26 - My Hairiest Adventure

  MY HAIRIEST

  ADVENTURE

  Goosebumps - 26

  R.L. Stine

  (An Undead Scan v1.5)

  1

  Why were there so many stray dogs in my town?

  And why did they always choose me to chase?

  Did they wait quietly in the woods, watching people go by? Then did they whisper to each other, “See that blond kid? That’s Larry Boyd—let’s go get him”?

  I ran as fast as I could. But it’s so hard to run when you’re carrying a guitar case. It kept banging against my leg.

  And I kept slipping in the snow.

  The dogs were catching up. They were howling and barking, trying to scare me to death.

  Well, it’s working, guys! I thought. I’m scared. I’m plenty scared!

  Dogs are supposed to sense when you’re afraid of them. But I’m not usually afraid of dogs. In fact, I really like dogs.

  I’m only afraid of dogs when there’s a pack of them, running furiously after me, drooling hungrily, eager to tear me to tiny shreds. Like now.

  Scrambling over the snow, I nearly toppled into a drift up to my knees. I glanced back. The dogs were gaining on me.

  It isn’t fair! I thought bitterly. They have four legs, and I only have two!

  The big black dog with the evil black eyes was leading the pack, as usual. He had his lips pulled back in an angry snarl. He was close enough so that I could see his sharp, pointy teeth.

  “Go home! Go home! Bad dogs! Go home!”

  Why was I yelling at them? They didn’t even have homes!

  “Go home! Go home!”

  My boots slipped in the snow, and the weight of my guitar case nearly pulled me over. Somehow I staggered forward, caught my balance, and kept moving.

  My heart was pounding like crazy. And I felt as if I were burning up, even though it was about twelve degrees.

  I squinted against the bright glare of the snow. I struggled to run faster, but my leg muscles were starting to cramp.

  I don’t stand a chance! I realized.

  “Ow!” The heavy guitar case bounced against my side.

  I glanced back. The dogs were leaping excitedly, making wide crisscrosses across the yards, howling and yowling, as they scrambled after me.

  Moving closer. And closer.

  “Go home! Bad dogs! Bad! Go home!”

  Why me?

  I’m a nice guy. Really. Ask anybody. They’ll tell you—Larry Boyd is the nicest twelve-year-old kid in town!

  So why did they always chase me?

  The last time, I dived into a parked car and shut the door just as they pounced. But today, the dogs were too close. And the cars along the street were all snow-covered. By the time I got a car door open, the dogs would be having me for dessert!

  I was only half a block from Lily’s house. I could see it on the corner across the street. It was my only chance.

  If I could get to Lily’s house, I could—“NOOOOOOOO!”

  I slipped on a small rock, hidden under the snow. The guitar case flew from my hand and hit the snow with a soft thud.

  I was down. Facedown in the snow.

  “They’ve got me this time,” I moaned. “They’ve got me.”

  2

  Everything went white.

  I struggled to my knees, frantically brushing snow off my face with both hands.

  The dogs barked hungrily.

  “Scat! Get away! Get going!” Another voice. A familiar voice. “Get going, dogs! Get away!”

  The barking grew softer.

  I brushed the wet snow from my eyes. “Lily!” I cried happily. “How did you get here?”

  She swung a heavy snow shovel in the dogs’ direction. “Scat! Go away! Go!”

  The growls turned to low whimpers. The dogs backed up, started to retreat. The huge black dog with the black eyes lowered his head and loped slowly away. The others followed.

  “Lily—they’re listening to you!” I cried thankfully. I climbed slowly to my feet and brushed the snow off the front of my blue down parka.

  “Of course,” she replied, grinning. “I’m tough, Larry. I’m real tough.”

  Lily Vonn doesn’t exactly look tough. She’s twelve like me, but she looks younger. She’s short and thin and kind of cute. She has chin-length blond hair with bangs that go straight across her forehead.

  The strange thing about Lily is her eyes. One is blue and one is green. No one can really believe she has two different colors—until they see them.

