by R. L. Stine
“Don’t listen to Zeke,” she told Kelli and Shawn. “I’m Miss Rawls. I’m going to be your teacher. Don’t listen to Zeke’s stories.” She patted him on the head. “He’s got monsters on the brain.”
Zeke rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything.
“Was he telling you about a swamp monster?” Miss Rawls asked. “Let me assure you, there is no swamp monster.”
Zeke pointed down at the footprints. “Check those out,” he said. “Those aren’t rabbit prints.”
Miss Rawls shook her head. “This is someone’s idea of a practical joke,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at Zeke. “Maybe you and your brother, Decker, made these footprints last night. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Zeke took a step back. “No way!” he cried. “Decker and I … we don’t go out at night. We know the Shaggedy is real.”
“As real as the Easter Bunny,” Miss Rawls said. She swatted a mosquito on her neck. “There’s been a lot of rain,” she told Kelli and Shawn. “It’s insect heaven down here. Did you know that the mosquito is the state bird of Florida?”
Shawn and Kelli laughed. Kelli liked Miss Rawls already. Her sense of humor is a lot like mine, she thought.
Zeke scowled and stared down at one of the big muddy footprints. “Teachers don’t know everything,” he muttered. “Why do you think the police are here? They don’t think it’s a practical joke.”
One of the policemen walked over to Miss Rawls. He was tall and thin, except for a belly that stretched the front of his shirt. He had a shaved head, squinty green eyes, and a scar across his chin. He wiped his sweaty forehead with one sleeve.
“I heard what y’all were saying,” he said. He had a Southern accent. Definitely not a New Yorker, Kelli thought. “This isn’t a joke. We think whoever — or whatever — made these prints smashed a bunch of windows around the side of the building.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Miss Rawls said, shaking her head.
“And the soccer goals out on the field are totally smashed,” the policeman continued. He scratched his shaved head. “My partner and I started to follow the prints away from the school. They lead right back to the swamp.”
Zeke pumped a fist in the air. “I told you so.”
Kelli turned. Something caught her eye. Squinting into the bright morning sunlight, she saw a man, half-hidden behind a tree at the edge of the grass. A white-haired man in a floppy tan hat. He had a scraggly white beard and wore a safari jacket and khaki shorts. Hugging the tree, he stood watching everyone. He didn’t move. He watched from a distance.
“Miss Rawls? Who is that?” Kelli asked, pointing.
But when she turned back, the man had vanished.
“I’ve got to get everyone inside,” Miss Rawls said. “Enough excitement for one morning. School has to start sometime!” She motioned for Kelli and Shawn to follow her. “I’ll introduce you two when class begins. We don’t divide up into grades here,” she explained. “The school is too small. Everyone is all together. That will probably be hard for you to get used to. But you may learn to like it.”
Kelli started to follow the teacher, but Shawn held back. She saw that his legs were trembling. His dark eyes seemed to be pleading with her.
“Tell me it isn’t real,” he said. “Tell me there’s no such thing as a Shaggedy, that we didn’t see footprints from a swamp monster on our very first morning. Please. Tell me.”
Before Kelli could answer, Zeke put his hands on Shawn’s shoulders and brought his face close to Shawn’s. “Know how I know the Shaggedy is real?” Zeke said. “Because I saw him. Decker and I saw him, plain as day.”
“I’ve been texting Marci,” Kelli said. “She can’t believe that all the grades are in one room.”
“I can’t believe it, either,” Shawn said. “I’m sitting next to a first grader. Am I supposed to wipe his nose and sound out the words in his baby book to him?”
Kelli sighed. “I’m stuck in a swamp school with a bunch of hicks, and Marci is going to a Taylor Swift concert at Madison Square Garden tonight.”
They were heading to lunch, which was in the next building. Kelli could smell the food as she pulled open the door and followed Shawn in. It actually smelled a lot like the cafeteria back at P.S. 87. Kelli saw a kitchen and food counter along one side. Wooden picnic tables filled the rest of the room.
