Lucy burst out into the sunlit yard with new-found determination. She didn’t want to just dream about her parents for the rest of her life. She wanted them back.

Now.

“That’s it,” she said to herself. “I’m going to find the grown-ups.”

And with that she tightened the straps of her overalls, slicked her bangs over, and marched out into Clutter Avenue.

But something very strange stopped Lucy in her tracks. The disaster movie that Whiffington had looked like the night before wasn’t quite as disastrous this morning. The town actually looked relatively tidy!

“That’s odd,” Lucy said to herself, noticing that all the toilet paper had been cleared from the trees, the overflowing trash cans on the street were now empty, and the pavement looked as though it had been swept clean.

“Where did all the garbage go?” Lucy whispered to herself, searching in her head for any possibilities.

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t see it…

Lucy gasped as something suddenly tightened about her ankle, like a snake wrapping itself around her leg. Then, before she could do anything about it, she was flipped upside down and yanked straight off the ground, and found herself swinging in the air. She was hanging by her foot from a rope tied to a large tree in someone’s front yard.

“GOTCHA!” Norman cried as he sprang out from behind the hedge, his Scout uniform covered in leaves and twigs (he also had a camouflage badge, which was so hard to find on his uniform even he’d forgotten where he’d sewn it). When he saw Lucy, his face fell. “Oh, it’s you!”

“Yes, it’s me! Now get me down!” Lucy demanded.

“Sorry, I thought you were those boys—y’know, the ones from school,” Norman said as he cut Lucy free, letting her fall on her head.

“Ouch!” Lucy said. “Boys? What boys?”

“You know, the ones that…”

“That what?”

“…that laugh at me,” Norman mumbled.

“Oh,” Lucy said, suddenly feeling a little bad for shouting at him.

“They’ve been throwing eggs at my house since the grown-ups disappeared, so I set some traps for them,” Norman said with pride.

Lucy stood up and dusted herself off.

“Wow!” she said, looking around Norman’s front yard, which she now saw he’d turned into a fully functioning campsite. There was a hammock tied between the tree and the drainpipe on Norman’s house, and a sundial made of sticks and stones. Scattered along the entire perimeter was an assortment of handmade snares and traps, like the one Lucy had managed to get caught in. There was a campfire with a pan of beans boiling to a bubble on top, and around it some wooden chairs carved from a tree trunk.

“Did you make those?” Lucy asked.

Norman nodded, indicating a woodwork badge on his uniform. “And I put that up by myself!” he added, pointing to an enormous green tent pitched on the grass nearby. It was large enough to sleep ten people at least, Lucy thought, although through the opening she could see just one Transformers sleeping bag.

“Why are you sleeping out here, though, and not in your bedroom?” Lucy asked.

Norman suddenly looked a little embarrassed.

“I, erm, well, it’s silly really,” he said, staring at his feet.

“What is?” Lucy asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing…I just had a funny dream and got a bit…”

“Frightened?” Lucy asked, but Norman was saved from having to answer by the voice that came crashing down the street toward them.

“Look, it’s Abnormal Norman!” called a scruffy kid as he and two more boys on bikes whizzed past.

“AbNorman’s got a girlfriend! Hey, love-nerds, eat this!” one of them yelled as the three boys hurled eggs at Norman and Lucy.

“Quick, hold this!” Norman ordered, shoving a metal shield into Lucy’s hands. She instinctively held it up in front of her head, feeling the thud, thud, splat of eggs cracking on impact.

“See you loser lovers later,” the bike boys cackled as they wheelied off into the distance.

“Are you OK?” Lucy said, lowering the egg-covered shield.

“Me? Yeah, I’m used to it,” Norman said, shrugging off the moment. But Lucy could tell by the little twitch of his lip that he was upset.

Lucy had never really taken the time to get to know Norman at school. Of course, she knew who he was. Everyone did. He was “the geeky kid,” the one who no one wanted to sit next to at lunch or get paired with in PE. The one who brought a packed lunch instead of eating school lunches, and the one who climbed to the top of the tallest tree and stayed there all the way through break, watching birds through his binoculars. He was…different.

Lucy suddenly remembered what her dad would say.

“You know, it’s the different people who make a difference,” she told him.

Norman blushed. “Yeah, and they get free breakfast!” he replied.

“Huh?”

“Eggs!” Norman smiled, taking the shield away from Lucy and showing her that it was actually a large frying pan. She laughed as Norman held it over the campfire and began to fry the eggs.

“You can help yourself to some orange squash and a biscuit while you wait…if you sign up,” Norman said, motioning toward a clipboard he’d attached to his front gate.

“Sign up?” Lucy asked.

