Monster Club

by Gavin Brown

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Tommy

  Chapter 2: Spike

  Chapter 3: Karim

  Chapter 4: Tommy

  Chapter 5: Spike

  Chapter 6: Karim

  Chapter 7: Tommy

  Chapter 8: Spike

  Chapter 9: Tommy

  Chapter 10: Spike

  Chapter 11: Karim

  Chapter 12: Tommy

  Chapter 13: Spike

  Chapter 14: Karim

  Chapter 15: Tommy

  Chapter 16: Spike

  Chapter 17: Karim

  Chapter 18: Tommy

  Chapter 19: Spike

  Chapter 20: Karim

  Chapter 21: Spike

  Chapter 22: Tommy

  Chapter 23: Karim

  Chapter 24: Spike

  Chapter 25: Tommy

  Chapter 26: Karim

  Chapter 27: Spike

  Chapter 28: Karim

  Chapter 29: Tommy

  Chapter 30: Spike

  Chapter 31: Karim

  Chapter 32: Tommy

  Chapter 33: Spike

  Chapter 34: Karim

  Chapter 35: Tommy

  Chapter 36: Spike

  Chapter 37: Karim

  Chapter 38: Tommy

  Chapter 39: Karim

  Chapter 40: Spike

  Chapter 41: Karim

  Chapter 42: Spike

  Chapter 43: Tommy

  Chapter 44: Karim

  Chapter 45: Spike

  Chapter 46: Tommy

  Chapter 47: Spike

  Chapter 48: Tommy

  Chapter 49: Karim

  Chapter 50: Spike

  Chapter 51: Karim

  Chapter 52: Tommy

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Everyone in Ms. Jander’s third-period science class jumped when the alarm buzzed and red-and-white lights started flashing above the door.

  Tommy Wainwright tensed in his seat. Was this it—a real emergency? An opportunity to escape a deadly fire? Or an infestation of acidic toads they would need to battle their way through? Had Karim been right about the basilisk footprints he said he found? Tommy was ready for anything.

  Principal Jackson’s voice crackled over the intercom. “This is not a drill. Everyone please remain where you are. We will update you soon.”

  Tommy grinned at his friends Karim and Spike, who were sitting next to him at the back of the class. Karim looked scared, as usual, and Spike was just watching with a knowing smirk. They didn’t get it. This could be their big chance to have something crazy awesome happen!

  Suddenly, the flashing lights went dark. The classroom erupted with chatter, but Ms. Jander rapped her knuckles on her desk and the students fell mostly silent.

  “I know you’re all distracted, but we’re not finished with class,” she said. “We need to get through this week’s unit on substances with mystical properties. The supernatural biology group presentations are just around the corner.”

  The class groaned in unison.

  “Yesterday,” Ms. Jander continued, “we covered mystical substances like sour ooze, which can expand from a small mass to a hundred times its original size. Last night’s reading was on a different substance with mystical properties.”

  Tommy perked up when she mentioned “supernatural biology” and “sour ooze.” Finally, they were talking about something useful in science class! Enough of this stuff about the water cycle and electricity; studying monsters was the only thing that could make school interesting.

  “Tommy, did you do the reading last night?” Ms. Jander asked.

  Perking up had clearly been a mistake. “Uh, yeah,” Tommy said. It wasn’t a total lie; he’d glanced at it when she handed it out. That counted for something, right?

  Tommy didn’t know why Ms. Jander called on him so much. Maybe it was how often he got distracted during class. Or it might be because Tommy was a head taller than most of the other seventh graders. He normally enjoyed looking like a giant among mere mortals, but it did seem to draw an unusual amount of attention from teachers—even if they often assumed he was a big idiot. Just because he was a big hunk of beefcake didn’t mean he was a moron.

  “Tommy, do you remember the difference between a meteoroid, a meteor, a meteorite, and meteorium?”

  Tommy stared back blankly. Those words were all really similar. Why should there even be a difference?