  I brushed most of the snow off the front of my coat and the knees of my jeans. Lily handed me my guitar case. “Hope it’s waterproof,” she muttered.

  I raised my eyes to the street. The dogs were barking wildly again, chasing a squirrel through several front yards.

  “I saw you from my window,” Lily said as we started toward her house. “Why do they always chase after you?”

  I shrugged. “I was just asking myself the same question,” I told her. Our boots made crunching noises in the snow. Lily led the way. I stepped in her bootprints.

  We waited for a car to move past, its tires sliding on the slick road. Then we crossed the street and made our way up her driveway.

  “How come you’re late?” Lily asked.

  “I had to help my dad shovel the drive,” I replied. Some snow had caught inside my hood and was trickling down the back of my neck. I shivered. I couldn’t wait to get inside the house.

  The others were all hanging out in Lily’s living room. I waved hi to Manny, Jared, and Kristina. Manny was down on his knees, fiddling with his guitar amp. It made a loud squeal, and everybody jumped.

  Manny is tall and skinny and kind of goofy-looking, with a crooked smile and a mop of curly, black hair. Jared is twelve like the rest of us, but he looks eight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without his black-and-silver Raiders cap on. Kristina is a little chubby. She has curly, carrot-colored hair and wears glasses with blue plastic frames.

  I tugged off my wet coat and hung it on a peg in the front entryway. The house felt steamy and warm. I straightened my sweatshirt and joined the others.

  Manny glanced up from his amp and laughed. “Hey, look—Larry’s hair is messed up. Somebody take a picture!”

  Everybody laughed.

  They’re always teasing me about my hair. Can I help it if I have really good hair? It’s dark blond and wavy, and I wear it long.

  “Hairy Larry!” Lily declared.

  The other three laughed and then picked up the chant. “Hairy Larry! Hairy Larry! Hairy Larry!”

  I made an angry face and swept my hand back through my hair, pushing it off my forehead. I could feel myself blushing.

  I really don’t like being teased. It always makes me angry, and I always blush.

  I guess that’s why Lily and my other friends tease me so much. They tease me about my hair, and about my big ears, and about anything else they can think of.

  And I always get angry. And I always blush. Which makes them tease me even more.

  “Hairy Larry! Hairy Larry! Hairy Larry!”

  Great friends, huh?

  Well, actually, they are great friends. We have a lot of fun together. The five of us have a band. This week, it’s called The Geeks. Last week, we called ourselves The Spirit. We change the name a lot.

  Lily has a gold coin that she wears on a chain around her neck. Her grandfather gave the coin to her. He told her it’s real pirate gold.

  So Lily wants to call our band Pirate Gold. But I don’t think that’s cool enough. And Manny, Jared, and Kristina agree.

  At least our name—The Geeks—is a lot cooler than Howie and the Shouters. That’s the band who’s challenging us in the big Battle of the Bands contest at scho
ol.

  We still can’t believe that Howie Hurwin named the band after himself! He’s only the drummer. His stuck-up sister, Marissa, is the singer. “Why didn’t you call it Marissa and the Shouters?” I asked him one day after school.

  “Because Marissa doesn’t rhyme with anything,” he replied.

  “Huh? What does Howie rhyme with?” I asked him.

  “Zowie!” he said. Then he laughed and messed up my hair.

  What a creep.

  No one likes Howie or his sister. The Geeks can’t wait to blow the Shouters off the stage.

  “If only one of us played bass,” Jared moaned as we tuned up.

  “Or saxophone or trumpet or something,” Kristina added, pulling out a couple of pink guitar picks from her open case.

  “I think we sound great,” Manny said, still down on the floor, fiddling with the cord to his amp. “Three guitars is a great sound. Especially when we put on the fuzztone and crank them all the way up.”

  Kristina, Manny, and I all play guitar. Lily is the singer. And Jared plays a keyboard. His keyboard has a drum synthesizer with ten different rhythms on it. So we also have drums. Kind of.

  As soon as Manny got his amp working, we tried to play a Rolling Stones song. Jared couldn’t find the right drum rhythm on his synthesizer. So we played without it.

