Dear Secret Diary 2,

I've vomited more times than I've eaten this week, and no, I am not feeling pretty. Ever since I found the cloak, all the food I eat comes back up, except for fruit and vegetables, and bread or soup. Meat I get, but milk and eggs? They were never alive in the first place! But I can't keep them down. Sugar's bad too, it REALLY makes me sick. And just my luck, those are the only things anyone around here eats. Beef, hot dogs, candy, more candy! Pearl makes a big deal about how much money it costs for all of this amazing food, but if it's so amazing then why isn't any of it healthy to eat?

Britta told me I looked "good" with less weight. I'm only eleven, Grandma! I still need it! Now I really do look like a skeleton, and I have bags under my eyes.

Anyway, now that I'm pretty sure Sid is up to something, I need to figure out what. I dug out my crime scene detective kit from Grade 3, but all the fingerprint powder is used up. I never caught anyone with it, I just spilled it a lot. So instead I'm getting my slingshot back from Jet. And maybe Flint can bring his hunting gun? I don't know if he's allowed to use it outside of hunting with his dad. Not that I know what we'd even do with one, except get arrested. Maybe Flint has a slingshot too.

- Drew

* * *

Sid's Log: 01/20

Preston Facility

Britta insisted over the phone that Drew is alive and well. Time for plan B.

* * *

Flint's Journal #12

Jan. 22

There aren't as many kids at school today. They look really tired out, like zombies. Drew seems fine, though. I gave him my other deer sandwich and he said it was amazing, it "wasn't even screaming". Yeah, it's cooked alright, that's how my Dad likes them. He said Pearl makes his meat so rare it's practically still bleeding. I don't mind it either way.

* * *

To MOM, from JET.

I'm sorry I didn't eat any meatloaf last night, I was sick. Can you please get more orange juice?

* * *

Flint's Journal #13

We were supposed to go trapping again today, but Sid was over having steak and potatoes with my Dad. And he asked me to grab him a beer! Dad hasn't been drinking for two weeks and everything's been going great.

I guess Dad never told me he got fired from the car wash. Now he's gonna be a butcher for Sid, and he'll be working late nights so we can't go trapping anymore. This sucks.

* * *

Dear Secret Second Diary,

I got to hang out with Jet during lunch today, after an amazing deer-wich I got from Flint. It was silent! No screaming at all! Flint said it died right in front of him, when his dad shot it in the head. Maybe that's why its meat wasn't haunted? It even tasted better. Once I started chewing, I could hear footsteps in the snow, old leaves in the wind, and a river. I bet the deer lived a better life than the cows, chickens, and pigs at the farm. It didn't make me sick, either! If anything, I felt GREAT! I still do.

Anyway, Jet brought back my slingshot. He's really good with it. He can hit any stop sign or letter on the wall that he wants. I'm not that good yet, so he showed me how to use it. I have to pull back strong with my whole arm, and use the other one to keep the stick "firm and straight", then let go while looking at what I want to hit through the 'Y' part. After some practice I got better. I don't know what I'm going to do even if I can hit my target. Isn't Sid just going to get mad at me? Then Pearl will get mad at me for hurting Grandma's boyfriend and I'll get in trouble. A lot of movies make it look easy to be a kid detective, but they totally get led around by what's happening. Things always work out for them.

What am I supposed to do? I'm just a "Grim Reaper", all cold and spooky, a small pile of dry bones in a classroom full of peppy kids. And so's he, but bigger. I could try scaring him to death, but you can't scare someone to death when they're already scary and half-dead. If I'm lucky, maybe that worm in his eye will get him. Last I saw, it was in the other eye. Did it take a detour through his brain?!

- Drew

* * *

Public Service Announcement
[Jan. 23,Transcript]

From the Preston Medical Council:

Attention Preston residents, the number of cases of Bat Flu as reached over two thousand. The PMC has advised a quarantine, and we are advised NOT to leave the city under any circumstances until the threat is over.

The Wildlife Committee has also advised its Hunting Division to cease all hunting and trapping activity until the illness has passed, as any and all animals may or may not be carriers, including domestic pets.

Please wash your hands thoroughly if you have come into contact with a person who has the flu, or any animal at all.

Thank you for your cooperation. This concludes our Public Service Announcement.

* * *

Dear School Agenda,

Wow, I can't believe I never use this thing. Just wanted to say while I'm waiting for class to start, I had so much fun sledding with Jet! We went down the big hill and off this HUUUGE jump. I had to leave early though, cause I sprained my foot. Jet's still out there, probably having a blast. And people say Mondays suck!

- Drew Radigan

* * *

Sid's Log: 01/23 @ 12 pm
Preston Elementary

Just now witnessed a young boy, possibly the piggish one from the Cortez home, injure himself greatly while attempting some grand sledding. Nobody has come to claim the poor thing for some time now, and he is writhing in the snow.

I've become quite hungry, playing spectator to so much agony. I may help him, before I help myself. It is the gentlemanly thing to do.

* * *

Drew Radigan, Jan. 23rd
Mrs. Graine (Gr. 6)
Write your own poem about the winter season.

(4-5 lines, one stanza.)

