Spell of the Screaming Jokers

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  ‘The Creature from Club Lagoona’ Excerpt

  About R. L. Stine

  1

  “This whole mess is Frankie Todaro’s fault and—oowww!” I howled. “That hurts, Louisa!”

  “Sorry, Brittany. But you know—looking great isn’t easy. Just read those magazines.” Louisa pointed to a stack of my magazines piled high on the floor. “They all tell you that.”

  “Then I won’t look great,” I said, yanking her curling iron out of my hair.

  It was Saturday afternoon. My best friend, Louisa Wong, had come over to my house. She was always trying out ways to improve my short brown hair. So far, none of them had worked.

  “Besides,” I went on, “I don’t care what I look like for this dumb community-service thing.”

  “Bad attitude, Brit,” Louisa told me, shaking her head.

  Louisa is into fashion. That day she had on a lavender baby T-shirt, a long silky skirt, and navy blue nail polish.

  I had on a pair of old jeans and a Shadyside Middle School sweatshirt. I’m into comfort.

  I flopped down on my bed. “You know,” I went on, “if Frankie hadn’t make us look at his dumb pet rat, none of this would have happened.”

  “I thought he was cute,” Louisa said.

  “Who?” I raised my eyebrows. “Frankie?”

  “No!” Louisa cried. “Spike!”

  “Spike—cute? I guess—if you’re into albino rats. Why did Frankie bring him to school anyway?”

  “Somebody dared him to put Spike on Mr. Bladvig’s music stand.” Louisa shrugged. “You know how he is.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Spike?”

  “No!” Louisa laughed. “Frankie! You know how he loves dares.”

  I shook my head. “I barely know Frankie.”

  “He was in my class last year,” Louisa told me. “Trust me, he’ll do anything.”

  BANG!

  Louisa shrieked as my bedroom door flew open.

  My little brother crashed into my room.

  “Jimmy!” I yelled. “You’re supposed to knock. Remember?”

  “Pick a card!” Jimmy demanded. He charged over to me, waving a deck of cards. “Come on, Brit! It’s my new trick! Pick a card!”

  I groaned. I’m not crazy about cards to start with. Then Mom and Dad bought Jimmy a card-trick book for his eighth birthday. Ever since, he’s been a total pain.

  I was really, really sick of his card tricks. “Ask Louisa to pick,” I told him.

  Jimmy fanned the cards. Louisa picked one. She showed it to me. Six of clubs.

  “Now put your card back in the deck,” he instructed her.

  Louisa slid the card back into the pack.

  Jimmy shuffled. “Okay, pick the first four cards.”

  She did. “Hey!” she cried. “They’re all sixes!”

  “Tah-dah!” Jimmy took a bow.

  “How’d you do it?” Louisa asked, handing him back the cards.

  Jimmy grinned. “Magicians never tell,” he declared. He turned to me. “Your turn, Brit. Pick a card! Any card!”

  “Not now,” I said. “We have go to Max Davidson’s house.”

  “Who is he?” Jimmy asked. “Your new boyfriend? Are you in loooove with him?”

  “I’ve never even met him,” I snapped. “He moved to Shadyside last week. But he’s sick, so he can’t come to school.”

  Jimmy wrinkled his nose. “What’s he got?” he asked.

  “Rabies, for all I know,” I said glumly.

  “Brit!” Louisa cried. “You’re horrible!”

  “Why do you have to go see him?” Jimmy asked.

  “Because Max’s mom asked the principal if some Shadyside kids could visit him. So Mr. Emerson picked us.”

  “Oh.” Jimmy cocked his head to one side. “Why did he pick you?”

  I sighed. He wasn’t going to give up.

  “We got in trouble for looking at a rat,” Louisa explained.

  “It’s not fair,” I put in. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Tell that to Mr. Bladvig,” Louisa said.

  “Hey!” I cried. “That’s whose fault it is! Mr. Bladvig’s!”

  “Really.” Louisa nodded. “If he hadn’t come out of the music room and seen us petting Spike, we wouldn’t even be in trouble.”

