A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting #3 Read online

  Dedication

  For the bad kids with good hearts—

  I’ll see you in detention.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Joe Ballarini

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  U R so ugly.

  #MISTAKEFACE.

  Do the world a favor and disappear 4 EVER.

  Standing at my locker, I stared at my phone in shock.

  The comments were everywhere: my ’Gram, ’Book, Snapchat, the Twits. Even the three YouTube videos I made two years ago had gotten flamed.

  I didn’t recognize any of the screen names on the comments, and I didn’t want to look them up. I was afraid I might see someone I knew.

  I glanced at the kids rushing to class. Anyone could have written this awful stuff.

  What did I ever do to them? I couldn’t help it if I was born with uncontrollably awesome frizzy red hair and a geeky smile.

  My phone buzzed again. New comments shredded the selfie I took of Berna Vincent and me in Mathletes.

  Die, Carrot Top, die.

  This girl is such a nothing.

  A big fat ZERO.

  I jabbed my thumb into the power button and shut my locker, wondering if I should just delete all my social media.

  “Girl, someone is trolling you. Hard,” Berna said, walking up to me.

  I cringed. “You saw?”

  “If I don’t have your back, who’s going to have mine? I looked up the accounts. They all seem to be finstas. And for the record, I like your freckles. You have a galaxy of them.”

  I smiled. Berna was the best. I linked my arm with hers, and we set off for class.

  Red hearts were scattered all along the hallway. On the walls. On the windows. A banner decorated with glittering hearts and fat cupids hung over our heads like a looming spirit.

  VALENTINE’S DAY DANCE. FRIDAY THE 14TH.

  “If these hearts weren’t made of paper, we’d be walking through a total massacre,” I said. “Eeesh. I meant that as a joke, but it came out superdark.”

  “That’s what Valentine’s Day feels like,” Berna sighed. “Some baby in a diaper with a bow and arrow shoots you in the back and leaves you for dead.”

  “I’ll be your valentine, Bern.” I put my arm around her. “I’ll even go to the dance with you.”

  “Puh-lease,” Berna said. “You’re going with Victor.”

  Victor Ramon and I were sort of a thing. I guess. I mean, we kissed once. But that was a couple of weeks ago after I almost died fighting Serena the Spider Queen over Christmas break. Serena was upset that I had vanquished her brother, the Grand Guignol, just a few months before on Halloween. All totaled, I had nixed two of the seven deadly Boogeypeople with Victor’s and the babysitters’ help. I could have taken down the third, Professor Gonzalo, but that mad Boogey-scientist got away after I was bitten by the Spider Queen.

  Victor and I had spoken a lot about that night’s crazy events and how much he wants to join the Order of the Babysitters, but there had been no mention of the Kiss. Either he was too nervous to mention it or it didn’t mean that much to him.

  Or he thinks of me like a friend.

  “He should have asked me by now,” I said.

  Berna plucked a cardboard heart from a wall of hearts and looked down at it like it was a rose on The Bachelor. The Valentine’s Dance was a legendary event at Willow Brook Middle School. It’s not exactly prom, when the guy asks a girl in a supercreative way and then picks her up in a limo and it’s this huge deal, but somehow it still felt epic.

  “When I was in the fifth grade,” Berna said, “I heard an older girl whispering to her friends how her life changed forever after her first real slow dance.”

  I nodded. “I want butterflies to lift me off the ground like in musicals and take Victor and me to our own private kingdom in the clouds.”

  “I don’t know about all that,” Berna said. “I’m just saying it’d be fun to go. I’m not trying to sound snobby, but the boys at this school are one step away from raccoons in a dumpster. We’re on a different level. And that’s cool, but that means I’ve got no one to dance with. And I don’t want to turn out like my mom. All work, no play. That woman’s crazy.”

  Berna’s mother, Flo, was proud to be an ex-babysitter who had chased a few monsters in her day. Flo actually wanted Berna to become a babysitter warrior, and she was like an overbearing Dance Mom but with monster hunting. Flo had Berna studying monster medicine since the age of eight. And she made her run an obstacle course full of rope swings, climbing walls, and a kiddie pool full of leeches in their backyard every morning before school.

  Flo was letting us use her house as our temporary babysitter HQ since our old HQ was burned to the ground by Professor Gonzalo and the Spider Queen. Flo insisted we use her house rather than the Boston HQ because it was less of a commute. We dearly missed our old wondrous babysitters’ paradise. It was three hundred years old and held a ton of history, and one of the Boogeys’ monsters just torched it. On the bright side, Berna’s mom was really happy to have her own house full of babysitters and monsters.

  The banner for the Valentine’s Day dance swayed gently under the wind rushing from the students heading to class.

  “It would be fun to go,” Berna said. “I got this dress my mom won’t let me wear to church. It’s all purple and cute.”

  “Done. You and me. We are going to this dance. Together. I mean it, Bern. Sisters before misters. Ponies before bronies. Girls before squirrels.”

  Berna giggled and leaned her head on my shoulder.

  “Okay,” she said. “But I want a ton of chocolate and candy.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  “And flowers. And a giant stuffed teddy bear, holding a little heart, that says ‘I wuv you’ when you squeeze it.”