“Yes. A crisis is the perfect opportunity to recruit new members for the Whiffington Scout Troop. Girls can join too, you know,” Norman said, flipping the eggs.

“Oh, I see. Well, maybe not today…,” Lucy said politely. She didn’t want to offend him, but joining the Scouts was the last thing on her mind.

“Well, I can’t guarantee there’ll be a space for you if you don’t put your name down today,” Norman warned.

“Oh, how many new members have you got?” asked Lucy.

“Well, it’s…it’s still just me, just one member, at the moment. But if my intuition is anything to go by, I’d say interest in the Scout troop is about to pick up in a major way. I’ve printed flyers and everything. I’ve got the intuition badge, you know,” Norman said, proudly showing off a yellow badge with a strange eye on it.

“I see,” said Lucy. “And what does your intuition say about finding our parents?”

Norman paused and looked sad.

“I don’t know. I mean, that letter sounded pretty final to me.”

“I don’t believe it for one second,” said Lucy. “My mom wouldn’t just leave me like that. There’s something fishy going on, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“The only fishy thing going on is the smell from your dad’s truck. I don’t think they’re ever coming back, Lucy. Whiffington is our town now,” Norman said gloomily.

“It’s like a nightmare!” Lucy sighed.

Norman’s face suddenly scrunched up like he’d smelled a bad smell (and not just the stink coming from Lucy’s dad’s truck).

“What is it?” Lucy asked.

“You just reminded me. I had a nightmare last night,” said Norman.

Lucy’s heart stopped for a moment.

“So did I,” she said.

“Mine was really weird.”

“Mine too!”

“I dreamed I saw this thing…”

“Yes?” Lucy said.

“These shiny, gleaming eyes…And it was all dark and shadowy. And it was hiding—”

“UNDER YOUR BED!” Lucy interrupted him. “That’s why you came and set the tent up out here, isn’t it?”

Norman stared at her. “How did you know that?” he asked.

Lucy looked up at the window of Norman’s bed-room. How was it possible for them both to have the same dream? The same nightmare?

Unless it wasn’t a nightmare at all.

Unless what they’d both seen in the night, those black eyes, were real.

Lucy and Norman stared at one another in silence.

“BOO!” shrieked a high, shrill voice from behind Norman’s fence.

“Ella!” Lucy cried, her heart pounding as Ella Noying skipped out into the street wearing an old wedding dress that trailed along behind her.

“I couldn’t help it!” Ella laughed. “Your faces!”

“Ella, what are you wearing?” Lucy said in utter disbelief.

“What, this old thing? Oh, it used to belong to Mama. I’ve had it for years, darling.” Ella beamed, dragging the dress along the ground as she swished it.

“And what on earth is around your neck?” Norman asked.

“My jewels? They belonged to my dad, but they look far better on me, don’t you think?” Ella said, trying to swing the chunky gold chain, which was obviously too heavy for her.

“That’s your dad’s?” Norman asked.

“Her dad is the mayor of Whiffington. It’s part of his uniform,” Lucy explained.

“Which means now that he’s gone, I am the new mayor of Whiffington!” Ella announced, completing her look by perching a triangular hat that she’d folded out of paper on top of her bouncy hair. The word MAYOR was scribbled in felt-tip pen on the front.

“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Norman told her.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, because your parents are definitely coming back. Just like my mom is definitely coming back—and Norman’s dad too,” said Lucy firmly. “So, if I were you, I’d take those things off right now.”

Ella ignored Lucy. “Mama isn’t here! Mama isn’t here! No one can stop me! Mama isn’t here!” she sang merrily as she twirled around like a princess.

Lucy suddenly had a thought.

“Hey, Ella,” she said. “What did you dream about last night?”

Ella pretended to think. “Erm…can’t remember!” she said as she came skipping back down the road toward them.

“Please try! When you woke up this morning, did you remember what you dreamed?”

Ella looked up at Lucy and pretended to zip her lips.

“If you tell us, I’ll let you have some eggs!” Norman said, waving the pan temptingly.

Ella’s eyes narrowed. “Runny ones?” she asked.

Norman nodded and Ella unzipped her lips at once.

“Well, it was just the same dream I have every night,” she said.

“And what’s that?” said Lucy.

“It’s a funny dream, really,” Ella said. “You know, that one when you dream about the creature that lives under your bed.”

Lucy and Norman looked at each other.

“What the jiggins?” Lucy breathed softly.

It was at that moment that Lucy and Norman both realized their nightmare wasn’t a nightmare at all. There had been something under their beds last night—and Lucy had a funny feeling that this was all connected somehow.

The grown-ups disappearing.

The creatures under the bed.

What could possibly happen next?