6 Frankensquid

FRANKENSQUID

Stink glanced at the clock. Uh-oh. It was getting closer and closer to the sleep part of the sleepover. Miss D. turned out the lights in the rotunda. Glow-in-the-dark stars were hanging from the domed ceiling, making it look like a night sky. "D is for Dark?" Sophie asked Miss D. "Miss Darkness?" Miss D. shook her head no. Miss D-is-not-for- Darkness took out her laptop and projected some flames up on the wall. The flames flickered and popped and glowed. "It looks like a real campfire!" said Webster. Miss D. shook a spray can and gave the air a few tiny squirts. "I smell nature," said Riley. "I smell Christmas trees," said Sophie. "I smell s'mores," said Webster. "It's pine forest mist air freshener," said Miss D.

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"It smells like a real campfire!" said Stink. Everybody sat in a circle around a virtual campfire (battery-operated candles). They pretended to roast (real) marshmallows over the (pretend) fire. Before long, Sophie started to slump. Webster's eyelids started to droop. "Guys!" said Stink. "You can't fall asleep yet. You have to stay awake for midnight snack at ten o'clock. Waffles!" Stink tried to think of something that would keep them awake. He saw a door just off the ramp to Sharks Ahoy that said KEEP OUT. "What's behind that door?" Stink asked Miss D. "Don't you know?" Miss D. asked in an almostwhisper. "Tell us!" everybody said, perking right up. "Tell us, tell us, tell us." "This is the story about a creature who lived right here in this very aquarium. See that dark, empty tank? That was her home, once upon a time." "Her who?" everybody asked. "They called her Bloody Mary. She was a vampire squid."

"Oooh." "Bloody Mary had dripping red tentacles, glowing red eyes, and she lurked at the very way bottom of the deepest, darkest ocean tank. She was a creature the color of blood." "Is this true?" asked Riley. "Vampire squids are strange monsters of the deep. What do you think Bloody Mary ate?" "Fish?" asked Olivia. "Shark meat?" asked Hannah. "Hermit crabs?" asked Riley. "Only if they were dead. Bloody Mary ate only dead and rotting things— eyes and legs and tails and poop, carcasses and corpses, and snot and other gunk that sank to the bottom of her tank." "Is that true?" asked Riley. "Cross my heart," said Miss D. "Vampire squids have two long filaments like arms, which they use to reach out and grab dead stuff floating in the sea. Then they slime it with mucus and eat it all in one gulp."

"Stink," said Riley. "Would you rather get squeezed by a giant Pacific octopus or get slimed by a vampire squid?" "Shh!" said Stink. "Then one night— they say it happened during a sleepover—" "Like this one?" asked Webster. "On a night not unlike tonight, Bloody Mary stretched out her long filaments to grab some yummy fish eyes and zap! ZZZZZ! She stuck a filament into an electrical outlet outside the tank, and she was changed forever." "What happened?" Sophie asked. "Frankensquid! She grew two heads, multiple arms, and opened only one eye. True to her