Frankenweenie Read online

  Walking inside, she began to search for her muffin tin. She looked through the various piles of odds and ends. She sidestepped the movie projector and Sparky’s treadmill. Finally, she spotted the tin. It was part of an elaborate set Victor had created for one of his movies. The tin was standing on its end, acting as a wall. Bending down, Mrs. Frankenstein grabbed the tin.

  Sparky was right behind it! He stood, frozen, trying not to get noticed.

  Mrs. Frankenstein had been distracted by Victor’s chalkboard. Turning her back to Sparky she walked over for a closer look. Her eyes narrowed as she made out their house. And then her head cocked when she saw the roof wide open. Their roof didn’t open, did it?

  Taking a closer look she saw that there seemed to be something attached to the ceiling—a single chain hanging down. Curious, Mrs. Frankenstein gave the chain a tug. Instantly, the attic filled with the sound of whizzing and clicking. As she watched in awe, the roof spread open and a long lightning rod stretched up into the sky. Mrs. Frankenstein had never seen anything like this. Had Victor done all this himself? As she continued to watch, a fan switched on and fabric began to swirl, creating static. The static created an arc of lightning which began to climb up the rod and outside. With a gasp, Mrs. Frankenstein dropped the muffin tin, sending it clattering to the floor.

  Woof!

  Behind her, Sparky had jumped at the sound of the tin hitting the floor. Out of pure gut instinct he had barked—and given himself away.

  Hearing the bark, Mrs. Frankenstein turned. Spotting Sparky, her eyes grew wide.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  She let out a scream. Petrified, Sparky turned and began to race out the door when he crashed into a nearby mirror, the impact causing it to splinter.

  When he looked up, Sparky saw his reflection—and understood why Mrs. Frankenstein was screaming. Huge bolts protruded from his neck. Scars covered his body and face. He was grotesque, broken. Sparky was…a monster. Horrified at what he saw, Sparky jumped out the window and ran off into the night.

  Victor knew he was in trouble. But he didn’t care. “We have to find Sparky before someone else does!” he cried.

  His father was pacing back and forth across the living room while Victor sat on the couch with his mother. Mrs. Frankenstein had a cold compress pressed to her forehead. She was still recovering from her earlier run-in with Sparky.

  “Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mr. Frankenstein said. “What you did is a very serious thing, young man.”

  “You said yourself: if you could bring back Sparky, you would.”

  Victor’s dad threw his hands up in the air. “That was different,” he said, “because we couldn’t!” On the couch, Victor looked down at his hands and didn’t say anything. His father went on. “Crossing the boundary between life and death—it’s very…unsettling.”

  As his father droned on, tears welled up in Victor’s eyes. “I just wanted my dog back,” he said, sniffling.

  His mom reached out and rubbed his back. “I know,” she said gently.

  “You can’t get rid of Sparky!” Victor cried, shrugging off his mother’s touch.

  Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein exchanged looks. They had discussed this before Victor got home. It would be cruel to hurt Sparky now when he seemed, well, alive. So they had come up with a compromise.

  “Whenever Sparky…um…passes on,” Victor’s mom said, “you’re going to need to let him go. No more bringing him back from the dead. Understood?”

  Victor let out a sigh. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. But he would take it for now. He would just figure out a way to prevent Sparky from ever passing on. He nodded yes.

  His father smiled and clapped his hands. Good! “Now let’s go find your dog!” They couldn’t let Sparky run around free. Who knew how people would react if they saw him—bolts, stitches, and all.

  naware of the happenings going on next door, Mayor Burgemeister put the finishing touches on his Dutch Day dance outfit. When he was sure he looked perfect, he stepped out the front door, making one last adjustment to his sash. It read mayor across the front. He wanted to make sure that it was centered perfectly.

  “Elsa!” he called over his shoulder. “We’ll be late!”

  A moment later, Elsa emerged. She was dressed head to toe in traditional Dutch attire, including lederhosen and a blond wig pulled into pigtails. Even Persephone had been dragged into the costume and was covered in garlands. Both girl and dog looked miserable.

