Copyright © 2013 by Quirk Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2011946054
eISBN: 978-1-59474-594-2
Designed by Doogie Horner
Cover photography by Jonathan Pushnik
Cover models: Evangeline Young, Audrey Coughenour, and Damien
Production management by John J. McGurk
Quirk Books
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
quirkbooks.com
v3.1
This book
is for Anna
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Acknowledgments
ONE
Robert Arthur and Glenn Torkells were sitting in the principal’s office.
School had ended twenty minutes earlier. Their classmates were on the lush green lawns of Lovecraft Middle School, tossing Frisbees and baseballs, getting on bikes, and heading for home.
But Robert and Glenn weren’t going anywhere.
They had an appointment to see Principal Slater.
The only other person in the office was the principal’s secretary, Mrs. Polyps. Her fingers pecked frantically at her computer keyboard. Every few moments, she glanced over at the boys and smiled. Her teeth were the color of a yellow school bus.
“This is a dumb idea,” Glenn whispered.
“Shhh,” Robert said.
“No one chooses to go to the principal’s office,” Glenn continued. “You avoid this place. You don’t volunteer to come here and hang out.”
“We’re not hanging out,” Robert said. “We’re going to tell her the school is in danger.”
“She’ll think you’re bonkers.”
“I can prove it.”
Glenn snorted. “I’d like to see how you prove that an army of monsters is getting ready to attack Lovecraft Middle School.”
Mrs. Polyps abruptly stopped typing.
“Be quiet,” Robert whispered.
“Dumb idea,” Glenn repeated. “You’ll see.”
Underneath Robert’s chair, his backpack squirmed. Inside were his pets, a two-headed rat named Pip and Squeak. They had snuck into his backpack a few weeks earlier and they insisted on accompanying him wherever he went. Robert tapped the backpack with his sneaker until the rats fell still.
The boys waited nearly half an hour before Principal Slater opened her door. There were rumors going around Lovecraft Middle School that she used to work as an actress on daytime soap operas. Robert didn’t know if the stories were true, but they were easy enough to believe. Principal Slater was very pretty and had a warm, inviting smile. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “Come on back.”
She ushered them into a sunny office lined with awards and certificates. On her desk were framed photographs of family members and pets. She sat across from Robert and Glenn and sipped coffee from a mug that read WORLD’S BEST PRINCIPAL.
“How can I help you?”
“There’s something we need to explain,” Robert said, “but it’s gonna sound a little weird.”
“A lot weird,” Glenn corrected.
“Go on,” she said, taking another sip.
“We know who kidnapped Sarah and Sylvia Price.”
Principal Slater dropped her mug, spilling coffee all over her desk. She didn’t bother to clean it up. She didn’t even seem to notice.
“This better not be a joke,” she warned.
“I wish I was kidding,” Robert said.
The disappearance of Sarah and Sylvia Price, seventh-grade twins at Lovecraft Middle School, had made headlines throughout New England. Parents feared that the girls had been abducted by some kind of psycho predator. Police led searches through all the surrounding forests, parks, and cities. They found nothing—no evidence, no leads, no clues.
Then, just five days later, Sarah and Sylvia mysteriously returned home, seemingly unharmed, with no memory of where they had been or who had taken them. The police department was baffled. The neighborhood was outraged. But the girls insisted that there was nothing to worry about, everything was fine. They just wanted to go back to living their lives.
“I’m going to call the police,” Principal Slater explained, “and we’re going to talk about this with some detectives. But first I want you to tell me who kidnapped Sarah and Sylvia.”
“This is the weird part,” Glenn warned.
Robert nodded. “They were kidnapped by monsters.”
Principal Slater leaned forward. “Could you say that last part again? It sounded like you said ‘monsters.’ ”
Robert took a deep breath and started from the beginning. He reminded her that Lovecraft Middle School had been constructed almost entirely from recycled materials—old windows, doors, floor tiles, and the like. What most people didn’t realize is that these materials had come from an abandoned mansion on the far end of town. Thirty years ago, this mansion had been home to a physicist named Crawford Tillinghast. He had been working in secret with a team of scientists to summon ancient races of demons and monsters. It was widely believed that Tillinghast and his employees had died in an explosion, but the truth was more complicated.
“They didn’t really die,” Robert explained. “They just copied the house to another dimension.”
“Another dimension,” Principal Slater repeated. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Like a world within our world,” Robert explained. “And here’s the really crazy part. When the original mansion was recycled into Lovecraft Middle School, it created these holes. Like gates between the two worlds. If you find one, you can leave Lovecraft Middle School and cross over to Tillinghast Mansion.”
“Have you done this yourself?” Principal Slater asked. “You’ve been inside this Tillyghost Mansion?”
“Tillinghast,” Glenn corrected.
