The Girl with the Destructo Touch Read online

  “Because I think I know where he's hiding,” her sibling said, and he pointed with his gun to a fantastic tree.

  “Now that's a big tree,” Sireena said, stepping around her brother to get a better look. The tree was enormous, quite possibly the biggest tree she had ever seen in her entire life.

  “As good a place as any to hide from us, eh, good sister?” Sigmund said, nudging her with the butt of his rifle. He moved stealthily closer to the base of the tree and the huge roots that had pushed up from the ground.

  The evil troll stood between a large passage left on either side of two of the great cords of root, peering into a dark opening that seemed to lead into the base.

  “He could be hiding in there,” Sigmund said, doing his best to see beyond the veil of black.

  “Hoo!” rang out a voice.

  Sigmund spun around and growled at his sister. “You know exactly who I'm talking about. Don't start.”

  “I didn't say a thing,” Sireena answered, raising her weapon and looking around.

  “Hoo!” said the voice again.

  Sigmund stepped closer to the yawning darkness of the opening in the base of the tree. “I think it might've come from in here,” he said. He held his rifle at the ready. “Maybe it's him.”

  “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” The closer he got, the more hoos there were.

  “I think there's more than one of him,” Sigmund said, his eyes wide with anticipation as he looked away from the trunk opening.

  And then there came the sound—the flapping of wings—and within the darkness multiple sets of round, piercing yellow eyes became illuminated.

  “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

  “I think you might want to get away from there,” Sireena suggested, slowly starting to back away from the clearing.

  “I think that might be a good idea,” Sigmund answered.

  And just as her brother turned, ready to join her, they exploded from the darkness.

  “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

  Mechanical birds, hundreds of them, spewed out from the tree, their hooting hollers nearly deafening.

  Back to back, Sireena and her brother raised their weapons, firing wildly at the clockwork creatures that swarmed around their heads. The mechanical birds exploded with each shot, a rain of springs, cogs, metal feathers and wires pelting down on them. But for each bird that was destroyed by one of their weapons' blasts, another three seemed to take its place.

  “This is hopeless,” Sireena bellowed.

  “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

  e“I agree,” her sibling responded, probably one of the first times he'd ever agreed with her.

  “How would you feel about fleeing in terror?” she said.

  “I thought you'd never ask,” Sigmund responded, already plowing head-on into the Wailing Wood.

  “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

  * * *

  The stone coffin didn't seem to have a bottom.

  Victoria tumbled through the darkness—down, down, down she went—but before she could be afraid, she found herself finally hitting bottom.

  It took her a moment to realize that she had stopped falling, and that she had landed on something kind of soft and squishy, like a pillow.

  “Hey, get off me. You're breaking my back!” a squeaky voice complained.

  “Who's that?” Victoria asked, trying to see who was talking to her in this incredibly dark place.

  “Down here,” the voice answered as somebody lit a match, chasing away some of the darkness.

  Victoria looked down and saw that she had landed on Mr. Flops. The rabbit looked up at her, trapped, holding a wooden match that looked like a torch in his hands.

  “Mr. Flops?” she asked. “Is that you?”

  “Well, it ain't Baby Poop and Burp,” the stuffed rabbit said. “Would you mind getting off me?”

  “Sorry,” Victoria said, scrambling to her feet.

  “That's better,” the rabbit said, picking himself up from the ground and dusting off his gray fur.

  “You can talk and move around?” Victoria asked.

  The rabbit brought the matchstick torch down and checked himself out, doing a little dance step. “Yeah, would ya look at that? I guess I can.”

  “My mommy says it's not good to play with matches,” the little girl said.

  “Give me a sec,” he said, and blew the match out with a gust of his breath, plunging the area in darkness again.

  “Mr. Flops?” Victoria called out.

  Another light was suddenly lit, much brighter than the match.

  “How's this?” the rabbit asked, now holding a flashlight.

  “Great,” she said. “Where did you get a flashlight?”

