The Mystery of the Mystery Meat (6 page)

“Sween-y Bur-ton,” she said in a flat, eerie voice as she skittered and scooted down the sidewalk.

“Woodiwoodi,”
Scary gasped, shuddering.

“What’s that?” Freekin asked her. He looked at Scary. “Is it someone’s name?”

“Sweeny Burton,” Pretty repeated.

“Woodiwoodiwoodiwoodi.”
Scary turned a sickly green and wrapped his wings around himself.

“Is she putting a spell on you?” Freekin asked him.

Scary changed into a human skull floating in the air.
SB AUG
31
BATCH
1313 was written across the forehead in dark letters.

“Thirteen-thirteen was the batch number for Neapolitan Nacho,” Freekin ventured as the three walked down the street. Above Freekin’s head, tree branches crackled with ice; a dog barked; an owl hooted. On nights like this before his death, Freekin would dream of having some kind of great adventure. But this was not exactly what he’d had in mind. “Is she saying that Sweeny Burton died because he ate some Neapolitan Nacho?”

Scary changed back into his little phantom self. Pretty began moving faster, her arms stretched in front of her like a mummy.

“Yes, master, yes, Pretty comes,” Pretty announced.

“Who is she talking to? What’s she doing?” Freekin asked Scary.

Scary changed into a copy of Freekin’s desktop
computer, complete with keyboard. Letters in one of the weird fonts sprawled across the screen, but Freekin couldn’t read any of them.

“Did you find another spell?” Freekin asked him. He pointed to the screen. “Is that how you changed her back? She’s still acting very weird. What’s up with her?”

Scary creased his forehead and gave his head a shake; Freekin couldn’t tell if Scary was telling him that he didn’t know or if he didn’t understand what Freekin was trying to ask him.

“Does it have anything to do with Sweeny Burton?” Freekin asked.

“Sweeny Burton. Yes, master,” Pretty said in a flat voice.

“Pretty, listen to me. ‘Sweeny Burton,’” Freekin said, darting in front of her. He snapped his fingers. “Do you hear me? I’m saying ‘Sweeny Burton.’”

Pretty ignored him, slipping and slithering on the icy cement. Her five eyes never blinked. Freekin remembered that the other two had popped out, and he hoped the kitties didn’t hurt them.

At last the trio reached the rusty gates of Snickering Willows Cemetery, with its cockeyed headstones, angel statues, weeping icicles, and marble urns choked with frostbitten vines of ivy. They were hidden by the shadows, and Freekin dashed ahead of Pretty and Scary, craning his
neck around a privet hedge at the sound of a running car motor at the entrance.

Beneath a smoky beam of moonlight, a fancy black limousine sat idling. A bone-white hunchbacked man dressed in a black uniform and a cap held open the passenger door, and a strangely familiar-looking undead corpse in rotted clothes stood beside it, scanning the area.

“I guess she’s not coming,” he said. He sighed and pulled a pocket watch from his vest pocket. “I wonder if she was able to carry out her mission.”

“Perhaps she’s on her way, Mr. Snickering,” the hunchbacked man said in a whiny, whispery voice.

Snickering! Of course! Freekin recalled where he had seen that corpse before—not as a corpse, but as a painting in the library and as a statue in the park. He was Horatio Snickering III, the founder of Snickering Willows, the inventor of Mystery Meat, and the man who had made asking questions illegal.

And he had been dead for at least eighty years.

“Master,” Pretty said, coming up rapidly behind Freekin.

And
Pretty had personally burned down half his factory.

“Scary, we’ve got to keep her from going to him!” Freekin whispered as he grabbed Pretty’s arm and put his hand over her mouth. Her eyes narrowed and she struggled in his grasp.

“Mmmrrr,” she said.

Scary turned one wing into a rope and wound it around her from her shoulders down to her tentacles. Pretty bucked and writhed, but Scary held fast, murmuring anxiously to her while Freekin kept watch on Horatio Snickering and his minion.

“Well, we don’t have time to wait for her,” Horatio declared. “We’ll have to check into it later. My great-great-great-great-niece is waiting for me. Let’s go, Viggo.”

