“Neil turned into s-some troll-goblin kind of thing and uh-“ I started to say but Mrs. Banner cut me off. “Excuses, Excuses!” Mrs. Banner shouted. “Detention for a week! Clean this mess up right now!” “But he’s telling the truth! It’s true!” A bunch of other kids started yelling. “The rest of you don’t want detention do you!?” Mrs. Banner shouted in her scratchy voice. “Mrs Banner!” Frankie yelled from the back of the room. “If Neil didn’t turn into a monster, then where is he?” It was smart, how was Mrs. Banner gonna recover from this? “Looks like you’re getting the same punishment as Chris!” Mrs. Banner shouted back. “And give me that knife!” I was about to give her the knife until I realized it was missing. After the fight with Neil, it had disappeared. “Well?” Mrs. Banner asked me. “I don’t have it.” I replied. “Maybe it flew out the window.” Mrs. Banner rolled her eyes as I got back to my seat. Frankie and I slumped back in our seats. Ugh. “Class dismissed.” Mrs. Banner finally said. Next class was social studies, then lunch! I hoped nothing weird was gonna happen in social studies. My teacher, Mr. Farris, is also kind of boring. He’s a tall guy with a black mustache. He loves talking about history, religion and geography, hence why he’s the social studies teacher. At least he’s not a prune like Mrs. Banner. “Hey class, today we’ll continue our study on ancient Rome! Again, everybody groaned. “Hey…has anyone seen Neil?” He asked us. None of us answered. “Uh, he got dismissed”, Frankie lied. “Oh okay”, Mr. Farris said, looking at his computer. After a few minutes, he stood up and handed us worksheets. They were map worksheets, where we had to write down the names of rivers and places in ancient Rome. Before I knew it, it was already time to go. “Enjoy lunch!” Mr. Farris said to us. We all hurried to the cafeteria. The school lunch was mac and cheese. Usually I would’ve been really happy to eat it, but after seeing Neil turn into gross slime, I didn’t have an appetite. Frankie and I always sit at the table in the back of the cafeteria so no one would pick on us. Frankie was already at the table with his mac and cheese. I guess he didn’t want to eat it because he was picking at it. I sat down across from him and said: “Good thing Neil is gone.” “Yeah”, he agreed, “looks like he won’t be picking on us anymore.” He grinned and we high-fived. I suddenly remembered about the knife. “Hey, where’d you get that knife?” I asked him. “It was just something I had in my coat”, he said, staring at his food. “Oh and sorry I lost it”, I said, thinking about how I’d lost his knife. “Don’t worry Chris, I have it right here”, Frankie said, opening his coat to show a pocket with the orange blade. I nodded and drank my water. I felt like Frankie was hiding something. “Do you wanna get a ball for recess?” He asked me. “Lunch is almost over.” I nodded again, and we got up. Mr. Miller, the gym teacher, had a closet near the gymnasium. We assumed it would have a ball in it so we decided to ask him. He was probably going to be in the closet, so we headed there. I still couldn’t believe it this morning. Neil was a monster. But maybe it was a trick or something. Nothing happened at social studies or lunch so maybe that was it. At least I hope it was. We eventually made it to the closet. It’s not an ordinary closet though, it’s bigger. It was gray and brown with pictures of different sports. We opened it, and we both gasped. There were balls, bats, sports equipment in it but that wasn’t what shocked us. There were bones inside. Flies were flying around them. But worst of all, they were broken. Like something had broken them. But what’s so strong to be able to break a bone in our school? Nothing! No human being could break these big bones. I was too stunned to speak. “Oh no. This is not good. This is bad. Really bad.” I could hear Frankie say under his breath.

