“No—!” I blurted out.
I dropped my shopping basket.
And started to step back.
I let out another cry as Adam stood up and stepped out from behind the meat
counter. He had a gleeful grin on his face.
“Fresh meat…” he whispered. And burst out laughing.
Annie and Emmy climbed out from behind the counter, giggling and shaking
their heads.
“Awesome!” Annie exclaimed.
“Zackie, you’re bright red!” her sister laughed.
My face burned as hot as the sun. I felt so embarrassed. How could I fall for
such a dumb joke?
Now, I knew, they would tell everyone in school that I freaked out over a
side of beef!
“What are you
doing
here?” I shrieked.
“We saw you on your bike,” Adam replied. “We followed you into the store.
Didn’t you see us? We were right behind you.”
“AAAAGH!”
I let out a furious cry and balled my hands into fists.
“What’s going on back there?” Mrs. Jack’s harsh voice rattled the shelves.
“What are you kids doing?”
“Nothing!” I called. “I—I found the tuna!”
I turned back to Adam and the twins. “Give me a break,” I muttered.
For some reason, that struck them funny. They giggled and slapped one another
high fives.
Then Adam stuck out both arms. He held them stiffly in front of him, like a
sleepwalker. And began marching stiff-legged across the aisle toward me.
“You’re controlling me, Zackie!” he declared in a machinelike voice. “I’m in
your power.”
He staggered toward me like some kind of zombie. “Your typewriter controls
me, Zackie. Your typewriter has the power! I am your slave!”
“Adam—you’re not funny!” I cried.
The girls giggled. They closed their eyes, stuck out their arms, and started
marching toward me too.
“We’re in your power,” Emmy chanted.
“You’re controlling our every move,” Annie said.
“This isn’t funny!” I shouted furiously. “Get lost, you guys! You—”
I turned and saw Mrs. Jack bouncing toward us, her face as red as her
lipstick. “What are you doing back here?” she bellowed. “This isn’t a
clubhouse!”
Adam and the girls instantly lowered their sleepwalker arms. Annie and Emmy
backed up against the meat counter.
“Are you buying anything?” Mrs. Jack demanded, huffing and puffing from her
long journey from the cash register. “If you’re not buying anything, get out. Go
to the playground.”
“We’re going,” Adam murmured. He couldn’t get past Mrs. Jack. She filled the
aisle. So he scooted down the next aisle.
Annie and Emmy hurried after him.
Mrs. Jack glared at me.
“I—I’m almost finished,” I stammered. I picked up the basket. I searched
for my list, but couldn’t find it.
No problem. I remembered what was on it.
I found the other items and dropped them into the basket. Mrs. Jack stayed
with me the whole while.
Then she walked me to the front of the store.
I paid and hurried out. I was so angry at Adam and the girls, I forgot all
about the candy bars.
They are always making fun of me, I griped to myself.
Always playing mean tricks. Always trying to make me look like a jerk.
Always. Always.
And I’m sick of it. I’m sick to death of it!
“Sick sick sick!” I chanted the word all the way home. I hopped off my bike
and let it crash to the driveway. Then I ran inside and tossed the grocery bag
onto the kitchen counter.
“Sick sick sick.”
I’m going to totally lose it if I don’t cool down, I decided.
I ran up to my room and shoved a fresh sheet of paper into the old
typewriter.
Then I plopped into the desk chair and furiously started typing. A third Blob
Monster story. The scariest one of all.
I typed as fast as I could. I didn’t think about it. I let my anger do the
thinking.
I didn’t write it out first. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t know what was going
to happen next.
I leaned over the old typewriter and typed.
In the story, the ugly pink Blob Monster attacks the whole town. People are
screaming. Running in every direction. Running for their lives.
Two police officers step forward to fight the Blob Monster off. It opens its
huge mouth—and swallows them whole!
Shrieks of terror fill the town. The enormous Blob Monster is eating everyone
alive!
“Yes!” I cried out loud. “Yes!”
I was paying everyone back. Paying the whole town back.
“Yes!”
