Attack of the Beastly Babysitter

by RL Stine

  If you try to slip through the bars yourself, turn to PAGE 114.

  If you send Stinko instead, turn to PAGE 25.

  “I choose ALL!” you declare. “I want ALL.”

  You keep your eyes on Dare’s shriveling, tattooed face. You wait to see his reaction.

  You don’t have to wait long. A smile spreads across his hideous, crumbling mouth.

  “Did you say ALL?” he asks.

  You nod fearfully.

  “Then ALL it is!”

  With the wink of his green eye and a blink of his blue eye, ALL Dare’s tattoos are back on his body.

  ALL your winning games are lost.

  ALL your memories of the last hours are gone.

  You lose the most dangerous game.

  But ALL is not lost! Turn to PAGE 100 and start the games

  ALL

  OVER

  AGAIN!

  Maybe David is just a nice kid with a claw. Who knows? But you’re not taking any chances. You decide to go your own way.

  “Sorry, David,” you say, “I’d rather take my chances on my own.”

  You take a few steps backward. Then you add, “Uh, thanks for saving me. And good luck!”

  Just because the kid is creepy doesn’t mean you can’t be polite.

  You turn around, facing the rope bridge again. Zoe and the other baby-sitters are hidden in the mist somewhere near the middle of the bridge.

  Maybe you could sneak by them. The orange mist is so thick, they might not see you.

  You step onto the bridge. Immediately it sinks a little lower and starts to swing.

  Can you make it past the baby-sitters and across the swinging bridge? Or should you try to find another way back to Stinko?

  If you take the bridge route, turn to PAGE 123.

  If you look for another way back to Stinko, turn to PAGE 107.

  For once Stinko listens. He follows you willingly.

  You have no idea where you’re going. You just run as fast as you can, gripping Stinko’s wrist tightly. Your eyes dart all around, desperately searching for a way out.

  Zoe the rat-girl chases you. “What are you doing here?” she screams. “This is Fun! You’re supposed to be in Games!”

  You glance back at her. Yikes! An army of giant rats surrounds Zoe.

  “After them!” Zoe cries. “Don’t let them get away!”

  You and Stinko run as fast as you can. You can tell he’s getting tired. He’s panting hard.

  But you have to keep going. Zoe and the rat pack are gaining on you.

  “Run!” you beg Stinko. “Run for your life!”

  With the rats close behind, you come to a wall. Two elevator doors open at the same time. One is going up. One is going down.

  “Which one should we get on?” Stinko cries.

  You have no idea. But your life depends on it. Hurry!

  Flip a coin. If the coin lands heads up, go up to PAGE 118.

  If the coin lands heads down, go down to PAGE 43.

  Knowing Stinko, he’s definitely headed for the Bottomless Ball Pit. You follow the kid in the red cap who’s running in that direction.

  Good choice. It’s Stinko, all right.

  Before you can catch up to him, he reaches the edge of the ball pit. “Stinko!” you holler at him. “Get back here, you dumbo!”

  Stinko glances over at you and sticks out his tongue. “I don’t have to,” he taunts. “You’re not my boss!”

  Typical Stinko.

  You open your mouth to scream again. Too late. He dives. He lands in the middle of the colored plastic balls.

  And vanishes!

  Get over the urge to leave your little brother behind. Then go to PAGE 128.

  You choose red.

  Of course you would choose red. Red is always a vampire’s favorite color. And now that you’re a vampire, red is your favorite color, too.

  The bite of the vampire is working. Your human shape changes to the shape of a vampire bat. Your perfect teeth change into fangs. And your bedtime changes from night to day.

  What can you say at a time like this?

  Just one thing.

  “Fangs, Dare. Fangs a lot.”

  THE END

  Your ice melted first. You’re free!

  You stare at the Dare ice statue. His mouth is frozen open in a snarl. His tattooed arms are raised. His hands are balled into tattooed fists. Even frozen in ice, Dare looks scary.

