Before becoming a YA author, I wrote (and unsuccessfully tried to publish) novels for young children. One of those books almost sold. Set in fourth grade, it was called The ChocoBarn Cow and won an award that earned me a free trip to New York City where I met with several editors. One of the editors even wanted to buy it, but the publisher said, "Nope." I later changed the title to My Udder Life, which didn't help. But I still think it's a cool story!
This one is called...
Chapter 1
“You can’t be Wolfman,” Mario said. “I’m Wolfman.”
“Then there’s going to be two wolfmen,” Paul said. He
used a rock to carve his initials into the treehouse floor. “Because I am not
going to be Frankenstein’s Monster. He’s too slow and stupid.”
Mario leaned his back against the treehouse wall and
propped his arms on his knees. “Then you’re perfect.”
A trapdoor behind Paul pushed open and Danny climbed into the
treehouse.
“I could hear you guys arguing from across the yard,” Danny said. “And
there’s only room for one Wolfman in the Monster Club.”
Paul looked up from his carving and pleaded to Danny. “I
was Wolfman for Halloween. I obviously like Wolfman more than he does.”
“You were a stupid Wolfman,” Mario said. “You attached
the hair with Crazy Glue and had to get it removed by a doctor.”
“So?”
“So,” Mario said, “that means you’re stupid enough to be
Frankenstein’s Monster.”
Danny was glad he didn’t have to argue over his monster. Since
Monster Mansion was his treehouse, he got first pick. He chose the master of
all monsters—Dracula.
“Frankenstein’s Monster is tall,” Mario said. “Which one
of us do people call Tall Paul?”
“That’s not a good reason,” Paul said.
“You’re also the only one of us with a scar,” Mario said.
“Just like Frankenstein’s Monster.”
“It was only seven stitches,” Paul said. He pressed a
finger above his eyebrow to show Danny. “You can hardly see it anymore.”
Danny threw his hands in the air. “I’m out of this one,”
he said. He stood and walked around his bickering friends to the bookshelf. The
bookshelf was small, only up to his waist, but it contained every monster book
they could find. There were the traditional books on vampires, werewolves,
ghosts, and mummies. There were books on monsters from Africa, South America,
Asia, and nearly every place on Earth. But the book Danny picked was the
smallest book they owned—101 Monster
Jokes. The jokes were dumb, but they were so dumb, he knew Paul and Mario
would stop arguing just to shut him up.
“What is a ghost’s favorite flavor?” Danny asked.
Mario turned away from Paul and whined, “Not that book
again.”
“Boo-berry,” Danny said.
Mario threw a crumpled bag of potato chips at him.
Danny read another. “What did Grandma Dracula say when
the Boy Scout helped her cross the street?”
“Enough jokes,” Paul said. “We still need to figure out who’s
going to be—”
“Fang you very much,” Danny answered.
“Would you close the book already?” Paul said.
“Wait. I’ve got one,” Mario said. “How are the jokes in
that book like a vampire?”
“How?” Danny asked.
“They both suck!”
Paul rolled onto his back laughing.
Mario made a lunge for the book but Danny dodged the attack.
“Unless you two stop fighting, I’ve got ninety-nine more jokes to
go.”
“Fine,” Paul said. “But school starts tomorrow and I just
thought we should have all our monsters picked by then.”
“The only ones who know about the Monster Club are its
members,” Danny said. “That’s us. If we take a little longer deciding, it’s no
big deal. Paul, there are plenty of monsters besides Frankenstein’s.”
“He’s right,” Mario said. “You can be a mummy.”
Paul shook his head. “Too slow and stupid.”
“How about a fish monster?” Danny said. “You can be the
Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Paul said. “I’m allergic to
fish.”
“This is stupid,” Mario said. He flipped open the latch
of the window shutters. “We’re asking you to pretend you’re a monster, not eat
yourself.”
“You can be a zombie,” Danny said, forcing a smile so
Paul might think it was a good idea.
