Chapter 2

Chapter Two Overboard was the right decision. There's a gulp—and the great beast's belly rumbles. The sled has been swallowed. Two seconds later and he would've swallowed us, too.

I hate sliding. Nob sledding rules. We just did bad at it. Maybe a death defying sled jump was not the best way to start off the winter. You guys didn't even use your Instant-inflate tubes. A monstrous roar cuts through the air. "C'mon!" June shouts. She yanks me to my feet. Dirk pulls Quint from the snow, and we race out onto a wide street. Snow whips through the air, like I'm inside a snow globe. It's like when you have to get up in the

middle of the night to pee but you can't see anything. Only then, the worst-case scenario is you fall into an open toilet. Here the worst-case scenario is—y'know—death by monster. CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! Our bodies bounce. The snow-cracking CRUNCHES are deafening. The monster's coming after us, but I only see its huge stomping legs. "Guys! We need to get to cover!" I shout. I'm using my Louisville Slicer like a cane, staggering forward while poking around. And that is not what the Louisville Slicer is for. It's for battling monsters! It's my ultimate weapon. I slayed Blarg with the Louisville Slicer! I battled Thrull with it! I sliced the lassos that held the King Wretch with it!

THRULL: Man-monster! Undercover traitor monster! KING WRETCH:

This dude gave me weird dream-visions and then his chest opened so .e...c. could talk to me and, yeah, it was nuts. THE LOUISVILLE SLICER: My radical weapon. It did damage to all these bad dudes.

I mean, that bat is basically my lightsaber! CRUNCH! The monster stomps grow louder. Up ahead, I see an opening—like the mouth of a cave.... What the—where are we? I thought we were in the suburbs, but now we've stumbled upon some sort of cave situation? "Whoa, whoa," Dirk says. "Could be frost giants. Frost giants live in caves—learned that from Conan the Barbarian." June sighs. "Dudes, really? It's not a cave! It's the car wash!" Another CRUNCH! "In we go!" I say, and we race into the car wash tunnel. Even inside, the cold is crippling. Quint's teeth are chattering. We really need to upgrade our winter outfits—if we don't, hypothermia might take us down before a monster— RAWRRR!