Esmerelda and the Monster Hunt

Esmeralda and the Monster Hunt

By Arwyn Skye Antinoro

To all of the girls out there who feel like they don’t fit in.

Maple Leaf Writing Project

Brattleboro, Vermont

Copyright 2013

Esmeralda, Georgia, and Heather went to a normal school, with normal kids, and they acted normally. By hearing that you would probably assume they had normal lives. Wrong. They were monsters. I don’t mean they were terrible people, I mean it literally. Esmeralda was a ghost. Georgia was a werewolf. Heather was a vampire. Nobody knew they were monsters and they had a hard time hiding it. They lived in Galapagos Grove, Florida.

Esmeralda was well … ghostly. She had long bony fingers and thin,silky, long black hair. The only way you could tell Esmeralda was a ghost was that you looked very closely you could see through her. She was fifteen years old.

Georgia was the kind person of the group. She had thick curly brown hair and dark colored skin. The only way you could tell that Georgia was a werewolf was to pay attention to her eyes. Most of the time they were green, but sometimes they were yellow. She was also fifteen.

Heather was absolutely fabulous. She was also a bit self centered. She had wavy, blond, and polished hair and was always, ALWAYS wearing make - up. The only way you could tell Heather was a vampire was to look at her teeth closely. You could tell they’re a bit more pointed than normal. She was sixteen years old.

“ Wait up! “ Esmeralda cried with her long black hair streaming behind her going through walls and doors ( literally ) trying to catch her friends. She was calling to her friends, but she tended to have a quiet voice that, most of the time, scared people. Heather and Georgia were chatting away.

Heather was the first one to notice her. “Hey Esme!”

“I need to have a serious talk with you guys. In private,” Esmeralda replied.

They went into the girls bathroom. Esmeralda looked scared. No. Scared is an understatement. She looked terrified. ( Which was something terrifying itself, since Esmeralda was fearless )

“What’s wrong?” Georgia said with concern.

Esmeralda took a deep breath. She had just seen one of the most horrible things a monster could ever see.

“My...... my parents were ….... taken by ….... monster hunters!” Esme said, her voice shaking.

The girls faces went blank. Silence filled the room.

“Esme, tell us exactly what happened,”Georgia said.

Esme shuddered and explained the entire story.

“This morning I woke up to the smell of burning. I assumed that it was just my mom trying to cook again, so I got dressed and went downstairs. What I saw was my parents in a special ghost proof container with monster hunters putting gear in their bags and my house on fire. They looked like they were going to leave. The monster hunters didn’t see me and they forgot these passports on the ground.”

The girls huddled together to take a look at the passports.

“It says they’re from Lima, Peru,” Esme pointed out.

“What would they want from your family?! I thought monster hunters didn’t care about ghosts anymore,” Heather said rudely.

“They’re monster hunters! If there’s a monster, they want it dead or imprisoned,” Georgia said with fear in her voice.

“Guys calm down! The thing we really need to think about is how to get my parents back!” said Esme.

“WE!? I am not going out to get killed for YOUR parents! This is your problem not mine,” Heather screeched.

“Heather, if you don’t come to help us stop them, then they’re going to hunt your family too,” Esme replied angrily.

Heather hesitated and said “ I’ll think about it, and that’s all you’ll get out of me right now.”

“Great! We’ll leave tomorrow,” Georgia said much too cheerfully.

“I’m sorry, but I’m just not available on any days that end in ‘y’.” Heather said, haughtily.

“Our families are much more important than whatever you’re doing,” said Esme, annoyed.

“Maybe to you!” Heather said as she flipped her hair and walked away.

The school bell started to ring like it would never stop. The crowded locker filled hallways started to become rush hour with teenagers instead of cars. Georgia left to hurry to class, but Esme was so agitated and wanted to find her parents, that she went over and started to drag Heather towards the door.

