Little Monsters
Autor Máire Rocheen Limba Engleză Hardback – 24 sep 2026 – vârsta până la 12 ani
In this modern supernatural middle grade retelling of the beloved classic Little Women, the March sisters have a monstrous secret Meg will do anything to protect—especially with another beast lurking in the woods threatening to expose them.
Meg March and her three sisters are monsters. No, really. Meg has teeth that are a little too sharp. Jo gets furry under the full moon. Beth goes night flying on wings that are impossible to hide under her sweaters. And Amy? Well, don’t let her near a body of water or she’ll start sprouting her mermaid’s tail.
Meg is sure their foster mom, Marmee, wouldn’t like any of this if she knew. And Jo’s best friend Laurie, the nice boy next door, would run screaming. To make matters worse, Meg’s small town outside of Salem is on edge. A vicious beast has been spotted in the forest, and Farmer Bhaer believes it’s responsible for his missing chickens. Meg is sure to be blamed if anyone realizes she’s a monster in disguise. And the closer it gets to Halloween, the surer the town is that something evil is hiding in the forest.
Meg doesn’t always remember what she gets up to at night, and sometimes, she wakes alone in a mossy part of the forest and has to find her way back. With John Brooke determined to find out just what Meg is hiding and locals working to uncover the monsters in their midst, Meg must find the culprit herself—or risk losing the little home she’s found with her sisters.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781665988643
ISBN-10: 1665988649
Pagini: 288
Ilustrații: f-c matte lam jkt on metallic stock w- emboss, spot uv & 2 hits opaque white; 1-c edges
Dimensiuni: 140 x 210 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.43 kg
Editura: Aladdin
Colecția Aladdin
ISBN-10: 1665988649
Pagini: 288
Ilustrații: f-c matte lam jkt on metallic stock w- emboss, spot uv & 2 hits opaque white; 1-c edges
Dimensiuni: 140 x 210 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.43 kg
Editura: Aladdin
Colecția Aladdin
Notă biografică
Máire Roche is a former elementary and pre-k teacher who now writes stories full of magic, mystery, and wonder. When she isn’t teaching or imagining fictional worlds, Máire enjoys running, teaching martial arts, and baking too many cookies. She lives in the Midwest with her spouse and their very disagreeable cat, Lulu.
Extras
Chapter 1 1.
“Halloween won’t be Halloween without any costumes,” Jo grumbled, kicking off her tattered boots as she entered Meg’s bedroom, then flopped on the floor next to Meg’s bed.
Meg sighed and looked down at her little sister and then at her own sweatshirt. The seams were unraveling near the wrists on both sleeves, because Meg always picked at them when she was nervous. And in her life? That tended to happen a lot.
“It’s not fair.” Amy, the youngest of the March sisters, walked in behind Jo, trailing her feet dramatically. “All the other kids are dressing up as something new and cool.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” Meg said impatiently. “But it’s not like we have anybody who can buy us a costume. Besides, I wasn’t going this year anyway. I’m a little too old.”
She was about to turn fourteen, and though some of her friends were definitely still going, Meg was different. For one thing, she lived in foster care with her younger sisters, so she had more grown-up worries overall. For another, she was… well, maybe a monster.
“We’ve got each other.” Beth poked her head into Meg’s room.
And now they were all in Meg’s room, because of course they were.
Meg stopped the eye roll. She didn’t want to hurt her little sister’s feelings, but it was just… such a small space. And they all always needed something from Meg. Other kids her age didn’t have a house full of little sisters who needed them. They got to play with their sisters, or argue with them, or borrow their sweaters, or—Meg wasn’t really sure what else. She bit down all those feelings and said:
“I was going to buy some costumes.” Meg pushed back her desk chair and stood. “But can we maybe talk about this somewhere that isn’t my room?”
“Since when did you get so grumpy?” Jo asked. Her tone was grumpier than Meg had ever heard. “We were just talking. Geez.”
That familiar ache pressed at Meg’s ribs. She caught her breath. Big breath in, big breath out. No need to yell at her little sisters. They needed her, and it was her job to be the big sister and take care of everybody. Right?
“Okay,” she said. “Is Marmee home?”
