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Authors: Laura Dower

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I panicked.

Without thinking, I started hurling things at the slime. First, I threw a vial from the fridge (because it happened to be in my hand). Then I reached for a binder from the classroom bookshelf. Damon started throwing, too. He pelted the slime with a few books. Lindsey joined in.

“What are you guys
doing
?” Stella screeched. “The slime is getting ready to eat meânot read to me!”

“If we feed it other stuff, maybe it'll be less hungry for you,” Damon said.

Stella howled. The slime stretched up all the way to the ceiling, arching over her like a tidal wave of goo. It looked ready to swallow her in one hungry gulp! I could see hollow holes where its eyes belonged. It had teeth and arms!

Stella was in big trouble.

If she had been the main character in one of Oswald Leery's movies, this would have been the part where I yelled out, “Oh, nooooo! She's a goner!”

But I didn't yell that. This was Stella Min and she wasn't a goner. She was tougher than any of us! I had to help her.

I leaped onto another lab table and waved my arms around, trying to distract the slime. At first I wasn't sure the enormous blob could even see me. But slowly, it began to slime in a different direction, toward
me.

“Damon! Lindsey! Help me! We can convince the slime to go in an opposite direction, like out the window,” I said.

“Out the window?” Stella yelled at me. “So Slimo can destroy the rest of Riddle? That's exactly what Dr. Leery wants us to stop it from doing, Jesse! Bad idea!”

“Ooops,” I gulped. “So what am I supposed to do?”

Damon let out a yelp. He was caught in the slime's grip. One long Slimo arm had wrapped itself around Damon's ankle . . .

Sluuuuurp.

“Noooo!” Damon wailed. Within five seconds, he was half-covered in the stuff. “My legs!”

Sluuuuurp.

“What are we supposed to do now?” I shrieked. My thoughts raced. Damon was the meanest bully in the entire school and something seemed so right about him getting swallowed by a B-Monster, but I had to stop it.

“Lindsey!” I cried.

“Water!” she yelled, rushing back over to me. She had a pail in her hands. It was filled to the brim.

“Yes!” I cried as she raised it up.

Before she let go, however, I heard a sucking noise like the world's loudest straw slurp.

“Nooooo!” Stella cried.

But I couldn't see her.

“Oh, no!” Damon cried out. “Nooooo!”

We glanced over to Mr. Bunsen's desk, just in time to see the top of Stella's head disappear under a blanket of slime. She was goneâexcept for her pair of black shoes.

Damon looked ready to cry. His face went white.
He
was next.

Lindsey lifted the pail into the air. “Here goes nothing!” she cried, tossing the water over our heads.

“Sayonara, Slimo!” I screamed.

And we held our breath, waiting to see what would happen next.

CHAPTER 15

THWUNK

I expected some kind of brilliant flash of light. Or a loud sucking noise. Anything that would show me the slime was on its way out.

Instead, the slime quivered and moved forward. It was even stronger than before!

“Oh, no! It's not working!” Damon yelled. “Ranger, I'm gonna get you forâ”

Before he could finish his thought, the slime gulped him down whole.

I looked away. Things were not working out like we'd hoped. We were down to half a Monster Squad.

In the past two minutes, Slimo had gotten
stronger
.

My mind raced. Time was running out. If Lindsey and I got swallowed up, then there would be no one left to fight the B-Monster.

I tried to remember the
Slimo
movie facts.

“Jesse!” Lindsey said. “The slime is on
my
shoe now. Hurry!”

Slimo had twisted a tendril of slime up Lindsey's leg. It would come after me next.

I had to think faster.

In the first movie, Slimo slips away unharmed. But in the second movie, Slimo dies. He sinks into the water. But what is special about that water? Fish? Seaweed? Wait! It was the ocean. It was salt water. Salt? In the third movie, he was killed on a highway covered with snow. But what else was on the road? Wait! Salt! Road salt!

“I think I know what to do!” I blurted. “I just hope we have timeâ”

I darted back into the science closet, leaping over puddles of the green goo and sidestepping those long arms of slime that were trying so hard to grab me. This was trickier than the fifth-grade obstacle course! I'd never seen so much hungry slime in my whole life.

“Yes!” I said when I saw what I was looking for. I grabbed a huge canister from a shelf and raced back into the classroom. “Okay, Slimo! Get ready to DIEâfor real!”

Thwunk.

I fell and skidded across the floor. Running into the classroom, I'd tripped on my own shoelacesâagain. The canister in my hand opened up and released white dust all over everything.

Lindsey looked horrified. “What is
that
?” she asked.

I gasped as slowly, on contact, the slime slid off her legs and then her torso. It started to shrivel. My solution was working! Lindsey was free!

“Jesse!” Lindsey cried. “How did you do that?”

The canister was next to me on the floor. I held it up. On the side was one word:

“You figured it out,” I told Lindsey. “You were right when you said the answer was probably something
inside
the water.”

There had been salt in the ocean water in
Slimo

and
Curse of Slimo
. And there was road salt during

the blizzard in
Son of Slimo
.

“Thanks,” Lindsey said. “Thanks for figuring it all out.”

“Look!” I cried. The slime was shrinking.

“It's turning into some kind of green fog,” Lindsey said.

Across the room, I heard groans.

Damon! Stella!

They were both barefoot, but they were back.

“Aaarrgh!” Stella moaned. “My head!”

“What happened?” Damon whimpered. “I feel like something my cat threw up. What is that smell?” He sniffed his shirt experimentally. “Oh, no, it's ME!”

“Jesse saved us!” Lindsey announced.

I looked over at Stella. She smiled.

It was the first time I remembered seeing her do that.

The green fog filled the room as the slime evaporated. Then a small voice came from the other side of the room.

“Hello?” a voice groaned.

I saw the figure step out of the fog like the Thermominator, a superhuman, temperature-controlled robot from another one of Leery's Bs.

But this was no B-Monster. This was Mr. Bunsen!

“Where am I?” Mr. Bunsen asked, running his fingers through a mass of sticky hair on his head. “Who are you kids?”

“Your students,” Lindsey said matter-of-factly.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked. He looked perfectly normal for someone who'd been swallowed up by goo for the past week.

“Where am I?” Mr. Bunsen repeated. “What is that smell? Did something die in here?”

I wanted to tell him the truth about what had happened. But I couldn't. At least not right away.

“There was a . . . gas leak . . .” I stammered.

“Yeah!” Stella chimed in. “You passed out. We saw you behind the desk and called the police and . . .”

“Why does my head feel like an elephant stepped on it?” Mr. Bunsen asked. “Is this some kind of prank?”

“I think maybe you should see a doctor,” Lindsey said.

Mr. Bunsen stared at Stella's hand. She was holding one of the Slimo vials we'd taken from the refrigerator.

“Where did you get that?” Mr. Bunsen asked.

“We found these green vials in the refrigerator. Why were you storing slime?”

Mr. Bunsen rubbed his head. “I don't remember,” he said thoughtfully. “No, wait. It was last week. I saw something green and glowing come up from one of the manhole covers on the street. Yes, that's it. I was curious, so I took a few scientific samples.”

“You saw the slime, too?” Damon said. “Whoa.”