by Gavin Brown
“What are you doing here?” Spike demanded.
“I should ask you the same question,” the man said. Even behind his shiny glasses, Spike could tell he was glaring at the three of them. “AppVenture has contracted with the resident of this house, and since our Independent Contractor failed, they sent us in to finish the job.”
The woman stepped forward and looked into the slots in the lid. The gremlin within struggled furiously.
“They have the gremlin here already, Trent,” she said. “Though it looks … oily?”
“That’s pepper oil,” Tommy said excitedly. “We dropped it down with a quadcopter and—”
“We can’t know the details of the catch,” Trent interrupted.
“We could be held liable if you screwed it up,” said the woman, whose uniform had the name Sylvia stitched on it.
“Let’s have it, then.” Trent held out his hands.
“Why should we give it to you?” Spike asked. “It was our catch.”
Trent sighed. “What are you going to do? Take it to the clowns down at the monster control bureau?”
“Look,” Sylvia said. “You’ve done impressive work here, I’ll admit that. And catching that basilisk wasn’t half-bad either.”
Karim, Tommy, and Spike exchanged satisfied glances. Karim imagined that Trent was rolling his eyes behind those silver spectacles.
“Tell you what. If you sign up as AppVenture Independent Contractors, we’ll take this gremlin off your hands and even pay you for capturing it. Then you’ll be on the list to get offered new jobs in this area. We’re going to fire that Jason kid, anyway, and we need someone to cover Burbank.”
Trent seemed a bit miffed by this but didn’t object. Karim guessed that maybe Sylvia was the one in charge.
“Give us a minute to talk this over,” Spike insisted.
“Sure thing,” Sylvia said. She and Trent disappeared back into the van.
The three stood in shocked silence for a moment. Was this really happening?
“So obviously we’re doing this, right?” Tommy asked. “If we earn enough, Elissa and I can go to Adventure Camp!”
Spike nodded. “It seems worth a shot. Worst-case scenario, we just get paid for this job. We don’t necessarily have to do any more. Karim, what do you think?”
Karim nodded hesitantly. What Spike said made sense, but he knew how this would work. Once they were signed up, would they really say no to the next adventure? And what would his dad say if he found out what they were up to? He thought for a moment, still holding the lid closed on the pot as the gremlin took another shot at prying it open from the inside. “I guess,” he relented. “Let’s just be careful about which jobs we take. Nothing too high level.”
Sylvia and Trent stepped back out of the van.
Trent scowled. “We’ve got a schedule to keep, kids. Make up your minds.”
“We’ll do it,” Spike said. “But on one condition.”
Karim sighed but tried not to show it. He should have known this would happen. If Spike ever wrote a book, it would probably be titled Negotiate Everything: The Spike Hernandez Story.
“Oh? What’s that?” Sylvia said.
“We also captured the basilisk,” Spike said. “We want credit for that too.”
Trent scowled at them, but Sylvia just shrugged. “Sure, why not. Just sign the forms so that we can get you set up.” Sylvia offered a tablet.
The three friends entered their info to sign up for AppVenture, while Trent stood around looking bored and annoyed.
When they were done, Karim stepped toward Trent. “Watch out,” he warned, handing it to the man. “You have to keep—”
Trent suddenly jerked back as the lid spun and the gremlin leaped out. Karim and Trent both snatched at it, but the gremlin dodged, landed on the ground with a catlike grace, and then made a run for it—right into Spike’s fist as she gave it a vicious punch in the face. The gremlin howled and collapsed.
“That’s for the bite,” Spike said, leering at the creature. A welt was already appearing on its face, with an imprint of Spike’s ring raised in relief above its left eyebrow.
“You’ve been Spiked!” Tommy shouted as he flopped onto the ground next to the gremlin. He pulled out his phone, made his sassiest face, and snapped a selfie.
“That is not my catchphrase,” Spike growled.
Sylvia grabbed the gremlin by the scruff of the neck and disappeared into the back of the van, where the snap of a cage closing rang out.
