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Authors: Laura Dower

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BOOK: The Slime That Would Not Die

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Leery moved closer to the camera.

“There is one more thing!” he cried. My stomach wrenched. Now I really could see his nose hair. I could almost feel him breathing on me.

“I know you will guard my secret, the secret of the Bs,” Leery said. “But be careful who you talk to! There will be people who know things about the monsters. They will help you along the way. But you, Jesse, Damon, Stella, and Lindsey,
you
are the true Monster Squad.”

All at once, static filled the screen. The camera sizzled.

POOF!

Oswald Leery was gone.

CHAPTER 11

SMELLS LIKE FEET

The lights inside the screening room blared on. I realized that I had squeezed my chair's armrests so tightly that my fingers had gone completely numb. The truth was, I felt numb all over. None of us said a word. Could it all possibly be true?

Walter reappeared. He strode to a small platform in front of the enormous screen.

“Any questions?” he asked.

Still no one said a word.

“Come now!” Walter said. “You must have questions.”

“This is some kind of crazy hoax!” Damon cried.

Walter Block shook his head. “No, this is real, my friends. Dr. Leery recorded that message for you just two weeks ago. He was on a remote island in the South Pacific Ocean, searching for
Mega Mantis
, who escaped again after the original film had been shown in error.”

“Did you say Mega Mantis is on the
loose
?” Lindsey stammered.

Walter nodded. “Dr. Leery is traveling in the hope that he might get the monster's coordinates and possibly tempt it to come to Riddleâor somewhere else.”

I raised my hand. “Excuse me, but by any chance is this some kind of candid-camera reality show where my friend Garth is going to jump out from behind that curtain and yell âGOTCHA'?”

Walter smiled. “No, Jesse. I'm afraid not.”

“Why
us
?” Stella asked. “I mean, Oswald Leery has a huge number of fans. Why did he pick four random kids from Riddle to share his secretâand destroy the monsters?”

Walter cleared his throat. “That is a very good question, Stella. And I have a very good answer. No one was chosen randomly. You all have connections to the Bs. Jesse had his Uncle Rich “Danger” Ranger. Lindsey's grandfather Max took photos for the studio. And of course, Damon's family owns the old Drive-O-Rama.”

“What about me?” Stella asked. “No one in my family even likes monsters, let alone B-Monsters with fourteen tentacles and death breath. Why am
I
here?”

Walter dimmed the lights and showed us a photograph up on the screen.

“Hey!” Stella said. “That's my Great Auntie San San. Where did you get that?”

“Your Great Aunt Sandra was one of the most popular B-Monster movie actresses
ever.
She won awards for all the roles she played. She was convincing as a spider lady or a gorilla tamer or a scientist from space. She was a mistress of disguise, the best of the Bs.”

Stella got real quiet. “Great Auntie San San is an
actress
? She never leaves her house.”

“Yes.” Walter nodded. “But she went into hiding only
after
the B-Monsters started coming to life. She went a little, well . . . crazy.”

“Crazy just like
you
, Stella!” Damon cried.

“Quit it, Molloy!” Lindsey yelled. “If this is going to work at all, we need to work together.”

“I'm a little freaked out,” Stella said. For the first time ever, she sounded unsure.

“Yeah? Well, I'm leaving,” Damon said. He tried to wiggle out of his seat but he couldn't unlatch the buckle. I could understand why he wanted out of that place.

But, deep down, I kind of hoped this whole speech was the real deal. Helping Oswald Leery hunt down B-Monsters would be one hundred times cooler than making B-Monster movies of my own. We had to stay, no matter what. We had to help.

“Damon!” I said. “Remember the slime in Mr. Bunsen's classroom?”

“It's kind of hard to forget
that
,” Damon said. “It smelled like
feet
.”

“Don't you think we should investigate where that slime came fromâand where our teacher went?” I asked pointedly.

“We're in the fifth grade, Jesse. We're kids, not monster exterminators.”

Stella narrowed her eyes. “I'm getting ready to exterminate
you
, Damon.”

“Can't we be
both
things?” I asked.

“I know it seems incredible,” Walter added. “But you four really can help save the world from the B-Monsters.”

“I can't even save my allowance,” Lindsey cracked.

“Dr. Leery would never have enlisted your help if he didn't think you could do it. Everything goes back to the movies, and you four know them better than anyone,” Walter said. “Now you have the resources and objects of the castle at your disposal, too.”

I didn't know what to say. None of us did.

“Think it over,” Walter said. “Go home and sleep on it. Take your time and see if you're ready to be the Monster Squadâor not.”

It was very late by now. The sun had gone down. Walter offered us a ride in his limousine so we wouldn't have to take the bus back home alone. He pulled the car in the driveway and scurried back to lock up the castle.

The darkness gave me the creeps. The car's motor chugged. All around us were these enormous dark puddles. It must have poured rain while we were inside the castle watching Leery.

“Do you smell that?” I asked the others. There was that rotten stink again, the same one I'd smelled in our kitchen at home. I noticed a faint glow in the limousine's tinted windows.

“Oh, no!” I cried. “Get away from the car! Quick!” We turned and ran behind some bushes. Before we could even count to ten, an enormous wave of slime shot straight up out of the limousine's moon roofâlike a geyser.

“Get away from the car!” I wailed. “It's bigger than before!”

“That's sooo disgusting!” Lindsey said.

“I think I see teeth!” Damon said.

“Wait! Are those
ears
?” Stella asked aloud.

