Valentina Salazar is not a Monster Hunter Read online

  All around me, there was a flurry of paper. I spread open my journal. The little purple hand extended my favorite pink gel pen, and I tore out a paper from the back. I hated tearing out the beautiful paper, but I couldn’t end school with a bad grade. Not another one, at least.

  Since I was all the way in the back of the class, I had a few moments before it was my turn to hand in “last night’s” assignment. I wrote my name, Valentina Salazar. The date, June twenty-fifth. The teacher, Mrs. De Bernardo. Class, 6-203. Then I jotted down what I planned on doing for the summer. I kept it short because we didn’t have any plans. We were supposed to stay in boring old Missing Mountain with nothing to do but go to the Dairy Princess and watch the grass grow.

  Harmony, who sat in front of me, turned around and snatched the paper from my hands. “Nice try.”

  My pen dragged and left the last word unfinished. I winced as I watched my paper get handed down from Harmony to Sunny to Maritza in the front row. They held my piece of paper like it was covered in cat pee. When it reached Mrs. De Bernardo, she made a grumbling sound and muttered something that sounded like “Just a few more hours, Beatrice, and then you’re on the bus to Atlantic City. Just a few more hours.”

  As the morning announcements came on the loudspeakers, I relaxed a little bit. I turned to the last entry in my journal and wrote DEBUNKED. I’d have to cut out the newspaper clipping and add it to the Honey Hill Lake monster theory. Sure, I admit, that’s what I was busy doing last night instead of my homework.

  In the Before Times, Mom and Dad never gave us homework. Now, how was I expected to go from zero homework to having to read a book AND do math AND learn all the formations of clouds in the same day?

  At least the free-writing period gave me a chance to reread my other failed cases. That particular journal belonged to my dad. He ordered handmade ones with the family motto stamped on the front cover. Protector. Valiant. Heart. Salazars were protectors. Salazars were valiant. Salazars had heart. After Dad’s accident, the journal was supposed to get locked up in the garage with all his other things. I couldn’t stand the thought of it just sitting there, collecting dust, or getting eaten by whatever mice lived in Great-Aunt Hercilia’s garage, so I took it. He would have wanted me to have it, I know it. That way, it was like I was always carrying a little piece of him even though he was—you know.

  The family journals are filled with sketches, newspaper clippings, theories, stories. We write down everything that we know about a case. For instance, during my first week of school, I thought that there was an abelita nesting in Maritza Vega’s head. Abelitas are a rare kind of bee from the other realm. Their pink fuzz can give you terrible hives. Even though they look cute and fuzzy, their sting could paralyze a person and leave them for dead. What if Maritza was deathly allergic? So, I broke rule #4 (students must keep their hands and feet to themselves). I tried to grab the pink ball sitting right on Maritza’s head.

  It turned out to be a fuzzy scrunchie.

  I apologized for pulling on her hair, but she’s hated me ever since and has convinced all her friends to hate me, too. I can’t blame her, I suppose. I’d be mad if someone pulled my hair. It’s not like I could explain myself either.

  So, abelita sighting—DEBUNKED.

  I turned page after page of what the school counselor called “Incidents” and I liked to call “Misunderstandings.” I realized that all my Missing Mountain cases had been debunked.

  Abominable snowman—DEBUNKED. And I got detention for breaking rule #5 (students must be respectful of their classmates, teachers, and school property).

  The howling rat-lizard—DEBUNKED. Turned out I unscrewed a ceiling tile and let loose a colony of regular old rats. I didn’t get detention for that because Mom said the school had a health code violation, so, we called it even.

  None of my cases had panned out. I know. I know what Lola and Rome said. We’re retired. Out of the game. Not protectors. But that’s the thing. How can you be one thing one day, and then stop being it the next?

  I slammed my journal shut so I wouldn’t have to stare at all my failures. Big mistake, because that’s when Harmony decided to turn around. Sunny and Maritza got out of their seats (which was against the rules, but Mrs. De Bernardo conveniently wasn’t paying attention to them, was she?).

