Billy Hooten

  Billy didn't know what to do. His brain was sputtering like the old computer at the back of Mrs. Maloney's class that had to have been built when dinosaurs walked the earth.

  “Wish I had some bread,” the pig-man roared, his muscular, hairy arms reaching out for Billy. “Bet you'd make a really tasty sandwich.”

  That got Billy, and he did something he'd never have imagined doing in a thousand and one years. He reached down, snatching up what looked like a leg bone from the ground, and stood ready to defend himself against the advancing brute.

  Billy had been in lots of fights in his twelve years. He'd never started any of them, and never won any of them, either. But this was different. This wasn't somebody knocking him down because his mother had made him wear that sweater with the dancing snowmen on it to school, or shoving his head in the toilet for an ultimate swirly because he had accidentally reminded the teacher about a homework assignment she'd forgotten to collect.

  This was real, life-or-death stuff.

  The monster was almost on him, his stink making Billy want to hurl.

  Billy reared back with the bone, remembering what his dad had tried to teach him about hitting a baseball—to keep his eye on the ball, only in this case it was the pig.

  What happened next was something Billy would never have believed if he'd read it in his comic books or seen it in his movies.

  He was just about to swing the bone at the pig-man when the beast slipped on a pile of bones. A slip of Olympic caliber, the kind of slip that if it had happened in the hallway at school would still be talked about five years later.

  Remember when what's-his-name slipped that day?

  Dude, that was totally outrageous! I thought for sure he was dead.

  The pig-man's feet flew out from beneath him, and Billy could've sworn he heard that crazy whistling sound he always heard in the cartoons as the creature landed, the back of its big head whacking the mausoleum floor and making Billy wince.

  He watched the beast for a moment, waiting for signs of movement. Nope, knocked out cold.

  Talk about lucky.

  Then the fact that Billy was holding something that had once been inside a human body suddenly began to sink in and he dropped the bone to the ground, wiping his hands furiously on his sweatshirt.

  “I knew it,” screeched the creepy little guy with the squash-shaped head.

  Billy jumped. He'd nearly forgotten about the other creature.

  “I knew I would find you if I came to the world above. I knew it!” The creature smiled, showing off a set of teeth that would have made Billy's dentist drool.

  Billy began to carefully back toward the mausoleum door. “You find me?” he asked with a nervous chuckle. “I don't even know what you are, never mind who you are.”

  “I am Archebold,” the weird little man in the black tuxedo and tails said. “I'm a goblin.”

  “Of course you are,” Billy said, taking a right turn onto Crazy Street. “Am I supposed to know you?” he asked, hoping to keep the creature talking until he could reach the door.

  Archebold shook his head. “Nope, never laid eyes on you before.”

  “But you've been looking for me?” Billy questioned.

  The creature nodded, his smile getting wider.

  “Then who am I?” Billy challenged, feeling the cool breeze from outside on his back. He was almost there.

  “Don't be silly,” Archebold said with a chuckle. He reached behind his long-tailed jacket and produced what looked like a rolled-up comic book from his back pocket.

  Billy's eyes widened in horror. A comic book should never be treated like that.

  “This is you,” Archebold said, shoving the comic into his hands.

  The comic book was old, really old, and Billy's eyes immediately absorbed the cover image, reading the title aloud. “Owlboy.” Despite his surroundings,he found himself studying the hero running toward him into action on the cover. He'd heard of Owlboy before but had never seen one of the comics. There was actually something appealing about the superhero with his brown and green costume, funky cape that sort of looked like feathers, and cool helmet with goggles.

  “I don't get it,” Billy said, looking up.

  “Can't think of any other way to say it.” Archebold moved to stand beside him, and Billy quickly stepped back. The goblin ignored him and jabbed at the book's title with a stubby finger. “You are the Owlboy.”

  Billy vigorously shook his head as he laughed nervously. “Nope, sorry, you got the wrong guy. I … I'm just a kid.” He tried to give the comic back, but Archebold wouldn't take it.

