CHAPTER THREE
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MONSTER OF THE BLUE HALL
After Posey went swimming, she ran to the playground. Tyler and Nick were on the slide.
They lived next door to Posey. They were brothers.
“Hey, Posey!” they called.
Posey went over to them.
“Tyler and me want to make sure you’re ready for first grade,” Nick said.
“I’m getting new shoes,” said Posey.
“You know you have to walk into the school by yourself, right?” said Tyler.
“I can do that,” Posey said bravely.
“What about the hall?” asked Nick.
“What hall?” said Posey.
“The hall is long and dark,” Tyler said in a spooky voice. He banged his foot on the slide.
Boom.
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“You’re all by yourself.”
Another boom.
 
 
 
 
Posey looked up at him from the bottom of the slide and shivered.
“If the monster grabs you, there’s no one around to help,” said Nick.
“Monster?” said Posey. She looked from one boy to the other. “There’s no monster at Middle Pond School.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” said Tyler. “Isn’t there, Nick?”
He jabbed his younger brother in the side.
Nick nodded. “The Monster of the Blue Hall,” he said.
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The blue hall was for the first grade. Tyler was in the fourth grade. He was on the green hall.
Nick was on the red hall with the other second-graders.
“Most first-graders don’t make it to their classrooms,” Tyler said.
“The monster gets them first,” said
Nick. “It sucks out their blood. The rest get eaten by snakes.”
“Snakes?” said Posey.
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Nick and Tyler loved to tease her. They teased her all the time.
Posey knew they were teasing her now.
Still, she tightened her grip on her stuffed giraffe.