Monsters Unleashed #2

by John Kloepfer

  Dedication

  To Gemma, my very own furry, four-legged monster

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Freddie Liddle was back in art class. His seat was too small for him, and his back hurt from being hunched over his latest drawing. It was like nothing had changed—except everything was different. He and his friends were at a new school with new kids and new teachers.

  There was a good reason for this.

  Two weeks ago Freddie and his best friend and fellow outcast, Manny Vasquez, had accidentally created a trio of monsters using their then art teacher’s 3D printer. The monsters were based on Freddie’s drawings of the three meanest bullies in his class: Jordan Cross, the jock; Nina Green, the drama queen; and, last but never least, Quincy Moorehead, the know-it-all. These humongous monsters had destroyed their middle school, and nearly their entire town, before the kids managed to shrink them down.

  Freddie knew it sounded unbelievable.

  But even harder to swallow was that Freddie and his former bullies were all cool with one another now. For the first time in his life, Freddie had a real group of friends. And they also had pet minimonsters, which at the moment were stashed in Freddie’s closet. Before they could go home to their monsters, though, they had to get through the rest of the school day.

  At least they were in art class, Freddie’s favorite subject. In the back of the room, Freddie was sitting next to Manny. He watched as Manny’s light-brown hand doodled on a piece of paper. They were working on a page of their ongoing comic book that they were always tinkering with, but Manny seemed distracted.

  Finally, Manny put his pencil down and gestured to a kid at the end of the art table. The kid was scribbling angrily on his sketch pad. It looked like he was drawing some kind of weird insect, erasing it, then starting over until his paper was nothing more than a bunch of smudges and pink crumbs from his eraser. The more he tried to draw, the more frustrated he became.

  “This guy is having some serious artist’s block,” Manny said. “It’s freaking me out. I can’t concentrate.”

  Freddie felt bad for the kid, so he went over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, man, chill out,” he said. “Don’t draw angry.”

  The kid looked up at Freddie. He was clearly flustered.

  “Ugh. I hate art,” the boy groaned. “I can see what I want to draw, but I can’t draw it.” He paused. “My name is Trevor, by the way. Trevor Kelso.”

  Freddie put out his hand. “Freddie Liddle,” he said. “And this is Manny.”

  Manny didn’t even look up. His long black hair fell over his eyes. “Yo.”

  “Wow, you’re pretty good!” Trevor said, glancing over at Freddie’s open sketchbook. He paused for a second. “Hey, do you think you could draw this idea for me?” Trevor asked Freddie. “I’d pay you for it. . . .”

  “He doesn’t draw anything for less than forty bucks,” Manny said.

  “That’s pretty steep,” Trevor said. “All I’ve got is twenty dollars.”

  Trevor pulled out the bill from his pocket. His fingers were long and knobby. In fact, the rest of Trevor was gawky and gangly, too, all knees and elbows. He had big hair that swooped behind each ear and fell just a couple inches short of his shoulders. He had a small forehead and long thin eyebrows, big bug eyes, pale white skin, and a long pointy nose. Freddie felt bad for the kid. At twelve years old and over six feet tall, Freddie had been made fun of a lot. He knew what it was like to be an outsider.

  “That’s okay,” Freddie said. “No charge.”

  “You should consider yourself very lucky,” Manny said to Trevor. “Freddie’s drawing could be very valuable one day.”

  Freddie couldn’t tell if his pal was being sarcastic or not. The last week or so, since they’d become friends with their former bullies, Manny had been acting strangely. And today he didn’t seem like himself at all.

  Trevor murmured something under his breath neither of them could hear, then crumpled up his botched drawing and tossed it on the floor. He started to write up a page of instructions with all the traits and features he wanted his weird made-up insect creature to have: camouflage armor, razor spikes, lightning-fast grappling claws, venomous fangs, chomping mandible. The list went on and on.

  “Its name will be entomon,” Trevor announced to them. “That’s Greek for insect.”