Trent nodded in appreciation. “Nice punch. You kids really need to upgrade your gear and techniques, though, if you’re going to play in the big leagues. Speaking of which,” he said, raising an eyebrow at their purple weapon, “nice sword.”
Karim bristled at the comment but didn’t say anything. They’d made the capture, hadn’t they? Who cared whether they used jalapeño pepper oil, a drone, and a Violet Sparkle Eminence sword to make it happen?
“You should take one of these for next time,” Sylvia said, handing Karim an empty Magical Creature Containment Box from the back of the van. Karim hefted the box. It felt pretty solid.
“See you again soon,” Spike said as Trent and Sylvia got back into the van. But they didn’t say anything as they revved up and drove away.
“We did it! We did it!” Tommy cheered as soon as the van disappeared. “We rock!”
“We did, didn’t we?” Spike said with a sly smile.
Karim sniffed. “What’s that nasty smell?”
Tommy pointed at the pot on the ground. “I … think the gremlin pooped in your mom’s pot,” he said, peering inside.
“Crap,” she said.
Tommy couldn’t stop grinning. Two days after signing up, a notification on the app appeared: Adventure Ready. Tommy had jumped on the message as quickly as he jumped into a pool just at the moment when he knew a cannonball would soak as many of his friends as possible.
So here they were, standing in front of a local restaurant that needed help with a real live monster.
“This is the place,” Karim said. “Vespucci’s Heirloom Trattoria. I’ve been to this restaurant before. Why would they send us here? Maybe we got it wrong.” He turned to walk away, but Tommy put a hand on his friend’s shoulder before he could get too far.
“No, this is exactly right. And perfect!” Tommy said. “I bet if we take care of the monster, we’ll get free food.”
“Okay,” Spike said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Whatever. Let’s do it,” Tommy answered. There Spike went again, trying to ruin his fun. Well, he’d show her. They’d take out this monster, and then they would get free food. With that delicious thought, Tommy led them into the restaurant.
A few minutes later, the trio was in the kitchen ready to meet Mr. Vespucci, the owner—an older man with thick gray hair who was yelling at every single staff member who ran by.
“Huh? What are you kids doing back here? You can’t see how we make the Vespucci family heirloom tomato sauce, it’s an ancient family secret!” he said as soon as he’d finished yelling at one of the cooks about not chopping onions fast enough.
“Isn’t it just garlic and cayenne peppers?” Karim asked. Tommy was impressed. Karim always knew random things like that.
“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Mr. Vespucci said, glaring at them. “I grew up in New Jersey, I don’t know any ancient Italian cooking secrets, so sue me. HEY, YOU! GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND GET THAT ORDER UP NOW!” he yelled at one of the line cooks.
“We’re from AppVenture,” Spike cut in. “We were sent to take care of your snipe problem.”
“Oh, AppVenture, right. You don’t look all that impressive,” he said, brushing her off. “But whatever. The dinner rush is getting started, and I need that dang thing out of there.”
Tommy grinned. The danger was what made it fun. Karim had that What have you gotten me into? look on his face, but that was no surprise.
“We can handle it,” Spike assured.
“This way,” Mr. Vespucci said, leading them to the back of the kitchen. He opened a huge metal door that kind of looked like a vault. Inside was a room with shelves full of food.
“There’s a snipe in your walk-in fridge?” Spike asked.
Mr. Vespucci shrugged. “Every night this week the snipe has gotten in and eaten our tomatoes. We need them for our world-famous family recipes, and we sell a lot of pasta sauce. Heirloom tomatoes ain’t cheap, you know.”
“How does it get in?” Karim asked.
“We keep the door closed, but my head chef, Sarah, said she suspected something was in there. One of those snipes. Now, you kids do your thing. I’ve got a restaurant to run, and those servers start slacking the moment I’m gone.”
As soon as the fridge door closed, Tommy perused the shelves. Racks and racks of food. Meats, pastas, vegetables, fruits …
“Tommy,” Spike called.