  “Settle a bet for us, will you, Valentina?” Maritza said. She sat on the edge of Jerry Jacob’s desk, but he was asleep and drooling on his notebook and didn’t seem to mind.

  “What bet?” I asked. I needed to be careful. I smelled a trap.

  Sunny glanced down at her lap and bit her bottom lip. She whispered something too low for me to hear.

  “I can’t hear you,” I said, though I think I could, and my stomach squeezed painfully because I knew it was going to be awful.

  “She asked,” Harmony said, her muddy brown eyes crinkled at the corners as she twirled one blonde curl, “if you are adopted.”

  Harmony and Maritza snickered. Other kids listening in did, too, turning their heads and waiting to see what I would say. Jerry kept on drooling. Mrs. De Bernardo flipped the page of her novel.

  “Well?” Maritza demanded. “I mean, there has to be an explanation for why you’re so weird. I think you’re adopted. Sunny and Harmony think you’re the milkman’s daughter.”

  Milkman? We didn’t even know anyone who sold milk. I clutched my journal. The journal that was supposed to be my father’s. My father, who told me every day that I was unique like a star and reminded me that being different was a good thing. My dad, who wasn’t here now to remind me of that anymore.

  I bit down on my tongue. I felt a shuffle in my backpack and rested my hands there to quell the creature inside.

  Look, if you’re used to dealing with mean kids at school, you know that sometimes they say things just to get you so mad your blood boils. I was thinking of something to say back, like how they were insulting kids who were adopted just to pick on me. Why is it that when you really need it, you can’t think of a comeback? Then later, in the shower or while you’re brushing your teeth, the perfect retort just springs in your brain noodles. But all I wanted was for the day to be over and to be paddling across the green waters of Honey Hill Lake with my siblings. Then I remembered—if I got in trouble, I wouldn’t get to go to the lake. I needed to be on my bestest, most boring behavior, and the only way to do that was to get far away from the Trio of Terror that was Maritza, Harmony, and Sunny.

  So I didn’t give them the satisfaction of a reply. I snatched my journal and pack.

  I hurried to the front of the room and stood right by Mrs. De Bernardo’s desk. She flipped a page. Her eyeliner reminded me of bat wings. She exhaled like she was tired. “What is it, Valentina?”

  “Can I go to the bathroom? Please?”

  I fidgeted some more so she wouldn’t have to ask me why I didn’t go before I left the house that morning. Daddy always said, “When nature calls, you’ve gotta answer.”

  She didn’t take her eyes off her page, but she handed me the hall pass. I hurried out the door and went to the third-floor bathroom, the one that’s been under construction since before I moved to Missing Mountain, so no one is ever there.

  I know I’m not supposed to lie, but I didn’t say that I needed to “use” the bathroom. Just that I had to go there.

  I locked myself in one of the stalls and sat on the toilet seat. I unzipped my backpack and a purple blur flew right out.

  Rule #6 says, Students cannot bring pets to school. But technically, technically, Brixie wasn’t a pet. She’s my friend. Remember when I said that I kept a creature I wasn’t supposed to? That’s her.

  Brixie was not supposed to be in our realm. Right before my dad’s last mission, we went to investigate a nest of pesky colibrix that were destroying strawberry farms and orchards in California. Colibrix are ancient beings—they’re like a cross between a fairy and a hummingbird. They once roamed flowering valleys in South America, but after magic left our earth, most of their kind went along with it. Those that remained found their way to odd corners of the American continents.

  I didn’t like thinking about the last time I ever saw my dad, but that was the same day we found the nest of colibrix. Only, we were too late. A group of no-good hunters got there before we could, and they’d killed Brixie’s family. I was the one who found her, injured and scared, in the hollow of a tree. She was still a fledgling, about three inches tall, with a long, pointed nose. Her hair was made of soft purple and blue feathers that matched her wings. Her hands and feet had long black talons that looked sharper than they were.

