With a sigh, Kaitlin hefted her full, heavy bag and headed out. As she passed by Noah, he couldn’t help himself—he reached out and snagged the baseball cap off her head.
“Hey.” Kaitlin turned on a heel. “Give that back!”
Noah, acting on impulse, ran. He dashed around her, out the door, and around to the back of the dumpster.
She was fast and caught up easily. “Give me my hat.” Kaitlin put a hand on one hip and stretched out the other.
“Go get it,” Noah said, tossing her hat up and into the dumpster.
“I do not like you,” she said. “Not even a little.”
“I hear that all the time,” he replied.
Kaitlin scowled at him as she hefted herself up and into the dumpster. She tossed out her hat and was about to climb back out when she announced, “Whoa. Hey, Noah. Check it out. I found an old book. There are these strange gash marks in the leather cover.”
“A book?” Noah climbed up so he could peer into the dumpster. “Show me.”
The discovery was so exciting, she seemed to have forgotten that a second ago she’d declared how much she didn’t like him. Kaitlin stood in the dumpster, surrounded by bags of trash. “I think it’s yours,” she told Noah.
“I don’t have a journal,” he replied, adding, “Not my style.”
“Then why is your name in it?” Kaitlin said with attitude, as if he was brain-dead. “Did you forget you wrote a story?” Rolling her eyes at him, she handed the leather-bound book over to Noah.
He opened the cover and read out loud:
Tales from the Scaremaster
Then below that, the story began.…
Once upon a time, there was a boy named Noah.…
Read Noah and Kaitlin’s story (if you dare)
in
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Tales from the Scaremaster
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Text written by Stacia Deutsch
Cover illustration by Scott Brundage
Tales from the Scaremaster logo by David Coulson
Cover design by Christina Quintero
Cover © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
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Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: September 2016
ISBN 978-0-316-31619-4
E3-20160805-JV-PC