Series 2000- Brain Juice

by R. L. Stine

  Series 2000- Brain Juice

  Goosebumps 2000 [12]

  R. L. Stine

  New York (1998)

  * * *

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Science Fiction, Horror Ghost Stories, Extraterrestrial Beings

  Fictionttt Juvenile Fictionttt Science Fictionttt Horror Ghost Storiesttt Extraterrestrial Beingsttt

  Attaining fantastic mental abilities after drinking alien-made brain juice, Nathan and Micah become targeted by the aliens, who are seeking a few good, exceptionally smart, young humans.

  Goosebumps (R)

  Series 2000

  No. 12

  BRAIN JUICE

  by

  R.l. STINE

  Copyright 1998 by Parachute Press, Inc.

  BOOK JACKET INFORMATION

  Goosebumps

  No. 12

  APPLE FICTION

  A mind is a terrible thing to drink.

  Welcome to the new

  millennium of fear

  Goosebumps (R)

  SERIES 2000

  Carefully, the alien poured the purple liquid into the bottle. “Our only supply of Brain Energizer Fluid,” he muttered. “Let’s hope it works.

  “Hurry, Morggul,” he said, giving his fat partner a push with all four tentacles.

  Morggul gazed at the purple bottle. His lower mouth frowned. His upper mouth said, “No human has ever drunk this formula. How do we know what side effects it will have? Maybe it will kill them!”

  SCHOLASTIC INC. RL4 008-012

  BRAIN JUICE

  Prologue

  “We are wasting our time here, Morggul,” the taller alien whispered. His lower mouth turned down in a tight frown as his upper mouth spoke the words.

  “Gobbul, you are always so impatient,” his partner scolded.

  The two aliens were green and wet-skinned. They wore no clothing. Their bell-shaped bodies had four slender tentacles poking out of the sides. Two flat, webbed feet—eight curled black toes on each foot—rested at the end of short, stumpy legs.

  Froglike heads bobbed on top of the short, fat bodies. The aliens’ faces were ugly and cruel. Two wet yellow eyes bulged over two jagged-toothed mouths.

  Purple pods throbbed and pulsed up and down their four coiling tentacles. The pods looked like deep wounds. They opened and closed, making a soft sucking sound, as the aliens breathed through them.

  Gobbul, the taller one and the leader, had silvery tusks, much like walrus tusks, that curled over his two mouths. Morggul was fatter and slow-moving. His four tentacles were always twisting slowly through the air as if he were swimming.

  The two aliens had been hiding in the home of Dr. Frank King, in Maplewood, New Jersey, for nearly a week. When they weren’t spying on the famous scientist, Morggul slept, snoring through both mouths. And Gobbul worried.

  “We cannot spend any more time on this planet,” Gobbul whispered to his partner. “Someone will find our spaceship. The humans will drag it away to study it. And we will be stranded in this horrible place forever.”

  “It’s well hidden in thick woods,” Morggul reminded him.

  “I don’t want to be stranded here!” the taller one exclaimed, licking his tusks with both tongues, as he always did when he became excited. “Can you imagine having to live in a place where they kill their food before eating it?!”

  “We knew they were primitive people,” Morggul replied. “We knew they were not very smart.”

  “Yes, yes. I know. That’s why we’ve come here.” Gobbul groaned. “The humans should make excellent slaves. But so far, it doesn’t look promising.”

  All of Morggul’s pods opened at once as he yawned. The breath that burst from his body shook the boxes and jars in the little pantry behind the kitchen where they were hiding.

  “Shhh. Cover your pods when you yawn,” Gobbul scolded. “We don’t want Dr. Frank King to discover us—do we?”

  Morggul snickered. His fat, shiny, wet body jiggled as he laughed. He narrowed his two yellow eyes. “I’m not afraid of the human. If he spots me, I’ll jam one tentacle into his chest, pull out his heart, and eat it.”

  Gobbul frowned with both mouths. “Don’t make me hungry.”

  “Are you sure we are in the right house?” Morggul demanded.

