by R. L. Stine
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
TEASER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO AVAILABLE
COPYRIGHT
“Hey — put that down!”
I grabbed the comic book from Wilson Clark’s hand and smoothed out the plastic cover.
“I was only looking at it,” he grumbled.
“If you get a fingerprint on it, it will lose half its value,” I told him. I examined the cover through the clear wrapper. “This is a Silver Swan Number Zero,” I said. “And it’s in mint condition.”
Wilson shook his head. He has curly white-blond hair and round blue eyes. He always looks confused.
“How can it be Number Zero?” he asked. “That doesn’t make any sense, Skipper.”
Wilson is a really good friend of mine. But sometimes I think he dropped down from the planet Mars. He just doesn’t know anything.
I held up the Silver Swan cover so he could see the big zero in the corner. “That makes it a collector’s item,” I explained. “Number Zero comes before Number One. This comic is worth ten times as much as Silver Swan Number One.”
“Huh? It is?” Wilson scratched his curly hair. He squatted down on the floor and started pawing through my carton of comic books. “How come all your comics are in these plastic bags, Skipper? How can you read them?”
See? I told you. Wilson doesn’t know anything.
“Read them? I don’t read them,” I replied. “If you read them, they lose their value.”
He stared up at me. “You don’t read them?”
“I can’t take them out of the bag,” I explained. “If I open the bag, they won’t be in mint condition anymore.”
“Ooh. This one is cool!” he exclaimed. He pulled up a copy of Star Wolf. “The cover is metal!”
“It’s worthless,” I mumbled. “It’s a second printing.”
He stared at the silvery cover, turning it in his hands, making it shine in the light. “Cool,” he muttered. His favorite word.
We were up in my room, about an hour after dinner. The sky was black outside my double windows. It gets dark so early in winter. Not like on the Silver Swan’s planet, Orcos III, where the sun never sets and all the superheroes have to wear air-conditioned costumes.
Wilson came over to get the Math homework. He lives next door, and he always leaves his Math book at school — so he always comes over to get the homework from me.
“You should collect comic books,” I told him. “In about twenty years, these will be worth millions.”
“I collect rubber stamps,” he said, picking up a Z-Squad annual. He studied the sneaker ad on the back cover.
“Rubber stamps?”
“Yeah. I have about a hundred of them,” he said.
“What can you do with rubber stamps?” I asked.
He dropped the comic back into the carton and stood up. “Well, you can stamp things with them,” he said, brushing off the knees of his jeans. “I have different-colored ink pads. Or you can just look at them.”
He is definitely weird.
“Are they valuable?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He picked up the math sheet from the foot of my bed. “I’d better get home, Skipper. See you tomorrow.”
He started for the door and I followed him. Our reflections stared out at us from my big dresser mirror. Wilson is so tall and skinny and blond and blue-eyed. I always feel like a dark, chubby mole next to him.
If we were in a comic book, Wilson would be the superhero, and I would be his sidekick. I’d be the pudgy, funny one who was always messing up.
It’s a good thing life isn’t a comic book — right?
As soon as Wilson left, I turned back to my dresser. My eye caught the big computer banner above the mirror: SKIPPER MATTHEWS, ALIEN AVENGER.
My dad had someone at his office print out the banner for me for my twelfth birthday a few weeks ago.
Beneath the banner, I have two great posters tacked on the wall on both sides of the dresser. One is a Jack Kirby Captain America. It’s really old and probably worth about a thousand dollars.
The other one is a Spawn poster by Todd McFarlane. It’s really awesome.
In the mirror, I could see the excited look on my own face as I hurried to the dresser.
The flat brown envelope waited for me on the dresser top.
Mom and Dad said I couldn’t open it until after dinner, after I finished my homework. But I couldn’t wait.
I could feel my heart start to pound as I stared down at the envelope.
I knew what waited inside it. Just thinking about it made my heart pound even harder.
I carefully picked up the envelope. I had to open it now. I had to.
Carefully, carefully, I tore the flap on the envelope. Then I reached inside and pulled out the treasure.
This month’s issue of The Masked Mutant.
Holding the comic book in both hands, I studied the cover. The Masked Mutant #24. In jagged red letters across the bottom, I read:
“A TIGHT SQUEEZE
FOR THE SENSATIONAL SPONGE!”
The cover art was awesome. It showed SpongeLife — known across the universe as The Sponge of Steel — in terrible trouble. He was caught in the tentacles of a gigantic octopus. The octopus was squeezing him dry!
Awesome. Totally awesome.
I keep all of my comic books in mint condition, wrapped in collector’s bags. But there is one comic that I have to read every month. And that’s The Masked Mutant.
I have to read it as soon as it comes out. And I read it cover to cover, every word in every panel. I even read the Letters page.
That’s because The Masked Mutant is the best-drawn, best-written comic in the world. And The Masked Mutant has to be the most powerful, most evil villain ever created!
