3. Snatched!

SNATCHED! 3 The next morning, Sam, Antonio, and Lucy were at the school library. They had arrived extra early and no one else was around. The bookshelves loomed over the friends as they walked through the long stacks.

"Ahhh-choo!" Lucy sneezed for the ninth time in the past three minutes. "This must be the dustiest library in the world." She scrunched up her face to fight off another sneeze. "Most of these books are older than Mr. Nekobi!" Antonio joked.

"I'm not sure anything is older than Mr. Nekobi!" Sam said. Sam was making a joke, but inside he felt nervous. The earthquake had been strange. And what Mr. Nekobi had said was even stranger: There was an earthquake just before the last science fair, too? What did Mr. Nekobi mean when he said the last science fair had been "a disaster"? Had the school attacked the students? The friends found the science section. There were dozens and dozens of books. Sam reached up to take one, but there was a loud SNAP!

"Whoa!" Antonio exclaimed. He had stepped right through an old, worn-out heating vent in the floor. "Wait a minute!" The vent cracked more as he pulled his foot free. "There's something in here..." Antonio got down on the floor for a closer look. He reached into the dark vent. Suddenly, Antonio's eyes burst wide open. "It's got me!" he shrieked. "Something's got my hand! Help!"