  As soon as we finished, I shouted, “Let’s start again!”

  The others all groaned. “Larry, we sounded great!” Lily insisted. “We don’t need to play it again.”

  “The rhythm was way off,” I said.

  “You’re way off!” Manny exclaimed, making a face at me.

  “Larry is a perfectionist,” Kristina said. “Did you forget that, Manny?”

  “How could I forget?” Manny groaned. “He never lets us finish one song!”

  I could feel myself blushing again. “I just want to get it right,” I told them.

  Okay. Okay. Maybe I am a perfectionist. Is that a bad thing?

  “The Battle of the Bands is in two weeks,” I said. “We don’t want to get onstage and embarrass ourselves, do we?”

  I just hate being embarrassed. I hate it more than anything in the world. More than steamed broccoli!

  We started playing again. Jared hit the saxophone button on his keyboard, and it sounded as if we had a saxophone. Manny took the first solo, and I took the second.

  I messed up one chord. I wanted to start again.

  But I knew they’d murder me if I stopped. So I kept on playing.

  Lily’s voice cracked on a high note. But she has such a sweet, tiny voice, it didn’t sound too bad.

  We played without taking a break for nearly two hours. It sounded pretty good. Whenever Jared found the right drum rhythm, it sounded really good.

  After we put our instruments back in their cases, Lily suggested we go outside and mess around in the snow. The afternoon sun was still high in a shimmery blue sky. The thick blanket of snow sparkled in the golden sunlight.

  We chased each other around the snow-covered evergreen shrubs in Lily’s front yard. Manny crushed a big, wet snowball over Jared’s Raiders cap. That started a snowball fight that lasted until we were all gasping for breath and laughing too hard to toss any more snow.

  “Let’s build a snowman,” Lily suggested.

  “Let’s make it look like Larry,” Kristina added. Her blue-framed glasses were completely steamed up.

  “Whoever heard of a snowman with perfect blond hair?” Lily replied.

  “Give me a break,” I muttered.

  They started to roll big balls of snow for the snowman’s body. Jared shoved Manny over one of the big snowballs and tried to roll him up in the ball. But Manny was too heavy. The whole thing crumbled to powder under him.

  While they worked on the snowman, I wandered down to the street. Something caught my eye at the curb next door.

  A pile of junk standing next to a metal trash Dumpster.

  I glanced up at the neighbors’ house. I could see that it was being remodeled. The pile of junk at the curb was waiting to be carted away.

  I leaned over the side of the Dumpster and began shuffling through the stuff. I love old junk. I can’t help myself. I just love pawing through piles of old stuff.

  Leaning into the Dumpster, I shoved aside a stack of wall tiles and a balled-up shower curtain. Beneath a small, round, shag rug, I found a white enamel medicine chest.

  “Wow! This is cool!” I murmured to myself.

  I pulled it up with both hands, moved away from the Dumpster, and opened the chest. To my surprise, I found bottles and plastic tubes inside.

  I started to examine them, moving them around with my hand, when an orange bottle caught my eye. “Hey, guys!” I shouted up to my friends. “Look what I found!”

  3

  I carried the orange bottle back up to Lily’s yard. “Hey, guys—look!” I called, waving the bottle.

  No one looked up. Manny and Jared were struggling to lift one big snowball and set it on the other one to form the snowman’s body. Lily was shouting encouragement. Kristina was wiping snow off her glasses with one of her gloves.

  “Hey, Larry—what’s that?” Kristina finally asked, putting her glasses back on. The others turned and saw the bottle in my hand.

  I read the label to them: “INSTA-TAN. Rub on a dark suntan in minutes.”

  “Cool!” Manny declared. “Let’s try it.”

  “Where did you find it?” Lily demanded. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold. There were white flecks of snow in her bangs.

  I pointed to the Dumpster. “Your neighbors threw it out. The bottle is full,” I announced.

  “Let’s try it!” Manny repeated, grinning his crooked grin.

