The Monster Detector Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Potter, Ellen, 1963- author. | Sala, Felicita, illustrator.

  Title: The Monster Detector / by Ellen Potter; illustrated by Felicita Sala.

  Description: New York: Amulet Books, 2018. | Series: Big foot and little foot; Book 2 | Summary: Hugo, a young sasquatch, and his friend Gigi use a Monster Detector to find a Green Whistler, but when Hugo’s human friend, Boone, joins in, surprises are in store. Identifiers: LCCN 2018001832 | ISBN 978-1-4197-3122-8 (hardcover pob) | eISBN 978-1-68335-386-7

  Subjects: | CYAC: Yeti—Fiction. | Monsters—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P8518 Mo 2018 | DDC [E]—dc23

  Text copyright © 2018 Ellen Potter

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 Felicita Sala

  Book design by Siobhán Gallagher

  Published in 2018 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  ABRAMS The Art of Books

  195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

  abramsbooks.com

  For Elias and Ilan

  1

  Monster in a Box

  Deep in the cold North Woods, there lived a young Sasquatch named Hugo. He was bigger than you but smaller than me, and he was hairier than both of us. He lived in apartment 1G in the very back of Widdershins Cavern with his mother and father and his older sister, Winnie.

  It was Saturday, which was the day that mail was delivered to Widdershins Cavern. Hugo stood at the end of the long line at the post office, waiting to see if his package had arrived. Every so often he would jump up as high as he could.

  “What are you doing, Hugo?” asked a voice behind him. It was his friend Gigi. She was on the small side for a squidge (which is what you call a young Sasquatch) but she had excellent posture, which made her look a little taller. She was holding a letter.

  “I’m waiting in line,” he answered.

  “No, I mean, why are you jumping up and down?” Gigi asked.

  “I’m trying to see if there’s a large package on the post office shelf,” Hugo replied.

  “If there is, it might be mine.” He jumped up again, but he couldn’t see over the heads of all the grown-up Sasquatches in front of him.

  “What’s in the package?” Gigi asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. “It’s from Mad Marvin.”

  “Mad Marvin? You mean the guy who makes Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards?”

  Hugo nodded. “If you collect one hundred wrappers from Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards and mail them in, Mad Marvin will send you a special prize. I mailed mine in last week. I’ve been collecting them for three years. No one in all of Widdershins Cavern has ever collected that many wrappers.”

  Gigi crossed her arms over her chest and stared hard at Hugo. “You think Mad Marvin is sending you a monster, don’t you, Hugo?”

  “No,” Hugo answered quickly. But after a moment, he admitted, “Well, maybe.” Suddenly he had an idea. “Hey, Gigi, if you climb up on my shoulders, you’ll be able to see if there’s a large package on the shelf.” Then he remembered that Gigi was sensitive about being small, so he added, “I mean, I would climb on your shoulders, but you have better balance than I do.”

  Gigi thought about this for a second. A special prize was always interesting, even if it wasn’t a monster.

  “Okay,” she said. “Hold this.” She handed her letter to Hugo.

  He knelt down and Gigi climbed onto his shoulders. Slowly, he stood up while she gripped the long hair on his neck.

  “Do you see anything?” he asked after a moment.

  “I see Mrs. Rattlebags,” Gigi said. “She’s at the counter, complaining about something.”

  “That’s nothing new,” said Hugo. Mrs. Rattlebags was always complaining about something.

  “But do you see a package?” he asked impatiently.

  “Yep,” said Gigi. “And it’s so big they couldn’t even put it on the shelf. They put it on the floor instead.”

  “How big is it?” Hugo asked excitedly.

  Gigi considered. “You could fit a squidge in it,” she said.

  A squidge . . . or a monster, thought Hugo.

  “And it’s in a wooden crate,” Gigi continued. “Wait, there are words written on the crate. The first word is . . . CAUTION!”

  CAUTION! That was a good sign, thought Hugo. If you were going to mail a monster, you would definitely write CAUTION! on the crate.

  “What else does it say?” Hugo asked.

  Gigi wiggled around on his shoulders, then said, “I can’t see. Can you stand on your tiptoes?”

  Hugo stood on his tiptoes.

  “Higher,” she said.

  He stood on the very tip of his tiptoes.

  “It says LIVE CARGO!,” Gigi told him.

  “LIVE CARGO! Then there is a monster in there!” he cried. Hugo got so excited that he forgot to keep still. Gigi bobbled around on his shoulders, then slid down his back in a very undignified way. She fell on the ground, backside first.

  “Sorry,” Hugo said as he helped her to her feet.

  After harrumphing with annoyance, Gigi patted down the three thin braids on the side of her head and stood up even straighter than before.

  “I told you!” Hugo said. “Mad Marvin did send a monster! I wonder which one it is. It could be a Shivering Wisp. Or a Black-Toed Oozer . . . no, that’s bigger than two squidges. Maybe it’s a Six-Headed Screecher.”

  “Hugo, monsters aren’t real,” Gigi said.

