“But you let me shrink and shrink!” I cried. “You knew what was happening the whole time.”
“I have to win the money,” she said flatly.
I grabbed the cage bars and stared out at her. “But what happens to me after the fair?” I shouted.
In the dim evening light I saw a strange smile spread over Megan’s face. “I’ll take care of you,” she whispered.
“And what is your project, Tim?”
Mr. Clarkus and the other three judges stood across the table from me. They had been moving from table to table in the school gym, examining each project, questioning the kids about them.
Now they stared down at the glass cage Tim Parsons had set up. “Is that a guinea pig or a white rat?” Mr. Clarkus asked.
“Why are they wasting time with Tim?” Megan whispered, standing behind my cage. “Why don’t they just come over here and give me the prize?”
“It’s a white rat,” Tim told the teacher. “My study is about what is a good diet for white rats. I fed one rat only vegetables and the other rat only cereal.”
The judges stared into the glass cage. “But, Tim, I see only one rat here,” a judge said.
“I know. The other one died,” Tim said. “So I couldn’t really finish the experiment.”
From my cage across the table, I watched Tim lift the white rat from its cage. “This is the one that ate cereal,” he said.
It’s twice my size, I thought sadly. I don’t believe this. I’m smaller than a white rat. I shook my head and shut my eyes. I opened them when I heard a startled scream.
And saw the white rat leap from Tim’s hands.
“Get him!” Mr. Clarkus shouted.
Tim made a wild grab—and missed.
Other hands grabbed at the rat. But it was too fast for them. Its pink feet slipped and slid as it scrabbled furiously across the table.
“No—” I uttered a cry as it darted straight to my cage.
It rose up in front of me. Its pink nose twitched. Its black eyes rolled as it saw me. It opened its mouth wide, revealing two rows of pointed teeth.
“Please—grab it! Take it away!” I shrieked.
The white rat hissed at me. And to my horror it grabbed the door between its pointed teeth and jerked it open.
“Nooooooo!” I wailed in horror as the rat leaped into the cage. I backed away. Backed away. Waving my hands wildly, trying to scare it.
But I must have looked like a tasty little food morsel to the hulking creature. It opened its mouth, and pearly drool slid over its teeth. “Help me! Somebody! Megan!” I shrieked.
The giant rat backed me against the bars. Then it rose up on its hind legs, hissing, drooling hungrily, eyes rolling in its huge head.
A T-Rex vision flashed into my panicked mind. The rat stood over me like a dinosaur!
And then lunged for my throat.
I shut my eyes again.
I waited for the crushing pain. Waited to feel my skin ripped off in the creature’s pointed teeth.
But…no.
I opened my eyes to see Megan dangling the rat by the tail. She held it over the table and returned it to Tim.
“Saved your life, Danny,” she whispered to me.
Trembling, I opened my mouth to reply, but no sound came out.
I suddenly realized the judges were no longer across the table. All four of them had bent down to stare into the cage at me. Their startled cries echoed off the cage bars.
“What on earth—?” Mr. Clarkus gasped.
“Megan—what is that? Who is that?”
“This can’t be your experiment—can it?”
“It looks just like Danny Marin!” Mr. Clarkus declared. “A tiny Danny Marin.”
“It is Danny Marin!” Megan proclaimed proudly. “I used a special formula to shrink him.”
Mr. Clarkus let out a scream. The judges all uttered shocked cries.
“Unbelievable! Call the newspaper—immediately!”
“This is astounding! Megan, you’ll be famous!”
“Call the TV stations! No one will believe this!”
“You’ll be famous! Famous!”
Mr. Clarkus handed Megan the check for a thousand dollars.
The entire gym went into a frenzy. Shouts and cheers. A hundred kids came crushing around the table, eager to see Megan’s miracle freak.
The noise was deafening to me. The faces, the staring faces were making me dizzy and sick. I sat down on the cage floor, rested my back against a bar, and buried my face in my hands.
For the first time I felt more angry than frightened. In fact, I felt so angry I was about to burst.
It was insane. The shouts and startled cries. The amazed faces. The newspaper photographers. The TV interviewers.
It seemed to go on for hours. The whole while, Megan’s smile never faded. It was her night of victory, her big triumph.
Tiny Danny was famous, too. Tiny Danny, the shrinking boy.
My ears still buzzed, my head felt heavy as lead when everyone finally left. The lights in the gym dimmed. The crew of custodians began to clean up.
“Megan—I have to go home,” I called hoarsely. “Take me home now—and then I never want to see your face again.”
She picked up the cage. Her eyes flashed in the dim light. “Don’t say that, Danny. Or I won’t cure you.”
“Huh? Cure?” My heart started to race.
“Of course I’m going to cure you,” she said, carrying the cage against her chest. She stepped out of the gym, into the long front hall. “I’m your friend, Danny. I wouldn’t let you disappear.”
