Lizard of Oz

  Contents

  Title Page

  Welcome. You are Most Wanted.

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  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Hello, I’m R.L. Stine. I see you’ve found the Goosebumps office.

  Let me ask you a question. Have you ever seen a real quicksand pit?

  Well, guess what? You’re standing in one!

  Do you suddenly have a sinking feeling?

  Ever hear the old expression “sink or swim”? I think you’re about to do both!

  Ha-ha. Don’t worry. I’ll get a rope and pull you out. Right after I have my lunch.

  Hey, don’t go anywhere, okay?

  Only kidding. Here. Let me give you a hand. Come into my office.

  I see you are admiring the WANTED posters on the wall. Those posters show the creepiest, crawliest, grossest Goosebumps characters of all time. They are the MOST WANTED characters from the MOST WANTED books.

  That poster you are studying is of a very ugly dude, a lizard from Australia we call “The Lizard of Oz.”

  One bite from this toothy reptile might change your life forever. Just ask Kate Lipton. She came a little too close one day and …

  Well, Kate will tell you what one lizard bite can do. Once you read her story, you’ll soon understand why The Lizard of Oz is MOST WANTED.

  My name is Kate Lipton, and I just want to say that my parents are crazy. I’m twelve and my brother Freddy is ten, and I honestly feel like I’m the grown-up in our family.

  What do I mean? Well, it’s hard to know where to start.

  Maybe I’ll start with the Miniature Horse Petting Farm. That was our parents’ latest brilliant idea. And by brilliant, I mean stupid.

  They both had normal jobs. Mom was a reading teacher at Gooding Elementary School across town. And Dad was an accountant for a chain of pharmacies here in Middle Village, Pennsylvania.

  But they decided those jobs were boring. They saved up their money. And one day, they announced their big plan to Freddy and me.

  The four of us were sitting around the kitchen table. Dinner was over, but we were still finishing up bowls of frozen yogurt for dessert. “We’re quitting our jobs,” Dad said.

  Freddy did a spit take with his yogurt, spraying the whole table. “You’re what?”

  Freddy thinks he’s a comedian. He thinks it’s hilarious to spit water or milk, and turn himself into a human geyser.

  I don’t know why Mom and Dad put up with it. Well, I do know. They’re both crazy.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked. I’m the sensible one, remember?

  “We bought twelve miniature horses,” Dad said. Mom flashed him an approving smile. “We’re going to sell miniature horses. Breed them and sell them.”

  “Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Mom added.

  “Fun?” I said.

  “We’ll make a ton of money,” Dad said. “They’re totally adorable. Once you see one, you have to own one.”

  “Where are we going to keep them?” Freddy asked. “Can I have one in my room?”

  “We bought a farm to keep them on,” Mom answered.

  Freddy and I both gasped. “You mean we’re moving?”

  Mom shook her head. “No. We’re staying in the house. We bought a farm to keep the horses on. Wait till you see it. You’ll see how much fun it’s going to be.”

  “We’ll all pitch in and take care of them,” Dad said.

  “You mean we have to shovel up after them?” I asked.

  Mom flashed me her Unhappy Look. “Kate, why do you always have to be so negative?”

  Because I’m not crazy?

  “You’ll fall in love with them. I promise,” Dad said.

  Well … Freddy and I liked the little horses okay. They were cute and very sweet and funny.

  But Mom and Dad couldn’t sell any of them. After three months, they still had twelve miniature horses.

  Middle Village is a pretty small town. And people just don’t have room in their backyards for a miniature horse. We have a neighbor on the corner who has a pet pig named Jolly, and they keep Jolly in the house.

  But you can’t keep a miniature horse in the house. That would be cruel—for everybody.

  So, they came up with a new idea. They decided to turn the farm into a miniature-horse petting farm. “We’re not going to sell these wonderful animals,” Dad announced. “We’ll have huge crowds paying admission to come pet and feed them.”

  “And we’ll give mini-horse rides to all the little kids,” Mom said.

  Guess what? That plan didn’t work out, either.

  See, you might want to pet one mini horse. That’s kind of fun. But once you’ve petted one, you don’t really want to pet eleven more.

  Most petting zoos have a whole bunch of different animals to pet and feed. But we had only miniature horses. Bor-ing.

  The crowds didn’t come, and my parents were going broke. We couldn’t even go on our annual summer vacation to the cabin at the lake. And Mom said when school started in the fall, we probably wouldn’t shop for new school outfits. We’d probably have to make do with last year’s clothes.

  That’s no problem for me. But Freddy grew at least two inches this summer, so he would look really dorky in his short jeans and tight shirts.

  Then my parents had a “brilliant” new idea. Which is why we are all in Australia.

  And if I tell you this idea, I swear you won’t believe it.

  I don’t want to come right out and tell you their insane plan. I’ll just give you a hint: We are halfway around the world in Queensland, Australia. That’s a long way from Middle Village. And guess what we’re doing? We’re looking at lizards.

  My parents have always been lizard freaks. They have an entire shelf of books about lizards. They have a big painting of lizards sunning on rocks in their bedroom. They love shows on PBS about lizards. And they even collected little salamanders for a while.

