by Laura Dower
“Jesse saved us!” Lindsey announced.
I looked over at Stella. She smiled.
It was the first time I remembered seeing her do that.
The green fog filled the room as the slime evaporated. Then a small voice came from the other side of the room.
“Hello?” a voice groaned.
I saw the figure step out of the fog like the Thermominator, a superhuman, temperature-controlled robot from another one of Leery’s Bs.
But this was no B-Monster. This was Mr. Bunsen!
“Where am I?” Mr. Bunsen asked, running his fingers through a mass of sticky hair on his head. “Who are you kids?”
“Your students,” Lindsey said matter-of-factly.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked. He looked perfectly normal for someone who’d been swallowed up by goo for the past week.
“Where am I?” Mr. Bunsen repeated. “What is that smell? Did something die in here?”
I wanted to tell him the truth about what had happened. But I couldn’t. At least not right away.
“There was a . . . gas leak . . .” I stammered.
“Yeah!” Stella chimed in. “You passed out. We saw you behind the desk and called the police and . . .”
“Why does my head feel like an elephant stepped on it?” Mr. Bunsen asked. “Is this some kind of prank?”
“I think maybe you should see a doctor,” Lindsey said.
Mr. Bunsen stared at Stella’s hand. She was holding one of the Slimo vials we’d taken from the refrigerator.
“Where did you get that?” Mr. Bunsen asked.
“We found these green vials in the refrigerator. Why were you storing slime?”
Mr. Bunsen rubbed his head. “I don’t remember,” he said thoughtfully. “No, wait. It was last week. I saw something green and glowing come up from one of the manhole covers on the street. Yes, that’s it. I was curious, so I took a few scientific samples.”
“You saw the slime, too?” Damon said. “Whoa.”
“So now we know Slimo does travel in the sewers!” Lindsey said. “If Mr. Bunsen saw it in the street like that . . .”
“And that’s why Slimo came into our houses through the sinks and bathrooms,” Stella said.
“Hold on. Did you say Slimo?” Mr. Bunsen asked.
Aha! He knew who Slimo was! It was time to admit the truth. If Mr. Bunsen had seen the slime in the street, then somehow he must have a connection to Oswald Leery just like us.
“Mr. Bunsen, I think we have something very important to tell—” I started to say, but he interrupted.
“Excuse me, can you please tell me where everyone is?” Mr. Bunsen moaned. “Do we have class now?”
“Yo, Mr. B, it’s Saturday,” Damon said. “No school today.”
“Saturday?” Mr. Bunsen said. “But that can’t be true. I just finished up my Wednesday morning prep work.” He leaned against the large wooden chair near his desk and scratched his head. “This is most unusual,” Mr. Bunsen said.
“Mr. Bunsen, do you know the real Oswald Leery?” I asked, sounding a little like one of those reporters who grill people on TV news shows.
“You mean Leery the B-Monster movie director who lives up on the mountain?” Mr. Bunsen said. “As a matter of fact . . . Wait! Of course I do! I was going to see Leery just this week.”
“You were?” Lindsey asked.
“Yes, Dr. Leery was at the library for a screening. I went to show him my slime samples, but it was too crowded and the librarian said it was kids only, so . . .”
“I saw you there,” I admitted.
“You did?” Stella looked at me sideways.
I just shrugged. “I didn’t think it meant anything at the time. I recognized your sneakers. The ones under that desk over there.”
“Ahh,” Mr. Bunsen chuckled. “I was wondering where those went.”
“So what else do you remember?” Stella asked.
“I remember everything now!” Mr. Bunsen announced to us. “I remember the story my grandmother told me when I was a boy. She was a makeup artist on some of those old Leery movies. She has a collection of all the films in her room at Riddle Retirement Village. Slimo was my favorite one. I’ve seen it dozens of times. In fact, we had just watched it together before I found the slime in the street . . .”
“Before you saw the slime?” I asked. “Are you sure?”
“Sure as I can be . . . with this monster headache,” Mr. Bunsen said.
“Monster headache!” Damon blurted. He laughed aloud. “You said that right.”
“Excuse me?” Mr. Bunsen interjected.
Before I could convince Damon to shut up, he blabbed the whole truth.
“Mr. B, it was a giant slick of slime that ate you,” Damon said. “Not some gas leak. It was Slimo. And after you, it ate me and Stella, too. Dude, it was gross.”