Marmee, their foster mom, worked two jobs: one was part-time at a gas station, and one was long shifts at a local forest preserve just outside Salem. And though Marmee always made sure the girls had meals and were on the bus before she left, Meg knew well enough that if Marmee was gone, Meg was the one everyone would come to with a question or a problem.
“Marmee is making dinner,” Beth told her as she sat down near the door. At eleven, Beth was still small for her age, though she looked even smaller in Meg’s old sweater. Beth had hooked her thumbs through the holes that Meg had worn into the sleeves near the wrists and was rocking her body slightly as she always did when she was sitting. Each of the girls had a different type of monstrous magic, and Beth’s involved… well, bat wings. So she wore a lot of oversized sweaters. “Buttered noodles for me. Mac and cheese for all of you.”
“We could just ask Marmee for Halloween costumes,” Amy said eagerly. Amy was a year younger than Beth, but just as tall. As long as Amy didn’t go near salt water, her body looked like any normal ten-year-old girl’s, so she was more confident and way, way less worried than Meg.
“No,” Meg said quickly, shooing the girls gently toward the door. “We don’t want to bother Marmee.”
They’d had more sets of foster parents than Meg even remembered, ever since Meg had been about four years old, and every single time the girls became too much work, they sent them away again. Worse, some even talked about splitting the girls up. Four girls were just a lot to take care of, after all.
Meg had always known, for as long as she could remember, that it was her job to make it all easier for grown-ups, or the grown-ups could make things really hard for Meg and her siblings.
“I don’t think Marmee would care,” Amy huffed. “She already said—”
“I’ll take care of the costumes,” Meg assured them again, twisting her long brown hair around one finger. Her hair was the darkest of all her sisters, though all of them had the same fair skin and freckles. “I have the money.”
That part wasn’t quite true, but it felt like truth had to be a little stretchy to keep everybody happy and okay and together.
Jo didn’t look convinced. “If you’re sure,” she said.
“Say, Meg, do you think it’s even safe to go trick-or-treating this year?” Beth asked. Her eyes darted nervously toward the window, as if she had seen something outside that worried her.
“What do you mean?” Meg asked. She was already on her phone, calculating how much money she’d need to make to get everybody the right Halloween costume. “Of course it’s safe.”
“There was something in the woods again last night,” Beth said timidly. “I heard it, growling and crunching around and—”
Amy grabbed Beth’s hand. “Come on, Beth,” she said. “They’re not listening to us anyway.”
Meg waved at them with one hand as she finished doing the math on her phone.
When their two younger sisters had gone, Jo settled her hands on her hips. Jo was twelve, a year younger than Meg, and sometimes—when Meg failed at keeping everybody happy together—Jo had to step in and do Meg’s job.
Maybe that was why Jo often looked at Meg with that spark of anger in her eyes.
Meg sighed. “Do you want to be Edgar Allan Poe again?”
Jo had gone as the old poet the last three Halloweens, and once she had even convinced her whole class to call her Poe instead of Jo all school year.
“Yeah,” Jo said. “But that’s not why I stayed.”
Meg sighed again.
“You don’t have the money.” Jo leaned against the door frame. “I know you don’t.”
Meg worried her lip with her teeth, and then stopped, quickly. She had normal teeth on most days. But sometimes, when she was upset, her other teeth would descend. She couldn’t explain it, but it had started happening a few years ago—around the same time her sisters all showed their monstrous magical abilities—and she definitely couldn’t control it.
When the teeth slid down, she looked like a real monster. So she kept her mouth closed tight, even if the teeth hurt her upper lip a little, and smiled as little as she could. It wasn’t safe to bite her lip either, in case her sharp incisors descended unexpectedly.
“I will have the money,” she told Jo. “I already got a job next door helping take care of Laurie’s chickens.” It was a good thing, too, because Meg had totaled everything up four times on her calculator app, just to be sure, and the cost wasn’t looking good.
Jo’s brow scrunched on her forehead. “You’re only thirteen,” she said. “That’s too young to have a job.”