  I kept her safe in my pencil case and made a little nest out of cotton balls and twigs. After everything she’d been through, I didn’t have the heart to send her back to Finisterra. Dad told us that Finisterra meant “the world’s end.” It might have been the end for humans, because it was a land without people or building or roads. But it was home to beasts and monsters. A land where magical beings roamed. I bet you’ve never heard of it, but it’s there, in a realm that’s almost impossible to get to. Almost.

  Picture our world as, let’s say, half of a burger bun. Now picture Finisterra as the other half of that burger bun. Now imagine a single slice of Swiss cheese. That slice is the only thing keeping our worlds separated. Finisterra is huge, just like our world. The part of the world where Dad’s family is from—they call it Finisterra. But there are other names in other languages and in other parts of the globe.

  Creatures like Brixie find those holes in the Swiss cheese and they wind up here. But not all creatures are as sweet as my friend. I worried for her. What if a blood-sucking chupavaca got her? What if she wasn’t strong enough to defend herself? So, without my family ever knowing, I kept Brixie my own little secret all t
hose months, feeding her honey toast for breakfast and all the sugary treats she could eat. And she could eat a lot.

  At six inches tall, Brixie was small for a colibrix, but her traumatic experience must have stunted her growth the way the school nurse told me coffee would stunt my growth after she threw out the coffee I brought from home.

  “What’s wrong, Val?” Brixie asked, her wings moving so fast it was like a constant hummmm. “This is the cold flush place. I don’t likes it here. Nope nope nope.”

  Brixie could never understand what a “bathroom” was because she bathed in the rain and in flower beds. Toilets terrified her after she dove into one, seeing the pool of blue water in the bowl (thankfully no one had, you know, used it). She got a nasty surprise when the water turned out to be bleach and she was sick for a whole week.

  “Oh, same old waste-of-time Missing Mountain,” I muttered, resting my hands on my cheeks. “I hate it here.”

  Brixie flew right at my head and clung to my hair. I grabbed her and placed her on my knee. “I know you miss the scrumudge. But you have a new home now. Like I used to have a home in my tree, but now my home is in the pencil case in your closet.”

  “It’s the Scourge,” I corrected her. I felt guilty complaining about homes when Brixie had lost everything and everyone. I’d lost someone, too, on the same day. “And that’s my favorite pencil case. It’s from War of the Galaxies—”

  “Your daddy’s favorite movie, I knows it!” Brixie dove into my backpack. “Maybe we can do like Captain Alonso did in the big battle and throws Marglitza into a solar trash crasher.”

  I snorted. “It’s Maritza. And it’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine. She shouldn’t talk to me that way. But I won’t have to see her after today. We’re going to the lake after school. Don’t forget to stay close. I haven’t explored it well enough, and I don’t know what’s out there.”

  “Okie, sweet Val. I promises.” Brixie fished out a silver gum wrapper from my backpack and tied it around her chin like those head scarfs from my mom’s favorite old movies. She flew whippet fast out of the stall. “Wait— Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  The buzz of her wings bounced off the tiled walls. She puckered her lips together and whistled. “Like that.”

  We listened, but I only heard the strange metal sound of the pipes. I opened my journal and started a new page and wrote a reminder for myself for next year. Look into pipes.

  Brixie settled in my pack and began nibbling at a peanut butter and Oreos sandwich I’m pretty sure I left there last week.

  “Do you think there are more colibrix like me in Honey Hill Lake?”

  I hated to be the one to tell her so, but I shook my head. “Sorry, kid. Missing Mountain is about the most boring place in the universe.”

  “Rome and Lola seem to like it.”

  “Don’t get me started on Rome and Lola.” I rolled my eyes. “Lola’s always at some cheer thing and Rome should change his name to Captain Crankmonster.”

  Brixie handed me a gummy worm, but it was covered in pencil shavings, which she didn’t seem to mind. “Everything will be all rights, Val. You tells me that all the time.”

  I shook off the funky feeling that was starting to creep in. Brixie was right. I had given her excellent advice. Things would be all right. All I had to do was make it to the end of the school day.

  I was about to find out how wrong I truly was.

