The League of Beastly Dreadfuls Book 1, page 11
“So you know about the Creature in the Woods!” Anastasia whispered.
“The Creature in the Woods?” Quentin and Ollie echoed.
“Prim and Prude kidnap children and feed their hearts to the Creature. And then they bury the bones in their garden.”
Ollie grabbed his brother’s hand. “Is that true, Q?”
“I thought Prim and Prude were…a different kind of kidnapper,” Quentin said. “But I didn’t know anything about a Creature in the Woods. Anastasia, how did you find all this out?”
“Detective work,” Anastasia said. “I heard Prim and Prude talking about the Creature in their secret parlor. I hid behind a curtain and spied on them.”
“Just like Francie Dewdrop!” Ollie said. “I told you she was smart, Q.”
“And,” Anastasia added, wrinkling her nose, “I saw them eating leeches!”
“Leeches!” Ollie cried.
“Prim and Prude made me wade around in the bog and catch leeches. They said they were going to sell them to the doctors in the village.” The horrible details came pouring out. “But then I saw them munching the leeches.”
“They leeched me, too,” Quentin muttered.
“They must be after vitamin S!” Ollie said. “Packed with vitamin S, our blood is. Antivenin, you know.”
“Ollie!” Quentin said. “You’re not supposed to talk about these things with outsiders!”
“But, Quentin,” Ollie argued, “Anastasia isn’t really an outsider, is she? She’s stuck here, just like us. Don’t you think we can tell her that vitamin S protects against Shadowbites?”
“Shadowbites!” Anastasia exclaimed.
Quentin groaned and flung his hands into the air.
Ollie turned to Anastasia and clicked his teeth. “Shadowbites are deadly poisonous. But someone with Shadowblood in their veins can take it.”
“So you really do bite!” Anastasia said to Quentin.
“Only on special occasions,” he protested.
“And that’s why Prim and Prude eat leeches?” Anastasia cried. “They’re after your vitamin S?” She paused. “But they leeched me, too. And I’m not…Well, what are you, exactly?”
Ollie wriggled. “We’re—”
“Be quiet, you pudding!” Quentin hissed.
“I know that you umbrate,” Anastasia pointed out. “And I did help you find Ollie. Shouldn’t that count for something?”
Quentin looked down at his grimy fingernails. “Fine,” he said. “But first, Anastasia, we must swear you to secrecy.”
“I swear,” she promised. “Cross my heart.”
“There are dire consequences for those who blab,” Quentin warned. “Most dire.”
“Like what?”
“Even the consequences are secret,” Ollie whispered.
“I’m good at keeping secrets,” Anastasia said. “I never told Prim and Prude that I saw you sneaking around, Quentin. Even after you scared me in the hall.”
“Thank you,” Quentin said. “That was very noble. Now you have to pinkie-swear.” He held out his hand.
As you are undoubtedly aware, dear Reader, pinkie-swearing is the most hallowed of all oaths. Treaties have been ratified, and wedding proposals accepted, and brave soldiers knighted, all with the sacred pinkie clinch. It is not an oath to undertake lightly, and Anastasia knew this full well as she solemnly crooked her pinkie around Quentin’s.
“Ollie and I,” Quentin said, “are Shadowfolk.”
“There are lots of us out in the world,” Ollie said, “and we have to keep our existence completely hush-hush.”
“Why?”
“Because of people like Prim and Prude, for one,” Ollie said. “Leeching Quentin for his Shadowblood! The monsters!”
“Have they been leeching you, too, Ollie?” Quentin asked.
“Nope,” Ollie said. “They want me to stay strong. They’re waiting for me to molt.”
“Molt?” Anastasia echoed.
“Shed my Shadowsilk. Shadowchildren—”
“Shadowsilk?”
“Cripes, you interrupt a lot,” Ollie said. “We Shadowchildren shed shadows for a few years, from about fifth grade until eighth.” He dug in his pocket. “Here’s a bit that scraped off my arm the other day.”
He pushed a long black glove into Anastasia’s palms. It was silky and shimmery and cool. Anastasia stared at it.
“So Prim and Prude want your shadow bits? But why?”
“Sometimes we slough off our whole Shadowskin—like a snake shedding.”
