The Northern Frights Read online

  Thinking fast, he took inventory of what he had that might be helpful. He had the millipede in his left hand. Probably useless. He had his backpack on his back. If it had a parachute inside, that would be great, but all it contained were a few books and his Guitar Legend guitar.

  Wait a second. The guitar. That just might work, thought Charles.

  In midair, Charles pulled the guitar out of his backpack. The head was shaped like a lightning bolt, giving it a nice sharp edge. Perfect.

  Deadly impact appeared to be just seconds away. Charles slid the guitar below his feet and jammed the sharp edge into the ice wall. It dug in nicely, slowing him down, but Charles was still falling, and now ice chips were flying into his face.

  With the head of the guitar digging into the wall, Charles carefully pressed the neck into the other wall. The guitar became a wedge, bringing Charles to a grinding halt a split second before the ice wall ended, opening into a colossal cavern with at least another two hundred feet to the rocky floor.

  “Phew,” said Charles, dangling his legs off the side of the guitar. Millie crawled onto Charles’s shoulder and gave him a sticky kiss on the cheek for saving her life.

  One big problem was solved, but now an even tougher problem remained.

  How to get out.

  Charles cried, “Hello!” but his voice bounced back as a sharp echo, with no response. He realized he was on his own. He looked more closely at the ice wall in front of him and gasped in shock.

  Charles was staring at one of the strangest creatures he had ever seen, frozen in the ice right in front of him. It had the body of an old man wearing a long gray robe, but it had the head of a swordfish and a dorsal fin on its back. Charles pressed his nose against the transparent ice to get a better look at it. That’s when it did something that nearly caused Charles to stumble off the guitar to his death.

  It blinked.

  Charles regained his balance and pounded on the ice. “Hey! Are you alive?”

  The creature was unable to speak, but it moved its eyes down and to the left, where its finger was pointing at a stick in the ice wall.

  “You want the stick?” Charles asked.

  The creature blinked, and Charles assumed that meant yes. Charles reached out as far as he could and dislodged the stick with his fingertips. The creature blinked with excitement.

  “Millie,” said Charles to the millipede on his shoulder, “do you think you can drill a small hole to its hand?”

  Millie nodded. She went to work chomping on the ice wall, creating a thin tube toward the creature’s frozen hand. Then Charles slipped the stick through, and it slid into the creature’s outstretched palm. The creature closed its eyes . . . and vanished . . . only to reappear a moment later, standing next to Charles on the guitar. Before Charles could object, it had grabbed hold of him and leaped off the guitar.

  Charles screamed as he and the creature plummeted downward, but then the creature raised the stick above its head and a parachute ejected from the tip. They floated down slowly into an icy cavern, landing on a pile of bones that were clearly the remains of the not-so-lucky others who had fallen over the years.

  The parachute sucked itself back into the stick.

  “Wow,” said Charles. “Is that a magic wand?”

  Rather than answering, the creature waved the stick, and Charles’s guitar zoomed down the chasm on its own and buried itself inside his backpack.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Charles said.

  The creature shot a blast of fire from its wand, and a section of the icy cavern wall melted away, revealing an inner sanctum.

  “Welcome to my inner sanctum,” said the creature in a friendly, old man’s voice that threw Charles for a major loop.

  “Whoa. You can talk?”

  “Of course I can talk! Have you ever met a fizard that couldn’t? I just haven’t spoken in a very long time. It took me a moment to remember how. Follow me.”

  The sanctum smelled like fish and mildew. In the middle of the room was a crystal ball on a small round table. There were bookcases filled with ornately bound books—the kind that hold ancient secrets. On the walls hung a collection of antique swords as well as old paintings of wizards performing feats of magic. One of them showed a soccer team with dragonfly wings.

  But the weirdest thing was a huge fish tank that was just about overflowing with fish. The robed creature jumped into the fish tank, caught a fish in its mouth, then jumped back out, swallowing the fish down in one gulp.