“We’ve been there,” Robert said. “So have Sarah and Sylvia Price. That’s what we’re trying to explain. They crossed over to Tillinghast and their souls were captured. The girls who returned aren’t really Sarah and Sylvia. They’re monsters in disguise.”
Principal Slater shook her head in weary disbelief. “Seriously? Like Frankenstein?”
“More prehistoric,” Robert said. “Like ancient demons. They wear our skins like masks.”
Principal Slater laughed. “Come on, boys. You’re talking to a former biology teacher. Do you understand how the human epidermis works? Do you understand why this is anatomically impossible?”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Robert said. “But I’ve seen it. We both have.”
“It’s true,” Glenn said. “Professor Goyle was one of them. And now they’ve got Sarah and Sylvia Price.”
Principal Slater brought both hands to her head, as if trying to steady her thoughts. “Let’s assume everything you’re saying is true. What would you like me to do?”
“Tell people,” R
obert said. “Tell everyone. Before any more kids are captured.”
“I can’t tell this story without proof,” Principal Slater said. “People will think I’m nuts. What kind of evidence do you have?”
Robert shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? No photos on a cell phone? No witnesses? Nothing at home in your bedroom?”
“Not yet,” Robert admitted.
“We’re working on it,” Glenn said.
“That’s not good enough.” Principal Slater rose from her desk, walked over to the door, and punched a passcode into the lock. The deadbolt turned with a loud thunk. “Without proof, I’m afraid can’t tell anyone.”
When she returned to her chair, Robert saw that her face was flushed. Something was wrong. The skin on her forehead was twitching, pulsing, blistering. Principal Slater continued speaking like nothing was out of the ordinary, but her voice had deepened to a hoarse croak: “I’m afraid we’ll have to keep this just between us.”
She extended her left arm, only it wasn’t an arm, not anymore—it was a slender, slippery tentacle covered with hundreds of tiny suckers.
Glenn recoiled but wasn’t fast enough. Principal Slater already had him by the waist. Another tentacle lashed out, coiling around his leg and hoisting him out of his chair.
Robert grabbed the tentacle by its tip, trying to wrest it loose, only to find the surface covered in barbed stingers; it was like squeezing a handful of thorns.
“Grab my ankles!” Glenn shouted.
Robert tried but wasn’t strong enough to hold on. By this point Principal Slater had molted the rest of her human skin; she now resembled something like a giant frog with an enormous mouth. She was still speaking, but her language was incomprehensible: “Zlagh fahn mynakos. Zlagh f’yaloh!”
She didn’t stop speaking until she had stuffed Glenn’s head and torso into her gaping maw. His legs flailed back and forth as gravity forced him further down the creature’s throat.
Robert climbed onto the principal’s desk and pulled on Glenn’s feet, but his puny arms were no match for the giant slurping jaws of the beast. Robert was too weak to do anything. He was too weak, too weak, too weak …
TWO
Then the door opened.
And everything changed.
No Glenn. No principal. No frog monster.
Just Mrs. Arthur, Robert’s mother, dressed in her nurse’s scrubs, standing in the doorway of his bedroom with one hand on the light switch.
“Sweetie?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
Robert sat up in bed. He’d been having a nightmare. Just the latest in a long string of nightmares since he’d arrived at Lovecraft Middle School six weeks ago.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just a bad dream.”
“Go back to sleep.”
His mother turned off the light and closed the door. Robert glanced over at his clock radio. It was still early, not even six o’clock, but he knew he wouldn’t fall back asleep.
He walked downstairs to the kitchen, where his mother was eating a bowl of cornflakes and clipping coupons from the newspaper. Mrs. Arthur worked the early shift at Dunwich Memorial Hospital; most mornings, she was out the door before Robert woke up.
“You want me to fix you some eggs?”
“No, thanks.”
“You’re sure? I’ve got time.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Mrs. Arthur frowned. “What was your dream about?”
Robert wished he could tell his mother the truth, but he didn’t want her to worry. She already had enough problems, between doing all the cooking and all the cleaning and earning enough money to support them. She didn’t need to know that his school was full of portals to an alternate dimension.
“I don’t remember,” he finally said.
She could tell he was lying. “You can talk to me,” she assured him. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure how to explain it.”
Mrs. Arthur abruptly stood up and left the kitchen. She returned moments later with a brown cardboard shoe box. “I was going to save this for your birthday, but I want you to have it now.”
“What is it?”
“Open it,” she said. “Go on.”
Robert pulled off the lid. Inside he found a hairbrush, two sticks of roll-on deodorant, a pack of disposable razors, and a can of shaving cream.
“It’s a Puberty Kit,” his mother explained.
“A what?”
“Your body’s changing, Robert. It’s a very stressful time. These are the tools you’ll need as you grow into a man.”
Robert already knew all about puberty. At school, they’d been warning him about puberty since the fourth grade.