She and Shawn grabbed a couple of ham sandwiches and bags of chips and turned with their trays to survey the room. The tables were filled with kids laughing and eating, voices ringing off the wooden walls and low ceiling.
“It doesn’t matter where we sit,” Kelli said. “We don’t know anybody.”
The only two places appeared to be across the table from Zeke. He had a big glop of something on his plate that might have been mashed potatoes and gravy. A drip of gravy had slid onto his chin. He slurped down the milk from a small milk carton, then opened another.
“Hey, Zeke. How’s it going?” Kelli said, trying to be cheerful.
He burped.
Kelli and Shawn pulled out chairs and sat down. Shawn began tearing the Saran wrap off his sandwich. Kelli texted Marci:
LUNCH WITH MY LITTLE BRO. THRILLS, HUH?
She realized Zeke was staring at her phone. “You have your own phone?” he said, wiping his hands on the legs of his shorts. “Can I see it?” He grabbed it out of her hand.
“Hey —” Kelli reached to take it back.
Zeke raised it to his face, studying the screen. “What are all these little pictures?” he asked.
“You don’t have a phone?” Kelli said. “Your parents won’t let you?”
Zeke poked the screen several times. “No. My family never had a phone. My dad says he doesn’t know anyone he wants to talk to.”
“Well, how do you get texts or e-mails?” Shawn asked him. “How do you check Instagram?”
He handed the phone back to Kelli. She wiped gravy off the screen. “Instagram? Why would I want that?” He shook a fist at Shawn. “I have InstaFist.”
Shawn laughed. But he stopped quickly when he saw Zeke’s expression change. Zeke’s blue eyes flashed angrily. “Don’t laugh at me. Just because we’re not New Yorkers … it doesn’t mean we’re stupid.”
“Whoa. No way,” Shawn said. “I didn’t mean —”
Zeke stared at him for another long moment, then returned to his potatoes and gravy.
Kelli tried her sandwich, but it was dry and tasted like cardboard. Kids at the next table were tossing an apple up to the ceiling, catching it, tossing it again. They were laughing and shoving each other, trying to make the catcher miss.
She knew the conversation with Zeke wasn’t going well. She decided to try one more time. “You know, Shawn and I aren’t snobs. But it’s been hard for us to leave our school and our friends and move so far away.”
Zeke swallowed a lump of gravy. “Then why don’t you go back? You don’t belong here.” He leaned over the table, challenging her. “When is the last time you went fishing?”
Kelli choked down a dry chunk of ham. “Fishing? You mean like in a boat? Never.”
Zeke tossed his head back and laughed. “See what I mean? Never? Never been fishing? And you think you’re so great?”
“I never said I was great,” Kelli snapped back.
Zeke had a big smirk on his face. “Have you ever been in a boat?”
“A sailboat,” Kelli answered. “My cousin goes sailing off Montauk on Long Island.”
“Sailboat?” Zeke laughed again, shaking his head. “You don’t belong here. Really. You’ll die in this swamp.”
Shawn made a gulping sound. He had been silent this whole time. But Zeke’s words appeared to wake him up. He peered across the table at Zeke. “Did you really see the Shaggedy?” Shawn asked. “Did you really see a swamp monster? Or were you just trying to scare us?”
Zeke’s smile faded. “You should be scared,” he said, lowering his voice. “You saw those footprints outside. They weren’t fake. I wasn’t
lying. Decker and I saw the Shaggedy. We saw it close up.”
Shawn’s mouth dropped open. He raised his hands to the sides of his face. “I …” He started to talk, but no sound came out.
Kelli put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, Shawn. You’ve got to stop scaring yourself. You heard what Miss Rawls said about those footprints.”
Zeke bent over and fumbled through his backpack. He pulled up a sheet of white paper. “Check this out.” He turned it around so Kelli and Shawn could see it.
Kelli squinted at it. A pencil drawing of a tall, hulking, half-human monster with slime dripping off its body.
“I drew this last week,” Zeke said.
Kelli laughed. “Who is that? Cookie Monster from Sesame Street?”
Zeke growled. He slammed the drawing onto the table. His freckled cheeks darkened to red. “I warned you before,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Don’t laugh at me.”