Anastasia gulped. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s sort of like peeling a sunburn,” Ollie said. “Anyway, when we slough like that, someone else can wear the Shadowsilk.”
“Like a suit,” Quentin spoke up.
Ollie nodded. “Like footie pajamas.”
“But Prim and Prude are taller than you,” Anastasia said.
“Shadowsilk is elastic stuff.” Ollie grabbed the silken glove back from her and tugged its edges. “See?”
“But why would Prim and Prude want to wear your old skin? That’s disgusting!”
“Gosh, you’re rude!” Ollie said. “I’ll show you!” He clumped into a corner untouched by candlelight and stretched the gossamer down over his hair and then his eyebrows, and finally over his nose and mouth and chin. “Louis the Sixteenth! He was decapitated, you know.”
“Pineapple upside-down cake crumbs!” Anastasia exclaimed. “It does look like someone chopped off your head!”
“Shadowsilk is terrific camouflage,” Quentin said. “You blend right into the shadows. It’s almost like being invisible.”
Ollie peeled the Shadowsilk off his head, and it shrank back into a glove. “Here, Anastasia. Give it a whirl.”
Anastasia pushed her hand into the dark gauntlet, gasping as her fingers disappeared into the darkness. If she strained her eyeballs, she could detect a hand-shaped silhouette moving against the gloom. But barely.
“A suit made of this silk would be extremely handy for a kidnapper,” she said, looking significantly at Ollie and Quentin. “They could sneak around and snatch children without even being seen!”
Quentin scowled. “Bingo.”
“Oh, I love that game,” Ollie said. “Do you play, Anastasia?”
“This is no time for games,” Quentin said. “We have to figure out how to escape this lousy asylum. What do you think those kidnappers are going to do to you, Ollie, when they finally get their nice shadow suit?”
Ollie’s eyes swiveled to the ceiling in deep thought. Then he solemnly drew his index finger across his neck. “Creature in the Woods?”
Quentin nodded. “Prim and Prude aren’t keeping us around because they like children, after all. We’ve got to get out of here. We must escape—or die trying.”
19
The League of Beastly Dreadfuls
“ALL RIGHT,” OLLIE said cheerfully. “Escape or certain death. Good to know one’s options.”
You have probably observed, good Reader, that escapes in movies are always exciting and dashing and sometimes jolly. They have thrilling titles like The Perilous Breakout at Bleakstone Prison or The Fantastic Flight of the So-and-So Gang. There are often a couple of terrific explosions, and usually a dramatic gunfight, and sometimes a bit of slipping on banana peels to provide comic relief.
Anastasia had not, in her entire stay at St. Agony’s, seen a single banana.
This worried her.
“First things first!” Ollie declared. “Let’s form our secret getaway crew. And then we can call our adventure The Daring Escape of Whoever We Are.” Apparently he had watched a number of action films, too.
To Anastasia, founder and sole representative of the Francie Dewdrop Admiration Society, belonging to a club with more than one member seemed pretty good. And belonging to a secret club—with top-secret Shadowboys—seemed even better. “All right,” she said. “What’s it called?”
“I don’t know yet,” Ollie admitted.
Quentin strummed a silvery melody on the bars of his cage. “How about the Bog Street Trio?”
“That’s not right at all,” Ollie said. “It sounds like one of your musical groups. There needs to be a sense of danger and excitement! And our name should be a little scary, too. Strike dread in the hearts of kidnappers, and all that. I know! The Ghastly Gingerbread League!”
“What does gingerbread have to do with anything?” Quentin demanded.
“Run, run, as fast as you can! You can’t catch me—I’m the gingerbread man!” Ollie sang. “I always liked that story. And it fits our situation! The gingerbread man is running away from a nasty old lady!”
“But don’t you know how it ends?” Quentin asked. “The gingerbread boy gets crunched by a fox!”
“What?” Ollie’s eyes rounded. “But—”
“You always ran off in the middle of the book to go bake,” Quentin reminded him.
“Well, I got inspired,” Ollie said. “I’m going to be a top-rate pastry chef when I grow up,” he informed Anastasia. “Tell her about my gingerbread houses, Q.”
“Ollie’s gingerbread houses are scrumptious,” Quentin allowed.
