Monster Club
Page 17
Tommy grinned. “Who knows?! Maybe if they don’t have one this year, I’ll have to go out and catch one for you.”
They reached the door to Room 208, aka the Sheriff’s Lockup, as Karim liked to call it.
“Well, have fun in time-out, Tom-Tom!” Elissa said. “I’m going home to start packing!”
“Never too early, I guess,” Tommy said, opening the door to the Sheriff’s Lockup.
Once he was in detention, Tommy could barely sit still. It was just all too un-freaking-believable. A dragon! And an encounter with their archnemesis. And they had won. He could just sit there reimagining the whole thing over and over again.
Which was lucky, because they had been stuck in detention every day after school for the last two weeks. The Sheriff had even told him he couldn’t bring in his usual after-school Brotein (“Weights: What comes down, must go up”) shake. His body’s Protein Power Potential Ratio—definitely a real and scientific thing—was totally crashing.
The Sheriff glared at him. “Shouldn’t you be working, Tommy?”
She gave him an evil smile as he leaned down over his algebra homework, trying to make a show of calculating. She thought she had beaten them. She had been gloating for days.
The three of them sat in the front three desks of a classroom, the Sheriff only a few feet away at the teacher’s desk. For the first few days they’d shared the room with Maria Struthers and Eddie Suarez, who were serving their much-delayed punishment for being caught skipping class to make out. At least those two lovebirds weren’t in here passing each other mushy notes constantly.
Outside it was late afternoon, and the sound of kids practicing sports mixed with the distant roar of a lawn mower. They were lucky there were only two weeks left in the school year, otherwise they might have gotten even more detention.
Sitting here in the fluorescent-lit classroom, those first-floor windows were like portals to another world, filled with mysteries and adventure. In here, it was just algebra equations and the smell of dry-erase markers. Karim actually seemed to be enjoying his algebra, in some odd way. Sicko.
Tommy slowly plodded through his work, pausing after each problem to rerun the highlight reel of their adventure in his mind.
A dark dungeon! Deadly ooze closing in! A daring escape on the back of a dragon!
They had posted the remaining videos. Even with their faces blurred out, they’d become huge hits. Every day after detention for the past week, the three friends had gathered around Spike’s phone to review the latest comments and reaction videos.
And over the course of the past week, magic had happened. First on the adventure channels, there were confused reports that Mike Tuckerville had been arrested in Burbank, California. And then later, on every major news source—AppVenture headquarters raided by the Federal Monster Administration. Mike Tuckerville, being led out of a courthouse in handcuffs. A judge ordering AppVenture to stop operating throughout the country. They replayed the video over and over again. Neither homework nor sleep happened that night for any of them.
Tommy continued to struggle with his homework and had just started on his book report when the Sheriff’s phone buzzed. She stepped into the hallway, talking loudly about the schedule for her son’s Little League team.
Spike’s new phone was immediately in her hand. Tommy wished he could join her, but his phone was a pile of wreckage lying in a park on the other side of town, and his family didn’t have the money yet to get him a new one.
“Hey, we got our cabin assignments for Adventure Camp!” Spike said. “We’re close to each other, at least.”
Tommy grinned. Whatever happened in the last couple weeks of school, at least they had camp to look forward to. With the money that Spike’s dad had gotten released, he had easily paid for both him and his sister.
“Sweet!” Karim said.
“Do you think they’ll have the pegasus in the stables this year?” Tommy asked. He had been too scared to ride it two years ago, but this time he felt ready to try.
Outside, the Sheriff was ranting about how inconsiderate someone or other had been.
Spike sat bolt upright in her chair. “Um, guys … I just got a message from Mad Mackenzie.”
“The Mad Mackenzie?” Tommy asked.
“What did she say?” Karim asked, straining to look over and see her phone. “What did she say?!”
Spike shook her head, appearing to be in a state of shock that was very rare for her. “She’s just north of Burbank, hunting a pack of manic pixies,” Spike said. “And she wants our help!”
“When?” Tommy asked.
Karim sighed. “Right now. If she’s flushed them from their nest, she has until moonrise before they disappear for a year and a day.”
They could hear the Sheriff walking up and down, loudly berating some poor parent.
Spike looked at the window, and Tommy followed her gaze. It was wide open, and they could easily fit through it, even with his muscular bulk.
“We already have detention to the end of the school year,” Karim said. “What else could they do to us?”
Tommy grinned. A month ago, Karim would have been begging them to stay, and probably would have stayed behind even if Tommy and Spike went for it.
Spike shrugged. “Quite a lot, I’d imagine.”
“Do we care?” Karim asked.
Tommy was already on his way to the open window, and he could hear his friends scrambling behind him.
Adventure was waiting for them.
Creating a book is always an adventure, and the best adventures are faced with an adventuring party. I would like to offer not just gratitude but credit where credit is due to the team who helped make this idea a reality.
First and foremost, my editor, Orlando Dos Reis, has provided creativity, passion, thoughtfulness, and of course the push to just try harder. Supporting him, a whole team at Scholastic made this book happen, including production editor Josh Berlowitz and copyeditor Kerianne Steinberg. The striking cover and overall design are due to the illustrator Doug Holgate and designer Christopher Stengel. I also want to thank David Levithan and Zack Clark, who helped to make this project happen in the first place.
I would also like to thank my literary agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, who was a true partner in guiding me through this process and being a tireless proponent of this project.
Outside the team of industry professionals, I need to thank Gabrielle Stein, Carrie Brown, Aenne Brielmann, and Rachel Sweeden, who read and gave valuable feedback to versions of this book as it was in progress. And Mallory Kass, Grace Kendall, Laura and Michael Bisberg, Laura Jean Ridge, and Nick Eliopulos, for both advice on specifics of this book and as well as being a writing support group for so many years. I would also like to acknowledge my dad, Yorke Brown, who cheerfully ignores the fact that so many of my characters have issues with their fathers. At least the dads in this book are alive!
Beyond those who directly contributed to this book there are so many amazing people in my life who have been forced to listen to endless updates, complaints, and bragging as this book went from silly idea to finished product. I appreciate you, I love you, and I am forever grateful to have you in my life.
GAVIN BROWN is the author of Josh Baxter Levels Up and has written stories and designed games for the bestselling Spirit Animals and 39 Clues series. He is the creator of the highly rated iOS and Android game Blindscape and lives in a narrow apartment in New York City’s East Village.
Copyright © 2019 by Gavin Brown
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, August 2019
Cover art © 2019 by Douglas Holgate
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
e-ISBN 978-1-338-31852-4
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.