“Yes, Mr. Snickering,” Viggo said as Horatio Snickering climbed into the limousine. Then Viggo, who had big insectoid eyes that pointed in two directions, limped around to the driver’s side of the limousine and climbed inside.

The limousine lurched toward the street.

“Let’s follow them, Scary,” Freekin said. He pointed to the sky. “Turn into the super-spy plane.” He knew Scary understood that much English. He’d become a super-spy plane several times during their most recent great adventure.

Scary paled—a good trick for a black shape-shifting phantom—then took a deep breath. With a grunt, he transformed into the plane and shot high into the sky above the limousine. He kept part of himself wrapped around Pretty, who sat in the copilot’s seat
beside Freekin. She was no longer gagged.

“Master,” she said, “knock knock, Pretty is where?”

“It’s okay, Pretty,” Freekin told her. “We’re going to take care of you. We’ll free you from this spell.”

“Horatio Snickering III,” she said, “me so coming, master.”

The sleek black vehicle drove out of the town, through a heavily wooded forest, and up an amazingly steep hill. At the very precipice, an enormous brick mansion loomed against the moon like a black silhouette cut from paper and then ripped apart and glued back together. It was seven stories tall, with chimneys, turrets, and gables protruding from the sloping slate roof like growths. Smoke curled from all the chimneys and swirled around a collection of ugly stone gargoyles grinning down maliciously from the corners of the rain gutters. Portions of the brick were choked with ivy, and beady eyes—they had to be rats!—winked scarlet-black as they scrabbled around, hissed, and squeaked.

Suddenly Freekin could hear what was going on outside. The sleek purr of the limousine. The cawing of crows. Scary’s eyes popped from the control console of the spy plane and blinked at him.

“Good job,” Freekin said to Scary.

“Zibu,”
Scary said.

The car pulled around in a circular drive and stopped. Viggo emerged and opened an umbrella. As he limped around to let out Mr. Snickering, the carved front door of the mansion crashed open.

“Uncle Horatio!” shrieked a voice.

A stick-thin figure posed in the doorway with its arms flung wide. It was a woman with white hair piled high atop her head, held in place with a jeweled tiara. She was so thin, she would put many skeletons to shame, and her face was coated with so much makeup that even Pretty, who knew little about fashion in the Land of the Living, might declare that it wasn’t fashionable. A purple satin gown hung from her bony shoulders by thin straps and bunched around a pair of black-beaded high heels. She wore at least a dozen clanking charm bracelets on each bony, wrinkled arm and enormous jeweled rings on every finger.

A tiny dog—hairless except for a poof of black fur in the center of its head—peeked from around her. It began to yip incessantly and jump straight up in the air like a spring.

“Hush, Mortadella,” the woman said. Then she turned her attention back to Horatio Snickering III as he came up to her and clasped him by the shoulders. Mortadella scooted behind her and growled.

“It
is
you,” she said adoringly. “I would recognize those eye sockets anywhere. Welcome, my dear great-great-great-great-uncle Horatio. You’re here at last; I’ve been trying to summon you for so long! Come inside. You’ll catch your death.”

They both burst into laughter. The woman scooped the growling Mortadella in her arms and they walked into the house. The door crashed shut.

Viggo turned around and limped back to the limo.

After flying to the rooftop, Scary landed gracefully and changed back into the gag and ropes that had been wound around Pretty. Freekin looked around and spotted the nearest smoking chimney. There was a square skylight beside it, washed clean by the rain; he crept over to it, gazing down to look into a room where a fire blazed cheerily in a vast stone fireplace covered with gargoyle faces.

The walls were covered in dark purple velvet decorated with black velvet half-moons, and the sofas and chairs were heavy black wood. Paintings of ferocious-looking men in turbans hung on either side of a stained glass window of a black cat standing in front of a full moon. On a pedestal placed before the center of the window, a marble bust of Horatio Snickering III smoking a cigar glared lifelessly into the gloom.

Beneath a glittering chandelier, a massive circular table adorned with a glittering crystal ball stood surrounded by six purple velvet chairs. With Mortadella growling in her arms, the woman gestured for Horatio to have a seat on one of the puffy sofas and reached for an old fashioned Princess phone perched atop an end table. She dialed a number.