  “From my pocket,” Mr. Flops answered. He reached inside his fur and removed another flashlight. “Want one?”

  “Sure,” Victoria said, taking the light and turning it on. “I didn't even know you had pockets.”

  The rabbit shone his flashlight around the dark chamber where they stood. “Neither did I,” Mr. Flops said. “Any idea where we are?”

  Victoria copied her friend, moving her beam of light around in a circle. “I think we might be under the cemetery,” she said.

  “Wherever we are, it sure is dark.”

  “Yeah, and kind of spooky.”

  “Are you afraid?” Mr. Flops asked.

  “Nah,” Victoria answered. “I like spooky stuff. Are you scared?”

  She felt the rabbit's furry soft paw grab hold of her hand. “Not as long as you're with me,” he said, and gave her the cutest bunny smile.

  “I wonder where all these go?” Victoria shone her flashlight across the openings to passages that led off in different directions into the darkness.

  “Maybe one of them can get us back up to the cemetery,” Mr. Flops said.

  Victoria was just about to suggest that they explore when she heard the weirdest of sounds: somebody—two somebodies, by the sound of it—was screaming.

  Victoria looked at Mr. Flops.

  “Sounds like somebody's in trouble,” the rabbit said.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Do you think we should help them?”

  The rabbit was silent for a bit as the two of them listened to the ruckus off in the distance.

  “Maybe if we help whoever that is, they can tell us how to get back up to the cemetery,” Mr. Flops said.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Victoria agreed. And still holding the rabbit's hand, she walked toward one of the dark passages.

  CHAPTER 9

  The mechanical owls were still in hot pursuit, their hooting a sound so chilling that Sigmund Sassafras would be hearing it in his nightmares for years to come.

  “Do you see the van yet?” his sister screamed over the hooting.

  “Not yet,” he called over his shoulder, raising his rifle to swat at a clockwork bird pecking on the top of his head. “But I think we're getting warmer.”

  This section of woods was packed tightly with trees barren of leaves, their empty branches trailing down like skeletal hands.

  “Remind me again why I listened to you?” Sireena wailed behind him, the low-hanging tree limbs catching in her hair.

  Sigmund was tempted to leave her behind and let the owls have at her, but he knew he'd never be able to explain it to his mother. Even through the glass partition in the prison visiting room, she could sense a lie as easily as a V'larkian Sucking Toad could sniff out a fresh chicken neck in a blizzard of locusts.

  Sireena was still caught up in the tree's clinging branches, most of the owl flock flying around her.

  “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

  “Hold still,” Sigmund yelled, leveling his weapon. He fired three blasts in a row that turned the tree into toothpicks and sent Sireena flying in a plume of fire.

  The air was choked with smoke, and suddenly eerily quiet.

  “Sireena?” Sigmund waved at the smoke bi
llowing around him. He was beginning to worry that he might have overdone it. “If you can hear me, say something… anything.”

  “You idiot!” growled an all-too-familiar voice.

  Sireena emerged from the choking cloud, her clothing torn and covered with black smudges of ash. “Look at me!” she screamed. “Look at my clothes…my makeup! You tried to kill me!”

  “If I had wanted to kill you, you'd be dead.” Sigmund reached out to take her by a dirty sleeve. “We need to find the van and…”

  There was a loud ripping sound as the sleeve came away in his hand.

  “Whoops,” he said with a nervous laugh, quickly hiding the piece of shirt behind his back.

  That was when Sireena lost it. Growling like a rabid garganturat, she jumped on him and tried to tear his head from his shoulders. The two thrashed on the forest floor, the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time they'd tried to kill each other. But as the smoke from the rifle blasts began to clear, Sigmund noticed—felt—that they weren't alone in the Wailing Wood.

  “Wait a minute!” he croaked, his voice sounding high and squeaky with his sister's hands wrapped so tightly around his throat. “I think we're being watched.”

  Sireena stopped trying to strangle him and looked around, giving him the chance to crawl out from beneath her.

