The Monster Hunter's Manual

by Jessica Penot

  Thud. Something banged right into the door, making the door shake. There were voices. I could hear what they were saying.

  “I told you not to touch my stuff,” someone said.

  “I didn’t touch anything,” the other voice complained.

  “Yeah. Well then who moved my book?”

  “I wouldn’t touch your ridiculous book.”

  There was another bang and then a muffled yell and I pushed my ear against the door straining to hear what they were saying.

  “They sound like kids,” I said. “They sound like us.”

  “What?” Alex asked.

  “They don’t sound like monsters. They’re fighting like we do.”

  “So? Monsters can fight.”

  “Yeah. But not like this. What if they’re kid ghosts, like Eleanor?”

  “Eleanor wouldn’t make that much racket.”

  “I’m gonna look outside.”

  “Don’t you dare! Just lock the door!”

  “I don’t think they’re monsters.”

  “No!”

  I opened the door and looked out into the dimly lit hallway. I couldn’t see much, the chair, some old paintings. Bang. Two figures fell onto the floor fighting. One of them was nothing but bones and a grimacing skull and the other had sharp teeth and gleaming red eyes.

  “Ahhhhh!” I screamed

  “Ahhhhh!” Alex screamed.

  “Ahhhhh!” The monsters screamed.

  The red-eyed beast stood up and tried to run backwards, falling down the stairs. The skeleton stood up, but his head fell off. He grabbed it awkwardly and ran towards us with his skull in his hands.

  I think Alex panicked, because when he started to run he ran towards the skeleton instead of away from it and the two collided in the middle of the hall. Alex began to dash down the stairs, but the skeleton’s skull became caught on the drawstring of Alex’s pants so the two ran together screaming down the rest of the stairs, leaving the skeleton’s body bumping into things in the hall.

  I stopped screaming and chased after my brother, who was jumping up and down and screaming in the kitchen.

  “Get it off me! Get it off me! Get it off me!” he yelled as he jumped up and down.

  “Ahhhhh!” the skeleton continued to scream.

  I yanked the skull off Alex’s pants, screaming when the skeleton looked at me with its black eyes.

  “Put it in the oven!” Alex yelled. He opened the door and I threw the skull in the oven.

  I wiped my hands on my pants and hopped around. “What was that?”

  Alex turned all the knobs on the oven. “I don’t know!”

  We both stared at the oven wide eyed and stunned, just when we thought we had won, the red-eyed creature ran in the room. The monster was tall and thin with a white face and long shinning teeth. It pushed Alex aside and opened the oven, retrieving the skeleton head. The skull was screaming and it must have been hot because the other monster juggled it like a hot potato before he dropped it on the floor.

  “What did you do that for?” demanded the monster. He stared at us.

  Stunned, I answered him. “He was a skeleton.”

  The monster picked up the skull with a dishtowel decorated with pictures of kittens, which had been hanging by the sink. He held the skull like a baby and patted it. The skeleton only scowled at him.

  “I’m not a baby. Stop that and put me back on my body!” the skeleton shouted.

  “Don’t shout at me! This is your fault!”

  “How is it my fault? You pushed me down the stairs!”

  “Well you woke the kids up with all your yelling,” the monster answered.

  “You are always messing with my stuff,” the skeleton retorted.

  “If you feel that way, I’ll just put you right back in the oven.”

  The monster opened the oven door and the skeleton, or skull, or head, wailed in dismay. “Fine. It’s my fault. Just put me back on my body.”

  “Not until you say you are sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s wrong with you two?” I bellowed.

  Both monsters stopped their fighting and looked at Alex and me. Alex kicked me in the back of the leg and I flinched.

  “What did you do that for?” he hissed.

  “They’re driving me crazy,” I hissed back.

  The toilet in the other room flushed and all four of us turned to look at the door into the living room. A light came on, a door slammed and the two monsters looked mortified.

  “Listen,” the monster explained. “Don’t tell on us, OK?”

  “Tell on you?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Don’t tell Lady Perrine how much noise we were making. In fact, please don’t tell her we’re here,” the skull pleaded.

  The monster looked around and slid under the table clutching the skull to his chest like a football. The kitchen light flickered on and Aunt Perrine came into the kitchen in her hot pink, knitted robe. She looked like she was still half asleep and she yawned conspicuously as she entered the kitchen.

  “What’re you two doing up?” She asked. “It’s 4 am.”

  For a moment, both Alex and I looked around like idiots and then Alex opened his mouth and found something to say. “I was thirsty.”

  “Why is ze oven open?” Aunt Perrin asked.

  “We were hungry too,” I said.

  I could see the monsters under the table and all I could think was that if those two were that bad at hiding, why did it take us two days to find them? The monsters’ feet were sticking out and if Aunt Perrine even looked down it would be obvious they were there. But Aunt Perrine didn’t look down. She shuffled over to the oven and closed the door. “If you are ’ungry, you should ’ave a cookie. Don’t cook. It iz dangerous to in ze middle of ze night.”

  She shuffled away leaving Alex and I staring stupidly at the monsters under the table. The monster stood up and smiled at me. I wasn’t sure what to think. It looked more like a grimace than a smile and he had about a hundred razor sharp teeth.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Anytime,” I answered.

