TALES TO KEEP YOU UP AT NIGHT
by Ben H. Winters
illustrated by Adam F. Watkins
This book is for Milly, but not for now. When she’s a little older—BW
PRICE STERN SLOAN
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Text copyright © 2013 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Illustrations copyright © 2013 Adam F. Watkins. All rights reserved. Published by Price Stern Sloan, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. PSS! is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Manufactured in China.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978-0-698-15931-0
Table of Contents
SCARY STORIES
BLACK CAT
WITCHES IN STORIES
THE ATTIC
IT’S NOT JUST A COLD
THE NOISE
A MONSTER CONFESSES
THE SHIP
FULL MOON
THE STATUE
WHEN I’M A GHOST
SOMEONE’S GOT A VOODOO DOLL
BATS
I’M NOT SCARED OF NOTHING
THE DEEP END
A PREDICTION
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE DOG?
POOR THING
OLD TREE
HOW I CHECK FOR MONSTERS BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP
OUIJA BOARD
ZOMBIES
WHAT HAPPENED TO LITTLE JAN BANKS?
HEADLESS HORSEMAN
SHADOWS
THE WITCHES OF EAST McCLINTOCK STREET
THE BITE
HIKING
THE VAMPIRE SLEEPS
YOU’RE A SKELETON
SCARY STORIES
You shiver,
your heart going tap-tappa-tap.
You quiver
and leap into somebody’s lap.
You discover
your mouth’s hanging open—yet you can’t speak.
You cover
your face with your trembling hands—
then you peek.
The stories sound real.
(At least that’s how you feel,
though you know, in your heart, that they ain’t.)
You say, “Can’t fool me.”
“There’s no way.” “It can’t be!”
You stand up, you sit down,
you nearly faint.
But you listen,
to stories of vampires and zombies galore,
to stories of hauntings and murder and gore,
and each one more scary than what came before—
till at last you leap up and race out the door!
Then crack it open
and say, “Hey, I was hopin’ you
could maybe just tell me one more?”
BLACK CAT
There’s a cat named Raina
at the end of our street,
who’s all black with one patch of white hairs.
Just a fuzzy old kitty
with thin yellow eyes,
who sits in her window and stares.
Now, Charlie says Raina’s
not really a cat;
Charlie insists she’s a witch.
He says that cat
is her earthly form,
and if you watch her at midnight
she’ll switch.
Evelyn says Raina’s
not really a cat;
she’s a ghost, is what Evelyn swears.
Raina sees visions
from life’s other side
when she sits in her window and stares.
Taylor says Raina’s
not really a cat;
she’s a monster, a man-eating beast.
When Raina sits staring
what she’s doing is waiting
for a chance to set off for a feast.
I don’t know about any of that.
But I don’t get too close to the cat.
WITCHES IN STORIES
Witches in stories catch neighborhood strays
and cackle while dreaming up terrible ways
to mistreat ’em.
Witches in stories fly around on their brooms.
They lure wicked children to gingerbread rooms
and eat ’em.
Witches in stories are skinny and mean.
Their faces are ugly; their skin is all green
and warty.
Witches survive on the souls that they’ve plundered.
They hide out in forests and live to a hundred
and forty.
They’re at their most happy when others are not,
singing off-key while they circle a pot
in slow motion.
Witches in stories like horrible things:
gathering toad’s blood and ladybug wings
for a potion.
Mrs. McFleatcher,
our substitute teacher,
is terribly kind.
She is sweet and refined,
and she’s pretty and funny and tall,
and her skin is not green, not at all.
Her singing voice is lovely and rich—
each day she leads chorus precisely on pitch—
and yet
I bet
she’s a witch.
THE ATTIC
Come on up to the attic.
Come up if you dare.
Climb up the rickety ladder—
come up and see what’s there.
A dressmaker’s dummy:
no arms and no head.
A locked black trunk,
an old, broken bed.
Something largish and lumpy,
all wrapped up in a rug.
