Howliday Inn Read online

  MORE THAN 8 MILLION BUNNICULA BOOKS IN PRINT!

  NOT A GREAT PLACE TO VISIT, AND YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE THERE

  The Monroes have gone on vacation, leaving Harold and Chester at Chateau Bow-Wow—not exactly a four-star hotel. On the animals’ very first night there, the silence is pierced by a peculiar wake-up call—an unearthly howl that makes Chester observe that the place should be called Howliday Inn.

  But the mysterious cries in the night (Chester is convinced there are werewolves afoot) are just the beginning of the frightening goings-on. Soon animals start disappearing, and there are whispers of murder. Is checkout time at Chateau Bow-Wow going to come earlier than Harold and Chester anticipated?

  “The story, with wonderfully witty dialogue and irresistible characters, is a treat for all ages.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Don’t miss any of the adventures of Bunnicula, the vampire rabbit, and his pals Harold, Chester, and Howie:

  Cover designed by Russell Gordon

  Cover illustration copyright © 2006 by C. F. Payne

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Ages 8-12

  BOOKS BY JAMES HOWE

  Bunnicula Books

  Bunnicula (with Deborah Howe)

  Howliday Inn

  The Celery Stalks at Midnight

  Nighty-Nightmare

  Return to Howliday Inn

  Bunnicula Strikes Again!

  Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

  Bunnicula and Friends

  The Vampire Bunny

  Hot Fudge

  Rabbit-cadabra

  The Fright Before Christmas

  Picture Books

  There’s a Monster Under My Bed

  There’s a Dragon in My Sleeping Bag

  Teddy Bear’s Scrapbook (with Deborah Howe)

  Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores

  Horace and Morris Join the Chorus (but what about Dolores?)

  Kaddish for Grandpa in Jesus’ name amen

  Tales from the House of Bunnicula

  It Came from Beneath the Bed!

  Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!

  Howie Monroe and the Doghouse of Doom

  Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh’s Tomb II

  Bud Barkin, Private Eye

  The Amazing Odorous Adventures of Stinky Dog

  Sebastian Barth Mysteries

  What Eric Knew

  Stage Fright

  Eat Your Poison, Dear

  Dew Drop Dead

  Pinky and Rex Series

  Pinky and Rex

  Pinky and Rex Get Married

  Pinky and Rex and the Mean Old Witch

  Pinky and Rex and the Spelling Bee

  Pinky and Rex Go to Camp

  Pinky and Rex and the New Baby

  Pinky and Rex and the Double-Dad Weekend

  Pinky and Rex and the Bully

  Pinky and Rex and the New Neighbors

  Pinky and Rex and the Perfect Pumpkin

  Pinky and Rex and the School Play

  Pinky and Rex and the Just-Right Pet

  Novels

  A Night Without Stars

  Morgan’s Zoo

  The Watcher

  The Misfits

  Totally Joe

  Edited by James Howe

  The Color of Absence: Twelve Stories about Loss and Hope

  13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen

  In memory of DEBBIE

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1982 by James Howe

  Illustrations copyright © 1982 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Also available in a hardcover edition.

  Book design by Mary A. Ahern

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Howe, James. Howliday Inn.

  Summary: While their family is away, Harold and Chester, a dog and cat, are boarded at Chateau Bow-Wow, where Chester becomes increasingly alarmed by the strange behavior of his fellow guests and the sudden disappearance of one of them.

  {1. Cats—Fiction. 2. Dogs—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.}

  I. Munsinger, Lynn. II. Title.

  PZ7.H8372Ho {Fie} 81-10886

  ISBN 978-0-689-30846-8 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4169-2815-7 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5210-7 (eBook)

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  I HAD THOUGHT I’d heard the last of Harold, the writing dog, when he delivered his book, Bunnicula, to my office some time ago. Much to my surprise, he suddenly appeared again one recent rainy Wednesday afternoon. The dreary weather had made the day useless for anything more than catching up on all those boring little chores one puts off for just such days and drinking a lot of reheated coffee to cut the constant chill that sneaks in through the cracks in the windows. When I heard scratching at my door, I thought it was probably a stray cat looking for a warm radiator and a saucer of milk. That alone, I reasoned, would provide some relief from the monotony of the day’s non-events.

  You can well imagine my delight when I opened the door and saw Harold standing on the other side of the portal, his hair drenched and hanging from him like an unwrung mop. From his teeth dangled a plastic bag. I asked him in and examined the contents of the bag that he’d dropped at my feet. What I found was the manuscript of Harold’s new book, together with this note:

  My dear colleague,

  I had not planned to write again. Indeed, after my friend Chester read my first book, he accused me of writing without a literary license. I had settled into my comfortable life as a nice American middle-class dog with my nice American middle-class family when strange events once again engulfed me. Naturally, after all the fur had flown and the dust had settled, I felt compelled to write the story down.

  What resulted is the manuscript you now see before you. I do hope you will enjoy it and, as before, find it worthy of your readers’ attentions.