“Yeah?”
She glared at him. “We’re on a job. You can’t eat any of it.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
Spike’s brain immediately went into tactical mode. It was time to win.
“We need to secure the area,” she said, checking the door. “The seal seems solid. Let’s search to make sure it’s not already in here.”
Within a few minutes they had checked every box and container, but had not found any signs of the snipe, other than some chewed edges of cardboard in the corner. There was a large box of tomatoes in the middle of the room. It must have been new, because it was still untouched.
“Okay,” Spike said. “Next we need intel. What do we know about snipes?”
Karim already had his phone out and was paging through his favorite app. “Let’s see,” he said as Spike and Tommy gathered around him.
For many years it was believed that a snipe was a made-up monster used to prank gullible newbies at Adventure Camp. New campers would be sent out to hunt a very tricky creature, always coming back empty-handed.
But it turns out that snipes are very real—apparently, they are just invisible. Because of this, many adventurers believe snipes don’t exist, and so the “snipe hunt”—a practical joke amounting to a wild-goose chase—was born.
The two-toed snipe eats grapes and lives in the warmer climates of Southern California, Arizona, and the western coast of Mexico.
Snipes are not generally dangerous. The injuries associated with them are mostly the wounded pride of adventurers who fail to capture them. However, they are considered Level 2 monsters due to their very low catch rate.
All snipes have a strong preference for grapes and can’t resist using their stealth powers to steal them whenever grapes are available. Outside of grapes, however, snipes will eat just about anything, though this can vary by snipe. In addition, it is unknown if snipes fear magical weapons; however, when the snipe comes into contact with one, it is believed to disappear, for lack of a better word.
My adventurer friends swear that these tricky guys exist, but I still haven’t seen one myself. Are they just playing a prank on me?
“Here’s the odd thing,” Karim said. “Its main food source is grapes. Not tomatoes. Why is it eating tomatoes?”
“Huh,” Tommy said. “Well, I like grapes and tomatoes, so maybe they can too?”
“True, but it also says their favorite foods vary by snipe,” Spike pointed out, already carefully checking the corners of the room for any way that the creature might get in.
“I guess,” Karim answered. “Anyway, snipes are supposed to be very tricky. They are expert thieves, and really stealthy. We’re going to have to be careful.”
They developed a routine as the night went on. When a cook entered and exited the fridge, Spike watched the door, Tommy checked what they were carrying, and Karim kept his eyes on the tomatoes.
Mr. Vespucci was nice enough to give them some jackets that the delivery boys wore in the winter, which was good because it was really cold in the fridge. Spike shivered. What if the snipe never showed up? Would they be stuck here all night, waiting for a monster that didn’t arrive, or maybe didn’t even exist?
Then she heard a noise.
“What was that?” she asked. There was a scratching sound coming from the very back of the room.
“Maybe it’s trying to break in or something?” Karim asked.
“Keep your eyes on those tomatoes,” Spike said as she and Tommy went to the back of the fridge.
The scratching was persistent, coming strong for about ten seconds and then stopping for another ten seconds.
Karim said, “Do you think it’s—”
“Shhh!” Spike responded. “This must be it. Okay, Tommy, you run around to the back and see if you can catch it. I’ll stay here and make sure it doesn’t get through.”
“Oh, you want to send me into a dangerous situation, requiring bravery and strength?” Tommy was grinning and flexing his bicep “muscles.”
“Ugh, stop talking and go! And if you catch it, just grab it, no selfies!”
“Fine!” Tommy said, sulking as he stalked toward the door.
Karim held out the magic sword to Tommy. “Look, I can barely lift this thing. You can use it, I guess. Just … don’t do anything stupid.”
Spike smiled as the sword’s purple paint gleamed in the harsh fluorescent light.
“According to Mortimer’s, one slap with the side of that and we’ll never see it again,” Karim said. “Once a snipe gets struck with a magic weapon, it never comes back. You don’t need to hurt it.”
