“Are we in Monstros yet?” Billy asked, righting his wheeled suitcase.
“Almost,” Walter said, buzzing around a particular section of wall. “Where we want to be is on the other side of this.”
“Isn’t there an exit?” Billy asked, confused. “Any way to get through the wall?”
“Remember, these are uncharted territories, Bill,” Archebold explained. “The undiscovered country and all that gobbledygook.” The goblin placed his hands on the wall and pushed. The darkness gave way as if made of rubber.
“Oh yeah, that’s thin enough. We can cut our way through.”
“Cut our way through?” Billy asked.
“And then will there be cake?” Victoria asked, doing a crazy little dance.
“Cake?” Halifax asked.
“Never mind her,” Billy said. “We’re going to cut through the shadow to get out?”
Halifax fished in one of the deep pockets of his overalls.
“Ahh! Here it is,” the troll said, removing a small pocketknife and holding it out for Billy to see. “It’s got a special shadow blade for cutting this stuff.” He found the blade and snapped it into place.
Billy wasn’t impressed. He’d seen bigger knives as accessories to some of his action figures, but he didn’t say anything.
Halifax approached the wall and pushed on it a few times, searching for the thinnest point, Billy guessed. Leaning in very close, the troll stuck the knife into the solid darkness and began to cut downward. The tiny blade cut through the rubbery darkness like the Furious Furies’ Captain Razor’s claws cut through evil.
“There,” Halifax said, proudly stepping back from the entrance he’d cut and putting away his blade. “That should get us through all right.”
“Get us through for cake!” Victoria cried, running toward the hole.
Billy reached out and grabbed her by the hood of her winter jacket. She kept running in place, hands extended, reaching for the darkness.
“Boy, she really loves cake,” Archebold said. “But what if there isn’t any—”
“I’ll take care of it,” Billy quickly interrupted the goblin. “You guys go ahead and I’ll deal with that here.”
Walter flew through the newly cut passage, followed by Archebold and Halifax.
“They’re going, Billy,” Victoria whined. “They’re gonna get all the cake!”
Billy took her by the shoulders and spun her around.
“Victoria, I want you to listen to me,” he said in his very serious voice. “There might not be any cake on the other side of that passage.”
The little girl stopped struggling and stared into his goggles.
“No cake?” she asked in a teeny- tiny voice.
Billy shook his head.
“You promised!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs, the force of the words tossing him backward against the wall.
“Remember what we said about losing your temper here,” Billy warned, picking himself up.
“I think you’re lying,” she said, arms folded. “I think you guys just want to get the biggest pieces and leave none for me.”
“Victoria, I told you, there’s no cake,” he tried to explain. “I don’t even know where the idea came from. It’s something your crazy five-year-old brain made up.”
“You’re a crazy five- year-old brain!” she screamed, spinning around and running for the passage. “Nobody’s gonna take my cake.”
“Victoria, wait!” Billy cried, grabbing his suitcase and chasing after her.
The new passage was dark, but through the lenses of his goggles he could make out Victoria’s shape running toward an exit not far away.
“Hey, wait up!” he yelled, his voice coming back at him in a warbly echo.
Billy was running as fast as he could, dragging the suitcase behind him. He reached the exit, ducked his head and plowed through to the other side, ready to read Victoria the riot act for running off on her own—but then he stopped short.
Halifax, Archebold, with Walter perched on his shoulder, and Victoria were all standing perfectly still in front of him. Halifax had one of his hands clamped over Victoria’s mouth.
“What’s goin—” Billy began.
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” they all shushed in unison, spraying his face with a sheen of spit.
Billy wiped his goggles and saw Archebold pointing at something.
At first he thought it was a gigantic pile of dirty clothes, but then he noticed that it was moving . . . and snoring loudly.
What the . . . ?
Billy left his suitcase and crept over to inspect the snoring pile.
