The Knight in Screaming Armor Read online

  You reach under your sweatshirt and pull out the three-faced clock. “The orange clock face,” you mutter to yourself. “This must be the time to use it.” You touch it with your finger. It’s the last thing you do.

  The green clock face moved time backward. The pink one moved it forward. The orange one stops it, cold.

  You always wondered how it would end. And now you know. Just like this, forever and ever. Looks like time’s run out for you!

  THE END

  You jump back and grab your cheek where claws scraped you. You feel a large welt. You turn away from Abbey and grope along the wall until you find the light switch. CLICK. One bare bulb hanging from the ceiling floods the garage with a dim light. Suddenly, everything gets quiet.

  Now you see it. The monster blocking your escape route is a lawn mower.

  The sharp-nailed fingers that raked across your cheek are exactly what they felt like — a garden rake.

  And the snake coiled so tightly around Abbey’s legs is a hose.

  “I knew it all along,” Abbey says as she throws the hose aside. “This whole thing is ridiculous!”

  But it isn’t over yet. “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” Whatever’s in the EVIL KNIGHT crate demands your attention. The crate lurches forward, knocking Abbey to the ground.

  Help Abbey on PAGE 131.

  The Evil Knight’s head is a steaming hunk of black metal. A sparkling medallion hangs around his neck. Something about his medallion holds your gaze. You can’t stop looking at it! With you standing there helpless before him, the Evil Knight raises his heavy sword and … and …

  He brings it down and slashes open the back of the crate behind him. The wood shatters like ice.

  “IN THE LAND OF SAXTONS YOU SHALL BE DESTROYED!” His voice booms over you. You shiver. He glances back at you and then disappears through the new opening.

  You’re not sure how long you stand there in shock. The next thing you know, Abbey and Kip are standing next to you.

  “D-d-d-did you see th-th-that?” you stammer.

  “Yeah, no big deal.” Abbey tries to sound cool.

  “Look!” Kip exclaims. “This hole in the back of the crate — there are hills in it!”

  “Yeah, right! What’s that mean?” Abbey huffs.

  But he’s right. You peer through the hole. You see emerald-green hills and a pale blue sky. You feel wind against your face. You feel yourself drawn to the scene. Like you were to the medallion.

  “We’d better go through,” you say without taking your eyes off the scene before you. “If not, we’ll never break this curse thing.” You push aside the splinters and step through….

  Step out of the crate on PAGE 119.

  A pair of mud-slimed arms push out of the wall. They wrap around you, holding you in place. Mudballs fly at you faster and harder.

  SPLAT! Your head is covered.

  WHACK! Your arms are covered.

  TCHOOOWOK! KAAACHINK! SWAAAK! The thick sludge mud covers all of you. Your mud-encased body stiffens as the ooze hardens.

  Welcome to the dirty world of the Evil Knight and his army of Mud Slingers. They always fight dirty and they always, always win in

  THE END

  “Who are you?” you ask in a cracking voice.

  “I am the Keeper of All Times — I decide whose time has come and whose time is passed,” the prune-faced woman cries. “You are taking too much of my time. Now I must take away all your time. Wither! Dust to Dust! Be Gone!”

  Even as she points her spell-casting finger at you, the skin on your arms turns papery thin with instant age. It hangs from your arms like sheets of wet tissue. You’re afraid it will tear! You must stop this curse of aging before you all end up as a pile of dust on the floor.

  “Help us?” you cry in your crackly voice.

  “Ha!” cackles the old woman. “Help you? After what you have done to me? Wither! Fade! Be Gone!”

  “The clock!” Kip whispers. “Use the clock!”

  While there’s still TIME, turn to PAGE 107.

  “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Another shriek fills the night. Kip and Abbey are as wide-awake as you are. The piercing screams draw the three of you together at your bedside. You grab each of your cousins by the hand.

  “We have to go out to the garage and investigate,” you declare. “We have to find out what’s out there.”

