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Chapter Text

Things began, as they often do, innocuously enough.

It was a cool, overcast June day in Portorosso, and Luca and Giulia had gotten home from school only a week earlier.  Luca had spent most of his time so far with his family in the water, but was eager to catch up on what had been happening in town as well.  He was sitting with his friends on the edge of the sea wall, watching the tide roll in and listening to Alberto tell the definitely true story of how he had saved Massimo from a giant shark, when Signora Marsigliese approached them.

“Ciao!” Giulia greeted her.

“Buongiorno, bambini,” the woman replied. “Ah… may I have a word?”

This was not the way people normally began conversations with adolescents, and Luca’s first reaction was to wonder if they were in trouble. It didn’t seem likely – he and Giulia hadn’t had time yet to get into mischief, and if it were just Alberto she wouldn’t have wanted to talk to all three of them. Still, he was cautious as he asked, “is something wrong, Madame?”

“No, not exactly,” she replied. “I wanted to ask you a favour, on behalf of Rocco. He’s convinced there’s a monster in his closet.”

Giulia scoffed. “There’s no such thing as…”

“As what?” Alberto interrupted.

Luca and Giulia both looked at him, and found him grinning.

“No such thing as what?” he repeated. “As monsters?”

Luca snickered.

“Not in little kids’ closets, there’s not,” Giulia said.

“I’ve tried to tell him that,” Signora Marsigliese sighed.  “He says he knows it’s there because he’s seen it, and he insists he wasn’t dreaming.  He wants me to ask if you boys would stay the night and scare it away.”  She gave Luca and Alberto an apologetic smile.  “He figures since you’re monsters too, of a sort, maybe you can at least talk to it.  I’m ready to try anything if it’ll get him to sleep through the night again.”

“I think we can do that,” said Luca.  It was always fun to sleep over in a new place.  They’d been in Signora Marsigliese’s grocery shop plenty of times, but their only glimpse of her home was through the front door when Alberto delivered fresh fish. “Right, Alberto?”

“Yeah, sure,” Alberto nodded.  “We’ll yell a bunch in the middle of the night, and tell him we killed it.”

“I’d rather not the yelling,” Signora Marsigliese observed, “but yes, please.  Tell him it’s gone, and we’ll all sleep better.  Thank you.”

It was now Giulia’s turn to giggle as the woman walked away, and Luca gave her a questioning look.

“What’s so funny?” asked Alberto.

“I was just picturing this giant scary monster, like Godzilla, coming out of the closet, and you two trying to look mean and frighten it away,” she snickered.

“We can be scary!” Alberto said indignantly.  “The first time I transformed in front of you, you were scared to death.”

“Only because you surprised me,” Giulia scoffed.  “If Luca hadn’t pretended to freak out, I’d’ve figured it out in about five seconds. You are the least scary monster I’ve ever met.”

“Who’s the scariest, then?” Alberto wanted to know.

Giulia replied without hesitation: “Luca’s mom.”

Alberto turned to Luca to see what he thought of that.

Luca shrugged.  “She can be pretty terrifying.  Anyway, there’s not gonna be any monster, so we don’t need to worry about whether we can scare it.”  He thought for a moment, then glanced warily at Giulia.  “Right?”

“Of course there isn’t,” she said.  “Why would there be a monster in Rocco’s closet?  What’s it doing in there, besides scaring him?”

The boys had no answer for that, and so it seemed settled.  That evening, with the permission of their families, Luca and Alberto knocked on Signora Marsigliese’s door.  She let them in, and called out to her son.

“Rocco!” she said.  “They’re here!”

Rocco came hurrying down the narrow steps and into the tiny front hall, most of which was taken up by the large ficus plant under the front window.  Signora Marsigliese’s son was well-known around Portorosso and everybody agreed he was a very strange child, though not in a bad way.  He preferred to watch group activities like football games or the Portorosso Cup race, rather than participating, and even in the winter he liked to have gelato to lick.  The oddest thing about him, though, was that despite being around eight years old, he never seemed to speak.  He must have done so occasionally, since he’d clearly spoken to his mother about his monster, but Luca couldn’t remember ever hearing a word from him.

He did not speak now, either.  Instead, he took Luca’s hand and led the boys up the stairway to his room.

Like all indoor living spaces in town, this was tiny.  The doorway looked in from the foot of the bed towards a window above its head, with just barely enough space for a person to walk around.  If they were sleeping in here, Luca and Alberto would have to be on the floor on either side of the bed.  Next to the door that led to the hallway was the door to the closet.  This was closed, and a chair had been wedged under the handle.

“That’s where your monster lives, huh?” Alberto asked.

Rocco offered a piece of paper with a drawing he’d done.  It showed a rotund, furry creature with black and yellow stripes like a bumblebee.  Its head was decked out with crooked horns, red eyes, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.  Two arms each ended in three clawed fingers, and it walked on three legs.  It did not resemble Godzilla, or anything else Luca could think of, but it still wasn’t anything anyone would want to run into in the dark.

“I think we can take him,” said Alberto confidently.

“Yeah, you’ll be safe with us here,” Luca agreed.  “We’ll just tell it that it’ll have to find a different closet to live in.”

“And if it doesn’t want to, there’ll be trouble!” Alberto said firmly.

Rocco smiled.

Signora Marsigliese served pasta for supper – trofie with tocco de funzi – and then laid out blankets and pillows for the boys on the floor. They settled down with their heads towards the closet so they would see the monster before it woke Rocco.  Rocco himself filled a bucket and a pitcher with water and placed them within easy reach so Alberto and Luca could transform quickly.

“Sleep tight, boys,” Signora Marsigliese said as she turned out the light.  “Let me know if you need anything.”

Luca wiggled deeper into his sleeping bag and shut his eyes.  It was a little strange to think of trying to sleep with a bucket of water right next to his head.  He hoped he wouldn’t roll into it and knock it over in his sleep – Signora Marsigliese wouldn’t appreciate having to clean that up.

“Does this monster usually show up right as you’re going to sleep, Rocco?” asked Alberto.

Rocco, peering over the edge of the bed, shook his head.

“When you wake up in the middle of the night, then?” Luca guessed.

Rocco nodded.

“All right.  You go to sleep.  We’ll keep watch.”

The younger boy smiled and lay his head down on his pillow.  He looked very happy with the arrangement.

Luca hoped it would be a peaceful night.  If Rocco had another nightmare he might be angry that Luca and Alberto hadn’t been able to stop the monster coming in.  Maybe just having somebody there guarding him would be enough to prevent that.

Signora Marsigliese had a large clock in her upstairs hall, and through the thin walls the ticking seemed very loud.  This didn’t bother Luca, who was used to hearing clocks in the buildings in Genova.  The only clocks in Massimo’s house, however, were quiet, and Luca could hear Alberto tossing and turning and pulling the pillow over his head in an attempt to muffle it.  Then, just when it seemed like Alberto had finally fallen asleep, the clock began to chime midnight.

“Ugh!” groaned Alberto from under his pillow.  “Why does she have that thing?”

Luca held a finger to his lips.  “Sssh!  You’re gonna wake Rocco up.”

“How can he be asleep with all that noise going on?” Alberto whined.

“He grew up in this house,” said Luca.  “He probably…”

Luca stopped there as a different sound intruded – a gentle creak of hinges that seemed terribly loud in the quiet house.  Alberto heard it, too, and the boys sat there very still for a moment in the dark before turning their heads towards the closet.

It looked the same as it had before.

Luca breathed out.  “Probably the house settling,” he decided.  That was what Giulia’s mother always said when their house in Genova made strange noises in the middle of the night.

“Yeah,” said Alberto, and started to lie down again.

Then they heard it again, longer this time – creeeeeeeeak – and as they watched, the door opened just a centimetre or so, before it gently bumped against the chair that had been set up to keep it shut.  There was a pause, and then it opened a hair further, the legs of the chair making a scraping sound as they were pushed across the floor.  Luca’s eyes were riveted on it as it inched towards his face.  He wondered if it would keep going until it hit him, and whether he’d be able to wiggle back out of the way quietly enough for whatever was in the closet not to notice him.  What if it stepped on him?

The chair stopped moving.  Luca kept his eyes on it, barely daring to blink – and to his utter horror, a clawed hand reached out of the closet and moved the chair to the side.

At last Luca was able to tear his gaze away and look at Alberto.  He found his friend looking back at him with huge eyes.  For a moment neither had any idea what to do, but then Alberto seemed to make up his mind.  He grabbed the bucket Rocco had left him, and poured the water over his head to transform.  Luca did the same, and as the creature stepped into the room, both boys jumped up and did their best monster shrieks.

The three-legged, bumblebee-striped beast that had just emerged from the closet screamed right back.  Rocco sat up straight in bed and squealed.  For a long moment, everybody just stood there yelling, and then silence fell again.

The closet monster’s glowing red eyes were huge, and it had its clawed hands on his furry chest as it panted in terror.  Then it seemed to get a handle on itself and demanded, in the voice of an adult woman, “what are you doing in here?”

Neither of the boys had expected that, and neither was capable of a response.

“Are you with that school group?” the creature wanted to know.  “You’re not supposed to be on the scare floor!”  It – she – looked at Rocco, sitting bolt-upright in bed with his blanket clutched under his chin, and held up her hands.  “I’m sorry.  This is very irregular,” she told him.  “I’ll get these two back where they belong, and hopefully we can resume normal operations tomorrow. Very sorry.”  She grabbed Luca and Alberto each by a wrist, and dragged them into the closet.

Except it wasn’t a closet anymore.  Rocco had showed them the inside earlier – it was not very deep, and contained mostly clothes organized by colour and shoes neatly lined up in the bottom, with a few toys and books on the top shelf.  Now the creature escorted the boys through that same door into an enormous, dimly-lit room that seemed to stretch away forever on both sides.  The door slammed shut behind them, and the being that had closed it hurried forward to see what was going on.

This second creature seemed to consist mostly of a mass of shaggy grey fur, with knobby-kneed legs sticking out the bottom and two eyes on stalks emerging from the top.  It was wearing a hard hat, and had short arms, one of which was holding a clipboard.

“Louise!” it exclaimed.  “Louise, what happened?”

“These two were hiding in there waiting for me!” the yellow and black creature replied, holding up her arms and almost lifting the two boys off their feet.  “Did you see them get in, Curtis?”

One of the moplike thing’s eyes looked Alberto over, while the other inspected Luca, and then the mop below them wagged from side to side as if the creature were shaking its head.  “I’ve never seen these kids before in my life.”

There was the sound of murmuring from all around them.  Alberto and Luca peered into the darkness and found it was full of creatures of every possible description.  A big hulking apelike one had shaggy green fur like moss growing all over it.  A red one had three eyes and crab claws.  A third had multiple tentacles that it was using to hold on to half a dozen mugs of coffee.  The boys inched closer together.  No matter what Giulia had said earlier, there was no word for these things except monsters, and not the kind of monster that people meant when they said ‘land monsters’ or 'sea monsters’.  These were monsters in the sense of something scary and unnatural, and they were all looking at Luca and Alberto with annoyed or disapproving expressions.

“They must be with that class that was touring the place,” sighed the creature called Louise.  “I’ll find the rest of them while you reset the station – we’re gonna have to give that one a few days off, at least.”

“Yes, Ma'am,” said Curtis.  He pulled a lever, and pieces of machinery on either side of Rocco’s door disengaged.  “I’ll file the report!”

Louise gave her prisoners a shake.  “You boys hear that?  Your antics might have cost us a door!  What have you got to say for yourselves?”

“Um,” said Alberto.  He was rarely speechless, but this situation had done it.

“Sorry, Ma'am,” said Luca meekly.

“You’d better be,” Louise declared.  “Now, let’s go find your teacher.”

A metal door at the far end of the room rolled open, and Louise half-led, half-dragged the two boys through it and into the hallway beyond.  The light was much better here, almost painfully bright in comparison with the bigger room they’d just left, but there was much less to see – just neutral beige walls and a hard, charcoal-grey carpet.  More monsters were moving around here, going every which way, carrying objects both recognizable and not.  Some of these stopped and stared as Louise and the boys passed by, but most were absorbed in their own tasks.

“I didn’t need this today, you know,” Louise said conversationally. “I have a performance review coming up.  In this business you have to be twice as good as a man to get half the respect, and there’s this jerk in management who…”

“Louise?” asked a voice.

Her furry shoulders slumped.  “Yes, Steve?”

Alberto and Luca looked back over their shoulders to see what they had to assume was the creature named Steve, which had just stepped out of a washroom.  It was teal blue, and shaped roughly like a human except that it had no head – just a roughly spherical torso with eyes, a mouth, and a moustache in the middle of it.  It was wearing a striped tie around what might have been either its neck or its waist depending on how one felt about its unorthodox anatomy, and had a trilby hat sitting on its shoulders.

“Are these two yours?” this creature asked, seemingly startled by the idea.

“No,” said Louise.  “They were causing trouble on the scare floor.  I’m taking them back to their tour, and then I have to get back to work, so…”

Steve clucked his tongue.  “Oh, that’s right!  Big performance review coming up.”

“Yes, and I want to go into it on a strong week,” Louise said firmly.  “I’m all about consistency.”

Luca felt a familiar tingling sensation in his toes.  He was drying off, and his feet were starting to transform.  He looked over at Alberto, and sucked in a breath through his teeth as he saw the fins on his friend’s head vanishing into curls of sandy-brown hair.  Luca started trying to pull his hand free, but Louise tightened her grip, all while still glaring at Steve.

“I have things I need to be doing, too,” Steve said, “so why don’t we discuss this over dinner?  How about Winsor’s Chophouse?  You look like a girl who enjoys a good steak.”

Louise was not tempted.  “Will the rest of the board be there?”

“Nope!”  Steve smiled at her.  “Just the two of us.”

Luca could see his vision changing and feel his hair growing in.  Four green fingers became five pink ones, and he had to stand up straighter to balance against the disappearance of his tail.  Alberto was struggling, trying to free himself from Louise’s paw before she could realize that the boys were a very different kind of monster than she was.

“I keep telling you,” Steve went on, “if you really want to advance in your career, you need to make connections.  You’ve got to…” he glanced at Luca, probably intending to tell him to stop squirming, but if so the words never came out.  His eyes went wide, and he screamed like a frightened child.

This startled Louise so badly she let go of the boys and took a step back, and Luca and Alberto seized the opportunity.

“Bathroom!” Luca grabbed his friend by the shoulders, and they fled into the washroom Steve had come out of.

“She’ll follow us!” Alberto protested.

“She can’t!  It’s the men’s!” Luca told him.

Safely inside, they leaned on the sinks and panted for air.  They hadn’t run very far, but both were on the verge of utter panic.

“Where are we?” Luca asked. “How is all this in Rocco’s closet?”

“Do I look like I know?” Alberto demanded.

Luca felt sick.  If Alberto wasn’t even going to pretend he knew the answer, then they were really in trouble.

There was a sound that Luca recognized as the crackle of a public address system, and a woman’s voice began making an announcement.  “Ladies and gentlemonsters, we need you to evacuate the building in an orderly fashion.  Please do not… hey!”

Some scuffling followed, and the next voice they heard was Steve’s.  “Code black!  Code black!” He shouted.  “Containment breach!  There are human children in the… ow!”

The first voice spoke again.  “There is no need to panic,” she declared.  “Remain calm, go to your designated emergency gathering points, and let the exterminators do their jobs.”

“Exterminators?” Luca whispered, terrified.

Both of them had the same thought at the same time: Louise had assumed they belonged here as long as they looked like sea monsters. Hopefully everybody else would, too.  They needed water.

Luca turned the sink taps on full blast and began splashing himself. Alberto did the same and stuck his head under the flow.  Face, hands, feet… Luca scooped water up in handfuls and poured it down his collar, and then he and Alberto did each other’s backs to bring out their tails and dorsal fins.

“We got this,” said Alberto.  “We got this.  We’re just two totally normal closet monsters.”

“Right.” Luca checked his feet and grabbed his tail to make sure it was all there.

They heard the door open.

“I think they went in here,” said the voice of Louise.  “I heard one of them shout bathroom, and I… oh.”  She saw them standing there, huddled nervously close to each other, and blinked in confusion.

Behind her, three more figures entered the room.  These were a variety of shapes and sizes, including one that was barely thirty centimetres tall and sitting on a larger colleague’s shoulder.  All were dressed in yellow plastic suits from head to whatever they had for toes, with reflective visors and a breathing apparatus.

“Didn’t you boys hear the order to evacuate?” the tiny one demanded in a squeaky voice.

“We were scared.  We hid in here, um…” Luca tried to decide whether the creature who’d spoken was a Sir or a Madame, couldn’t, and was forced to leave the end of the sentence hanging there with no vocative at all.

“There’s an emergency exit just at the end of the hall,” the tiny creature told them, shaking what must have been its head.  “Somebody take them outside and let’s finish searching the area.  If this is another false alarm, I swear…”

“Come on, boys,” said Louise, gesturing for them to follow her.  Her hands were now covered in bandages.

Alberto and Luca didn’t like the idea of going with Louise, but staying here was no good, either.  They joined her, dripping on the floor as they went.

“Why are you wet?” Louise asked.

“We’re sea monsters,” Alberto replied.

“It’s not good for us to dry off,” Luca agreed.

Louise looked skeptical, but she said nothing more and led them out into the car park.  Dozens of bizarre creatures were milling around there, talking to each other or smoking cigarettes while waiting for the all clear to go back inside.  The one called Steve was sitting on the hood of a car, pouring out his heart to a one-eyed, egg-shaped creature in a floral dress.

“… and then I realized the kids weren’t monsters at all!  They were human!”

“That must have been terrifying,” the egg said.

“It was!  They were awful and hairless and pink!” said Steve.

The egg hesitated.  She was bubblegum pink in colour herself, with no hair on a head that sloped right into her shoulders without stopping for a neck.

Steve seemed to realize he’d made a mistake.  “Horrid things with big goggling eyes and too many fingers,” he added.

The egg narrowed her own gigantic eye, and put her seven-fingered hands on her hips.

Louise, meanwhile, was looking around for something, and seemed to spot it when she found a being with two heads sitting on top of long necks that extended from a very round body.  This creature, with a powder-blue cardigan on, was counting a crowd of smaller beasts that Luca wanted to think represented kids a little younger than him and Alberto… but really, who could say?

“Excuse me!” Louise called.

One of the heads turned, while the other continued counting.  “Yes?”

“I think these are yours.”  Louise pushed the boys forward.

The head examined them.  “Marie,” she said.

The other head kept counting.

“Marie!” the first head repeated.

The second one sighed.  “Yes, Jeanne?”

“Do we know these boys?”

The Marie head finally turned to look.  “Oh… no, I don’t think we do.”

Luca was really scared now. What were the monsters going to do when they realized the boys didn’t belong here?

“What are you talking about?” asked Alberto.  “Of course you do.  I’m Alberto and this is Luca.”

Luca nodded eagerly.

Marie and Jeanne looked at each other doubtfully.

“I know them,” said a voice.

This speaker was one of the apparent children.  It was a squat little creature with several crab-like legs and a few too many eyes.  He was wearing the top half of a sailor suit, with the cap on his head, and holding a large swirling lollipop.

“They’re friends of mine,” he announced.  “My father said they could come.”

Marie and Jeanne looked taken aback by this pronouncement, but the boy just licked his lollipop and waited, confident that the teachers would have to do what he said.  Apparently, he was right.

“Oh,” said Marie.  “Well, then.”

“I guess that’s all right,” said Jeanne.  “Come along, then.”

Louise shooed the boys towards the teacher as if glad to be rid of them – probably an accurate assessment – and Marie-Jeanne herded them into the rest of the group of children.  “All right,” Jeanne said, “now that we’ve got everybody and then some, I suppose we’d better head back.  I don’t think we’re getting the rest of our factory tour.”

“Are your friends coming with us back to school?” Marie asked the grey crab boy.

“Yes,” he replied firmly.

“All right,” Marie said, “everybody onto the bus.”

The kids formed a line to a bright yellow bus, and climbed up the steps into the vehicle one by one.  Luca looked back over his shoulder for Louise, and found her watching as the mop-like creature came running up.

“Louise! There you are!” Curtis exclaimed.  “Can you believe this?”

“I’m not sure I can,” she replied, and then thought for a moment. “Those two boys I found… do you remember what they looked like?”

“Uh… I couldn’t describe them to a sketch artist,” Curtis said, “but there was a purple one and a green one.  Lots of fins, long tails, scaly skin.  Why do you ask?”

Marie-Jeanne put a hand on Luca’s shoulder to urge him along.  “If you’re coming, you have to keep up,” said Jeanne.

“Sorry, Madame,” Luca replied, and followed Alberto and the crab boy onto the big yellow bus.

The driver was wearing a uniform like a human bus driver might have, but he was green and had a row of spikes down his back like a cartoon dragon.  The name Vasquez was embroidered on one of his pockets, and a bottle of water was sitting within reach on the dashboard.  As they passed, Alberto snatched the bottle and poured the contents over himself and Luca.

“Hey!” exclaimed Vasquez.

“We’re sea monsters,” Alberto told him, handing the empty bottle back.  “We’re not supposed to dry out.”

“Hey, now, you ought to ask!” said Marie, as she and Jeanne brought up the rear.  “Even if you are Harry’s guests, you need to remember your manners!”

“Sorry, Madame,” Luca repeated.

“We’re Miss Lavigne,” Jeanne told him.

Alberto and Luca followed the crab-like boy named Harry to the very back of the bus, and sat down on either side of him there as the vehicle coughed to life.  Vasquez pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.  It turned out to be a very rough ride, and Luca quickly began feeling carsick.  He tried to look out the window to keep his stomach calm, but Harry grabbed his arm and pulled him and Alberto in for a private conversation.

“Did you see them?” the crab boy whispered excitedly.

“See who?” asked Alberto.

“The humans,” said Harry. “That’s what the announcement said: there were humans in the factory!”

Alberto and Luca exchanged a worried glance.  “We didn’t see any,” said Luca.

“No humans where we were,” Alberto agreed.

“Oh.” Harry let go of them and scowled in disappointment.  “Wait, so why did you wanna come with us so bad?”

“We just didn’t want anybody to realize we weren’t where we’re supposed to be,” Luca explained.

“Where are you supposed to be?” Harry wanted to know.

The boys exchanged another glance, and silently agreed to change the subject.  Alberto offered a hand.

“Alberto Scorfano,” he said.

“Luca Paguro.”  Luca did likewise.

Harry shook each of their hands in turn.  “Henry Jeroboam Waternoose the Third.  My father owns the factory,” he added proudly.  “We supply all the scream power to Monstropolis and the surrounding countryside as far as the River Panic.”

Alberto nodded as if that made sense.  “Uh-huh.  So… are you scared of humans, Harry?”

“My father says it would be foolish not to be,” Harry replied, “but fear is healthy when tempered with reason.”

“Right,” Alberto said.  “Have you ever seen one?”

“I’ve seen pictures,” Harry replied.

Luca realized he knew where Alberto was going with this, and his stomach sank – he knew in his bones it was a terrible idea.

Sure enough: “you wanna see a real one?” Alberto asked.

“Alberto, no,” said Luca.  “We didn’t see any humans, remember?”

“Yeah, you said you didn’t see them,” Harry agreed.

“We didn’t see them today,” Alberto replied, ignoring Luca’s wild head-shaking, “but we’ve seen them before.  In fact, we see them all the time!  If you can help us stay good and wet and convince the grownups we belong here, we’ll show you two humans!”

Harry looked suspicious.  “You guys are in trouble, aren’t you?”

“Of course not!” scoffed Alberto.

“Maybe a little,” Luca admitted.  They were going to have to get out of this place somehow, but they had no idea how to do that.  Somehow they would have to stay safe until they could figure it out, and it was going to be a lot harder to stay wet here than it was to stay dry in Portorosso.  They were going to need help, but he still felt like this was not the best way to get it.

“But you know where to find two humans?” Harry asked.  “Real humans, not just pictures or people in Hallowe'en costumes?”

“Of course we do,” Alberto said.  “Cross our hearts.  Right, Luca?”

“Yeah,” said Luca, with less enthusiasm.  “Promise.”

“Okay,” said Harry, “but if you can’t deliver, I’m gonna tell my father you were sneaking around in his factory.  Then you’ll be in real trouble.”

Luca swallowed hard, but Alberto patted Harry on the back.

“Don’t worry,” Alberto said.  “You won’t be disappointed.”

Chapter Text

Knowing that the bus was going 'back to school', Luca had pictured something like the school he and Giulia attended in Genova. It was housed on several floors of an ornate old building, on a street that also housed shops and apartments. Humans seemed to like living all piled on top of each other in small spaces, so that everything and everyone they might need was within easy reach. For somebody accustomed to the broad, shallow bottom of the Ligurian Sea, it had taken some getting used to.

This place was not like that. The building, identified by a sign as Flatwoods Middle School, was only a single storey tall, with flat roofs and very few windows. There was a broad open field behind it, where a group of monster children were playing something similar to football. In front of the building was a big car park with rows of young trees and a small fountain on the broad path to the front door.

The fountain was a welcome sight, because by now Luca and Alberto were starting to dry off again. They pushed their way through the kids leaving the bus and ran ahead to jump in the water, rolling around and splashing to get good and soaked.

Unfortunately, there'd been a girl sitting on the fountain rim reading a book. She had eight spidery legs but a humanoid torso and hair in pigtails, and she was wearing a black cardigan with a lace collar and a ribbon choker with an Egyptian ankh. She shrieked as they splashed her, and scrambled to her many feet.

“Sorry, Miss!” said Luca.

She stared at them, uncomprehending.

“We're sea monsters,” Luca added.

“Not good if we get too dry,” Alberto agreed.

The girl examined her wet book and brushed some water off a page, then scuttled away.

“Will you need to keep doing that all afternoon?” asked Jeanne, as she and Marie ushered the kids towards the buildings.

“Yes, Miss Lavigne,” said Luca.

“We'll see if we can't make it easier for you,” Marie decided. Jeanne nodded.

Alberto climbed out of the fountain and put his hands on his hips as he considered the building in front of them. “It doesn't look much like your school,” he observed. Luca had sent him some photographs in the mail.

Luca nodded. “I don't think it's gonna be much like it inside, either.”

Alberto stood there a moment longer then clapped Luca on the back. “It'll be a brize,” he said, though there was uncertainty in his voice. “Just...”

“... just stay wet?” Luca guessed.

“Right.” Alberto nodded and followed the monster children indoors, head and tail held high. Luca hurried after him.

Flatwoods Middle School had looked quiet from outside, but inside it was absolutely swarming. Monster kids of every possible shape and size were taking things out of lockers or putting them in, talking in groups, or engaged in any of a dozen other activities. Three girls, dressed in uniforms tailored for their varying number of limbs and heads, were poring over a piece of paper and giggling helplessly. Two slug-like beasts, one in a baseball cap, were bouncing a small ball back and forth with their heads, until a red, crocodile-like adult came and confiscated it. A polka-dot creature was fiddling with colourful cube toy as the group went by, and one of the returning kids waved to it.

“Darse por vencido, Miguel!”

The being called Miguel waved back, then returned its attention to its cube.

Alberto decided to try this phrase out. He poked the armoured back of a spiky yellow creature that was holding a large orange ball. “Hey, darse por vencido!” he said with a cheerful grin.

“Uh... sure,” the spiky kid said uncertainly.

An alarm suddenly rang. Luca nearly jumped out of his skin. He grabbed Alberto's arm, but nobody else seemed to consider this an emergency. The students shut their lockers and quickened their steps – or their flapping, hopping, or slithering – but they didn't flee the building. Instead, they ended their conversations with their friends and dispersed into various rooms. Luca kept a tight grip on Alberto as they followed their lifelines, Miss Lavigne and the crab boy named Harry, through a particular door.

Inside was a classroom that looked fairly normal at first, but then Luca began to notice the weird details. One wall had a map hanging on it, but it wasn't a map of anywhere Luca recognized. In another place was a poster labelled The Night Sky, but there were no familiar constellations. Above the blackboard was a row of portraits of monsters in old-fashioned clothing.

The desk, however, were entirely familiar, and the students settled down at them much as students did anywhere. Marie-Jeanne ushered Alberto and Luca to two empty seats at the back, where there was a sink on the wall.

“There we go,” said Marie. “There's water right there, if you need to wet down again.”

“Just try not to disrupt the class too much,” Jeanne added.

“Yes, Miss Lavigne,” said Luca politely.

“We'll be as quiet as mice,” Alberto promised.

Both of Marie-Jeanne's heads nodded, and she went to the desk at the front to begin the lesson. “Well,” said Marie,” since on a regular day this would be our period for history, let's talk about what we learned at the factory today in light of that. Who can tell me something about the history of the energy industry?”

A scattering of hands, tentacles, wings, and at least one foot went up.

“Yes, Heather.” Marie pointed to a girl.

The child in question rather looked like a heather plant, with spiky fur in green and pink. “Scream power was rationed in some places until just five years ago, as a result of the Great Door Crash!” she announced.

“That's correct,” said Marie pleasantly. “We grew up in a small town with rationed scream, actually.”

Jeanne, meanwhile, chose one of the boys. “Arthur! What can you tell us?”

Arthur was a glossy green slug-like creature with skinny arms and a pair of curling, ram-like horns. “Today was the first Code Black in monster history!” he said excitedly.

This was met by an awkward silence.

“I think that's a little premature,” said Marie primly.

“It's possible,” Jeanne admitted.

“But not likely,” said Marie.

“Everybody in the parking lot was talking about it,” said Arthur.

“That doesn't mean it's anything more than a rumour,” Marie told him, while Jeanne nodded. “If anything actually happened, I'm sure there'll be an official announcement.”

“Or maybe there won't be,” said a girl who looked like nothing so much as a dish of blue jelly, with eyes and a pink bow on top. “Maybe they'd hide the truth in order to avoid a mass panic. You all know humans are deadly poisonous.”

Luca looked at Alberto and found him looking back, not sure what to make of any of this.

“You mean venomous,” said a striped, gecko-like boy, who was wearing glasses. “If it bites you and you die, it's venomous. If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous.”

“What if I bite it and it dies?” asked Arthur.

“Then you're venomous,” said the boy in the glasses, rolling his eyes. “Duh.”

“Humans aren't venomous or poisonous,” another kid announced. “It's just that their mouths are so filthy that after one bite you die of infection.”

The jelly waved a dismissive hand. “Either way, why would they tell us and risk society collapsing when they could just quietly kill anyone who got contaminated and cover it up? There might have been dozens of incursions and we would never know.”

Luca was still damp, but he got up and sidled over to the sink to splash himself again. Alberto did likewise. A few kids looked back over their shoulders at them, but nobody seemed terribly interested.

“Okay, kids,” said Jeanne, raising her hands. “Why don't we just...”

“We should ask Harry,” Arthur volunteered. “His family owns the place.”

Alberto and Luca were forgotten entirely as all eyes – averaging more than two per individual – turned towards the grey crab-like boy.

“I don't know any more than you do,” Harry told them. “If there was an incident, Dad might say something about it at supper tonight.” He glanced at Luca and Alberto as they returned to their seats, but his eyes didn't linger on them. “If he does, I'll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“Yes, but will you tell the truth?” asked the jelly. “You have a vested interest.”

“I'll tell you whatever I find out, Michelle,” Harry huffed. “On my honour.”

“What is honour worth when it comes from the establishment?” asked Michelle.

“Enough!” barked Jeanne, and to Luca's astonishment she breathed a bit of fire. Even Marie seemed shocked by this, and the class recognized it as a sign that their teacher was losing her patiences. They quickly sat up straight and looked attentive.

Marie gently took over again. “Why don't we go back to what Heather said about the Great Door Crash?” she suggested. “Who wants to tell me about that?”

There was less enthusiasm now. For a moment nothing happened, and then with a sigh, one grey hand went up.

“Yes, Harry?” Marie asked, while Jeanne held her mouth shut and exhaled smoke through her nostrils.

Harry looked around smugly. “Between 1939 and 1945 over a hundred thousand closet doors lost their access to the human world. But my grandfather Henry Waternoose the First developed a more efficient way to store and distribute every decibel of scream power that remained, and founded Monsters Incorporated to rebuild the door bank so that now there's more scream than ever.”

“Thank you, yes,” said Marie.

Jeanne sighed, letting out a final cloud of grey smoke that gathered in the air above her. “Yes, very good, Harry, although it would have been nice if somebody else could have answered that. Socorro, do you have a question?” she pointed to a lizardlike creature with spines down its back and big red eyes, which had raised a webbed hand.

“Why did the doors fail?” Socorro asked.

“Nobody knows,” Marie told her. “It's still a bit of a...”

It felt like lightning passed down Luca's spine as he realized he knew the answer, and before he had properly thought about what he was going to do, the habit of school took over and his hand shot up. “They had a war!” he said.

Everybody stared at him.

“Who?” asked Jeanne.

“The humans,” said Luca. Belatedly, he realized he probably shouldn't have said anything, but he'd already started now. There was no going back. “That's, uh... that's what my uncle says. They had a big war that went on for years, and thousands of buildings were destroyed, so their closets would be destroyed, too.” He was starting to put this together. The monsters used closet doors to get to the human world and... make kids scream? Because they used it as power for something? That sounded weird, but Luca didn't actually know where humans go their electricity from, although it had something to do with lightning, so who was he to say?

“Well, that's certainly an interesting theory,” said Marie delicately.

Luca sank in his seat a little, as everybody gave him funny looks. That had happened before, when he'd tried to answer a question in school and had ended up saying something humans thought was weird. Everybody was staring, wondering what was wrong with him, and he wished he could disappear.

Despite that embarrassment, by the time the class was over Luca was pretty sure he had this figured out. In order to get back to Portorosso, all he and Alberto had to do was go back tot he factory and find the door that led to Rocco's closet. It would be easy.

The bell rang, and the kids scooped up their books and filed out of the classroom. Luca and Alberto stopped to wet themselves down in the sink one last time, and missed some minor drama in the process. Somebody shrieked, and they turned around to see the blob named Michelle pointing an angry gelatinous finger at the gecko boy.

“Miss Lavigne!” she wailed, “Lewis stepped in me!”

“You stopped right in front of me!” Lewis protested. He shook a wad of goo off his foot. It dropped to the floor and rolled across it to join back up with the rest of Michelle.

“You'd have seen me if you were looking where you were going, instead of reading a book!” Michelle informed him.

The two continued to argue as they headed into the hall, leaving only four people in the classroom – or perhaps five, depending on whether one counted Marie-Jeanne as one or two. There was the teacher, the boys, and Harry Waternoose.

“Follow me,” Harry told them.

Luca no longer had misgivings about this. If Harry's father owned the factory, then they had to stick to him like glue. They would just have to be very careful not to let him see them dry.

“Sir,” Luca said, as Harry led them up the hall, “we need to go back to your father's factory.”

Harry scuttled up to a locker and opened it. “What for?” he asked.

“We, um... let something there,” said Luca.

“I can tell Dad to have people look for it.” Harry stashed some books and picked up a bag, then shut the door again.

“You can't,” said Alberto. “It's hidden. We have to get it ourselves.”

Harry looked suspicious, but for the moment he did not ask any questions. Instead, he made his way through the teeming hallways to the entrance. Alberto and Luca were still good and damp, but seeing this crush of people and knowing now what would happen if they transformed made them jumpy. When they passed a drinking fountain, Alberto took advantage of it to splash his face, then put his thumb on the nozzle to spray Luca, too.

Unfortunately, not all the water went where he intended. Luca heard a startled cry and spun around to see that some of it had hit the spider-like girl in the ankh necklace. She glared at them.

“Sorry!” said Luca.

She wiped water off her face, then scowled and scurried away.

In front of the building, students were running around or sitting on the grass and talking, or getting onto one of a line of yellow buses that were now parked waiting on the street. Luca wasn't looking forward to riding in one of those again, so he was relieved when Harry didn't go in that direction. Instead, their new friend led them to the parking lot, where there was a car waiting.

At least, Luca was pretty sure it was a car. It was car-shaped, and yet very different from the little cars he was familiar with from Portorosso and Genova. It was black, low to the ground, and very, very long, longer than Massimo's fishing boat. The windows were dark so they couldn't see inside, but then one slid soundlessly open to reveal the driver, who appeared to be a blue octopus with a handlebar moustache.

“Hi, Armstrong,” said Harry. “This is Luca and Alberto. They're coming over.”

“Of course, Master Harry,” said the octopus.

They climbed in. Luca had ridden in cars before, and had found them cramped and uncomfortable. This one, however, was spacious with big soft seats that were almost more like sofas. They sat down, and Harry opened a little door under the seat and pulled bottles of cold water out of a tiny refrigerator for them.

“Thank you,” said Luca politely.

Alberto opened his bottle and poured the contents over his head. “So was that different from your school?” he asked.

“Kind of,” Luca said. “My school is smaller, and we learn about different things, but we do sit at desks and do math problems, and there are maps and things like that.”

“That's it? All day?”

“Mostly. We stop for lunch, and once a week if the weather's good we go back at night to use the big telescope.”

“And that's fun?” Everything Alberto knew about school was from Luca's letters, and Luca loved school. They read stories, learned history, did experiments, and looked at the stars – every day brought something new! But now Alberto was looking at Luca like he was crazy.

“Yeah, it's amazing!” Luca said with great enthusiasm. “Didn't you learn a lot today? We learned about the Great Door Crash.” He started counting things off on his fingers. “We learned that scream power works by vibrating the air molecules, so everything here runs on sound! And we learned that before they learned to get power by scaring kids, monsters would make machines run by roaring into them!”

“Why would we ever need to know any of that?” Alberto asked. “Nobody back home does things that way.”

“It's fun just to know it,” Luca insisted. “Don't you like knowing that plants are green because the green chemical helps them absorb sunlight, or that the evening star is a whole planet and has phases like the moon even though you need a telescope to see them?”

Alberto blinked at him, and Luca got a sinking feeling. If Alberto thought school was boring, did that mean he didn't like Luca's letters?

“You don't go to school?” Harry asked with a frown.

“Nope!” Alberto sat back with his hands behind his head. “That's Luca's thing.”

Now it was the monster boy's turn to look puzzled. “What do you do all day?”

“I work for my Dad,” Alberto replied. “My new Dad. My old Dad left, but I got a new one.”

That just confused Harry further. “How did you just get a new dad?”

“I moved in with him, and after a while he let me call him that.”

Harry gave them a sideways look with all five eyes. “Where are you guys from?” he wanted to know.

Saying the human world was clearly out of the question. Would Harry know where Portorosso or Genova or even the Ligurian Sea were? The map in the classroom hadn't shown anywhere familiar. Monsters clearly know how to get to the human world, though, so what if somebody tracked them down?

“Milano,” said Alberto.

“Yeah, Milano,” Luca agreed. He looked at Alberto, and Alberto shrugged. Apparently it was just the first place he'd thought of.

The very long black car drove them through the city and out into a neighbourhood with lots of trees and fences. A wrought-iron gate swung open by itself, and they headed up the drive to a house even bigger than Flatwoods Middle School. It was three storyes tall, surrounded by geometric gardens and carefully trimmed trees. It resembled a countryside villa, the sort of places Luca and Alberto had only seen pictures of. Harry cheerfully thanked Armstrong the chauffeur and scuttled up to the door. His guests followed, and before they reached the step, the butler was already there to answer it.

There seemed to be all kinds of monsters in this world and Luca was trying to act like that was normal – nobody seemed shocked by their appearances, so it would be rude to be surprised by anybody else. Even so, he couldn't stop a frightened squeak at what he saw next.

He had heard the word 'cadaverous' used to describe somebody who was very thin or pale, but the creature in the black suit that held the door for them literally looked like a dead body. It was huge and hunch-backed, with blue-grey skin, white hair, and blank white eyes. Making things even worse was that it was otherwise the most human-looking creature they'd met since Louise had dragged them through Rocco's closet door. If Luca had seen this come out of a closet, he'd have screamed enough to keep a whole city lit for a week.

“Hi, Schrecklich,” said Harry.

The butler nodded slowly, once, without speaking.

“This is Luca and Alberto,” Harry added.

Alberto stood up as straight as he could and grinned awkwardly, trying to look brave. Luca kept partially behind him, and waved.

“We're going in the pool,” Harry added.

Schrecklich nodded again, and turned his head to watch them go by. The boys walked fast and kept their eyes in front, not wanting to look directly at this terrifying creature. The door opened onto a big tiled hallway with intricate carpets on the floor and two flights of stairs leading up to the second level. The ceiling was as high as the third story, with balconies looking down and a stained glass dome at the top. From the centre of the dome hung a glittering crystal chandelier.

“I'm gonna go get my trunks,” Harry told them, as they stood staring at the room. “You can head out back. Schrecklich will show you the way.” He headed up the left flight of stairs.

The boys swallowed and turned to the butler, still not wanting to meet his empty, staring eyes. Schrecklich grunted, and gestured for them to follow him.

The rest of the house was as palatial as the foyer. They passed through half a dozen rooms stuffed with stylish furniture, with thick carpets on the floor and artwork on the walls. In one, a creature dressed as a maid was vacuuming. She had eyes on stalks, one of which turned to watch them go by, but when she saw they were with Schrecklich the butler, it rejoined its mate in keeping track of the cleaning.

Alberto tried very hard to look as if he were too cool to be impressed by this, keeping his lids half-shut and his head facing forward, but Luca could see him glancing around out of the corners of his eyes. Luca himself couldn't help but staring in amazement, and very nearly fell behind once or twice. Each time, as soon as he realized the others were getting ahead of him, he would run to catch up, because this house looked like a place somebody could get lost in and never find their way out. Sea monsters had an innate sense of direction that always told them which way was home, but that didn't help much in an actual maze.

At last the butler slid a glass door open, and they stepped out onto a multi-level wooden patio surrounded by flowers and palm trees. In one spot was an elaborate cushioned swing, in another a hammock, and on the lowest level was a firepit surrounded by comfy-looking ottomans. The centrepiece was a kidney-shaped swimming pool with a diving board, surrounded by beach chairs and sun umbrellas.

“Cool!” Alberto declared, and dived right in, clothes and all.

Luca paused before following him. “Thank you, Sir,” he said to the terrifying butler.

Schrecklich grunted again, and turned and went back inside.

Entering the pool brought on an immediate sense of relief. As long as Luca and Alberto were actually in the water, they wouldn't have to worry about being seen drying out. For the moment, at least, they were safe.

“Can you believe how rich these people are?” Alberto asked, kicking water at Luca with one flippered foot. “I bet they've got a whole fleet of Vespas!”

“Harry did say his dad owns the factory,” Luca said. If the screams were the only source of power, and the factory provided all the screams, that made sense. Luca wondered again about electricity. Where did it come from? Were the humans who provided it rich like this, or did it work totally differently? “I hope he can get us in without getting caught.” They hadn't seen much of it but the factory looked pretty big. Were they going to be able to find Rocco's door again?

“He'll do anything we want,” Alberto said confidently. “We promised to show him two humans, remember?”

“You promised,” said Luca, still not sure about that plan.

“We'll be home in no time,” said Alberto, floating on his back. “Until then, we get to hang out in this palazzo!”

Luca had other things on his mind. “I wonder what people back home are thinking. I mean. Signora Marsigliese would have heard us all shouting and she must have come in and we were just gone.” He hadn't thought of that yet... now that he did, it made him want to panic. “Mom and Dad are gonna be freaking out. And Massimo...”

Alberto must not have thought of this either. He stood up with his feet on the bottom. “You think so? Yeah...” he looked uncharacteristically thoughtful. “Yeah, he'll be looking for me.” Luca had told him how Massimo had gone to search for Alberto when he'd run off after their argument, and Alberto had told him what had happened after the boat caught fire.

The glass door slid open again, and Luca and Alberto looked up to see Harry scuttling out onto the patio. He hadn't worn any trousers earlier, but now he had blue swim trunks made to accommodate his many legs. Around his waist was a colourful, tyre-shaped inflatable thing, like a malformed beach ball. When he hopped into the water, it kept him buoyant, and he paddled over to them.

“So when do I get to see these humans?” Harry asked.

Luca looked at his friend. This had been Alberto's idea.

“Tomorrow,” said Albert. “Once you get us back into the factor.

Harry nodded and smiled, showing off teeth even sharper than the sea monsters'. “I figured,” he said. “That's what you hid there, isn't it? The humans? Right?”

Something in Luca's chest tightened. This had already been a bad idea and now he felt like it was getting worse. What was Harry going to think if he figured it out? Or worse, what if he didn't believe they could show him a human, and just threw them out? Luca had never been very good at lying. It was too hard to remember what he'd lied about and make sure it all made sense together, and his mother was too good at finding those holes.

“Um, yes,” Alberto decided. “Yes, they are, and we'll show you tomorrow.”

“I knew it!” Harry said triumphantly. “Why did you bring humans into our world? You must know they're dangerous.” The words were reproachful, but the tone was intrigued.

“They're not, though,” said Luca, desperate to tell the truth about something. “All those things people were saying in class, that they're venomous or will shock you or make you sick, none of that is true.”

“It isn't? How do you know?” Harry asked.

“Because we hang out with humans all the time,” said Alberto. “Some of our best friends are human. My Dad is human. My new Dad. My old dad was a sea monster.”

“I go to school with humans,” Luca agreed.

“And that's... normal?” Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“Um.” Now Luca hesitated. “Not exactly.”

“It's not really common,” Alberto said. “We're from just about the only place where humans and sea monsters get along.”

“In Milano,” said Harry.

“Yes, Milano,” Luca agreed.

“Will you take me there?” Harry asked.

“Well...” Faltering for the first time, Alberto looked at Luca for help.

Luca shook his head. “I don't think so.” It was a bad idea for many reasons, but he picked the one he thought Harry was most likely to agree with. “I don't know if we'd be able to get you back. The lady who found us, Louise, she said they would have to review the door we came in by. So they might get rid of it. It's not worth the risk.”

Harry, however, was not worried at all. “I know where they keep the doors for review. It'll be easy to find it. We'll just wedge it open. They can't deactivate an open door. There are safety protocols.”

Luca tried again. “The humans will be scared of you. You're not like the monsters they know.”

“Giulia's cool,” Alberto offered. “We'll just tell her Harry's a friend of ours, and she'll be fine.”

“Yeah, but it's not Giulia's house,” Luca pointed out. “It's Signora Marsigliese's house, and it's Rocco's room.”

“We'll figure it out,” Alberto said.

Maybe Alberto was just stringing Harry along. They did very much need for this boy to keep being nice to them. Once they got back to the factory, they could find a way to ditch him. Luca would feel bad about that, but taking Harry to Portorosso would be such a disaster, it actually made him feel a little sick.

Chapter Text

The patio doors slid open, and a new creature appeared. This was a tall, thin, mantis-like being, bright green in colour, with clawed forelimbs and a triangular head with three eyes. It was wearing a pink dress and pearls, and had blonde hair cut in a bob.

“Harry, darling!” it called out. “It's almost suppertime!”

Harry sighed theatrically. “Coming, Mom.”

Luca relaxed a little. If that were Harry's mother, then she probably wasn't any threat to them. Although it did make him wonder what the boy's father was like.

Harry paddled to the side of the pool and climbed out, while his mother examined their two guests who were still in the water. Alberto and Luca grinned nervously at her.

“Who are your friends?” Mrs. Waternoose asked her son.

“This is Alberto and Luca, from school,” Harry replied. “This is my Mom, Edith.”

“Nice to meet you, Madame,” said Luca.

“Darse...” Alberto began, then glanced at Luca, remembered how embarrassed they'd been when they learned what what's wrong with you, stupido? actually meant, and cleared his throat. “Hi.”

“Will you two be staying for dinner?” Mrs. Waternoose asked politely.

“Of course they will,” said Harry.

“That's wonderful.” She smiled at them, showing off what appeared to be at least two rows of sharp teeth. “We're having fish tonight.”

“We like fish!” said Alberto.

“Yes, very much,” Luca agreed.

They climbed out of the pool and grabbed their clothes to follow Harry inside. His mother had given him a towel to drape around his shoulders, but there were none for Luca and Alberto. They were dripping as they crossed the threshold and left wet footprints on the carpet inside.

“Oh...” Mrs. Waternoose began, looking at the mess.

“Sorry,” said Luca.

“We're sea monsters. We have to stay wet,” said Alberto.

She hesitated, then apparently accepted that. “Oh,” she repeated.

“I'm gonna go get dressed,” said Harry, and scuttled up a flight of spiral stairs.

Mrs. Waternoose smiled at her guests again, and Luca and Alberto tried to smile back without looking too intimidated. Her height and resemblance to a mantis made Luca very nervous, unable to escape the feeling that she was about to snatch him up and devour him.

“Are you two new at Harry's school?” she asked.

“Yes, Madame,” said Luca.

“We're from Milano,” Alberto added.

“Well, it's very nice of you to make friends with Harry,” Mrs. Waternoose told them. “He doesn't really get along well with his peers and he's often very lonely.”

Luca and Alberto were beginning to get an idea why that might be, but didn't want to say so in front of his mother. “He did look like he needed a friend,” Luca said awkwardly.

Alberto put an arm around Luca's shoulders. “I got Luca out of his shell,” he said confidently. “I'm sure we can do the same for Harry.”

“How lovely. Now,” Edith Waternoose added, “just to warn you. I don't know what Harry might have told you about his father, but Hank can be rather gruff and I don't think he had a very good day at work today. Don't let him get to you. He wants Harry to have friends, too.”

“Yes, Madame,” Luca repeated.

“Right this way,” she said.

Mrs. Waternoose led the way through the maze of the house, down a long hallway lined with elegant paintings and framed newspaper articles about the success of the Waternoose family and their company. When they came to the stalk-eyed maid vacuuming the carpet, Mrs. Waternoose simply climbed the wall like a spider and went around her. Luca and Alberto excused themselves and squeezed by as best they could with their feet on the floor.

The family's dining room looked out onto the gardens, with large multi-pane windows down one side and matching mirrors on the opposite walls. In between was a very long, narrow table with many chairs on each side. Mrs. Waternoose seated herself at one end of the table, while Schrecklich the butler came to pull out chairs for Luca and Alberto right in the middle of one side. Another servant poured them each a glass of water.

“Thank you,” said Luca.

Alberto poured his glass over his head. Luca did likewise. The servant stiffened in surprise, but instead of telling them off, it looked at Mrs. Waternoose for guidance.

“They say they have to stay wet,” she explained. “You can clean it up later.”

Luca smiled apologetically. “Sorry about the carpet,” he said. At least it was just water, and nothing that would be too difficult to clean up.

The servant nodded and left the room again. Uncomfortable silence descended.

A couple of minutes later, Harry arrived, wearing a little jacket and necktie as if to have his picture taken. The butler seated him opposite Luca and Alberto and he was given a glass of water of his own. He did not thank either servant, or say anything to his mother.

Luca kicked his feet under the table and looked around the room for something to think about and distract himself from how awkward it all was. In between the mirrors and windows were imposing portraits of various monsters, some with too many limbs or eyes, others with mismatched body parts, like lobster claws or tentacles or antlers. At intervals down the long table were crystal vases of odd-looking flowers. The petals were green on the outside and pink on the inside, with spiky white rims. Luca wondered if they might be a kind of orchid, but then a fly landed on the table next to one vase. The flower immediately bent down and snapped it up, chewing a couple of times before swallowing and then letting out a soft burp.

Harry snickered, but then quietly quieted himself when he met his mother's disapproving eye.

“I thought I told the gardener to teach those plants some manners,” she said with a frown.

Luca swallowed. This was a very strange world they found themselves in, indeed.

Suddenly, Mrs. Waternoose and her son both sat up straight and turned to look at the far door. A moment later, Luca heard the sound of something approaching – something with many, many large, heavy feet. As it got closer, the plates and cutlery rattled, and the flowers in the vases closed their mouths and covered themselves with their green leaves. Alberto and Luca inched closer to each other, and leaned forward a little to see what was about to arrive.

The far door opened.

There were three entrances to the dining room. There was the ordinary, if very high-framed, doorway that Mrs. Waternoose had led the boys in through, and which Harry had arrived by. A smaller one, with a door that shut, was at the end of one of the long walls. This was the one the servants came and went by. The third was at least three metres high, with dark wooden doors under an arched top. All eyes were on it as the doors swung into the room, and the yawning opening admitted a beast that matched it in scale.

“Good evening, dear,” said Mrs. Waternoose. It was almost a question.

“Hi, Dad,” said Harry.

Luca's throat had gone so dry, he had to check and make sure he hadn't Changed. Words didn't want to come out, but he managed to squeak, “Sir.”

“Hello,” said Alberto.

Henry J. Waternoose the Second was enormous. Like his son he was predominantly grey in colour, with thick skin like the rhinoceros Luca had seen in one of Giulia's books. Where Harry had multiple eyes like his mother, Mr. Waternoose had only two big, bulbous pink ones with no pupils, set above a mouth with boar-like tusks pointing up at the corners. He had six segmented legs like Harry's, but his body ended in a tail like a scorpion's, with a nasty-looking sting at the end. He was dressed in a black jacket and a cream silk ascot, with a glittering pink gem in it that matched his eyes.

The child who saw that come out of their closet, Luca thought, might never sleep again.

The servants pulled up a huge chair, specially designed for Waternoose's long body, and the family patriarch settled down on it. Both servants, plus Schrecklich the butler, were required to push him in.

It was impossible to tell where Mr. Waternoose was looking, which just made Luca feel like he was being watched very closely indeed. He sat up straighter, and tried very hard to keep his legs still. Hopefully, Waternoose wasn't actually staring straight at him, and he could...

