Don't Touch the Touch Tank

The sign says LOOK WITH YOUR FINGERS. It should say RUN.

Kai Malolo can name six hundred species of marine animal. He cannot name a single friend. So when his entire sixth-grade class gets locked inside the Bay Point Aquarium for an overnight sleepover - sleeping bags rolled out right under the shark tunnel, blue light rippling across the ceiling all night long - Kai figures this is finally his chance. One night where knowing everything about tide pools makes him useful instead of weird.

Then Marcus Feeney reaches into the tide-pool touch tank on a dare.

And the starfish reaches back.

It doesn't sting. It doesn't even hurt. It just doesn't let go. By midnight, Marcus's fingertips have gone smooth and bone-white, ringed with tiny sucking circles that open and close all on their own - and Marcus keeps saying he feels fine. He keeps saying it in a voice that isn't quite his.

The anemones are climbing the glass. The water is rising where no water should rise. Down at the bottom of the tank, past the sea urchins and the hermit crabs, something enormous is slowly uncurling one arm at a time. It has been folded up in the dark of that exhibit for a very long time, and it is extremely interested in warm hands.

The doors are locked until sunrise. Mr. Dubois is asleep. Twenty-two kids are lying in sleeping bags on the floor, and the only person who understands what is actually in that tank is the kid nobody listens to.

Kai has until dawn to drain the touch tank.

He should probably keep his gloves on.

Inside this Creep Street novella:

• A locked-in overnight class sleepover at a very dark aquarium
• A monster that doesn't bite - it borrows, one fingertip at a time
• Two unlikely friends: a marine-life genius and a seasick new kid who is allergic to shellfish
• Fifteen fast, short chapters with a cliffhanger every few pages
• A final-page twist you will read twice

Perfect for readers 8-12 who like their scares fun. Creep Street books are standalone spooky novellas - start with any book in the series, read them in any order, and read them with the lights on. Great for reluctant readers, classroom shelves, school libraries, road trips, flashlight reading, and sleepovers where nobody actually wants to sleep.

Scary, funny, gross in the good way, and just short enough to finish before your parents make you turn out the light.

Don't touch the touch tank. Don't touch anything.