Goosebumps Most Wanted - 02 - Son of Slappy (5 page)

The dummy’s head slumped down. Rachel squinted at me. “Jackson, what’s your problem?”

“It — it moved,” I stammered. “You said those words, and the dummy started to move.”

“Are you totally losing it?” Rachel said. “It did not.”

I turned to my friends. “You saw it, right? You saw the dummy sit up and wink at me?”

They both shook their heads. Stick snickered. “You’re nuts, Jackson.”

“He’s trying to scare us,” Miles said. “Oooh, I’m scared. I’m scared.”

They both collapsed on my bed, hee-hawing.

I stared at the dummy. It was slumped lifelessly on its back in Rachel’s arms.
Did I imagine that it moved?

Of course I did. I imagined the whole thing. I reminded myself that this dummy was just a copy.

She pushed the dummy into my hands. “Take it. It’s dumb. And it’s almost as ugly as you are.”

“Whoa. Little sister disses Jackson!” Miles exclaimed. “Nasty.”

Rachel hurried out of the room. I took the dummy and propped it against the wall.

“I have to tell you the truth,” I told my two friends. “This isn’t the real Slappy. It’s only a copy. My grandfather gave it to me. He called it the Son of Slappy.”

Stick grinned at me. “So this one can’t come to life?”

“No. This one can’t come to life,” I said. “It’s not the evil dummy from the legend. I was just trying to scare you. But for a moment, I scared
myself
!”

I glanced at the clock on my wall. “Oh, wow. I’m late,” I said. “I promised I’d go to the YC and help out with the kids this morning. Got to go, guys.”

Miles jumped to his feet. Stick patted the dummy on its head. “Hey, Slappy,” he said. “Don’t scare Jackson too badly.”

Miles laughed. “Yeah. Jackson’s scared of dolls.”

I rolled my eyes. “You guys are a total riot. Remind me to laugh sometime.”

They both started to the door. “Later,” they said in unison.

“Later,” I repeated.

They disappeared down the stairs.

I changed my shirt and pulled on a pair of sneakers. I tucked my game-player into my jeans pocket. Sometimes the kids liked to play
Chirping Chickens
with me.

At the door, I turned back to Slappy.

Should I bring him and show him off to the kids?

No,
I decided.
I’ll wait till I have a totally awesome comedy act with him. Then I can show him off.

I clicked off the light and started to leave. And Slappy tumbled onto his stomach.

“Huh?” I gasped.

Did he move? Again?

No. No way. He just fell over. That’s all.

I closed the door behind me and headed down the stairs.

I found about a dozen kids in the playroom at the YC. A bunch of them were climbing around on the tires. Some were just chasing each other in a wild race around the room. My little friend Froggy sat in a corner looking at a picture book.

The canaries were chirping their yellow heads off. “I think they’re hungry,” I said. “Does anyone want to help me feed them?”

A bunch of kids came running. Froggy set down his book and came over, too.

I pulled the bag of birdseed from the supply closet and carried it over to the cage. I showed the kids how to slide the plastic bird feeder off the cage. I started to fill it when I heard a voice behind me.

I turned and saw Mrs. Pearson in the doorway. I was surprised to see her. Mrs. Pearson is the director of the YC. But she hardly ever comes in on Saturdays.

She’s a tall, thin woman with black hair streaked with gray. She’s older than my parents. But she always dresses in jeans and brightly colored T-shirts.

She is usually smiling but not today. She gazed around the roomful of kids, biting her bottom lip, a frown on her face.

She walked over to Mrs. Lawson’s desk and said a few words to her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Mrs. Lawson kept shaking her head.

I filled the seed cup and let Froggy place it back in the cage. The two canaries dove for it. I guess they really
were
hungry.

I turned away from the cage when Mrs. Pearson called to me. “Jackson, can I speak to you for a minute?”

I followed her out into the hall.
Am I in trouble?
The thought flashed into my mind.
Is she angry about the canary getting loose?

My heart started to pound a little faster.

The hall was empty. The bright yellow walls gleamed under the ceiling lights. A sign on the wall said:
ONLY
2
DAYS TO SIGN UP FOR THE TENNIS TOUNAMENT
.

