This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by The Story Pirates
Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Hatem Aly
Excerpt copyright © 2018 by The Story Pirates. Published by Rodale Kids.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House
Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: West, Jacqueline, author. | Aly, Hatem, illustrator.
Title: The story pirates present: digging up danger / written by Jacqueline West ; illustrated by Hatem Aly. Other titles: digging up danger
Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, [2019] | Summary: Eliza, a thirteen-year-old ghost hunter, joins her mom on a job in an old flower shop, where she investigates some highly unusual things.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009731 | ISBN 978-1-63565-091-4 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-63565-092-1 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Plants—Fiction. | Florists—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Fiction. | Shapeshifting—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.W51776 Sto 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
Ebook ISBN 9781635650921
v5.4
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
A Brief Message from: Phoebe Wolinetz
A Brief Message from: Rolo Vincent
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
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Mystery Creation Zone
Excerpt from The Story Pirates
Acknowledgments
Hi, I’m Phoebe. I’m eight years old, and I live in Manhattan with my mom, dad, dog, and brother. I like to dance hip-hop, draw, play soccer, and write. I like to listen to songs by Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Kidz Bop. And most mornings I listen to “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr.
When I’m not dancing, drawing, or playing soccer, I’m writing. I like to write fun facts about animals and the city, but I also like to make up my own stories about a dog and his magical stick or about a faraway land with fairies. I like to write because I can use my imagination to come up with whatever I want. For example, I can write about big men with small feet, and if that doesn’t work, I can change my mind and write about small men with big feet. Being a writer means I can let my imagination run wild and make anything come to life.
I like the Story Pirates because they are funny and creative. They take the audience to wherever that story is taking place, and they add in the details. For example, when I saw Story Pirates in person, there was a story about a rock, and I felt like I was there with them at the rock.
Because I enjoy Story Pirates so much, when my mom told me about the story idea contest, I got really excited about entering my idea. When I found out that I was the winner, it was such a frozen moment. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I felt like it was a dream.
Winning Story Pirates has encouraged me to be bold about my ideas and to not be worried about what others think. So, for other writers out there, be bold, be confident, and don’t worry about sharing what you think. Because your ideas are amazing no matter what!
Hello, readers! Rolo Vincent here. Welcome to the second-ever Story Pirates book! We took Phoebe’s idea and turned it into a WHOLE MYSTERY NOVEL!
If you came here to read a weird, exciting mystery and nothing else, flip ahead to Chapter 1 and dig in! I promise I won’t get mad. I’m a pirate—we’re very hard to offend.
Seriously. Flip ahead! Get outta here! It’s fine.
For those of you who DIDN’T flip ahead, I have an amazing surprise.
Digging Up Danger isn’t just an amazing mystery. It can help YOU create amazing mysteries of your own!
In the back of this book is the MYSTERY CREATION ZONE, a storytelling how-to guide! As you read the main story, Phoebe and I will pop up to point out parts of the MCZ that explain how Digging Up Danger was built from Phoebe’s idea—and how YOU can build your own mysteries!
Want to see how it works? Turn to this page to read “Can You Keep a Secret?” and “How Does the Mystery Creation Zone Work?”
Did you go? Are you back? Pretty cool, right? If you create any stories of your own using the MCZ, we’d love to see them! You can go online anytime (with the help of a parent or guardian) and share them with us at StoryPirates.com!
Ready to start Digging Up Danger? Turn the page!
SECRETS LOVE THREE THINGS: darkness, solitude, and quiet.
The docks had all three.
Almost no one used these particular docks anymore. Their lamps were burned out, their boards beginning to rot. The surrounding water was sludgy and black. Pleasure boats had migrated to nicer boatyards years ago. Fishing boats had all but disappeared.
The docks were left alone with their quiet, muddy darkness. And their secrets.
It was well past midnight on one summer night when an old gray boat scraped up against the pilings. Despite the darkness, the boat didn’t turn on its lights. The city, twinkling across the bay like a pile of fallen stars, provided the only glow.
The boat was an old fishing craft, just large enough for the small crew that slunk up from belowdecks. Two men settled a plank between the boat and the dock. One of them—a man in a battered sweater, with grizzled hair tucked under a knit cap—carried crates and boxes down the plank and placed them in a waiting pickup truck. When everything was loaded, the man in the battered sweater climbed into the truck’s cab and rattled away into the darkness. The rest of the crew slipped back out of sight.
For a moment, everything was still. Black waves knocked softly at the boat’s hull.