Kelli felt a chill roll down her back. He’s unbalanced, she thought. This guy is seriously weird.
A kid bumped up behind Zeke — his exact double!
Same round baby face, same blue eyes and short light-blond hair. Dressed in a red-and-white Florida State Seminoles T-shirt and red shorts that came down below his knees.
“Hey, this is my brother, Decker,” Zeke said.
Decker scraped the chair next to Zeke away from the table and dropped down heavily beside his twin. “Yo,” he muttered.
“This is Kelli and that’s Shawn,” Zeke said, motioning with his head. “They’re from New York. He’s okay, but she makes a lot of jokes.”
Decker studied Kelli. “We don’t think jokes are funny,” he said. His voice was deeper than Zeke’s.
“He was asking about the Shaggedy,” Zeke said, waving his drawing in Shawn’s direction.
“You think that’s a joke, too?” Decker demanded.
Decker just sat down and he’s already looking for a fight, Kelli thought.
“The Shaggedy isn’t funny,” Decker said, staring angrily at Kelli. “When he gets restless and climbs out of the swamp like last night, he can do very bad things. He wrecks everything in sight, and he hurts people.”
“Sounds like a comic book I read,” Kelli said.
Zeke tossed his spoon at her. She dodged to the side. It missed and clattered to the floor. “You should listen to Decker and me,” he said. “New Yorkers don’t know everything.”
Decker laughed as if his brother had made a great joke. He had the same cold laugh as Zeke.
“They don’t know anything,” Zeke told Decker. “They’ve never even been fishing.”
“Seriously?” Decker said, shaking his head. He leaned over and pulled up a tin can from his backpack. It was about the size of a coffee can. He reached two fingers into the can and pulled up a long, fat, purple worm. “Ever see one of these?”
He dangled the worm in front of Kelli’s face. It glistened in the bright cafeteria light.
“Whoa. It’s huge!” Shawn exclaimed.
Kelli narrowed her eyes at Decker. “Are you kidding me? You brought a worm to school?”
He nodded. “It’s bait.” He swung it at her. One end of the worm slapped her forehead. It felt warm and wet.
Kelli snapped her head back. She wiped worm slime off her skin.
Decker and Zeke both laughed. Then Decker swung the worm back toward his face. He lowered it slowly — and bit a big chunk off one end.
Kelli felt her stomach lurch. Shawn groaned. She watched Decker chew the worm. “Ewwww. Why’d you do that?” she gasped.
He swallowed the worm piece. “You want a taste?” He shot his hand forward and smeared the worm over Kelli’s face, rubbing it into her forehead and cheeks.
Then the two brothers jumped up and trotted away, bumping knuckles and laughing the same laugh.
“Nice guys,” Shawn muttered.
“I don’t think I’m going to like it here,” Kelli said.
Kelli was perched on the arm of the living room couch, phone pressed to her ear, deep in conversation with Marci in New York, when she heard Shawn’s scream.
Her dad jumped up from behind his laptop on the dining room table.
“Tarantula!” Shawn screamed. “Help! It’s got me!”
Tarantula?
The phone slid out of Kelli’s hand and bounced onto the couch cushion. She saw Shawn across the room, frantically swatting at the front of his T-shirt.
“It’s going to bite! It’s going to bite!” he screamed.
Dad darted across the narrow, cluttered room and took Shawn’s T-shirt in both hands. He gazed down at the round, dark creature stuck in the fabric.
“Help! Help me!” Shawn wouldn’t stop screaming, his face twisted in panic.
“Not a tarantula,” their dad reported calmly. “Shawn, calm down. It’s a common American house spider.”
Shawn made a choking sound. “What’s the difference? It’s as big as a tarantula!”
Their dad plucked the spider off the shirt and carried it out the front door. “There are no tarantulas down here,” he said when he returned. “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”
Shawn rolled his eyes. He was still breathing hard. He brushed off the front of his T-shirt with both hands. “This place is crawling with insects.”
“Why don’t you start an insect diary, Shawn?” their dad suggested. “Keep a list and a description of all the insects you find.”