“But—h-how—?” I whispered.
“I mixed a bottle of my Great-grandma Hester’s growing potion,” she said, turning into the science lab. She clicked on the overhead lights. “Granny Hester made you small. And now she’ll make you normal-sized again.”
I let out a long sigh of relief. “You’re really going to cure me?”
“Of course. Right away.” She set the cage down on a table and disappeared into the supply closet. A few seconds later she appeared carrying a glass beaker. As she came closer, I saw that the beaker contained a clear liquid.
“This is the growth formula,” Megan said. She picked up a bowl and poured the liquid from the beaker into the bowl.
“I’m going to hold you over the side of the bowl so you can drink from it,” she explained. “Drink as much as you can, Danny. You’ll be back to normal size in a few hours. I promise.”
“Oh, thank you!” I cried happily. I had forgotten my anger. I couldn’t think about that now. I could only think of being a normal-sized guy again.
“Hurry,” I said. “I can’t stand being this small for one second longer.”
Megan carried the bowl in two hands. Balancing it carefully, she took two steps toward my cage.
And tripped over the leg of a lab stool.
The bowl flew out of her hands and clattered into a sink.
And I stared in horror as the thick, clear liquid poured down the drain.
“Ohhhhhhh noooooo.” I sank to my knees on the cage floor.
My stomach lurched. I felt sick.
Megan gazed at the empty bowl in the sink. “I…don’t…believe…this…” she murmured.
But then her expression changed. “Look, Danny. There’s a little left at the bottom of the beaker.” She held up the glass beaker. “It should be enough. You’re so tiny now, you couldn’t drink much anyway. You’re no bigger than a beetle.”
“H-hurry,” I said in a whisper. “Please.”
She found an eyedropper. I watched her tilt the beaker and squeeze the tiny bit of liquid into it. She started to carry the eyedropper to the cage.
“Careful!” I warned. “Watch out for the stool.”
She stepped around it. She leaned over the cage and lowered the eyedropper to my mouth.
I didn’t hesitate. I pressed my lips against the tip and drank. Drank thirstily, sucking down the cold, clear liquid.
&nb
sp; “According to Granny Hester’s journal, you’ll start to grow instantly,” Megan said.
Tilting my head under the eyedropper, I drank a little more. Then I stepped back, licking my lips.
“Feel anything?” Megan asked.
I took a deep breath. “Not yet.”
“It should be any second,” she said.
We waited.
Seconds went by. A minute. Two minutes. Three.
I didn’t grow. I didn’t feel any different.
Ten minutes later Megan and I were still staring at each other.
Nothing happened.
She sank onto the lab stool with a sigh. “Failure,” she whispered. “The growth formula is a failure.” She shook her head sadly. “Danny, do you know what that means?”
“That I’m going to disappear forever?”
“No.” She frowned, shaking her head. “It means that my shrinking formula didn’t work, either. I always followed Granny Hester’s recipes perfectly. But they don’t work. I’m not the one who shrunk you, Danny. I’m a fraud. I’m a failure. When all those TV and newspaper reporters find out, I’ll be a national disgrace.”
“But, Megan—” I started. “Maybe—”
“Be quiet a minute, Danny. Let me think. This is horrible!”
I wasn’t in the mood to feel sorry for Megan. I knew I had only an hour or so left.
“Are you sure your formula didn’t shrink me?”
She sighed again. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m a total fraud.”
“Then something else did it…” I said, thinking out loud.
And suddenly it came to me. The Shrinkman Cola. That awful drink I had at the movie theater.
If it wasn’t Megan’s potion, it had to be the Shrinkman Cola. Or maybe…the combination. First I drank Megan’s shrinking formula. Then I had the Shrinkman drink. Then I stepped into the light.
Yes! Maybe all three things together made me shrink.
It was a wild idea. Maybe it was totally crazy, totally wrong. But I had no choice.
“Megan—hurry,” I said. “You have to take me to the movie theater!”
We ran into the lobby. It was after ten o’clock, and the last shows of the day were running. The lobby was empty. The lights had been dimmed. A tall, dark-haired girl in a red-and-white striped uniform was sponging off the popcorn counter.
Carrying my cage in front of her, Megan ran across the lobby, to the back corner where we had found the Shrinkman Cola vending machine.
We both cried out at the same time.
Gone! The vending machine was gone!
“This can’t be happening,” Megan murmured. She whirled around. The cage flew wildly from side to side as Megan ran to the popcorn stand.
“The drink machine—” she called breathlessly. “Where is it? Where?”
The girl behind the counter stopped sponging. She squinted at Megan. “The drink machine? Which one?”
Megan pointed frantically to the corner of the lobby. “The Shrinkman drink machine. Where is it? We need a bottle!”