“Wait!” I said, with realization. “It’s almost Halloween! Mr. Miller probably put fake bones to spook kids.” “Oh yeah”, Frankie said with relief. “But 

anyway, what was so bad?” I asked him. What had been so bad about Halloween decorations? “Uh, nothing. I was just trying to scare you.” Frankie said. I could tell he was lying because he was fiddling around with his hands. I just said “okay” and we decided we didn’t need a ball. We could just talk outside. We walked outside and talked. Not about Neil or anything just about how annoying Mrs. Banner is. Before we knew it, the whistle blew. We all walked inside so we could get to our next class. My next class was science. Frankie’s favorite subject. This class is actually fun. Mr. Steen, our science teacher, is an old crazy guy. He has frizzy white hair and a little bit of facial hair. He loves science, electricity and creativity. “Welcome class!” He shouted as we walked in. “To science, creativity and WONDERS!” We sat in our seats as he wrote on the chalkboard. He wrote ‘ROBOTS’ on the board. “In today's class, we’ll be designing RoBOTS!” He said in his kooky, old voice. “The only rule is…TO HAVE FUN!” I looked over at Frankie and he nodded. This was our way of asking ‘Wanna work together?’ We walked towards each other so we could plan a design for our robot. “Grab blue graph paper up here!” Mr. Steen yelled. We walked up and grabbed a piece of paper and headed to our seats. “I think we should make a humanoid robot”, Frankie said. “Oh that sounds cool!” I said excitedly. “Let’s start planning. We drew some sort of humanoid-alien robot, and before we knew it, class was over. “Hey, Frankie and Chris?” Mr. Steen called to us, motioning for us to come over. “I’m gonna need you two to stay after school with me today. You two have some incomplete assignments.” “Oh okay”, I said. I was fine with that, it’s not like I needed to go back to the orphanage. That place is awful. Now it was time for English. Most people think English is really one of the worst classes in school. I don’t. I actually kind of enjoy English (except for writing essays, yuck). My teacher, Mrs. Sharp was a pretty nice teacher like Mr. Steen. She was patient, nice and always ready to help. Luckily, today was an easy day. We just had to complete some worksheets on grammar. Grammar isn’t hard for me. Most of it was about commas, periods, and apostrophes. Easy peasy! “Okay class, you only have to do this worksheet”, Mrs. Sharp said, “It should take you the whole class but-” Mrs. Sharp was cut off by a loud, long and scary howl, as if a wolf were in the building. “That was weird”, Mrs. Sharp said with a confused face. “Well, anyway, if you don’t finish the worksheet, it will be homework.” Really, I’m fine with that. I knew I’d finish. I had started working and somehow I didn’t finish at the end of class. I was thinking a lot about Neil, the bones and the howl. Could someone be a were-wolf in the school? No! Monsters aren’t real. Right? I looked over at Frankie, and he was drowned with sweat. He put his hand in his pocket and started fiddling with something I couldn’t see. “Class dismissed!” Mrs. Sharp shouted. I started to walk out when suddenly, someone hit me on the head, and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in Mr. Steen’s room. And I was strapped to a chair for some reason. “Hey!” I shouted. “Let me go!” Mr. Steen and Frankie were talking to each other in the back corner of the room. They both nodded and walked towards me. “Uh, I don’t think we can do that just yet.” Mr. Steen said. “We’ve got something to tell you Chris. But you MUST keep it a secret, and cannot talk to anyone but us about it.” “Alright, let’s hear it.” I said curiously. “Alright Frankie”, Mr. Steen said. “Do it.” The thing they were about to show me was probably one of the most messed up things I’ve ever seen. Frankie straight up ripped his arm off. And yes, I’m dead serious. But what’s even weirder is that the arm started moving. On its own. Not attached to anything. The look on my face must’ve looked horrified because Frankie said: “Hey, Chris”. “It’s still me, Frankie. Though, my real name is…Frankenstein.” Then I passed out. Again.

