A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting #1

by Joe Ballarini

  “This is the monster that took Liz and Jacob,” I said between bites. “I have the weirdest feeling I’ve met him before,” I said.

  Mama Vee’s emerald eyes narrowed at me. “You have,” she said.

  I stopped eating. The cookies bunched in my stomach.

  Images shined in my memory. My closet. The Grand Guignol’s voice. Singing, hypnotizing. My hands clutching my teddy bear. The inside of a dark burlap sack. Veronica’s face smiling down at me, dimples, long hair. Back then she said it was just a nightmare.

  “That wasn’t a nightmare. That was real,” I said. “And you . . . saved my life?”

  The silver-haired woman nodded and then stared off with a disappointed, faraway look. She clutched a crystal dangling from her necklace. “I thought I got rid of him. That’s why he’s not in any of the SIT guides. But . . . he’s in mine. . . .”

  She removed an old, dusty Trapper Keeper with a tattered blue notebook tucked inside. “Property of Veronica Preston.” I thought back to teenage Veronica sitting on our couch, scribbling notes inside of it, claiming it was algebra homework. I smiled a little, remembering how cool I thought she was. She wore toe rings, and she talked on the phone to boys, and her braid was as long as I was tall.

  Vee opened the guide. Sketches of monsters and demons were lit by the flicker of passing yellow streetlamps. She handed it to me and turned to a page taped with fluttering newspaper clippings: “Twins Missing, 1823.” “Explosion in Kindergarten, 1900.” “Baby Vanishes, 1900.” “Drowning at Falls, 1923.” “Kidnapping from Mall, 1975.”

  Old, blurry photographs and children’s drawings from different eras crinkled in the guide. Each of them showed a man with hooves for feet, wearing a black suit and matching Jacob’s drawing with chilling similarity.

  From Veronica Preston’s Copy of

  A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

  THE GRAND GUIGNOL

  ORIGIN: Underworld? Realm of the Unknown and Unmeasured? Alabama?

  CURRENT HAUNTS: Western Hemisphere? Eastern Hemisphere? New England?

  BEWARE! El Grande’s mind is powerful. It’s worse than any slithering tail or sharp claw, because he can make you believe something you knew was false—and he can make you see it, too. If he wants you to think the sky is green, well, when you look up, the sky will be green. Having a powerful mind doesn’t make you a monster. It’s how you use it that does.

  The Grand Guignol is one of the Boogeymen.

  He feeds on fear.

  POSSIBLE WEAKNESS: Silver daggers. Angel Fire. Silver daggers NO BUENO. Angel Fire BIG WIN.

  I looked up in panic.

  “‘One of the Boogeymen’?” I squeaked. “As in . . . more than one Boogey?”

  Mama Vee gave me a grim look. “The council has identified a total of seven Boogeymen.”

  “Seven?” The cookie crumbs in my mouth felt like sawdust.

  Mama Vee’s face darkened. Her eyebrows knitted with sadness. “I thought I got rid of him. But . . . I failed. And now look what’s happened. . . .” The sound of tiny wings angrily flapped from inside the tucked-away box. “Tonight’s only the tip of the iceberg, kiddo,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek.

  The pages of the guide rustled in my shaking hands. There was a picture of a four-year-old preschool boy, with the name “Kevin” written below it, stapled to the page.

  His shaggy hair, his missing front tooth.

  Kev. Liz’s little brother.

  “I need you to focus, Kelly,” Mama Vee said, touching my shoulder. “I checked where El Grande used to haunt, but he wasn’t there. It’s just a grocery store now. We don’t know where he is, so it’s very important that you remember where he took Liz.”

  “W-where—?” I stuttered, trying to remember the carriage vanishing into the cold fog.

  Where did it go?

  My mind was blank except for Liz’s echoing scream. It all happened so fast. I didn’t see where he went. I didn’t even know the direction. I hit my forehead with my knuckles, as if my memory were a bottle of ketchup I could get flowing. Still nothing.

  Mama Vee’s glum reaction made me hate myself for not paying more attention at the moment Liz was taken.

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” she said, taking my fist away from my forehead. “I should have been there tonight, but I got held up.” Her strong demeanor seemed to crumble. “Ten-foot-tall tarantula in Seekonk laid its eggs in a kid’s attic. Don’t ask,” she sighed, then tensed the muscles in her jaw. “Now I realize, it was a distraction to keep me from the big show. I should’ve known better.”