  “You know, a lot of girls would kill to be in your place,” the mayor said when he saw her frown.

  “I’d welcome death,” Elsa replied in a monotone.

  Just as Burgemeister was about to launch into a lecture on gratefulness and respect, he and Elsa spotted the Frankensteins. They were wandering around their house waving flashlights.

  “Spar-ky!” Mrs. Frankenstein called. “Spar-ky!” The beam of her flashlight swept right past Elsa and Mr. Burgemeister, stopped, and then slowly swept back as Mrs. Frankenstein realized she had an audience.

  “Wasn’t that the boy’s dog?” the mayor asked suspiciously.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Frankenstein said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “The one who died?” Burgemeister needled.

  “Yes,” she answered again.

  Burgemeister’s beady eyes narrowed. “So…what are you doing?” he asked.

  Seeing that his wife was in trouble, Mr. Frankenstein came over. He smiled at his neighbor as though this was something that happened every night. “It’s a game we play,” he explained. From behind the house, they all heard Victor call out Sparky’s name.

  “You play a game in which you look for a boy’s dead dog?” Mr. Burgemeister asked, trying to make sure he understood correctly.

  The Frankensteins nodded.

  “Explains a lot,” Burgemeister said, shrugging. He had always known they were a weird family. This odd “game” just proved it.

  Mr. Burgemeister turned to lock the front door. After all, he couldn’t be late to his own town celebration. Just then, Victor ran past. “I’m going to check out the school and the park,” he told his parents, not even bothering to slow down. “You guys do the town square, okay?”

  “Got it!” his dad called back.

  Elsa’s eyes followed Victor as he ran away. He was acting really strange. Even stranger than usual. And all this talk of Sparky? And the weird game? She thought she had heard E say something to the boys in class about Sparky coming back to life. Could that be true? Could Sparky really be alive? And if he was, where had he gone?

  With questions racing through her mind, Elsa followed her uncle down the walkway. It looked like she would have to wait and find out just what was going on.…

  Downtown, the Dutch Day celebration was in full swing. Almost the entire town had gathered beneath the large tent set up in the main square. On an elevated stage the oompah band was playing classic Dutch songs while women in wooden shoes performed a festive dance. People clapped and moved with the music, caught up in the festive mood.

  Not everyone was enjoying the celebration. Poor Sparky was trying to make his way unseen through the town. But everywhere he turned, there was something to scare him. A marching band paraded past. Sparky leaped out of the way. The oompah band made a loud oompah. Sparky jumped. Finally seeing a way out through the crowd, he ran as fast as he could, his tail tucked between his legs. For a moment, he thought he heard someone calling his name, but he kept running. He had to get away from all those people.

  Sparky didn’t stop running until he found himself outside the gates to the pet cemetery. The noise of the town celebration had faded behind him, and now the night was quiet and peaceful. Nosing open the gate, Sparky stepped inside. He walked past a sea horse’s grave and then a statue of a Labrador. Then by a few house cats until finally he stopped—right in front of his own grave. He couldn’t read the words on the marker, but he seemed to know that this was an important place. It smelled…familiar
. With a sigh, Sparky lay down. Now all he could do was wait and hope that Victor would find him and that he would be allowed back home.…

  Unaware that Sparky had escaped, Toshiaki had come up with a project that would win the science fair. The only problem was, he needed to steal it from Victor. Which meant going to his house. So he, Bob, Nassor, E, and Weird Girl from their class had all met up in front of Victor’s. Walking up to the door, Toshiaki rang the bell.

  “What are we going to say?” Bob whispered as they waited.

  Toshiaki rolled his eyes. Wasn’t it obvious? “We’re going to ask him how he did the invisible fish and his dog.”

  “What if won’t tell us?” Bob asked.

  Toshiaki’s plan hadn’t really gotten that far, but he didn’t want to tell Bob that. Instead, he knocked on the door. It swung open with a squeak.

  “Hello?” Toshiaki called out.

