WHAT DO YOU do when your favorite teacher starts turning into a were-hyena? Flee in terror? Try to cure him? Bring him carrion snacks?

Forget about homework habits and curriculum goals—this is the kind of practical stuff they should cover at back-to-school orientation.

But they don’t.

Maybe if they had, I wouldn’t have found myself stuck up a tree with my best friend, Benny Brackman, scared out of my wits and smelling his funky feet.

“Did you have to kick your shoes off?” I asked, trying not to inhale through my nose. This was hard, since I was panting and his stinky feet were just above me.

“You know I climb better when my toes can grip,” said Benny.

“Yeah? Well, climb higher!”

“I can’t,” he said. The narrow branch swayed under his weight.

I gripped it tighter. “If you don’t, we’ll be monster kibble.”

“I bet it gave up.” The whites of his eyes gleamed in the dimness. “Has it gone away yet?”

I glanced down. At the base of the oak tree, a half-human, half-hyena creature from my darkest nightmares paced in and out of the silver moonlight, snarling up at us. Its furry, ultrabuff body would’ve put a WWE wrestler’s to shame. Its powerful jaws looked as if they could snap your neck like a carrot stick.

“Still there,” I said. “And it’s not a happy monster.”

“Don’t worry, Carlos,” said Benny. “Everyone knows dumb old were-hyenas can’t climb trees.”

At this, the monster cocked its shaggy head and growled. Its red-rimmed eyes narrowed.

“Benny!”

“What?”

“A, don’t insult something that’s trying to eat you…” I said.

Sizing up our tree, the hyena-man took a few steps back.

“Why not?” said Benny.

“It only makes it try harder,” I said. “And B—”

In a rush, the were-hyena launched itself at the tree trunk, scrabbling with claws like hooked daggers.

I gulped. “—and B, why wouldn’t it be able to climb? Bears can climb.”

And sure enough, those sharp claws sank into the bark, and the monster hauled itself higher up the trunk.

Benny’s eyes popped. “That’s not fair!” he cried. “In all the wolfman movies we’ve watched, have you ever seen a werewolf climb a tree?”

“Never,” I said. “But, Benny?”

“Yeah?”

“This isn’t a werewolf. And this isn’t a movie.”

Time out. I know, things are just getting interesting, but I’m being a bad narrator.

I started our story at an exciting part, like our teacher says we should, but I just realized you have no idea who we are or how we came to get treed by a were-hyena. (Not that we actually came there to get treed by a were-hyena, but you know what I mean.)

Let’s back up to the day when everything changed. The day when we realized our town was misnamed—that instead of Monterrosa, it should be called Monstertown.

I’ll start with the day the monster movies became real.