  “Yes,” Gobbul answered without hesitating. “He is the smartest of all humans. You read the sign above his front door: DR. FRANK KING, EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE LABS. You saw his name. King. Dr. Frank King. That means he is the king of all the scientists!”

  “I know,” Morggul groaned, bouncing up and down on his stumpy legs. “That’s why we’re watching him. Because he is the king of the scientists. But he and his wife don’t seem that smart to me. And they are not young enough.”

  “We may have to use the Brain Energizer Fluid,” his leader whispered. “We must bring two human slaves back to our homeland. And they’ve got to be young and strong and smart—smart enough to be good slaves.”

  “But where will we find them?” Morggul wondered.

  Gobbul opened his mouths to speak—but stopped at the chime of the doorbell.

  “Shhh. Dr. King has visitors, Morggul. Quick—back in the cabinet. Hide.”

  1

  Nathan Nichols pressed the doorbell and took a step back off the straw welcome mat. He heard the chime inside his uncle’s house.

  Nathan turned to his stepsister Lindy. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”

  Lindy twisted a strand of her long, copper-colored hair. “If Uncle Frank can’t help us, no one can,” she murmured. She gazed up at the brass sign over the door:

  DR. FRANK KING, EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE LABS.

  “But maybe Uncle Frank will just think we’re stupid,” Nathan groaned.

  “Well … so does everyone else,” Lindy sighed.

  “But what can he do for us?” Nathan demanded. “You and I … we’ll never be one of the smart kids.”

  “Uncle Frank is the smartest person we know,” Lindy replied, tangling and untangling the strand of hair around her finger. “He’ll help us. I know he will.”

  They heard footsteps approaching inside the house.

  Lindy let go of her hair and tossed it over her shoulder. Nathan cleared his throat nervously. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his baggy khakis.

  Nathan and Lindy were both twelve. With his dark eyes, black-rimmed eyeglasses, short, curly black hair, and solemn expression, Nathan looked older.

  Lindy was tall and thin. She had long, straight auburn hair that she constantly played with, and sparkling green eyes. Her mom told her she was pretty. But Lindy complained that her nose was too flat and her face was too round.

  Lindy’s mom had married Nathan’s dad when the kids were in third grade. They had been as close as any real brother and sister ever since.

  Too close, Lindy thought. We’re too much alike.

  Why couldn’t one of us have been smart?

  The front door finally swung open. Uncle Frank’s eyes bulged with surprise and his round cheeks turned red. “Well! What a nice surprise!”

  He was a big Santa Claus of a man. White hair, unbrushed, sticking out in all directions over a chubby-cheeked, smiling face.

  He had broad shoulders and big hands and a big belly that bounced when he laughed.

  He almost always wore white. White sweatshirts over white running pants. White high-top sneakers. White lab coats when he was working.

  “Hey, Jenny! Come see who came to visit!” he boomed to his wife. He stepped back to allow them inside.

  Nathan smelled food from the kitchen. A roast, maybe, or a chicken. “Are you still eating dinner?” he asked his uncle.

  “No. Ju
st finished. Your aunt Jen is cleaning up.” He turned and called again. “Jenny? Jen?”

  Placing a big hand on each kid’s shoulder, he guided them into the cluttered living room. “Nathan? Lindy? What’s going on?” he asked. “What brings you all the way over here?”

  “Well …” Nathan hesitated. He glanced at his stepsister.

  Lindy sighed. “It’s kind of a long story,” she said.

  Their bad day started when Mr. Tyssling, their teacher, asked them to stay after school.

  “But we didn’t do anything!” Lindy protested.

  “I know,” Mr. Tyssling replied with a strange smile.

  John Tyssling was a tall, lanky young man who always looked as if he needed a shave. He wore jeans and sweaters torn at the neck, and a lot of kids thought he was really cool.

  Nathan and Lindy liked him too. But they always seemed to be on his bad side.

  Mr. Tyssling made Nathan and Lindy sit in front of his desk while he thumbed through test papers. “Yes. Here,” he grunted, pulling out two papers.

