I grabbed Daniel by the front of his shirt. "What is it? What?" I demanded. "I have to know!"

"Whoa. Take it easy. Cool your jets." Daniel pushed my hands off his shirt. "I'll show you," he promised. "I have a picture in here."

"In where?" I asked.

Daniel gazed around the hall. No one in sight.

He pulled a book out from under his shirt and handed it to me. A big black volume.

I glanced quickly at the title: Encyclopedia of the Weird. "Is your picture in there?" I teased.

"Ha-ha. Very funny," he replied. He grabbed the book away from me. "Do you want to see your sponge?"

"Definitely!"

Daniel flipped the pages quickly, muttering to himself, "Grebles, Griffins, Grocks. Here it is!"

He shoved the book under my nose. It smelled funny—sort of musty. I guessed it had been sitting on the library shelf a long, long time.

Daniel pointed to a drawing on page 89. I lowered my eyes to the page. Wrinkly skin. Tiny black eyes. "It does look like the sponge," I gasped. I began reading the story underneath the drawing.

"This is a Grool."

A Grool? I thought. What in the world is that? I returned to the book: "The Grool is an ancient and mythical creature."

"Mythical?" I cried. "That means it's not real—that it's made up! But it is real!" "Keep reading," Daniel urged.

"The Grool does not eat food or drink water. Instead, it gets its strength from luck. Bad luck."

"Daniel," I stammered. "This is weird. Really weird." He nodded, his eyes wide. "The Grool has always been known as a bad-luck charm. It feeds on the bad luck

of other people. The Grool becomes stronger each time something bad happens around it."

"This book is crazy," I muttered. I eagerly read some more:

"Bad luck for the Grool owner never ends. The Grool cannot be killed—by force or by any violent means. And it cannot—ever—be given away or tossed aside."

Why not? I wondered.

The next linesgave me the answer:

"A Grool is only passed on to a new owner when an owner dies. Anyone who gives the Grool away will DIE within one day."

"That is so stupid!" I exclaimed. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."

Turning to Daniel, I said in a low voice, "There is no such thing as a creature that lives on bad luck."

"How do you know, genius?" Daniel demanded.

"Everything needs food and water," I replied. "Everything that's alive, anyway." "I don't know," Daniel said. "I think the book could be right."

The drawing of a creature on another page caught my eye. "Hey, what's this?" I asked.

It looked like a potato—oval and brown. But it had a mouth full of sharp, pointy teeth.

I quickly read the description.

"The Lanx is a cousin of the Grool. But it is much more dangerous." "Yuck!" Daniel cried, making a face.

I kept reading:

"Once the Lanx latches on to someone, it never lets go—until it has drained every drop of energy from that person."

I slammed the encyclopedia shut. "Here, Daniel, take this dumb book!" I shoved the Encyclopedia of the Weird back into my brother's arms. "This stuff is totally crazy. I don't believe any of it."

"But I thought you wanted to know more about the sponge," Daniel said. "I do. But not this made-up stuff!" I told him.

I knew I was acting sort of rotten to Daniel. And that he only wanted to help.

But give me a break. After all that had been happening, I was a little stressed out. I mean, it had been a bad couple of days—with Dad falling off the ladder, and

Mrs. Vanderhoff slamming her hand in the desk. And me nearly being crushed by the tree branch!

I stomped down the hall back to class. "Stupid book," I muttered to myself.

But another thought kept forcing its way into my mind: What if the book is right? I stared at the Grool, still sitting in its container on the corner of Mrs.

Vanderhoff's desk. I walked up to it.

It was wet again. And breathing. Its cold, black eyes stared back. I felt a chill of fear and a prickling all over my skin.

"Mythical creatures don't exist," I whispered to the creature. "I'm not going to believe that book. I'm not!"

The sponge stared up at me, breathing softly.

I picked up the container and shook it angrily. "What are you?" I cried. "What?"

Daniel told Carlo the whole story on the walk home. I walked behind them, trying to think about something else. Anything else.

"It's called a Grool. And it's a bad-luck charm," Daniel explained excitedly. "Right, Kat?"

"I think you're the bad-luck charm," I snapped. "And I don't think that book makes any sense."

"Oh, yeah?" he cried. He grabbed my backpack.

"You don't need these books, do you?" he teased. "You're so smart, you know more than the encyclopedia."

Dancing down the street with my books, Daniel turned on to Maple Lane. "Hey, Mom's outside!" he cried, surprised. He started to run.

Carlo and I hurried to catch up with Daniel.

Mom stood at the door, waiting for us. Her face wore a tense, worried expression. "Hi, kids. Come on inside," she said.

Daniel, Carlo, and I followed Mom into the kitchen.

"I'm afraid I have some very bad news," she began sadly.