“It ate me?” Mr. Bunsen looked woozy. “I think I should sit down now,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” I explained, cutting in. “We saved you. The slime is gone for now. But it will come back unless we destroy the original Slimo movie. We can explain more later. You have to believe us.”
“I’m not sure what I believe right now,” Mr. Bunsen said, his voice trailing off. He looked shaken up.
“I bet the original Slimo is still at the library!” Damon said.
“The library closes at five,” Stella chimed in. “It’s four o’clock now. We’d better go.”
“I think I may call that doctor,” Mr. Bunsen said.
“We can explain everything later, I promise!” I said as we raced out of the classroom.
“Very well,” Mr. Bunsen cried. “Good luck.”
As we headed downstairs, I felt a little worried about Mr. Bunsen. But I also felt a huge sense of relief.
Slimo was gone.
At last, things would have to get real.
I just hoped that Ms. Shenanigans would be willing to hand over the original movie reel—before Slimo came back.
CHAPTER 16
A SIZZLE IN THE AIR
“All we have to do is go back in, grab the reel, and go,” said Stella as we climbed the steps to the library.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite that simple. There was a lecture that afternoon, so the library was crowded. Ms. Shenanigans sent us into her office to wait.
We sat there for a while until Stella got the bright idea to start snooping. Frantically, we searched the shelves.
“Do you see it anywhere?” I asked.
We searched high and low. Damon found a copy of Son of Slimo, but it wasn’t the original reel, and it was too damaged to watch. Then Lindsey discovered a crate marked under Ms. Shenanigans’s desk. There was a reel case marked ORIGINAL with the word in red ink. What a relief!
I lifted it out to get the reel, but I got the surprise of a lifetime.
There was no reel inside! There was a videocassette instead. The library had shown a video when we saw Slimo, not a reel.
“Oh no,” Damon sighed. “We made a big mistake. This isn’t the original movie! It isn’t here!”
“Wait!” I said. “Remember what Mr. Bunsen told us? He watched Slimo with his grandmother before we all saw it at the library. And then Mr. Bunsen saw the slime on Monday. We didn’t watch Slimo here until Tuesday.”
“What if his grandmother is the one with the original copy?” Stella asked.
“To the Riddle Retirement Village!” Lindsey cried.
We rushed out and thanked Ms. Shenanigans. The retirement village was within walking distance, but we had to hurry. We couldn’t risk the chance that Mrs. Bunsen or anyone there might screen the movie and release the B-Monster again!
When we arrived, Mrs. Bunsen was sitting in the guest room with another visitor. I recognized the hair from behind! It was Mr. Bunsen!
He held out his hand to me. In it was a reel. I looked close. It was the original reel of Slimo. He handed it to me.
“After you left, I started thinking about
what you were saying,” he said. “When my head finally stopped throbbing . . . I rushed over here.”
I took the reel in my hands. “I can’t give this back to you,” I told Mrs. Bunsen.
Mrs. Bunsen nodded. “That’s fine, dearie,” she said with a wink. “I have a copy on DVD, too. My grandson is always borrowing my reels and making copies.”
“Other reels?” I asked. I made a note. I needed to talk to Mr. Bunsen about that another time. For now, the most important thing we had to do was take Slimo out of this place and destroy it once and for all.
After we left the retirement home, however, I wasn’t sure how. I clutched the reel in my hand. I couldn’t believe that this had unleashed enough slime to suck up the entire town.
“What are you waiting for?” Stella asked me.
We all stopped short on the sidewalk.
“Let’s just do it now,” Damon said.
I held out the reel and we each took turns pulling the film off like dental floss. We pulled and pulled until there was nothing left to pull. Then we tore it to bits.
Lindsey dumped it into a trash can and we all headed for home.
On the way, a familiar limousine pulled up next to us. Walter rolled down his tinted window.
“Climb in,” he said.
We piled into the limo. Stella was all ready to spill the beans about our afternoon. We had a lot to tell Walter about Slimo.
But he already knew.
He congratulated us on getting the B in record time.
“Dr. Leery owes you his thanks,” Walter said. “He’s on his way back from Malaysia right now.”
“Did he find Mega Mantis?” asked Damon.
“Not yet.” Walter shook his head. “But he’s getting closer. And Dr. Leery still owes you that personal tour of Leery Castle.”