“Come on Heather! We need to get out of here to catch up with the monster hunters,” said Esme, tugging on Heather as hard as she could.

“Fine!” Heather exploded back, “I’ll help, but only because I’m sure you won’t stop bugging me about it if I don’t.”

Georgia said “We need to get out of here before we get cau-”

“Esmeralda Fantasma, Georgia Varg, and Heather Pipistrello, please report to the principal’s office,” a voice on the speakers ordered.

“Caught” Georgia finished.

The girls shuffled into the principal’s office.

“Girls, I am very disappointed in you. Especially Georgia,” The principal boomed, “De....

“ Mr. Felix please report to the head office,” the speaker voice interrupted again.

“Girls wait right here,” Mr. Felix said.

Mr. Felix locked the door and hurried to the main office. The room was boring beige and had no windows. The girls were nervous. Principals don’t usually do that sort of thing.

“Great. The best place to be locked in,” Heather said sarcastically.

“Not quite,” Georgia said suspiciously. Then, she got up and went to the door and put her claw in the lock. Click. The door swung open.

“Come on let’s go!” Georgia said already running out the door. “How are we going to get to Peru?” she asked, once they were outside.

“ Well, the passports say their names are Daniel Troy and Angi Gilbert, so we can just use some of Heather’s money to fly to Lima, and then we can look them up on the internet. Then, we can find our way to where they imprisoned my parents,” Esme said in one breath.

“I’ll go ask my parents for some money,” Heather started.

“No. If we tell your parents, they'll want to come too, and you know how bad they are to travel with. It'll be a week before they're even packed!“ Esme said. “You’re gonna have to sneak and get it and both of you need to ask your parents if you can spend the night at my house for a sleepover.”

“We can’t just go to Lima!” Georgia said. “And anyway, the monster hunters can’t get to Lima without their passports.”

Esme was thinking it over when finally it came to her. “You guys know the town, Banana Bay, that our parents are always saying to stay away from

because monster hunters live there? Well, we should go there!” Esme said, knowing exactly what to do.

“But they’re monster hunters, they kinda want us DEAD!” Heather said.

“If we stick together, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Esme said reassuringly.

Georgia looked to see if anyone was around, “Come on. Let’s monster up,” she said.

Esme started to float up. Georgia went on all fours. Heather transformed into a bat.

“Ugh! Leather wings are so not as fashionable as leather boots,” Heather complained.

“Come on Heather it’s no use complaining,” Esme said.

The girls, using their monster powers, went to the next town where the monster hunters lived. The only thing in the town was a big creepy warehouse, so they decided to check it out. Once they were out of monster form they went inside.

“That’s better. Designer clothes are WAY better than fur,” Heather said, straightening out her clothing.

“Whoa,” Esme said when they got inside. The warehouse was filled with every piece of high-tech item that you could imagine. “Okay let’s split up to find my parents, but be careful.”

“I’m pretty sure you said something about sticking together and that’s not sticking together!” Heather said fearfully.

“It’s the fastest way to find Esme’s parents though,” Georgia said.

“Okay,” Heather said quietly.

As the girls went in opposite directions, Esme had a very bad feeling. Georgia smelt something, but couldn’t put her paw on it. Suddenly, they both heard Heather shriek very loudly. Esme quickly turned invisible and Georgia started to follow the smell of Heather’s path. Esme quickly found where Heather was, in a monster proof cage with a monster hunter guarding her.

“Why did you put me in a cage!” Heather screamed.

Esme floated to Heather, still invisible. She whispered in Heather’s ear, “He’s a monster hunter, try to act like a normal human being and maybe he’ll let you go.”

“Ahhh!! Stop scaring me Esme and become visible, it’s really creepy when ghosts are invisible,” Heather said, not thinking.

“Ghost! What ghost?” The monster hunter snapped, “I knew you were a monster! Now the question is what kind of monster.”

Heather stubbornly sat silently. The monster hunter grabbed a piece of steak and threw it. Heather still did nothing.