  “Don’t push it, sister,” I said.

  Berna winked. “Don’t trip on that stuff online. Those are just dumb comments written by haters.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “Sticks and stones. But it still hurts.”

  Deanna and the Princess Pack floated past. They were giggling at something on Deanna’s rhinestone-bedazzled phone. I glared.

  “You think it was your frenemy?” Berna whispered.

  “I don’t know. Deanna’s online shade skills are limited to single words like ‘sad’ or really dumb phrases like ‘boo-hoo 4 yoo hoo.’ Or emojis she manages to make insulting.”


  The princesses whisper-giggled in my general direction.

  “What’s so funny?” Berna said, crossing her arms.

  “Call a fireman, Kelly. ’Cause someone is burning you,” said Deanna.

  “Did you write that stuff?” I asked. “If you did, can you delete them? Like, now.”

  Deanna gasped, hand to her heart. The princesses stepped back, suddenly offended.

  “Why would I make up like a dozen fake screen names just to waste them on your social?” Deanna stepped closer. “Kelly, if I ever bother to burn you, you will know it was me. But c’mon”—her smile was as venomous as a pit of snakes—“you have to admit. They are kind of funny.”

  I bared my teeth.

  “Don’t be such a snowman in the sun. These trolls are stupid losers with nothing better to do. You should be grateful for the attention. It’s driving your page views up. Not that I’m jealous. I’m not. I am a good person, and I do consider you a friend. Even though you’re, like, still mad at me for Tammy or whatever.”

  Tammy had been my best friend since forever—until a few months ago when forever came to an end. We didn’t have a huge fight or breakup. I started hanging with the babysitters and Tammy started wearing makeup and hanging around Deanna and the Princess Pack. We drifted.

  But Tammy hadn’t hung out with Deanna since Christmas. Lately, I saw Tammy hanging out with the art kids in Mrs. Danube’s art room. She’d traded in her princess pinks for dark and brooding blacks. Now she takes superserious photographs of, like, dead birds. My mom says Tammy’s still trying to find herself.

  “Tammy is such a spazz-o,” Deanna said. “She thinks her posts are all deep and moody, but they’re just disturbed and weird. She’s turned into a total creeper.”

  “Stuff a sock in it, Deanna. Tammy’s awesome,” I snapped.

  Even if Tammy was my ex-best friend, I wouldn’t have anyone bad-mouthing her.

  “We’re going to say good-bye before I bop this girl in the nose,” Berna said, pulling me away.

  SKREET! SKREET! SKREET!

  Earsplitting alarm bells shrieked. The rush of kids jolted. Emergency lights flashed. A stampede of teachers with bad ties, comfortable sneakers, and itchy wool skirts rounded the corner.

  I stiffened. The back of my skull tingled.

  Berna narrowed her eyes. “Lockdown,” she said.

  2

  Principal Wing’s tense voice came over the PA system: “Attention, students and faculty. Calmly and quietly, proceed to your nearest assigned safety zone.”

  A sea of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders broke into giddy chaos.

  I nervously unzipped my backpack and removed a can of Pringles, which hid my collapsible babysitter bo-staff. Our sitter senses were on high alert.

  A squealing sixth-grade squirt elbowed past me.

  “Watch, it!” I yelled. “And get to your zone, little man!”

  Berna and I escorted a few lost sheep into their classrooms.

  “Miss Vincent and Miss Ferguson!” yelled Mr. Brown. “Stop dawdling.”

  Berna waved her walkie-talkie. We always kept them handy in case we didn’t have a cell phone signal.

  “My safety zone’s in room 301,” she said before darting off. “Call me!”

  My safety zone was room 610. Way at the butt of Hall C on the other end of school.

  As I passed the boiler room on the way to Hall C, the shrill alarm stopped. The air was empty and oddly quiet. A few stray kids ran behind me, and soon the echo of closing doors and hurried sneaker squeaks stopped, and I was alone in the halls. The flashing emergency lights kept blinking.

  My footsteps echoed. Something felt off to me. I slowed down, listening to the silence.

  An urgent voice came from around the corner, along with the shoe squeaks of authority.

  “I don’t know what it was, but I know I saw something.” Our lunch lady, Mrs. Francini, was waving a spatula and a rolling pin. She walked briskly alongside the school security guard, Mr. Milo.

  “I was in the kitchen, elbow-deep, mixing a bucket of meatloaf. There was a clang. Can you slow down, please? My sciatica.”

  I curled myself into a Hide-and-Seek–bouncy-ball position as they breezed past me.

  “This—this—thing was there. It wasn’t no schoolkid neither. It was a bear, I guess. Scared the boogers out of me. Must have been eight feet tall.”

  “This is the third time this month,” Mr. Milo sneered.

  “You’re telling me,” said Mrs. Francini. “Darn thing ate all my nuggets!”

  Mr. Milo and Mrs. Mystery Meat sped down the hall.

  I knew it! This isn’t a normal lockdown situation. This is a monster situation.

