Monster Club, page 21
After a while, Hollywood and Jamie break off to go ride the Cyclone, and Beanie shifts position to try and get some better shots with the drone camera she’s rigged up herself, and Smash takes Yoo to the boardwalk ramp to try and teach him how to skateboard down a rail.
I don’t want to leave yet, though. As I stand there watching, Jenni by my side, I can’t help but think about history. How Coney’s history is my history, how this place is in my blood and always will be. I think about the mermaid who my great-great-grandfather saved, the same mermaid who then ended up saving him, who indirectly led to my existence.
And, staring at all these fake King Neptunes in flashy, over-the-top costumes, I of course can’t help but think about the King Neptune I know. The real King Neptune. The one who knew my great-great-grandfather, the one I’ve been trying to find the past few weeks with no luck whatsoever. I hope that destroying the ink at last finally gave him some peace.
“Hey, can I show you something?” I ask Jenni.
She says sure, and we leave the boardwalk, head down the steps to the beach. I reach into my backpack and nervously slide out my folder.
“Check it out,” I say, handing it to her.
She opens it up and smiles as she sees my fully inked and colored drawing of the Parachute Jump on the cover. I was so amped by the lifelike work I was doing on my mural that I started diving into the graphic novel every night once I got home.
“Hey, look at you!” she says, the sea breeze blowing her dark hair all over the place. “You finally got some of it done. It looks so good.”
“Open it up,” I say.
She flips the cover open and sees that I’ve filled in artwork for every panel on every page.
“It’s just a first pass,” I say.
“Whoa,” Jenni says. “Eric, this is—You know this isn’t due till next year, right?”
“Just getting a head start.”
She smiles again. “You dork, are you quoting me to me?”
“I am.”
She gives me a little shove, and I shove her back, and we do that for a while, until we’re laughing so hard we fall down into the sand.
I stare out at the water, wondering if we’re sitting anywhere near where Isaac was when the mermaid gave him her blood.
Or anywhere near where my parents once sat, on one of their early dates at Coney.
Or anywhere near where Brickman tackled BellyBeast in the sand that first day.
I miss Brickman.
Jenni takes my hand as we stare out at the ocean together, one wave crashing in after the other.
So much has changed in the past month.
So much keeps changing.
But I guess, as long as I keep changing too, maybe that’s all right.
“What are you thinking about?” Jenni asks.
“I’m glad I’m sitting here with you,” I say.
“Me too,” she says, as both of our histories continue to form.
Epilogue
Coney Island, Brooklyn. A few weeks ago.
So our story ends not so differently than it began: with the destruction of that same beloved Coney park—King’s—followed by its triumphant rebirth. Things go, things come back. Death, life, the constant cycle. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and what have you.
And that boy from the very beginning of our tale, the one at Coney Island in 1949, who fell so deeply in love with those astounding battling tattoos—so much so that he grew up to be someone who understood that he was the hero he’d seen battle in ink form, King Neptune—got to experience that devastating magic once more.
When the young prince handed over the marker to King Neptune so that it could be properly destroyed, the god did not take the responsibility lightly. He held the marker close and ducked into an abandoned old bathhouse soon to be demolished by Pluto Properties. But not to perform any complicated magic.
Fifteen minutes later, King Neptune emerged from the building, and he no longer looked the way he had when he went in. He was actually clean, for one thing. For another, he was not wearing a toga, or sandals, or a crown in his now-slicked-back white hair.
He was wearing an Armani suit. And sunglasses.
He wasn’t fully comfortable in these clothes—he thought of them more as his “human disguise”—but unfortunately his work demanded it of him. He hadn’t asked to inherit his father’s commercial real estate business, but he had, and it had turned out to be so very helpful.
And anyway, the god of the sea didn’t mind the clothes, considering today had been an Astonishingly Good Day. His decades-long devotion to learning everything he could about Isaac King’s life, to finding the green-tinted mason jar of mermaid’s blood he so desperately coveted, had finally paid off. And all it took was gaining the trust of Isaac’s naive descendant.
As he walked from the Coney Island Mermaid Bathhouse toward the street, King Neptune felt better than he had in quite a long while. A sleek black car pulled up next to him, and he stepped inside.
“You okay, boss?” the bearded man behind the wheel asked. “That was something else out there.”
“Total chaos,” the man with a mustache sitting in the passenger seat agreed.
“I’m fantastic,” the head of Pluto Properties said, running a hand through his white hair. “Got everything I need. Now let’s get out of here.”
And so the god of the sea drove away, staring down at the magic marker in his leathery hands, finally ready to move on to the next chapter of his history.
Acknowledgments
Although this book is a work of fiction, it is an emotional shout-out to my old neighborhood and my childhood buddies. I wish to thank those lifelong friends from Papa Leone’s: Lipper, Ross, Jesse, Mark, Ariel, Shane, Brandon, and especially Eric (my original partner in Monster Club) and his daughter—my goddaughter—Harper who gave me a thumbs-up and guidance on an early draft. Thank you to all my teachers from PS 195 and Mark Twain JHS who blessed me with their focused patience and attention. Finally, Ari and I would like to thank Hugh, Cat, and the immeasurable contributions of Lance Rubin, for all their ideas, love, work, and magic helping us bring this book to life.
Darren Aronofsky
About the Authors
Photo by Eric Cohen
DARREN ARONOFSKY is a Coney Island–raised, Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, director, and producer. He is best known for his surreal, high-concept work in films like Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, The Wrestler, and mother!
Photo courtesy of Shoshana Handel
ARI HANDEL is a scientist, writer, producer, and storyteller. He and Darren have worked together for more than twenty years on many projects, including The Fountain, Noah, and the National Geographic series One Strange Rock, Welcome to Earth, and Limitless.
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Copyright
MONSTER CLUB. Copyright © 2022 by Protozoa Pictures. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art by Ronald Kurniawan
Title lettering by Corina Lupp
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2022 ISBN: 9780063136656
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Aronofsky, Darren, author. | Handel, Ari, author.
Title: Monster club / by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Harper, 2022. | Series: Monster club ; #1 | Audience: Ages 8-12 | Audience: Grades 4-6 | Summary: Middle-schooler Eric, who lives near Coney Island, discovers a magic ink that brings his monster drawings to life.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021061344 | ISBN 9780063136632 (hardcover)
Subjects: CYAC: Clubs--Fiction. | Magic--Fiction. | Monsters--Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.A76326 Mo 2022 | DDC [Fic]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061344
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FIRST EDITION
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Darren Aronofsky, Monster Club
