WELL, THAT EXPLAINED A LOT!!

Like why one of my eyes was blue and the other bright green. Why one hand was huge with long fingers, the other small with short, stubby ones. Why both my feet were way too big for my legs.

They all came from different parts of different people that went into my father!!

It was a lot to take in all at once. For thirteen years, I never knew anything about my family.

And now . . .

It was kind of like discovering your dad was a king or a famous rock star. Only mine was a monSTAR!

But it gave me an idea.

I had always dreamed of having a big family. Sure, my dad was gone. And I didn’t even know if I ever had a mom. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have a family out there. Parts from dozens of people went into my dad. All those people were a part of him, and he passed their hands, feet, eyes, and hands to me.

Which meant the people who went into him were kind of related to me. I figured those people were probably all dead. (At least, I hoped they had been dead before their legs, arms, and feet were taken from them to make my dad!)

But those people whose parts went into my dad . . . they probably had relatives who were still alive. I was related to them too. They were my cousins!

Which meant, somewhere out there, the thing I’d spent years daydreaming about was actually true! I had a MONSTER family! A family made up of the descendants of the dozens of people whose parts made up Frankenstein’s Monster.

All I had to do was track down where each part of my dad came from to find them!

I said all that to Mr. Shelley as we stood there in his office, looking at Dr. Frankenstein’s journal with the flashlight.

The journal was hundreds of pages of notes, scribbles, drawings, and maps. It didn’t have an index, or a glossary, or whatever else you call those parts of books that tell you where to find what you’re looking for inside.

I had no idea where to start.

“How about at the beginning?” suggested Mr. Shelley, pointing to the cover.