  “Ahhh. Now I feel better. Tell me, boy,” said the creature. “What year is it?”

  Charles told him what year it was, and the creature fell to the floor.

  “My goodness. Could it have been that long? You see, when you’re a fizard, you move backward through time. It’s very hard to keep track. But it seems I’ve been stuck in that ice wall for more than two hundred years.”

  Charles had a very confused look on his face.

  “Oh, excuse me, I forgot we fizards aren’t very common in this time period. Two hundred years in the future, we’re all over the place.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, who are you?”

  “Oh, pardon me. My name is Marlin. I’m a fizard. Half fish. Half wizard.”

  “You must be the only fizard alive, ’cause I’ve never heard of one, and I’ve studied all the strange creatures.”

  “Strange is a relative term, young man. Two hundred years from now, you will look strange yourself. But I probably shouldn’t say things like that. Revealing the future can cause major mishaps.”

  “I understand. My name is—”

  “You don’t have to say your name. I know exactly who you are. Everyone in the future knows your face. There’s even a statue of you right up there on the surface.”

  “Oh yeah? Then who am I?”

  “You’re Charles Nukid, the famous would-be dragon slayer. You try to save Scream Academy from the Elder Dragon but get killed in the process.”

  Charles had a horrified look on his face.

  “Oops. I probably shouldn’t have said that,” said Marlin.

  “Wait a minute,” said Charles. “Are you talking about the prophecy that says a human child will battle the scariest monster ever?”

  “Well, I’d better be talking about it. I’m the one who made it! But it’s not really a ‘prophecy’ because I saw everything happen with my own fish eyes in the future. I reported what I saw to my fizard brother who’s currently living hundreds of years ago. I told him to let everyone know that a human named Charles Nukid would have to fight the scariest Elder Dragon of all time. And that it would be signaled by a catastrophic storm. Did you not get the full message?”

  “The prophecy only says that a human kid will have to fight the scariest monster ever.”

  “Oh. Well, prophecies are like a game of telephone. They tend to get muddled over the generations. But this one actually held up pretty well!”

  Charles was feeling sick. “So, it’s true then. I’m going to have to fight an Elder Dragon.”

  The fizard shrugged. “Well . . . now it’s getting complicated. Since I revealed your future to you, you might be able to avoid it and create a new future for yourself. But if it was fated that I tell you your future, there’s still no way to escape your grisly doom. I’d give you a fifty-fifty chance.”

  Well, a fifty-fifty chance is better than no chance, Charles figured.

  Charles walked over to the crystal ball on the round table. “Does this thing work?” he asked. Charles was hoping to catch a glimpse of his future to see if Marlin was telling the truth. Charles peered into the crystal ball, but no images revealed themselves.

  Marlin started laughing. “Crystal balls are a bunch of baloney! Nobody believes you’re a wizard unless you have one, though.”

  Marlin whipped out a suitcase and began throwing all his belongings into it—robes, potion bottles, pointy hats, scarves to wrap around his sword nose, and finally the crystal ball.

  “
Why are you packing?” Charles asked.

  “I was trapped in ice for two hundred years! I deserve a vacation. I’m thinking the nice warm waters of the Bahamas. The mahimahis are so delicious there.”

  Charles ran over and slammed Marlin’s suitcase shut. “Wait! You can’t leave without telling me more about this dragon. If I have to fight one, I need to know what I should be studying.”

  Marlin shrugged. “I suppose that’s fair enough. Tell me, what do you know about Elder Dragons?”

  “I know that there are four Elder Dragons. The Mountain Dragon, the Sea Dragon, the Sky Dragon, and the Ice Dragon. Silence the Yeti was just telling us about them.”

  “Ah, very good. But did he inform you how one slays an Elder Dragon?”

  “No.”

  “It’s no easy task, for they are the size of a mountain! Dragons never stop growing, you see. The young ones are much smaller.”

  “Like my teacher Dr. Dragonbreath!”

