Slappy Beware! (Goosebumps Special Edition) Page 4

  It took Reggie a long time to fall asleep. He kept chuckling over his little joke.

  The next morning, he was awakened by the sweet aroma of pancakes floating up to his room. Reggie ran downstairs in his pajamas and into the kitchen.

  Mr. Foreman and Poppy were already at the kitchen table. Reggie’s mom stood at the stove, flipping the pancakes in a big skillet.

  “You’re not funny!” Poppy shouted as soon as Reggie stepped into the room. “Where did you put Mister Wood?”

  “Huh?” Reggie blinked his eyes several times and rubbed them, pretending to be still half asleep. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know!” Poppy said. “Just tell me where you put him.”

  “Reggie.” His mom turned from the stove. “Did you take Poppy’s dummy from her room last night?”

  Reggie blinked some more. “Who? Me? Of course not.”

  “Not a funny joke,” his dad said, half hidden behind his coffee mug. “It’s kind of a dumb prank, Reggie.”

  “Tell the truth,” Poppy said, scowling at him. “You sneaked into my room and stole Mister Wood.”

  Reggie slid into his chair. He took a long sip of orange juice. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re a jerk?” Poppy snapped.

  Mrs. Foreman carried a platter of pancakes to the table. “Come on. Can we just have a nice breakfast?”

  “Are we going to have dummy trouble the whole Christmas break?” their dad demanded. “I warned you two—”

  His mom slid two pancakes onto Reggie’s plate. Reggie inhaled their sweet smell, then reached for the syrup bottle. He grinned at Poppy. “You said your dummy was alive. Maybe he got up and walked away.”

  “I didn’t say he was alive,” Poppy shot back. “I just said—”

  Mr. Foreman cleared his throat loudly to stop the argument. “Reggie, after breakfast you will go upstairs with your sister and help her find her dummy, okay? And I don’t want any more arguing about this for the rest of the vacation.”

  Reggie shrugged. “Sure. No problem,” he said, chewing loudly. Syrup dripped down his chin, but he didn’t wipe it away.

  Poppy stared hard at him all through breakfast. When they were finished, they walked upstairs together. “How could you do that?” Poppy demanded.

  Reggie kept a straight face. “Do what?”

  “You must think I’m totally stupid. Did you really think I’d believe Mister Wood walked away on his own?”

  Reggie shrugged. “How do I know what you think?”

  “Just get him,” Poppy said.

  “He has to be up here somewhere,” Reggie said, pretending to search. He opened the linen closet. They both gazed up and down the shelves. “No. Not in here.”

  “Did you hide him somewhere in your room?” Poppy asked.

  Reggie shook his head. “No way.”

  They stopped at the guest room door. Poppy pushed it open. They both stepped inside. Poppy stared at the figure on the bed.

  “Hey, wait—!” Reggie cried. His breath caught in his throat. “What’s up with this?”

  Junior sat against the pillows, his arms crossed, his eyes wide.

  “What’s Junior doing in here?” Poppy asked him.

  “I … I don’t know,” Reggie stammered. He pushed Poppy out of the way and hurtled down the hall to his bedroom. As he burst into the room, his eyes stopped on the bookshelf.

  “Huh?” Reggie uttered a startled gasp. Mister Wood, a wide grin on his red wooden lips, sat on the shelf in the exact place where he always kept Junior.

  Poppy rushed forward and pulled Mister Wood off the shelf. “Why did you do that, Reggie?” she demanded. “Why did you put my dummy up there?”

  “I … I didn’t,” Reggie stammered. “I swear.”

  “I don’t get it,” Poppy said, shaking her head. “Did you think I wouldn’t find him?”

  “I’m telling you, I didn’t put him there!” Reggie shouted.

  He had a sudden thought. “It was you—wasn’t it? You put Junior in the guest room and moved your dummy to my bookshelf.”

  He was certain that Poppy had sneaked into his room while he was still asleep this morning and made the switch. If he had looked at his bookshelf before he went down for breakfast, he was sure he would have seen it.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Poppy shot back. “Why would I do that?”

  Mr. Foreman appeared behind them. “Is there a problem here?”

  “No,” they both replied at once. “But Reggie moved my dummy,” Poppy said.

  “Poppy moved the dummies,” Reggie said.

  Their dad held his hands against his ears. “I don’t want to hear about it. No dummy trouble. Do you understand?”

  They both nodded. Poppy carried Mister Wood to her room. She planned to practice new jokes with him.

  “What are you doing this morning?” Reggie’s dad asked him.

  “Going over to Diego’s to check out his presents.”

  “Well, don’t forget your cousin Jake’s party this afternoon, Reggie. Tell you what—why don’t you meet us there?”

  “No problem,” Reggie said. In his room, he tucked Junior back on the bookshelf. He crossed to the bathroom and brushed his teeth.

  Poppy got me this time, he thought, shaking his head. I tried to trick her. But the joke was on me.

  He changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and headed to Diego’s house down the block.

  The day after Christmas, it was seventy-five degrees and not a cloud in the clear blue sky. Reggie wondered if he’d ever get used to Christmastime in Florida.

