Free The Mystery of the Mystery Meat by Chris P. Flesh Page B

“It’s been a very long day.” She smiled at him. “A long and wonderful day.”
    “Indeed, my dear. I’m very proud of you,” Horatio told her. “Since you’re not undead, you need your rest. You go off to bed, Henrietta, while I continue to plot and plan.”
    “Good night, Uncle Horatio,” she told him, stroking Mortadella’s strange little head. Then she left, and he sat down on the sofa and lit a cigar.
    “Bad man, bad lady.” Pretty balled her fists. Her fangs clacked. “Eat their eyeballs. Eat their brains!” She began to gnaw on the side of the chimney.
    “We have to stop them,” Freekin agreed, straightening up. “We have to warn people not to awaken their Curiosity or they’ll be shipped off to the fermented fat factory for the rest of their lives. And after they die…” He took a breath. It was too horrible for him say.
    Pretty tenderly patted Freekin’s arm while Scary fluttered onto his shoulder and gave him butterfly kisses on his cheek. Freekin managed a weak smile as he took Pretty’s hand and they walked across the sloping roof.
    He put his arm around Scary’s wings. “You guys are my best friends,” he said. “We’re in this together, right?”
    “Oh, Freekin,” Pretty breathed. “Scary so best friend, Pretty so bester friend.” She kissed the back of his hand and laid her cheek against it, cooing.
    Of course they were in it together. Pretty still had hope that she would win Freekin’s unbeating heart. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to help her Freekin.
    Even if it killed her!

Chapter Eight:
In Which Freekin
Rallies the Troops!

    “You needing cell phone,” Pretty chastised Freekin the next day as he got ready to leave for school. “Pretty and Scary spying, ‘Hello, Freekin! Waddup, dude!’”
    “Yes, it would be easier if you could call me up to tell me what you’ve discovered while you’re checking out the town,” he translated. “But I don’t have one.”
    “Me buying you,” she informed him. She tottered overto her little ruffled purse and dragged it behind herself on the floor as if it weighed as much as a bowling ball. She had decorated it with stickers of skulls and roses. Bending down, she unzipped it, and glittering silver coins spilled out.
    He shook his head. “Did you take those from the fountain again?”
    Pretty nodded.
    “Are there any left?”
    “No,” she said proudly.
    “Okay, well, be careful. Don’t let anybody see you spying,” he told her. “We’ll meet here after school.”
    “Okeydoke. Me so extra-special helper.” She fluttered her lashes at him. “Extra-super-duper!”
    “You are. Scary too,” Freekin said, smiling at the little phantom. “Later.”

    As the days passed, Freekin prepared for his fight against the Snickerings. He took Pretty’s money and bought himself a cell phone. He silently observed the rising excitement swirling around him at school. Something needed to be done sooner rather than later. The illegal flyers were everywhere—sticking out of lockers, wadded up in the trash cans, fluttering along in the wintry breeze. Even his friends were curious about joining Generation ?
    Freekin called another meeting at lunch. Aware thatPrincipal Lugosi might be lingering nearby, he had brought a clipboard and some paper so that he wouldn’t have to talk. He wrote down his first sentence and handed the clipboard to Lilly to read it aloud.
    Lilly cleared her throat and began.
    The Mystery Meat people are trying to lure kids into asking questions so they’ll be Curious.
    “They want to help us,” Lilly said, looking up from the clipboard. She handed it back to Freekin. “Snickering Willows is behind the times. We have to catch up to the rest of the world.”
    Freekin shook his head, wrote something else, and handed it back to her.
    No. It’s because Curiosity is the Ultra Top Secret Ingredient in Mystery Meat.
    He gazed at their blank expressions.
    “I don’t understand,” Lilly said. “Curiosity