  The branches of the trees surrounding them were filled with glowing yellow eyes. The mechnical owls had not left them alone after all; they had only stopped to watch as the two siblings tried to murder each other.

  “I told you.” Sigmund elbowed his sister in the ribs.

  Sireena grunted, raising her fist to pummel him again, but stopped midstrike as the birds stirred with a fluttering of metal wings.

  “I wouldn't do that if I were you,” Sigmund said quietly.

  Sireena lowered her fist slowly. “What do you think they're waiting for?” she asked through the side of her extra-wide mouth.

  “I don't know,” Sigmund replied as he began to back away. “But I don't intend to stick around to find out.”

  And suddenly he was off and running, heading (he hoped) in the direction of the van. He could hear Sireena huffing and puffing behind him, but he could also hear the sound of metal wings flapping.

  The owls were after them again, and if the entrance to the woods, with the van parked outside it, wasn't right ahead, he knew they weren't going to make it.

  The birds were closer now. He could hear the grinding of their cogs and gears.

  It was Sireena who put the final nail in their coffin. She stumbled, falling forward and getting tangled in his legs, sending them both sprawling to the ground in a grunting heap.

  “And I'm the idiot,” Sigmund whined, crawling to his feet only to find two terrifying new creatures standing before him.

  “Hello, Mr. Idiot.” The greeting came from a ghastly creature with a round, pink face and hair like antenna sticking out from the sides of its head.

  “I'm Mr. Flops,” said the other, smaller beast with the disturbingly long ears and the body covered in gray fur. “And this is Victoria.”

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!” Sireena screamed, grabbing hold of Sigmund in a grip that would make a boa constrictor proud. “What are they?”

  “I…I don't know,” Sigmund wheezed, feeling the life being squeezed from him. “They say they are a Mr. Flops and something called Victoria.”

  But then the birds were upon them, hooting and pecking, and Sigmund, still held in the clutches of his sister, could do nothing more than close his eyes and accept whatever grisly fate was about to befall them. At least he wasn't going to perish alone.

  But suddenly it was silent.

  Sigmund opened his eyes a crack. The mechanized birds were lying on the ground in pieces, as if some powerful force had plucked them out of the air and crushed them to dust.

  “Wha… what happened?” Sireena asked, opening her own eyes.

  “I didn't think they were very nice,” the creature called Victoria said. Mr. Flops nodded.

  “What did you do?” Sigmund asked, kicking at the owl pieces with a toe.

  “I touched 'em,” the creature said proudly, holding out her tiny pink hands. “Billy says I got the Destructo Touch.”

  “Yes, you certainly do,” Sigmund agreed, his criminally active mind already beginning to formulate a plan.

  “You do indeed.”

  No matter how hard he tried to distract himself, Billy was still feeling guilty about yelling at Victoria.

  Now he sat at the worktable, wads of crinkled-up paper nearly covering his feet. He thought he might have something with this latest attempt, mixing a bit of the squid creatures from the Monstros City savings and loan with a kind of prehistoric lizard.

  A squizard! he thought. Nobody's seen one of them before.

  He finished drawing the last of the tentacles and leaned back, taking in the drawing.

  “What a load of garbage,” he snarled, wrinkling up the paper and tossing it to the floor with the others.

  He was about to start his next drawing, but all he could see in his mind was Victoria's face twisting all out of shape as she started to cry. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the pathetic image out of his brain.

  But it wasn't going anywhere.

  Billy sighed and put his glasses back on. He knew he wasn't going to get anything more accomplished until he'd apologized to Victoria and made her feel better. Rising from the bench, he set his pencil down so that it wouldn't roll off the table, and waded through the pieces of paper toward the garage door.

  He knew there'd probably be a price to pay, and wondered how many weeks he'd have to play “grocery store checkout” or “superheroes buy a bike” before she'd let him off the hook.