When I woke up, I was unstrapped. I was lying on the ground, face down. It must’ve been a dream, right? “Guys, you would NOT believe the dream I had!” I said out loud. “Frankie, you were a MONSTER! Could you believe that?” Frankie looked at Mr. Steen and the look on their faces told me it wasn’t a dream. Frankie’s arm jumped up and popped back into it’s socket. After a few minutes of silence, Mr. Steen spoke up. “It’s not a dream, Chris.” “What do you mean Mr. Steen?” I asked him. “Chris”, Mr. Steen said, with a firm look. “My name isn’t ‘Mr. Steen’. It’s Dr. Stein.” I was stunned. “S-so that means…” I started to say before Frankie nodded his head. “I’m his son.” Frankie said. “Well actually”, Dr. Stein said, “You’re my creation, but still TECHNICALLY my son.” “So is there an Igor?” “He’s in the building somewhere.” Frankie said. “But there’s another guy you should meet. Frankie walked over to the nearby vent and knocked on it. “Open up!” Frankie said, putting his mouth close to the vent. Suddenly, we heard a lot of banging. “I’m here!” A voice shouted. I assumed it was coming from the vent. “What do you want, Frankenstein?””We have a guy you should meet”, Frankie said, now looking a bit worried. “Ooh! Let’s see who this monster is!” The voice in the vent said. “Um”, Frankie said, “he’s actually human.” “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” The voice in the vent boomed. “YOU KNOW WHY I CAN”T TRUST HUMANS DEAD BOY!” I hadn’t thought about that part. I forgot Frankenstein was made up of dead people’s body parts. Thinking about that just made me shiver. “Hal, come down”, Frankie said with a calm voice. “Just come meet him.” “Ugh, fine!” Hal shouted from the vent. Before I knew it the ‘door’ of the vent was thrown against the wall. I just hoped Hal wasn’t a big brute guy. Hal stuck his head out of the vent. It was a gray bucket with two eye holes. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing a little bit. Luckily, Hal didn’t hear me. “Um, Hi, Hal”, I managed to say without laughing. “Hey”, Hal said, squinting his eyes. “I still don’t trust you Chris Marshall.” “You know my name?” I asked him. “I know EVERYONE’S name, Chris Marshall!” Hal exclaimed. “I’m always in the vents, messing with temperatures, discovering people’s phone numbers, discovering who bullies who, stuff like that.” Well, that’s kind of annoying. I guess Hal didn’t care what temperature it was. “So!” Hal yelled, seemingly getting annoyed, “What do you want me for Dr. S?” “Well Hal”, Dr. Stein said with a stern face, “we think Code W is here.” Hal’s eyes widened, as if scared. “Nope! I’m O-U-T!” Hal shouted as his head went back into the vent. *Shing!* Somehow the vent door went back on the vent. Weird. “That coward!” Mr. Stein shouted angrily. “Um, Dr. Stein?” I asked him, “What is Code W?” “Well…” Dr. Stein replied, “Code W is another term we use for ‘were-wolves’. We believe that a were-wolf is somewhere in the building.” A cold shiver went down my spine. “We think we know who it is”, Dr. Stein said, snapping his fingers. A huge board dropped down from the ceiling with many diagrams, notes and whatever on it. It seemed to be a touch screen kind of thing because Dr. Stein put he touched it and a new page showed up. The top of the screen? Paper? I don’t know. Well at the top of the thing was the word WERE-WOLVES. “Chris, remember the bones we saw in the gym closet?” Frankie asked me. I nodded and he said: “Well, we think those are REAL bones. Another shiver went down my spine. “And that explains the howl”, I said nervously. “So Mr. Miller is a were-wolf”, Dr. Stein said. Once again, a shiver went down my spine. I’ve been in this school for more than a year, and I never noticed a were-wolf? No way. “There’s only one way to kill a were-wolf”, Dr. Stein said, zooming in on the board. An image of a silver bullet appeared on the screen. “This”, Dr. Stein began, “is a silver bullet. It is the only way you can kill a were-wolf. Regular silver, not a bullet, will only give a were-wolf a burning feel, so it’s not much damage.” I nodded my head in agreement, even though I found out all of this today. “So we only need a silver bullet?” I asked them. “Sadly, we have no idea where the bullet is.” Frankie said, with a sad expression. “Wait!” I yelled with surprise. “Don’t were-wolves only come out on full moon NIGHTS?” “That’s the thing”, Frankie said, “there’s been some weird things going on. We believe there has been something causing were-wolves to show up differently. We think it’s some sort of moon serum.” “Anyway”, Dr. Stein said, “we need you and Frankie -and maybe Hal- to see if Mr. Miller is a were-wolf. You must see if he’s a dangerous threat or an ally. Some were-wolves or good, some are bad. Really bad. Today is an afterschool gym day, so we expect him to be there. Just go there, see if he’s a were-wolf, see if he’s good or bad, then report. Easy.” I guess Frankie thought this was easy because he immediately ran out the door. “Well, uh, see you later!” I said to Dr. Stein before leaving. I walked out of the room to see Frankie all the way down the hall. I ran towards him, and together, we ran towards the Gymnasium. We had a mission.