  “Boy, oh boy,” you mutter. “We are going to be in big trouble when Dare thaws.” You have to get Stinko and escape before Dare’s ice coat melts.

  Stinko is still a frozen kidsicle. You take off one of your ice skates. Using the blade of the skate, you chip away at the ice on Stinko’s face.

  “Get me out of this icebox!” Stinko shouts as soon as his mouth is free.

  For a second you wish you’d left his mouth frozen shut. “All right, all right,” you snap. “I’m going as fast as I can. Just a few more chips and you’ll be free.”

  “No!” Stinko gasps.

  “Yes!” you argue. “Quit moving, or the blade will —”

  You can’t finish your sentence. An icy tattooed hand reaches around and clamps over your mouth.

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Stinko cries. “Dare broke out of the ice!”

  Turn to PAGE 64.

  You swallow hard. “Okay, we’ll do it,” you announce.

  You can’t help feeling sorry for the rat-people. After all, you think, humans got them into this mess. You feel as if it’s your duty as a human to get them out of it.

  If you can …

  “Come on, Stinko,” you say, undoing the straps that hold your little brother down on the table. “We’re going to help them get back to their normal forms.”

  “You mean we have to eat that cheese?” Stinko whines. “But it stinks!”

  “Think of it as medicine,” Zoe suggests. She holds out the cheese. “One little bite each. That’s all it takes.”

  “Well, here goes,” you say. You hope you sound braver than you feel. You close your eyes, hold your nose, and take a bite.

  Stinko follows your lead.

  Instantly, the two of you start changing. Fur covers your bodies. Claws replace your hands and feet. Whiskers sprout around your newly pointy noses. You and Stinko flop down to all fours.

  You don’t believe it, but it’s true.

  You and Stinko are rats!

  Go to PAGE 21.

  You figure Stinko will be fine playing in the Fun Zone. In fact, he’ll probably be furious when you try to get him to leave. It’s more important to find out what Zoe has to say.

  You spot a stack of boxes. Quickly, you duck behind them. As you crouch down, you notice they are marked SWITCH CHEESE.

  Hmm. You frown. Must mean Swiss cheese.

  Oops! Your shoulder knocks against a box. You try to grab it, but it crashes to the floor. It breaks open.

  Yecch! A horrible stench fills the air. Rotting rounds of orange cheese roll from the boxes.

  Thousands of fat, slimy, white worms wriggle out of the cheese and squirm at your feet.

  Oh — gross!

  Turn to PAGE 24.

  “A sand monster!” Stinko cries.

  So Stinko sees it, too. It’s real.

  A monstrous blob is rising out of the sand. It rolls toward you like a sandstorm.

  As the creature comes nearer, you notice a black hole in its shapeless center. Sand is sucked into the hole with the force of a cyclone wind. Anything in the Sand Blob’s path is sure to be drawn into that giant black hole.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” you shout.

  But Stinko is too terrified. He throws himself down on the slate slab and covers his head with his arms.

  You yank at his shirt. “Come on!” you insist. “Get up!”

  Stinko suddenly sits up, feeling the slab with his fingers. “There’s writing on this,” he exclaims. “Look!”

  Stinko’s right! There are letter
s carved into it! “ ‘Roll the dice to make your next move,’ ” you read aloud.

  A pair of dice appear at your feet.

  “It’s another game,” you whisper. “A game of chance!”

  Feeling lucky? Roll a pair of dice to find your next move.

  If you roll an even number, go to PAGE 86.

  If you roll an odd number, go to PAGE 13.

  KERPLOP!

  You land in the gloppy yellow gunk. Yuck! It goes up your nose. It glues your eyes shut. And the goo is almost impossible to move through.

  You kick hard. Your pants hook on something at the bottom of the cheese pool. It whips you back and forth like a blade in a blender — and you’ve been set on puree!

  The blender blade swirls faster and faster. You feel sick as you realize what’s happening. What you’re being made into.

  You have enough air to shout your very last words.

  “Gee whiz!”

  No, not gee whiz.