  “What about that redheaded kid?” I asked. “The one whose locker is next to Frankie’s? What’s his name—Jeff.”

  “Are you in loooove with Jeff?” Jimmy asked me.

  I ignored him. “I bet Jeff is mad at Frankie,” I went on.

  “Why is Jeff mad at Frankie?” Jimmy asked.

  “Jimmy, you don’t even know Frankie and Jeff!” I exclaimed. “Why do you care?”

  “Mr. Bladvig dragged Jeff off to Mr. Emerson’s office with the rest of us, and he was just standing at his locker. He wasn’t even looking at Spike,” Louisa explained to him.

  “I’ve got it!” I cried. “This is all Spike’s fault.”

  Because of one stupid pet rat, I had to visit a kid I didn’t even know.

  One stupid white rat got us into all this trouble, I thought miserably.

  Well, we’ll go visit Max, and that will be the end of it, I told myself.

  But I was wrong.

  It was just the beginning.

  The beginning of real trouble.

  2

  “Max would live on Fear Street.” Louisa shuddered as we walked down Hawthorne Drive. “Hey, there’s Frankie!” She waved.

  Frankie ran to catch up with us. It took him only a few strides—because everything about Frankie was long.

  He had long, skinny legs. And long, thin arms—they practically hung down to his knees. He had a long, narrow face, with a long, straight nose. And long, stringy brown hair.

  When he caught up to us, I noticed his T-shirt. It was long too. And blue—just like his eyes. It said DARE ME!

  The three of us walked to Park Drive. Louisa glanced over her shoulder. “Isn’t that Jeff?” She pointed to a thin redheaded boy walking behind us. “Maybe we should wait for him.”

  As he walked up, I glanced at my watch. “Hey, guys, it’s almost five,” I warned. “We’re going to be late!”

  “We could cut through Mrs. Marder’s yard,” Frankie said.

  “No way!” I cried. Didn’t he know what people said about Mrs. Marder? “She’s a witch!”

  Louisa’s dark eyes widened. “Right!” she agreed. “No way am I getting hexed!”

  “You’re afraid of Mrs. Murder?” Frankie said, chuckling. “I’m not.”

  “Well, you should be,” I told him. “Don’t you remember what happened to Gina Logan?”

  “No, I don’t,” Jeff said. “What happened to her?”

  “She went into Mrs. Marder’s yard. And no one ever saw her again!”

  “I heard Gina’s family moved to Utah,” Frankie pointed out.

  “That’s not what I heard.” Louisa shook her head sadly. “She
just disappeared!”

  “Oh, sure,” Jeff scoffed.

  “No, really,” Louisa insisted. “Mrs. Marder is weird. She has hundreds of cats—and they hiss all the time. She hates kids. She’s really scary.”

  “Scarier than double detention?” Frankie asked. “Because that’s what Mr. Emerson said we’d get if we’re late.”

  Frankie had a point. Two minutes of running through a witch’s backyard was better than two weeks of detention.

  “I don’t think we should cut through,” Jeff said suddenly.

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared too!” Frankie teased.

  “I’m not scared!” Jeff scowled. “I just don’t think we should go through her yard, that’s all. It’s trespassing.”

  Trespassing? I glanced at Louisa and rolled my eyes. Who cared about that?

  I studied Mrs. Marder’s house. Its gray paint had peeled away. The bare wood underneath was splintered and rotted. A rickety porch ran all the way around the house.

  I stared up at the windows. Dark, grimy windows behind crumbling, crooked shutters.

  I turned and gazed across the street. Nothing there but a vacant lot with a huge hole in the ground. It looked as if someone had started to build a house and then gave up.

  Who could blame them? Who would want to live across the street from Mrs. Murder?

  I turned back to Mrs. Marder’s house. Her yard was filled with cats. Cats everywhere. All black.

  Black cats snoozing on the porch railing. Crouching on the windowsills. Stalking through the weedy grass.