  Suddenly Weird Girl’s cat, who she had insisted they bring along, jumped out of her arms and raced inside. They all watched as Mr. Whiskers disappeared up the stairs. Toshiaki gave them all a look that clearly said, “Well, now we have to go in,” and stepped inside. The others followed.

  Since E was the only one of the group who had been to Victor’s house before, they let him lead the way up the stairs to the attic. Once inside, they poked around, examining all Victor’s odd gadgets.

  “Cool,” Bob said, observing the projector screens.

  Toshiaki nodded absently. All the other experiments might be cool, but he was only interested in one—the bring-an-animal-back-to-life experiment. Scanning the room, he finally spotted the blackboard covered in doodles. But what caught his eye was the picture of Sparky in the center. This had to be it!

  Leaning closer he, Nassor, and Weird Girl began to examine the formulas and theorems writing all over the blackboard. Some of it made sense to Toshiaki, but what he really understood was the pictures. In the biggest one, lightning hit a rod which sent electricity shooting down into Sparky.

  A smile began to creep over Toshiaki’s face. With the information they had gotten in the attic, he would be able to win the science fair—and maybe even become famous in the process. Tonight, they would bring the dead to life!

  ack in New Holland’s town square, everyone was blissfully unaware of the diabolical plot that several of their children were hatching. They were also blissfully unaware of the huge thunderstorm brewing overhead. Instead, they were watching as Elsa Van Helsing took the stage.

  Nervously, she looked out over the crowd. Her uncle had talked her into, or rather forced her into, singing a Dutch anthem—in Dutch. He told her it was her duty as that year’s Little Dutch Girl, but secretly she thought he just enjoyed torturing her every chance he could get. Taking a deep breath, she began to sing. The sooner she got through the song, the sooner she could get off the stage, go home, change back into normal clothes, and maybe find Victor and ask about Sparky.

  As Elsa sang, Toshiaki and the others put their plan into action. They had gone their separate ways after leaving Victor’s house, but they all had the same goal—bring an animal back to life.

  So Toshiaki had gone to the pet cemetery and dug up Shelley, his pet turtle. Then he had carefully wrapped his “package,” loaded it into a wagon, and headed home. He had set up some equipment behind the gardening shed in his backyard. As soon as he got home, he unwrapped the package and attached a kite to the animal’s leg. But this was no usual kite string. Toshiaki had made it using extension cords. As he flew the kite higher and higher into the sky, he had to keep connecting new cords. But finally, the kite was high enough to be close to the growing storm clouds. Toshiaki leaned back and waited.

  Nassor had also gone to the cemetery. He headed up the hill toward a gothic mausoleum. Approaching it with reverence for his pet lying at rest inside, he spoke: “Ah. The tomb of Colossus. Soon you shall be awakened and we shall be reunited once again.” Carefully, Nassor entered the tomb and clamped two clips attached to four Mylar balloons. He exited and waited to meet his beloved pet once again.

  In the science room at the school, E was doing his own version of the experiment. He had found a dead rat in the garbage behind the school and pulled it out. It was definitely the victim of a run-in with a car, as evidenced by the track marks through its middle, but E figured it would work anyway. Placing the rat on the table, E grabbed the electrodes Mr. Rzykruski had used when he had made the frog’s leg jump. Then he attached them to the rat. He didn’t have a lightning rod but the electrodes should hopefully do the trick. He would have to wait and see.

  Bob used his parent’s pool to conduct his experiment. He had recycled his original science-fair project—the sea creatures. Ripping open the container, he dumped them all into the pool. Then he wrapped a wire around the long, metal pool skimmer. This would be his lightning rod. And the water would be the conductor. Bob wasn’t much of a scientist, so now all he could do was wait and see if it would work.

  Weird Girl, in typical Weird Girl fashion, had found the creepiest animal—a bat. Actually Mr. Whiskers had found it for her, but it didn’t matter. A dead animal was a dead animal, right? So she pinned the bat to the corkboard in her room and used a butterfly wall hanging and a coat hanger to create a lightning rod. Sitting back, she and her cat looked out the window and waited for lightning to strike.