  “No waaaay . . . ,” Manny said in a long-drawn-out monotone.

  Freddie definitely sensed the sarcasm in his voice this time.

  Freddie studied the sheet that Trevor had given him and started to sketch the outline of the hybrid insect.

  “Yes, that’s it exactly!” Trevor exclaimed as Freddie drew the basic shape. “I wish I could draw like you.”

  Trevor watched over Freddie’s shoulder as he drew. Freddie did his best to make the entomon look as cool and as scary as possible. He drew its body like a cross between a beetle and an ant. The sleek blue-black bug had a hard shiny shell, pincers and claws and giant mandibles almost twice the size of its head. If Freddie had seen it on the wall of his bedroom, he probably would’ve peed in his pants.

  “This is so cool,” Trevor said. “Thanks!”

  “Sure, buddy,” Freddie told him, glad to be helping the kid out.

  The bell rang and Trevor snatched the drawing off the table with a gleam in his eyes. “Pleasure doing business with you, big guy,” he said with a wink as he hustled out of the art room.

  Freddie and Manny watched him go. “I wonder why he’s in such a rush,” Freddie said.

  “He must be late for loser club,” Manny replied as he packed up his stuff. He glanced at the clock. “Oh shoot! I have to get to gym or else Mr. Felzer’s gonna make me run laps,” He rushed out into the hallway.

  Across the art room, Jordan, Nina, and Quincy gathered their things and walked over to Freddie.

  “What was that all about?” asked Quincy.

  “That kid’s a little strange. He’s in my science class, too,” Nina said, nodding at where Trevor had just been sitting. She pushed back her thick braids and scrunched her nose. “He’s obsessed with bugs. His binder has pictures of centipedes all over it.”

  “I know!” Jordan said. He had a smudge of paint on his brown cheek. “I saw that he has one with spiders all over it, too.”

  “C’mon, guys, give him a break,” Freddie said. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a loner.”

  “True. That’s why we keep you around, Freddie,” Quincy said. “So, are we all good to go to your house after school and check up on our minimonsters? Mega-Q gets cranky if he doesn’t get a snack by four o’clock.”

  “Yeah, my dad should be out of the house by then,” Freddie said. “He’s working a double shift tonight at the factory.”

  Jordan, Nina, and Quincy nodded in approval.

  “Let’s meet up by the vending machines after the last bell,” Jordan said.

  Freddie was getting used to his new after-school routine. It wasn’t just him and Manny goofing off anymore. He had new friends, a new school, and new monsters to take care of. Life would be perfect if it stayed just as it
was right now.

  He’d never felt so happy and relaxed in his life.

  2

  The last bell of the day finally blared through the school, and a mob of students poured out of the classrooms.

  Freddie met up with Nina at the water fountain. He looked down at her. Her dark brown skin was flawless, her braids were cool, and she was wearing an awesome outfit. He couldn’t believe he was hanging out with the most popular girl in his class. It was like Freddie was suddenly royalty.

  He looked over the top of the crowd and quickly spotted Jordan and Quincy by the vending machines. Nina and Freddie worked their way through the heavy foot traffic clogging up the locker-lined hallway. By the time they got to the vending machines, Jordan had already gobbled down half a bag of beef jerky.

  “Can I have a piece?” Quincy asked, putting out his pale, freckled hand.

  “I don’t see why I should give you anything,” Jordan said with a mouthful of jerky, “when you didn’t give me the answers to our math homework.”

  “That’s called cheating,” Nina said as she and Freddie sidled up to the two boys. “Where’s that going to get you in life?”

  “Umm . . . on the honor roll?” Jordan said, still chewing with his mouth open.

  Out of the crowd, Manny appeared, heading straight for them. He screeched to a halt in front of them, clutching his knees and catching his breath. He had an odd look in his eyes.

