Karen's Monsters

  For Laura

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Emily Michelle

  2 Emily Two-Two

  3 Autumn

  4 The Little Monster

  5 Stoneybrook Academy

  6 Nancy’s Problem

  7 Charlie’s Monster

  8 Please Come

  9 Frankenstone

  10 The Big Scare

  11 I Pledge Allegiance

  12 Frank Disappears

  13 Karen Brewer, Private Eye

  14 Fall Is Stinky

  15 Underwear

  16 The Return of Frank

  17 Fall Is …

  18 Emily Disappears

  19 Emily’s School

  20 Four Little Monsters

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Emily Michelle

  “Pumpkins are dim on Halloween day,” I sang. “But pumpkins are bright on Halloween night.”

  It was a little early to be singing about Halloween, since it was not even October first yet. But I was thinking about it anyway. I was thinking about it because in school we were working on autumn projects. Autumn made me think about the beginning of the holiday season. And holidays made me think about Halloween.

  I just love autumn. I love everything about it. I love the bright leaves and scarecrows and pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns and cool nights and the first frost on the ground. And I especially love holidays. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. My friend Nancy Dawes celebrates Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and Hanukkah. Sometimes Nancy and I look in the calendar to see what holidays we might be missing, such as Boxing Day or Summer Bank Holiday. We do not even know what they are, but they are interesting to us because they are holidays.

  It was the last day of September, which was a Saturday. I was singing while I poked through my school stuff. I was in my bedroom at the little house where I live with my mother, my stepfather Seth, and my little brother Andrew. Andrew is four and I am seven.

  My name is Karen. Karen Brewer. I am in second grade at Stoneybrook Academy, in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. My teacher’s name is Ms. Colman, and she is so gigundoly wonderful I cannot even believe it. Nancy is in Ms. Colman’s class, too. So is Hannie Papadakis. Nancy and Hannie and I are best friends. We call ourselves the Three Musketeers.

  I was poking through my school things on a Saturday because the next day Andrew and I would go to my father’s house for a month. Our parents are divorced, but they both live in Stoneybrook. So Andrew and I go back and forth — a month at Mommy’s house, a month at Daddy’s house. Whenever we switch, I have to remember to take my school books and papers and projects with me.

  I had made a pile on my bed. “Does that look like everything?” I asked my rat. (I have a pet rat, who lives in a big cage. Andrew has a pet hermit crab. We just love animals.)

  Brring rang the telephone. Mommy answered it downstairs. A few seconds later, I heard her call, “Karen! Phone for you! It’s David Michael.”

  David Michael is my stepbrother, who lives at Daddy’s house. He is seven. Sometimes we are good friends. Sometimes he is a big fat pest. I wondered what he wanted.

  “Hello?” I said, when I picked up the phone.

  “Hi, Karen,” said David Michael. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “Beware of Emily. She has turned into a monster.”

  “Emily has?” Emily is only two and a half. She is my sister at the big house. I could not imagine Emily as a monster. She is way too little. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “She is always screaming and yelling and kicking now. Yesterday she bit your dad. You better monster-proof yourself before you come over here tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” I said politely. But I did not plan to monster-proof myself. For one thing, I did not know how to do that. For another, I just did not think Emily could be so bad. And if she was? Well, I could handle a little monster.

  I was still looking forward to going to the big house.

  Emily Two-Two

  I have special nicknames for my brother and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. This is because we have two of so many things — two houses and two families, two mommies and two daddies, two cats and dogs. Let me tell you how we became two-twos.

  It started a long time ago, when I was just a little kid. Back then I had just one house and one family, one mommy and one daddy. Andrew and I lived with our mommy and daddy in a big house here in Stoneybrook. It was the house Daddy had grown up in. I thought we were happy, but I guess we were not. At least, Mommy and Daddy were not. They began to fight a little. Then they fought a lot. They fought all the time. Finally they told Andrew and me that they were going to get a divorce. They did not want to live together anymore. They loved Andrew and me very much, but they did not love each other.