  As Elsa continued to sing and Toshiaki and the others waited for their projects to come to life, Victor frantically continued looking for Sparky. The thunderstorm that had been brewing all evening was coming to a head, and he didn’t want Sparky to get caught out in the rain. But he had looked everywhere. How could it be so hard to find one dog?

  There was only one place left to look—the cemetery. As fingers of lightning cracked across the sky, Victor pushed open the gate and walked inside. Sweeping his flashlight back and forth, he cast long, scary shadows over the various gravestones. He aimed it at Sparky’s grave, his heart pounding. Maybe he would be there, waiting for him. But the grave looked the same as it did before.

  Walking over, he looked down at the grave and tried to think of something to say. Something that would make all of this better. That would make things go back to the way they used to be. But there was nothing he could say. Sighing, he turned, the beam of his flashlight sweeping across one of the larger tombstones…and a tail. Wait? A tail? Could it be? Victor aimed the flashlight right at the tombstone.

  “Sparky!” he called out hopefully.

  From around the edge of the tombstone, two big eyes peered out. Spotting Victor, Sparky let out a joyous bark and raced over. He jumped up, knocking Victor down. But Victor didn’t care. He sat up, hugging his dog close to him.

  “I thought I lost you,” he said as Sparky wiggled and wagged his tail. “I don’t ever want to lose you, okay? Promise you’ll never go running off.” Sparky gave him a lick.

  For a moment, the boy and his dog just sat there, happy to have found each other. But then Victor noticed the two open graves and the shovels left next to them. That was a bit odd? Had someone else been there? Were they still there? And if they were, what on Earth were they doing?

  The storm was getting stronger and stronger by the minute. In their various spots around town, Toshiaki, Nassor, Bob, E, and Weird Girl waited for the final part of their plan to take place. They didn’t have to wait long.

  As Toshiaki watched in amazed horror, his kite got swallowed up by the dark clouds. The extension cord kite “string” jerked and tugged. Then, as he stood there, the hair on his head began to rise. Toshiaki squatted down and covered his head, trying to make the hairs go down. But it didn’t work. All he ended up doing was knocking over a bottle of Miracle-Gro which spilled on top of his pet. And then, just when Toshiaki thought things couldn’t get worse, a bolt of lightning surged down from the sky, striking the cords and flowing right into the animal lying in the wheelbarrow…

  Over at his house, Bob watched the pool and waited for something to happen. A lightning bolt crackled but hit the
neighbor’s backyard. Another bolt hit in the front yard. And then, finally, a bolt came tearing down, slamming right into the metal pool skimmer Bob had set up. The lightning traveled down the skimmer and then it crackled across the surface of the pool. When it was all over, a thin mist clung to the water’s surface.…

  In the cemetery Nassor’s balloons were struck by lightning, causing them to burst. A surge of electricity traveled down the iron rod and right into the open grave. Nassor waited patiently outside the mausoleum. Had it worked?

  At the school, lightning struck the building and surged through the power line and into the electrodes attached to E’s rat. E jumped back, his heart racing. When the surge ended, he moved closer to take a look. The rat looked the same…although it was looking a little less flat around the middle…

  In her bedroom, Weird Girl was ready for her experiment to begin. She had pinned the bat to the corkboard, and the metal hangers were twisted into a rod. Now all she needed was the lightning. But when she turned to double-check on her bat, it was gone! Panicked, she looked around her room and saw Mr. Whiskers holding the bat in his mouth. Before she could get the bat away from Mr. Whiskers, lightning flashed down, striking the wire hangers. The girl ducked out of the way as it surged above her, heading for the hangers.

  When the surge was over, she looked up. Mr. Whiskers looked okay. His fur was smoking a little and he appeared a little dazed, but otherwise he seemed fine. And then, as Weird Girl watched in horror, two giant bat wings unfurled from the cat’s back. She gasped. Hearing the sound, Mr. Whiskers looked up and hissed, revealing two giant fangs. Then, with a flap of his wings, the newly created Vampire Cat flew out of the window into the stormy night. The girl gulped. What had she created? And more importantly, what had all the others created?