Stink and the Attack of the Slime Mold

  All she had was Raisin Bran. Even a slime mold wouldn’t eat boring old Raisin Bran.

  When Stink got home from school, he took Mr. McGoo upstairs. Mr. McGoo looked a little raisiny — as wrinkled as a monkey ball. “I know you had a bad day at school,” Stink said. “But look at the bright side. At least YOU don’t have any homework.”

  To cheer him up, Stink told Mr. McGoo, “Riley’s coming over.” Riley Rottenberger could be annoying, for sure, but at least she was a good partner in slime. In baby talk, Stink said, “Riley likes slime mold. Yes she does.”

  “Slime time!” Riley said when she got to Stink’s house. Stink moved his light-up globe in closer so they could inspect their pets. “My slime mold is way bigger than your slime mold,” she said in a braggy voice.

  “Don’t listen to her, Mr. McGoo,” whispered Stink.

  “I like how you gave your slime mold a cool name,” said Riley.

  “Didn’t you name yours?” asked Stink.

  “Um,” said Riley. “Sure. Its name is . . . um . . . Mrs. McGoo.”

  “Gross!” said Stink. “Our slime molds are not married.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll change her name to Princess Slime Mold.”

  “How did you get Princess Slime Mold to grow so much?” Stink asked.

  “Easy cheesy,” said Riley. “I fed her. And you have to do stuff that makes her happy. Like they had us do for the animals at that farm we visited on our field trip.”

  Stink remembered. “Oh, yeah. We read books to the chickens and sang songs to the cows.” So Stink and Riley sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Slime” to Mr. McGoo and Princess Slime Mold. They read Squish Squash Moo till the cows came home.

  Stink told a story about the time he got 21,280 jawbreakers in the mail for free. Stink told a joke. “What do molds, mucus, and big sisters have in common?”

  “What?” asked Riley.

  “They’re all slime,” said Stink. He laughed himself silly. “I bet Mr. McGoo will grow like crazy now.”

  “I think you’re good to goo,” said Riley. “I mean go.” They started into fits of laughter all over again.

  “Don’t forget to feed him.” Riley unzipped her backpack. “I brought snacks!” She held up an apple and a bag of cheese doodles.

  Stink took a bite of mealy apple while Riley ripped open the bag of munchy-crunchy cheese doodles. A wonderful waft of cheesy air puffed out of the bag. Crunch-munch-crunch.

  “Cheese doodles sure are loud,” said Stink.

  “Yep,” said Riley, munching.

  “Cheese doodles sure smell milky and creamy,” said Stink.

  “Yep,” said Riley, crunching.

  “Cheese doodles sure turn your fingers electric orange,” said Stink.

  “The better to lick them off,” said Riley, sucking the end of each finger.

  She reached deep down into the bottom of the bag. As she pulled out a handful of cheese doodles, a small cloud of cheese dust poofed out of the bag.

  “A-a-a-CHOO!” Riley sneezed a big sneeze. A giant sneeze. An elephant sneeze! Bits of electric orange gunk flew out of her mouth and landed smack-dab in the middle of Mr. McGoo.

  Stink’s mouth dropped open. He stared at his slime mold. “Gross!” he said. “Look what you did!”

  “It’s just cheese dust,” said Riley. “What’s the big deal?”

  “You slimed my slime mold!” said Stink.

  Riley peered at Mr. McGoo. “Stink, you can barely see it.”

  “You mean that neon-orange Mount Everest in the middle of Mr. McGoo?”

  “I’m sure it won’t hurt him,” said Riley.

  Stink squinted at her. “Let me see that bag,” he said. He peered at the tiny words on the back. “Do you know what’s in this stuff?”

  Riley shrugged. “Um, cheese?”

  Stink shook his head no. “Disodium phosphate, dextrose, artificial flavor, artificial color, disodium blah-blah, more disodium blah-blah. And don’t forget corn syrup. Corn syrup sounds good but it is not.”

  “Sorry, Stink. Cheese dust makes me sneezy. But I’m sure it will be fine.”

  “Fine? An Unidentified Flying Sneeze just landed on Mr. McGoo. It’s probably radioactive for all I know. Anything could happen now. How do you think the Glob became the Glob? What if Mr. McGoo morphs into a glob and takes over the planet?”

