Lamb came from an unusual family of monsters. You see, Lamb's parents weren't good at picking names. If you thought Lamb was an odd name for a monster, you should meet Lamb's older sibling, Potato.

You would think anyone named Potato must be a Couch Potato, but not this Potato. Sometimes it could be a real Rotten Potato, but while growing up, it learned how to make the most of its name, and now the other monsters call it Hot Potato. To you and me, Potato was as horrific as a monster comes, but to another monster, Potato was quite attractive. Though not to Lamb, of course; Lamb thought everyone called it Hot Potato because of its temper. Potato was always angry at Lamb for something.

A Real Monster Name

Monster families come in all shapes and sizes. Some monsters only have one parent. One of Lamb's classmates at school has thirteen parents! But Lamb, like many humans, has two parents, Dash and Sad. To understand why Potato and Lamb were given such bad names, you need to know about Sad...

Many years ago, when Sad was born, Sad wasn't its name. Its parent (Sad only had one parent) named it Sadyl. Sadyl was a good monster name. Not too nice and not too scary and perfectly original. That's one of the rules, you know. No monster can have the same name. How scary would Big Foot be if it wasn't the only Big Foot? But Sadyl's life was ruined the first week of school.

Sadyl started school younger than most monsters because it was so smart. Unfortunately, that meant it was so young that its parent had never taken it on a raid of a human village. One of the first things the monsters did that year was make scarecrows for the "Trick or Human" tournament that Friday. Sadyl had never seen a human before, so instead of making an ugly scarecrow, Sadyl's scarecrow was amazing.

On Friday, during the "Trick or Human" tournament, the head of Sadyl's scarecrow was torn off. It was part of how the tournament worked. But Sadyl burst into tears. That was ITS scarecrow, and now it was ruined! Everyone laughed. Monsters don't care about humans, not even fake ones like these scarecrows; no monster had ever shed a tear for one. Suddenly someone yelled, "Sad Sadyl!" Soon everyone joined in. "Sad Sadyl! Sad Sadyl!"

Before we continue, you need to understand how special monster names are. Every monster is given one name at birth. But their true name, the name they'll be known by for life, is one that has to be earned. Lamb's other parent, Dash, earned its name when it became the first monster to outrun a dragon in the monster Olympics at Death Valley. Dash is a monster you won't see coming until it's too late.

Sadyl, unfortunately, earned its true that first week of school. It's very rare for a monster's true name to be given that early, but after everyone kept calling it "Sad Sadyl" for many months, eventually they all shortened it to "Sad".

Worst. Monster. Name. Ever.

Parents Know Best

When Sad and Dash had children, Sad made a plan. Sadyl had been a good monster name, and it ended up being called Sad forever. Dash had been given a bad monster name at birth: Cleve. Yuck! But look at the name it had earned. Sad decided to start with truly terrible monster names: Potato and Lamb. Sad was certain that by giving them the worst start it could, one day they'd each do something so amazing that they'd both earn truly terrifying monster names.

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