by Bruce Hale
“What the—?” My knees trembled.
Rigid as steel underpants, Benny and I followed the phantom with flashlights held out like swords. Slowly, carefully, we peeked around the huge metal drum and came face-to-face with our ghost.
But of course, it wasn’t a ghost. It was a hissing freak of nature.
“Whoa!” cried Benny.
“That’s just…wrong,” I said.
About the size of a jumbo pit bull, the creature was part lion, part scorpion, and entirely spooky. Its fangs dripped, its pincers clacked. The creature’s armored back plates glowed in the black light like a swimming pool at night. Its scorpion tail swayed like an angry cobra.
This thing meant business.
“Gaah!” I stumbled back, bumped into a pipe, and something behind me hissed.
And that’s when I learned that the creature had a mate.
Four feet away.
Whose tail was already in motion.
“¡Hijole!” My feet felt as heavy as cinder blocks. I tried to move, but—
Down whipped the stinger, piercing my outflung hand.
“Aah!” I cried.
Benny rushed forward, shining his flashlight in the monster’s eyes and stomping his feet. “Yah! Get out of here!” he yelled at it.
Amazingly, it worked. The creature scuttled backward on its cat paws, leaving us enough room to dash for the exit.
My hand throbbed, radiating pain. My legs were heavy and clumsy. I staggered after Benny, and the journey back to our candlelit circle seemed to last longer than Christopher Columbus’s voyage.
Noticing I’d fallen behind, Benny came back for me. “Are you hurt?” he said. “Where’d it get you?”
“The…hand,” I mumbled. My tongue felt as thick as a chorizo sausage.
“Lean on me.” Benny guided me to the circle.
Fire raced along my veins. My skin radiated heat; even my eyeballs sizzled. Nightmare images flashed through my mind, one after the other, unstoppable.
All my classmates in a coma, lying side by side in the hospital.
Being banned from school for my failures.
The Amazing Spider-Man comic book, canceled forever.
“Horrible,” I muttered, gripping Benny’s shirt. “So horrible.”
“What is?” said Benny. His voice seemed to come all the way from Connecticut in a tin box.
But I couldn’t find words. The images kept rolling like a runaway horror movie, seeming more real than the room around me.
My dad losing his job, my sister crying, my parents getting divorced.
Me leaving Monterrosa for good.
A mean voice in my head said, You’re responsible. This is all your fault.
“No!” I cried. “I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t listen!”
Benny paused just inside our candle circle. He lifted my hand.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “That thing looks infected.”
I tried to see what he was talking about, but my eyes wouldn’t obey me. Naughty eyes, I thought, fuzzily. Send ’em to the corner without any supper.
“I’m gonna sterilize it,” said Benny. He reached down and plucked something from the offering plate.
“All my fault,” I mumbled. “Couldn’t keep them together.”
Despair sapped my strength. My eyes wanted to roll back in my head. I fought the urge. I wasn’t ready to spend my life in a coma.
And still the visions came. I saw my mom and Veronica moving out of our house, and the weight of sadness nearly crushed me. At the same time, in real life, I saw Benny raising the cola can. Some part of my mind said, Silly Benny—can’t sterilize with soda.
“Hold still.” He poured the fizzy liquid onto my wound.
It was like dipping my hand in lava.
I screamed. The pain swelled, ten times worse than the sting itself. Gripping my wrist, I jackknifed in two.
“Dios mío! Wha…?” I choked out.
“Choose cola, choose life,” said Benny. “I figured if it can strip rust off of nails, it might help with the poison.”
Oddly enough, he seemed to be onto something. Defeated by the all-consuming agony in my hand, the tide of visions ebbed. My eyes obeyed me again, the fever in my blood cooled.
“Give me that!” I snapped.
Snatching the soda, I poured half of what remained over my wounded hand and chugged the rest.
As though I had flipped a switch, the pain faded almost entirely. I was myself again.