  CHEEZ WHIZ!

  THE END

  You wrestle free of Dare’s hand and turn to face him. You gape at the hideous sight.

  One by one the tattoos on his body are thawing out. The cyclone spins again. The shrunken Cyclops head swings back and forth. Poisonous spiders, vampire bats, venomous snakes, and rabid rats come to life.

  “My tattooed friends don’t enjoy the cold,” Dare declares.

  From the way the tattoos are staring at you, you believe him.

  “And I don’t like the way you played that last game,” Dare snarls. “We’ll have to do something about that!”

  Go to PAGE 98.

  That’s strange, you think. You turn to face Zoe. “Mary Ellen was the name Mom —”

  “Forget it,” Zoe cuts you off. “We’ve got better things to do than worry about some bad driver named Mary Ellen.”

  “Like what?” you grumble. You’re already sure you’re going to be bored this whole weekend.

  “Like this!” Zoe reaches into her huge bag and pulls out a giant game spinner.

  “Whoa!” Stinko exclaims. “What’s that?”

  You don’t want to seem too interested, but you can’t help peeking at it out of the corner of your eye.

  The first thing you notice is a silhouette of a rat in the center. Just like the tattoo on Zoe’s ear!

  This girl has rats on the brain, you think.

  You move forward to get a closer look. The spinner is divided into two sections. One section says FUN. The other section says GAMES.

  “It’s up to you now.” Zoe holds the spinner in front of you. “What happens next is your choice. What’s it going to be? Fun or games?”

  Turn to the Spinner on PAGE 136.

  If your finger stops on FUN, turn to PAGE 32.

  If your finger stops on GAMES, turn to PAGE 100.

  “Fine,” you mutter. “We’ll find our own way out.” You glance around the stone castle.

  Okay, you think, we can’t go out the door. It’s bolted tight.

  Your eyes land on stone steps leading down into the cellar.

  “This way, Stinko,” you whisper. You dart down the stairs.

  They bring you to a dark tunnel. Maybe it’s a passageway under the moat! You begin to run….

  And then … you stop.

  Hundreds of glittering eyes stare at you from the darkness.

  “Yikes!” you shriek. “Rats!”

  “Nooooo!” Stinko screams. “Get me out of here!”

  “I’m trying! I’m trying!” You grab him by his sleeve and drag him behind you. Rats scurry from under your feet. They nip at your ankles as you dash through the dark tunnel.

  You turn left — and come to a solid wall. You go back, turn right — and come to another solid wall.

  “Stinko,” you gasp. “I think we’re trapped in a maze!”

  Look over at PAGE 67.

  Yup. It is a maze!

  Put your finger at START. Do not lift it up until you are out of the maze. Then follow the directions at the end.

  Click here to get to PAGE 33.

  Click here to get to PAGE 103.

  You grab one of the ropes and swing across the pit. But you use too much force. You swing out beyond the sea of colored balls below you.

  Uh-oh. You forgot the old saying, “Look before you leap.” On the other side of the pit is a huge vat of swirling orange-yellow goop. A sign on the vat says SWITCH CHEESE.

  You swing back to the side you started from. Then you swing over the cheese vat again. And then back.

  As you swing back and forth, you gaze down, trying to spot Stinko in the ball pit.

  Whoa. You’re over the vat again. And your grip is slipping.

  Make that slipped!

  Plunge to PAGE 63.

  “What a pain!” you mutter. You push through the turnstile to tell Zoe what happened. After all, she’s the baby-sitter. Let her deal with Stinko.

  Zoe is talking to another girl — another girl in hippie clothes. The baby-sitter is so deep in conversation that she didn’t even notice Stinko’s mad dash into the Fun Zone.

  The two hippie girls are laughing about something. As you get closer, you hear what they’re saying.

  “Getting rid of Mary Ellen was easy,” Zoe boasts. “The old giant-rat-in-the-road trick. Made her swerve into a ditch. Works every time. Now the two brats are ours!”