  “You're joking, right?” the goblin asked.

  “Do I look like I'm joking?” Billy put on his most serious face.

  “Oh my,” Archebold said in shock. “Then when you arrived to rescue me, it was just… an accident?”

  Billy shrugged. “I heard somebody calling for help and decided to see what I could do.”

  The goblin stroked his chin, slowly nodding. “Yes, that's it. And even though you didn't realize it, you ran straight into the arms of your destiny.”

  “Whose arms?” Billy asked, wrinkling his nose, still confused.

  Archebold again leaned in close, pointing a sausage-like finger at the comic Billy held. “Destiny's arms,” he repeated. “This is your destiny … to be the next Owlboy.”

  “Me?” Billy asked, his voice coming out like a squawk.

  Taking hold of his arm just below the elbow, Archebold started to explain. “You are to be the next protector of Monstros City.”

  “Where?” Billy asked.

  Archebold rolled his eyes. “Monstros City,” he said slowly. “The world beneath this one.” The goblin pointed to the floor, his shaggy eyebrows going up and down.

  “There's… a world … beneath the cemetery?” Billy began to panic. This was nuts. He was standing in a mausoleum talking to a goblin about a city under the cemetery after being attacked by a pig-man.

  Check, please!

  “Beneath this human cemetery, there exists a fabulous place—a vast city populated by monsters of every shape and size.”

  “There are monsters underneath the cemetery?” Billy asked in a whisper, nearly certain that his parents had been right. Was this what brain damage was like?

  “What else would live in a place called Monstros City?” The goblin looked a bit annoyed as it shook its oddly shaped head. “Circus clowns?” Archebold started to pull Billy toward the back of the mausoleum. “Don't tell me you've never heard of Monstros City. It's been voted scariest place to live by NewsShriek magazine five hundred years in a row. I can't wait for you to see it ….”

  Inside his head, Billy heard the sound of screeching brakes. No way. He had zero intention of going anywhere near a place called Monstros City … especially with a goblin. Without another thought, he yanked his arm from the goblin's grip.

  And bolted for the door.

  This is nuts, Billy thought, slamming through the mausoleum door, the crazy alarm going off in his head big-time.

  The cool air helped to clear his mind, but it didn't make the craziness of the situation go away.

  The creepy little creature dressed like he was going to a wedding had said Billy was the next Owlboy. Billy's thoughts raced as he ran down one of the winding paths through Pine Hill Cemetery, his brain going a million miles a minute. Did Archebold know Randy? Could he and Billy's mortal enemy have cooked up a plan to make Billy think he was losing his marbles? Naw, this wasn't Randy's style. Randy was more physical; he would've preferred to beat Billy's head until the marbles just fell out, none of this subtlety stuff.

  And then it hit him: what if the entire incident was just the product of his sometimes overactive imagination?

  He remembered last summer, when he was certain that invaders from Mars had landed in his neighborhood during a particularly nasty thunderstorm. It was an honest mistake; in the lightning, the electric company repair trucks did look a little like Martian death cruisers. br />
  Billy ran faster, feeling the slap of the cement path through the soles of his sneakers.

  Is that it? he wondered. Or maybe I really did play ball with Randy and Mitchell and they hit me over the head with their bats and now I've got this horrible head injury giving me all kinds of crazy dreams.

  Up ahead, just before the next bend in the path, he saw the stone wall that separated his backyard from the cemetery. If he could just get to his house, he knew he could wake up.

  He pushed himself even faster, certain now that this was all just one big, crazy nightmare.

  But then how did he explain the Owlboy comic book he was still holding?

  He would always blame what happened next on a wet patch of slimy fall leaves, but in fact, the cause was just as likely to have been his own clumsiness born of fear. Whatever the reason, he lost his footing and careened off the path, moving so fast he couldn't stop, until he plowed headfirst into a marble headstone.