  “Yeah. Let’s all go into school on Monday with dark suntans!” Kristina urged. “Can you see the look on Miss Shindling’s face? We’ll tell her we all went to Florida!”

  “No! The Bahamas!” Lily declared. “We’ll tell Howie Hurwin that The Geeks went to the Bahamas to practice!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Do you think the stuff works?” Jared asked, adjusting his cap and staring at the bottle.

  “It has to,” Lily said. “They couldn’t sell it if it didn’t work.” She grabbed the bottle from my hand. “It’s nearly full. We can all get great tans. Come on. Let’s do it. It’ll be so cool!”

  We all followed Lily back into the house, our boots crunching over the snow, our breath steaming up above our heads.

  I pulled off my coat and tossed it onto the pile with the others. As I made my way into the living room, I began to have second thoughts. What if the stuff doesn’t work? I asked myself. What if it turns us bright yellow or green instead of tan?

  I’d be so totally embarrassed if I had to show up at school with bright green skin. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. Even if it took months, I’d hide in my house—in my closet—till the stuff wore off.

  The others didn’t seem to be worried.

  We jammed into the downstairs bathroom. Lily still had the bottle of INSTA-TAN. She twisted off the cap and poured a big glob of it into her hand. It was a creamy white liquid.

  “Mmmmm. Smells nice,” Lily reported, raising her hand to her face. “Very sweet-smelling.”

  She began rubbing it on her neck, then her cheeks, then her forehead. Tilting the bottle, she poured another big puddle into her palm. Then she rubbed the liquid over the backs of both hands.

  Manny took the INSTA-TAN bottle next. He splashed a big glob of it into his hand. Then he started rubbing it all over his face.

  “Feels cool and creamy,” Kristina reported when her turn came. Jared went next. He practically emptied the bottle as he rubbed the stuff on his face and neck.

  Finally it was my turn. I took the bottle and started to tilt it into my palm.

  But something made me stop. I hesitated. I could see that the others were all watching me, waiting for me to splash the liquid all over my skin, too.

  But, instead,
I turned the bottle over and read the tiny print on the label.

  And what I read made me gasp out loud.

  4

  “Larry, what’s your problem?” Lily demanded. “Just pour a little in your hand and rub it on.”

  “But—but—but—” I sputtered.

  “Do I look darker?” Kristina asked Lily. “Is it working?”

  “Not yet,” Lily told her. She turned back to me. “What’s wrong, Larry?”

  “The l-label,” I stammered. “It says ‘Do not use after February, 1991.’”

  Everyone laughed. Their laughter rang off the tile walls in the narrow bathroom.

  “It can’t hurt you,” Lily said, shaking her head. “So what if the stuff is a little old? That doesn’t mean it will make your skin fall off!”

  “Don’t wimp out,” Manny said, grabbing the bottle and tilting the top toward my hand. “Go ahead. Pour it. We’ve all done it, Larry. Now it’s your turn.”

  “I think my skin is starting to tan,” Kristina said. She and Jared were admiring themselves in the mirror over the sink.

  “Go ahead, Larry,” Lily urged. “Those dates on the labels don’t mean anything.” She shoved my arm. “Put it on. What could happen?”

  I could see that they were all staring at me now. My face grew hot, and I knew that I was blushing.

  I didn’t want them to call me a wimp. I didn’t want to be the only one to chicken out. So I tilted the bottle down and poured the last sticky glob of the liquid into the palm of my hand.

  Then I splashed it onto my face and rubbed it all over. I covered my face, my neck, and the back of my hands. It felt cool and creamy. And it did have a sweet smell, a little like my dad’s aftershave.

  The others cheered when I finished rubbing the cream in. “Way to go, Larry!” Jared clapped me on the back so hard, I nearly dropped the empty INSTA-TAN bottle.

  We all pushed and shoved, struggling to get a good view of ourselves in the small medicine chest mirror. Manny gave Jared a hard shove and sent him sprawling into the shower.

  “How long is it supposed to take?” Kristina asked. The bright ceiling light reflected off her glasses as she studied herself in the mirror.