Not your typical 11-year-old

The main character in Fiendish Deeds by P. J. Bracegirdle is definitely a little different!  Joy is 11 and she lives with her family in Spooking, "the terrible town on the hideous hill."  Think of words like dark, creepy, abandoned, overgrown...you get the idea.  But Joy loves it.  She and her brother Byron ride the school bus with the few other "Spooky" kids to Darlington, a town of perfect lawns, plenty of plastic, and boring, matching houses.  A contest to bring more people into the area results in a plan to build a water park (with a mermaid theme, much to Joy's horror) over the Spooking bog.  Joy is convinced that there's an endangered species living in the bog; she's determined to stop the project, but someone is determined to stop her.  Perfect for fans of scary stories who don't mind a bit of black humor, the story continues with Unearthly Asylum and Sinister Scenes.