Monster Club, page 16
We dash across the sidewalk, in between two of the police cars, to the other side of Neptune Avenue, and not a moment too soon.
Crumple Noodle screams out some commands, and within seconds, all the Noodles are full-on charging at the police. Almost in unison, they start yanking at the police officers’ ankles—the same move Crumple used on Cyril and Buzzy—sending cop after cop sailing onto their butts.
“This is so messed up!” Yoo-hoo says.
“Told ya it was gonna get ugly,” Hollywood says.
I watch as the sergeant who I thought was in charge crawls halfway into her car—in spite of at least a dozen Noodles yanking at her legs—and grabs her radio. “Sergeant Orell here,” she says. “We need some serious help over here at Mark Twain Middle School. Please! Send SWAT!”
“Did you say SWAT?” a voice on the radio asks.
“Yes! And the National Guard too! We’ve got monsters here. Tons of—”
“Monsters?!” laughs the person on the radio.
She isn’t able to finish because the Noodle Monsters drag her away from the car, leaving the radio dangling out the open door.
I can’t believe this has gotten too big for the NYPD to handle.
One of the Noodles slides its stretchy body underneath a police car, then does that puffer fish thing, making its body so large that it literally lifts the car off the ground and flips it onto its roof.
“Wooooooo!!” Darren shouts triumphantly from the middle of the Noodle throng. “Do more, do more!”
Soon a bunch of Noodle Monsters are turning over police vehicle after police vehicle, transforming them into helpless upside-down turtles, stranded on their shells. Darren is laughing maniacally like it’s the funniest thing he’s seen in his life.
“Holy macaroni,” Yoo-hoo says.
We’ve stopped in place for a moment, both to catch our breath and to make sure we’re actually seeing what we think we’re seeing. One of the cop cars is on fire. The fire department is all over it.
“I don’t think the police are gonna save us,” Beanie says, in a way that manages to be both sarcastic and completely sincere. A pack of Noodles chases away the firefighters and starts using their hoses on the remaining police.
The rest of the Noodle Monsters flood past the police’s joke of a barricade, onto the street. There’s a series of loud honks and skids as cars are forced to swerve around them. Then the Noodles start leaping onto people’s cars—slamming into windshields, hanging off the back bumpers.
It’s complete chaos.
From where we’re standing on the sidewalk across the street, I witness four car accidents in the span of fifteen seconds. I can’t help but feel responsible for every single one.
I slide Brickman under one arm so I can uncap my marker and wave it back and forth in the air.
“Over here, Noodles!” I shout. “This way!” The Noodles all sniff the air, then turn toward me.
“What the heck are you doing?” Yoo-hoo asks in a panic as the Noodles start shrieking.
“We want them to follow us to Coney, right?” I say. “We can’t let them spread out all over Brooklyn.”
“You are bonkers, Doodles,” Hollywood says, already breaking into a sprint. “Truly bonkers.”
The Noodles charge toward us, Darren still right there with them. “Follow that fart!” he screams.
We all start running down West 25th Street, the Noodles right on our heels, and I find myself thinking of my great-great-grandfather Isaac. I wonder if his ink ever fell into the wrong hands. If things ever got as wildly out of control as they are right now.
I think about everything he went through, everything he survived, how he made it to America by himself when he was pretty much our age after essentially being chased from his home village by a mob, not of monster drawings come to life, but of actual hate-filled human beings.
If he made it through all that, then I have to believe we can make it through this.
“Yoo-hoo,” I say as we turn left onto Surf Avenue. “Got your Post-its?”
He nods and pulls his go-to neon-green Post-it pad out of his pocket, hands it over to me. I slip Brickman into my backpack to free up my hands for a moment and immediately get to work. I sketch as fast as I possibly can while we run, little nondescript stick figures—some holding bombs, some holding hammers, some with baseball bats—and I wait for them to POP! into life to give us extra cover against the rabid front line of Noodles.
For some reason, they don’t.
“Try adding horns,” Yoo-hoo says. “Or fangs. Or claws. Monster stuff.”