And then, on the deck, a shadow split from the surrounding darkness. The shadow was hunched and long-limbed, and as it moved, a pool of other shadows moved with it, rippling like a cloak around its body. It slid out from behind a heap of cargo, glided across the deck, and leaped over the boat’s side. Its feet against the dock were nearly soundless.
No one heard those feet anyway. No one saw that shadow watching the truck dwindle away, its head cocked as though sensing something in the air. No one saw that shadow bend, its shape changing, growing lower, longer, faster, until on four silent feet it raced down the dock and along the streets, where it, too, melted into the darkness, one secret following another.
Turn to this page.
ELIZA STAHL STRETCHED HER tongue.
She was doing it for the fourth time that day. She and her mother were deep in the city now, the traffic around their old green Subaru getting tighter, the buildings growing thicker, and Eliza getting tenser and tenser. She’d already stretched her hands, her neck, and her ankles three times each. Now she was back to the tongue.
To stretch your tongue, you put the tip behind your lower front teeth, the folded-over middle against your upper teeth, and push forward. Then you flip the tip back to the middle of the roof of your mouth and push upward. Forward. Upward. Forward. Upward.
“Eliza, what are you doing?” Her mother glanced away from the windshield. “You look like an old man trying to pop out his dentures.”
“I’m stretching my tongue,” said Eliza. She was mid-stretch at the time, so what she really said was “Ahn steshing mah ton.”
Her mother shook her head. “This isn’t worth getting tense about,” she said, for the thousandth time. “My work at the plant shop should take about a month, and then we’ll head straight back home, and you can catch up with your friends, and everything will be exactly like it was.” She tucked a springy curl behind her ear. “Two months at most.”
“Two months?” said Eliza worriedly. It came out as, “Doo muss?”
“Depending on how many plants the Carrolls need me to identify.” Her mother couldn’t hide the eagerness in her own voice.
“How come they need you to come and help them?” asked Eliza, between stretches. “I mean—they own a plant shop. Don’t they know what they’re selling?”
“Of course. But it’s a rare plant shop.” Her mother’s voice grew even brighter. “Sometimes they come across extremely unusual specimens and need to have them identified before they can sell them. They found my name on an article I’d written, and now you and I get to have a little adventure in New York City.” She flashed Eliza a smile. “Doesn’t that sound like a great place to spend an otherwise-empty summer?”
“It’s not the place,” said Eliza. “I’m sure it’ll be…”
“Delightful?” suggested her mother.
“Different,” said Eliza.
Eliza was not a fan of change. She preferred things that stayed the same. Things that were dependable, that didn’t grow up and change overnight. Things you could return to knowing you would find everything in the right place. Books were like that. They stayed the same no matter how many times you read them. Eliza glanced around the side of her seat, making sure her box of favorite books was where it should be. There was Edgar Allan Poe, right on top. She could see Nathaniel Hawthorne and Spectral Encounters and Haunted Homes of New England waiting beneath.
Eliza loved scary stories. Ghost stories in particular. If there was anyone who was even less fond of change than Eliza, it was ghosts. Ghosts were people who didn’t even let death change their habits.
Eliza Stahl was an amateur—and future professional—ghost expert. Her paranormal research notebook was in the box, too, along with her spectral communication tools and her digital travel thermometer for detecting cold spots. Eliza understood ghosts. She understood them far better than she understood her botanist parents, who could talk about the shapes of seedpods for hours.
“Spending the summer in the Amazon basin with your father would have been a lot more different than coming to Brooklyn with me,” said her mother, interrupting Eliza’s thoughts. “Besides, a new place full of new people can be fascinating. Don’t you think?”
Eliza sighed. She stretched her fingers against the palm of her opposite hand. First finger. Middle finger. Ring finger…
The Subaru rolled across a soaring bridge. The brick and stone of Brooklyn rose up before them. In the distance, across a streak of sparkling water, Eliza caught sight of the Statue of Liberty, endlessly lifting her torch. Now that lady could really use a stretch.
After several more turns down several long streets, they rolled into a neighborhood of old brick buildings, where the trees were thick enough to meet above the pavement in a fluttering green canopy. They passed Thai cafés surrounded by tubs of tumbling flowers, and coffee shops covered in murals, and markets where racks of fresh fruit glinted beneath striped awnings. And then, at the very end of the very last block, within the shade of a huge ash tree, Eliza’s mother pulled over.
Beside them stood the largest building on the block. It was four stories tall, its walls built of mottled brick, its rooftops black and steep. Curlicues of chipping green stonework lined each story. Thrusting from one corner was a turret with a top like a metal witch’s hat. A painted wooden sign above the front doors read CARROLLS’ GARDENS: EXOTIC PLANTS AND FLORAL FANTASIES. Maybe it was just the building’s size, or maybe the ground rose slightly around it, but the place seemed to loom over the rest of the street. The antiques store next door was practically cowering.