“Are you okay?” said Benny.
I slugged his upper arm with my uninjured hand. “That hurt!” I said. “And thanks for saving me.”
Rubbing his shoulder, Benny said, “You’re welcome. Um, where are the lorpions?”
“Lorp—?” I’d been so consumed by pain, I’d forgotten about the creature that stung me.
We flashed our beams around the room and picked out the two monsters about fifteen feet away, crouched and waiting. Then my skin prickled as two more scorpion-lions (lorpions? sclions?) stalked forward from the shadows to join them.
I tensed. “You know that the candles won’t stop them, right?”
“Duh,” said Benny. “Keep your flashlight on them. I just need to do one thing….” He brought up his phone and snapped a photo, saying, “Cheese!”
Rrruaaghh! The monsters roared in chorus, startled by the flash.
That was enough for us. Benny and I beat feet out of there like the Terminator himself was on our heels.
THE BIKE RIDE home was like watching a zombie movie in Swahili—confusing, scary, and full of unanswered questions. Plus, my limbs were still wobbly after my sting, so we had to flee slowly.
“Well, the good news is, we don’t have ghosts,” I said. My voice wobbled a bit.
Benny gave a shaky laugh. “And we know what made those big paw prints Mr. Boo showed us.”
“Yay, us.”
We rolled along in silence for a while, still trying to deal with what we’d seen.
“A scorpion mixed with a lion?” said Benny. “How is that even possible?”
“I know.” My heart thudded faster at the thought of the creatures. Benny and I pedaled onward, through pools of light cast by streetlamps.
“I’ve got a C in science, and even I know that insects can’t breed with mammals,” he said. “Plus, there’s the whole size difference.”
I shook my head. Traces of my poison-caused visions still shadowed me. Melancholy made me sluggish.
“Poor José,” I murmured. “Poor Mr. Boo and the rest.”
“The victims?”
I nodded. “First, they get blasted with images of their worst fears, then they fall into a permanent sleep.”
Benny glanced over at me. “That’s what happened to you? Hallucinations?”
I tried to swallow around a lump in my throat that felt like an ostrich egg. “It was awful. And if you hadn’t been there, I’d be in a coma right now.”
Benny’s smirk was wistful. “Remember that, come Christmastime. Only sixteen more shopping days left.”
“Seriously,” I said. “You saved me. That was quick thinking.”
He sat up a little straighter. “It was, wasn’t it? Pure instinct, you know. Maybe I’ll become a doctor.”
“But first, Dr. Brackman, we’ve got to tell the hospital how soda counteracts the poison.”
“Absolutely,” said Benny. “We’ll just call them up, and, uh…” He petered out as a thought hit him.
I sagged in my seat, having the same realization. “And tell them, ‘Hey, just pour soda over your comatose patients. That’ll save ’em. No, really, it will.’”
Benny rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, we might need to work on the wording.”
As our bikes leaned into a curve, I said, “We’ll get on it tonight. But right now there’s another problem on my mind.”
“How high to make the monument to my awesomeness?” said Benny.
I sent him a sober look. “How the heck do we drive those monsters out
of town?”
He had no answer for that one.
Turning off the main road, we entered our neighborhood. Blue TV-screen light shone from living room windows. The burble of dinnertime conversation drifted into the night. These people were relaxed, happy. They had no clue about what lurked in our school.
“You know, Mrs. Johnson would want us to tell her about this,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Benny.
“And then back off,” I said.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
I shifted on my seat. “Somehow, that doesn’t sound very heroic.”
“Nope,” Benny agreed, “it doesn’t.”
I didn’t know why (stubbornness? revenge?) but I didn’t want to just step away from this problem. Not yet. I wanted us to come up with a solution on our own.
“We’ve got a day and a half,” I said as we turned into my driveway. “How about we try a couple of things tomorrow, and if they don’t work, then we tell the principal?”
Benny’s grin was as wide as the waistband of a hippo’s tutu. “See? I knew my positive influence would rub off on you.”