  I somehow made it to lunch and ignored Maritza and her friends, though they really did try to get my attention to insult me some more. Why would I ever want more of that? Anyway, lunch was the only period when all the grades dumped the kids out in the courtyard. When I first started school, I thought it would be a chance for me to hang out with Lola and Rome, but within a few weeks, Lola began sitting with her cheer squad and the soccer team that drooled more than raptor-pigs. Rome sometimes hung around with kids from the art club, but he usually sat and sketched in his journal, all alone. I used to think that we could sit alone together, but Rome liked his space, and I got used to eating by myself, sneaking treats to Brixie.

  I set down my tray and poked my spork at the cold macaroni and cheese. All around me, kids were shouting about their summer vacations—camp, beaches, exotic places like Canada. No one asked me what my plans were. I scrolled through my phone, catching up on messages from my online chat, but even those friends had more to do on the last day of school than me.

  I scrolled through the “monster” tag on UniTube for videos. Most of them were spoofs and pranks, or hoaxes from people who claimed they found a “mermaid” that turned out to be a rubber shark stapled to a Barbie doll.

  I was halfway through a video of a man who claimed his pool was haunted by the ghost of his goldfish when I heard someone crying. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but they were so loud. When I found the source, I was surprised to see Sunny. Something had majorly stressed her out. She was practically hyperventilating. Maritza and Harmony were trying to console her, offering water, and fanning her with their binders. They were close enough to hear, so I focused on them.

  “I know what I saw!” Sunny said.

  “You’ve had a long day.” Maritza’s voice trembled. Something had scared her, too. “The sun’s too strong and maybe you were just seeing things.”

  Sunny’s face scrunched up, and she pointed a finger at her friend. I’d never seen her so angry, especially not with Maritza. “You saw it, too! Don’t pretend.”

  Harmony held her hands out. “Let’s get Mrs. De Bernardo. She’ll know what to do.”

  “And say what?” Maritza snapped. “That Sunny saw a fire-breathing chipmunk? We’ll sound like Weirdo Salazar.”

  Just then, Maritza looked my way. Our eyes locked, and for the first time ever, my nemesis looked away before I did.

  My heart began to race. Fire-breathing chipmunk? I’d never heard of such a thing. I wanted to ask them some questions, but then I stopped. There was no way. They were messing with me the way the senior class had pranked the whole town with the fake Honey Hill Lake monster.

  But what if they were telling the truth? What if they had seen something? A good protector does a thorough investigation. That’s what my dad would have said, at least.

  “Come on.” Maritza dragged her friends away.

  I had to tell someone. I ran across the yard and found Lola. I wedged my way through the sea of soccer players to get to her.

  “Hey, Lola?” I waved at my sister. Her hair was in two long French braids and her big brown eyes blinked at me like she was a cartoon princess. “Can I talk to you?”

  Her friends all turned to stare at me. “Alone,” I added.

  “Give me a minute, okay, Tiny?”

  “Don’t call me that,” I mumbled under my breath.

  One of the soccer players even said, “How cute,” like I was some sort of puppy that had walked up to them to be petted. “Oh, come on, Lola, you never hang out,” another one of them said.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All Lola did was hang out with her friends instead of me. I knew I couldn’t wait for her. I still had one more sibling to turn to.

  “Forget it.” I stalked away and went across the yard to Rome. He was alone on the long picnic table. On the opposite end were two girls and a boy from his grade who kept glancing over at my brother. I could practically see cartoon hearts bubbling in their eyes.

  My brother didn’t even look up. He moved his pencil furiously across the page, stopping only to eat chocolate-covered pretzels from a bag. I couldn’t quite make out what he was drawing, but I saw teeth and claws. He slammed the thing shut.

  “What?” he snapped. When I jumped at the clipped sound of his voice, he softened. Even the kids mooning after him scattered. “Oh. Val. Sorry. The monitor kept asking me to turn my music down, and I thought it was him again.”

  I set my backpack on the table and told him about what I’d heard Sunny say. A tiny, taloned hand reached out from my zipper and stole one of Rome’s chocolate-covered pretzels. He started to look down, but I waved his attention back to me with concern.