  “Well? It was in last night’s reading.” Ms. Jander didn’t seem disappointed; she didn’t expect Tommy to know the answer. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him off the hook.

  A lesser person would have stayed silent, or admitted to not knowing the answer. But that wasn’t Tommy. No, Tommy never backed down from a challenge, no matter where it came from, no matter how ill-prepared he was. So what if he didn’t have the answer in his head? Tommy might not be book smart, but at least he had guts. Maybe he was gut smart.

  “Meteors are shooting stars.” He knew that much was true. “And, um, meteoroids are people who are big fans of them. And meteorites are, like, people who shoot them down.” Tommy nodded. He’d probably nailed it, just by listening to his gut.

  “And meteorium?” Ms. Jander asked.

  “Uh … that’s when you grind up meteors and use it to season burgers.” Tommy was pretty sure he’d seen that on Now You’re Cooking with Gas, his favorite cooking show. Gaston Lefevre was both a great chef and totally ripped. “Mussels to build muscles” was an inspirational segment.

  Ms. Jander stared at him for a moment. “Well, that’s very … creative, Tommy,” she said. “But sadly not the least bit correct. Does anyone want to help him out?”

  Tommy sagged in his chair. Of course he’d gotten it wrong. Maybe he was just the big dumb lug everyone thought he was. Just because he started every morning with a Brotein (“The power to bro down and crush it”) shake, that didn’t make him dumb.

  And now the whole class was staring at him. He could feel them judging him. He looked around, hoping that someone would bail him out, but no one else said a thing.

  Ms. Jander focused her attention on someone else. “Karim, what about you?”

  Karim shrunk back. “Um … meteorium is what you can make magical weapons out of.” He sped up as he got started. “You have to forge it properly, usually with volcanic heat. Like my dad did in the episode when he needed a magical ballista bolt to defeat the—”

  “Thank you,” Ms. Jander interrupted him. “That’s correct. Which is why meteorium is one of the most valuable substances on earth. It’s the only thing that can harm most monsters.”

  That was actually pretty cool, Tommy had to admit. He resolved to do more than just glance at the reading next time.

  “What about meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids?” Ms. Jander asked.

  More silence. Tommy stared at his desk. Maybe he should give his gut smarts another crack at it. Maybe they just needed to warm up first.

  But then Spike sighed and spoke up. “Meteoroids are rocky bodies in space. A meteor is the streak of light we see in the sky when the meteoroid burns up in our atmosphere. And meteorites are just meteoroids after they land on Earth.”

  Ms. Jander nodded sharply. “There! That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “How did you know that?” Tommy whispered. It really wasn’t like Spike to study any time there wasn’t a test the next day.

  Spike shrugged and pointed at the front of the room. It was all Tommy could do to keep from smacking himself on the forehead. The answer was already written on the board, probably from the last class. All he’d needed to do was look.

  I wasn’t made for this school stuff, he thought. I w
as made for big adventures.

  That’s when the alarm went off a second time.

  Principal Jackson’s voice boomed from a speaker on the wall. Most people looked up at the ceiling as if they were hearing the voice of God, but Spike knew better—she had once snuck into the office to make a fake announcement. The intercom was just a microphone still slightly sticky from someone spilling a drink on it years ago.

  “Can I have your attention, please,” the voice said. “A basilisk has been sighted in the school. All students and staff are to remain in their classrooms with the doors closed while an agent from the Burbank Monster Control Bureau handles the situation.”

  “I was right!” Karim whispered. The class hummed with a mix of excitement and fear.

  Spike sighed. “Yeah, but this ruins our plan.” From the moment Karim had spotted basilisk footprints in the dust under a radiator, they had been plotting to catch it themselves. “There’s no way we can hunt it now. They’ll have ‘professionals’ ”—she said that last part with air quotes—“take care of it.”