What makes him so terrifying is that he can move his molecules around.
That means he can change himself into anything that’s solid. Anything!
On this cover, the giant octopus is actually The Masked Mutant. You can tell because the octopus is wearing the mask that The Masked Mutant always wears.
But he can change himself into any animal. Or any object.
That’s how he always escapes from The League of Good Guys. There are six different superheroes in The League of Good Guys. They are all mutants, too, with amazing powers. And they are the world’s best law enforcers. But they can’t catch The Masked Mutant.
Even the League’s leader — The Galloping Gazelle — the fastest man in the solar system, isn’t fast enough to keep up with The Masked Mutant.
I studied the cover for a few minutes. I liked the way the octopus tentacles squeezed SpongeLife into a limp rag. You could see by his expression that The Sponge of Steel was in mortal pain.
Awesome.
I carried the comic over to the bed and sprawled onto my stomach to read it. The story began where The Masked Mutant #23 left off.
SpongeLife, the world’s best underwater swimmer, was deep in the ocean. He was desperately trying to escape from The Masked Mutant. But The Sponge of Steel had caught his cape on the edge of a coral reef.
I turned the page. As The Masked Mutant drew nearer, he began to move his molecules around. And he changed himself into a huge, really gross octopus.
There were eight drawings showing The Masked Mutant transform himself. And then came a big, full-page drawing showing the enormous octopus reaching out its slimy, fat tentacles to grab the helpless SpongeLife.
SpongeLife struggled to pull away.
But the octopus tentacles slid closer. Closer.
I started to turn the page. But before I could move, I felt something cold and slimy wrap itself around my neck.
I let out a gasp and tried to struggle free.
But the cold tentacles wrapped themselves tighter around my throat.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream.
I heard laughter.
With a great effort, I turned around. And saw Mitzi, my nine-year-old sister. She pulled her hands away from my neck and jumped back as I glared at her.
“Why are your hands so cold?” I demanded.
She smiled at me with her innocent, two-dimpled smile. “I put them in the refrigerator.”
“You what?” I cried. “You put them in the refrigerator? Why?”
“So they’d be cold,” she replied, still grinning.
My sister has a really dumb sense of humor. She has straight, dark brown hair like me. And she’s short and a little chubby like me.
“You scared me to death,” I told her, sitting up on the bed.
“I know,” she replied. She rubbed her hands on my cheeks. They were still cold.
“Yuck. Get away, Mitzi.” I shoved her back. “Why did you come up here? Just to scare me?”
She shook her head. “Dad told me to come up. He said to tell you if you’re reading comic books instead of doing your homework, you’re in big trouble.”
She lowered her brown eyes to the comic book, open on the bed. “Guess you’re in big trouble, Skipper.”
“No. Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “This is the new Masked Mutant. I have to read it! Tell Dad I’m doing my math, and —”
I didn’t finish what I was saying because my dad stepped into the room. The ceiling light reflected in his glasses. But I could still see that he had his eyes on the open comic book on my bed.
“Skipper —” he said angrily in his booming, deep voice.
Mitzi pushed past him and ran out of the room. She liked to cause trouble. But she never wanted to stay around once things got really ugly.
And I knew things were about to get ugly — because I had already been warned three times that week about spending too much time with my comic book collection.
“Skipper, do you know why your grades are so bad?” my dad bellowed.
“Because I’m not a very good student?” I replied.
A mistake. Dad hates it when I answer back.
Dad reminds me of a big bear. Not only because he growls a lot. But because he is big and broad. He has short black hair and almost no forehead. Really. His hair starts almost right above his glasses. And he has a big, booming roar of a voice, like a bear’s roar.
Well, after I answered him back, he let out an angry roar. Then he lumbered across the room and picked up my carton of comic books — my entire collection.
“Sorry, Skipper, I’m tossing these all out!” he cried, and headed for the door.
You probably expected me to panic. To start begging and pleading for him not to throw away my valuable collection.
But I didn’t say anything. I just stood beside the bed with my hands lowered at my sides, and waited.
You see, Dad has done this before. Lots of times. But he doesn’t really mean it.
He has a bad temper, but he’s no supervillain. Actually, I’d put him in The League of Good Guys most of the time.
His main problem is that he doesn’t approve of comic books. He thinks they’re just trash. Even when I explain that my collection will probably be worth millions by the time I’m his age.
Anyway, I stood there and waited silently.
Dad stopped at the door and turned around. He held the carton in both hands. He narrowed his dark eyes at me through his black-framed glasses.
“Are you going to get to your work?” he asked sternly.
I nodded. “Yes, sir,” I muttered, staring at my feet.
He lowered the carton a little. It’s really heavy, even for a big, strong guy like him. “And you won’t waste any more time tonight on comic books?” he demanded.
“Couldn’t I just finish this new one?” I asked. I pointed to The Masked Mutant comic on the bed.