  A shudder runs through you. What could Zoe be talking about? She sounds crazy. And dangerous!

  Don’t panic, you tell yourself. There must be an explanation for what Zoe just said.

  Should you listen to find out what else this weird baby-sitter will say? Or do you go after Stinko yourself and get out of here?

  If you stay to hear more, turn to PAGE 61.

  If you go after Stinko, turn to PAGE 79.

  THUD! The speeding tube stops. Your stomach got lost somewhere back in the tunnel, but now it catches up to you again.

  The door on the tube flies open.

  Stinko rushes out first. “Wow!” he exclaims. He points to a neon sign hanging over an entrance gate to an indoor playground. The sign says KIDSCARE FUN ZONE.

  “There’s Zoe! Our real baby-sitter!” Stinko yells, pointing at a thin girl in a droopy tank top. “Hey, Zoe! We’re over here!”

  Zoe turns to see who’s calling her name.

  But when she turns around, your eyes widen at the horrifying sight.

  From the back, she looks like Zoe.

  From the front, she looks like a giant rat!

  “Come on, Stinko,” you gasp, grabbing your brother by the neck of his shirt. “She’s not a real baby-sitter. And something tells me the Fun Zone isn’t really fun!”

  Run to PAGE 56.

  This isn’t fun at all! You feel dizzy and nauseous. Luckily, the spinning stops before you toss your cookies.

  The door slides open. You hear organ music and kids screaming. The smell of nachos fills the air.

  “Awesome! Thanks, Zoe!” Stinko runs out of the dome.

  You exit slowly, trying to regain your balance — and your lunch! “Where are we?” you ask.

  Zoe points to a yellow neon sign.

  “‘KidScare Fun Zone,’” you read aloud.

  KidScare?

  Hmmm …

  You gaze at the huge indoor playground in front of you. Just beyond the turnstiles, kids jump into an Olympic pool–sized pit, filled with colorful plastic balls.

  Baby stuff, you think. But the slides aimed down tubes that look like tornado funnels seem kind of fun. And the pitch-dark cave entrances dotting the far walls look cool.

  “Wait here,” Zoe orders. “I have to check in.”

  Zoe strolls through a turnstile. A second later, Stinko dashes behind Zoe into the play area.

  “Stinko!” you shout. “Get back here, you dumbo!”

  Go to PAGE 69.

  Good! You choose yellow. The color of the sun. Vampires hate the sun.

  You open up the sunny-colored ball. A beam of sunshine darts out.

/>   That’s all it takes to destroy the vampire in you. One look at the ray of sunshine and you’re cured! Saved!

  The sunbeam zooms across the room — and lights up a secret door hidden in the castle wall.

  “Look, Stinko!” you cry. “That might be the way out!”

  Before you can move toward the door, Dare speaks. “You win this round,” he tells you.

  “I do?” you sputter with surprise. “But I expected —”

  “Expect the unexpected in all my games,” Dare interrupts you. “You’re doing very well, for a beginner.”

  You peer at Dare suspiciously. Is he actually being nice?

  “In fact, you’re so good, I’m going to give you a choice,” Dare continues.

  Here it is:

  To quit while you’re ahead, turn to PAGE 20.

  To go through the secret door, turn to PAGE 37.

  You pushed the FUN AND GAMES KIDSCARE OFFICES button. The elevator starts moving up again. Air whistles through the hole in the ceiling where the claw broke through.

  In a few seconds the elevator stops. The door slides open. You poke out your head. “All clear,” you tell Stinko. You and Stinko step out into a large open area. The elevator door closes behind you and disappears.

  “That’s weird,” you murmur, glancing around. There are no windows here. No doors.

  No way out.

  The only furniture is a desk sitting in the middle of the huge empty space. You step cautiously over to it.

  On the desk is an answering machine. The red light on the machine is flashing. There’s a message.

  You can’t help it. You push PLAY.

  Get the message on PAGE 135.

  Zoe’s face writhes and contorts. Then she’s a rat again.