Read The Slime That Would Not Die Online

Authors: Laura Dower

The Slime That Would Not Die (5 page)

BOOK: The Slime That Would Not Die
2.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
“Where do you think all this slime came from?” I whispered to Garth.
“What slime?” Garth said.
I made a sour face. “Are you kidding me? What do you mean
what slime
? It's all over the place. Can't you see it? Can't you
smell
that?”
Garth frowned and looked inside again. “
What
slime?” he said. “All I see in Mr. Bunsen's room are lab tables and a big mess of papers.”
I saw Damon listening to us. He leaned over to his own friends.
“Dudes,” Damon asked them. “See all the slime on the wall?”
Both guys shook their heads. “No.”
“
That
slime. On the walls?” Damon said, his voice rising. “RIGHT THERE! DON'T YOU SEE THAT?!”
“Shhh!” I cried softly. But it was too late. The pack of cops had heard our voices. I could hear them stomping back down the hall. They did
not
look happy to see us.
My whole body shook.
Were they going to arrest us? What was the punishment for trespassing on the third floor? Would I live to see another day?
Garth and the posse ducked out of the classroom. But I didn't move.
Neither did Damon.
Spiker came into the classroom first. He made a sour face at me. “Jesse,” Spiker groaned. “You shouldn't be here.”
“Yeah, you kids better head to class before you're sent to the principal's office,” a cop said sternly, pointing his sausagelike finger at us.
“This floor is way off-limits,” another cop growled. “There's nothing to see.”
“Nothing but a whole truckload of slime, right?” I muttered.
“Slime? What slime?” Spiker asked.
“
That
green slime,” Damon said. “Don't you see it?”
“There's no slime here!” the third cop said. “Now you better get moving before you start seeing little green men, too.”
I gulped. Why could we see the slime when no one else could?
“Okay, boys, I'm taking you in,” the first cop said. “You're going to get into big, BIG trouble. I wouldn't be surprised if you got expelled for—”
“Hold on,” Spiker interrupted. “I know these kids.”
The cop stepped back.
Spiker waved his hand down the hall. “Shove off, kids. Before I change my mind . . .”
Before we turned away, Damon nudged me in the side. “Ranger,” he whispered. I could barely hear him. “Look at that!”
I glanced into Mr. Bunsen's classroom. In a corner near the teacher's desk was a pair of blue-green sneakers just like the ones I had seen on Mr. Bunsen's feet a day before. What were those doing there?
Near Mr. Bunsen's shoes, a strange puddle of slime caught my attention.
It had spelled out a word right there on the floor.
.
“Let's get out of here!” I cried as we took off down the hall.
CHAPTER 7
THE NINJA KNOWS
Damon and I bolted back into the stairwell. We were both sweating bullets.
“That stuff in the classroom was turning into Slimo for real!” I gasped, taking two steps down at a time. “It's just like Oswald Leery's B-Monster movies! Once the monster gets its teeth, it will eat us all!”
“Why didn't anyone besides you and me see the slime?” Damon asked.
“I don't know,” I whispered back. “That goo was
everywhere
.”
“I saw slime last night, too,” Damon said in a low voice.
I stopped short. “You did?”
“I woke up in the middle of the night drooling so I went into the bathroom to wash my face. But when I picked up the towel by the sink, it was covered in this green, sticky, stinky goo.”
“Ewwww,” I groaned. “That's
snot
possible!” I cracked, making a lame joke. I do that sometimes when I'm feeling nervous.
Of course Damon shot me an evil stare. “This isn't funny, dorkus!”
“I'm not laughing,” I said, even though I was. “The truth is, I saw slime, too. It came out of our kitchen sink.”
“The sink? Just like mine!” Damon cried.
“It's a sign,” I said.
“Right,” Damon said. “A sign that we're doomed.”
We headed back to our regular classroom. We were so late! Ms. Sharp would probably throw a fit. But when we went through the door, the teacher wasn't even there! Kids were talking and goofing off.
Lindsey looked up and waved from the back row.
“Jesse, what are you doing with
him
?” she asked, rolling her eyes at Damon.
“Long story,” I said. “Did you know that Mr. Bunsen disappeared?”
“Disappeared? What?” Lindsey's eyes popped open. “From where?” she blinked.
“From his classroom. In fact, we were just upstairs looking at—”
“Ranger!” Damon grabbed my shoulder hard. His voice sounded panicked. “What if Ms. Sharp disappeared, too? What if this is some kind of sneaky alien invasion like the one in
Martian Mayhem
?”
That was one of my least favorite B-Monster movies, but I was impressed by the reference. Maybe Damon knew more about Bs than I thought.
“What's the matter with you guys?” Lindsey chuckled. “Ms. Sharp didn't disappear. She went out into the hall with Principal Pickle. I mean, she's been gone a while now, but . . .”
“Lindsey, something is really wrong around here,” I said.
“Is it any more wrong than any other day?” Lindsey asked. “Don't worry so much. Ms. Sharp will be right back. She said so.”
Sure enough, Ms. Sharp walked in a moment later. Damon and I dove for our seats.
“Hello, students!” Ms. Sharp declared. “I'm back at last! There will be no more interruptions. Take out your math books. I think we can salvage some of this lesson.”
Math?
Now?
It was going to be hard to concentrate for a whole ten minutes.
Something hit my shoulder with a ping. A paper airplane landed on the floor next to me. I twisted around to see who had launched it.