It was the most exciting, most terrifying story I ever wrote. I wrote page
after page.
“Zackie—you forgot something!” a voice called.
I started to type those words into the story. Then I recognized Mom’s voice.
Breathing hard, I spun away from the typewriter. I found Mom leaning in the
doorway, shaking her head fretfully.
“You have to go back to the store,” she said. “You forgot the loaf of Italian
bread. We need bread for dinner tonight.”
“Oh. Sorry,” I replied.
I glanced back at my story and sighed. It was going so well. I was having
such a good time.
I’ll get right back to it after I go to the store, I decided.
I took more money from Mom. Then I picked up my bike from the driveway.
I thought about my Blob Monster story as I pedaled to town. It’s the best
story I ever wrote, I decided.
I can’t wait to read it to Alex.
I heard the thud of footsteps on the sidewalk. A man in a business suit came running by. A dark blur. He ran so fast, I
couldn’t see his face.
What’s
his
problem? I wondered. He’s too dressed up to be jogging!
“Whoa!” I had to swerve to the curb as a blue station wagon roared toward me.
The woman at the wheel honked her horn and waved frantically to me. Her tires
squealed as she shot around the corner.
“Everyone is in such a hurry today,” I muttered to myself.
Then I heard a scream. A man’s scream.
I pedaled faster. I was a block from town. I could see the awning over the
doorway of Jack’s grocery on the corner.
I saw two people running past the store. Running at top speed, waving their
hands.
I screeched to a halt when I heard another scream.
“Look out!” someone shrieked.
“Run! Call the police!”
Two little kids ran past me. One of them was sobbing.
“Hey—what’s going on?” I called to them.
But they kept running. They didn’t answer.
I started pedaling again, standing up. I leaned over my handlebars, trying to
see what all the fuss was about.
As I reached town, I saw people running down the center of the street. Cars honked. People were screaming.
“Hey—what’s going on?” I called. “Is there a fire or something? Hey—somebody tell me what’s happening. Somebody—”
And then I
saw
what was happening.
And I opened my mouth in a shrill scream of horror—and fell off my bike.
“OW!”
I landed hard on my right side. The bike slammed on top of me. The handlebar
jabbed me in the neck.
A man ran past. “Get away, kid!” he shouted. “Hurry! Get away!”
I shoved the bike off me and climbed to my feet.
My heart pounding in my chest, I brushed myself off.
And gaped at the enormous, pink Blob Monster throbbing on the next corner.
“Ohhh.” A horrified moan escaped my throat.
It looks just as I described it in my story! I realized.
Like a huge, slimy human heart. Pink and wet. With tiny black eyes. And
purple veins knotted on top of its head. And a mouth cut into its belly.
Throbbing. Throbbing…
“It—it’s
my
monster!” I cried.
Two little girls frowned at me as their mother tugged them away. I recognized her. Mrs. Willow, who lives across the street.
“Zackie—run!” she cried, pulling each girl by a hand. “It’s a horrible
monster!”
“I know,” I murmured.
She pulled her daughters across the street. But I didn’t follow them.
I took a deep breath and made my way slowly down the street toward the
throbbing Blob Monster.
I wrote this,
I realized.
Just before I came to town, I typed this scene. I wrote that the Blob Monster
attacked the town.
And I’ll bet I know what happens next.
As I stepped closer, I saw the trail of thick slime the monster left behind
it. Its belly pulled open, and I saw its purple tongue darting from side to
side.
My legs trembled as I stepped even closer.
People screamed and ran. Cars and vans roared past, horns honking.
Everyone was running, desperate to escape. But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t
take my eyes off it.
I made you!
I thought. Horrified and curious and amazed—all at the same
time.
I created you!
I wrote this story!
The Blob Monster stared back at me through its tiny, black eyes.
Did it know who I was? Did it know that I created it?
As I stared in amazement, its mouth opened wider. It made sick, sucking
sounds, and the purple tongue scraped the sides of its mouth.
Thick, yellow drool poured out of the open mouth.
And the Blob Monster bounced forward.
Its purple tongue leaped out at me.