It definitely wasn’t. Meg would know, because she’d been working odd jobs since she was nine. Who else was going to make sure Amy got the new colored pencils she wanted? Who else was going to get Jo a pair of winter mittens when her thumbs started poking out? Who else was going to make sure Beth had her recorder for band?
Meg shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “You and Laurie can play together, and I’ll clean out the chickens’ pen and feed them and bring in the eggs. I already talked to Mr. Laurence.”
“Fine,” Jo said irritably. “But you could always let me help. Also, don’t stay out too late by yourself. Beth wasn’t the only one who heard something. Someone at school even said—”
Meg cut her off. “I’m fine.”
Meg ignored the pinch of guilt when Jo’s shoulders drooped a little. Then she shrugged on her oversized orange jacket, something horrible and hand-knit that she had gotten at their last foster home, a house across the city with a bunch of other kids and no privacy. But there was no sense in saving up for a new coat when this one worked perfectly fine. Even if it was hideous.
Meg dodged out the back door through the mudroom when she heard Marmee in the kitchen. When Meg stepped outside, the air was much cooler than she had anticipated, even for Salem in October. Meg shivered and tucked her thumbs back into the sleeve of her worn jacket.
Damp red and orange leaves were scattered across the ground—maybe Marmee would want Meg to rake them up later? Sometimes foster parents thought Meg was ungrateful or rude if she didn’t volunteer to do chores. Recent rain was dripping slowly off the trees that lined the sidewalk between Meg’s house and Laurie’s.
Laurie, Jo’s best friend, lived in the big house next door. He was in the same grade at school, but his family was rich. Well, his grampa was. The rest of his family was gone, though Laurie never talked much about that.
Old New England money, Meg had heard one of the teachers say. Laurie’s house was bigger than Marmee’s—hers was very old, two stories but with lots of small bedrooms that the girls always seemed to be spilling out of. Mr. Laurence’s house was grand and stately and made Meg think of the kind of house a governor or a famous musician would live in.
The house had a large gold lion on the front of the old oak door. There was a suspicious scratch down the front of the door. It looked like it was from a sharp tooth or a sharper claw.
Meg shivered, thinking about Jo’s warning, and shut her mouth tight. So far, her body was behaving. No short, raggedy breath. No sharp teeth sliding down where everyone could see. No long nails sprouting at the ends of her fingertips.
She could do this.
Meg lifted the handle and knocked, and before she could swing the heavy lion knocker a second time, the door was yanked open.
Just inside was a boy with curly hair, dark eyes, and soft brown skin. He was wearing worn sneakers, new blue jeans that looked uncomfortable, and a gold chain around his neck. It wasn’t Laurie, who was still knobby-kneed and clumsy like Jo.
And not Mr. Laurence, who was a friendly old man, if a little gruff.
Meg clamped her mouth shut as her extra-sharp teeth slid down into her mouth. “Hi, is Laurie here?” Meg said. It came out like hi-umph-laur-umph-he because Meg didn’t really open her mouth to say any of it.
The boy leaned forward a bit, tilting his head to one side. “I’m sorry?” he said. “I couldn’t quite hear you. Sorry, were those your teeth?”
Fear rushed over Meg’s body like a cold wave. She forced herself to take the deepest breath she could, and the teeth receded a little as she did.
Had he… had he seen how monstrous she was?
“Do you not have teeth?” Meg asked, very rudely.
“Who is it? Is it the kids with the Girl Scout cookie knockoffs? Tell them I want six boxes of everything.” Laurie poked his tousled head out behind the new boy, and then grinned when he saw Meg. “Hey, Meg. You met Brooks? He’s my cousin. He’s staying with us now.”
He’s staying with us now.
The way he said it made it sound permanent, like this Brooks, who had maybe potentially possibly seen Meg’s strange teeth, was not just visiting.
Meg and Brooks stared at each other for a long, long minute. Laurie, of course, was oblivious.
Finally, Brooks’s expression hardened a little bit, and he took a step back, shoving one hand into his pocket and closing the other tightly around his phone. “Hi,” he said. “Who’s this, Laurie?”
Laurie motioned Meg in with a wave of his hand. He was wearing basketball shorts—because he always wore shorts, no matter the season—and an Under Armour sweatshirt that was too big for him. He was, as always, barefoot, and he was moving across the dining room as if he didn’t know how to stay still.