  “That’s only in the movies, Stink. Trust me. It’s going to be fine.”

  “Stop saying ‘fine.’ It’s not fine. Sneeze on your own slime mold.” Stink could hear his voice coming out like a big meanie. As mean as Oogie Boogie. But he was so mad he didn’t care.

  “Fine,” said Riley. She grabbed her slime mold and stomped down the stairs, leaving behind a trail of cheese dust. It no longer smelled milky and creamy.

  It smelled like dog food.

  It spelled doom.

  Stink could not sleep three winks. Not two winks. Not one wink.

  It was the Glob all over again. Ever since the Cheese Sneeze Incident of 1500 hours, Mr. McGoo had been acting strange.

  Mr. McGoo was trying to take over the globe. The world!

  Stink tried to sleep, but he kept thinking he felt something slippery and slimy crawling up his leg, his arm, wrapping around his throat. He tried counting sheep, but all he could see behind his eyelids were globs. Slimy, slime-mold globs.

  What if his pet had turned into Frankenslime? A freak. A monster!

  Stink grabbed his shark sleeping bag by its teeth. He tiptoed out and shut the door to his room behind him. He hightailed it over to Judy’s room.

  Judy was stretched out on her top bunk, folding gum wrappers to add to her gum-wrapper chain.

  “Can I camp out in here tonight?” Stink asked Judy.

  “Is it the Glob?” Judy asked. Stink nodded. “You can have the bottom bunk,” she said.

  Stink frowned. “It’s too close to the ground. Slime mold could climb right up and slime me in my sleep.”

  “I thought Mr. McGoo was your pet,” said Judy.

  “He is. Was. Until Rotten Riley went and sneezed radioactive disodium electric orange cheese dust on him and he morphed into . . . Frankenslime.”

  Stink checked under the bottom bunk. “There’s already something green and blobby under the bed!”

  “That’s just my finger-knitting ball. I used glow-in-the-dark yarn.”

  “Okay.” Stink climbed onto the bottom bunk and slipped into his sleeping bag for protection.

  Judy turned off the overhead light but flicked on her flashlight pen so she could read.

  Stink tried to close his eyes, but they blinked open in the shadowy dark. “Do you hear something?” he asked.

  “Nope. But I’d like to hear you snoring. Go to sleep, Stink.”

  “But what if that is the homework-eating sound of Frankenslime? He could be eating my math problems right now.”

  “That was just me, turning the pages of my book.”

  “What if that sound is Frankenslime munching on my smelly sneakers?”

  “Trust me, Stink. Nobody would be brave enough to go near those. Not even a Glob monster.”

  “What if that sound is the munch and crunch of Frankenslime devouring my race-car bed right this very minute? Then when he’s done, he comes after me —”

  “That was just me, chewing gum.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock,” Judy teased. “Do you know where your slime mold is?”

  “Not funny. Frankenslime could ooze right across the hall and under your door and . . .” Stink hopped out of bed.

  “Stink! Where are you going?” Judy asked.

  He padded down the hall to the bathroom, shining his flashlight left and right into every dark corner. His heart thumped out of his chest as he passed his room. He tore off the lid of the hamper, grabbed a T-shirt, and raced back to Judy’s room.

  “Stink? What are you wearing?”

  “Dad’s T-shirt,” said Stink.

  “You risked your life s
o you could wear a sweaty old T-shirt that says ‘Minnesota Is for Loons’? You must be loony tunes, Stink.”

  “Don’t you get it? This will disguise my smell. Frankenslime won’t know it’s me. He’ll think it’s Dad and leave me alone.” Stink got back into bed.

  “Hey, why not spray on some of Mom’s perfume, too, while you’re at it?”

  “Good idea,” said Stink.

  “I was joking,” said Judy. “Can slime molds even smell?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I thought you were some kind of slime-mold expert or something,” said Judy.

  “Or something,” said Stink. He hopped out of bed again and stretched a stuffed snake across the bottom of Judy’s door. Then he climbed back into bed. “Do you think it’s possible to sleep with one eye open?” he asked.

  “Dolphins sleep with one eye open at a time,” Judy told him.

  Stink closed one eye. He took deep breaths. He counted sheep. Sharks. Skinks. Anything but blobs. Before you could say Frankenslime, his other eye started to close.

