Stink and the Attack of the Slime Mold

by Megan McDonald

  CONTENTS

  The Glob

  Slime Mold Saturday

  Mr. McGoo Sees the World!

  Sneeze of Doom

  Frankenslime

  The Incredible Shrinking Slime

  McGoo Two

  Glip!

  Glop!

  Gloop!

  “It crawls! It creeps! It oozes! It comes from outer space!”

  “First it was some sort of blob stuck to his hand. Then it landed on his head. It kept getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER. And then, all of a sudden, he just sort of . . . disappeared!”

  “What do you mean . . . disappeared?”

  “The thing . . . it ATE him. Right before my eyes.”

  “Was it a monster?”

  “It was worse than a monster. It was THE GLOB!”

  “AAAAAGGGHHH!”

  “Aaagh!” Stink screamed. He pulled his T-shirt up over his eyes so he would not have to look at the movie screen. Judy jumped. Her popcorn went flying all over the backseat of the car.

  In the front seat, Mom and Dad chuckled.

  “Whose brainy idea was it to come to the drive-in movies, anyway?” Stink said, with a shiver in his voice.

  “Yours,” said Mom, Dad, and Judy at the same time.

  “Well, I thought it would be cool to get to sit in the car and watch a movie. Outside. Under the stars.”

  The Stardust, an old drive-in movie theater like the kind that had been around when Mom and Dad were kids, had just reopened in Frog Neck Lake.

  “It is cool,” said Judy.

  “And dark,” said Stink. “And a little scary.”

  “It’s dark at the inside movies, too,” Judy pointed out. “Besides, it’s the Friday Night Freak Fest, Stink. You wanted to see an old monster movie. It’s supposed to be freaky.”

  Stink couldn’t bear to look at the screen. At the same time, he couldn’t bear not to look. He peeked out over the top of his T-shirt. A screaming crowd came running out of a diner.

  The Glob was oozing down the street.

  “It’s taking over the whole town!”

  “Nothing will stop it, Doctor! It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen!”

  Stink screamed again. He turned and looked at Judy with saucer eyes. “What if the Glob eats the whole town?”

  “It’s not real, Stink, remember? Think of it like a giant glob of Jell-O. Jell-O’s not scary, is it?”

  Stink leaned in and stuck his head between Mom and Dad. “More popcorn, please.” Mom passed the bag back to Stink.

  “We’re going to have to find the biggest plane we can get our hands on and take this thing to the Arctic, where it’ll freeze for good.”

  “Will that work?”

  “We have to do something before it wipes out the whole town.”

  Stink and Judy watched wide-eyed until the end. “Good thing they found a plane big enough to take the Glob to the North Pole and freeze it,” said Stink.

  “Poor Santa,” said Judy.

  “Mom? Dad? Can we stay for the second show?” Stink asked. “It’s Son of Glob.”

  “Stink,” said Mom, “you covered your eyes for half the movie.”

  “So?”

  “So,” said Dad, “I think we’ve had enough glob for one night. Besides, we have to get you home to bed. Tomorrow you have Saturday Science Club, Stink.”

  On the way home, Stink could not get the Glob out of his head. When they turned onto Croaker Road, he imagined it following them, oozing down the street, up the sidewalk to his front door, and into his very own house.

  That’s when he remembered something truly terrifying. He remembered the experiment they were going to be doing tomorrow in Saturday Science Club.

  AAAAAGGGHHH!

  That night, Stink dreamed of oozy-goozy, blobby-globby goo taking over the earth. When he woke up, he tried to erase it from his mind like chalk from an old blackboard. But even his oatmeal looked like the Attack of the Glob Monster.

  All the way to Saturday Science Club, Stink could not stop thinking of globby things. Blobs. Globs. Brains. Oozy-woozy slime. Jiggly-wiggly Jell-O. When he got to the Discovery Center, someone was waiting for him outside the front door. That someone was . . .

  Riley Rottenberger.

  Sometimes Riley Rottenberger acted rotten. Stink hoped today was not one of those times.

  Riley waved a braid at him and grinned, showing off a missing tooth. “Stink! Over here! Are you ready for Slime Mold Saturday?”

  “I guess,” said Stink.