We parked our bikes by my garage and headed inside. Tomorrow we’d tackle the monster problem. But tonight? The first thing I did was give my dad and Abuelita a great big hug.
The next morning, before school, we lugged my sister’s karaoke machine to the mechanical room. Our reasoning was, since the scorpion-lions were part cat (okay, lion), maybe we could drive them out with stuff that cats hate. Near the top of that list, Benny assured me, was loud music.
When we reached the room, I’m not ashamed to say I let Benny go inside first. The thought of those scorpion tails still gave me the cold shivers.
“The coast is clear,” Benny said. “Let’s blast out some lorpions.”
I grimaced. “Still don’t think that name is working.”
“What do you want us to call them, then?” he said. “Sclions?”
I cocked my head. “Almost. How about…scorp-lions?”
“Scorp-lions…” Benny tried it out and nodded. “Scorp-lions it is.”
That settled, we plugged in the unit, angling it to give the room maximum coverage. The night before, I had gone through my sister’s karaoke CDs to find the most annoying one.
Reaching into my book bag, I dug out the disc I borrowed from her collection.
Benny squinted at it. “Who’s…Barry Manilow?”
“A scorp-lion’s worst nightmare,” I said, slipping the CD into the player. “Crank it up.”
As soon as the soppy strings and drippy vocals blasted from the speakers, Benny winced. “Ugh, this is putrid!” he shouted.
“Perfect!” I yelled.
We retreated outside before the music made our ears bleed.
“I can’t believe anyone would want to sing this stuff,” said Benny.
“That’s my sister for you,” I said, watching the half-open door. “Too bad she isn’t here to sing now. Those scorp-lions wouldn’t know what hit them.”
A few minutes passed. The second song was even worse than the first. But the monsters didn’t show.
“Anytime now,” said Benny.
We waited. And waited. I actually started humming along with one of the songs before Benny stopped me. Two more tunes went by. Incoming students gave us strange looks as they passed down the hall.
But still no scorp-lions.
Something occurred to me. “Hey, Benny.”
“Yeah?”
“Did we put the speakers in the wrong place?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We’re trying to drive the monsters out, but the music is loudest right by the door. Wouldn’t they head in the other direction?”
“Good point,” said Benny, slumping. Then his face brightened. “Hey, I just realized something.”
“That you’ll never beat me in Minecraft?”
He flashed me a fake smile. “Ha-ha. No, that there must be some kind of tunnel between this room and the portables. How else would these guys be able to sting people in both places and not be seen?”
“Makes sense. So they’ve probably retreated into their tunnel.” I looked him up and down. “You know, you’re a lot brighter than they say.”
Benny held a finger to his lips. “Shhh. If word gets around, Mr. Chu will expect a lot more of me.”
I scratched my head. “So how do we drive the monsters out completely? Blast music at both ends?”
“Nope,” said Benny, patting his book bag. “We take it to the next level.”
But before I could learn what the next level was, the bell rang. Time to pack up the karaoke system and hustle off to Mr. Chu’s room. Maybe, if I got him to sing a few tunes, he’d never find out I didn’t have time to do the math homework last night.
I sighed.
Being a hero and a student at the same time is a lot harder than it looks.
THERE WAS NO singing in class. Instead, we worked on our Greek helmets and shields, which were almost finished. But all I could think was, There’s a ticking time bomb under the school, and we’ve got to defuse it. And quickly, before any more victims fall into comas.
When the recess bell rang, Benny and I launched out the door like pebbles from a slingshot. As we trotted down the hall, Benny patted his book bag.
“Wait till you get a load of this,” he crowed. “It’s awesome.”
“Can’t wait.”
Once again, we slipped through the door into the mechanical room. Benny and I were spending so much time there it was starting to feel like a home away from home. Maybe I’d decorate it with some comfy throw pillows and an Xbox station—as soon as we got rid of the monsters.
