by R. L. Stine
“Whoooooa!” you cry, swaying back and forth over the open pit.
“Don’t leave me!” Todd screams.
“I’m trying my best not to,” you snap. You fall forward onto the ground in front of you. “Whew! That was a close —”
You can’t finish this sentence because what you see standing behind Todd is making your mouth drop wide open.
Go to PAGE 41.
In the light of the full moon you see the doctor’s face. Long, coarse hair covers his forehead, cheeks, and chin. His eyes flash like a red fire. Fangs glisten as he opens his mouth — ready to bite.
Your screams fill the night air. But no one can hear you so far away. Behind you a gate comes crashing down around the cabin. There is no escape. The search for Todd’s red tin box has brought you right to the werewolves of WoodsWorld. And also right to
THE END.
Air in. Air out. Air in. Air out.
With the next air in, your floating speeds up. You’re no longer bobbing slowly up and down on a calm body of water. Now you are being towed by some force you cannot see.
“Help!” you scream.
“Help! Help!” your own voice echoes.
“Oh, it’s no use,” you cry.
“Oh, it’s no use! Oh, it’s no use!” the echo agrees with you.
In one final pull of the air force, you are sucked into another tunnel. A long narrow tunnel. You zoom through the tunnel and land in a dark pit. “Oh, no!” you sob.
But this time there is no echo.
There is only a loud BURP.
The Deep Woods Lake monster has just swallowed you whole! Sad to say, you’re all washed up. For you, this story has come to …
THE END.
The troll jumps out of the box and immediately makes himself bigger again. He begins to whistle and shout at the Murphy brothers. They try to cover their ears, but the muscles on their arms are too huge. They can’t lift their own arms to their ears.
“Hahahahahahahaha,” the troll laughs. “Now you are my slaves! You will obey me! Where is the red tin box the others are looking for? Tell me now!”
You, Todd, and Lauren watch in disbelief as the Murphys’ muscles start shrinking. When the muscles are gone, the Murphys themselves start shrinking, too.
“Where is the box?” the troll repeats. “Tell me now, before I reduce you down to nothing!”
In a voice much smaller than his usual voice, Sharky calls out the answer the troll is looking for.
“What did he say?” Todd asks you. “Where is my box?”
Go to PAGE 43.
The troll watches you very closely. Someone behind you taps your shoulder and talks to you. You don’t hear her because of the earphones. The troll watches as she talks to you again. Again you don’t answer.
“What’s the matter?” the troll asks right in your face so you can read his lips. “Troll got your tongue? Or are you just a little hard of hearing?” Then the wicked little creature reaches over with his clawlike fingers and yanks the headphones off your head.
His whistle fills your ears. You feel your muscles disappearing and all your own will going with them.
“You will sit when I sit,” snarls the troll.
“Yes, Master,” you say in a trance.
“You will promise to obey me always and forever,” he growls at you.
“Yes, Master,” you say weakly.
“You will be silent until I say your time to be silent has come to
THE END.”
“Go up!” you command.
“I think I’m going to,” Todd says in a queasy voice.
“I said go up, not throw up!” you yell.
The pterodactyl instantly points its head upward and flaps its wings hard. Up, up, up you rise. You soar through the darkness at speeds you never thought possible.
“Wow!” Todd exclaims. “This thing really moves!”
He’s right. In fact, as you look up you realize the pterodactyl has moved so fast you’re almost at the mouth of the Bottomless Pit. And you’re also almost at the mouths of a pack of very hungry werewolves.
Their fang-filled mouths are watering!
Fly to PAGE 15.
You peer over the ledge and see a greater nothing than you’ve ever seen. You gaze up. Darkness. You glance down again. Darkness. Either way, it looks the same to you — totally frightening.
“I guess we’d better get in the elevator,” you announce. You push Todd forward into the waiting car.
The door closes behind you and Todd.
A whirring sound begins, but you don’t feel any motion. The closet-sized space is illuminated by a dim red light. The light seems to be blinking on, off, on, off, on, off. Then you figure it out!
The red light is on when the elevator operator’s eyes are open and off when his eyes are closed. On when they’re open. Off when they’re closed. His eyes are the blinking red lights!
In the red glow, you notice the man’s teeth are growing longer and sharper.
Todd elbows you sharply and cries, “He’s one of them!”
Go to PAGE 11.
“We’re here,” Lauren says from the darkness.
“Keep up with me, guys,” you instruct.
“I’m trying to,” Lauren answers, “but I feel so weak.”
“Me, too,” Todd whines. “I have no strength.”
“Well, fine superheroes you all turned out to be,” you tease them. “How are we going to get rid of the troll if you can’t even get up the stairs?”
You reach into your pocket and pull out a small fistful of SUPER-STRENGTH O’s. “Here,” you say, holding your hand out to your friends. “This should help. As long as we’re underground the troll has no power. Get your strength back with these O’s.”
The three of you eat a little bit of the O’s and sit on the stairs waiting for the expected results. You casually put your hand in your other pocket and pull out another handful of O’s. They look exactly like the other O’s, but you know you only had SUPER-STRENGTH O’s in one pocket.