  Monsters were all around, sure, and they’d seen a couple of Level 1 monsters in captivity at Adventure Camp, where they learned how to be adventurers and hunt monsters. But having a real Level 2 monster like a basilisk at their school seemed about as likely as a big movie star showing up in the cafeteria. They lived a half hour’s drive from Hollywood, so it wasn’t totally impossible. But yesterday the basilisk in the school had seemed like a fantasy. Suddenly, it was real.

  “Are you saying I got that weasel fur for nothing?” Tommy asked. “That was not easy!”

  “Yup,” Spike answered, smiling. “Sorry.” Their chance to hunt a monster was ruined, but the thought of Tommy somehow shaving a weasel—and it being completely pointless—did bring her some small consolation.

  The class buzzed with speculation as a van with flashing lights rushed past the window.

  “It’s kind of a relief that monster control will be taking care of it, right?” Karim whispered as everyone ran to the window. “At least we know my footprint ID was right.”

  Ms. Jander tried to get the class back on track again, but it was a losing battle. Spike could’ve told her it was a total waste of time, but for the next ten minutes the teacher tried to lecture them about the moon’s orbit. Still, the students were all fidgeting, checking their phones or peering out the windows, as if something interesting was happening.

  It was almost starting to get funny to watch, when the lights flashed and the principal’s voice crackled on the loudspeaker again. “All students and staff are directed to follow the emergency exit signs and evacuate the building.”

  “What happened to monster control?” one student asked.

  Spike scoffed and headed for the door.

  Outside, the hallways were chaotic. Students pushed and shoved to get in front of one another. The normal order of fire drills had evaporated under the threat of a real monster.

  As she was carried in the press of students, Spike whistled softly to Tommy and Karim. In a nook outside the art room, two students had been turned to stone—actual gray rock. The basilisk was no joke, though Spike knew the petrification effect would wear off eventually. Maria Struthers and Eddie Suarez had their arms wrapped around each other, and both were frozen looking down in shock, presumably where the basilisk had been when their eyes met.

  “Looks like somebody was skipping class for a quick smooch!” Tommy said with glee.

  Some students were giggling, but others looked scared.

  Spike shrugged. “We don’t have time to stand around and gawk. Now’s our chance.” This was their moment, and Spike was not about to let anything get in their way.

  “Chance for what?” Karim asked.

  These boys sure were thick. As the other students and teachers stared dumbfounded at the petrified kids, Spike pulled her friends out of the crowd and through a set of doors. She was going to lead them to victory, no matter what it took.

  The three friends ducked underneath a staircase as students clomped down the stairs above them, ringing on the metal like a stampede of spike-horned ironhooves. Or, at least, what Karim imagined ironhooves would sound like if they ran down a flight of stairs. It didn’t make sense, but that was the picture in his head. Which was pretty typical of the things that bounced around in there.

  The trio stood still while the herd above them thinned to just a few footfalls, then silence.

  “What are we doing?” Karim hissed. “You heard the announcement! We need to get out of here.” He had a feeling Spike was about to get them all in big trouble. Again.

  “Yeah, shouldn’t we be going outside like the principal said?” Tommy said, speaking through a mouthful of protein bar.

  “Or …” Spike grinned. “We have the weasel fur. We have the mirrored goggles. We were planning to hunt the basilisk after school, anyway.”

  “But now it’s different!” Karim protested. “We’re supposed to evacuate! And who knows what the basilisk did to the person from monster control!” This was typical Spike. Push them to go off on some stupid risky adventure with no thought for how bad things could get. “What if we get turned to stone?!”

  “Well, it’s not forever like when a medusa petrifies you, right?” Tommy said.

  “Let’s see what Mort’s has to say,” Karim huffed, pulling out his phone.

  Mortimer’s Monsterpedia was Karim’s very favorite app. Of course, it hadn’t always been an app. Whenever his dad went out of town on a business trip, Karim would sneak into the study and read the original print book—a massive tome filled with details on thousands of monsters.

  The book detailed the strengths and weaknesses of every monster and even rated their level of danger on a scale from one to ten.