  So Mommy moved to a little house. Soon she got married again. Daddy stayed in the big house. He got married again, too. And that is how my brother and I wound up with two families.

  In my little-house family are Mommy, Seth, Andrew, me, Rocky, Midgie, Emily Junior, and Bob. Rocky and Midgie are Seth’s cat and dog. Emily Junior is my rat. Bob is Andrew’s hermit crab. Guess what. Emily Junior and Bob are two-twos, too. They go back and forth between the big house and the little house with Andrew and me.

  In my big-house family are Daddy, Elizabeth, Andrew, me, Kristy, Sam, Charlie, David Michael, Emily Michelle, Nannie, Shannon, Boo-Boo, Goldfishie, Crystal Light the Second, Emily Junior, and Bob. Isn’t it good the big house is so big? Elizabeth is my stepmother. Kristy, Sam, Charlie, and David Michael are her kids. (She was married once before she married Daddy.) Kristy is thirteen. She baby-sits. I love her. I am glad she is my big sister. Sam and Charlie go to high school. Sam is fifteen and Charlie is seventeen. Charlie plays on his school football team. And David Michael is seven, like me. But he does not go to my school. He goes to Stoneybrook Elementary. Emily Michelle is my adopted sister. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from the country of Vietnam. I love my little sister, which is why I named my rat after her. Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. That makes her my stepgrandmother. She moved into the big house to help take care of it and all the kids and pets. The pets are Boo-Boo (Daddy’s nasty old cat), Shannon (David Michael’s puppy), Goldfishie and Crystal Light (Andrew’s and my fish), and Emily Junior and Bob.

  Now Andrew and I have two of everything (almost). We have clothes and books and toys at each house. I even have my two best friends. Nancy lives next door to Mommy, and Hannie lives across the street from Daddy. (Plus I happen to have two pairs of glasses — a blue pair for reading and a pink pair for the rest of the time.)

  Being a two-two might sound confusing, but mostly it is okay. Sometimes when I am at the little house, I miss my big-house family. Sometimes when I am at the big house, I miss my little-house family. But I am very lucky to have two families who love me so much.

  “Okay, Emily Two-Two,” I said to my rat. “Are you ready to go to Daddy’s tomorrow? We will have fun there. And we will find out if Emily Michelle really is a monster.”

  Autumn

  “Karen? Andrew? Are you ready?” called Mommy.

  “Yes!” I replied.

  Andrew and I hurried down the stairs in the little house. My backpack thumped against me with each step. It was full of my school things, the ones I needed to take to Daddy’s.

  Mommy and Seth and Andrew and I climbed into our car. Seth drove us to the big house.

  “Good-bye,” said Andrew and I when Seth had parked the car.

  “Good-bye,” replied Mommy and Seth.

  We gave each other kisses. Then Andrew and I ran across the lawn and into Da
ddy’s house. “We’re here!” I cried.

  Everyone came running — Daddy, Elizabeth, David Michael, Emily Michelle, Kristy, Nannie, Sam, and Charlie. We all began talking at once.

  “Cool! There is Bob. I’ll take him, Andrew,” said Sam.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Nannie.

  “Where is Boo-Boo?” asked Andrew.

  “I bake cookie!” said Emily proudly.

  “She does not look like a monster,” I whispered to David Michael.

  “Just you wait,” he replied.

  Andrew and I put our things in our bedrooms. We helped Emily Junior and Bob settle down. Then David Michael said to us, “Come on outside. Everyone is there. We are going to rake leaves today.”

  I know that raking leaves is supposed to be a big fat chore. But I do not mind it (even though sometimes I pretend to mind). I do not mind it because I like raking the leaves into piles and jumping in the piles. Daddy always lets us do that.

  Andrew and I followed David Michael outside. Sure enough, the rest of my big-house family was there. Almost everybody was holding a rake. (Not Emily. She was trying to push her doll stroller around the yard. She was not helping with the leaves, but she certainly did not look like a little monster.)

