46 - How to Kill a Monster Read Online Free

“Clark!”
    No answer.
    “Clark?”
    Silence.
    I burst through the door and let out a cry.
    The sheets on Clark’s bed lay in a tangled mess—as if there had been some kind of struggle.
    And now there was nothing left of Clark—nothing but part of his pajamas,
crumpled on the bed!

 
 
7
     
     
    “Noooo!”
    I opened my mouth in a terrified cry.
    “Gretchen—what’s your problem?”
    Clark stepped out from the closet.
    He wore a T-shirt, baseball cap, sneakers, and his pajama bottoms.
    “Uh… n-no problem,” I stammered, my heart still pounding.
    “Then why did you scream?” Clark demanded. “And why do you look so weird?”
    “I look weird? You’re the one who looks weird,” I snapped. I pointed to
his pajama bottoms. “Where are your pants?”
    “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I think Mom must have packed them in your
suitcase by mistake.”
    I have to stop letting this big, old house spook me. Clark is the one with
the wild imagination—not me, I reminded myself again.
    “Come on,” I told my stepbrother. “Let’s go back to my room and look for your
jeans.”
    On the way down to breakfast, Clark stopped to peer out the hall window. The
mist had cleared. The dew-covered plants glistened in the sunlight.
    “It looks sort of pretty, doesn’t it?” I murmured.
    “Yeah,” Clark replied. “Pretty. Pretty creepy.”
    The kitchen looked pretty creepy too. It was dark—almost as dark in the
morning as the night before. But the back door was open and some sun splashed on
the floor and the walls.
    We could hear the sounds of the swamp through the open door. But I tried to
ignore them.
    Grandma stood by the stove, a spatula in one hand, a huge plate of blueberry
pancakes in the other. She set down the spatula and plate and wiped her hands on
her faded flower apron. Then she gave us each a big good-morning hug—smearing
Clark with pancake batter.
    I pointed at the stains on his shirt and giggled. Then I glanced down at my
shirt. My brand-new pink T-shirt. Splotched with blueberry stains.
    I glanced around the kitchen for something to use to clean my shirt. The room
was a disaster.
    Globs of pancake batter dripped from the stove. Batter covered the
countertops and stuck to the floor.
    Then I took a good look at Grandma. She was a disaster too.
    Her face was striped—blue and white. Flour and blueberry stains filled the
creases of her wrinkled cheeks. She had flour streaked across her nose and chin.
    “Did you sleep well?” She smiled, and her blue eyes crinkled. With the back
of her hand, she wiped a wisp of gray hair from her eyes. Now a glob of
blueberry batter nested in the thin strands of her hair.
    “I did,” Grandpa answered, as a loud shriek rang out from the swamp. “Always
do. It’s so quiet and peaceful here.”
    I had to smile. Maybe Grandpa is lucky that he’s hard-of-hearing, I thought.
    Grandpa headed out the door, and Clark and I brushed ourselves off. Then we
took our seats at the table.
    In the middle of the table sat another plate of blueberry pancakes. This
plate was even bigger than the one Grandma had been holding. And it was stacked
high with blueberry pancakes.
    “Grandma must think we eat like pigs,” Clark leaned over and whispered.
“There’s enough here for fifty people.”
    “I know,” I groaned. “And we’ll have to eat them all. Otherwise, she’ll be
insulted.”
    “We do?” Clark gulped.
    That’s one of the things I really like about my stepbrother. He believes
almost everything I tell him.
    “Help yourself,” Grandma chirped, carrying two more plates of pancakes to the
table. “Don’t be shy.”
    Why did Grandma make all these pancakes? I wondered. There’s no way we
could eat all of them. No way.
    I placed a few pancakes on my plate. Grandma heaped about ten onto Clark’s
plate. His face turned green.
    Grandma sat down with us. But her plate remained empty. She didn’t take a
single pancake.
    All those pancakes and she