Uh-oh! Somebody must have planted other O’s in the other pocket.
If you ate from the right pocket, go to PAGE 63.
If you ate from the left pocket, go to PAGE 92.
No scream comes out of your mouth. You quickly see the “horrible beasts” coming through the woods are none other than Sharky, Jess, and Buck Murphy!
“Did someone mention Murphys?” Sharky whoops. He runs right up to Todd and gives him a shove. “Well, Nerdo, here we are. Big as life and twice as scary!”
“So you haven’t found your stupid box yet?” Jess taunts.
Buck sneaks up behind Todd and pinches his ear. In an evil-sounding voice he whispers, “Did the werewolves get you yet? Heh, heh.”
Buck’s laughter doesn’t last long. It stops in his throat when a hairy hand pinches his ear. Then a growling voice whispers, “Did someone mention werewolves?”
It’s Todd’s werewolf friend! The SMARTS BOX food must have worn off. Todd’s friend isn’t so well-mannered anymore! All that is left is its ability to talk.
“It looks like I’m getting the last laugh,” the werewolf growls at the trembling Murphy brothers.
Go to PAGE 46.
The troll’s trance is too powerful. You’ve never felt so helpless, so weak, so weird!
“Go back to your cabin and await further instruction. I will be seeing you,” the troll’s hypnotic voice repeats in your mind. “Go back. Go back. Go back.”
The troll controls your steps in the direction of the cabin. You climb onto the porch and open the door to Evergreen Cabin. Your parents and the Morrises are not home yet. No one has even noticed that you and Todd are not in bed.
In your mind you hear the troll’s voice giving you all your instructions. You have no choice but to obey. You are in his power. You move mechanically to the bathroom to brush your teeth. You reach for the toothpaste. Instead your hand wraps around the leg of the troll!
Go to PAGE 48.
The werewolves have all lowered their arms and turned at once. They’re licking their blood-thirsty lips. Their eyes glow like flaming torches.
One of the hairy beasts grabs Todd and breathes hot, stinking wolf breath in his face.
“No, please!” cries Todd. You can see tears gush from his wide eyes. “You can have the collection!” he tries to bargain.
The werewolf snarls and bares pointed fangs. Its mouth opens wide enough to take Todd’s whole head in one bite.
“HOW-OW-OW-OWL!” you howl. You try to draw the werewolf’s attention away from Todd.
It works! In fact the whole pack of werewolves turns away from the Murphys and Todd. All werewolf eyes are on you!
But you’re ready for them.
In one swift motion you open the box and hold up the pewter sorceress. Their red eyes reflect off the crystal sun in the sorceress’s hands. A blinding light is thrown back into the wolves’ eyes. The wolves step backwards. They try to escape the reflecting light rays. Can they?
Go to PAGE 105.
You reach into your pocket and feel what you are looking for.
“Jawbreakers!” you announce to Lauren. You hold out a handful of round, colored candies. Then you toss them to the ground.
The pack of werewolves pounce on the jawbreakers. They start chomping. In no time, pained howls fill the woods. HOW-OW-OW-OWL-OWWWWWL! All the hairy creatures cry out in jaw-breaking agony. Your plan worked.
“I knew my plan would work,” you brag to Lauren. “Those fanged beasts won’t be biting anyone for a long, long time.”
Right again, genius. All the werewolves’ teeth and fangs are broken and shattered. The jawbreakers and your brilliant brain saved you and your friends. Now that you’ve cracked the case, you’ll be free to keep searching and searching and searching for Todd’s box until
THE END.
Lauren has a very serious look on her face. She watches the motions of the red fire ants as they speak to her in sign language. “They say beware of the werewolves of WoodsWorld,” she says. “They say we are not safe until we have the red tin box back in our hands.”
“Do they know where it is?” Todd asks.
“They say they know, but they can’t tell us. There’s another power in the woods that we haven’t seen yet,” Lauren continues. “They say we must keep searching for the box — we only have until dawn to find it.”
“That’s right!” you exclaim. You take the folded note out of your pocket and read the poem again:
“The Werewolves of WoodsWorld
Disappear at dawn.
So you must find the box
Before this night is gone.”
“There’s no time to waste,” you say to the others. “Lauren, tell the ants we’re sorry we smashed into their tree. We won’t hurt them if they don’t hurt us. Our troubles are just beginning, but tell the ants their troubles with us have come to an
END.
You throw open the red tin box and look at the pewter figure collection for the first time.
“Awesome!” you cry when you see the treasure. Inside the box are the most finely crafted, beautifully jeweled pewter figurines you’ve ever seen. “Yes,” you say to Todd. “It was definitely worth the trouble.”
Each figure is in its own velvet-lined compartment. You can’t resist taking out the pewter dragon with the emerald eyes.
“Incredible,” you whisper. You turn the figure around in your hand and study the details. You return the dragon to its compartment. One by one, you take out each figure and study it. There’s a prince waving a crystal-bladed sword in the air, a ruby-studded castle, a diamond-eyed skeleton in a hooded cloak, and a magic sorceress holding a fiery crystal sun high above her head.