  “Of course they’re real. For instance, I always thought Humans were a kind of monster, until I met Boone.” Boone was Hugo’s best friend, a Human boy who lived on the banks of Ripple Worm River. “And Boone thought Sasquatches were monsters until he met us. A monster is just a creature you’ve never seen before and are a little afraid of. But when you meet it, it’s just sort of . . . regular. But better.”

  Gigi thought about that for a second. She was an excellent thinker, and in the end she had to admit that made perfect sense.

  2

  Mad Marvin’s Special Prize

  As the line inched forward, Hugo could hardly stand the suspense. He wondered what his mother would say about the monster. If it was a Shivering Wisp, she might think it was cute. Still, Hugo would prefer a Six-Headed Screecher. He wondered if you had to feed all six of the heads.

  Hugo couldn’t wait to show the monster to Boone. Boone knew all about monsters. He and Hugo were going to become cryptozoologists when they grew up. (A cryptozoologist is a hard-to-say word for someone who studies mysterious creatures.) Now Hugo and Boone would have a real, live monster to take care of!

  Finally, Hugo and Gigi reached the post office counter.

  “Hi, Mr. Kipper!” Hugo said to the postmaster as he bounced up and down with anticipation.

  “Well, good morning, Hugo. You look like someone who is expecting a
package today.”

  Hugo nodded and looked at the crate on the floor.

  “Well, I might just have something with your name on it.” Mr. Kipper winked. Then he turned around, but instead of lifting up the crate, he went to the shelf and picked up a little square package.

  “Here you go.” Mr. Kipper handed Hugo the little package. Hugo’s name and address were written on it, and Mad Marvin’s name was written above the return address. The package was so small it fit in the palm of Hugo’s hand. It did not say WARNING or LIVE CARGO on the package. Instead, it said FRAGILE.

  That meant whatever was inside it could be broken.

  And since monsters cannot be broken, it also meant that there was no monster inside.

  “Is there anything else for me?” Hugo asked Mr. Kipper in a small but hopeful voice, still eyeballing the large crate.

  “No, I’m afraid that’s it.”

  “Oh. Well . . . thanks,” Hugo said.

  Hugo waited while Gigi mailed her letter, and the two of them walked out of the post office.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to open your package?” Gigi asked him.

  Hugo shrugged. “I guess so.”

  It was hard to get excited about something that wasn’t a monster.

  Hugo tore open the package, pulled out a little wooden box, and removed the lid. Both he and Gigi stared down at what was inside.

  “Hmm,” said Gigi.

  “Hmm,” said Hugo.

  It was a little square piece of wood. In the middle of the square was a round glass window with five white specks inside.

  “What do you think it is?” Hugo asked.

  “It looks like a compass. Sort of.”

  Hugo took it out of its box. There was a black strap attached to it.

  “It’s not a compass, it’s a watch!” said Hugo excitedly. He’d never owned a watch before.

  “I don’t think it’s a watch, either,” said Gigi. “Wait. There’s a note in the box.”

  She pulled out the note and unfolded it. This is what it said:

  Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of a genuine Monster Detector! Inside your detector are five weechie-weechie moths. When a monster is nearby, they will make a clicking sound by flapping their wings.

  We have included a bag of weechie-weechie food. Open the lid on the back of the detector and drop in a pinch each week, along with a drop of water.

  Here are a few of the monsters you might find with your Monster Detector:

  Red-Nosed Gruzzles, Thorny Wrigglers, Pink-Eyed Pookas, and Hairless Wolly-Wollys.

  Good luck finding monsters!

  Sincerely,

  Mad Marvin

  “Wow!” Hugo said, examining the Monster Detector.

  “What’s a Hairless Wolly-Wolly?” Gigi asked.

  It wasn’t often that Gigi asked Hugo a question. Gigi usually knew everything about everything. But Hugo did know more about monsters than she did.

  “Let’s see, a Hairless Wolly-Wolly . . .” Hugo looked up at the cavern’s ceiling, then down at his hairy feet, and then back at Gigi. “It’s about the size of a raccoon . . . and it has a scrunched-up kind of face with long, pointy ears . . . and . . . it has no hair.”

  He wasn’t absolutely sure about this, except for the “no hair” part.

  “Oh.” Gigi nodded. “Sounds weird.”

  “Well, it is a monster, after all.”

  “Until you meet it,” Gigi said. “Then it’s sort of regular.”

  “Regular . . . but better,” Hugo reminded her.

  3

  The Monster Search

  “You know what we should do now?” Hugo said, strapping the Monster Detector on his wrist. “Look for monsters?” Gigi guessed. Hugo nodded.

  “But how are we going to look for monsters if we can’t go outside?” Gigi asked.

  Squidges were only allowed to go outside the cavern once in a while, with their school and on special holidays. Although the Big Wide World was an exciting place, it was also dangerous for Sasquatches. There were all sorts of stories about Humans who hunted Sasquatches. Sometimes the Humans wanted to capture them and put them in a cage to study them. Sasquatches needed practice and skill to stay safe in the Big Wide World.