  “I’m Uno and this is Roger, but I call him Jolly Roger.” He laughed.

  “Shut up,” the skull complained. “My name is just Roger.”

  “Just Jolly Roger,” the monster taunted.

  “You two live here?” I asked.

  “Yeah. We live here,” the skull answered. “Not always, but we have for a while.”

  “Where’d you live before?” Alex queried.

  “Here and there,” the skull replied. “I used to live in America. Some stupid teenagers dug me up and tried to cast some lame spell to bring me back to life and here I am. Alive…kind of. They ran away and left me.”

  “That stinks,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m a vampire,” Uno said. “I’m from New York. I used to have a family, parents, a house, and then some jerk bit me and now I glow in the dark.”

  “What a jerk,” I said.

  There was an uncomfortable silence as we all stared at each other. I really had no idea what to think or say.

  “So, you just live up in the attic and fight all night now and drink diet blood?” Alex asked.

  “Sometimes we go out,” Uno explained.

  “We do stuff,” Roger added. “Sometimes we help Lady Perrine. Sometimes we go see the other folk around here.”

  Alex scratched his head. “Like who? Eleanor?”

  The skull scrunched up his face in something that looked like anger, although I had trouble telling because of his bony features. “Yeah.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “Lady Perrine saved us,” Roger said.

  I studied Roger. “From who?”

  “The slayers. You know, those guys that go around trying to kill monsters, ghosts, and magic folk.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “People do that?”

  Roger nodded emphatically. “Yeah, but it’s safe here.”
/>   There was another silence and then Uno smiled and moved towards the stairs. “Well,” he said. “Nice meeting you. I should probably go put Roger together again. Goodnight.”

  Uno tripped a little as he walked and as soon as they vanished up the stairs, they started fighting again. For a while, Alex just watched the space where the two monsters had been and then we looked at each other and started laughing.

  I laughed. “I can’t believe we were afraid of that!”

  We laughed all the way upstairs. I fell asleep with a grin on my face and for the first time in a very long time, I honestly couldn’t wait for morning.

  Alex was up long before me. I could hear him upstairs in the loft talking to Roger. It was hot and I had sweated through my pajamas in the night. There was no air conditioning and summer had been mild, but the weather changed. I peeled off my pajamas and threw on a t-shirt and shorts.

  It was early and I stumbled up into the loft. Alex and Roger were lying on the floor playing a game of Checkers. Uno was resting on the bed reading a book. It was a strange scene – a skeleton and a little boy playing checkers. It could have been a picture from summer camp, if it hadn’t have been for the horrible monsters.

  “What’re you doing?” I asked.

  “Roger’s gonna show me where we can going swimming today,” Alex said.

  “OK. Do you swim a lot Roger?” I was half astonished and half just being polite.

  “Not in a while. Mr. Vampire there doesn’t do well in the sun and I don’t like going alone.”

  I looked at Alex. “I thought we were going to see Eleanor today?”

  Uno looked surprised. “You met Eleanor?”

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  Roger rolled on his back and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Uno demanded.

  “Uno has a crush on Eleanor, but she won’t give him the time of day. Get it. Time of day.” Roger laughed again.

  Uno frowned. “I do not,”

  “How old are you guys?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Roger replied. “It’s hard for me to keep count. I was ten when I died. I don’t keep count anymore.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Roger shrugged. “You get used to it after a while. Aunt Perrine makes us cake to celebrate the first day we came here.”

  I thought for a minute. “Can you eat?”

  Roger was quick to answer. “Kind of.”

  “It’s disgusting,” Uno said. “It falls out of his ribs, but he just keeps on eating.”

  “At least I can eat. Uno gets blood cake for his special days. It looks like raw meat.”

  “It is pretty vile,” Uno admitted with a shrug. “I love it though.”

  “So what are we doing today?” Alex interrupted.

  “We haven’t decided,” I said. “We were going to go swimming or perhaps to see Eleanor.”

  “Why can’t we do both?” Alex asked. “I mean, I had a question for Eleanor too.”

  “Let’s see Eleanor first,” I suggested.

  “I’m going too,” Uno said.

  “You’ll burn up,” Roger said.

  “I’ll wear my cloak.”

  “You’ll look stupid, Uno.”

  “You look stupid all the time.”

  “Just shut up and get ready,” I said. “I’m going to eat breakfast. I’ll meet you all by the keep in an hour.”

  With that, I ran down stairs to find Aunt Perrine. Aunt Perrine was in the kitchen, as always, drinking coffee and humming to herself. She had shed her usual sweaters and was wearing a t-shirt with pink flowers and kittens on it. She wore her hair down and it spilled over her shoulders in long, gray curls.

  “Bonjour!” she said cheerfully. “You had a long night, no?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She put a bowl of cereal in front of me and I sat down to eat it. As I ate, she sat down and watched me. She looked at me intensely as if she was trying to read my face and I looked at her with the same intensity.