I do as he says, not actually thinking it’s going to work, but instantly the POP!s start coming. Seems it’s only monsters that will come to life. “Brilliant, Yoo-hoo!” I give him a smile as I chuck the new two-and-a-half-inch-tall monsters over my shoulder—all slightly glowing green with a solid black interior—and then continue to produce more soldiers for our mini-monster army until I’ve used up the whole pad. “BellyBeast version 2.0 will be next. As soon as we have a second.”
We hear a small explosion from behind us—one of my mini monsters has exploded a couple of Noodles with his magic-marker monster bomb.
Then we watch as five of the mini monsters jump on a Noodle and start gnawing on its limbs with their fangs while simultaneously whacking it with their mini baseball bats and hammering until it disintegrates.
“That was rad!” Smash says.
For a brief moment, we forget that we’re being chased by a mob of almost a thousand monsters, and all of us high-five. Yoo-hoo smiles for the first time since he lost BellyBeast.
But then a couple of Noodle Monsters race up Yoo-hoo’s back and start giddily tugging at his ears.
“Ow!” Yoo-hoo yells.
Beanie runs up holding DecaSpyder toward the Noodles, and Deca promptly shoots lasers, with incredible precision, at each one, exploding them into dust without so much as grazing Yoo-hoo’s skin.
“Thanks, Beanie,” Yoo-hoo says, rubbing his ear.
“We got you,” she says. “Deca’s targeting system is accurate to at least three decimal places.”
As we approach the amusement parks, I remember that today isn’t just the opening day for Dad and King’s Wonderland; it’s the first day of the new season for all of Coney Island. There’s a small crowd of people gathered around a curly-haired woman holding a microphone in front of the big, empty lot where Blazing Comet Amusements used to be. The rides there kinda sucked, but it’s still sad that it’s gone.
“So today,” the woman is saying as we sprint straight toward her and the crowd, “we celebrate what Coney Island has always been—a place for fun, for games, for rides, for great food—but we also celebrate what it is becoming. Behind us is the site of what will be the first beautiful new condo building from Pluto Properties.”
The Vultures. This woman is making a speech to celebrate the Vultures.
Doesn’t she get that they’re ruining Coney Island?
And then I see them: Beard and Mustache, standing to the side of the curly-haired woman, smug looks on both their faces.
As we reach the crowd, someone hands the woman a shovel to do the honors of breaking ground for the future condo building as she says, “It is my absolute pleasure to kick off this first day of—” She frowns as she stares right at us. “What are you kids doing? If you want to run around, then head over to the . . .”
She trails off, which is how I know she’s spotted the hundreds of Noodle Monsters bouncing off the light posts and parked cars. She understands the real reason we’re running like headless chickens.
“Oh my!” the woman says, before turning to run away herself, the shovel still in her hands. A second later, Beard and Mustache are hoofing it out of there too, terrified, followed by us and the rest of the small crowd.
“You should probably cap that thing now,” Jenni says, gesturing down to the marker.
I do, reminded that not only is it my fault that these terrible creatures exist, but also that they are moments away from stampeding into my favorite place in the whole world.
I run faster.
27
Coney Island Chaos
I’m hoping we can make it to King’s Wonderland and take refuge there, but the Noodle Monsters are everywhere, gaining on us fast. We take cover in the Sirens Shooting Gallery, leaping over the counter that Amy Basis usually stands behind. She isn’t here now, even though it’s opening day. Hopefully, she, Freddie, and all the other Coney regulars have already made a break for it.
I don’t think the Noodle Monsters or Darren saw us when we leapt back here; Crumple Noodle definitely didn’t, and that’s the one I’m most concerned about. Crumple is big. And smart. And so freaking scary.
For at least a minute, we’re silent as we finally have a moment to catch our breath. All of Monster Club plus Jenni Balloqui are here, our backs up against the splintery wooden counter. I pull Brickman out of my bag and set him on the ground. He looks up at me, those expressive eyes of his radiating worry as he shakes his head and grunts in dismay.
“I know, Bricky,” I say. “It’s not good.”
“Understatement of the year,” Smash says from the other side of the gallery, where Skelegurl is slicing the air with a pen and a letter opener that have replaced her lost swords. She cuts through the air at different angles, working on her form.
“You still think King Neptune is gonna get us out of this one, Doodles?” Hollywood asks.