  Frankenslime made himself as flat as a pancake and oozed under the door of Stink’s room. He gurgled and burbled and bubbled his way across the hall. Glip. Glop. Gloop. Frankenslime hungry! Hungry for seven-year-old boy. A thick greenish drool dripped from the corners of the glob monster’s slobbery, blobbery mouth. Help! Stink was going to be eaten alive!

  Open wide and say . . .

  “AARGH!”

  Stink bolted awake from his nightmare. His heart was pounding. His neck was sweating. At least he was alive. Phew. He hadn’t gotten Frankenslimed in his sleep.

  Stink tiptoed across the hall to his room. He put his ear up to the door.

  “Hear anything, Stinkerbell?” asked Judy, coming up behind him.

  Stink shook his head no. “You try,” he told Judy. She put her ear to the door.

  “Hear any slurping sounds? Sucking sounds? Swallowing sounds?”

  “Nothing,” said Judy. “Slurp factor zero. All quiet on the glob front.”

  “What if it’s quiet because everything in my whole room is eaten?” said Stink. “Poor Toady. And Astro.”

  “You mean you left your pets in there?” asked Judy.

  “Hey, I was busy trying to save myself,” said Stink.

  Judy put her hand on the knob. “You’re going to have to go in there sometime,” she said.

  “Wait.” Stink came back wearing a rain slicker and rubber boots. He put on goggles. “This is my hazmat suit.” He held the inside of his elbow over his mouth. “I’m going in.”

  Slowly, Stink opened the door a crack. Creeeeak!

  “P.U. What’s that smell?” Judy asked, waving a hand in front of her nose.

  “Told you,” said Stink, shutting the door. “My room is slimed. Blobbed. Globbed. That smell is radioactive cheese dust that ballooned up into a mushroom cloud of stink.”

  “Just open the door, Stink.” Judy pinched her nose shut.

  Stink opened the door at last.

  The room was not slimed. The room was not filled with radioactive cheese dust.

  Judy looked around. “I think you’re safe, Stink. The awful smell is just boy feet,” she said, pointing to Stink’s sneakers.

  Stink rushed over to Mr. McGoo. Something was wrong. Way wrong.

  Mr. McGoo looked pale. Mr. McGoo looked sickly. Mr. McGoo looked like a hundred-year-old shrunken head.

  “He looks like a Shrinky Dink!” cried Stink.

  “The incredible shrinking slime,” said Judy.

  Instead of growing by leaps and blobs in a single night, Mr. McGoo had shrunk.

  “Maybe he has Slime Mold Flu or something,” said Judy.

  “More like Cheezy Doodles Flu,” said Stink.

  “I think Mr. McGoo threw up,” said Judy.

  “He didn’t throw up. He just looks like throw-up.”

  “Or maybe the smell of your stinky sneakers finally did him in,” said Judy.

  “Not funny,” said Stink. “This is an emergency.”

  “Maybe he’s hungry. Go back downstairs and bring me three oat flakes and a pancake.”

  When Stink got back, Judy fed Mr. McGoo the three oat flakes. “So what’s the pancake for?” Stink asked.

  “Me,” said Judy, taking a bite. She set it down on the desk. “Stink, I know what to do. Go to my room and get my doctor kit.”

  Stink got Judy’s way-official kit. Judy took out her stethoscope. She held it up to Mr. McGoo.

  “I do not detect a heartbeat,” said Dr. Judy.

  “Do you hear anything?” asked Stink.

  “Just you breathing down my neck,” said Judy. Next she took Mr. McGoo’s temperature.

  “Is it normal?” asked Stink.

  “What’s normal for a slime mold?” Judy frowned.

  “Stinker. Get me a blanket,” said Judy.

  Stink pulled the covers off his race-car bed. Judy bundled the blanket all around Mr. McGoo’s dish like a nest.

  “Now get me a lamp.”

  Stink moved the light-up globe closer.

  “Now I need some warm rocks,” said Judy. “Stat.”

  “Warm rocks? What am I, your gofer?”

  “Do you want Mr. McGoo to get better or not?” Judy asked. Stink nodded.

  “Then stat!” Judy repeated. “And that, if you don’t know, means quick, hurry, now-not-yesterday.”

