My Hairiest Adventure by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online

midcourt!”
    I laughed, too. I am the worst shot in school. But I was so crazed about my
hairy knees, so totally pumped, that I played better than I’d ever played
in my life.
    “Maybe you should wear jeans all the time!” Coach Rafferty had joked.
    But, of course, it was no joke.
    I ran all the way home after school and spent nearly half an hour locked in
the upstairs bathroom, shaving the clumps of black hair off my knees.
    When I finally finished, both knees were red and sore. But at least they were
smooth again.
    I spent the rest of the afternoon closed up in my room, thinking hard about
what was happening to me. Unfortunately, all I came up with were questions.
Dozens of questions.
    But no answers.
    Sprawled on my stomach on top of the bed, my knees throbbed as I thought. Why
did my knees grow hair? I asked myself. I didn’t spread any INSTA-TAN on my
knees. So why did the ugly black hair sprout there?
    Had the INSTA-TAN worked itself into my system? Had the strange liquid seeped
into my pores? Had it spread through my entire body?
    Was I going to turn into some kind of big, hairy creature? Was I soon going
to look like King Kong or something?
    Questions—but no answers.
    The questions still troubled me as I crossed the street with Jared, and
Lily’s white-frame house came into view on the corner.
    The sun beamed down above the two bare maple trees that leaned over Lily’s
driveway. The air felt warm, almost like spring. The snow had melted a lot in
one day. Patches of wet grass poked up through the white.
    In the yard across the street from Lily’s house, a half-melted snowman looked
sad and droopy. My hightops splashed through the slushy puddles as Jared and I
carried our instruments up the driveway.
    Lily opened the door for us. She and Kristina had already been practicing.
Lily was wearing a bright red-and-blue ski sweater pulled down over pale blue
leggings. Kristina wore faded jeans and a green-and-gold Notre Dame sweatshirt.
    “Where’s Manny?” Lily asked, closing the front door behind Jared and me.
    “Haven’t seen him,” I replied, scraping my wet sneakers on the floor mat.
“Isn’t he here?”
    “He wasn’t in school again today,” Kristina reported.
    “We’ve got to get serious,” Lily said, biting her lower lip. “Did you talk to
Howie today? Did he tell you what his dad bought him?”
    “A new synthesizer?” I replied, bending to open my guitar case. “Yeah. Howie
told me all about it. He says it can sound like an entire orchestra.”
    “Who wants to sound like an orchestra?” Jared asked. He had a wet leaf stuck
to his shoe. He pulled it off, but then didn’t know where to throw it away. So he jammed it
in his jeans pocket.
    “If Howie sounds like an orchestra, and we sound like three guitars and a
kiddie keyboard, we’re in major trouble,” Lily warned.
    “It’s not a kiddie keyboard!” Jared protested.
    I laughed. “Just because you wind a crank at the side of it doesn’t make it a
kiddie keyboard!”
    “It’s small—but it has all the notes,” Jared insisted. He set the keyboard
on the coffee table and bent down to plug it in.
    “Let’s stop messing around and get to work,” Kristina said, moving her
fingers over the frets of her shiny red Gibson. “What song do you want to
practice first?”
    “How can we practice without Manny?” I asked. “I mean, what’s the point?”
    “I tried calling him,” Lily said. “But his phone is messed up or something.
It didn’t even ring.”
    “Let’s go to his house and get him,” I suggested.
    “Yeah. Good idea!” Kristina agreed.
    All four of us started for the front entryway to get our coats. But Lily
stopped at the door. “Larry and I will go,” she announced to Kristina. “You and
Jared should stay and practice. Why should we all go?”
    “Okay,” Jared agreed quickly. “Besides, someone should be here in case Manny
shows up.”
    With that settled, Lily and I pulled on our coats and