“Who are they?” Waternoose growled, pointing a clawed them at Luca and Alberto.

“Harry's friends from school,” Edith Waternoose replied. “Be nice.”

Now Waternoose was definitely looking them over. Alberto raised a tentative hand.

“Alberto Scorfano,” he said.

“Luca Paguro,” Luca chimed in.

“Immigrants,” grumbled Waternoose. It was difficult to tell if he disapproved, or if that were just how he always sounded. “What are you planning to do when you grow up?”

“I'm going to be a fisherman, like my dad,” Alberto replied. Luca expected him to add that he was amazing at it, but he did not.

“I haven't decided yet, Sir,” said Luca, “but maybe I'll be a teacher.” He liked the idea of bringing the wide world beyond Portorosso to the other sheltered sea monster kids at home.

Waternoose nodded slowly. “Figures. Neither of you could frighten a rabbit. This new generation,” he said sourly, as one of the servants poured him a glass of champagne. “Some of them are downright cuddly. Barely worthy to be called monsters at all.”

“You're terrifying, Sir,” said Luca. He had no idea if that were the polite thing to say under the circumstances, but it was entirely honest.

“I know,” Mr. Waternoose replied, grim.

Luca didn't dare say another word after that. A servant who resembled a walking tree arrived, and passed out plates of fish that had been cooked whole with their heads still on. Luca knew humans did that for fancy occasions, so he wasn't too startled by it, but he still didn't like it. On the farm any fish they ate would be ones they'd raised themselves, and Luca's parents knew he didn't like looking at their dead faces and remembering their names. These fish, of course, were strangers, but they each had three eyes, which did not help.

The Waternooses picked up their cutlery and began to eat. Luca decided he would cut up his fish and at least pretend, so as not to seem rude. Albert started to reach for his plate with his hands, but Luca kicked him under the table and after an uncomprehending moment Alberto realized that having bad manners here would be a terrible mistake. He picked up his fork and knife and got somewhat clumsily to work.

Luca carefully sliced the head off his fish and pushed it under a leaf of lettuce that had been put on the plate as a garnish. That was better.

Alberto took a bite and apparently didn't find it tasted odd, which made Luca feel a little better. His friend chewed and swallowed, then cleared his throat and looked at Harry. Harry blinked back at him, not sure what Alberto was trying to communicate.

“You were gonna ask your dad,” Alberto whispered. “For Michelle, remember?”

Harry shook his head. “I said I'd tell her if he said anything,” he whispered back.

“Harry, dear,” Mrs. Waternoose said loudly, “is there something you want to say?” She was giving him a disapproving frown.

With a gulp, Harry turned to his father. Before speaking, he stole a glance back at Edith, but found no sympathy. “Uh, Dad? We had to cut our tour of the factory short today...”

The elder Waternoose kept chewing with no reply yet, but fixed his eyes on his son, waiting for the rest of the question.

“Did something happen?” Harry asked. “Because we heard a lot of rumours.”

Luca held his breath. Across from him, Alberto chewed slowly, watching Mr. Waternoose with a wary expression.

“Nothing happened,” said Waternoose in a low rumble. “Halverson had a fit for no reason. Cost us half a day's revenue.”

The boys breathed out, relieved that he hadn't exploded. So did Harry, and for a moment there was silence again. Alberto shoved a big forkful of vegetables into his mouth, and Luca focused on carefully removing every tiny bone from his fish. After a moment, Harry spoke again.

“Has anybody ever actually been killed by a human?” he asked.

Luca and Alberto both looked up from their plates.

“Not on my watch,” said Waternoose.

“But somebody must have been at some point,” Harry said, “because otherwise how would we find out?”

“It's a well-known fact,” his father said.

“What exactly do they do to you?” Harry insisted. “We were talking about this in school today and nobody can agree...”

“Henry Waternoose the Third!”

Harry fell silent, his nerve having failed him.

Waternoose' bulging eyes narrowed as he examined his son. “Was it you who was sneaking around the factory scaring people today?”

“No!” Harry shook his head hard. “It wasn't. I swear, Dad.”

“It wasn't,” Alberto echoed. “He was with us! If he'd gone anywhere we would definitely have noticed!”

Waternoose settled down a bit. “Good,” he grunted.

For what seemed like a very long time, nobody spoke. The silence was so thick, Luca felt as if fish could have swum in it. He poured another glass of water over his head and thanked the tree-like servant for refilling it for him. Waternoose watched this suspiciously, but did not say anything.

“Well!” said Edith, rearranging her own food on her plate. “Today must have been the day for drama, because you would not believe what Peggy said at the Bridge Club! You know how she's the treasurer, well...”

From there on, Luca and Alberto were happy to let the adults talk when they felt like it, and resisted the urge to try to fill the silence when it fell. When Mrs. Waternoose was done complaining about the people she played cards with, she started talking instead about what was going on in the garden society. Apparently, the organizations she belonged to were very political. Mr. Waternoose complained right back, grumbling about everything he was dealing with at work. It made Luca wonder if either of them actually enjoyed anything they did.

Dessert was homemade ice cream with chunks of tropical fruit, which was much more appetizing than the three-eyed fish. Luca tried very hard not to think about whether a world of monsters also might have monster cows. He found ordinary cows to be quite scary enough.

Once he'd cleaned his plate, Mr. Waternoose got up and went off to another room to smoke his pipe and do some paperwork. He did not say goodnight. Mrs. Waternoose handed her half-empty plate to a servant, and then stood.

“Well, I suppose you two have parents waiting for you,” she said. It wasn't an order, but the message was clear.

“Yes, Madame,” said Luca. She was more right than she knew.

She escorted them to the front door, with Harry following as if he just wanted to say goodbye to his new friends. Outside the sun was setting, with the sky turning orange and the tress casting long, dark shadows across the driveway. Crickets were starting to chirp.

“Thank you for joining us,” said Mrs. Waternoose. “I hope Hank didn't frighten you too badly. He's under a lot of stress right now.”

“We're fine,” Alberto lied. “He's not as scary as he thinks he is.”

“Thank you very much for dinner,” Luca added.

“You're most welcome! Harry can invite you back at any time.” Edith gave her son an encouraging smile.

“I know, Mom,” said Harry.

“He can be terribly shy,” his mother went on.

“No, I'm not,” Harry objected.

“When he was a baby, he didn't want to make eye contact with anybody but his nanny,” Mrs. Waternoose continued. “Even his father and I got the cold shoulder sometimes. You got better, though, didn't you, dear? He's still learning to connect with people.”

Harry groaned.

“For his first Hallowe'en we dressed him as a little ghost so he wouldn't have to look anybody in the eye! I have pictures if...”

“Mom!” Harry protested.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I'm just trying to help them get to know you,” said Edith. “We want them to come back.”

Harry grimaced. “I'll see you guys tomorrow,” he said.

“Sure will,” Alberto replied.

“Thanks again,” Luca added.

Edith smiled and waved as she showed them out.

They walked halfway down the long driveway, until they heard the front door shut. Then they took two or three more steps just in case, before dashing into the immaculately-trimmed bushes that lined the pavement. Once they were sure nobody had seen them, they crept back around the side of the house, following instructions Harry had given them earlier. He had promised this would take them to a path that led down the side of the house, where they would pass a garden shed, and then they could round the corner to the servants' door where he would meet them.

By the time they were halfway there, they'd dried out enough to transform back to human. It didn't seem to matter, though, because there were no ground-floor windows on this side of the house. They just kept close to the bushes, intending to quickly dunk themselves in the pool again before knocking on the door. It seemed like a perfectly good plan, until the shed door suddenly opened.

The gardener stepped out. He was a bulky, yellow-brown creature with four arms, too legs, and one eye, wearing a pair of denim overalls and a utility belt full of clippers and spades. The boys froze, but fortunately, this creature wasn't looking at them. His attention was focused on a lawn sprinkler he was tinkering with. They still had time to escape.

Luca tried to run for the bushes, only to bump right into Alberto, who had at the same moment tried to go the other way and hide behind the open shed door. Both of them stumbled backwards. Luca clapped his hands over his own mouth so that he couldn't cry out, but Alberto landed on a bin bag full of dry leaves, which made a loud crunch. The gardener looked up.

That was when the sprinkler suddenly started working again. Water sprayed out, hitting the gardener in the face. He automatically turned it away from himself, right towards Luca and Alberto. The gardener cursed and turned it off, then wiped water off his face and glared at the boys, who were picking themselves up out of wet leaves and grass, sea monsters once again.

“Get out of here!” the gardener ordered. “This is private property! Mr. Waternoose will have your hides hung on the wall!”

The boys didn't doubt it. They fled back into the bushes.

They waited there for some time, while the gardener got the sprinklers set up to spray what they were supposed to spray. For what seemed like far too long, he wandered around inspecting hoses and nozzles, but then he gave a satisfied nod and wandered off to his truck, parked in a hidden place behind a row of lilac bushes, for a smoke.

With this distraction, Luca and Alberto crept back past the shed and into the backyard beyond. Passing through the sprinkler spray kept them damp, and this time they made it to the unobtrusive little door, painted the same colour as the side of the house, hidden down a flight of concrete steps from the patio. Harry was sitting on the bottom step, playing with a yo-yo.

“What took you so long?” he asked them.

“The gardener chased us away,” Luca explained.

“We weren't scared of him,” Alberto added. “We just didn't want you to get in trouble.”

Harry gave a dismissive grunt and put his toy in his pocket, his pre-dinner confidence restored. “Follow me.”

The door opened onto a short hallway. Down the end was what must have been the kitchen, if the clanking of dishes and pots and the smells of soap and food were anything to go by. Off to one side was a narrow, dimly-lit flight of stairs that led up to another hallway. This area had bare whitewashed walls and wooden floors, and could hardly have been more difficult from the opulent rooms that Schrecklich had led them through earlier. Luca wondered what this part was for. Did people live here? Maybe the fancy parts were just for show. Some of the furniture had been so ornate, maybe actually using it would damage it.

Harry took them to the second-last door on the right, and peered through the keyhole for a moment before opening the door for Luca and Alberto.

“Here you go,” he said. “You can sleep in here, but you'll have to stay quiet because the lock is broken. The bathroom is across the hall. Be careful using it, because it's for everybody.”

“Thanks,” said Alberto.

The room had two narrow beds in it, positioned with their heads against the wall on either side of the room, and their feet facing the single small window. There were also two night-tables, a dresser, and a chair and a desk, all of them entirely functional with no embellishments at all. Since nobody lived there, the beds didn't even have sheets, only the bare mattresses.

“Now, you promised,” Harry reminded them. “You're gonna show me the humans tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Alberto said. “We're men of our word! Right, Luca?”

“Totally,” Luca nodded.

“Good,” said Harry, “because if you don't, I'm gonna tell Dad. Good night!”

“Buona notte,” Luca said, but Harry had already closed the door, and did not answer. Luca looked around the room, then went and propped the desk chair against the knob, just in case somebody tried to come in. Not that chairs seemed to do very well at keeping monsters out of bedrooms.

Alberto, meanwhile, shook the water off himself like a dog, as was his habit, and then sat down on one of the beds. “This is not what I was picturing,” he grumbled.

“Me, either,” Luca admitted. When Harry had offered them a place to sleep, he'd imagined a giant canopy bed, like something out of a movie, in a room that would match the rest of this opulent house. “It's more comfortable than Giulia's tree house,” he offered – although he, Alberto, and Giulia were planning to sleep over in the tree house at least a couple of times this summer, just because sleeping out there was fun.

“Yeah, but the Pescheria doesn't have any extra rooms,” Alberto said. “They've got this entirel palazzo and he put us in the attic.”

“I guess if we were in the nice part, we'd be more likely to be found,” Luca decided. This did seem like a part of the house where Mr and Mrs Waternoose probably never went. Imagine having places you'd never been in your own house ! Although... Harry still could have offered them some pillows or something. Giulia had given them those and a blanket, even if it had been too hot to use the latter.

“I guess,” Alberto echoed, unconvinced.

Luca did see his point. The Waternoose family clearly had far more money than they needed. Why did they even have this part of the house?

Alberto lay down on the bed and wiggled around, trying to get comfortable on the creaky, slightly threadbare mattress. “So when we get back, we can tell Giulia we met a monster scarier than your Mom, at least.”

“Yeah,” Luca said. “No contest.”

“I bet Massimo wouldn't be scared, though,” said Alberto.

“No, I'm pretty sure anybody would be scared of Mr. Waternoose.” Luca had been waiting until he, too, dried out enough to transform, because he didn't want to get the mattress wet. Now it happened, so he lay down as well and looked at the ceiling. There was a spiderweb in the corner, but even that had nobody living in it. There was a fuzzy layer of dust sticking to the strands.

“Not Massimo,” Alberto insisted. “He'd just pull out a harpoon and Waternoose would have to back down. Massimo's not scared of anything.”

Sleeping in Rocco's room had not exactly been a fun outing, but it hadn't been at all scary... at least, not until Louise's intrusion. The clock had been a little annoying, and both Luca and Alberto had in the backs of their minds the idea that Rocco could wake up screaming at any moment, but still, they hadn't felt particularly worried about anything.

That night had been interrupted, and it was apparently daytime in this world while it was night in the human one, so the boys had been awake for far longer than they were used to. That should probably have made it easier to sleep, but Luca, at least, was wide awake and terrified.

It was like the worst moments of fearing discovery last summer in Portorosso, with the added problem that the people who might discover them here were far more terrifying than anyone in the little seaside town. Every creak, ever rustle in the bushes outside made Luca jump. Several times he was tempted to get up and creep over to the window or door and see what was the source of some sound, but he didn't dare. He refused to even go to the bathroom, because he didn't want to risk running into a monster who would think he was something dangerous.

It was very strange, really, how these big, powerful, frightening creatures were afraid of humans. Why did they think humans were poisonous, or electric, or whatever it was they thought? Animals that presented those sorts of dangers were usually brightly-coloured as a warning. Luca could remember vividly his mother showing him things like that when he was small – scorpionfish had the iridescent green patches, Portuguese man o'war were bright purple, beaded anemones were red... humans were mostly pink and brown. Sometimes they wore bright colours, but that wasn't the same as being colourful. Maybe the monsters were confused by the clothes? Or maybe because the monsters came in all sorts of colours, they assumed anything dull was toxic.

Alberto, annoyingly but not surprisingly, slept like a log.

Luca woke from fitful sleep around sunrise, and the first thing he realized was that he could no longer wait to go to the bathroom. He swung his legs onto the floor and tiptoed over to the door so he could peek through the keyhole as Harry had done the previous night. The walls here were thin, and he could hear people moving around the house and a few muffled voices, but there was nobody in the hallway as far as that limited view could tell.

“Alberto,” he whispered. “Wake up.”

“Huh?” Alberto blinked.

“We gotta get wet,” said Luca. “We don't know when Harry's gonna come up here and we can't let him see us.”

“Right, right.” Alberto yawned and stretched, and then they very carefully opened the bedroom door. There was nobody in the hallway, so they darted across and turned the knob on what Harry had indicated as the bathroom.

It was locked. A woman's voice called out, “I'm in here!”

“Sorry, Madame!” Luca replied, as the two of them dashed back into the bedroom and shut the door again.

The bathroom door opened, and boards creaked as somebody entered the hallway. “Hello?” the same voice called out. “Who was that?”

Luca and Alberto put their backs against the bedroom door and braced themselves to hold it closed. Alberto glared at Luca, as if to silently demand why he'd had to open his mouth and let everybody know there was a stranger in the house. Luca could only grimace and shrug in reply It had been automatic, like putting his hand up in school yesterday, and it had worked out about as well.

“Hello?” the woman said again. To their horror, she crossed the hall, and they heard the knob click. Both of them pushed back as hard as they could as she tried to open the door.

After a moment, the woman muttered something under her breath and went back into the bathroom. The door shut, and water ran.

Luca and Alberto breathed out, and Luca grabbed handfuls of hair on the sides of his head and tugged on it, trying to cement the idea that he couldn't just blurt things out.

Eventually, they heard the woman leave the bathroom again. Rather than footsteps, she moved with a creak of floorboards and a series of leathery slapping noises – these faded away as she headed down the stairs.

For a second time, the boys dashed into to the bathroom. This time they made it inside and locked the door, then took turns using the toilet and getting wet. Once satisfied that they looked monstrous enough not to cause a panic, they opened the door to peek out again.

A fleshy limb ripped it the rest of the way open, and they found themselves being glared at from high above by the stalk-eyed maid. Her body was supported by half a dozen tentacles and she would have been quite intimidating if it hadn't been for her frilly apron and cap.

“I knew somebody was up here!” she declared. “You're Harry's little friends! What are you doing here?”

Luca gulped. “We... uh... we...”

“We got lost!” Alberto blurted.

“We got lost!” Luca agreed. “We tried to find our way out of the house but we ended up here!”

The maid was so horrified that a hitherto unseen third eye opened wide in her actual head. “You've been in here all night?”

Luca pointed at the door across the hall. “We slept in there. It was the only one we could get into.”

“Don't tell Mr. Waternoose,” Alberto added. “The gardener said he'd skin us.”

The maid appeared to relax a little, as sympathy took over from shock. “I don't know that he'd skin you, but he wouldn't be very happy. You're actually just upstairs from the exit. This way.”

She took them back to the door they'd come in by, and let them out into the yard. “Go around the side,” she pointed with one tentacle. “There's no windows there.”

“Thank you, Madame,” said Luca sheepishly.

“Next time, just ask somebody to show you the say,” she told them.

Once she'd shut the door, the boys sat down on the steps and sighed with relief.

“This is way harder than Portorosso,” Luca said.

Alberto nodded. “Yeah.”

Chapter Text

There hadn't been any opportunity for the boys to get something to eat that morning, so they had to sit hungry in the bushes beside the driveway until Armstrong the chauffeur brought the very long black car around. Luca and Alberto crept around the far side of it and opened the back door to get in, which Armstrong was not expecting. He yelped, then draped several tentacles over the seat as he turned to see what was going on.

“Just us!” said Alberto, pulling water bottles out from under the little fridge.

“We're waiting for Harry!” Luca added, with his best innocent grin.

“Don't tell Mr. Waternoose,” Alberto added.

The octopus raised a shaggy eyebrow. “You boys up to something?” he asked.

“Nothing bad,” Luca assured him. He drank some of the water, then poured the rest over his head.

Harry came scuttling out of the house a few minutes later, and climbed into the car. He was relieved to see Luca and Alberto there.

“Oh, good,” he said. “When Barbara told me she'd escorted you two out this morning, I was afraid I'd never see you again. We're gonna see those humans today, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Alberto with a nod.

Armstrong started the car and headed down the driveway.

“Do you have anything we can eat?” Luca asked. “We didn't have breakfast.”

Harry blinked, having apparently not even thought of that. “I've got some candy,” he said, and pulled out a bag of suckers. Each one was a different colour of transparent candy, apparently encasing an eyeball on a stick.

“Um.” Luca held up his hands. “Candy isn't really breakfast.”

“Yeah,” Alberto agreed with a grimace.

“More for me,” said Harry, putting the candy away again. “You guys can eat at the factory, maybe. Dad poached Chef Skinner from the Avery Hotel downtown for the cafeteria!”

Alberto frowned. “I thought you poached fish, not chefs.”

“What?” asked Harry.

Luca had another question. “Why is that part of the house so bare?” he asked.

That made Harry look even more confused. “What part? The servants' quarters?”

“I guess,” Luca said. They hadn't been given a name for the place where they'd spent the night. “The rest of the house is so fancy but there's nothing in there.”

“People go in the rest of the house,” said Harry. “Nobody visits the servants.”

So the nicer parts of the house were just for show, Luca thought. It was kind of like a museum. Maybe the family collected furniture and clocks and paintings the same way Signora Lorenzini in Genova collected old cameras, or Old Tommaso in Portorosso had all his fancy fishing flies.

Armstrong dropped them off at the school again. Luca and Alberto thanked him and waved as he drove away, then decided they'd better take the opportunity to get wet in the fountain again. Luca was about to jump in when Alberto grabbed his arm to hold him back.

“What?” asked Luca.

Alberto pointed. The eight-legged girl in the ankh necklace was next to the fountain, picking up pencils that had spilled from her case. They'd already gotten her wet twice by accident, a third time would just be ridiculous. Luca nodded, and the two of them climbed into the water to roll around and soak themselves a little more carefully.

Once the girl began to walk away, they were able to be more rambunctious. Alberto flicked water in Luca's direction, and Luca laughed and splashed back. It soon devolved into a water fight.

“Hey!” somebody shouted. “Tarantella! Wait up!”

The spider girl turned around and smiled. “Bridget!” she said, and ran to meet her friend. “I asked my parents about...”

As she passed the fountain, Alberto's tail threw water right in her face. She blinked a couple of times in surprise.

Alberto gave her a pained smile. “Sorry!”

Tarantella made a wordless growl of anger, grabbed her friend's arm, and stomped off.

Luca climbed back out of the fountain and looked at the other students milling around. It wasn't likely there'd be another tour after they'd just had one yesterday. “How do we get back to the factory?” he asked.

“Easy. The number four bus goes right to it,” Harry replied. “We can catch it right up the street, next to the Circle-Klaw.”

He showed them the way. The Circle-Klaw was one of a number of little shops in a long, low building on the corner. It seemed to sell mostly candy and newspapers, although there were also things like sandwiches and cigarette lighters and other small gadgets. It looked like a promising place to find something to eat, but Harry stopped Luca and Alberto from going in.

“You'll get better breakfast in the cafeteria,” he said. “Anyway, the bus might come while you're in there.”

So instead, they sat on a bench outside and waited. This was a risky thing to do – the day and night might be opposite here, but the seasons must have been similar, because the sun was already high and bright in the sky and Luca and Alberto were in serious danger of drying out. With monsters going by both in cars on the road and on foot (or tentacle) on the sidewalk, that would have been a disaster. Luckily, there was a puddle in the car park by the row of shops, and they went and rolled around in that.

Harry watched this with a slightly disgusted frown. “What happens if you guys dry out?” he asked.

“Terrible things,” said Alberto. “You wouldn't want to see.”

They were good and wet when the bus pulled up, but they were also muddy, with grit in their fins and gills. The latter was very uncomfortable, and Luca had to sit on his hands to keep himself from trying to groom or scratch as they bumped along, not wanting to risk rubbing the water away. Other people riding were giving them disapproving looks, some out of as many as seven eyes.

Apparently almost everybody on the bus was also going to the factory – when it stopped outside the car park, a dozen monsters grabbed jackets and lunch boxes and filed out the door. The boys waited until almost everybody else was gone, and then trooped back out into the sunshine.

As well as being sunny, there was a bit of wind blowing, so they needed to find another water source quickly. There was water in the ditch next to the chain link fence, but that was filthy and full of mosquito larvae, so they chose instead a puddle that had collected in a corner of the car park where the drain was plugged with old leaves. Luca and Alberto went and splashed in that, and it did a bit, though not much, to clean their clothes.

Once satisfactorily damp, they headed for the factory building. Harry happily scuttled right up to the front door, which Luca supposed was fine if his father owned the place – but then he had to step aside as somebody came out.

This was a three-legged, bumblebee-striped creature with two small horns and a thick tail, one Luca and Alberto recognized immediately as Louise. Curtis was trotting alongside her, with file folders under his arms, and the headless blue Steve was right behind them.

“This is totally unfair, Louise. A stain on your reputation!” Steve was saying, but there was a smile on his chest-mounted face.

Louise did not answer.

“You were just at the beginning of your career!” Steve went on, still following as she carried a stack of cardboard boxes across the car park. “Louise! I'm sure there's something we can do about this. Let me talk to the board for you...” he reached for her arm.

She whirled around, nearly smacking him in the face with her boxes. “If I have dinner with you, right?” she demanded.

Steve feigned shock. “You make it sound like I'm holding you hostage!”

She turned her back again and held the boxes up with a knee while she unlocked her car.

“Louise! I'm trying to do you a favour!” said Steve.

“I don't need a favour!” she told him.

“Then enjoy unemployment!” he shouted, fed up, and turned to storm back inside.

Harry and Alberto began to follow Steve into the building, but Luca lingered. Louise was rearranging things in the back of her car, while Curtis handed her folders and boxes. It was obvious what must have happened. Luca took a deep breath, and went up to talk to her.

“Madame?” he asked.

She looked over her shoulder. “Yes? Oh. It's you two. What do you want?” She wasn't angry, but she didn't want them there.

Luca glanced back at Alberto and Harry watching him, then asked, “did you lose your job because of us?”

Louise looked at him for a moment as if not sure what to say, and then she sighed. “No. I lost my job because Steve kicked up a big fuss and refused to take responsibility for it. Don't worry about it.”

“We could say something to the board,” Luca suggested. He didn't know what that was, but it was apparently important. “We could tell it he just saw us and freaked out for no reason, and then everybody would know it was his fault instead of yours.”

Louise shook her head. “Don't bother. You don't need to get involved in this, and it wouldn't help, anyway. It's as much politics as it is anything else.” She put the last box in the back seat, straightened up, and closed the car door. “Thanks for your help, Curtis.”

“No problem, Louise,” the moplike creature replied. “It's been a pleasure working with you. I'm gonna tell this Sullivan guy he's got a big trio of shoes to fill.” He shook Louise's hand.

“Thank you, Curtis. He doesn't deserve you,” Louise replied. She climbed into her car and started the engine.

“Hey!” Harry called from the factory entrance. “Are you guys coming?”

“Yeah,” sighed Luca. “Sorry, I'm on my way.”

“What did she say?” Alberto asked as they headed inside.

“She said it's not our fault she lost her job,” Luca replied, “but... it kinda is, isn't it? It wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been there.”

“She's the one who dragged us in here,” Alberto said. “Pretty sure that's her fault.”

That was one way to look at it, but Luca still felt uneasy.

Harry waved to the receptionist, who waved back with one of several arms but was too focused on paperwork to reply. There were several hallways leading away from the lobby, and Harry chose one at apparent random. Once they were around a corner and out of sight of most people, Harry gestured for Luca and Alberto to huddle around a water fountain with him.

“Okay,” he said, as Luca turned the fountain on to splash his face a little. “Where are these humans?”

Luca looked up from the water. “Can't we have breakfast first?” he asked.

“No,” said Harry firmly. “You said I'd get to see two humans. Where are they?”

Luca looked at Alberto. Alberto nodded, and took charge. “Funny you should ask – they're right over here!” He grabbed Luca, and dragged him into a janitor's closet. Harry tried to follow, but Alberto held up a hand. “You can't come in yet,” he said. “We'll tell the humans you're okay, and then call you.”

“Right.” Harry folded his arms across his chest and settled down to wait.

Alberto turned on the light and shut the closet door. The space was tiny, full of brooms and buckets and other such things, but there was a little sink in there in case they needed to get wet again in a hurry. Alberto shook the water off, while Luca pulled cloths down from a shelf to dry himself. When both were transformed again, they looked at their reflections in a small shaving mirror that somebody had left propped on the edge of the sink.

They'd looked a mess in their sea monster forms, and their human ones weren't much better. They had smudges of dirt on their faces and arms from rolling in the muddy puddle at the bus stop, and their hair was tousled and dirty. Luca didn't know what monsters found so scary about humans' appearance, but right than he and Alberto looked less intimidating than ever.

“Are we really gonna show him?” he asked.

“Relax,” Alberto said. “We'll show him, and then we send him out again, get wet, find Rocco's closet and go home. We're almost there.”

Luca nodded reluctantly, and then squared his shoulders. “Okay. Let's get it over with.”

“Harry!” Alberto called out. “You can come in now!”

The two of them stood there, feeling very awkward, as the door creaked open. Alberto straightened up with his hands on his hips and attempted a smile, and Luca did his best to imitated the posture. Harry cracked the door a little and peeked in, then opened it further and looked them over with a frown.

“It's just you,” he said.

Luca swallowed and looked at Alberto for help.

“Yes! It's us, the humans,” Alberto declared.

Harry glared at them. “No, I mean, it's you. Luca and Alberto.”

“No, we're not,” Alberto insisted. “My name is, uh, Ercole, and this is...” he looked at Luca expectantly. Luca just covered his eyes with one hand.

“I'm not dumb,” Harry huffed. “Your voices are the same, and you're wearing the same clothes. How did you do that?”

“We didn't...” Alberto began.

Luca interrupted. “This is what happens when we dry off,” he said. There was no point in trying to argue about it.

Harry reached out a cautious hand. “That's why you can live with humans?” he asked.

“Kind of,” said Luca.

“They know we're sea monsters,” Alberto clarified, “but they don't care.”

“Not everybody at my school knows, but the teachers do,” said Luca.

“And the humans aren't toxic?” Harry asked. His hand was still out, but he wasn't quite touching either of them.

Luca took the hand and gave it a squeeze – this made Harry flinch, but nothing happened.

“Not at all,” Luca said. “What they were saying in school yesterday, about venom or deadly diseases, or shocks or things like that, none of that's true. Humans don't work that way.”

For a few more moments Harry just stood there, processing this revelation. Then he grabbed Alberto's hand, too, and pulled them towards the door. “Come on! No... wait. Get wet again!” He let go and pointed to the sink. “We gotta show my Dad!”

Luca and Alberto struggled free. “No, we don't!” said Luca. The last thing he wanted was somebody as terrifying as Mr. Waternoose knowing their secret.

“We gotta get back to our world,” Alberto agreed.

“No, no,” Harry insisted. “Dad needs to know about this! If humans aren't actually toxic then nobody needs to be scared of them!”

Luca hesitated. Would that mean that humans and monsters could be friends now? It sounded like a good idea, but then where would the monsters get their power, if humans weren't scared enough to scream anymore?

Alberto's mind was already made up. “We kept our end of the deal,” he said. “We showed you the humans. Now you keep your part, and show us the way back!”

“You didn't show me any actual humans, you just showed me your human forms. That's different,” said Harry. “If you don't come with me, I won't help you find your door, and I'll tell Dad you were sneaking around and scaring his employees! You want to meet him when he's mad at you, or when he's happy?”

Luca had already observed that he wasn't sure Mr. Waternoose had ever been happy in his life, and the idea of him being angry with Luca and Alberto specifically did not bear thinking about. He looked at his friend, and found Alberto looking back helplessly, each hoping the other had a better idea.

Harry knew he'd won – when they turned to him again, the boys found him smiling triumphantly.

With little choice, Luca and Alberto wet themselves down again. Harry watched their transformations, fascinated, but did not ask question. He just took each of them by a wrist and led them to an elevator, which went all the way up to the very peak of Monsters Incorporated's imposing office block.

The top level was almost entirely occupied by Mr. Waternoose's expansive office. The room had tall glass panels separating it from the little hallway with the elevator, and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the sprawling city. There were nice rugs and couches and potted plants, not unlike the ones at the house but more restrained. The impression was not so much of opulence but of order: everything was perfectly symmetrical and impeccably tidy.

Mr. Waternoose was standing behind his desk, shouting at a secretary. The glass muffled his words so they couldn't tell exactly what he was angry about, but his target – a yellow creature with black hair in a short ponytail, stood up on broad tentacles that made her look rather unfortunately like a banana, was cringing and shaking.

Harry hung back, and Luca and Alberto moved behind him as much as his grip on their arms would allow. As they watched, Waternoose turned around and thrust the stinger on the end of his tail into one of the twin potted palms behind his desk. The plant promptly withered, the leaves turning brown and dropping to the floor in a matter of seconds.

Breathing heavily, Waternoose faced the secretary again and said one final thing. She nodded, turned around, and fled to the elevator, throwing the office door open so hard Luca was afraid it would shatter. She took no notice whatsoever of the three boys on the way. As the elevator doors rumbled closed, she could be heard sobbing.

Waternoose looked around for something else to vent his anger on, spotted the twin of the dead plant, and pushed it over. A smaller creature with many millipede-like legs dashed into clean up the mess.

“Maybe now is not a good time,” said Luca.

“Yeah. Maybe we should just go,” Alberto agreed.

Harry looked unsure for a moment, then turned around and pressed the elevator button again. Unfortunately, only a single elevator went to this top floor, and they would have to wait for it to drop off the banana secretary before it could come back up. Until then, they were trapped with only windows between then and the still furious Mr. Waternoose – and when Luca looked back, his heard dropped as he realized the patriarch was heading for the door, ranting at another employee as he went.

“... and make sure this one has a spine! No more invertebrates!” he was saying, as a creature with two heads held the door for him.

“Yes, Mr. Waternoose!” said the head with one eye. The head with three eyes nodded eagerly.

Waternoose turned towards the elevators, and looked right at Harry, Alberto, and Luca. His bulging eyes narrowed, as if narrowing in on a target.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, stepping closer. He towered over the three boys, and Luca could feel his fin rays standing up straight in terror.

Harry stepped forward and swallowed hard. “Dad,” he said, “I know now's not the best time, but we've got something to show you.”

“You're supposed to be in school!” Waternoose roared.

“Yeah, but...”

“And you two!” Waternoose rounded on Luca and Alberto, who shrank back in unison. “Stay away from my son! I worked hard to get where I am. I'm not letting him waste the family fortune on favours for money-grubbing nobodies who couldn't scare a butterfly!”

“Dad! We know how to get more scream!” Harry insisted.

That finally seemed to make Hank Waternoose listen. For a moment he looked startled, but then he scoffed. “What would they know about scream?”

Harry stood up a little taller. “You always say that Grandpa founded this company on hard work and entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. “Well, I've got some of that right here! This is so good it might be extrapreneurial!”

“I don't think that's a real word,” Luca ventured.

Behind them, the green light came on and the bell chimed, and the elevator doors rumbled open. Waternoose herded the three children inside and pressed the button for the ground floor. They began to descend, and Luca swallowed hard. He, Alberto, and Harry were now trapped in a tiny metal room with this huge, terrifying monster.

“What's your idea?” Waternoose asked.

Harry smiled, and played his ace. “Humans aren't dangerous!”

“What?” his father asked.

“They're not! Luca and Alberto know because they live with them!” Harry pointed. “We don't actually need to go to all this trouble to keep them out of our world. We can bring them here and keep them in cages and get scream whenever we want!”

Luca's heart sank right down to his toes and possibly right through the floor. That wasn't at all what he'd been thinking of. Were they going to put Rocco in a cage? Were they going to put him and Alberto in cages?

“You can't do that!” Alberto protested.

“Sure, we can!” Harry replied. “We keep cows for their milk and chickens for their eggs. Why not keep humans for their screams?”

“Harry!” barked Waternoose.

“I can prove it!” Harry went on, determined to tell the entire story. “When they dry out, they turn into humans! That's why they had to stay wet at dinner last night! You'll see in a moment and you can touch them yourself, and then...”

“Harry Waternoose, shut up!”

Harry stopped in mid-sentence, closing his mouth with an audible click of his teeth.

“You idiot,” Waternoose growled. “What do you think will happen if people find out you can just walk into the human world?”

“They'll... um... get more energy?” Harry tried. His five eyes darted back and forth, perhaps seeking an escape, perhaps looking for a clue as to what he'd said wrong.

“Yes, they will,” said Waternoose. “Everybody will get more energy all by themselves. The economy will collapse. Is that what you want for your grandfather's legacy, Harry? For your family to go broke while everybody has their own private human for a source of scream? Is that why I bought out Hardscrabble and drove Nightmare Corp to bankruptcy? Your grandfather and I put a lot of work into convincing the world that humans are deadly, and I'm not going to let you undo it all with this nonsense!”

Harry lowered himself on his many legs until his body was resting on the floor, cowering in terror. Luca felt his mouth go very dry.

The rest of him was going very dry, too. He could feel the tingle in his fingers and toes as they began to transform. He thrust his hands behind his back to try to hide it, but he knew it was futile. When he looked at Alberto, he, too, was already transforming. Luca then tried Harry, hoping the monster boy would distract his father until the elevator stopped – although what he and Alberto would do then, Luca had no idea.

Harry was no help. He caught Luca's eye, then sucked in a breath and pointed at him. “There! You see? You see?”

Waternoose turned around as the elevator grumbled to a halt, and looked them over slowly and coldly. Luca reached for Alberto and felt around until he found his friend's hand, unwilling to look away from Waternoose in case that spiked tail came down. Alberto's other hand found Luca's shoulder, and they took a step back only to find that the elevator doors were still closed behind their backs.

“Yes, I see,” said Waternoose. “Nobody can know. The... evidence... will have to be destroyed.”

Light glinted on his stinger as it twitched.

Then a miracle happened, and the elevator doors opened. Luca and Alberto didn't look back. They just ran.

Waiting for the elevator in the hall was a creature that resembled a haystack of orange fur. Next to it was a blue individual with a face in his chest – Steve. He laid eyes on the two boys, screamed again, and leaped at the orange haystack. A pair of arms resembling a bird's legs emerged from the fur and caught him. This left Luca and Alberto a free path down the hallway, and they ran as fast as they could.

It was almost lunchtime, and the hallways were full of people – people who were shouting, diving out of the way, or running as they saw what appeared to be humans in their midst. They needed to somehow hide, and for that, they needed water. A sluglike yellow creature with short, rubbery spikes all over its body was carrying a mop and pulling a bucket of water. When it saw Luca and Alberto it screamed and tried to run, but was not able to move fast, so all it could do was curl up with its arms over its head and say a prayer. The boys snatched up the bucket and poured its contents over themselves, then Alberto threw it back in the direction they'd come before moving on.

This was the first time Luca had looked to see if Waternoose were chasing them, and was horrified to see that he was, the monster's many legs clattering against the floor as he came. He ducked under the thrown bucket and kept coming, and Luca didn't dare look back a second time as they fled.

“Get those kids!” Waternoose ordered. “They're spies!”

Now people were no longer running away from them or spreading panic, but that was almost worse. Hearing Waternoose, a thing like a purple gorilla tried to grab them. They ducked just in time, only to come up against a neon green creature with horns and batlike wings. It tried to catch them in the membranes between its fingers, and they escaped that only to almost run right into the mouth of a pink beast that seemed to be nothing buck teeth and eyes. Alberto kicked it in the chin, which made it bite its tongue. It screamed in pain as the boys scrambled away.

In the chaos, Luca suddenly spied something familiar – a mop of grey fur under a yellow hard hat, with two eyes on stalks sticking out.

“We know that guy!” he exclaimed. Luca pulled Alberto towards the figure. “Sir! Curtis!” That was his name, right? “We need help!”

Curtis turned around, startled. “Oh, it's you kids. What are...”

Luca and Alberto each grabbed one of his arms. These were lilac-coloured, and scaly.

“We gotta get out of here!” Alberto said.

“We need to find Louise!” Luca told him. Louise would know where Rocco's closet door was. She used it all the time.

“Aren't you the kids who lost her job for her?” Curtis asked.

“She said it was Steve's fault, not ours,” said Luca.

“Lieberman!” roared Waternoose, pushing his way through the crowd the boys had just scaped. “Give me those kids! Don't listen to a word they say, they're liars!”

Alberto let go of Curtis, took Luca's hand, and they ran again. Curtis turned to shout after them.

“What is going...” he began, then hollered in surprise as Waternoose shoved him into the wall on the way by. “Hey!” Curtis protested as he picked himself up. “This is workplace harrassment!”

Waternoose ignored him and continued his pursuit. His many legs clattered on the tiles, and then one came down in a broken corner and got stuck there. He howled in frustration and yanked it out, but that allowed the boys to get a little further ahead.

The spark of hope this offered burned a little brighter as they saw ahead of them a closed door with an emergency exit sign. That must lead outside! They threw themselves against it, and swung open, sunlight flooding into their faces. It was blinding, almost painful, after the dimmer light indoors, but they couldn't afford to stop. They kept running out into the car park, ignoring the wailing of the alarm they'd set off.

“Get those boys!” roared Waternoose. “Somebody get them!”

They ran between the rows of parked cars, trying to lose him there. After a few moments, Luca realized that over his own desperate heavy breathing, he could no longer hear Waternoose's footsteps. There were voices shouting but they were further away than he expected, almost drowned out by the calling of gulls overhead.

When he dared a look back, he realized that the emergency door was too small to easily admit Waternoose's massive body with its many widely-set legs. He was having to wriggle through piece by piece, with help from his employees, and nobody else could use the door while he did. They were finally gaining on him.

When he dared a look up, he saw that some of the gulls had two heads.

“Water!” Alberto said, and pulled Luca after him. The car park was surrounded by the drainage ditch, which was full of horrible muddy water. It was even worse than the puddle they'd splashed in that morning, but with no other obvious options the boys jumped in anyway. It tasted even worse than it looked, and as Luca had feared, it was full of mosquito larvae and garbage. Even so, they tried not to breath as they crawled along the bottom, trying not to let a single fin protrude, and climbed into the culvert underneath the entrance road. There they huddled, intermittently poking their heads out to breathe clean air instead of filthy water, while Waternoose ordered people to search every car in the lot.

Sounds were muffled in the culvert but they could hear shouts and car doors opening and shutting. Once there was the sound of shattering glass, and in another place it sounded like somebody was picking the vehicles up to look under them before letting them thump back down. Just when they were beginning to think they'd found a safe hiding spot, a voice asked, “do you think they're in the water?”

Luca and Alberto held their breath.

“I don't think so,” somebody else said. “I'm amphibious and I wouldn't go in that water. It's gross.”

The boys breathed out.

“Oh, yes they would!” shouted Harry.

They sucked the breath back in. Luca almost choked on a dead butterfly that was in the water, and Alberto had to whack him on the back until he coughed it up.

“If they don't stay wet, they change back!” Harry declared. “Even if it's gross they have to be in the water!”

“Snitch!” Alberto muttered.

“Search the ditch,” Waternoose ordered. “And drain the wastewater pond.”

Chapter Text

As terrible as all that sounded, the word pond made Luca pay attention. The water in the ditch was quite shallow. An actual pond would presumably be deeper and take a while to drain, which would give them more time to figure out what to do next. They had to find it, quickly. He gestured for Alberto to follow, and slithered out of the culvert back into the ditch.

“What did these kids do ?” asked the voice of Curtis. He was panting, as if he'd run all the way across the car park.

“They're corporate spies,” Waternoose growled. “Doubtless here to steal our superior collecting technology. Don't let them get away!”

“Let me get my boots,” somebody else said. “I'm not going in there in my bare hooves.”

Moving carefully so as not to cause even a ripple, Luca and Alberto felt their way along the bottom, looking for the pond. It was impossible to see anything in the filthy water so they had to navigate by touch and sound, keeping their hands and feet on the bottom and listening out for the splashes of monsters entering the water to look for them. What alerted them to the right direction was the sound of a pump starting up. Luca took Alberto's arm and headed in that direction, and soon they were in deeper water.

Where to go from there? Luca risked poking just the top of his head out of the water to look, and saw the wall of the factory building in front of them. A big pipe was sticking out of it, which was dripping a bit... that was big enough to crawl into, but somebody might see them. When he turned around, he saw two monsters standing on either side of a pump with a much narrower pipe leading into the water, and quickly dipped back under again.

It was Alberto who figured out what to do next. He found an old baseball cap lying on the bottom, put a rock and a handful of slimy algae inside it, and stuffed it into the pump's pipe. The machine whined and coughed to a halt, and the two monsters leaned over to examine it while Luca and Alberto quickly climbed into the bigger pipe and via that route into the factory.

This was difficult, slippery work, and Luca's heart beat faster and his throat felt tight as he wondered if they might get stuck and never get out again. He muttered silenzio Bruno under his breath and pressed on, and soon the pipe ended and the boys found themselves inside a big dark space full of waist-deep cold water. Their breathing could be heard echoing off metal walls. Overhead, something went clank , and they could hear the sound and feel the spray of more water showering down from above.

Luca climbed up on Alberto's shoulders and found that the top of the space had more pipes leading into it, but these were much too narrow to climb through, only a few centimetres across. Down the far end, however, he also found a square hole with a cover closed over it, and by pushing as hard as he could, he was able to force it open. This allowed them to climb out into a room with concrete floors and cinder block walls, dimly-lit by one unshaded lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Rows of pipes in the ceiling turned down and entered a huge metal tank, and there were several signs saying things like DANGER and CONTAMINATED .

Luca looked more closely at one of these. “ Door wash water ,” he read. “ Do not open without protective clothing .” A cartoon image showed a monster in a plastic suit similar to the ones the exterminators had worn the previous afternoon.

“They're just dumping it out in the pond, though,” said Alberto, and then realized why. “Because it's not actually dangerous. Humans aren't poisonous and Mr. Waternoose knows that.”

“But everybody else thinks they're really dangerous,” Luca agreed. That wasn't right – Waternoose was trying to keep all the screams for himself so he could sell them, when they could have been freely available. Of course, giving Rocco nightmares wasn't a very nice way to collect power in the first place. Didn't the monsters have anything better?

They could think about that later, Luca decided. Right now, they had to figure out the situation they were in. “We can stay in here a while because everybody will think this room is dangerous,” he said, “but how do we get out without being seen?” Their sea monster forms were no longer a disguise. Waternoose would have everybody looking for them.

“No problem,” Alberto replied. “We just wait until everybody goes home tonight.”

That was right – the monsters slept at night, just like humans and sea monsters did! All they had to do was weit.

It was going to be a long wait, though. It was only just about noon, and the boys still hadn't eaten breakfast. Their stomachs gurgled as they sat on the floor of the maintenance room, listening to the sounds of people moving around upstairs. Luca began to feel a bit ill, like he had the day he'd desperately been trying to finish some homework and hadn't had time to eat his lunch before going back to class.

To distract himself, he asked a question that had been on his mind since yesterday afternoon. “Alberto? Are my letters boring?”

“What?” asked Alberto, who was chewing on a hang nail.

“My letters,” Luca repeated. “From school.”

“No way,” Alberto told him. “Why would you ask that?”

“Well, you thought school was boring yesterday.”

“Yeah, monster school where I don't know what they're talking about.” Alberto waved a dismissive hand.

“You don't know what human school is talking about, either,” Luca reminded him. “When I tried to tell you about the layers in the Earth, the core and mantle and all that, you didn't understand at all.” Alberto had asked if the core was where the seeds were.

“Yeah, but you don't write about that stuff,” said Alberto. “You just tell me you're having fun.” He examined his hang nail critically, then gave Luca a brief, worried glance. “What about my letters?”

“What about them?” asked Luca.

“You know. Are they boring?”

“No way!” Luca assured him. Alberto's letters were usually very short because reading and writing were difficult for him, but he was getting better at it, and Luca was proud of him although Alberto would have been embarrassed if he'd said so.

“You sure? Because you think all that school stuff is interesting, and I don't do any of that.”

Luca wondered if this idea were new to Alberto, too, or if he'd been thinking about it for a while. “If you don't think my stuff is boring, then I don't think your stuff is boring,” Luca promised, feeling much better about it now.

“Oh. Good,” said Alberto. He sighed and rearranged himself, sitting with his back to a bundle of pipes. There was nothing in the room that might remotely be called furniture, and the bare floor was very cold to sit on. “Do you remember what Rocco's closet door looked like?”

Luca had to think about it, and as he did, he felt his stomach sink. He hadn't realized until that moment that they were now going to have to find it without Harry's help. He could remember what had been inside the closet, because he'd noticed that there wasn't really any room for a monster in it. The door itself, though? Luca couldn't even recall if it had been painted.

“I don't think so,” he admitted. “Do you?”

There was a long silence, ended at last by Alberto saying, “nope. I think it was brown.”

That didn't help.

“Too bad our room doesn't have a closet,” Alberto said, referring to the one he and Giulia shared during the summer. “I'd definitely remember what that looks like.”

“Our room has a closet,” said Luca, meaning the one he shared with his grandmother, “but it doesn't have a door.” That was no good, either, but it did give Luca one good idea. “When we get back, we have to tell Signora Marsigliese to take the door off Rocco's closet. The monsters can't come in if there's no door.”

Alberto nodded eagerly. “If she won't, I'll do it myself!” he promised. “Massimo's been teaching me to use stuff like hammers and screwdrivers, so I'm basically an expert now.”

“Perfect!” Luca smiled and relaxed a little. They still didn't really know how they were getting home, but at least they had a plan for what do do once they got there.

Luca and Alberto had left the maintenance hatch open so they could quickly climb back into the tank if anybody came in, but the minutes ticked by, and nobody did. That was a bit surprising when Luca thought about it – wouldn't it occur to anybody that they might have gone up the pipes? Maybe not. If everybody thought humans were deadly poisonous, they would expect the boys to know that, too, and avoid the contaminated water. And Mr. Waternoose couldn't have anybody search this part of the factory, because anyone who did would discover that the water was just being dumped without cleaning it. Why didn't he just clean it anyway for appearances' sake? Maybe he thought that would cost too much money.

The boys had originally planned to hide in this room all day, but as the time went by it became increasingly clear that their stomachs were not going to stand for it. Luca's was so angry it felt like it was moving around inside him – the last time he'd been this hungry had been on the first day in Portorosso, when he and Alberto had missed both breakfast and lunch. That evening they'd finally been able to gobble down platefuls of Massimo's trenette al pesto , but now there was nothing.

Luca didn't like to complain about things, so he wasn't going to mention it, but then he heard Alberto's insides gurgle loudly, and couldn't stop himself from giggling a little. Alberto smiled sheepishly back, and then both began to laugh as Luca's stomach rumbled as if in reply.

“I wonder what kind of food they've got in that cafeteria,” said Alberto.

“Dunno.” The three-eyed fish, which Luca had eaten a couple of mouthfuls of, had just tasted like fish. He hadn't had any interest in finding out what the eyeball candy was like.

“Too bad we don't know where it is,” Alberto said. “Maybe we could sneak in.”

They waited a few more long, hungry minutes, as their stomachs continued to complain, until both of them gave up. Luca got somewhat stiffly off the cold floor and peered through the hatch into the giant tank. They'd been able to hear water flowing through it intermittently – it was currently full enough for Luca to reach the surface with his fingers without climbing in. He started splashing himself. Without any questions or protests, Alberto joined in. It was time to see if they could find something to eat.

Once properly monstrous, they cracked open a door and checked out the hallway beyond. It was long and dim, with similar utilitarian construction to the tank room – bare floors, cinder blocks, and pipes in the ceiling. Many of the pipes, along with bundles of electrical cables, passed through the wall above the door, and there was a sign on the outside that said RESTRICTED ACCESS – DOOR CLEANING WASTE WATER . It ought to be an easy place to find again as long as they kept track of their path.

More importantly, there was nobody in the hallway. A clock on the opposite wall showed that it was quarter after noon. Maybe everybody had gone for lunch.

They crept down the hall, checking doors as they passed them. Some were locked. Others could be opened, but there was nothing inside but storage and records rooms with no promises of food. Then they found one that opened onto a much larger room full of bins and conveyor belts, dedicated to processing garbage. Luca would have moved on, but Alberto headed in to explore further.

“That's trash,” Luca protested.

“Humans throw out all kinds of good stuff,” Alberto informed him.

“You can't eat it! It's garbage!”

“That's what Massimo says, but one time I found half a box of Alassio cookies. What was I supposed to do, just leave them there?” Alberto opened a bin and began rooting around.

To Alberto's disappointment – and to Luca's, although he wouldn't admit it – the trash proved to be largely inorganic, all cans and cups and napkins and other resolutely inedible things. Alberto wandered into an adjoining room to try there, while Luca happened across something odd – a stack of newspapers that were still all packed up in strings as if they hadn't even been delivered yet. These were called The Monstropolis Argus and showed a photograph of the factory blazoned with a bold red headline: INCURSION RUMORS AT MONSTERS INC .

Maybe the newspapers had been meant for people at the factory but Mr. Waternoose had ordered them thrown away because he was angry.

“Luca!” Alberto's voice called from the other room. “Come quick! There's a cake in here!”

“A cake?” Luca asked. That didn't sound right. He opened the door, and found a little kitchen with chairs and a table, a sink, a fridge, and a small oven sitting on the counter. The room smelled like the coffee that was cooling in a glass pitcher on the table, and next to that was about half of a big sheet cake decorated with buttercream roses. The top had writing on it, some of which was still readable as the words HAPPY 30^th and below it something smeared that was probably the top of BIRTHDAY.

Not that Luca and Alberto cared what the cake said . There were paper plates and plastic forks in packages on the counter, so they cut themselves slices and dug in. The fridge contained an assortment of sodas with names like Fright and Creepy-Cola , so they opened those, too. The cake was very plain, as cakes went, but Luca wouldn't have cared if it tasted like cardboard as long as it filled his empty stomach.

They were working on their second helpings when they heard the voices outside the door. Luca and Alberto exchanged a glance, then grabbed their cake and sodas and crawled into the cabinet under the sink. Moments later, the door opened and a group of monsters entered, laughing and talking.

“You guys are too much,” a woman's voice said.

“Nothing's too much for a birthday, Maureen!” somebody else replied, “especially when it means we get to take an extra-long lunch!” The sounds of cleaning up began. Disposable kitchenware was dumped into bags and crumpled, and empty soda cans were tossed into bins. Luca waited, heart pounding, for the moment somebody noticed that more cake had vanished, but nobody said anything.

“I don't know how I feel about Louise having contributed to the lunch fund when she got fired this morning,” Maureen said. “She should at least get a slice of cake.”

Now it was going to happen. Somebody would notice that part of the leftovers were missing.

“We could give one to her assistant for her,” another person suggested. “I'm sure he'd be happy to pass it on.”

“And it isn't like we don't have leftovers,” somebody else agreed. “If I see him, I'll mention it.”

“That means no picking at the rest!” said the second speaker.

“Ow!”