  Stink raced outside and collected the first five rocks he saw. “Here. I heated them up under the hot water just in case.”

  “Perfect,” said Judy. She carefully placed the rocks on the blanket nest around Mr. McGoo. “We want his environment to be nice and warm so he’ll bounce back and have a full recovery.

  “Now go get the mister,” Judy ordered.

  “Mister who?”

  “Not Mister who. The mister thingy Dad uses to spray plants.”

  Stink went downstairs and brought back the mister. Judy spritzed Mr. McGoo with a fine mist. “To make sure he doesn’t dry out.”

  “Maybe we should give him some baby aspirin,” said Stink.

  “Good thinking,” said Judy. “I have some in my doctor kit.” She took out a tiny plastic container and shook it in front of Stink.

  “That’s not baby aspirin. Those are Tic Tacs.”

  “Now get me four pencils,” said Judy.

  Stink got one-two-three-four pencils.

  Judy laid the pencils out on the desk — two up and down and two across, making a tic-tac-toe board.

  “Since we have to wait, we can play tic-tac-toe with Tic Tacs. You can be the red Tic Tacs and I’ll be green.”

  “I want to be green.”

  “Good,” said Judy. “Because I secretly wanted to be red.”

  After two pancakes each and ten games of Tic Tac tic-tac-toe, Mr. McGoo started to look like himself again. “It’s working!” said Stink. “You did it. Dr. Judy, you could cure a rainy day. Just like Dr. McCoy in Star Trek. Thanks!”

  “I’ll send you my bill in the morning,” said Dr. Judy.

  “What’s it going to cost me?” asked Stink.

  “Let’s see. How about one blue-raspberry Jolly Rancher, ten gum wrappers, and your fortune-cookie eraser.”

  “Aw, that’s my best one!”

  “With a fortune, of course,” said Judy. “And you better make it a good one.”

  Stink knew just what to write.

  Over the next few days, Mr. McGoo grew by lumps and bounds, faster than ever. Warp speed!

  Stink built a maze out of Snappos. By the next afternoon, Mr. McGoo had slimed his way through the whole entire maze. Stink showed his friends. “Slime molds find the shortest route through a maze. It’s a scientific fact. No lie.”

  Even Webster and Sophie of the Elves, his anti-slime friends, had to admit it was way cool.

  “Good boy,” Stink cooed to Mr. McGoo. “Who says you don’t have a brain?”

  “We still think it’s weird to talk baby talk to slime,” said Webster.

&
nbsp; “We still think we’d like your new pet better if it was a sugar glider,” said Sophie.

  Mr. McGoo slimed the oat flakes that Stink fed him. He slimed the grains of rice. He slimed the macaroni elbow.

  Spores must have landed all over the place, because slime mold was growing on everything. On the desk where sticky maple syrup had dripped from Judy’s pancake. Up and down Astro’s guinea pig tunnel. On top of Stink’s math book. Mr. McGoo had taken over all of Africa on the globe. Not to mention Asia and part of Antarctica.

  He even slimed the juice box Stink left on his desk. One day it looked like a box of juice. The next day it looked like brains.

  Mom and Dad did N-O-T want mold growing in the house. They insisted that Stink move Mr. McGoo outside. He looked around for just the right spot: someplace warm and damp with room to grow.

  The kiddie swimming pool!

  Perfect. Stink scrubbed out all the yucky leaves and gunk. He set his slime mold in the bottom of the now-clean pool. Next he covered the pool with an old tablecloth, like a blanket. Then Stink wrapped a real blanket around himself, took out his flashlight, sat in a lawn chair, and started reading a book to Mr. McGoo.

  “All day long he hears squish squash moo . . .”

  “Stink!” Judy called from the back door. “Dad says you have to come inside now.”

  “But I’m camping out,” said Stink. “I’m having a sleepover with Mr. McGoo. I mean a slimeover.” Stink couldn’t help cracking up.

  Judy went inside for a minute and came back. “Mom says no sleepover tonight.”

  “It’s a slimeover,” said Stink.

  “No slimeover, either. Too cold.”

  Stink lifted a corner of the tablecloth. “Night, night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he whispered to Mr. McGoo. Then Stink headed inside, dragging his blanket behind him.