“This is a confusing time to be a boy, and it’s normal to have worries,” his mother continued. “I just wish you had a father to answer your personal questions.”
Robert sifted through the contents of the Puberty Kit. At the bottom of the box was a paperback book called Help! My Body Is Changing! On the cover was an illustration of a nervous-looking twelve-year-old boy with question marks exploding from his head.
“If you have something you don’t feel comfortable asking me,” his mother explained, “you might find the answer inside this book. Remember, you can’t trust what you read on the Internet.”
“I know,” Robert said. “Thank you.”
After his mother left for work, he read the book’s table of contents. It consisted of one hundred short cries for help:
Help! My Voice Is Changing!
Help! My Armpits Are Stinky!
Help! I’m Getting Pimples!
Robert closed the book and sighed.
The truth—and he’d rather die than admit the truth to anyone—was that he didn’t have any of these problems. His voice wasn’t changing. His armpits weren’t stinky. He’d almost had a pimple, but it turned out to be a mosquito bite.
Meanwhile, all the other kids in his grade were growing up fast. Glenn was just three months older than Robert, but he’d already been shaving for a year. The other boys in their class were getting taller and stronger and faster and louder; compared to them Robert still looked and felt like a little kid.
He scanned the page looking for an entry that read “Help! I’m Almost Thirteen Years Old and I Still Have the Muscles of a Third-Grader!” but apparently Robert’s condition was so freakish and rare, the authors of the book didn’t even bother to include it.
Pip and Squeak climbed onto his shoulder and nuzzled his neck, hungry for their breakfast. Robert scratched them behind the ears. “Well,” he said, “it’s a good thing we have more important things to worry about.”
THREE
Later that morning, when Robert arrived at school, the main lobby was filled with seventh- and eighth-graders. There appeared to be some kind of pep rally. Robert was greeted by a girl carrying a tray of cupcakes.
“Success has a price!” she exclaimed, pushing a cupcake into his hands. “Vote Sarah Price!”
There were muffins and brownies and cookies, too—all arranged on a table festooned with balloons and streamers. Sarah and Sylvia Price were chatting and laughing and dishing out treats. The PA system was blasting pop songs. Robert had never been to a real teenage party with music and dancing, but he imagined this was what they looked like.
Sarah climbed onto a chair and shouted, “Lovecraft students are the best! I love you guys!”
“We love you too, Sarah!” someone shouted back.
“I love my sister!” Sylvia exclaimed. “Go Sarah! You’re awesome! Go Lovecraft! Wooooo!”
Robert pushed his way through the crowd. He found Glenn Torkells and Karina Ortiz watching from a distance, far from the other students.
“What the heck is going on?” he asked.
“Sarah’s running for student council president,” Glenn said.
“Why?”
“It’s a smart move,” Karina said. “Tillinghast wants to take over the school, so he’
s starting at the top. Once Sarah controls student council, she can lead all the students right into his trap.”
Karina was Robert’s only other friend at Lovecraft Middle School—and the only other person who knew the secret of the Price sisters. Karina had died in Tillinghast Mansion at the age of twelve and her spirit was imprisoned behind its walls for thirty years. Robert and Glenn helped her escape to Lovecraft Middle School, where she passed herself off as a living, breathing middle school student. You’d never know she was a ghost unless you accidentally bumped into her—which is why Karina always lingered on the edges of crowds, far from the other students.
“Do you think she’ll win?” Robert asked.
“Of course she will. She’s pretty and popular and all her friends are going to vote for her.”
Sarah certainly had tons of friends, judging from the crowds in the hallway. “Who’s running against her?”
“I forget his name,” Glenn said. “Harold somebody.”
He pointed to a boy sitting alone at an empty table, holding a mug full of No. 2 pencils. This was Howard Mergler, a boy from Robert’s Social Studies class. Howard had been in a car accident three years earlier, and now he walked using forearm crutches and wore orthotic braces on his knees. If you got stuck behind him walking down a flight of stairs, you were guaranteed to be late for class.
“Hey, Howard,” Robert said.
“Good morning!” Howard held out the mug. “Would you like a pencil?”
“Sure.”
“Sharpened or unsharpened?”
“Um, I don’t care.”
Howard gave him one of each. The pencils were inscribed with the words FOR SMART & RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP VOTE HOWARD MER.
“Howard Mer?” Robert asked.
“There was only space for fifty characters,” Howard sighed. “No one told me when I placed the order. I should have just made cupcakes.”
“Who wants cupcakes?” Sarah shouted.
“Who wants brownies?” Sylvia cheered.
“Wooooooooooo!” they hollered together.
Howard ignored them. “If I’m elected president,” he promised Robert, “I’ll keep school computers at the forefront of technology. And I’ll bring more nutritious lunches into the school cafeteria …”
The Slither Sisters Page 1