NOT going to throw any babies in a fire, even if they ARE troll babies!”
“Fine,” Dill grumbled.
“‘Less violent approaches can be taken to trick the changeling into betraying itself as a fairie or troll,’” Peter continued. “‘Changelings may initially appear dull and unintelligent, but they possess a certain wily cunning and wisdom.’”
“What does that mean?” Dill asked.
“I think it means that they seem stupid to begin with, but then they turn out to be really smart.”
“I guess your sister’s not a troll baby then, cuz she’s just plain stupid.”
“Then I guess that means you’re definitely not a troll baby,” Peter retorted.
“Yeah,” Dill agreed, then frowned. “Wait, what?”
Peter continued reading. “‘One of the most popular methods is to brew beer in an eggshell, upon which the changeling will express shock, as in one popular story: I have lived a hundred years and seen many things, but I have never seen beer brewed in an eggshell!’”
Peter looked up from the book. “How do you brew beer?”
Dill shrugged. “I dunno, but my dad’s got a lot in our fridge if that helps any.”
Peter shook his head. “Call me crazy – ”
“Crazy!” Dill shouted and pointed his finger at Peter.
Peter glared at him in disgust before continuing, “ – but I bet it already knows that we know it’s a troll baby, and it doesn’t really care.”
He kept on reading: “‘The changeling’s betrayal of itself is one of the main ways humans can view fairies out of their normal element in fairieland. There are other methods, such as a bewitched ointment that allows the viewer to see fairies, which are normally invisible to the human eye.’”
“Dude, I need math test answer ointment,” Dill said.
“‘Otherwise, fairies may choose to reveal themselves to humans, but unless they do so, cannot be seen unless the viewer chooses to enter the fairie realm. See page 122.’”
Peter flipped several pages and gasped.
13
In the new section, there was yet another picture of an old painting: a man standing in a ring of mushrooms, surrounded by fairies swirling through the air and several ugly trolls on the ground.
“Dill, look!”
“Read it to me.”
“I can’t, it’s a picture! LOOK at it !”
Dill walked over, grumbling, and took a look at the book. “What, it’s some dude standing in a bunch of mushroOH, CRAP.”
Peter pointed to the page excitedly. “‘Fairy rings are circles of mushrooms growing in fields or forests, and are by far the most reliable gateways to the fairie kingdom. Any human who steps inside one may well be transported to the fairie world, whether they desire it or not.’ Beth stepped inside one of these! Dill, that’s why she disappeared – she’s in the fairie world! We gotta go in there and get her back!”
Dill frowned and pointed at the text. “Whoa, whoa, look – ‘There are many dangers if one enters the fairie world.’”
“‘Time does not exist in fairie world as it does in the human world,’” Peter picked up. “‘One night in fairieland may be equal to a hundred years in the human world.’”
Dill grew truly excited. “SWEET! Dude, that means if we spend one night there, we don’t have to go back to school EVER!’”
“‘The most notorious story of a human being trapped in fairie world is Rip Van Winkle,’” Peter continued. “‘Though the strangely dressed men he encountered did not identify themselves as fairies, they undoubtedly were. Either the liquor they gave him was a fairie ambrosia, or he went to sleep in a fairy ring. Either way, when he awoke he discovered that twenty years had passed. He did not recognize anyone from the town where he lived, their having grown old and died or moved away. Moreover, even though a person experiences fairie time in hours, it is possible that he can age as though ‘human time’ is passing. Two hours spent in fairieland can often age a person by decades, as was the case with Van Winkle, who laid down a young man and awoke white-haired with a beard. Since time shifts unpredictably outside the human dimensions, Van Winkle’s experience is not always the case, though it should be taken into account before entering fairie world.’”
Dill stroked his chin. “I could use a beard.”
“‘Besides the uncontrollable aspects of sped-up time, the dangers of fairieland include wasting away physically. If the visitor to fairieland does not eat anything or fall asleep, he is far more likely to walk away from the visit unaffected. There is also the danger of physical attacks, which can be quite vicious depending on which type of fairie is the aggressor. Small winged fairies are usually more mischievous than malicious. Brownies, elves, and gnomes are usually more troublesome, but rarely lethal. Though Will o’ the Wisps have been known to lure travelers to their deaths in swamps, the visitor to fairieland should be especially careful of trolls and their various cousins (red caps, bogies, kobolds, goblins, etc.), who are aggressive, ill-tempered, and prone to deadly and unprovoked acts of violence.’”
Peter gulped.
“Great,” Dill muttered. “Why couldn’t we get a stupid flying fairy changeling? But nooooo, we had to get a freakin’ troll baby.”
“‘Luckily for humans, there are some protections that a traveler can take to safeguard himself. Turning clothes inside out, such as a jacket, will discourage fairy and troll attacks.’” Peter looked up from the book. “I guess we gotta wear our clothes inside-out.”
Dill frowned. “Really? That seems awful stupid.”
Peter shrugged. “Beats me, that’s just what it says.”
Dill thought for a second. “Maybe they’re afraid of the dirty underwear.”
Peter’s face contorted into a yuck! expression. “What?!”
“If you turn your underwear inside-out, maybe they don’t want to touch the skid marks, so they leave you alone.”
“Skid marks?!”
“Yeah, the little lines from your butt. You know, when you don’t wipe so good?”
“EWWW!”
“That’s how my dad says you know which side of your underwear is which: yellow in the front, brown in the back.”
“GROSS!”
Dill rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t have skid marks.”
“I don’t!”
“We
ll, you’re going to get beat up by trolls then.” Dill cracked his fingers. “Dirty underwear is gonna save my life. Anytime my mom says from now on to put on a clean pair of tighty-whities, I’m just gonna tell her no, I gotta be safe from troll attacks.”
Peter looked at Dill out of the corner of his eye, then went back to reading.
“‘Also, fairies and trolls particularly dislike iron. Even the simplest object made from iron causes physical pain or distress in a fairie creature, and thus makes a particularly effective weapon against fairie folk.’”
“Why don’t they like irons?” Dill asked.
“I don’t know…cuz they’re hot?”
“But that means you gotta keep it plugged in all the time.” Dill shook his head. “Stupid fairies.”
“Okay, so we gotta get out of here…get an iron…then we gotta catch the changeling… and then we gotta take it back to the mushrooms in the field, go to fairieland, and trade it back for Beth.”
Dill nodded in agreement. “But first we gotta turn our underwear inside-out.”
Peter wrinkled up his nose. “Just keep it on the INSIDE of your pants, dude.”
“What, we don’t wear it on the outside like your sister’s Strawberry Shortcake bathing suit?”
“NO.”
Dill scowled. “Well, what fun is that?”
“It’s not fun at ALL. I don’t want to see your skid marks.”
“Dude, how is the smell going to knock out the trolls if it’s trapped in my pants?”
“Aw, JEEZ Dill, cut it out.”
“Seriously – how are they going to be afraid of the skid marks if they can’t SEE them?”
As Dill chattered on, Peter closed the book – only to see something beneath it that caught his eye.
14
On the desk was an extremely old book with yellowed pages, which were filled with indecipherable symbols and strange letters. Next to it lay a notebook with sentences scrawled in pencil. Peter recognized the handwriting immediately from notes that Grandfather had left on the kitchen table.
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One) (PETER AND THE MONSTERS) Page 24