How to Curse in Hieroglyphics Read Free

eventually be found huddled in almost exactly the same spot behind the general store’s garbage bins.
    â€œY’hear me?” he shouted again. “BACK OFF!”
    â€œOh sure , Von Bartleburg …” Cheryl issued a series of largely made-up militaryesque hand signals to Tweed. “… Spawn of Darkness, Left Hand of Dracula … We’ll back off …”
    The girls split up, circling around on either side of the Dumpster.
    Artie crouched there like a gopher in a hole, with messy brown bed-head hair, buck teeth and wonky glasses. Three-foot-tall Scourge of Humanity. Knobby-kneed Creature of Evil. The second he realized that the girls had found him— again —he made another “Glaack!” sound and jumped like a Pop-Tart in a toaster. Tweed made a mad grab for him but he wriggled backwards in his hidey-hole, out between the trash bin and a towering stack of broken-down cardboard boxes bundled with twine. Then he spun on the heels of his ratty old red Keds and took off like a Bat out of Heck.
    He got maybe seven whole steps before Cheryl leaped from the top of the Dumpster. Cheryl aspired to a career as a movie stunt double when she grew up, but her technique still needed a bit of work. She missed Artie on the first attempt and instead tumbled head over heels in an awkward shoulder roll. She sprang toher feet in time to tackle him to the ground in front of the gas pumps.
    â€œWait!” Artie—or, in this case, Count Arthur Von Bartleburg—screeched, his eyes growing big behind his crooked specs. “This isn’t right! You vampire-hunted me last week,” he said. “This week oughta be nuthin’ but werewolves for you two. That means I’m off the hook! Go bug Gordon.”
    Gordon was the overweight watchdog down at the town junkyard. The tubby old hound had been standing in, in lieu of any real werewolves, in much the same way that Mrs. Kraveling’s laundry on the line often played the parts of Doomed Spirits wandering the Earth (alternating every third week of the month with the toads—er, Spawn of Swamp Monsters—down at the abandoned quarry pond). Artie had pulled vampire duty early on in life; ever since grade three—before he’d lost the majority of his baby teeth—he’d nurtured quite a reputation as a biter and had therefore been the obvious choice.
    â€œTweed?” Cheryl called.
    Tweed got a serious look on her face, eyebrows knitting under the blunt fringe of her dark hair. “Hang on,” she muttered. “I’ll check the calendar …” She jumped up into the back of the truck to retrieve a thick, leather-bound appointment journal covered with sticky-notes and neatly scribbled reminders. After paging through the dates, she sighed.

    â€œLet him up, partner,” she said, disappointment heavy in her voice. “He’s right. It’s a full moon tomorrow night.”
    Which—of course —meant that if there was any monster hunting to be done, it would have to be strictly of the werewolf variety, according to the rules. And rules were rules.
    Gordon would be so pleased.
    Reluctantly, Cheryl stood up and wandered back to the truck. It proved to be good timing because, just at that moment, Pops Pendleton came bustling out of the general store laden with more shopping bags. Pops did not approve of roughhousing.
    â€œAll righty there, girls—oh, why hello, Artie.” Pops glanced down as he walked past. “What’re ya doin’ on the ground?”
    Artie clambered to his feet. “I—”
    â€œCase of mistaken monstrosity, Pops,” Cheryl interjected, shooting a death-glare at Artie. “All sorted up.”
    Pops just shrugged and continued toward the truck, and Cheryl jumped into the truck’s cargo bed to join Tweed. Pops heaved the shopping bags into the truck and Cheryl plucked a four-pack of bathroom tissue out of one. She tossed the pack