  “You guys . . . you have to see this.” Manny huffed and puffed. “That kid Trevor . . . from art class . . . somehow . . . he’s got some kind of monster . . . of his own. . . .”

  Manny held up his phone, and they peered at the video on the screen.

  He tapped the play icon and the video started.

  The movie was shaky at first, like Manny was hiding behind a door or something. As the camera steadied, they could see Trevor in the locker room. They watched as Trevor dropped his backpack off his shoulders and sat on the bench.

  “Gross!” Nina exclaimed. “I don’t want to see this dude get changed!”

  “Just watch . . . ,” Manny said.

  Freddie peered at the touch screen, as Trevor pulled something out of his backpack. It was a glass mason jar. And inside the glass were two identical bug creatures that looked exactly like what Freddie had drawn for Trevor that morning.

  Trevor’s eyes were filled with love as he rocked his monsters in his arms like they were his precious little babies.

  Freddie’s head was swimming with so many questions, he could barely think. Were those just bugs? Or were they really . . . bug monsters? How did this happen? There was only one possible answer, and Freddie didn’t like it.

  “He must have the printer,” Freddie muttered under his breath. But his friends were so focused on the bugs they didn’t hear him.

  “What are those things?” Jordan shuddered.

  “Those are entomons,” Manny said. “It means insect in Greek.”

  “I know what it means,” Quincy said. “But that doesn’t look like any bug I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s not,” Manny said. “That’s because Freddie drew them.”

  “You did what?” Nina squeaked.

  Freddie pinched the bridge of his wide, white-skinned nose. “In art class today, Trevor asked me to draw him this bug monster. He said he wasn’t talented enough to draw it himself,” Freddie said. “He must have known about us and the printer and our monsters, because how else would he have made those from my drawing?”

  “This is not okay,” Quincy said. “As president of monster club, this is UNacceptable.”

  “First of all, you’re not the president,” Nina said. “But you’re right. This isn’t acceptable.”

  “Come on, let’s go find this kid,” Jordan said and took off, pushing his way through the crowded hallway.

  They raced back toward the boys’ locker room. But when they popped their heads inside, the locker room was empty. Trevor and his two bugs were already gone. The kids dashed back out into the hall and almost missed Trevor slipping around the corner.

  “Hey, Trevor, wait up!” Nina hollered at him.

  The spindly-limbed kid stopped and glanced back. His eyes bugged out when he saw them. Then he took off running.

  “Hey!” Manny shouted.

  Freddie and the gang hustled after him, but when they rounded the corner, Trevor was nowhere in sight. “Come on—maybe we can catch him out front,” said Freddie.

  They cut through the center of the building, beelining toward the front entrance. The hall was packed with students hunched over with heavy backpacks.

  Sometimes, Freddie thought, it came in handy being twelve years old and six foot four. This was one of those times. Peering over everyone’s heads, Freddie spotted Trevor sneaking through the crowd.

  “Follow him!” Freddie pointed toward the side exit. He zigzagged through the end-of-the-day mob and accidentally bumped into a group of kids.

  “Hey, watch where you’re going, freak!” Freddie heard one of them say as he ran outside. Freddie ignored the dig and swiveled his head, looking up and down the street. “There he is!” he shouted.

  “Where?” Jordan squinted in the bright sunlight. Manny pointed across the street. “Right over there!”

  “Where?” Nina said with her hand over her eyes like a visor.

  “I see him!” Quincy yelled. His white skin was flushing in the sun. It almost matched his fiery red hair.

  Just as they were about to chase after him, a long yellow school bus vroomed by. The bus passed and Trevor was . . . gone.

  “Now where the heck did he go?” asked Freddie.

  Manny pointed down the street. Trevor was on a skateboard, hitching a ride on the bus’s back bumper.

  Freddie’s stomach plunged as the bus drove off, taking Trevor with it. The bug-loving kid had no idea how dangerous those creatures could be.

