The League of Beastly Dreadfuls Book 1, page 2
“Your parents were in an accident today. They’re at Fuzzy Antler Hospital.”
“Accident!” Anastasia yawped. “What kind of accident? Are they okay?” Her mind raced with the possibilities. Mr. McCrumpet had once sprained his ankle on one of the garden gnomes (the dastardly Winkles), and he had broken out in a rash from a pair of polyester trousers one fateful sunny day the previous August. Aside from that, nothing ever happened to Mr. McCrumpet. The very idea that he could wind up in the hospital seemed inconceivably drastic for such a quiet man, to whom nothing interesting had happened in his entire life. And what could happen to Mrs. McCrumpet? She seldom even got out of bed. “What kind of accident?” she asked again.
“Your great-aunts will tell you about it,” the Monobrow snapped. “They’re waiting outside for you.”
Anastasia gaped at her. “But—”
“Behave yourself, McCrumpet,” the Monobrow hissed, leaning down so that her mustache tickled Anastasia’s ear. “If you dare disobey your aunts, you shall be in a world of trouble. Your buttocks shall be grass and I shall be the lawn mower.” On this terrifying note, she bulldozed Anastasia out the front door of Mooselick Elementary.
3
Prim and Prude
TWO TINY OLD ladies huddled on the front steps of Mooselick Elementary, smiling timidly from beneath their enormous umbrella. I’m sure you have seen many old ladies of their ilk. They had rosy cheeks and prune-like faces. Raindrops twinkled on the collars of their bushy fur coats. One of them was a bit stout and had the pushed-in nose of a hedgehog. The other one had twiggy legs and pale pink hair that stuck up in little curls around the brim of her hat.
Anastasia regarded them with begrudging approval. These two old ladies, she thought, looked exactly like two crinkly, stuffy, bespectacled great-aunts should look.
There was just one small problem.
Anastasia didn’t have any great-aunts.
“My dear child,” warbled the skinny one, “how you’ve grown!”
“You’ve sprouted quite a few freckles, I see!” observed the hedgehog.
“Exactly one hundred twenty-seven,” Anastasia said. “But I think there’s a mix-up. I don’t have any aunts.” She huffed a sigh of relief. These two old prunes must have come for some other Mooselick Elementary student.
Besides, she thought, wrinkling her nose with distaste, she wouldn’t like to have aunts who went around wearing dead animals. Anastasia, you will remember, was friends with a fluffsome guinea pig. She disapproved of fur coats.
“Why, Anastasia!” the hedgehog said. “We’re your Grandpappy McCrumpet’s sisters. Bless his heart.”
“Rest his soul,” added the skinny one.
“Grandpappy?” Anastasia echoed.
The truth was, she had never actually met her grandparents. She had never, for that matter, met any relatives other than Mr. and Mrs. McCrumpet. Her parents didn’t talk about them, and they certainly hadn’t mentioned any great-aunts.
“Don’t you remember us?” the skinny one asked.
“We’ve met before?” Anastasia shivered as rain crept down her neck.
“You were very little,” reminisced the hedgehoggy one. “No bigger than a loaf of banana bread. How the time does fly.”
“But haven’t your parents told you about us?” quavered the skinny one. “They’ve never said anything about Auntie Primrose and Auntie Prudence?”
“Dear me,” the hedgehog sniffled. “Oh, my. It breaks an old auntie’s heart.”
Mortified, Anastasia mumbled, “I guess maybe they mentioned you.” But she certainly didn’t remember it.
“See, Prude?” the skinny one perked up. “Of course Fred talks about us!”
“Such a dear boy,” Prude said. “Prim, remember how he visited us every summer? How he loved to vacuum the hall rugs!”
A fellow named Fred who loved to vacuum? That was Mr. McCrumpet, all right.
“Now, why exactly is there a tail dangling from your trousers?” Prim asked. “Are you dressed up as—as a wolf?”
“No.” Crimsoning, Anastasia flapped her arms to display her wings. “I’m a flying squirrel.”
“Thank heavens,” Prim said. “Wolves are so very scary.”
“They eat little old ladies and small children, you know,” Prude said, clutching at her chest.