  I realized that she must have been pretty in her youth. She had clear, blue eyes and fine features. She was fat and squat, but with the fat gone, she would have been lovely. Her crinkled hands were covered with pretty rings that looked as old as the castle. With her knitted hat removed, I could see that she had long, curly hair. It was nice.

  I knew what I wanted to ask her, but the words were stuck in my throat. The questions seemed silly – childish – but I had to know.

  “Is this castle magic?” I asked.

  “Bien sur,” she said. “It is magic.”

  “Are you magic?”

  “What do you zink, little prince?”

  “You have to be.”

  Aunt Perrine only grinned.

  “What are you?” I asked stupidly.

  “All in good time, little prince. All in good time. Now is ze time for you and your brozer to learn French. You cannot go to school without French. Come.”

  I followed her into the living room. There was an old table with clawed feet in the corner and the top of it had been covered with workbooks and a CD player. She pointed and I sat down. She opened the workbook. The book was called Beginning with French. Aunt Perrine hit play. The voice on the other end of the CD said, “Bonjour.” I answered it.

  “Alex,” Aunt Perrine called. “Alex!” She vanished out of the room; I was left listening to the CD and writing simple French phrases in my workbook. After a few minutes, Aunt Perrine returned dragging Alex behind her. He had a scowl on his face and seemed deeply unhappy. Aunt Perrine pressed a button and the CD began again. “Bonjour,” the voice said. I answered it, but Alex scowled and sank deeper in his chair.

  “I have to go out now,” Aunt Perrine said. “If you do your work, I will ’ave a special treat for you when I return. Work ’ard.”

  She waved and I heard the front door close behind her. As soon as the door shut, Alex turned the CD player off.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “But our lessons…we need to learn French.”

  “You’re such a killjoy.”

  “Aunt Perrine is our guardian now and we have to respect her. We can’t go off and do whatever we want. She told us to study.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Alex said. “That’s all I hear you saying and I’m going to see Eleanor with or without you. Have fun with the French.”

  It only took me a few seconds to decide to follow him. I wanted to study, but there was no way I was going to let my little brother explore all the magic in the castle while I was stuck inside saying bonjour to a CD player.

  Chapter 5

  The Old Ones

  It didn’t take me long to catch up with Alex. He was running across the courtyard to the keep. Uno was already there, wearing a ridiculous looking cape that covered his entire body, only leaving a small slit for his eyes. He looked like a cartoon picture of death from an old comic book. He could have been scary, if he hadn’t of tripped on his own robes on the way up the spiral stairs. It was like watching a toddler in clothes that were too big. He fell at least four times.

  Roger caught up with us on the way up. He got there just in time to watch Uno fall flat on his face.

  “Good one!” Roger yelled.

  Somehow, we made it to the top of the stairs and went into Eleanor’s room. The sun was shining brightly in the window. I pulled the curtains closed so we could see her. She came from nowhere and materialized out of dust and shadow. There was a small smile on her lips. “Good morning,” she said softly. She curtsied.

  I bowed to her out of instinct. “I trust you are well this morning.”

  “Very well,” I answered honestly. “And you?”

  “I’m better now that you are here to keep me company.” She looked around and saw Roger and Uno in the corner and her face twisted in snobbish contempt. “What’re you two doing here?”

  “Sorry, Your Highness,” Roger said. “Didn’t mean to soil your filthy room with our feet.”

  “What’s
wrong with them?” Alex asked defensively.

  “They know why I’m mad,” Eleanor said.

  “Say you’re sorry, Roger.”

  “No,” Roger said.

  Eleanor colored up. “If you can’t apologize you can leave.”

  Roger’s bony lips twisted into something that resembled a frown. “This isn’t your castle.”

  “But it’s my room and I want you to leave,” Eleanor insisted.

  Roger threw up his hands. “Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Are you happy?”

  Eleanor smiled. “Yes.”

  An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Eleanor kept smiling like a Cheshire cat, and Roger scowled and pouted like Alex when he didn’t get his way. I really wasn’t sure what was going on or why Roger was sorry. I was completely confused. “Why is he sorry, Uno?”

  “Last time we saw Eleanor she said she was a princess. He told her she was a liar. He said everything she said was a lie.”

  “Was she really lying?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” Uno answered. “She’s been here forever. She could make up any stories she wanted, couldn’t she? It doesn’t matter. I like her either way.”

  “You are common, Roger, and I’m your better and you should treat me with respect,” Eleanor said.

  “I am no more common than you,” Roger argued.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Alex said. “We’re common too. No one is royalty any more. Who cares anyway?”

  “No, Alex, You are wrong. You are everything but common. You are the heirs of this kingdom. You are lords,” Eleanor said passionately.

  I laughed despite the seriousness of Eleanor’s tone. I couldn’t help myself. Lords of what? Lords of a rubble? Orphan kings of a broken castle in a village in the middle of nowhere? And we were hardly lords of even the rubble.

  “I can go if you just came to laugh at me.” As soon as the words were said, Eleanor began to fade away. She vanished as if she had never been there at all and only the memory of her remained. I had almost forgotten that she was a ghost until she faded away. I peered into the darkness looking for any piece of her in the shadows.

  “Wait!” Alex cried. “Don’t go! My brother’s an idiot. He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”