“Hey—!” I cried out. I struggled to back away.
The hot, sticky tongue wrapped around my leg. Started to pull me toward the
slimy, open mouth.
“Let go!” I tugged on the tongue as hard as I could. “Help me!”
Two dark-uniformed police officers leaped in front of me. They had their
nightsticks raised.
With angry cries, they both began pounding the throbbing creature.
POUND. POUND. POUND.
The nightsticks made a soft plopping sound with each hit.
The Blob Monster uttered a sickening gurgle. And its tongue slid off my leg.
“Run!” one of the officers screamed. “Get going!”
My legs were shaking so hard, I nearly fell. I could still feel the slimy,
hot tongue on my leg.
I stumbled back.
And gaped in horror as the Blob Monster pulled open its mouth. The fat purple
tongue swung around both police officers.
They beat it with their sticks. They shoved it. They tried to wrestle free.
But the tongue tightened, tightened around them—and pulled them. Pulled them into the huge, open mouth in the
creature’s belly.
Pulled them both inside.
And then the mouth slammed shut with a disgusting
SPLAT.
“No! Noooooo!” I wailed.
I wanted to pound my fists against the monster. Pound it until it melted to
the ground.
“It’s all my fault!” I screamed.
I wrote that scene with the policemen.
It was all in the story I had just typed. I wrote that the Blob Monster ate
them both.
And now it had come true!
My frightening story had come true. Every scene of it.
The Blob Monster uttered disgusting gulping sounds as it digested its human
meal. Its tiny black eyes locked on mine as it gulped.
What happens next?
What happens next in my story? I asked myself.
Trembling all over, my heart pounding, I struggled to think.
What happens next?
And then—with a shudder—I remembered what I had written.
The Blob Monster follows me home!
The Blob Monster made a final
gulp.
Then it opened its mouth in a
disgusting, gassy burp.
Sickened by the sour odor, I staggered back.
I’ve got to think of something, I told myself. I’ve got to stop this monster.
Or it will eat me next.
The Blob Monster began to slide forward, plopping wetly on the sidewalk as it
moved.
I knew I couldn’t stand there another second. I spun away and forced my
rubbery legs to run.
I picked up my bike off the street and jumped on. I began pedaling before I
had my balance—and nearly crashed into a brick wall.
I struggled frantically to turn myself around, to calm down enough to ride.
Finally, I pedaled away, groaning with each thrust of my foot.
I sped out of town. Halfway down the next block, I glanced back.
Yes. Just as I had written. The Blob Monster was following me. Bouncing
rapidly over the pavement. The purple veins on top of its head bouncing with it. Behind it, a
trail of slime thickened on the street.
It’s so fast! I realized. It’s keeping up with me!
What happens next? What did I type next?
“Oh, no!” I shrieked when I remembered.
This is the part where I fall off my bike!
“AIIIII!”
My front tire hit a rock—and I went flying over the
handlebars.
Once again, I hit the pavement hard. Once again, I shoved my bike off me and
jumped to my feet.
I turned to see the Blob Monster catching up. Plopping quickly up the street,
its mouth gaping open, its tongue stretching… reaching out for me.
I spun away—and ran into Alex and Adam.
“Run! Don’t just stand there!” I screeched. “It—it’s catching up!”
“Zackie—are you okay?” Alex asked.
“No time for questions!” I gasped, shoving them both. “Run! The Blob Monster
is real! I wrote it—and now it’s doing everything I wrote!”
Adam laughed. He turned to the Blob Monster. “Do you think I’m stupid,
Zackie? This is a joke—right? What is that? Some kind of a balloon?”
“Adam—don’t!” I cried.
I grabbed for him. And missed.
He went running up to the Blob Monster.
“Yeah. It’s some kind of big balloon!” Adam repeated, grinning.
The monster’s purple tongue slid quickly around Adam’s waist.
It pulled Adam easily into the open mouth. And then the Blob Monster
swallowed him with a sickening
gulp.
Alex and I both screamed.
Alex turned to me. “Did you write that?” she demanded in a trembling voice.