The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight (9 page)

It’s not just Jodie and Mark’s problem. Scarecrows have been spooking humans for ages! Here are some of the scarecrows who have popped up over the course of history. Some seem nicer than others….

According to an ancient Japanese myth,
KUEBIKO
is a scarecrow deity. He can’t walk, but he sees and knows everything from standing outside all day.

Shakespeare mentions scarecrows in his famous comedy
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
His scarecrow is called a
JACK-A-LENT
after the dolls that were crafted from straw and pelted during the forty days of Lent.

In a story by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, a scarecrow named
FEATHERTOP
is brought to life in the historically haunted town of Salem, Massachusetts. Unlike Jodie and Mark’s scarecrows, Feathertop has a hard time dealing with being alive.

Perhaps the most famous scarecrow of all is featured in L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz series. The Scarecrow wants to go to see the Wizard to find out about getting a brain. In
THE WIZARD OF OZ
movie, the Scarecrow helps Dorothy get home to Kansas. In the book series, the Scarecrow actually had a great brain all along and becomes known as the WISEST man in all of Oz.

Add more Goosebumps to your collection! Here’s a chilling preview of

THE WIZARD OF OOZE

The adventure continues in the world’s scariest theme park!

On the car ride home, Gabriella and I sat silently in the backseat. I had my face buried in the Ooze book. Gabriella read over my shoulder.

“Look at those unusual trees,” Mom said from the passenger seat up front. “Have you ever seen anything like those?”

Gabriella and I didn’t raise our heads from the book. “Awesome,” I said.

“The trees?” Mom asked.

“No. The Ooze,” I muttered. “He has to be the coolest ever. I mean, a villain made entirely out of oil sludge? How cool is that?”

“Well … he’s definitely yucky and oily and gross,” Gabriella said.

“I can’t believe you kids are missing all this beautiful scenery,” Mom said.

“I don’t get it,” Gabriella said. “He’s just a huge pile of disgusting gunk. Why do you like him so much?”

“That’s why,” I said.

“Horse farm to your left,” Dad said, slowing the car. “Look on the hill. Those horses are definitely thoroughbreds. Wonder if they race.”

Gabriella tried to take the book from me. But I held on to it. “I’m not finished,” I said. “You don’t like it anyway.”

Gabriella made a pouty face. “There’s nothing else to do. I accidentally packed away my iPod.”

“You could look at the wonderful scenery,” Mom said.

“Did you see the bonus section about how to become a superhero?” I asked Gabriella.

“Not yet. You’re hogging the book.”

“It says it’s easy to find the superhero inside you.”

Gabriella laughed. “You mean you changed your mind about it? Now you think this comic book could actually turn you into a superhero?”

“Well … not really,” I said.

“You know why they put that stuff in the back of graphic novels,” Gabriella said. “It’s just there to fill up the pages. The story ended. So they have to put a lot of other junk back there.
No way
it’s going to turn you into a superhero.”

“You’re right,” I said. “You’re definitely right.”

“Give me a turn,” Gabriella said. She tried to pull the book from my hands again — and something fell onto the car seat.

She picked it up. “Check it out. A bookmark.” She studied it. “Totally weird.”

“Why?” I asked. “What does it say?”

“I can’t read it,” she said. “It’s in a foreign language.”

I grabbed the bookmark and tucked it back inside the book. “We can study it later,” I said. “This book is definitely awesome.”

“Look at that up ahead — an entire herd of black sheep!” Dad said.

We dropped Gabriella off at her house. Then as we pulled up our driveway ?eke came running out to greet us. Of course, the first thing he said to me was — “What did you bring me?”

I helped Mom and Dad carry in the suitcases. Then I gave Zeke his Extra Nose.

The kid is so weird. He stuck it on the living room wall — not on his face. He thought that was a riot.

I spent the rest of the day helping Mom unpack and getting my room back together. We were all tired from the long car trip and went to bed pretty early.

I kept thinking about The Ooze and superpowers … superpowers …

I yawned. I was too tired to read. But tomorrow I would definitely try to find mine.

The next day was Saturday. That afternoon, I was upstairs in my room. I had the Ooze book open on my bed. I kept flipping through the pages in the back.

Find Your Inner Superhero

That’s what it said. Of course, I knew the whole idea was crazy. Totally dumb. No way it could work. No way.

But I still wanted to try it. I
had
to try it.

Sprawled on my stomach on the bed, I turned to the first instruction page and started to read….

There are many powers to choose from. You must explore. You must experiment. It is the only way to find the power that you were born to use. When you find your power, you will KNOW it. Your power will stay with you. It will BECOME you — and you will become IT!

Wow. Marco, you can do this!
I told myself.
Go ahead, dude. Give it a try!

