Claws! by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online

late.
    I dropped my backpack on the floor and sat down in my seat. I mopped the sweat off my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt.
    I realized I hadn’t told Amanda about the cat sounds in my room last night. The meows and the floating shadows that kept me up all night and what happened to my poor fish.
    I’ll tell her at lunch,
I decided.
    My friend Aaron sits next to me. He’s a big, happy-looking guy with glasses, spiky red hair, and a lot of freckles. Aaron always seems to be grinning. That’s his natural expression.
    He poked me in the ribs. “What’s your problem, Mickey?” he asked. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”
    “Don’t SAY that!” I cried. “Don’t mention cats!”
    “Well, of course slavery is what divided the states before the Civil War,” Miss Harris wassaying. “But what was the actual cause of the war? Anybody have an idea? Raise your hand.”
    Miss Harris is the coolest teacher in our school. She is young and awesome looking with straight blond hair and big blue eyes.
    She wears jeans and T-shirts with the names of rock bands on them. And she has a tiny tattoo of a butterfly on the back of one hand.
    “Anybody know the direct cause of the war?” she asked. “Let’s see some hands. Did you read the chapter?”
    I turned my head so Miss Harris wouldn’t see me yawning. I couldn’t stop yawning all morning. I felt so sleepy, I just wanted to put my head on the desk and conk out.
    This was an important morning to be awake and alert. She was starting the Civil War unit this morning.
    I should have been taking notes.
    But my ears were ringing. And my eyes kept going blurry. And my mouth kept opening in yawn after yawn.
    I know I’m only twelve. But like I said, I’m not a night owl. I really need my sleep.
    “That’s right,” Miss Harris was saying. “The root cause of the war was
secession.”
    She wrote the word on the whiteboard. “Now we are going to go back in time a little and …”
    I missed what she said after that because I yawned again. It was taking all my strength totry to hold in my yawns so she wouldn’t see them. But it was a losing battle.
    I pulled some paper from my backpack and wrote at the top of a fresh page:
    Secession. Root cause.
    I raised my head to see what she was writing on the whiteboard now. And that’s when I heard the first meow.
    I jumped a mile.
    The cat’s cry was right behind me.
    I spun around hard.
    I didn’t mean to bump Aaron. But I jerked around so fast, my shoulder crashed into his head, and I almost knocked his glasses off.
    “Hey!” he cried out. “What’s your problem?”
    “Didn’t you hear it?” I whispered.
    “Is there a problem?” Miss Harris turned to stare at Aaron and me.
    Meeeow.
    “N-no!” I stammered. “No problem.”
    “Well, Mickey, do you have something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” she asked.
    “No. Sorry,” I said. “I … uh … dropped my pencil.”
    Yeeeeow.
    Another cat cry. This time under my seat.
    I bent down to find the cat. Nothing under there.
    Yeeeeoww.
    I sat back up. I felt dizzy. The room started to spin.
    I heard another cat cry behind me. And then a long, shrill yowl from under my desk again.
    I jumped to my feet. I stepped away from the chair. Then I spun around to see the cats.
    “Where are they?” I cried.
“Where?”
    Kids turned to stare. A few kids laughed.
    “Mickey, what’s wrong?” Miss Harris asked. “Are you okay? Sit down, please. Sit down.”
    Yeeeoowww.
    “But—don’t you hear them?” I cried. “Miss Harris, don’t you
hear
them?”

20
    Kids started to laugh. I guess they thought I was goofing.
    Aaron grabbed me and tried to pull me back to my seat. But I missed the chair and landed on my butt on the floor.
    That made everyone roar.
    I saw Miss Harris laughing along with everyone else. I could feel my face getting hot. I knew I was blushing like crazy.
    I was frightened and embarrassed at the same time.
    Aaron helped pull me