My eyes narrowed. I have trained for this.
“Okay, everyone,” I said, lifting my chin. “Weapons check.”
We knelt and showed the contents of our babysitter backpacks.
Victor emptied his pockets.
I put my hands on my hips. Pretty measly weapons if we were going to confront a house full of monsters.
A good babysitter is resourceful.
“When life gives you lemons, go kill monsters with lemons,” I said. “Let me see your hands, Victor.”
I took Victor’s hands and wrapped duct tape around his knuckles with the sticky side up. I broke open the packet of Legos and stuck the red and blue bricks onto the tape. Victor clenched his fists with his Lego-studded knuckles. I held his hand for a lingering moment, but his fingers were cold and shaking. Victor quickly pulled away. I looked at my own hands. They weren’t shaking at all. Weird.
“Almost midnight, and we need to get to Hargrave Manor before Serena performs her ritual on Theo.”
“What ritual?” Victor asked.
“Check the guide,” Liz and I replied in unison.
From Kelly Ferguson’s copy of A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting:
RITUALS
(This entry is for spells and ceremonies involving newborns. For Rituals involving toddlers, adults, or animals, see page 564.)
FUN FACT: A haunted or holy/unholy site, such as a cemetery or a haunted house, can be a great source for spiritual vortex power, which is needed to perform such rituals. The more evil the spirits present, the stronger the tether.
TIME REQUIRED: The ritual takes about thirty minutes for full transfer.
FOR FURTHER READING, SEE MONSTER CEREMONIES/HOLIDAYS ENTRIES FOR: Day of the Dead, Samhain, All Hallows Eve, Krampusmas, the winter solstice, the Ides of March, Asp Wednesday, Friday the 13th aka “Caa-caa-caa Chaa-chaa-chaa Day”, Valentine’s Day, St. Agnes Eve, Shrovetide, Beltane, the Day of Bonfires, Children’s Day, and the Lake George Monster Fourth of July Family Picnic
NOTE: This can be a very disturbing, life-changing event for most sitters.
HOW TO BREAK THE RITUAL: Once the psychic tether is made and the life force drainage begins, little can be done to stop the flow of life and youth from child to monster. Interfering might result in harm or serious damage to you or the subject. Best-case scenario: your hair will turn white. Just ask Mama Vee.
The initiator must be stopped first by a possible psychic power surge, which might kill the victim. A mirror blessed by a holy man can be used to trick the connection into thinking it is still intact, but this is a crude method and can result in residual effects (see Double, Double, Toil and Whoops My Fault on page 139).
Just grabbing the kid and running away is not an option. Precautions must be taken. Break the spell, or it will break you.
“I hate rituals,” Liz said, walking to her dirt bike. “I’ll ride my bike and you—”
Whoomph! The front of the house collapsed in a flaming heap onto her motorcycle. The gas tank caught, and I yanked Liz away just before it exploded.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Liz screamed. “It took me four hundred babysitting jobs to buy that thing!”
Ding-a-ling!
My ears zeroed in on a sound just above the crackling, snapping flames.
Dinka-dinka-dink!
It sounded like bells. Tiny, magical.
“Penelope!” I screamed, and bolted toward the fire.
The faint chimes cried for help from deep within the blaze. I grabbed a fallen wooden beam that had rolled free from the fire, and jammed it under the crushed roof, trying to get enough leverage. Liz and Victor joined me, and together, the three of us lifted the flaming, white-hot beam.
A golden streak shot from the flames.
DING-A-DING!
35
The sewers. “That’s how we we’re sneaking in?” I asked, repulsed.
Penelope bing-bing-binged like a winning slot machine as Liz drove the busted babysitter mobile into the land of mansions: the Vandersnuff Summer Palace, the Gilded Frog Château, the Great Goldberg Estate.
Penelope told us how Mama Vee had fallen into a chamber of webs in the basement of Hargrave Manor. Vee sent Penelope from her pocket to come and get us. (Luckily, Liz speaks Pixie, so she interpreted.) There was a secret entrance through the drains.
“Kevin told me about a drainpipe,” Liz said, staring through the windshield.
