When the Siren Says Run

The siren doesn't warn you about the storm. It warns you about the people.

Sadie Thorne knows weather. She's got a rain gauge in the yard, a wind spinner on the fence post, and a hand-crank radio she trusts more than the TV guy in Wichita. Her notebook is never wrong. So when the sky over Pell Ridge, population 411, turns lime-popsicle green with no storm within a hundred miles, Sadie knows the science just broke.

Then the tornado siren goes off.

The whole town does what the whole town always does: down to the cellars, doors shut, wait it out. But the people who climb back up into that sick green light aren't quite right. Mr. Dietz is wearing shoes two sizes too big. Sadie's teacher signs her name with the wrong loops. Her own dad laughs at a joke, and the laugh belongs to somebody else.

Her cousin Nacho Peralta came out from the city and hasn't stopped complaining that the prairie is boring. He is about to stop complaining.

Because the siren isn't finished. It's counting down. Every blast takes a little more of Pell Ridge, and there's one final wail coming, and the only person left who can hear how wrong it sounds is an eleven-year-old girl with a notebook and a rusted tower to climb.

Sadie is going to find out what the siren has really been calling all summer. She's going to find out who already answered. And she's going to wish she'd stayed in the cellar with everybody else.

Inside this Creep Street chiller:

• A tornado siren that screams under a cloudless green sky
• A whole town that comes back up from the cellars subtly, horribly rearranged
• Wrong shoes. Wrong handwriting. Wrong laugh.
• A city kid and a storm-nerd cousin with nobody left to trust
• A climb up a rusted siren tower with the countdown already running
• A last-page twist that will make you cover your ears

Perfect for readers 8-12 who love scary books they can finish in a weekend. Short chapters, a cliffhanger every few pages, and creepy-fun frights with no gore and no bad language. Ideal for reluctant readers, classroom shelves, school libraries, sleepover dares, and Halloween gift baskets. Reading level grades 3-6.

Every Creep Street book is a complete standalone story. Start anywhere. Read them all. Just don't go down to the cellar when the siren says run.

Turn to Chapter One. The sky is already green.