by R. L. Stine
Simpson sighed. “The fire department had to pull me down. Everyone wanted to know how it happened. I … I never told. I was too frightened.”
“When I was in third grade, there was a boy in my class named Jared Clooney,” Tonya said. “Jared was like you, Sam. He tried to fight the imp. One day, the imp made Jared’s fingernails and toenails start to grow. They sprouted from his fingers and toes and stretched longer and longer.”
“Whoa. Gross,” I muttered.
“Jared’s nails curled around him,” Tonya continued. “They grew so fast. He could only watch in horror. In a minute or so, his nails formed a cage around him. He was trapped inside his own nails!”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“An ambulance took him away,” Tonya replied. “We never saw him again.”
“The imp was just teasing you by taking your rabbit,” Simpson said. “If he really wanted to hurt you, he could—easily.”
“You two are total wimps,” I said. “The imp is afraid of me! I have his tail! I have him scared!”
But as I walked home carrying the rabbit cage at my side, I wasn’t so sure. My stomach felt heavy, knotted. My heart raced. And I couldn’t stop picturing a boy trapped inside his own finger- and toenails.
Mom and Dad greeted me at the front door with grim faces. “Sam, you’re in major trouble,” Dad said.
Mom bit her bottom lip. “You promised us things would be different at this school.”
Dad took the cage from my hand and led me into the living room. “We just got a call from the school secretary,” he said. “She told us about your stunt, climbing the flagpole.”
“But—bu—t” I sputtered.
“The principal is very worried about you,” Mom said.
“Why do you have to show off like that?” Dad asked. “It’s only your second day of school. Why did you do it, Sam?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I replied.
The wrong thing to say.
They lectured me until dinnertime.
I have to do something about the imp, I thought bitterly.
But—what?
That night, I sat down at my computer and went online. I searched the Internet for information about imps.
I stopped at a Web site that showed an artist’s drawing of an imp. I stared at the drawing for a long time.
The creature staring back at me looked exactly like the imp at school. It could have been a photograph.
It had light green skin with patches of darker green fur in several places. It had sharp, pointed ears poking up over a fur-thatched head.
And a face with human features—human eyes, nose, lips.
In the drawing, a smile curled up on the imp’s face. A cold, thin-lipped smile. An evil smile.
I scrolled down and let my eyes skim over the Web site’s information.
It said that imps were creatures of myth and legend. Scientists had no proof that imps had ever existed.
“That’s because the scientists didn’t come to my school!” I declared.
I scanned the description of the typical imp. Short, two to three feet tall. Sometimes their tails stretched behind them for two to three feet.
It said that imps were playful and mischievous.
They loved games of all kinds, especially word games. They loved disguises, teasing others, practical jokes.
But they hated to be laughed at.
If someone laughed at an imp or ridiculed him, it drove him into a frenzy. It made him furious enough to shrink away forever.
Imps have a strong need to challenge humans, I read. They need to prove that they are smarter than humans, more clever and more powerful.
They have short tempers. Any little thing can make them angry. And once they become angry, they turn vicious.
“Tell me about it,” I muttered.
Leaning over my keyboard, I continued to read the information about imps. The next paragraph was a real shocker. I had to read it three times before it really sank in …
Imps have all kinds of magic. Their only limits are the limits of their imagination.
Perhaps their most powerful magic is the ability to pass as humans. Imps can change their shape in an instant. They can disguise themselves as humans for several hours at a time.
After a while, the strain on their magic becomes too great. And they must go back to their imp bodies to refresh their energy.
“Whoa.”
Reading and rereading this section, I suddenly had chills.
Imps can change shape and disguise themselves as humans. Humans …
My brain was spinning.
I had to shut off the computer.
Then I flopped onto my bed. I closed my eyes, thinking hard.
Was the imp disguising himself as someone at my new school?
Is that how he hid all day from everyone? Is that how he spied on the kids?
Is that how he knew my dad had brought the ebony rabbit to school yesterday?
Was it someone I knew?
One of the teachers? One of the kids?
One of my new friends?
15
At school the next morning, I looked at everyone differently. As I walked to my classroom, I studied the kids who passed by me.
Was one of them the imp?
I stepped into the room and waved hello to Mr. Kimpall. Was he the imp? I wondered.
He is nearly as short as the imp! I thought. But he’s too nice to be the disgusting creature, I decided.
We had a geography test that morning. But I couldn’t concentrate on it.
I kept gazing around the room, staring at the other kids as they filled in their test papers. Was one of them the imp?
I watched Tonya. She leaned over her paper, moving her lips as she wrote. Tonya was left-handed, I saw.
Were imps left-handed? Was that a clue?
I turned and watched Simpson. He kept scratching his spiky brown hair with his pencil. He shook his head, frowning down at the test questions.
Simpson always seems terrified of the imp, I thought. And I am pretty sure he’s not pretending to be afraid.
Of course, I could be wrong. Simpson could be the imp.