The girl made a face. “That disgusting stuff? It was gross. Everyone was complaining about it. So we sent that vending machine back.”
I wanted to scream, but I felt too weak.
I was no bigger than a bug. In an hour or so I’d be as tiny as a flea.
And then I’d be gone.
“That truck driver was so late,” the girl told Megan. “Would you believe he didn’t show up till ten to take that drink machine? I think he’s still in the parking lot around back.”
That’s all Megan had to hear. She took off, my cage swinging crazily at her side.
“Hey—where’s your bird?” I heard the popcorn girl call.
But Megan didn’t stop. She raced out the front door of the theater, then along the narrow walk that led to the parking lot in back.
The blue-uniformed driver was still hoisting the drink machine onto the back of his truck. Megan begged him for one bottle of Shrinkman Cola. He argued with her. He said he was too late.
Megan pulled a ten-dollar bill from her pocket and handed it to him. The man shoved it quickly into his uniform pants pocket. He opened the back of the machine and handed Megan a bottle.
“I don’t know how anyone can drink this stuff,” he said.
Megan didn’t reply. Carrying the birdcage in one hand and the bottle in the other, she ran back to the side of the theater.
No one in sight. I could hear the music from the movie inside the theater.
Megan set my cage down on the pavement. She twisted open the bottle of Shrinkman Cola. She lowered the bottle to the cage bars. But I was too tiny to drink from it.
“Here, Danny.” She poured a puddle of the brown drink onto the cage floor. “Hurry.”
I dropped to my hands and knees and lowered my face to the puddle. I lapped it up, drinking like a dog.
It tasted awful. But I didn’t care.
Would it work?
I felt a sharp tingling in my chest. The feeling spread to my arms and legs.
I felt myself start to stretch.
“Megan—better lift me out of the cage,” I called.
She pulled me out just in time. My head, my chest, my arms, my legs—all were stretching, growing…
Yes! Yes!
It took less than a minute.
I stood there laughing, cheering, gleeful tears running down my face. Stood there in my shredded pajamas. Normal size. Normal again.
Danny Marin, Normal Guy.
I was so happy, I hugged Megan.
Can you imagine the greeting I got from my parents?
First they were stunned. Then they laughed. Then they hugged me. Then they cried.
Then we all cried. We were so happy.
The next morning they didn’t want me to go to school. They wanted to take me to Dr. Hayward.
But I had to go to school. Today was the big game, our long-awaited basketball game against Stern Valley.
I was the star of the team. I had to be there.
Just before the game, Megan met me outside the gym. Through the gym doors I could hear kids cheering and shouting. Both teams were already warming up on the court.
“Are you okay?” Megan asked. “Do you feel all right, Danny?”
Before I could reply, I felt that sharp tingling in my chest again. Once again the tingling spread rapidly through my body.
“Something is happening,” I told Megan.
And then I shot up. Growing more. Growing until my head hit the ceiling.
“Danny—” Megan gasped. “The ceiling is nine feet tall. Oh no! No! You’re nine feet tall!”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t believe this.”
“Wait. I still have the shrink formula in the science lab,” Megan said. “And I kept the rest of the Shrinkman Cola. Come with me, Danny. Hurry. I’ll get you back to normal size in no time.”
I started to follow her. I had to bend my head to keep it from scraping the ceiling.
I took two or three loping steps. Then stopped.
I listened to the cheers in the gym.
It’s time for the biggest basketball game of the year, I thought.
And I’m nine feet tall!
I spun away from Megan. “Danny—where are you going?” she called. “Danny—?”
I bent down and pushed open the gym doors with my mile-long arms. “Hey, guys—” I shouted. “Guys! I’m ready to play!”
Photograph © Dan Nelken
R.L. (Robert Lawrence) Stine is one of the best-selling children’s authors in history. His Goosebumps series, along with such series as Fear Street, The Nightmare Room, Rotten School, and Mostly Ghostly have sold nearly 400 million books in this country alone. And they are translated into 32 languages.
The Goosebumps TV series was the top-rated kids’ series for three years in a row. R.L.’s TV movies, including The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It and Mostly Ghostly, are perennial Halloween favorites. And his scary TV series, R.L. Stine’s The Hau
nting Hour, is in its second season on The Hub network.
R.L. continues to turn out Goosebumps books, published by Scholastic. In addition, his first horror novel for adults in many years, titled Red Rain, will be published by Touchstone books in October 2012.
R.L. says that he enjoys his job of “scaring kids.” But the biggest thrill for him is turning kids on to reading.
R.L. lives in New York City with his wife, Jane, an editor and publisher, and King Charles Spaniel, Minnie. His son, Matthew, is a sound designer and music producer.
R. L. Stine, The Adventures of Shrinkman
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