The Pinkaboos #2: Belladonna and the Nightmare Academy
PROLOGUE Belladonna waved bye to her friends and walked up the path to her little home It wasn’t much just a tiny castle with a mini drawbridge and a moat filled with singing jellyfish Her jellies weren’t singing today just humming happily to themselves Belladonna was used to hurrying home to start reading a new book but she hadn’t been this excited since she got her hands on her first spellbook Tonight she’d be reading the book her teacher Miss Viper had lent her When Frights Become Nightmares Rushing inside Belladonna performed her usual ritual for getting ready to read She closed the door 1
and locked it pushed her comfy chair next to the fireplace and grabbed an assortment of snacks piling them on the table next to her chair Then she flicked the switch that turned on her sign out front which read Do Not Disturb Terror Technician at Work She settled into her chair pulled the book out of her backpack and laid it on her lap The book felt heavy for its size as if its words carried a weight all their own Belladonna opened it as though it might be filled with angry spiders The pages were old dry and yellow Some were torn and several had handwritten notes in the margins completely spider-free thankfully She flipped through it scanning the drawings and some of what was written It was broken into three chapters chapter 1 Why Frights Become Nightmares chapter 2 How Frights Become Nightmares and chapter 3 How to Stop a Nightmare Belladonna liked to do things in the proper order so even though she really wanted to jump straight to chapter 3 she turned to chapter 1 page 1 and began to read 2
Inside every fright is the desire to help a little girl Frights receive so much happiness from helping young human children that they will sacrifice anything to take care of them But sometimes a fright finds she isn’t very good at helping children overcome their fears This is very dangerous for a fright If she gives up on trying to help her little girl the fright may eventually turn into a nightmare and live on the fears of girls instead of on their courage as most frights do Wow Nightmares live on the fears of children Frights live on courage Only one paragraph in and Belladonna already felt like her glasses were going to fall right off her face Belladonna grabbed a few extra reading candles from her drawer and set them up on the table beside her She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she had read the whole book She flipped through the pages noting how many there were It was going to be a long night 3