“You heard me. You don't need any more.” The boys heard plasticky sounds as a lid was put on the cake, and a sliding as it was put away on top of the cabinets.

“Great! That means you can all get back to work!” another man announced. This was greeted by groans, but the speaker impatiently clapped what sounded like more than two hands. “Come on, come on, party break's over. We've got trash to process.”

Maureen heaved a sigh. “At least we're not the poor suckers in water processing down the hall,” she remarked. “I heard they have to keep their fur shaved and bathe in bleach at the end of every day.”

“Yeah, I wouldn't want to work anywhere near anything that's come in contact with humans!” another person agreed.

A few moments later the group was gone again, and the door closed behind them.

Luca and Alberto waited a few minutes, then cautiously opened the cupboard door. There was nobody in the room. They quickly wet themselves down in the sink again and then cracked the door open to see what was happening in the main garbage processing room.

There was no hope of slipping through. The room was now full of monsters, sorting trash into bins or pouring it onto conveyor belts to be crushed into cubes. Machines were rumbling. Two women were talking cheerfully while flattening soda cans, and a man was singing in Spanish.

The boys let the door close again.

“Okay,” said Luca. “We're still okay. It's just instead of hiding in the other room until everybody goes home, we'll hide in here instead.”

Alberto nodded. “And we can eat the rest of the cake.”

“No, we can't!” Luca stood between Alberto and the cupboards. “We have to leave enough for Curtis and Louise. Plus a little extra. If we don't, they'll figure it out.”

Alberta scowled. “Fine, but we gotta have at least one more piece.”

By the time they'd each finished their third helping of cake, the boys were beginning to feel sick. The remaining slices were therefore safe as the afternoon wore on, seeming to take forever to pass. At first Luca and Alberto poked around in the kitchen hoping to find something to occupy their time, but then they had to quickly duck back into the cupboard when somebody came in for a cup of coffee. After that, they tacitly agreed they'd better stay in their hiding place, no matter how cramped and smelly it might be, just in case.

It was starting to seem like the day would never end.

Unlike the maintenance room with the tank, the kitchen at least had a clock in it. Luca was therefore able to watch the time passing, and let Alberto know how long they had until everybody would presumably leave for dinner. Three hours left, then two, then one. Starting around five, the monsters who worked in the garbage room seemed to be just waiting around rather than really doing anything much. They wandered in and out of the kitchen more frequently, and hung around talking to each other.

One of the things they talked about was that somebody really ought to mop the kitchen floor, and Luca started getting nervous. What if somebody decided to do it right now? What if they opened the cupboard looking for a bucket or sponge, and found two apparently human boys in there?

Before anyone could make that decision, though, the door opened and another group of people came in, and the boys heard a familiar voice.

“... and Louise went to high school together,” Curtis was saying. “Real shame she couldn't be here today. She even asked the shift supervisor if she could keep her key long enough to drop in, but he wouldn't let her.”

“That's too bad,” said a deeper voice. “It's been a hell of a couple of days for her, wasn't it?”

“Yeah. Wish I knew what was going on with all this,” Curtis said. “Hey, folks! This is Billy Sullivan, new guy on the scare floor! He's green, but he's got potential.”

“It's a pleasure to meet y'all,” said Sullivan, with a slight twang in his accent. “Lieberman's been telling me how hard I'll be working to live up to expectations around here. I wish I could have met this Louise. She sounds like a superstar.”

“Oh, she was,” said Maureen. “She was the first girl at our school to win the Fangmeier Scare Scholarship, and she beat all the boys by miles. Have some cake, Mr. Sullivan.”

Cake was served, and the chit-chat took a less worrying turn, mostly concerning how Louise and Maureen had run into each other again when they found they were both working at Monsters Incorporated, albeit in very different capacities. The only moment of panic was when, as Luca watched through the gap between the cabinet doors, Curtis wandered over to the sink and turned on the tap for a glass of water.

Alberto decided this was an opportunity. “Psst,” he whispered. “Hey!”

Curtis paused with his glass halfway to his mouth, and looked around.

“Sir,” Luca said softly. “Down here.”

“Huh?” Curtis knelt down, and Luca saw the door begin to open.

“No, no, don't open it!” Luca said urgently. He and Alberto were bone-dry. If Curtis saw them he would scream.

“Who's in there?” Curtis whispered. “Is this those kids?”

“Yes, Sir,” said Luca. “We're not spies, we promise. We need your help!”

“Curtis?” Maureen asked. “What are you doing over there?”

“I dropped something.” Curtis stood up again, and walked away to rejoin the conversation. “Louise will be happy you thought of her. I was planning to drop by and check on her anyway – let me just box up a slice of that cake.”

Alberto began to blow a raspberry out of disappointment, but Luca stopped him. There was nothing they could do now but wait.

Which they did – the continued to wait for another hour and a half, while one by one the monsters grabbed their coats from the closet and their lunchboxes from the fridge and cabinets, and said goodnight to their coworkers. Half-six came and went, and then six o'clock, and finally at a quarter after Maureen took what was left of her birthday cake and carried it out of the little kitchen, turning the light off behind her.

Luca counted to ten, and then burst out of the cupboard to run for the bathroom. Alberto was close behind him.

Once they'd taken care of that, the two boys went to open the kitchen door.

It was locked.

Alberto first wrenched on the knob, then rattled it, and then said several words that made Luca cover his ears, knowing his mother wouldn't have approved of him hearing them. “Alberto stop!” he pleaded. “Somebody might still be out there and they'll hear you!”

Alberto stopped, but he took a step back and kicked the door in frustration.

As if in response, a light came on underneath it.

The boys scrambled back into the cupboard under the sink as the door creaked open and the light snapped back on.

“Hello?” Curtis called out.

Luca peeked out through the crack between the two doors. Curtis appeared to have come alone. He was no longer wearing his hard hat, and his two stalked eyes were swivelling in different directions as he took in the room. Then he began walking towards the sink again.

“Wait!” said Luca. He and Alberto hadn't bothered to get wet. “Not yet!”

“What?” asked Curtis.

“Don't open the door yet,” said Luca. “Just go back outside, and we'll come out.”

“Why?”

“We'll explain later. Just trust us,” Luca pleaded. Not that Curtis had any reason to. He'd suffered almost as much of an upset as Louise, having to go to work for a totally different person, and it was all their fault.

Curtis retreated. The boys climbed out of the cabinet, soaked themselves, and then took deep breaths and headed out into the garbage processing room. Luca held Alberto's hand to help himself be brave, hoping desperately that this was going to work. What if it didn't? What if Curtis had brought Mr. Waternoose?

But it was just Curtis, standing there leaning on one of the now motionless conveyor belts, waiting for them. They emerged dripping wet and wearing cautious grimaces that were the nearest they could manage to smiles. Curtis did not smile back.

“Hello, Sir,” said Luca.

“You two are filthy,” said Curtis.

“Sea monsters,” said Alberto. “We gotta stay wet.”

“The ditch was the only water there was,” Luca agreed.

Curtis shook what was probably his head, although it might have been his body. “What have you gotten yourselves into? What were you doing in that kid's room yesterday, for one thing?”

“We'll tell you all about it,” Luca said, although he wasn't sure if that were a promise he inteded to keep. “But we need to find Rocco's door.”

“The one Louise got us out of,” Alberto clarified. “Like, right now.”

“Please,” Luca finished, “we just want to go home.”

Curtis sighed. “I can't take you to the scare floor now, everything's locked up for the night. And even if I could, we couldn't get that door. It's on review. I submitted the report last night and they came and got it this morning.” He scratched the thick fur on the side of his head and thought for a moment, then picked one black plastic garbage bin on wheels from the tidy line of them by the wall. “Get in,” he told the boys.

Luca and Alberto climbed into the bin, and Curtis cut open the packet of untouched newspapers Luca had been looking eat earlier and crumpled them up into a layers to cover the two passengers. Then he closed the top, and began whistling as he wheeled them out of the room and through the building.

The boys crouched in the bin, hardly breathing. They could only hope that he was taking them somewhere safe, or at the very least somewhere he thought was safe. But what if it wasn't safe? Even if he wasn't just going to turn them over to Waternoose, what if there were other dangers nobody had anticipated? Luca desperately wished he could open his eyes and find he was home in his own bed, with Nonna right across the way to tell him it was only a bad dream.

There was the creak of a door opening, and a jingle. “Thanks for the keys, Maureen,” said Curtis.

“No problem,” she replied. “Tell Louise how sorry I am.”

A moment later they began to hear the patter of rain on the lid of the bin, which was a reassuring sound – it meant that they didn't have to worry about transforming in front of Curtis when they climbed out. Stones on the pavement grumbled under the wheels of the bin as they crossed the car park, and then Curtis stopped and opened the lid.

“Okay,” he said, looking around to make sure nobody was watching them. “Get in the car.”

Luca and Alberto stood in the rain for a moment to make sure they were damp, and then climbed into the back of Curtis' little car. This one was much more like the small, cramped, stuffy vehicles they were familiar with from Portorosso. Curtis gave them a blanket to pull over themselves, and they curled up on the seat and tried their best to look like a pile of laundry.

“See you tomorrow, Curtis!” somebody called to them.

“Night!” Curtis replied, and started the car.

They were well out of the car park and on their way back into the city before the boys dared to peek out from under the blanket. Curtis looked at them in the rearview mirror, then rotated one stalked eye to look over his shoulder at them before turning it back to the road again. Nobody spoke.

Eventually, Curtis pulled into the car park of a set of buildings in different sizes – all were three storeys tall with four windows across the front, but only one was the size of a proper building. The left one looked like it was built for creatures no more than a metre tall, and the right one for giants three or four metres in height. Curtis stopped in front of the middle building, and turned the car off.

“Okay,” he said. “What's going on? I get the idea that something's up behind the scenes at the factory, and Louise lost her job because she got involved in that by accident. Is that right?”

“No, Sir,” said Luca. “It was just a mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?” Curtis asked. “How did you get into that room without anyone seeing?”

Luca swallowed. They'd told Harry bits and pieces of the truth and it had nearly led to disaster. What proof did they have that Curtis would be any better?

“You gotta promise you won't turn us in,” said Alberto.

“To who?” Curtis wanted to know. “The police? Mr. Waternoose?”

“Anybody.”

“We didn't do anything wrong,” Luca said yet again. “We just want to go home.”

Curtis was silent for a moment. “I want to help Louise,” he said. “We've been working together for six years. She's always been there for me and I want to return the favour, and I know in my gut that whatever happened yesterday wasn't fair to her.”

“Louise didn't do anything wrong, either,” Luca said, and came to a decision – if they were going to tell the truth, they had to tell all of the truth. He hadn't liked lying to Harry, and it hadn't gotten them anywhere anyway. “We're not... well, we are monsters, but we're not the same kind of monster you are. We need to stay wet because when we dry out we transform and look like humans.”

It shouldn't have been possible for Curtis' stalk eyes to widen, but they did. “That's why Steve Watkins said he saw humans with her!”

“Yes!” said Luca.

“We live in the human world,” Alberto said, “and a friend of ours there asked us if we could get rid of the monster in his closet.”

“We didn't believe there actually was one,” Luca put in, “but we said we would because his Mom thought it would help him stop having nightmares.”

“But when Louise found us she thought we were with Harry's school group, so she took us back to them...”

“... and on the way we ran into Steve and he saw us Change and freaked out.”

“Yeah, so we hid in the bathroom and got wet again, which is how we got past the exterminators...”

They went on like this, interrupting each other but keeping the whole messy tale more or less in chronological order, until they got to the part where they'd left the water tank room hoping for something to eat. Curtis listened, but with fur all over his face it was difficult to tell what he thought of any of it. He only stopped them to ask a question once.

“So you're immune to human toxins?” he asked. “You must be if you live with them. That's how you knew you could get into the water purification system?”

“No,” said Luca, “humans aren't toxic at all, and Mr. Waternoose knows that but he wants to keep it a secret so he can sell people the screams.”

Curtis blinked. “You've been reading those conspiracy newspapers, huh?”

“No, it's true,” Alberto said. “See?” He shook the last of the water off one hand so it would transform, and reached to touch Curtis' fur. Curtis flinched away in horror, but then steeled himself and reached out his own hand. Alberto grabbed his wrist, and Curtis hissed through his teeth as if in pain – but nothing happened. “There!” said Alberto. “See?”

Curtis jerked his hand back and rubbed at the wrist as if it were burned.

“We're very sorry Louise lost her job,” said Luca, now also transformed. “Is there anything we can do to help her?”

“Does she know this story?” Curtis asked.

The boys shook their heads.

“All right.” Curtis opened the car door. “Let's go tell it to her.”

Chapter Text

Once out of the car, the boys quickly got wet in the rain again, and once they were completely transformed Curtis led them up to the middle-sized building. As they climbed the steps, Luca looked to his left and saw a tiny car pull up in front of the smaller building. A creature the size of a rat climbed out, carrying paper bags that seemed to contain things like a single strawberry and one large snail. This being hopped up the steps, and then went to an even tinier door set within the already small main one, and balanced a grocery bag on one knee as it got out its keys.

Back at the middle-sized building, Curtis pressed a button next to the door. Something made a buzzing sound, and a speaker crackled. “Who is it?” asked a voice, distant and tinny but recognizable as Louise.

“It’s me,” Curtis replied. “I brought you some of Maureen’s birthday cake.” He glanced at the boys on either side of him, then apparently decided not to mention them yet.

“Oh! I totally forgot Maureen’s birthday,” Louise sighed.

On the right, the door of the biggest building opened, and a towering dinosaur-like creature with eyes that glowed like red coals looked out. It held up a hand, then called to someone inside, “it’s still raining!”

“Then don’t stand with the door open!” another voice boomed.

The giant monster shook its head and rolled its eyes, and went back indoors.

“It’s okay, Louise,” Curtis said into the speaker. “You’ve had a lot on your mind. Can I come up?”

“Of course,” she said. The door went click, and Curtis opened it.

“Come on, kids,” he said to the boys.

Louise lived on the second floor. When they reached the top of the stairs, she was already standing in her door waiting for them, with a creature under one arm that resembled a cross between a cat and an iguana. She smiled at Curtis, but then stiffened when she saw Luca and Alberto.

“These young men have a story to tell you,” Curtis said.

“They already apologized this morning,” Louise replied. “I told them it wasn’t their fault.”

“From what they said to me, I don’t think you heard the whole thing,” Curtis told her.

Louise heaved another sigh. “Come on in,” she said, more resigned than welcoming.

Her apartment was no bigger than the Marcovaldo home above the Pescheria, but less cluttered. It was clear she lived alone except for the iguana-cat. There was a colourful crochet afghan thrown over the back of the sofa, a little threadbare as if it were second-hand, and a variety of photographs on the wall, apparently of members of her family since most of them were also orange and yellow monsters with short horns. A shelf of cookbooks seemed to represent cuisines from around the world, but the titles included strange selections like Best of Terrorkish Cooking and The New Grrrman Kitchen as well as more normal things like Anyone Can Cook.

With the door closed, Louise put her pet down, and it went up to sniff Alberto’s ankles. He offered it a hand, and it tried his fingers next before bumping its head against his hand, asking for pats. It had no external ears, so Alberto scratched it under the chin instead.

“Here’s your cake.” Curtis offered the box. “It’s too bad you couldn’t join them for lunch.”

“I doubt they’d have let me back in even to the cafeteria,” said Louise. She took the box, then smiled awkwardly at the boys. “Can I offer you something to eat?” she asked. She didn’t sound enthusiastic. The question was merely polite.

Luca swallowed. “No, thank you, Madame,” he said.

“We each had three slices,” Alberto explained.

“They were hiding in the trash processing break room all day,” Curtis said.

“I see.” Unwilling to eat it in front of guests, Louise set the box of cake on the table and gestured to the sofa. “Sit down.”

Luca and Alberto sat. Louise pulled up a long ottoman which had been made to accommodate her three legs, and Curtis took the armchair by the wall. The cat-iguana hopped up into Alberto’s lap and settled down.

“Okay,” said Louise. “What else do I need to hear?”

Having already told the tale to Curtis, the boys were quite a bit faster and more organized in the version they gave Louise. A few minutes into it, they both began to dry out, but they’d already told her about the Change, so they simply let it happen. Curtis noticed it first, and watched Louise carefully for her reaction. As the boys’ faces transformed, she took a sharp breath in through her teeth and began to stand up.

“No, no, it’s okay!” Luca held up his hands.

“We warned you,” said Alberto.

“Yes, you did.” Louise glanced down at her hands. These, Luca noticed, were no longer bandaged, but the fur had been shaved from the backs of them and the palms, already hairless, were covered with scrapes and small cuts. Whatever they’d done to ‘decontaminate’ where she’d touched the terrifying humans, it looked like it had been painful. Louise looked around the room, then went to the window and pulled the curtains, already half-closed, all the way shut. “Sorry,” she said as she returned to her seat. “Go on.”

The boys continued their story, bringing it up to when they’d spoken to Curtis while hiding in the cupboard. Although Louise had said they’d already apologized, Luca couldn’t stop himself from doing it again, now that they had the context to explain exactly what had gone wrong.

“We didn’t know there really was a monster in Rocco’s closet,” he said. “If we had, we would have… I don’t know, wrote you a letter or something instead of trying to scare you back.”

“Yeah,’ said Alberto. “We, uh…” he turned to Luca. “You think that’s how humans feel about us? Not the ones in Portorosso, obviously, but…”

“No, you’re right!” Luca realized. The humans had thought sea monsters probably didn’t exist, but if they were, they’d be scary and dangerous and… well, not people. That was exactly how, in those terrifying seconds as the door opened, Luca had felt about Rocco’s closet monster. “So yeah,” he said to Louise, “we didn’t know. We’re very sorry, and we’ll never do it again.”

Louise sat quietly a moment, and then asked, “why are you apologizing to me?”

“Well, because you lost your job,” said Luca. “You wouldn’t have if we hadn’t been there.”

“Yeah, but that’s just my job!” She stood up and started pacing up and down the little living room. “You two… you’ve lost your whole world! Your parents must be frantic. If I had a kid who went to a sleepover and just vanished, I don’t even know what I’d do. And now Mr. Waternoose is… you two have to go home!” She sat down again and held on to her horns, the way a human might push their hands through their hair. “You’re sorry? I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to think when I found you there. I’d seen the tour group earlier and I assumed… I should have asked more questions. What are we going to do with you?”

Luca hadn’t expected that. It hadn’t occurred to Luca that Louise might feel bad about what she’d done to them. It had been an accident!

It must have occurred to Alberto, though, because he gently elbowed Luca in the ribs and said, “I told you it was her fault.”

“Don’t say that!” Luca protested.

“No, he’s right,” said Louise.

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Nobody knew what was going on,” Luca pointed out. “Anyway, it’s also not fair that Mr. Waternoose is hoarding all the screams. If he wasn’t doing that, we wouldn’t be in danger now.”

“Never mind that right now,” said Louise firmly. “We have to get you home. We’ll have to get that door out of… the door was sent to review, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Curtis said. “I couldn’t take them there after hours with everything locked up. I told Maureen I left something in the kitchen but there wasn’t any excuse I could have made to the review workers.”

“Taking them there when the place is up and running isn’t going to be easy, either,” Louise said.

Curtis thought about that. “Security around review can be pretty tight… but the door’s not the only thing we’re going to need.”

“We need a scare station,” Louise agreed.

Luca looked at Alberto, who shrugged – he had no idea what they were talking about, and nothing to contribute, any more than Luca did. They were just going to have to trust these people.

“The easiest thing to do would be just slip the door into the scare queue and then smuggle them through while everybody’s busy,” Louise said. She stood up to pace again. “Except of course that I’ve been fired! We’ll need another scarer, but who would risk their job for this? Scarberry is a stickler for rules, he’d turn us in at once. Zamora is probably thrilled I’m not there to make him look bad anymore, as if it’s my fault his kids prefer to yelp than scream. He won’t help. I don’t know about Yamanaka but I’d bet…”

“What about the new guy?” Alberto asked, desperate to offer something. “Sullivan?”

Neither of the boys had actually seen the monster who’d apparently replaced Louise. When they’d heard his voice in the little kitchen he’d sounded nice, but then, a lot of monsters probably sounded nice when they weren’t terrified of a human. Much like a lot of humans sounded nice when they weren’t afraid of a sea monster.

“I don’t know… I’ve only known him the one day,” Curtis said carefully, but he seemed to have the germ of an idea. “He just started yesterday, and he’s not familiar with procedures yet. He definitely won’t recognize the door, and if I tell him he’s supposed to be scaring in that room, there’s no reason he wouldn’t believe me.”

“He might lose his job, too, though,” Luca protested.

“No, he won’t,” Curtis assured him. “He was at the top of his class at MU – Waternoose had to outbid a company that wanted him to move to Lake Eerie. If we’re caught, I’ll take the blame. Louise is right, this is more important than her job or mine.”

Luca didn’t like that. He didn’t want to cause any trouble for people who were trying to be nice to him. It didn’t seem like he had much choice, though – he and Alberto didn’t know enough about this world, while Curtis and Louise actually lived here. So all he said was, “thank you, Sir.”

“All right, let’s figure this out,” said Louise.

She and Curtis set to work, planning how they would get the boys into the factory unseen. They decided to rent a truck and pretend they were making a delivery – then they could enter through the back of the building and avoid witnesses. From there, they would have to retrieve Rocco’s door from the review department. Curtis said he would lie and say he’d written a wrong number on the form, substituting the next door in the set for Rocco’s. From there, he would place it in the day’s queue. After that…

… after that they weren’t quite sure. Keeping Sullivan in the dark would be easy, as he was still learning and would do what he was told. Other people, however, would know that something strange was going on, and if anyone asked questions Curtis would have to improvise. As for getting the boys through the door, that was impossible to plan ahead for. They would have to just wait for an opportunity.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re caught,” said Louise. “The only thing that matters is getting them home.” Luca started to protest again, but she reached as if to grab him by the shoulders, before apparently thinking better of it and withdrawing her paws. “You said you didn’t want to cause trouble and I appreciate that, but whatever trouble happens, we’re adults, we can deal with it better than you can.”

Luca nodded. He and Alberto didn’t want to stay here, and wouldn’t have been able to even if they could.

With their plan set, Louise and Curtis agreed to meet early the next morning – Curtis would bring the truck, and Louise would pretend to be an employee. They said goodnight and Curtis headed home, and Louise looked them over again. She’d been giving them uncomfortable glances throughout the planning session, perhaps bothered by them just sitting there looking them looking like creatures she’d been taught to be afraid of. Several times, she’d even checked to make sure the curtains were shut, even though she was the one who’d closed them only minutes ago.

“I guess you two need somewhere to sleep,” she said.

“Yes, Madame,” Luca said.

“Do you have a treehouse?” Alberto asked.

“No,” said Louise, not sure what to make of that question, “but I do have a sofa bed. Get up.”

The boys obediently stood, and Louise handed them the cushions to hold while she unfolded the sofa into a mattress. Then she disappeared into another room, and came back with a pair of oversized shirts. At first, Luca and Alberto couldn’t figure out what they were supposed to do with these, unless make tents out of them – they were sized for large monsters, and even Massimo would have found them big.

“Nightshirts,” said Louise, seeing their confusion. “I’ll take your clothes down to the laundry.”

“Oh, thank you!” Luca said. It would be nice to wear something clean again.

“I’m sure you’d also like a bath,” Louise added. “It’s in there… um… will that make you change back to normal?”

Luca and Alberto exchanged a glance. “Well, yes,” said Luca, “but it wont’ stay. We’ll Change again when we dry out.”

“It’s not that one’s normal and the other isn’t,” Alberto added. “They’re both normal. It’s just what we do.”

“Right, sorry,” said Louise. She opened the bathroom door and showed them in. “Do they all look like you? The monsters where you come from. You’ve both got scales and fins, and you’re about the same size.”

“Yes, they all look like us,” said Luca, though he found it a strange thing to say. In his mind, sea monsters all looked very different from each other, even more than humans did – but to monsters who could have various numbers of legs, eyes, and wings, they probably would all look the same. “It’s because we live in the water. Our fins and gills help us survive.” He’d learned about evolution and how it affected organisms in school.

“That makes sense,” Louise decided. She ushered them into the bathroom.

Like the rest of her apartment, this was small but comfortable. She even had several scented soaps, although they had labels like tidepool and titan arum and the boys decided to use the unscented ones. It was a marked contrast with Harry’s house, which had been so over the top in the places where the family lived and so bare everywhere else. Luca and Alberto washed up, and when they came out again, clean and dry and back in human form, they found that Louise had made up the sofa bed for them with sheets and pillows. She looked disappointed to see they’d already Changed again.

“We can get wet if that would help,” Luca offered.

“No, I don’t want my sofa getting wet. It’ll take forever to dry,” Louise replied. She’d sat down on the end of the sofa bed and turned the television on, and was watching something identified by a title card as Scary Mason. The boys weren’t sure where they were supposed to go, but Alberto decided to go sit down on one side of Louise, so Luca sat on the other.

“So you two are from…” Louise thought for a moment. “It was Mean Time plus one hour. I don’t remember the name of the place.”

“Italia,” Alberto supplied. He didn’t know much geography, but he’d learned to find Portorosso on a map of Europe, and was quite proud of that. Luca, the one who’d taught him, nodded.

“What’s it like?” asked Louise. “All I’ve seen of the human world is kids’ rooms at night.”

“We’re right by the ocean,” said Luca, “and there are more hills than here.”

“It’s warmer, too,” Alberto said. “They grow grapes in the hills and tomatoes, and olives. There’s sheep, too, which are like big white sponges on legs, and they keep cheese under their wool so you have to shave them in the spring to get it out.”

“In the water we raise seagrass and goatfish,” Luca added, “and sturgeons for their eggs, and some of the richer families have groupers.”

“The humans catch fish, but they’re careful not to take the ones the sea monsters keep,” Alberto said. “We’ve explained it to them, and they stay away from the pastures.”

“It sounds like you get along very well,” said Louise.

“Yeah. Humans are just people,” Luca said. After his earlier revelation, he wanted to emphasize that. “I even go to school with them in Genova. That’s a big city, although there are bigger ones. My friend Giulia says the biggest is Roma. They’ve still got buildings there that are two thousand years old. We’ve never been, but we’re definitely gonna go someday.”

Luca stopped there and thought for a moment. He was starting to have an idea… he wanted to fix the problems they’d caused Louise by being here. They couldn’t do that in this monster world, but maybe they could somewhere else…

“I’m pretty much the greatest fisherman in town, except for my Dad, Massimo,” Alberto said. “He’s only got one arm, but he’s stronger than any of the guys with two. Every morning I deliver the fish on my bike. I saved up to buy myself one, because Giulia said I wasn’t allowed to ride hers anymore. I didn’t even crash it on purpose.”

Louise nodded. “I’ve never met a human I wasn’t trying to scare,” she admitted, “but I always got the idea they were skittish, bitey sorts of creatures, like… like raccoons or something. Like they’ll attack you if they’re cornered.”

“Nah, they know we’re good,” Alberto said. “Even when people from out of town visit, their relatives just tell them we’re okay and they’re fine.”

That seemed to be confirmation that Luca’s idea was good. He took a deep breath. “Maybe you could come with us?” he suggested. He was pretty sure that taking Harry would have been a disaster, but Louise was very different.

Louise laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that would go over great!”

“No, I mean it,” Luca said. “I’m sure you could get a job there. The fishermen always need help, and there are jobs on the farm at the end of summer. You’d just have to apologize to Rocco.”

“Yeah!” Alberto agreed, sitting up a little straighter. “Or you could even work in the Pescheria! If they’re okay with us, they’d be okay with you.”

“They’re okay with you two because you look like them,” Louise said. “I suspect they think you’re really just humans deep down, like I’m okay with you right now because I know you’re actually monsters under the skin.” Despite these words, she got up and moved to the ottoman again, shifting it so she could still see her detective show. “Besides, you two don’t want to be away from your own kind forever, do you? Neither do I.”

“Oh. You’re right.” Luca hadn’t even thought of that. Of course he and Alberto wanted to go home. Why would Louise be any different. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Louise said. “I’m sure I can get another job here. There are other energy companies, even though Waternoose is doing his best to gobble them up. Or I could try something else. I do like my job. I like knowing when a light goes on that I helped make that happen. But there’s other stuff in the world and maybe I wouldn’t have to put up with idiots like Steve Watkins.”

Once Scary Mason was over, Louise took the boys’ clothing and some other laundry down to the basement, and they settled into the sofa bed. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed in the world, having rarely been used and the fold lines in the mattress very distinct, but it was still better than the bed with no blankets at Harry’s house. Part of it was because there was no need to fear discovery here, it was probably also because Harry had hidden them away in part of the house for things his family didn’t want to think about. Louise, on the other hand, had unfolded her sofa and made room for them in her home.

“I hope we don’t get her in any more trouble,” Luca said.

“I don’t think she minds. She seems really nice,” Alberto replied with a yawn.

This was meant to make Luca feel better, but instead it seemed even more unfair that Louise was having to find a new job because of them. If Mr. Waternoose was working hard to buy up all the other scaring companies… what if he bought one and found Louise working there? Would he fire her all over again? Maybe it would be better, after all, if she just did something else.

There must be a solution. He would just have to think about it long enough.

Going to sleep at Louise’s apartment was very different from Harry’s house, and so was waking up. Yesterday morning they’d been alone and hungry and hadn’t known what to do, and had only barely gotten away. Today they woke to sunshine and the smell of food cooking. Luca yawned and sat up, and looked towards the kitchen. Squinting in the sun that was coming directly through the window, he made out Louise at the stove. She looked back and saw him, and waved.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Buongiorno, Signorina,” replied Luca. He wondered what time it was. It felt very early, and if the sun was right in the window it must be quite low.

“I’m making pancakes,” she said. “Want some?”

Next to Luca, Alberto stirred. “Hmm? Breakfast?” he asked. The iguana-cat had been sleeping by his feet, and it raised its head and yawned, showing off long sharp teeth.

“Yeah, frittelle!” Luca told him. “Come on, let’s get dressed.”

The pajamas they’d worn for their sleepover at Rocco’s were now clean and dry, and while they were stained a bit from all the muddy water, it was still much better than wearing them dirty, or the giant nightshirts they’d slept in. Both Luca and Alberto were cheerful and smiling as they bounced into the kitchen.

“Here you go.” Louise put plates in front of them. “I’ve got butter and syrup, too.”

“How about Nutella?” Alberto asked.

“I think there’s some here somewhere.” Louise opened a cupboard. “Let me see.”

Luca poured syrup on his pancake and took a big bite. Monster food seemed to taste okay, even when, like the three-eyed fish, it didn’t look very appealing. The pancakes just tasted like pancakes, and the syrup like syrup… though it wasn’t enough to make him regret refusing Harry’s eyeball lollipops.

“Found it!” Louise put the jar of spread on the table, and Alberto dug into it with a butter knife.

“Thank you, Madame,” said Luca politely.

“You’re welcome.”

Alberto, who always ate as if he hadn’t been fed in a week, stuffed half a pancake in his mouth. “You got any kids?” he asked, around this mouthful.

“No, I don’t,” Louise said. “I do have two little nephews, and I spoil them rotten on their birthdays. Is the pancake that good, that you’re already asking me to adopt you?”

“Nah, I’m already adopted,” Alberto assured her. “I was just wondering.”

A buzzer went off. Luca and Alberto looked up in alarm, but Louise just crossed to a speaker on the wall and pressed a button there. “Yes?” she asked.

“It’s me,” replied the voice of Curits. “I’ve got the truck.”

Luca relaxed – of course, they’d seen the other side of that last night.

“Great, come on up,” Louise said. “We’re having pancakes.” She pushed a different button.

Curtis knocked on the door a couple of minutes later. Louise let him in, and the iguana-cat looked up from its breakfast – a bowl of what appeared to be dried mealworms and roly-polies – to see who was there. Once the animal realized this guest was familiar, it returned to the bowl. Curtis bent down to give it a couple of pets, then stopped short as he saw Luca and Alberto sitting there eating.

After a moment, he relaxed. “Sorry,” he said. “There’s this old safety poster in the locker room at work, showing a human kid with blood all around its mouth, but the colours faded over the years so the blood looked brown.”

Luca turned to Alberto, who had Nutella smeared around his mouth. Alberto realized what Curtis was referring to, and grinned sheepishly before wiping his mouth on a napkin. Luca giggled.

“Pancakes?” Louise asked.

“Yes, please!” Curtis pulled up a chair. “Your cooking is always a treat, Louise.”

“There’s no need for flattery, it’s just a pancake.” She handed him a plate.

“Maybe you could work at a restaurant,” Luca suggested.

Curtis had been busy cutting a piece of pancake, but at that, he dropped his cutlery. “What, give up scaring?” he asked. “No way, Louise is the best!”

“She must be pretty good at it,” Alberto mused. “Signora Marsigliese said Rocco never wants to go to bed at night anymore. Sometimes he sits and cries for ages after Louise has been in there.”

“Sounds like my younger nephew,” said Louise. “For a while he was convinced there was a human under his bed and didn’t dare get up at night. He thought it would grab him if he dangled a limb over and then…” she glanced over her shoulder at the boys, then shook her head and took the last pancake out of the pan. “Well, silly thing to worry about, anyway.”

They finished eating and washed the plates, and then it was time to head for the factory. They wanted to arrive by seven AM, not so early as to look suspicious, but before too many people arrived for the day. They also didn’t want to frighten anybody on the way, so Alberto and Luca got wet again, and the group headed downstairs. They could hear people moving around and talking in the other apartments, but the halls of the building were empty.

They opened the front door onto the step, and there they got a shock.

A bundle of Monstropolis Argus newspapers had been left there – and these ones had a headline reading JUVENILE DELINQUENTS CAUSE CHAOS AT MONSTERS INC. Louise untied the twine and picked up the top copy, which unfolded to show a pair of police sketches that were obviously meant to be Luca and Alberto, although they looked much scarier than the boys actually were. Since the monsters here seemed to consider scariness something to aspire to, maybe they ought to be consider this a compliment.

Louise blinked at this a couple of times, then quickly folded the paper, put it back on top of the pile, and hefted the whole thing into the garbage bin. She then went and grabbed the much larger papers on the steps of the bigger building next door, while Curtis went to grab the tiny ones on the other side. These went into the bin as well, and Curtis filled two buckets with water from a spigot on the wall so that the boys wouldn’t dry out in front of anyone.

The rental truck was parked in the lot. It was a big boxy vehicle, painted with a colourful underwater scene featuring a squid-like creature and text to inform the viewer that the Tully Monster was the State Fossil of Chillinois. Luca and Alberto scrambled into the back and Curtis climbed up on the bumper to pull the rolling door down.

It was almost closed when a booming voice rang out: “Louise! You’re up early!”

Curtis quickly shut the back and the lock clicked, leaving the boys in warm, stuffy darkness.

“Good morning, Cynthia,” said Louise. “Curtis is just helping me get some stuff from the factory.”

The truck rattled as giant footsteps approached. Luca grabbed Alberto, terrified.

“You must have practically lived there!” said Sylvia’s voice from high overhead. “Shame about your job. Who were those boys your friend had with him last night?”

“Uh… boys?” asked Louise.

“Alan went to check if it were still raining, and stood there like a fool with the door open,” Cynthia explained. “When he finally shut the door and came back in, he said your assistant was there with two little boys.”

“Oh, they’re my nephews!” said Curtis. “Yeah. My sister married a fish monster from Fort Clawderdale! They want to be scarers when they grow up, and Louise is kind of their hero, so I brought them to visit.”

“Very nice young monsters,” Louise agreed. “Nothing like some of these delinquents you hear about. I can’t stay and chat, though, I’ve got a lot to do today.”

“Of course,” said Cynthia. “I just came out for the paper, actually. Isn’t it here yet? I could have sworn I heard the truck.”

“Maybe he’s running late,” said Curtis, climbing into the cab.

“See you later, Cynthia!” Louise got in the other side, and the engine started.

Luca sat down and curled his tail around him as they pulled out into the street. What would happen when Cynthia eventually saw the paper? When it never arrived on her step she would surely go looking for one elsewhere. If this place were anything like Portorosso there would be a dozen places to get newspapers. Signor Gamacchio’s store carried everything from the local Giornale to the Secolo from Genova to the Tempo all the way from Roma.

“Hey, cheer up.” Alberto sat down beside him and patted him on the back. “We’re going home today.”

“Only if this works,” said Luca.

“It will,” Alberto promised him. “Louise and Curtis are good. I never trusted Harry anyway.”

Luca’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, you didn’t?” he asked pointedly.

“I didn’t! I only pretended to because I thought it was the fastest way home!” Alberto huffed.

Luca looked him right in the eyes. Alberto stayed sullen for a moment, then his shoulders sagged. “I knew it was a bad idea,” he admitted. “But we needed somebody to be nice.”

“Giulia says sometimes you really gotta listen to Bruno,” Luca told him.

“You never know when until afterwards, though,” Alberto said. “Do you think Harry’s in a lot of trouble?”

“Probably,” Luca sighed. His annoyance with Alberto’s lie had been fleeting – yeah, trusting Harry had been a mistake, but it wasn’t as if Luca had been able to think of anything better. If it had been up to him, they would probably have just been left standing in the car park until they dried out again, and heaven knew what would have happened to them then.

They’d been nothing but trouble to anyone in this world, he thought, including themselves. Why did it have to be that way? Why did everybody have to panic? It seemed that monsters of all kinds – whether land, sea, or bedroom closet – were so scared of each other when they really didn’t have to be. All of them were just people.

Maybe that was what made all three monsters.

Chapter Text

The ride back to the factory was incredibly unpleasant. The school bus hadn’t been fun but at least there’d been windows to look through when Luca started getting queasy. In the back of the truck there was only the seams of light coming in around the door. The air was hot, dark, and close, and the ride bumpy, and Luca soon found himself feeling sick again.

They could hardly see each other in the dark, so Luca felt like he’d better warn his friend. “I think I’m gonna throw up,” he said.

“Right.” Alberto picked up his bucket and poured the contents over himself, even though he wasn’t nearly dried out yet. “Use this.”

“We were supposed to save that until we got there,” Luca protested.

“We’ve still got yours,” Alberto assured him. “We can share it.”

Luca nodded and swallowed hard. He hated throwing up. It wasn’t quite as bad on land, where it just went on the floor – underwater, where it mixed with the sea, was really horrible – but it still left that awful sour taste and raw feeling in his throat, and it still smelled. He spent the next few minutes trying desperately to keep it down, telling himself it wouldn’t be very grateful to Louise to vomit up her pancakes, but in the end he couldn’t help it. He bent over the bucket and retched.

Alberto patted him on the back. “You can use the water in your bucket to wash your mouth out,” he suggested.

“Thank you,” said Luca morosely. They could not possibly get home fast enough.

Eventually the truck began navigating more slowly and turning more often, moving around a car park rather than on a road. The light around the door went out as they passed into the shadow of the giant factory building. They slowed, then stopped, then the truck began making a beeping sound as it backed up. Luca and Alberto splashed themselves out of the second bucket, and Luca braced himself for having to apologize to Louise about the smell of vomit.

Then the first disaster happened. A voice called out, “Curtis? I thought that was you!”

The boys froze. That was the voice of the man called Bill Sullivan, Curtis’ new boss. He wasn’t supposed to be part of this plan yet. They weren’t supposed to see him until they were indoors – and he wasn’t supposed to meet Luca and Alberto at all.

“Oh, morning, Billy,” said Curtis. “I’m, uh, just helping Louise pick up a few things.”

The driver’s side door opened. “This is Louise?” Bill asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” Louise confirmed.

“Bill Sullivan,” the man said. “Curtis spent all of yesterday telling me about you. I was hoping I might meet you someday, and here you are.”

“Louise Halverson,” she replied. “I’m sure most of it was flattery.”

“Not at all,” Curtis said loyally.

“He told me you were scary,” Bill went on, “but I was not prepared for just how terrifying you are! Those kids must’ve passed out when they saw you.”

“No,” Luca whispered, “but Rocco’s mom said he cried a little.”

This must have been not just a monster compliment, but the monster equivalent of flirting. Louise chuckled indulgently. “How old are you, Mr. Sullivan?”

“Twenty-three!” Bill replied. “They hired me right out of college. Top of my class.”

“Well, I’m thirty-one,” Louise told him, “so while I appreciate the compliment, I don’t think it’s gonna go where you seem to hope.”

“I mean, you never know until you try it,” Bill said.

Curtis interrupted then. “It’s great that you two got to meet!” he said, clapping his hands. “I’m glad Bill could see in person what he’s got to live up to. Which makes me wonder… what brings you here so early, Billy?”

“I figured I’d come early and go for a jog around the place,” Bill replied. “Around the whole factory should be almost a mile. Care to join me?”

“No, thank you, we’ve got a busy day ahead,” Louise said.

“Then let me help,” Bill offered. “A workout’s a workout, whether it’s running or lifting! What do you need me to haul?”

Luca was getting really worried now. Were they going to be able to get rid of him, or would they have to start all over tomorrow?

“Why don’t you take him downstairs to get the stuff, Louise?” Curtis said. “I’ll watch the truck.”

“Are you telling me to go be alone with him?” Louise asked.

“The man deserves a shot,” Curtis said sweetly.

“The factory is big,” Louise warned Bill. “Do you know where the locker rooms are?”

“Curtis showed me around yesterday. I’ll be fine! And if I’m not, I have the scariest woman in the world to protect me.”

Their voices slowly faded away, and Luca and Alberto began to relax a little – but there was now only silence, and it was impossible to tell from inside the truck to tell if Curtis were still outside. Maybe he was planning something to distract Sullivan and had run off to set it up. The thick, warm air and the smell of vomit inside the truck were becoming unbearable. Luca felt like he would burst into tears.

Then there was a clunk, and the back of the truck raised a bit so Curtis could peek in. Luca and Alberto should probably have stayed where they were, just in case there were anybody else outside, but Luca at least couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled the door open a little further, and wiggled through the gap.

“Whoa, hey,” said Curtis. The truck had pulled up at a ledge that was almost, though not quite, level with the bed. Curtis helped Luca out, and then both of them got Alberto through. “That desperate to get out, are you?”

“It’s terrible in there,” said Luca apolgetically.

Curtis did not appear to have a nose, but he did make a sniffing sound. “Did somebody throw up?”

“It was me,” Luca replied, and apologized again: “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“Oh.” Curtis made a face. “Guess we’ll deal with that.”

“Where’s she taking him?” Alberto asked. He looked around, but it was impossible to tell which direction Louise and Sullivan had gone.

“I have no idea,” Curtis replied. “Away from here, so I can get you two into the building. That’s what matters.”

He brought in another garbage bin, and Luca and Alberto climbed into it. This time they arranged a couple of cardboard boxes, full of empty soda cans, on top to conceal them, and Curtis set off. This was another dark and bumpy ride, but it wasn’t nearly so hot and stuffy, so Luca could keep a better handle on his stomach. His teeth just rattled a bit as Curtis wheeled them through the building.

One of the soda cans had a few drops left inside it, and as they rumbled along, the liquid leaked out through a corner of the box and began dripping on Luca’s arm. It was gross and sticky and he wanted to lick it off, but he knew it was old and probably dirty, so he just had to leave it there. That made his arm the only part of his body that wasn’t starting to dry off. The disappearance of their tails gave them more room in the bottom of the bin, but when they got where they were going, they were going to need to get wet again in case anybody saw them. Luca hoped Curtis had thought of that.

It turned out that he had. He stopped, and the top opened. “Water coming!” he said to the boys, and sprayed some in with the hose from a janitor’s closet. It was cold and unpleasant, but it was enough to trigger a transformation.

Curtis went a little further and took an elevator down, then parked the bin in a hallway and opened the top a little. “Boys?” he asked. “I’m gonna go grab the paperwork I need so I can gave it ready when this place opens, and for that, I need to, uh, you know, borrow some keys. I’m gonna put ‘em back. Just wait right here, okay?”

They nodded. “We won’t go anywhere,” Alberto promised.

The lid closed again, and they heard Curtis’ footsteps walking away.

He seemed to be gone a very long time, but maybe that was just because there was nothing in the bin to tell how much time was passing – it was just dark and wet. Luca nibbled at the skin around his claws and Alberto picked at his gills. The sound of somebody approaching made them both perk up, but then they heard a woman’s voice singing to herself in Spanish, and realized it was not Curtis. The two boys hunkered down and tried not to breathe too loudly.

Then the second disaster happened.

“Oh, mira!” the woman said aloud to nobody. “Right in the middle of the hallway!”

Luca crossed his fingers as best his webbing would allow, and desperately hoped she wasn’t talking about their bin.

“All wet, too!” she grumbled, and opened the top. Luca’s heart nearly stopped. He and Alberto stayed very still as a questing tentacle moved the soggy boxes and cans around, but fortunately retreated without touching either of them. “This is a hazard, is what it is,” the woman said, and to the boys’ horror, she started wheeling the bin away.

Luca grabbed at Alberto in a panic. What were they gonna do now? They couldn’t just let her take them away, but if they shouted for her to stop, she would open the bin and find them, and then she might recognize them as yesterday’s troublemakers. They didn’t seem to have any choice but to just sit there and hope she would leave them someplace they could find their way back from.

Then she started down a flight of stairs. Curtis had taken the elevator, but this woman didn’t know she had passengers she ought to be gentle with – she just let it bump down step by step, while Luca and Alberto were thrown around inside and covered with more sticky soda pop, and did their best not to make a sound.

Just when Luca thought he couldn’t take it anymore, they reached the bottom and went through another door. Now they were on level ground again, but they had no idea where they’d ended up. How were they going to find Curtis again?

“They left this in the middle of the hallway!” the woman announced. “Dripping water all up and down the floor! Somebody could slip and crack their head open.” She brought the bin to a halt. “I’ve got to have a word with the day staff.”

Another person took the bin and started turning it around. “Oof, this is a heavy one!” said a man’s voice. “What’s in here? A dead body?”

This was spoken as if it were a joke, but a long silence followed. Were they considering it?

“Do we have to look?” the woman asked plaintively. “Let’s just dump it and not cause any trouble.”

“That just means somebody else will find it,” the man said. “Then we’ll be in trouble for not looking.”

“It’s probably just the water,” said the woman.

The lid opened.

Luca and Alberto didn’t have any better ideas, so they linked hands and threw themselves against the side of the bin to knock it over. Wet boxes spilled out, empty soda cans bouncing across the floor. The two monsters, both of them wearing aprons and hats with the factory logo on them, cried out in surprise. The boys picked themselves up and ran for their lives.

They didn’t have a destination in mind besides away from the people who might report them to Mr. Waternoose, so they just dashed down the hall, following the trail of drips left by the water in the garbage bin, and into a stairwell. This did not go any further down, so they headed up. On the floor above, they checked the hallway, and found that they were only a few doors down from a washroom, so they ran in there to make sure they were good and wet.

“Now what?” asked Alberto.

“We gotta find Curtis,” said Luca. “How many flights of stairs did she take us down?”

“I dunno… maybe three?” Alberto guessed. Both boys had been too worried about all the bumping and the possibility of getting hurt and making a noise – neither had counted.

They peeked out of the door again. There was nobody in the hallway. Luca wondered what time it was… Louise and Curtis had said it was important to get everything set up before there were many people around. They had to hurry.

They darted across to the stairwell again, and climbed the next two flights. There, they peeked out again, and then quickly shut the door when they saw movement – yellow and blue furry creatures coming around a corner. The boys ducked down to be out of sight through the narrow window as the monsters went by.

Then for the first time, something lucky happened.

“I’m not lost,” said a familiar drawl.

“You are so lost,” replied the voice of Louise. “If you’re not lost, which floor are we on?”

“Basement number two!” Bill Sullivan replied proudly.

“Yeah, there’s a sign right there by the stairwell doors,” said Louise.

The boys exchanged a glance, and Luca smiled hopefully. If they could alert Louise that they were here, she could get them back on track… but they’d have to do it without Sullivan seeing them. How were they going to do that?

“But we are on the right floor,” Sullivan pointed out. “From here… I think we go left.”

“Lead the way, Prince Alarming,” said Louise. Footsteps moved on.

Luca and Alberto peeked through the window again, and saw the two monsters disappearing around a corner. Moving as quietly as possible, they scurried after them as far as that corner, and there took another look. Louise was now leaning against a row of lockers, while Sullivan examined a directory. This was the first time they’d actually gotten a good look at him. He turned out to be a broad-shouldered, blue-furred creature with a thick tail, arms that came to past his knees, and a single large horn on his forehead.

Maybe they could get Louise’s attention while his back was turned. Luca reached out from behind the wall and waved, but she was watching Sullivan, and didn’t see him. He didn’t dare cry out, and the longer he was visible, the more likely Sullivan would turn around. After a few seconds, he had to duck back into their hiding place.

That was when a different door banged open, and bare feet slapped on the floor as a third individual came running in.

“Louise!” Curtis’ voice called out. “I lost the…” he paused, realizing Sullivan was still there. “I lost the stuff.”

“What?” asked Louise. “How?”

“I don’t know! I just turned my back for a second and they were gone!”

Sullivan was confused. “Weren’t we getting your stuff?”

“No, it was… the… it was the other stuff,” said Curtis awkwardly.

There was a pause. “I feel like I missed something,” Sullivan observed.

“Give us a minute,” Louise said to him. She grabbed Curtis and the two of them retreated into a doorway a couple of yards away, where they held a hushed conversation. Sullivan just stood there, too far away to hear them but watching carefully. The suspicious expression on his face got worse and worse, the longer Louise and Curtis discussed their problem.

Finally, they returned and Louise gave him a pained smile. “Mr. Sullivan,” she began.

“You two weren’t happy to see me, were you?” Sullivan asked.

“We, uh… not exactly,” said Curtis.

Sullivan took a step closer. “You’re up to something,” he observed. “What’s going on?”

“I’m afraid that’s none of your business, Mr. Sullivan,” said Louise.

“Maybe not,” he said, “but since it’s going on in his factory, it might be Mr. Waternoose’s business.” He came closer. “What are you hoping to cart away? Something big and expensive, I’m guessing by the truck. Something you can’t be seen with, seeing as it’s so early in the morning.”

Louise and Curtis were both quite furry, and at this, both of them fluffed up like frightened cats. Sullivan folded his arms across his chest and looked at them sternly. He was not trying to threaten them physically, though he was quite large, but the idea of involving Waternoose was more than scary enough.

This was exactly what Luca had been afraid of. Curtis and Louise had been so nice to them, and now because they were trying to help, Sullivan was going to tell Waternoose and get them all in even more trouble! He couldn’t stand it. If this were the third disaster, it was all Luca’s own fault as he ran to stand in between the two friendly monsters and the frightening one.

“Don’t tell Mr. Waternoose, please!” he said. “We’re just trying to get home!”

Sullivan blinked twice, then just stared at him in evident incomprehension. Alberto hurried up to join him, glaring defiantly at this creature several times his size. That just made Sullivan look even more surprised.

“Are… wait, are these the spies everybody was on about yesterday?” he asked.

“We’re not spies!” said Alberto. “We’re…”

Before he could finish, there was a sound from the stairwell. Voices and footsteps were approaching. It was impossible to hear what they were saying, but Luca grabbed Alberto’s arm again as he thought of the terrible possibility that the custodians had come looking for them.

Curtis was worried, too. He pulled out a set of keys – the ones he’d 'borrowed’ earlier? – and unlocked a door, then shooed Luca and Alberto inside it and ran in after them. Louise moved in front of the door.

The sound of footsteps, or at least the slapping of tentacles, approached… and then went right on by. There were some wordless greeting noises exchanged between this passing individual and Louise and Sullivan, but nobody seemed to find anybody else’s presence remarkable. Nobody noted the wet footprints the boys had left on the floor. The other person moved on, and Louise opened the door.

“They’re gone,” she said.

Curtis breathed out, and herded the boys back into the hallway. “It would have been just my luck if today was that one day Borisov missed his keys,” he said. “I mean, I don’t make a habit of borrowing them,” he added quickly, to Sullivan, “but I know people who do. It’s a thing in the department. When we need something and we don’t want to have to explain why… you know.”

Sullivan raised a bushy eyebrow at him, but then shook his head. “That’s not… what is going on here?”

“Do you promise not to tell Waternoose?” asked Louise. “I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for these kids. They need to go home. I don’t care what happens to me anymore, but it’s my fault they’re trapped here and if I don’t get them back, they could be killed.”

“Mr. Waternoose says he has to get rid of us so we don’t tell anybody that humans aren’t really toxic,” Luca explained. “Then anybody will be able to get their own screams instead of buying from him.”

“Slow down, slow down,” said Sullivan. “Start at the beginning.”

“Are you going to tell Waternoose?” Louise insisted.

“That depends on what you tell me,” Sullivan replied. “If you can convince me that you’re not up to anything illegal, then no, but I haven’t even started working here yet and I don’t want to get involved in any shady business.”

“You don’t have to,” sighed Curtis. “The whole idea was that you’d have plausible deniability.”

“What?”

In the end, they had to creep back into the little room, which was full of stored filing boxes, and tell the story yet again from the beginning. Sullivan looked intensely skeptical of the whole thing, which did not improve as the tale progressed – until the moment when Alberto got dry enough to transform. Louise and Curtis were used to this by now and only mildly startled, but Sullivan had no warning and nobody else had thought to mention it. The result was very nearly the fourth disaster.

Sullivan jumped up with a terrified holler that sounded more like a roar. Louise tried to put both hands over his mouth, while Curtis threw himself between Sullivan and the boys – Luca, too, had begun to transform – in case things got violent. They didn’t, but Louise took several seconds to stop Sullivan shouting, and eventually had to knock him over and pin him to the ground. “Stop it! I said stop it!” she insisted.

