The Beast with 1000 Eyes by Laura Dower

PROLOGUE
    STELLA MIN

    I was in the car on the way to my Tuesday night karate class with Mom and all I could think about was this crazy dream I had the night before.
    In the dream, I ran up this mountain that looked a lot like Nerve Mountain here in Riddle. Someone was watching me; I could feel it. I ran faster and faster and faster until— whammo !—I tripped and fell into this prickly bush. I picked myself up out of the bush, but just as I was about to make my clean getaway, my left foot got wedged between two rocks! I tried and tried to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge. And then a low, eerie moaning sound filled the air. A giant shadow loomed over me. Quickly, I glanced up and realized (just as quickly) that I was standing eye to eye with . . .
    Eeeeeeew!

    There were at least one thousand oooey, gooey, squishy, squashy, bloodshot eyeballs staring right at me! I jumped up into the air and twisted around—ready to kick. Unfortunately, before I could scissor my legs, my body got heavier and heavier and eventually I couldn’t . . .
    â€œHOLY SMOKES! I CAN’T MOOOOOOOVE!”
    All at once, I woke up, gasping for air. My bedroom was so dark, but then I saw the shimmery outline of my stuffed snake collection at the foot of my bed.
    I was not dreaming anymore. I was home in the middle of Riddle. Everything was back to normal; or at least normal for Riddle, which really wasn’t saying much.
    Riddle is, after all, home to some pretty weird stuff.
    There’s the three-legged dog at the library that growls at kids who have overdue books. There’s the seriously haunted Petroglyph Mall.
    And then there’s Oswald Leery, B-Monster movie director, who lives way up on Nerve Mountain in his very own fortress. Leery Castle is this creepy-cool place with turrets and hidden passageways and loads of secrets.
    Once upon a time, Leery discovered that when someone watched one of his original B-Monster movie reels, a B-Monster would escape from that scary movie world into the real world. Leery and his associate Walter Block tried to capture escaped B-Monsters, but they just didn’t have the muscle or instinct to get the job done on their own. They needed help! So Leery got a brilliant idea: Gather up a team of kids to catch the monsters on the loose. He called it the Monster Squad and handpicked four of us to be in the group: me, Lindsey Gomez, Jesse Ranger, and Damon Molloy. We’re all in the fifth grade together at Riddle Elementary. When we’re not studying, it’s our job to blast, stomp, or vaporize escaped B-Monsters into oblivion.
    Of course it made perfect sense that Leery wanted me to be in the Monster Squad. After all, I’m smart and most kids at school already call me Ninja. Plus, I have serious, personal connections to the B-Monsters. I’ve seen all of Leery’s B-Monster movies at least twice. I have a collection of B-Monster Galaxy magazines. I’m even related to one of the actresses who appeared in the movies. My Great Aunt San San acted in at least sixty-three of them.
    And now I was having dreams about them. The weird thing was, I never even saw a movie with the B-Monster from my dream. I had only seen him once or maybe twice—in photographs from my mom’s photo album.
    Mom has all these old photos of my Aunt San San, and I think that monster was in a few of them.
    Still, it was so random to have dreamed about a monster I’d never even thought about. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign.
    Mom floored the gas pedal and I jerked forward. She barely made it through a yellow light and we swerved into the parking lot at Dojo Academy with a loud squeal. Through our car window, I saw the other kids in my class head through the glass doors to the karate school.
    â€œSee ya, Mom,” I said, grabbing my stuff, and hopping out of the car.
    As I zipped into the building, the woman behind the big, curved oak desk (I fondly call her Front Desk