The Mystery of the Mystery Meat (2 page)

And so did Freekin’s two friends, Pretty and Scary. I have already mentioned them. Let me emphasize that they were foreigners in Freekin’s strange little town and quite unused to (1) living (2) in a place where no one asked questions. And when Freekin came back from
the Afterlife, he had also seen how good and necessary asking questions could be, since asking a question would have saved him all this trouble.

And he had a lot of questions about what was going on in Snickering Willows, because first of all, a terrible plague spread throughout the town. It was called Chronic Snickering Syndrome, and through skillful detective work (and asking a lot of questions) Pretty, Freekin, and Scary discovered that it was caused by a new flavor of Mystery Meat called Neapolitan Nacho.

Second of all, the people who made Neapolitan Nacho had also figured out that it made people snicker and snort uncontrollably. But instead of doing the right thing and announcing their enormous blunder to the public, they created another new flavor called Toasty Twinkle. Toasty Twinkle would turn anyone who ate it into a lethargic, uncurious sleepwalker who wouldn’t care about anything ever again. Such mindless Willowites would buy whatever bizarre flavor of Mystery Meat the villainous Mystery Meatarians came up with next…yes, even if it contained broccoli!

This is Elvis, and may I say, “BLECH!”

Pretty, Freekin, and Scary succeeded in putting a stop to the Toasty Twinkle plot, too. In a wild adventure of derring-do, Pretty set the Mystery Meat Ultra Top Secret
Processing Area on fire, destroying the batch of Toasty Twinkle—and nearly losing her life.

So as we open our story, the factory is still on fire. Thick, gristly smoke clogs the air and fire engines barrel down the streets. Freekin has left Pretty unconscious in his room, watched over by Scary, while he races over to Lilly’s house to make sure she is safe and sound.

Lilly thought Freekin was a hero. Frankly, I do, too.

And so do Belle and Elvis! Yay, Freekin!

And so did poor little Pretty…and yet, she will embark on a desperate course of action that may spell the end of Snickering Willows forever!

This is Belle. Holy cow! Like what? What does she do?

Well, my dear, if you want to know that, then you must read the book, like everyone else.

Hop to it, Uncle Chris. Let’s get this story started!

This is Elvis. Please, Mr. Flesh, tell us what happened next! I am dying of Curiosity! HA HA HA!

Very well…

Freekin and Lilly strolled toward Lilly’s modest, one-story house, holding hands and smiling at each other beneath the smoke-clogged moon. Snowflakes dusted Lilly’s adorable nose and golden blond hair, and Freekin fell in love all over again. Their footsteps crunched on the snow, Lilly light on her feet like an athlete, while Freekin sort of walk-lurched, walk-lurched, like
the Frankenstein monster. The heat of the fire at the Mystery Meat factory had melted the Wacky Glue that kept his left foot attached to his ankle, and he didn’t want to stop and fix it. He didn’t want to do anything that might break the spell that seemed to have fallen over Lilly and him.

The world was a muffled hush like the closing of a casket after a funeral. The wails of the fire engine sirens had died, and Freekin supposed the bright red trucks had all reached the scene of the terrible fire at the Mystery Meat factory. A fire Pretty set to stop the Mystery Meat people from feeding Toasty Twinkle to the town.

Go, Pretty,
Freekin thought proudly. He planned to check on her as soon as Lilly was safely inside her house.

Freekin and Lilly reached the Weezbrocks’ front door, decorated for the holiday season with an evergreen wreath covered with little teddy bears and red ribbons stamped in white with
SEASON’S GREETINGS: THE SNICKERING WILLOWS MYSTERY MEAT COMPANY.
Lilly’s father worked at the factory, and Freekin figured he was probably not too thrilled that it was on fire.

“Well, I should probably go in,” Lilly said reluctantly. She smiled at him, her teeth as white as finely polished knucklebones, her eyes as blue as oxygen-starved blood. “Crazy night, huh? I’m so excited for the Nonspecific
Winter Holiday Dance. Thanks so much for asking me to go with you.”

“You’re welcome, Lilly,” Freekin replied, and his ears tingled as if they were stuffed to bursting with maggots. When he had first come back from the dead, he discovered that they fell off whenever he got near her, and he had learned to glue them to his head. He had learned a lot of things. He was really getting his unlife together, and he was absolutely sure he would kiss Lilly by June 13.

Maybe even now!
he thought, thrilled to the desiccated marrow of his bones as they faced each other with her hands in his. Freekin took a breath, not that he had to breathe. But he was nervous.

Okay, here goes,
he thought. He licked his lips in preparation of a life-changing experience.

He moved his head toward hers. His ears prickled and pulsed.

Then the front door crashed open, and Lilly’s towering, muscular, unhappy father filled the doorway. Big and bald, he wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with the words
MYSTERY MEAT UNION WORKERS, LOCAL
1313 stretched across his chest.

Lilly and Freekin jumped apart, and Freekin’s left hand came off in Lilly’s grasp. She made a little face
and hid it behind her back, and Freekin realized that she didn’t want her father to see that they’d been holding hands.

“Lilly, you shouldn’t be out tonight. Come inside,” Mr. Weezbrock snapped, rubbing his large stomach. He glared at Freekin. “Hey, Dead Boy, go home.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Lilly protested. “Freekin’s not dead. He’s just…unalive. And he’s a hero! He just saved us from—”

Freekin cleared his throat and gave his head a quick shake. He had explained to Lilly that she couldn’t go around talking about how he had burned down the factory. He was trying to keep that a secret.