As we were running, I asked Frankie: “Hey, what was that thing in your shirt? You were fiddling with something.” Frankie grinned. “That’s my reporter!” He said, sounding proud. “I’m able to send Dr. Stein reports on monsters.” My face must’ve looked amazed because Frankie said: “Cool right?” I nodded. “Dude, I’m scared”, I said, dropping the amazed look. “Well, don’t worry!” Frankie said, not looking scared at all. “Have you done this before?” I asked him. Frankie shook his head. “No”, he said, “I haven’t. But If I die, I can just be stitched back together.” I went pale. This was a life or death situation. Before we knew it, we were at the gymnasium. Mr. Miller looked normal, tough and buff. He’s a strong guy, always wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts. “Everyone!” He shouted in his deep voice. “Drop and give me 20!” We walked in and Mr. Miller ran to the door. “Hey guys”, he said, “you guys here for some exercise?” Frankie and I must’ve been thinking the same thing because we both nodded. “Nice!” Mr. Miller yelled. He slapped me on the back (in a friendly way), but almost knocked me over. Mr. Miller walked over to the other kids doing push ups. Frankie and I both started to do push ups as well. After 5, I was already tired. There could be a MONSTER in this room. Since we both didn’t want to do push ups, Frankie and I walked around the gym, keeping a close eye on Mr. Miller. He looked at us and smiled. Though something was off about it. It looked like he had normal adult teeth, but one of them glimmered. It didn’t look normal. It looked sharp. Really sharp. “Did you see that?” Frankie nodded with a nervous look on his face. Mr. Miller started scratching his face really badly. The look on his face went from regular (serious straight) to scared. “Oh no”, he mumbled to himself. “It’s happening”, a deep, huge voice boomed. I didn’t realize it, but it was coming from Mr. Miller. “No it’s not!” Mr. Miller shouted. “Oh yes it will…”, the other voice said, “the Count will rise with his many minions. I am first. Let me out. Now.”  “I’m NOT letting you hurt ANYBODY!” Mr. Miller shouted angrily. “I SAID NOW!”  The voice shouted even louder.  Mr. Miller hurled himself at the wall, almost knocking himself unconscious. Kids ran out of the gym and screamed.  “Your puny idea won’t stop me, Miller. We are one. I’m you.”  Mr. Miller truly was a were-wolf. “The wolf’s trying to take over Miller’s body!” Frankie shouted as he ran toward Mr. Miller.  “I’m…not letting you hurt…these children…” Miller managed to say. “There will be violence…”  The ‘wolf’ side said, “and there will be blood, death, and revenge…”  Suddenly, Mr. Miller fell over, as if dead. I ran towards him. “Mr. Miller?” I asked him. “You okay?” Suddenly, Miller’s body flung up in the air. Except it didn’t look normal. Miller looked brown, and kind of hairy. His body came down. He had a brown snout, and a buff, hairy body. His gym shorts stayed on, but they were badly ripped. The monster snarled and said: “I’m baaack!”  “Stay back, were-wolf!” I shouted. The were-wolf roared and said: “UGH! Everybody gets it wrong! I’m not a ‘were-wolf’! I’m the WOLFMAN! Leader of the WERE-WOLVES!”  “There’s more of you?” I asked the Wolfman. “Oh yes….”  The Wolfman said, “You’re off the dinner plate for now, Chris Marshall.  I would say ‘see you later’ but soon, you won’t HAVE a later.”  The Wolfman jumped up on the wall, jumped off and ran out the door. “This is bad!” Frankie yelled. “The Wolfman is even WORSE than were-wolves! I already let Dr. Stein know about him. We’re REALLY gonna need that silver bullet. This isn’t good. At all.”  The vent on the wall started shaking. The vent door came off and Hal’s bucket head popped out. Hal said: “Hey, what’d I miss?” 