  I glanced in the window of the door to room 610. Kids were huddled against the walls on the floor, sitting still. Mr. Gibbs had begun the check-off list. Soon, he’d be calling for Ferguson, K.

  I clicked on my walkie-talkie to channel three.

  “Team. This is Firebird. Repeat, this is Firebird. Do you copy? Over.”

  A pop of static. “Go for Queen B. Over,” whispered Berna.

  “Casshie ish go,” said Cassie McCoy in a hushed tone.

  “Critter on the line” came Curtis Critter’s eager voice.

  “You’ve got to shay ‘over,’ Curtish. Over,” scolded Cassie.

  “Cassie, don’t be—”

  “Shee? Over! That way we know when you’re done talking. Over.”

  “You’re messing it up—”

  “Like that. Over.”

  “Cut it out!”

  “Fine. Over for real!”

  “Over infinity!”

  “This is ridiculous—”

  I was about to fill them in when I saw the lock on the boiler room door. Someone—something—had slashed it. Inch-deep claw marks raked across the open door.

  “We’ve got a situation,” I whispered into the walkie. “Over.” At this point normal, regular, smart people would run and scream for the security guard.

  But not me. Not Babysitter Kelly Ferguson. I gave up on normal a while ago.

  3

  The sound of the hinges on the boiler room door scraped like nails down a chalkboard as I pushed it open. An old metal staircase led down into the guts of the school. Among hissing pipes and machinery, a single light bulb glowed in the dark, dungeony basement.

  “Firebird, you there? Over,” Berna said. “Wait for backup! Over.”

  “One sec,” I said. “Over.”

  It’s tough to see in the dark. But not for me. The best way I can describe it is like squinting until a muscle in the back of your eye pulls into your skull, and suddenly, you can see in the dark. (It helps to have extrasensory babysitting powers.)

  I spotted small brown pellets on the bottom steps. I crouched down.

  Please, don’t be monster poop. I don’t have any Baggies on me.

  Chicken nuggets with huge bites taken out of them.

  The lunch lady’s fried delights were splattered with ketchup and puddles of saliva. A small trail wound down the steps and across the concrete floor, vanishing into our school’s rusted underbelly.

  Water gurgled in the pipes like the school itself had indigestion.

  “We’ve got a Class Four, possibly Class Three, in the boiler room,” I whispered into the walkie. “Over.”

  I popped the lid off the Pringles can and slid out my babysitter bo-staff. As I panther-stepped toward the mass of pipes, I snapped the staff to its full length. The whoosh it sang while I spun it was music to my ears. I had been training with it for a month now.

  A sound of a gruff swallow followed by lips smacking came from behind the boiler.

  My muscles coiled. I pointed the staff.

  “By the order of the Rhode Island chapter of Babysitters, I hereby order you to leave the premises,” I said.

  The boiler chugged. Pipes rattled.

  “You are surrounded by babysitters. We know you’re down here.”

  I held my breath and raise
d my weapon, accidentally knocking it into the light overhead. The light bulb bounced on its chain. Shadows swung around me.

  Through the noise of hissing pipes, I heard deep, throaty breathing.

  I thrust up my staff. Steam exploded from a broken pipe. A cloud of mist blinded me. Black claws shot from the fog and grabbed at me. I cracked my staff across huge, gnarly knuckles.

  The giant paw pulled away. I could hear pathetic whimpering through the smoke. I squinted through the haze.

  “Ooooaaaaww” came a bellowing cry.

  I know that whimpering.

  “Kevin? Is that you?”

  An eight-foot-tall, furry Sasquatch with twisted horns emerged from the mist.

  From A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

  NAME: Kevin LeRue

  TYPE: Human mutated into monster

  AGE: 14

  ORIGIN: Mutated on Monster Island

  STRENGTHS: Keen sense of smell, superstrength, running, leaping, sign language

  WEAKNESSES: Limited vocabulary, gets HANGRY, sometimes forgets he’s no longer human

  The cord from the headphones plugged into his long, droopy ears ran down his chest and into a blue and gray fanny pack strapped to his waist. He was holding his paw, mumbling to himself. I let out a sigh and retracted my snake staff.

  “Sorry, dude. Didn’t know that was you,” I said.

  “Meee murrr?” Kevin said.

  “Well, I can’t think of any other monster it would be, either, but you can’t sneak up on me like that.”

  He nodded and looked genuinely sorry for scaring me. “Awree.”

  “Your paw okay?” I asked.

  Beast-Boy waved me away like “it’s cool” even though I could tell I had really hurt him.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He held up a science textbook.

  “You want to go to class?”

  He smiled a mouthful of shiny tusks.

  “Kev . . . ,” I said gently. “You know you can’t be out in public like this.”

  He nodded and stared at his big feet.

  A long time ago Kevin was a human kid and brother to my friend Liz, the most kick-butt babysitter in Pawtucket, but he was changed into a monster by Professor Gonzalo and used as a servant by Serena the Spider Queen. We freed Kevin from the Boogerpeople’s—I’m sorry, Boogeypeople’s—clutches, and ever since, Monster Kev’s been hanging out with us at babysitter HQ in Flo’s house.