Looniverse #1: Stranger Things (A Branches Book) Read online

  wasn’t happy being around so

  many of them — especially when

  more and more kept coming.

  “Libby,” I said as the mice

  began to form a second layer,

  “that’s enough.”

  She didn’t hear me over the squeaking.

  One mouse doesn’t make much noise, but

  when you fill a room with mice, the squeaks

  become a roar.

  “LIBBY!” I shouted. “THAT’S ENOUGH!”

  She took the straw from her lips.

  “Enough?”

  “Yeah. The mice can’t stay,” I said.

  “Why not?” Libby asked.

  “Umm . . . The mice have to get to the

  cheese shop before it closes.” It was nice to

  know I could think quickly when I

  was almost up to my ears in mice.

  “Let them go. Okay?”

  “Okay.” She opened the front door. “Shoo.

  Go away,” she said. Then she went to her

  room. I guess all that marching had tired her

  out. The mice ran outside and scattered in

  all directions.

  But they had left behind a terrible mouse

  mess.

  That’s when Mom walked in. “Ed, what

  happened to the floor?” she asked.

  “I . . .Libby. . .the mice. . .” Unlike Derwin,

  I had a lot fewer than a thousand words, and

  none of them seemed to fit together. I sighed

  and said, “I’ll get the broom.”

  It took so long to sweep the floor clean

  that I was late for the party. Mom had

  already dropped Derwin off there. I grabbed

  my bathing suit and hurried out.

  Q

  uentin One

  I was half a block from home when I heard

  someone behind me call, “Hi, Ed!”

  It was my friend Quentin One. I had

  three friends named Quentin, so I called

  them Quentin One, Quentin

  Two, and Quentin Three.

  “Are you going to the

  party?” I asked.

  “Sure. Want a ride?”

  Quentin asked as he

  coasted past me on his

  bike.

  “No thanks.” The last time we’d tried

  that, we’d crashed.

  “I’ll see you there,” he said, giving me a

  wave.

  I was about to wave back. Then I realized

  that, even though Quentin was pedaling

  away, somehow he was still facing me. I

  hadn’t seen him turn around.

  “What in the world . . . ?”

  I thought about all the strange things that

  had happened since I’d found the coin. Could

  all this strangeness be connected to it?

  By the time I reached the hotel, I knew

  what I had to do. I pulled the coin from my

  pocket and flipped it into the bushes. Then I

  went inside, hoping things would be back to

  normal.

  Moose

  Moose is the biggest kid in our class. He’s

  also the smartest kid I know.

  He always finds unusual ways

  to solve problems.

  The party was nicely

  normal at first. We swam,

  splashed, and ate snacks.

  chapter

  6

  SHAKING UP

  IS

  HARD TO DO

  After a while, Quentin One climbed out of

  the pool. He headed for the locker room.

  Just then, Quentin Two came in, hopping

  toward the pool on his pogo stick. He

  looked a lot like Quentin One. I guess he

  also looked like Quentin Three. I’d never

  noticed that before.

  Quentin Two hopped over to me and said,

  “Hey, I saw you drop this. I’ll bet you’re glad

  you didn’t lose it.” He stopped hopping and

  held out the coin.

  “Thanks.” I was afraid

  to take it. But I was

  more afraid not to take

  it. I put it in the pocket

  of my bathing suit.

  Moose and I sat by

  the side of the pool, drinking cherry cola.

  Most of the kids had brought blow-up rafts or

  float tubes. They were bobbing on the water

  like a bunch of Halloween apples.

  “I wish we had rafts,” I told Moose.

  “It would be nice,” he said.

  “It’s your

  birthday,” I said. “I’m sure

  someone would let you borrow a raft.”

  “But then they wouldn’t have one,”

  Moose said. “There has to be a better

  answer.”

  Just then, Derwin walked past us, draining

  the last of his soda. He let out a loud burp.

  “I got it! What a great idea!” Moose leaped

  up and grabbed Derwin. “Drink this,” he said,

  handing his soda to my brother.

  Derwin slugged the soda right down:

  Gulp!

  Gulp! Gulp!

  “Give him yours,” Moose said.

  “I’m still thirsty,” I said.

  “Just give it to him,” Moose told me.

  “Quick, before he burps again.”

  “Yeah,” Derwin said. “Just give it to me.”

  I handed over my soda. I didn’t know what

  the rush was, but

  I really couldn’t

  turn Moose down

  on his birthday.

