Not everything is as it seems. Like candy-shaped soap. There's a rude surprise.
—DR. FRANKENHAMMER, EXPLAINING GLAMOURS
What … who … what are you?" I asked the monster, now bowing before me. "Why did you call me family?"
"Waiting for you, young one, to free us from Pravus," she said.
"Me? Why?"
"We are Ohtee," she said. "We were stolen from fameely. Only fameely can free us from Pravus. We want to go home to the broken place."
"You think I'm Ohtee?" I said. "Where is the broken place? What's Ohtee?"
She roared at my classmates, who had stepped closer.
"You're not going to hurt anybody, are you?" I asked.
"No. Orders are to return worms, deleever message to Critchlore. I'm to say, 'Ha ha ha ha ha, you lose.' Make sure it is at least five has. Then orders say to leave. But you are from the fameely. I take orders from you now."
Huh? I was about to ask another question when a steel trap snapped shut around her. Dr. Frankenhammer walked toward me holding a Dr. Critchlore's MonsterTrapper?, which had been invented by Dr. Frankenhammer. It was an ingenious device, a bazooka that shot a net of material as strong as steel, but flexible. Once the monster was trapped in the net, the thick steel "strings" expanded until they touched one another, resulting in an inescapable bag.
"Can she breathe?" I asked.
"Does it matter?" Dr. Frankenhammer said. The bag jumped around. "We have to dispose of the beast."
"What? No!"
"Higginssss, that thing is responsible for the bad press this sssschool has gotten. Remember that embarrassssing video?"
Of course I did. "Epic Minion Fail" showed a troop of Girl Explorers chasing last year's graduates off a cliff. Zombie brains! It made sense now. They might have looked like little girls, but they were really these hideous monsters.
And then I remembered that Miss Merrybench had said that Pravus called the girls land piranhas, and that they could strip an animal to its bones in seconds. I had thought she was crazy (she was), but maybe she knew something.
"She called me family," I said.
"Don't be ridiculousss." Dr. Frankenhammer waved a hand, and four security guards came running. "Dispose of the—"
"Wait! It's true," Syke said. She brushed herself off and stood up next to me. "The monster bowed down to him and called him family."
I looked at her and felt the surprise I should have felt when she'd thrown herself at the monster. Tree nymphs aren't known for their fighting ability, but then Syke was only half tree nymph. I think her other half was Holy Terror from the Skies.
She held a Wind and Fire Wheel, which is a metal ring rimmed with seven curving blades. It looked like a flat silver sun.
Dr. Frankenhammer shook his head, then held out his hand for Syke's weapon, which she wasn't allowed to have because she was Dr. Critchlore's ward, not a minion-in-training. She handed it over with a shrug.
"Take the beast to my lab," he said to the security team. "Keep three guards posted."
The security guards lifted the steel sack, which wasn't moving anymore. I really hoped that thing was okay.
"You two return to the reception," Dr. Frankenhammer said. "Or you can help me round up my wormsss."
We chose the reception. Shocking, I know.
But the party had died down to a handful of ogre-men around a plate of maggoty cheese dip (ogres like it maggoty). That was fine with me because I wasn't in a party mood. I needed to figure out how I could talk to that monster again.
I knew I should thank Syke for trying to save me, but I was still mad at her and didn't want her to think this fixed everything. She was going back into the Runt Higgins Shun Box. I stopped at the grassy ledge next to the castle wall and sat down, turning my back to her. I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and wrote on the bottom.
"What's that?" Syke asked, nudging my back. I felt her chin on my shoulder as she peeked over. "A to-do list?"
I turned farther away. She was right; it was a to-do list. My foster mother, Cook, told me that if I wrote things down, it would help keep me focused.
"I have one too," Syke said to my cold shoulder. "It only has one thing on it, though. 'Get Runt to forgive me for not telling him he's not a werewolf.'?"
Well, that's not going to happen.
"Actually, there's another thing on it. 'Tell Runt I'd never do anything to hurt him, and I'm going to spend every free moment helping him find his family, whether he talks to me again or not.'?"
She hopped off the ledge, leaving.
"Wait," I said.
I know, I know. My Shun Box is useless. It never stays closed.
Syke turned around, smiling, and pointed to my list. "What's on yours?"
"?'Number one, find out where I'm from,'?" I read. "?'Number two, find out who cursed me. Number three, ask him-slash-her to remove the curse.'?"
When I'd arrived at the school eight years ago, Mistress Moira could tell that I was cursed to die on my sixteenth birthday. I'd only just found this out. It sounds terrifying, but I had Dr. Critchlore's staff working to find answers. In other words, the best and the brightest were on the job, so I wasn't too worried.
"And now number four," I said. "?'Find out why that monster called me family.'?"
I looked down at my medallion, wondering if I'd missed something in the thousands of times I'd examined it. This little metal disk with a wolf's head in the middle and the funny writing around the edge was the only clue I had to where I came from. What had the beast seen in it? Why could I see through her glamour when I touched it?
"So weird," Syke said. "I mean, clearly you're not related."
"But what if we are?"
"Don't be an idiot, Higgins." Syke called me an idiot all the time, but I didn't care, because she was like a sister to me. "Don't start imagining you're something you're not again."
I think she regretted saying that the moment the words left her mouth. Yes, I had been an idiot, thinking I was a werewolf. A tremendously huge idiot.
"I mean … ," she chattered on, but I wasn't listening. All I could hear was my anger and humiliation boomeranging back at me, just after I'd let it go. Finally, I interrupted her.
"Why didn't you tell me, Syke? You of all people?" We'd grown up at the school together. I knew everything about her: that she hated the dungeon because it smelled of "root rot"; that her favorite color was green—pine-needle green, not moss green; that she had a crush on Frankie; and that she had stolen Professor Portry's keys so she could sneak into his Battlefield Implements classroom and "borrow" his—er—implements.
And she knew me better than I knew myself. Obviously, because I had thought I was a werewolf and she had known the truth.
"Runt," she said, "I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you the truth. It … being a werewolf … it was everything to you. I didn't want to hurt you."
"Don't you think it's worse finding out you're the laughingstock of the whole school?"
I stuffed my to-do list in my pocket and walked off, not waiting for an answer.