  Your humble servant,

  Harold X.

  I convinced Harold to stay long enough for a doughnut and a bowl of hot chocolate. Then, as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone, leaving behind him the pages of his story, which he has chosen to call Howliday Inn.

  Contents

  Editor’s Note

  ONE The Departure

  TWO Welcome to Howliday Inn

  THREE An Uneasy Calm

  FOUR The Storm Gathers

  FIVE “She’s Gone!”

  SIX The Cat Who Knew Too Much

  SEVEN Good Night, Sweet Chester

  EIGHT Harold X, Private Eye

  NINE And Then There Were Three

  TEN Mystery, Mayhem and Mud

  ELEVEN In the Days That Followed...

  TWELVE Howie

  Epilogue

  Preview: The Celery Stalks at Midnight
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  [ ONE ]

  The Departure

  LOOKING back on it now, I doubt that there was any way I could have imagined what lay ahead. After all, I’m not as well read as Chester, and except for the time I’d run away from home as a puppy and spent a fitful night under a neighbor’s Porsche, I really had had very little experience of my own in the outside world. How could I have begun to imagine then what would befall me that fateful week in August?

  If the memories of that week no longer make my blood run cold, they still have enough of a chilling effect to give me pause. Why, you may wonder, do I wish to stir them up now when I could so easily curl up in front of a nice warm radiator and think of happier times instead? The answer, a simple one really, is just this: whatever else may be said of that week, it was an adventure. And adventures, no matter how dark or disturbing to recall, are meant to be shared.

  IT BEGAN innocently enough on a beautiful summer’s day, the kind of day, I remember thinking, when the universe seems in perfect order and nothing can go wrong. A soft breeze ruffled the hairs along my neck. Birds chirped happily in the trees. A butterfly landed on my nose and would have stayed for a while, I think, if I hadn’t sneezed him off. The sky was blue, the sun was gold, the grass was green. Such riches cannot be bought for any price, I thought, as I lay stretched out on the front lawn chewing contentedly on one of Mr. Monroe’s new running shoes.

  Without warning, my blissful mood was shattered by the sound of Toby’s voice coming from within the house.

  “Why?” he kept repeating, a bit unpleasantly.

  His mother answered him in that ever-patient way of hers. “You’ve asked me several times, Toby, and I keep telling you the same thing. I know you’re not happy about it, but we can’t take them with us.”

  “But why? Why?” Toby insisted loudly. I noticed several butterflies flutter away from our yard defensively. “We’ve taken Harold and Chester on vacation with us before,” he whined. My ears perked up. / was the topic of discussion.

  “Just to the lake house, Toby, never on a car trip,” Mrs. Monroe answered. “There won’t be room. Besides, you know Harold gets carsick. You wouldn’t want him to be miserable, would you?”

  “No,” Toby agreed sensibly, “I guess you’re right.”

  Darn right she is, I thought.

  “But I’m going to miss them, Mom,” Toby added.

  Mrs. Monroe’s voice softened. “I know you are, Toby. We’ll all miss them. But we’ll be gone only a week, and then we’ll see them again. Think of everything you’ll have to tell Harold when you get home.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Toby said, his voice trailing off in defeat. Poor kid, I thought, he’s really broken up. Well, I couldn’t blame him. I was a lot of fun, after all, and it was natural he’d want to take me along. I mean, who would he play fetch-the-stick with? Whose tummy would he rub?

  Suddenly, panic seized me. Who was going to feed us? I dropped my Adidas, moved quickly to the front door and began scratching on the screen.

  “Hi, Harold,” Toby said as he let me in. He looked at me sadly and put his arms around my neck. “I’m sorry, boy. Mom says we can’t take you on vacation this time. I’ll bet you feel real disappointed, huh?”

  Who’s going to feed me? I asked with my eyes.

  “But don’t worry. We’ll be back in a week. It won’t be so long. Still, you feel bad you’re not going, don’t you? I know.”

  Who’s going to feed me? I pleaded, with a hint of a whimper.

  “Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s going to happen to you while we’re away . . .”

  Yes? I asked, my eyes growing wider.

  “. . . don’t worry. Mom and Dad have that all figured out. See, Bunnicula is going to stay next door at Professor Mickelwhite’s house . . .” I glanced over at the windowsill where the rabbit’s cage was kept and saw that it had already been removed. I felt myself breaking into a cold sweat. What was going to happen to me? “. . . and you and Chester are going to be boarded.”

  Oh, I thought, feeling relieved immediately, that’s all right then. Just one little detail troubled me: I didn’t have the slightest idea what being boarded meant. I decided to find Chester and ask him about it, since Chester knows, or thinks he knows, something about almost everything.

  When I found him, he was sitting in the back yard staring off into space. Chester, being a cat, is very good at staring off into space. He once explained to me that this was his way of meditating or, as he liked to put it, “getting mellow.” At the moment I found him, he looked so mellow I thought there was a good chance of his ripening and rotting right there before my eyes if I didn’t shake him out of it quickly.