  The van rattled as Wugnot downshifted, steering through a suburban street.

  Come on, Kelly! Think.

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out the lens. “Liz got that off a Toadie,” I said, handing Mama Vee the odd piece of glass. “So maybe it’s from wherever they’re keeping Jacob. I dunno. Maybe it’s a giant contact lens?”

  “I’d hate to see that eye,” Wugnot said, chuckling.

  Mama Vee turned it over with her fingers, feeling the spiral ridges.

  “Guide says Toadies like shiny stuff.” I shrugged. “They probably stole that from the Grand Guignol’s hideout.” A puzzled yet amused smile spread across Vee’s face as she stared at me. I blushed, self-conscious. “I mean, I could be wrong,” I said into my sleeve.

  “Doubt it,” she said, looking through the glass, her magnified eye fixed on me, like she were reading a book printed on my forehead. “Always knew you’d be a babysitter.” Her tone sounded strangely proud.

  My eyebrows peaked. “Me? I’m . . . not really the warrior type of girl.”

  “Then what type of girl are you?” she said.

  I shrugged and chewed the sleeve of my brown sweater.

  I’m the type of girl who wants to live long enough to go to summer camp.

  At least that was honest, but it didn’t feel right to say it.

  “What about all those random jobs you had? Don’t you think they prepared you for this?” Vee asked.

  Packing groceries was a good workout, but how did she even know about that?

  “I keep track of all my kids,” she added with a wink. “Especially the ones with . . . promise.” Passing headlights flooded the van, illuminating Mama Vee’s eyes like shining emeralds. “But you never stayed too long, did you?” she continued in a mysterious tone. “Because they weren’t the right fit.”

  “I thought it was ’cause I hate working,” I mumbled.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Ever think maybe this might be your fit?”

  I shifted under her piercing stare. The smell of patchouli and stinky-cheese hobgoblin feet was gagging me. And the fluttering, shaking thing in the box at the back of the van was really freaking me out.

  I rolled down the window. Icy wind shot inside, refreshing me as I breathed in deep. I stared at the houses streaking past and thought of all the people asleep in their beds, cozy and clueless. Mama Vee leaned closer to me.

  “Why do you think the Grand Guignol came after you all those years ago, Kelly?”

  I went completely still.

  Mama Vee reached out to gently turn my chin so my eyes met hers. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you, kiddo.”

  30

  The van veered off the road and roared across the remains of the Enchanted Forest Amusement Park. Mud splattered the windshield as the van shot past a giant, cracked plastic unicorn with cartoony eyes.

  I held on to the rocking cabin, thousands of questions whizzing through my head.

  “We”? More babysitters, monster hunters? Waiting? For me? What did I do? Or what was I going to do? ’Cause I’m not planning on doing anything. The Grand Guignol came after me when I was a little kid, not because I was weak, but because I was . . . What was I?

  Not to toot my own horn, but what if . . . what if this was like my truth or something?

  A strange warmth fluttered through me. The thought of one of the seven Boogeymen being afrai
d of me when I was four years old made me smile. Maybe I wasn’t so helpless after all.

  The van jolted to a stop, and I tumbled forward, bonking my head on a wood cabinet. The door rumbled open.

  Moonlight beamed on the melted faces of fairy-tale statues in the failed theme park. Glints of light and metal swooped through the decaying figures of frog princes and knights in armor.

  “Vee!” screamed Berna.

  Cassie, Curtis, and Berna pedaled fiercely toward us. They bumped down a hill onto a fallen sign that read “Welcome to the Enchanted Forest.” They launched off the makeshift ramp and flew toward the van.

  WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH.

  They skidded their BMX bikes to a stop in line with one another, standing at attention before Mama Vee.

  “President Preston,” Curtis said, giving Mama Vee a crisp salute.

  “KELLY!” Berna shouted happily at me. She sprang off her bike and into the back of the van. “Newbie’s still alive.” She hugged me, her gum snapping in my ear. “I got your location and I sent it to Vee.”

  I hugged Berna thankfully. She smelled like sugary, fruity candy.

  “Way to be alive, Newbie.” Curtis said, snapping his boots together with a crooked salute.

