“Welcome to the monster clubhouse,” Vi said, holding the door open.
She let Iris go in first, and noticed that her breathing seemed to change, get a little faster. She was excited; Vi could feel the thrum of energy coming off her.
“It’s great, isn’t it? And it’s all ours. No one knows about this,” she said, looking right at Eric. “Right, Eric?”
He nodded, looking Vi in the eye. Maybe he hadn’t told Gran after all, which would be a miracle.
The clubhouse was framed with two-by-fours and sided with wide boards. There was a door and two windows, the windows too warped and swollen to open anymore. They had a card table and two folding metal chairs set up in the middle, an old broom in the corner that they used to sweep up dirt and leaves that found their way in. Moss was growing on the windowsills and up on the roof. To Vi, it was like a fairy cottage, a magic house where anything could happen. Maybe it wasn’t even real for anyone but them; it only appeared when they came into the woods looking for it.
“We’ll have to get another chair,” Vi said, “now that there are three of us.”
“There are a whole bunch in the barn at the Inn,” Eric said. He pointed to the chair he usually sat in. “Iris, you can use mine.” He smiled, his cheeks coloring. “If you want, I mean.”
Against one wall was a set of wooden shelves that held some provisions—peanut butter, crackers, a canteen full of water—along with all of their monster-hunting equipment: a pair of sturdy leather gloves, a compass, a magnifying glass, a flashlight, binoculars, a Swiss Army knife, wooden stakes （in case they encountered a vampire）， and a small backpack to carry it all.
Eric pulled down the pack and started showing Iris their gear. “I bring my camera when we go monster hunting,” he added. “I’ve got a Polaroid. I’ve also got Gran’s old Instamatic, but you have to wait to get your film developed with that. This Christmas, I’m gonna ask for a real camera. A 35-millimeter Nikon. That’s what real wildlife photographers use. Like the ones who shoot for National Geographic. Gran says I can put a darkroom in the hall closet and learn to develop my own film.”
Vi nodded. “It’ll be important to be able to get good pictures for proof. We haven’t come face-to-face with any monsters yet, but we’ve seen signs,” she explained. “Look at this.” She reached for an old baby food jar on the shelf. Inside was a long tuft of black fur. “We pulled this off a tree a little ways down the creek. It didn’t come from any animal we have around here, that’s for sure.” She handed Iris the jar, watched the girl’s eyes widen.
“And we’ve seen footprints, too. Strange ones. Almost human, but bigger and definitely with claws.” Iris seemed to shiver. “We’ve made some recordings too, really weird screams and howls, but they’re back at home. We don’t leave the tape recorder out here. We can play them for you later.”
Iris was staring into the jar of fur, turning it, shaking it a little like a snow globe. Her orange hat was pulled down, covering the tops of her ears.
“There are two nights every month we go monster hunting: the full moon and the new moon,” Vi told her. “That’s the best time to find monsters.”
Iris nodded.
“We should show her the book!” Eric said, voice bouncing with excitement. He pulled the briefcase from under the folding table. It was an old, hard-sided leather case, scuffed and stained. He undid the tarnished brass clasps and opened it up. Inside were the monster book, a big box of colored pencils, some pens, pencils, erasers, and markers.
The monster book itself was in a black three-ring binder Gran had given them from the Inn. The label on the spine had read ACCOUNTING, 1973, but they’d made a new BOOK OF MONSTERS label and pasted that over it. Eric had made a drawing for the cover showing his favorite monster: a chimera—a fire-breathing creature that’s part lion, part goat, part serpent.