  Billy had never dreamed that nightmares could be quite so painful.

  CHAPTER 2

  “You are the Owlboy,” the tiny creature screeched, waving the old comic book.

  Billy awoke with a start to find himself lying facedown in the grass atop a grave.

  “What the … ?” he began, pushing himself up to his knees. He felt a bit dizzy, swaying slightly as he brought his hand up to touch the front of his aching head.

  He winced, feeling a good-sized bump as well as some sticky wetness. “Oh no,” he said, looking at his fingers where a little blood had stained them.

  Then, noticing that the cemetery around him was a little out of focus, he looked about for his glasses. He could just make them out lying on the ground near him and picked them up. Checking them first to be sure they weren't broken, he breathed a sigh of relief as he returned them to his face. At least he wouldn't have to explain that to his parents.

  As the world came back into focus, he saw the comic book lying on the ground next to him and slowly picked it up. He glanced back down the path toward the Sprylock mausoleum.

  Had it really been some kind of waking nightmare? A hallucination? But again, how did that explain this?

  Billy stared at the cover of the comic book for a moment, then finally got to his feet, brushing stray blades of grass from the front of his sweatshirt. The sun was starting to go down, and he wondered how long he had been lying there. He was considering going back to the mausoleum, just to prove he wasn't crazy, when he heard his mother's voice.

  “Billy! Time for supper!”

  He felt a rumbling ache in his stomach and realized he hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. I can always check tomorrow, he told himself, and trudged toward home.

  “Coming, Mom!” he yelled.

  By the time he'd climbed over the wall and into his backyard, he'd almost convinced himself that the events at the mausoleum had just been some strange,out-of-control daydream. But that still didn't explain the comic book.

  He could just hear it now: Hey, Billy, where'd you get the wicked old comic book?

  A goblin gave it to me in a mausoleum! Maybe he'd be finishing up sixth grade at the Happydale Insane Asylum.

  He opened the back door to the kitchen, pondering this disturbing thought, and his mother started to scream.

  Billy jumped, whipping around to see if the pig-man, or maybe Archebold, had followed him home, but he saw nothing.

  “What?” he screamed back, looking at his mother's wide-eyed face as she stood near the stove, hand clutching her mouth.

  “What happened to your head?” she shrieked.

  “I fell down in the cemetery,” he answered in an equally shrill voice.

  “You hit your head?” Mrs. Hooten's eyes bulged and her voice dropped to a troubled whisper.

  Billy nodded quickly, afraid to answer. He looked at his dad, whose face was hidden by the newspaper he was reading at the kitchen table. No help there.

  “You stay right where you are, young man,” his mother ordered, racing out of the kitchen. “Who knows what kind of damage you could've caused!” Billy caught the sounds of her rummaging through the bookcase in the family room.

  He knew exactly what she was looking for. Whenever he had a health issue, his mother would break out Doctor Mellman's Encyclopedia of Old-Timey Cures, a book she'd picked up at a garage sale before he was even born.

  With a sigh, he pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. He wondered if the cure for this injury would involve rubbing bacon fat over the affected area or drinking a glass of lemon juice while holding his breath and standing on one foot. Those were just some of the old-fashioned remedies that Billy's mother thought worked wonders.

  “What happened again?” his dad asked from behind the newspaper.

  “Slipped on some leaves and whacked my head on a tombstone,” Billy replied.

  “You all right?” his father asked, turning the page.

  “Yeah,” Billy said, shrugging. “Got a cut on my head, but it didn't bleed much. I feel fine.”

  “Good,” his dad said. “Why don't you go get washed up for supper?”

  Billy opened his mouth to tell his father about the events at the mausoleum, then thought better of it. Hey, Dad, you were right, your only son really is insane. Instead, he headed for the upstairs bathroom. As he climbed the steps, he could hear his mother return to the kitchen, asking his father where he had gone. And whether they still had any bacon fat left in the fridge.

  That night, no matter how hard he tried, Billy could not fall asleep.