“Who’s King Neptune?” Jenni asks.
“Um,” I say, fully aware that my answer is going to sound ridiculous. “He’s that old guy who, uh, walks around the boardwalk, with the long hair and the weird crown.”
“That guy?” Jenni says. “That’s your solution to this?”
“No, I know how it sounds, but he knows a lot of stuff, specifically about this ink. He knew that it was actually mermaid’s blood and that—”
“Wait, what? Mermaid’s blood?” Jenni says.
“Yo, I never heard that part,” Hollywood says, laughing. “That’s just stupid.”
“It’s real, though!” Yoo-hoo says. “I was there. Finding King Neptune really is our best hope at stopping all these Noodles.”
Beanie sighs. “I don’t know when you all are gonna realize that old men are never our best hope for anything.”
“Let’s go up here,” Jenni says, heading up a ladder that leads to the Sirens Shooting Gallery roof. “We can get a better view of everything, see if that old guy with the crown is anywhere.”
We grab our monsters and follow her up. I’m hoping maybe I’ll also be able to get a glimpse of Dad and King’s Wonderland. At the top of the ladder, we follow Jenni as she pushes open a hatch and climbs out onto the roof.
I’m not fully prepared for what I see next, even though I probably should be.
The Noodle Monsters have full-on swarmed Coney Island.
The Noodles chase a kissing couple out of a photo booth, then stay in there as it flashes, posing for pics. They commandeer the El Dorado bumper cars, the Noodles stacked on each other’s shoulders to reach the steering wheel, making loud cackling sounds as they crash into one another. They gorge themselves on funnel cake. One Noodle runs by with two corn dogs shoved where its nostrils should be.
“Get ’em off me!” a man shouts to his friend, flailing desperately to get three Noodles off his head, one of them tugging at his facial hair.
I’m shocked and, I’m ashamed to say it, a little delighted to realize it’s Mustache.
“I can’t!” Beard responds, his arms waving just as wildly at the five Noodles climbing up and down his back and across his shoulders. “Got my own to deal with, numbskull!”
“Oh my god,” Yoo-hoo whispers from next to me as I watch the Vultures stumble away. “Look at the Cyclone.” I turn my head toward Coney’s oldest and most famous roller coaster and, sure enough, all the cars are filled with stacks of Noodle Monsters, screaming in terror as they head down the first hill. One of the top ones in front throws up, and the vomit flies into the face of a Noodle in the back.
“This is a nightmare,” I say. And I can’t help wondering if Dad is all right. I scan all angles from the roof to try and see what’s going on over at King’s Wonderland—but no luck.
Suddenly I spy Darren Nuggio skipping through the chaos, overcome with a crazed joy. He stops at a cotton candy machine and shoves his arm in up to the elbow, then stuffs his face with gobs of blue and pink. “Nom nom nom!” he shouts. Crumple Noodle is in another area viciously tearing the head off a giant stuffed panda from the Shoot the Red Star game.
I think it’s safe to say they haven’t spotted us yet.
I scan the park for King Neptune. I don’t see him anywhere.
A pack of Noodles speeds by us on a go-kart before crashing into a fortune-teller’s stand.
“There’s just so many of them,” Beanie says, DecaSpyder perched on her shoulder. “How can we get rid of so many of them?”
“For starters,” Yoo-hoo says, “hook me up with that marker, Doodles. I’m ready to finish resurrecting BellyBeast.”
“Do it.” I pull the marker out of my pocket and chuck it to him. That alone won’t solve this, but it’s a start.
“Wait,” Smash says, putting her hand on Yoo-hoo’s. “You can’t uncap that. We might as well hold up a huge sign that says More Ink Here, Come and Get It.”
“Oh, right,” Yoo-hoo says.
“Well, let’s try to keep the scent contained, then,” I say. “Yoo-hoo, crouch down here with the drawing you started. Everyone else stand around him, help block the smell.”
“That’s not really how fragrances work,” Beanie says. “But maybe if we spray something with a powerful scent, it could act as a sort of smell shield around us. I’m lookin’ at you, Hollywood.”
