The Slime That Would Not Die (3 page)

I've never heard so much screaming in a library.

About ten seconds passed before the lights went up again, brighter than ever.

The cape on the man wasn't a cape at all, but an old-fashioned jacket with tails. He wore a high-collared shirt and tie, too, with a shiny brass watch dangling from his pocket. The man's patent-leather shoes reflected the library's fluorescent lights so that it looked like he had lightbulbs on his feet. His black hair was slicked way back, which made the man's very large forehead seem much,
much
larger than it really was. But the weirdest part was that the guy didn't stop smiling! This made him very hard to look at without, well, smiling back.

“May I present Mr. Walter Block,” Ms. Shenanigans announced. “Our special guest.”

“Call me Walter,” Walter Block said.

We clapped politely. He smiled a little wider.

“Thank you, but I'm not the only special one here tonight,” Block said. He took the microphone, walked over to the shrouded object, and pulled off its cover.

We gasped.

Well, it wasn't
actually
Oswald Leery. It was an oversize photographic cutout, like the ones in movie theaters. The cutout had gray-tufted hair on top, like a woodpecker's head. And he wore a dark blue suit, turtleneck shirt, and trademark black glasses. You can never see his eyes in any photographs. Leery carried a large cane with a carved, silver, two-headed serpent for a handle. It was almost as cool as having the real Leery at the library.

“I think my grandfather took that picture of him,” Lindsey said proudly.

“Wow.” I was impressed.

Walter went on. “Mr. Leery wanted all of you to view this very special copy of
Slimo
tonight, on loan from a very dear friend. This version includes rarely seen outtakes and never-seen-before scenes.”

Everyone let out a little “ooooh,” including me and Lindsey. I'd seen the original
Slimo
five times before, but not in a special place like this.

“The first
Slimo
feature was filmed back in 1955 right in downtown Riddle, not on a soundstage,” Walter went on. “You may recognize some familiar locations in the movie, like the local post office.”

The lights inside the library dimmed. I clenched the tops of my knees with my hands and leaned forward. Sometimes waiting to be scared is the scariest thing of all.

A bright green slime dribbled from the corners of the screen. It looked like it was going to drip off the edges! Soon the slime began to ooze and gush, making wet, squishy sounds, like when I walk through mud in my sneakers. Then the slime shaped itself into five letters and a gooey exclamation point.

I barely even blinked for the next hour and a half, right up until the part when Slimo gets as big as a school bus and grows teeth! It devours the last person in Riddle and slips into Riddle Lake. Just as the B-Monster is about to go underwater, it lets out a huge, loud
bluuuuuurp
! An enormous gas bubble appears on the surface of the lake and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger until
kablam
! It pops.

I let out a crazy whoop.

“Slimo! Slimo! Slimo!”

“Calm down, calm down!” Ms. Shenanigans said, sounding exasperated. “Do any of you have questions for Mr. Block?”

I raised my hand up as high as I could. Here was my big chance to ask the long-burning question I had asked in all forty-eight of my letters.

But drat if Walter didn't call on me. And he didn't he call on Lindsey either.

Kids rushed to a long table at the back of the room. Everyone pushed together to meet Walter face-to-face. He was passing out
Slimo
mini-posters.

Of course I couldn't squeeze in to talk to him. By now I'd lost track of Lindsey, too. And my watch said eight-thirty, which meant it was time to meet Dad.

I had to go.

Disappointed, I nudged my way through the throng away from Walter's table and toward the library exit. Ms. Shenanigans saw me leaving and said she'd save me a poster. On the way out, the
Slimo
theme song played inside my head.

Even though I hadn't gotten to meet Leery or ask my questions, it had still been a pretty decent night.

“Jesse! Here!”

Dad was waiting in the car across the street from the library, just like he said.

He waved up to me. I took off, down the steps, running as fast as I could.

At the bottom step, I took an unplanned nosedive. My shoelaces were untied again.

As I struggled to get up, a black stretch limousine screeched to a stop
inches
from my head. A tinted window rolled down.

“My heavens! Are you okay?” a man asked.

I blinked twice. It was Walter Block!

“How did you get down here so fast?” I asked.

“No trouble at all,” Walter replied.

He held out a silver-blue sealed envelope. On the front was my full name written in loopy, fancy letters:
Master Jesse Angus Ranger

“For you, from the desk of Oswald Leery,” Walter said, shoving the envelope into my hands.