  Walking across the floor, he felt the bottom of one of his sneakers stick. “What the…?” he said aloud, noticing a large puddle of white paint on the concrete. Victoria must have knocked over the can on her way out, he thought. Then he noticed the little sneaker footprints that made their way toward the partially open door.

  “Oh, man,” Billy said with a shake of his head. Now he was going to have to clean that up too.

  Careful not to step in the paint, he left the garage and followed Victoria's trail. Her Big Wheel was still parked in front of the door, and he expected to see the white prints go across his driveway toward her house, but they didn't.

  Instead the trail went through the backyard, white paint shining brightly on the fall grass. “This is odd,” Billy said as he checked the top of the stone wall that separated the yard from the cemetery. There was white paint there, too.

  He scrambled over the wall and down into the cemetery. The paint had obviously begun to wear off her sneakers, but he still found enough traces to follow.

  He started to get a nasty feeling in the pit of his belly. Of all places, the white-stained blades of grass led right to the Sprylock family mausoleum. Which just happened to be the entrance to Monstros City.

  He thought he just might die.

  “Maybe she went in, got scared and went home,” Billy muttered under his breath, hoping with all his heart and soul that that was what had happened.

  Pushing open the door, he entered the mausoleum and looked around. It was unmistakable: the fading tread marks led right up to the stone coffin and the entrance to Monstros City.

  Billy ran to the edge of the coffin and peered down into the impenetrable darkness. “This is horrible,” he muttered crazily. “This is the worst thing ever.”

  He could feel himself beginning to panic. For a moment he considered running home and calling 911, but quickly got a grip. “Yeah, that'd be real good. ‘911, what is your emergency?' Ah, my five-year-old next-door neighbor climbed into a coffin in the Sprylock family mausoleum and is now in a city of monsters. When do you think you can get here?”

  Billy stepped back from the coffin. “All right, Hooten, nobody else can help you with this one. So, what's it gonna be?”

  And without another thought, he bolted from the
mausoleum.

  He had to get his costume.

  This looked like a job for Owlboy.

  Billy went over the cemetery wall and into his yard.

  He practically flew across the lawn, but as he neared the garage, he saw his mother at the back door with a UPS delivery man who was handing her a large, brown-wrapped box.

  His curiosity aroused, Billy almost stopped to check it out, but quickly pushed the idea from his head. He had to rescue Victoria from Monstros.

  “Hey, honey, wait up!” he heard his mother cry just as he opened the door to the garage.

  Billy sighed. If only he'd been a little bit faster! “Hey, Mom, sort of busy,” he yelled, and ducked inside, slamming the door behind him. He hoped she would get the hint as he crossed the room and snatched up his backpack from the floor.

  But, alas, the door opened and in she walked, still holding the mystery package. “Hey, kid,” she said, a big smile on her face.

  He returned the smile, trying to maneuver around her and out the door. “Got an important engagement,” he said. “Gotta go, talk to you later.”

  But she blocked his way.

  “Now, wait a second,” she said. “Don't tell me you're not curious about what's inside this box.”

  The image of Victoria being chased by a Sludge Slogger—or even worse, a Slovakian Rot-toothed Hopping Monkey Demon—flashed before Billy's eyes.

  “Yeah, I am, but I really got to get going! It's wicked important.”

  His mom looked down at the box and sighed. He thought she looked kind of disappointed, and felt a surge of regret. He'd make it up to her later.

  “All right,” she said, moving out of his way and placing the box on the worktable. “Just thought you might like to know that your Halloween costume problem is solved.”

  He was just about to disappear out the door when he slammed on the brakes. “My Halloween costume?” he asked, turning around to face her.

  She was looking at her fingernails, playing it cool.

  “Did I say something about a Halloween costume?” she asked. “Oh, this?” she said, pointing at the box on the table. “Yeah, this could very well be the answer to all your problems.”

  He was amazed. Normally his mother couldn't remember anything; the fact that she'd recalled he was having difficulty with his Halloween costume was nearly a miracle.