Have you ever stood on a railroad track in the night and seen that light come barreling toward you? Neither have I, but that’s what I thought was happening when I woke up after Aunt Nutty bit me (what was that all about?).
There I was, passed out and having really weird dreams about strange dog-like things with huge teeth yelling at me to give them steak. When all of sudden I heard a loud horn and was thrown against the wall.
Only it turned out not to a wall. It was the side of a car, and we were about to get run over by a truck.
By the way, this is Astrid. I’m glad Ryan told all the stuff that came before (especially considering I had no idea what had happened, thanks to Aunt Nutty), but once I saw those lights, I was back. It’s hard not to wake up fast when you’re about to get smooshed.
I screamed as loud as I could, and I was thrown the other way, and landed on Mr. Bizarro. I screamed again because, hello? What was he doing here? What was going on?
“Calm down!” he said. “Ryan! To the right! Cut more to the right!”
Ryan was driving?
“Wait! Ryan’s driving! Why’s Ryan driving!” Oh, gosh! I knew we were all going to die.
(In case you’re nervous, we didn’t die. But it was still really scary).
So there we were with my mostly useless brother who’s never driven so much as the length of a street, trying to avoid this humongous truck.
That’s what all the jerking around was about.
And once we got around this huge truck, there was another car. And it’s headlights were coming right for us.
You figured it out yet? We were going the wrong way down a one-way street!
“Ryan!” I screamed. “You’re going the wrong way!”
“I know that! By the way, glad you’re alive!”
“Turn here!” Mr. Pizarro said.
“Here? Where?”
I looked around, too, and only saw a hike and bike trail off to the right. But Mr. Pizarro leaned over the front seat, grabbed the steering wheel and turned.
Suddenly we were driving through a neighborhood park, Ryan trying to dodge park benches and abandoned bicycles and lots and lots of trees.
“Keep going! It’ll hit a street on the other side.”
“Why me? Astrid’s awake! Can’t I stop driving?”
“I thought you always wanted to drive?” I asked. He was always bugging mom to let him drive on our street.
“Sure, to the grocery store! Being attacked by freakish mummy creatures is completely different!”
Okay, so he had a point.
“Fair enough,” said Pizarro. “Pull over by that tennis court.”
“And what’s going on, anyway?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ryan said, as we all jerked forward when he slammed on the brakes. “What is this all about?”
Mr. Pizarro opened his door. “I’ll tell you everything, but it’s going to be hard for you to believe.”
“Harder to believe than Aunt Nutty being a mummy?” Ryan said.
“Aunt Nutty?”
“Aunt Helen,” Ryan said. He got out of the car, too. I followed, my legs a little wobbly.
“Hmm,” Mr. Pizarro said. He nodded. “Good nickname. Never did like that woman.” He looked at me. “You can stay in the car. You should rest.”
“But wait,” I said. “Why did the stars fall?”
He started to say something, but then I heard flap, flap flap, pant, pant, pant, like a really big bird was moving fast. (Do birds pant?).
I looked up, and saw this big…something in the sky. It looked gray against the light from the full moon, but I could see it enough…and it was horrible. Imagine a snarling dog with wings and huge teeth about to dive and rip your head off.
I pointed up and screamed, “Aunt Nutty’s back!” But then—right then—the another one came, then another one, and another one.
Until the whole sky was full of those things.
Uh-oh.
“Unless Aunt Nutty’s been cloned,” I said, “I think those are a whole lot worse.”