  Derwin gulped

  my soda so fast,

  it was like seeing

  bathwater vanish

  down the drain of

  a tub.

  Moose clamped a hand over Derwin’s

  mouth. Then he grabbed the back of his

  bathing suit. He lifted him up and started

  shaking him like he was

  one of those cool

  rattly things they

  use to make music

  in Mexican bands.

  Maracas — that’s it.

  Shake, shake, shake.

  MARACAS

  “Whatever you do, keep your mouth

  closed,” Moose said as he gave Derwin a

  final shake.

  Derwin’s mouth was shut tight. He started

  to swell with gas. He held his breath as Moose

  tossed him in the pool. Then Moose jumped

  onto Derwin. My brother bobbed a bit, but

  he had enough gas in his stomach to keep

  floating.

  It worked great.

  Until Derwin burped, that is.

  The moment he opened his mouth, he shot

  out from under Moose like a flyaway balloon.

  He made it halfway across the bottom of

  the pool before he ran out of gas.

  “Are you all right?” I asked when Derwin

  popped to the surface.

  “Sure. That was fun,” he said as he climbed

  out of the pool. “Let’s do it again.”

  Moose tapped me

  on the shoulder.

  “Your turn to float,”

  he said. But I

  couldn’t stay.

  “Can you walk

  Derwin home?”

  I asked Moose.

  “Sure,” he said.

  I left the hotel. I needed to find out why

  everything became so strange the moment I

  found that coin. And I knew the perfect place

  to get some answers. . . .

  “Can I help you?” Mr. Sage asked when I

  walked into the New Curiosity Shop.

  “I hope so.” I pulled the coin from
my

  pocket and handed it to him. “Can you tell

  me anything about this?”

  chapter

  7

  CURIOUS

  AN

  SWERS

  “The Silver Center? I’ve heard stories

  about this coin, but I never believed the coin

  was real,” he said. “Oh, dear. Was it this faded

  when you found it?” He held the coin up for

  me to see.

  “No,” I said. “It looked brand-new.” The

  face of the coin reminded me of the really

  worn Buffalo nickel that

  my uncle gave me last

  year. I added “fading

  coin” to my list of

  strange experiences.

  “There isn’t much time,” he said. “You

  need to give this coin to the Stranger.”

  “I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” I

  said.

  “Not that kind of stranger,” Mr. Sage said.

  “This is a special meaning of Stranger. If you

  don’t give this to the Stranger before the

  words fade away, the world will lose all its

  strangeness.”

  Einstein

  Picasso

  “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” I

  said. If there was no strangeness, I’d be more

  like everyone else. I liked that idea.

  “It would be terrible,”

  he said. “Think of all

  the great people

  who seem strange.

  Remember the

  brilliant scientist

  Albert Einstein?

  And the amazing

  artist Pablo Picasso?

  “They were both quite strange. Our greatest

  artworks and inventions happened because

  someone had a strange idea or saw a

  strange sight. Without strangeness,

  the world would be terribly dull.”

  “But things are really strange

  right now,” I said. “Too strange.”

  “That should start to settle down

  once you give the Stranger the

  coin,” Mr. Sage said.

  “Maybe you should find this

  Stranger,” I said.

  He handed the coin back to me. “No. You

  found the coin. Or the coin found you. Either

  way, the job is yours.”

  “But I still don’t know what to do,” I said.

  “Let your experiences guide you,” Mr.

  Sage said. “A task this important would never

  fall into the hands of someone who couldn’t

  handle it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. I headed out.

  This was awful. I hadn’t learned a thing. And

  I sure didn’t agree with him that strangeness

  was important. On top of that, he’d given me

  a job I didn’t know how to do.

  Wait!

  I didn’t need to know who I was looking

  for! If I gave the coin to every person I met,

  one of them would have to be the Stranger.

  Mr. Sage didn’t say I’d only get one chance.

  As soon as I got home, I handed the coin to

  Derwin. “Can you hold on to this for me?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Hey, Moose said we

  should go over and see all his presents.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “Of course! You know everything’s more

  fun when I’m around,” Derwin said.

  “I guess you can come.” He could be a pest

  at times, but he was kind of fun.

  We headed toward Moose’s house. We

  were almost there when Derwin screamed,

  “Ouch! It’s hot.” He pointed at his pocket.

  “Help! Take it back!”

  I pulled the coin from Derwin’s pocket. It

  felt cold.