  Nowadays, the app version of Monsterpedia had up-to-date info on all the known monsters, and they’d even added cool new features like a Monster-to-English translator.

  It didn’t take long for Karim to find the entry on basilisks. His friends might not believe him, but they would definitely believe Mortimer, even if Karim sometimes wondered just how reliable Mortimer’s notes were.

  The basilisk is a crested, four-legged reptile that can grow up to a foot in length. Basilisks don’t look terribly threatening, but beware! Their gaze is dangerous. Direct eye contact can turn a hapless adventurer to stone.

  Basilisks exist on several continents and can be found in any hot climate. They don’t like large, open spaces and prefer to make their homes in warm caves, away from humans.

  Direct eye contact with a basilisk will temporarily petrify humans. Common North American basilisks can turn a person to stone for only a few weeks, but there are rumors of ancient creatures whose petrifying effects last for months, years, or even all eternity (see also: Medusa).

  Basilisks can be killed only by weasels or powerful enchanted weapons. These reptiles are so scared of weasels that, if exposed to weasel fur, they will be temporarily paralyzed by sheer terror.

  I’ll admit, one time I “accidentally” let myself get turned to stone by a basilisk to avoid a family reunion I really didn’t want to attend.

  “Yeah,” Karim said. “Mort’s says petrification wears off in a few weeks. But if that happened to me it might as well be permanent. My dad would just ground me forever as soon as I thawed.” He could hear his dad’s yelling in his head now.

  “Let’s get going,” Spike said, annoyed.

  Karim was just about to pull away from her and head for the exit when another image popped into his head.

  A basilisk. A real live basilisk. Mortimer’s put it at a Level 2 threat—not lethal. After years of Adventure Camp, of watching his father’s old documentaries, of dreaming about seeing real monsters … In the image in his head, the basilisk stuck its forked tongue out at him, as if daring him. Why did his own imagination have to talk back to him?

  He let Spike and Tommy lead the way, but Karim followed behind them as they ventured out from behind the staircase. H
e pulled out the mirrored goggles that he’d swiped from his dad’s old adventuring gear box in the basement. He should at least try to take a look at the basilisk. Once they’d seen the creature, maybe they could all be satisfied and get out of there.

  “This is so sweet!” Tommy said. “A real basilisk here in the school! Who would’ve thought?”

  “No kidding. I’ve been seeing the adventure streamers talking about this,” Spike said. “There are way more confirmed monsters popping up this season, some far outside their natural habitats too. No one knows why.”

  As they made their way through the school, Spike and Tommy were very carefully looking at the ceiling, using only their peripheral vision to guide them.

  Karim caught sight of what he thought was the basilisk crawling along the ceiling tiles, but he tried to put it out of his mind. According to Mortimer’s, basilisks liked caves and warm places, not climbing high into the ceiling.

  They had walked only partway down the second grade hallway when Tommy called out, “Another one!” He was pointing at a freshly created stone statue at the end of the hall.

  Karim had already snapped the goggles on, but it took him a little longer than the others to see the statue.

  “It’s the monster control guy!” Spike said, giggling. “They are all so incompetent.”

  As he got closer, Karim could see the man decked out in monster gear. He was in full armor, though it probably wasn’t magical. Magical weapons were rare, but magical armor was almost unheard of. Only the most famous adventurers in the world had magical armor.

  The guy did have mirrored goggles on just like Karim, but it looked like he had been pulling them up for a quick peek. As a result, this guy’s entire body was turned to stone, along with his clothes and the goggles. His containment box was just sitting on the floor next to him.

  “Had the gear, didn’t use it properly. Typical,” Spike said.

  “Uh, typical of what?” Tommy asked.

  Spike shrugged. “I dunno. People who aren’t as awesome as me?” She sighed. “Karim, you’re not going to do anything dumb like that, right?”

  “Not after seeing that.” Karim had to admit that his head was starting to swim from the odd angles of the world that the mirrored goggles presented him. “Also, I wonder what makes some things that are touching you turn to stone and others not.”