Give Me Something Good to Eat - Softcover

Gillespie, D. W.

 
9780593651841: Give Me Something Good to Eat
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593651847 ISBN 13: 9780593651841
Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Perfect for fans of Hocus Pocus and Stranger Things, this middle grade debut tells the story of a boy who travels into an alternate version of his Halloween-obsessed town to save his sister from an evil witch and free the town from the witch’s curse.

Fear comes home.

Welcome to Pearl, a town obsessed with Halloween: the spooky decorations, the costumes, the candy. No one seems to notice that every October 31st, a kid goes missing. Mason Miller does, though. Somehow he’s the only one who has any memory the person existed at all.

When Mason’s sister, Meg, vanishes while they’re trick-or-treating, Mason and his friends are pulled into an underworld where monsters roam the streets. They need to fight the evil taking over Pearl, but none of them know the true danger they're facing.

Meg has been stolen by a witch who has no plans to let her go. Shadows of death curl around trees and behind doorways as Mason must use every ounce of bravery he has . . . or be haunted forever with the memory of a sister that only he remembers.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Born and raised in Middle Tennessee, D.W. Gillespie wrote his first short story in second grade. It involved (unsurprisingly) monsters wreaking havoc on some unsuspecting victim. Some things never change. He began writing seriously after taking a creative writing class in college, and he’s written steadily ever since. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and two kids, and on dark nights, you might find them huddled around a campfire sharing spooky tales.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1


The Best Night of the Year


It was Halloween in Pearl, North Carolina, and the normal rules of the world didn’t apply. Abbie Purdom was only six years old, but even she understood that. Her mother, Beth, had spent the day getting the house ready for the festivities. It didn’t matter if you didn’t enjoy handing out candy or if you preferred not to decorate. There was only one way to celebrate in Pearl. It was an invisible contract you signed the day you moved to town. Everyone participated. No one sat out, at least no one respectable. If you lived in this town, you were in, all the way.

This was the first year Abbie’s mother let her pick out her own costume, and she settled on a very cute bee with a plastic stinger sticking out of the bottom. Now that she had it on, Abbie couldn’t stop staring at herself in the mirror, wiggling her butt.

“Oh my gosh,” her mother said. Beth was dressed as a sunflower, and she held up her phone to record her daughter as she pranced around in front of the mirror.

“I’m gonna sting you!” Abbie screamed as she chased her mom around the bedroom.

“You can’t sting me,” Beth said, scooping her up. “I’m your momma flower.” They squeezed each other tightly. “I love my little bee so much.”

“I love you too, Momma.”

The sky was purple when they stepped out the front door into the chill air. Orville Avenue was a living kaleidoscope of color and lights, like a child’s daydream come to life. The metamorphosis of the town that had begun in early September was now complete, and a skull-faced butterfly had hatched, ready to fly.

The unspoken rule of Halloween night was simple: the little kids went first. The street was pulsing with activity. Big, gaudy skeletons, inflatable dragons, and giant spiders dotted every yard they passed. Abbie’s eyes glowed when she saw them. The bee and the sunflower fell right into the line of people heading east toward the town square, stopping at every house they passed to load up on candy. Soon, the little bee could barely hold her bag, and Beth had to carry it for her.

“It’s too heavy,” Abbie said.

Beth winked. “Well, I’ll help you out with that.”

They both dug in, and in a few moments, they had eaten a dozen pieces of candy between them.

“We should take it easy,” Beth said as she dug another piece out. “Then again . . . it is the best night of the year.”

The sky was nearly dark now. The teenagers were starting to emerge, the princesses and knights replaced by zombies with spilled, dangling guts, groups of girls shrieking and taking selfies in animal onesies, and grim reapers with blood-slicked machetes. Pumpkins glowed from every stoop, some silly, but most with toothy mouths filled with jagged teeth.

“Momma,” Abbie said, leaning into Beth.

“It’s okay . . . it’s all for fun.”