  “You don’t sound very excited,” said Riley. “What happened? We’ve been waiting for this since way back when we were doing Weather.”

  Stink did not want to tell Riley that he was spooked by an old-timey blob movie. So he tried to smile and fake it. “Are you kidding? I’m in. C’mon. Let’s get slimed!”

  “It’s not just slime, Stink. It’s slime mold.”

  Riley was already an expert in all things slime mold. Her mom was head of Saturday Science Club. Riley liked to use big words. Stink hoped she was not going to act show-offy all day.

  “So what exactly is slime mold, anyway? Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  “No, no, and no. Slime mold is not really a plant, and it’s not really an animal. It’s different from the mold that grows on old bread. Slime mold is a one-celled organism. Kind of like an amoeba.”

  “But it looks like dog vomit, right?” Stink grinned. “And smells like a corpse flower?”

  “It does look like dog vomit,” said Riley, “but it can also look like brains. Or mucus.”

  “Sweet!” said Stink. “Anything that looks like mucus is A-okay with me. As long as it doesn’t grow as big as the Glob and attack us.”

  Mrs. Rottenberger asked everyone to take a seat. Riley slipped into the chair next to Stink.

  Riley’s mom drew blobs all over the board. She used big words like amoeba and Protista. She put pictures of slime molds on the screen. Some looked like pink spiderwebs. Some looked like red-hot candies. Some looked like exploding pretzels. They all looked like dog puke.

  Stink raised his hand. “So a slime mold is a blob of goo, but it has no brains and no feet?” he asked Riley’s mom. “And it can grow and grow and move around like crazy?”

  Mrs. Rottenberger nodded and said, “That’s right. If a slime mold is hungry, it can even join up with other slime molds. Then they move together like one big sausage.”

  “A walking sausage. That’s a good one,” said Stink.

  “Has anybody seen the movie The Glob?” asked Mrs. Rottenberger.

  Stink could not believe his ears. He put his hand up.

  Riley pulled his arm down. “You did not,” she said.

  “Yah-huh.” Stink waved his hand again. He practically jumped out of his seat.

  “Stink,” said Mrs. Rottenberger, calling on him.

  “I saw it just last night. At the drive-in movie theater.”

  “Whoa,” said Riley. “Weren’t you scared? I was scared of Oogie Boogie, that bogeyman in The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

  “Me?” asked Stink. “No way.” He sat up taller and squared his shoulders, trying to look his bravest.

  Riley’s mom went on. “Did you know, the idea for the Glob movie came from slime molds?”

  It did?

  “In real life, some slime molds can grow to be as big as three feet across.”

  “And take over the planet,” said Stink.

  “Only in the movies,” said Mrs. R., smiling.

  Phew.

  “Your mom is the coolest,” Stink whispered to Riley.

  “Look who’s talking,” said Riley. “Your mom dressed up like a zomb
ie lunch lady once!”

  “Oh, yeah,” Stink said, sniggering.

  “Listen up, everybody,” said Mrs. Rottenberger. “Today, we are going to grow our own slime mold.”

  “For real?” asked Stink. “We’ll be like Dr. Finkelstein, that mad-scientist guy in The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

  Riley shuddered. “He gives me the creeps!”

  “Not me,” said Stink. “I love how he can pop open his head and scratch his brain when he’s thinking.”

  “Shh,” said Riley, pointing to her mom.

  “Everybody gets a starter kit,” said Mrs. R. “I’ll help you set up the experiment in class, and then you can take your mold home and watch it grow.”

  Mrs. Rottenberger passed out small glass petri dishes and instructions. Stink could not wait. He tugged on a pair of gloves. He lined the bottom of his small glass dish with a wet paper towel. Then, he oh-so-carefully set the slime-mold sample in the dish. Next, he placed one-two-three oat flakes next to the slime-mold starter.

  While Mrs. Rottenberger helped the other kids set up their experiments, Stink stared at his dish. He blinked. He watched. He waited. He blinked some more.

  Nothing happened.

  Stink stuck his hand in the air. “When will it be ready to take over the planet?” he asked. “Or at least my sister’s room?”

  Everybody cracked up. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a while,” said Riley’s mom.