  “Yes! Dragonbreath! In my time he’s as tall as a lighthouse. But that’s nothing compared to an Elder Dragon! And the only way to kill one is to jab it with a sword in its most vulnerable place. Its nose.”

  Marlin made a slashing movement with his sword nose, which Charles had to dodge.

  “Now that I think about it,” said Marlin, scratching his fish head, “giving you a fifty-fifty chance was very generous. Its nose would be hundreds of feet high! I’m changing my prediction. I’ll give you a twenty percent chance of survival.”

  Charles sighed. “Okay. So I’ll need a sword.”

  “Oh, but not just any sword. If you jab its nose with a regular sword, you’ll just make it sneeze. For each dragon, there exists only one sword that can defeat it. For the Mountain Dragon, you must use the Sword of Gold. For the Sea Dragon, the Sword of Salt. For the Sky Dragon, the Sword of Silver. And for the Ice Dragon, the Sword of Fire.”

  As he named each sword, Marlin swiftly whipped his sword nose. Charles dove out of the way and grabbed one of the antique fencing swords on the wall. He was able to deflect Marlin’s next nose strikes.

  “Careful!” said Charles. “I don’t want to chop off your nose!”

  “Go ahead and try! This is your first sword-fighting lesson. En garde!”

  Marlin continued lunging at Charles with his sword nose, and after a few minutes, Charles became astonishingly deft with the sword, blocking Marlin’s attacks and countering with his own.

  “Well done!” exclaimed Marlin. “Your swordsmanship makes you a natural dragon slayer! Then again, the evidence in my time proves otherwise. Then again, perhaps this fencing lesson has changed your future. Then again, maybe it’s changed nothing.”

  Charles scratched his head, more confused than ever. “So, since we’re in the ice realm, I’m guessing I’ll have to fight the Ice Dragon.”

  “That’s a detail of the future I probably shouldn’t reveal.” He paused, then said, “But yes.”

  “That means I’ll have to use the Sword of Fire. Where do I get it?”

  “Fool! Nobody knows where the legendary swords are! In fact, now that I think about it, giving you a twenty percent chance of survival was extraordinarily generous of me. Since you don’t have the Sword of Fire, I’m going to give you a three percent chance.”

  Charles shook his head, afraid to say another word that would decrease his odds further. He had never hoped someone was completely insane as much as he did right then.

  “Say, can your wand zap me out of here?” Charles asked. “My friends are probably worried about me.”

  “Are you nuts? I can’t teleport anywhere I can’t see! What if we reappeared inside someone else’s body and they exploded? Here’s what I can do, though.”

  Marlin waved his wand and tapped Charles on the head with it. Charles immediately transformed into an adorable baby seal. He was still wearing the polka-dot tie around his seal neck, which made him even more adorable.

  “Why did you turn me into a seal?” Charles asked, but it sounded like a seal bark.

  “So you can get out of here!” Marlin replied gleefully in fluent Sealish.

  The fizard placed his sword nose on the icy floor and drew a circle with the sharp tip. Then he kicked the round section of ice away to reveal the frigid ocean churning underneath.

  “Bahamas, here I come!” Marlin proclaimed. Then he whipped off his robe, revealing a slick wetsuit on his old-man body. He dove into the water and swam away, carrying his luggage behind him.

  Charles the Seal put his flipper in the water, but then Marlin popped his head out of the ice hole. “I forgot to mention one last thing,” he said. “Watch out for sharks.”

  12

  Sleeping with Spiders

  While Charles the Seal was deciding whether to brave the shark-infested waters, I flew back to Scream Academy where the students were getting ready for dinner.

  The Scary School kids followed the abominable snowkids into the dining hall after finishing their homework in the Screaming Library. It was kind of tough for the Scary School kids to do their homework there because, unlike the Scary School library, which is so quiet you can hear a pin drop (since Ms. T will eat anyone who makes a noise), the Scream Academy library was the exact opposite. The library is haunted by so many poltergeists throwing books off the shelves, moving chairs around, and crashing through windows, that the screaming from the students is all but continuous.

