How to Merit in Monsters Read online

  I didn’t need to change my underwear just yet, but I have to admit I was darn close.

  Quickly, I made my way to Boys Cabin D and searched all over for my missing handbook. No luck. I double-checked my bedroll and backpack, but the handbook was nowhere to be found. I plopped down on the floor and tried to prepare myself for the horror that was surely the Camp Nature latrines.

  That’s when I caught a glimpse of something between the loose floorboards. There was a book inside the gap in the floor where the warped boards parted. Maybe my handbook had fallen down there?

  It was a tight squeeze, but my arm was just scrawny enough to fit through the gap. (Let’s hear it for not exercising!) Unfortunately, I saw right away that this was not my handbook. For one thing, it was all mildewy and gross. And for another, it looked to be about a hundred years old.

  Still, when I cleaned off as much of the dust as possible, I could just make out the words “Scouts” and “Book” across the cover. I cracked it open and nearly choked on the dust, but a quick scan of the table of contents showed me the words I needed: sheepshank knot.

  Score! This handbook was old and it smelled like a gym sock, but it would have to do. My bathroom emergency excuse would only hold water for so long (no pun intended), and I needed to get back.

  I had a knot to tie.

  By the time I got back, most of the other troops had finished their knots, even if they were pretty shabby looking.

  But Troop D was a disaster. Manuel had somehow managed to tie his hand to his belt loop, and Ginger and Asma were busy trying to get him free.

  “Hey, took you long enough in the bathroom,” sneered Butch.

  Walter cast a sidelong glance at him. “Scouts don’t earn badges in sassy talk, son!”

  But Spitzer waved him away. “You worry about your scouts, Walter, and I’ll worry about mine.” He chuckled as he watched Manuel try to get himself untied from his own pants. “Looks like you’ve got plenty to worry about, too!”

  “Troop Dweeb!” someone shouted.

  Walter’s cheeks glowed red. “Tarnation! Just slow down and follow the directions.”

  “Here, Butch,” said Spitzer, as he handed him a wad of dollars. “Why don’t you go fetch your troop mates a round of sodas. We might be here a while!”

  There was even more laughter, but I tried to push it out of my mind. I cracked open my own handbook, brushed away the dust, and found what I was looking for: Knots every scout should know.

  It read, “The sheepshank knot is primarily used to shorten a length of rope. But it can also be useful in restraining a chupacabra to avoid nasty bites. For example, the sheepshank can be combined with a goat steak lure to capture this carnivorous critter. See illustration 26.”

  Wait. A chupa-what?

  I turned the page.

  What the heck was this handbook talking about? Using a sheepshank knot to tie up some kind of monster! This book was useless. I’d be scrubbing toilets by dinner!

  But then I looked a little closer. There were instructions there for the actual knot—you just had to look past all the weird mumbo jumbo about chupacabras and goat steaks. Also, someone had annotated the page with handwritten notes about how much to feed chupacabras, what to give them for treats (um, blood!), and other strange tips.

  I couldn’t afford to get distracted. Picking up my length of rope, I followed the sheepshank instructions as best I could…

  And ended up with a perfect sheepshank knot. Unfortunately, because I’d followed the directions precisely, I’d also ended up with a chupacabra snare, but still—the knot part worked!

  “Finished!” I cried.

  I noticed Walter’s eyes drift down to my moldy little handbook, and I quickly stuffed it into my pocket. The old troop leader raised an eyebrow at me, but stayed quiet.

  “Lemme see that knot,” said Spitzer. He examined the snare. “What’s this loopy bit here?”

  “Uh, just a little decoration,” I lied.

  “Hmmphf,” snorted Spitzer. “Bit of a show-off, are you, Billingsley?”

  “That’s not all he is!” We turned around to see Butch stomping onto the lawn. He was red-faced and pointing a meaty finger at me. “That kid wrecked our cabin!”

  Uh-oh.

  “What’s this all about?” asked Spitzer.

  “Someone tossed all our stuff out into the dirt and smashed the vending machine!” cried Butch.

