The Werewolves of Riverside Park

By Kenneth Jorgensen

Randal Regulus was a normal teenager in a normal family with normal friends. Then he learned that the “normal family” part was a lie. His parents were actually professional monster hunters, with a secret armory and everything! Randal thinks that nothing could be better when his parents invite him to be a monster hunter too.

But Randal quickly learns that being a monster hunter is a lot less fun than it sounds. His first encounter with a monster goes badly. Then he has to keep secrets from his best friends Kate, Kirby, and Grant, and will have to go away for training over summer vacation.

Things go from bad to even worse when Randal learns that the trailer park near Kirby’s grandmother's house is overrun with werewolves. Soon Randal has to use all his courage and skill to keep himself and his friends alive as the werewolves hunt and corner him and his friends.

The Werewolves of Riverside Park is the first book of the Randal Regulus: Monster Hunter series. It is a funny and lighthearted story of courage and discovery that will appeal to teenagers, their parents, and everyone else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth Jorgensen
• Release date: Jul 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781935670858

Kenneth Jorgensen

Kenneth Jorgensen lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two children. His life growing up was much likes Randal’s, except the parts about monsters.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

I remember the exact moment when I realized that my Uncle Marcus was immortal. Mom and Dad were preparing dinner and I was going through the family photo album. A lot of the photos included Uncle Marcus. And why not? He is my rich, world-traveling relative, and the owner of the company my dad works for, Round Table Industries & Services International, Inc. He visited often, usually when he was going to take Dad on a business trip to some great place. Sometimes they would take my mom and all three would go on some grand adventure (leaving me at some relative or friend’s house to be bored while they had fun, of course). We had a picture of him standing with my dad on top of a mountain, both with an arm on the other’s shoulders, with what looked like the whole world in the background. Another showed him and Mom on top of what seemed to be the world’s tallest building, city below and the horizon so far off that it was possible to see the curve of the world. Dozens of pictures, all in beautiful or exotic locations. In the photos at the front of the album my parents look like young newlyweds. After a few pages they look like every adult in their thirties that I know. In the most recent ones they looked like they look now, in their mid-forties, still pretty fit but with a few wrinkles and gray hair (well Dad has gray hair, Mom dies hers).

And Uncle Marcus looked exactly the same in each one of them.

How come Uncle Marcus looks exactly the same in all these pictures?

Why wouldn’t he look the same, Sweetie? Mom always calls me Sweetie.

Not ‘the same,’ ‘exactly the same.’

Mom looked at Dad in that way she does when she knows they have to team up on me.

Just genes, I guess, said Dad, entering the conversation.

What do his pants have to do with it? I asked.

Not his pants, his genes. His genetics. I had heard of that. Some people seem to stay young for a long time; others seem to get old very quickly. I knew a man whose hair turned gray almost overnight.

And I knew a woman who looked just like her daughter, even though her daughter was more than twenty years younger, Mom added.

Do your parents think you are an idiot? My parents don’t usually think I am an idiot, but every once in a while they treat me as if I was completely stupid. This was one of those times. Neither of them laughed when I mistook genes for pants. They would have teased me for ten minutes unless they were really distracted. Their explanations of knowing people who aged at different rates wouldn’t have fooled me when I was eight. They would not have expected me to believe that nonsense unless they were desperate. I put my hands on my hips, tilted my head to one side, raised an eyebrow, and sighed loudly.

My parents’ shoulders slumped; they had been caught and they knew it. Told you we shouldn’t have kept those pictures, muttered Dad.

That was a dumb move. Mom loves the picture albums. Mom only glared, but my mom is a world-class glarer. Dad cleared his throat in discomfort and moved quickly to change the subject. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. There is a family secret, Randal. Randal. That’s me. Not Randy. Randal. Randal Regulus.

A family secret? was my first thought. Whose family? was my second. My family is the most boring family on the block. Make that the city. Maybe on the face of the earth. There is my dad, whose idea of living dangerously is putting horseradish on his turkey sandwiches. Then there is my mom, who is a little different than other moms because she likes to work on the car, but other than that is the most normal suburban housewife anyone has ever met. The biggest difference between her and my friend’s moms is that their moms work at regular jobs while mine stays home to make sure I follow in the family tradition of never doing anything interesting. My older sister, Cassia, was probably the most interesting of us all, and she was interesting only because she had spent a year away at school out of state.