  Australia, Dad says, is the place for lizards. I guess they have more lizards there than anywhere on earth.

  So, my aunt Lydia loaned Mom and Dad the money for this trip. And here we are, spending all our time doing guess what? That’s right. Looking at lizards.

  Freddy the comedian keeps pointing at the ugly, warty creatures and saying, “That one looks just like Kate when she wakes up in the morning.” Or: “Look at those watery eyes. Just like Kate.”

  He’s my brother and I love him. I just don’t have the heart to break it to him that he’s not funny.

  Dad put a finger to his lips, motioning for Freddy to shut up. “Let’s be serious,” he said. “This is a serious place and we have serious work to do.”

  The serious place is the Queens Park Wildlife Preserve. They have so many weird animals in Australia. I’d love to see a dingo or an emu or a kangaroo.

  Dad says maybe we’ll get to those later. But we flew here for one reason—to check out the lizards.

  “This is so fun,” Mom said. She always says that when she sees that
Freddy and I aren’t having fun.

  Don’t get me wrong. I love visiting a country so far away. I’m just not happy that my parents might want to bring lizards back to Middle Village and start a lizard petting zoo or something.

  Freddy and I were hanging back. “Come over here.” Dad motioned with both hands. “You’re not going to see lizards like this back home.”

  “I hope not!” Freddy exclaimed.

  A low wire fence separated us from the lizards. They sat sunning themselves on rocks or on the sandy shore of a narrow ribbon of water.

  Dad pointed to the lizard guidebook in his hand. “See that one? That one is called a thorny devil. See? It has big, mean-looking pointed thorns poking out from all over its body.”

  “Eww, gross,” I said.

  “I think it’s cute,” Freddy said. He laughed. He knew the last thing you’d call that lizard is cute.

  “The book says that Australia has seven hundred different kinds of lizards,” Dad said. “More lizards than anywhere in the world.”

  “A fun fact,” Mom said.

  Dad stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugged.

  “What’s that one?” I asked, pointing to a small lizard raising its head to the sun.

  Dad checked through the book. “It’s a blue-tongue lizard. It says they’re very tame.”

  Freddy gave me a push. “Go put your finger in its mouth. See if it’s really tame.”

  “Go put your head in its mouth,” I said.

  He grinned. “Dare me?”

  Mom pulled her baseball cap lower on her forehead. “That sun is strong.” She turned to me. “Kate, can you picture these amazing lizards back home on our farm?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer. Dad interrupted. “Whoa. Look at that one coming toward us. See its beard? It’s a bearded dragon lizard.”

  I turned in time to see the lizard begin to hurtle toward us. It was at least two feet long. It snapped its jaws once. Twice. It didn’t slow down as it approached the low fence.

  “Look out!” Dad cried. “It’s going to jump the fence! It’s going to ATTACK!”

  Freddy and I yelped and stumbled back from the fence. I think my heart stopped beating for at least ten seconds.

  Of course, the mean-looking lizard didn’t even come near the fence.

  Dad was laughing his head off, and Mom was shaking her head, punching his shoulder.

  Big joke.

  I told you my parents are crazy. And they’re both big babies, too. Dad loves scaring Freddy and me, and we almost always fall for his dumb jokes.

  Don’t ask me why. I guess it’s because he’s Dad and we expect him to be a grown-up.

  “We’ll have to build a good fence on the farm,” Dad said, turning serious. “We’re lucky we have that nice stream that cuts through the middle of it. The lizards will like that.”

  “Don’t lizards like to live in a swamp?” I asked. “Do you really think it’s warm enough for lizards in Middle Village?”

  Mom and Dad both blinked. I don’t think they’d even thought about it. They just get these wild ideas in their heads.

  “We’ll bring the lizards indoors in the winter,” Mom said. “Cousin Arnie has that empty storage warehouse near his house.”

  “I’m so pumped!” Dad exclaimed, grinning. “I love these lizards. Can you imagine what an attraction our lizard farm will be? It will be unique. Nothing like it anywhere.”

  “People will come from all over the state,” Mom said. “No. All over the country. We’ll get it talked about on travel websites and in travel guides. It will be like SeaWorld or something.”

  I love their enthusiasm. They get so excited about these plans. I always hate to bring them back to earth by asking practical questions.

  “Can you just buy lizards here in Australia and bring them back to our country?” I asked.

  Dad shook his head. “This is a wildlife preserve. They don’t sell any of their animals. We have to go to an export company. There’s a lot of legal stuff we have to do. It may take a while, but—”

  Dad stopped midsentence. Suddenly, he shut his eyes. He wrinkled up his nose. His mouth dropped open, and he let out a loud sneeze. Then another sneeze. Then another sneeze that shook his whole body.

  No. My dad wasn’t allergic to lizards. He was having one of his weird sneezing fits.

  Mom, Freddy, and I took a step back and watched him. But we weren’t alarmed or anything. He has these wild sneezing attacks all the time.

  It’s kind of funny. The poor guy sneezes eight or ten times in a row until his face is red and he can’t catch his breath. Then it stops just as suddenly as it starts.