“Um,” Anastasia said. “The Monobrow—I mean, Miss Sneed—said Mom and Dad are in the hospital. What happened to them?”
The aunties exchanged a fretful look. Prude unsnapped her purse and rummaged around for a minute before pulling out a linty conglomerate of ancient peppermints. “Have a sweetie,” the old lady said. “It always helps to have a sweetie before bad news.”
“No thanks,” Anastasia said hastily.
“Just a lick,” Prude persisted, shoving the lump forth.
“Really,” Anastasia said, “I’m not hungry.”
“One little lick!” urged Prude. “Yum, yum!”
“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” Prim encouraged her.
Anastasia looked at the two flustered old ladies, and she squinched her eyes shut and stuck out her tongue.
“Delicious, isn’t it?” Prude crammed the disgusting glob back into her handbag. “My favorite candy, and so economical. Why, that one piece has lasted me over two whole years! I’m sure I’ve licked it thousands of times.”
“Well,” said Prim, “we really ought to get going.”
“But you still haven’t told me what happened to Mom and Dad!” Anastasia exclaimed. “Are they okay?”
“We’ll tell you on the way,” said Prude. “If we stay out in this rain much longer, we’ll catch pneumonia!”
“But—”
A thunderclap drowned out Anastasia’s protest. The aunties went scurrying down the steps of Mooselick Elementary, screeching “Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh!” as their sensible shoes splashed through the rainbow-streaked puddles of the parking lot. Anastasia raced after them to a station wagon painted an astonishing shade of pink.
“In you go, dear,” Prim said, flinging the back door open. “And do try not to get mud on the upholstery.”
The station wagon was already squealing away from Mooselick Elementary and down the rain-slicked road when Anastasia noticed the cage.
The front seat was separated from the back of the station wagon by a panel of wire mesh. Anastasia reached forth and crooked her index finger through one of the metal loops. “What’s this?”
Prim swiveled slightly. “This station wagon used to be owned by a dog groomer,” she said.
“We got a marvelous deal on it,” Prude said. “You must never buy a new car, Anastasia. It loses half its value the second you drive off the lot.”
“But why is there a cage?” Anastasia asked.
“It was to prevent the pooches from jumping into Claude’s lap or nibbling his ears,” Prim explained.
“Claude?”
“The dog groomer!”
They whizzed down the highway. Anastasia twisted the ends of her braids, watching raindrops squiggle down the window like glass worms. Then she spotted a big sign on the side of the road that said THANK YOU FOR VISITING MOOSELICK in tall orange letters.
“Hey!” she shouted. “You missed the turn to Fuzzy Antler! We have to go back!”
“Fuzzy Antler?” Prim asked, staring back at Anastasia.
“The hospital!” Anastasia said. “Miss Sneed said Mom and Dad are at Fuzzy Antler Hospital!”
“Oh.” Prim’s fluffy head wobbled a bit. “Well, Miss Sneed was mistaken, dear. Your parents are at St. Shirley’s Hospital for the Seriously Mangled, which is several hours away.”
“They airlifted them in a helicopter!” piped up Prude. “Isn’t that fancy?”
“Seriously mangled!” Anastasia spluttered.
“Now, now,” said Prim. “They’ll be fine. It was just a freak vacuum-cleaning accident. And Dr. Mantooth at St. Shirley’s is supposed to be the best surgeon in the country for that sort of thing.”
“My parents are having surgery?”
“Sitting like this is putting a knot in my neck,” Prim said. “My poor old bones can’t take it.” She turned her back to Anastasia.
“But, Aunties!” Anastasia jingled the partition.
“You’re tarnishing the mesh, dearie,” called Prude, eyeing Anastasia in the rearview mirror. “Kindly remove your sticky hands.”
Anastasia slouched back, worry curdling her stomach. She wondered whether her dad had accidentally vacuumed off Mrs. McCrumpet’s toes while tidying up the specks of waffle crumbs that always littered her bedsheets after breakfast. It was a gruesome possibility.