“Are you sure we can trust him?” I said.
Liz clenched her jaw. “That music’s what made him go crazy. Professor Gonzalo’s a smart, sick dude. He controls Kevin with his harmonium. And I am going to bash the monster geek’s face right in.”
We approached the hulking horror of Hargrave Manor. Except for the shining ice ringing its crooked towers, the weathered, bleak mansion was barely visible against the backdrop of night. We parked and climbed in through the twisted iron fence.
“I say we run the Haunted House play,” I whispered.
“Nice thinking, newb,” Liz agreed with a nod.
“Haunted House play?” asked Victor.
I tossed him the guide.
Quiet and swift, we snuck tigerlike through the dead weeds sprouting up through the frost. I saw the faint outline of sneakers, barely visible beneath the freshly fallen snow.
“Cassie and Curtis have been this way,” I said.
Finding those tracks wasn’t dumb luck.
“They tried the same maneuver,” I mumbled.
And look what happened to them.
I held up my fist. Victor and Liz stopped. “Slight change of plans,” I said. “Follow me.”
I lead the group through a crumbling stone gate to the frozen shrubs of a long, dead garden at the side of the house. Hidden among the twisting thorns, bronze children were trapped in time, each posed in play. One little statue-child was flying a bronze kite that hung in the air, dripping with icicles.
Penelope clinked loudly for us to stop at the edge of an enormous stone fountain with a broken Egyptian obelisk in the center. Its shattered tip looked like a lethal, ancient spear, hewn from rock with the sole purpose of killing a giant. The recon pixie found a drain in the bottom of the fountain.
We reached down and, together, pried open the small grate. Before entering the belch-reeking pipes, Penelope fluttered up to us and gave us each a kiss on the nose for good luck. My face was so cold I barely felt the pixie’s kiss, but it was good to know it was there.
“Victor, follow me. Liz, bring up the rear.”
Liz grabbed my shoulder. “Quit being brave for your boyfriend, newb,” she whispered.
“Theo’s my responsibility,” I said, ducking down. “And stop calling me ‘newb.’ This isn’t my first rodeo.”
“Okay, tough guy.” Liz smirked. “Show us how it’s done.”
Roots wormed down through cracks. Penelope sat on my backpack and held my flashlight since her lantern-butt still wasn’t 100 percent. I shimmied my way in, slowly scooting forward. I had a horrible feeling of being facedown in a coffin. Deeper we went, and I felt the enormous weight above us.
If there is an earthquake, we’ll be flattened like pancakes. We’ll be stuck down here, buried forever under tons of earth. Stop thinking of that stuff, Kelly! Focus on the light at the end of the tunnel.
“My leg! Something’s got my leg!” Victor suddenly screamed and kicked his legs.
A squeal ran over my jeans and across my jacket. My back arched as a wet rat burrowed through my hair and ran off ahead of us. Penelope jabbed after its leathery tail.
“False alarm,” Victor sighed. “Just a rat.”
“Keep it together, dude,” Liz whispered.
“It’s his first rodeo, Liz,” I called back. “Give him a break.”
Deeper along, the pipe split. Left or right. Penelope rang and pointed her dagger to the left tunnel, which was slicked with frozen moss and strands of green scum-sicles circled by clouds of gnats.
“Yucky,” I whispered.
There was an echoing scurry in front of me, and I froze. Victor bumped into my sneakers.
“Something’s up there,” I murmured.
I breathed faster, the tunnel crushing the wind from my lungs. The face of a giant cockroach caught in our flashlights. It shrieked, clacking its mandibles. Penelope was snatched up by its feelers and pulled into its mouth.
Shink! The little pixie drove her dagger right between its eyes. The monster roach squealed and thrashed its head. I flicked my wrist and pierced under its shell, right behind the roach’s neck. Its head fell at an odd angle, and its whole body went limp.
“Nice shot, Pen,” I said.
Now I just had to push the dead roach in front of me while shimmying up the tunnel. I shoved the hideous giant creeper out of the drainpipe and slithered out behind it into a bleak basement. Mason jars, filled with odd floating foods, lined the shelves.