There was no way that had gone unheard, and sure enough the door went click and began to open.

Curtis grabbed the boys and dragged them behind the door, so that when some unseen person looked in, all they saw was Sullivan on the floor with Louise sitting on him.

“What was…” the intruder started to ask, then stopped himself. “Never mind. Sorry. Carry on,” he said, and shut the door in a hurry.

Everybody breathed out, and Louise climbed off Sullivan with an apology.

“We’re running out of time,” Curtis said, stepping out from behind the door. “People are arriving and we need everything to be in place by then.”

“We’re sorry for scaring you, Sir,” said Luca.

Sullivan looked him over warily. “You two can just… do that?”

“Yeah, when we dry off,” said Alberto.

“It’s not voluntary,” Luca told him.

Sullivan nodded slowly. “Yeah, you can’t stay here. If Waternoose doesn’t get you somebody will, and if the truth about humans gets out…” he grimaced. “The entire economy will collapse.”

“So you’ll help?” Luca asked hopefully.

The blue monster still looked uncertain about it.

“If you do, I’ll go out with you,” said Louise.

That made Sullivan perk up. “I haven’t asked you out yet.”

“You were working up to it,” she noted. “If you’ll help, I’ll join you for dinner and drinks at a place and time of your choosing. If we’re caught in the act, Curtis and I will both say you had no idea what was going on. You deny everything, and we’ll back you up. Even in court.”

“Even in court?” Curtis protested. He and Louise looked at each other for a moment, and then he sighed and gave a reluctant nod. “Even in court.”

“It means that much to you?” asked Sullivan.

“It does,” said Louise.

Sullivan thought for a moment. “Winsor’s Chophouse? Tonight at seven?”

Louise groaned. “That’s where Steve keeps trying to take me.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I’ve never actually been there,” she admitted.

“Well, whoever Steve is, I’ll make sure to rub it in his face that I took you first!” said Sullivan.

Things now seemed to be back on track, but it was clear that they’d lost an awful lot of time. Curtis finished filling in his paperwork, one form to say that he’d made a error on his review request and needed to withdraw it, and another to give them the door they were 'supposed’ to have submitted. He decided not to return his borrowed keys right away for fear of being caught, and instead headed up to get the forms on the top of the day’s pile.

Meanwhile, Louise had to figure out how to smuggle the boys up to the scare floor now that there were people moving around in the factory. Alberto tried to climb into a filing box but he was far too big. She and Luca were contemplating taping multiple boxes together to form a portable hiding place, but Sullivan offered something else.

“What about those carts for the scream canisters?” he suggested. “They hold twelve, so we can put a bunch around the edge and leave the middle open, and they can climb in there.”

Louise was doubtful. “It’ll be tight,” she said.

“We can do it!” Alberto said.

“We can try,” said Luca.

Sullivan found a cart and canisters, and they set it up for the boys to climb in. It was an awful squish, and they couldn’t have done it in sea monster form with their tails for extra volume. There was light, though, even after Louise draped a piece of cloth over the top to hide the hole in the middle. That had to be the end of her role, though, because she could not be caught in the factory. Under their original plan, Curtis would have come back down to get it, but now he was busy setting things up on the scare floor. It would have to be Sullivan.

“Can I have a kiss for good luck?” he asked Louise, pointing to his cheek.

“Don’t push your luck,” she replied with a smile. “You might earn one if the restaurant’s good.”

“We’ll order the lobster,” said Sullivan. “I’m not taking any chances.”

Hidden in the canisters, Alberto rolled his eyes. “Bleah,” he muttered.

“Sssh,” Luca told him.

Sullivan wheeled them back into an elevator, and they headed up. This was a much smoother ride than the garbage bin, and not nearly so uncomfortable. The space between the canisters meant that air could circulate and it didn’t get so hot and stuffy. Rather than feeling sick, Luca was twitchy. His arms and legs wanted to move, and didn’t have space to.

The elevator arrived with a ding. They bumped over the threshold of the scare floor, and Sullivan called out greetings to other employees.

“Morning, new meat,” somebody said.

“Morning – Stuart, right?” Sullivan said cheerfully. “I wanted to get started early this morning. Lieberman is filing some paperwork, so he asked me to bring the first cart up.” He parked it next to some equipment, and raised the cloth to check on Luca and Alberto. They nodded to him, and he removed a canister from the far side, where nobody would see them, to put it in the device. “How you doing in there?” he whispered to the kids, clanking the canisters to cover the sound.

“We’re good,” said Luca, his heart pounding. This was it. They were going home. He looked at Alberto, who was also getting squirmy. He was wiggling his toes, and when he met Luca’s eyes, he grinned.

“We’re almost there,” he whispered.

“Sorry I’m late!” Curtis called out, his feet pattering on the floor as he ran into the room. “I got my stuff filed!”

“You’re in plenty of time, I’m just early,” said Sullivan cheerfully.

Curtis went around the back of the cart and pretended to check the scream canister while he made sure the boys were there. “Your door is coming,” he whispered. “I put it second in the queue today. I figured first was too obvious.”

“Thank you,” said Luca. “Is Louise okay?”

“She’s still downstairs. Maureen’s gonna check in on her,” Curtis promised.

From their hiding place it was possible to peek between the canisters and get an idea of what was going on in the room. Everybody was getting ready for the day: monsters were running around, shuffling through paperwork and adjusting equipment. The bigger, more intimidating ones like Sullivan were taking off glasses and jackets, and doing stretches and practice growls. One was putting in a set of glowing contact lenses. Another was brushing its fangs.

The clock on the wall ticked over to 9:30 AM, and a signal blared to announce that the workday was starting. The lights went down and machinery started up. Curtis approached Sullivan with a folder.

“Six-year-old girl,” he said. “Scared of loud noises – right up your alley.”

“Hell yeah.” Sullivan grinned and cleared his throat. “Make sure we’ve got water on tap. I’m gonna be hoarse later.”

While Luca and Alberto watched from their hiding place, a door was lowered into place. This one was unfamiliar, but it had a child’s drawings taped to it, and a series of marks on the frame to show how somebody had grown. The machine connected to it, and a light came on. Curtis opened the door, and Sullivan charged in to roar at the sleeping child inside. Luca’s chest tightened as the shrieked in terror. Was there something about this world that meant monsters couldn’t use normal electricity like the humans did? They had to use screams?

That didn’t seem to have occurred to Sullivan. He strode back out of the door with a grin on his face and his chest puffed out. “Valedictorian of the scaring class!” he declared.

“Not bad for a rookie,” said Curtis. “Check the intake while you’re over there, would you? It was leaking last week.”

Sullivan inspected it. “Nope, looks good.” He winked at the boys and mouthed the words you’re up next. Luca felt all his muscles tense. When that door opened, he and Alberto had to run.

“Great,” Curtis said, and the equipment disengaged to let the door return to storage. “Next one, nine-year-old boy, nonverbal. Scared of eels and the dark. I remember this one. Louise used to find that just looming was very effective.”

“Well, we’ll see what he does with me,” Sullivan said cheerfully.

The door descended and slotted into place. It was fairly nondescript – hopefully it really was Rocco’s. Sullivan moved to one side, positioning himself so that the others in the room wouldn’t see Luca and Alberto crawl out of their hiding places and crouch in front of the closet door. Luca could almost hear Rocco breathing as he slept on the other side. He was going to get a scare, but hopefully he’d be relieved they were okay. He clenched his fists, ready to run.

Then the final disaster happened.

The lights went out. There was a whining sound as machinery shut down, and startled exclamations and groans from the various monsters. The main door of the scare floor rattled shut, leaving them in darkness lit only by the red exit signs… until a flashlight came on. Luca and Alberto peeked out from behind Sullivan to find their worst nightmares approaching them.

Waternoose was coming. Harry was right behind him.

“You see, Dad?” the monster boy asked, with a proud smile. “I told you they’d come back!”

Chapter Text

The Waternooses had not come alone. Behind them were at least a dozen people in the head-to-toe yellow suits of the exterminators, and none of them were as small as the tiny one Luca and Alberto had seen in the bathroom. Any one of them was big enough to lift the boys or Curtis right off the floor, and a couple looked ready even to take on Sullivan.

Sullivan placed his formidable bulk between the boys and the approaching exterminators, and roared like a tiger in a cage or an angry elephant seal. He rushed at the oncoming exterminators, and five or six of the yellow-suited figures immediately dogpiled him. For a moment Luca could only watch the fight, transfixed. This was not supposed to happen! They'd tried to plan this so that Sullivan wouldn't get in trouble, and now it looked like he was going to get in more trouble than any of them! What had happened to Louise? Had she gotten out of the factory okay? Because if they caught her in here after she'd already been fired...

A clawed appendage came down on Luca's shoulder, and he shrieked in terror and grabbed Alberto – but it was only Curtis.

“Come on, he'll hold them off, let's go!” Curtis urged.

Luca tore himself away, and he and Alberto ran after Curtis, who went straight for the nearest emergency exit and wrenched the door open. An alarm began to blare and sunshine flooded in, only to be eclipsed by the hulking shape of yet another exterminator. The boys and Curtis scrambled to a halt as this figure ducked through the door, having to bow each of its three heads in turn in order to fit. When they turned to run the other way, an exterminator with a tiny body slung between many long, spider-like legs had stepped into their way.

One of these legs darted out, and the pincer on the end grabbed Luca by the shirt and lifted him off the ground. Then it dashed him onto the metal floor, and two smaller exterminators pinned him down and put cold metal shackles around his wrists. A moment later, Alberto was beside him, also chained up, and then Curtis. A set of keys jangled as they fell out of his fur and tumbled across the floor to land at the feet of a knobby creature with a club on the end of its tail.

This individual, who was wearing a tie, bent down and picked the keys up, examined them for a moment, then scowled.

“Liebermann! So you're the one who keeps taking my keys!” it shouted.

“No! No! I swear, today was the fir...” Curtis began, but an exterminator put a hand over his mouth, shutting him up.

The group fighting Sullivan had him on his knees, and it looked like he would soon be on the floor with the rest of them. Then he seemed to get a second wind. With a snarl, he shoved off the three-headed exterminator, which had been trying to shackle him, and got to his feet. Three-heads staggered backwards and fell against Rocco's door, knocking it out of the clamps holding it.

“Oh, no!” Luca exclaimed, before an exterminator pushed his face against he floor again.

Sullivan knew they needed that door. He moved forwards to see it if it were damaged, but the others exterminators grabbed him from behind. This time, one of them pressed some small object against his neck, which seemed to cause him a lot of pain. Sullivan hollered and his fur fluffed out light a frightened cat's, then he went limp, and the exterminators were able to get big shackles around his wrists and ankles.

At last, all four of them were on the floor, and all that could be heard was the heavy breathing of the exterminators in their suits.

“Mr. Borisov!” said Curtis. “I promise you, everybody borrows your keys! It's not just me!”

The knobbly creature looked around the room. “Do they really?” he asked, suspicious.

“No!” said the nearest monster.

“Never!” another agreed, holding up all three hands.

“I told Lieberman to stop doing it!” a third chimed in.

“Oh, come on, guys!” said Curtis.

The three-headed creature had gotten up, and it picked up Rocco's door. The door looked rather bent, with splinters coming off one edge of it. Luca swallowed. Would it still work?

“Get rid of that,” Waternoose ordered. “Everybody, no need to panic. The incursion is handled. You can go back to work. Sawyer will be around with nondisclosure agreements for all of you to sign.”

The three-headed exterminator crumpled the door like it was wringing out a wet cloth. The knob fell out, and rolled in a circle on the floor.

Harry scuttled forward with a big smile on his face. “You see, Dad?” he asked. “I told you they'd come back! I told you they needed the door!”

Waternoose ignored his son, and put his fists on his hips to look the four prisoners over critically. “Now,” he said, “what are we going to do with you? The two boys from the human world I would have just killed, but now we've got Liebermann and Sullivan involved, and if they vanish they'll be missed. Shame about Sullivan. Your teachers absolutely raved about you, you know that?”

Sullivan scowled.

“Dad,” Harry insisted. “Dad, I was right, wasn't I? Wasn't I right?”

“You pipe down,” Waternoose told him.

“But I told you that...”

“Shut up!” Waternoose barked. “If you hadn't let them escape from the factory in the first place, we could have handled this days ago and we wouldn't have had all this bad press! Next time, think a little before you go running around trying to be clever!”

Harry stared at him, shocked and frightened.

All around them, other employees were very slowly moving to get things set up again and return to work, but almost all were still watching this spectacle going on in the middle of the room. Waternoose looked around and glared at people.

“What are you all staring at?” he demanded. “Let's see some work. The city needs power!” he punched his palm. “For now, we'll just find somewhere to put these four, and deal with them later.”

The exterminators picked up Alberto, Luca, and Curtis bodily off the ground. The one who had Luca and Alberto carried one boy under each arm, while a second, smaller individual slung Curtis over his shoulder like a sack of flour Three people dragged Sullivan to his feet, and he had to shuffle along with his ankles still shackled as they dragged him out of the room following Waternoose.

Harry scuttled beside his father, nervous, but eventually he got up his courage again. “Dad,” he said, “I know I screwed up, but I fixed it, right? I told you...”

“Oh, give it a rest, Harry!” groaned Alberto. “Your Dad is never going to be proud of you!”

“Nobody asked you!” Harry told him. “That's not even true. Dad's proud of me. Right, Dad?”

“Go home, Harry,” said Waternoose grimly.

“Tell them you're proud of me!” Harry insisted, an edge of desperation in his voice.

“I'll be proud of you when you do something worth being proud of!” snapped Waternoose. “I've been waiting eleven years! Now go home. Your mother and I will discuss your punishment this evening.”

Harry stopped. A few seconds went by while he just stood in the middle of the hallway while his father, the exterminators, and the prisoners got further and further ahead. Then he turned and ran.

Luca sniffled. The corners of his eyes were getting sticky from tears he couldn't quite keep in, and he couldn't brush them away or wipe his nose with his hands locked up behind his back. “You shouldn't have said that,” he said to Alberto.

“Yeah, I should,” Alberto replied. “It's true.”

Luca supposed that when it came to Dads who were never happy, Alberto was the one to know.

Waternoose led them through a maze of hallways and down a flight of stairs. Luca wasn't sure if all the twists and turns were necessary or if this were just to confuse them in case they escaped. When they arrived at their destination, however, he decided it had to be the former, because there was no way they were going to escape from here. The basement room they'd been brought to had pipes and wires in the ceiling, and bare concrete on the walls and floors. The floor sloped down to a drain in the back corner, but it was only about ten centimetres square, too small for any but the tiniest of monsters to crawl through. Anyway, the big cage in the middle of the room was metres away from it. The bars were an inch thick.

With a chill, Luca realized this had been here for a long time. It hadn't been built for them, it had been built for something else, possibly much worse. Luca wondered who or what that had been.

They were thrown in one by one. The cage was about as big as an elevator car, and while the elevators here were fairly large, being built to accommodate larger monsters, with Sullivan in there it was still a bit of a squeeze. The door shut with a very final-sounding thunk.

“I'll have to mull this over,” said Waternoose. “Write some nice letters to the Sullivan and Liebermann families and tell them how sorry I am about the tragic accident. You two walked right into a slumber party and were overcome by the pack.”

“Why don't you just send us home?” Luca asked.

The others all turned their heads to look at him.

“What?” asked Curtis.

“Why would he do that?” Alberto wanted to know.

“Because he's worried we'll tell everybody that humans aren't dangerous,” Luca pointed out. “If we go back to our world, we won't be able to do that, and we certainly never want to come back here! You can send Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Liebermann with us, so they can't tell anyone, either. You can think of it as...” what was it the ancient Greeks had used to do? He'd read about it in a book, which had used a specific word for when they made somebody leave a city forever. Luca couldn't remember it, so he substituted a similar one. “Banishment! You can banish us!”

His heart beat hard as he watched Waternoose. It probably wouldn't work, but maybe, just maybe, if the big monster could be made to think of it as a solution rather than another problem...

Waternoose snorted. “Send you back to tell the humans that monsters aren't dangerous? I don't think so. Besides, Liebermann knows the door schedules. He'd be back on the next available shift.”

With that, Waternoose and the exterminators left. The lights went out behind them, leaving only a red 'exit' sign above the door. Luca and Alberto could see each other's eyes shining by this feeble illumination. Sullivan's eyes turned out to be similarly reflective, but Curtis' were not. Another book had taught Luca that this was caused by a layer in the back of the eye which reflected light so that creatures like cats, owls, or sea monsters could see in the dark. Apparently only some of the closet monsters could do that.

“I'm sorry,” said Luca, into the oppressive silence left by the shutting of the door. “I didn't really think that was going to work, but I had to try.”

Alberto's shackles jingled as he shrugged. “I mean, you're the idea man.”

“What would we do in the human world, anyway?” Curtis asked.

“We'd find something for you,” Luca promised. “We talked about it with Louise. It'd be the same for you. People in Portorosso don't mind sea monsters, so they could get used to you, too.”

Sullivan just groaned. “My parents are going to be so disappointed,” he said.

“You're worried about your parents?” Curtis asked. “I mean, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's going to murder all four of us.”

“They were proud of me! Valedictorian of the scare class, with job offers right out of school,” Sullivan said. “I almost didn't talk them out of coming to see me on my first day. I would have died of embarrassment. They're probably wondering why I haven't called yet. I told them I'd phone at lunch every day.”

“Are they gonna be mad?” Luca asked.

“No,” sighed Sullivan. “Like I said, just disappointed.”

Luca nodded. “That's worse.”

“I hope Louise got out okay,” said Curtis.

“Yeah, me too,” Luca sniffled, then perked up a bit, a tiny fire of hope lighting up in his chest. Maybe... maybe Louise could help them. If she were hiding somewhere in the factory and realized they weren't coming back, she could come looking for them. Louise was almost as huge and strong as Sullivan. If she could take the exterminators by surprise, it might just work!

About half an hour later, another group of exterminators came in, dragging Louise. Obviously she had fought – she had a black eye, and one of the exterminators had a sleeve torn off his yellow suit. They stuffed her in the cage with the rest of them, making things even more crowded, and then left once again.

“Ma'am?” Luca asked cautiously.

“Are you okay, Louise?” Curtis wanted to know.

“I'll live,” she grumbled.

“What happened?” asked Luca.

“Maureen smuggled me down into the garbage room and told me I could hide out there,” Louise told them. “Then the exterminators came looking for me and I had nowhere to go.”

Luca hung his head. “I'm sorry.”

By the red light of the exit sign, he could see Louise's resigned smile. “What did I tell you about being sorry? It's not your fault.”

“It's gotta be somebody's fault,” Luca pointed out.

“Then it's Mr. Waternoose's fault,” Alberto decided. “He's the one who made a big deal out of things. If not for him we could have just gone home.”

There was another long silence then. The one red light in the room kept it from being totally dark, but there were no clocks or even windows to give an indication of time passing. Curtis had been wearing a watch, but he couldn't look at it with his hands locked up behind his back. It seemed like all they could do was sit there, and they didn't even know how long it had been.

Alberto was the first to fall asleep. Sullivan was second, and snorted a bit. Luca decided he might as well shut his own eyes, and leaned against Louise to use her as a pillow. He hoped she wouldn't mind, and it didn't seem like she did – when he woke briefly a little later, he found that she was asleep, too. At least with all these bodies in the small space of the cage, it wasn't cold in here, and leaning on Louise was something like having a dog or cat in bed with him, warm and furry and reassuring. Luca settled down again.

The next time he woke up, he heard a jingling sound.

For a moment he couldn't think what it was, although he knew it was familiar. Then he realized it was the sound of keys. Keys meant somebody was coming in, and somebody coming in might mean Waternoose had decided what to do with them. Suddenly wide awake, Luca sat up and shook Alberto.

“Wake up! Somebody's coming!” he hissed.

“Huh?” asked Curtis, on the other side of Louise, then seemed to hear the noise himself. “Oh, no.”

All five of them were awake by the time the door began to open. Sullivan and Louise both stood, awkwardly with their legs still shackled but determined to meet this with whatever show of force they could. Luca, Alberto, and Curtis stayed behind them, but peeked between and around the larger monsters to see what was going on.

The jingling went on as if somebody was trying to find the right key by trying each of several in turn. Then the door creaked open, and several eyes, glowing pink, seemed to check the room out before their owner entered. This small, roundish figure scuttled across the floor towards them, and Luca and Alberto recognized the motion at once. It was Harry.

“What are you doing here?” Alberto hissed at him.

Harry came closer, but stayed just far enough from the bars that nobody inside the cage could reach him. “You said your Dad was terrible, so you left him and found a new Dad,” he said to Alberto.

“Yeah, I did,” Alberto replied cautiously.

“So we got home and he just yelled at me a bunch more, and then him and Mom had a big fight and he called me a disgrace to the family. And I realized you were right, he's never gonna be proud. So now I'm gonna go find a better Dad in the human world, like you did.”

Luca had a feeling that wasn't going to work, but he didn't say so. It would have been nice if Harry's Dad had loved him, but right now they just needed to go home and keep the people who'd helped them out of trouble. When he glanced up at the adults he found them looking skeptical, but none of them said anything, either.

“How are we gonna get there?” Alberto asked. “They broke Rocco's door.”

“All doors lead to the human world,” said Harry. “We'll just pick one.”

Louise's shackles clanked as she tried to gesture, but couldn't. “The one I found you in was fourth shift. I think it was section...” she frowned and looked at Curtis.

“A-113!” he said. “If we can find another door from that sector, it ought to be close.”

Luca and Alberto weren't too sure about that. “How big is sector A-113?” Luca asked.

The monsters didn't seem to care. Harry found the right key and opened the door, and then started opening the shackles as the prisoners crawled out one by one. Luca's arms and legs were stiff after being kept in one position for so long, and he had to shake and stomp to get the feeling back into his fingers and toes. Once everyone was free, Harry cracked the door open and peeked outside.

“There's a lot of exterminators wandering around the factory,” Harry told them. “Just checking up on things. So we'll have to be really quiet.”

“Got it,” Alberto promised.

They crept out into the hall and Harry turned left, which turned out to take them to the elevators. These, however, could not be used. There was an exterminator, in his full suit, sitting between the two sets of elevator doors and reading a magazine with a furry monster in a swimsuit on the cover and a tagline promising two, three – even five beautiful faces! Luca remembered how Marie and Jeanette at the school had interacted, and wondered if a monster with five heads had even more trouble agreeing on things. It would be like having four siblings you couldn't get away from.

Harry chose another direction, and they found their way to a set of stairs. Everybody moved softly on all fours to make as little noise as possible as they climbed. The numbers painted on the wall told them when they reached the ground floor. Curtis cracked the door open, then froze as another exterminator walked, by, whistling. Everybody held their breath, but it didn't seem to see them.

“Okay,” Curtis whispered. “I know where we are now. The door warehouse is this way.”

He took the lead now, escorting the others through the grid of hallways that all looked the same as far as Luca and Alberto could tell. If they heard anyone coming, they would duck into a washroom or down a side hall and let the exterminator or security guard pass. Luca thought he might die of sheer anxiety as they passed through one close call after another, but they finally made it to a set of doors marked warehouse. Maybe they'd used up all their bad luck that morning. Maybe they were going to make it after all.

The doors were, of course, locked.

“All right,” said Curtis. “I guess I'm gonna go get Borisov's keys again. Man, he's gonna kill me.” He sighed. “We'll need a scream canister too, to activate the door.”

“He won't kill you,” said Alberto. “You'll be safe in the human world.” He and Luca were both sure that, if nothing else, the monsters wouldn't follow them there.

“I don't know if I like that any better,” Curtis said, mostly to himself. He slipped away into the dark halls.

It seemed to take a very long time for him to come back, but at least this time there was a clock. It was hung on the wall over the warehouse doors, and showed that it was just after eleven at night. The hands crawled around the face again and again for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. Finally, after a very slow and nerve-wracking twenty-five minutes, Curtis came back looking apologetic. He was carrying one of the yellow canisters, with a gauge on the side indicating it had a little bit left in the bottom, but there was no sign of keys.

“I can't find them in any of the usual spots,” he said. “I think he must've taken them home or hidden them after he yelled at me earlier, and I don't want to make too much noise by searching for them.”

Sullivan pointed a thumb at the door. “Is this alarmed?”

“Of course it is,” said Curtis. “Closet doors are dangerous. In the wrong hands...”

“Then we'll move fast,” Sullivan interrupted, and slammed his shoulder into the door.

The first blow bent it, but did not break it. Sullivan backed up and did it again. This time, the doors bowed inwards, opening a crack to show the darkness within. An alarm began blaring. The third time, Louise joined in, and the doors flew open, the hinges screaming as they were torn from the wall. More alarms started to wail, and the lights began to flash red.

“Follow me,” Curtis ordered, and dashed in.

Luca, Alberto, and Harry ran after him, with Louise and Sullivan bringing up the rear. The pulsing red lights that went with the alarm made everyone seem to be moving in jerks, and Luca was having trouble seeing where anything was, but Curtis knew the way. He turned right into the A section, and ran down an aisle with doors hung from railings on either side, like shirts in a shop. The numbers above the rails started at A-001, and Luca's heart sank thinking how far they would have to go.

“Second floor!” Curtis said, hurrying up a flight of stairs onto a metal walkway. The numbers at the bottom had been at A-010, but on this level they were at A-110, and Luca felt a little better. Once they'd all reached the top, Sullivan ripped the stairs from the bolts holding them to the walkway, and tossed them to the floor so that anybody following would have to find another way up.

They made it to number 113, and there they paused. It was just one line of doors out of the thousands that were in here, but there were still hundreds of them on the rail. They had no idea where any particular one might take them.

Shouting voices and running footsteps could be heard below. They had to find one.

“Which one?” asked Louise.

Curtis flipped through them. “I don't know. Kids, you got any input?”

Luca followed him down the side walkway, but all the doors looked the same. It looked like they would just have to choose randomly before they ran out of time, and deal with wherever they ended up.

Then something caught Luca's eye. “Stop!” he told Curtis. “That one!”

Louise took the door down from its hook, and Luca grinned at the sight of it.

“That's Dorotea's door from school!” said Luca. “Giulia and I did a group project at her house once. She said she drew on it with crayon when she was little.” The stick figures of herself and her dogs that she'd scribbled years ago had been party worn away, but were still identifiable. Exactly as Luca remembered it.

The monsters didn't have time to ask questions. They leaned the door against the walkway railings, and Curtis counted down from three before opening the scream canister at the same time as Louise turned the knob. The sound of a child screaming, distant and tinny from being stored in the can, echoed through the warehouse. Lights flickered above doors that were still on the railings, and Louise opened the door. The other side was almost too bright to look at in the dark warehouse.

“Get in there!” Louise pushed Luca and Alberto in, and Harry after them.

Passing through was a little odd, because of the door leaning at an angle. Louise dropped Luca in as if he were going to fall all the way, but after passing through he suddenly found himself going up before dropping again and landing on the floor with a thump. A moment later Alberto was landing next to him, and they rolled out of the way to make room for the larger monsters as Harry came through.

Harry turned around, and slammed the door.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Luca asked.

“We're almost out of scream anyway,” Harry told him. “They're too big, the humans will be too scared of them.”

“They helped us! We have to help them!” Luca took the knob while Alberto pushed Harry out of the way, but when they wrenched the door open again, there was nothing on the other side but Dorotea's closet. She'd stuffed a bunch of clothes and toys into it so her parents would think she'd cleaned her room. A couple of these fell out, including a round object that Harry scooped up and looked at.

It was a doll's head. The eyes opened when he held it upright, prompting him to scream and throw it across the room.

“What's wrong with you, stupido?” Alberto demanded, clearly taking some pleasure in using the phrase for its intended purpose. “It's just a toy!”

Then the other door opened. All three turned to see, and found Dorotea's mother, a woman with short dark curls, wearing a polka-dot blouse, standing in bedroom door staring at them. It was hard to say whether she'd noticed Alberto or Luca. Her eyes were fixed on Harry. She stared for half a second, then pulled the door shut with a bang and they heard her footsteps running down the stairs.

“Oh, no,” said Luca, and ran to follow her.

Behind him, he could hear Harry shouting at Alberto: “don't close the door! Prop it open!” he was saying. “They can't activate a door if it's open on this end!”

“Signora Molinari!” Luca called out, hurrying down the steps. He followed the woman into the kitchen, where she pulled a telephone book out of a drawer and began madly flipping the pages. Luca ran up on the other side of the counter and put his hands on the book to make her stop. “Signora Molinari, it's me, Luca!” he said. “I go to school with Dorotea, remember?”

She stopped short, staring at him. “Luca? What are you doing here? Don't you and Giulia go home in the summer?”

“We need help,” said Luca.

“Of course,” Signora Molinari replied, “but you...”

There was a sound on the stairs. Luca and Signora Molinari both looked, in time to see both Alberto and Harry duck out of sight behind the wall that separated them from the kitchen.

“Okay,” said Luca. “This is Alberto, he's my friend from Portorosso. Alberto, come out.”

Alberto emerged, and gave Signora Molinari a friendly grin as he waved at her. “Hi.”

“Yes, you mentioned him,” she said.

“And this is Harry,” Luca added. “He's, uh... he's the monster who lives in Dorotea's closet. He looks scary, but he's not gonna hurt you.”

“Kinda like us,” Alberto agreed.

Harry came down the stairs, eyes wide as he looked up at Signora Molinari. Luca had to wonder what he was thinking. He looked awestruck to be here in a human's house, staring up at just one in a whole world of creatures he'd only heard about, but had never seen. Signora Molinari needed a moment to collect herself, and then forced a smile.

“Lovely to meet Luca's friends,” she managed.

Luca was thinking as hard as he could, trying to figure out what to do next. Harry couldn't stay here, not any more than he and Alberto could stay in the world of closet monsters. They had to send him home. They also had to find out what had happened to Louise, Curtis, and Sullivan. The adult monsters had only been trying to help, and now they were trapped there and had probably been captured again, at the mercy of Mr. Waternoose and the exterminators. How were they going to do any of that?

At least Luca knew where they were. That was a start. “We need to keep the closet door open so no more monsters can follow us here,” he told Signora Molinari. “And then I think we better go back to Portorosso. Can you please call Signora Marcovaldo and tell her we're here and we need help with monster stuff?” Giulia's mother would at least be partly prepared if she heard that.

“Uh, yes. Yes, I can do that,” Signora Molinari decided, with a glance at the phone book. Luca carefully removed his hands from it, and the woman closed it and dialed Signora Marcovaldo's number... all while keeping her eyes locked on Harry.

Luca pulled a chair out and sat down at the kitchen table. Alberto sat next to him, and Harry would have joined them but quickly realized that the chair was not designed for his physiology.

“I still can't believe you did that,” Alberto told him. “What were you thinking?”

“What do you mean, what was I thinking?” huffed Harry. “You think she'd be calling your friend if those three grownups were here? She'd be calling the police instead.”

He might have been right, but Luca came to a much more depressing realization. “He was thinking the same thing I was thinking when I shouted sea monster,” he said. In that moment, the only thing Luca had been able to do was try to save himself. He'd thought Alberto had already ruined things for himself, and Luca couldn't end up the same way. It had been the worst thing Luca ever did, and he'd regretted it immediately, but at the moment there'd seemed to be no other way. “He was just scared.”

“I was not!” said Harry.

“Hello, Signora Marcovaldo?” Signora Molinari said to the phone. “It's Giada Molinari. My daughter Dorotea goes to school with Luca and Giulia. Um... Luca is here with a couple of friends, and they say they need your help.”

Chapter Text

About twenty minutes later, Helena Marcovaldo arrived at the door. By then Alberto, Luca, and Harry were seated around the kitchen table, with their rather distracted hostess serving them cioccolata. Harry had ended up standing on the chair, looking rather precarious with his many legs tucked underneath him on the small seat, but he didn’t seem to mind. He slurped at the chocolate in delight, and was looking around at other objects in the kitchen with a smile on his face. When Dorotea’s mother let Helena into the kitchen, he was thrilled to be meeting a second human.

“Luca!” Signora Marcovaldo said, coming at once to give him a hug. “Santo Tallegio! What’s going on?”

“We visited another world inside Rocco’s closet,” Luca replied, hugging back tightly. He didn’t want to let go. Signora Marcovaldo, with paint-spattered overalls and her unruly red hair so much like Giulia’s, was so wonderfully familiar. After those horrible days in the monster world it was almost as good as being back with his own Mom and Dad.

“You did… what?” Signora Marcovaldo asked.

Reluctantly, Luca loosened his grip and sat down again. Signora Molinari gave Helena a cup of coffee, and the boys began to tell their story.

Signora Marcovaldo knew that Luca and Alberto had been missing for a couple of days, because Giulia had told her on the telephone, but nobody had any idea that they’d vanished into Rocco’s closet. The two adults looked more and more astonished and skeptical as the boys described how bedroom closets were a portal to another world and the monsters who lived there used screams for electricity… but every time they looked about to protest, they would glance at Harry and say nothing. He was clearly real, sitting there stuffing bombolini in his mouth, and they couldn’t argue with that.

“So now,” Luca finished, “we need to get Harry back to his own world, and then we need to help Curtis and Louise. I think we should go back to Portorosso, and then find somebody else who has a monster in his closet.”

“You can’t use Rocco’s again?” asked Helena.

The boys shook their heads. “His door got wrecked,” said Alberto.

“They’d have to recreate it from scratch,” Harry explained, “and they won’t, because he’s probably not even scared anymore.”

“It’ll be easier in Portorosso,” Luca added, “because people there don’t mind sea monsters, so they’ll have an easier time getting used to Harry. I think anybody who saw him in Genova would panic.” Signora Molinari had certainly come close. “We need to find a way to get him to the train station without anybody seeing him.”

“I want to see the city!” Harry protested. “It’s full of humans.”

“You can’t,” said Alberto. “You can see Portorosso, but in Genova you have to hide.”

“I didn’t keep you locked up in Monstropolis,” Harry complained.

“You kinda did,” Alberto said. “You put us in that tiny room for the night, and we were too scared to go anywhere.”

“That’s your fault,” Harry humphed.

Signora Marcovaldo looked dubious, as if she suspected people in Portorosso would mind these monsters very much. “How can we hide him?” she asked. “I suppose he doesn’t do like you two and transform as a disguise?”

Luca and Alberto shook their head.

“How much time do we have? Giada,” Helena said to their hostess, “when are Giovanni and the kids due back?”

“Any moment now,” Signora Molinari admitted unhappily. “I don’t know what they’ll think when they find him here. It took me years to convince Dorotea the first time that there wasn’t a monster in her closet and if she finds out there was the whole time I might never get her to go to bed again.”

“Then we’ll have to think of something fast.” Helena looked around the room, trying to get inspiration somewhere. “Do… do you have a baby pram?”

“We do!” Signora Molinari exclaimed, standing up. “Let me find it!”

She dragged the pram out of the attic, stirring up clouds of dust in the process, and found a blanket that could be draped over the top to conceal the contents. Harry rather reluctantly climbed in, and if he settled down with his legs tucked up under him, he just barely fit. Signora Molinari draped a blanket over the top, and the result looked surprisingly plausible. As long as Harry kept quiet, everybody would assume there was a sleeping baby.

They were just in time – when Signor Molinari looked out the window, she found her husband and children approaching the house. Helena grabbed her purse, and the boys fell into step behind her as if they were just leaving. Signora Molinari held the door for them as her family approached the house.

“Lovely to see you as always, Helena,” she said, her voice loud and false. “Oh, and here’s Giovanni and the kids! Did you have a good day at the museum?”

“Yes!” Dorotea replied, running up to hug her mother. “Hi, Luca! I thought you went back to Portorosso for the summer.” She looked puzzled as she realized that Luca and Alberto were in their pyjamas, but did not immediately remark on it.

“We just came up to visit,” Luca said quickly, keeping the conversation off their clothes. “This is my friend Alberto. Alberto, this is Dorotea. She’s the one who gave me the book about the tomb of King Tutankhamon. This is her little brother, Nino.”

Nino, six years old, waved.

“Piacere! Girolamo Trombetta!” Alberto shook the little boy’s hand. If he continued doing things humans thought were weird, maybe they’d assume the pyjamas were just more of the same.

It seemed to work – but he couldn’t distract them from the presence of the pram. Dorotea looked up at Helena hopefully.

“Can I see the baby?” she asked. “My friend Bella has a new baby brother, too! Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a boy,” said Helena, “but I don’t think we should disturb him. He’ll be very grouchy. Some other time, perhaps.”

Dorotea looked disappointed, but she and Nino waved goodbye as Luca and Alberto followed Giulia’s mother out into the street. Helena breathed out, relieved.

“Are we outside?” Harry whispered from under the blanket.

“Yes,” Alberto told him.

The blanket moved.

“Don’t!” Luca hissed.

“I just wanna see,” Harry whined.

“Here.” Luca folded a corner of the blanket back so that Harry couldn’t accidentally drag the whole thing off in his attempts to peek out. One of the monster boy’s many eyes appeared in the gap, and Luca dropped back a little so that Harry could get a better look around.

“Wow!” he heard Harry whisper.

The city of Genova was certainly very different from Monstropolis. The monster city had been built on very flat land, though with mountains visible on the horizon in the east and, according to one of the maps in the classroom, the ocean somewhere in the west. Genova had mountains to the north and the sea to the south, but the one butted right up against the other rather than the two being separated by a broad plain. The buildings Luca and Alberto had seen from bus and car windows in Monstropolis had been very similar to each other and generally very plain, as if somebody had decided to build as many of them as possible as quickly as they could. In Genova the buildings, arrayed in layers on the hillsides, were all different colours and different sizes, some of them with marker stones to show the date they’d been begun.

“It looks like a city made of Turkish delight!” said Harry. “Hey… is that ice cream?”

“It’s gelato,” Alberto told him.

“Be quiet!” Luca urged. There were people around, standing outside shops and houses and talking to each other, or going about other business. Nobody was paying attention to Helena and the boys, but that might change at any moment.

As they passed, Harry turned to take in the freezer of brightly-coloured gelato flavours. The blanket moved, and Alberto and Luca grabbed at it to try to keep it in place.

“Is anybody looking?” Luca asked.

“I don’t see anyone,” Alberto told him.

“Then it’s okay!” Harry pushed the blanket aside and hopped out, scurrying up to the gelato counter. “Look at them all!”

“Harry! Harry, come back!” Helena hissed. She, Alberto, and Luca gathered around him as he gazed at the frozen treat, trying to shield Harry from the view of the people around him. It was too late, though. The man running the gelato stand had stood up and was looking down at them through a pair of sunglasses, and his pet dog was standing stiff, growling a bit.

“Tino!” the man said. “Basta! Don’t scare off the customers!”

The dog, a small brown and white creature with tight curls in its fur, whined and looked up at his master, as if to ask him how he could possibly fail to notice the little monster excitedly reading out flavours. Luca and the others held their collective breath, waiting for the moment the man realized what he was seeing.

“What can I get for you, young man?” the vendor asked.

“That one!” Harry pointed.

The vendor chuckled. “You’ll have to tell me the name,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m quite blind.”

Helena leaned on the pram in relief, so heavily it actually tipped back on its wheels. Luca had to grab Alberto so that he wouldn’t simply fall over.

“Strac… stracky a…” Harry frowned, sounding it out.

“Stracciatella!” the man said.

“Strachy-a-teya,” said Harry.

“Stracciatella!” the vendor repeated. “Try again.”

“Stracciatella,” Harry got it closer.

“Close enough!” The vendor put a scoop of it in a cone. “It’s sweet milk with chocolate.” He wrapped the cone in a paper napkin and held it out.

Harry stood up on the tips of his many legs to take it. “Do you want a son?” he asked.

“That good, is it?” The man laughed. “I’m afraid I already have two, and that’s plenty!”

Helena bought gelato for Alberto and Luca, as well, and was handing the vendor a banknote to pay when a father with two children came up to take a look at the flavours. Alberto and Luca quickly moved in between this family and Harry so that Helena could get him into the pram unseen. The father was talking to the vendor and the two girls were staring at the ice cream, so it looked like they might have a chance – until the dog barked as Harry got too close again and the smaller girl looked to see what had scared it.

“What is that?” she shrieked, pointing. Helena quickly spread the blanket over the pram with Harry in it. The girl’s father and sister both turned to look.

“Oh, Tino’s a lagotto,” the blind vendor said. “He’s awfully nervous today, isn’t he?”

Tino the dog lay down, putting his head on his paws with a frustrated snort.

“Thank you very much, Sir! Have a nice evening!” Luca called, waving as they hurried away. The younger girl was gesturing frantically as she tried to tell her father and sister that she’d seen a giant spider eating ice cream.

“Don’t you dare do that again!” Helena hissed to the blanket. “You were nearly seen!”

“Yeah, but I got ice cream out of it,” Harry replied, his mouth audibly full.

“That was purely to save face,” she said crossly. “Next time it may not go so well.”

Luckily, the gelato seemed to satisfy Harry enough that he was willing to remain in the pram, just peeking out from under a corner of the blanket, for the rest of the trip back to Signora Marcovaldo’s apartment. She lived on the fourth floor of a block of flats, and the pram was slightly too big to fit in the tiny elevator, so they had to drag it up the flights of steps while Harry complained they were making him seasick. One of Helena’s neighbours paused and offered to help them, but they refused, not wanting him to realize how heavy the pram was.

Finally they manoeuvred the pram down the narrow hallway to number forty-four and squeezed it through the door. For Luca, it was a relief all over again. After living in this apartment for eight months, Luca knew it almost as well as he knew his parents’ farm in Portorosso Bay. The little kitchen with the old coffee pot that sat in the middle of the table, the view over the bay, the side bedroom where his and Giulia’s beds were. It was all familiar and wonderful.

Nerone the dog came bouncing up to greet them, then stopped short, his ears pricked up and his tail raised. His nostrils flared as he sniffed, and it seemed the corgi would have agreed with his lagotto counterpart in not at all liking what he smelled. The hair stood up down his back.

Luca tried to distract him. “Hi, Nerone,” he said, offering the dog a hand.

Nerone ignored this, and his lip curled as he growled at the pram.

“No,” said Helena sternly to her pet. “Harry is a guest. Luca, put him in the bedroom, would you?”

“Yes, Madame.” Luca took Nerone by the collar and led the little dog firmly into the room he and Giulia shared. Nerone did not want to go, and while he was far too small to actually stop Luca dragging him out of the room, he widened his stance and kept his snarling nose pointed towards the pram the entire way.

“There!” said Luca, shutting the door.

Harry took that as permission, and snatched the blanket off his head. “Whew! I couldn’t breathe in there!” he complained, and climbed out of the pram to start exploring the kitchen. The view from the little window immediately caught his many eyes, and he scuttled over to climb up on a chair and look out. “What’s that?”

Luca came to see what he was looking at. “Oh, that’s La Lanterna,” he said of the lighthouse. “It’s four hundred years old.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Luca couldn’t help being eager to share the thigns he’d learned. “Do you have anything that old in Monstropolis?”

“No way,” said Harry. “The whole city’s only half that old.”

“There’s actually been a lighthouse there longer than that,” Luca added, “but it got old and fell apart, so they had to rebuild it. I’ve got a book about the history of the city somewhere.” He almost went to go get it out of the bedroom, but then he heard Nerone’s nails scratching at the door. If he opened it, the dog would doubtless come barrelling out.

Signora Marcovaldo, meanwhile, had lifted the receiver from her telephone and dialed zero. “Hello?” she said. “Operator? Yes, can you get me Marsigliese’s Drogheria in Portorosso? Thank you.”

Alberto and Luca both came a little closer as the phone rang. When Luca was in school, he’d arranged a time to talk on the phone with his parents every week, but calling unannounced was a little more complicated. Massimo didn’t have a telephone of his own, so they had to call Signora Marsigliese, who had one in her shop that she sometimes allowed people to use, and he would go and get them.

“Hello, Carolina?” Signora Marcovaldo asked. “It’s Helena in Genova. Good news, I’ve got Luca and Alberto!”

“What?” asked Signora Marsigliese. “How did they get there?”

“It’s quite a story,” Helena told her, “but they’re both safe and that’s the important thing. Here.” She offered the phone to Luca.

“Hello, Signora Marsigliese,” said Luca, and his first question was, “how’s Rocco?”

“Rocco? Rocco’s fine,” Signora Marsiglese replied. “How are you? He told me his monster took you two away into the closet and that’s all I’ve been able to get from him.”

“She did,” said Luca, “but it’s okay, she’s actually very nice.”

“Who is?”

“The monster. Her name is Louise, and I think she needs our help right now.”

“What are you talking about?” Signora Marsigliese wanted to know.

Harry had found Helena’s birdwatching binoculars, which she kept in a drawer below the window, but was disappointed once he got a good took at them. “Do you have one with more eyes?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not,” she told him. “Two is pretty standard.”

Harry shrugged and fiddled with them, trying to match the spacing to one of his sets.

“We’ll tell you all about it when we get back to Portorosso,” Luca promised. “Can you please tell Massimo and my parents that we’re coming?”

“Of course, of course,” said Signora Marsigliese. “They’ll be so happy – your parents have been absolutely frantic, and the Pescheria has been closed the whole time you’ve been gone.”

“Really?” Alberto asked, leaning closer to the phone so she’d be able to hear him. “Why was it closed?”

“Because Massimo can’t catch fish when he’s out combing the bay for you,” Signora Marsigliese told him. “I don’t think he’s slept, either. I’ve never seen him so upset.”

Luca couldn’t imagine Massimo being upset. Signor Marcovaldo was in very firm control of his emotions, rarely showing surprise or fear or joy even when everybody around him was freaking out. If he were worried enough that people outside his family could tell, he must be very upset indeed.

Alberto clearly didn’t know what to think about that. Even after living with Massimo for a year, he still found it hard to believe that his adoptive father was actually that attached to him, rather than just putting up with his presence. He had often thought that if he were to vanish one day, Massimo would probably be relived to be rid of him.

Signora Marsigliese said goodbye and went to spread the news, while Signora Marcovaldo searched for something the boys could wear besides their stained pyjamas. She pulled out some of the clothes she’d bought Luca to wear in the autumn and winter – they were too warm for right now, but at least they were clean. Luca’s things were too small for Alberto, so she knocked on other doors in the hallway and eventually managed to borrow something from a neighbour. This did not include shoes, but he was used to going barefoot.

“Do I have to get back in the pram?” Harry whined.

“I’m afraid so,” said Helena. “We can’t risk anybody else seeing you.”

“But it was fine,” he complained.

“Only because the man at the gelateria was blind,” Helena reminded him. “If he hadn’t been there’s no telling what might have happened. Into the pram.”

Harry scowled as he climbed in, and Helena tossed the blanket over the top. She stowed her own bag in the basket under the pram, while Alberto opened the bedroom door just a crack so that Luca could get a hold of Nerone and put his leash on. The dog had calmed down a bit, but was still very unhappy with Harry’s presence. The white was visible all around the dark iris of his eyes.

“Does everybody have their things?” Helena asked.

“We don’t have any things,” Luca said. “We didn’t take anything with us.”

“Sorry, force of habit,” said Helena. “Let’s go.”

The area where Helena lived was a quiet part of Genova, and they didn’t pass very many people on the street outside. First they dropped Nerone off with a neighbour who had agreed to care for him. Signora Marcovaldo and the boys all gave him some scratches and said goodbye, and Nerone whimpered as they walked away. He did not like that they were leaving him behind and taking away the intruder he was so angry about.

As they got closer to the train station the city became busier and busier, especially as it was starting to be late in the afternoon. Adults were finishing work for the day, and children, out of school for the summer, were running around shouting and playing. Harry, peering out from under his blanket, was transfixed.

“Look at them all!” he whispered. “Where are they all going?”

“Most of them are going home,” said Luca. “A lot of people in Genova work during the day.”

“What do they do?”

“There’s museums, there’s the trains and buses, all kinds of things,” Luca said. “Probably a lot of the same stuff monsters do when they aren’t scaring people. Please be quiet.”

The train station itself was swarming with people, coming and going on the trains or visiting the little shops around it. Since it was hot out, Helena stopped to buy bottles of sparkling water for the boys. Alberto opened his, while Luca passed one under the blanket for Harry.

“What’s happening now?” Harry asked.

“We’re in line for train tickets,” Luca whispered back.

“There’s music!” Harry squeaked as they neared the office. A radio was playing. “I didn’t know humans had music!”

“Of course they have music. Everybody’s got music,” said Alberto.

“Sssh,” Helena told him. She stepped up to the counter. “One adult and three children, for Potrorosso,” she said.

“The baby doesn’t need a ticket,” said the clerk. She took the money and handed them the tickets, and they continued on their way. Luca stood up straight, trying not to look nervous. Alberto seemed to be doing alright, walking with what looked like a confident strut, but Luca recognized that as the other boy’s attempt to prop himself up. Helena was not as good at pretending. She was looking around nervously, hunched over the pram a bit. Even when they made it to the platform and sat down on a bench, she remained bolt upright.

“Can I come out now?” Harry asked hopefully.

“No,” said Luca. “There’s still too many people around.”

“You can come out in Portrosso,” Alberto added. “Like we told you, people there are used to us, so they can get used to you.”

Luca hoped Harry wouldn’t be there long enough for people to get used to him. It would be one thing if Curtis or Louise or Sullivan ended up living there. They were grownups who could look after themselves. Harry was still a kid, and his mother was probably worried about him, just as Luca’s parents and Massimo were worried about them. His father might be upset, too. Even if Mr. Waternoose was a jerk, Harry was still his son, right?

The train pulled up. People who’d been going to Genova climbed out, and the far fewer people who were headed east late in the afternoon trooped on. Once again, a man offered to help Signora Marcovaldo and the boys with the pram, and once again, they refused.

“We’re managing just fine,” said Helena, false cheerful.

They found a compartment and sat down, and as the train chugged out of the station again, Helena leaned back in her seat, finally relaxing. As the train started moving, Harry pushed the blanket off and climbed out of the pram, standing on the seat to watch the station disappear behind them.

“I’ve never been on a train,” he said. “When we go anywhere that’s too far to drive, we take Dad’s private plane.”

“Your father has his own plane?” Alberto asked.

“Yeah. There’s nothing to do and it’s really boring,” Harry replied, watching the city pass by.

Helena got up and put her bag on the luggage rack, then shut the compartment door and moved the pram so that it would be in the way. It wouldn’t actually stop anyone from entering, but it would hopefully slow them down enough that Harry would be able to hide. The train rounded the bay, and soon was chugging along the coastline towards Portorosso. There would be a couple of stops on the way at other small towns, but it would only be a couple of hours and then they’d be home.

Luca had been wide awake during his first train ride, from Portorosso to Genova almost a year ago. There’d just been so much to see along the way, all of it new and wonderful. When he’d gone home to visit at Christmastime, he’d been much more tired after the school semester, and had discovered that the rocking motion and rhythmic sounds of the train were quick to lull him to sleep. This had happened again on the next train ride, and again on the way back for the summer, even when he’d been very excited to get home. Now, after the last few exhausting days, Luca didn’t have a chance. His head nodded, and his eyes drifted closed.

“What’s that?” asked Harry, pointing out the window to something.

“That’s a Vespa,” said Alberto. “Luca and I are going to have one someday. Right, Luca?”

“Uh-huh,” said Luca, his eyes still closed.

“How about that?” Harry wanted to know. “That looks like a scream station! Do humans use scream, too?”

“No,” said Alberto.

“That’s a petrol station,” said Signora Marcovaldo. “It sells fuel for cars.”

“Where do they get it from?” asked Harry.

“I don’t know. Hey, Luca.” Alberto poked him. “Where does petrol come from?”

“Out of the ground,” Luca said with a yawn. He moved a little, getting more comfortable. The city continued to pass by, and they eventually left it behind and got out into the countryside, where Harry found more things to look at.

“What about that? What’s that?” Harry asked.

“That’s a goat,” Alberto said.

“What are they for?”

“I dunno,” said Alberto. “The Paguros’ goatfish lay eggs you can eat, but I don’t think… hey, Luca,” he poked his friend in the shoulder. “Do goats lay eggs?”

“No,” Luca said with a yawn. “I think they give milk, though.”

“Cool,” said Harry. “Hey, what’s that one?”

Luca groaned.

Late afternoon slipped into evening, and the train finally pulled up to the station in Portorosso. Reluctantly awake, Luca looked out the window and saw his parents, Massimo and Giulia, and Signora Marsigliese and Rocco standing on the platform waiting for them. His heartbeat quickened and he suddenly felt more alert. This was it! They were home, and he was going to be able to sleep in his own bed that night! He got to his feet, and helped Signora Marcovaldo get her back back onto the rack under the pram.

“In you get,” Helena said to Harry.

“But we’re here now,” Harry said, and pointed to Luca and Alberto. “They said the humans here would be okay with me!”

“They said they could get used to you,” said Helena. “We don’t want to spring you on them all at once. Get in the pram.”

Grumbling, Harry climbed in, and the boys prepared to help Helena bump it down the steps again. They were spared the trouble, however, when Massimo was there to meet them. He grabbed the other end of the pram to help lift it over the stairs, though he grunted at the weight. With that done, he turned to Alberto and offered his arm for a hug.

Luca didn’t get to see the rest of their greeting, because he was all but bowled over as his parents came to scoop him up. Daniela Paguro held her son so tight Luca felt like she would squeeze the air right out of him, especially when Lorenzo joined her from the other side.