“Right,” Paul said. “There’s a monster known for his
brains.”
Mario pushed open the shutters. “We’d better go, Paul. It’s
getting dark.”
Paul and Mario lived next door to each other a few blocks up from
Danny. Danny used to be jealous that his two best friends lived so close to
each other. That’s why he built the treehouse—so they would visit him as much
as possible.
It worked. Paul and Mario were there nearly every day after school
and all summer long. They even came over when Danny wasn’t there.
Danny re-shelved the joke book as Paul and Mario slipped
into their jackets.
“Tomorrow,” Mario said, “we’ll be the oldest students at
Foothill Oaks.”
Paul propped open the trapdoor and started down the rungs
nailed into the side of the tree. “And it’s the first official day of the
Monster Club.”
Mario followed Paul down the tree.
Danny pulled the trapdoor shut above him as he left
Monster Mansion. When his feet hit the grass, he turned to his two best friends
and said, “Tomorrow, we enter monsterhood.”
Chapter 2
“Stupid zipper.”
Up in the treehouse was colder than down on the ground and Danny’s
jacket wouldn’t zip more than halfway up his chest.
Paul had called soon after waking up, asking Danny to
bring Monster Encyclopedia to school.
He wanted to choose his monster during lunch.
Danny heard the school bus struggling up the hill toward
his house. He shoved the thick book into his backpack and zipped it shut. He
dropped the bag through the trapdoor onto the damp grass and climbed down after
it, skipping the bottom three rungs. Flinging the bag over his shoulder, Danny
raced around his house to the sidewalk just as the bus came to a stop.
“Almost missed it,” Erica said. “Again.”
Danny rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath.
“No, I was watching,” he said. “I just didn’t want to stand out here and freeze
to death.”
“You wouldn’t be so cold,” Erica said, “if you’d zip your jacket
all the way up.” She climbed the stairs into the bus and vanished into a crowd
of students.
“Good morning, Speedy,” Miss Winchell said.
Danny grabbed the railing and pulled himself up the
steps. “Good morning.”
Miss Winchell held out her palm and wiggled her fingers. “You
got your bus pass with you?”
Danny reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a
crumpled slip of pink paper. “I like your sweater,” he said, unfolding the
pass. “It matches the bus.”
Miss Winchell smiled. “Glad you noticed.”
Danny flashed the bus pass and searched for an empty
seat.
“Hold up,” Miss Winchell said. “Let me see that pass
again.”
Danny handed her the paper. “What’s the matter?”
Miss Winchell scanned a finger across the bus pass a few
times. “Says here you don’t take this bus anymore.”
“What?” Danny asked. “Where?”
Miss Winchell pointed to the top line of the paper. “You
should be on bus twenty-three.”
“There is no bus twenty-three to Foothill Oaks.”
Miss Winchell pointed to the next line down. Beside the
word ‘School’ it did not say ‘Foothill Oaks’ as usual.
“Bradbury?” Danny said. “What’s that?”
“Never heard of it,” Miss Winchell said. “Maybe your parents
signed you up for some new private school or something.”
“Without telling me?”
Mrs. Winchell bit one side of her bottom lip then looked
into her rear-view mirror. “I really have to meet my schedule.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Danny asked. He looked around
the bus. He had always ridden the same bus with the same people to the same
school. Did his parents really change all that without telling him?
Miss Winchell placed her hand on the lever that pulls the
door shut. “I’ll swing by when I’m done and see if you’re here. But right now,
I have to go.”
Danny slumped his way back down the steps to the curb.
“Good luck,” Miss Winchell said, a worried smile on her
face. She pulled the lever to close the door.
Watching the bus drive away, Danny stood motionless, his
shoulders weighed down by his backpack. He watched the bus round the corner to
the next street and disappear.