  Neither of his old standbys worked: counting the number of things his collection of Transmogrifier robots could transmogrify into, or how many unusual ways the Mongoose had tried to kill the Snake. No matter what, Billy couldn't get the bizarre memory of what he had seen that afternoon to leave his head.

  The cut on his forehead throbbed, yet another reminder of the most bizarre day ever, and he reached a hand out from beneath the covers to wipe away the excess bacon fat from his mother's—and Dr. Mellman's— remedy. He rubbed his hand on the solar system comforter that covered his bed and turned over, trying to get comfortable.

  Was it a hallucination or not? asked a tiny voice in his head, a voice that sounded an awful lot like him doing his mad-scientist imitation.

  He sat up, his thoughts racing. He could straighten his room; he could pull out some back issues of Snake and reread them; he could watch some late-night television. But deep down he knew that none of that would silence the question that still rattled around inside his head.

  What really happened today?

  Billy looked toward his dresser. He had shoved the Owlboy comic book into his underwear drawer on his way to the bathroom to wash up for dinner. Since then, he had avoided his bureau as though it would give him that flesh-eating bacteria. But if he got up right now and took a look, would the book still be there? Or would it have faded away like the bad dream he was praying the mausoleum incident really was?

  There was only one thing to do. Billy tossed back the covers, got out of bed and turned on the light. Slowly— carefully—he reached for the knobs of his dresser. Then, holding his breath, he pulled open the drawer.

  He smiled, looking down into the drawer at a sea of underwear and socks, and breathed a sigh of relief. It really had been just his mind playing tricks on him. Feeling much better, and almost certain that he could fall asleep now, he started to push the drawer closed.

  And that was when his eyes caught a glimpse of something bright yellow peeking out from beneath a navy blue sock.

  Billy wanted so badly to simply shut the drawer and jump back into bed, pulling the covers up over his head, but instead he reached into the drawer and flipped over the sock to reveal…

  The Owlboy comic book.

  Strangely enough, a part of him was actually relieved to find it there, because that meant he wasn't losing his marbles. He knew that everything that had happened to him in the mausoleum …

  Was real.

&nbs
p; He slid the comic out from beneath his underwear. Again he found himself pulled into the artwork on the cover. Even though the book was old, the colors were bright and exciting, and Billy felt his heartbeat quicken just the way it did when he visited Hero's Hovel and picked up the latest issue of Snake.

  It was almost as if the old comic book was speaking to him.

  Read me, it seemed to say in a voice that hinted of something incredible.

  And Billy did exactly that, dropping to the floor and opening to the first page.

  The cover might have been great, but the inside was absolutely amazing. Within seconds, Billy was sucked into Owlboy's fabulously exciting adventures in Monstros City.

  The old issue was much bigger than comic books today, with lots more pages and three stories instead of one. And what stories they were.

  Preston Peters was by day a star reporter for the Big City News—but once he traveled through that magical doorway into the world of Monstros City, he became Owlboy, hero, protector, fighting evil wherever it threatened. And what about Monstros City, the most exciting place in the world, where every kind of creeping, crawling, swimming or flying monster lived?

  Owlboy was forced to match wits with the devilish Dr. Disease and his weapons of infection; Garko, the beast that walked like a man; and an invasion of killer robots from the future that wanted to turn Monstros City into their new junkyard kingdom.

  By the time Billy finished the comic—and read it again—he was absolutely exhausted. Never in his twelve years had he read a comic book as totally awesome as this one.

  And then he remembered the goblin's words. You are the Owlboy.

  Billy picked himself up from the floor and returned to his bed. He placed the comic on the nightstand, turned off the light and squirmed beneath the covers.

  I'm Owlboy, all right, he thought. I'm the guy who can defeat Dr. Disease by giving him cramps, beat Garko in an ultimate thumb-wrestling competition and thwart the invasion of a fleet of killer robots with the help of my own fleet of Owlbots.