  The Scream Academy Dining Hall was a sight to behold. The wide variety of monsters each had different dining needs that had to be met. To the right was an arena where the most ferocious monsters who liked to hunt for food were chasing around wild game. After catching their dinner, they feasted on it raw. Gross!

  In the middle of the hall, other monsters were roasting great beasts on spits over a roaring fire, which was surrounded by stone tables. There was no silverware or napkins anywhere. The monsters would simply wipe the juices with their furry arms and then lick their own fur clean like it was a second meal.

  For the more civilized students there was a salad bar. Not too exciting, but there were bowls of newts, worms, and maggots to use as toppings. The Scary School kids went straight for the salad bar and brought handfuls of vegetables to their table.

  “I miss Sue the Amazing Octo-Chef,” said Wendy to Petunia.

  “Me, too. These vegetables aren’t cooked well at all. Now I know why most other kids don’t like them!”

  Hubert arrived at the table with some of his snowkid friends and plopped a roasted leg of beast down in front of them.

  “Snowdy, folks,” said Hubert, taking a big bite off the drumstick in his hand. “Feast on!”

  “Feast on!” answered Fred and Jason, diving into the leg of beast with full abandon. Petunia and Wendy retched at the boys’ monstrous behavior.

  “Here,” said Hubert, handing the girls colorful snow cones. “I brought you these.”

  “Thanks!” said the girls, taking a bite of the delicious ice.

  “Hey, where’s Lattie?” asked Petunia.

  The students looked around. Then Fred pointed up. “There she is!”

  Lattie was sitting high above the scene on a tiny ledge. No one knew how she could have possibly gotten up there, but she seemed to be enjoying her own quiet time away from the madness, not eating a bite of food but simply adding some leaves and herbs into a cup of hot water to make tea.

  That night, the students hunkered down for bed in the Dorm Cave. All around the huge space, there was nothing but bare, sharp rocks.

  “Hey, where are our beds?” asked Fred. “I need to go to sleep so I can wake up.”

  “Yeah, we better not be sleeping on sharp rocks,” added Jason.

  “Relax, warmies,” said Hubert. “Your beds are here. They haven’t been made yet.”

  “I don’t see any beds that need to be made,” Wendy asserted.

  “No, not made like that. As in built!”

  The Scary School kids scratched their heads in confusion, but their dilemma was answ
ered the next moment when hundreds of spiders the size of cars dropped down from the ceiling, suspended by webs from their spinnerets.

  The spiders wove out of their own silk kid-sized hammocks suspended fifty feet in the air. None of the Scary School kids liked the idea of sleeping in a web that a giant spider had made for them, but they didn’t seem to have any choice.

  Silence the Yeti stood beneath the web-hammocks and handed each kid a blanket. Once the blanket was received, he threw each student high into the air, and each landed softly in their hammock, placing the blanket underneath so as not to stick to the web.

  After the Scary School kids saw how it worked, they decided it looked like a lot of fun. They eagerly took their turns flying into the air and landing in their sticky hammocks.

  As the Scary School kids lay down to sleep, the thought of losing Charles finally hit them. They had held out hope that he would have shown up by now, as he always seemed to survive the direst circumstances. They had at least hoped he would have returned as a ghost or a zombie.

  Most of the troll and ogre kids fell asleep immediately and started snoring like buzz saws. The Scary School kids didn’t mind, though, because it gave them a chance to talk without disturbing the others.

  Wendy said, “I remember when Charles taught us all how to catch our desserts on Halloween.”

  Petunia said, “I remember when he came flying back with Princess Zogette after falling into Monster Forest. We thought he was a goner for sure that time, but he came back.”

  As usual, Lattie kept quiet in her hammock, but she was feeling sadder than she’d ever felt. On the same day, she had lost her only two friends in the world—Charles and Millie. Ninjas are not supposed to ever feel emotion, but that night she cried for the first time in her memory.

  13

  Rory, the Monster Who Couldn’t Roar