“Okay, so what’s our Plan B?” I asked.
Benny dipped into his backpack and set several baggies on the floor with a flourish. “Ta-da!”
“We’re going to drive them off with leftovers?” I asked. “I mean, I know your mom’s tofu nut loaf is pretty scary, but—”
“This,” he said, raising one of the bags to eye level, “nearly got my brother suspended in eighth grade.”
I eyeballed it. There was a smaller bag inside the baggie. The inner one held liquid, and the outer one some kind of powder.
“Okay, so what is it?” I asked.
Benny’s grin dripped with devilment. “The most powerful stink bomb known to mankind—or at least, student-kind.”
“Cool!” I took it from him and examined the thing. “How does it work?”
“Squeeze the inner bag till it pops, then run like heck.” He cackled.
“I meant, how does it make the stink?”
Benny shrugged, impatient. “I dunno. It’s chemistry.”
Carefully, I handed the stink bomb back to him. “And it’ll do the trick?”
“Cats hate strong smells. This’ll have the scorp-lions out of their burrow and running for the hills in no time.”
“Then, bombs away!” I said.
We set the bags in a line near the most likely tunnel location. I wasn’t about to risk another sting by poking around for the actual mouth of the passage. Then…
“Careful not to pop the outside bag,” said Benny, “or we’ll get gassed.”
With all the care of a newbie brain surgeon, we gently squeezed until we burst the four inner bags.
“Now haul buns!” cried Benny.
World Cup soccer players wished they had the kind of speed Benny and I turned on that day. In a mad rush, we blasted across the room and out the door, slamming and locking it behind us.
“Now what?” I said.
“We take a well-deserved play break, and let science do its work.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were back in class, just settling in. I wondered how our latest attempt was working. Had the scorp-lions run off? And how would we know when they had? Mr. Chu let us work on our science-fair projects while he strolled around the room, checking our progress.
“Blinding them with science?” he asked Tina.
She pursed her lips and got back to work.
Tina was demonstrating self-inflating balloons. Tyler and Pete’s project concerned paper-airplane aerodynamics. I assumed Esme Ygorre would try to animate a corpse, like Dr. Frankenstein.
And then it struck me.
“We have no project,” I told Benny.
He scowled. “You’re right. How did we miss that?”
“Maybe because we’ve been spending all our time trying to get rid of monsters?”
“Maybe.” Benny brightened, snapping his fingers. “Hey, that could be our project!”
My forehead crinkled. “The scientific way to get rid of monsters?”
“Exactly!” He held up a hand modestly. “It’s okay. You don’t need to say it—I’m brilliant.”
“That’s good, ’cause I wasn’t going to say it.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any better ideas, so we set to work writing it up. But before Mr. Chu could check on us, our project announced itself to the class.
“Eew,” said Hannah. “What’s that smell?”
“Whoever smelt it, dealt it!” cried Big Pete, with a chortle. I don’t know why, but someone’s always got to make this comment.
I sniffed but didn’t notice anything beyond a very faint egg-y odor.
Still, I could track the stench rolling like a wave from the far wall, just by monitoring my classmates’ reactions.
“OMG!” squealed Cheyenne.
“Ugh!” grunted Tyler.
“Gross!” said Gabi.
Kids fanned the air, held their noses, or hid their faces.
And then the wave reached Benny and me. I nearly gagged on the stink.
It was rotten eggs, mixed with spoiled meat, mixed with the nastiest public toilet you’ve ever encountered. If smells were movie monsters, this was the King Kong champion of stenchiness.
“Pee-yew!” I moaned. “What’s in that stuff?”
“Chemicals,” said Benny. His smile showed behind the hand he’d clapped over his nose. “Isn’t science great?”
“Okay, did someone choose stink-bomb construction for their science project?” asked Mr. Chu. “If so, please dial it down.”
Benny and I carefully kept a straight face. Just our luck—a psychic teacher.