  “Max’s house is right behind Mrs. Marder’s,” Frankie whispered. “Follow me on three. One . . . two . . . three!” He opened the creaky front gate and dashed around the side of her house.

  Well, that settled that. Louisa, Jeff, and I sprinted after Frankie.

  As I rounded the house, something caught my eye.

  Mrs. Marder! Standing on the porch.

  She held a stick in her bony hands. No, a broom! A green bandanna that was tied around her head only partly covered her coarse gray hair. I could see the deep wrinkles in her skin—and the evil glow in her dark green eyes.

  “You rotten kids!” she screeched, shaking her broom at us.

  I ran on. Past a wheelbarrow full of soil. Past an old stone birdbath with a face carved into its base.

  No. Not a face.

  A skull! A skull with hollow, staring eyes and a mouth opened wide in a silent scream!

  “Come back here!” Mrs. Marder shrieked.

  I ran faster—and tripped over a cat. It hissed—arching its back and baring its teeth. I fell on top of a tray of little flowerpots. Sent them shattering to the ground.

  “My herbs!” Mrs. Marder shrieked. “You’ve ruined them! You’ve destroyed them all!”

  My heart pounded as I scrambled to my feet.

  Mrs. Marder pointed a bony finger at me. “You will pay!”

  All the black cats gathered around her. They arched their backs. And hissed at me. Hissed horribly.

  “I’ll make you pay!” she yelled.

  I dove behind a clump of bushes at the back of the yard—and found Louisa, Jeff, and Frankie hiding there.

  “Wow! Brittany broke a few flowerpots, but Mrs. Marder went ballistic!” Frankie shook his head in disbelief. “Did you hear her?”

  “She’s going inside now,” Jeff said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Not yet.” Frankie darted out from the bushes. He ran for the wheelbarrow and kicked it over. Dark soil spilled out into the weeds.

  The back door swung open.

  Mrs. Marder burst outside. She raised her broom high in the air. She shook it angrily.

  “You’ll pay for this!” she screamed. “I’ll make you pay! I’ll make all of you pay!”

  3

  We ran from Mrs. Marder’s yard as fast as we could.

  I could hardly breathe by the time we got to Max’s front door.

  “You’ll pay! You’ll all pay!” Mrs. Marder’s shrieks rang in my ears. My legs began to tremble.

  My hand shook too as I rang Max’s doorbell. I took a deep breath to steady myself.

  I checked my watch. Oh, great. We ran through that horrible woman’s yard—and we were late anyway.

  I peered up at Max’s house. It was a one-story brick house with freshly painted white shutters. Neat little bushes surrounded it. What a pretty house, I thought—the opposite of Mrs. Marder’s scary house.

  A pretty blond woman answered the door. “Hi!” she greeted us. “I’m Mrs. Davidson, Max’s mom.”

  Mrs. Davidson had cheerful green eyes and a nice smile. Her long blond hair was held loosely in a silver clip. She wore an apple-green top, leggings, and high-top sneakers. Very cool.

  She held the door open and we stepped inside.

  “I’m Louisa Wong,” Louisa said first.

  “Jeff de Winter,” Jeff mumbled.

  “I’m Brittany Carson,” I volunteered.

  Frankie stepped up last. “Todaro,” he announced, strutting through the door. “Frankie.”

  Mrs. Davidson invited us to sit down in the living room. “I told Mr. Emerson I’d call him when you arrived,” she said. “And you’re right on time! I’ll go call now. Excuse me.”

  She walked into the kitchen. I heard her talking on the phone through the closed kitchen door. She was nice to say we’d made it on time!

  “It’s so kind of you to visit Max!” Mrs. Davidson exclaimed when she came back.

  None of us mentioned that we didn’t have much choice!

  “We moved to Shadyside only last week,” Mrs. Davidson went on. “Max hoped to start seventh grade next week. But—”

  “We’re in seventh grade too,” Louisa interrupted.

  “Well, maybe you can help him catch up when he gets back to school. Max’s doctor said he has to stay in bed for three more weeks,” Mrs. Davidson told us. “He’s getting over pneumonia, so he has to rest.”