“And huge. I even made a gingerbread St. Basil’s Cathedral,” Ollie went on.
“Have you seen the kitchen here?” Anastasia asked. “It has all kinds of fancy cooking stuff. They even have a jelly mold shaped like the asylum.”
Ollie perked up. “Really? Let’s go there now! I can make us a Bundt!”
“We’re plotting our great escape,” Anastasia pointed out. “And we haven’t even come up with a name for our posse.”
“The Ghastly Gingerbread League seems pretty good to me,” Ollie grumbled.
“I do like league,” Anastasia said. “That sounds impressive.”
“And capable,” Quentin said. “A league would be quite capable of launching a Daring Escape from two horrible kidnappers.”
“No more Dreadful beastly boys should be seen and not heard,” Ollie mimicked Prim.
“No more Dig that hole faster, you beastly teenager!” Quentin said.
“We’ll show Prim and Prude just how beastly we can be!” Ollie grinned and clacked his poisonous teeth.
“That’s it!” Anastasia cried. “The League of Beastly Dreadfuls!”
“The League of Beastly Dreadfuls.” Quentin nodded. “It has a certain ring to it.”
Ollie cheered. “I like it, too! The League of Beastly Dreadfuls!”
Anastasia thought of the spidery script on Lucy Pinkerton’s photo. TO THE DREADFUL. Well, she was going to the Dreadful, all right, but not whatever Dreadful Prim and Prude had plotted for her. Hopefully. “Let’s pinkie-swear on it.”
They clinched pinkies.
“And now,” Ollie said, “we have to plan that Daring Escape.”
“We must leave in three nights exactly,” Quentin said.
“Why do we have to leave at night?” Anastasia asked, imagining the Creature smacking its lips in the starless Dread Woods.
“It’s dark at night,” Quentin answered. “Easier to slip away unnoticed. Only one kidnapper will be watching from the glass tower. They take shifts so they can sleep.”
“Oh,” Anastasia said. “But why three nights?”
“Because that’s the night of the full moon, and that’s when we Shadowfolk are at our best,” Quentin said.
“I don’t want to wait three nights!” Ollie complained. “Full moon or not, can’t we just run away?”
“It isn’t that simple, Pudding,” Quentin said. “Prim and Prude lock Anastasia up every night and mirror me into my room. And didn’t you notice the electric fence when they brought you here? Very tall, and tipped with mirrors. Besides, I won’t be able to umbrate with this thing on.” He rattled the head cage. “That’s why the kidnappers stuck it on me.”
Anastasia pondered the iron padlock dangling from the metal collar. “Maybe we can pick that. Let’s see if there’s anything useful in the Treatment Room.”
Unfortunately, not a single pick or needle or other pointy instrument in the Treatment Room could twitch open the padlock. Anastasia scowled and flung down an authentic Victorian lobotomy drill, mentally crossing “expert lock picker” from her detective-veterinarian-artist résumé.
“Let’s saw it off,” Quentin urged.
“But if Prim and Prude see that your head cage is mangled, they’ll just put a new one on you,” Anastasia reasoned. “We need to get it off without them noticing.”
Ollie let out a howl and hiccup from where he knelt by the toy cupboard. His back was to them, but his shoulders jiggled with little boohoohoos.
“It’s all right, Ollie,” Anastasia reassured him. “We’ll figure something out.”
“What?” Ollie sniffled. “No, I just finished the first fairy tale in this book. And the princess winds up locked in a tower! That’s not how the story ends in my book at home.” He swiveled his face back toward them. His eyes were wet and his cheeks gleamed with mercurial streaks. The silvery stuff dripped down to his sweater and sizzled the woolly loops. Hssssst!
“Ollie!” Anastasia shrilled. “What’s on your face? It’s burning your sweater! Did you get into those bottles of Victorian medicine?”
“They’re just tears,” Ollie said. “Oh, the poor princess, locked up like that.”
“Shadowtears burn,” Quentin explained. “Through fabrics and most metals—but not silver, of course. You should see Ollie’s pillowcase at home. It looks like moths got into it. He’s always crying when he reads bedtime stories.”
“Shut up, Quentin,” Ollie said, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. Hssssst! The woolly weft began to unravel.