Struggling to shake away these terrible thoughts, she began to tally the cars plastered with interesting bumper stickers. LABRADOODLE ON BOARD. The station wagon’s heater blasted away, gusting Anastasia’s wet clothes. HONK IF YOU HATE LOUD NOISES. Her eyelids drooped, and she must have dozed off sometime after I BRAKE FOR MOOSE DOO, because the next thing she knew it was dark outside, her bottom was numb, and her teeth felt mossy. The backseat was muggier than a Florida swamp. Anastasia used the side of her fist to rub away a little circle of the steam silvering the window and peered out into the rain. The station wagon bumped along a road twisting between steep hills.
“Where are we?” she croaked.
“Look who’s awake! Did you have a nice nap, dearie?” Prim asked. She was clicking away with two extra-long knitting needles, crafting something pink and lumpy.
The sky growled, and a terrific flash of lightning dazzled the murk. For just a second, Anastasia could see the road snaking through the forest, zigzagging all the way to a huge castle humped at the tippity-top of the tallest hill. Dozens of towers spiked its roof, biting into the clouds. Then darkness swallowed up the sinister view.
Anastasia blinked, seeing the jagged outline of the castle on the insides of her eyelids. “Is that the hospital?”
“No, my dear,” Prim replied. “That’s where we’ll be spending the night.”
“In that castle?” Anastasia’s jaw dropped.
“Castle! Did you hear that, Prude?” Prim chuckled. “It isn’t a castle, Anastasia. It’s just a very big house.”
“A historical Victorian mansion!” Prude added.
“But why are we spending the night there?”
“The storm is getting worse. We can’t drive all the way to St. Shirley’s tonight,” Prim said.
“But what about Mom and Dad?”
“The nurse telephoned and said they’re on the mend,” Prim replied. “But they need to rest. We’ll visit them tomorrow.”
Anastasia frowned. “When did the nurse call?”
“You were napping,” Prude said. “We didn’t want to wake you.”
The station wagon juddered as they rounded another harrowing curve, and then chugged to a stop. The headlights carved a silver tunnel of light through the gloom, and at the end of this tunnel gleamed the warped bars of an old iron fence. Anastasia squinted to read the crooked sign hanging from one of the bars:
4
Fingernails on Glass
LIGHTNING SHREDDED THE sky, illuminating the ghoulish mansion crouching behind the fence. Anastasia knotted her fingers through the cage. “Hey! Hey!”
But Prim went on knitting, and Prude pressed a button on a little remote control clipped to the driver’s-side visor. The gates swung open, and the pink station wagon crawled through the mud toward the fortress.
Anastasia sat back, hugging her satchel. Why on earth were they spending the night at St. Agony’s Asylum for the Deranged, Despotic, Demented, and Otherwise Undesirable (That Is to Say, Criminally Insane)? She twisted around and watched as the electric gates clanked shut behind them. How had they wound up here, on top of a hill in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere? How many thugs lived in that creepy place? What sort of crimes had they committed?
Thunder rumbled, and the sky went dark. The wagon groaned and stalled.
“Oh, poo,” said Prude. “We’re stuck.” She revved the engine. It sputtered, but the car did not move. Anastasia squeezed her satchel even tighter.
And then she heard the noises.
It first sounded a little bit like mice squeaking at her window. Anastasia strained her eardrums. Not quite mice. The noise was like teeth grinding together. Or…like something scraping the glass.
Fingernails.
“Aunties!”
The clouds flared with lightning again, and Anastasia saw what was making the noises: two white hands clawing the glass, the fingers long and curled. Anastasia’s heart thumped three times before clouds gulped the lightning and gloom curtained the window.
It was probably only a few seconds before the next flashbulb of lightning, but it seemed an eternity, perhaps because it is very unpleasant to sit in the dark and listen to screams of terror. Surprisingly, Anastasia wasn’t the one screaming. She was too frightened even to peep.
The screams weren’t coming from the front seat, either. They were coming from outside, Anastasia realized, when the next burst of lightning blazed like a spotlight on the awful scene beyond her window. Prim was out in the rain, walloping away with the pointy silver end of her umbrella. “Get away, you filthy beast!” she shrieked. “Away, you dreadful creature!”