“Me?” Hollywood says. “What do you . . . Oh. I get it.” He sighs. “Aight.” Hollywood pulls a huge can of Axe body spray out of his backpack and goes to town, spraying it in a circle around our group, like it’s a force field.
“Ugh,” Jenni says, ducking her nose under the collar of her blouse. “That’s . . . a lot.”
It almost smells as bad as the ink. I join Jenni, raising my T-shirt over my nose.
“Y’all wanted a smell shield,” Hollywood says. “At least this is a very seductive one.”
“Gross,” Beanie says. “And good work. Now let’s huddle up so Yoo-hoo can get to it.”
She, Smash, Hollywood, Jenni, and I create a tight huddle around Yoo-hoo, who pulls the new BellyBeast sketch he started back at school out of his pocket. My stomach leaps as I put my arm around Jenni. Our ears are kind of touching. Brickman, Skelegurl, DecaSpyder, and RoboKillz squeeze their way into the huddle too. I’m about to pass Yoo-hoo the marker when I look at my friends, our arms around each other, our faces pressed together—it’s like Yoo-hoo’s in a tent made of Monster Club. (And Axe body spray.)
“I know what’s going on is scary and bad,” I say, “but I’m really glad we’re all together during this.”
“Love the sentiment,” Yoo-hoo says, unfolding his BellyBeast and reaching out a hand for the marker, “but maybe not the time, Doodles. Because of the Noodles. Hey, Doodles and Noodles rhyme! That’s kinda weird.”
“Here,” I say, passing him the marker.
“Oh shoot,” Yoo-hoo says. His unfinished BellyBeast drawing has a rip in it from being crumpled in his pocket. “Will this even work on crappy paper? I need a new piece.”
“I have one,” I say, unzipping my backpack.
“Wait,” Smash says, breaking out of the huddle. “I saw something better.” She swings down into the hatch, using the ladder more like a firepole, leaving all of us confused.
“Yo,” Hollywood says as I dig around for a fresh piece of paper. “I know you said this drawing’s unfinished because Crumple stole the marker, but you sure this wasn’t the work of Smash? BellyBeast looks a lot like Brickman did after she went ballistic with that bottle of nail polish remover.”
“The infamous Nail Polish Remover Incident,” I say, laughing. “Poor Bricky.”
Brickman looks up at us, confused, and grunts like Me? Huh?
“Oh shut up, Hollywood,” Smash says, reappearing from the hatch with a large, yellowed piece of paper. “Use this, Yoo.” Before I can hand over my piece of paper, Smash passes him what appears to be an old-timey 1949 newspaper prop from the shooting gallery. “It’s bigger. So BellyBeast will be too.”
“Whoa,” Yoo-hoo says, eyeing the large paper, like he’s imagining the possibilities. “Thanks, Smash. Brilliant thinking.” Smash nods and turns a little red. Yoo-hoo holds up the marker and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this.” He does his classic marker-as-drumstick fingertip spin and pulls the cap off. We tighten our huddle, as if to make sure not a single atom of the ink smell gets by us.
Yoo-hoo sketches faster than I’ve ever seen him sketch, drawing a BellyBeast big enough to fill the whole page.
“Ohmigod, that’s it!” Beanie says.
“Uh . . . What’s it?” Hollywood asks.
“What you said before. The nail polish remover.”
“What about it?” I ask, watching as Yoo-hoo details the mass of tentacles coming from BellyBeast’s face.
“The acetone inside it obliterates ink,” Beanie says.
“So?” Hollywood says.
“So?” Beanie looks across the huddle right at him. “We’re fighting hundreds of monsters made of ink!”
“Oh wow,” I say, finally getting her point.
“You think it’ll work, though?” Hollywood asks. “I thought you said this stuff was made of mermaid’s blood.”
“How should I know?” Beanie says. “But I’m not hearing anyone coming up with any better ideas!”
“We need to try it,” Smash says. “My mom has a whole closet full of the stuff at her salon. We can load up.”
“Annnnd finished,” Yoo-hoo says, putting down the marker as Brickman, RoboKillz, and DecaSpyder gather around the drawing of BellyBeast—Skelegurl fluttering just above it—watching with excitement as the paper begins to crumple itself up into a ball. “Might want to give this puppy some spa—”