Another mistake.
He growled at me and turned to carry the carton away.
“Okay, okay!” I cried. “Sorry. I’ll get my homework done, Dad. I promise. I’ll start right now.”
He grunted and stepped back into the room. Then he dropped the carton back against the wall. “That’s all you think about night and day, Skipper,” he said quietly. “Comics, comics. It isn’t healthy. Really. It isn’t.”
I didn’t say anything. I knew he was about to go back downstairs.
“I don’t want to hear any more about comics,” Dad said gruffly. “Understand?”
“Okay,” I murmured. “Sorry, Dad.”
I waited to hear his heavy footsteps going down the stairs. Then I turned back to the new issue of The Masked Mutant. I was desperate to find out how SpongeLife escaped from the giant octopus.
But I could hear Mitzi nearby. She was still upstairs. If she saw me reading the comic book, she’d run downstairs and tell Dad for sure. Mitzi’s hobby is being a snitch.
So I opened my backpack and started pulling out my Math notebook and my Science textbook and other stuff I needed.
I zipped through the Math questions as fast as I could. I probably got most of the problems wrong. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not any good at Math, anyway.
Then I read the chapter on atoms and molecules in my Science text. Reading about molecules made me think about The Masked Mutant.
I couldn’t wait to get back to the comic book.
I finally finished my homework a little after nine-thirty. I had to skip a few essay questions on the Literature homework. But only the class brains answer all of the questions!
I went downstairs and fixed myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, my favorite late-night snack. Then I said good night to my parents and hurried back up to my room, closing the door behind me, eager to get back in bed and start reading.
Back under the ocean. SpongeLife escaped by squishing himself so small, he slipped out of the octopus’s tentacles. Pretty cool, I thought.
The Masked Mutant waved his tentacles angrily and vowed he’d get SpongeLife another day. Then he changed his molecules back so he looked like himself, and flew back to his headquarters.
His headquarters!
I stared down at the comic book in shock.
The secret headquarters of The Masked Mutant had never been shown before. Oh, sure, we’d been given glimpses of a room or two on the inside.
But this was the first time the building had ever been shown from the outside.
I brought the page up close to my face and examined it carefully. “What a weird place!” I exclaimed out loud.
The headquarters building didn’t look like any building I had ever seen before. It certainly didn’t look like the secret hideout of the world’s worst villain.
It kind of looked like a giant fire hydrant. A very tall fire hydrant that reached up to the sky. All pink stucco with a huge, green-domed roof.
“Weird,” I repeated.
But of course it was the perfect hiding place. Who would ever think that the super bad guy of all time stayed in a building that looked like an enormous pink fire hydrant?
I turned the page. The Masked Mutant slipped into the building and disappeared into an elevator. He rode all the way to the top and stepped out into his private communications center.
Waiting for him there was … a big surprise. A dark figure. We could see only his b
lack silhouette.
But I could tell instantly who it was. It was The Galloping Gazelle, leader of The League of Good Guys.
How did The Gazelle get in? What was he about to do?
To be continued next month.
Wow. I closed the comic. My eyelids felt heavy. My eyes were too tired to read the tiny type on the Letters page. I decided to save it for tomorrow.
Yawning, I carefully set the comic book down on my bed table. I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
* * *
Two days later, a very cold, clear day, Wilson came running up to me after school. His blue coat was unzipped. He never zipped his coat. He didn’t like the way it looked when it was zipped.
I had on a shirt, a sweater, and a heavy, quilted, down coat, zipped up to my chin — and I was still cold. “What’s up, Wilson?” I asked.
His breath steamed up in front of him. “Want to come over and see my rubber stamp collection?”
Was he kidding?!
“I have to go to my orthodontist,” I told him. “My braces got comfortable. He has to tighten them so they’ll hurt again.”
Wilson nodded. His blue eyes matched his coat. “How are you getting there?”
I pointed to the bus stop. “City bus,” I told him.
“I’ve seen you take that bus a lot,” he said.
“There’s a comic book store on Goodale Street,” I replied, shifting my backpack onto the other shoulder. “I take the bus there once a week or so to see what new comics have come out. The orthodontist is just a few blocks from it.”
“Do they have rubber stamps at the comic book store?” Wilson asked.
“I don’t think so,” I told him. I saw the blue-and-white city bus turn the corner. “Got to run. See you later!” I called.
I turned and ran full speed to the bus stop.
The driver was a nice guy. He saw me running and waited for me. Breathing hard, I thanked him and climbed onto the bus.
I probably wouldn’t have thanked him if I had known where this bus was going to take me. But I didn’t know that it was carrying me to the most frightening adventure of my life.
The bus was unusually crowded. I stood for a while. Then two people got off, and I slid into a seat.
As the bus bounced along Main Street, I stared out at the passing houses and front yards. Dark clouds hung low over the roofs. I wondered if we were about to get our first snowfall of the winter.