After explaining the entire situation to Hal, Hal looked stunned. He hadn’t said a word. “Yep. I’m out”, he said as he went back into the vent. Frankie and I started walking back to the science room. When we got there, Dr. Stein said: "Thank the LORD, you’re alive!” Frankie and I smiled at each other. “Mr. Miller is worse than a were-wolf”, Frankie said, turning his smile to a firm face. “He’s the Wolfman.” Dr. Stein gasped and immediately went to his board. It looked like he was going into his drive. “Now we really need to get the silver bullet”, Dr. Stein said, not looking scared. “We’re gonna have to find it. This is what it looks like.” I assumed Dr. Stein miss-pressed because an animation of a Rickroll popped up. Frankie and I started giggling. “Oh shoot!” Dr. Stein exited out and pulled up a picture of a silver bullet. “The silver bullet could theoretically show up in one of 3 rooms. The gymnasium, the teachers lounge, or the janitor’s closet. I agreed to the first two, but what’s so special about a janitor’s closet? “We’re on it Dr. S”, I said, feeling confident. Again, Frankie and I walked out. “If you find it, make sure to report!” Dr. Stein yelled. We decided to start with the gymnasium. We ran down to the gym and looked all over the place. “I don’t see it anywhere”, Frankie said. “We should check the teacher’s lounge.” The lounge wasn’t that far. We walked and talked. “Why does Dr. Stein always stays in his room instead of coming with us?” I asked Frankie. “I don’t know”, Frankie replied, “I think he just has scientific work to do.” I nodded and we kept walking. Eventually, we made it to the lounge. “This is it”, Frankie said. *CRASH!* The door came down, and the Wolfman stepped out. “Oh my gosh! Have you TRIED the steak in the teacher’s lounge? It’s INCREDIBLE!”  The Wolfman said. “Um, what?” I asked him. “There’s steak in the teacher’s lounge and it’s the best meat I’ve ever eaten!”  The monster said with delight. “And trust me, I’ve eaten a LOT of meat before. Where were we? Oh yes. Your death.”  

The Wolfman lunged at Frankie. Frankie tried to fight back but the wolf was too strong. The Wolfman picked him up and threw him against the wall. I guess Frankie weighed a lot because the wall started crumbling on top of him. That means I’m no match for this guy. The Wolfman looked at me and snarled. “Fresh meat”, he said with a grin. He howled and jumped towards me. I ran to the side and avoided his attacks. Suddenly, the vent on the wall opened. It was Hal! Hal’s head popped out and yelled: “Over here, fur face!” The vent door flung off and slammed into the Wolfman’s face. Then, out of nowhere, Dr. Stein came riding on what looked to be a silver horse. “We meet again, Wolfie!” He shouted, and suddenly, the horse turned into a giant robot and charged the Wolfman. “Using the robot again?”  The Wolfman said as he ran for the robot. “Yup”, Dr. Stein said as he fiddled with a remote. The robot picked up the Wolfman and bashed him around. The Wolfman struggled to get out of the grip of the robot. The robot finally threw him against a wall and the Wolfman was angry. Hal then started shooting (what looked like) nerf gun bullets at the monster. “FOOLS!”  The Wolfman boomed. “YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME WITH YOUR PUNY WEAPONS! ONCE THE COUNT RISES THERE WILL BE NOTHING BUT CHAOS!”  The Wolfman grabbed Frankie by the shirt and ran. We chased after him. He was fast, VERY fast. When we reached him, he opened the janitor's closet. He ran in with Frankie and slammed the door. There was a huge green flash that made us close our eyes. Once the flash stopped, we ran to the door. It was locked. “What’s in there?” I asked Dr. Stein. “I don’t know.” He replied. There was a rumbling noise and then the vent door popped open. Hal’s head came out and said: “Oh no. I know what this is.” Dr. Stein and I looked at eachother. Hal took a deep breath and finally said: “This…is an entrance to the Black Lagoon.” 

To be continued.