Someone left the
r
out of tournament. I’m a very good speller. I always catch mistakes like that. One of the things Rachel hates about me. She can’t spell her own name! Ha-ha.

We stopped in front of Mrs. Pearson’s office door. I leaned a shoulder against the wall. She
flashed me a quick smile, but her eyes didn’t look happy.

“Jackson, it’s so nice of you to come in and help out on Saturdays,” she said.

“Uh … thank you,” I replied. “I … like it.”

“Well, most boys wouldn’t want to give up their Saturdays to help a bunch of little kids. But you’re so good with them. You’re so kind and patient. And the kids really like you.”

I could feel my face growing hot. Why do I always blush when someone compliments me?

“Thank you,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m afraid I have bad news,” she said. She bit her bottom lip again. “The YC is in real trouble. We are running out of money. And the town has no money to give us. I’m afraid we may have to shut down.”

“That’s terrible,” I said. I heard kids laughing down the hall in the playroom. “That’s so sad. Those kids love it here.”

She nodded. “We are going to try to keep it going. To raise some money. We are planning a huge bake sale and a stage show in the auditorium. If we work hard, we can raise enough money to keep the YC going for another year.”

I stared at her. Down the hall, the kids burst into laughter again.

“Jackson, I hope you will help us with our bake sale and stage show,” Mrs. Pearson said.
“Perhaps you could write a skit for the kids to perform?”

“No problem,” I said. “That would be fun.”

“And maybe you could do some kind of act yourself,” she said. “Do you have any ideas?”

I laughed. “I just got a ventriloquist dummy,” I told her. “I was planning to work up a comedy act with it. You know. For the kids.”

“Perfect!” Mrs. Pearson gushed. “The audience will love that, Jackson.”

Her expression turned serious. She put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m counting on you,” she said. “I know we can save the YC — with your help.”

“Yes,” I said. “No problem.”

Three words. Three little words.

How could I know that those three words would lead to unbelievable horror?

How could I know that those three words would lead to the worst day of my life?

“Nice throw, ace!” Stick shouted.

The Nerf football bounced over the hedge into the neighbor’s yard. “Guess I don’t know my own strength,” I said.

I took a running start and tumblesaulted over the hedge. Wolfie, Stick’s big German shepherd, started to bark ferociously. “He’s just jealous,” I said, “because he can’t do that.”

I grabbed the blue rubber football and tossed it back to Stick. Then I pushed myself through the hedge back into his yard.

I saw Miles trotting up the asphalt driveway. His open red shirt was flapping in the wind as he ran. His white sneakers reminded me of big marshmallows, padding on the drive. “Hey, what’s up?” he called.

Stick heaved him the football. It sailed through Miles’s hands and bounced off the garage wall. “Nice catch!” Stick yelled.

Miles picked the ball up and heaved it with all his strength at Stick’s stomach. Stick let out a cry and spun away, and the ball bounced off his shoulder.

A typical ball game for the three of us. It always starts out like a nice game of toss and catch. And then all of a sudden, we’re pounding each other black-and-blue with the ball.

It was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. It had rained the night before, and the grass sparkled from the raindrops. Not a cloud in the sky. I kept raising my face to the sun. The sunlight felt so warm and soft.

The three of us were meeting in Stick’s backyard to talk about the YC bake sale. All the schools in Borderville were competing to bake the best dessert — and raise the most money for the YC.

I tossed the football to Miles. “What should we make?” I asked. “It has to be something awesome. You know. Something that will
crush
the other schools.”

Miles sent the ball sailing over Stick’s head. Stick chased after it, but Wolfie got there first. The big dog snapped the ball up in his teeth and ran off with it. We watched him gallop away around the side of the house.

“Hey — what’s up with that?” Miles said.

“Wolfie’s not a team player,” Stick said.

“We’ve got to concentrate,” I said. “What can we bake?”

“How about apple pie?” Miles said. “Everyone loves apple pie.”

“What’s special about that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Well … we could pile on a gallon or two of ice cream.”

