LOONIVERSE
STRANGER THINGS
BY DAVID LUBAR
ILLUSTRATED BY
MATT LOVERIDGE
BRANCHES
SCHOLASTIC INC.
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table of contents
1: A SILVER SURPRISE
. . . . . . . 1
2: A NUMBER OF WORDS
. . . . . . . 9
3: MEAL ON WHEELS
. . . . . . . 17
4: DANGEROUS STORIES
. . . . . . . 23
5: MICE TO MEET YOU
. . . . 29
6: SHAKING UP IS HARD TO DO
. . . . . 37
7: CURIOUS ANSWERS
. . . . . . . 47
8: NEED A LIFT?
. . . . . . . . 55
9: DIG DOG
. . . . . . . . 65
10: STRANGE TRUTHS
. . . . 73
11: NORMALLY STRANGE?
. . . . . . . 81
For Joelle and alison—dl
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lubar, David.
Stranger things / by David Lubar ; illustrated by Matt Loveridge. p. cm. — (Looniverse ; #1)
Summary: When ordinary third-grader Ed finds a coin with the words “strange” and “stranger” on both
sides, weird things start happening around him—but when his friends start blaming him for all the
weirdness Ed wonders if this coin is not too strange for comfort.
ISBN 978-0-545-49602-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-545-49601-8 (reinforced hardcover library binding : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-545-49685-8 (ebook)
1. Coins—Juvenile fiction. 2. Magic—Juvenile fiction. 3. Friendship—Juvenile fiction. [1. Coins—Fiction.
2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Loveridge, Matt, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.L96775St 2013
813.54--dc23
2012024838
e-ISBN 978-0-545-49685-8
Text copyright © 2013 by David Lubar. Interior illustrations copyright © 2013 by Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
SCHOLASTIC, BRANCHES, and associated logos are trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First Scholastic printing, May 2013
Illustrated by Matt Loveridge
Book design by Liz Herzog
I was walking home from school on a Friday
afternoon when I stumbled across the coin.
And I do mean stumbled. Right after I crossed
Ridge Street, I tripped on the curb and fell.
Luckily, I landed on a soft strip of grass. A
silvery circle flashed and glittered beneath
my nose.
chapter
1
A SILVER
SURPRISE
I stared down at a large coin. As soon as
I touched it, the strangest thing happened.
The moon rose like a hard-smacked, high fly
ball. It set just as quickly, dropping out of a
bright blue sky.
“No way,” I said.
Maybe I’d fallen harder than I thought.
The coin felt icy cold, even though the air
was warm. The same two words were on each
side of it:
STRANGE, STRANGER.
Ed
That sure wasn’t
the sort of coin
anyone would ever
give to me. I’m as
far from strange as
possible. Everyone
else has talents, hobbies,
or adventures worth talking about. Not me.
I’m just plain old normal Ed, a third grader
School.
I started to get up,
but then froze. A man
was shuffling along the
sidewalk in the oddest
way. After every couple
steps, he dropped to
his knees, moving his
head like a hunting dog
and running his hands
through the grass.
Step, drop, search, stand.
Step, drop, search, stand.
It was almost like a dance.
When the man got closer, I recognized
him. It was Mr. Sage, the owner of the New
Curiosity Shop. My mom goes there when
she needs a present for someone who has
everything. I thought “curiosity” meant you
wanted to know something. But Mom said
that a curiosity can also be an interesting
object. That shop sure has plenty of those!
When Mr. Sage reached me, he dropped
to his knees and ran one hand through
the grass right next to my face. His sleeve
smelled like old books.
I wrapped my fingers around the coin.
“Did you lose something?” I asked.
“No. I’m trying to find something,” he
said. He didn’t seem surprised that I was
lying there.
Derwin
“What are you trying to find?” I asked,
hoping it wasn’t a coin.
He laughed. “I won’t know until I find it.”
“Good luck.” I realized I’d been squeezing
the coin real hard.