“Not a werewolf,” he said. Then, he grabbed a piece of yarn and did the same thing. Still, Heather did absolutely nothing.

“Not a werecat either,” he said. Suddenly, he yanked a piece of garlic out of a bag and waved it in Heather’s face and she screeched and wiggled.

“Interesting. Looks like we have a vampire.” The monster hunter said. Right then Georgia came charging in on all fours, growling and barking at the monster hunter. Sneakily, Esme grabbed a rope and went behind the monster hunter. Still invisible, she quickly tied him up, threw him in the cage, quickly pulled Heather out, and slammed the door shut.

“Thanks,” Heather said as she stumbled over, still nauseous from the garlic. The monster hunter was banging on the door, knowing there was no way for him to get out. Georgia rushed over to help Heather up.

Esmeralda started to look through the monster hunter equipment, when she came across a closed door. She opened the door and peeked in. “Guys look!” she said, turning back to her friends. The girls gasped. On the other side of the door there were hundreds of cages filled with monsters!

“Help us!” A mummy croaked. “I’ve been trapped here for four years.”

Georgia ran over to the monster hunter’s bag and dug through it. Finally, she pulled a ring of keys out. “Here try these. They might work,” she said as she handed the keys to Esme. Esme put the biggest key in the lock. It worked! She opened the door and freed the monsters that were inside. She did the same thing to the next one, and the next.

“Are you gonna do this all day? We don’t have that much time,” Heather said, annoyed.

“These monsters are like us, they deserve to be free!” Esme said, still opening cages.

“Fine then, I’ll go home on my own!” Heather said, walking toward the exit.

“What if you get captured by another monster hunter?” Georgia said, worriedly.

Heather paused, “On second thought, I think I’ll stick around,” she said.

Esme opened more and more cages and kept freeing more and more monsters. Once she opened every cage, she looked around confused; her parents weren’t there!

“I smell someone coming. We need to get out of here!” Georgia said.

“But my parents, they’re not here! We need to keep looking!” Esme said, worried.

“Esme, maybe we can check later. Right now, we need to get out of here,” Georgia said, urgently.

The girls hurried out and went back into their monster forms, hurrying back to Galapagos Grove.

“Wha...what are we going to do?” Esme said, still in shock.

“Maybe we could go back to your place and look for clues.” Georgia suggested.

“OK” Esme said, dejectedly.

Still in their monster forms, the girls went to Esme’s house, unnoticed. When they saw the house it wasn’t burnt down at all. It was like there never was a fire. Esme took out her key and opened the door.

“Esme there you are honey, we’ve been so worried,” Esme’s mom said as she hugged Esme.

“M..Mom, you’re okay,” Esme said.

“Of course honey, why wouldn’t we be?”

“I.. I saw you and Dad captured by monster hunters.”

“Oh, that was just me and your father practicing our play.”

“You’re what?!”

“I forgot to tell you we were doing a play?”

“Yes!”

“Oh I’m so sorry, honey I must have been tired that night.”

“Wait, but I saw fire!”

“It was just a prop.”

“But I smelt burning.”

“Oh, that was me trying to make some toast for our fellow actors.”

“Who were those people?”

“Oh, those are our new neighbors, they’re werecats.”

“What about these passports?” Esme said, showing her mother the passports.

“Those are props too.”

“Then who were the people that were in Banana Bay then?”

“YOU WENT TO BANANA BAY?!”

“What was I supposed to do? I thought you guys were in the clutches of monster hunters!”

“Are you okay?!”

“Yes I’m fine, but.. I’m pretty sure we ran into real monster hunters and we saved monsters that were captured by them.”

“Oh really, why don’t you girls come in and tell me all about it.”

“Okay. First, I like ran into a monster hunter and totally beat it up and then...” Heather bragged.

“Heather!” Georgia and Esme scolded sternly.

The End