The Mystery of the Mystery Meat

Illustrated by Saxton Moore and Carlos Villagra

Prologue: In Which Your Beloved Narrator Exercises Remarkable Self-Control!

Chapter One: In Which A Kiss is Interrupted

Chapter Two: In Which Miss Pretty Falls Under a SPELL!

Chapter Three: In Which Pretty’s Spell Backfires!

Chapter Four: In Which Freekin Sinks His Teeth Into a Chunk of the Mystery

Chapter Five: In Which Pretty Reveals a Terrible Secret!

Chapter Six: In Which Things Go From Bad to Worse!

Chapter Seven: A Caution: This Chapter is Particularly Disgusting!

Chapter Eight: In Which Freekin Rallies the Troops!

Chapter Nine: In Which Our Hero Acts Heroically!

Chapter Ten: In Which Pretty Spills the Beans!

Chapter Eleven: In Which Pretty Summons an Unlikely Ally!

Chapter Twelve: In Which Our Story Concludes! (Almost!)

Epilogue: In Which Freekin Receives His Hero’s Reward!

Welcome, Dear and Gentle Reader, to this book. I am Chris P. Flesh, Narrator Extraordinaire, and it is my extreme pleasure to completely unnerve you with the horribly thrilling and excruciatingly nerve-wracking adventures of Franklin Ripp. If you have walked the twisted, terror-infested path of Franklin’s journey with me before, you know what you are in for. But if you are
new to this strange tale of an undead boy, the girl he loves, and his two best friends from the Underworld, well, then, I hope you have a strong stomach and a courageous heart, because you are going to need them.

But first, allow me to bring a ray of sunshine into this shadowy set of paragraphs: I am delighted to announce that the International Order of Narrators has agreed to reconsider their completely idiotic and highly unfair decision to throw me out of the organization. You may recall that I was booted because a VFI (very famous individual) complained about my curious nature, insisting that I had asked him too many questions in my attempt to narrate his story with all the care and feeling it deserved.

Can you imagine such a thing? I cannot. It would be like punishing a doctor for making too many stitches after he cuts out your diseased spleen (as well as any other rotting organs stinking up your abdominal cavity). Or firing a gardener for hacking down too many man-eating plants before the tiny Goldschmidt triplets arrive for an afternoon of mud-pie-making and insect-devouring in your backyard. As you know, asking questions is what a narrator
does
, and one certainly ought not be punished for fulfilling the requirements of one’s chosen profession. For how can one provide information to the reader if one does not know—

A minute? This is Belle, the Narrator’s niece. It’s kind of my job
to interrupt Uncle Chris when he goes on too long. I’m visiting this weekend, and I brought my best friend, Haley, only I call her Elvis.

Hi! I’m Elvis, Belle’s BFF!

Let me confirm that yes, Belle is here, and so is “Elvis,” who is indeed her best friend forever. And interestingly enough, our new tale about Franklin concerns his two best friends
from
forever, otherwise known as the Afterlife. They are Scary, a shape-shifting phantom, and Pretty, a little monster who has two big eyes and five little ones, ponytail ears decorated with suckers, a mouth glittering with fangs, and tentacles instead of legs. They came from a part of the Afterlife called the Underworld, which is reserved for monsters and phantoms, and it’s a good thing they insisted on accompanying Franklin to the Land of the Living. For they will help him solve the Mystery of the Mystery Meat, once and for all.

Mystery Meat, you may recall, was created by Horatio Snickering III in 1889, in a tiny kitchen in the equally tiny village he named Snickering Willows. Mystery Meat was an overnight sensation, and Mr. Snickering built an immense brick factory to increase production. The fabulous concoction was served to millionaires in the finest restaurants and to soldiers in the heat of battle. And it was served in school cafeterias across this great land of ours (and still is, to this day).

But its beginnings—and its contents—were shrouded in mystery. People wanted to know what was in Mystery Meat, and they bombarded Horatio Snickering with questions about his creation at every turn.
“What’s in it? Would you please share the recipe as a favor to my dying nephew? Would you share it for a million dollars? Or perhaps in return for the lives of your wife, child, and sprightly little dachshund, Wotan, to whom I have become quite attached?”

The questions swirled around him like the smoke from one of his ever-present cigars. Some say they drove him mad. Others say it occurred to him that while
he
might be immune to such a barrage of questions, others who worked for him—his employees—might succumb and reveal the secret recipe.

If any of Horatio Snickering’s competitors learned how to make Mystery Meat, he would be ruined, and all his employees would starve. Literally.

So he decided that the only thing he could do was make all questions illegal, no matter how innocent or unimportant they might seem to those who asked them, or whether they related to Mystery Meat or not. It lay within his power to do so because, as I mentioned, he owned the entire town. If anyone was caught asking a question, no matter the subject, the asker was charged with Curiosity, and if they were found guilty, they were escorted to the
city limits and ordered never to return. In addition, if they attempted to communicate with their family and friends who still lived in Snickering Willows, those people would be forced to leave town as well. And they were never, ever heard from again.

Consider, then, what it might be like to grow up without ever asking a question. That was exactly what it was like for Franklin Ripp, who was born over a century after asking questions was made illegal in his hometown. He never asked a single question in his entire life, and he should have, because then he would not have died an early, horrible, disgusting, humiliating death.

(A note: I have promised never to reveal exactly how he died, because it is just so very awful that Franklin couldn’t bear for you to know. In return, Franklin has allowed me to tell his story, which, while very dismaying, revolting, and stomach-churning, is nevertheless very juicy—just like Mystery Meat!)

I
can
tell you that he wouldn’t have died if he had asked questions first, such as:

1. Is this dangerous?

2. Should I be wearing a helmet?

3. And a parachute?

These are only examples, mind you, because I don’t want to give the slightest hint about the actual means of
his demise.

After his hideous, disgusting, embarrassing death, he found himself in the Afterlife. He was most distressed, declaring his death “a total Ripp-off.” His life had been going awfully well. He had friends, and more importantly, it looked like Lilly Weezbrock wanted to be his girlfriend.

A word on Lilly Weezbrock.

You might hear adults daydreaming about winning the lottery. “If I won the lottery,” they will say, “I would quit this stupid job.” “If I won the lottery, I would sail around the world.” Kissing Lilly Weezbrock was Franklin’s version of winning the lottery. He knew it would change his life forever.

He almost kissed her on the last day of school, but alas, he lost his nerve, and as I have noted, the next day he died.

Thwarted Franklin badgered the Afterlife Commission into giving him a second chance. He did this by asking the very first question he had ever uttered:

“Why? Why was I taken so early? Why did I come here when things were going so well? Why, why, why?”

Once he started asking why, he couldn’t stop. The Afterlife Commission got very tired of his incessant questioning. Monsieur DeMise, a member of the
Commission, was a rotting corpse like Franklin and a romantic at heart. He suggested Franklin should be allowed to prove his life was worth living—by getting his one true love, Lilly Weezbrock, to kiss him by June 13—the end of the school year and, interestingly enough, the anniversary of his death. If they kissed, he could stay. If they didn’t, he would return to the Afterlife and
never
ask the Afterlife Commission a question again.

Franklin agreed, and faster than you can say, “Rest in peace,” he was back among the living. His parents were overjoyed, and his dog, Sophie, barked with glee and tried to bury his thighbone…while it was still attached to his body.

For you see, the Afterlife Commission neglected to mention that Franklin would come back as an undead corpse and that he would continue to rot (and smell) throughout the duration of his experimental return. As a result, Franklin’s nemesis, Brad Anderwater, renamed him “Freekin,” and the name stuck to him as surely as a maggot on a fresh lesion.