Anastasia’s gaze leapfrogged from Ollie’s frayed sweater to the padlock swaying from Quentin’s cage.
“Ollie,” she said. “Let’s see that book.”
“And then,” Anastasia read in her most sinister story-time voice, “the little mermaid bade her prince farewell and leapt into the sea.”
“No!” Ollie cried. “That isn’t how it’s supposed to end! The little mermaid marries the prince and they live happily ever after!”
“But she didn’t,” Anastasia said mournfully. “Not in the real story. Nope. No happily ever after there.”
Hssssst! Hssssst!
“Quick!” Anastasia said. “Use this!” She uncorked Miss Viola’s tear catcher. “Hold it to the corner of your eye.”
“It’s all so sad!” Ollie howled. “The poor mermaid. She died for LUUUUURVE.”
“Ollie?” Anastasia whispered. “Do you think you could wail a little more quietly? We don’t want Prim and Prude to hear us.”
“Couldn’t you make me cry tears of joy instead?” Ollie grumped. “They’re just as sizzly.”
“Really?” Anastasia said. “You should have mentioned that. Maybe we can make you laugh until you cry.”
“I know a limerick,” Quentin said. “Listen closely, Ollie:
“A bachelor from Timbuktu
Met an amorous ape at the zoo.
To Las Vegas they fled;
In a chapel they wed,
And now spend their days flinging poo.”
Ollie giggled.
“Not funny enough,” Anastasia said. “Try another one, Quentin.”
He cleared his throat.
“An old perfumer from the Bronx
Grew increasingly obsessed with skunks.
‘Check beneath the tail
For a singular smell!
I could sit and inhale it for months!’ ”
“It’s a nice rhyme,” Ollie said, “but it isn’t really hilarious.”
The Treatment Room was quiet for a minute.
“Tickle Monster!” Quentin cried, pouncing on Ollie and grabbling his ribs. Ollie squealed in delight. Hssssst! Hssssst!
“You’re wasting tears!” Anastasia said. “Quick, catch them!”
Ollie sprawled on the tiled floor, panting. Quentin held up the tear catcher with satisfaction. “That should do the trick.”
Anastasia plucked the vial from him. She tilted it above the padlock. Hssssst!
“It’s working!” she cried. “It’s burning through the shackle!”
“Hooray!” Ollie whooped.
Anastasia popped the padlock and swung the collar back. “Freedom!” she proclaimed, pulling the cage off Quentin’s head.
“Oh, thank goodness!” He clawed his blotchy neck.
“You’ll have to wear the cage in front of Prim and Prude,” Anastasia reminded him. “We can’t let them realize that you can take it off. Ugh, you have a terrible rash!”
“It’s the silver,” Ollie said. “It makes us break out in awful welts.”
Anastasia jolted. She yanked Granny McCrumpet’s necklace out of her shirt. “The kidnappers gave me this silver chain,” she said. “And they keep checking me for a rash.”
“Take that necklace off right now!” Ollie said.
“But I’m not itchy.” Anastasia slumped on the floor and stared at the ruby winking on the silver heart. Why had Prim and Prude kidnapped her? She wasn’t a Shadowchild. She was absolutely ordinary in every way. What about the other children whose glum faces glowered from the walls of Room Thirteen? Had any of those kids been magical? Why did the Watchers snatch magical children to feed to the Creature? Or did they just stumble upon Ollie by accident, and decided to use him for his Shadowsilk? Perhaps that’s why Prim and Prude had fed him so many cakes—they were trying to plump him up, so his silken suit would be bigger!
And Ollie was the perfect victim for nefarious Hansel-and-Gretel-type schemes. He was clutching his tummy at that very moment.
“I’m so hungry,” he lamented. “Do you have any candy?”
As you may or may not remember, the day of Anastasia’s first premonition of doom happened to be the day after Halloween, and her satchel was still jumbled with crumpled wrappers torn from lollipops and chocolate Scrummy bars. The only sugarplum that had escaped her sweet tooth was the sour watermelon taffy, a flavor she couldn’t bear for reasons to be discussed later in our story. She now offered these sour watermelon globs to her fellow Beastly Dreadfuls, and they continued to hatch their scheme.