The target of these fearsome brollie wallops was a scrawny teenaged boy, his head hidden inside some sort of odd birdcage. A bell fastened to the cage tinkled hysterically as the umbrella crashed down. Tingalingalingaling! Anastasia caught a glimpse of wild eyes before his palms squealed from the glass and he tumbled backward into the mud, howling.
“Shoo! Shoo, I say!” The umbrella clobbered the cage.
TINGALINGALING!
“Get away!” Prim jabbed the ruffian’s ribs with her umbrella. He yowled and staggered off into the fog.
Prim unfurled the umbrella and opened Anastasia’s door. “We’re here!” she announced with a bright smile.
Anastasia gawped at her. “We’re actually staying here? In this insane asylum?”
Prim giggled. “No wonder you look so frightened!” she said. “This used to be a lunatic asylum, but that was over one hundred years ago. Now it’s just a big old house, like we told you. A very pretty one, too,” she added, beaming at the sinister mansion.
Anastasia gulped. “Is this your house?”
“Indeed it is,” Prim replied proudly. “We got it at a fantastic price. For some reason, nobody wanted to buy a historic lunatic asylum.”
Anastasia could think of about twenty terrific reasons right off the top of her noggin, but she didn’t utter them out loud.
“Out of the car, dearie,” Prude said, joining Prim under the umbrella.
“But who was that boy you just attacked?”
“I wasn’t attacking him!” Prim twittered. “That was the Gardener. And he knows full well that he’s supposed to stay out of this rain. He gets the sniffles.”
“Delicate lungs,” added Prude. “But you know how teenagers are. So willful! Always refusing to wear a coat in chilly weather.”
“But why did you hit him?” Anastasia persisted.
“Because, my dear,” Prim said, “youngsters should mind nice little old ladies. It’s manners. And now I would like you to follow us.”
Anastasia hopped out into the downpour and trod miserably behind her aunties. “Why is your Gardener wearing an old birdcage on his head?”
“It isn’t just any old birdcage,” Prim said. “It’s an elegant Victorian antique. And it’s a precaution against certain—er—hazards.”
“Biting,” Prude said.
“Yes,” Prim said. “Quite an accomplished biter, the Gardener.”
“He’s a bit mad,” Prude said.
“A bit!” Prim cried. “He’s a complete lunatic!”
“You may have noticed that our lunatic Gardener has a bell attached to his birdcage,” Prude said. “That’s to warn you of his approach. Best to scurry off to safety if you hear bells in this house.”
“Yes,” Prim said. “Don’t go thinking it’s an ice cream truck.”
“Ice cream trucks,” Prude said sadly, “never venture into these woods.”
“But why would you hire an insane Gardener?” Anastasia demanded, dragging her feet up the front steps.
“Do you know how much sane gardeners charge these days?” Prude exclaimed. “It’s outrageous! We can barely afford our biting loony!” She pushed her spectacles to the tip of her nose and peered at an enormous brass dial bulging, like an outie belly button, from the center of the door. She tweaked the nub, and it hiccuped click click click click click.
“I’ve never seen a combination lock on a door,” Anastasia said.
“Well, I imagine you’ve never seen the front door of a former asylum for the criminally insane,” Prim said. “The locks and bolts of St. Agony’s are the crème de la crème. Designed by a brilliant master locksmith, they were. Had to withstand the efforts of baddie safecrackers and lock pickers, you understand.”
Prude gave the disk a final twirl and the door swung open. “Mind the mirror,” she cautioned, her shoes squeaking on a silver-framed mirror bolted across the stone stoop. “It’s slick.”
“Why do you have a mirror on your porch?” Anastasia asked.
“My goodness, you’re a curious girl! It’s just part of the authentic Victorian decor.” Prim rattled the raindrops from her umbrella and wrestled it shut. “Come along.”
They bumped around in the dark. A match flared.
“Here’s your candle, dearie.” Prude shoved forth a candlestick, a bulbous ring flashing on her pinkie. Something quivered deep in Anastasia’s belly.
“The school secretary has that ring, too,” she said.
“Oh, really?” Prude said. “I ordered it off the shopping channel on television. Fetching, isn’t it?”