  Stink peered at his tiny blob. “I made you with my own hands,” he cackled in a mad-scientist voice à la Dr. Finkelstein.

  “Okay, junior scientists,” said Mrs. R. “When you’re ready, put your slime-mold dish in a shoe box. Take it home and keep it in a warm, dark place. But not too warm — you don’t want it to dry out.”

  Stink peered down at the petri dish in his shoe box. It was hard to believe that one tiny dab of goo could grow into a giant glob.

  “Check on your mold in ten or twelve hours. Write down any changes you notice. Next week we’ll be building solar ovens to cook s’mores. We can look over your slime-mold journals again in two weeks. Class is over for today.”

  “Two weeks?” said Stink. “By then, I could be blob food!”

  “I can’t believe Science Club is over already,” said Riley. “Rats.”

  “Slime flies when you’re having fun,” said Stink.

  On Sunday, Stink woke up before Mom and Dad. Before Judy. He even woke up before Mouse or Toady or Astro. He did not read his Big Head Book of Sharks. He did not draw Stink Frog comics.

  He ran over to his closet and pulled out the shoe box so he could check on his slime mold. Ooh. Sick-awesome! The slime mold was growing. The slime mold was pulsing. The slime mold was on the move. It looked like science fiction. It looked like Horta, a stinky blob in Dad’s favorite episode of Star Trek.

  Stink grabbed his notebook. He wrote stuff down just like Captain Kirk in Star Trek:

  Stink’s heart skipped a beat. He had a new pet! Maybe it didn’t have fur like Astro or say “Ribbet” like Toady. Maybe it wasn’t the sugar glider he’d always wanted, but it was still way cool!

  Stink had to give his new pet a name.

  Eureka! Stink ran to tell Judy. “Knock, knock,” he called.

  “Go away. I’m sleeping,” said his sister, hiding her book under the covers.

  “No, you’re not. You’re reading mini-mysteries,” said Stink.

  “I’m trying to solve the mini-mystery of why you’re waking me up so early.”

  “Come see Mr. McGoo!” said Stink.

  “Mr. McWho?” Judy asked. She crawled out of bed. Stink dragged her over into his room. Judy peered into the glass dish. “Gross. It looks like snot.”

  “Does snot,” said Stink. “It looks like the inside of a jellyfish. Or the inside of a brain! Isn’t it the coolest?”

  “If you say so,” said Judy. “Now can I go back to bed?”

  Stink showed Mom and Dad. “And in a week or two, it’ll look like dog vomit!” Stink told them.

  Mom made a face and stuck out her tongue.

  “No dog vomit before breakfast, Stink,” Dad said, shooing him out of the room.

  “Poor McGoo,” said Stink. “Nobody gets you like I do.”

  Under Stink’s watchful eye, Mr. McGoo continued to grow.

  That gob of goo grew and grew and grew.

  At last it was time. Time to share Mr. McGoo with the world!

  Stink put his slime mold back in the shoe box and took Mr. McGoo on a tour of the neighborhood. He showed Mr. McGoo the crack in the pavement that looked like a great white shark. He showed Mr. McGoo the rock where a blue-tailed skink sunned itself. He showed Mr. McGoo the best mulberry tree for collecting monkey balls — wrinkled fruit that looks like green brains.

  “And this,” he told Mr. McGoo, “is the exact spot where I found a moon rock one time. No lie. Now it’s just moon dust, but that’s another story.”

  Stink passed Mrs. Soso’s house. “Hi, Stink,” Mrs. Soso called. “What have you got there?”

  “My new pet,” said Stink. He held out Mr. McGoo for Mrs. Soso to see.

  “Oh! I think I have a new pet growing on some cheese in the back of my fridge,” Mrs. Soso joked.

  “He’s a slime mold,” said Stink. “It’s an organism.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Soso, but she did not look like she saw.

  At the corner, Stink ran into Missy the dog walker. Missy the person was walking Missy the dog and a puppy named Anya.

  “Hi, Missy!” said Stink. “I’m taking my new pet for a walk, too. And I don’t even need a leash.”

  Missy the person peered at the blob in the dish. “That’s your pet?”

  “It’s an organism,” said Stink.

  “Interesting,” said Missy. But she did not look interested.

