25 - Attack of the Mutant by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online Page B

into the room.
    “Not now!” they both replied in unison.
    “No. You have to see this!” I insisted, waving it in front of Dad.
    Dad didn’t stop chopping. “You had a letter to the editor published?” he
asked through his tears.
    “No! I’m in the comic!” I told him breathlessly. I waved it closer to
him.
    “I can’t see a thing!” Dad exclaimed. “Get that away from me. Can’t you see
what this onion is doing to my eyes?”
    “There’s a trick to chopping onions,” Mom said, bent over the stove. “But I
don’t know what it is.”
    I ran over to Mom. “You have to check this out, Mom. I’m in here.
Look. It’s really me!”
    Mom shook her head, frowning. “I can’t get it to light,” she said, sighing.
“I think the pilot is out again.”
    “I’ll check it if I ever stop crying,” Dad told her.
    “Will you look at this?!” I screamed, totally losing it.
    Mom gave a quick glance to the page I was holding in front of her. “Yes, yes.
That does look a little like you, Skipper,” she said, waving me away. She
turned back to the oven. “We really need a new stove, dear.”
    “Dad—take a look,” I pleaded.
    I ran back to him, but he had shoved a towel up to his face and was crying
into the towel. “I guess you can’t look now, huh?” I said softly.
    He didn’t answer. He just cried into the towel.
    I let out a long, exasperated moan. What was their problem, anyway?
    This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. And they
couldn’t be bothered to take one look.
    Angrily, I closed the comic and stomped out of the room.
    “Skipper, set the table,” Mom shouted after me.
    Set the table? I’m starring in a famous comic book, and she’s asking me to
set the table?
    “Why can’t Mitzi do it?” I asked.
    “Set the table, Skipper,” Mom repeated sternly.
    “Okay, okay. In a few minutes,” I called back. I dropped down onto the living
room couch and turned to the back of the comic. I had been too excited to read
it to the end. Now I wanted to read the part where it tells you what to expect
in the next comic book.
    My eyes swept over the page. There was The Galloping Gazelle, still trapped
in the boiling hot room. And there stood The Masked Mutant outside the door,
about to declare his victory.
    I squinted at the white thought balloon over The Galloping Gazelle’s head.
What was he saying?
    “Only the boy can save me now,” The Galloping Gazelle was thinking. “Only the
boy can save the world from The Masked Mutant’s evil. But where is he?”
    I read it again. And again.
    Was it true? Was I the only one who could save The Galloping Gazelle?
    Did I really have to go back there?

 
 
18
     
     
    After school the next day, I hurried to the bus stop. It was a clear, cold
day. The ground beneath my sneakers was frozen hard. The sky above looked like a
broad sheet of cold, blue ice.
    Leaning into the sharp wind, I wondered if Libby would be on the bus. I was
dying to tell her about the comic book. I wanted to tell her I was going back
into the strange building.
    Would she go back with me?
    No way, I decided. Libby had been frightened after our first visit, I could
never drag her back there.
    I jogged past the playground, my eyes on the street, watching for a bus.
    “Hey, Skipper!” a familiar voice called. I turned to see Wilson running after
me, his coat unzipped and flapping up behind him like wings. “Skipper—what’s
up? You going home?”
    Two blocks up, the blue-and-white bus turned the corner.
    “No. I’m going someplace,” I told Wilson. “I can’t look at your rubber stamp
collection now.”
    His expression turned serious. “I’m not collecting rubber stamps anymore,” he
said. “I gave it up.”
    I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Huh? How come?”
    “They took up too much of my time,” he replied.
    The bus pulled to the curb. The door opened. “See you later,” I told Wilson.
    As I stepped on to the bus, I remembered where I was