  He scratched his dark hair and narrowed his eyes at them, peering over the tests. “You both flunked the semester math test,” he announced.

  Nathan swallowed hard. Lindy groaned and lowered her eyes to the backpack at her feet.

  “I can’t believe you both did so badly,” the teacher said, shaking his head. “I mean, you had to be cheating to do this badly! You couldn’t have done it on your own!”

  Nathan and Lindy didn’t utter a sound.

  Mr. Tyssling laughed, a dry laugh. “That was a joke, guys,” he said. “I was trying to keep it light. I know you didn’t cheat.”

  “Oh,” Nathan murmured softly.

  Lindy played with a thick strand of her hair.

  Mr. Tyssling waved the test papers in front of them. “So what happened?”

  “We—we’re just not good at math,” Lindy blurted out.

  “The test was too hard,” Nathan said.

  “I gave you review sheets,” Mr. Tyssling said, lowering the tests to the desk. “Did you use them to study?”

  “Yes,” Nathan and Lindy replied in unison.

  “We studied a lot,” Lindy insisted.

  “It was just too hard,” Nathan repeated.

  The teacher gazed at Nathan, then at Lindy. “Do you need extra help?” he asked. “Did you ever talk to your parents about a math tutor? Think that might help?”

  “Maybe,” Lindy muttered, twisting her hair.

  “We’re just not smart enough,” Nathan sighed.

  “What did you say?” Mr. Tyssling cried. He leaned across the desk. “Nathan, don’t ever say that again. Of course you’re smart enough. Don’t get down on yourself like that. You just have to work harder and study better.”

  “Yeah. Okay,” Nathan uttered, startled by the teacher’s reaction.

  A few minutes later, he and Lindy were walking home. It was a blustery winter day. A strong gust of icy wind blew Nathan’s green-and-white Jets cap off, and he had to chase it across the street.

  He heard kids laughing. He spun around and saw Ellen Hassler, Wardell Greene, and Stan Garcia—three kids from his class— hooting and pointing.

  The Smart Kids, Nathan thought bitterly.

  He tugged the cap low on his head. Then he kept one hand on it as he ran back across the street to his stepsister.

  Ellen, Wardell, and Stan got nothing but A’s. Mr. Tyssling was always calling on them, always asking them to come up to the chalkboard and solve problems.

  The three of them always seemed to be together. Like some kind of Smart Club, Nathan thought. Only smart kids can hang out with us!

  “Why can’t we be smart too?” he muttered as the wind blew the Jets cap into the street again.

  Lindy narrowed her eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

  “What I said to Mr. Tyssling was right,” Nathan said. “We’re just not smart enough. Why can’t we be like those kids over there?” He pointed across the street. “They’re all geniuses!”

  Lindy shrugged. She zipped her red-and-blue windbreaker. “I don’t care about being a genius. I just don’t want to fail math!”

  They opened the front door to find Brenda, Lindy’s five-year-old sister, waiting for them. Brenda looked like a small version of Lindy. She had the same green eyes, pale skin, and auburn hair.

  “What took you so long?” she demanded sharply, crossing her arms in front of her slender chest. She was on her knees on the carpet with colorful pieces of plastic strewn around her.

  “We had to stay after school,” Lindy sighed, tossing her backpack onto an armchair.

  “What are you doing down there?” Nathan demanded. “What is all that junk?”

  “It isn’t junk.” Brenda sneered. “It’s my new dollhouse. I’ve been waiting for Lindy to come help me put it together.”

  “Huh? Lindy?” Nathan felt insulted. “Why do you want Lindy to help, Brenda? Why don’t you want me?”

  “Because you’re stupid,” Brenda replied without hesitating.

  “Hey!” Nathan protested angrily.

  Lindy laughed.

  “You can’t build anything,” Brenda accused, arms still crossed. She uncrossed them to tug at a strap of her denim overalls. “Remember that model car you tried to build?”

  “It had too many pieces,” Nathan grumbled.

  “Yes. And you glued most of them to your desk!” Lindy chimed in. She and Brenda laughed.

  “I couldn’t help it. There was a hole in the tube of glue!” Nathan cried.