  “Was that a trick coin?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” I said as I put it back in my

  pocket.

  When we got to Moose’s house, his older

  brother, Mouse, answered the door.

  chapter

  8

  NEED A

  LIFT?

  Everyone calls him “Mouse” because he’s

  nowhere near as big as Moose. Mouse. doesn’t

  come up with wild ideas like Moose, but he’s

  stronger than Moose and he loves to talk.

  There was a huge package on Moose’s

  front porch.

  “Moose,” Mouse called, “you got something.”

  Moose came to the porch. “Oofff!” he said

  as he lifted the package.

  Derwin looked at Moose and said, “I wish

  I was as strong as you.”

  “What about me?” Mouse said. “I’m

  stronger than Moose. I can lift anything.”

  He grabbed Moose by the legs and lifted both

  him and the package straight up.

  “I’ll bet you can’t lift yourself,” I said.

  “Sure I can,” Mouse said. He put his

  brother down, squatted, and jammed his

  hands behind his knees.

  “Stop!” I said. “I was joking.”

  “Oofff!” Mouse grunted as he lifted.

  “Wow.” That was about all I could say as I

  watched Mouse lift himself up in the air.

  “Let go,” I told him.

  “I can’t,” Mouse said. “If I let go, I’ll fall

  and get hurt.”

  He was five feet up, and still rising.

  Moose rushed under his brother and held

  out his arms. “Just let go,” he said. “We’ll

  catch you.”

  Mouse shook his head.

  I leaped up and tried

  to grab Mouse’s

  feet, but he

  was too high.

  “I know,”

  Derwin said. He

  ran to the garage,

  and came back with a

  piece of rope. “Catch!”

  he called to Mouse as

  he threw one end of the rope up in the air.

  Mouse caught the rope with his teeth.

  Derwin, holding on to the other end, started

  to rise. Mouse was now lifting both of them

  into the air.

  “Help me!” Derwin shouted.

  Moose and I grabbed

  the rope right above

  Derwin’s hands

  and started pulling.

  It was a real battle,

  but between us,

  we managed to get

  Derwin all the way

  down, and Mouse

  close to the ground.

  “Thanks,” Mouse said.

  This was one time when good manners

  were a bad idea. When Mouse spoke, the rope

  fell out of his mouth. I guess that startled

  him, because he lifted himself even harder

  and shot right back up.

  Derwin threw him the rope again, and

  Mouse chomped his teeth on it just like he

  did before. We all pulled. When Mouse was

  almost down, I warned him, “Don’t say

  anything this time.”

  “I won’t,” he said.

  Out came the rope. Up went Mouse.

  We tried again. This time, I looked at

  Moose, and Moose looked at Derwin, and

  Derwin looked at me. Then we all looked

  up at Mouse and shouted, “Don’t open your

  mouth, Mouse!”

  That worked. We got him back down.

  Once his feet were on the ground, he finally

  stopped lifting. Mouse wasn’t as smart as

  Moose, but he did learn things s
ooner or

  later.

  Moose opened the heavy package. It was

  a set of barbells.

  I didn’t stay long. I had too much to think

  about. As I walked home, I touched the coin.

  I still didn’t know who to give it to. And I

  didn’t like the idea that Mouse and Derwin

  could have gotten hurt today. Strangeness

  could be dangerous.

  I checked the coin again right before bed.

  The words were almost totally faded. If I

  wanted to let the world lose all its strangeness,

  I wouldn’t have long to wait. But if I was going

  to find the Stranger, I had to do it soon.

  A strange sound woke me Sunday morning.

  I looked across at my five goldfish. Each

  one swam to the bottom,

  picked up a piece of gravel

  in its mouth, and spat it

  out — hard — at the glass

  sides of the bowl.

  chapter

  9

  DIG DOG

  It looked like

  they were trying

  to break free.

  When I have

  a tough problem

  to solve, I like

  to sit under the old

  apple tree in the

  backyard and think.

  So I headed out back.

  PING!

  PING!

  PING!

  PING!

  PING!

  Rex and Willow

  were there. I watched

  Rex dig a hole. When

  he was finished, he

  used his teeth to

  grab Willow by the

  scruff of the neck. I

  expected her to hiss

  and scratch. But she purred so loudly, I could

  hear her from halfway across the yard.

  Rex dropped Willow in the hole.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He ignored me, turned around, and kicked

  the dirt back in.