  Then she stood up. “Well, let’s not keep Max waiting any longer. He’s so excited about meeting you.”

  The four of us followed her down a long hallway.

  At the end of the hallway a door stood halfway open. Mrs. Davidson pushed it open all the way. “Max?” she said. “Some students from Shadyside Middle School are here to meet you.”

  We stepped into Max’s room. Windows stretched all along one wall. But they didn’t let in much light.

  A boy sat on a bed at one end of the shadowy room. He looked small for a seventh-grader. He wore white long-sleeved pajamas. He had pale skin. And pale blond hair. He even had pale blue eyes—but they were ringed with dark circles.

  Poor kid, I thought. He does look sick!

  “Hi, Max!” Louisa said cheerily.

  Max nodded hello.

  Then there was an awkward silence.

  “So—you have a Monopoly board or anything?” Jeff asked Max.

  Max shook his head no this time. He sure wasn’t making this easy!

  “Uh—would you like to talk? Or play a game?” I asked him.

  “Cards,” he said in a soft voice. He drew a deck from under his covers.

  Cards? My heart sank. I just couldn’t seem to get away from cards!

  “Great,” I lied, trying to make my voice cheerful.

  “Go on over to the table, kids.” Mrs. Davidson nodded to the end of the room opposite Max’s bed.

  Max stood up. He walked slowly to the table. “Let’s play hearts,” he suggested in a quiet voice.

  “Good thinking, Max,” Mrs. Davidson told him. “Five can play that. Do you kids know how?”

  We all nodded as we sat down. Max shuffled the deck.

  “Now Max will ask someone to cut the cards,” Mrs. Davidson told us. “That’s good card manners.”

  Max pushed the deck toward Frankie.

  “Lift some cards from the top of the deck—as many as you want,” Mrs. Davidson instructed. “Then put the cards from the bottom of the deck on top of them.”

&
nbsp; After Frankie cut the cards, Max began to deal. I noticed that he was a serious nail-biter. The tips of his fingers were all ragged and chewed.

  “Wait to pick up your cards until they’re all dealt,” Mrs. Davidson told us. “That’s good card manners too.”

  When Max finished dealing, we picked up our hands.

  “Have fun, kids!” Mrs. Davidson said, and left the room.

  I studied my cards one at a time. Two of clubs. Six of hearts. Three of diamonds. Jack of—

  A horrible scream split the air!

  I jumped.

  Frankie dropped his cards to the floor.

  “Frankie!” I exclaimed, startled. “What’s wrong?”

  Frankie stared, eyes wide open. His jaw dropped.

  And he let out the most horrifying scream I’d ever heard.

  4

  The awful, piercing scream went on and on.

  I clapped my hands to my ears. “Frankie!” I cried again. “What’s wrong! Tell us—what’s wrong!”

  Frankie turned to me—and the screaming stopped. Stopped suddenly, as if a knife sliced it off mid-scream. But his mouth still hung open.

  Mrs. Davidson ran into Max’s room. “What happened?” she cried. “Is someone hurt? Who screamed?”

  “Frankie did,” Louisa told her.

  “I did not!” Frankie protested.

  We all stared at him. “Yes, you did!” Louisa exclaimed. “Your mouth was wide open. We all heard you. Screaming like a maniac.”

  “I wasn’t screaming,” Frankie said flatly.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “You nearly burst my eardrums. You dropped all your cards—then you started screaming.”

  “I don’t know what you mean about screaming.” Frankie spoke slowly. “I know I dropped my cards. It was because of—because of the joker.”

  Frankie glanced under the table. We all followed his gaze.

  There his cards lay—all facedown. All but one. All but the joker.

  The joker—it was like no joker I had ever seen.

  It had huge round eyes that bulged right out of their sockets. Hideous eyes! I felt as if they could see me!

  Its bright red lips curved up in a crooked, evil smile.

  The joker wore a floppy green cap with bells. In its hand it held a stick. On the top of the stick sat a skull. A skull with eyes that glowed like hot coals!