“That’s Meg,” he said over his shoulder, as if that should mean something to this new boy. “Are you here for dinner? GRAMPA! Meg March is here for dinner! Should I make more chicken nuggets?”
“I’m not—” Meg said, and then snapped her mouth shut.
Sharp teeth still visible, even if they had gone back a little bit. Can’t talk, can’t smile.
Can’t—
Breathe.
“You okay?” Brooks asked.
Meg brushed inside past him, clenching her teeth shut. Her sharp teeth dragged over her bottom teeth, making an awful scraping noise. Mouth shut, she told herself firmly. “M’good,” she managed. “Laurie? I’m not staying for dinner.”
Laurie was already at the back door. “GRAMPA!” he was still yelling.
Meg breathed in through her nose. “I’m here for the chickens,” she said. “Laurie? Come back, please.”
When she had come over the night before, it had been only Mr. Laurence, and he had very kindly said that of course he would love her help with the chickens, and would she mind coming over every day? Laurie hardly ever remembered to do that particular chore, even though he loved Hilda and Mercury and Freddie and William Eyelash with all his heart.
Having Laurie—and this suspicious new boy—find out about her job was embarrassing.
Laurie trotted back in, one arm of his sweatshirt shoved up over his elbow and the other dangling to his fingertips. “What about the chickens?” he asked curiously.
“I’m here to work.” Meg squared her shoulders. Her fingers were aching, a sure sign that long twisty fingernails would sprout any moment, no matter how much she wished they would stay normal in front of the new boy.
“Oh.” Laurie’s face looked as red as Meg’s face felt. “Is this because I forget where I leave the eggs and sometimes they wind up next to the dinner plates?”
“I still have questions about…” Brooks’s voice trailed off. “Never mind.”
Meg gave him what Jo called the Meg Mean Mug, a look where she raised her eyebrows as high as they could go and glared.
Her secrets were dangerous, and a little bit furry, and very sharp around the edges. It would be better if nobody knew about them.
Mr. Laurence entered the room, leaning heavily on his cane. “Meg! How delightful that you’ve come by,” he said in the friendly voice he reserved just for Meg and her sisters, but especially Beth. Laurie usually got the grumpier version of Mr. Laurence.
“Thank you very much,” Meg said politely, and walked as fast as she could past Laurie and his grampa and that dumb new boy who smelled like the elm tree Meg liked to sit under in the middle of the forest.
She could do this. She had a job, and she could save Halloween.
And whatever happened, she was not going to let that nosy, annoying new boy get one more look at her dark, dangerous secrets.
“Halloween won’t be Halloween without any costumes,” Jo grumbled, kicking off her tattered boots as she entered Meg’s bedroom, then flopped on the floor next to Meg’s bed.
Meg sighed and looked down at her little sister and then at her own sweatshirt. The seams were unraveling near the wrists on both sleeves, because Meg always picked at them when she was nervous. And in her life? That tended to happen a lot.
“It’s not fair.” Amy, the youngest of the March sisters, walked in behind Jo, trailing her feet dramatically. “All the other kids are dressing up as something new and cool.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” Meg said impatiently. “But it’s not like we have anybody who can buy us a costume. Besides, I wasn’t going this year anyway. I’m a little too old.”
She was about to turn fourteen, and though some of her friends were definitely still going, Meg was different. For one thing, she lived in foster care with her younger sisters, so she had more grown-up worries overall. For another, she was… well, maybe a monster.
“We’ve got each other.” Beth poked her head into Meg’s room.
And now they were all in Meg’s room, because of course they were.
Meg stopped the eye roll. She didn’t want to hurt her little sister’s feelings, but it was just… such a small space. And they all always needed something from Meg. Other kids her age didn’t have a house full of little sisters who needed them. They got to play with their sisters, or argue with them, or borrow their sweaters, or—Meg wasn’t really sure what else. She bit down all those feelings and said:
“I was going to buy some costumes.” Meg pushed back her desk chair and stood. “But can we maybe talk about this somewhere that isn’t my room?”
