Shells! I run over and grab a handful of them from Dad’s dresser drawer and toss them onto the shampoo just as the bedroom door begins to snap off a hinge. I snatch up the lamp from the bedside table as my final weapon of self-defense and hide behind the curtains just as the door crashes open against the bedroom wall.
“It’s gotta be in here,” one of them says. “She must know about it.”
I peek from behind the curtain. Flashlight beams slice the darkness. The men barrel into the room, but one steps into the hole, which swallows up his entire leg, and he starts screaming in agony. Ignoring his buddy, Baseball Cap Guy heads toward the bathroom but slips on the shampoo, his legs skidding across the floor like losing control on an ice rink. He falls into a heap, groaning. Outside, sirens cut through the intruders’ shouting.
“The cops are here!” Stuck Guy says.
Baseball Cap Guy crawls across the wooden floor, picking off the shells stuck to him. But then he pauses and his flashlight lands on the opened copy of Field and Stream. My list! He picks it up, reading over my words as he rises to his feet. My hands grow cold when his head swivels to where I’m hiding, peeking out from behind the curtain. He knows I’ll be there because it’s number five on the list.
“Help me up, man!” Stuck Guy says. “My foot is stuck and the police will be here any second.”
But Baseball Cap Guy just leers in my direction. He rips off the back cover of Field and Stream where my list is and tucks it into his pocket. Then he turns and vanishes into the hallway.
I sag to the floor as police swarm into the room and arrest the intruder who’s stuck in the hole. Someone turns the lights on and a paramedic rushes over to check me for injuries. I refuse to move, sitting there in a daze, clutching the lamp, until my parents stumble in shortly afterward, now awake and complete wrecks. I should feel safe now that they are all here to protect me.
But I don’t.
“Oh, Keira!” Mom says, wrenching the lamp from my grasp as Dad talks to the police about the burglary. “Are you okay? I can’t believe I fell asleep while you were all alone with those horrible men.”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
She helps me up and directs me to the bed. Its soft cover soothes my nerves. Suddenly, though, Mom releases me, her eyes and mouth widening as she sees something from the other side of the room. As if in a trance, she staggers to Dad’s opened drawer and lifts up the empty velvet box.
“They took the pen!” Her voice
quivers as she shows Dad and the officer.
“Oh no,” Dad murmurs, and he wraps his arms around Mom.
“Is there a problem, ma’am?” the officer asks. “Is it a special pen? An heirloom?”
“They took it!” She shakes the box in the officer’s face. “This is what they came here for!”
The officer nods, but his expression remains quizzical as he notes Mom’s complaint. “They stole a pen, you said? Could you explain it to me? Is there anything else you noticed they stole?”
This is the moment when I should run up to Mom and give her the pen. Show her I found it and then everything will be okay. I reach into my pocket to take it out, but as my fingers touch its cool surface, it tickles my skin and I remember that rush of power I felt as I wrote the list.
I can’t give it up.
Ever.
Once upon a time, an editor emailed me and said, “You know those fairy tale jokes you made on Twitter? I think there’s a book idea there, and I want it.” The editor was bright of mind and lively of heart, the Black to my White, and very right. There was a book idea there, and, thanks to Erin Black’s encouragement and insight, you just read it. I hope. It’s weird if you’re reading the acknowledgments first. Maybe you meant to cheat and read the end of the book and accidentally read this instead, in which case, SHAME ON YOU, GO BACK AND START AT THE BEGINNING.
So, thank you, Erin Black, for being a girl with a secret monster heart and loving literary strolls in silly dark woods. Thank you to everyone at Scholastic for joining us for a picnic with a wolf or two. Thank you to Carol Ly for the frighteningly perfect page design. Thank you to Karl Kwasny for such disturbingly delightful art. You’re all worth more than a handful of magic beans. And way, way more than a handful of peas.
Thank you to my agent, Michelle Wolfson, who thought it all sounded too scary but was willing to work with it anyway. I’m always so much scarier than you think I’ll be. We short girls are sneaky like that.
Thank you to my very own prince (who always practices the strictest levels of fire safety), Noah, and to our three delightful and well-behaved children, Elena, Jonah, and Ezra. They helped with my vocabulary, and can spell well enough to save all our lives should the need arise. Kids, if you promise never to get pet snakes, I promise never to make pease porridge.
Finally, thank YOU. Yes, you! No, not you. Just kidding, even you! Thank you for reading. I’ve been trying to write the right book for kids just like you my whole career. I’m so happy it’s in your hands now. I hope you loved it! And if you didn’t, please bring all complaints to my friend, the fair Herr. He’s dying to eat you. I mean, meet you. Yes. Meet you.