They gave up on getting more candy and walked to the middle of town, cutting across Orville Avenue and into the tangle of alleys that separated it from Main Street. The alleys were a common shortcut for people walking to the square, but Abbie never liked them. The brick buildings were so close that the sky always narrowed to a slit. It made her feel like she was walking into a dungeon. Abbie huddled ever closer to Beth as they passed a couple of grown-ups who kissed and laughed and smelled like beer. The pair separated just long enough for Abbie to see the woman’s face, which was painted red.

“Happy Halloween, little bee,” the devil woman growled as they walked past. Abbie buried her head into her mother’s waist and refused to look up until they were out of the alley.

“Hey, we’re through . . . check it out.”

Abbie looked up and saw Pearl Park, a wide span of lush grass and gigantic willow trees contained within the town square. The rectangle of grass was surrounded by a footpath and a quiet street lined with old-fashioned storefronts. Coffee shops, sandwich stores, and pizza joints threw open their doors and pulled tables out onto the sidewalk for Halloween. For one night only, everyone ate and drank outdoors. Dogs on and off leashes chased each other across grass, dressed up like devils and hot dogs. In the center of the park was the Fountain of Bacchus, a massive pool of dancing water with an enormous classical statue in the center. As she always did, Abbie perked up when she saw it.

“Who’s that?” she asked, giggling at the almost naked statue.

“Bacchus. He’s the Greek god of . . . well . . . partying.”

The statue itself was ten feet tall and perched on top of a pedestal that stood over twelve feet tall. The bronze had gone green over the years, but Bacchus’s frivolous grin remained undimmed and he tirelessly held his cup aloft, as if raising a toast to the world.

“He’s not wearing clothes,” Abbie said with another giggle.

“I know, baby.”

They made a full circle around the park, just so the pair of them could see the decorations. The hanging willows were draped with purple lights, and ghosts hung and swayed in the breeze. Even with all the laughter and music, the scene was surreal and unsettling, and Abbie realized she was quickly getting her fill of Halloween. They turned the corner at the far end of the park and headed back home, passing the cemetery. It was the only part of town that wasn’t decorated, a detail that somehow made it more chilling. As they walked silently past it, the wind picked up, and Abbie shivered.

“Momma.”

“It’s fine, baby. Just a cemetery.”

Just then, a couple walked under the streetlight a few feet in front of them. It was a cheerleader and what looked to Abbie like a caveman.

“Beth, is that you? Oh my God, you are so cute!”

Abbie had seen this scene unfold plenty of times. Her mother would catch up with her friends on, well, pretty much everything, and Abbie knew she wasn’t going anywhere soon. She began twirling around her mother’s legs in little circles, humming to herself to pass the time. She kept her eyes on the cemetery, which was now half a block away. Far enough to be safe, but still too close to not keep an eye on.

She made a circle around her mom’s legs, once, twice, a third time. It was the fourth time that she stopped when she saw a young girl standing in the shadows of the cemetery. She was dressed in a black sweatshirt, its hood pulled up over her short black hair. Her skin was as pale as milk, and her deep-set eyes looked almost purple in the reflection of the streetlight. It was impossible to tell her age. She could have been as young as eight or as old as seventeen. For a moment, the dark-haired girl stretched and yawned as if she were awaking from a long nap. Then she turned to Abbie and smiled.

Abbie scrambled back behind her mother’s legs and buried her face in Beth’s thighs.

“Easy, Abbie, Momma is talking.”

When Abbie finally worked up the courage to look once more, the dark-haired girl was still standing there, still smiling. The only difference was she had something in her hand, a small doll that she held aloft. Squinting at it, Abbie took a step away from her mother. The strange girl held it in front of her, shaking it like a dog toy, and when Abbie had taken a half dozen steps forward, she recognized what it was.

The doll was simple, probably handmade from the look of it, with a...

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Verlag
Random House Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593651847
ISBN 13 
9780593651841
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
273
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Anja's
service@anja-karge.de

Von-Gumppenberg-Str. 94
Pöttmes
86554
Deutschland

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