“Since when did you get so grumpy?” Jo asked. Her tone was grumpier than Meg had ever heard. “We were just talking. Geez.”
That familiar ache pressed at Meg’s ribs. She caught her breath. Big breath in, big breath out. No need to yell at her little sisters. They needed her, and it was her job to be the big sister and take care of everybody. Right?
“Okay,” she said. “Is Marmee home?”
Marmee, their foster mom, worked two jobs: one was part-time at a gas station, and one was long shifts at a local forest preserve just outside Salem. And though Marmee always made sure the girls had meals and were on the bus before she left, Meg knew well enough that if Marmee was gone, Meg was the one everyone would come to with a question or a problem.
“Marmee is making dinner,” Beth told her as she sat down near the door. At eleven, Beth was still small for her age, though she looked even smaller in Meg’s old sweater. Beth had hooked her thumbs through the holes that Meg had worn into the sleeves near the wrists and was rocking her body slightly as she always did when she was sitting. Each of the girls had a different type of monstrous magic, and Beth’s involved… well, bat wings. So she wore a lot of oversized sweaters. “Buttered noodles for me. Mac and cheese for all of you.”
“We could just ask Marmee for Halloween costumes,” Amy said eagerly. Amy was a year younger than Beth, but just as tall. As long as Amy didn’t go near salt water, her body looked like any normal ten-year-old girl’s, so she was more confident and way, way less worried than Meg.
“No,” Meg said quickly, shooing the girls gently toward the door. “We don’t want to bother Marmee.”
They’d had more sets of foster parents than Meg even remembered, ever since Meg had been about four years old, and every single time the girls became too much work, they sent them away again. Worse, some even talked about splitting the girls up. Four girls were just a lot to take care of, after all.
Meg had always known, for as long as she could remember, that it was her job to make it all easier for grown-ups, or the grown-ups could make things really hard for Meg and her siblings.
“I don’t think Marmee would care,” Amy huffed. “She already said—”
“I’ll take care of the costumes,” Meg assured them again, twisting her long brown hair around one finger. Her hair was the darkest of all her sisters, though all of them had the same fair skin and freckles. “I have the money.”
That part wasn’t quite true, but it felt like truth had to be a little stretchy to keep everybody happy and okay and together.
Jo didn’t look convinced. “If you’re sure,” she said.
“Say, Meg, do you think it’s even safe to go trick-or-treating this year?” Beth asked. Her eyes darted nervously toward the window, as if she had seen something outside that worried her.
“What do you mean?” Meg asked. She was already on her phone, calculating how much money she’d need to make to get everybody the right Halloween costume. “Of course it’s safe.”
“There was something in the woods again last night,” Beth said timidly. “I heard it, growling and crunching around and—”
Amy grabbed Beth’s hand. “Come on, Beth,” she said. “They’re not listening to us anyway.”
Meg waved at them with one hand as she finished doing the math on her phone.
When their two younger sisters had gone, Jo settled her hands on her hips. Jo was twelve, a year younger than Meg, and sometimes—when Meg failed at keeping everybody happy together—Jo had to step in and do Meg’s job.
Maybe that was why Jo often looked at Meg with that spark of anger in her eyes.
Meg sighed. “Do you want to be Edgar Allan Poe again?”
Jo had gone as the old poet the last three Halloweens, and once she had even convinced her whole class to call her Poe instead of Jo all school year.
“Yeah,” Jo said. “But that’s not why I stayed.”
Meg sighed again.
“You don’t have the money.” Jo leaned against the door frame. “I know you don’t.”
Meg worried her lip with her teeth, and then stopped, quickly. She had normal teeth on most days. But sometimes, when she was upset, her other teeth would descend. She couldn’t explain it, but it had started happening a few years ago—around the same time her sisters all showed their monstrous magical abilities—and she definitely couldn’t control it.
When the teeth slid down, she looked like a real monster. So she kept her mouth closed tight, even if the teeth hurt her upper lip a little, and smiled as little as she could. It wasn’t safe to bite her lip either, in case her sharp incisors descended unexpectedly.
“I will have the money,” she told Jo. “I already got a job next door helping take care of Laurie’s chickens.” It was a good thing, too, because Meg had totaled everything up four times on her calculator app, just to be sure, and the cost wasn’t looking good.