  Cassie narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. She seemed suspicious that I could have made it this far without getting killed. Wugnot scrambled out of the window to help them tie their bikes to the roof.

  “Ooorah, Wugnot!” Curtis said, reaching up to high-five the hobgoblin. Wugnot snorted, his tail slapping Curtis’s palm.

  “I inshishted we call you, Preshident Preshton,” Cassie sprayed to Mama Vee. “But I wash vetoed.”

  Berna groaned. Mama Vee cocked her head at Cassie. “No one likes a suck-up, Cassie.” I giggled with Berna and Curtis.

  Cassie blushed and then looked around the van. “Where ish Lish?” she asked.

  The smile fell from my face. They all stared at me.

  “She was taken by the Grand Guignol,” I said quietly.

  Berna stopped chewing her gum. Cassie mumbled, spit dripping from the end of her hanging lip. Curtis’s crooked eyes darted around, as if he couldn’t believe Liz wasn’t here.

  “This is a total”—his breath trembled to get the words out—“soup sandwich, man.”

  “We’re going to get her back,” Vee called out, breaking our sad silence. She clunked down in the passenger seat and pulled a lever. The seat unhinged and swiveled around to face us.

  “Liz nicked that off the Toadie,” she said, tossing the glass lens to Berna. “It’s our only chance of finding her and Jacob and the four other kids that have gone missing tonight.”

  “Four other kids?” whispered Berna.

  Mama Vee nodded regretfully.

  “Do your thing, Bloodhound,” Mama Vee said to Berna.

  Cassie and Curtis huddled around Berna as she balanced the Toadie’s glass on her fingertips and her gum chewing went into overdrive. Her eyes narrowed, and she blew a fantastic bubble. Everyone watched in silence, their eyes widening with the expanding swirls of purple and pink and green gum. Ever so slightly, her left hair puff twitched and trembled.

  “Could’ve come off a chandelier, but I don’t know where,” I said.

  Berna’s bubble popped, but her eyes remained fixed on the spiral ridges winding around the glass. “Keep talking,” she said.

  “Uh. Or it could be like a lens for a lighthouse.” I shrugged.

  Berna blinked. She sucked in her gum and held up her finger for total silence. The only sounds were frogs croaking in the swampy, rundown park and Berna’s teeth grinding into her gum.

  “Last year, I wrote a history report that got a B plus,” Berna began slowly. “The report was about an Italian shipbuilder slash whaler named Enrico Colleti who moved to Rhode Island in 1803.” I glanced around the van. Everyone was leaning forward, drawn in by Berna’s voice. “He had a method of making glass that left spirals in it that looked just like this,” she said, pointing at the winding ridges. “He also built a lighthouse here and named it after his Native American wife. And it was called . . .”

  Her chewing slowed. Berna reached into her mouth, removed the wad of gum, and stuck it to the wall of the van in defeat.

  “I forget,” she blurted out.

  Cassie, Curtis, Wugnot, Vee, and I slumped back, the spell broken. I pulled at the frayed end of my brown sweater and wondered if I would be judged for chewing on it like a rabid bunny.

  “THE QEEQONG LIGHTHOUSE!” Berna cried. She snatched her gum from the wall, popping it back into her mouth.

  “Get us there, Wuggie!” Mama Vee commanded.

  Wugnot’s tail threw the van into gear. I tumbled off a gypsy fart pillow. Wugnot snorted. “Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times,” he said, pulling the wheel violently to the left. He snatched a scroll from a box above the driver’s seat. Driving with one hand, his tail unrolled a centuries’-old map of Rhode Island.

  “Eyes on the road!” screamed Mama Vee.

  Wugnot swerved around deer standing in the middle of the street. We screamed. The thing in the box let out a piercing shriek. Wugnot coolly tossed the map back to Curtis, who looked like the only one who enjoyed Wugnot’s merciless driving.

  “You navigate, I’ll drive, soldier,” Wugnot growled.

  “Sir, yes, sir!” said Curtis. He stuck his nose an inch away from the map. “Qee-kong? Quong? Am I saying that right? It’s two clicks due north and seven clicks east, sir.”

  “Just tell me left or right, kid,” grumbled the ancient hobgoblin. He punched the gas while jamming the stereo on full blast—heavy metal insanity. I pressed my palms against my ears and saw Berna and Cassie and Mama Vee casually stuff cotton into theirs.