“I was so scared I’d never see you again!” Daniela said. “You are never sleeping in a room with a closet again, you hear me? Never!”

“I love you, too, Mom and Dad,” Luca said.

Daniela finally loosened her grip, and Luca was able to turn and see Massimo holding Alberto out at arm’s length and smiling at him. Alberto grinned back with his eyes suspiciously watery – but he was spared the indignity of crying in public when Giulia tackled him from behind, putting him in a headlock and scrubbing at his scalp with her knuckles. This left Alberto laughing rather than in tears, and once she’d thoroughly messed up his hair, Giulia moved on to give Luca a much more gentle greeting.

“Are we done yet?” asked Harry’s voice from the pram. “Come on, it’s hot in here.”

Happy reunions stopped, and people looked at the blanket-covered pram warily. Signora Marsigliese had been told that Luca and Alberto were bringing a friend with them, and that this fried was even more monstery than they were, but until that moment everybody seemed to have forgotten about it. Now it was time to see if people in Portrosso really could get used to a monster.

“Everybody,” said Luca, “this is Harry Waternoose.”

Helena pulled the blanket off the pram.

Daniela yelped and thrust Luca behind her as if to shield him from an attack. Massimo was less dramatic about it, but he did step forward to be between the pram and his children. Signora Marsigliese gasped, and Rocco tugged on her sleeve and pointed as if to say, see? I told you so.

This only lasted a moment, though, and then everybody seemed to remind themselves that just because something looked odd didn’t necessarily mean it was dangerous: the very same lesson Harry’s father didn’t want the people in the monster world learning about humans. Daniela laughed nervously, and offered a hand.

“Hello, Harry,” she said. “Luca always makes such interesting friends.”

“This is my Mom and Dad,” Luca said.

“This is my Dad,” Alberto added, gesturing grandly to Massimo. “And I guess this is my sister.” He stuck his tongue out at Giulia.

“And this is Signora Marsigliese and Rocco,” said Luca. “That’s where Louise found us, was in his room.”

Rocco licked his gelato and glared at Harry. He did not feel like being friendly to closet monsters.

“Will you be staying long?” Signora Marsigliese asked Harry cautiously.

“Yes,” said Harry. “I’m gonna find a new dad and stay here forever, just like Alberto!”

Chapter Text

Harry didn’t want to get back in the pram, so he scurried along the cobbled street with the rest of the group as they made their way downhill to the Pescheria and harbour. Luca and Alberto were busy telling their families about the monster world, but they did their best to keep an eye on their unwanted companion. This was not easy. Harry was like a curious puppy on its first walk, dashing back and forth across the street to take a closer look at everything.

“Mamma mia!” the woman who ran the laundromat exclaimed, dropping a pile of sheets as Harry dashed past her to look in the window. She stared for a moment with one hand over her heart, then took in the presence of Luca and Alberto and made herself calm down. “I’m sorry, young… man,” she managed. “You startled me.”

“I’m a monster,” said Harry smugly. “I’m supposed to be scary.”

“You certainly are,” she agreed, gathering up her sheets again – these had been clean, and were now covered with dust and would need to be done again. “Lovely to have met you. I’m sure I’ll see you again.” She hurried back inside and shut the door.

A minute or so later, a man driving a truck loaded with boxes of fruit stopped to watch them go by. Harry grinned and waved to him. The man waved back halfheartedly, and waited until they rounded a corner to start his truck again.

“It looks like the humans here are scared of me,” Harry said suspiciously. “You said they wouldn’t be.”

“They’re not screaming and running away,” Alberto pointed out. “They’re just not used to you yet.” Humans in Portorosso had mostly accepted the idea that just because something looked frightening didn’t mean it necessarily was, but that didn’t mean they liked scary things, even ordinary sea monsters.

“I think they’re a little scared of monsters,” Harry said. “If they weren’t, we wouldn’t even have any doors to this town.”

“It depends on the monster,” said Luca. He glanced back over his shoulder at Rocco, who was still scowling into his gelato.

They arrived at the piazza. As usual there was a gaggle of children here, kicking an old volleyball in order to get around the local legislation that forbid playing football in the streets. Harry watched for a minute, bouncing up and down in excitement, then ran up to them.

“Can I play?” he asked eagerly.

The boy who had the ball snatched it off the ground and backed towards his friends, who gasped in horror.

Luca quickly reassured them. “It’s okay! This is Harry. He’s with us.”

Harry smiled hopefully.

One of the taller kids, a girl, spoke up. “You can’t,” she said. “You’ve got… too many legs. Rules say only two is allowed.”

“Oh,” said Harry, though he looked at them suspiciously.

“Come on, Alberto lives over here,” Luca said, gesturing towards the Pescheria.

One of the teenagers in the town, a boy called Amerigo, had been hired to mind the shop while Massimo and Giulia were waiting at the train station. He smiled as the group approached, then his eyes widened when he saw Harry among them. Like the others, though, he reasoned that if this strange creature were with Luca and Alberto, then it must be all right, and that was enough to keep him from panicking.

“You’ve got a new friend,” he observed.

“This is the Pescheria,” Alberto told Harry. “Massimo catches fish, and Giulia and I sell them here or deliver them to people’s houses.”

Harry examined a basket of bream on ice. “Weird fish,” he said. “They all look the same. Where are the ones with two heads?”

“We don’t have any two-headed fish,” Luca said.

Harry moved on down the length of the shop, while Amerigo watched cautiously from behind the counter. “Oh, these look more normal,” said Harry, pointing at another creature. “What’s that?”

“Those are squid,” Alberto said. “We cut them into rings and fry them. It’s called calamari. Much nicer than eating them raw and getting ink all over you!”

“What about that?” Harry pointed to a black-and-white photograph of a group of people posing with an immensely long silvery fish, at least four metres, in the piazza.

“That’s a regaleco,” said Giulia. “Papà caught it by accident. See, there’s me.” She pointed to herself in the photo, a very small child of four or five standing by Massimo’s side.

Harry continued to scuttle around the shop, examining the merchandise and decor, while people from the piazza began to gather in the doorway to stare at this new and bizarre arrival. Nobody said anything, as they did not want to be rude, but there was a general feeling of unease in the air. Luca and Alberto could feel it keenly, but Harry seemed oblivious, and upon noticing the crowd, he went up to greet them.

“Hi, everybody!” he said. “Wow, I didn’t know there were so many humans. Kids’ rooms only have maybe one or two at a time. Hi,” he said to one kid. “How are you doing?”

The girl gave him a sideways look and did not reply.

Not at all discouraged, Harry looked up at Old Tomasso, who was staring back down at him. “Hi! Do you need a son?” he asked.

“Ah, I’m a little old to be raising children,” Old Tomasso replied. “You might ask my daughter, Viola, though she and Giacomo already have a couple kids of their own…”

“Is she here?” Harry asked eagerly.

“Well, I’m starving!”s aid Alberto loudly. He grabbed Harry by the shoulders and steered him towards the interior door. “Time for you to try some human food! We’ll treat you to the most delicious thing our world has to offer – trenette al pesto!”

They dragged Harry up the stairs to the living spaces above the shop, leaving Amerigo to deal with the curious onlookers. There, Massimo and Alberto got to work on dinner, while Daniela, who’d been learning some human cooking, declared that she would make dessert. Harry had looked exciting as they climbed the narrow stairs, but the kitchen itself was obviously a disappointment to him. He looked around the cramped little room dubiously as people got to work.

“Do you live here?” he asked. “Or are you the servants?”

“This is our house,” Giulia said, insulted. “We don’t have servants.”

Harry frowned. “Well, who cleans up after you cook?” he asked. “Who scrubs the floor and cleans the windows?”

“We do,” she told him. “We do everything ourselves.”

“Where do you sleep?” he asked next.

“Upstairs – there’s one room for me and Alberto and one for Papà, and the bathroom.”

Harry examined her face, trying to figure out if she were joking.

“Nobody has servants,” Giulia added. “That’s from, I don’t know, medieval times.”

“Farmhands might count as servants,” Lorenzo Paguro mused. “Like those two boys Atinnia Trota has working at her place since her husband died.”

“Are all humans this poor?” asked Harry. “Where are the normal people?”

“We’re not poor!” Giulia huffed. “This is normal! If you want rich people, the richest ones in town are the Visconti family, and even they don’t have servants. They’ve got some employees who work in their vineyards, but that’s not the same. Signora Visconti does her own cooking.”

Harry sat down on the bench below the stairs, where he watched thoughtfully as everybody else pitched in to get food on the table. He appeared to be re-thinking this whole expedition, as if he didn’t want a new family if that were necessarily going to come with work. Luca kind of hoped that was true. Harry’s father wasn’t very nice, but Harry belonged in his own world and they needed to get him back there as fast as they could.

There was no room for so many people to sit down around the tiny kitchen table, so they headed out to the yard to eat as the sun set and the first stars began to come out. Daniela and Luca set the table, and Massimo brought out the extra-large pot that could hold enough pasta for everybody. Seeing all this made Luca so happy to be home he nearly cried – it reminded him of the evening after the race last year, when the sea monsters had first been welcomed to Portorosso. Even Alberto was getting a bit misty-eyed, although he’d never admit it. The two boys dug into their favourite dish with gusto.

Harry didn’t look so excited about it. He tried the trenette al pesto, but just shrugged.

“We need to figure out how we’re going to get back into the monster world,” Luca announced. That was a problem he wasn’t sure how to solve. Any door they might go through was just going to lead into the factory, and that was the last place they wanted to arrive. He frowned, chewing on a mouthful as he considered it. “What happens to the doors when the kids get too old to be scared anymore?”

“They go to storage,” said Harry. “They check them out every couple of years, but you can’t open them from this end. You need the equipment.”

“So we’ll have to find somebody else who’s got a monster and wait there… but then when we get into the monster world they’ll grab us right away,” said Luca. That wouldn’t work at all. Mr. Waternoose might even have a special watch on doors from Liguria in case they tried to come back.

“Aren’t there any doors anywhere else?” asked Alberto. “I mean… there’s other scare companies, right?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, mouth full. “And there’s a few at universities and stuff for research purposes, but they don’t lead to kids’ rooms.”

That sounded promising. Luca seized on it. “What doors are those? How do you find them?”

“I dunno, they’re closet doors,” said Harry.

“There are other kinds of closets besides bedroom ones,” Helena observed thoughtfully. “There’s linen closets, storage closets, broom closets…”

“Signora Marsigliese has a storage closet in her grocery store,” Giulia offered. “It’s where she keeps stuff when there’s no room for it on the shelves yet.”

“Oh, they won’t use one in a shop,” said Harry, “especially if somebody lives there. The researchers don’t actually want to meet any humans. They just want to find ways to stabilize the link, make it more energy-efficient, improve door matching, that kind of thing.”

“So nowhere there’s people at night,” said Luca. “Where’s got a closet that’s closed at night?”

“Somewhere like a museum?” asked Helena.

“There’s no museums in Portorosso,” said Alberto.

“No, but they’ve got lots of them in Genova,” said Giulia. “There’s the Museum of Natural History, and the Maritime Museum, and Mamma does work sometimes at the Palazzo Spinola, which is going to be a museum someday but they have to restore it first because it got damaged during the war.”

“That’s the one I’m thinking of,” Helena said. “There’s one of the former bedrooms where I’ve helped touch up the frescoes, and I’ve never seen anything myself but there people working there full-time who swear it’s haunted. They hear footsteps and see lights in the middle of the night.”

Luca did not believe in ghosts, but if closet monsters were a real thing then they might well be the explanation. “That’s gotta be it!” he exclaimed. “There’s a closet in there, right?”

“There’s one where they keep paint and tools,” Helena agreed. “It’s got a big sign on it that says solo personale autorizzato.”

“A lot of the ones the researchers use have signs like that,” Harry confirmed.

“Perfect!” Luca grinned. “So we just have to go back to Genova!”

“Now wait a moment, young man,” said Daniela. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you going back there, no matter how you get in. This monster world is obviously dangerous. Back me up, Lorenzo,” she said to her husband.

Lorenzo nodded. “Your mother is right, Luca. This really isn’t your problem.”

“Yes, it is!” Luca insisted. “Louise and the others need our help. We’re the ones who got them in trouble in the first place. Right, Alberto?”

“Right!” said Alberto through a mouthful of pasta.

“Well, you certainly can’t go by yourselves,” Daniela said. “You have to at least take a grownup with you.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Giulia put in. “Like I said, Luca, your Mom’s scary. The monsters will respect her.”

It was hard to say whether Daniela had really meant herself when she’d said a grownup, but that didn’t seem to have been the part of the suggestion that startled her. “I’m not that scary!”

“Yes, you are,” chorused Alberto and Luca.

“No, you’re not,” Harry scoffed.

“You haven’t seen her get mad,” Luca told him.

Feeling like they had at least an approximation of a plan made Luca feel much better, and although he wouldn’t have said it he was very reassured by the idea of taking his mother along. They wouldn’t feel nearly so adrift and terrified in that strange world if they had a proper grownup with them.

After supper it was time for the kids to get into their pyjamas. Harry didn’t have any with him, and nobody else’s would have fit him, so he was given one of Massimo’s extra shirts. It was as huge and awkward on him as Louise’s monster-sized nightshirts had been on Alberto and Luca, but he didn’t seem to mind.

The person who did mind was Giulia. Although she was too polite to say so, she was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of Harry sleeping in her room, so the boys offered to also sleep over so it wouldn’t just be the two of them. Luca had hoped this would avoid any arguments. It did not.

“You don’t like me,” said Harry accusingly, as they rolled out sleeping bags on the floor.

“No, you’re fine,” said Giulia, without looking at him.

“Alberto and Luca said you’d be cool.”

“I am cool,” Giulia insisted, annoyed. “It’s just that I haven’t known you very long yet.”

Harry wasn’t at all impressed. “You’re scared of me. They said you’d be fine, but you’re scared of monsters. I bet you’re scared of them, too. Everybody here is, even if they try to be nice about it.” He smiled to himself. “I bet I could be in charge of this place in no time.”

“Giulia isn’t scared of anything,” Luca said loyally.

“Sure,” Harry said, “so why doesn’t she have a closet, then?”

“Because there isn’t room for one,” said Giulia. “This house is very small.”

“I noticed.”

“And I don’t need one anyway,” she added. “I keep all my stuff on my shelves, and my clothes go in the drawers. My school stuff mostly stays at Mamma’s house in Genova, because that’s where I use it.”

Harry considered that as he built a little nest for himself out of blankets. “What do human kids learn at school? Do you learn about monsters?”

“No,” said Luca, “because humans mostly don’t believe in monsters, not even sea monsters like us. Nobody knows about us except the people in Portorosso and some of the ones at school.”

“And a lot of them think it’s a joke,” Giulia added. “I didn’t even believe in sea monsters until I met Luca and Alberto, and I didn’t believe in closet monsters until I met you today.”

Harry frowned. “See, that’s what Dad says – he says humans shouldn’t know about us, because what you don’t know is always scarier than what you do.”

“That’s probably true,” Giulia observed. “Now that I know about sea monsters, they’re not scary at all.” She looked at Alberto and grinned. “In fact, Alberto is the least scary monster I’ve ever met.”

Alberto stuck his tongue out at her.

“I think he’s scarier than I am,” Luca said.

“Now, I think if humans knew about us, they’d be even more scared,” Harry went on, “because then they’d know we could be lurking there, waiting to jump out at any moment.”

“Or we’d just take the doors off all our closets,” said Giulia.

That clearly hadn’t occurred to Harry. He blinked, then scowled, annoyed at being outwitted.

Harry couldn’t lie down flat like a human or a sea monster, so while the other kids bedded down, he nestled into the pile of blankets he’d built, looking rather like an egg in an Easter basket. Everybody else began to drift off, only to discover that Harry snored. It wasn’t loud, but it was a whistling sort of noise that was impossible to ignore. Giulia had to stuff her head under her pillow in order to block it out.

Halfway through the night, Giulia woke up again, as she sometimes did, and rolled over to get more comfortable – whereupon she found herself looking into multiple glowing eyes that blinked in unison. She inhaled sharply and sat up, clutching at the covers.

Harry started laughing. “Boo!” he said.

“Harry!” groaned Luca from his bed on the floor.

“I knew it! I knew you were scared of me!” Harry cackled.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Alberto scolded. “Go back to sleep!”

Harry continued to giggle to himself as he settled down in his little nest again. Luca gave him a disapproving frown and looked at Alberto, who wasn’t going to stop at frowning and had gone all the way to a nasty scowl. The two silently agreed that the first thing they were going to do when that haunted closet at the museum opened was to shove Harry in, and after that they wouldn’t take any more help from him.

In the morning, Giulia got up first, and noticed that Harry was still asleep. She crept over and knelt next to him, leaning in so her nose was only an inch from his face. It took him a moment to realize she was there, and then a couple of his eyes flickered open, and he screamed like Signora Brugnole did when she saw a mouse.

“Now who’s scared?” asked Giulia, and got up to go brush her teeth while Harry sat there panting.

Luca and Alberto had already been half awake, but were jolted to full alertness by Harry’s cry. They yawned and rubbed their eyes and looked at him, then both lay down and pretended to go back to sleep. He’d deserved that.

Helena had crespelle ready when they came downstairs for breakfast. They were thinner than Louise’s pancakes but were served with ricotta and nutella, and she’d also sliced some bananas to put on top. The kids sat down and dug in, and Massimo came to sit with them and sip his espresso.

“Giulietta,” he said, as his daughter put bananas on her breakfast. “Your mother and I have been talking about money.”

“Uh-huh,” Giulia said, then whacked Alberto’s wrist with her butter knife as he reached across the table. “How about pass the nutella?” she suggested to him, as he shook the stinging joint.

Harry, meanwhile, looked down at his own plate dubiously. “Is this it?” he asked.

“What more did you want?” asked Giulia. She passed the nutella and knife to Alberto, and gave him a plate for Luca.

“How about bacon?” asked Harry. “Or eggs? Or waffles? It’s just tiny pancakes with cheese, and some coffee?”

“You don’t want to eat heavily first thing in the morning,” said Helena firmly. “It’s not good for your stomach.” She poured her espresso into milk, and added a little bit of cocoa. “As we were saying, kids, I didn’t think we’d all be heading back to Genova. I have enough money to pay for my own ticket, but not for the boys or Signora Paguro.”

That wasn’t what any of the kids had expected to hear, least of all Harry. “How can you not have money for train tickets?” he asked. “They cost nothing.”

“Obviously they cost something,” Giulia told him, “if they were free we wouldn’t be worried about it.”

Luca was not discouraged. “We’ll have to earn the money, then,” he said.

“How?” asked Massimo. “I cannot hire all three of you for extra besides your pocket money.”

“I’ve got some I’ve saved,” said Alberto. “And we can do odd jobs around the town. I’ve done that before!” Sometimes he’d even managed not to break anything.

“So have I,” Giulia agreed.

“And I can help,” said Luca.

“How much money will we need for the tickets?” Giulia asked her mother.

Helena did a brief bit of math for one adult and three youths, assuming Harry would go in the pram again. The figure she came up with wasn’t too daunting, so after they were done eating, the kids got dressed and set out to do some work.

“I’m gonna head up the hill to where the older people live, and ask if they need anything done in their gardens,” Alberto announced. They almost always did, and while pulling weeds and turning over soil were tedious, there were very few ways he’d found to do them wrong.

“I’ll do deliveries, and keep the tips,” Giulia said.

“I’ll go with Alberto,” Luca said.

“Great!” Alberto nodded. “You can do your big eyes thing, and they’ll pay us extra.”

“How about me?” Harry asked, scuttling out into the yard to join them. Helena had decided to wash his little sailor suit while the kids were out, but that left the problem of what he would wear in the mean time. Massimo had gone through some old things and found a shirt he’d worn as a child and had kept to use as rags someday. It was a bit too big on Harry and had to be pinned so he wouldn’t step on the hem, but it was clean.

“You want to help earn money?” Alberto asked, a bit suspicious. Harry clearly wasn’t interested in work – he seemed to think money was just something people had in infinite quantities.

“No,” said Harry. “I need to find a new Dad, remember? Where are these Visconti people you mentioned?” He had evidently decided that he wanted not just a new family, but a new family with money.

“They live over the hill in the vineyards,” said Giulia. She checked her list of deliveries. “They’ve ordered some naselli… they must be having visitors because it’s quite a few. Signor Visconti likes to schmooze people who are thinking about buying his wine.”

“I’ll go with you, then,” Harry decided.

Giulia tried not to groan. “All right,” she said, “but you have to help. Do what I tell you to do, and don’t wander off, you got it?”

“You’re not my mother,” Harry told her.

“Do you want to stay at our house, or not?” Giulia asked. “Because if you do, you have to do what I say, got it?”

Harry snorted. “Fine.”

The boys headed up the hill to find some work to do, and Giulia attached the cart to her bike while Harry, under her direction, brought out boxes of ice and fish for delivery. He made a face as he handed her the first one.

“It smells,” he said.

“It’s fish,” she told him. “Don’t fish smell in your world?”

“I dunno, I’ve only seen them when they’re already cooked,” Harry said. “And the ones in the pond at the zoo, that you can feed. Those don’t smell.”

“They’re not dead,” Giulia said. She climbed onto the bicycle. “Keep up, I’m not slowing down for you.”

She wasn’t training for the race yet, not so early in the summer, so despite her words Giulia didn’t hurry as she cycled up the hill to the first of her day’s deliveries. Harry scuttled after her, looking around at the town and the people as they went. His many legs seemed able to carry him quite quickly, so she sped up a little.

Their first stop was the home of Signora Tarasco, where Giulia knocked on the door with a box of fish in her hands. The door opened, and Giulia proudly held out her merchandise. “Sardines, as ordered!” she announced. “Fresh from Papà’s nets!”

“Ah, thank you, Giulia,” Signora Tarasco said. She took the box from Giulia, and then her eyes went to the waiting bicycle and cart, and she saw Harry standing next to it. For a split-second she just blinked at him, trying to figure out what she was seeing, then she screamed. She almost dropped the box, but grabbed it at the last moment, only for it to tip and pour dead sardines all over herself. Giulia dived to catch the fish, but could not grab them all, and ended up with two in her hand while the rest splattered on the pavement.

“Oh, my goodness!” the woman exclaimed, with a nervous giggle as she clutched the now-empty box. “You gave me a start! Wha… um… is that another of your friends, Giulia?”

“That’s Harry,” said Giulia, picking herself up. “He’s the monster from Rocco Marsigliese’s closet.”

“No, the monster from Rocco’s closet used to work for my Dad, but he fired her,” Harry corrected. “But he’s a jerk, so now I’m looking for a new Dad, like Alberto.

“I saved these,” Giulia added, offering the fish she’d managed to grab.

“Oh… oh yes.” Signora Tarasco reached out and took them, her eyes locked on Harry. “I just… oh, dear, I ruined the rest of them. Let me… let me pay you for those.” She fumbled for her coin purse.

“You don’t have to do that,” said Giulia, looking at the rest of the order, scattered on the cobblestones.

“No, no, it’s only fair,” Signora Tarasco said distractedly. She gave Giulia a handful of coins without bothering to look at or count them. “Keep the change, dear,” she added, and shut the door, her only objective being to put something between herself and Harry as quickly as possible.

Giulia scowled and shoved the coins in her pocket. “Okay,” she told Harry, “you’re going to have to stay behind the cart while people answer doors.”

“Luca and Alberto said the humans here would be fine,” Harry said, arms folded. “I’m starting to think they lied to me.”

“People will be fine once they get to know you,” Giulia told him. “Until then, you’re scaring them. You’re never gonna find a new family like that.”

Harry just sniffed. Evidently he thought if the humans were scared, that was their own fault.

They moved on to the next house. Harry would stay back with the cart while Giulia handed over the deliveries, but he refused to hide behind it. In fact, he seemed quite interested in people’s reactions to him. Giulia explained who and what he was over and over, and people were polite but clearly uncomfortable with his presence. At least he didn’t go around asking people if they wanted a child, like Luca and Alberto said he’d done in Genova, but she suspect that was merely because he’d already decided who his first choice was. If so, he was destined for bitter disappointment.

Giulia saved the Visconti family’s fish for last, partly because it was furthest from home, and partly because she dreaded what Harry might do. She was sure it would be embarrassing at best and catastrophic at worse.

Harry himself perked up considerably when he realized there was only one box left. “Are we going to the Visconti house now?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Giulia. “Although… how would you feel about having an older brother?” Maybe she could discourage him in advance.

“An older brother?” he asked.

“Yeah, they already have a son,” Giulia said.

Harry thought about that a little. “What is he like?”

“He’s the biggest jerk in the world,” said Giulia. “Even worse than your Dad, I’m sure. He kept this town under his evil empire of injustice for years.”

“He did? How?” Harry wanted to know.

“Because everybody was scared of him!” Giulia said. “You never knew when he was going to show up and make your life miserable, just because he could! We finally kicked his butt last summer, and nobody takes him seriously anymore.”

They crested the hill and coasted back down it into the valley, where the vineyards were spread out around the big house where the Visconti family lived and ran their business. The villa had originally been built in the 18th century by their wealthy ancestors, with yellow walls and big cypress trees out front. It was now in rather poor repair, with the plaster flaking and cracks in the wall from the earthquake that had happened before Giulia was born, but still imposing. Harry grinned when he saw it, and would have gone right up the double staircase leading to the front door, but Giulia shook her head.

“Deliveries go around the back,” she said.

She led the way around the gravel path to the back garden, where the kitchens were. Harry frowned.

“This looks like a servants’ entrance,” he said.

“It used to be,” Giulia said, “but I told you, nobody has servants anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s snooty. It’s like you’re saying you’re better than anyone else. The Viscontis don’t need servants – they do that anyway.”

They passed the garage. Giulia had been hoping Ercole wouldn’t be there, just because she didn’t want to see him, but he was, checking the air pressure on his Vespa’s tyres. He looked up as she passed, then did a double-take.

“Porca paletta! What is that?”

“Is that him?” Harry asked excitedly. “Their son?”

“Yes. Ignore him,” Giulia instructed.

But Harry scuttled right into the open garage. Ercole crab-walked backwards, then scrambled to his feet as if to flee. If that were his intention, he changed his mind when Harry got too close to his precious Vespa. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Don’t touch that!”

“Are you the one who used to have the whole town under an evil empire?” Harry asked eagerly.

Ercole knew exactly where he’d heard that. “For your information,” he said, moving his Vespa aside so that it wasn’t too close to this odd little creature. “People in this town used to love me until those sea monsters came along. Now it’s sea monster this and sea monster that, and nobody has time for real people anymore.” He peered suspiciously at his visitor. “What are you?”

“Aren’t you scared of me?” Harry asked.

“You can’t be scary if you hang out with Spewlia,” Ercole replied. “You’re just a little bug. You should mind you don’t get squashed like one.”

Giulia rolled her eyes, but on the whole this wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. She knocked on the kitchen door. “Signora Visconti!” she called out. “I’ve got your fish!”

Chapter Text

Faustina Visconti was in her early forties, with a tower of bottle-blonde hair and a fondness for bright-coloured dresses and deep red lipstick that made many of the more conservative types in Portorosso look askance at her. Giulia had always found her polite but rather condescending, as if she believed Giulia to be only six or seven years old.

Today was no different, as the woman opened the door and smiled down at her guest. “Why, thank you, Giulia,” she said, taking the box of fish from her. “Have they found your little monster friends yet?”

“Yes, Signora Visconti,” Giulia replied. “They’re just fine.” Hopefully, she could finish this interaction quickly, before Harry had time to do anything.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” said Signora Visconti.

“Yes, it is,” Giulia nodded. “But I’ve got lots to do today so I can’t really stay and chat. I’ll…”

It was too late, however. Harry had heard the woman’s voice, and abandoned Ercole to his Vespa. He scuttled up next to Giulia and looked at Faustina hopefully.

“Are you Ercole’s mom?” he asked.

Giulia held her breath. How would Signora Visconti react? Would she scream, like several others had done? What would Harry do if she did? Would he finally realize he didn’t belong here and needed to go home, like Luca and Alberto said?

“Oh, my goodness!” Faustina exclaimed. “What kind of monster are you?”

She was clearly startled, but she did not use the word monster in a pejorative way. As when she’d referred to Luca and Alberto a moment ago, she seemed to use it the way sea monsters used land monster as an alternative word for human, as a way of describing something that was clearly a person but not like themselves.

“This is Harry Waternoose,” said Giulia, trying not to sigh. “He’s the kind of monster that hides in little kids’ closets.”

“He is?” asked Faustina with a frown. “When Ercole was little he thought he had a monster in his closet, but he grew out of that.”

“I never had a closet,” said Giulia. “Although one of my friends at school used to think he had a monster under his bed. Are there monsters under beds, too?” she asked Harry.

“Of course not,” he replied, “don’t be silly.” Harry directed a sharp-toothed smile at Faustina. “I came here with Luca and Alberto. Alberto told me his dad was terrible, so he found a human to be his new dad. My Dad said he’ll never be proud of me, so I decided I also needed new parents. Do you want another son?”

“We… we never considered it,” Faustina admitted. “How old are you, Harry?”

“Eleven,” the little monster replied. “I’m in the sixth grade.”

Faustina nodded. “What do you eat?” she asked.

“Candy,” Harry said immediately.

“He seems to eat whatever we eat,” Giulia said, not about to let Harry get away with that.

Ercole had made sure his Vespa was safe, and now came up the path to see what was going on.

“Giulia said you’re the people in town with the most money,” Harry said, “so I figure you can afford to take in another child.” He did his best to look adorable. Giulia was not convinced.

“Oh… I don’t know,” said Faustina. “I’d have to talk to Aristide.”

Giulia’s mouth fell open. She wasn’t actually considering it, was she?

“Could you please?” asked Harry. “I’ve been staying with Signor Marcovaldo, but they don’t have much room and I don’t like to be in the way.”

“I will,” Faustina promised. “Ercole, what would you think of having a little brother?”

“You can’t be serious, Mamma!” Ercole protested.

“I always did want a big family, but life has a way of intervening,” Faustina said. “He’s a rather cute little fellow, isn’t he?”

Harry beamed.

“He’s not cute,” said Ercole, disgusted. “He’s just a bug.”

“Well, bugs need mothers, too,” said Faustina. “Thank you again, Giulia, and Harry, so nice to have met you! Perhaps you could join us for supper tonight, and we can get to know you.”

“I’d love to!” Harry chirped.

Giulia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Aren’t you having guests?” she asked, pointed to the fish she’d just delivered.

“We’ve got some people coming in from Milano tomorrow,” Faustina told her, “these are lunch with them. Harry is welcome to come tonight.”

Giulia knew she should just be polite, but she couldn’t resist poking at the situation like a loose tooth. “I thought you didn’t like sea monsters,” she said. Ercole himself certainly didn’t, and his parents had always seemed like they considered sea monsters to be sort of less people than they were… although they did tend to treat everybody else in town the same way.

“They’re our neighbours, we’re supposed to be polite to them now,” Faustina said firmly. “Anyway, this little fellow isn’t quite so… fishy… as the rest. Not so slimy.”

Sea monsters were not slimy. Giulia bristled, but Harry beamed.

“You must be joking!” Ercole protested. “Mamma, look at him, we cannot have him at our table! He looks like an entree! Can you even sit in a chair?” he asked Harry, looking dubiously at his many legs.

“We’ll find him some cushions or something,” Faustina decided.

Giulia shook her head. “Come on, Harry, we’ll let them argue,” she said. “Let’s go see if the boys have gotten anything done.”

Harry fell into step beside her, looking smug. “I was starting to think it was gonna be hard to find a new family. What with everybody here being scared of me, including you.”

“Ercole’s not scared of you,” Giulia pointed out. “He just doesn’t like you.”

“I think his Mom likes me better than him already,” said Harry.

“That’s not hard. Even I like you better than him.”

On their way back over the hill, Giulia counted up the extra money she’d made. It was less than she’d hoped – quite a few people had been in too much of a hurry to escape Harry and hadn’t given her a tip. She was pondering how she might earn some more when they spotted Luca and Alberto.

The boys were sitting on the porch of the house belonging to the two old sea monster women, Pinuccia and Concetta Aragosta. They were not working. They were drinking lemonade and eating cookies, and Alberto was stroking one of the women’s pet cats.

“Working hard, huh, ragazzi?” Giulia called out to them.

“Hey! We’re taking a break!” Alberto informed her.

“They said we should have some lunch, and then we can finish weeding the garden,” Luca explained.

“We’ll be able to work even harder after we’ve had a rest,” Alberto agreed.

Concetta Aragosta opened the door and waved to Giulia. “Won’t you join us, dear?”

Giulia hopped the low stone wall and headed in. Harry scurried after her, and she wondered if the women would cry out. Scares weren’t supposed to be good for older people were they? What if one of them had a heart attack? Fortunately, however, they didn’t seem startled at all.

“This must be your friend from that other world,” Concetta observed. “Enrico, wasn’t it?”

“Call me Harry,” the monster boy said. Concetta offered her plate of treats, and Harry stuffed a pizzocato in his mouth. “Guess who’s going to have dinner with the Visconti family tonight?” he said as he chewed.

“What?” asked Alberto, spitting crumbs – his mouth, too, was full. “Really?”

“Ercole’s Mom thinks he’s cute,” said Giulia. She took a cooking for herself.

“Lemonade?” asked Concetta.

Giulia nodded, and made a point of swallowing before she spoke aloud. “Si, grazie.”

“Me, too!” said Harry.

Alberto swallowed his mouthful. “What does Ercole think of this? Or has he met him yet?”

“They’ve met,” said Giulia.

“He’s no problem,” said Harry firmly. He found a padded basket that had been set out for the cats, tipped a sleeping animal out of it, and settled down inside. The orange cat made a startled noise and looked around, not sure what had just happened to it. It turned in a circle, then seemed to forget the whole thing and sat down to wash its face.

“You must not have met him for very long,” said Luca dubiously.

“I can handle him.” Harry was confident.

Back at the Pescheria that evening, the kids counted up the money they’d earned. It was enough for two children’s tickets, or one adult. If all three were going, they would need more,

“You really want to go on the train, Mom?” Luca tried. “I thought you didn’t like things that moved.”

Daniela had never been on a train. She’d ridden in a car exactly once and had felt ill the whole time, but apparently she could not be budged. “I’ve talked it over with Helena,” she said, “and we’ve both agreed that you’re not going back there without a grownup. She has things to do, so I have volunteered.”

Luca nodded glumly. “Then we’re gonna need more money.”

“Maybe we need to check out some of the shipwrecks,” Alberto suggested. “There might be something down there we could still sell.” Most possible salvage had been cleaned out by him and his father over the past ten years, but they couldn’t have found everything.

“Or we just need to do another day of work,” sighed Giulia.

Luca shook his head. “The longer it takes, the more likely something awful happens to Louise and the others.”

A clattering on the stairs made them raise their heads. Harry was not built for human-sized stairs, and the ones in the house above the Pescheria were particular steep. He’d nearly slipped, and had finally settled on descending them backwards. The kids watched as he made his way down step by step, and then strutted up to them. Helen had put his sailor suit through the laundry, so it was now clean and white and newly-pressed.

“I’m off to dinner with the Visconti family!” he said cheerfully.

“Good luck with that,” said Alberto.

“Thank you,” Harry replied, smug. He headed out. “I’ll be back later, unless they decide to keep me.”

The door closed behind him.

“He’s really serious about this,” Daniela observed.

“He is,” agreed Luca, grimacing. “What if they do keep him?”

“They won’t,” said Alberto.

“They might,” Giulia warned. “I told you, Ercole’s mom thought he was cute, and he was very polite to her. He might pull it off.”

Alberto shrugged. “Then let them have him. He and Ercole deserve each other.”

“That’s a really bad idea,” said Luca. “He’s not gonna be so cute anymore when he gets older. What if he grows up to be huge and venomous like his dad? He won’t fit through doors.”

“I told him about Ercole’s reign of terror and he didn’t sound like he was worried about it at all,” Giulia said. “He kept saying he would have this town in the palm of hand.”

The boys considered that. Ercole had been bad enough. The idea of somebody taking up a similar type of bullying, while that someone also had sharp teeth and many legs and might grow to be seven or eight feet tall… that didn’t bear thinking about.

“There’s no way,” Alberto decided. “Once they actually get to know him, they’ll realize he’s kind of a jerk, and after the way Ercole turned out they won’t want another one of those.”

“And he won’t want anybody else adopting him because he thinks we’re all peasants,” said Giulia with a scowl.

Luca could only hope they were right.

Daniela had other concerns. “How are you going to get into this museum?” she asked, and nodded across the table at Giulia’s mother. “Helena said it wasn’t open.”

“Not to the public,” said Helena, “but they’re doing restoration work, so people are going in and out all the time. The security guards know me,” she added. “Like I said, I’ve been in there working on the frescoes before. They’d probably let me in.”

“What about the rest of us?” asked Luca.

“Daniela can come with me if I say she’s my assistant, but I don’t know about you.” Helena pursed her lips, thinking about it. “They won’t want children running around.”

“Unless we’re there for school!” Luca suggested. “What if we tell them we’re doing a school project on the history of the building?”

“It’s summer,” Giulia protested.

“But we go back in a couple of months,” said Luca. “I heard some of the older kids get assigned summer projects. Maybe they’ll believe we did, too!”

“That might work, but not if it’s a surprise,” Helena decided. “I’d have to give them some warning. And now are we going to get Harry in? They probably won’t let me take the pram.”

“Do you have something you bring supplies in?” Giulia asked. “Maybe we can hide him in a cart or something.”

“Then there’s the question of staying in,” Helena went on. “You’ll need to be there at night, because you said when it’s night here it’s daytime in the monster world. They like to get everybody out by sunset, and they patrol the place at night so they won’t have squatters.”

“We’ll have to be very careful,” said Luca.

As well as insisting that she accompany the kids, Daniela was also firm about Luca coming back to the house in the bay to have dinner with his family. He grudgingly did so, but afterwards hurried right up onto the land again to talk to his friends. He looked very worried when he did.

“Mom keeps trying to talk me out of it,” he said miserably, sitting in the treehouse between Alberto and Giulia. “She keeps saying that what happened to Louise and Curtis and Sullivan isn’t our responsibility, and it’s Louise’s fault for dragging us out of Rocco’s closet in the first place.” He leaned on his knees, face in his hands. “And maybe she’s right, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help! They wouldn’t be in all this trouble if Harry hadn’t slammed the door on them!”

“We could just sneak away without her,” Alberto suggested.

“No way. She’d be so mad,” said Luca. “She’d send me to the Deep, or at least never let me go back to school again.” He sighed heavily. “Where’s Harry? Is he still at Ercole’s?”

“I guess so,” said Giulia with a shrug. He was taking an awfully long time about it, wasn’t he?

“I wonder how dinner went.” Alberto snickered as he pictured it. “Him and Ercole probably fought the whole time. They’re too much the same to get along.”

That was when the door in the yard below them opened, and Massimo leaned out of it to look up at them. “Bambini,” he said, “Signora Marsigliese says you have a telephone call.”

“What? All of us?” asked Albert, startled. The only time anyone ever asked for him on the telephone was when Luca and Giulia called from school.

“Yes,” said Massimo.

The kids exchanged some confused looks, then climbed down the ladder to meet Signora Marsigliese, who was at the front door. “It’s your friend the crab,” she told them. “He wants to speak to you.”

Confused, the kids trooped across the piazza to the grocery shop, where the nearest telephone was. All sorts of possibilities were running through Luca’s mind. Maybe Harry was hurt or in some other trouble and needed them to come rescue him. Maybe Ercole or even his father had tried to harm him. Whatever it was, Luca was pretty sure it would make this situation worse.

Signora Marsigliese handed him the phone receiver, and he put it to his ear and said, “hello?”

“Hi!” said Harry. “I’m calling to tell you they’re keeping me. I told you they would! Ercole and his Dad are a little scared of me, but that’s okay because it means I’ll get my way.”

“Really?” asked Luca. That was better than Harry being lost or hurt, but still made for an awful feeling in the pit of Luca’s stomach. They couldn’t just let this happen… could they?

“Yep! Mrs. Visconti says I’m a nice young man, and Mr. Visconti says he can’t deny her anything and it’s not the weirdest pet he’s seen!” Harry sounded very proud of himself. “And Ercole complained a lot, but it’s not his house!”

“What about your own Mom and Dad?” Luca tried. “I mean… you’re really never gonna see them again?”

“Nope!” said Harry. “Tell them I’ve found better parents in the human world – and make sure you tell my Dad that they’re gonna be proud of me!”

Luca had his doubts about that. “Uh… okay,” he said. “If you change your mind, let us know. It’s gonna take another day for us to earn enough money for that train trip, so if you…”

“I won’t,” said Harry, and then his voie became muffled and Luca heard him call, “hey! New Mom! They need some money for the train – can we give them some?”

They couldn’t hear Faustina Visconti’s reply, but a moment later Harry spoke again.

“Yeah, my new Mom will hire you to pick some grapes tomorrow morning,” Harry said.

That made Luca stop and think for a moment. He knew that Alberto had done chores for the Visconti family before, and they paid very well because they wanted to continue being thought of as ‘the rich people’ even if that wasn’t strictly true. Surely picking grapes for Signora Visconti would get them enough money plus a little extra.

“What’s going on?” asked Alberto.

“Harry says Signora Visconti will pay us to pick grapes,” said Luca.

“Oh,” said Alberto, weighing up the pros and cons. The Viscontis did pay well, but then, Ercole was always around to be a pain. “Is it worth it, though?”

“Yes,” Luca insisted. “We need to rescue Louise and Curtis!”

Alberto made a terrible face, and looked at Giulia for a third opinion.

“We have to do it,” she said. “Harry doesn’t belong here. We need to get him to go back to his world and we’re not going to convince him over the phone. We’ll have to go see him anyway, so we might as well earn some money.”

Alberto groaned.

Luca uncovered the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll tell my new Mom!” said Harry cheerfully. “Good night! Or… how do you say it here? Bwana naughty!”

“Good night, Harry,” sighed Luca.

-

The next morning, bright and early, Luca headed back to land. He and his friends put on work clothes, then headed over the hill to the Visconti vineyards. None of them were very enthusiastic about it. Alberto grumbled to himself the whole way, and Giulia knocked on the back door of the big house, where she’d delivered her fish yesterday, as if expecting bad news. They were worried it would be Harry himself who answered, but instead it was Faustina, with a smile on her face.

“Oh, Harry’s little friends!” she said brightly. “He told me you’d stop by today. I’m going to have you bring in some of the Bosco that have ripened early. You’ll want to be careful not to bruise them.”

“Yes, Signora Visconti,” Giulia replied, polite. Luca nodded. Alberto just grunted.

“Follow me!” said Faustina.

She led them up to the section of the vineyard where they’d be working, on an east-facing hillside to catch the rising sun, and provided them with baskets and clippers. All three kids had picked grapes before, and knew the proper way to do it – cut down the whole bunch and lay them carefully in the basket so as not to damage the delicate flesh. Alberto had once tried to eat a few, but had found them so sickly sweet he’d had to spit them out. When she’d finished laughing at him, Giulia had explained that wine grapes had much more sugar than food grapes, to help the juice ferment.

Faustina left them to their work, and for a little while it was quite pleasant. The shadows cast by the vines on the trellises kept them cool, as did the nice morning breeze, and they were far enough from the house that neither Ercole nor Harry could watch them. Of course, that would not keep.

Harry was the first to arrive. He was carrying a big pillow and a glass of lemonade, and wearing a pair of sunglasses that he was having trouble keeping in place because he had neither a nose nor ears. Without any sort of greeting, he shook his pillow a bit to fluff it up, then sat down on it and sipped his lemonade through a straw.

The kids continued to work, waiting for Harry to say something, but he remained silent except for the slurping sounds as he drank. He seemed content to watch and know that they were working and he was not, which in his mind was apparently how the world was supposed to be.

“You’re not gonna make your new parents proud by just sitting there,” Alberto said eventually.

“I’m supervising,” said Harry. “I’m making sure you’re not slacking off. I wouldn’t want my new Mom to pay you for doing nothing.”

“What happens when you get bored?” asked Giulia.

“I have a magazine.” Harry held it up.

“Can you even read it?” asked Alberto. He still found reading difficult, although he’d gotten much better at it with the incentive of understanding Luca’s letters from school.

“Of course I can,” said Harry. He opened it and pretended to examine the pages, perhaps unaware that it was upside-down.

Giulia rolled her eyes and moved closer to the boys. “How are we gonna convince him?” she whispered.

“I have an idea,” said Alberto. He stopped and stretched before resuming his grape-picking. “Man,” he said, “now I wish I’d taken one of those eyeball pops! I guess if you’re staying here, I’ll never get another chance.”

“You’re right,” Luca joined in. “They had some really strange food in the other world, Giulia, like the three-eyed fish.”

“He mentioned the three-eyed fish,” Giulia said, nodding.

“Some of them have four or five eyes,” said Harry. “The four-eyed ones are always the most delicious.”

“There aren’t any four-eyed fish here,” Luca said, “only the two-eyed ones.”

“What a shame,” said Alberto.

They glanced over at Harry. He was watching them over the top of his magazine.

“You really want to live here where you’ll never have a four-eyed fish for dinner again?” Alberto asked.

Harry pushed his sunglasses back into place. “You just want to get rid of me,” he accused.

Giulia decided to try honesty. “You don’t belong here, Harry. There are no other people like you in this world. Sooner or later you’re going to want to go back.”

“They don’t,” said Harry, pointing to the boys.

“We are back, though,” said Luca. “I live with my family underwater during the summer, remember? And even if Alberto lives most of the time with humans, there are still lots of sea monsters around here so if he has a problem the humans can’t help him with, there’s somebody nearby who does. What if you get hurt or sick, and the doctor doesn’t know what to do about it?”

“I’ll be fine,” Harry insisted. “I’d rather have a Dad who’ll be proud of me.”

“Has Signor Visconti said he’ll be proud of you?” asked Alberto. He’d only met Aristide Visconti a couple of times, and he’d always seemed to be arguing with Ercole, not proud of him.

“He bragged about how his other son won the Portorosso Cup race five times,” said Harry. “I can do that, no problem.”

“He only won because he cheated!” Alberto protested.

“And you’d need a team to do that, because you can’t ride a bike,” Giulia said, bristling.

“I’ll figure it out,” Harry vowed.

The conversation was cut off then, as Faustina Visconti arrived with a picnic basket. “How’s everybody doing?” she asked. “Oh, looks like you’ve made wonderful progress! And you’re so gentle with them, that’s lovely.”

“I’ve been supervising,” said Harry. “I’m making sure they do it right.”

The other kids glared at him.

Faustina set down her basket and began unfolding a blanket. “I’ve made you some lunch. Why don’t we all take a bit of a break? Ercole!” she called over her shoulder.

“I’m coming, Mamma!” came Ercole’s voice.

He arrived a moment later with a second basket, and helped his mother to lay out a torta di verde with stuffed artichokes, fresh bread, and fruit from the garden. Luca, Alberto, and Giulia came and sat down while Faustina passed out food and offered each child a very small glass of wine.

“This is what we make from the grapes you’re picking,” she said proudly. “Our Bosco.”

Alberto and Luca sipped it carefully, to be polite. Neither of the boys particularly liked wine, finding it tasted quite sharp even when the humans promised it would be sweet. Giulia tried it and smiled. Harry and Ercole both swirled and sniffed it in the way they’d seen adults do, trying to appear refined. Giulia was about to say something to tease Harry about this, but Harry himself spoke first.

“Are we billing them for this?” he asked.

“Billing them?” Faustina echoed, confused.

“Yes. At the factory, if employees don’t bring their own lunch, they have to get it from the cafeteria,” Harry explained. “We take it off their paycheques.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Faustina. “We want them to come back and work for us again sometime, don’t we? We’re going to be welcoming. It’s not as if we can’t afford it. Would you children like some soda pop?”

“Yes, please!” said Luca and Alberto eagerly. They liked that much better than wine.

Faustina pulled out the bottles and opened them, while Harry sat there, looking surprised but thoughtful.

They finished up with tangerines for dessert, and then Faustina directed Harry and Ercole to help her bring the grapes already picked back to the house. Harry, with his low-slung, wide-set body, was able to heft one and carry it along mere inches above the ground, which Faustina told him was very good. He grinned toothily at the other kids before scuttling away.

“Ercole, try to be very careful, could you?” she asked. She took one basket in each arm, balancing them on her hips, and followed Harry.

Ercole was in the middle of lifting one, but he didn’t straighten up. Instead, he waited until his mother and new adoptive brother had vanished between the vines before putting the basket down and gesturing for Luca, Alberto, and Giulia to come closer.

“You have to get rid of him,” he ordered them.

“Why should we?” asked Alberto, who had strong feelings about Harry returning to his own world, but possibly even stronger ones about Ercole suffering inconvenience.

“Because Mamma treats him like one of her precious Bologneses!” said Ercole, referring to the two small dogs Faustina doted upon. “It makes me sick. And they let him sleep in my room. I woke up in the middle of last night and he was three centimetres from my face! I screamed, and he laughed at me!”

Giulia snickered.

Ercole glared at her. “Besides, he’s already planning to enter the race this year, and neither of us need more competition.”

“You don’t have to worry about it, because you’re too old to enter,” Giulia pointed out.

“We agree he needs to go back,” Luca put in, before an argument could develop. “He’s going to grow up to be really big and he’ll probably bully everybody, but what are we supposed to do? We already tried to talk him out of it, but he doesn’t want to go back.”

“Then you have to make him,” Ercole insisted. “How do you get back to that monster world?”

“We’ve got a plan,” said Alberto.

“We’re going back to Genova tonight, we hope,” said Luca. “We can do it from there.”

“Good,” said Ercole. “The last train leaves late, like nine o'clock, right? So after we go to bed, I will let you into the house, and you can grab him and take him with you.”

“Like… kidnap him?” Giulia was startled.

“Yes,” said Ercole. “But you’ll have to gag him first or he’ll yell, like he did when one of the employee’s children put a spider down his back.” He snorted. “I don’t know why he shoudl be afraid of spiders. He’s more likely to be mistaken for one. Mamma scolded the other child terribly.” He scowled. “She used to do that when people were nasty to me.”

“Ohhh,” said Giulia. She grinned. “You want to be the baby again.”

“I am not a baby!” huffed Ercole.

“Yeah, but you’re your Mom’s baby!” Alberto said.

Ercole pouted. “She used to say I always would be. Then she got the dogs. And now this.”

Giulia nodded – although she couldn’t help but wonder what Ercole had done to try to get rid of the dogs when they’d first arrived. There must have been something. “Okay, ragazzi,” she said to her friends. “We’ll come back after dark with the pram, and tie him up and put him in that.”

“We should probably trap him in a net,” said Alberto. “That way it’ll tangle up all his legs and we won’t have to do them one by one.” He knew from unpleasant experience that escaping from a fishing net was harder than it looked.

“We’ve got lots of nets,” said Giulia. “All right – we’ll come get him tonight after bedtime.” She offered Ercole a hand.

He took it as if it were a dead fish, and gave it one quick shake. “I hate having to make a deal with you,” he said, “but I must think about my own future.”

“Don’t worry, we don’t like making a deal with you either,” said Alberto.

“But we’ve got a lot of people to think about,” Luca agreed.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day passed far too slowly. The kids finished their grape-picking and presented the results to Signora Visconti. She was delighted and effusive in her praise of their hard work, and gave them an extra bottle of wine, along with their pay, to take back to the Pescheria. Once they reached home, they gathered up the things they thought they’d need to capture Harry and then re-enter the Monster World - and after that, there was nothing to be done but wait.

Waiting with nothing to fill the time was always terrible, and this seemed worse than usual. Luca, Alberto, and Giulia sat in the yard behind the shop and played card games while the hours ticked by, slower and slower and slower. Luca at one point went in to check the time, thinking it must be suppertime by now, but found it was only half five. He returned to the table with his shoulders slumped, feeling like he was going to curl up in a ball and cry.

Then, just to make things even worse, his parents arrived.

Helena opened the gate for them, and Daniela and Lorenzo walked in with very serious expressions on their faces. Luca knew he couldn’t groan out loud, but he certainly did inwardly.

“Luca,” Daniela said. “Your father and I have been talking.”

Luca felt sick to his stomach. “I have to do this!” he protested.

“Honey.” Daniela reached to touch his cheek, but he twitched away. “Please just listen to us.”

Luca scowled, but he sat down on the picnic table bench. He hardly needed to listen, he thought. He knew exactly what was coming next.

Daniela pulled another chair over to sit facing him. Lorenzo stood behind her with one supportive hand on her shoulder.

“Luca,” Daniela repeated. “We know you want to help. You’re very brave, and very responsible, and we are so proud of you. But from what you’ve said, this world sounds incredibly dangerous, ten times more dangerous than the land, and it really seems like Louise, Curtis, and Mr. Sullivan all decided themselves that they were going to take this risk.”

“Sullivan didn’t,” said Luca. “He was just there, and he had to help because he was in trouble anyway!”

“We’ve already planned everything and earned all the money,” Alberto pointed out.

“And Harry needs to go back to the Monster World,” Giulia agreed. “We can’t quit now!”

“See? They’re going to help, and if you come with me we’ll have a grownup and everything,” Luca said. “I can’t just sit at home when I don’t know what’s happening to them.”

“From your description of these monsters…” Daniela began.

“You’re scarier than any of them!” Alberto interrupted.

“You really are!” Luca said. “Even Mr. Waternoose wouldn’t want to fight you!”

