Stephen Gilpin’s manga style illustrations, with its big eyes, skinny arms and legs, will grab the readers attention before the story begins, because in this case, the reader should judge the book by its cover! The  black and white illustrations continue two or three times in each of the eleven chapters, too.

Flo (short for Florence – but don’t call her that) and her mother move around a lot since her father died. They are moving into yet another apartment building. This is the fourth in four years. Flo knows her mother is trying hard, but this isn’t much of a place, maybe they won’t be here long enough to unpack Flo thinks.  After dinner, Flo goes to investigate who stole her entire box of Popsicles from the grocery bag in the hall, while they were unloading the  rest of the groceries in the kitchen. Flo asks the new neighbor across the hall where the ‘underwear boy’ is? (Illustration on page 22 is priceless.) The grandmother tells Flo he’s down in the basement laundry room. Flo decides to not take the rickety elevator to the basement , but used the stairs instead. The stairs are filled with webs and big white fuzzy balls. Yuck. The ‘underwear kid’  is indeed doing the laundry. The kid’s name is Ferdinand, Furry for short. Furry asks Flo, ” Want to see something awesome?… It’s a crack in the floor…The light shining from the crack bathed his face in an eerie blue light.     And just like that, Flo forgot all about the Popsicles.”  (pg. 48-49) As it turns out, the building’s retired ‘maintenance guy’ informs Flo and Furry the apartment building was “built a long time ago on top of an ancient seal…. A seal like a plug… It was built to seal off a doorway into another world.”  (p. 71)   Furry and Flo work their way back up to their apartments on the 17th floor. A little while later, Flo hears Furry leaving his apartment and he has her box of Popsicles! Flo follows Furry up to the roof where the full moon turns him into a werewolf. The Popsicles are to help keep him cool in all the fur, hence only the ‘tightie whities’ (illustration on p. 83). Flo steps on one of the big white fuzzy balls on her way to the roof. It turns out, it is actually a giant spider egg and the mother spider is now after them. Back to the basement they go. They stop the giant mother spider by putting her eggs into the crack in the laundry room floor.  “As Flo headed back upstairs to her new home, she got to thinking. Sure Coran Towers were dumpy and kind of creepy, but they were growing on her. And having a werewolf as a friend certainly didn’t hurt.    At least I won’t be bored, Flo thought.  (p. 120)

Flo has 3 questions to ask the readers to guide them into a deeper understanding of her character. Then Furry has 3 writing prompts for the readers. Finally there is  sneak peak at Furry and Flo’s next book –  The Problem with Goblins.