“That’s not special,” Stick said. He bumped Miles hard with his shoulder. The two of them began wrestling on the grass.

I crossed my arms in front of me and waited for them to stop. But they kept rolling around, elbowing each other, grunting and growling. They stopped when they smashed into Wolfie’s enormous bathtub.

“Ow!” Miles cried out as he banged his head on the big metal tub.

Stick laughed. “Did your head dent the tub?”

Miles climbed to his feet, groaning and rubbing his head.

“You just gave me an idea,” I said. I crossed the yard and picked up the big, round tub in both hands.

“You want to give my dog a bath?” Stick said.

“Shut up,” I said. “Listen to me. This is
genius
.”

“And he’s so modest,” Miles said. He helped pull Stick up off the grass.

“We use this tub,” I said. “We fill it with cake batter.”

“Genius!” Stick cried. He slapped me on the back.

“Let me finish,” I said. “We fill the tub with chocolate cake batter. And we make the biggest chocolate cupcake ever made. Tell the truth. Genius?”

They stared at the tub. I could see they were thinking hard about it.

“We’ll need a lot of icing,” Miles said.

Stick nodded. “How much cake batter will we need?” He took the tub from me and studied the outside of it. “It says here it’s a ten-gallon tub.”

“So we’ll need ten gallons of cake batter?” Miles said.

“Maybe,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

“We could get our cupcake in the Guinness Book of Records,” Stick said. “I was reading that book. It’s got the biggest pizza in the world and the person with the longest beard. Stuff like that. We could be in it with the biggest cupcake ever.”

“Let’s ask your mom if she has any cake batter recipes,” I said. “Maybe she can help us figure out how much batter we need to put in the tub.”

We tromped into the house and found Mrs. Haggerty reading a book in the den. She’s very tall and pretty, and has blond hair piled high on her head. Stick doesn’t look anything like her. She always says she found him under a tree.

Mrs. Haggerty isn’t a stand-up comic like my mom was. But she’s really funny.

“Hey, guys,” she said. “Are you two staying for dinner? Stick’s dad is bringing home a couple of pizzas.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I told my mom I’d be home. But … we wanted to ask you a question.”

She closed her book. “What’s up?”

“We want to use Wolfie’s dog tub and make the world’s biggest cupcake,” Stick said. “You know. For the YC bake sale.”

“It’s a big contest,” Miles added. “Every school in town is competing.”

“But the world’s biggest cupcake would definitely win,” Stick said.

“Definitely,” his mom said. “And how can I help you?”

“We need to know how much cake batter to make to go in the tub,” Stick said.

Mrs. Haggerty blinked. Then she started to laugh.

The three of us just stared at her. We waited for her to stop.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I’m sorry, but it’s funny. There’s one thing you boys didn’t think of.”

“What?” Stick demanded.

“After you fill the tub with cake batter, how will you bake it? It won’t fit in any oven.”

My mouth dropped open. Stick shut his eyes.
Miles let out a groan. He slapped his forehead. “Stupid, stupid.”

“It seemed like a good idea,” I said.

“It was a stupid idea,” Miles said.

“Sometimes stupid ideas are good,” Mrs. Haggerty said. “Stupid ideas can spark your imagination and lead to good ideas.”

“My imagination isn’t sparked,” Stick said. “I could just picture that giant cupcake.”

I glanced at the clock on the bookshelf. I was late for Sunday dinner. “Let’s keep thinking,” I said. “I’m sure we can think up a lot more stupid ideas.”

I meant it as a joke, but no one laughed. I said good-bye and trotted the two blocks to my house.

My problems didn’t start until after dinner.

As I climbed the stairs to my room, I was still thinking about the huge cupcake. There
must
be some way to bake ten gallons of cake batter.

I stepped into my room and clicked on the light. The first thing I saw was the Slappy dummy sitting up straight on my bed, his back against the wall.

Weird
, I thought.
Didn’t I leave him on the floor?

I guessed Rachel had been playing with him.

I sat down on the bed and reached for him.

And to my horror,
he reached for ME
!

His arms shot up. I uttered a gasp as his wooden hands grabbed me by the throat.