“Thank you.” He stood and walked past
me, then continued his weird step-drop-
search-stand routine. Maybe being normal
isn’t so bad, I thought as I got up.
I headed down
the block to meet
my little brother,
Derwin. He goes
to kindergarten
at Albert Camus
Primary School.
He was just
coming out the
door when I got
there.
When Derwin spotted me, he jumped like
he’d been startled. “Amazing! What a great
idea!” he shouted. Then he raced right past
me like he was riding a rocket.
I stuck the coin in my pocket and headed
home. What was Derwin so excited about? I
wondered.
I found Derwin in the living room, working
hard at something. I could tell that he was
working hard, because his mouth was open
and his tongue was hanging out. It made his
face look sort of like an untied shoe.
“What are you writing?” I asked him.
chapter
2
A NUMBER
OF WORDS
“Words,” he said, not looking up. He barely
seemed to notice I was there.
I glan
ced at the papers spread out around
him. They were filled with rows of words.
“That’s a lot of words,” I said.
“It has to be,” Derwin said. He stopped to
sharpen his pencil.
I read one of the pages:
I waited for Derwin to explain what he
was doing, but he just kept writing. I went
to the kitchen table and did my homework.
After that, I fed my pets.
By then, it was almost
dinnertime. When I came
back into the living room,
Derwin was still working.
“Nine hundred ninety-
eight,” he said as he wrote.
“Nine hundred ninety-nine. One thousand!”
He gathered up all of the papers and dashed
out the door.
Okay, this was getting stranger. I couldn’t
resist following him any more than I could
resist a chocolate fudge brownie.
Derwin raced down the street and around
the corner. He ran up to a small yellow house
and knocked on the door. I stayed nearby,
waiting to see what would happen next.
Derwin handed him the papers. The man
studied each sheet. Then he held up his
index finger and said, “Very good. Wait here.”
The man went inside. A moment later, he
returned and gave something to Derwin.
“Thank you,” Derwin said. He stepped off
the porch and headed toward me.
The curiosity was killing me. “What is it?”
I asked when Derwin reached the sidewalk.
“A picture,” he said. He held up a fabulous
painting of a dragon.
“It’s wonderful. But why’d he give it to
you?” I asked.
“I gave him a thousand words,” Derwin
said. “Last week, you told me
‘A PICTURE IS
WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS’
when you were
explaining the difference between African
and Asian elephants. Remember?”
I remembered telling him that when I’d
found the photos online. Until now though,
I’d assumed it was just a saying. It looked
like Derwin had made it become real.
I’d love to get my own amazing picture.
I thought about bringing a thousand words
to the man in the yellow house. But I knew
it would be a waste of time. I wouldn’t get a
picture. Or if I did, it would be a picture of a
mud puddle, a broken egg, or something else
I didn’t want.
That’s just how things seem to work for
me. Sure, I’d found a coin, but it wasn’t all
that special.
Derwin walked off, humming.
I watched him go. He’d always been
strange, but he’d never done anything this
strange. Then, at dinner, things got a whole
lot stranger. . ..
My older sister, Sarah Beth, loves art. She’s
always drawing, painting, and sculpting. She
even makes things out of food. Last week, at
dinner, she built a model of the Eiffel Tower
using carrot sticks. Our parents don’t stop
her, because they like to encourage creativity.
chapter
3
MEAL ON
WHEELS
Sarah
Beth
Sarah Beth creates her
biggest projects on the
holidays, when there’s
lots of food on the table.
Tonight wasn’t a holiday,
but we had tons of food.
We were having what my
parents call “Practice-Giving” dinner. They
get so worried that everything won’t be
perfect on Thanksgiving, when all the
relatives come here, that they make practice
dinners in September and October. That’s
strange, but fine with me. I love turkey and
gravy. Besides, parents are supposed to be
strange.
