Creeped Out by Z. Fraillon Page A

cocked its head to one side.
    Jasper pulled out an entire roast chicken from his bag and threw it towards the monster. The Grubbergrind grabbed the chicken in its tentacles and quickly sucked the bones dry.
    Jasper hurriedly threw more and more chicken to the monster. But it wasn’t slowing down, and Jasper was going to run out of chicken at this rate. He grabbed the sack and opened it wide.
    â€˜There’s more chicken inside, my beauty,’ he growled. The Grubbergrind looked at Jasper again. It opened its mouth. Jasper wondered what would happen to his friends if he was shrunk. Would they shrink again? Would they even exist? How small could something get before it just ‘poofed’ away?
    Jasper waited for the goo to come – but it didn’t. The Grubbergrind squelched its way towards the sack, jumping along on its nippered tentacles. It tried to push inside the sack, but it was far too big.
    The monster started oozing goo out of the suckers on its tentacles. Jasper held his breath. Then the monster began to rub the goo over its own body, and it started shrinking until it was the size of a large cat. It leapt inside the sack, looking for more chicken.
    It must really like chicken, thought Jasper, tying the string securely. He hoped that the goo couldn’t get through the sack. All he could hear was more chewing. The monster seemed happy – for now.
    But what about Felix and Saffy? thought Jasper. Will the teachers be able to unshrink them? What sort of life will they have as mini people? Are there any mini monster-hunting schools?
    Jasper thought of their escape plan. The pipes looked so – well, inviting wasn’t the word – but still, freedom lay at the end of one of them
    He grabbed his friends out of his pocket. ‘Which pipe is the way out, Felix?’ All he heard was an angry high-pitched squeak as Felix waved what looked like a very tiny set of blueprints at him.
    â€˜What is it with you two getting Monstered every time we try to escape?’ sighed Jasper.
    It was no use. There was only one chance of getting his friends back to their normal size. And it was at Monstrum House. The teachers would know what to do.
    Jasper put his friends carefully back into his pocket, and heaved the wriggling monster-sack onto his back.
    He hurried back along the maze of pipes the way they’d come. He took a few wrong turns, and at one point wondered if he would ever find his way out.
    But after what felt like hours of racing through stinking water by torchlight, Jasper finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He checked his watch. It was late in the afternoon. Soon it would be getting dark.
    He had to get back to school, and get his friends back to size.

15
    Jasper crept out of the stormwater pipe and into the ditch. While they were in the drain, clouds had come over and now thunder rumbled through the sky. The afternoon had darkened and sleety, icy rain came tumbling down.
    He hated to think what might have happened if they’d still been in the stormwater drain.
    He ran along the ditch towards the fence. The heavy monster-sack bumped against his back.
    â€˜Perhaps it’s a good thing we didn’t try to escape,’ Jasper said to his tiny friends. He heard Saffy squeaking something back at him. ‘If you were still normal-sized, we would probably be in the sewers right now. That monster might have just saved our lives.’
    More squeaks made Jasper think his mini friends weren’t feeling very grateful.
    The Grubbergrind wobbled about in the sack on Jasper’s back, but didn’t seem to be too distressed. Perhaps he thinks I really am Mr Golag, thought Jasper.
    The rain was pelting down now, turning the ditch into a mudslide. Jasper tried to clamber his way out through the fence, but with the sack in his hands it was useless.
    The third time Jasper fell down in the mud, he heard his friends squeak angrily from his pocket. ‘Sorry!’ Jasper