“Oh, right,” Lilly said under her breath.

Mr. Weezbrock gave Lilly a death stare. No decent Snickering Willowite could ask a question, of course. Mr. Weezbrock couldn’t say, “Saved us from what?” Law-abiding Snickering Willowites made leading statements and left them unfinished, waiting for the other person to fill in the blanks.

“Yes, he, uh, saved Deirdre and me from getting run over by a fire truck,” Lilly said quickly, her eyes big and wide. “The driver didn’t even see us! Freekin pushed us out of the way and let it hit him instead.”

She flung her arms wide open as she gestured, and her father’s heavy eyebrows merged into one thick, angry
unibrow across his forehead as he stared at Freekin’s hand in hers. She followed his line of vision.

“His body parts went flying all over the block,” she added. “I was just helping him find them.”

“Humph.” Her father looked thoroughly unimpressed. “You shouldn’t have been outside where a fire engine could hit you in the first place.” He opened the door a little wider and cleared his throat.

Wow, he really doesn’t like me,
Freekin thought as his ears stopped tingling. A large clump of snow slid off the roof and whumped the top of his head, breaking apart and covering his shoulders. He stared at Mr. Weezbrock, who glared at him with the laser-like eyes of an angry parent. If looks could kill, it was a lucky thing Freekin was already undead.

“Lilly,”
Mr. Weezbrock said angrily, giving his head a jerk.

“Okay, Daddy.” Lilly gave Freekin his hand back. “Um, well, thanks again for saving my life. Good night.”

“Good night,” Freekin replied, holding his severed hand and trying to act natural as he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. The fingers stuck straight up, like someone trying for a low five. “Good night, Mr. Weezbrock,” he added.

“Don’t talk to me,” her father replied as Lilly scooted
past him into the house. The door slammed shut in Freekin’s face, and the holiday wreath slapped against the door like a floppy tongue.

As Freekin turned to go, he heard Mr. Weezbrock’s voice through the door.

“That boy gives me the creeps. You should stick with Brad Anderwater. Star quarterback, rich, living…”

“Daddy, Brad is mean,” Lilly replied. “Just give Freekin a chance. I’m sure you’ll like him once you get to know him.”

Freekin couldn’t hear Mr. Weezbrock’s reply as father and daughter moved farther away from the door. Freekin did the same, but his foot had frozen to the snowy porch and it came off with a pop. Sighing, he bent down on one knee and pushed it back onto his leg.

His stomach fluttered, a combination of lovesickness and maggots. As soon as he was out of sight, he plucked one of the little squirmy guys out of his mouth and set it gently on a tidbit of shiny green ham that had fallen out of a discarded sandwich he’d found.

“Party on, dude,” he said.

People in love want everyone to be happy.

Freekin was in love, and Pretty was miserable. Tears spilled down her cheeks from her seven eyes and froze on
her face like random extra fangs. She chewed miserably on the telephone pole she was hiding behind, watching as Freekin strolled down the street with a goony smile on his adorable, lesion-covered face.

After all she had done, after all she had risked, her Freekin still loved Yucky Lilly better than her. Smoke rose from the top of her head, left over from the blazing fire she had created to save
his
friends and
his
mommy and daddy and
his
doggie from eating Toasty Twinkle–flavored Mystery Meat.

After working up the most amazing fire of her entire life (and she was over a million years old) to save
his
town, she had collapsed from the strain and fainted dead away. Next thing she knew, she was in Freekin’s room with Scary bent over her, fanning her with his wings. Was Freekin there, pacing and worrying about her? Nooo. Freekin hadn’t even waited to see if she was all right before he went dashing off to Lilly’s house. Yucky, dumb, two-eyed Lilly.

So Pretty followed him and hid behind the telephone pole to spy on him and Yucky Lilly. She saw everything. The way Freekin’s face lit up around Lilly. How he tried to kiss her. And how he asked Yucky Lilly to the Nonspecific Winter Holiday Dance. Pretty’s heart was pulverized. There was nothing left of it, not even
molecules, atoms, or electrons. Because she had thought Freekin had already asked
her
, Pretty, to the dance. In fact, she was so certain of it that she had spent an entire night gathering all the coins in the fountain in the center of the Horatio Snickering III Municipal Park to buy herself a fancy dress at the mall.

Had Freekin forgotten that he’d hugged her and kissed her right on the lips after she started the fire? That he’d said, “Oh, Pretty, I just love you”?

It must have slipped his mind. Maybe his rotting brain was breaking apart inside his skull, and those memories had tumbled into a sea of goo. Freekin would never lie to Pretty. He would never hurt her feelings on purpose. Or lie to her by saying he loved her when he was making goo-goo eyes, speaking of goo, at that
cheerleader
…

She took another bite of phone pole as she saw a light come on in Yucky Lilly’s bedroom. It was Yucky Lilly’s fault. Freekin just went all crazy around her, and Pretty had no idea why. Yucky Lilly had only two eyes, she had
no
fangs, just very white, tiny teeth, and she was completely lacking in tentacles. And still Freekin liked her better than the most beautiful ancient monster in the Underworld.