  “The vending machine!” cried Spitzer. “Those things cost money!”

  “I didn’t do it,” I protested. “It wasn’t me!”

  Butch smirked. “Then who else? We were all here tying those stupid knots. You’re the only one who coulda done it!”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “I swear!”

  Walter cleared his throat. “Ahem.”

  Spitzer glanced at him. “You have something to say, Walter?”

  “Yep, I do. Seems like there’s a lot of accusations flying here but no proof. Butch, did you actually see Ben doing those things?”

  “Well, of course not, but who else…”

  “Raccoons,” said Walter. “Those critters get up to all sorts of nonsense.”

  “Raccoons?” asked Spitzer, dubiously. “Really, Walter, I don’t think raccoons could smash a vending machine.”

  “But a skinny ten-year-old kid could? Phooey.” The old troop leader hiked up his britches. “With no better evidence, I’m going with the raccoons. In the meantime, we can all help Troop C clean up that mess. Can’t say I’ll miss that vending machine, though. I told you, Spitzer, that those things have no place in a scout camp. Full a’ junk food and sugar water!”

  Spitzer slapped his forehead. “Oh, let’s not have that argument again, Walter! They are important sources of camp revenue.” The two troop leaders went on bickering about vending machines and money, but I stopped listening. I wasn’t buying Walter’s raccoon theory either, so the mystery remained about who actually wrecked all that stuff. But all I cared about was that it wasn’t me. I was off the hook.

  For now.

  As we helped Troop C clean up their wrecked cabin, I searched for that extra-large footprint, but with so many people walking everywhere, it must’ve gotten trampled. I wasn’t sure what it meant, anyway. I hadn’t met anyone in camp with feet that big!

  After we cleaned up, I found a few minutes alone to study my new handbook more closely. Honestly, I thought my smelly old handbook had better instructions in it than the new ones did. It was just cluttered with a few extra pictures, is all.

  Okay a lot. Tons of crazy pictures and diagrams and, yes, monsters. Although the cover was all messed up, the title appeared before the book’s table of contents: The Strange Scout’s Handbook of Cryptozoology and Manners.

  Crypto-huh?

  At the bottom of the title page it read, “Property of W. S., Strange Scout, First Class.”

  Strange Scout? I’d say. This W. S. person must’ve been the one who’d written all the notes. I mean, there were the normal chapters you’d expect in a scouting handbook, like “Tent Making Made Easy,” but there were also crazy chapters like “Denetting a Sea Monster Without Getting Your Noggin Bitten Off” and “Categorizing Yeti Spoor in Polite Society.”

  The old handbook was a crazy mash-up of wilderness scouting tips and monster guide. According to the copyright, it had been published in 1908, which is like older than history itself, right? Maybe it was some kind of novelty book. Maybe it was W. S.’s idea of a joke.

  But by that point I didn’t care because that handbook had saved my behind.

  That night was our first real campfire. Now a campfire may sound cool at first, like roasting marshmallows and making s’mores and stuff, but for Troop D, it stunk. We waited for Walter at our cabin forever, but he never showed up. I figured he was probably napping somewhere and overslept. We finally went to the ca
mpfire without him, but by then everyone else had eaten all of the marshmallows and chocolate. All we were left with were a few stale graham crackers. What were we supposed to do, roast those? You just try sticking a graham cracker on a stick.

  Go on, try it. I’ll wait.

  “So,” said Spitzer, as we gathered around the fire. “You scouts all know the legend of the Beastly Bigfoot of Bear Mountain, don’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes. Here came the spooky campfire stories. Grown-ups are so predictable.

  “Tales of the creature date back to the Native American tribes,” said Spitzer. “Tall as two men stacked one on top of the other. Lives way up the mountain, and anyone who dares climb too high never comes back…”

  Spitzer lowered his voice to a spooky whisper. “And on the night of the full moon, the beast howls as it hunts fresh prey! Kids, I’m told, are a particularly tasty delicacy!”

  Suddenly, a shape appeared in the trees behind Spitzer!