The Ninja!
Stella Min stared me down with her beady brown eyes. I'd forgotten she was in this class. Carefully, I opened the note on my lap.
I see the slime, too.
“Mr. Ranger?” I gasped aloud. Ms. Sharp hovered over me.
“Is there something wrong, Mr. Ranger?” Ms. Sharp asked, raising an eyebrow. “I asked you a question.”
“You did?” I stammered. “Uh . . . uh . . .”
How was I supposed to solve unit conversions and do pre-algebra at a time like this? I shouted out a random number.
“Three hundred and eleven.”
Ms. Sharp sighed. “Good grief! You need to read the chapter again, Mr. Ranger,” she groaned. She turned to Myles “Brain Boy” Boxer for the correct answer.
I whirled back around in my seat. A second piece of paper crash-landed on my desktop. This folded note looked like an origami bird.
I think we should talk. Look over here.
I glanced back at Stella. My heart sank.
In her hand, Stella held a shimmering blue piece of paper. She had an invitation just like the one Walter Block had given to me outside the library!
I gulped and leaned back into my bag. Where was my own blue invitation? I held it up high so Stella could see.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Damon holding the very same blue piece of paper in his fist. His eyes flashed at me and then at Lindsey.
She had a blue paper, too?
Whoa.
We
were the four kids invited to go to the castle?
Brrrrrrrrring.
The class bell rang. The four of us raced for the door at the exact same time. We huddled in the hallway, away from the flow of traffic.
“I can't believe we each got these!” I said excitedly. “I can't believe we have so much in common . . .”
“Hold on, Ranger. I don't have
anything
in common with you,” Damon said.
“Oh, brother,” Lindsey frowned. “You are such an idiot, Damon Molloy!”
“Yeah, well . . . Mister Idiot to you,” Damon cracked.
“Lindsey,” I asked. “Did you see any slime yesterday?”
Lindsey squirmed a little bit. Her eyes went from me to Damon to Stella and back again. Then she finally confessed. Yes, she'd seen a bunch of slime in her backyard sprinklers!
“How did you know?” Lindsey asked.
I took a deep breath. All four of us had seen the slime. This was serious.
“Why is this happening?” I muttered.
“Duh! Because we like B-Monster movies,” Damon said. “We're like Oswald Leery's own personal fan club or something.”
“Nah. He has a trillion fans just like us,” I said. “There has to be something more, something else ...”
“Let's go up to Leery Castle on Friday like the invitation says,” Stella said. “We can get to the bottom of all this.”
“Are you nuts?” Damon cried. “You want to go see Leery Castle and Oswald Leery
for real
? The guy has to be a hundred years old and probably doesn't even know his own name. I am not going anywhere near that relic. Trust me. This slime thing has to be some kind of joke.”
“Joke? What about Mr. Bunsen?” I said. “He's gone. That's no joke.”
“He's not gone,” Damon said. “He's just . . .”
“GONE!” Stella snapped. “Face it. There's some kind of slime on the loose and it decided to snack on our teacher! We're probably next!”
“We're the only ones who can see the slime. We have to help Mr. Bunsen. Otherwise, who else will?” I said, sounding braver than I felt. Mr. Bunsen was cool as far as teachers went. We couldn't just let the slime have him.
“Maybe Oswald Leery can help us find Mr. Bunsen and figure all this out,” Lindsey suggested.
“Leery makes movies, not science,” Damon said, laughing hard. “Slimo is a big green
movie star
, people! It's not real. It's movies.”
“How can we be so sure?” Stella cried. She twirled the ends of her long hair and crossed her arms thoughtfully. “If there is a connection between Bunsen and the slime, Oswald Leery will know what it is. He invented Slimo. He chose the four of us for a very good reason.”
Now we just had to figure out what the reason was.
CHAPTER 8
ON TOP OF NERVE MOUNTAIN
Friday came faster than I expected. I wanted to get ready for the trip up to Leery Castle, but Garth kept bugging me after school.
“Why can't you come over and play
Master of the Cosmos
with me?” Garth asked. “We always play video games together on Friday afternoons. What's the matter with you?”
“I have something to do,” I said awkwardly.
“Like what? You never do anything exciting,” Garth quipped.
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
“Aw, you know what I mean,” Garth said. “You've been acting weird for the past couple of days. Can't you tell me? I'm your best buddy.”
I knew Garth was right, but I also knew that I had something important to do with Damon Molloy, Stella Min, and Lindsey Gomez. I just wasn't sure what it was yet.
Just then, Stella walked over, looking tough. She was dressed all in black, as usual.
“Ranger, let's go,” she growled at me.
Garth looked at me with a look of horror. Then he looked at Stella. Then he looked at me again.
“Are you ditching me for a girl, Jesse?” he asked.
I tried to explain, but Garth marched off in a major huff. I was going to have to spend a lot of time playing video games with him to make up for this.
BOOK: The Slime That Would Not Die
2.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Night School by Lee Child
Reynaldo Makes Three by Vines, Ella
A New Divide (Science Fiction) by Sanders, Nathaniel
The Great Brain by Paul Stafford
Dixie Betrayed by David J. Eicher
Lady of the Shades by Shan, Darren
Angel Blackwood by Sophie Summers
White Lightning by Lyle Brandt