The Halloween Parade by Matt Beighton - Book Tour
The Halloween Parade
by Matt Beighton
by Matt Beighton
Summary: It's not every day that a vampire borrows your pencil. When was the last time you sat next to a werewolf in maths?
Meet Trixie Grimble, the newest pupil at Monstacademy. Unfortunately, in a school filled with monsters, she's the only ordinary girl and when she's asked to help prepare for the annual Halloween parade, everything starts to go wrong.
Oh, and she's also been kicked out of her bedroom to make room for a cat circus.
Fans of Jill Murphy and Isla Fisher will adore the silly humour and loveable characters in this delightful modern classic.
Information about the book
Title: The Halloween Parade (Monstacademy #1)
Author: Matt Beighton
Release Date: 12th September 2018
Genre: MG
Publisher: Green Monkey Press
Don't forget, all
of the Monstacademy series are available in both standard and dyslexia
adapted format. To celebrate Dyslexia Awareness Week 2018, use the
code DYSAWARE to get 15% of any Monstacademy orders at the Green Monkey
Press Etsy store. Offer valid from Monday 1st October to Sunday 7th October 2018 at https://www.etsy.com/uk/
Excerpt
Trixie had been peacefully sleeping in her bedroom when
her mum’s shriek had echoed through the house and rudely woken her from a
lovely dream. Leaping from her bed and racing down the stairs, nearly tripping
over her ancient and overweight pet cat, Snot, in the process, Trixie found her
mum in quite the tizz.
“What is it, Mum?” she asked sleepily. “Is that a letter?
It’s addressed to me!” she shouted, suddenly awake and noticing the open and
now empty brown envelope slowly soaking in a bowl of cereal where her mum had
dropped it. It had been torn neatly along the top edge. Trixie snatched the
note from her mum’s unresisting hand and read it for herself.
“Monroe’s Academy for the Different?” Trixie gasped, not
believing the evidence in front of her very nose. “I can’t go there, and you
can’t make me! You do know what they call it, don’t you? Monstacademy!” she
continued, quite agitated because, quite rightly, nobody likes moving to a new
school.
Trixie had quite a nice group of friends at St Agatha’s,
and she didn’t really think that she needed any new ones. Certainly none that
went to Monstacademy! And what was worse was that Monroe’s Academy for the
Different was just that. It was a school for the different.
Now, when you or I think about people that are different,
we might think of somebody who is considerably shorter or very much taller than
most or who might have a head full of vivid purple hair or perhaps who has a
large boil on the end of their nose just waiting to be popped or maybe even
somebody who looks a little bit like a potato.
That is not the type of different child that Monroe’s
Academy for the Different usually takes in. You see, Monstacademy was really
very different indeed. Many of the pupils who attended were what you or I might
call the supernatural. Monstacademy is a school for those of a spookier
nature such as Vampires, Werewolves and even the odd Witch or Wizard.
Trixie was all too aware of the type of people that
attended Monstacademy. There were always rumours at school about how their
Vampire pupils would be sent down into the village for sucking practise or the
Bogie-boys and -girls would be instructed to hide under the beds of normal boys
and girls to practise making them scream with fear. She didn’t like it one bit.
“You know as well as I do that I’ve wanted to get Trixie
into a boarding school for a long time. I never meant somewhere like this,
though! I had high hopes for Snufflingberrys or Blimpingtons. They’ll drink her
blood and turn her into a zombie! What will the neighbours think if she’s off
flying around all night as a bat?” her mother had sobbed to her boyfriend Rob
when he’d returned home from work on that fateful day.
Trixie’s dad had run away with his rock band when she was
tiny and her mum’s current boyfriend, Rob, had been living with them for a year
now. Trixie didn’t like him one bit. His company manufactured toothbrush
bristles. Rob’s job was to sell them to all sorts of companies in all sorts of
exotic countries, and he often spent days away from home. He was also the sort
of adult who thought he was really good at talking to children, but in fact he
was boring and patronising and didn’t actually like spending any time with
them. He’d made this very clear when Trixie overheard him talking to her mum on
the stairs one evening, a few days after the letter had arrived.
“Now listen,” he’d began, reassuringly, “I’m going to be
working away a lot for the next year, and you don’t really want to be left
alone to look after a growing girl, do you? Monstacademy is a boarding school.
She’ll be living there. You’ll have all that time for yourself. You know how
you’ve always wanted the time to train a cat circus? Well, now you’ll have that
time! Besides, she’ll be much better off around other children. She’ll get
bored here just you two.”
“Well, there is that. In a way it would be kinder to send
her. But what about the other children? I’ve heard that they have Vampires and
Zombies and everything else there. They might try to suck her blood!”
“Well, everyone needs a hobby, dear,” he’d replied,
clearly unconcerned about Trixie’s neck or the threat of eternal damnation.
“Besides, those are just rumours. It’s probably just a few extra hairy kids and
some of those moody ones that like to wear black and listen to depressing
music. You know the ones I mean…”
“Teenagers?” offered her mum.
“Yeah probably,” Rob trailed off, distracted by a most
terribly important business call on his mobile phone.
And that had been that. Rob had persuaded her mum that a
little time to herself would be a good thing. In the end, even though she was
never comfortable with Trixie mixing with what her mother had called “their
sort”, she’d decided that having her out of the house was worth the risk. She’d
even spent time looking for kittens that looked suitably athletic. Trixie’s
displeasure had only been matched by Snot’s who now spent most of his time on
top of the fridge in protest.
“You’ll make lots of new and exciting friends!” her mum
had argued after one particularly bad fight.
“But, Mum,” she’d wailed, “I am nearly ten years old, I’m
pretty sure I’ve got all the friends I’ll ever need!”
So it had continued throughout the summer. Eventually the
holidays had drawn to an end, uniforms and equipment had been bought and Trixie
soon found herself stood at the front door to her new life.
Author Information
Matt Beighton was born somewhere in the midlands in England during the heady days of the 1980s and continues to spend most of his days in the same shire. He is happily married with two young daughters who keep him very busy and suffer through the endless early drafts of his stories.
When he's not writing, he teaches primary school (Kindergarten to some of you), messes around on canals in his inflatable kayak and supports his beloved Leicester City.
Tour Schedule
Monday 17th September
Tuesday 18th September
Wednesday 19th September
Thursday 20th September
Friday 21st September
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