  Things were about to get messy again. And unless Freddie and his friends got those monsters back fast, they were going to have to clean things up . . . again.

  3

  The five friends walked to Freddie’s house to check on their own monsters. Freddie’s dad was already gone, so they had the place to themselves.

  “I can’t believe that little dorkstain is making his own monsters,” Nina said, slamming the front door behind them. “With our printer.”

  “I still don’t know how he got into your old locker,” Jordan said. “The lock wasn’t even broken.” The kids had made a pit stop at their former middle school on the way to Freddie’s. The building was destroyed, but they were able to find Freddie’s locker. It was where he had hidden the monster-making 3D printer for safekeeping. When they checked inside the locker, the printer was gone.

  “Maybe if you didn’t keep your combination written on the back of the lock, then Trevor wouldn’t have been able to get the printer,” Manny said.

  Freddie glared at his best friend. He hadn’t been planning to share that little detail with their other friends.

  Jordan, Nina, and Quincy all stopped and stared at Freddie.

  “Are you serious?” Quincy said. He grabbed his bright red hair in frustration and pulled, nearly yanking it out. “You can’t remember your own locker combo?”

  “I always get it mixed up!” Freddie said defensively and then turned to Manny. “Did you have to tell them?”

  “Forget about it—what’s done is done,” Nina said. “Let’s go check on the minimonsters and figure out what we’re going to do about this Trevor kid.”

  They went upstairs to Freddie’s room and Freddie pulled Manny aside. “Dude, what’s your problem?”

  “My problem?” Manny asked innocently. “I don’t have a problem. Maybe you’re the one with the problem.”

  “You’ve been acting like this since I hung out with Jordan the other day. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “No,” Manny said. “Why would I care about that?”

  “Because you’ve been acting strangely ever since th
en,” Freddie said.

  Manny fell silent and gave his buddy a shrug.

  On the other side of the bedroom, Jordan, Nina, and Quincy opened the closet door, and Nina let out a horrified gasp.

  “What is it?” Freddie said, and he and Manny rushed over.

  Their five minimonsters were on the floor. Freddie’s and Manny’s monsters, Oddo and Mungo, were tugging at the last of the gummi worms they had left them. (For some reason, all any of their monsters wanted to eat was gummi candy.) And Jordan’s monster, Kraydon, was relaxing; but Nina’s and Quincy’s monsters, Yapzilla and Mega-Q, were both turned to stone. There were tiny scorch marks all over the carpet. It looked as though some kind of showdown had ended with Kraydon freezing them both.

  Jordan’s eyebrows furrowed in a V. “Change them back,” he ordered Kraydon. The muscle-bound minimonster stomped his foot, but eventually he swirled his eye and turned them back into living, breathing creatures.

  “Sorry about that, guys,” Jordan said to Nina and Quincy, as Yapzilla and Mega-Q reanimated.

  The five friends brought their monsters to the kitchen and plopped them on the countertop, while they all helped themselves to the contents of Freddie’s snack cupboard and fridge.

  “We need a plan,” Nina said, biting into an apple. “And I think I know what we have to do.”

  Nina found the student directory on her iPhone and looked up Trevor’s address.

  “We gotta get the printer and those monsters back is what we have to do,” Jordan said, as he scarfed down a handful of cheese puffs.

  “As soon as we get them, we’ll have to give them silica,” Quincy added, spooning a blob of chocolate pudding into his mouth. For reasons they still couldn’t explain, silica pellets had made the monsters shrink down after the exposure to water made them huge.

  “Unless they’re getting humongous already,” Manny said, cracking open a sleeve of Oreos.

  The kids all chewed silently for a minute. Freddie imagined the destruction another set of monsters could cause. Half their town was still in shambles. What would happen if they wrecked the other half, too? Freddie couldn’t believe Trevor had tricked him into drawing the monsters. And what was worse was Freddie couldn’t believe Trevor had figured out how to get his hands on the 3D printer and goo.