  “The Monroes are leaving, and they’re going to do something to us with boards,” I told him.

  “Don’t say hello or anything,” Chester replied, without moving a muscle.

  “Oh, sorry. Hello, Chester. How’s it going?”

  Chester just nodded his head slowly as if that were supposed to be telling me something. “Now what was that about boards?” he asked at last.

  “I’m not sure. They’re leaving, and they’re going to tie us to boards or something, that’s all I know.”

  “I’m sure that’s not all you know, Harold,” he said smoothly. “It may be all your brain can handle right now, but I’m sure you know at least one or two things more. Now, let’s try again. What exactly did you hear?”

  “Well,” I explained, “Toby told me that while the family goes on vacation, you and I are going to be boarded.”

  “Boarded?!!” Chester exclaimed, his mellowness suddenly gone with the passing breeze. “We’re going to be boarded? I can’t believe they’d do this to us. It figures! That’s all I can say. It just figures!”

  “What figures?” I asked. “What are they going to do to us?”

  “Oh, just lock us up and throw away the key, that’s all. Prison, Harold, that’s what it boils down to. We’re in their way now that they want to go off and have some fun. So out the door we go and into some dank, dark pit where we’ll be fed moldy bread and rainwater—if we’re lucky! You don’t know what these places are like, Harold. But I do!”

  “How?” I asked. “Were you ever boarded?”

  “Was I ever boarded? Was / ever boarded?”

  “That’s what I asked, Chester. Were you ever boarded?”

  “I’ve read Charles Dickens, sport,” was his only reply, and he turned his attention to his tail, which he suddenly felt compelled to bathe. A scowl grew on his face, and I thought that if it were possible, dark rain clouds would have formed around his eyebrows.

  “I’ll tell you something else, Harold,” he muttered. His hysteria had subsided, and he spoke now in a low, serious tone.

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to keep your eyes open all the time in places like those. You never know what will happen next.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Think about it,” he went on. “A group of strangers are thrown together by circumstance. Who knows who they are? Where they’ve come from? What they’re doing there? The one smiling at you across the food dish in the morning could murder you in your sleep at night.”

  “Chester,” I said, interrupting, “I think perhaps your imagination is running away with you.”

  “Hah!” Chester snorted. “Mark my words, Harold. Keep your eyes open and your door shut. Just remember: they aren’t called strangers for nothing!” And he walked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  With everything Chester had said about strangers, it was hard for me at that moment to picture anyone stranger than Chester. But time would certainly bear out his warning. And I have to admit that even then there was something in the conviction with which he spoke that made me uneasy. So much so that when I saw Mr. Monroe coming in my direction, I was immediately distrustful. And this of a man whose home I had lived in for years and whose running shoes I had been eating but moments before!

  “Hey there,
Harold, guess what? You’re going away on a little vacation. Aren’t you lucky?” I smelled a con job and kept my distance. “You and Chester are going to stay in a nice animal hotel for a few days. You’ll meet some new friends and have a lot of fun. Doesn’t that sound terrific?” Interesting he doesn’t mention the food, I thought. Having no intention of being conned into living on mold and rainwater, I decided to try a tactic I save for only the most dire of circumstances. As pitifully as I knew how, I started to whimper.

  “Aw, poor Harold,” Mr. Monroe said quietly, reaching down to pat me on the top of my head (I was sure I had him hooked), “I wish we could take you with us, fella, but we can’t.” Rats. “Besides, you’ll have a good time at Chateau Bow-Wow. Doesn’t that sound like a nice place to stay? Now, come on, boy,” he said, moving back toward the driveway, “jump up here into the back of the station wagon.”

  Hmm, Chateau Bow-Wow, I thought as I followed him, it doesn’t sound so bad. Not the Waldorf-Astoria maybe, but not bad. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go anywhere, particularly after everything Chester had just told me. I lifted my head and let out a soft, muted moan. When I dropped my head again, I noticed Chester lying under the car in the shade by the rear tire. He looked at me and shook his head slowly.

  “What a disgusting display,” he said, sighing heavily. “But what can one expect from a dog, after all?”

  “Well,” I replied, “I’m glad to see that you’re so resigned to being dragged off to prison.”

  “I’m not resigned,” he said calmly, licking a paw. “I’m not going.”

  “Oh really?” I asked. “And just how do you intend to manage that?”

  Before he could answer, Mrs. Monroe came out of the front door with Chester’s carrier, a large square box with a little window in one end. I always tell Chester that it looks like he’s on television when he’s inside. He doesn’t find that very amusing. In fact, just the sight of his carrier is usually enough to send him into a panic, hissing and hyperventilating up a storm. This time, however, he seemed determined to remain cool.

  “Toby,” Mrs. Monroe instructed her youngest son, “see if you and Pete can find Chester, will you?” Pete appeared at the door behind Toby.