  “Well, I want Lindy to help me,” Brenda declared. And then she added, “Mom said you would.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Lindy sighed. She dropped down to the carpet beside her sister. “Let’s see what we have here. Wow. There are a million pieces.”

  Nathan slid into an armchair to watch. He draped his legs over the side of the chair. “Okay, genius,” he called to Lindy. “Let’s see you build it.”

  “Shut up,” Brenda told him.

  “You shut up!” Nathan snapped back. He felt really annoyed that his little stepsister called him stupid. He thought she looked up to him.

  Lindy unfolded the instruction sheet. She scanned it quickly, turning it over, glancing at the complicated drawings.

  “So many pieces …,” she murmured. “Brenda, are you sure this is just one dollhouse?”

  “Hurry up! Build it!” Brenda insisted, impatiently punching her fists against her thighs. “Hurry!”

  Lindy studied the instruction sheet. She unfolded it until it was bigger than a road map. “I … I don’t know where to start,” she cried.

  “This looks like the floor,” Brenda said. She handed Lindy a long, flat rectangle.

  “Okay. We’ll start with the floor.” Lindy struggled to find it on the chart. Then she located two yellow walls. “These should fit into the floor,” she murmured. “But how?”

  She tried sliding the walls into narrow grooves on the ends of the floor. But they didn’t fit.

  Then she tried fitting in two other pieces.

  “No—those are ceilings!” Brenda protested.

  Nathan laughed gleefully and slapped the sides of the armchair.

  “Okay, Mr. Smartguy.” Lindy groaned. “I give up. Come over here and help us.”

  Nathan stood up and slowly made his way across the room to them. “This looks pretty easy to me,” he boasted. “No problem.”

  He dropped onto the carpet and took the floor piece from Lindy. The two of them struggled to find walls that fit. Then Lindy suggested they start with the roof and work down.

  But the roof came in three pieces of red plastic. And they couldn’t figure out how to fit them together.

  “This is kind of hard,” Nathan confessed, scratching his curly black hair. He pulled off his glasses and blew a speck of dust off one lens. Then he turned back to the floor piece.

  “Look. The walls have little tabs,” he said. “I think if you push real hard—”

  Lindy and
Brenda both cried out at the sound of the CRAAAACK.

  “You broke it! You broke it!” Brenda wailed.

  Nathan stared down unhappily at the floor piece, cracked jaggedly in two.

  “You’re stupid!” Brenda shrieked, jumping to her feet. “I’m telling Mom! You’re both stupid! Stupid idiots! Stupid! Stupid!”

  She ran crying from the room.

  Nathan let the broken floor pieces slip from his hands. He turned sadly to Lindy. “We let her down.”

  “I can’t read these instructions,” Lindy cried, holding them up again. “They’re just too hard!” She furiously balled them up and heaved them across the room. “And we’re too stupid.”

  “And that’s why you came to see me?” Uncle Frank asked, leaning forward in his chair. His eyes moved from Nathan to Lindy. “Because you think you’re stupid?”

  “Yes,” Nathan agreed, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

  He and Lindy hadn’t touched the brownies and milk their aunt Jenny had brought in. They both sat stiffly in chairs across from Uncle Frank, their hands clasped tightly in their laps.

  “Maybe we’re not really stupid,” Lindy chimed in. “But we’re not really smart, either.”

  “We’re not smart enough,” Nathan said.

  Uncle Frank cleared his throat. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “And what do you want me to do?”

  “Well …” Nathan hesitated.

  “You’re the smartest person in our family,” Lindy spoke up. “And you’re a scientist, right?”

  Uncle Frank nodded.

  “And you do scientific work about the brain, right?” Nathan added.

  Uncle Frank nodded again.

  “So …” Nathan continued. “We thought maybe you knew some way Lindy and I could get smarter.”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?” Lindy pleaded. “Any way at all to make us smarter?”

  Uncle Frank rubbed his chin. “Yes,” he replied finally. “Yes, I do have something that might work.”

  “What is it?” Nathan and Lindy asked in unison.