He almost choked on his tongue when he realized what it was. It was the Sassafras Siblings and their mother, lying on top of each other in a gigantic pile of snoring evil, weapons cradled lovingly in their arms.
Archebold had told Billy that the bad guys’ leader had sent the siblings and their mother into the shadow paths to keep him from getting back to Monstros. He guessed they must have gotten tired of waiting and crashed for a quick nap.
Slowly and carefully, Billy backed up, returning to his friends.
“Of all the places we could’ve ended up, we land here in front of these guys?” Billy asked his friends in a whisper.
“Just call us lucky,” Archebold whispered back with a shrug.
The Sassafras mound continued to snore, and Billy’s brain immediately went to work trying to figure out what they should do next.
What did happen next was a bit of a nightmare.
Victoria had begun to struggle, trying to peel Halifax’s dirty hand away from her mouth, when he leaned close to her ear and whispered, “See, even the Sassafrases need to take naps.”
Halfiax then let out an earsplitting scream as Victoria bit down on one of his chubby troll fingers as if it were an Italian sausage. He quickly pulled his hand away, trying to shake out the pain as Victoria placed her little hands on her hips and glared at them all.
“I’m not a little baby and I don’t like stupid naps,” she bellowed, stamping her foot and sending a powerful shock wave through the corridor of shadow.
And waking up the Sassafrases.
“Huzzah wah?” Mother Sassafras grumbled, lifting her large head and peering around the chamber as she smacked her gigantic lips.
“But I don’t want to go to school,” Sigmund Sassafras whined sleepily. “And besides, I burned it down the other day.”
“Mister Shooty?” Sireena said sleepily, sitting up. “Where’s Mister Shooty?”
Billy guessed that she was looking for her gun, which had slid from her rather full lap onto the floor of the shadow passage. Hoping she would fall asleep again, he zipped over to get it for her. It weighed a ton, but he managed to place it on her lap, where her clawed hands finally found it.
“There you are, Mister Shooty,” she said dreamily, eyes barely open. She lovingly petted the hard, angled metal.
Billy slowly, carefully, quietly returned to his friends, who were frozen in place. If they played their cards right, maybe the loathsome trolls would fall back asleep and they could get the heck out of there without being noticed.
But that would’ve been way too easy.
“Are those the guys with the cake?” Victoria asked, pointing to the mound of trolls.
Billy slapped his hand to his brow as Mother Sassafras came fully awake.
“Cake?” she exclaimed, her large eyes bulging with interest. “I’ll have just a little slice; I’m trying to watch my figure.”
“Cake?” Sigmund yelped, immediately sitting up. “Is it my birthday already?”
“Not cake,” Sireena growled, more awake than any of them. “More like dead meat.”
“Outta the way!” Billy screamed, grabbing his friends and pushing them as the Sassafras sister suddenly grabbed Mister Shooty and began blasting away.
“That’s not very nice!” Victoria scolded, climbing to her feet.
The trolls all had their weapons ready now, the whol
e Shooty family, and Billy thought he was going to have a heart attack.
“Nice?” Sireena smiled, looking down the barrel of her weapon at the five- year-old. “We killed nice a long time ago.”
“I’m gonna enjoy blowing this one to bits,” Sigmund chortled, aiming his weapon as well. “If it wasn’t for her, we would have ended up as the kings of crime in Monstros.”
Mother Sassafras pushed her children aside for a better look at Victoria. “Is this the horrible human child that caused my babies such problems?” she asked. “You nasty little thing. You had no right putting my precious children in the big house.”
“Are we gonna turn her into a grease spot, or are we gonna talk her to death?” Sireena asked.
Billy saw his opportunity.
“Destructo Lass, use your powers now!” he screamed from the cover of shadows.
“I am not a Destructo Lass,” Victoria yelled again, stamping her foot. “I’m a ballerina!”
The Sassafrases had just begun to shoot at the child as a new shock wave rocked the passage. Their shots went wild, completely missing the angry little girl.