  Missy the dog growled. Missy the dog tugged on her leash. Missy the dog stuck out her slobbery pink tongue and tried to lick the petri dish.

  Missy the dog wanted to eat Stink’s new pet. Yikes!

  Stink held Mr. McGoo close. He crossed the street in a hurry, forgetting to wave good-bye. “Don’t worry,” Stink told Mr. McGoo. “I’ll protect you from mean old slime-eating dogs.”

  Stink raced up the street to the pet store. Hello! It was Take a Picture With Your Pet Day at Fur & Fangs. Stink’s lucky day!

  Inside, Webster was getting his picture taken with a fat frog that had a big mouth and looked like Pac-Man.

  “Hey! A Pac-Man frog!” said Stink. “Did you get a new pet, too?”

  “It’s my cousin’s,” said Webster. “I don’t have a pet, so I’m borrowing Packy for the picture.”

  Sophie of the Elves was getting a photo taken with her pet hermit crab, Mr. Crab Cakes.

  “Where’s Toady?” asked Webster.

  “Where’s your guinea pig?” asked Sophie. “Didn’t you bring Astro?”

  “I brought my new pet,” Stink told them, grinning.

  “New pet!” said Sophie.

  “New pet!” said Webster.

  Stink held out Mr. McGoo proudly. He lifted the lid off of the shoe box. “Say hi to Mr. McGoo.”

  Sophie crinkled her forehead and wrinkled her nose. “So your new pet is a . . . slug?” she asked.

  “So your new pet is a . . . booger?” asked Webster.

  “Slime mold,” said Stink. “It’s an organism.”

  “Well, it looks like a giant booger,” said Webster. He went to look for his cousin. Sophie scampered off to find a new shell for Mr. Crab Cakes.

  “Say slime!” said Mrs. Birdwistle, the store’s owner. She snapped a picture of Stink and Mr. McGoo.

  When Stink got home, he taped the photo into his logbook. Stink and McGoo. Together. Forever.

  The next day, Stink took his new pet to school. Things did not go much better.

  “I brought my new pet today,” Stink told his teacher. “I didn’t want to leave him home alone, him being a new pet and all.”

  “Stink, you know we
have rules about pets in our classroom,” said Mrs. D.

  “I know, but he’s different. He’s super quiet and polite. He’s no trouble at all. And he hardly eats anything. You won’t even know he’s here. I promise.”

  Mrs. D. took one look at Mr. McGoo and pointed to the back of the classroom. “Put him in back by the tarantula. Just for today.”

  Stink set Mr. McGoo in back next to the guinea pig food, just to be safe.

  Mrs. D. also let Stink sit in the back of the class for the day. While she talked on about consonant blends, Stink checked and rechecked his slime mold. All the kids who walked by Mr. McGoo said “Yuck” or “Ooh” or “Gross.”

  “Just ignore them,” Riley said to Stink.

  “Slime molds are very scientific,” Stink said, trying to convince them.

  “Tell them they can solve mazes,” said Riley. She nudged Stink with her elbow.

  “Slime molds can solve mazes,” said Stink. “Pretty smart for not having a brain, huh?”

  “And they can power robots,” Riley whispered to Stink.

  “And did you know slime molds can power robots?” Stink said. “No lie.”

  Webster shrugged. Stink could tell Sophie didn’t believe him. The other kids just stared.

  “And they make good pets because they don’t shed all over the place. They don’t bark or bite or make loud noises.”

  But everybody seemed more interested in consonant blends than slime molds. Even though slime mold had not one but TWO consonant blends!

  At lunch, nobody but Riley Rottenberger wanted to sit next to Stink and his slime mold. At recess, Webster made booger jokes. And in math class, Sophie said she was allergic to mold and moved to another pod.

  During Not-So-Silent Reading, a kid pointed and said, “Hey! Your science project is getting out of its container.”

  “He’s not my science —”

  “He’s attacking the guinea pig food,” said another kid.

  Maybe Mr. McGoo was a little bit hungry after all. Stink raised his hand and asked for a hall pass. He went straight to the cafeteria to ask the lunch lady for a Cheerio. He sure could use some cheery-o-ing up. But the lunch lady did not have a Cheerio.