“A canning room,” Liz whispered.
We quietly crept past rows of dusty jars filled with strange pickled meats and moldy fruits. A crooked wooden staircase (it’s always a crooked wooden staircase, isn’t it?) rose to meet a door that seemed to hover in the darkness. Everything was still and silent.
This felt too easy. Serena was smart. She knew we would come.
I’ve been expecting you, child, the dark door seemed to croak. We have chocolates and peppermints and treacle tarts and gumdrops delight. All waiting for you, silly children. Enter my web.
36
Frescoes peeled away from the walls. The smell of rotted earth and decay filled my nose. Clouds of gnats buzzed around us, choking the air.
I tucked Penelope into my jacket breast pocket, our chests heaving against each other. She pointed us toward the end of the hallway, where an elegant chandelier was smashed across the floor.
“Stay close to the walls and keep to the shadows,” I whispered.
We passed giant double doors that leaned on their rusty hinges. In the crooked space between the doors, I saw figures standing perfectly still. I slipped back tightly, signaling Victor and Liz: “Stop, someone’s in there.”
Liz stuck out her phone, stretched it through the crack in the doors, and snapped a picture. Tucked into the shadows behind a broken cabinet, we looked at the picture and gasped.
Officer Muntz. Sheriff Heep. My neighbors. Hundreds of people.
Penelope shot into the room, and her tiny glow illuminated faces with their eyes closed, as if they were sleeping on their feet. It looked like a mannequin warehouse.
“Dad?” Liz gasped.
I tried to stop her, but she pulled the large brass door handle and swept inside, weaving between the motionless people. Victor and I watched, horrified from the doorway as Liz walked up to her father, Hank. He was in his robe. His eyes were closed. He was breathing, his large gut rising and falling under his T-shirt and flannel, but his lower lip was protruding, as if he was a baby in a deep sleep.
“He’s been bit,” said Liz. I saw the two red bite marks on the side of his neck.
“Keep watch,” I whispered to Victor.
He nodded, and I stepped into the cursed ballroom and cautiously moved around the frozen mob, past my neighbors, the police, a random Amazon delivery guy—even my algebra teacher, Mr. Flogger. (Though if I’m honest, from the way Mr. Flogger would smirk when he assigned us two hours’ worth of homework, I always suspected him of being an evil, brainwashed lizard.) All with spider bites on their jugular veins.
Serena had spread her eight-legged babies across my town and had infected nearly everyone I knew.
No wonder Serena was always on the front lines of every war and giant tragedy. She probably used her puppets to start them, just so she could get rich or spread evil monster hate. And now, she was going to use my poor town to start her next wave of horror across the world.
No way. Not on my watch.
Liz looked at her father’s peaceful face, and tears glistened in her eyes. She reached out and gently touched his stubbly cheek.
I went to pull her away when I saw my parents standing among the lifeless mob. (Mom, Dad, if you’re reading this, I am soooo sorry. And also you shouldn’t be reading this because it’s my private property.)
Dawn was also there, and almost lifeless in her Olive Garden uniform. Tammy and Deanna and the Princess Pack were there, too. Their thick makeup looked like pretty masks.
“¡Mamá!” Victor cried, leaving his post at the hallway and bolting inside.
His whole family was there. Even his grandmother. Victor fell to his knees before his family.
“Wake up!” he cried.
“Victor,” I said. “Not so loud . . .”
“Wake up, Mamá!”
“Victor, stop!” Liz hissed.
Grandma Madrina’s eyes snapped open. She had a wicked, Cheshire cat grin on her face. “Bow down to the queen!” she shrieked.
Everyone’s eyes began to open. It was like watching a horrific domino effect of flashing eyeballs. I grabbed Victor and pulled him away. Liz sprinted away from her father, who was swiping the air behind her. “I love the queen! You will, too!”
Penelope swooped overhead, warning me to duck the grappling arms of Tammy and Deanna and the possessed princesses. “C’mon, K-Ferg, surrender!” screamed Tammy.
“Surrender!” screamed Victor’s father.
“Surrender!”