All of this thinking was making my head spin. And I realized if I didn’t get down to work, I was going to flunk the test.
It’s no good to suspect everyone, I told myself. That won’t get me anywhere.
I need clues.
Of course, the scrawled messages from the imp were clues.
“READ MY LETTER: WHO WILL DROP FIRST?” That had to be some kind of clue.
The Web site said that imps love to play games, especially word games. They love to challenge humans.
Was that message some kind of word game? What could it mean?
“Time is up,” Mr. Kimpall said from the front of the room. “Put down your pencils.”
“Oh, no,” I muttered. I gazed down at my test paper. I hadn’t written a word.
I really tried. But I couldn’t get the imp out of my mind.
That afternoon, I stepped into the band room for rehearsal and gazed around. I saw Teri changing her clarinet reed.
She could be the imp, I thought.
Or Mr. Kelly. Or the big kid who plays the tuba.
Ms. Simpkin poked her head into the room and waved hello to Mr. Kelly.
She could be the imp, I thought.
What if the principal of the school was the imp? Would that explain why all the teachers were so terrified?
My head throbbed. I realized I was gritting my teeth.
Sam, you’ve got to relax, I told myself. You are totally stressed.
Maybe practicing on my sax will help calm me down, I thought. Playing music usually helped.
I pulled my sax case off the shelf. I dropped to my knees and started to open it—and saw a white sheet of paper taped to the top.
“Whoa. What’s this?” I muttered.
I tugged the paper off the case. And stared at the red letters, scrawled in
paint: READ MY LETTER:
WHO WILL DROP FIRST?
“Oh, wow.” A voice behind me made me spin around.
I found Teri standing there, reading the note over my shoulder. “Sam—be careful,” she said softly.
I let the note fall to the floor. “I’m not afraid of stupid notes that don’t even make any sense!” I cried angrily.
I grabbed the sax case and pulled it open. Then I lifted out the two sections of the horn.
I started to slide them together. Then stopped.
Wait. Something felt funny. Something was wrong.
I tried to set the sax sections back in the case. But my hands wouldn’t let go.
My fingers were wrapped tightly around them. I tried to raise my fingers. To uncurl them.
But they were stuck tightly to the saxophone pieces.
“Hey!” I cried.
I shook my hands hard. But they wouldn’t come unstuck.
My heart pounding, I stared at the two sax sections. Someone had poured a thick layer of glue over them.
No matter how I moved, I couldn’t pull my hands away.
“Mr. Kelly? I need help here!” I shouted. My voice came out high and shrill.
Several kids turned to stare at me.
Mr. Kelly had been talking to the snare drummers. He turned, saw me down on the floor beside my sax case, and hurried over.
“Sam, what’s the problem?”
I raised my hands with the horn sections attached. “I’m stuck,” I said. “My hands are glued to the sax.”
Mr. Kelly’s mouth dropped open in shock. He bent down beside me. He gave one of the sax parts a gentle tug.
“See?” I said. “I’m totally stuck.”
He stared at my hands. “Let’s see what we can do,” he muttered.
He grabbed the fingers on my left hand and tried to pry them up.
No. They wouldn’t budge.
He grabbed the sax section and pulled with all his strength.
I heard a ripping sound—and felt a wave of pain sweep down my arm.
“OW! NO—STOP!” I screamed. “MY SKIN! MY SKIN IS TEARING OFF!”
16
Mr. Kelly phoned my parents. He said they would meet me at the emergency room.
He helped me to my feet, then guided me to his car in the teacher parking lot. Kids stared at me as I made my way through the hall.
Some kids thought it was a joke. But they stopped laughing when they saw the pain on my face. I heard some kids murmuring about the imp.
Mr. Kelly held open the door to his gray Camry. I lowered myself into the seat and rested the sax parts in my lap.
“The doctors will know how to unstick them,” he said. He was trying to sound cheerful. But I could tell by his voice that he was really worried.
As we pulled into the hospital parking lot, Mr. Kelly turned to me. He stared down at the sax pieces, then raised his eyes to me.
“Don’t tell your parents about the imp,” he said softly.
My mouth felt dry as dust. I swallowed. “Excuse me?”
“If he finds out about it, it will only make things worse,” Mr. Kelly said.
I groaned and tried to raise my hands. “How could things be any worse?” I asked.
“If the secret gets out, the imp will go berserk,” Mr. Kelly said. “He will hurt people. He really will. He will go after everyone in the school.”
I saw my parents crossing the parking lot. Dad held Mom’s arm. They looked really worried.
“There they are,” I told Mr. Kelly. I pointed.
He grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t tell, Sam,” he repeated. “I’m warning you.”
We caught up to my parents at the front desk. They turned and stared in shock at the pieces of the saxophone stuck to my hands.
Before I could open my mouth, Mr. Kelly spoke up. “Someone at school played a cruel trick,” he told them. “The principal is looking into it.”
Dr. Gubbin didn’t know what to do. He was a young man with a short black ponytail hanging from the back of his green surgical cap.