“For sure, Dad,” Shawn muttered. “I’ll get right on that.”
Their father turned his gaze on Kelli, standing beside the couch, about to redial Marci. “You two should take advantage of living near a swamp,” he told them. “It’s a unique opportunity most kids will never have.”
Kelli frowned at him. “Poor kids,” she said. “Maybe someone would like to take my place?”
Their dad mopped sweat off his forehead with one hand. “I’m ignoring that, Kelli. This year will definitely help you get over your fear of insects, Shawn.”
“What about my fear of never seeing my friends again?” Kelli said.
“That’s why I bought you both cell phones. So you can talk to your friends whenever you want. There’s even Wi-Fi down here.” He pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You both promised to give it a try and not complain.”
“That was before I saw this place,” Shawn said. “Besides, when I promised, I had my fingers crossed.”
“Dad,” Kelli started, “you have to admit that dragging us to a swamp —”
He didn’t let her finish. “Is a fabulous opportunity. And for me, it’s a chance to solve the mysteries of the most mysterious swamp in Florida.”
Kelli dropped onto the couch with a sigh. “I don’t want to complain, Dad. Really. But you should see our school. It’s so small. It looks like someone’s garage.”
“And the kids are totally weird,” Shawn added. “These two kids — Zeke and Decker … They’re, like, from a horror movie.”
“They are these blond twins with scary blue eyes,” Kelli said. “One of them ate a fat worm at lunch.”
Her dad chuckled. “That’s good protein.”
“Not funny, Dad,” Shawn said. “They keep trying to scare us. They say they’ve seen this swamp monster called the Shaggedy.”
Their dad blinked. Kelli could see him suddenly alert, thinking hard. “The Shaggedy,” he muttered. “I’ve heard that legend.”
“You’ve heard about it?” Shawn asked. “You mean, it’s real?”
“Of course it’s not real. I said it’s a legend. It’s a story that got passed down. That’s all.”
“But we saw the monster’s footprints,” Shawn said. “Behind the school.”
“You’re New Yorkers, remember? You don’t fall for stuff like that.”
“Zeke and Decker made fun of us because we’re New Yorkers and we’ve never gone fishing,” Kelli said.
Their father clapped his hands together. “Let’s take
care of that right now. Go to your rooms and change. I’m going to take you fishing on the river.”
Kelli squinted at him. “Seriously?”
“Let’s do it,” he said, trying to force them to be enthusiastic. “Let’s go. You’ll enjoy it. And after today, those guys at school won’t be able to accuse you of never doing it.”
Kelli and Shawn hurried to their rooms. The rooms faced each other in the back of the little house. Kelli still hadn’t gotten used to how small her room was. It was the size of her closet in their apartment back home.
“I don’t know what to wear,” Shawn called from across the hall. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? Shorts and a T-shirt.”
“Put on a long-sleeved shirt,” Dad called. “To protect from insects.”
“Insects? What kind of insects?” Shawn shouted.
Dad laughed. “Dont worry about it. Just change your shirt. I’ve got plenty of bug spray.”
Shawn changed his shirt and made his way back to the living room. His father was holding a fishing rod in each hand. “Where did you get those?” Shawn asked.
“Bought them. And I bought a rowboat, too.” He was about to say something else. But Kelli came bursting into the room, eyes wide, shouting. “Look at this! Hey — look at this!”
She shoved her yellow backpack toward her dad’s face. “I don’t believe this. Look what someone wrote.”
All three of them stared at the bloodred words crudely scrawled on the front of the backpack:
HERE COMES THE SHAGGEDY!
“One of your new friends is playing jokes on you.” Their dad chuckled.
“It isn’t funny,” Kelli insisted. “It’s a brand-new backpack.”
“Maybe it’ll wash out.”
Kelli frowned. “It had to be Zeke or Decker. Trying to be scary.”
Shawn rubbed a finger over the scrawled red words. “Are you sure it’s a joke? They said they don’t like jokes.”
“What else would it be?” Kelli snapped.
Her little brother’s dark eyes locked on hers. “A warning?”