In every corner a spiderweb,
or a mousetrap or roach trap or bug.
And there’s the old bike
you loved as a tyke.
The wheels are all bent, and it’s rusty.
And here is a box
filled with T-shirts and socks,
all of them moldy and musty.
And it stinks,
and it’s dark,
and it’s dusty.
And from a shadowy corner is gleaming
a pair of cold, mysterious eyes.
And what is that rustling, whispering noise?
A sound that you can’t recogni
ze.
So let’s climb back down from the attic.
Let’s close the door quickly, and then
we’ll bolt the door of the attic,
and never go up there again.
IT’S NOT JUST A COLD
Ah-choo!
Uh-oh.
Ah-CHOO!
Oh no.
Have a seat on my bed, if you would, Mom and Dad.
’Cause I have some news to relate, and it’s BAD.
Sick? No, I wish. I’m not sick. I’ve been CURSED,
and I’m basically DOOMED, and it can’t be reversed.
This happened to Rohan, from school, last December.
First sneezing, then poof! He’s a frog—you remember?
The only faint glimmer of hope that we’ve got
are swamp grasses grown in some dark, swampy spot,
which we’ll harvest at quarter past twelve on the dot,
then mash up with pig hearts we’ve left out to rot.
This we crush into a powder, then mix in a drink
with bat bile and snake blood and India ink.
Then I’ll drink it, roll over, and stand on my head
while you sprinkle candle wax over my bed.
Then we get a chicken and feed it a—Yes?
The doctor?
Well, sure, we can try it, I guess.
THE NOISE
What is that terrible noise,
filling up the night air all around?
It sounds like a beast
getting down to its feast
with a sickening, lip-smacking sound.
What’s that unbearable noise?
It sounds like the grinding of bones!
Like the gnashing of jaws
and the tearing of claws
and the dashing of skulls onto stones.
What is that horrible noise?
There’s a whole nother part to it now!
It started with BANG
In the middle was something like ow.
That god-awful noise!
Like the splash of young boys
being tossed in a pot to make stew!
A horrible yelp, voices calling for help—
getting closer and closer and . . . hey.
Just a second, I think that it . . . say.
Am I . . . whoa.
Is it . . . oh.
That noise, I think, has now faded.
We’re in luck; something made it disperse.
Listen—try it—
it’s suddenly quiet,
and the quiet . . .
the quiet . . .
is worse.
A MONSTER CONFESSES
I eat children.
There, I said it.
I’d eat YOU next if I could.
If I saw you on the street,
I’d say, “There goes some children meat!”
And slather you in ketchup, yes, I would.
You eat chicken.
You eat pork.
I’d eat YOU with a knife and fork.
I’d wash you down with some lemonade
or a glass of sweet iced tea.
You go to school, you’re four feet tall,
and I’m sure you’re very nice and all,
but you’re just a talking hamburger to me.
THE SHIP
Out on the sea
(the deadly sea,
the tossing and terrible sea!)
there sails a ship,
a PIRATE ship,
with a cap’n as cruel as can be!
Aboard that ship
(that hideous ship,
that awful, invidious ship!)
all day ye can hear
the crew shout in fear,
and the snap of the cap’n’s long whip!
(I mean it—it’s not a nice ship.)
When will they take rest?
When will they find land?
When will they drop their oars in the sand?
The answer, you’ve guessed it, is never!
’Cause they’re ghosts, pirate ghosts,
and on they row.
All of ’em drowned ten decades ago,
and they’ll be rowing now forever.
Out on the sea
(the endless sea,
the roiling and dangerous sea!)
there sails a ship,
a lonesome ship,
with the cap’n so mean to his crew.
So, kid, listen up: Live a life good and long,
and if ye think to do wrong,
he’s savin’ a seat there for YOU.
FULL MOON
Once a month,
the moon gets fat;
the world gets weird.
Imagine that.
Big full moon,
gold and clear,
casts a spell
on us down here.
Some folks cut loose,
play funny games;
twins switch places with their brothers.