Before I could respond, his window rolled back up and the limousine sped out of the parking lot.

Dad came running over just then. He had seen my fall on the bottom step.

“What happened?” Dad sounded concerned. “Jesse, are you okay? Let me look at you. Did you get hurt?”

I didn't know what to say. My side ached. My palm was scratched up. I was more confused than anything else.

“How did Walter get out of here so fast?” I said again. I rubbed my head.

“Who was that?” Dad asked. “What's that in your hand?” He pointed to the letter.

I held up the blue envelope. It shimmered in the moonlight.

“Dad, I think I finally got my letter from Oswald Leery.”

CHAPTER 4

“Are you sure you're okay, Jess?” Dad asked as he started up our car. “That looked like a bad fall.”

I had a skinned knee, but that wasn't the worst thing. What felt really bad was my stomach. It was twisted into knots with nerves. I had waited an entire year for the envelope in my lap.

“Tear it open!” Dad said. “Let's see what's inside.”

I wasn't sure what I was waiting for. I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a handwritten letter. I held it out in front of me, mentally preparing for the secrets. All of the answers to my B-Monster questions were waiting for me on this piece of paper—I just knew it!

“Well?” Dad said, turning to me as we pulled into our driveway. “Holy guacamole, Jesse! Would you
please
quit stalling? If you're not going to read it, I will.”

“Dad,” I said. “I just need a minute.”

Dad parked the car and turned off the motor.

Slowly, I began to read the blue paper aloud.

“Wow!” Dad cheered. “A personal note
and
an invitation to the castle? That's too much!”

“Leery called me Mr. Ranger,” I said, giggling. “
Your
name, Dad!”

My skin flushed all over. This
was
too much.

We walked into the kitchen. Mom was sitting at the wooden table with her briefcase and cell phone. The
Crabzilla
DVD case was there, too.

“So how was the library?” Mom asked.

“They showed
Slimo
,” I said.

Dad grinned at me. He'd already called Mom to fill her in on all the details.

“What was it like to finally meet your favorite director, Oswald Leery?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. “I didn't meet him,” I said. “We met his assistant Walter Block. He gave me this.”

I held the silver-blue envelope so Mom could read it.

“Well,” Mom said, taking it and quickly giving it a look. I could tell when she got to the part about the castle tour. Her eyes got all buggy.

“Well.” Mom sighed. “This is something else.”

“Yeah, too bad I can't go, right?” I said, hanging my head down and expecting the worst.

Mom looked right into my eyes. “Aw, Jess, you don't want to miss this, do you?”

“I don't?” My mouth curled into a grin. “No way, Mom.”

“It's the opportunity of a lifetime,” Mom said.

Inside, I was screaming for joy, but I made Mom say yes, of course I could go,
twice
more—just to be sure. I threw my arms around her shoulders and squeezed.

“Okay, enough hugs. Let's get upstairs, champ,” Dad said. “We'll celebrate tomorrow.”

I raced to my room and flipped onto my bed. The constellations poster on my ceiling glowed softly, and there I was, under it, King of the B-Monster galaxy.

Wow, did I need to rest. But there was no sleeping now. It felt like I'd eaten four ice cream sundaes and had a thousand shock waves powered directly to my brain.
And
I was thirsty.

I headed to the kitchen to get something to drink. Shadows covered the kitchen walls. I loved how the house looked at night, quiet and sleepy.

If only I felt sleepy!

I turned on the faucet for a cup of water. Nothing came out. I leaned in for a closer look. Sometimes things got kk ii hh ff II flfl ii dd hh bb disposal. I tried both faucet handles. I leaned down to check the pipes under the sink.

Without warning, the sink above me burped. It sounded and smelled like trapped air, or
me
after too many chili dogs. I stood right .

Bluurp
.

AA bb bb bbll dd dd hhe whole kitchen stank even worse now—like socks. I pinched my nose. What kind of burp
wa
s
that
?

Another bubble came up from the sink. There was goo oozing out of the faucet and into the sink .

“This can't be real,” I told , blinking. “What
is
that nasty stuff?”

I reached out to touch it but ee n jumped back.
Bleech
! I swiped a towel off the stove and rubbed my hands to get off the sticky. ss was no ordinary goop. This looked exactly like—

SLIMO!