Spike could hear Tommy’s clumsy running as he jogged around outside, trying to find his way to the other side of the fridge.
The scratching continued for a second, and then stopped, just as it had before.
Several seconds later she heard Tommy’s feet on the other side. He knocked on the wall.
“I’m here!” His voice came through muffled. “What am I looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Spike shot back. “A snipe?”
“No snipes here,” Tommy said. “Just some scratch marks down at the bottom of the wall. Is that a clue or something?”
“Yeah, probably!” Spike said. “Anything else out there?”
She heard Tommy rooting around in the area.
“Nothing else, really,” he said. “It’s nice and warm out here. Can I stay on this side?”
“Ugh, no, get back in here!” Spike said.
“Have you caught the snipe yet?” a voice said from behind her.
Spike spun around. It was Mr. Vespucci, standing with his hands on his hips. Behind him, the door was hanging wide open.
And no one had been watching it.
Had she caught motion, just out of the corner of her eye? A flash of claws, or the tufts of a fur coat? What did a snipe look like, anyway?
“Get out!” she snapped. “It’s in here. Don’t let anyone in or out until we’ve caught it!”
Karim had one job: Watch the tomatoes.
He’d chosen the safest task, sure, but he was determined to do a good job of it. Nothing was going to touch the crate of fruit without him noticing. Karim knew the score. Snipes weren’t fighters. In fact, it was impossible even to see one. They had the ability to sense where everyone was looking. To a snipe, sight lines were as visible as light and dark. And so they had evolved to avoid being seen.
This made them incredibly hard to catch. But if you were watching the thing they were trying to steal, like tomatoes, they wouldn’t steal it. It had been simple enough to come up with a method to protect the goods: Eyes on the tomatoes.
Around him Tommy and Spike were tearing apart the room, looking for the snipe. It was going to be tough, with racks and racks of boxes for it to hide in.
“This is kind of like a reverse basilisk, isn’t it?” Karim said.
“Huh?” Tommy said.
“Whatever,” Spike said. “Just keep your eyes on those tomatoes!”
He was watching the crate intently, but his mind was still working. Now that the
snipe was inside the walk-in fridge, how would they catch it? The wild search that Spike and Tommy had gone on seemed unlikely to work. Snipes were just too wily for that.
After several minutes, Karim could tell that his friends were getting tired. He was starting to get tired too just from watching those tomatoes so closely. He was also starting to get hungry. It was probably good that they hadn’t given this job to Tommy. All the tomatoes would be gone by now.
Suddenly, they heard a crash.
“I had it!” Tommy said. “It was hiding behind that jar of alfredo sauce!”
Karim shook his head, but his eyes stayed fixed on the crate.
“Well, it can’t hide behind the jar now, can it?” Spike said. “Nice try, though.”
Karim couldn’t see her very well, but he could imagine the eye roll plenty well.
As his friends searched, Karim tried to imagine what the snipe would be thinking. But with his attention fixed on the tomatoes, he couldn’t get into the right headspace. The snipe would be looking at everything, sensing everything, watching their movements as it plotted. To understand the snipe, he needed to be the snipe. He couldn’t do that with all his attention fixed.
But this job was better. This way he wasn’t hunting after the snipe himself. If Tommy or Spike happened to startle it, they could get bitten or clawed in the eye, or worse. Snipes didn’t like to fight, but who knew what a cornered one was capable of?
“Look!” Tommy said from behind him. “That box just moved out from behind the rack all on its own!”
Karim heard Spike running back to join him.
“It’s not moving now,” Spike said. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it moved like a foot,” Tommy said. “I’m not making this up.”
Karim kept his eyes on the crate. Maybe he didn’t need to figure it out. He just had to do his job.
“Okay,” Spike said. “I’ll hold the box. We just need to touch it with the sword. Then it will run away and we’ll never have to deal with this nasty thing again. Easy win.”
“Shouldn’t I just stab it?” Tommy said. “Much easier. I’ve been practicing with a sword at home. I can stab the box three times before it can move.”