  “Hogwash!” it barked.

  I gotta admit, it wasn’t a very Bigfooty thing to say. That’s because it wasn’t a Bigfoot at all. It was a Walter. He was covered in thistles and his glasses were askew, but it was definitely him.

  Ginger leaned over and whispered, “He’s looking a little rough.”

  I elbowed Manuel to get his attention.

  “Hmm?” said Manuel, looking up from his game. “Hey, I smell smoke.”

  “We’re at a campfire, Manuel,” I sighed.

  “Oh, cool! Hope we get to make s’mores.” Then he was back to his game. The kid was hopeless.

  Meanwhile, the two troop leaders were getting into a heated debate over the Bigfoot of Bear Mountain.

  “I was just telling them a story, Walter,” Spitzer was saying. “Relax. It was a lesson in folklore.”

  “It’s a lesson in hogwash and hooper-nanny, and you should know better! Kids, Bigfoot is a shy creature, an omnivore who lives off berries and small varmints and avoids contact with people.”

  At that moment the clouds broke overhead and the moon finally appeared. It was round and yellow— a full moon!

  Walter pointed up at it with his stick. “Now see there’s the moon, nothing to be afraid of. Bigfeet don’t eat kids and they certainly don’t howl at the—”

  “AARRROAROAAAARR!” Something in the darkness let out a deep, growly howl. It sounded far off, just not far enough.

  “AARRROAROAAAARR!”

  We covered our ears, but the horrible sound grew louder. The trees shook, the mountain echoed until…

  “BURRRRUP!”

  And just like that it was over. We all looked at each other, but it was Ginger who finally said aloud what we all were thinking: “Wait a minute! Was that a burp?”

  “Aw, c’mon, kids,” said Spitzer, with a nervous laugh. “Probably just a bobcat. Or a moose.”

  Walter said nothing. He just adjusted his glasses and thoughtfully peered into the darkness.

  Worriedly, I thought about that size-20 footprint I’d found outside Cabin C. And in case you were wondering, there have been exactly zero burping moose sightings on Bear Mountain, ever. I checked.

  That night I dreamed a shadowy figure peeked in our cabin window. I couldn’t make out the face, but two big yellow eyes, like moons, stared back at me. I was frozen in place, with my sleeping bag pulled up almost over my head. It watched me for a long time, and when it finally stomped away, the ground shook.

  Swimming was on the schedule for day two, so after breakfast we put on our suits. Normally I’d smear on enough sunscreen that I’d look like a shirtless mime, but Walter stopped me. “The swimming hole is the only source of fresh drinking water for wildlife for miles,” he said. “Chemicals might contaminate it. And there’s plenty of shade this time of day. It’s why we swim in the morning.”

  Spitzer and the other troops joined us, and together we marched through the woods. “You kids just wait until you see it,” Walter was saying, as he led us on a small hike along a well-worn trail. “We’ve been teaching generations of Nature Scouts to swim here for I don’t know how long. Even the scardiest ones learn to love the water by the time camp’s over, ain’t that right, Spitzer?”

  Spitzer, for some strange reason, was blushing like a tomato.

  Walter chuckled and kept on talking. “We call it a swimming hole, but it’s actually a limestone lake. The limestone keeps the acidity down, which otherwise can be a real problem with all the pollution nowadays. We keep our swim lessons strictly limited to one small area, so we don’t disturb the thirsty critters that want to drink from the far side. If we’re lucky, we might even be treated to a wildlife sighting—”

  Walter’s nature monologue was cut off by the sound of revving motors just up ahead. “What in tarnation?” he yelled, trying to be heard over the roar.

  We rounded a bend and came to the shore. But instead of the peaceful lake Walter had described, what we found was more like…a carnival.

  The placid lake had been turned into a Jet Ski raceway. A bunch of guys in uniforms that read “Weber’s” were standing beneath a sign that read, “Watercraft Safety Brought to you by Weber’s Jet Skis.”