  Another scream pierces the air. Abbey forgets how much cooler than you she is for a moment and clutches one of your arms. Kip grabs your other one. You grab a flashlight from your desk and make your way out into the night. You pull your cousins along behind you. Eventually, you come to the garage door. You pause a moment and listen to the screams.

  “Well, here goes,” you say. You reach down, grab the handle, and lift it open.

  Quick, turn to PAGE 113.

  You wake up. The last thing you remember is finding the piece of parchment that said, “Before the break of day brings light, one Good shall fight one Evil Knight….”

  You rub your eyes to clear the sleep out of them. You see Kip and Abbey. But you’re not in the garage anymore.

  A bare bulb hangs from a wire in the ceiling. It casts a sickly yellow-brown tint over the enormous cavern of a room. The walls and ceiling are the color of mud.

  “At least we’re still together,” you say.

  “But where are we?” Abbey asks. “Hello! Is anybody there?”

  No one answers.

  The air is musty and stale. It reminds you of something. In fact, it’s just like the air in the old museum you went to on a school field trip last month. Then you see the muddy sign on one wall: THE MEDIEVAL MUSEUM.

  “Hey!” you shout excitedly. “We’re downtown. This is the museum where your dad is supposed to speak next week!”

  “Museum?” Abbey shoots back at you. “There’s nothing here at —” Her mouth is open when a great splat of mud hits her right in the face! THWACK!

  Follow this dirty business to PAGE 12.

  “WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM!” The Evil Knight roars as Kip and Abbey step into the darkness.

  “Go back!” you shout to your cousins. “I found the last piece of the puzzle. It said, ‘When Evil fights and Good defends, the curse of Screaming Armor ends.’ But it’s no use. There’s too much evil in this place. Go back!”

  “We can’t go back!” Kip shouts. “The door closed behind us.”

  “We can’t win!” you yell. “Without Sir Edmund’s armor we don’t have a chance!”

  “We have to earn the armor!” Kip cries. “We have to show that we are brave enough to wear the armor of a knight. That’s the way the curse is written!”

  You know Kip is right. Only the bravest become knights. And you don’t know about Kip and Abbey, but you aren’t feeling too brave at the moment.

  Turn to PAGE 114.

  You want to help Abbey. She’s clutching her knee in agony. But before you can comfort Abbey, you’ve got a new problem of your own.

  Another Mud Slinger slides out of the wall and stomps toward you. The broad, blubber-lipped creature is so close you can smell his oozy stench. You cough and sputter.

  Disgusting streams of muddy liquid ooze from his yellow eyes and flaring nostrils. Right behind him is another Mud Slinger. And another. And another!

  If you feel hopelessly walled-in by the mound of menacing Mud Slingers, turn to PAGE 55.

  If you pull yourself out of this mud mess, turn to PAGE 86.

  There’s no way you’re waiting around to see what’s got those hedgehogs spooked. There’s no telling when the Evil Knight might show up again. Back into the hedges it is.

  “Anything’s better than facing that horrible hunk of screaming armored junk!” you say. But the hedges have already grown over the hole you broke through.

  You try pulling the thick bushes apart. Your fingers are scraped and swollen. “It’s no use trying to pull the hedge apart, we’ll have to try smashing through again.”

  You link arms and turn your backs to the high he
dges. “On the count of three we go!” you say. “One, two, three!” All together you crash back through the hedge.

  You land with a THUD. The ground is awfully hard. You look around and discover the strangest thing yet.

  Turn to PAGE 112.

  The electrical charge fuses you, Kip, and Abbey together. You can’t pull yourselves apart.

  With the room now the size of a walk-in closet and getting smaller by the second, you can barely move. Each movement causes a shower of new sparks to rain down over your heads. You can’t even stretch your arms up enough to shelter yourselves from the biting, burning sparks.

  All you can do is wait. You hope the sparks and the deadly charge surging through you will stop before it’s too late.

  Turn to PAGE 91.