He had me perched in front of him on a metal exam table. He kept rubbing the front of his green gown with both hands, studying my hands. Studying me as if I were an alien from a different planet.
He tsk-tsked several times and kept shaking his head. Then he tried rubbing a few different liquids over my hands.
They were supposed to loosen the glue. But they didn’t work.
My hands were totally cramped now. And my shoulders ached from holding the heavy metal sax parts for so long.
Finally, he turned to my parents. They were huddled together on the other side of the exam table.
“I may have to try a mild acid,” he said.
“NO WAY!” I shouted.
“If I can’t find something to dissolve the glue, I might have to bum it off,” Dr. Gubbin said. “It will do some skin damage. But we should be able to heal it up in a month or so.”
“Please—” I begged. “No acid!”
Dad’s face had turned as green as the doctor’s lab gown. “If that’s the only way … ” he muttered.
“It will burn a little bit,” Dr. Gubbin told me.
“No. Please—” I repeated. “If you bum my hands … ”
I tried to raise them—and one hand pulled loose.
The saxophone piece clattered to the floor.
“Hey—!”
Everyone cried out at once.
“See?” I said. “We don’t need acid!”
“Good news. I guess that last solvent did the trick,” Dr. Gubbin said. “Let’s apply some more to the other hand and see what happens.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Gubbin released my other hand.
A few minutes after that, I was riding home with my parents in the backseat of the Taurus. My hands still stung and ached. Patches of skin had been torn off on both palms, and two of my fingers had to be bandaged.
“Sam, who would do such a horrible thing to you?” Mom asked, turning to face me from the passenger seat.
“You just started this school,” Dad said, turning onto Palm Street. “You haven’t made any enemies already—have you?”
“Well …”
I took a deep breath and let it all come out.
“I told you, but you wouldn’t listen to me. The school is haunted by a vicious creature,” I said. “He’s about three feet tall and looks like a big green rat. Except he has a human face.”
“Excuse me?” Mom turned around again to look at me.
“It’s an imp,” I continued. “Imps are not supposed to be real. But this one is.”
I took another breath. The words came tumbling out of me. “Everyone in school is terrified of the imp,” I said. “Even the teachers. The imp has magical powers, and he can do horrible things if he gets angry.
“Remember when I came home without my jacket?” I continued breathlessly. “I told you the imp took it. You laughed at me. But it was true. I tried to take back the jacket. I got into a fight with him. And I pulled off his tail.”
I raised my raw red hands. “This was his revenge,” I said. “A kid didn’t do this to me. The imp did.”
We weren’t home yet. But Dad pulled the car to the curb. He and Mom both turned to me. “Sam—” Dad started.
“You’ve got to help me,” I said. “We’ve got to get rid of this imp. No one else will do it. So, will you help me? Will you?”
17
My parents stared at me for the longest time. Mom chewed her bottom lip. Dad tapped his fingers nervously on the seat back.
“You believe me—don’t you?” My question came out in a whisper.
Mom shook her head.
“Sam, this is exactly what you did at your last school,” Dad said. “Blaming your problems on others.”
“You promised us you wouldn’t do this anymore,” Mom said in a trembling voice. “You are making up stories to keep from facing the truth.”
“But this time you’ve gone too far. Your st
ory is too crazy for anyone to believe,” Dad said.
“I’m very worried about you,” Mom said. “Very worried.”
“Me too,” Dad said softly.
“You … don’t believe me,” I muttered. I had a heavy lump in my throat.
I wanted them to believe me. I needed them to believe me.
“Okay. I’ll prove it to you,” I said.
I knew what I had to do. I had to draw the imp out. I had to force a showdown.
The next morning, I hurried to the computer room before school started. I printed up a bunch of signs. The signs read “READ MY LETTER: YOU WILL DROP FIRST!”
I took a roll of tape from the art room, and I began taping up my signs all over school.
“Sam, are you crazy?” a voice called.
I turned to find Tonya staring at me in horror. She wore a stiff-looking white blouse and a black skirt over black tights.
I finished taping a sign to the science lab door. “Why are you dressed like a pilgrim? It’s not Thanksgiving,” I said.
“I’m in the chorus,” she replied, staring at the sign. “We’re singing at the assembly this morning.”
“Oh, yeah,” I muttered. I had forgotten there was an assembly.
Good, I thought. Good timing.
“Take that sign down, Sam,” Tonya warned. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“It’s war,” I said. “Me against the imp. No way I’m taking it down.”
I held up my stack of signs. “Help me put them up?”
She brushed back her straight black hair. “You’re crazy,” she said. “How can you be so crazy after what the imp did to you yesterday?”
I began walking down the hall, searching for a good place to hang the next sign. “Don’t you want to get rid of the imp, Tonya?” I asked. “Don’t you want to go to a normal school where people aren’t afraid all the time?”
“Of course,” she replied, following after me. “But there’s no way. He has too much power, Sam. Your signs are only going to make him angry. And when he’s angry—”