Some folks get mean,
fight and call names,
make rude comments to their mothers.
Oh, the moon is strange;
it makes us change—
and some of us change more than others.
THE STATUE
Things have been odd round here lately;
one big, happy family we’re not
since Daddy got home from the yard sale
and showed off the statue he got:
a monkey with glowing green eyes.
He got it for practically nothing.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” he said.
But Mom didn’t find it so charming.
So we stuck it out back, in the shed:
the monkey with glowing green eyes.
Now me and my brothers are fighting;
we argue and bicker and lie.
Mom’s moody, and Dad’s always quiet,
and I think that I’ve figured out why:
It’s the monkey with glowing green eyes.
On Wednesday I went to bed early—
put my pj’s on, got tucked in tight.
And then woke up at three in the morning
in the shed, in the cold, eerie light
of the monkey with glowing green eyes.
and we smiled as we said our good-byes.
But that night, after we’d had our supper,
just imagine our looks of surprise.
Because somehow, there it was on the mantel—
grinning down at us, wicked and wise—
the monkey with glowing green eyes.
The monkey with glowing green eyes.
WHEN I’M A GHOST
I used to want to be a teacher,
veterinarian, or preacher,
or the guy who tells the weather on TV.
But now what I want to be the most
is a superscary ghost.
I’m serious. That’s the job for me.
I’ll be grim!
I’ll be dreary!
I’ll be spooky!
I’ll be eerie
when I do my scare-o-rific ghostly dance.
Yes, I’m wanting
to be haunting!
To be mean
and unseen
till I yell “BOO!” and make you pee your pants.
First I’ll haunt the kids who giggled
when I fell down in the gym.
And that nasty old bus driver?
Oh yes! Definitely him.
There’s only one problem—
it’s a big one, I won’t lie.
If you’re gonna be a ghost,
well, then first you’ve got to DIE.
SOMEONE’S GOT A VOODOO DOLL
Ow!
Hey!
My leg! My foot! My arm!
Someone’s got a voodoo doll, and they want to do me harm!
Ouch!
Whoa!
My butt! My thigh! My neck!
Whoever’s got this voodoo doll is jabbing it like heck!
Ah!
Shoot!
My cheek! My chin! My knee!
Each poke at that darn voodoo doll becomes a poke at me!
All right, you all, who’s doing this?
Confess, and—ouch! Ooh!
Come on, you brat, stop doing that!
Or I’ll make a doll of you.
BATS
Creepy things
with leathery wings.
They come out at night
and fly and bite.
They’ll swarm around your head—
so be careful if you’re tall.
But the worst thing about bats?
Some aren’t bats at all.
I’M NOT SCARED OF NOTHING
I’m not scared of NOTHING.
I mean it, I tell ya! I’m TOUGH!
I’m not scared of no monsters or spooks,
none of that silly old stuff.
Vampires? Ha!
Zombies? Bah!
I’ll invite ’em all over for tea!
To ghosts I say, “Boo,”
to witches, “Pooh-pooh”—
it’s THEM who should be frightened of ME.
I’m not scared of NOTHING.
No lizard, piranha, or bug.
Bring me a big, hungry grizzly bear,
and I’ll turn him into a rug.
A bully? I’ll fight him.
A bulldog? I’ll bite him.
I’m fearless—no kidding—it’s true!
Tigers? No sweat.
Lions? Don’t fret.
I’ll show ’em the way to the zoo.
And now it is time for this fearless young soul
to lay down to sleep for the night.
So tuck me in tightly, and please don’t forget
to leave on just one little light.
THE DEEP END
You can’t see too well underwater.
Everything looks dark.
My cousin’s roommate’s dentist
was eaten by a shark.
You can’t scream underwater,
or say, “Come and help me, please!”
when a tentacle tickles your torso,
grabs you tight, and starts to squeeze.
Most likely there’s no danger
here in the lap pool at the Y.
But if you need me,
you will find me
on a beach chair, nice and dry.
A PREDICTION