“I don’t plan on fighting anybody,” Daniela told them. “I’m sorry, Luca, I hate having to put my foot down like this, and I definitely don’t want you to believe we’re punishing you because we are definitely not. But the longer we think about this, the more sure we are that we have to say no. We can’t let you. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t angry, but she was firm, and Luca knew in his gut that was it. He hung his head.

“What about Harry?” Giulia asked. “We promised Ercole we’d get rid of him.”

“Ercole will just have to get used to him,” said Daniela. “That isn’t your problem, either. You can’t save the whole world all by yourself, Luca,” she added, to her son.

Luca’s shoulders sagged further. “Dad…” he began.

“Sorry, son, but I have to agree with your mother on this,” said Lorenzo. He came and put an arm around Luca’s shoulders, and helped him to stand up. “Let’s head home.”

There was no arguing with that. Luca kept his head down, and did not speak as his parents led him out of the yard and down the steps to the water. Alberto and Giulia, too, sat in silence as Helena closed the gate behind them.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the children. “I know you were all eager to do this, but… I think the Paguros are probably right. Do you want me to stay a few more days, Passerota?” she asked her daughter. “I don’t have to go back tonight.”

“No, that’s fine,” said Giulia. “Not if you don’t want to.”

Helena brushed Giulia’s hair back to kiss her forehead, and then went indoors.

For a few minutes, Alberto and Giulia sat there in silence. Alberto leaned his head back, looking at the first few stars winking into view above. To be honest, he didn’t like the idea of going back to the Monster World very much earlier. Nobody there had liked them, it was much harder to stay wet there than it was to stay dry in Portorosso, and the food hadn’t been very good. They’d barely escaped the first time and there was no guarantee they’d be able to do it again. But as he’d pointed out, they’d made that whole plan and earned all that money - and more importantly, Luca really really wanted to.

Alberto himself wanted a lot of things, like a Vespa and comic books and a bell for his bicycle, but if he didn’t get something right away he usually lost interest in a couple of weeks and moved on to something else. Luca was different. When Luca wanted something, he wanted it with every cell in his body and he didn’t get to distracted. Alberto had come to realize that if Luca hadn’t been allowed to go to school in Genova, he would have spent the entire winter moping about it, and now he was going to do the same about this.

“Right, then.” Alberto stood and rolled up his sleeves. “We need a new plan.”

“New plan for what?” asked Giulia morosely, leaning on her knees. She was contemplating a summer with both Ercole and Harry doing their best to make her miserable. She wasn’t sure if they’d cooperate or if they’d make it a competition and she couldn’t decide which would be worse.

“For how we’re gonna kidnap Luca after we kidnap Harry,” said Alberto.

Giulia sat up, brightening momentarily, but then she frowned again. “His mom will kill us.”

“She’ll have to wait until we get back from Monster World,” Alberto said. “Come on. What would you have done if Luca’s parents had said he wasn’t allowed to go to school with you?”

“I’d’ve been down about it,” Giulia replied, “but I wouldn’t have done anything.”

“Well, I would,” Alberto declared. “I would have take him there on our Vespa myself. Are you gonna help, or not?”

Giulia got to her feet. She, too, knew that when Luca wanted something he wanted it intensely, and this was clearly something that meant a lot to him. “I’m coming,” she decided.

“Great!” Alberto nodded. “I’ve already got an idea.”

She snickered. “Uh-oh.”

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were standing outside the Visconti house, throwing pebbles at a particular bedroom window. After a couple of hits, the window opened, and Harry looked down at them.

“I’m not leaving,” he informed them, and started to close the shutters again.

“Wait!” Giulia said. “We need your help!”

Harry hesitated, then leaned out again. “With what?”

“You know how Luca wants to go back and help Louise?” Alberto said. “His parents dont’ want to let him do it. They’re keeping him at home, so we need to help him escape.”

“That means we need a boat,” Giulia added, “but my dad will definitely notice if we take his. Ercole’s got one. Can you guys help us?”

“If you do,” Alberto said, “we’ll owe you a favour, big time.”

That was something Harry understood. “What kind of favour?”

“Whatever you need,” said Giulia. “We’re desperate!” She crossed her fingers behind her back.

“Let me see if my new brother is still awake,” Harry said.

Ercole had been expecting them, but not for Harry to be the one letting him know they’d arrived. He was in his pajamas with his hair mussed as if he’d already been in bed, and yawning as Harry dragged him out the back door to meet their guests. His expression was suspicious. This wasn’t the original plan, and for a moment Giulia was afraid he was about to ask why they hadn’t brought the net with them and how they were planning on kidnapping Harry without it.

Luckily, he was smarter than that. Ercole’s first question was, “where did the other one go?”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Alberto, and explained the situation.

Ercole listened with crossed arms and an annoyed expression, not sure why any of this was his problem. He jabbed a thumb in the direction of Harry.

“What about him?” he asked.

“We need a lookout,” said Giulia innocently. She gave a quick wink.

Ercole must have understood. “Right, right,” he said. “Let me get some real clothes on.”

“We’ll wait,” Giulia promised.

“My new mom has called a tailor all the way from La Spezia to make me new clothes,” said Harry proudly. “She told him it’s a very special job.”

“It’s the same fellow she gets to make little jackets for her dogs,” Ercole said, and went back indoors to change.

He returned a few minutes later, still running a comb through his hair, now carefully oiled into place. Alberto and Giulia urged him and Harry to stay quiet as they made their way back down to the piazza. There, a bit more caution was necessary - even aside from the whole kidnapping plot, it was too late in the evening for young people to be wandering around unaccompanied, and anybody who saw them was likely to insist they go straight home. They kept to the shadows as they crept out onto the pier and climbed into Ercole’s boat.

Ercole went to start the motor, but Alberto put out an oar to block him.

“Too loud,” Giulia said, shaking her head.

“Are you suggesting we paddle the entire way?” Ercole asked.

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “Just far enough that nobody will hear the noise.”

“Well, I’m not paddling.” Ercole crossed his arms and stuck his large nose up in the air.

“Neither am I,” said Harry, mimicking the gesture.

“You two wouldn’t be any good at it anyway, with your noodly arms,” Alberto sneered.

Ercole’s eyes narrowed. “Are you calling me weak?”

“Yes,” said Alberto.

“He sure is,” said Harry, happy to cause chaos.

“I row the boat all the time for Massimo,” Alberto said. “I’ll get us there way faster than somebody who never even carries anything heavier than a basket of grapes.”

“All right.” Ercole reached for the oar. “Give me that.”

“I thought you didn’t want to.” Alberto held it away.

“I said give it to me!”

“Basta, both of you!” hissed Giulia, brandishing her own oar threateningly. “You’re going to make noise and then we’ll get caught!” She sat down and put the oar in the lock. “Somebody better help me or we’ll just go in circles.”

Ercole snatched the oar from Alberto and sat down beside her. “I’m bigger than you,” he told Alberto. “I can pull a stroke further.” He turned around to start doing so.

Alberto smiled and sat back, hands behind his head.

They rowed out of the harbour into the gathering dark, and once they’d made it to where Giulia thought they’d be safe, she lit a lantern and let Ercole start the motor. Alberto pointed him in the direction of Luca’s house. They rumbled off.

“You know, this is how Il Papa got Michelangelo to paint La Capella Sistina,” Giulia told the boys. “He asked and asked and Michelangelo wouldn’t do it, so the Popel said, fine, I hear you’re no good at fresco anyway. Then Michelangelo had to do it, just to show him up.”

“See?” Ercole asked Alberto. “It is a mark of greatness.”

Alberto sneered at him, then sat up and pointed at the bottom of the boat. “Here! Right here! Stop here!”

Ercole turned the motor off and threw the anchor over. The boat came quickly to the end of the chain and dragged it a couple of metres, then began drifting in a circle over where the weight had landed. Giulia took charge.

“Okay, ragazzi,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “Ercole, you get ready to start the engine and go the moment we’re ready. Harry, you watch out for other boats. I’ll look after Alberto.” She turned to her foster-brother. “Go get Luca!”

“This was my plan,” Alberto reminded her. “I know what I’m doing.” He took his hat off and dived into the dark sea.

Giulia watched him vanish into the water, and kept a grip on the anchor chain, ready to pull it up fast. Hopefully they could get this done in a hurry, before Harry realized that they didn’t really need both him and Ercole for the task. Ercole’s hand was on the motor, ready to start it, and Harry himself peered towards the town, waiting and watching.

Alberto knew where Luca’s house was. Sea monsters had an innate sense of the right direction to get to anywhere they’d been before - Luca and Giulia thought it had something to do with the earth being a giant magnet, but Alberto didn’t care as long as it told him which way to swim. He soon saw the gentle pink glow of the bioluminescent jellyfish the sea monsters used to light their homes, and headed towards it.

He went around behind the barn so as not to disturb the goatfish, which might make a racket if they thought a predator was close. From there he darted to the base of the little tower where the family stored crops and tools, and rounded it to the place where it joined the body of the house. There was Luca’s bedroom window. Alberto pulled himself up to the sill, and peered in.

Luca wasn’t there.

Alberto’s heart beat a little faster. Time, in the human sense of hours and schedules, was a concept he still had some trouble with but he knew they didn’t have much of it. If they didn’t make it to the last train to Genova tonight, they would have to go home, and then they’d be caught and everything would be ruined. He glanced back at the boat bobbing on the surface, silhouetted against the moonlit sky, then slithered in through the window like an eel.

Once inside, he could hear the voices. People in the next room were having an argument.

“We’ve been through this, Luca!” Daniela was saying. “The answer is no!”

“It doesn’t sound like a safe place for children,” Lorenzo agreed, resolute.

“Fine,” said Luca, “but can I at least sleep in my own room, then?”

“No,” said Daniela.

“You don’t trust me!” Luca complained.

“Not when you’re obviously trying to sneak away again, no, we don’t!” Daniela informed him.

Luca didn’t reply, and Alberto knew why - he couldn’t argue with that. He’d slipped out of the house to run away to Portorosso last summer, and now he was planning on doing it again. Alberto wouldn’t be able to do anything if Luca was forced to sleep in his parents’ room, so he had to do something now.

He slipped back out the window and backed off a little ways. It was important that he be out of breath when he arrived .

Alberto aimed himself at the door, and swam as hard as he could. He came bursting in, trailing a current that knocked things off shelves and startled Lorenzo Paguro’s show crabs, which began running around in a panic. Alberto himself tried to stop but plowed right into Daniela, who shrieked in surprise and dismay as they both crashed against the kitchen wall, knocking down the bundles of herbs she had tied to the ceiling.

“Alberto!” she exclaimed. “What under the waves…”

Alberto extracted himself from the tangle of limbs, tails, and seaweed, panting. His heart was hammering, not only because of the exertion but because of what he now needed to do. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d lied and there was no way it would be the last, but it was going to have to be the greatest performance of his life. “Luca!” he called out. “Giulia’s hurt!”

“What?” Luca asked. He grabbed Alberto’s arm to pull him out of the mess.

“What?” echoed Daniela, gathering up the drifting herbs. “What happened?”

“We were up in the treehouse after you left, and one of the boards broke and she fell!” Alberto panted, hanging on tight to Luca’s shirt. “Massimo’s called the doctor and everything, come on!” He swam for the door, dragging his friend behind him.

“My crabs!” Lorenzo exclaimed, trying to herd them up.

“Wait for me!” Daniela protested as the boys fled. For a moment Alberto’s stomach sank, thinking she would be right behind them, but then she yelped in pain as one of the crabs grabbed her tail fin. “Lorenzo! Control your crustaceans!”

“I’m trying!”

“Swim for your life!” Alberto whispered to Luca. He dashed ahead to tug the anchor chain, signalling to Giulia to reel it in before Luca’s parents could see it. Seconds later, he burst out of the water with a splash that soaked both Ercole and Harry, and set the boat rocking violently as he landed inside.

“Porca paletta! Was that necessary?” asked Ercole, grabbing a mirror to check his hair.

Alberto didn’t even bother to answer. He reached in the water to pull Luca up after him.

“Start the motor!” Giulia said. “Start the motor!” But Ercole was still looking at his reflection. Giulia pushed him out of the way and yanked on the chain herself.

The motor stalled.

“Come on! Come on!” Alberto urged. If Luca’s parents caught up they were never going to get away.

On the second try, the motor coughed to like. Ercole snatched the throttle back from Giulia and turned them towards their agreed getaway location on shore. This was not the harbour where they’d come from, but another little quay directly below the train station. The boat sped along, skipping in and out of the water as it went.

Luca was only just starting to catch his breath. “Thanks, guys,” he panted.

“Hey, I helped you run away from home once,” said Alberto with a dismissive wave. “What’s one more time?”

“It was my idea!” said Harry.

They pulled the boat up below the train station, and Luca, Alberto, and Giulia climbed out. Giulia counted the money to make sure they had all of it, and then the three of them turned to face Ercole and Harry.

“Thank you, Ercole,” said Giulia, as if the words tasted bad.

“You might not be totally terrible,” Alberto agreed, equally grudging.

Ercole sniffed - and then it was time. “Oh,” he said, “I almost forgot.” And he reached under the boat’s seat and pulled out a net to throw over Harry. Alberto and Giulia jumped on him to tie him up. Harry yelped and struggled, but his many legs quickly got tangled, and Alberto stuffed a gag in his mouth. Ercole pulled out the second item he’d stashed in the boat ahead of time, a suitcase, and they stuffed Harry insite.

“So we are even, then,” said Ercole cautiously, as the kids zipped the suitcase closed around the struggling monster. “I helped you kidnap Luca, you take that little bug away, and nobody owes anybody else anything, ever.”

“Correct,” said Giulia. “Nobody is allowed to call this in as a favour later. You two are our witnesses,” she told the boys.

Luca and Alberto nodded seriously.

Ercole extended a hand. Giulia shook it.

“Now we go back to hating each other, Spewlia,” said Ercole.

“Correto, Catfish.”

Ercole started the engine and puttered off again, and Giulia and the boys set to work dragging the suitcase up the stairs. Harry was heavier than he looked and had to be tugged up each step individually, making a muffled yelp of protest with each bounce. The kids ignored this as best they could, and hoped the gag would hold. If he worked it free enough to shout, they would have a real problem.

At the top, they approached the ticket office. Alberto, the tallest, strutted up to the window and flashed a confident grin as he presented the man with their money. “Three children for Genova!” he said.

The clerk peered over his half-moon glasses at them. “Are you three travelling alone?”

“Yes,” said Alberto.

The clerk was clearly skeptical. “Where are your parents?”

“They said we’re old enough to do this ourselves,” Alberto replied. Behind him, Luca and Giulia nodded eagerly.

“Do you mind if I call them?” the clerk asked. Like almost everybody else in Portorosso, he knew that Luca, Alberto, and Giulia were a unit - and that while well-meaning, they were good at getting into trouble.

“You know there’s no phone at the Pescheria,” Alberto told him.

“Don’t worry. I’m right here,” said Helena Marcovaldo.

The kids spun around. She’d been sitting in the waiting room with her own small bag, and they, intent on their own mission, had entirely missed her. The kids grouped closer together, but they knew it was no good. They were caught now and would be dragged back home. Luca would have to face the wrath of his parents, and heaven knew what everyone would think when they found out Harry was in the suitcase.

Helena came closer and leaned in to talk to them. “Did your parents change their minds, Luca?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” he whispered, but could not meet her eyes while he did so.

“I thought so,” said Helena with a resigned nod. “This is extremely important to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Luca repeated.

Helena straightened up. “They’re with me,” she told the clerk. “They wanted to pay their own way, but if it’s a problem, I’m here.”

“It’s no problem,” the clerk said, relieved. “I just wanted to be sure they weren’t up to any mischief.” He took the money, and handed each of them a ticket. “Have a pleasant trip.”

Luca breathed such a sigh that Alberto and Giulia grabbed his arms, afraid he would pass out from sheer relief.

The train pulled up a few minutes later, and the four of them boarded. Helena’s suitcase went in the luggage rack above the window, and Harry’s was pushed neatly under the seats. It thumped against the floorboards a couple of times as he struggled inside, earning a strange look from the conductor until Alberto started swinging his legs as if kicking in boredom. That seemed to be enough of an explanation, and the man moved on.

“I don’t suppose your mother is ever going to forgive me,” Helena remarked.

“Probably not,” Luca agreed. “She’s probably never going to forgive me, either. Maybe they’ll even send me to the Deep after all.” He shivered.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Giulia said.

“No, I gotta do this,” Luca replied, determined. “Even if I do end up in the Deep. It’s not fair to Louise. She got in so much trouble trying to help us.”

“You know, a lot of things aren’t fair,” Helena told Luca.

“That’s what Mom says,” Luca said. “I say it’s not fair and she goes, the world isn’t fair, Luca. But just because the world’s not fair doesn’t mean I have to be.”

Helena chuckled. “Your mother’s lucky you’re so quiet, Luca. If you wanted to be rebellious you’d be an absolute terror.”

The train they’d caught had been the last to leave Portorosso that day, and it was very dark by the time they arrived, yawning, in Genova. There was no chance of sneaking into the museum tonight - their plan required them to start in daylight. Instead, they collected their things and went back to Helena’s apartment

At some point during the train ride, Harry’s suitcase had stopped twitching, as if the prisoner inside had fallen asleep. Luca was slightly worried that he might have suffocated, but when they dragged him down the steps to the platform, the bumping woke him up, and he began to make noise again. They hurried home and unzipped the suitcase on Helena’s kitchen floor.

Immediately, Harry spat the gag out, and began yelling.

“This is unacceptable!” he declared. “When my father he… I mean, when my new mom hears about this… when either of them hears about this! They’re gonna…”

“We don’t care,” said Alberto.

“You will care!” vowed Harry. “My father with ruin your lives! You’ll never have work anywhere in Monstropolis! You’ll never work anywhere! He’ll buy that stupid fish shop out from under you and shut it down!”

“We don’t live in Monstropolis,” said Giulia.

“And Massimo wouldn’t sell the Pescheria no matter how much money you gave him,” Alberto said.

Harry sputtered and looked around for the nearest adult to back him up. “Are you condoning this behaviour?” he demanded of Helena.

“Apparently I am,” she said. “If I weren’t, I would have gotten them off the train or called their parents. Which reminds me.” She looked at Giulia. “You, young lady, are not going through any closet doors. Luca and Alberto can hide in that world. You can’t.”

“I know, Mom,” said Giulia.

“You can’t stop her from coming! Not after you helped me and Luca!” Alberto protested.

“No, Mamma’s right,” Giulia told him. “Anyway, I gotta go back to Portorosso and find another kid with a monster in his closet, so we can give you a quick way back home. We’ll catch the monster and prop the door open.” She looked proud of this plan.

“Thanks, Giulia,” said Luca. “That’s a great idea.”

“If I’m going to be a hostage, can I at least have something to eat?” Harry asked, annoyed.

“I think we all need a snack and a good night’s sleep,” Helena said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

She made them all sandwiches and cocoa, and then got out extra bedding so that Harry and Alberto would have places to sleep.

“I don’t want to hear anybody screaming in the middle of the night,” she added. “We don’t need any more chaos. That goes for all little monsters, including the human ones.” Helena looked straight at her daughter.

“Yes, Mamma,” said Giulia dutifully.

“Si, Signora Marcovaldo,” Luca and Alberto chorused.

Harry said nothing.

There was very little conversation as they settled down for bed. There was an unspoken agreement among Giulia and the boys that they would all lie down and shut their eyes right away, because they knew Harry would try something the moment he thought they were asleep. They wanted to catch him in the act.

Sure enough, the lights had been out only about twenty minutes when they heard the floorboards creek. Giulia reached over and turned on a lamp, and all three sat up to see Harry creeping towards the door.

“I am going to the bathroom,” Harry said indignanly.

“We’d better show you where it is,” Giulia said.

“I’ve been here before,” Harry reminded her.

“Just in case,” she said, glaring at him. Harry glared back with all five eyes.

Since Giulia was a girl, it was Luca and Alberto who had to get up and stumble down the hall with Harry to the bathroom. He shut and locked the door, and they waited outside through the sound of running water, followed by a series of thumps and mutterings.

“Is there a window in there?” asked Alberto.

“Yeah.” Luca rubbed his eyes. “It doesn’t open, though. The lock’s been stuck for years.”

Alberto nodded.

A few more minutes went by, then Harry opened the door again, annoyed but defeated. He did not speak to Luca or Alberto as they escorted him back to bed.

There was relative quiet after that. The three kids did their best to stay at least partially awake, one ear always listening for anything suspicious. They were all tired, though, and eventually they dropped off one by one. Alberto was first, and started snoring. Giulia pulled a pillow over her head to block him out, and was asleep shortly thereafter. Luca tried the hardest to keep his eyes open, but at last he, too, had to close them.

All three were abruptly awakened by the sound of shattering glass.

They sat up, blinking in the darkness. The kitchen clocked chimed for three in the morning, and floorboards creaked in the hall.

“Is everybody okay?” Helena asked, cracking the bedroom door open.

Giulia felt around for the lamp and turned it on, and looked around the room. Luca was in the other bed, rubbing his eyes. Alberto was sitting on the mattress they’d put on the floor for him. Harry was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly wide awake, Giulia scrambled out of bed and past her mother to try the bathroom door. The boys, who’d come to the same conclusion a split second later, were right behind her, and all three cried out in dismay when they found the door was locked.

“Harry!” Giulia banged on it. “What are you doing?”

There was no reply. Giulia rattled the knob.

“Calm down. Here’s the key.” Helena reached up to take it down from the ledge above the door frame. She got it open, and the kids crowded around her to see what was going on in the bathroom.

The room was empty. The lights were out. The window was broken.

Chapter Text

Giulia started to run to the window for a look, but her mother grabbed her and held her back.

“Don’t!” Helena exclaimed. “There’s broken glass on the floor, and we’re all in our bare feet!”

Giulia growled in frustration. “Get dressed, ragazzi,” she ordered, pointing a finger at the boys. “We’ve gotta find him!”

“Where’s he gonna go?” Luca asked, as they ran back to their own room to get their things. “He doesn’t know where anything is in Genova, and I don’t think his kind of monster has that extra sense where they can find their way back to places. The first time we took him through town he was in the pram and could barely see, and the second time he was in the suitcase!”

“He can’t even ask anybody for help,” Alberto agreed. “Anyone who sees him is going to freak out.”

“Then he can’t go far!” said Giulia firmly. She opened a dresser drawer and started pulling clothing out. “We’ll find him. If he’s smart, he’ll stick to the roofs.”

“I’m not sure he’s smart,” Alberto said cynically.

Somewhere outside, a dog began to bark. Luca lit up.

“I’ve got an idea!” he declared.

Helena put her shoes on and set to work cleaning up the remains of the broken window, while the kids got dressed and went straight to the neighbour’s home where Helena had dropped off Nerone the dog. Giulia knocked hard on the door and called out.

“Signor Traverso! It’s Giulia!”

After a few seconds they heard stumbling footsteps and the bolt slid back. The door cracked open, and Signor Traverso, a tall, skinny man whose face was mostly moustache, blinked down at them. “What on earth are you doing here at this hour?” he asked through a yawn.

“We’re here to pick up Nerone!” Giulia replied, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to be doing after midnight. The boys on either side of her nodded.

Signor Traverso blinked sleepily. “What? Now? It’s…” he glanced at his wrist, but was not wearing a watch. A moment later, however, a clock somewhere nearby chimed twice. “It’s two in the morning.”

“Yep! Right now.” Giulia nodded and smiled, making it silently clear that she would not explain.

Signor Traverso must have been too tired to argue about it. He shut the door again, and came back a few minutes later with the dog on his lead. Nerone himself was perfectly happy to be awake in the middle of the night, perhaps unsurprising for a creature who spent most of his days napping. He trotted up on his short legs, and greeted Luca and Giulia with happy licks. Alberto, of course, he didn’t know as well, but he seemed happy enough that this was another friend of his humans. Perhaps Alberto smelled enough like Luca to satisfy him.

“Thank you, Signor Traverso! We owe you one!” Giulia waved cheerfully as they headed for the stairwell.

“Good ni… good night, Signorina Marcovaldo,” the man replied, having to pause in the middle of the sentence for another yawn.

On the next landing, Luca pulled out an object he’d brought with him - Harry’s little sailor cap. “Okay, Nerone,” he said, offering it to the dog. “Smell this.”

Nerone leaned towards it, his shiny black nose twitching as he took in the scent. Then he shook his head and backed away, disgusted.

“Yeah, he knows who that belongs to,” said Alberto.

“Can you find him for us?” Giulia asked. “Can you find Harry?”

They made to continue down the stairs, and Nerone seemed to get the idea quickly. He began straining at his leash to run ahead, bouncing eagerly down the steps towards the street with his hindquarters sometimes nearly trying to overtake his head on the way. The kids ran to follow him, and he led them back to the street and uphill to the building where Giulia and her mother lived.

The apartments were built around a little courtyard that resembled a medieval cloister, though much smaller, with a covered walkway bordering an open rectangle with potted plants and a tiny fountain. The window in the bathroom looked out over this, which meant that after breaking it, Harry would have climbed out onto the walkway roof, and from there would have been able to drop to ground level. It was easy to spot the broken window. Helena had the light on as she finished cleaning up.

They led the dog to the most likely place where Harry would have landed, and directed him to sniff the ground. Nerone was willing enough to do so, turning in a circle with his nose to the ground and his tail perked up. Whatever he smelled, he didn’t seem to like it, and made the same disgusted face as he had at Harry’s hat.

“Yes, that’s right!” Luca urged. “Now, follow him!”

Nerone started sniffing at one of the potted plants. The kids watched him, waiting for him to do something, but he took his time, moving from one plant to another and stopping to pee on one of the pots.

“What’s taking him so long?” Alberto complained.

Helena’s face appeared in the window above them. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“We’re trying to get Nerone to track him by smell,” Luca explained. “Like in the movies.”

Helena frowned. “You… you do know that those dogs have to be specially trained for that, right?”

Luca had not, in fact, known that. He looked at his friends to see what they thought. It was pretty clear they were surprised, too.

“Nerone’s barely trained to wait five minutes while I open a can of dog food,” said Helena.

“Oh.” Luca’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “I thought that was a good idea.”

“It sounded like a good idea,” Giulia agreed, and grimaced as the sound of more barking came from elsewhere in the city. “The dogs are really upset tonight. It’s…” her eyes widened. “Of course!”

Luca had the same thought at the same time. “Nerone doesn’t like Harry! Neither did the gelato man’s dog!”

“Come on!” said Alberto.

Helena lived in the San Teodoro district. The sound of barking was coming from the south, closer to the harbour. The kids ran through the narrow, twisting streets. Because Genova was so much bigger than Portorosso and the people there worked at less demanding jobs, it had a nightlife that the smaller town lacked. There were a surprising number of people out and about, even as ‘late’ turned into 'early’. People and cars were in the streets, and the windows were bright in bars and dance clubs.

Nerone didn’t know what was going on and certainly had never understood that the kids wanted help finding a missing monster, but he did know they were going for a run and that was one of his favourite things. Furthermore, they were running towards other dogs who were barking up a storm, and that was something he definitely wanted to be apart of. He sprinted along with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, letting out an occasional yap of his own to let the others know he was on his way.

“What is their problem tonight?” a woman asked, as the group ran past a restaurant entrance.

“No idea,” said one of the friends with her, lighting a cigarette. “They’re sure excited about something.”

Nerone barked again as they got closer, and then, from up ahead, they heard a scream.

The kids had been getting tired at this point, but now they found a second wind as they sprinted the last few metres to turn the corner into the piazza in front of San Francesco da Paola. Several dogs were barking at something wrong the buildings, and one unfortunate man who’d been taking his spinone for a late-night walk was holding on to the leash with both hands as it tried to get free to bark at Harry, who was standing in front of the metal doors of the church with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What in god’s name are you?” the man with the dog demanded.

“I’m a monster!” snapped Harry, annoyed. “Now, take me to the train station, and I won’t hurt you!”

“What are you going to do?” asked the man, “gnaw my ankles?”

Harry responded by hissing and scurrying towards him with his arms held up. The man yelped in terror and ran, dragging his dog behind him even as the animal continued to bark.

“Chicken!” Harry shouted after him.

The kids came running up. Harry looked towards the sound of people approaching, then yelped as he realized these ones were likely to trap him in a suitcase again. He turned to run, but Nerone bit into one of his many legs, prompting a pained screech from Harry, and the boys grabbed his arms while Giulia got the dog off him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Alberto.

“Going home!” snapped Harry. “You can’t tell me what to do. Neither can any of these humans - they’re all too scared to do anything. Ercole was too scared to even tell me not to sleep in his room. He would do anything I told him to! He needed you guys to take me away for him!” he huffed, and then stood up straighter. “These humans are so easy to scare I don’t know why my Dad even bothers with the door thing. We could just come right in and scare them all, and they wouldn’t dare do anything about it!”

“Yes, they will,” Luca insisted.

“They totally will,” Alberto agreed.

The bronze doors of the church of San Francesco da Paola and the adjoining mendicant monastery had been closed for the night. Now they opened a crack and a monk in his dark habit stuck his head out. “What is going on out here?” he asked. “You children should be in bed, not roaming the streets.”

“Shut up!” Harry said, and spun around to snarl at the man.

The monk stared, then made the sign of the cross and slammed the door again.

“See?” Harry turned back to the other kids. “Just because you’re not scary enough to make them do what you want…” he began.

Then they heard a renewal of barking. A light came on in a building across the piazza, and a voice shouted, “in front of San Francesco!”

“Come on!” Alberto tugged on Harry’s arm. “We gotta go!”

“No!” snarled Harry. “Watch - they’ll do whatever I want!”

The man with the spinone appeared around the corner again, his shaggy black and grey dog barking excitedly as it pointed its nose towards Harry. “There!” he shouted.

A policeman was the next to step out, and by he light of the streetlamps the kids could see a half-a-dozen other people behind him, men and women both. Some of these gasped at the sight of Harry, while one woman exclaimed, “my God! What is it?”

The policeman put his whistle in his mouth and blew it to summon help. “You kids!” the policeman pointed. “Get away from that thing!”

“Wait!” Luca held up his hands. “We can explain!”

Harry pushed past him. “Everybody!” he addressed the gathered humans. “My name is Harry Waternoose and I’m…”

The policeman stepped forward and kicked Harry in the face.

This was a shock to the kids, but to nobody moreso than Harry himself, who staggered backwards with his hands over his bloodied nose. “Who do you think you…” he began, then had to duck as the policeman swung at him again.

Behind him, the doors of San Francesco opened again, and half a dozen monks came out, carrying bibles, crosses, and censures - and two carrying the tall metal candelabras that were used to light the church for night services. These were over six feet tall and well able to be used as weapons. The abbot, marked out by his broad black hat, strode towards Harry with a cross held out, repeating a prayer.

Harry didn’t know what any of that meant. He backed away from it, but that brought him closer to the policeman, who had his truncheon out. Two more police, another man and a woman, had arrived, and various other people were gathering with improvised weapons. He looked around. The piazza was shaped like a triangle, with the wide end towards the north. There was another road there, leading uphill - the one Luca, Alberto, and Giulia had come down. Harry started to head towards them, but then there was another chorus of barking dogs.

The kids looked back. Another policeman was coming from that way, with a couple more people behind him. There was now only one way to go, and that was south, where a brick path wound its way down a very steep hill towards the harbour.

Giulia knew Genova well enough to know, however, that the winding road wasn’t the only way down. She rolled up her sleeves, transferring Nerone’s leash from hand to hand as she did.

By now it had gotten through to Harry that he was in terrible trouble. He hunkered down in the middle of the piazza and covered his head as people got closer.

“Don’t hurt me!” he begged. “I’m sorry! Don’t hurt me!”

“Grab him and then follow me,” Giulia ordered, and took off for the path.

The boys dived on Harry. Alberto took the monster boy’s left arm and Luca his right, and then they just kept going, dragging him past the startled and shouting people and the policeman ordering them to stop. They followed Giulia as she passed by the gates of the walled garden at the south end of the monastery and rounded the corner. The path continued there, turning right to hug the side of the steep hill, but Giulia didn’t go that way. Instead, she and Nerone ran up to a green wooden door in the wall on the left side. Giulia threw herself against this and it burst open, revealing a steep dirt track that went directly down through the trees, bypassing the winding road.

The boys dashed through, Harry scuttling as hard as he could to keep up with them, and Giulia slammed the gate behind them. The path was not an easy one for people in a hurry, and the group ended up doing more sliding than running. The main route went right, to join back up at the road with another door, but Giulia turned left and went through the trees. This wasn’t much easier, but at least by holding on to branches and shrubs they could keep from falling down.

The trail brought them between a pair of apartment buildings and into a small garden, divided from the road by a tall fence. Alberto, Luca, and Harry climbed over, and Giulia hefted the dog over the top for Alberto to catch. Then she scaled it like a lizard on a wall and jumped down the other side, and all of them, including Nerone, were able to stop and catch their breath.

“We can’t stay too long,” Giulia cautioned. “They’ll figure out where we went eventually.”

The sound of voices shouting and more barking dogs told the boys that she was right, but they spent a few more moments leaning on the fence, breathing hard and trying to swallow the metallic taste of exertion in their mouths. Harry was in the worst shape of all, holding on to the fence with both hands as he panted.

“They weren’t afraid of me,” he whimpered finally.

Giulia rolled her eyes, but then she reached out and patted his back. “Yes, they were,” she said. “That was the problem – they were scared to death. When humans are scared of something and it’s just one or two of us, we run away, but when there’s more, we get together to hurt it before it can hurt us.

Luca nodded. “That’s what happened to us, too. We got rained on in front of the whole town, and if it hadn’t been for Giulia and her dad I dunno what would have happened.”

“Yeah, we never even threatened them or anything,” Alberto agreed. “Unlike some people.”

“What did Giulia and her dad do?” asked Harry. “Did they fight them?” He looked both hopeful that this was the case and skeptical that it could be.

“No,” said Luca at once. “They just reminded everybody that we’d been there all along and never tried to hurt them.”

“Although Massimo would have fought them all if he had to!” Alberto said proudly.

“So why didn’t you just tell all those humans I wouldn’t hurt them?” Harry asked.

“They wouldn’t have listened. They don’t know us,” Giulia pointed out. “Everybody in Portorosso listens to my dad because they’ve known him forever. Genova is too big for that. Nobody here even knows about Luca, except for the teachers and a couple of friends we really trust.”

“Remember Dorotea and her mom?” asked Luca. “They don’t even know.”

“Also, you actually were threatening to hurt people,” Alberto reminded Harry.

Harry hung his head. “No wonder Dad doesn’t want humans to know about us.”

That was a sobering thought. If the parents of the world knew that there really were monsters in their children’s closets, they would probably camp there waiting for them, just like Luca and Alberto had in Rocco’s room… except that the parents would bring harpoons or even guns and that would make everything so much worse. None of the kids had been born yet when the War had happened, but all had heard the way the adults talked about it. Even the sea monsters, who weren’t involved, had been affected by the warships and submarines. Nobody wanted anything like that to ever happen again, and a war across two worlds, between humans and monsters who really had nothing to fight about besides that each found the other frightening, would be both terrible and pointless.

“I wanna go home,” Harry complained.

“Like… home home?” Luca asked cautiously. “Back to your world?”

“Yeah,” Harry said.

Giulia stood up and brushed off her hands on the seat of her shorts. “Let’s go, then.”

There were several close calls as they crept through the narrow streets of the city back up the hill towards Helena’s apartment. Fortunately, Genova was a positive maze of winding medieval streets, and every time they were almost caught, they were able to find a trash bin or a side street where they could crouch in the shadows until danger had passed.

They arrived to find Helena, still in her nightgown and slippers, pacing anxiously in front of the entrance to her building. A man across the street came out the door of his cafe to leave the garbage for pickup, and spared a worried glance for her, but seemed to decide not to intervene. He brushed his hands off and went back inside, locking the door behind him.

Once he was out of sight, the kids hurried out to meet Giulia’s mother, who greeted them all with hugs – even Harry.

“What were you thinking,” she asked him, as she got a hold of the rambunctious dog. Nerone was wagging his tail, not knowing anything about what had just happened except that it had been an unexpected adventure.

Harry didn’t answer.

“Hes’ fine,” said Giulia. “He says he wants to go home now.”

Harry nodded miserably, and Helena patted his shoulder.

“I hope you’ve learned an important lesson, young… monster,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied, cowed.

Upstairs, Helena had cleaned the bathroom floor and taped some plastic up over the window so that the birds and insects couldn’t come inside, so there was nothing more to do but send everybody back to bed. Nobody said very much, although Luca did wonder what would happen if Harry tried to escape again. He probably wouldn’t, but what if his change in demeanour was just an act?

It seemed he needn’t have worried, though. Come morning, Harry was still there, and was still very quiet as he ate his breakfast. They did not discuss what had happened last night. Once the meal was finished, Luca and Alberto helped clean up the dishes, while Giulia and her mother packed up the things they would need for their ruse.

They had decided it would look best if the kids wore school uniforms. Alberto borrowed one of Luca’s, choosing the short-sleeved jacket so it wouldn’t be obvious that his arms were a little too long for it. It was a bit narrow across the chest, too, restricting his movement, but the part he really didn’t like was the necktie.

“You really have to wear this every day?” he grumbled, tugging at it.

“You get used to it,” Luca assured him.

“All right,” said Helena. She was in work clothes – a pair of paint-spattered overalls and a man’s striped shirt, with her hair tied back under a kerchief. “Is everybody ready?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Luca. Harry just nodded.

“Let me do the talking,” Helena told them. She unzipped the suitcase for Harry to climb in. “Unless somebody asks you something directly, and even then you can just say you don’t want to talk to strangers if that’ll help. I’m the one who knows the people in there.”

The kids agreed. Harry curled up inside the suitcase without complaint this time, and they trundled their way down the hill and around the harbour to the Palazzo Spinola. Luca had read about this place in a newspaper, and couldn’t resist the urge to talk about what he’d learned to his friends as they wound through the tangle of increasingly dim and claustrophobic streets in the old city centre.

“The building is almost four hundred years old,” he told Alberto. “Like Singora Marcovaldo said, it used to have a third floor, but that got bombed during the war.”

Alberto frowned. “How did they bomb the third floor without getting the ones under it, too?”

“I dunno,” said Luca. “A few years ago, the owners gave the whole thing to the city, along with all the paintings and furniture in it. It used to be somebody’s house, so that somebody probably would have had kids and it makes sense that the monsters would have portals into their closets.”

“Not so loud!” Giulia said, as a woman passed them with a dog on a leash. The dog sniffed at the suitcase, its ears back, but its owner hurried it along.

“Sorry,” Luca said. He leaned down a bit to whisper to the suitcase. “You okay, Harry?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Harry muttered. “Are we almost there yet?”

“Almost,” said Helena.

The main facade of the palace was on the Piazza di Pellicceria, which was a wide-open public space by the standards of the cramped medieval part of Genova, but tiny to people used to the Piazza Calvino in Portorosso. The main entrance was boarded up and covered with scaffolding for the restoration work, so Helena walked right past it and around the side, to yet another very narrow and dark alleyway that reminded Luca and Alberto of an underwater trench. Buildings rose up like cliffs on either side, and only a few thin shafts of sunshine managed to make their way down through the forest of roofs and chimneys above.

Here was a door with a sign on it that said Avviso: Solo Personale Autorizzato, and a bored-looking security guard standing next to it doing a newspaper puzzle. He looked up and smiled.

“Buongiorno, Signora Marcovaldo,” he said. “I didn’t know you were going to be here today.”

“I called ahead to management,” Helena replied. “Signor Zaccaria said I could bring my daughter and her school friends. They’re supposed to get pictures of a historical landmark this summer, and they’re very excited to see one that nobody else can get into.”

The kids did their best to look enthusiastic.

“Well, be careful,” the guard warned them. “Don’t touch anything. There’s a lot of damage in there – and one of the upstairs rooms is supposed to be haunted!” He winked.

“That’s great!” said Alberto.

“Yeah! Imagine if we get to show the class a real ghost!” Giulia clutched her camera.

“They’re prepared,” Helena told the guard.

The man unlocked the door for them, and they headed inside.

The outside of the Palazzo was fairly drab. Some of the fancy plasterwork had survived the war, but especially around the sides and back there was little to distinguish it from the humbler buildings nearby. Inside, the first floor was being used to store building supplies and old furniture covered in cloth. They passed that by and went up the first flight of stairs.

The second floor had been the Spinola family’s living area at the height of their wealth. It was now dusty and mostly unfurnished, with broken mirrors and missing light fixtures, and in one large room the entire frescoed ceiling had fallen down. People were laying out the bits of plaster on a drop cloth to reassemble the image like a jigsaw puzzle. Yet for all the ruin, it was clear that this building had once been magnificent. There were fancy tiles and marble mosaics on the floor, dozens of hooks on the ways for hanging giant mirrors and paintings, and places for fancy lights and chandeliers. What was left was almost nothing like the old black and white photographs from the newspaper, and yet Luca could see where that grandeur had once been.

Giulia was impressed, too. She raised her camera and began taking pictures.

“This looks like Harry’s place after a tidal wave hit it,” was Alberto’s assessment.

“The haunted one is supposed to be the green room,” said Helena. “It should be through here.”

Like many of the grander buildings in the city, the palazzo was arranged around a small central courtyard, one room leading into another rather than wasting space by having them branch off a hallway. That made it easy to get confused as they seemed to turn corner after corner, but Helena knew where she was going and brought them to a room where the walls were a bright spring green. Much of the paint had now come away from the walls during the bombing, along with the plaster underneath, leaving bare brick walls. What little remained was mostly in the corners and along the street-facing wall. There was no furniture and, more importantly, no sign of a closet.

“Is this it?” asked Alberto, opening the door opposite to the one they’d come in by. This, however, only brought him to the next room over, which had half the floor taken up to replace some damaged joists. The workmen looked up in surprise at this unexpected intrusion.

“Sorry!” said Alberto, and closed the door again.

“Where is it?” asked Luca, worried.

Helena smiled. “The people who lived in this palazzo were worried about looks, not practicalities. Things like closets had to be hidden. She let Harry out of the suitcase, and then went to a corner and used her fingers to brush dust away from a seam in the paint job. About half a metre away was a ring, and when Helena pulled on that, the hidden door opened to reveal…

… the scaffolding outside. It hadn’t been visible from the street, but the outer wall here had partially collapsed, leaving the interior of the closet as a narrow shelf with a wall on the right and the back, and open air on the left.

“Santo Parmigiano!” said Giulia.

Helena quickly closed the door again and looked at Harry. “Ah, does that matter?” she asked.

“Nah,” he shook his head. “There’s ground in our world, so it’s fine.”

“Good to know,” she decided. “So now we just have to wait.”

They made a show of touring the rest of the house, and let the people working there overhear Helena describing the delicate process of restoring things like the broken ceiling fresco. Giulia and Luca pestered the workers with questions, most of which were happily answered, while they left Harry hidden under a cloth in the green room, trying his best to look like a pile of masonry.

At lunch time they had a picnic in the central courtyard, eating sandwiches and drinking lemonade. Then Helena announced it was time to go, and they went around thanking everybody once again, as if they were about to leave. They did not, however, do so. Instead, they went back to the green room and joined Harry in hiding under drop cloths. When the end of the day came, nobody would remember having actually seen them leave, but nor would they remember them being there in the afternoon, and the workers and guards would conclude that their guests must have left hours ago. Nobody would suspect they had any reason to still be hiding inside.

Unfortunately, that meant there was nothing to do in the afternoon but listen to the sounds that echoed inside the building. There were hammering noises from the men replacing the joists next door, and clinks as they began putting the floor tiles back. Voices spoke on the street outside, and at one point somebody tried to bring a dog into the building. The animal must have smelled Harry, because it began barking in a frenzy and had to be dragged back out.

Finally, people began to go home for the evening. The smell of cigarette smoke and the sound of laughter suggested men weren’t working as hard as they had been. The door to the next room opened, and the workers from there came through in a cacophony of tramping boots and loud voices. Maybe some of them noticed that there appeared to be objects in the green room that hadn’t been there before, but if so, they didn’t think it was worth investigating. They went out through the other door, and could be heard descending the stairs.

Even then, it seemed to be forever before Helena became confident that everybody was gone and let them come out from under the cloth. They couldn’t turn any lights on for fear of being noticed, so they just sat in the gathering dark and listened to Harry describe what they were likely to find.

“The research labs will have a bunch of door stations,” he said. “I’ve visited them loads of times with Dad.” His confidence was starting to return now, as the time came closer to return to his own world. “They’ll probably only be using two or three at a time, because they’ll be testing different stuff. You know, one will be opened normally, and then another one they’ll have done something to.”

“They’ll have a control group,” Luca nodded. Another thing he’d learned about in school.

“There’ll be a bunch of scientists,” Harry added, “but I’ll tell them who I am and that I wanna talk to my father, and it’ll be fine. I bet he’s looking for me!” This idea seemed to perk him up even more. “I bet there’s a big reward out for my safe return. I am his only child, after all.”

Alberto wondered… if he’d gone missing, would his father even have bothered to look?”

“Anyway,” Harry added, “as long as you guys are wet, it’ll…” he stopped, frowning.

“Yeah, we know,” Alberto said, rolling his eyes. They’d filled buckets from a sink on the ground floor and were ready to use them. After what had happened last time, they weren’t likely to forget.

“No, I think I heard something, too,” Luca said, and put a finger to his lips. “Alberto, sssh!”

Alberto fell silent, and there were a series of noises from outside – specifically from the other side of the closet door. The kids moved closer to Helena as a series of thumps, creaks, and grunts came closer and closer. Was there something wrong with the scaffolding, perhaps? Or were the monsters getting to work early?

“Are those the sounds the maids hear?” Giulia whispered.

“I don’t know,” Helena replied. “I’ve never heard them myself.”

“Should we look?” asked Luca.

Giulia stood up and got her camera ready. “You open it,” she said. “If it’s something bad, I’ll set off the flash.”

Luca and Alberto stood on either side of the closet door, water buckets ready, and Harry reached to pull the ring. Helena got behind Giulia, ready to grab her daughter and run.

“Good luck, ragazzi,” Helena said.

“Here goes!” Harry announced. He wrenched the door open – only for him, Luca, Alberto, and Giulia all to let out a scream at the sight of something scarier than any eight-metre drop or monster scientist could possibly have been.

Chapter Text

“So much for staying quiet,” Helena observed.

“M-m-mom?” Luca asked tremulously “What are you doing here?”

Daniela recovered enough to speak, and climbed the rest of the way through the closet door into the room. Her bare feet and hands were dirty, and her dress had a tear in the skirt – it had clearly been a difficult climb. “What am I doing here?” she echoed. “What are you doing here, young man? Your father and I were very specific that we didn’t want you doing this, and you deliberately disobeyed!”

“Signora Paguro…” Giulia began.

“And you two!” Daniela rounded on Giulia and Alberto, shaking a finger at them. “You helped! I’d talk to your parents, but they’re clearly in on the whole thing!” She glared at Helena.

“We need to stop shouting!” said Helena, holding up her hands. “Somebody’s probably heard all that, and the security guards will be coming to investigate. We’ll only make it worse if we keep arguing, so how about we compromise?”

“Compromise?” Daniela began, but then paused. There were voices talking downstairs… it was impossible to hear what they were saying, but they sounded urgent.

Giulia had immediately understood what her mother had in mind. “Signora Paguro,” she said again. “Harry didn’t want to go back, so we had to drag him here. He’s changed his mind now and he wants to go, so we’ll leave him here for when the monster researchers open the door, and the rest of us will go back to Portorosso! How about that?”

“But…” Luca began, but then caught Helena’s eye and saw her shake her head.

“I…” Daniela looked down at Harry, who smiled sheepishly. “That sounds reasonable, I suppose,” Daniela decided, “but you three are still in a lot of trouble.”

Luca really did want to argue, but he knew this was a fight he could not win, so he sighed heavily, and then nodded. “Yes, Mom.”

“How did you get here?” Helena wanted to know.

“I took the train, like you did,” Daniela replied, “and don’t think it wasn’t the most terrifying experience of my life! I don’t know how you do it,” she told Luca, “in this big rattling box that feels like it might tip off the cliff at any moment, surrounded by strange humans. I’m never doing that again! We’re going to swim home like respectable creatures.” She shook her head. “But yes, when I realized where you must have gone, I opened up your grandmother’s savings…”

“She has savings?” asked Alberto.

“Nonna collects coins that fall in the water,” Luca explained. “She uses them to bet at cards.”

“… and I was on the first train this morning,” Daniela went on. “Then I knew you’d said Palazzo Spinola, but I had to find the place, which was also ridiculous. Why would you build like this, where all the roads turn you around and go back the way you came, when you can’t look down on the place from above?” She glared at Helena as if she were personally responsible.

“There’s not a lot of space between the mountains and the sea,” Helena said. “They build things wherever they fit.”

“Then when I got here,” Daniela said, “the humans outside said you’d left after lunch, but I knew better. They wouldn’t let me in any of the doors, so I decided to climb up and look for another way, only to have you open the door and scream in my face! After I’ve been through all that, don’t you even think you can change my mind about taking you home.”

“Yes, Mom,” Luca repeated.

Daniela nodded, satisfied. “Good. Let’s go.”

“What? Right now?” asked Alberto.

“We have to make sure Harry gets home safe!” Luca agreed.

“We can’t just leave him on his own,” Giulia said. “He can’t be trusted!”

“I really can’t!” Harry said, then paused, thinking about what had just been said. “Wait a minute…”

“We just have to wait until the monster scientists open the door,” said Luca, forging ahead before Harry could try to correct them. “We don’t know when that’ll be, though.”

“It might not happen at all,” Helena warned. This had occurred to everybody else, but nobody had wanted to say so. If the scientists didn’t actually use this door, then all this had been for nothing and they were going to have to find another way back. Nobody knew if that were even possible.

There was a creak and a thump from downstairs, and then footsteps. Somebody had opened the main door downstairs, and as Helena had predicted, they were on their way up to see what all the noise was about.

“Oh, no,” groaned Luca.

“Quick!” Giulia grabbed one of the cloths from earlier. “Hide!”

They all scrambled underneath, using boxes and paint cans to prop up the sheets and make them look like they were covering furniture or supplies rather than people. It was hard to say how convincing this might be. It seemed to have worked on men who were tired and distracted and didn’t expect to find anybody there. People who were looking for an intruder might not fall for it at all.

“What if they find us?” whispered Luca, crouching in in front of his mother under one of the sheets.

“Harry.” Alberto poked the young monster. The two of them were curled up under Helena’s empty suitcase, left open beside one wall. “If they come in here, you pop out and scare them away.”

“What? No way!” said Harry, shaking his head hard. “There might be a lot of them!”

“Sssssh!” hissed Giulia, under the second cloth with her own mother.

For the first couple of minutes, Luca hoped the security guards might only search the first floor and then give up. That evaporated when he realized the footsteps were now coming up the steps. What had been indistinct voices began to turn into actual words.

“… said she thought her son and his friends were in here,” one of the men was saying. “I sent her home.”

“Should have escorted her the whole way,” another replied.

Nobody dared breathe. The footsteps came closer and closer, keys jingled, and then the ominous creak as the door opened. Flashlight beams darted around the room, one shining right into Luca’s eyes so that even with the sheet over his head, he had to close them. Would they move on, or had they seen something suspicious.

“Mamma mia,” one of them groaned. “Who do you all think you’re fooling?” He stepped forward and reached for the sheet.

Daniela stood up, hands on her hips. “Luca,” she ordered, “the water.”

That was right – they still had the buckets of water they’d prepared for disguising themselves upon entering the monster world. Luca grabbed the nearest one.

“Signora Paguro,” the guard said calmly as he pulled the sheet away. “We were very clear that…”

Luca threw the water over his mother. The security guard yanked the cloth away, expecting to see a harried-looking woman in her late thirties, and found instead a sharp-toothed, scaly creature with glowing red eyes and a lashing tail. Daniela couldn’t roar like the closet monsters could, but she let out a high-pitched scream to match the one she’d given when she’d suddenly found Luca, Alberto, and Giulia inside the room.

The guards dropped their flashlights and grabbed each other as they screamed back in terror, then fell over each other in their panic to leave. One was pushed to the ground as the other two left him behind. He was screaming insults at them as he picked themselves up to follow.

“And stay out!” Daniela shouted as the half-ran, half tumbled down the stairs outside.

“They’ll be back with more people,” said Giulia. “Just like they were for Harry. We gotta go.”

“What about me getting home?” Harry complained.

“Giulia’s right,” Luca said, though he didn’t like to admit it, either. They hadn’t chased the guards off for good, they’d only bought a few minutes.

“We’ll have to try somewhere else,” Helena agreed. She picked up one of the flashlights and reached for the closet door. “Daniela, you climbed up. Can you show us…”

Then suddenly another light came on – this one shining from around the door which should have had nothing on the other side of it by empty street and scaffolding. Everybody froze. Luca dared to hope that something tonight was going to go his way.

“Doc!” a voice called from the other side. “It’s working now!”

That had to be their cue. “Harry,” Luca whispered. “Over here, quick!”

Luca, Giulia, and Alberto surrounded Harry, ready to push him through any opposition they might encounter on the other side of that door. Helena and Daniela took up positions behind them, to fend off intruders from downstairs. There wasn’t much available by way of potential weapons, but Helena had the flash on Giulia’s camera, and Daniela hefted two fairly full paint cans, ready to swing them at anyone who came in. Everybody held their breaths.