Is your inner superpower the ability to fly? To find out, you must concentrate … concentrate your thoughts and your muscles. Flight is the gift of birds. To begin, you will need to borrow from the birds. You will need two fresh bird feathers, still warm from the bird’s living body….

Two bird feathers.

“No problem,” I murmured to myself.

Most people would have trouble finding fresh, warm bird feathers. But not me. Maybe that meant I was destined to fly.

I left the book open on the bed. I pulled on my sneakers and made my way out into the hall.

Zeke’s room is across from mine. I saw him in there sticking the Extra Nose onto his laptop screen. “Where are you going?” he called.

“Outside for a minute,” I said.

“Want to play tetherball with me?” Zeke asked. “Dad fixed the rope.”

“I’m busy,” I told him.

“Busy being a jerk,” he said. Typical.

I stepped out the back door. It was a steamy, gray day. Dark clouds hung low over the trees. It looked like it might rain later.

Mr. Clare, our neighbor, has a pigeon coop behind his garage. He keeps dozens of pigeons. I could hear them cooing.

I checked to make sure he wasn’t around. The back of his house was dark. His car wasn’t in the driveway.

Mr. Clare doesn’t like me. It’s because he thinks I was responsible for a bunch of kids running over his tomato garden. It’s true we were there, searching for our Frisbee. But we didn’t exactly
run
over the garden.

Anyway, he definitely wouldn’t like me plucking his pigeons. If he caught me, how could I explain what I was doing?

I ducked behind the low bushes between our yards. And I ran as fast as I could to the pigeon cages. They were stacked high against the garage. I counted six wooden cages with maybe ten or twelve birds in a cage.

As I ran up to them, the pigeons began to cluck and flap their wings and knock each other off their perches.
“Ssshhh.
Quiet, guys,” I whispered.

I glanced around the garage to the house. Did a light go on in Mr. Clare’s back window?

My heart started to pound. My mouth was suddenly dry as sand.

The stupid pigeons were squawking like chickens! They flapped their wings loudly. Two of them started fighting, pecking at each other’s eyes.

I tried to reach my fingers into the middle cage. But the chicken wire was too tight. No way I could pluck two feathers, even if a pigeon stood still for me.

I reached for the latch on the cage door. The pigeons started
hoo-hoo-hooing
louder.

“Shhhh.
Quiet, guys. Please!”

I peeked again around the corner of the garage wall. Yes. I definitely saw a light in the kitchen. And was that Mr. Clare peering out the window?

I had to act fast. My hand trembled as I pushed down the latch. I pulled open the cage door. “Hey!”

Pigeons flapped and fluttered to the opening. They pushed against my hand, eager to escape.

“Who is back there?” I heard Mr. Clare’s shout from the house. “Is somebody back there?”

A pigeon slid past my hand and almost squeezed out of the cage. I kept the door pressed against my wrist. Pigeons squawked and jumped off their perches at me.

I grabbed at some tail feathers. Missed. Grabbed again.

Yes! I had three feathers pinched between my fingers. One more than I needed.

I squeezed them tightly, praying that they wouldn’t fall out. And carefully, I slid my hand out of the cage. With my free hand, I closed the cage door and latched it.

I moved the feathers into my palm and wrapped my fingers around them to protect them. Then I took off, running on trembling legs.

I made it to the long row of bushes just as Mr. Clare’s back door swung open. I saw him step out of his house, tying the belt of his gray bathrobe.

“Who’s back there?”

The pigeons squawked and cried in reply.

Hiding behind the bushes, I watched him stomp back to the pigeon cages. When he disappeared behind the garage, I took off running. I darted into the house and slammed the door behind me.

Even more frights to keep you awake at night! Here’s a preview of

YOU CAN’T SCARE ME!

Another classic Goosebumps adventure with brand-new bonus material

The day we decided to scare Courtney was the day of our class field trip.

Mr. Melvin, our teacher, and Ms. Prince, the other sixth-grade teacher, stood counting us as we boarded the yellow school bus.

Courtney was first in line, of course. Courtney makes sure she is always first in line. Her friend Denise boarded right behind her.

It was a gray day. Dark storm clouds rolled overhead, blocking the sun. The guy on the radio said there was a ninety percent chance of rain.

I didn’t care. I was happy to be getting out of school.

I pushed my friend Hat into the kid in front of him. His real name is Herbie, but everyone calls him Hat. That’s because no one has ever seen him without a baseball cap on his head. I’ve known Hat since fourth grade, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen his hair.

The kid in front spun around and shoved Hat back at me.

“Hey — give me a break!” Hat shouted. He slugged me hard on the shoulder. “You made me swallow my gum, Eddie.”

“Hey, guys, be cool,” Mr. Melvin said, frowning at us. He’s the kind of teacher who always says things like “be cool” and tries to act like he’s our friend. But he’s a pretty good teacher, anyway.

