by Laura Dower
“What happened?” Mom cried. She was wide awake now. “Don’t you know how to turn off the faucet? Look at this disaster!”
“No! Wait!” I said. “A minute ago this wasn’t water. There was something else in the sink. It was green—”
“Jesse Ranger!” Dad barked at me. “Stop making excuses! Go and get some towels!”
“Dad, I swear, there really was something else coming out of the faucet. It was green, just like Slimo, I swear!”
“Slimo?” Dad said, incredulous.
“JESSE ANGUS RANGER!” Mom let out an exasperated sigh. “B-Monsters are NOT real! Get to bed. Now!”
I looked over at Dad, desperate for a little backup. But he was on his hands and knees, mopping up the mess with dish towels. He looked up at me with one of those “you’re on your own, kid” looks.
I bolted back upstairs to my room.
How could this have happened? I asked myself. I went over the last ten minutes inside my head. I’d turned on the faucet to find the source of the bluuurp. Had I forgotten to turn it back the other way? That must have been why the water kept running.
I was more confused than ever.
And I was still thirsty.
I went into my bathroom, grabbed a paper cup, and turned on the water.
At first, everything was normal. The faucet turned on with no problems and the water ran clear. But then, out of nowhere, it gushed this green, thick goop, all at once! Just like the stuff in the downstairs kitchen!
Quickly, I turned off the faucet and closed my eyes tight.
Sluuurp.
Everything sucked back down the drain again. I quickly checked the faucet. I didn’t want to flood the bathroom, too.
“That didn’t just happen, that didn’t just happen,” I told myself.
I pulled the bathroom door open, backed into my room, clicked off the overhead light, and dove under my covers.
“That didn’t just happen, that didn’t just happen,” I repeated.
Cautiously, I peeked over the edge of my blanket. The bathroom door was still open just a crack. At first I could hardly see anything, it was so dark. But then I saw something: a neon green, quivering glow.
It was getting brighter. And there was that smell. The same one from the kitchen.
I took a gulp of air and counted to three. Then I jumped out from under the covers and dashed across the bedroom. The creepy green light was definitely coming from the bathroom.
I wanted to yell for Mom and Dad again, but I knew I shouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
With all my might, I threw my body against the bathroom door. As it flew open, I threw on the overhead light.
Za-zzzap! The lightbulb sizzled.
The green was gone!
Now there wasn’t a single drop of slime anywhere. And it smelled normal again, like those powder-fresh air fresheners Mom plugs into the wall.
Somehow, Slimo had disappeared again!
CHAPTER 6
MY TEACHER IS MISSING!
“Your attention, please. The third floor of the building has been closed, effective immediately. Students are restricted from this area and the upper gym. Classes have been relocated to the library and first-floor assembly rooms. Thank you,” Principal Pickle’s nasal voice droned over the intercom the next morning at school.
The halls buzzed. Kids clumped together, whispering in groups. Something was going on. No one knew what it was, but I could tell it had to be BIG.
“Jess!” Garth grabbed my shoulder in the hall outside the locker bank. “Did you hear that announcement?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Maybe spaceships landed on the roof!” Garth teased me.
“Spaceships?” I quipped. “Let’s go upstairs and see what it really is.”
Garth made a face. “Are you kidding?”
“Come on! Don’t you want a logical explanation for all this chaos?” I said, appealing to the scientist in Garth.
He fell for the bait—and agreed to head for the third floor.
“I’m only doing this because . . .” Garth mumbled. “Hey, why am I doing this?”
“Maybe something exploded,” I said.
“Nah,” Garth said, making a face. “If that were true, we would have heard the actual explosion.”
Just then, some guy hustled past us with a very big video camera. The back of his shirt said news 12.
“Whoa,” Garth said. “That must be serious.”
“Where’s he going?” I wondered aloud.
“Third floor,” Garth said. “The place we’re not supposed to go. Remember?”
“Hurry up before we lose him!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Principal Pickle waving his arms all over the place.
“Out of the way! Clear the halls!” he cried.
We dodged out of the way. Coming down the hall behind Principal Pickle was Security Guard Spiker. Three police officers barreled down the hall with him.
“Get to class, kids,” Principal Pickle yelled as he ran.
