The Mystery of the Mystery Meat (7 page)

Snickering didn’t realize it, but with those two simple words,
the end
, he released Pretty from his power.

Pretty looked back at Freekin with her two big eyes and three little ones, her lids blinking rapidly.

“Pretty?” he said. “Are you…are you back?”

She nodded. “Mmfrrmm,” she said behind her Scary-gag.

“Grrrowfgrrrowfgrrrowfgrrrowf!”
Mortadella barked, struggling in Henrietta’s arms.

Thunder grumbled and rumbled and rolled, and all the lights in the room below the three friends went out. In the darkness, Pretty tapped Freekin on the shoulder.

“Me so sorry, me so hypnotized, me so okay now,” she whispered.

“Oh, Pretty, I’m so glad,” Freekin said, gathering her close.

“Something is upsetting Mortadella,” Henrietta said below them. “Viggo, go outside and take a look around.”

“Yes, mistress,” Viggo said.

“We’d better get out of here,” Freekin said. “Scary, super-spy plane!”

“Zibu!”
Scary said as he transformed around Freekin and Pretty, and they flew away from the mansion, loop-de-looping by the light of the smoke-clogged moon.

As Pretty, Freekin, and Scary dashed back toward Freekin’s house, Pretty flung her hands around Freekin’s neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. Oh, she loved him!

“You so saving Pretty,” she said as she finished crawling under his bed to retrieve her two little eyes. They were a bit dusty and she had to pick the cat hair off them, but otherwise they were none the worse for wear. “So very, very sorry.
Pretty tells Freekin and Scary everything.”

And so she did, beginning with her rush to the graveyard (omitting that she had gone there to raise a demon boy for the purposes of instilling jealousy in her one true love) and her encounter with Horatio Snickering III. She told them about being hypnotized, which she clearly remembered now that Horatio had accidentally freed her from her spell by uttering the words “the end” while talking to Henrietta.

“And your code to go to him was ‘Sweeny Burton,’” Freekin said as they arrived home. Scary deposited Freekin and Pretty on the tree branch, and they climbed into his room.

“Sweeny Burton, him dead boy box, no dead boy!” Pretty said. She grabbed Freekin’s hands as she bobbed up and down on her tentacles like a jack-in-the-box. “Pretty sees…”

She didn’t know the words for “earlier this month.” So she bobbed up on her tentacles harder, like a pogo stick, and snagged Freekin’s school calendar, hanging in the center of his Wall of Lilly—pictures of Lilly Weezbrock plus some crepe paper from one of her cheerleading pom-poms and a gum wrapper she had touched. The calendar picture showed Lilly and the cheerleaders—
Grrr, Lilly
—but Pretty ignored her rival
and pointed to the calendar square marked
MY TRIAL FOR CURIOSITY.

“Me going bone orchard, hello, Sweeny! But me no seeing Sweeny Burton,” she said excitedly.

“You mean, you saw his grave, but he wasn’t in it?”

“You so brainful,” she said with admiration, tapping his temple.

Scary, who had been listening intently, changed into the skull he had shown to Freekin earlier, with
SB AUG
31
BATCH
1313 written across the forehead.

“So…he died from eating Batch 1313,” Freekin mused.

“Dead boy head, him in Mystery Meat factory,” Pretty said. At the words “Mystery Meat factory,” Scary nodded.

“His skull was in the factory? Why? What are they up to?” Freekin mused. “Maybe they did experiments on his brain to see how Toasty Twinkle would affect people.”

Dear and Gentle Reader, you may notice that Freekin is asking a lot of questions. As I mentioned before, once he had died and asked the first question of his life—
Why?—
he had learned the power of asking questions. Asking questions was a very efficient method of arriving at the truth, and Freekin knew that the Snickerings were up to no good. He just wasn’t sure what it was yet.

“Time for a chart,” he announced, crossing to his
desk drawer and pulling out his pad of lined paper. He had made two charts in the past—one was on how to get Lilly to like him, and the other one had listed the clues he and his friends gathered on the cause of Chronic Snickering Syndrome—which had led to burning down the factory.

He got out a marker and wrote across the top of the chart:

WHAT IS THE MYSTERY OF THE MYSTERY MEAT?

Beneath that, he wrote:

1. Sweeny Burton: Who is he and what does he have to do with the mystery?

2. Horatio Snickering: What’s his plan?

“I’ll have to see if I can find out anything at school tomorrow,” he said.

“No, no, no.” Pretty put her hands on her hips. “Freekin is so coma,” she reminded him, making her eyes spin. “Pretty so…so…” She searched for the word, holding her hands out in front of herself and weaving from side to side. “Me so yes, master,” she said flatly.

“He thinks that you put me in a coma and that you’re still under his spell?” Freekin filled in. “Is that right?”

“We
making
him thinking,” she advised, dropping her act. “Him calling, ‘Sweeny Burton,’ me going.”