“Hey,” she said, turning back to them. “You could have shooted me.”
“Hey, Victoria, if you’re a ballerina, prove it,” Billy called.
“What?” she asked, turning around to face him.
The Sassafras family was picking itself up off the floor and getting ready to fire their weapons again.
“I said, if you’re a real ballerina, prove it!” Billy cried.
He had seen Victoria dance before, on occasions too numerous to mention, and to say that she had two left feet was being kind.
What was the word his father had used when he saw Victoria doing a dance number for her dolls in their driveway?
Spastic. Yeah, that was it.
Never one to ignore a challenge, and feeling as though she just might be the greatest dancer since Angelina Ballerina, Victoria started one of her elaborate numbers.
“What’s she doing?” Mother Sassafras demanded, stepping back just in case a piece of the child should fly off.
“I don’t know,” Sigmund whispered, his eyes locked on the little girl’s movements.
“I think she’s having a fit,” Sireena said, obviously mesmerized.
Billy and the others could not help watching. He had never seen these moves before. The five-year-old squatted down almost to the floor with her hands above her head, then sprang into the air.
“Oh my,” Archebold said.
“There’s something really scary about this,” Halifax added.
“I want to go back in your pocket now,” Walter buzzed, crawling into one of Archebold’s deep coat pockets.
Victoria was so lost in her dance that she wasn’t paying a bit of attention to where she was going. Her movements became faster and faster as she got into the rhythm, moving across the corridor right at the Sassafrases.
“Look out!” Sigmund shrieked, attempting to get out of the little girl’s way, but his mother blocked his path.
Victoria—eyes clamped shut in concentration—leapt, squatted and flung her arms out as she danced to a song that only she could hear.
“Kill it!” Sireena yelled, trying to aim her rifle. But the dancing child was too close and within seconds, Victoria—the Destructo Ballerina—was among them.
There wasn’t a thing they could do to escape her Destructo Dance.
Tiny fists connected with flabby troll stomachs; feet, in the middle of kicks and leaps, pounded terrified troll faces and sent them flying.
She’s a sight to behold, Billy thought as the Sassafrases were reduced to a moaning pile on the floor. So much destructive power in one tiny body, it’s sort of scary.
Thank God she was on their side.
CHAPTER 8
It was almost time.
The Monarch sat before the flickering images of destruction that appeared on the multiple monitors inside the Roost, watching the devastation being wrought on the city of monsters by his villainous agents of doom.
I certainly made the right choices with this group, he thought, admiring the creativity they had brought to their attacks.
If they were not stopped soon, there would be no Monstros City left.
The Monarch moved closer to the edge of his seat, studying all the screens, attempting to look into the eyes of those who ran around the city in total panic.
He could see it there now, in their wide, terror-filled eyes. They wanted to be saved. They were desperate for a hero to make all the badness go away.
“It’s time,” the Monarch suddenly proclaimed, standing up from his seat.
Nearby, his lackeys—who had been filling their faces with snack foods—stood as well, wiping crumbs of fried cephalopod and insect-filled cookies from their faces.
“Time for what, boss?” Mukus asked eagerly. “Is it time for you to declare yourself ruler of Monstros City?”
“And to have everyone bow down to you as the grand supreme pooh-bah of evil and all-around swell guy?” Klot continued.
“No,” the Monarch answered, again gazing at the scenes of chaos. “It’s time to save it.”
“Save it?” Mukus asked.
Klot laughed, sticking one of his red- clawed fingers in his ear and giving it a wiggle. “For a minute there, I could have sworn you said that it was time to save it, but we of course know how crazy that is and . . .”
The Monarch turned his hidden face toward them, nodding within his hood.
“For years I dreamed of being a hero,” he said. “And I’ve worked very hard to finally create the conditions to make that dream come true.”
The lackeys were holding each other, afraid.
“We . . . we don’t understand,” Klot said as Mukus nodded furiously, his dripping body sending spatters flying around them.
