Scare School by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online

he chose the wrong kid to pick on.”
    I tried to push past them. But again they moved to block my way.
    “Don’t you understand?” Simpson said in a whisper. “He has powers. He uses magic. He can do horrible things. Do you know what he did to me?”
    I stared at Simpson. “No. What?”
    “I was the new kid a few years ago,” Simpson said. “The imp wanted to show me who was boss. He made me float off the floor in the art room. He covered me in papier mâché. It was like being buried alive. I had layer after layer of papier mâché all around me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. He hung me out the window like a pin$$$ata.”
    Simpson sighed. “The fire department had to pull me down. Everyone wanted to know how it happened. I … I never told. I was too frightened.”
    “When I was in third grade, there was a boy in my class named Jared Clooney,” Tonya said. “Jared was like you, Sam. He tried to fight the imp. One day, the imp made Jared’s fingernails and toenails start to grow. They sprouted from his fingers and toes and stretched longer and longer.”
    “Whoa. Gross,” I muttered.
    “Jared’s nails curled around him,” Tonya continued. “They grew so fast. He could only watch in horror. In a minute or so, his nails formed a cage around him. He was trapped inside his own nails!”
    “What happened to him?” I asked.
    “An ambulance took him away,” Tonya replied. “We never saw him again.”
    “The imp was just teasing you by taking your rabbit,” Simpson said. “If he really wanted to hurt you, he could—easily.”
    “You two are total wimps,” I said. “The imp is afraid of me ! I have his tail! I have him scared!”
    But as I walked home carrying the rabbit cage at my side, I wasn’t so sure. My stomach felt heavy, knotted. My heart raced. And I couldn’t stop picturing a boy trapped inside his own finger- and toenails.
     
    Mom and Dad greeted me at the front door with grim faces. “Sam, you’re in major trouble,” Dad said.
    Mom bit her bottom lip. “You promised us things would be different at this school.”
    Dad took the cage from my hand and led me into the living room. “We just got a call from the school secretary,” he said. “She told us about your stunt, climbing the flagpole.”
    “But—bu—t” I sputtered.
    “The principal is very worried about you,” Mom said.
    “Why do you have to show off like that?” Dad asked. “It’s only your second day of school. Why did you do it, Sam?”
    “It wasn’t my fault,” I replied.
    The wrong thing to say.
    They lectured me until dinnertime.
    I have to do something about the imp, I thought bitterly.
    But—what?
     
    That night, I sat down at my computer and went online. I searched the Internet for information about imps.
    I stopped at a Web site that showed an artist’s drawing of an imp. I stared at the drawing for a long time.
    The creature staring back at me looked exactly like the imp at school. It could have been a photograph.
    It had light green skin with patches of darker green fur in several places. It had sharp, pointed ears poking up over a fur-thatched head.
    And a face with human features—human eyes, nose, lips.
    In the drawing, a smile curled up on the imp’s face. A cold, thin-lipped smile. An evil smile.
    I scrolled down and let my eyes skim over the Web site’s information.
    It said that imps were creatures of myth and legend. Scientists had no proof that imps had ever existed.
    “That’s because the scientists didn’t come to my school!” I declared.
    I scanned the description of the typical imp. Short, two to three feet tall. Sometimes their tails stretched behind them for two to three feet.
    It said that imps were playful and mischievous.
    They loved games of all kinds, especially word games. They loved disguises, teasing others, practical jokes.
    But they hated to be laughed at.
    If someone laughed at an imp or ridiculed him, it drove him into a frenzy. It made him furious enough