“That means you,” Spiker barked at Garth and me as he and the police went by.
Garth looked at me. I looked at Garth. We broke into nervous giggles.
“Come on,” I pleaded, watching them head up the main stairs.
“Come on what?” Garth cried.
“Let’s follow them,” I said. “We can take the side stairs instead.”
Garth pursed his lips. I knew he was going to say no. And then he surprised me.
“Okay,” Garth blurted. “But just for a second.”
We ignored the class bell, sidestepped the other kids lurking in the hall, and slipped into a side stairwell.
The walk up to the third floor took only a few seconds. We took two stairs at a time. At the top, Garth cracked open a heavy door. We peeked out.
“Cops!” I whispered. “They’re everywhere.”
I could see them telling the guy from NEWS 12 to go back downstairs.
Garth tugged on my shirt. “I don’t like this,” he said. “We’re going to get caught.”
“No, we won’t!” I said. “There’s a bathroom around the corner. We can make a break for it.”
“What if the door’s locked?” Garth asked.
“It won’t be!” I cried, shoving him. “Come on!”
We both ran as fast as we could, past a water fountain, closed classrooms, and a huge garbage can, and then ducked into the bathroom.
“That was wicked!” I exclaimed, hopping up onto a sink ledge.
“Yeah, that was wicked, all right,” Garth said. “Wicked stupid. They could have seen us! Now what do we do?”
I looked around for a way out. That’s when I saw feet in one of the bathroom stalls. My gut twisted into a knot. We weren’t alone?
“Yo, Ranger!” a voice said from the stall. “That you?”
I cringed. Not again. The stall door slammed open and Damon Molloy, Enemy Number One, walked out with two of his backup posse. I have all the luck.
“Who invited you two to our stakeout?” Damon cracked.
I groaned. “Who invited you?”
“Whoa,” Damon snapped, crossing his arms. He flicked at my ear. “This is our stakeout. Not yours. Scram.”
“We can’t go back out there!” Garth babbled. “There are cops out there.”
“Cops?” Damon looked surprised. “What cops?”
“Outside. Right now,” I said.
“Whoa!” Damon said. “I guess Principal Pickle called the police once he realized our teacher was missing,” Damon said.
“A teacher is missing?” I asked. “Who?”
“Mr. Bunsen vanished into thin air this morning, moron,” Damon replied. “Where have you been? Under a rock?”
“Mr. Bunsen?” I said.
“Yeah, the teacher with the secret briefcase,” Damon said. We made fun of Mr. Bunsen on a regular basis. He had crazy silver hair and always wore lab coats and these ugly blue and green sneakers.
“I heard he�
�s an undercover spy,” said one of the kids in Damon’s posse.
“And I heard he’s billionaire rich with a hidden laboratory,” said another one.
“Are you guys serious?” I asked.
My head reeled. I had heard loads of Riddle rumors about Mr. Bunsen and some of the other teachers before now. I always wondered if there was any truth to them. And what about the night before, when I saw Mr. Bunsen on the library steps? What did that mean?
Just then we heard a sound in the hall. Someone was opening the bathroom door!
Garth cried, “The cops!” but I held my hand over his mouth. The five of us panicked, crammed into the biggest bathroom stall, and then waited.
And waited.
But no one came in.
“There are no cops coming, dorkus,” Damon growled at Garth.
“So now what?” I asked.
“We should go scope out Bunsen’s classroom,” Damon suggested.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.
The second-period bell rang. We didn’t have much time.
Damon puffed out his chest and shoved me forward. “Move it or lose it,” he ordered, poking Garth and me in our backs. We were like his human shields as we ducked back into the hall. I half-expected Spiker or the cops to jump us. But the hall was empty.
We walked toward Mr. Bunsen’s classroom.
“Ewww, do you smell that?” Damon said.
“Whew,” I gasped. It smelled like armpits or my Dad’s old sneakers. But Garth said he didn’t smell anything.
We approached the doorway slowly, just in case someone was there. But we were alone. The cops were gone—at least for now.
As we stepped into the room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was slime all over! The entire science lab—walls, floor, ceiling—was splattered with some kind of goo. It stank bad.
“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.