“You mean the next time he summons you, you go to
him?” Freekin made a face. “I don’t know, Pretty. That would be awfully dangerous.”

“Freekin goes. Scary goes,” she added, grinning slyly. “You so spyful.”

“Of course. We could back you up. We’re really good at sneaking around.” He smiled at Scary, who smiled cheerfully back at him. Then his smile faded. “But I should at least warn Lilly and my friends to be careful. If Horatio Snickering knows who I am, he knows they’re my friends.”

“You so coma,” Pretty argued, her poor, pulverized heart ground into even tinier particles. Everything always came back to Lilly.

“I’ll check on her right now,” he replied. “We know the Snickerings are in their mansion. So they won’t see me if I sneak out in the dark.”

Pretty sighed. She knew there was no point in arguing. Freekin was going to do what he was going to do.

“Okeydoke,” she said grudgingly. “Us going, too. Us guarding you.”

Freekin grinned and tousled her ponytail ears. “You’re always looking out for me,” he told her. “Okay, guys, let’s go.”

It was still raining as they flew in the Scary spy plane
to Lilly’s house. Pretty had nothing to chew on, so she gave her fingers a nibble, then swallowed back her tears. From all seven eyes.

Scary touched down among some maple trees. Pretty stayed inside the spy plane, staring out at Lilly’s modest one-story house. All the windows were dark. Maybe they had moved to China.

“You guys wait here,” Freekin said.

He tiptoed across the brown winter grass to a window lined with snow-covered bushes. He knocked softly on it and waited. There was no response. He knocked again.

The front door swung open. Pretty’s eyes got huge as Mr. Weezbrock stood in the doorway, dressed in flannel pajamas and a ratty old navy blue bathrobe.

“I heard something,” he said aloud. In Snickering Willows, one could not say, “Is anyone there?” Because that would be asking a question.

Freekin ducked down into the bushes. Everything was hidden except his right leg, which stuck out of the bushes at a very weird angle. As Pretty watched, Freekin’s hands snaked out from among the branches and yanked his leg off at the knee, then disappeared back inside the bush.

After a few more seconds of scowling into the darkness, Lilly’s father went back inside and shut the door. The light flicked on in the window above Freekin’s
head. Pretty saw two silhouettes—Mr. Weezbrock’s and Lilly’s. Lilly was sitting down at a desk. Mr. Weezbrock leaned forward and picked up something that looked like a laptop computer. Lilly stood up and followed him.

Then the room went dark.

After about a minute, Freekin emerged from the bushes and tiptoed back to where Pretty and Scary were waiting.

“I could hear everything. Lilly’s been grounded,” he reported. “She was IMing with Deirdre when she was supposed to be in bed. She can’t use her computer or talk on the phone or anything.”

“Oh, too bad,” Pretty said, trying to sound equally sympathetic. Ha!

“Yeah, I’ll have to warn her in person at school tomorrow,” Freekin said.

“You so coma,” Pretty reminded him.

“I’ll be really careful,” he promised. “I’ll just find her and warn her and leave.”

Then Pretty caught her breath. “Freekin,” she said slowly, “Horatio Snickering, him saying ‘Sweeny Burton.’”

“Now?”
Freekin asked. “He’s calling you?”

“To bone yard,” she said. “Me going.”

“Okay.” He took her hand. “We’ll be with you every
step of the way.” He looked at Scary. “Super-spy plane,” he said.

They flew within a block of the graveyard and touched down in a stand of trees. Then they grouped behind a tomb, and Pretty worked on making her face into an expressionless mask.

“Sweeny Burton.”
Horatio Snickering’s voice carried on the winter wind. Pretty looked anxiously at Freekin and Scary.

“Woodiwoodi,”
Scary said, putting his wings around Pretty and giving her a butterfly kiss.

Freekin bent down and kissed her on the cheek. Her blank face lit up.

“Oh, Freekin,” she said happily.

“Miss Pretty? Is that you, my dear?” came a voice.

Pretty looked at Freekin and Scary and motioned at them both to stay silent. “You so lay low,” she ordered her guys. Then she took a deep breath, made her eyes go blank, and stepped out from behind the crypt.

“Yes, master,” she intoned.

“So you received my summons after all. I’m pleased to see that you’re still under my thrall. I was beginning to wonder.”

“Yes, master,” she said again.

“Because
I
received some very disturbing news. Another…
friend
…of mine informed me that Freekin Ripp was sneaking around Lilly Weezbrock’s home not ten minutes ago. And he should be lying flat on his back in a Terror-Induced Coma.”

Uh-oh.
Hidden behind the crypt, Freekin traded a wide-eyed look with Scary. Horatio Snickering had a spy, too!

“No, master,” she said. “Scary goes. Him so pretending. Scary in bone yard right this minute young man. Scary shows master.”