Snowflakes, ice scrapes,
frost is everywhere.
Gentle silence is a break,
from sounds that give a scare,
but stillness you'll beware.

* * *

Sid's Log @ 1 pm

Perhaps writing before assisting was a poor use of time, but an old man's got to clear his head.

Jet has been returned to Adina, and I've just spent the better part of an hour explaining who was responsible for the accident, instead of eating. But it was the right thing to do, I suppose, and there is always a reward in store for a do-gooder.

Perhaps I will help myself to more leftover brains from the farm. I have not eaten a brain since the day I met my new sweetheart, and my mind is slipping once more. I must keep it strong.

* * *

Drew Radigan, Jan. 23rd
DETENTION ASSIGNMENT

Write out the following, 15 times:
"I will not hurt my classmates."

1. I will not hurt my classmates.
2. I will not hurt my classmates.
3. I will not hurt my classmates.
4. I will not hurt my classmates.
5. I will not hurt my classmates.
6. I will not hurt my classmates.
7. I will not hurt my classmates.
8. I will not hurt my classmates.
9. I will not hurt my classmates.
10. I will not hurt my classmates.
11. I will not hurt my classmates.
12. I will not hurt my classmates.
13. I will not hurt my classmates.
14. I will not hurt my classmates.
15. I will not hurt my classmates.
16. I don't know who jabbed Shirwin with a pen but it wasn't me. He's lying.

* * *

Written Statement of: Shirwin Castanza (Jan.23)

My arms are covered in black marks because Drew R. kept stabbing me over and over with a black pen. He was mad that someone called him a Grim Reaper, so he said he was going to give me a "death touch" and that I would die from the "black plague". He said he picked me because I was the smallest so I would die easier.

He did it whenever we were next to each other in class, and at recess he ran at me all the time with a pen. I tried to run away, but he is a lot taller than me and can run faster.

I am very sad because it hurt and the marks don't come off when I wash them, and when the pen goes too deep it makes my arms bleed. My mom said that ink under my skin is like a tattoo and it won't come out for years. I have to wear long sleeves when I eat supper with my mom and dad so they don't get sad too.

Drew hurt me and now I'm stuck this way for a long time.

* * *

Flint's Journal #14
Jan. 23

Drew got detention for Shirwin's pen-marks on his arm. He said he was being chased around, but I know that's a lie for three reasons:

1. I saw Shirwin stabbing his own arm when he got bored in math class. He did that 20 times.

2. Shirwin is one of the fastest runners in the school, and came third in track-and-field this year. He just doesn't last very long past a sprint.

3. Shirwin will literally say anything to get his way, even if it means crying on purpose.

The teachers won't listen to me, though. Maybe they're just punishing him for embarrassing them all in front of Sid. It feels like his brand is advertised all over the school, now. Isn't that stuff supposed to stay out of here? Not that I care that much. It's already all my dad buys me to eat.

* * *

Pearl's Datebook

- Drew has detention & needs to be picked up by a guardian or he's not allowed to leave until 6pm.

Might just make him wait >:-(

* * *

Sid's Log @ 6 pm
Radigan Home

Having dinner with Britta and her daughter Pearl, who seems to be an avid fan of my work, and has taken a shining to me. Reminds me very much of the pigs from the farm, which coincidentally she's been eating. She's left to fetch Grim from school. Drew, I mean.

His room provided more insights (the brat has been chronologuing me across two books), but no sign of the Cloak or Hood. He may be wearing them. Will be awaiting his arrival with wine in hand alone, as Britta has fallen ill and been taken to a clinic by her youngest son, whose name I didn't catch. I was too enamored with my sweetheart, and all I could hear were harps.

I am feeling the bittersweet embrace of family once more, yet I must make an enemy of their heir. If only one of these accursed artifacts had the power to make one forget, and I could rule this country, be grandfather to this family, and rest a night once without the shadows of horrors past inside me. I could be reborn.

If Grim does not know the Cloak' s power to circumvent death, or the Hood' s to track its targets, then perhaps all can be well, and in time the boy himself can be made in my own image—a successor to the true Angel of Death, Saureil, for which I was born and named.

He may very well come to own my empire of souls, that which must be harvested by the bony hands of The Grim Reaper himself.

- Sidney Saureil Becken

* * *

Flint's Journal #15

Dad's not home and it's already 8pm. Guess I'm cooking for myself tonight!

Boy, am I ever starting to feel like a man.

* * *

Dear Diary,

This whole thing SUCKS! First I get blamed for Shirwin, then Jet gets HURT and I don't even find out until everyone already thinks it's my fault, AND Sid blamed me for taking Jet's mom's bracelet! YEAH, the one he gave to my grandma!! Britta got sick and left it on the table, and when Adina came over to freak out on me for Jet, she saw it lying there! AND to top it all off, Pearl's missing a BUNCH of rings!

What the HELL is wrong with these people? Everyone's acting angry and craz

* * *

Sid's Log @ 9 pm

My, what a sight. I know not where the Cloak or Hood are, but Grim has been given the whip by nearly everyone he knows. He may be so compliant as to simply tell me. I'll have a word with Pearl about offering him some words of elderly wisdom.

* * *

Sid's Log @ 9:30 pm

What kind of idiot child runs away from home during a snowstorm?!