  There were no rakes left, so Andrew played fetch with Shannon. I listened to the big kids talk. Kristy said she was very busy with baby-sitting. Sam was worried about a test he had taken.

  “I bet you did fine on the test,” Charlie said to him. “Stop worrying. Hey, I know. You can help me with our Halloween float, since you do not have to do anything for the math club’s float.”

  “What Halloween float?” I asked.

  “The high school is going to put on a Halloween parade this year,” replied Charlie. “It is supposed to get everyone interested in the homecoming football game. Every group or club or team at SHS” (that stands for Stoneybrook High School) “is going to make a float for the parade,” Charlie continued. “The football team’s float is going to be called Monsters of the Gridiron.”

  “Of the what?” I said.

  “The gridiron. That is another word for football field. Anyway, we are going to make all these monsters for our float — Frankenstein and Dracula, even Bigfoot. I am in charge of Frankenstein. Anybody who wants to help me build him is welcome.”

  “Cool,” I said. “What — ”

  “Karen! Hey, Karen! You got here!”

  I saw Hannie running across the street with her brother Linny and her little sister Sari. They wanted to play in our leaf piles. So that is what we did.

  Emily played with us, too. She did not do one monsterish thing.

  I told David Michael he was crazy.

  The Little Monster

  I can get ready for school very fast. This is because I usually choose my clothes the night before. Then I lay them out on a chair. When I wake up the next morning, I do not have to think about what to wear. I just roll out of bed and put those clothes on.

  That is what I did when I woke up in my room at the big house the next day. I put on my yellow plaid skirt, red turtleneck, red tights, and my black slip-on shoes. Then I ran to the bathroom. If I hurried, I could be the first person to sit down at the breakfast table. But I could not get into the bathroom. Somebody else was already in it. Boo and bullfrogs.

  I sat in the hall and waited. While I waited, I heard Elizabeth in Emily’s room. “Rise and shine,” she said. “Busy day.”

  Boy, are the weekdays busy at the big house. Daddy hurries to his office downstairs (he works at home now). Elizabeth hurries off to her office. Sam and Charlie rush to the high school, Kristy catches the bus for the middle school, David Michael catches the bus for Stoneybrook Elementary, I catch the bus for Stoneybrook Academy, and Andrew’s carpool picks him up to go to his preschool. Busy, busy, busy.

  “Okay, Emily,” I heard Elizabeth say. “Put on your bathrobe.”

  “No!”

  “Come on.”

  “No! No, no, no!”

  Hmm.

  At breakfast, Emily would not sit in her high chair. “No!” she shrieked. She kicked her feet. She kicked so hard she knocked a carton of orange juice off the table.

  “Now do you see what I mean?” David Michael said to me.

  I nodded, wide-eyed. “Yeah.”

  Daddy set Emily on the floor, away from the spilled orange juice. “Emily,” he said patiently. “No kicking.”

  Emily lay down. She banged her fists on the tiles.

  “Calm down, Emily,” said Daddy.

  “No, no, NO!”

  Emily yelled so loudly she hurt my ears. “I better go,” I said. “I do not want to be late.” I flew out the door to meet Hannie.

  Well, for heaven’s sake. David Michael was right after all. Emily Michelle had turned into a little monster.

  Stoneybrook Academy

  “Karen! You are all out of breath,” said Hannie.

  “I ran here really fast,” I replied. I was standing at the bus stop with my big-house best friend. “I could not wait to get out of my house. Emily is a monster,” I said. “Shh. Listen — I bet you can hear her screaming all the way over here.”

  Hannie and I stopped talking. We could not hear Emily. But Hannie wanted me to tell her what had happened. So I did. When we reached school, I had to tell the story again, to Nancy.

  “She had a temper tantrum,” I finished up, as my friends and I walked into our classroom.

  “Boy,” said Nancy, “I sure hope Danny never has temper tantrums.” (Danny is Nancy’s baby brother.)