“What is there to understand?” the Monarch asked, spreading his arms wide.
“Monstros City needs a hero to replace the hated Owlboy, and I’m just that guy.”
“This place looks kinda familiar,” Billy said, slowly pushing open the door into what looked to be a storage room.
Archebold, Halifax and Victoria joined him as Walter buzzed above their heads, the light from his rear end illuminating the darkened room.
“Looks like we’re in the back of a store,” Halifax said, reading the writing on one of the boxes stacked in the corner. The box contained a product called Uncle Fred’s Slugs in a Minute.
“I love Slugs in a Minute,” Halifax said, licking his furry chops. “My mom used to make it for us on the nights she worked a double shift down at the filth factory.”
“Filth factory?” Victoria asked, wrinkling her nose. “Sounds stinky.”
Halifax nodded. “Yeah, a little. She was in charge of maintenance on the crud engines. Boy, she could make those babies sing. If it wasn’t for my mom, a lot of monsters would have frozen their pimply behinds off in the chill season, I can tell you that.”
“Fascinating,” Walter hummed sarcastically as he checked out other parts of the room. “I can’t wait to read the book.”
Halifax looked as though he wanted to slowly rip the firefly’s wings off, so before that could happen, Billy jumped in.
“I know I’ve been here before,” he said, walking across the room. “I think there’s a door right here.”
It was there, just as he remembered.
“See?” he said, pointing it out to his teammates.
“I think this is the place where I ended up the first time I ever came to Monstros,” Billy explained. “When I tried to give the Owlboy costume back and ended up falling into the stone crypt.”
“Loser,” Victoria chirped with a giggle.
Billy gave her the evil eye before turning the doorknob.
“I saved this little guy with a fireball for a head from these skeleton dudes that were trying to rob the store.”
He pushed the door, but it stuck midway.
“Something’s blocki
ng it,” Billy said, using his Owlboy strength to push harder and move the obstruction. “Oh wow.” He gazed around. The store was in total disarray, all the shelving knocked over and product spilled on the floor. “It’s totally wrecked.”
Light fixtures hung loosely from the ceiling and sparks shot from exposed wire.
“This is what I was afraid of,” Archebold said sadly as he passed through the doorway to join Billy in the store.
The others followed.
“What’s that?” Billy asked.
“This is what bad guys do,” the goblin said, picking up some of the shelving and trying to tidy things up a bit. “They wreck everything that’s good.”
Billy found himself suddenly becoming sad, with a truckload of angry right behind it.
“Who knows what else they’ve destroyed since we’ve been gone,” Archebold added with a sigh.
Billy had heard enough. He hadn’t been this angry since Randy Kulkowski had hung him from a coat hook by his underwear in third grade. The memory still made him wince, and he used the additional anger generated by the thought to move him to action.
Until he heard someone crying.
He was drawn to it, and climbed over the rubble, trying not to step on anything that might still be useable.
Billy found his old friend, the flame- headed guy, sitting on the curb in front of his wrecked store. The little guy was crying big tears of fire that dribbled down his chin and sizzled on the street.
Billy carefully approached, clearing his throat.
Slowly, the store owner turned to see who was behind him. “You!” he said, his dark eyes bulging with excitement. “It’s really you!”
Normally Billy would have been flattered and kind of excited by the attention, but now, seeing what had happened to the guy’s store, it just made him feel kind of depressed.
“Hey,” Billy said with a little wave. “Remember me?”
“Remember you?” The monster rushed to Billy and threw his arms around the hero’s waist. “How could I forget?” he said, giving Billy a big hug.
“Awww,” Victoria said. “That guy’s pretty cute.”
The store owner’s head was burning a dark, orangey color as he released Billy.
“I never believed a word of what they’ve been saying about you,” he said, puffing his chest out proudly. Billy noticed that he was wearing a light blue shirt with a red apron on which the name SAMMY was stitched.