Eliza leaned over, pressing her pale face against the car window for a better view, and felt a floating, feathery chill sweep over her. This wasn’t due to the shadow of the big ash tree. This was something else. Something bigger, and older, and stranger. Something that was rooted right here and refused to leave.
This place was—unmistakably—haunted.
Eliza’s heart lifted.
Maybe summer in New York City wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Turn to this page.
THE MAN WHO FLUNG open the door for them was tall and broad, with soft white hair, a full beard, brown skin, and grass-stained khaki shorts. A potbelly stretched the front of his Hawaiian shirt. He looked like a summery Santa Claus.
But instead of Ho ho ho! he boomed, “You must be the Stahls! I’m Winston Carroll, co-owner and co-proprietor!” He beckoned to them, beaming. “Glad you made it! Come on inside!”
“Thank you,” said Eliza’s mother. “Should we bring our bags?”
“Oh, we’ll handle that in a minute.” Mr. Carroll’s voice drowned out a jackhammer just down the block. “Step in and get acquainted first!”
Eliza took one last look over her shoulder at their familiar wagon full of familiar things, now parked on this unfamiliar street full of unfamiliar people, and sent her books a silent promise to be right back. The ash tree rustled with a gust of wind, almost as though it were trying to tell her something. And then, as Eliza turned back toward the doorway of Carrolls’ Gardens, something snagged her eye.
Beyond the corner of the building stood a figure. It was pressed against the wall so that half its body was concealed, but the half that Eliza could see was tall and dark. A pool of shadows seemed to surround it, rippling and shifting as it moved—until, in one quick backward motion, it slipped completely out of sight.
Eliza had almost seen ghosts at least a hundred times. Unfortunately, those ghosts had always turned out to be laundry flapping on a neighbor’s clothesline, or a shadow of a bird, or a strand of her own hair blowing past the corner of her eye. This dark figure might be just another near-ghost experience—but Eliza always kept an open mind. She was craning for another glimpse when her mother grabbed her arm.
“Let’s go, Eliza.”
“Right. Quit Stahl-ing.” Mr. Carroll grinned at his own joke. “Come on in!”
He ushered them into the shop. The glass door thumped shut behind them.
By the time the bell above the door had stopped its tinkling, Eliza knew they had entered another world.
First came the smell. It was a deep, damp, leafy smell, the smell of thousands of living things breathing and blooming. Then came the rush of color: emerald green, jade green, black-green. Green so thick and bright you could practically hear it. Green in the racks and shelves and tables full of plants, on the walls and windows climbing with vines, in the lily pads floating on the indoor pond.
“Welcome to Carrolls’ Gardens!” Mr. Carroll boomed.
From behind another mound of green, a woman with dark eyes, long pink skirts, and upswept gray hai
r came fluttering out to meet them.
“Welcome!” sang the woman. “I’m Camila Carroll, co-owner and floral designer!” Her voice, with its faint Puerto Rican accent, was as high and twittery as Mr. Carroll’s was deep and loud. Together the two of them sounded like a duet between a flute and a sousaphone. “I’m Camila Carroll, co-owner and floral designer. Win and I are thrilled to have you here, Professor Stahl!”
“Rachel, please,” said Eliza’s mother. “And this is my daughter, Eliza.”
“Eliza?” Mr. Carroll boomed a big laugh. “With two botanists for parents, I thought you’d be named something like Rose, or Fern, or Lily!”
“My middle name is Lavandula,” said Eliza.
Mr. Carroll’s white eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s…memorable. And you’re how old? Thirteen?”
Eliza nodded.
“Did you hear that, Tommy?” Mr. Carroll called. Eliza couldn’t have imagined Mr. Carroll’s voice getting any louder, but now it made her back teeth vibrate. “Just a little bit younger than you! Come here and say hello!”
A teenaged boy shuffled into the room. He had olive skin, thick dark hair hanging over one eye, and arms full of bagged peat moss. Maybe because of the moss—or the hair—he walked straight into a rack of orchids.
Mrs. Carroll caught the rack before it could tip. “This is our nephew, Tommy. He’s living with us and working here for the summer.”
“Thomas,” mumbled the boy. “Mice to neat you.”
Eliza bit back a nervous giggle.
“Tommy,” said Mrs. Carroll sweetly, “why don’t you see to any customers while Win and I get the Stahls settled upstairs?”
The Story Pirates Present Page 1