(She was coming home again soon for spring break, but that is another story, one that I prefer not to think about right now, thank you very much.)

Me? I am a chip off the old boring block, a seed from the dull tree. I was just finishing ninth grade, and am pretty sure that I had managed to get through all three years of junior high without most of the teachers or other students even recognizing I was there. I had a few good friends, but we considered ourselves The Invisibles. You know, kids that did not get in trouble but did not do anything outstanding, either. Average grades? Check. Average attendance? Check. No school rules violations? Check. No felonies or misdemeanors? Check. Nothing outstanding that gets noticed? Check. Nothing awful that gets you noticed? Check.

So what’s the secret, I asked, trying to avoid looking my dad in the eye. His Serious Look was starting to creep me out.

I think that is something we should discuss when Uncle Marcus visits next. Great. That wouldn’t be until August, about a thousand days away. So we’ll talk again then.

But he won’t be here until August! I could hear my own voice get higher in frustration.

August? asked my dad. Didn’t we tell you...

At that very moment the doorbell rang.

CHAPTER 2

Frustrated with the conversation with my parents, I jumped up to answer the door immediately when the bell rang. Anything to get away from them for a moment. I turned the handle and threw open the door.

Uncle Marcus!

Hey there, kiddo. Help me with my bags.

He was exactly like he looked in all the photographs I had just been looking at. Brown hair cropped short, dark complexion that just got darker every minute he was in the sun, build like a linebacker, and the scar that exactly split his left eyebrow, then continued on his cheek below his eye. I guess he would have looked scary if I didn’t know him, but because I knew him what I saw was that look of mischievous excitement he seemed to always have in his eyes. You weren’t supposed to be here until August.

I could leave and come back then, he said, grinning and turning as if to go.

Ha, ha, very funny, I said grabbing the handles of a huge duffel bag.

Glad to be wanted, he said, stepping past me and into the house. I tried to pick up the bag and failed. It was heavy! Putting my legs into it I hauled the bag up and over the stoop. It clunked as if it was full of iron pipes or something.

Mom walked around the corner from the living room. Marcus! You’re here early, she said, in a tone of voice that said both, We are always happy to see you, and You could have called first.

Early? I called Darryl and told him about the change in plans a couple of days ago. Didn’t he tell you?

Mom glared at Dad as he entered the room. He turned bright red. Didn’t I tell you? I was sure I told you. He laughed nervously. Oops.

Sorry to just drop by Maggie, but we have a bit of a business emergency in Caldwell, and I thought I would come out so we could handle it personally. Besides being my uncle, Marcus was the CEO of the company my dad worked for as an accountant. Dad and Marcus would travel all over the Pacific Northwest handling accounting emergencies, often taking my mom. In retrospect I have to say duh, how stupid can I be? Accounting emergencies?

Well, before you go, I piped up, You need to tell me the family secret. I could have handled that better. Do you ever blurt out things that really need to be handled delicately, without thinking what the best way to handle them might be because you are excited and want to get right to the point and don’t have time to think how you might handle them better?

Of course you do.

Mom and Dad looked embarrassed and unsure how to handle my little demand. He was looking through the family photo album and noticed that you don’t seem to get any older, said my dad, rather sheepishly. Baaaa.

We tried to explain, added Mom. But he isn’t buying our explanations.

He’s not? said Uncle Marcus, looking at me sideways. That’s probably because he’s too smart. I am pretty sure my chest puffed out and my hat size grew. Sit down, Randal, he said, gesturing to the couch.

I sat in the middle, and my mom and dad sat on either side. Uncle Marcus paced in front of the fireplace for a second before stating, while looking off into the distance, I guess if you are old enough and smart enough to figure out what you can see in plain sight and reject a bad explanation of it, you are old enough to know the truth. Huh? I guess my confusion was evident on my face because Uncle Marcus looked at me and explained, Most people look at the world and see what they want to see. Everything they see that does not fit into their idea of how the world works gets ignored, or they accept lame explanations so that they can hold on to their beliefs. That you saw something that made no sense, and refused to accept an explanation even though it would have let you keep your world neat and tidy shows that you are ready to know things that will greatly change the way you think the world works.

Oh. Is that