And he takes us on a lot of field trips, which
is
cool.

“Why are we going to a forest?” Hat grumbled, slipping another piece of bubble gum into his mouth. “What are we supposed to look for?”

“Trees, I guess,” I replied. I didn’t remember why we were going to Greene Forest. I just remembered we were supposed to take notes.

“Eddie, want some bubble gum?”

I turned around to see my friend Charlene right behind me in line. She and my other friend Molly had big gobs of grape gum in their mouths and were chewing hard.

“Molly, how can you chew that stuff with braces?” I asked.

She opened her mouth in a wide grin, showing me her teeth. “It doesn’t stick too much,” she said.

Molly’s braces are red and blue. She’s always showing them off. I don’t know why.

Molly and Charlene look so much alike, almost like sisters. They both have short brown hair and brown eyes. They’re both about my height, five two. They both wear faded jeans and big, oversized T-shirts all the time. The only difference between Molly and Charlene is that Molly wears glasses and has braces, and Charlene doesn’t.

“I’ll protect you two in the deep, dark forest,” I teased. “You know. In case you’re attacked by fleas or something.”

“Eddie’s a real macho guy,” Hat said, grinning. “He’s real brave.” He punched my shoulder. Hard.

I pretended it didn’t hurt.

“You both have fleas,” Charlene said.

“We’ll protect
you,
Eddie,” Molly offered. “There might be some vicious worms there!”

Hat, Molly, and Charlene burst out laughing. Molly was teasing me about the time the four of us went fishing at Muddy Creek, and I had a little trouble putting a worm on my hook.

“I wasn’t afraid of that worm!” I cried angrily. “It was just yucky, that’s all.”

I scowled at Molly, but I wasn’t really angry. I’m used to being teased. Kids always make fun of my freckles and my red hair. And my older brother, Kevin, calls me Bugs. He says I look just like Bugs Bunny because my two front teeth stick out.

“What’s up, doc? What’s up, doc?” That’s all Kevin ever says to me. He and his high school pals think it’s a riot.

I climbed onto the bus and scrambled past Hat to get a window seat. Courtney and Denise had taken the front seat, of course. Courtney was brushing her long blond hair, using the bus window as a mirror. Denise was writing something in her notebook.

Hat slammed into me, and I stumbled down the aisle. He quickly slid into the seat and moved to the window. “Hey — no fair!” I shouted.

He giggled his high-pitched giggle and grinned at me. Hat is my best pal, but I have to admit he’s sort of goofy looking. I mean, he’s always grinning, sort of like Dopey in
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
And he has really big ears that bend down beneath his baseball cap, sort of doubled over.

He’s a good guy. He really makes Molly, Charlene, and me laugh all the time.

“I get the window going back,” I said, slumping down beside Hat. Charlene messed up my hair as she walked past.

“Why do they call it Greene Forest?” Hat asked, pressing his nose against the window, watching it steam up from his breath. “Why not Blue Forest or Red Forest?”

“A guy named Greene used to own it,” I told him. “He gave the land to the city when he died.”

“I knew that,” Hat said. What a liar.

I spun his cap around till it was backwards. He really hates that. But he deserved it for grabbing the window seat.

A few minutes later, the bus was bouncing toward Greene Forest. A few minutes after that, we were piling out of the bus, staring at the tall trees that reached up to the dark, cloudy sky.

“Make two columns on your work sheet,” Ms. Prince was telling everyone. “One for wildlife and one for plantlife.”

“I’m putting
you
down as plantlife,” I told Charlene.

She stuck her tongue out at me with the big purple blob of bubble gum on the tip. Hat slapped her on the back really hard, and the wad of bubble gum went flying.

Charlene cried out angrily and tried to slug him, but Hat backed away to safety. He was too fast for her.

The teachers divided us into groups, and we began to explore the forest. We followed a narrow dirt path that twisted through the trees.

It was cooler in the forest, and dark. I wished the sun would come out.

“What’s that green stuff on that tree?” Hat asked me, pointing. “Is that moss? Is moss wildlife or plantlife?”

“You should know,” I told him. “You have it growing on your back!”

Molly and Charlene laughed, but Hat didn’t. “Can’t you ever be serious?” He scribbled something on his work sheet.

I glanced down at mine. I hadn’t written anything yet. I mean, I’d only seen a bunch of trees and some weeds. Who cared about writing
that
down?

“The creatures are hiding,” Ms. Prince was telling the group of kids ahead of us. “Search for their hiding places. Look for holes in the ground and in trees. Look for hidden nests.”

I gazed up at the trees above my head. The leaves were too thick to see any nests. I was about to tell Hat he should look under some rocks because that’s where he came from. But before I could, I heard a hushed cry behind us.