“I can’t wait,” Lindsey said.
“How did you know we’d defeated Slimo and destroyed the reel?” I asked. “When you pulled up in the car, how did you know what had happened?”
Walter smirked. “No magic tricks,” he admitted. “Dr. Leery got a call from Mr. Bunsen. He told him that the four of you had saved his life. He said that he was getting the original reel for you.”
“Wow,” I said. “Mr. Bunsen said all that?”
Walter nodded. “In honor of your recent accomplishments, Dr. Leery and I wanted to present you all with tokens to commemorate your first successful mission as the Monster Squad. After all, this is only the first of many adventures for you all.”
I gulped. That sounded so exciting and terrifying all at the same time. But Stella was a little more gung-ho.
“Bring on the Bs!” she said, assuming the best karate pose she could while still sitting in the limousine seat.
“Yes,” Walter said. “The next ones will be here soon enough. In the meantime, I have a few tokens of appreciation for you from Dr. Leery and me.”
“Wow,” I said, eyeing a bag on the seat next to him. “I sure do love surprises!”
“Me too,” said Lindsey.
“First gift!” Walter said. “Goes to Damon Molloy.” Damon took his small box and ripped off the silver paper.
“No way! Cool!” Damon cried when he saw what was inside. It was a paperweight, shaped like a blob with an arm sticking out.
“Hey,” Lindsey joked. “That looks like Mr. Bunsen, before he came back to school and after Slimo ate him!”
“Or ate me!” Damon smirked.
We laughed.
Next, Walter handed a package to Stella.
It was a signed book. She read the title aloud: Woman of 1,000 Faces: Sandra Lee, Queen B by A. Gal. Inside were photos of Stella’s Great Auntie San San. She looked different in every photograph. In some she was dressed like a monster and in others she looked like a princess. She really had been the mistress of disguise.
“Wow,” Stella said. “Who knew?”
“Lindsey, here is something special for you, too,” Walter said. He handed her a teeny box.
“What could this be?” Lindsey said as she lifted off the top. Inside was a beautiful necklace with a charm on it: a drop of green slime.
“Hold on,” Lindsey said. “If I drop this, it won’t suddenly come to life and eat my cat, will it? Because the last thing in the world I would ever want to deal with is—”
“No, Lindsey,” Walter interrupted. “It’s not actual Slimo residue. Just resin.”
I hoped Walter was saving the best prize—my prize—for last. I’d told him all about Dad’s collections of cards and posters and old issues of B-Monster Galaxy magazines. I hoped he’d give me some one-of-a-kind something to add to the pile.
“What about Jesse?” Damon asked Walter. “He’s, like, our fearless leader.”
“Ah, yes. Jesse. You are fearless, as it turns out. Good for you.”
Walter reached into his pocket and produced a small flat box. He handed it to me with a smile. What is it? I wondered. Was it a book? It would have to be very small to be a book.
I ripped off some green slime-colored tissue paper and opened the edge of the box.
When I saw what was inside, I nearly passed out.
It was an original Slimo collectible card—the one I’d wanted so much—one of five existing Slimo cards in the whole entire universe!
“Where did you get this?” I screamed.
“Oswald Leery has ways of making dreams come true. I hope it’s what you wanted.”
“You know it is! Thank you!”
Walter reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Thank you,” he said.
I knew that the card was valuable and that I should have put it somewhere for safekeeping right away, but I stuck it in my pocket instead. I wanted to have it pressed close to me right now. I wanted to savor the moment.
The limousine stopped at Riddle Park and we all got out and went for a stroll together.
Lindsey was all excited about taking a photograph of us in celebration of our first B-Monster adventure. She set her timer and put the camera up on a bench to take the photograph. We posed with our gifts.
As the camera flash went off, I felt a sizzle in the air. Sometimes it’s like that around Riddle. The weather gets wild or weird. You can almost feel the buzzing in our ears.
Then I felt something else—on my shoulder.
When I looked, I saw Poe, the crow.
“Hello, bird,” I cawed.
Poe opened his beak and let out a squawk, like he was telling me something important.
Everyone else on the Monster Squad laughed, even Stella.
And in that moment, I knew that nothing about my life in Riddle would ever, ever be the same.
LOOK OUT FOR BOOK 2: RETURN OF MEGA MANTIS