Sneakers squeaking, we shot out from the ballroom and slammed the doors just as the stampede of people-puppets crashed into them. We pressed our backs against the buckling wood and planted our heels. Arms swiped through the crack. Snarling, angry neighbors growled.
“This is worse than Black Friday at Walmart,” Liz said.
“Kelly, you stop this right now and surrender to the queen, young lady!” my mother yelled.
I saw a rusted iron curtain rod leaning against a window. I snatched it and shoved it through the door handles. BAM! BAM! The shaking doors held. The hinges squeaked and threatened to snap lose.
“Open these doors, Victor! We raised you better than this!” Grandma Madrina cried.
Victor crossed himself, disturbed.
“You will fail!” my mother screamed.
“I know you don’t mean that, Mom!” I shouted back, trying to keep positive as we ran from the shuddering clatter of zombielike hands beating against the crooked doors.
In the great hall, two sweeping staircases curled up to the second floor like great horns. An enormous marble H was embedded in the floorboards. We spun around, searching the shadows, trying to listen above the insanity in the ballroom far behind us.
I tilted my head. Somewhere up above, Theo was crying. A nasty, guttural cry.
He needs his bottle, you monsters. He needs his diaper changed. He needs to be cuddled.
“Theo’s upstairs,” I whispered.
Ding-a-ding! Penelope chimed.
“Trapped in Serena’s lair,” Liz whispered. “With the others.”
Victor moved toward the sweeping staircase. I grabbed his arm.
“Too obvious,” I said. “She’s expecting us to take the stairs. Find another way up.”
We snuck into the rotted kitchen. Black mold crawled up the walls. Victor found a small door in the wall near the pantry. He opened it and Penelope shined her butt-light up into the vaulted, empty dumbwaiter. We all jammed our heads inside.
“Yeah, this is much more sneaky,” I said. “And disgusting.”
Ding-a-ding! Penelope agreed.
“How are we going to get up there?” Victor whispered. “You have a rope?”
Remember Heck Weekend? How to climb without ropes . . .
“We’re going to free-climb,” I said. “Watch.”
I pulled myself all the way inside and pushed against the chute walls with my hands and feet. I shimmied up slowly. Just like I had learned. Liz and Victor followed suit. The termite-riddled wood crumbled under our grip as we climbed up inside it.
We spilled into a second-floor hallway, where shutters cl
attered in the icy blizzard howling off the ocean.
“Where to now?” Victor asked, peering across to closed wooden doors.
All we could hear was the quaking, storm-pounded walls. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. Terrified, Penelope zipped back into my pocket.
“This place is enormous,” Liz said. “They could be anywhere.”
Something slippery squished under Victor’s sneaker.
“Dees-gusting!” he said, hopping around, looking at the bottom of his shoe.
Liz rolled her eyes. “Smooth move, newb number two.”
“Wait!” I said, stopping Victor from scraping his sneaker. “Let me see.”
“What’s to see? It’s dookie,” he said.
“The correct term is ‘scat,’” I said as I inspected the muck. “The texture, the shape . . .”
“Spare me the details,” said Liz.
I opened my guide to the Scat Chart I copied from Berna, and cross-checked it with the caca on the floor.
“This is Kevin’s all right,” I said. “It’s fresh, too.”
“You can say that again,” Victor moaned. “Can I wipe my shoe now?”
“Yes. And thank you for asking,” I said.
I spotted a second dung heap down a corridor in the east wing. “Follow that poo!”
We ran to doo-doo number two and looked around. The wall behind us buckled. A huge crack broke the plaster. And then I heard the sickeningly sweet, pied piper organ music of Professor Gonzalo.
Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT! Dee-DOOT!
The wall caved in like rotted bark. In a thunder of horns and drywall, Kevin tumbled out into the hallway, furiously shaking his head. Liz lassoed her rope around his horns and pulled tight. Kevin thrashed, sending his sister hurtling around the hallway.
“I got you, Liz!” I yelled, grabbing the rope.
Victor took hold too, and the three of us were yanked off our feet as Kevin thundered down the corridor. Wall lights shattered against his horns.
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