  Hannie and Nancy and I put our things in our cubbies. Then we sat at our desks. Hannie and Nancy get to sit next to each other in the back row. I have to sit in the front row. That is because I am a glasses-wearer. I sit right in front of Ms. Colman’s desk. Guess what. Ms. Colman is a glasses-wearer, too. So are Natalie Springer and Ricky Torres. They sit on either side of me. (Ricky is my pretend husband.)

  The other kids in my class trickled into the room. I saw Pamela, Leslie, and Jannie. (They are sort of like the Three Musketeers, only not very nice.) I saw the boys — Bobby, who used to be a bully, and Hank and Chris and Omar and Ian. Then came Sara Ford. Addie Sidney rolled through the door in her wheelchair. The last to arrive were the twins, Tammy and Terri Barkan, and Audrey Green. Eighteen kids in all. Plus Ms. Colman.

  “Good morning, girls and boys,” said our teacher.

  Ms. Colman took roll. And then … she made a Surprising Announcement. I just love Surprising Announcements.

  “Class, you have been working hard this fall,” she said. “I am very proud of you. You should be proud of yourselves, too. And so should your families. I thought the people in your families might like to see what you have been working on. It is time for you to show off a little. So I have decided that we will have an autumn program for our families. It will be called ‘Fall Is … ’ We will hold it at the end of next week. We will display some of your classwork, and we will make refreshments to serve to our guests. Also, we will read aloud the fall stories we will be writing.”

  Yes! Excellent! This sounded like gigundo fun. I just love showing off my work. And I like having an audience. I could not wait to read my story to everybody.

  I turned around to grin at my friends in the back of the room. Hannie smiled back at me. But Nancy did not. She did not look happy.

  Nancy raised her hand.

  “Yes?” said Ms. Colman.

  “Does everyone have to read their stories out loud?’ asked Nancy.

  “Yes,” replied Ms. Colman. “That will be part of the program.”

  “Oh.” Nancy slumped in her seat.

  I faced the front of the room again. I thought about a fall story I could write. I wondered what kinds of refreshments we would make. I counted the days until our “Fall Is …” program. Eleven. How could I possibly wait eleven days for something so wonderful?

  Nancy’s Problem

  At lunchtime that day, Nancy was very quiet. She barely spoke to Hanni
e and me. She just ate her sandwich and her banana. She did not even laugh when Hannie accidentally made milk squirt out of her nose. She just chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed.

  On the playground I said, “Who wants to play hopscotch?”

  “Me!” cried Hannie.

  “You want to?” I asked Nancy.

  She shook her head.

  “How about jumping rope?”

  “Nope.”

  “Jacks, then.”

  “Nope.”

  “Nancy, what is the matter?” Hannie finally asked.

  Nancy shrugged.

  “Come on,” I said. “Tell us.”

  Nancy looked at the ground. “I do not wannareemyf …” she mumbled.

  “What?” said Hannie and I.

  “I do not want to read my fall story by myself in front of all those parents and guests at our program,” said Nancy.

  “Why not?” asked Hannie.

  “I will be too scared.”

  “But everyone else will have to read their stories,” I pointed out. “You will not be alone.”

  “That does not matter,” said Nancy. “I do not care.”

  “We can help you practice,” suggested Hannie.

  “Yeah. That is a great idea,” I agreed. “We will help you.”

  Nancy still did not look very happy.

  “I know!” I said. “I have another idea. Come on. Let’s find Ms. Colman.”

  Even though recess was not over, Nancy and Hannie and I ran inside Stoneybrook Academy. Then we walked to our classroom (since you are not supposed to run in the halls). Ms. Colman was sitting at her desk.

  “Hello, girls,” she said. “Is anything wrong?”

  “We need to talk to you,” I replied. “Nancy does not want to read her story at the fall program.”

  “She is scared,” added Hannie.

  “I see,” said Ms. Colman. “What are you scared of, Nancy?”

  “I am scared of reading in front of so many people.”

  “I imagine that some of the other kids might feel a little scared, too,” said Ms. Colman. “But this will be a good experience for you. It is called public speaking. It is very important.”