  Dr. Wilkinson can’t explain it. He sent Dad for studies at the university health center. And no one there could explain it, either. They told him it wasn’t dangerous. Actually, it always makes Freddy and me laugh.

  Dad sneezed a few more times, then mopped his face with a tissue. “Barry, you’re scaring the lizards!” Mom exclaimed.

  “Excuse me.” We turned to see an older man standing behind us. He had bright blue eyes and a short, white stubble of beard on his wrinkled face. He wore a white suit and had a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled down over his forehead.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing …” he said.

  “My sneezing fit?” Dad said. “No problem. It happens a lot.”

  The man tilted his hat back. It left a red line on his pale forehead. His blue eyes studied Dad intensely. “No. You misunderstand me. I heard your talk about buying lizards.”

  “Do you work for the wildlife preserve?” Mom asked him.

  “Not anymore,” he said. “But I think I have something for you. A lizard you might be interested in. Something very rare and very special.”

  Mom and Dad exchanged glances. “Can we see it?” Mom asked.

  The man nodded. “Yes. Follow me.”

  We all began walking along the path that led to the exit.

  “Does this lizard bite?” Freddy asked.

  A strange smile spread over the man’s face. “Oh yes. It bites. It definitely bites.”

  “I am Dr. Clegg,” the old man said. He took off his hat and placed it on a hook on the back of the door. He smoothed his mane of white hair.

  We had followed him to his lab, a few blocks from the wildlife preserve. As we walked, white ibis birds crossed our path, crisscrossing in front of us. They were tall birds with spindly legs and long, pointed bills. They walked awkwardly, as if they were on stilts.

  “Ibises are the pigeons of Australia,” Dr. Clegg told us. “Comical birds, aren’t they?”

  The walls of his lab were white. Bright ceiling lights made the whole room glow. I spotted a row of cages against the back wall.

  “I have a lizard you might be interested in,” Dr. Clegg said. He motioned us toward the cages. “It definitely would be a popular attraction. Perhaps the star of your lizard farm?”

  “Whoa.” Freddy let out a cry as we stepped near. We were staring at a long, ugly, mean-faced green lizard. It had bumps down its back like shark fins. A single horn poked up from the top of its scaly head.

  It raised itself as we approached the cage. And snapped two rows of jagged teeth. Its nostrils pulsed in and out, and its weird yellow eyes locked on us.

  “It looks like a dinosaur!” I blurted out.

  Dr. Clegg nodded, smiling. “Yes. A creature from a horror movie. Only smaller. He weighs about fifty pounds.”

  “Mean face,” Freddy murmured, leaning close to the cage.

  The lizard snapped its teeth again. It swung its long, bumpy tail from side to side.

  “I don’t think it’s in my lizard book,” Dad said. “What is it called?”

  “You won’t find it in a guidebook,” the old man said. “It’s too rare. It’s a Tasmanian cobra lizard. There are so few of them, they are very valuable.”

  Freddy lowered his face close to the cage and peered in. “He looks mean. What does he eat?�
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  “Anything he wants to!” Dr. Clegg replied.

  Silence for a moment. Then we all realized he was making a joke, and we laughed.

  The lizard suddenly made a heeheeheee wheezing sound, as if it was laughing, too.

  “Actually, he’ll be very happy on a diet of crickets,” Dr. Clegg said. “He looks ferocious, but he’s not much of a meat eater. And these lizards are actually quite timid—unless provoked.”

  I heard a crash behind us. I spun around to see a young woman in a pale blue uniform, standing over a bunch of metal trays she had just dropped.

  “Sorry, Dr. Clegg,” she said, blushing. She bent down to pick up the trays.

  “No problem, Miss Morris,” he said. “Those specimen trays are slippery.”

  He turned back to us. “Miss Morris is my lab assistant. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  I glanced back at her. To my surprise, she seemed to be signaling to me, motioning to me with one hand.

  When Dr. Clegg turned, she quickly went back to collecting the trays.

  Dr. Clegg tapped the top of the wooden cage. “It’s a very easy lizard to take care of,” he told my parents. “I imagine you live in a fairly warm place? You have water on your farm for the lizards to swim in and use?”

  Mom and Dad nodded. “Unless it needs really hot weather all the time, it should be okay in Middle Village,” Mom said.

  Dad blinked. I could see he suddenly had a thought. “Are you thinking of selling this lizard to us, Dr. Clegg?”

  A thin smile spread over the old man’s face, making his cheeks crinkle up. “I’m going to sell you something better than that,” he said.

  Dr. Clegg walked over to his assistant and gave her some instructions. She nodded and left the room, carrying the stack of trays in both hands.

  “Do you think I could bring a lizard to school?” Freddy asked Mom and Dad. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  Dad laughed. “Look at the ugly face. Do you want to scare everyone to death?”

  “Yes,” Freddy answered.

  Mom and Dad are so crazy, they’d probably let Freddy take the creature to school on a leash or something. I knew I had to speak up. “It probably would be too scary for the lizard,” I told Freddy. “He might go berserk or have a heart attack or something.”