Beasties – Peter Lerangis

“They must have changed the lock years ago.” “Ahem,” Dylan said. “And who predicted this? Why, Dylan Vlissing!” “You must need, like, one of those plastic cards,” Mason suggested. “Or maybe a fingerprint,” Kate added. “Or a retinal scan or facial recognition or vocal sound wave or some other biometric measure.” “SO BASICALLY WE’RE DOOMED!” Sara squawked. “WE DON’T Dylan was sniffing at the bottom of the door.

“Somebody’s been here recently. I smell Cheetos.” He began scratching at the doorframe. His claws gouged the wood, loosening little sprays of sawdust. I joined him, adding my claws to the effort. I nearly smacked Mason, who appeared beside me, trying to bite his way through. And you know what?

It felt soooo good. Seriously, it is awesome to chew and claw through things. Soon Dylan’s hole widened enough to connect with my hole. Together we made a shape that looked roughly like a camel. When our holes finally made a tiny opening to the other side, Dylan called out, “Come on, Beasties, dig in!”

We all joined the destruction. Even Sara was clawing out pieces of door. Finally, when the hole was big enough for all of us to slip through, we had to stop and catch our breaths. The hallway echoed with the panting of a rat, raccoon, hawk, parrot, and water bug. Dylan peered into the hole. “Dark room. Very dangerous. You go first.” “Me?” I said. “And then what? Politely ask the light to switch on all by itself?” “I’M NOT DOING IT,” Sara said.

Kate let out an impatient sigh. “Clear, please! This is a job for a brave Beastie.” She squeezed herself through the splintery hole. It tore off a few feathers, but she didn’t complain much. For a few seconds we could hear her flapping around inside the room. Then a high-pitched grunt. A thud. A bad word I won’t mention. And finally, a snap—and the room was bathed in harsh white light. Mason skittered inside first. His tiny voice came back to us: “Whoa.

Just whoa.” “Are you already human again? No fair!” Dylan pushed Sara and me aside and dived into the hole. “Clear, please—yeoww!” Dylan was stuck in the hole, a twerking mass of striped fur. “GET HIM OUT!” Sara urged. “No—push me in!” Dylan demanded. I looked at Sara, and she nodded.

We paced off a few steps and prepared to run at his backside. “Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t fart.” She and I ran hard and slammed into him. “That’s worse!” Dylan cried, still stuck. “If you disfigure me, I’ll—” “SUE,” Sara shot back. “WE KNOW, WE KNOW!” “I think I can make the hole bigger.”

I climbed on his back and began chewing at the wood as fast as I could. “That tickles,” Dylan complained. “Huuur . . . hur-hur-hur-hur!” After a few moments, when the hole was wider.

For Bobby and Josie and also for Tina, Nick, Joe, Jennie, and Mom, the loves of my life, but mostly for Bobby and Josie 1kitap1.com/en Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 After About the Author Books by Peter Lerangis Copyright About the Publisher 1kitap1.com/en 1 WITH ONLY THREE HOURS left as a human being, I forgot my allergy meds.

If I were smart, I would have gone home to get them instead of boarding the bus. If I had missed the bus, I might have been late for school. If I’d been late for school, I might have missed the field trip. If I’d missed the field trip . . . Well, let me put it this way. Because of what happened on that weird April morning, I still touch my mouth to feel whiskers that aren’t there. I’m also afraid of birds, and I start to drool when I pass garbage cans.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, my name is Riley P. Trent. Most people don’t call me by my real name. Because my eyes water on allergy days, some people call me Cryley. I don’t like talking to people, so others call me Shyley.1 But that morning I got a new nickname. That’s because I sneezed about a thousand hundred times on the bus ride to school.2 Kids were screaming “Ew!” so loud that people on the sidewalk looked up from their phones—and New Yorkers almost never look up.

So the bus driver called me “Sneezy Snyder” (which in New York sounds like “Sneezy Snydah”). I managed to sniffle my way into my sixth-grade class at Loeser Academy.3 Our teacher, Mr. Sen, reminded us we were going on a trip to see the meteors at the American Museum of Natural History. Which, I have to admit, is the coolest place in New York City. If not the world! But I was the only kid in class who didn’t cheer. Instead, I sneezed. I reached for the pocket tissues I keep on my desk.

But someone had stolen them, so my sneeze sprayed everywhere. “Yuuuuuuck!” bellowed a kid with cauliflower hair, freckles like a planetarium sky, and imported Italian Gucci buttery leather loafers.4 He flomped flat on his back, shrieking, “Send me to the nurse! I have secondhand snot exposure!” In my opinion, that is not funny, but everyone laughed anyway. And when Mr. Sen told him to be quiet, he farted.

Which made everyone laugh even harder. Even quiet, polite Sara Simpson.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 51b220b4f2f2bd35
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,036,544 bytes (1.942 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 182
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 249.88 minutes
• Total Words: 49,977
• Total Characters: 274,052
• Average Words per Page: 274.6
• Average Characters per Page: 1505.78

Most Frequent Words

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