The Birthday Party of No Return! by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online

claw under my shirt.
    Please — come through for me. Please — bring me good luck.
    Would the claw do its job?
    I pulled the ball back and started my approach.

I took two steps. Swung my arm forward…
    â€¦And the ball slipped off my hand.
    It dropped hard and fast.
    I heard a heavy thud as it crushed the top of my bowling shoe.
    â€œOwwwwwww!” I opened my mouth in a howl.
    A crushing pain shot up my leg.
    I dropped to the floor, twisting in agony.
    â€œMy toes! I broke my toes! I broke my foot!” I shrieked.
    Gray dropped down beside me. He put a hand on my shoulder and kept telling me to calm down. Help was on the way.
    By the time Coach Taylor showed up, I’d stopped screaming and writhing on the floor. But my foot still throbbed with pain.
    The coach and Gray lifted me to my feet and helped me to the bench. Taylor gently pulled the bowling shoe and the sock off my foot. He tested the ankle and the toes.
    â€œThe foot isn’t broken,” he said. He massaged the foot carefully. He frowned. “Maybe you broke your little toe. But there’s nothing you can do for that.”
    I swallowed. “You mean — ?”
    â€œYou just have to put up with the pain,” Taylor said. “It’ll feel better after a while.”
    I rolled my eyes. “After a while?”
    The whole foot throbbed. I couldn’t believe every bone wasn’t broken.
    I slumped onto the bench. I had lost the game.
    Laura won by three points. Cory was one point behind her. Gray came in third.
    Coach Taylor was studying the score sheet. “Do I get any points for sportsmanship? Or for improvement?” I called to him.
    He didn’t answer.
    A cold feeling of dread rolled over me. In the competition for the scholarship, I was definitely falling further and further behind.
    We changed back into our real shoes. My foot didn’t hurt that much. But the little toe was so painful, I couldn’t touch it.
    It was bright red and totally swollen. I squeezed the foot into my shoe, and I limped after Cory and Laura toward the exit.
    We were nearly to the door when Cory bent down and picked something up from under a chair. “Hey, check it out,” he said. He held it up to us. “I found a cell phone.”
    We followed him to the front desk. He handed the phone to the manager. “Someone dropped their phone,” Cory said.
    The manager was a huge, bald guy in a sleeveless red T-shirt. The shirt only came down halfway over his belly. A red and blue tattoo of a bowling ball rippled on his right bicep.
    He grinned at Cory. He had a gold tooth right in the middle of his mouth. “That’s so nice of you to return it,” he said. “Most people would just walk away with it.”
    He pointed across the room. “Dude, go over to the ice-cream booth,” he told Cory. “Have a free sundae — on me.”
    â€œHey, thanks,” Cory said. He gave the manager a funny two-fingered salute.
    We followed Cory to the ice-cream booth. He got a huge hot fudge sundae — for free. Laura and I had to pay for our ice-cream cones.
    Cory flashed me a thumbs-up. “Excellent sundae,” he said. “Guess my luck is still good.”
    I forced a smile. But I wasn’t smiling inside.
    My little toe was killing me. It throbbed and ached so bad, it was hard to think .
    Yes, Cory’s luck was still good. And what was mine?
    Bad bad bad.
    Nothing but bad.
    I stared at Cory gulping down a big spoon of ice cream covered in hot fudge. And as I watched him, the ice cream fell out of my cone and landed with a splat on top of my shoe.
    I didn’t even bother to wipe it off.
    My heart started to pound. I realized my life was spinning out of control.
    I was losing the competition. Hallucinating. Getting injured.
    At least it can’t get any worse than this , I thought.
    Boy, was I wrong.

At home, I hurried upstairs to my room. My foot felt better now. Or maybe I