Jo’s brow scrunched on her forehead. “You’re only thirteen,” she said. “That’s too young to have a job.”
It definitely wasn’t. Meg would know, because she’d been working odd jobs since she was nine. Who else was going to make sure Amy got the new colored pencils she wanted? Who else was going to get Jo a pair of winter mittens when her thumbs started poking out? Who else was going to make sure Beth had her recorder for band?
Meg shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “You and Laurie can play together, and I’ll clean out the chickens’ pen and feed them and bring in the eggs. I already talked to Mr. Laurence.”
“Fine,” Jo said irritably. “But you could always let me help. Also, don’t stay out too late by yourself. Beth wasn’t the only one who heard something. Someone at school even said—”
Meg cut her off. “I’m fine.”
Meg ignored the pinch of guilt when Jo’s shoulders drooped a little. Then she shrugged on her oversized orange jacket, something horrible and hand-knit that she had gotten at their last foster home, a house across the city with a bunch of other kids and no privacy. But there was no sense in saving up for a new coat when this one worked perfectly fine. Even if it was hideous.
Meg dodged out the back door through the mudroom when she heard Marmee in the kitchen. When Meg stepped outside, the air was much cooler than she had anticipated, even for Salem in October. Meg shivered and tucked her thumbs back into the sleeve of her worn jacket.
Damp red and orange leaves were scattered across the ground—maybe Marmee would want Meg to rake them up later? Sometimes foster parents thought Meg was ungrateful or rude if she didn’t volunteer to do chores. Recent rain was dripping slowly off the trees that lined the sidewalk between Meg’s house and Laurie’s.
Laurie, Jo’s best friend, lived in the big house next door. He was in the same grade at school, but his family was rich. Well, his grampa was. The rest of his family was gone, though Laurie never talked much about that.
Old New England money, Meg had heard one of the teachers say. Laurie’s house was bigger than Marmee’s—hers was very old, two stories but with lots of small bedrooms that the girls always seemed to be spilling out of. Mr. Laurence’s house was grand and stately and made Meg think of the kind of house a governor or a famous musician would live in.
The house had a large gold lion on the front of the old oak door. There was a suspicious scratch down the front of the door. It looked like it was from a sharp tooth or a sharper claw.
Meg shivered, thinking about Jo’s warning, and shut her mouth tight. So far, her body was behaving. No short, raggedy breath. No sharp teeth sliding down where everyone could see. No long nails sprouting at the ends of her fingertips.
She could do this.
Meg lifted the handle and knocked, and before she could swing the heavy lion knocker a second time, the door was yanked open.
Just inside was a boy with curly hair, dark eyes, and soft brown skin. He was wearing worn sneakers, new blue jeans that looked uncomfortable, and a gold chain around his neck. It wasn’t Laurie, who was still knobby-kneed and clumsy like Jo.
And not Mr. Laurence, who was a friendly old man, if a little gruff.
Meg clamped her mouth shut as her extra-sharp teeth slid down into her mouth. “Hi, is Laurie here?” Meg said. It came out like hi-umph-laur-umph-he because Meg didn’t really open her mouth to say any of it.
The boy leaned forward a bit, tilting his head to one side. “I’m sorry?” he said. “I couldn’t quite hear you. Sorry, were those your teeth?”
Fear rushed over Meg’s body like a cold wave. She forced herself to take the deepest breath she could, and the teeth receded a little as she did.
Had he… had he seen how monstrous she was?
“Do you not have teeth?” Meg asked, very rudely.
“Who is it? Is it the kids with the Girl Scout cookie knockoffs? Tell them I want six boxes of everything.” Laurie poked his tousled head out behind the new boy, and then grinned when he saw Meg. “Hey, Meg. You met Brooks? He’s my cousin. He’s staying with us now.”
He’s staying with us now.
The way he said it made it sound permanent, like this Brooks, who had maybe potentially possibly seen Meg’s strange teeth, was not just visiting.
Meg and Brooks stared at each other for a long, long minute. Laurie, of course, was oblivious.