The light under the door went out again. Luca wilted, thinking they’d missed their chance – but then the door creaked open, and a glowing eye peered back at him.

“Now!” Luca shouted.

He and his friends pushed Harry at the one-eyed figure. The monster in the closet yelped in surprise and dived out of the way. Meeting none of the expected resistance, all four children tumbled through the opening to land in a heap on a tile floor.

“Luca!” Daniela dropped her paint cans and ran after them.

As she did, the main door of the room opened again, and light flooded in. There were too many people from a camera flash to be remotely effective. Seeing no other escape, Helena, too, ducked through the closet door, and slammed it shut behind her.

As their eyes adjusted to the dark, the group saw that they were in a long tiled room. One wall held a row of door stations, similar to but bulkier than the ones at the factory. The other was covered with all sorts of equipment and dials, with pipes, hoses, and bundles of wire leading into the ceiling or across the floor to the doors. Books, papers, chairs, and coffee cups were knocked over and strewn around, and there were sounds of panic and shouting coming from out in the hall. Luca knew they had to do something fast, before anyone tried to come back in. He looked around, and soon found what he was looking for.

“Water!” he said, pointing to the fire hose coiled behind a glass panel in the wall.

He and Alberto yanked the door open, setting off an alarm as they did. Luca uncoiled the hose, and Alberto turned the wheel. Water blasted out, and Luca pointed the nozzle at Alberto to soak him first.

From behind him there was an indignant cry of, “hey!”

“Huh?” Alberto turned around and let Luca turn the hose on himself and Daniela while he inspected a row of cupboards on the wall. One was half-open – just enough to let the jet of water spray inside. Alberto pulled it open all the way, and found a tangle of legs in black patent mary-jane shoes, belonging to a monster girl of twelve or thirteen who was now rather damp.

“You two again!” she exclaimed. It was the girl they’d repeatedly splashed at Harry’s school. “What is this, some kind of conspiraohmygod!”

“It was an accident!” said Luca. He turned off the hose and came to help her, only to realize that she was staring right past him and Alberto, looking at something else in utter terror. When Luca followed her gaze, he found his mother shaking extra water out of her fins, and behind her were Helena and Giulia. Both of them were also soaking wet, but that didn’t matter, because both of them were human.

“Oh, no, they’re fine!” Luca told the girl in the cupboard. “They’re friends of ours.”

“They’re poisonous!” the girl protested. “Or venomous or whatever! You were there when we learned about it!”

The lab door flew open again, and four or five monsters of various sizes – though all of them smaller than the large, intimidating ones who worked as Scarers at the factor – barged in carrying a variety of improvised weapons of their own. One had a large wrench, another a mop, and the one in the lead, who had three eyes and eight legs, was wielding a cricket bat. He scuttled forward and pointed it at the group.

“Unhand my daugh…” he began, then his eyes widened as he saw Daniela. For a moment he just stared in astonishment, and then his entire demeanour changed. He stood up straight and put the bat behind his back. “I’m so sorry, Ma’am. Miss? You startled me! Uh…” he took in Harry, crouched and covering his head at Daniela’s feet, and Luca and Alberto, helping the girl out of the cupboard, all while Helena and Giulia edged to the site to stay hidden behind Daniela.

“I’m fine, Dad,” the girl in the cupboard said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh! Tarantella!” the scientist exclaimed, as if he’d momentarily forgotten she was there. He gave his cricket bat to one of his very confused colleagues, and scuttled forward to check on his daughter. “You’re… all wet,” he observed.

“That’s their fault,” said Tarantella. “These guys go to my school, and apparently every time I meet them, I get wet!”

“Oh,” said the scientist. He had the name González embroidered on a pocket of his white coat. “Wait, what were they doing on the other side of that door. Ma’am?” he turned to Daniela. “Were you scaring in there? If so, I’m afraid there’s been some kind of mixup…”

“That’s a very long story, Sir,” said Luca. Harry hadn’t said anything yet, so it was apparently up to Luca to take charge. This was where their plan ran out, so he was going to have to make things up as he went… and the first priority, he decided, was to make sure nobody panicked again. “Sir,” he said, “we need your help with something, but we need you to not freak out! So before we do anything else, you need to know that humans aren’t poisonous!”

“They aren’t?” asked González. He grabbed Luca by the shoulders, holding on uncomfortably tight as he gave the boy a bit of a shake. “You know that for certain?”

“Sure do,” said Alberto.

“Mom,” Luca said. “Move over.”

González looked up at Daniela again. “Oh, that’s your mom?” he asked, disappointed – but then his breath caught as she stepped aside to reveal Helena and Giulia. His grip on Luca relaxed, allowing him to wiggle free.

“This wasn’t part of the plan at any point,” Helena noted. Her eyes went to the closet door, but it was sitting quietly in its frame with the lights off, perhaps no longer connected. There’d been no more noises from beyond it.

“Miercoles!” whispered González. He started to step towards them, then stopped and looked at Luca for permission. “May I, then?”

Helena took over, and gave him a hand to shake. “Piacere, Dr. González. I’m Helena Marcovaldo, and this is my daughter, Giulia.”

“Ah… Javier González. ¡Encantada!” he replied, returning the handshake. After a couple of seconds he realized he’d gone on too long, and pulled his hand back to stare at it, turning it over to see the back. Then his face split into a broad, toothy grin. “I knew it! I knew it! Ha-ha! People think you’re crazy when you say Big Scream is hiding things, but I knew it!” He turned to his daughter. “Tarantella, didn’t I… ooooh, wait’ll I tell your mother! I’m gonna get a Gnoble Prize for this, I know it! The man who brought down the Scream cartel!”

Tarantella wasn’t impressed. “Haven’t you been saying that people who try to talk about it vanish?” she asked, worried.

At the same time, another monster poked one of its heads into the room, while another looked back over its shoulder. “Dr. González?” the first head said. “The police and exterminators have arrived.”

“Oh, no,” said Luca. They really should have had a plan for this part… but how could they have, when they didn’t know where they’d end up? And they certainly couldn’t have planned for Giulia and Helena being here. That had only happened because of the need to escape from the security guards in Genova. If only there were a third world where they weren’t in trouble!

“Oh, no,” González echoed. “Not this time!” He turned to his guests. “You two, you can just…” he stopped there, his mouth falling open. Daniela and the boys were drying out, and transforming.

“More water!” said Luca. He grabbed the hose to spray them all again. Tarantella shrieked preemptively and dived behind a trash can.

Dr. González clearly had questions about this, too, but he was much more interested in getting away with whatever it was he thought he was doing. He started up another door, and hustled Helena and Giulia through it. “Just wait right there,” he ordered them. “I’ll come and get you in a minute!” He then shut off the station, leaving Luca and Alberto slightly terrified that they would never see their friends again. Where had he sent them? It could have been anywhere.

There was no time to think about that, though. Moments later, a couple of policemonsters arrived, along with an individual in the yellow plastic suit of an exterminator. The latter was a hulking, hunchbacked creature with one head that peeked over the top of the other one, and the very long visor in that part of the suit made Luca feel like far too many eyes were watching him. All he could do, though, was stand in a line with Harry, Alberto, and Tarantella, while his mother and González took up positions behind them, trying to look like nothing had been going on.

“An alarm went off in here,” said one of the police monsters, a creature with three legs, two arms, a bushy mane, and far too many teeth.

“Ah, yes,” said González with a nervous laugh. “Yes, we’ve had a little… you can probably see, we’ve had a little problem with the fire system. Water everywhere! Don’t worry, nobody’s hurt. Of all the times for it to happen, it was bring your children to work day!”

“It’s okay,” Alberto put in, throwing an arm around Luca. “We’re sea monsters. We’re supposed to be wet, anyway!”

The other cop – a slug-shaped creature with a ridge down her back like a dragon – sighed. “You’ve really gotta get this place inspected, González,” she said. “This is the third false alarm this month.”

“It’s an old building, Maggie,” González replied apologetically.

“Just file the report,” Maggie sighed. “Maybe talk to the university council.”

“I’ll do that.”

The cops and exterminator took one last cursory look around the room, then turned and trooped out. Luca and Alberto allowed themselves to exhale, and González turned the other door back on to let Giulia and Helena back in. The boys had wondered if they might take the opportunity to flee, but they were still there, Helena with her hands on her daughter’s shoulders as they re-entered the laboratory.

“Where were you?” Luca asked.

“No idea,” said Giulia.

“We could hear voices talking in a foreign language,” Helena added, “but I don’t know what it was.”

Luca gave Giulia a hug. “Okay,” he said, “now we need to figure out what we’re doing next!” he said. “We have to get to the factory and…”

“Oh, no,” said Daniela. “We’re not staying. Harry’s back where he belongs, now it’s our turn. Dr. González, put that door back. I’m taking these kids home.”

“You can’t!” González protested. “At least… the humans can’t! I need them to prove my case!”

“Excuse me, you can’t just keep us prisoner,” said Helena.

“We can’t go back right away,” Giulia said. “They’re probably still looking for us in the Palazzo.”

“We’ll be charged with trespassing,” Helena agreed.

“Yes, exactly,” said González, though it was questionable how much he was listening. “I’ve got to get you out of here. We need a disguise…”

Behind him, the lab door opened again. “Hey, Doc,” said the exterminator, poking its two heads in. Surprisingly for such a large creature, it’s voice was high-pitched. “I think those two boys…”

It stopped dead, staring at Helena and Giulia. There was no time to do anything about it. Even worse, at that moment the air conditioning came on. Before the exterminator had time to recover from its initial shock, Alberto, Luca, and Daniela had all dried out and changed back to human form.

“Oh, no,” said Luca.

The exterminator stared a moment longer, then grabbed a walkie-talkie from its belt. “Hey, uh, Maggie…” it began.

Daniela took action. She scooped up González, discarded cricket bat and hit the exterminator over its larger head. The monster staggered.

“Hey!” protested the smaller head. This one had a deep, booming voice.

Daniela hit that one, too, and the creature crumpled. The walkie-talkie rolled across the floor and came to rest at González’ many feet.

“Hello?” asked a voice on the radio.

González picked it up, cleared his throat, and did his best to imitate the squeaky voice of the larger head. “Why don’t you go grab some lunch, Maggie,” he said. “I’m gonna help the doctor re-check some of his safety gear.”

“So they weren’t the kids you were looking for?” asked the voice of the cop.

“Nope! Totally different! Over and out!” González turned the device off and tossed it in a trash can. “Come on! We have to get you all back to my place! You three, get wet again!”

Luca ran for the hose. “What about Giulia and her mom?” he asked, as Tarantella took cover.

González stopped, frowning. “Yes, what about them?” he mused. He looked around, and his eyes found the fallen body of the exterminator.

A few minutes later, Daniela and the boys were sopping wet again, and Helena was wearing the exterminator’s yellow suit, with Giulia riding piggyback to fill out the hunchback and the second head. This was awkward and Helena couldn’t move fast, but they didn’t get more than a few sideways looks as they crossed the building’s lobby.

“I need to call my Mom,” said Harry.

“You’re going to tell your parents?” González was aghast. “Young man, they’re the ones keeping these secrets from the masses! Your father is probably the mastermind of the whole conspiracy.”

“I know,” said Harry. “I’m not gonna tell them we brought the humans, I just wanna tell them I’m okay. Maybe Dad will even be happy to see me.”

The front doors opened onto an expansive car park, surrounding by multi-storey buildings. González considered the options available to him, then headed for a van with a Monsters University logo and the word custodial painted on the side of it. “Tarantella,” he said, holding out a hand.

His daughter pulled a bobby pin out of her hair. González took it, and unlocked the back of the van.

“Great,” sighed Luca. Another car ride in the dark – the last one hadn’t been fun at all. There was nothing else to be done, though, so he climbed in.

“What are you guys even doing back here?” Tarantella wanted to know. “If you got back to your own world, why did you come back here where everybody thinks you’re criminals? And why did you bring the humans with you? Isn’t that just gonna get you in more trouble?”

“They weren’t supposed to come back at all!” said Daniela crossly. “I explicitly told them not to. Only Harry was supposed to come back.”

“But since we’re already here,” Luca added, “we need to find out what happened to Louise and Curtis and Mr. Sullivan. They’re in trouble and it’s all our fault!”

“Who are they?” asked González. He climbed in the driver’s seat of the van and started pulling the dashboard apart.

“They used to work for my Dad,” said Harry. “They’re fired now.”

“We’re gonna take them back to our world,” Luca explained. “We live in a town where they’re pretty okay with monsters. They even kinda got used to Harry. They’ll be okay there.”

“You can’t do that,” Harry protested. “What happens when somebody from outside your town comes to visit? Then they’ll end up with a mob, like the one that was after me!”

“Not if my Dad has anything to say about it!” said Giulia.

“I don’t really think that’s a good idea, either,” Helena put in.

“But we gotta do something!” Luca insisted. “Now that we’re here, we need a plan again. We need to figure out where they are. Then we need to know how to get in there and help them escape. And then we need a door that’ll go back to our own world. That last part is easy, at least.”

“Yeah, Dr. González has lots of them,” Alberto agreed.

“I can’t just let you all go before I publish!” González complained. The engine of the van rumbled to life, and he did up his seatbelt before putting the vehicle in gear. “I’ve got to do controlled tests and double-blind studies! There’s months of work ahead!”

Tarantella shook her head. “Dad, you said they assassinate whistle-blowers, remember? Maybe you’d better keep this to yourself.”

“Truth needs to come out,” González said firmly. “There are martyrs in any revolution.”

“I can just ask where they are,” Harry said, getting back on topic.

“You think your dad’s going to tell you?” asked Alberto.

“Not him. There’ll be other people who know,” said Harry. “And they’ll tell me anything I wanna know because if I tell Dad they were mean, they might lose their jobs. Even if they don’t, I can go anywhere I want in the whole factory. Somebody in there has to know. I’ll find out.” He was starting to sound like himself again.

“Great! We’ll go from there,” said Luca.“In the mean time, can we please stay with you, Dr. González?”

“Of course, of course,” said González. They pulled out of the parking lot onto the street. “I’ve got observations to make!”

González lived in a house not far from the university. It was far smaller than the mansion where the Waternoose family lived, no bigger than Louise’s apartment, but still larger than the Marcovaldo family home in Portorosso. The garage was big enough for two cars, although there was only one inside. The rest was full of piled-up boxes and mechanical parts. Gonzalez backed the van up as close to the door as he dared, then hustled everybody inside in the hopes the neighbours wouldn’t see.

“I’ve gotta take the van back and get my bike,” he said. “I’ll only be a few minutes. Don’t go outside, don’t go near the windows, don’t go anywhere!” He wagged a finger at them. “Tarantella! You’re in charge of making sure they don’t escape!”

“Yes, Dad,” she said tiredly, then glared at the boys. “Don’t get me wet again!”

Luca held up his hands. “We won’t!” he promised.

“As long as nobody’s gonna see us, we don’t have to,” Alberto agreed.

“Good.” Tarantella scowled.

She turned the inside lock on the door, and they closed all the blinds and shutters. Then, when they were sure nobody could see them, Helena and Giulia were able to get out of the yellow Eterminator suit. The inside of it was clearly a very warm and claustrophobic place. Both were sweaty, and took deep breaths of fresh air as they wriggled out the zipper in the back.

“It’s got a breathing system of some sort,” Helena observed, “but it’s not designed for creatures with noses where ours are!”

“Hold it!” Tarantella shouted.

Harry had been reaching for the kitchen telephone, but Tarantella was now skittering up on the counter to place herself firmly between him and it, her arms held out on either side. Harry scuttled do the left, and she did the same. He tried the right, and she kept herself in his way. They did this dance several times, until Harry gave up in frustration.

“Why can’t I use the phone?” he demanded.

“Because you’re gonna call your dad!” Tarantella replied. “Then my Dad is gonna be in trouble! He’s always talking about how anyone who tries to tell the world that humans aren’t toxic gets silenced by Big Scream, and since he was right about the humans I guess he’s right about this, too! Find a phone booth or something.”

“She’s right,” Luca realized. “The same thing will happen to Dr. González as happened to Louise and everybody. Then we’ll have four people to save instead of three.”

Harry brightened. “Then that’s a good way to find out where they are, right?”

“No, it’s not!” Luca, Alberto, Giulia, and Tarantella all spoke in unison.

“We need to make a plan,” Luca insisted.

“Right,” Alberto nodded. “You’re the idea man, Luca. How are we gonna do this?”

Luca looked around and swallowed. Everybody was looking at him expectantly, including Harry and Tarantella… and they were all counting on him. Helena and Giulia needed to get back to the human world safely. Harry needed to not get in too much trouble for running off, and to not get the rest of them in trouble by accident. Tarantella needed her father to not get thrown in jail. Daniela would be furious if he or Alberto got hurt. And now all of them were expecting Luca to figure out how to do it.

“I need a minute,” he said.

Chapter Text

Dr. González returned a few minutes later riding his bicycle, which was a very complicated device designed for a man with six legs. He brought it inside and propped it in the kitchen then hurried to join them at the table.

“Did anybody see you?” he asked urgently.

“No, Dad,” said Tarantella, “although Harry tried to call home. I wouldn’t let him.”

“Good girl.” González nodded. “Your Mom is out of town until...?”

“Thursday. She told you like six times.”

“Good, good. Now... you two humans.” He turned to Giulia and Helena. “Do you mind me getting some samples?”

Giulia edged closer to her mother, who put protective arms around her. “Samples?” asked Helena cautiously.

“Hair, fingernails, saliva... to test for toxic effects,” González explained. “I mean, yes, we shook hands, but that’s purely anecdotal. I need actual data to back up my assertions, or I’m no better than those weirdos who insist there are humans wandering around the woods leaving odd five-toed footprints!”

“Yeah, weirdos,” muttered Tarantella.

The humans relaxed a little, and allowed González to take a lock of hair and a cheek swab from each of them. He then did the same with Luca and Alberto, talking about how being neither humans nor monsters in the usual sense made them very interesting and worth further investigation. Harry sat there rolling his five eyes throughout the operation, while Luca himself continued to try to think.

“Okay,” he said finally, as González carefully labelled his samples, “here’s what we have to do. The rest of us will hide out here, and Harry will take the bus back to the factory. We know it goes there, right? Can you do that?” he looked at Harry.

“Yeah, sure,” said Harry, watching González handle his test tubes with thick gloves. “Hey, if you’re so sure humans aren’t deadly, why do you have to wear all that?”

“So that I don’t contaminate them, of course!” the scientist replied. “If I get a drop of my own venom in there, it’ll ruin everything.”

“You’re venomous?” Alberto looked sideways at Tarantella.

“Only if I bite you,” she replied tranquilly, but with her eyes narrowed.

Luca kept talking. “If you arrive back there, nobody will know to connect you with the university,” he told Harry. “Then you have to find out what happened to Louise and the others, and phone us here. You guys will give him the number, right?” he asked Tarantella.

She still looked like she didn’t want any part of this, but she sighed and nodded. “Sure,” she decided, “but don’t you dare call from the factory or from your house. I don’t want anybody coming here for Dad. Use a pay phone. And don’t tell us anything important on the phone!” she added. “Just tell us where to meet you, and we can talk there, where you know it’s us and we know nobody’s listening!”

“Good girl,” González repeated, patting his daughter’s head.

“Listening to you talk about conspiracies and Monsters In Black all this time, I had to learn something,” said Tarantella.

“From there we can figure out how to rescue them,” Luca finished. They couldn’t make more plans until they had more information, but that would be at least the first step.

Daniela gave a disapproving grunt. “I don’t see why we can’t just go back to that laboratory and go home. Once a few hours have passed the security guards in the museum will leave, and we can get back where we all belong.”

“We can’t go back that way,” said Luca.

“Yeah,” Giulia agreed. “They’ll have told the day people about it, and they’ll be watching that room. We need a different door.”

“Yes, one where I can keep in touch!” González said, nodding. “I’ve got a great deal of work to do before I can present my findings. In the mean time, my wife won’t be back until Thursday, so you’re welcome to stay here!”

“Thank you, Sir,” said Luca. “It’s good to have somewhere safe.” This would be much less nerve-wracking than hiding in the factory, or the awful night they’d spent in the servants’ wing of Harry’s house. “Where do the other doors in your lab go?”

“Uh... the human world,” the scientist replied. “I don’t know more specifically. It was never important, because there was never supposed to be anybody on the other side.”

“Then we’ll have to figure that out, too,” Luca decided. “We’ll have to go back to your lab, maybe tomorrow, and try them out. Then we’ll have a plan for how we get home.”

That all seemed to make good sense, but there was one big problem with it. Harry and Tarantella exchanged contact information, and then the monster boy consulted a transit map, and headed out to catch the bus. It was only once he was gone that Giulia could ask the obvious question.

“Do you really want to trust him?” she asked.

“No,” said Alberto.

“We gotta,” Luca said. “He’s the only one who can tell us what we need to know.”

“What if he just tells his dad everything and sets a trap for us?” Alberto asked. “Again?”

“I don’t know!” Luca told him. “I’m making this up as I go along.”

González was going through kitchen cupboards, pulling out beakers and flasks that didn’t look like things anyone would drink out of. With his arms full of these, he turned around and announced to his guests, “I’ll be in the garage if anybody needs me. Tarantella, you can order pizza or something. I’ve got so many tests I need to do... do we have a microscope in the house? Where’s the one I got you for your birthday?” he asked his daughter.

“It’s in my room, still in the box under my bed,” said Tarantella. “It’s clean.”

“Excellent! I knew it would come in handy!” González dashed up the stairs to find it.

“That’s why you got it for me,” sighed Tarantella. She went to get the phone. “What do you guys want on your pizza?”

“Monsters have pizza?” Alberto asked.

“Everybody’s got pizza,” Taratella said.

Monsters did indeed have pizza, which was delivered by a reptilian-looking kid with three eyes and a set of batlike wings. Some of the toppings had rather unsettling names and the result looked a bit questionable. Luca and Giulia both carefully picked a few things off before eating, while Alberto seemed to decide he didn’t care as long as it tasted like pizza, and Daniela regarded it with the same suspicion as she did any food that didn’t come from the ocean. González made a brief reappearance to steal a couple of slices for himself, but then went back to the garage to continue working.

“He’s probably adding papers and strings to his Conspiracy Wall and then he’s gonna fall asleep out there, again,” said Tarantella. “Dad’s gonna want to keep you here as long as he can to make observations and stuff, but you really gotta go, because it’s like Mom says: if it all goes wrong it’s gonna be him who gets in trouble.” She stuffed a piece of pizza crust in her mouth and thought about it. “You can sleep here tonight, but tomorrow you gotta get your friends and go.”

“Don’t worry,” said Daniela, “that’s exactly what we’re planning to do.”

After they ate, Tarantella took her father a cup of coffee and asked him to please go to bed at some point, then did her best to get everybody else settled. There was a fold-out sofa in the downstairs rec room, which the kids chivalrously voted to let Daniela and Helena sleep in. Giulia took the recliner, while Alberto and Luca arranged the extra cushions Tarantella brought them into beds on the floor.

Alberto could sleep anywhere, and often did – he slept in Massimo’s fishing boat, he slept at the kitchen table, and he’d used to sleep quite happily out in the open on the roof of his island tower. Luca, however, needed to be really tired to sleep in a strange place. He’d fallen asleep at the tower once, but that was because he felt safe there – none of the dangers of the sea or the land could touch them, and Alberto was there if anything happened. Learning to sleep at Helena’s apartment in Genova, where there was always the city outside and the sounds of people moving elsewhere in the building, had taken weeks.

González’s basement was quieter than that, but Luca could still hear the occasional car on the street outside. That was enough to keep him awake, rolling over and over and pulling the blankets up over his head. At least, unlike Harry’s house, they didn’t have to worry about somebody discovering them and asking what they were doing here. He didn’t feel quite welcome when Tarantella so clearly wanted them gone, but nobody was going to throw them out.

The basement room they were in was directly below the garage, so Luca could also hear Dr. González moving around and clinking glassware as he did his chemistry experiments. It was a little reassuring to know that he was working to help them, even if it was for self-serving reasons. What was not reassuring was when he heard the sounds of vehicles arriving.

Luca’s first thought was that González had asked somebody to come and help him with his research, but then he thought that didn’t seem like something the scientist would do. He wouldn’t risk somebody else claiming credit for the discovery. Maybe they were for some other house o the street? Maybe somebody was having a party? It was awfully late for that...

Careful to make no noise, Luca slithered out from under his blanket and stood up. In the recliner, Giulia rolled over and yawned.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Probably nothing,” Luca whispered. “I think there’s people here. Monsters, I mean. Somebody. I’m gonna go check.”

Giulia got up, too, rubbing her eyes sleepily, and they crawled up the stairs softly on all fours. Luca eased the door open, and they saw lights shining through the closed kitchen blinds, flashing red and blue. Both had seen enough movies to know what that meant.

“It’s the police!” Giulia whispered.

“Quick, wake up Alberto and our moms!” Luca told her.

She scrambled back down the stairs to do so, while Luca crawled over to the window and eased the curtains back a tiny bit to peek outside. What he saw confirmed his worst fears: there were half a dozen police cars parked in the street, surrounding a bit yellow vehicle like a fire truck. González was talking to officers and exterminators, trying to reassure them that things were all right... but then a couple of yellow-suited exterminators moved aside, revealing a shaved and bandaged individual that pointed at the scientist. Luca gulped – that was the two-headed creature that had been inside the suit they’d stolen to hide Helena and Giulia.

Luca was about to go back downstairs and get his friends so they could flee, but then he remembered Tarantella. Trusting Giulia to take care of the others, he scurried up the stairs to her bedroom and knocked on the door.

“Tarantella?” he whispered. “It’s me, Luca.”

The door flew open, and at first the only thing on the other side appeared to be a shapeless lump. Luca stared at it for a moment, not sure what he was looking at, until it moved and he realized it was Tarantella, peeking out from what turned to be a towel.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to soak me again.”

“The police and exterminators are downstairs!” Luca said.

“I know,” she replied. “Come on!”

She took his hand and they ran back down the stairs, where they found the others awake in the living room, not sure what to do. Tarantella took charge.

“Go out the back door,” she ordered. “The yard goes down to the woods at the bottom. There’s lots of places to hide there. I’m gonna go see if I can get Dad.”

Before she could do so, however, the door from the garage to the kitchen opened with a bang, and they could hear González protesting.

“This is illegal!” he said. “You don’t have a warrant! You can’t search or seize my property without my permission!”

“You’re under arrest for assault on a public servant!” somebody replied. “Interfering with Exterminators could put the whole Monster World in danger if a human gets in! Brady, throw him in the back.”

Tarantella backed away from the doorway and turned to herd everybody out the back door. They went down the narrow concrete steps, and then crouched in the darkness on either side, trying to stay out of sight. If they ran down to the woods, anybody who opened the door would be able to see them, so for the moment they stayed put, listening as objects in the house were thrown around and furniture overturned.

“I knew it! I knew it!” howled González. “This is an attempt to silence independent research! You can’t do this in a democracy!”

Luca lost his nerve then. He got up and ran down the slope towards the woods. His friends and the two adults joined him, and within seconds they were among the trees.

“Where’s Tarantella?” asked Giulia, panting.

“I dunno,” said Luca, and paused to look back. He couldn’t see her.

Giulia started charging up the hill again.

“No, wait!” Luca protested.

“I’ll get her!” said Alberto, and went after her. Giulia had spotted Tarantella halfway up the hill, where she’d stopped to watch what was happening in the house. There were lights on inside now, and with the blinds closed they could see the shadows of two large exterminators lifting González off his feet as he struggled and yelled. One of them hit him with a truncheon, and he went limp.

Alberto and Giulia took Tarantella by the arms and made her turn around. “Gotta run! Gotta run!” Alberto urged her.

They rejoined Luca, Daniela, and Helena at the bottom of the hill, and splashed through a stream to head deeper into the woods. Tarantella took the lead again, and guided them to something that looked like an old house foundation, built from rough stones. It was hard to say how old it might have been. The monster girl moved some dead vegetation aside to reveal a half-rotten old trapdoor in the ground, which opened with a horrible creak of ancient, rusty hinges. They all climbed through, and Tarantella pulled a bit of bracken back on top of the door before she closed it.

A little bit of light came in around the door and through some of the stones, but it was otherwise very dark in the old cellar. They sat there for what seemed like a very long time, breathing in the mossy, earthy smell of the place and listening to the wind in the foliage outside.

“I knew it,” Tarantella moaned finally. “I knew it.”

“Sssss!” said Giulia. “Please be quiet.”

“Sorry,” Tarantella whispered. “Mom and I always thought he was nuts... if we’d listened to him, maybe this wouldn’t be happening! Now they’re gonna see what’s in the garage and find the human samples, and he’s gonna disappear like he says happened to Dr. Schreimacher...”

Helena reached out and put a hand on Tarantella’s back, then gently pulled her closer for a hug. Tarantella initially went stiff and almost began to struggle, but then she seemed to remember that humans weren’t actually dangerous, and hugged back.

“I’m sorry,” said Helena gently. “We didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“It wouldn’t have, if the boys had just stayed in our world like I told them to!” huffed Daniela.

“What’s gonna happen when Harry calls?” Alberto wanted to know.

Luca had forgotten about Harry in the panic of the moment, but now they had that problem, too – they’d told him to call the house when he found out what had happened to the captive monsters. If the police took the call... hopefully Harry would be smart enough not to tell them anything, but they would surely wonder why he’d called at all. Even worse, they now had no way to get back in touch with them, and worst of all was that without Dr. González they weren’t going to be able to get back into the university to use one of the doors home.

Luca was so tired of being the idea man... he’d only just come up with this plan, and it had already fallen apart!

“We’ll have to get him a message somehow,” said Giulia.

“We know where his house is,” Luca said, but immediately rejected that idea. “No, it’s way too dangerous.”

“We know where he goes to school!” said Alberto. “It’s the same place Tarantella does!”

“That’s right!” Luca lit up. “We can meet him there! Is tomorrow a school day?” he asked Tarantella.

“Uh-huh,” she said, still leaning unhappily on Helena.

“Then we need to be there,” Alberto declared, “and good and wet. Your mom can come too, Luca, but...” he looked over at Helena and Giulia with a frown. The boys had seen plenty enough of how monsters reacted to humans.

“You need disguises,” said Luca. The exterminator suit was still in the house where the police had doubtless already found it, and they probably couldn’t have used it at the school, anyway. It would attract too much attention. “Where can we find some?”

“There’s the place where my Dad always went when he needed a disguise,” said Alberto with a shrug.

“Where’s that?” Luca asked.

“That place where humans send all the stuff they don’t need anymore,” said Alberto. “He used to bring back the coolest things from there, and most of them didn’t even have barnacles on them. Do monsters have that?”

“A second-hand shop?” Luca guessed. There was one of those in Portorosso, and they did indeed have cool things sometimes. “We don’t have any money, though.”

“Oh,” said Tarantella. “I know what he’s talking about.”

As it turned out, a second-hand shop wasn’t what Alberto had in mind. As the sun rose the next morning, the group crawled out of the cold, damp old cellar, and Tarantella led them through the woods to the outskirts of the city, where they arrived at the Monstropolis City Dump.

“Is this the sort of thing you two were doing when you were here before?” Giulia asked, as they picked through the refuse looking for possible disguises.

“No!” said Luca. “We were just trying to stay wet. We weren’t in the garbage.”

“We weren’t in the garbage much,” Alberto corrected. They hadn’t been wearing it, but they’d definitely hidden in it.

They found Helena a big furry coat in a bright shade of lime green. The fur felt real, and nobody wanted to ask what kind of animal it had come from. They added a pair of stale ice cream cone horns to the hood, and a packet of old makeup provided a similar green for her to smear all over her face. For Giulia, they cut the upholstery off an old couch with an alligator-like texture of scales and scutes, and made that into a costume shaped like a slug. A few pairs of rubber boots attached to it gave the illusion that she had more that two legs, and a rubber ring out of some piece of machinery could be made to look like a sucker mouth while providing a place she could see out of.

“They’re going to smell us, aren’t they?” Helena asked, making a disgusted face.

Tarantella sniffed. “Yeah, but there’s a million perfumes and colognes that all smell the same. Nobody will ask.”

Helena looked surprised for a few moments, then seemed to decide she probably shouldn’t have been.

“Are we sure this will fool anyone?” Daniela asked.

“I guess the only way to find out is to test it,” said Luca. He looked at Tarantella.

She nodded. “I know just the place.”

They had to head back to her neighbourhood, but gave the house a wide berth and came out instead at a little strip mall. Tarantella led them to the far corner of the parking lot, where there was a separate building housing a little diner called the Dumpster Fire. A bell jingled as she pushed the door open.

“Good morning!” a voice sang out, and then added, “oh, it’s Tarantella! Take a seat, honey!”

The speaker was a waitress who seemed to be little more than one large eyeball in the centre of spherical green body, with skinny arms and legs sticking out at the sides. She had black hair that stuck straight up in a single tuft from the top of her head, and was wearing bright red nail polish and lipstick.

“Morning, Mrs. Wazowski,” said Tarantella, sitting down at a stool at the counter.

“Always good to see you, sweetheart,” the waitress said, carrying a stack of plates back to the kitchen. “Who are your friends?”

“Oh, just some people from school,” Tarantella said. “And their moms.”

“Welcome to the Dumpster Fire Grill!” Mrs. Wazowski said cheerfully. “I’m Suzie – I’ll be back in a moment to take your order!”

They asked for pancakes and hash browns, which seemed pretty safe, and Tarantella asked Suzie to put it on her father’s tap. The one-eyed waitress brought their steaming plates to them, and they watched her face carefully for any sign of something amiss. Giulia stayed out of sight in her bag of couch fabric, and Helena kept her head down so not much was visible besides the green furry hood of her coat and the horns they’d stuck on it.

“Always nice to meet new people,” Suzie said pleasantly. “Although I have, Tarantella, where are your folks this morning? It’s unusual for you to be here without them.”

“Mom’s out of town – it’s girls’ week for her and her high school friends,” said Tarantella. “And Dad’s... you know, he’s busy. He always thinks he’s on the verge of a major breakthrough.”

“I know!” said Suzie. “Every time he’s in here he’s talking about space-time elasticity and wormhole frequencies and I don’t even know what. I never understand a word the man says but I can tell he loves what he does... your ma can, too.” She looked in several directions, and then leaned closer. “Is he working for the government? The last few days everybody’s been going on with stories about unauthorized access to the human world and maybe even humans here in the city! I haven’t seen any,” she added quickly, “but it’s an awful thought, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” said Tarantella, keeping her eyes on her plate.

“Hey, Suzie!” a voice called from further down the counter. “Can I get another coffee over here?”

“What’s the magic word, Mr. McLean?” Suzie asked.

“Aw, come on, you’re not my mother!” the customer complained.

“I’m still a lady, and I like to be spoken to like one!” she replied.

The other monster sighed. “Please?” he said.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” said Suzie. “Call me if you need anything, dear,” she added to Tarantella, and headed off to refill McLean’s coffee cup.

“So far, so good,” Giulia mumbled. She reached out the mouth of her costume to grab another pancake and pull it inside to eat. The diner next to them watched this with raised eyebrows – he had four, to go with his four eyes – but then looked away, not wanting to be caught staring. Apparently he figured if some people had hands for tongues, then that was none of its business.

The disguises seemed to be working. People in the diner were focused on their own breakfasts, or chatting with each other or with Suzie Wazowski, who seemed to know all her regulars by name. Nobody much looked at these strangers who were, after all, just here to eat their own food. Suzie came back to collect their plates and thank them, and Tarantella pulled out some of her pocket money to give the woman a tip.

“Thanks, sweetie,” said Suzie, collecting it, and then paused and looked at Helena’s hand, resting on the table. She had green makeup on her face, but none on her hands. Luca held his breath, and Helena pulled the hand inside her coat. Suzie pursed her lips, but then all she said was, “anything else for you folks this morning?”

“Just a glass of water, please,” said Luca.

“Me, too,” Alberto added.

“Make it three,” said Daniela.

They poured the waters over their heads, startling several other patrons, and then left the diner together. Once out in the parking lot again, everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” said Luca. “Disguises are good. Now we just have to get to school.”

“I’d say try not to soak anybody on the way, but it seems like the only person you’re interested in soaking is me,” Tarantella noted. “I usually take the school bus, but they won’t let you guys on if you’re not students. We’ll have to go public transit.”

Now that Luca and Alberto knew what this was like, it was less intimidating than it had been doing it with Harry. Helena and Giulia were used to taking buses in Genova, so they didn’t worry too much about, either. Daniela was another story. She held on to her tail in both hands and tried to squeeze up the narrow aisle without touching anybody.

“Is this better or worse than the train to Genova?” Helena asked her.

“It’s gotta be worse,” Luca said, as his mother sat down. “Here we gotta stay wet, and that’s way harder than staying dry.”

“It’s exactly the same!” Daniela corrected, through gritted teeth. “I’m surrounded by bloodthirsty maniacs that might attack me at any moment.”

Luca looked around dubiously at the monsters on the bus. A lot of them were reading books or newspapers. One octopus-like creature was crocheting something very complicated with several hooks held in several tentacles. Most of the others were just looking out the windows. Even so, Daniela kept her limbs and tail close to her as the bus rattled off, and tried to look warily around the vehicle while also not making eye contact with any other passenger, in case that person interpreted it as a threat.

They didn’t want to miss their stop, so Luca kept his eyes glued to the window, looking for anything familiar. When he spotted Flatwoods Middle School ahead, he reached up and yanked o the yellow cord, which made Daniela grab him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“That’s how you tell the bus to stop,” Luca explained.

“Same as in Genova,” Giulia agreed.

“But doesn’t it attract attention?” Daniela wanted to know.

“It’s supposed to,” said Luca. “Otherwise the driver would just keep going.”

People were staring as they got off the bus, but it was mostly because Daniela was still twitchy and glaring at anyone who looked her way. It made Luca wish he could pull a towel over his head like Tarantella had in her bedroom. No wonder her trip to Genova had been so uncomfortable.

From the bus stop it was only a block or so back the school, and they arrived at around the same time as the school buses. A number of parents were also dropping their children off in cars – and among the latter, Luca and Alberto saw a vehicle they recognized. It was the very long black car that took Harry to and from school.

Harry himself was climbing out, a glum expression on his face. The front window rolled down, and Armstrong the chauffeur leaned out to talk to him.

“Have a very nice day, Master Harry,” he said. “And if I may say so, I’m just as pleased to have you safely home as your parents are.”

Harry grunted. “Dad would have preferred I stay missing,” he said.

“Don’t be like that, Master Harry,” said Armstrong. “Your father loves you.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Harry shut the door and turned around, and saw Luca and Alberto there waiting for them. He didn’t look particularly happy to see them, either, but he scuttled up as Armstrong drove away. “Oh, good,” he said, “you got my message.”

“What message?” asked Luca.

“The one I left on the answering machine this morning,” Harry replied.

“On our answering machine?” asked Tarantella.

“Of course on your answering machine,” Harry said, “that’s what you told me to do, wasn’t it? If you didn’t get it, then what are you doing here?”

“I go to school here, just like you,” Tarantella reminded him.

“We had to leave the house last night,” said Luca. “The police arrived and arrested Dr. González, and we all had to run and hide in the woods.”

Harry’s five eyes blinked out of sync with each other. “So... you didn’t get the message...”

“.. but they might have!” Alberto finished for him. He looked at Luca. “What do we do?”

“What was the message?” Luca asked Harry. “What were your exact words?”

“I told you to meet me here at school,” Harry replied, “because I know where Dad’s keeping Louise and Curtis and Bill.”

“You said exactly that?”

“Yeah. She told me not to say where they were on the phone,” Harry said.

Luca groaned. “We gotta get out of here, fast,” he decided.

Chapter Text

They left the school lot in a hurry and Harry found them someplace more secluded – a courtyard in the middle of the buildings, where a few teachers were hanging around the doors smoking and watching a group of kids play basketball. One of the players was a pillar of blue jelly who could stretch and squash to fling the ball through the hoop. The others were of various sizes but all had very long limbs with heads some eight to ten feet above the ground, and none were at all interested in the comparatively diminutive creatures who huddled in a corner to talk.

“Okay, so where are they?” asked Alberto.

“They’re still in the factory,” Harry explained. “That’s all I could find out. Dad told me they’re somewhere they can’t blab and that’s what’s important... he’s worried, though. Apparently Mr. Sullivan promised to call his parents every day and when he didn’t they came looking for him. They’ve been on the radio and everything.”

“So we have to get in there and rescue them,” said Luca, “and then we have to get home.”

“It’s not gonna be easy,” Harry warned. “I heard Dad on the phone last night. He was talking about hiring more security. He said turn the place into a fortress. Those were his exact words.”

Luca groaned, but his mother knew exactly what she thought of the whole business. “This is why we should never have come here!” Daniela declared. “We should have just sent your crabby little friend back and gone home.”

“I’m not crabby! I have a very sunny disposition!” Harry huffed.

“She doesn’t mean that, she means you look like a crab,” Luca sighed. “It’s just... we gotta do something. We gotta. This is all our fault.”

“You can’t solve all the world’s problems by yourself, Luca,” Daniela told him. “Some things are too big for you.”

“But...” Luca looked at the other parental figure present, hoping for some support, but was dismayed to see Helena shaking her head.

“Daniela is right,” she said. “Sometimes all we can do is save ourselves.” She put an arm around Luca’s shoulders. “During the war, I desperately wished I could do something. My brothers went to join the resistance, and they both died. I was too young to fight and somebody had to look after our mother, and... when it was all over I told one of my teachers that I felt like a failure because all I’d done was survive. He told me that sometimes that’s all we can do. Saving yourself is still saving somebody.”

Luca covered his face.

Daniela patted him on the shoulder. “We’re here now, so we have to do something, but in the future, you’ve gotta pick your battles, honey. Now... look me in the eye...”

Luca raised his head and wiped tears off his cheeks – maybe not the best plan, since his skin was drying out and getting sticky, and he could feel the scales melting away under his touch. “I know you love me, Mom,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Now, we need to get wet again...”

“Oh, hey, it’s you two,” said a new voice.

Alberto yelped, having not realized anybody was coming – but the girl called Michelle, being made mostly of blue jelly, was apparently a silent mover. She was looking at them as suspiciously as a pair of eyes suspended in gelatin could, while her friends collected their basketball and their backpacks and headed off to get to their classes.

“Why are you two back?” she asked. “You don’t even go here.”

“We’re here with Harry,” said Alberto.

“Yeah, we’re his friends,” Luca added, moving to hide behind his mother so she wouldn’t see that his face was transforming. “Kinda.”

Michelle was not mollified. “First of all, Harry doesn’t have friends,” she said.

“Hey!” Harry complained.

“Secondly,” Michelle went on, giving the impression that she would have been counting on her fingers if she’d had any, “the day you turned up was the day all these rumours about security breaches and humans in the city first started. And you’re hanging out with a guy whose father has more portals to the human world than anybody else in the country! What do you know? Hmm?”

“Um...” Luca pulled a corner of his mother’s dress in front of his face and held it up so only his eyes were peeking over. Was hair growing in between the fins on his head? “I’d love to explain, but we really need to get wet. We’re sea monsters, remember, and we really shouldn’t be out of the water without...”

It was not his transformation that Michelle saw, however – at just that moment, a vent in the wall above them turned on, blowing down warm air directly on Alberto. The Change passed over him, and he didn’t have time to dash behind Helena before Michelle saw. The monster girl’s eyes went wide as she realized what she was seeing.

In fact, they went so wide that they popped out of the jelly that comprised the rest of her, and bounced on the ground.

“Augh!” Luca shouted, startled and disgusted. One of them rolled to a stop at a crack in the concrete pavement. The other came to rest against one of Harry’s many legs, and he, reflexively, kicked it away. It rolled across the courtyard towards the group of teachers, who were putting out their cigarettes and stepping on them to extinguish them, oblivious.

“That’s my eye, you jerk!” said Michelle. She slithered over the one resting in the crack, and it migrated through her translucent body back up to what probably counted as her face, where it looked around in a panic. “Where’d it go? All I see is feet!”

“I’ll get it!” Alberto declared, but Luca quickly grabbed him and dragged him behind Daniela. She was now also transforming, and had to turn her back.

It was up to Giulia. She ran across the pavement as fast as she could go while wearing a garbage bag and rubber boots that didn’t fit. “Scusi!” she said to the teachers, who were milling about and still hadn’t noticed the unsecured organ in their midst. “Careful! There’s somebody’s eye... got it!” She scooped it up and inspected it, then pulled it inside her costume to wipe cigarette ash off it on her shirt.

“Sorry, dear,” said one teacher, on her way inside. “You need to keep better track.”

Giulia hurried back and stuck the eye into Michelle’s jelly next to its partner. There it rolled over a couple of times before finally facing front and refocusing with the other one, and then both eyes just stared at the people in front of her. Luca and Alberto were still hiding behind Helena and Daniela, barely peeking out, but Michelle extended her body to peer around the corner at them.

Michelle, Luca remembered, was the one who’d been suspicious of everything on that first day. What in the world was she thinking now?

“What are you?” she asked finally.

“Sea monsters,” said Luca.

“No, seriously,” said Michelle, annoyed.

“Sea monsters!” Alberto echoed. “This is what we do! When we’re wet we look like monsters, and when we’re dry we look like humans.”

“But we’re not really one or the other,” Luca added. “Not the way you’re a monster, anyway. We’re our own kind of thing.”

“So those humans everybody was talking about... that’s you?” Michelle aseked.

Luca nodded.

Michelle was dumbstruck for a moment, and then she grinned. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew there was something going on at that factory! Didn’t I know it?” She looked at Harry. “Haven’t I been bugging you about it forever?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, not enthusiastic.

Michelle turned to Tarantella next. “Haven’t I submitted like four articles to the student newspaper?” she demanded. “And they keep turning me down! Silencing voices who just want to speak the truth!”

“Have you been talking to my Dad?” asked Tarantella.

“But we’ve got a problem now,” Luca said quickly, before Michelle could get her teeth into her rant. “We need to get back into the factory to rescue some people who’ve helped us, and then to get home again, but Harry’s dad says he’s gonna turn it into a fortress...”

“To storm a fortress, you need an army,” Michelle said firmly. “Don’t worry, I’ve been following the DTBS newsletter – Don’t Trust Big Scream – for years, and...”

“Oh, god, you have been talking to my Dad,” said Tarantella.

“That’s run by your dad?” Michelle was astonished.

Luca knew he needed to interrupt, but how could he? That would be rude, and his mother was right there. Fortunately, Alberto hadn’t been well-brought-up.

“Michelle!” he said.

The monster girl fell silent.

“Listen,” said Luca, “we’re very glad you want to help us, and the first thing we really need right now is water, so we can change back to our monster forms.”

“Got it! I’ll be right back,” Michelle promised.

Being made of goo, Michelle was not able to move quickly. It took her almost ten minutes to get back, but when she did, she had reshaped her gelatinous body into a bowl which was sloshing with water from one of the drinking fountains. Two students held the door for her as she came back outside, and would have stayed to watch what happened next, but Michelle’s eyes glared at them from the bottom of the bowl.

“Don’t you two have classes?” she asked, bubbles coming up with each word.

The two reluctantly shut the door and went back in.

Michelle rejoined the group, and reshaped herself again to squeeze the water out through a narrow opening, spraying all of them down until they got good and sopping. Helena and Giulia quickly stepped back to be out of the way, but Tarantella wasn’t fast enough, and ended up dripping from head to her many toes. Michelle, fascinated by seeing the boys and Daniela transform, did not see this at first, but eventually noticed and apologized.

“Oops,” she said. “Sorry.”

“I’m used to it,” sighed Tarantella.

“Wait,” said Michelle, turning to Luca and Alberto again, “are there even any such things as humans, or are we just being afraid of fellow monsters for no reason at all? Oh my god, are we exploiting fellow monsters? As if there’s not enough of that in the world, are we...”

“No, no, humans exist,” said Luca quickly.

“Yeah, Giulia and her Mom are humans,” Alberto agreed.

“They’re not poisonous,” Luca said quickly. “Or venomous or anything, they’re just people, and Giulia’s dad is gonna be really upset if they never...” he stopped in mid-sentence as he remembered something important. Suddenly, Luca knew exactly what they needed to do next. “Mr. Sullivan’s parents!” he exclaimed. “We need to talk to them! If they’re worried about their son they’ll be willing to do anything to help him!”

“They were on the radio last night!” said Michelle. “They’re here in town, looking for them. There’s a tipline you can call if you’ve seen him!”

“What’s a tipline?” asked Alberto.

“A phone number,” Michelle clarified. “Do you have phones in the human world?”

“Of course we have phones,” said Alberto. “We use them all the time, right, Luca?”

“Yeah,” Luca agreed. When he was away at school he called home at least once a week. There weren’t many phones in Portorosso, but Signora Marsigliese let Luca’s family use the one in her Drogheria to talk to him.

“We’re experts,” Alberto told Michelle. “Just show us where we can use one.”

“There’s one on the corner outside the convenience store!” Harry remembered. “I know it works, I’ve seen monsters using it!”

There was now nobody in the courtyard, so there was no-one to see this ragtag group as they crossed the school lawns to the little shopping centre and found the telephone booth. Michelle lent them a nickle with a bit of blue goop on it – they didn’t think too hard about that – and Luca put it in the slot. Michelle gave him the number, and he dialed it.

The phone rang.

When Luca would use the telephone in Helena’s apartment, he had to ask the operator to connect him – he knew there was a number he could dial to be connected directly, but he could never remember it. His parents knew what time he would call, too, and were always there in the grocery store waiting to pick up on the first ring. Now the phone just rang... and rang... and rang. Luca counted six, then eight, then ten, and his stomach sank. What if nobody answered?

Then there was a click. “Hello?” said a voice. “This is Fiona Sullivan.”

Luca breathed a sigh of relief. “Hello, Madame,” he said politely. “My name is Luca Paguro and I think I know where your son is?”

Mrs. Sullivan didn’t reply right away. Luca heard the line rustle with her breathing, and then she said, “how much do you want?”

“I’m sorry?” asked Luca.

“How much money do you want?” she asked, her voice sounding almost choked. Was she ill, or was that just what monsters sometimes sounded like?

“I don’t want money,” said Luca, puzzled.

“Don’t you?” she said. “What do you want, then? That’s what every single phone call I’ve answered this morning has come down to – you’ll tell me where Billy is, but only if I pay you! I am trying to find my son, and all you people are just trying to take advantage!”

That was when Luca realized why she sounded the way she did – Mrs. Sullivan was on the verge of tears. “I don’t want anything, Madame,” said Luca. “I just want to help because it’s kind of my fault he got in trouble. Is there somewhere I can meet you and we’ll tell you all about it?”

“Why should I believe you?” Mrs. Sullivan sniffled. “Nobody else has been able to give me a reason to.”

“I don’t know,” Luca admitted. It was all going wrong again. What sorts of things had people been saying on the phone? How could anybody hear that parents were looking for their child and try to use that to steal from them? You’d have to be a monster to do something like that... and now because of it, the people he’d hoped would be best able to help were going to refuse. “I just know we really need to help him, and Curtis and Louise, and probably Tarantella’s dad, too, and...”

“Louise?” asked Mrs. Sullivan.

“Yes,” said Luca. “She worked at the factory, but she got fired because of us, and then she...”

“Louise who?”

“Oh, uh...” Luca tried to remember.

“Halverson!” Alberto said.

“Louise Halverson,” said Luca. “And Curtis Lieberman.”

“He mentioned her, when he called us the first night,” Mrs. Sullivan said thoughtfully. “He said she was the best female scarer at the factory and those were big shoes to fill...”

“He tried to ask her out,” said Luca. “She told him she was too old for him, but she promised she’d go if he helped her with us... and then they all got in trouble.”

There was another long silence. If it hadn’t been for muffled voices in the background, Luca would have thought Mrs. Sullivan had hung up on him.

“Have you called the police?” she asked.

“We can’t,” said Luca. “The police and the exterminators are after us. They’re all working for Mr. Waternoose, I think. We need to meet you somewhere quiet, and we can explain.”

“Where do you want to meet?”

Luca looked at his friends. “Any ideas?”

“Not at my house,” said Tarantella.

“Not at mine,” Harry agreed.

“And not at school, when the police might have heard Harry say this is where we’re meeting,” Luca said.

“There’s my house,” offered Michelle eagerly. “It’s a long bus ride, though.”

Luca put the phone to his ear again. “How about the Dumpster Fire Grill? Do you know where that is?”

“No, but I’ll look it up in the phone book,” said Mrs. Sullivan. “How will I recognize you?”

“We’re easy to spot,” Luca promised. “We’re sea monsters.”

They decided that Harry and Michelle should stay at school. Mr. Waternoose didn’t appear to suspect his son of anything and they wanted to keep it that way, and both would be missed if they were absent from too many classes.

“Anyway, we might need your help later,” said Luca. The others all nodded very seriously – they wanted Harry out of the way. Nobody trusted him.

“Don’t worry,” said Michelle, throwing a pseudopod around Harry’s shoulders, which made him grimace. “I won’t let him get in trouble! And I’ll spread the word – Big Scream is going down!” She grinned, showing off very sharp teeth.

“Maybe don’t mention us,” said Giulia quickly.

“I don’t wanna scare anybody,” Michelle promised. “I won’t tell them the humans are here.” She gave Harry a squeeze. “Right?”