  Time is on your side. Without even thinking, you turn back the hands on the silvery-green clock face. You’re careful not to move them too much.

  Time goes in reverse. But only a few minutes. You watch in fascination as the last few minutes are rewound. Heads pop on and off until you’re all back to normal and you’re back where you started again. Your heads are spinning. Your ears are ringing. And your noses are pressed up against a wall of glass.

  You see two buttons. One says HEADS and the other says TALES. You reach into your pocket and take out a coin.

  Flip a coin to help you decide which button to push. If you push HEADS, turn to PAGE 103.

  If you push TALES, turn to Page 26.

  You push the button that says TALES.

  Immediately the three of you are back in your house about to hear one of the greatest tales ever told.

  Go to PAGE 4.

  Hedges are exploding out of the ground fully grown. They’re spreading toward you with amazing speed. You’re no match for them. They burst past you, blocking your path. You try to stop short. But not fast enough to avoid a faceful of prickles. Kip and Abbey, too.

  You start to run the other way. But you don’t get far before you come up against another wall of hedge!

  It doesn’t seem to matter which way you turn. Any open path is instantly blocked by a solid wall of high bramble bushes.

  Prickers grab at you as you run past! You shake them off and keep on running. You have to get out of here! The walls around you grow higher and higher, cutting the sky into lines of blue.

  The three of you race in every direction. But it’s no use. You stop for a second to catch your breath.

  The ground beneath you starts to rumble and shake. “Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!” you scream. You can imagine the hedge about to explode through the ground and up through your body! You brace yourself.

  But then it stops. It’s quiet again. Except for Kip.

  “We’re trapped!” he bellows. “What do we do now?”

  Try to escape on PAGE 78.

  “Where are you going?” Kip asks as you carefully step off your rocking rock and onto his.

  “Look up there,” you say. You point to the gleaming object. “I have a feeling whatever is up there is something we need. I don’t know why, but I have to find out what it is. I’m going up to get it.”

  “I’ll come with you!” Kip volunteers.

  “Stop right there,” Abbey orders. “Don’t take another step. You’re not leaving me alone!”

  “Oh yeah. Abbey’s afraid of heights,” Kip mumbles.

  “I’ll go by myself,” you declare. “You two stay together here.” Balancing on all fours, you move up onto the next rock.

  You feel as if you’re climbing on eggshells. One false move and the rock you’re on could crumble away. You would tumble all the way to the bottom. You test each rock before you move to it. It’s amazing how many of them have jagged edges! Higher and higher you climb.

  Then you see it.

  A hand! Sticking up out of the rocks!

  Look closer on PAGE 133.

  You throw the mud beast to the ground with all your might. SSSKWIIISHSH-BOOOOOOM! There’s an explosion of oozy mud. Mud fills the air. You’re thrown to the floor. Everything goes dark.

  When you open your eyes, you see the bare bulb hanging down from the ceiling above you. But it’s not the bare bulb in the Medieval Museum. It’s the one right in your own garage!

  “Hahahahahaha …” You hear laughter. Your heart skips a beat. Is it the Evil Knight?

  You sit up. It’s only Kip and Abbey. They’re sitting next to you, laughing and pointing at you. The two crates stand silent and still. There’s nothing strange going on here at all. Except for the fact that you, Kip, and Abbey are all safe. There’s no trace of mud anywhere. Were the Mud Slingers and the Evil Knight all in your imagination?

  “Did you see anything weird a moment ago?” you ask your cousins.

  “Not me,” Kip says innocently.

  “Not I,” Abbey corrects him.

  “I either, I guess,” you say.

  “Me either,” Abbey corrects you. “Don’t you know anything?”

  One thing you aren’t imagining. Abbey hasn’t changed a bit. She always has to have the last word in

  THE END.

  Your mother always told you to “use your head.” Now’s your chance! Quick, before Kip loses his!

