"Mayor Hubbletree didn't sound very welcoming in his 'welcome' speech," Ben whispered to Winnie.
"Monsters make him nervous," Winnie whispered back.
Mr. Freaky's noses were wiggling wildly as he tried to reassure Mayor Hubbletree.
"Don't worry, Mayor. Miss Bungle and I will make sure that things are under control."
"You'd better, Freaky!" Mayor Hubbletree snapped.
"I went to a lot of trouble to arrange this field trip.
A lot of people are very suspicious of monsters, you know."
Dr. Bones looked impatient. "Don't worry, Mayor.
Everything will be fine.
I'll make sure that all the monsters are snug in their beds."
"I have a coffin, not a bed," said a vampire.
"I have a pyramid," Cleo said.
Winnie giggled. "Do you think we should tell Dr. Bones that zombies never sleep?"
"Wonderful, Dr. Bones!" the mayor was saying.
"I look forward to receiving a wonderful report tomorrow.
Now please excuse me. I have some very important work to do at City Hall."
As the mayor left, the Doppel Gang made funny faces behind his back.
"Stop that at once!" Mr. Freaky ordered.
Dr. Bones turned to Al Normal. "You're in charge," she said.
"I'll be in my office."
Al Normal looked nervously at the group.
"Okay, people, er, monsters! Let's go inside."
Ben followed the other monsters into the museum.
"I'm sure that you'll find many interesting things here," Al Normal began.
"We have all kinds of fascinating exhibits—dinosaurs, rocks, plants.
We also have a wonderful Old West exhibit and an Egyptian collection with valuable jewels."
"Ooh! Dinosaurs!" said a lizard monster.
Gaby pointed to a fountain. "What a pretty fountain."
"It represents the oceans of the world," Mr. Normal said.
"There's a map of the museum right here."
He pointed to a big map on display.
Beside it was a stand with printed maps.
Al Normal looked at Miss Bungle and Mr. Freaky.
"Should I show the students around the museum?" he asked.
"I think they can explore the exhibits on their own," Miss Bungle said.
"I don't want anyone to get lost," Al Normal murmured.
"No problem. We can use the maps," Ben said.
Al Normal still looked uneasy.
"I'll be walking around the exhibits, watching to see if anyone needs me."
"Too bad he doesn't have more eyes," whispered a three-eyed monster.
"I wonder where the Egyptian exhibit is," Cleo said.
"I bet we can find it," Waldo replied, looking at his map.
"Let's check out the Early Humans exhibit first," Gaby suggested.
"I read that people used to live in caves."
"Wow!" Mog said. "Maybe they're more like monsters than I thought."
Ben and Winnie started exploring the museum.
They looked at the cave people and then headed to the dinosaur exhibit.
A few monsters were standing at a glass case.
"Ugh!" cried a fish monster.
"I thought they'd have real dinosaurs here.
These are just dumb skeletons!"
A tall skeleton glowered at the fish monster. "Are you calling skeletons dumb?"
Waldo read aloud from a museum pamphlet.
"It says here that ancient people thought that huge fossil bones belonged to giants."
"Maybe they did belong to giants," Gaby said.
"But now people know those bones really belonged to dinosaurs, which are long extinct," Waldo continued.
"How do they know dinosaurs are extinct?" asked the fish monster.
"Dinosaurs could still be roaming the earth."
While the others argued about the bones, Ben walked around.
He spotted a pair of zombies standing near the museum entrance.
"They must be new students," Ben thought.
"I didn't notice them on the bus."
He decided to walk over and introduce himself.
But he lost the zombies in the crowd before he could reach them.
"Huh. Where did they go?" he said, looking around.
Nearby, some people in hard hats came out of the construction area.
"Excuse me, did you see two zombies go by?" Ben asked them.
"Nope," said the first worker, whom Ben had seen at the director's office earlier.
"Hey," said the other worker with a frown.
"Shouldn't you be with the other monsters?
Dr. Bones doesn't like students wandering around the museum on their own."
"Dr. Bones doesn't like anybody," the first worker muttered under his breath.
Just then Ben heard a shriek.
"That sounds like Cleo!" he thought.
He thanked the workers and whirled around to see what was happening.
He found his friends at the Egyptian exhibit.
They were all staring into a tall glass display case, just past the Egyptian jewels.
Cleo had her hands clapped over her mouth.
"Cleo, what's wrong?" Ben asked.
Cleo pointed at the case.
"See that mummy? He's my uncle Tut!"