“Viggo, come back inside!” the woman cried. “Tea! Make it snappy!”

“Yes, mistress,” the whiny voice whispered in reply. “Snappy tea.”

“Oh, good,” Freekin said. “We can hear them.”

“Woodiwoodi,”
Scary murmured, wrapped securely around Pretty.

“Mmrrr,” Pretty added, her eyes beginning to spin again.

The woman turned with a smile to Horatio Snickering as she struggled to hold her squirming dog.

“Thank you so much for answering my supernatural summons, dear Uncle Horatio,” she said, sitting down beside him on the sofa. Mortadella scrambled off her lap and trotted around the table. “At last you are here!”

“I’ve sensed you calling for some time,” he replied. “I had some additional assistance with my arrival tonight. In the form of a certain little monster named Pretty.”

“Mmmmrrr!” Pretty half shouted.

Mortadella cocked her head at the sound. She curled back her lips and sniffed the air. Then she tipped back her head and gazed straight up at the skylight.

“Wait! I think I heard something!” the woman told Horatio Snickering.

“Move back,” Freekin whispered, scooting out of the dog’s line of sight. Scary copied his movements, dragging Pretty with him.

“Just the wind, my dear,” he replied.

“Well, I hope your friend Pretty can help us with our problems,” the woman said dramatically. “Uncle Horatio, we’re in terrible trouble. Our factory has been reduced to rubble.” She threw her hands above her head. All her bracelets slid downward, making a terrible racket. Then she slumped in her seat next to Horatio and buried her head in her hands. “We are ruined.
Ruined.
”

“Lay your worries to rest, Henrietta,” Horatio said, patting her shoulder. “We are not ruined. Besides, I am dealing with the source of the problem. It’s Pretty’s friend, that young undead boy nicknamed Freekin. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

Henrietta looked up from her hands. “No, I haven’t. I no longer mix with outsiders.” She gestured to the room. “Viggo and Mortadella are all the company I need.”

“Well, if you haven’t heard of Freekin Ripp, perhaps you should get out more. He’s the cause of a great deal of our trouble. I’ve hypnotized his little friend Miss Pretty. I told her to put him in a Terror-Induced Coma, and if she has succeeded, he’ll never wake up because I will never command her to bring him out of it. And with him out of the way, I will restore all as it was, back in my day.”

She clapped. “Oh Uncle Horatio, that’s such good news.”

“Yes, Henrietta, yes! We will rule this town like tyrants! Men, women, babies, and rattlesnakes will cower at the very name of Snickering!”

“I knew it! I knew we needed you!” Henrietta cried, leaping from the sofa and throwing back her head. She raised her arms and began to prance around the room.

He held up a hand. “We must move with caution. I haven’t verified that my little minion has completed her task. I ordered her to come to me tonight, and she has yet to arrive.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Miss Pretty, Sweeny Burton. Come to me,” he said in a creepy voice.

“Mmmmrrrr,” Pretty said behind her Scary-gag. She shifted and struggled in Scary’s grasp. Freekin knew how strong she was, and he put his arms around Scary, trying to help.

“Pretty, please,” he whispered in her ponytail ear. “Fight against his spell.”

Mortadella barked harder, staring at the skylight, then bounded over to her mistress.

“Hush, Mortadella!” Henrietta said, scooping her up. “It’s probably a rat.” She looked from her dog to her ancestor. “We have a rodent problem,” she said apologetically.

“Never fear,” Horatio Snickering said, putting his hand on her shoulder. Mortadella snapped at it, and he scratched her muzzle. “Once my grand plans are in motion, I’ll buy you a new, rat-free mansion. My return will mean the end of all your worries forever!”

As if on cue, thunder rumbled and lightning crashed. Mortadella erupted into a frenzy of barking.

“Mmm!” Pretty said, and something in her tone made Freekin look hard at her.
The end. The. End. Pretty so remembering.
She began to rustle.
Him so Snickering. Him say “the end.” Coma so “the end.”