  It seems that all you have to do to switch your head in this crazy room is stare into the eyes of another. Without a moment to lose, you move in front of Queen Abbey. You look directly into her eyes and …

  “Guards!” you shout a second later. “Return to your headstands at once!” Now you are the Queen with the diamond tiara and the guards must obey you!

  The rolling heads of the guards reverse their rolling direction immediately. Keeping their formation, they roll back to their headstands and plant themselves on the shelf. Kip is safe!

  All is well. Except for one little problem — Abbey has your head on, you look like a Queen, and Kip is a hideous, snarling gargoyle. Any idea how to fix this mess? Maybe, if you put your heads together, you might come up with something.

  Turn a-head to PAGE 8.

  “He’s calling your name!” Abbey warns. “He’s after you!”

  “ABBEY!” calls the deep and dangerous-sounding voice of the Evil Knight. “KIP!” the voice booms again from somewhere in the next room. He calls your name again.

  “COME FORWARD!” the Evil Knight commands. Suddenly, you feel a tremendous sense of curiosity. What could this Evil Knight possibly have in mind for you? You feel your feet take a step forward.

  “Don’t do it. Don’t go through that door!” Abbey begs you.

  “COME FORWARD!” the Evil Knight orders again.

  If you can’t resist his command, turn to PAGE 128.

  If you take Abbey’s advice, turn to PAGE 58.

  “Let’s go to the left,” Abbey says, pulling thorns out of her arms. “There’s a cottage down the hill. Maybe we can get help there.”

  “Hello? Am I the only one who thinks there’s something weird going on here?” you ask. Abbey and Kip can’t hear you. They’re already walking across the windy meadow toward the cottage.

  “Pixies!” you mumble to yourself. You take off after Kip and Abbey.

  You don’t get far when you hear a deafening rumble. It sounds like an earthquake! You see bits of turf flying in the air! You turn and look behind you to see …

  HEDGES! Killer hedges. They’re growing at an incredible rate. Actually, they’re not so much growing as bursting through the earth in jagged lines. Walls of branches and leaves. And it looks as if, yes, they are … heading right for you!

  It’s time to start sprinting again. And there’s no use screaming about it, either. Now’s the time to MOVE!

  Move over to PAGE 27.

  “We’ll open the Good Knight crate,” you decide. You don’t want to take any chances. But as soon as you say this, an ear-splitting scream fills the garage. The Evil Knight crate starts rattling again. The armor inside clanks and rumbles and roars.

  You cling to Kip. Or is it Abbey? It’s hard to tell in the darkness.

  The tall Evil
Knight crate rocks closer to you. It tips backward and forward. Backward and forward. If it falls on you, you’ll be crushed! You try to pull your cousins out of the way. “Let’s bail!” you yell. But you only get a few steps toward the garage door when something blocks your escape route.

  “A horrible beast!” Kip cries.

  “Aaaahhhh!” Abbey screams as she’s jerked away from your side. You accidentally drop your flashlight and it hits the concrete floor with a smack. “There’s something wrapped around my leg!” Abbey wails.

  “Abbey!” you shout across to her. You start to move to her side, but you feel sharp claws scrape across your cheek.

  Hurry! Go to PAGE 15!

  Yes! Now you get it. It’s starting to make sense. You know you have to act NOW or you’ll either be fried or crushed by the walls. The electrical charge flowing through you is so strong you’re lit up like a lightbulb. Or like an X-ray.

  You stare down at your hands. You can see your bones! You dare to glance at Kip and Abbey. You scream in horror when you see them. They are electrified skeletons!

  With sparks zapping and zzztttzing every second, you pull the other piece of parchment back out of your pocket. These are the clues, you think. There has to be a way to escape!

  Before the break of day brings light,

  One Good shall fight one Evil Knight.

  Beware his deadly charge and feel

  That what is NOW is not what’s real …

  That what is NOW is not what’s real. You think harder. That what is NOW is NOT WHAT’S REAL, the words scream in your head. You force yourself to know that what is happening NOW is not real!