“They’re all safe!” Todd exclaims with relief. He helps you put them back and closes the box.
“But we’re not safe!” you say.
Turn to PAGE 121 and see why.
“Well,” you hear your mom saying as you inch closer to her, “I just think we’re awfully lucky to have such good kids. It’s nice to know we can always trust them to do the right thing.”
The right thing. The right thing. The right thing. Your mother’s voice echoes in your head.
“Don’t listen to her!” the troll cries. He pops into view and stands on a hat rack next to you. “I am your master now!” he shouts. “You will obey me!”
“Yes, Master,” you reply. It’s useless to argue. You have no super-strength when it comes to fighting off the will of the troll.
The troll orders you to search the library. The box could be buried under books. You sneak past the card players. The library door has a giant padlock on it. You can’t budge it.
I could really use those super-strength muscles now, you think.
Will your wish be granted? Find out on PAGE 5.
You feel your brain magically power up. Facts pour out of your mouth like a fountain of knowledge gone wild.
“On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh started his flight across the Atlantic,” you announce. “The first African-American Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, was born on July 2, 1908. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed more than six hundred works of music!”
Lauren is amazed! “You know everything!” she exclaims. “But what should we do about the werewolves?”
Your brain is already solving that problem. You know you could feed them the Cherry-O’s and that might calm them. But you have a different idea this time.
Go to PAGE 122.
“No, really,” Lauren insists. “I mean Todd’s body is now the size of a thimble, and he has a fish head instead of his own head! He really does look funny!”
“Come to think of it, Lauren, you’re not looking too normal yourself!” Todd says through his new fish lips.
Sure enough, Lauren and you and Todd ate from the right pocket, which turns out to have been the absolute wrong pocket. That wasn’t SUPER-STRENGTH O’s you ate. It was FISH-IN-AN-INSTANT food!
Never trust a troll. They’re always up to something fishy, especially when they live by a lake.
“Time to go swimming, my fine finned friends,” the troll announces, as he pops out from under the stairs. He nods his head and magically transports the three of you to the middle of Deep Woods Lake. Sad to say, when it comes to fish tales, you’ll be the greatest tale ever told!
THE END
You decide to break through the wall. You take two steps backward. Then with a running dive, you throw all your muscles against the wall. CRRAASSSSSH! You did it! You’re back in the library.
“Uh-oh. Looks like troll trouble again!” you say. The wastebasket is tipped over and the heavy dictionary is on the floor. The troll is nowhere in sight. He has escaped!
Tweeeeeeeeeeeet! That awful whistle again!
The troll is in here somewhere, you guess. You hurry to the card room where your parents were. Card games are left unfinished. Cards are scattered all over the table. Half-eaten sandwiches and drinks are everywhere. Your headphones are on the table where your dad was sitting. You pick them up. Dad never would have left it behind unless he left in a hurry, you think. The troll must have done something to them! I’ve got to save Mom and Dad before it’s too late!
You head for the snack bar room. You open the door and gasp.
Go to PAGE 83.
The werewolf pounces on Lauren.
You scream. Todd screams. And Lauren …
… laughs!
“Hey, that tickles!” She giggles as she rolls on the ground with the werewolf. Her eyes aren’t covered anymore. “Wolfie, stop!”
“Wolfie?” you and Todd repeat together.
You can’t figure out what she means. The smartness from the cereal must have worn off. Why in the world would she be laughing?
You shine the flashlight on the werewolf. It’s licking, not biting, Lauren’s face.
“This isn’t a werewolf,” Lauren says. And in the light from the flashlight you see Lauren is right. It’s not a werewolf at
all.
“Wolfie is the dog from next door!” Lauren explains, hugging the hairy animal.
Oh well, so much for the great wild werewolf you were going to capture and donate to science. Good-bye to all those brilliant ideas. It looks like your chance to be famous just came to
THE END.
You have entered the Tunnel of the Wolves.
Now you hear a bone-chilling HOW-OW-OW-OWL!
Again. HOW-OW-OW-OWL! Only this time it isn’t exactly bone-chilling. It sounds more like chalk screeching on a blackboard.
“I don’t think that’s a werewolf howl,” you say aloud. Then you see a very surprising sight.
It’s Todd! He looks awful. His hair is covered in slime dropped by the slugs on the cave’s ceiling. His geeky face is completely white, and his mouth is wide open in a howling O-shape.
“Todd!” you shout, startling him out of his howling. “Are you totally nuts, or what? What are you doing?”
“I’m making the werewolves think I’m one of them,” Todd answers in a terrified and shaky voice. “I heard them running! I didn’t know what to do, so I started howling.”
“I don’t believe it,” you say. “Todd, you are —”
Then you hear the werewolves, too. They’re running. But which way? Toward you or away from you?
Go to PAGE 68.
Quickly, you duck into the library. Your giant muscles make it easy for you to put the door back into the doorway. No one can even see that it was removed. You hear your parents’ voices outside the door. You want to answer. The troll appears on a table next to you.
“Do not reveal your master!” he snaps.