Even though there was room at the big
table, Sarah Beth, Derwin, my little sister
Libby, and I sat at the kids’ table. That’s part
of the practice. As soon as we took our seats,
Sarah Beth grabbed some slices of cranberry
sauce and leaned them against a stack of
turkey. She tied the whole thing up with
string beans.
Rex
Willow
“What are you making?” I asked as I
helped myself to mashed potatoes and a
drumstick.
“Guess,” she said, giving me a big grin.
“Is it a truck?” I asked.
“Nope—it’s not a truck.” Sarah Beth stuck
an olive on the turkey part, near the front.
Then she balanced another olive on top of it.
I glanced at my parents. They were so
used to Sarah Beth making things that they
didn’t seem to notice what she was doing.
Derwin and Libby
weren’t paying
attention to
her, either.
My dog, Rex,
and my cat,
Willow, paid
attention, hoping
something tasty
would fall to the floor.
“Is it a bus?” I guessed as I drowned my
potatoes in gravy.
“You’re getting warm,” she said. She
grabbed the pitcher from me and poured
gravy into the tower of olives.
I took another guess. “A subway car?”
“You’re warmer,” she said. “Guess again.”
I watched the steam from the gravy rise
out of the olives “A train!” I said, suddenly
realizing that the olives were a smoke stack.
“Yup,” Sarah Beth said. “It’s a chew chew
train,” she joked.
The train rolled off her plate. “Whoa!” I
gasped as it chugged across the table, right
toward me!
I sat there, too amazed to move, as the train
pushed my plate onto my lap.
“Wow —I guess it turned out to be a steam
train,” Sarah Beth said.
“No kidding,” I said as the steaming hot
gravy dripped on my shoes, and my drumstick
rolled off the plate. She’d really meant it
when she’d said I was getting warmer.
chapter
4
DANGEROUS
STORIES
Rex grabbed the drumstick and ran off.
Willow batted a string bean across the floor.
“Ed, stop playing with your food,” Dad
said.
“And clean up that mess,” Mom said.
“Me? But . . .” I pointed at Sarah Beth, but
I realized there was nothing I could say. My
parents hadn’t seen the train chug across
the table.
Maybe I hadn’t, either. Maybe Sarah Beth
had tipped the table. Really, that was the only
explanation that made sense.
There was no way the train could have moved
by itself. Either way, it had made a big mess.
Sarah Beth helped me clean up.
That night, Libby brought me a picture
book. “Read to me,” she said.
Libby has a wild imagination. If I read a
story to her about crocodiles, she’ll spend
the next day telling me there’s a crocodile
Libby
hiding under the
couch. So I have
to keep peeking
under the couch
to prove to her
that everything
is okay.
“Not tonight,” I told her. “I’ve had a
strange day, and a lap full of food.”
“Please,” she said. “I love the way you do
all the voices.”
I looked at the title of the book. The Pied
Piper. That seemed fairly harmless — no
scary creatures. “Okay,” I said.
Libby curled up next
to me, and I read her
the story. It’s about a
musician who lures the
rats out of the town of
Hamelin by playing his
flute.
By the time I was finished, she was fast
asleep. She was lucky. Even if I hadn’t had
this whole day full of strange experiences to
think about, I was too excited to fall asleep.
My best friend, Moose, was having a pool
party tomorrow for his birthday. It was going
to be at the big hotel in town, and it was
going to be awesome.
I hope tomorrow isn’t as strange as today, I
thought as I drifted off.
It turned out to be much stranger.
Saturday morning, Libby marched across
the living room. She was blowing into a soda
straw and making flute sounds. As I put my
hand in my pocket and felt the coin, I thought
about how both Derwin and Sarah Beth had
suddenly gotten a whole lot stranger.
Not you, too, I thought.
chapter
5
MICE TO
MEET YOU
Yes. Her, too. She had five
mice at her heels. At least they
aren’t rats, I thought. As Libby
marched in circles around the living room,
the crowd of rodents grew larger and larger.
I wasn’t afraid of mice, but I