Creeper on the Case Read online

  Also by Greyson Mann

  The Creeper Diaries

  Mob School Survivor

  Creeper’s Got Talent

  Creepin’ Through the Snow: Special Edition

  New Creep at School

  The Overworld Games

  Creeper Family Vacation

  Secrets of an Overworld Survivor

  Lost in the Jungle

  When Lava Strikes

  Wolves vs. Zombies

  Never Say Nether

  The Witch’s Warning

  Journey to the End

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  THE CREEPER DIARIES: CREEPER ON THE CASE.

  Copyright © 2018 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB.

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB.

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Special thanks to Erin L. Falligant.

  Cover illustration by Amanda Brack

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-5107-3749-5

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-5107-3753-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  DAY 1: SATURDAY

  So Mom’s on a new kick this month. (Big surprise there, right?)

  I guess she signed up for this “Write a Bestselling Novel in 30 Days” class. She says she’s finally going to write the mystery that’s been burning in her brain for years. Who knew?

  Dad got all weird about it. “Maybe you’ll be the next Agatha Crispy!” he said—WAY too loudly. That’s the famous author whose mystery books are taking over our living room shelves. Maybe Dad’s hoping Mom will get rich, like Agatha Crispy. Or maybe he’s just glad she’s finally over her gardening kick.

  Last month, Mom had us eating all these weird vegetables from the garden. Beetroot Soup. Cactus Salad. Stuff that had NO business on our dinner table, if you ask me.

  So I decided to jump in Dad’s minecart and support this writing thing, too. I figured Mom would be so busy writing, she’d finally stop bugging me about signing up for an extracurricular at school. “Mystery writing?” I said. “Go, Mom! Yeah! Go get ‘em!”

  I might have overdone it, though, because next thing I knew, she was shoving this book in my face. “If you like mysteries, you should read THIS one,” she said.

  I figured it was an Agatha Crispy book, but it wasn’t. It was a Sherlock Bones mystery. Mom’s been trying to get me to read those books for ages, but I’m not really into skeleton detectives who ride around on spiders named Dr. Webson. (REALLY???)

  Anyway, I dodged that fireball by telling Mom I was WAY too busy writing rap songs to read mysteries. “Maybe Chloe can read it!” I said, tossing the book like a hot potato over Dad toward my Evil Twin.

  But Chloe blasted it right back at me. She said SHE was way too busy with Strategic Explosions class. Then she said, “Which extracurricular are YOU signing up for, Gerald?”

  CRUD.

  Mom started in again, and … well, that’s how I found myself signing up for the MOB MIDDLE SCHOOL OBSERVER newspaper staff. WHY, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The other extracurriculars at my school are about as much fun as walking across hot lava.

  I tried Sprinting class last year, and that was a total bust. I’m not into Spider Riding, Strategic Exploding, or Archery. And I’m REALLY not into Web Weaving or Llama Riding, the two extracurriculars that got added this year. I rode a llama across the desert during vacation last summer (a memory I’d really rather forget), and don’t even get me STARTED on how much I hate spider webs. And spiders.

  So newspaper reporting didn’t sound half bad—especially when Mom said I’d only have to try it for a month. I mean, I’m always writing rap songs. And I’m pretty good at keeping this journal, right? So I decided to crash the newspaper staff meeting after school last Tuesday.

  I tried to get my best friend, Sam, to go with me. That slime is usually up for anything. But he said he had too much STUDYING to do.

  I thought he was joking at first. I mean, the word NO isn’t really in Sam’s vocabulary. And I don’t think I saw him crack open a book at all last year—not even once. But when I asked again, he got all wiggly.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Sorry.” Then he bounced away. SHEESH.

  So I headed off to the library by myself. But when I got there, the door was locked. The lights were off. That room was NOT open for business. And judging from the disgusting cobwebs stuck across the corner of the door, no one had been in there for weeks.

  That’s when Bones and his gang walked by. Bones is a spider jockey with a big mouth. So he’s like, “Need some help there, Itchy?” He calls me that because he KNOWS it bugs me. In fact, just hearing it made me want to scratch my itchy skin—especially when I got some cobweb stuck to my face.

  Anyway, I told Bones I had a meeting in the library, thank you very much. Then he pointed his bony finger and said, “Wrong room, GENIUS.”

  Sure enough, I was at the wrong door. See, the library is in Room 119. I was trying to bust down the door to Room 117. GREAT.

  I crept next door to the library and found Mrs. Collins leading the meeting. She’s our librarian, and also my Language Arts teacher. She whipped off her reading glasses as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Gerald Creeper?” she said. “What a nice surprise.”

  Well, I was surprised too—let me tell you. Because there were only TWO other kids at that meeting. One was Whisper Witch, who pretty much signs up for every activity under the moon. The other was Emma Enderman. She’s a sixth grader—new to school this year. But the girl acts like she owns the place. She’s so tough, no one dares look her in the eye.