A steady breeze rattled the bus pass Danny held loose by
his side. Behind him, the rumbling of another engine grew louder. Turning
around, Danny saw a second yellow bus climbing the hill. It approached the curb
and Danny read its number.
Bus twenty-three slowed to a stop with the door right in front of
him. The door swung open. Danny looked up at the driver and immediately took a
step back. The driver’s skin was gray and chalky. His eyes, as large as
Ping-Pong balls, stared straight ahead at the street.
“Is this the…um…bus to…uh…?”
The man’s unblinking gaze never shifted from the front
window. He spoke in the gurgle of a clogged drain. “Bradbury.”
Danny backed away further. He looked at his pass, at the
name of the school. “That’s what it says. Bradbury. That’s where I’m going.” His
feet remained frozen.
The driver pulled a lever and the door closed with Danny
still outside. Danny watched the driver put his hand on the gearshift, ready to
leave, as if instructed to stay at each stop for only a certain amount of time.
Danny knocked on the door’s glass.
The driver pulled the lever and the door reopened. “Bradbury.”
Danny crept up the steps and showed the driver his pass. The
driver’s eyes never moved so Danny shoved the pass back into his pocket.
Walking down the center aisle, no one scooted over to offer Danny
a place to sit. Most of them just glared at him or looked him up and down. Reaching
an unoccupied seat in the middle of the bus, Danny began to sit.
“Taken,” a voice said.
Danny glanced around, but he couldn’t tell who said it so
he started to sit again.
This time the voice was louder—meaner—and coming directly
from the seat. “I said this seat is taken!”
Danny decided to walk a little further.
The very last bench was empty, spanning across the aisle
from one side of the bus to the other. Danny closed his eyes, held his breath,
and carefully sat down. No one said a word and the bus drove forward.
Danny sat in the very center of the long seat, clutching
his backpack to his chest like a bulletproof vest. He could feel the thick Monster Encyclopedia between his arms. At
that moment, he couldn’t care less if Paul ever chose a monster. They wouldn’t
even be in the same school anymore.
The bus weaved its way up and down the city streets,
collecting more students every few blocks. Sometimes the door opened and no one
would enter, but Danny swore he still heard footsteps shuffling up the aisle. Every
time that happened, he sighed with relief when the footsteps stopped before
reaching the back of the bus.
Several students boarded the bus in black-hooded
pullovers and sunglasses. Danny watched as they sat down and unrolled sunshades
over their windows with gloved hands before removing their glasses and pushing
back their hoods.
For most of the ride the students sat quietly, much quieter than
on his old bus. Danny couldn’t tell if they were excited or nervous about the
first day of school.
“Here we go,” a boy in front of Danny said.
The bus filled with whispers. Fingers pressed against the
windows on the right side of the aisle as they drove past a large cemetery. Danny
wondered how much longer until they got to school.
Suddenly, bus twenty-three turned onto a gravel road that
wound through the gravesites. Danny pressed his back into the seat and watched
granite headstones pass on both sides.
The bus rocked from
side to side as it continued up the road. It turned left onto a narrow dirt
path which led directly toward the oversized rusty doors of a white marble
mausoleum. Behind the mausoleum, on both sides, was a large brick wall covered
in dark ivy.
Danny remembered hearing that an entire family was buried
inside that mausoleum. But when knocked upon, the heavy doors would echo back
several times as if the room was completely empty. Not that Danny had ever
tried, but he knew people who had.
Danny’s heart pounded against his chest. He strained to see the
name etched above the doors. As the bus drove closer, the name became clear.
Bradbury.
They continued forward and the mausoleum grew larger, filling the
front windows of the bus. The driver pulled a lever and a stop sign swung out
from the left side of the bus.
Danny gripped his backpack tighter.
The stop sign rammed into the harp of a marble angel. Instead of
falling off its pedestal, the angel rotated toward the mausoleum.
The metal doors opened inwards, scraping against the floor of the
mausoleum, and bus twenty-three drove into darkness.