Finally, Brooks’s expression hardened a little bit, and he took a step back, shoving one hand into his pocket and closing the other tightly around his phone. “Hi,” he said. “Who’s this, Laurie?”
Laurie motioned Meg in with a wave of his hand. He was wearing basketball shorts—because he always wore shorts, no matter the season—and an Under Armour sweatshirt that was too big for him. He was, as always, barefoot, and he was moving across the dining room as if he didn’t know how to stay still.
“That’s Meg,” he said over his shoulder, as if that should mean something to this new boy. “Are you here for dinner? GRAMPA! Meg March is here for dinner! Should I make more chicken nuggets?”
“I’m not—” Meg said, and then snapped her mouth shut.
Sharp teeth still visible, even if they had gone back a little bit. Can’t talk, can’t smile.
Can’t—
Breathe.
“You okay?” Brooks asked.
Meg brushed inside past him, clenching her teeth shut. Her sharp teeth dragged over her bottom teeth, making an awful scraping noise. Mouth shut, she told herself firmly. “M’good,” she managed. “Laurie? I’m not staying for dinner.”
Laurie was already at the back door. “GRAMPA!” he was still yelling.
Meg breathed in through her nose. “I’m here for the chickens,” she said. “Laurie? Come back, please.”
When she had come over the night before, it had been only Mr. Laurence, and he had very kindly said that of course he would love her help with the chickens, and would she mind coming over every day? Laurie hardly ever remembered to do that particular chore, even though he loved Hilda and Mercury and Freddie and William Eyelash with all his heart.
Having Laurie—and this suspicious new boy—find out about her job was embarrassing.
Laurie trotted back in, one arm of his sweatshirt shoved up over his elbow and the other dangling to his fingertips. “What about the chickens?” he asked curiously.
“I’m here to work.” Meg squared her shoulders. Her fingers were aching, a sure sign that long twisty fingernails would sprout any moment, no matter how much she wished they would stay normal in front of the new boy.
“Oh.” Laurie’s face looked as red as Meg’s face felt. “Is this because I forget where I leave the eggs and sometimes they wind up next to the dinner plates?”
“I still have questions about…” Brooks’s voice trailed off. “Never mind.”
Meg gave him what Jo called the Meg Mean Mug, a look where she raised her eyebrows as high as they could go and glared.
Her secrets were dangerous, and a little bit furry, and very sharp around the edges. It would be better if nobody knew about them.
Mr. Laurence entered the room, leaning heavily on his cane. “Meg! How delightful that you’ve come by,” he said in the friendly voice he reserved just for Meg and her sisters, but especially Beth. Laurie usually got the grumpier version of Mr. Laurence.
“Thank you very much,” Meg said politely, and walked as fast as she could past Laurie and his grampa and that dumb new boy who smelled like the elm tree Meg liked to sit under in the middle of the forest.
She could do this. She had a job, and she could save Halloween.
And whatever happened, she was not going to let that nosy, annoying new boy get one more look at her dark, dangerous secrets.
Recenzii
"A great spin on Alcott's work with a slightly eerie vibe that's perfect for Halloween."
"A powerful ending, which acknowledges that everyone’s a bit strange at the edges and allows a girl who has held too much for too long to become soft in her wildness, will have readers hoping that Roche pulls an Alcott and writes sequels."
"This innovative offering quickly establishes its own distinctive identity, blending monster mythology with coming-of-age themes to deliver an affectionate spin on Alcott’s classic."
"an engaging story that will captivate the imaginations of youth interested in mystery and horror without having too much scare factor."
"A powerful ending, which acknowledges that everyone’s a bit strange at the edges and allows a girl who has held too much for too long to become soft in her wildness, will have readers hoping that Roche pulls an Alcott and writes sequels."
"This innovative offering quickly establishes its own distinctive identity, blending monster mythology with coming-of-age themes to deliver an affectionate spin on Alcott’s classic."
"an engaging story that will captivate the imaginations of youth interested in mystery and horror without having too much scare factor."
Descriere
Little Women with monsters! This middle grade modern retelling of the beloved classic Little Women reimagines the March sisters as foster kids harboring a big secret... they are actually monsters!