  To top things off, Mr. ZANE was at the meeting. Now there’s a zombie who knows how to suck the fun out of things. When he took over the talent show last year, I almost had to quit.

  Did I mention the fact that Mr. Zane REEKED of something disgusting? Well, his briefcase did anyway. I could almost SEE the stench lines curling up toward my creeper nostrils. GREAT.

  The smell was so bad, I missed half of what Mrs. Collins was saying—until she gave me my story assignment. I heard THAT loud and clear. “You can attend the Dance Committee tomorrow morning,” she said. “Get the scoop on decorations, music, and so on. Won’t that be fun?”

  Um, NO. I couldn’t make that story sound fun no matter how I looked at it—upside down, sideways, or straight on.

  Then it hit me—dances have music. And RAP is a kind of music. I s
uddenly got an idea that was so GENIUS, I had to say it out loud. “Can I write a RAP about the school dance?” Maybe it would get printed in the paper. Maybe I could perform it over the loudspeaker. Maybe I could even perform it at the school dance!

  Mrs. Collins looked like she’d just swallowed a spider’s eye. Or maybe she’d finally gotten a whiff of Mr. Zane’s briefcase. She whispered something to him, and then they both responded at the exact same time.

  RUDE! Teachers around here don’t really appreciate my rap skills—even though I’m practically friends with Kid Z, the most famous rapper in the Overworld. I thought about mentioning that to Mrs. Collins, but sometimes a creeper just has to cut his losses and move on.

  So Wednesday after school, I crept off toward that Dance Committee meeting. Well, first I looked for Sam, hoping I could drag him with me. But SOMEHOW, he had disappeared again!

  I figured he was with his girlfriend, Willow Witch. They’re ALWAYS together, even though she’s two years older than him. I don’t even want to THINK about how Sam will be when she starts tenth grade at Mob High School next year.

  But he wasn’t with Willow. How do I know, you ask? Because Willow was at the Dance Committee meeting. When I asked if she’d seen Sam, she looked at me all strange-like.

  “I thought he was with you,” she said. Turns out, Sam told Willow he couldn’t go to the dance meeting because he was hanging out with ME.

  I tried to cover for the slime, I really did. But it was too late. Willow could see I didn’t have a clue where Sam was. I might have even mentioned that he’d been sneaking off a LOT lately.

  Willow swore she’d hunt him down later and get to the bottom of it. I believed her, because that witch knows how to brew Potions of Invisibility. If she wants to find out where Sam’s been going, she WILL.

  I went home to try to sleep, but how’s a creeper supposed to get his sleepers when his best friend is lying to him? And about to be busted by his angry girlfriend?

  Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when I ran into Sam and Willow walking to school together that night. It didn’t look like Sam was in trouble. Nope. He and Willow were all chummy, same as usual.

  I tried to get Willow’s attention to ask her what was up. I gave her all kinds of signs. I coughed, cleared my throat, blinked three times—the usual stuff.

  But she pretty much ignored me. So I finally asked SAM where he’d been that morning. And you know what he said? He pulled the old “I’ve been STUDYING” line.

  I waited for Willow to bust him, but she just fake-smiled. Which meant she knew where he’d ACTUALLY been. But neither one of them was going to tell me. Sam, who is usually an open book and can’t keep a secret to save his life, had locked himself up like my sister Chloe’s diary—and swallowed the key.

  Sam acted pretty normal on Thursday morning. But on Friday, when I asked if he wanted to hang out, he tried to pull his disappearing act again. So I followed him. I tracked him all the way to the library. Well, I stopped at Room 117 for like a SECOND to check the handle. Yup, still locked.

  But by the time I got to the library, Sam was nowhere in sight. How does a giant bouncing slime slip away from a sneaky creeper? SHEESH.

  Mrs. Collins was at the checkout desk. When she asked how my article on the dance was coming, I said it was going GREAT—it was gonna be a real page turner, for sure. That’s when I saw a familiar book on the desk. It was that Sherlock Bones book with a wolf on the cover—the one Mom had tried to get me to read. WOLF OF THE BLASTERVILLES, it was called.

  When I picked it up, Mrs. Collins sprang out of her seat like a firework rocket.

  “What a WONDERFUL book for you, Gerald!” she said. “Sherlock Bones is a detective, which is kind of like being a newspaper reporter, don’t you think?”

  Say WHAT? At first, I thought Mrs. Collins and Mom were in cahoots. Like, maybe she was working for Mom on the sly to get me to read more. (And I really don’t appreciate it when adults gang up on kids like that.)

  But then I thought about what Mrs. Collins had said. I guess newspaper reporters ARE kind of like detectives.