  Walter’s mouth fell open, and I’m pretty sure we all looked just as stunned. He turned to Spitzer. “What in tarnation is all this?”

  “It’s our corporate sponsorship,” said Spitzer, defensively. “I keep telling you, we need revenue. And by partnering with Weber’s Jet Skis, we’re bringing this camp into the 21st century.”

  “Well, you can tell them to take all this junk back.”

  “Walter, be reasonable…”

  “This here’s a wildlife drinking hole,” said Walter, “not just a swimming hole! How’re they gonna drink with all these kerfangled machines churning up the mud and leaking motor oil all over the place? I thought you called yourself a Nature Scout!”

  Spitzer started to get mad. “Tell you what, old man. Let the scouts decide: Kids, do you want nice, peaceful, boring old swimming lessons or do you want Jet Skis?”

  He was immediately answered by a roar of “Jet Skis!” which quickly turned into a chant.

  I hate to admit it, but I found myself chanting right along with them, even as Asma and Ginger shot me dirty looks. (Manuel was so into his game I don’t think he even knew he was in his swim trunks.)

  But come on! Jet Skis!

  Butch shoved his way to the front, of course. “Yeah, who cares what that old fart says any—ouch!”

  Ginger, who came up to Butch’s waist, was standing on his foot and glaring up at the bully. “He may be an old fart, but he’s our old fart!”

  Believe it or not, Butch actually backed off. He grumbled something under his breath, but he didn’t say another bad word about Walter that day.

  I’ve heard it said that if you poke a bear, you’re liable to lose a finger. Well, Ginger may be small, but if you poke her when she’s mad (which is like 90 percent of the time), I suspect you’d lose a finger, hand, arm, and maybe even your head.

  Anyway, Spitzer and Walter were back to arguing and the rest of us…I mean, come on! Jet Skis! Kids were hooting and hollering as they skied across the lake on 150 horsepower of fun.

  I was right about to join them. That is, until Asma and Ginger got in my way.

  “Aw, come on!” I said. “Just one ride. Maybe Spitzer’s right. Why do we owe Walter anything?”

  Ginger exchanged a look with Asma before answering. “Boy, you really don’t get it yet, do you?”

  “Get what? I get that we drew the short straw and got stuck with a grouchy old guy who’d rather tie knots than do anything fun.”

  Asma shook her head. “One, he defended you when Butch accused you of doing something you didn’t do. And two, we didn’t get Walter by chance. Think about it, Ben. We’re Troop Dweeb. He volunteered to be our troop leader because…well, because
nobody else wanted us.”

  Okay, I’ll admit that at that moment I felt about 1 inch tall. Spitzer and Walter had stopped arguing, and it looked like Spitzer had won. Now Walter stood at the edge of the swimming hole, shoulders slumped, and all he could do was watch as the Jet Skis churned up the now-muddy water and a rainbow sheen of motor oil slowly spread across the lake.

  Walter was in a blue mood for the rest of the day, and shortly after dinner he disappeared back to his private cabin. I went to bed kind of blue myself. I couldn’t shake the image of poor Walter standing at the edge of that swimming hole looking so defeated. And I couldn’t shake the memory of what an ungrateful jerk I’d been.

  The next morning I woke up to a bunch of yelling and carrying on. We stumbled, sleepily, out of our cabins to find junior troop leader Marcie trying in vain to calm down scouts who were running in every direction.

  Bleary-eyed and groggy, I found Asma. “What’s going on?”

  “Walter is missing!” she said. “His cabin’s a mess—just like what happened to Cabin C. And no one’s seen Spitzer all morning.”

  Wow. You know that moment when you realize the grown-ups in charge are just people like you? That bad things can happen to them, too? I was having one of those moments as I pictured Walter’s cabin all in shambles.

  “There’s the kid you should be talking to,” shouted someone behind me. I turned and saw Butch pointing my way. Of course.

  Junior troop leader Marcie was trying to calm him down, but the big bully was red-faced. “Hey, Billingsley, how’d you do it? How’d a little squirt like you manage to bust all those Jet Skis?”