The green goo had risen up into the air and begun to take on several human qualitiesâincluding ears and arms! It towered over the limousine and the driveway.

“We have to make a run for it,” I said.

“To the castle!” Stella said.

We rushed out from behind the bushes, but it was no use. The slime was so much bigger than all of us and it was blocking the way back inside. Damon started running away from the driveway. We followed him.

“Wait! Wait!” I said, stopping after a minute or so. “Where are we going? We have to face the B-Monster, not fear it!”

“Are you nuts?” Lindsey asked. “What do we face a tower of slime with, Jesse? Obviously it wants to eat us.”

The slime gurgled loudly. It was growing even bigger in the darknessâand
man
, that thing was ugly. It looked hungry.

“This is bad,” Lindsey said.

Slimo reached out for us with long, spindly, slimy fingers.

“Ruuuuuuun!” Damon cried. “While we still have the chance!”

“No, we can't run,” Stella said, getting tough. “We have to fight.”

The Ninja stood her ground. She assumed her karate positions in the dark. I could barely see herâor the slime. And then a bolt of lightning cracked and lit up the area where we stood.

“Aaaah!” we all screamed at the same time. Slimo was right here! We could really see it now, illuminated by the sudden flash of light.

Stella tried to intimidate the slime, but she had no power. An arm of slime extended as far as the eye could see.

“Look!” Damon said. “On the ground!”

I nearly keeled over when I saw what was there.

On the pavement between us and the limousine were two words, spelled out in slime:

STAY AWAY.

CHAPTER 12

DO NOT
TOUCH... OR ELSE

I spent the entire week thinking about the Bsâeven more than usual, that is!

At school on Friday, I was tempted to rush right over to Lindsey, Stella, or Damon. But I didn't. We ignored one another and stuck to old friends. I think the idea of saving the world from Slimo had scared us all into silence.

At lunch, Garth kept bugging me about some dumb video game he wanted to play, but I wanted to talk about other stuff: Leery the director and Poe the crow, and of course, those slimy slime messages.

But I didn't say boo. We were the Monster Squad. It was all about big secrets now.

I tried to imagine what a Monster Squad uniform might look like. Puffy silver astronaut sleeves? Laser guns on holsters? Big fat goggles with triple-strength X-ray vision? Would Leery's special assignment be coolâor just terrifying?

After school, in the parking lot, I saw Stella sitting alone on a large rock. No big surprise there. I decided to break the silence.

“Hey,” I said, walking toward her. “What's up?”

“You mean what's
down
, don't you?” Stella said. As she looked up, her long black hair fell right into her face. “Damon was right. We're doomed.”

“No we're not,” I said. “Quit being so negative.”

“Every moment we hang out here, Slimo gets stronger,” she said.

“I wish I knew what to do,” I said. “I feel like he was just trying to scare us . . . or send us a warning ... but why? What did it mean?”

Out of nowhere, Damon popped up. Today he was posse-free, but he kept checking behind him like he was being followed.

“Yo,” Damon said. He squeezed in between Stella and me. “Hey.”

“What's the matter with you?” I asked. “You look like aâ”

“Shhhhh,” Damon said.

I pointed to his T-shirt. “Did you wear that on purpose?”

Damon glanced down. His shirt read STAY! AWAY!, just like Slimo's message from the day before.

“I'm keeping an eye out for Slimo,” Damon said.

“Hey, you guys!” Lindsey called out. Her friends were nowhere to be seen. As she ran over to us, her camera flopped back and forth on her chest. “Did I miss anything?” She held up her camera. “Say slime!” she said.

“Funny, Lindsey,” Stella said. “Is this really time for a photo op?”

“Why not? I think we should keep a record of things,” Lindsey said, still snapping away. “If we're going to get Slimo or any of Leery's other B-Monsters, we need to get organized.”

No one budged.

“Are we really going to do this?” I asked.

“Do what?” Damon asked back.

Lindsey gave him a knuckle-noogie. “Be the Monster Squad, dumbo!” she said.

Damon looked like he might knuckle-noogie her right back.

I stepped in.

“If we're going to do this,” I said, “we need to do it right. We can't fight.”

Stella grunted. “Fat chance. The fights are the best part.”

I glared at her. “The Monster Squad is serious stuff. Stop goofing around.”

“Okay,” Stella said. “Then let's do it.
Seriously
. If we watch all the Bs again, we can figure out the best plan to eliminate Slimo.”

Damon held up a bus schedule. “The bus for Leery Castle leaves in five minutes.”

We grabbed our backpacks and headed for the stop. I didn't know what to thinkâor say. In the past twenty-four hours we'd gone from ordinary fifth-graders to freak fighters. I never thought I'd be a part of any organized club, let alone an entire Monster Squad.

Now we were heading back to the source of all the trouble, Leery Castle.

The ride up was quick, but the castle property seemed awfully quiet. We walked through the Crabzilla gates half-expecting a flapping Poe to fly out and greet us. But no one greeted us. The front door to the castle was ajar.

“Walter!” I called out. There was no answer, but we headed in anyway.

Daylight shined through the castle's stained-glass windows and gave everything inside the castle a purple or yellow hue. Each room in Leery Castle was stranger than the next, with trapdoors and suspended furniture and all sorts of buttons and switches markedDO NOT TOUCH ... OR ELSE.

A sign like that only made me want to touch
everything
, of course.

“Walter!” Stella called up a flight of stairs.

No answer.

I moved into the round room and searched for the panel that released the secret slide down to the screening room. But nothing seemed to work.

BOOK: The Slime That Would Not Die

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