  I checked out the book, since Mrs. Collins was practically shoving it in my backpack. And as I left the library, I thought about some of the things I could “investigate” at school—besides the dance, I mean. Like, what’s the mystery meat they serve in the cafeteria? And what REALLY goes on in the teachers’ lounge?

  The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. There were all KINDS of mysteries to solve. Maybe this newspaper thing could work out after all!

  So I’ve decided to take Mom up on that 30-day plan. I’ll stick it out on the newspaper staff, reporting on things kids REALLY want to know. Meanwhile, I’m going to solve a few mysteries of my own:

  That last one’s the biggie. But I’m not going to sweat it. Because I, Gerald Creeper Jr., am going undercover. I’m going to find out what’s REALLY going on here at Mob Middle School.

  DAY 2: SUNDAY

  So I started reading THE WOLF OF THE BLASTERVILLES, and I gotta say, this Sherlock Bones dude is alright—I mean, for a skeleton and all. And his spider sidekick, Dr. Webson, isn’t half bad either.

  I’ve already gotten TONS of tips for sleuthing. Like, I figured out right away that I needed a disguise. And I knew just where to get one.

  My older sister Cate is pretty much the Fashion Queen. She’s got a closet that’s bigger than my room, I swear, and it’s full of skins. She can walk in there looking like a creeper, and walk out looking like a zombie pigwoman. Or even a red-headed human.

  Lately, Cate’s been sporting what she calls the “au naturel” look, which I guess means straight-up creeper green. That’s fine by me. It means there’s more left over in her closet for ME to poke through.

  So after getting lost in there for a while (and I’m not even kidding), I walked out wearing a trench coat and cap, holding a magnifying glass. (Cate told me she uses the magnifying glass to pluck her eyebrows, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.)

  Cate said I looked “mysterious,” which is pretty much what I was going for. But when I walked into the living room and held the magnifying glass up to my eye, my Evil Twin fell all over herself laughing. I guess my eye looked HUGE or something.

  Then my baby sister Cammy started laughing too—so hard that she blew herself up (which is why we call her the Exploding Baby). That brought Mom running out of the kitchen, where she’d been trying to write her bestseller. UH-OH.

  “How is an author supposed to get any work done around here?” she hollered.

  I decided that was a good time to practice my sneaking-off skills, but I’m not nearly as good at that as Dad is. (He’d already disappeared.) If I was going to go undercover at school, I REALLY had to learn how to “pull a Dad.”

  I found him hiding in the garage, which was the perfect place to hang out for a while. And he agreed to teach me everything he knows about creeping. We started with what he calls the art of DISTRACTION.

  “Hey, Gerald,” he said. “Have you seen my pickaxe lately?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s hanging right over there.” I showed him, but when I turned back around, Dad was gone.

  “Gotcha!” he hollered, jumping out from behind the furnace. It was a TOTAL Dad move, but it was still kind of impressive.

  He did it again a few minutes later. “Could you get me some gunpowder out of that barrel?”

  Yup, I fell for it again.

  And again.

  And AGAIN. How embarrassing!!!

  But then it occurred to me that maybe someone ELSE had been pulling this distraction trick on me—SAM. That slime had learned how to creep off with the best of them. But where was he going?

  I’ve been thinking about it all night. I mean, I’m supposed to be writing my article about the dance. It’s due Tuesday morning (YIKES!). But how can I write about streamers, jukeboxes, and disco balls when I’m worried about my best friend?

  I’ve got what Mom would call a serious ca
se of writer’s block.

  And it’s shaped like a sneaky green slime.

  DAY 4: TUESDAY

  Where’s Sherlock Bones when you need him?!

  Let’s just say that my first night as an undercover detective at Mob Middle School didn’t go according to plan.

  Everything started out okay. Right away in first period, Sam said he liked my cap. He didn’t even question why I was wearing a cap and trench coat to science class. See, that’s the way Sam is—he’s not really an “ask a lot of questions” kind of guy. But I sure had some questions for him.

  Except every time I tried to pin him down about where he went after school last Wednesday and Friday, he dodged my attacks. He pretended to be all interested in the fossils at the back of the room. He even asked if he could borrow my magnifying glass to examine them.

  I tried to sound like an official detective. “Sam,” I said, “based on the evidence, I’m DEDUCING that you have a secret.”

  He gave me his blank face and asked what “deducing” meant.

  So I tried again. I said, “Sam, the facts just aren’t adding up.”

  He thought I was talking about math homework. SHEESH.

  I tried again at lunchtime, but Sam invited Willow Witch to sit with us. I thought that was a pretty good opportunity to get my newspaper article written, since Willow is on the Dance Committee and all. But I still hadn’t found my angle yet. I mean, what do mobs REALLY want to know about the dance?