“Right,” sighed Harry. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

He and Michelle stood on the curb, and watched as the rest of the group got back on a bus to return to the Dumpster Fire. They did not enter the restaurant, for fear Mrs. Wazowski would wonder why they were back, but waited in the parking lot. This was hardly less suspicious, so they tried to stay out of sight by keeping close to the wall and behind the garbage bins. There was a spigot here that Alberto, Luca, and Daniela could use to stay damp.

Vehicles came and went for a while, and Luca found himself thinking again of all the ways this could go horribly wrong. What if the Sullivans just never showed up? Worse, what if they brought the police? What if Mr. Waternoose got in touch and made his own deal with them? Anything could happen...

A car pulled up and parked in front of the restaurant, and two monsters climbed out. Luca had been wondering how he would distinguish the Sullivans from anyone else, but these could only be Bill’s parents. His father was big and shaggy and blue, with massive shoulders and no neck. His mother was purple with white polka-dots, spikes and scales and a tail with a big club at the end of it. They were a very intimidating pair, and it was no wonder their son had decided to be a scarer.

They looked around, and then started to head up the steps to the restaurant. Luca took a deep breath and stepped out.

“Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan?” he asked.

The couple stopped on the stairs and looked down at him. They exchanged a look, and then Mrs. Sullivan came back down and leaned in to talk to him.

“I’m Fiona Sullivan, and this is Jim,” she said. “Are you the young man who phoned the tipline?”

“Yes, that’s me,” said Luca. “Over here!”

He led them behind the building, where the others were waiting. Jim Sullivan stood up taller and flexed his broad shoulders, while his wife just looked at them in confusion. Whatever she’d been expecting, a group of children and their mothers were not it.

“You’d better not be thinking of trying anything,” Jim warned. “We’ve had enough goddamn parasites trying to...”

“Jim,” said Fiona, “they’re kids.”

“I promise, we really want to help,” Luca promised him. “But we need to tell you the whole story, so you can see why you can’t call the police. I’m Luca, and this is Albert, and Giulia, and this is my Mom, Daniela, and Giulia’s mom Helena, and this is Tarantella. Her father is a scientist working on portals to the human world, and he’s discovered that humans aren’t actually dangerous at all, Mr. Waternoose just says that so people won’t go there. We know for sure, because that’s where we’re from.”

It was Alberto who made the move this time, shaking the water off himself to reveal his human form. Luca and Daniela transformed after, and then Helena and Giulia gave them a look inside their disguises. The Sullivans were shocked and when Luca offered a hand, they did not take it – but they didn’t panic and run away, either.

“This is huge,” muttered Jim, shaking his head – which required him to rotate his entire upper body. “This is huge. Billy, what have you been doing?”

“So now,” Luca said, “we need to get into the factory so we can rescue them, and then get back to the human world. After that we promise we’ll never come back here,” he added. “I mean, I’m sure your world is very nice for monsters like you, but it’s not any fun for monsters like us, and definitely not for humans.”

“Yes. I see that,” said Fiona.

“If we say we’ve gotten a tip-off and demand to enter the factory, they’ll have to let us in,” said Jim. “Especially if we bring the press. The last thing this Waternoose wants is bad publicity.”

“They won’t take you to him,” said Helena, “but if we can get in with you, we can look for them.”

“They said the place was going to be a fortress, though,” Luca said miserably. “And I don’t really remember where the cell was... it was really complicated to get there.”

“Harry knows where it is,” Alberto said.

Nobody found that very encouraging, but neither did anyone have any better ideas. They were going to need to know where things were in the factory, and Harry was the only one with that kind of information who wasn’t already locked up or definitely one of the bad guys. They were just going to have to hope he didn’t still think he could impress his father by turning them in.

So with no better ideas, they started to put together a plan based on that. The Sullivans would come knocking on the factory door demanding to speak to Mr. Waternoose, accompanied by Helena and Giulia pretending to be members of the press. Luca, Alberto, and Daniela would go in via the water tank that wasn’t actually used for cleaning door water – hopefully nobody had figured out that was how they’d gotten in before, and it would still be accessible. Inside, they would meet up with Harry – Tarantella would go back to school and tell him what to do, and he could lead them to the prisoners.

“Then we just have to get to door storage,” said Luca.

“How are you gonna open one?” Tarantella asked. “You need scream. There’s spare canisters back at the house, but the police might be still there, and even if they’re not they probably took everything.”

Luca hadn’t thought of that. “Can’t we just plug it in or something?” he asked.

Giulia frowned. “Everything in this world is powered by kids screaming, right?” she said. “Maybe I can just scream. Would that work?”

Tarantella looked her over critically. “I dunno, you might be too old,” she said. “They don’t scare kids your age.”

“That might just be because we’re too old to be scared of monsters,” said Luca. “Even when we realized there actually was a monster in Rocco’s closet, Alberto and I were still gonna try to jump it.” That was how this whole mess had started.

“We can test it,” Tarantella suggested.

The restaurant had a back door kitchen employees could use to put things in the trash or take smoke breaks, and above it was a single light bulb that was currently not lit. Giulia looked up at this, took a deep breath, and screamed.

The bulb lit up brightly, and then exploded with a pop, showing shards of glass. Cries of surprise were heard from indoors as the power in there momentarily went haywire, too. A few moments later a large orange creature with four arms and a froglike face opened the door and looked around, trying to spot the source of the problem. By then however, everyone had quickly ducked out of sight around the corner or between the trash kids.

“Stupid kids huffing scream,” grumbled the frog, and shut the door again.

“Good job,” Alberto told Giulia, digging in his ear with one finger.

“All right,” said Luca. “I think we’re ready.”

“What do we do if we get caught?” asked Giulia.

Luca had no answer for that, but Alberto clapped him on the back. “It’s gonna work,” he said. “Your plans are great. Remember your plan to make our own Vespa? That worked out amazing. Let’s get this show on the road.”

The Sullivans went back to their car. The rest of them went back to the bus stop, so they could drop Tarantella off at school and then head for the factory. When they reached the front of the restaurant, they discovered that the neon open sight in the window had also broken, and Mrs. Wazowski was taking it down to look at the damage. They hurried past her so she wouldn’t turn around and see familiar faces.

“Our screams don’t do that, do they?” Luca asked. He was pretty sure that he and Alberto had done quite a bit of yelling since they’d arrived in this world, and it had never had that kind of effect on things.

“I guess it’s only human screams that work,” said Giulia.

“So even though we really aren’t either, we’re closer to being monsters than we are to being humans,” said Luca. He wasn’t sure he liked that idea. He certainly felt like he was more similar to the humans they’d met in Portorosso than the monsters they’d met here... although all three were, at the end of the day, just people. It was a shame they all had to be scared of each other.

“Or maybe we’re all different and it doesn’t matter,” Giulia said.

“I guess.” Luca shrugged.

It was around three-thirty, just after school got out, that a taxi cab pulled up outside the Monsters Incorporated factory. The Sullivans climbed out, followed by Helena and Giulia, the former with a notepad and the latter with a camera. Then, several more vehicles arrived, including a van with an antenna on the roof. Fiona and Jim weren’t taking any chances – they’d brought actual reporters as well, who fell into step behind the couple as they barged through the front door. One had a microphone and was already talking.

“This is Miranda MacEagal reporting to you live from Monsters Incorporated,” she announced as she walked. “We’re here with James and Fiona Sullivan, who claim they have reason to believe something terrible has happened at the factory! I’ll be bringing you the story as they confront MI CEO Henry Waternoose himself!”

Monsters of all shapes and sizes looked up in astonishment as this parade crossed the foyer to the reception desk. The secretary, a weevil-like creature with a beehive hairdo, watched them approach with mounting horror.

Mr. Sullivan went up and slammed his oversized hands down on the counter. “I want to talk to Waternoose!” he declared.

The secretary gulped. “Uh... are you here about the job opening?” she asked tremulously.

“Darling. Darling,” Mrs. Sullivan gently pushed past him. “We’re the Sullivans. We’ve had some information come in at our tipline, and we would like to speak to Mr. Waternoose. These ladies and gentlecreatures of the press are going to accompany us,” she added, her voice going from gentle to steely in between sentences. She did not intend to be told no.

“I’ll... I’ll give him a call,” the secretary said, “but Mr. Waternoose is a very busy monster...”

“He’s not too busy for us,” Mr. Sullivan told her. “I promise you.”

The secretary nodded, and picked up her telephone. “Sir?” she asked. “I think you need to come to reception.”

Chapter Text

While the Sullivans were in the foyer, Alberto, Luca, Daniela, and Tarantella were crawling through the long grass towards the holding pool where door wash water was dumped. There they found a problem – Mr. Waternoose had apparently not been joking when he’d said he would be turning the place into a fortress. Not only had a new fence gone up with barbed wire over the top, but there was a guard, armed with a gun and a taser.

“I’ve got this,” Tarantella promised. “I’m a good climber.” She skittered up the fence in a very spider-like fashion and then held the wire between the barbs while getting her legs over the top one by one. By the time she reached the top, however, she’d already caught the attention of the guard. The monster came running up, shaking his weapon.

“Miss! Hey, you can’t do that!” he shouted. “Get down from there!”

“Yes, Sir!” said Tarantella. She dropped on top of him and sank her teeth into his shoulder. His four eyes rolled up, and he fell down, twitching. Tarantella then climbed back up to hold the wire out of the way so the others could follow her over.

“Is he dead?” asked Luca warily.

“Nah,” said Tarantella. “I don’t have enough for a guy that size. He’ll be paralyzed for a few minutes and he’ll get some bruises from the anticoagulants, but he’ll be fine. Dad might be able to poison him to death, but I can’t.”

They went around the guard very carefully.

“How often can you do that?” asked Alberto. “Is it all the time, or are you like a sea snake where you have to grow it back after?”

“About once a week,” she said, “but I haven’t done it in months so what I’ve got is really potent. I might be able to do another one, but don’t count on it.”

The water in the pond was as horrible as it had been last time – Daniela compared it to the time there’d been a flash flood in the hills above Portorosso and all sorts of garbage had been washed into the drains that ran beneath the town and out into the bay, where the sea monsters had been obliged to clean it up. They spent as little time in it as possible.

“Hold your breath,” Alberto told Tarantella. She did so, and he grabbed her and swam up the pipes as fast as he could to get her head back above water in time. Luca had more trouble. He could fit with room to spare, but his mother was twice his size and it was a very tight squash for her. To get into the tank they had to pass a sharp corner, where Luca had to brace himself and pull on Daniela’s arms to force her through. They made quite a bit of noise with all their grunting and scrabbling, and Luca feared it would have to attract attention from outside. If it did, though, the people who heard them couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it. They popped out into the interior tank, and then Alberto, Luca, and Tarantella together had to help Daniela squeeze through the even smaller maintenance hatch.

“You’d think monsters that big could make their pipes a reasonable size!” she huffed, picking herself up.

“I guess only small ones work in here,” said Luca.

Tarantella went over to the door and crouched to look under it. “There’s people out there,” she warned.

Luca and Alberto also dropped to the ground to peek out. Sure enough, large feet could be seen pacing back and forth. Another guard.

“You said you might have more poison?” Alberto asked hopefully.

“It’s venom, not poison,” Tarantella corrected. “And that guy is twice the size of the other one.”

They tried to find another way out of the room, but there wasn’t one. The pipes that brought water in from door cleaning were far too small, and the water coming out of them was uncomfortably warm and full of soap suds that would clog the gills.

Maybe they could be used for something else, though. If the monsters thought this water was dangerous...

“I have an idea,” said Luca.

He climbed up on his mother’s shoulders and turned all the spigots to their full open positions. Water began roaring down into the tank from various other places in the factory, and with the hatch open, it soon overflowed the tank and began seeping across the floor. The kids helped, grabbing buckets from the mop cupboard and throwing more towards the door so it would seep out from under it.

Sure enough, they soon heard one of the footsteps turn into a wet splat. There was a startled cry from outside, and a key clunked in the lock before the door opened a crack so someone could look in. Luca and the others scrambled into hiding places as it opened wider, a large monster poking her piglike head inside to look around.

“Door water!” the security guard shouted. “Quick, get maintenance down here!” She moved to shut the door again.

Daniela, however, was out of patience. She wrenched the door open and snarled at the woman outside. The guard was too surprised to do anything but stare for a moment, so Daniela grabbed her and stuffed her in the mop closet. She slammed the door, then turned to the second guard, who was standing on a chair trying to shake what he thought was toxic water off his very furry feet. He reached for a weapon, but Daniela seized him by the arm and shoved him in the closet as well, locking the door with a ring of keys she’d torn from his belt.

“Now what?” she asked the boys.

Luca spared a thought for Giulia’s conviction that his mother was the scariest monster she’d ever met, then looked around for an idea. It was Alberto, however, who spotted a tactic they’d used before. “There!” he pointed to the wheeled garbage can in the corner.

“Great!” said Luca. “Stay wet!” he told his mother, and he, Alberto, and Tarantella climbed into the bin and pulled a large cardboard box on top of themselves.

More security arrived a few moments later to find what appeared to be a terrified cleaning lady, sitting on her garbage cart with wide, terrified eyes. “Don’t come down here!” she called out to them. “The door water is flooding! The two guards who were here both got it on them and they melted!”

The guard looked at the water lapping at the bottom of the stairs, and nodded. “Stay where you are,” he said. “We’ll get the exterminators.”

As soon as they’d left, Daniela climbed down from the cart and turned it around to push. “Where now?”

“Escalators!” said Luca. “Take a right at the end of the hall!”

“Got it!” Daniela hurried along, her feet splashing in the puddles. They passed a member of the actual cleaning staff on the way, and Daniela waved to him. “Hi, Alonzo!”

“I’m Ted,” said the man.

“Don’t go that way, door water’s leaking!” said Daniela. She pushed the cart into the elevator.

“Press the button to close the door,” Luca said, “and then for the first floor! Harry said he’d meet us in the cafeteria. That’s right behind the reception room.” Where Mr. Waternoose was currently very busy, if the Sullivans were doing their job.

“Got it!” Daniela pressed the button, and the elevator started to move. “What happens when we get there?”

“That depends on how it’s going,” said Luca. “Harry will be able to tell us.”

“If he hasn’t turned us in again,” grumbled Alberto.

“Yeah,” said Luca. He didn’t like it, but everything was now hanging on Harry.

The elevator came to a stop at the first floor, and the doors opened on the sounds of shouting. Daniela wheeled the cart down to a corner, and the kids propped the lid up a bit so they could see. Somebody had called security to confront the Sullivans and their entourage of reporters, but very few of the guards were anywhere near as scary as Jim and Fiona, and they were keeping a respectful distance. The weevil-like receptionist had slid down in her chair so she was nearly hiding behind her desk. Luca let the lid fall, and whispered to his mother.

“Okay, you wanna take the hallway on the right,” he said, “and...”

A bell rang, and the doors opened on the other elevator. The kids turned to look, and quickly ducked out of sight again when the realized Mr. Waternoose had arrived. From their hiding place, they heard him speak to a companion.

“Where are those scarers?” he demanded.

“They’re on their way, I’m sure,” another voice replied.

Daniela leaned down to whisper to her passengers. “That’s the guy, huh? I oughtta give him a piece of my mind...”

“Mom, no,” said Luca urgently.

A sound of conversation and the thump of heavy footsteps announced the scarers. When the kids dared another peek out, they saw half a dozen of the company’s star employees. These were all big, heavily built individuals with an assortment of teeth, spikes, and horns, and it was hard to say whether they were necessarily scarier than Mr and Mrs. Sullivan, but they were certainly intimidating.

“Excellent, excellent,” said Mr. Waternoose. “Gentlemen. I need you to keep a handle on any situations that might develop.”

“What kind of situation?” asked a scarer, a scaly cyclops with a thick moustache of tentacles dangling above his mouth. “What’s going on, Mr. Waternoose?”

“Never you mind, Whelan,” Waternoose replied. “Just do your job.”

The scarers exchanged a few glances, which involved a lot more eyes than normal.

“My job is to scare little kids,” said one who looked like a furry, antlered millipede.

“Your job is to scare who I tell you to scare!” snarled Waternoose. “Let’s get this over with!” He straightened his tie and headed into the foyer.

Daniela stood back and let them by, then trundled the garbage bin into the cafeteria, having to weave back and forth to dodge other people who were heading for the front room, wanting to see what would happen next. She rolled the garbage bin up to one particular table and stopped there. The kids raised the lid again for another look.

Harry was sitting there sipping a milkshake. “You made it!” he said.

“Sure did,” Luca nodded.

“Is there any water?” Daniela asked. “I’m getting a little tacky.”

Harry pointed to a mop and bucket left abandoned in a corner. Daniela hurried over and, while she made a face at the used mop water, poured it over herself anyway.

“Okay, this way,” said Harry.

He led them out of the room through another exit, to a different set of elevators.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said as he pressed the button.

“That’s dangerous,” Alberto muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Luca quickly. “What have you been thinking about?”

“If this all gets out, it’ll ruin Dad,” said Harry. “I mean forever. The entire scream industry might collapse, and then nobody will have any power. It’ll be a mess. If we get you out of here quietly and save the company, then I can inherit it when I grow up, and I can do better! Now that I’ve been to the human world and I know how it works, I have a few ideas.”

Luca wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Harry had only been in the human world for a few days, and it wasn’t clear what he could have learned in that time besides that humans were dangerous in large numbers. But when he looked at Alberto, Luca found him and Tarantella both shaking their heads. They had to take what they could get now.

The elevator arrived.

“Do we have keys to get them out?” asked Alberto as they entered the cab. Once inside, they could open the lid of the garbage bin properly, and see the people they were talking to.

“No, but the guards do,” said Harry. “We’ll have to get them from one of those.”

“We will?”

“Don’t you guys have a plan? You seem to have lots of plans,” said Harry.

“I only planned as far as getting in! I didn’t know what we were gonna find when we got here!” Luca protested. Sometimes he really, really hated being the Idea Man. “We wouldn’t have even got in if it weren’t that Tarantella and her dad are poisonous!”

“Venomous!” said Tarantella.

Harry gave Tarantella a wary look and moved to the other side of Daniela. “You are?” he asked.

“Don’t be weird about it. I’m all out,” said Tarantella. “If anybody’s gonna bite anybody it’ll have to be Dad.”

“Okay,” said Luca, trying to keep his own mind on track even if other people’s conversations weren’t. “Somehow, we gotta get them out, and then we pick up Giulia and her Mom, wherever they are, and then we gotta get to a door... it’s easy, it’ll be easy, we’re fine, we’re...” he cut himself off with a yelp as something touched his back, but it was only Alberto.

“Breathe,” he said.

“Breathe,” Luca echoed. He took several deep breaths and told himself to focus. They’d made this up as they went along so far. He just had to keep doing it.

The elevator chimed again, and the doors rumbled open.

Harry led the way back to the room where the prisoners were being held. It was the same one, a wide open space with a cage in the very middle – but now there were three guards outside, and these weren’t the smaller monsters who’d been at the fence and outside the water processing room. They were exterminators, complete with yellow suits, and while they weren’t scarers, that was only a career choice. They were terrifying.

Tarantella frowned as they assessed the situation from behind the cover of a stairwell door. “Exterminators are a public service,” she whispered. “Mr. Waternoose shouldn’t be able to use them as prison guards.”

“Dad says he owns them,” Harry muttered back.

“My Dad is gonna freak,” she declared. “He’ll love it. I mean, he’ll hate it, but he loves when he’s right.”

“How do we get past them?” asked Alberto.

“Get down, kids,” said Daniela. Harry remained behind while the three in the garbage bin ducked out of sight, and Daniela pushed the door open to step out into the hall. Walking as if she had every right to be there, she crossed the hallway and approached the guarded door. “Buon pomeriggio, ladies and gentlemonsters,” she said. “I’m just here to clean up a bit. Could you open that up for me?”

The three guards just looked at her quizzically. At least, Luca assumed they didn’t – he couldn’t see their expressions under their suits, but those with heads cocked them in a confused fashion.

“Per favore?” Daniela asked pleasantly.

“Uh... we were told not to let anybody in,” one of them said.

“Not even the cleaning lady?” asked Daniela. “Outrageous.”

“We’d better call Mr. Waternoose,” said the first one. “You two wait here. I’ll go...” he began to walk away, but Daniela stuck out her tail and tripped him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. She took the man’s arm – he had three – to help him, but as soon as he was upright she punched him in the face. The other two exterminators were startled, but they were quicker to react than the water processing guards. They moved to grab her, but she’d taken the first one’s weapon.

Daniela had only a very vague idea how a gun worked, but she pointed the device at the oncoming monsters and fired. Rather than a projectile, it shot out a pair of wires that buried themselves in the first exterminator’s yellow suit and delivered a powerful electric shock. He fell back against his colleague and turned around to grab at him, bringing both of them into contact with the electrodes. The second one made a horrible squealing sound. Both dropped, and then the only sound was Daniela’s ragged breathing.

“Wow, Mom!” said Luca.

“That was so cool!” Alberto agreed, making a mental note to always do exactly as Signora Paguro told him.

“Good, because I’m never doing anything like it again,” Daniela declared. She tossed the taser aside and bent down to find the keys.

As she did, there was a sound from inside the room. The door opened, and Daniela straightened up – to see three more exterminators coming out to investigate the noise.

Now it was her who was caught off guard. She looked at them for a few moments, then turned and ran. The exterminators hurried to chase her, slamming the door behind them – and ignoring the apparently innocuous garbage bin next to their fallen comrades.

As soon as the sound of their footsteps faded, the kids climbed out of the bin. Luca found a set of keys hanging off one exterminator’s belt, and they unlocked the door and ran into the room. Several misshapen figures were visible in the dim light. The boys could distinguish shapes that might have been Louise and Sullivan, but Tarantella saw something else. She dashed ahead of them on her many legs.

“Dad!” she called out.

“Tarantella!” González was astonished. “How did you...”

“We’ve got the keys!” Luca announced, coming closer. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he made out that Louise, Sullivan, and Curtis were indeed all present. “Are you all okay?”

Louise was just as surprised as González. “What are you two doing here?” she demanded. “I thought you went back to the human world!”

“We came to rescue you!” Luca unlocked the door and threw it open. “Come on, we gotta go find my mom, and then Giulia and her mom, and then we gotta find a door. Don’t worry about getting scream, we’ve got as much as we need.”

“Uh... okay,” said Louise. She helped Curtis up and pushed him out the door following González, then came next, with Sullivan bringing up the rear. “Where are they?”

“Last time we saw them, they were in the foyer,” Luca explained. “They were with Mr. Sullivan’s parents.”

“My parents?” asked Bill. “What are they doing here?”

“Looking for you,” said Tarantella, hugging her father. “They were on the radio and everything.”

Sullivan covered his face. “Of course they are!”

“I’ve known you three days and I’m already meeting your parents?” Louise gently elbowed Sullivan in the side.

“Hurry, hurry,” Luca said.

“Look out!” shouted Daniela, coming running back into the room. She’d done a circuit of the entire factory basement and was now back, breathing heavily, with the exterminators right behind her. Luca thought quickly and dashed forward to slam the door.

“Alberto!” he said. “We’re poisonous to them, remember!”

Alberto stepped up. “Stop right there!” he ordered. “We’re humans! You know what happens if we touch you!” He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers.

The first exterminator stepped forward. “I knew the risk when I took the job, kid. I’m not afraid of dying.”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Alberto. “Well, are you afraid of this?” He grabbed Daniela’s arm.

His timing was perfect. She was drying out, and her scales lifted and vanished as the Change rippled over her body. For a moment she wasn’t sure what the boys were trying to accomplish, but then she got it and began screaming.

“What have you done? What have you done?” she wailed, and pulled free to start staggering towards the exterminators. “Help me! Help me!”

They backed away, terrified, then turned to run, only to discover Luca was standing in front of the door. He did his best hiss at them, and they stopped, realizing they were surrounded by a fate considerably worse than death. Sullivan, Louise, and González each took one by the arm.

“Now behave yourselves,” said González. “You’ve seen what happens if you don’t!”

The exterminators didn’t struggle as the monsters escorted them into the cage and locked the door. Alberto then lifted the grate from a floor drain, and dropped the keys down it.

“See you later!” he called out.

González paused in the doorway and turned around to gloat. “You’re right where you belong!” he declared. “I don’t know what the corrupt government will do with you, but the court of public opinion will...”

“Dad,” said Tarantella, “we gotta go.”

“Right right. I have a feeling you’ll be seeing me again!” he told the captives.

Tarantella pulled the door shut behind him.

“Okay,” said Luca, going down his mental to-do list. “Now we need to pick up Giulia and her mom, and then we have to get to door storage...”

“This way,” said Harry.

Daniela paused at a janitor’s closet to get wet again, and Luca, Alberto, and Tarantella climbed back into the garbage cart. Harry’s many legs clattered on the floor as he led them back into the elevator, considerably more crowded this time with five adults as well as the bin inside it. They started to ascent, but stopped a couple of floors below their destination, the doors opened again. Somebody had pushed the button.

“Oh,” said the voice of Steve. “Sorry, I’ll wait for the... he paused. “Louise? You’re not supposed to be here! You were fired!” He drew himself up to his full height. “When I tell Mr. Waternoose you were trespassing...”

Sullivan picked him up by the tie and looked at the rest of the group.

“Kids,” said Louise. “Out of the bin.”

When they reached the first floor, they left Steve crammed in the garbage bin with the lid bent shut, and marched out in a group. Harry ran ahead to check the foyer, and came back shaking his head.

“They’re not in there anymore,” he said.

Luca’s stomach turned inside-out. “Well, where are they?” he asked.

“I’ll ask,” Harry said, and ran out to talk to the receptionist. She was using her long snout to sip something from a container hidden in a paper bag, while a snake-like creature patted her on the back with its prehensile tail. The other kids crouched behind the wall to watch as he scuttled up and asked, “where’s Dad?”

The receptionist nearly dropped her drink. “Heavens! You shouldn’t sneak up on people!”

“Sorry,” said Harry, bouncing up and down a little, “but I really need to know where Dad is!”

Her friend answered for her. “The Sullivans accused him of covering up some horrible door accident,” she said, “so he’s giving them a tour of the safety protocols. They said they were going to start in Door Storage.”

Luca’s stomach clenched.

“Thanks,” said Harry, scurrying out. Luca and Tarantella grabbed him as he entered their hiding place.

“They’re in Door Storage!” Luca said. “What do we do?”

“Relax,” said Harry. “She said it’s a tour! We just wait until they’re done there, and then we can go in. They won’t come back to the same spot until he’s showed them the scare floor and the quarantine mechanisms and everything. Come on,” he said. “This way.”

He led the way down the long hallway where the scare floors were located. Not much work seemed to be happening here – entry doors were standing open, and monsters were hanging around smoking and drinking coffee. After approaching the first couple of entryways cautiously, they quickly passed the rest of them by and arrived at the door warehouse. The doors were shut.

“I’ll go see if they’re still in there,” Harry said, and reached for the handle.

“Billy!” shrieked the voice of Fiona Sullivan.

Everybody turned around as she came running out of the last scare floor in the room – the one they’d just run right by without even looking – and threw her arms around her son.

“Billy,” she said. “Oh my gosh, look at the state of your fur! What’s happened to you, darling?”

“Mom, there’s people here,” he protested, as Jim Sullivan too came running. The reporters were right behind them, taking pictures and making notes. Daniela and the boys moved to hide behind González as best they could.

“There, you see?” Waternoose asked calmly, stepping up with his personal bodyguard of scarers all around him. “He’s quite all right!”

“No thanks to you,” said Bill, gently moving his mother aside to face the man.

“I’m sure it was all just a misunderstanding,” said Waternoose, moving around the side to get between Sullivan and the entrance to Door Storage. “Why don’t we all have some coffee and...”

“Humans!” somebody shrieked.

It was one of the reporters, an octopus-like creature in cat’s eye glasses. She was pointing one trembling yellow tentacle at the group. Others, who’d gathered around to get the details of the Sullivan family’s reunion, gasped and backed away when they realized Daniela and the two boys were behind González.

“It’s okay, everybody!” announced Harry, and stepped forward to smile at his father.

Mr. Waternoose hadn’t seemed fazed by their escape, but then, he couldn’t afford to be – not in front of the press. Now, however, he was stunned. “Harry?”

Harry looked back at them, and grinned. “Here they are, Dad!” he said. “Just like I promised! They were trying to escape, but I led them right to you!”

Luca’s stomach sank. This wasn’t happening again, was it? Could he really have set them up again?

“And you know what?” Harry took his father’s hand and led him proudly up to the fugitives. “It was Dr. Javier González who’s behind the whole thing! That guy who thinks you’re secretly the head of the Illuminati or whatever. He let the humans into our world to try to prove his crackpot theories!”

“Huh?” Alberto asked. “That’s not...”

Luca and Tarantella covered his mouth. They didn’t know why Harry was saying that, but there had to be a reason.

“Tell him about it, Dr. González!” said Harry, gesturing to his father. He grinned, and then gnashed his teeth.

“Ohhhh,” whispered Tarantella.

González stuck out a hand. “My pleasure to meet the most evil monster on the planet!” he said, shaking Waternoose’s hand enthusiastically – and then he bent down to bite him on the arm.

He was not successful. Waternoose jerked back in time, and González ended up biting his own hand. He quickly yanked it out of his mouth and stared at the red marks he’d left, his three eyes wide.

“Dad!” exclaimed Tarantella, and ran up to him. “Quick, who’s got a tourniquet?”

“It’s his own poison, isn’t it?” asked Alberto.

“It’s venom,” said González through gritted teeth.

“That doesn’t mean he’s immune!” said Tarantella.

“Here!” Daniela took off her apron and began wrapping it around the man’s arm, pulling it tight so the toxin couldn’t spread.

“I’m sorry! I thought it was a good plan!” Harry wailed.

“Harry!” barked Waternoose. “What the hell... you’re helping these fools? I’m your father!”

“And you’re never gonna be proud of me no matter what I do, just like Alberto said!” Harry shouted back. “So you can rot!”

Waternoose turned around to the scarers he’d commandeered as bodyguards. “This, gentlemen, is a situation!” he informed them. “Seize them!”

Luca shut his eyes... but nothing happened. A moment later, he looked again, and found them all just standing around looking at Waternoose.

“I said seize them!” Waternoose repeated.

The one called Whelan stepped forward. “Respectfully, Mr. Waternoose,” he said, “what the heck is going on?”

Chapter Text

“What is going on?” Waternoose roared. “I’ll tell you what’s going on – these subversives are trying to ruin the entire scream industry! They want you all to lose your jobs and end up on the streets!”

“That’s Louise Halverson,” said Whelan. “She used to work here.”

“And you should be grateful she doesn’t anymore!” Waternoose roared. “She would have...”

“That’s enough!” declared Fiona Sullivan. “All you’ve done since we got here is talk in circles about safety procedures and corporate spies and other things we have no interest in! Billy – why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

“He’s one of the...” Waternoose began, but the scarers stepped up and grabbed him by the arms and legs. “Hey!” he protested. “Unhand me at once! You’re fired! You’re all fired! I’ll see you in...” but then he fell silent as Whelan used both hands to clamp his mouth shut.

“Go ahead, Bill,” said Jim Sullivan.

“Actually, Louise knows a lot more about it than I do,” said Sullivan.

Louise stepped forward. “I accidentally brought these two boys here when I found them in a child’s room. I thought they were monster children who weren’t supposed to be in there, but it turns out they’re something else. They call themselves sea monsters...”

“That’s actually what the humans call us,” Luca put in.

“When they’re wet they look like monsters, and when they’re dry they look like humans,” Louise said. “They didn’t mean to cause trouble and neither did I, but Waternoose has decided we all need to be disposed of, so we can’t tell anybody that humans aren’t toxic.”

A gasp rose from the assembled crowd.

“They aren’t?” asked the weevil secretary.

Waternoose finally managed to get his mouth open. “Of course they are!” he roared.

“I saw it!” an exterminator exclaimed. “One of those kids touched the cleaning lady, and suddenly she was a human, too! It was horrible.”

Alberto rolled his eyes.

“Mom,” Giulia tugged on her mother’s arm. “Show them.”

Helena took off her green overcoat and used the lining to wipe some of the makeup off her face. “See?” she asked. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“You see?” the exterminator pointed. “It’s happening again!”

Reporters gasped. Cameras snapped.

“All I ever wanted to do,” Louise said, “was get these kids back where they belong. I wasn’t expecting them to try to help me, but that just makes me even more determined to help them... even if it does cost me my job. If you’ll let us through, I’ll do that, and when I’m finished you can do whatever you want with me.”

The scarers, still hanging on to Mr. Waternoose, glared at him. “So all this time,” said one, which looked rather like a humanoid squid, “you’ve been telling us this job is insanely dangerous, when it’s not? Why have we been getting all those huge deductions for insurance, then? Where’s that money going?”

“You were gonna make me take unpaid quarantine after I got that rubber duck thrown at me!” another said. “I had to use my vacation time!”

“All that stuff you confiscated! If it wasn’t contaminated, what did you do with it? That was my father’s watch! I want it back!”

“Oh for the love of...” Mr. Waternoose shook his arms free and opened a panel on the wall. Inside were two large buttons – the red one was labelled fire. The black one was labelled child. The scarers took his arms and legs again, but it was too late. He butted the panel with his head, pressing both buttons at once. Alarms began to blare and lights to flash, and moments later a dozen exterminators were rushing into the hallways.

“Look out!” said the one Alberto and Daniela had scared. “You can’t let them touch you!”

Whelan pointed at Louise. “You take those kids back. We’ll handle this.” He looked around at his co-workers. Heads nodded, foreheads furrowed, and teeth bared. The exterminators pulled out a variety of weapons, including truncheons and tasers. For a moment the two groups just sized each other up, and then they ran to meet in the middle.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” said Louise, hurrying Luca and Alberto along. Daniela, Giulia, and Helena ran to keep up.

“Stop them! Stop them!” said Waternoose.

“Out of the way!” said Bill Sullivan. He and his parents had gotten the fire hose down from the wall, and Jim held it while his wife and sun turned the handle. Water blasted out to force the exterminators back.

Luca didn’t dare look back after that. He just ran, only daring to glance to the sides here and there to make sure his friends were still with him. They were, with Louise bringing up the rear, but there was, he realized, somebody they’d left behind.

“Hey!” he called out. “What about Tarantella and her dad?” Dr. González was already hurt! They couldn’t get caught in the middle of a fistfight.

“We’ll just have to hope they’ll be taken care of,” said Louise. “Go, go!”

They headed up the stairs to the right section – A113. Louise grabbed a door at random. “Does this one look good?” she asked.

“It’ll have to do,” said Helena.

That was when the lights went out.

Everybody stopped dead, blinking in the darkness, unable to do anything but wait for their eyes to adjust. This was a fairly quick process for sea monsters, and apparently for Louise, too, but for Giulia and Helena it took way longer. They heard footsteps on metal, and saw a pair of pink glowing eyes, and then a flashlight came on.

It was Waternoose, standing on the metal walkway with Harry ineffectually clinging to one of legs and trying to drag him back, but accomplishing absolutely nothing.

“You think you can escape me in my own factory?” asked Waternoose. “I designed this place myself! I know all the ins and outs, all the entrances and exits... and of course I know exactly where you’re going. Now...”

Giulia took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could.

The light above the door Louise had chosen flickered to life. So did those on several others, and the bulb on Waternoose’s flashlight burst with a pop, causing him to shout and drop the tool. Louise wrenched the door open, and without bothering to check what was on the other side, everybody dashed through.

They entered into a child’s bedroom with a window overlooking the ocean. Below the window, the room’s occupant, a girl of about four, was sitting up in bed clutching the covers. She stared as three children and two adults crowded out of her closet, and then the door slammed shut behind them. They waited, a moment, afraid it would open again, but it did not. Apparently Giulia’s scream had only been enough to run it for a few seconds.

“Hi,” said Alberto to the little girl. “Hey, where are we?”

The child opened her mouth and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Papà! Papà!”

That was apparently enough to power the door mechanism on the monster side. The door banged open again, and Louise was thrown through, with Waternoose on top of her. Everybody else had to scrambled up onto the bed, which made the little girl scream again as the two monsters wrestled on the floor. Waternoose was trying to sting Louise with his tail, but missed, tearing the bedclothes instead. The edges of the hole blackened and curled as if set on fire.

“Papà!” the girl wailed again.

“Arabella!” a voice shouted from the hall, and the door opened. Arabella’s father could only have taken the briefest of looks around the room, but he saw several strangers and the fight between monstrous creatures, and answered her screams with a scream of his own.

“Polizia! Polizia!” he shouted, running back into the hallway. “My daughter!”

“I am so sorry about this,” Daniela told the girl, then threw the window open and looked down. “Aha! Water! Luca, let’s go!”

“Wait, Mom!” Luca protested. They couldn’t just leave these people with monsters in their house!

“No wait Moms this time!” said Daniela firmly, and she scooped him up and tossed him out. Luca got a glimpse of her face watching through the window as he dropped, past the house and then past the cliff below to land with a splash in the sea, stirring up the nighttime algae that lit up blue and green all around him.

A second later Alberto came down nearly on top of him, followed by Giulia, whom the boys helped back to the surface so that she could breathe. Once she was there, however, she pushed them away.

“I can swim, you know!” she said.

“Yeah, but we’ve seen you swim!” said Alberto.

“Look out below!” shouted Daniela. Helena kept her arms close to her sides as she fell into the water, and the boys helped her up, too, moments ahead of Daniela falling in with a splash.

They were at the bottom of a short but steep cliff, below a town clustered in what had once been a narrow river valley, though the river had been covered up by a storm drain long ago. There was something very familiar about both the house and the railing across the end of the road next to it. It looked a lot like the place where Luca and Alberto had come off Giulia’s bike...

“It’s Portorosso!” Luca exclaimed, delighted and relieved. “We’re home!”

They helped Giulia and Helena up to the beach where the boys had come ashore after that previous accident, and scrambled up the stony slope to the road. As they reached it, they could see that the town was waking up in a panic. Lights were coming on and voices were shouting, and Luca’s stomach sank. He had thought he could trust the people of Portorosso not to hurt Louise... but when she appeared out of nowhere, and fighting another monster, h was no longer so sure. They had to get back there before anything bad happened.

“I’m gonna go get Dad!” Giulia declared, and turned left, towards the piazza, to do so. Helena went with her.

“We’ll try to help Louise!” Luca said, and he and Alberto turned right. Daniela followed them.

They arrived to find a crowd in the street, looking up at the house on the corner. Luca ducked under arms and squeezed between people to get to the front, where he found the family who lived there standing well back, staring up at the second floor. From inside came the sound of something shattering, then of heavy objects falling down the stairs.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” said Maggiore Ricci, who had throwing her police cap on but was otherwise in her pyjamas. “What’s going on up here!”

“Monsters!”Arabella’s father told her.

Ricci looked over at Daniela and the boys, as did several other people.

“No!” said the man. “Real monsters!”

“They came out of my closet!” Arabella herself added.

Ricci stared a moment, then opened her mouth to say something, but she never got the chance. The front doors banged open, one of them coming right off its hinges in the process, and Louise was thrown out into the street. People screamed and scrambled away as she hit the ground and rolled, hitting a cart full of watermelon that had been parked across the street. Melons bounced out. A few people hurried to try to save the fruit, but then backed off in horror as Waternoose appeared in the doorway.

He was breathing hard, his ascot undone and his jacket torn from the fight, but he was in better shape than Louise, who was lying face-down by the cart, watermelon juice soaking into her orange and yellow fur. She did not try to get up. Waternoose looked around at the assembled humans, sneering as if they weren’t even worth of his contempt... and then his bulbous glowing eyes landed on Alberto and Luca.

“You two!” he snarled. “This is your fault!”

The boys backed up. Daniela put her arms around them both and hissed at Waternoose, which was no less intimidating for all she was now in human form.

He didn’t even seem to notice though. His many legs clicked menacingly on the cobblestones as he walked towards them. “If you hadn’t come through that door none of this would ever have happened,” he snarled. “My company is ruined! My scarers have turned on me! The entire monster world will be without power! I hope you’re happy... you’ve destroyed three generations of work!”

“It was a mistake!” Luca said. “All we wanted to do was get home!”

“Then why did you come back?” Waternoose roared.

In the monster world there’d been people to opposite him. Now in Portorosso, there were only the terrified humans and Louise, who was lying injured in the middle of the street. She started trying to get up as Waternoose approached the sea monsters, but he kicked her in the face on the way by, and she went down again. Luca realized that talking to him was never going to accomplish anything. He’d never listened to begin with, and he wasn’t going to start now.

“Dad! Dad, stop!” insisted Harry, coming to grab his hand.

Waternoose threw him against a wall. “And you! You’ve never been anything but a disappointment from the moment you hatched without a stinger! I knew then you were weak, and you’d never be anything else!”

Daniela thrust the boys behind her. “You lay one finger on these children and you’ll answer to me!” she declared.

Waternoose charged at her. Daniela picked up a chair that was sitting next to the watermelon cart and tried to hit him with it. He caught the blow, and the two of them struggled over the piece of furniture for a moment before Waternoose ripped it out of Daniela’s hands and then knocked her to the ground, raising his tail to strike...

... and then a harpoon hit him in the shoulder. Waternoose roared in pain and staggered back, then looked up to see where it had come from.

Giulia and Helena had returned, and Massimo was with them. He yanked on the harpoon’s tether, dragging Waternoose back towards him.

Waternoose ripped the harpoon out, splattering blue blood, and threw it on the ground. Daniela got up and grabbed the boys again. Beyond Waternoose, Luca saw somebody helping Harry up, and was startled to find it was Faustina Visconti.

“Poor granchietto! I see why you wanted a new family,” she said, as Harry hugged her.

Massimo held out his hand. Giulia, her eyes on Waternoose and her chin raised in defiance, handed him another harpoon.

“Go back where you came from,” Massimo ordered.

Waternoose raised his tail. Venom glistened on the stinging tip. He was far too angry to back down now – he needed to hurt somebody and whoever presented themselves was going to be his next target.

“You think you scare me, human?” he asked. “I’m a monster. I scare you!”

“This is Portorosso,” said Massimo. “We are not afraid of monsters.”

“That’s right!” Harry called out. “There’s a hundred of you and only one of him!”

The people in the crowd, who’d been keeping their distance out of fear, looked around at each other, and Luca could see them realizing that Harry was right. Waternoose was big and scary, but he was badly outnumbered. They were slow to action, though, worried that the first person to move would be attacked. Somebody had to spur them to action. He looked at Alberto, but Alberto was looking at him. Luca was the idea man.

And then he got one. He scooped up one of the fallen watermelons and hurled it at Waternoose. He missed, and the fruit splattered on the stones at his feet.

But it got the idea across. Another person picked up a watermelon and threw it, this time hitting Waternoose in the chest. He hissed and raised his tail at this aggressor, only for somebody else to throw a frying pan at him. This hit him in the shoulder, which clearly hurt, but as he moved to do something about that, more objects came. There were the watermelons, old bottles and jars, fishing weights, and a sack of potatoes. Waternoose tried to menace a child who’d hurled a stone at him, only to be hit over the head by a push broom.

Waternoose howled in frustration. He could have killed any one of these people, but he was no match for the whole crowd. A net was thrown over him from above, and he tore his way out of it only to be trapped in another, then another. Three fishermen yanked on the lines to close the nets, and Waternoose was pulled off his feet to land flat on his face on the cobblestones, where more people moved in to secure his limbs with ropes and fishing line.

“Unhand me at once!” he ordered. “You can’t do this! I’m a monster!”

“I told you,” said Massimo, holding the point of his harpoon only inches from Waternoose’s face. “We are not afraid of monsters.”

Harry scurried up and ducked between Massimo’s legs to stick his tongue out at his father. “Now who’s weak?” he sneered.

Waternoose’s face twisted in rage, and even as tangled in the nets as he was, his tail whipped up to try to strike at Harry. Faustina Visconti cried out and grabbed Harry by the leg to scoop him out of the way, and Massimo’s harpoon whipped up to catch the blow.

None of this turned out to be necessary, though. The layers of nets meant the stinger couldn’t reach anything further forward than its owner’s shoulder – and that’s where it came down, right in the already painful harpoon wound.

This time, Waternoose screamed. It was a horrible sound, containing no rage, only pain. He turned his head slowly to see what he’d just done, and tried to reach up and remove the stinger, but with his arms tied down he couldn’t. Instead, it was Harry who pulled away from Faustina and ran to pull it out.

“Dad?” Harry asked. “Dad, are you okay?”

Waternoose blinked a couple of times. His forehead broke out in a sweat and he swallowed hard, and then he went limp.

“Dad!” Harry wailed, and threw his arms around his father’s neck. Faustina came up to pat his back and comfort him.

“Giulia, get the doctor,” said Luca.

“Right!” said Giulia, and ran off to do so.

Luca and Alberto, meanwhile, went to see Louise, and found Daniela and Helena helping her to sit up. Louise was holding her middle and grimacing, as if she had an injury that wasn’t visible through her fur.

“Are you okay?” Luca asked her.

Louise looked up at him, but a moment later her eyes re-focused on the crowd behind him, and he saw her eyes widen and her ears lower as she realized she was surrounded by the same humans that had just beaten and trapped her far-more-intimidating boss. Even worse from her point of view, one of them was coming closer. Luca and Alberto moved out of the way as Signora Dentone approached with a pitcher.

“Ah... Signorina? I’ve got some water,” Signora Dentoe offered. “You can wash off – there’s a lot of watermelon juice in your, uh, pelt.”

Helena smiled. “Thank you, Rosana,” she said. She took the pitcher and started helping to clean Louise up.

Signora Ferrando from a few houses down spoke up. “I’ll see if I can find some soap!” she offered. “And I’ll make you a cup of tea – that’ll help!”

Luca smiled, both pleased and relieved that he’d been right. “See?” he said to Louise. “I told you, people in Portorosso are nice!”

Somebody brought over a chair for Louise to sit down, which she did gingerly, and Signora Ferrando brought a cup of tea and a bar of soap, just as Giulia returned with the town’s doctor, Enzo Calcagno. Like almost everybody else, he’d been awakened by the fuss, but had stayed in his house, and when he arrived with his bag and saw the scene in the street, he stopped short.

“Uh...” he began.

“Oh, Doctor, come here,” said Daniela. “I think Louise has some broken ribs.”

The doctor’s eyes, however, were fixed on Waternoose in the middle of the street, wrapped up in nets and ropes and unconscious but breathing. Harry was holding his hand, while Faustina rubbed the monster child’s back.

“I, ah...” Dr. Calcagno licked his lips. “I do not like spiders.”

“They don’t bite,” Alberto promised.

Dr. Calcagno carefully skirted the Waternooses, and went to examine Louise as best he could. He looked as if he had any number of questions, but he focused on his work, feeling around Louise’s ribs to assess her injuries. The only thing he did ask her was where it hurt.

As this went on, Luca happened to look at the crowd and spot a familiar face. Signora Marsigliese was standing there in her dressing gown with curlers in her hair, and a pair of wide eyes was peeking out from behind her. Luca went closer, and Rocco quickly ducked out of sight behind his mother.

Luca came closer and smiled at him. “Hi, Rocco,” he said, as Alberto joined him.

Rocco waved timidly, and then pointed at Louise.

“Yeah, that’s your closet monster,” said Luca.

“She’s not gonna scare you anymore,” Alberto promised. “She’s actually really nice when you get to know her, and she’s a great cook. Come on, you wanna talk to her?” He extended a hand.

Rocco looked nervously up at his mother.

“Nobody’s going to force you, Uomomino,” Signora Marsigliese assured her son, “but I don’t think Luca and Alberto would offer if it were dangerous.”

Rocco thought about it for a moment, then took Luca’s and Alberto’s hands. They led him up to Louise, who was hissing through her teeth as the doctor prodded a sore spot. This made her look like she was snarling, but when she saw Rocco shrink back, she quickly dropped it.

“Oh. Hello, there,” she said.

“Rocco, this is Louise Halverson,” Luca said. “She’s your closet monster. Louise, this is Rocco Marsigliese. He doesn’t talk very much.”

The boy nodded.

“I see,” said Louise. She looked in several directions, nervous, then gave him the gentlest smile her sharp teeth could manage. “We’re getting rid of your door,” she said. “I will never come out of your closet and scare you again, and neither will anybody else. Okay?”

Rocco nodded again.

The doctor, meanwhile, stood up, nodding to himself. “I think Signora Paguro is correct about your broken ribs,” he told Louise, “but I think they’re only cracked. I don’t think you’ve got any damage to your internal organs – assuming you have the usual ones – so just take it easy for a few weeks and don’t try to lift anything heavy. Take medicine for the pain if you need to, and if anything gets worse... well, I suppose we’ll have to send you to a hospital to Genova or La Spezia for surgery...” he looked doubtful of the idea. “Uh... is there room in your closet for you to lie down?”

“I do have an apartment,” Louise told him, both amused and a bit annoyed by the assumption.

“They don’t actually live in kids’ closets,” Luca explained. “The doors are portals to the world the monsters live in, and they collect screams and use them for power.”

People stared at him.

“They do what?” somebody asked.

“Everything in our world runs on screams,” said Harry. “Like this.” He fished his father’s watch out of his pocket and held it up. “Somebody scream.”

Giulia put her mouth next to the watch, took a deep breath, and screamed. The hands spun wildly, and then there was a soft spang! sound as the mechanism overloaded and broke.

Waternoose stirred and raised his head a little. “Harry?” he asked weakly.

Harry’s face lit up and he dropped the watch to grab his father’s hand again. “You’re okay!” he exclaimed, and then his expression turned sour again. “I’m disappointed in you, too!” he informed his father. “You couldn’t even stand up to a bunch of humans! They’ve got you all tied up like a roast!”

Waternoose slumped again, too sick from the venom to argue. Or possibly thinking that Harry was right – although Luca doubted it.

Arabella reached up and tugged on her father’s pyjama shirt. “Papà?” she asked. “Can we take the door off my closet?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “We’ll do that right now!”

“Us, too,” another man decided.

“I’ll find Leandro’s tools,” said a woman.

“Wait!” Luca stood up. “We gotta keep one for at least the rest of tonight, because Harry and his Dad need to go home! It should probably be yours,” he added, to Arabella’s parents. “That’ll be the ones the monsters are watching.”

“Make it quick,” said the father

It took several people to drag the unconscious Mr. Waternoose through the broken front doors and up the narrow staircase to Arabella’s room. Going up the stairs was particularly dangerous, as the fight between Louise and Waternoose had broken the banister, and people had to be careful not to fall over the edge. Daniela and Helena helped Louise limp up the steps behind them.

The door to Arabella’s room was also torn from its hinges and her bed was smashed, but the door to the closet itself was now shut. Luca realized that everybody was looking at him again – but this time he knew exactly why. He squared his shoulders, marched up to the door, turned the handle, and opened it.

On the other side was the factory room he and Alberto had arrived in the night the entire awful adventure began. Dozens of monsters were sitting and standing a few metres back, including the scarers and half a dozen exterminators. Bill Sullivan and his parents were front and centre with Louise’s friend Curtis, and somebody had called Edith Waternoose, who was tapping her many legs impatiently on the floor.

“There you are!” Curtis ran forward. “We checked a couple of times but didn’t see you, and nobody was brave enough to go downstairs and look! Is Louise okay?”

“She’s fine,” Luca promised. “She’s right here.”

Curtis pushed past him, and then stopped short when he saw the trussed-up Waternoose. The rest of the monsters came closer to look, and it was Edith who scuttled up to the door with her hands over her mouth in horror.

“Oh, no! Hank!” she exclaimed, and came to kneel by his side in the cramped quarters of Arabella’s destroyed bedroom. “Harry!” she said, taking her son by the shoulders. “What have they done to him?”

“They just tied him up!” Harry said quickly. “He’s sick because he stung himself, like Dr. González did.”

“Where is Dr. González?” asked Luca. “Is he okay?”

“He’s in the infirmary,” said Curtis. “He should be okay. They’ve got all kinds of antivenins. They need it with Waternoose in charge.”

“Then we’ve got to get him there!” said Edith. “Come here and help me!”

Three or four scarers ducked through the door and gathered up Waternoose to get him back through. This was a difficult operation, as he was quite a bulky creature and being tangled in nets and ropes meant they couldn’t move his limbs around to make him fit. They managed it in the end, though, and by the time they did, a couple of medics had arrived to get him onto a stretcher and start cutting him out of the mess.

Only then did Mrs. Waternoose turn again to her son. “Harry,” she said. “Come here.”

Harry gulped. He approached very slowly, worried he was about to be disowned. “Am I in trouble?” he asked.

Edith dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him to hug him tight. He stiffened in surprise, but then hugged her back.

“So no?” he asked.

“Maybe a little,” she said, “but mostly I’m just happy you’re okay. We’ll have a long talk about it. Okay?”

Harry nodded.

“Oh,” said Faustina. She reached out tentatively, but then drew her hand back. “So... you really don’t want to stay with us? I thought Ercole made that up.”

Harry shook his head. “You’re really nice, Mrs. Visconti, but I don’t want to deal with more than one human at a time, ever again! I gotta go back to my world.”

“All right,” said Faustina, disappointed.

“So do I,” said Louise. She limped forward with Curtis helping her now.

“Are you sure?” Luca asked her. “I mean, now you’ve seen people in Portorosso don’t mind monsters?”

“I’m sure,” said Louise. “I don’t belong here any more than Harry does, but thank you for the offer. Anyway...” she looked at the Sullivans. “I have a date.”

“Yes!” Bill pumped his arm.

Curtis helped her through and she turned around to wave goodbye to the boys and Giulia. They waved back and wished her good luck... and then the door closed again.