  “Cool down, Wugnot,” Vee warned him. “Remember what happened last time you got excited.”

  “Buckle up,” Wugnot smirked as he reached for a switch on the dash marked “Ax Beak Boost.”

  BOOM! The engine wailed and screamed sparks, and we rocketed across the jagged, coastal road, clinging to the seats. Wugnot’s chuckle went from raspy and low to a shrieking, high-pitched cackle.

  Curtis held on to Cassie for support while he read the old map. “Lighthouse! Dead ahead!”

  Like a skeleton’s finger jutting up from the earth, the lighthouse glowed bone white in the full moon. A fierce wind ripped across the ocean, smashing massive waves into the rocky shore below. Its dirt-caked windows were dark and cracked from years of neglect.

  Wugnot’s tail yanked up the emergency brake, sending the van into circles. The world blurred and my teeth rattled. Berna reached out and grabbed my hand. The van finally wobbled, stopping on its giant tires.

  We piled out and stood before the dead lighthouse. Someone had spray-painted a huge smiley face with Xs for eyes on the front. The face’s drippy, red-painted smile looked like it was grinning a mouth full of blood. There was a steel door at the base, welded to the frame with a thick metal scar and rivets. The handle had been torn off.

  Mama Vee reached into the van and pulled up the old carpet on the floor to reveal a hidden compartment lined with swords, clubs, blades, potions, and a small wooden box. A large test tube of twinkling blue powder was nestled inside the box’s velvet lining. She held it up, admiring its sparkling crystals.

  “Angel Fire. Collected from the tears of angels by ancient Irish babysitters. Grand Guignol, you’re going down.”

  It felt good to know she was confident and ready to kick the Grand Guignol’s twitchy tail—especially when my insides were nothing but a bowl of shuddering pudding.

  She tucked the vial into her overall pocket and pulled her long, silvery braid into a bun, jamming a knitting needle in it to hold it in place. She snatched a hook and chain from the secret compartment and swung it around her midsection, and it wrapped around her like a snake, locking into place.

  Next she pulled a large oak tube from underneath the passenger’s seat and whirled it in her hands. Slammed
it down. A thick steel barb shot from its end. SHINK!

  “Be careful in there,” she said. “The Grand Guignol can worm his way into your mind and make you believe things that aren’t real.” She warned us as she tapped her finger against her forehead. “So keep a clear head.”

  A terrible thought crept up on me. I raised my hand. “If the Grand Guignol can manipulate minds . . . what would happen if he got into Jacob’s nightmares?”

  Mama Vee slung her harpoon over her shoulder, and I was filled with an ominous feeling.

  “If he seizes control of Jacob’s nightmares,” she said in a chilled hush, “he could turn the world into a living nightmare.”

  “That’s why he took Jacob,” I said. “He’s going to turn his Gift into an atomic nightmare bomb.”

  Swirling black clouds boiled as crashing waves sprayed me with chilly salt water. I shivered, finally understanding. . . .

  The Time of Nightmares has begun.

  31

  My hair whipped wildly into my eyes. Curtis smeared his face with camouflage makeup and offered me some. I thanked him and looked at the hardware Berna was sliding out of her backpack: a Louisville Slugger baseball bat with an iron skull fixed to the end. Cassie turned on a headlamp, reached behind her backpack, and removed a pair of machetes that she spun through the air like color guard flags.

  She tucked her swords back into the holsters under her pack and straightened her collar. Curtis stroked a teddy bear in his hand.

  “Um. Can—can I get, like, a sword or a cool crossbow?” I asked, feeling very empty-handed.

  Mama Vee tossed me batteries for my flashlight.

  “Keep the fire burning, kiddo.” She winked.

  “But. Um. I’d like some—some hardware, please.”

  Mama Vee turned her full attention on me. “A babysitter’s greatest weapon isn’t their fists or their ability to change a diaper with one hand. It’s their brains. Their courage. Their love for those in need. That’s why parents entrust us with their children. And that’s what gives us the power to defeat evil.”

  The SITs nodded, listening to Vee. I shifted, pulling at my green jacket. “Totally. Yeah. I get that. But can I get a weapon?” I asked again.