  “We can look for monsters right here, in the cavern,” suggested Hugo. “There might be one or two.”

  Gigi gave him a doubtful look.

  “Maybe really small ones,” he said.

  They started their monster search by traveling down to the east end of the cavern. But it was all apartments down on that end, with lots of Sasquatches going to and fro. It didn’t seem like the sort of place a monster would be.

  They turned around and headed to the west end of the cavern instead. It was quieter there. There were no apartments and no Sasquatches. They ambled along slowly while Hugo held out his wrist with the Monster Detector on it, and they listened for a click-click sound.

  The cavern looked different here. The path was narrower. The rock walls were lumpy and had rusty orange lines swirling through them. Hugo and Gigi walked and walked, but the Monster Detector had not made a single sound.

  “Maybe it’s broken,” said Hugo, stopping to tap on the detector’s glass window.

  “Or maybe there just aren’t any monsters around here,” Gigi said.

  Click-click.

  “Did you hear that?” Hugo whispered.

  Gigi nodded.

  Click-click. Click-click.

  They looked at the Monster Detector. In the little glass window, the weechie-weechie moths were flapping their tiny wings.

  Click-click! Click-click!

  “There must be a monster here!” Hugo whispered.

  They checked all around them, but they didn’t see anything suspicious.

  “Wait, look at that,” Gigi said suddenly, pointing up.

  There was an opening at the top of the wall where a thin sliver of light peeped through. Hugo held the Monster Detector up toward it.

  CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK!!!! went the weechie-weechie moths.

  “The monster must be on the other side of the wall,” whispered Gigi.

  They both looked up at the opening at the top of the wall. It was high above the ground.

  “I could climb up there and have a look,” Hugo said.

  He was pretty sure Gigi would tell him that that was a stupid idea. She would tell him that it was too dangerous.

  But instead Gigi said, “It’s the only way to find out.”

  “Right,” he said.

  He didn’t move.

  “I can’t think of any other way,” he said.

  He still didn’t move.

  “Can you?” he asked.

  “I’ll do it if you don’t want to,” Gigi offered.

  So of course Hugo had to say that he did want to.

  He took a deep breath. Carefully, he placed his foot in a little hollow in the wall. He found a shallow ledge on which to place his hand. Slowly, he began to climb. His foot slipped once and he scrambled to find another ledge.

  “Are you all right?” Gigi called up.

  “I’m totally fine,” he said.

  Which was not really true. He was barely even mostly fine.

  The higher he climbed, the more frantically the weechie-weechie moths click-clicked.

  “Shhh!” he whispered to them.

  Finally, Hugo gripped the edge of the hole in the wall. With all his strength, he pulled himself up and peered through the gap. His eyes grew wide. His mouth fell open.

  “What?! What do you see?” Gigi whispered.

  “Whoa!” was all Hugo could manage to say.

  4

  The Green Whistler

  On the other side of the wall was a small room, no bigger than your bedroom closet. One of the walls in the room had an opening that led out to the Big Wide World. It was large enough for a full-grown Sasquatch to walk through, if they ducked their head a little. Scattered on the ground in the room were clumps of dark green fur
. In one corner there was a pile of small bones.

  “Something lives here, Gigi,” Hugo whispered down to her.

  “A Sasquatch?” Gigi whispered back.

  Hugo shook his head. “There are bones. Sasquatches don’t eat meat.”

  “Maybe a bear?” Gigi suggested.

  “Have you ever heard of a bear with green fur?” Hugo asked.

  “Green fur?” Suddenly Gigi looked alarmed. “It must be the Green Whistler!”

  Hugo felt his foot begin to slip, and he came back down to the ground in a sliding, skidding, bumping way.

  “The Green Whatsit?” he asked as he checked his feet for scrapes.

  “The Green Whistler! My grandmother told me about it. It was this horrible creature that used to live in Widdershins Cavern. They called it the Green Whistler because it was covered in green fur, and right before it pounced on its victims it made this weird whistling noise.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. And my grandmother said there was a rumor that it ate squidges.”

  Hugo and Gigi stared at each other in the darkness. The only sound was the click-click-click of the Monster Detector.

  “Um, I’d better get going,” said Hugo. “I think my parents wanted me to help at the store.”

  “Yeah, I think I still have some homework to do,” Gigi said.

  Then Hugo and Gigi turned around and walked back the way they had come. But this time they walked a lot faster.

  5

  Snarfles

  Hugo’s family owned the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery. On Saturday morning the store was always busy. Today, all the little round tables were filled with customers eating blackberry snarfles, which are sort of like waffles except they are shaped like oak leaves.

  Other customers were examining items on the store’s shelves, like jugs of shampoo (most Sasquatches go through a dozen jugs of shampoo a month), and hacksaws and jigsaws and crosscut saws, because all Sasquatches are experts when it comes to making things out of wood. There were also colorful scarves for fashionable Sasquatches and diapers for baby Sasquatches, and high up on a shelf was a Human Repellent, which smelled just like skunk when you sprayed it. That was for when you were walking in the woods and wanted Humans to stay away.