  At Diego’s house, he found his friend in his room. Diego wore a new Minecraft T-shirt his parents had given him for Christmas. He was on the floor with his laptop, watching puppy-training videos on YouTube.

  “Check this one out,” he said as Reggie stepped into the room. “ ‘How to Get Your Dog to Stop Chewing Things.’ ”

  Reggie laughed. “I don’t get it. Did you get a dog for Christmas?”

  Diego shook his head. “Nope. My parents are allergic to dogs.”

  Reggie sat down beside him on the floor. “Then why are you watching training videos?”

  “I don’t know,” Diego said. “I just like them. They’re kind of cool.”

  That was one of the things Reggie liked about Diego. He was into a lot of things, and he couldn’t really explain why.

  The little dog on Diego’s laptop monitor was chewing on a leg of a coffee table. “Think you might want to be a dog trainer someday?” Reggie asked.

  “No. I want to be a video game tester,” Diego replied. “You know, they pay people a lot of money for that.”

  “Awesome,” Reggie said.

  Diego paused the video. “Hey, how’d it go last night with your sister’s Mister Wood dummy? Did you move it? Did she freak out when she saw it was missing?”

  Reggie sighed. “It didn’t go well. It didn’t go well at all.”

  “Did you move her dummy?”

  Reggie nodded. “Yeah. But Poppy pulled a double twist on me. I’m not sure when she did it … Maybe when I was asleep. But she switched the two dummies. She put them in different rooms. Then she blamed me for moving them.”

  Diego laughed. “Your sister is pretty awesome.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Reggie said. “She’s annoying.”

  “I think you should keep trying,” Diego said.

  “Keep trying what?”

  “To make Poppy think the dummy is alive,” Diego replied. He reached for a bag of potato chips beside him on the floor and offered some to Reggie.

  “You mean move him again?”

  Diego nodded. “Yeah. Move him every night. And swear that you didn’t do it.”

  “That’s boring,” Reggie said. He reached for another handful of chips. “And she’ll never believe it wasn’t me.”

  Diego thought for a long moment. “I’ve got it. When she goes out, mess up her room. Take all her clothes out of the dresser drawers an
d throw them on the floor. Then sit the Mister Wood dummy down on top of the pile.”

  Reggie rolled his eyes. “How will that work? She’ll just say that I did it, and I’ll get in major trouble.”

  “No. It could work,” Diego said. Reggie could see that his friend was thinking hard, excited about the plan.

  Diego grabbed his shoulder. “Listen to me. You sneak home. Don’t let anyone see you. Mess up Poppy’s room and then hurry back here. Then you can say you were here at my house the whole time. And you couldn’t have made the mess.”

  “I won’t have to sneak,” Reggie said. “They won’t be home. I’m meeting them at my cousin Jake’s house.”

  “Perfect,” Diego said. “You’ll see. You’ll get Poppy this time.”

  Reggie bumped fists with Diego. “You really are some kind of evil genius.”

  Diego chuckled. “For sure.”

  Reggie hurried home a little after two. He knew that his mom and dad and Poppy were already at Jake’s house. The coast would be clear. Time for a little dummy mischief.

  He stepped into the house through the back door and hurried to the stairs.

  “Hey—you’re home!” a voice called.

  Reggie practically jumped out of his skin.

  Mrs. Foreman stepped into the hallway. “I was just about to call you,” she said.

  “Oh. Uh. Really?” Reggie stammered. “I thought I was going to meet you—”

  His mom strode across the front entryway to him. “We’re running late. Now we can all go together.” She shook her head. “Can you believe it’s Jake’s fourteenth birthday?”

  Jake’s birthday was the day after Christmas. Could there be a worse time to have a birthday? Jake always got combination birthday-Christmas presents, half the presents a kid should get!

  “As long as you’re here, go upstairs and change your shirt,” she told him. “We have to dress up for Jake’s party. Why don’t you wear that nice button-down shirt I bought you for Christmas? You know. The blue one.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Reggie replied. His heart was still pounding from the surprise of finding his family at home. He stopped halfway up the stairs. “I don’t know where it is.”

  “I’ll come up and show you and help you take the pins out,” Mrs. Foreman said. She followed him up the stairs.

  They made their way to Reggie’s room and pushed open the door. Reggie clicked on the ceiling light.

  “Oh no!” his mother cried. “What happened in here?”

  Reggie pushed past her and stumbled over to his bed. It took him a while to believe what he was seeing.

  Poppy’s Mister Wood dummy sat up straight in the middle of Reggie’s bed. The dummy held a pair of scissors in front of him in one wooden hand. And draped over the dummy’s lap was Reggie’s new blue shirt.

  Cut into ribbons.

  Reggie froze at the side of the bed and stared. Am I dreaming this? he wondered.

  The shirt had been snipped into long strips. One blue strip was caught in the scissors. The dummy grinned at Reggie, his eyes wide, as if he was proud of what he had done.

  Reggie’s mom stepped up behind him. She grabbed the ruined shirt off the bed and shook it in the air. “No … no … no …” she repeated. “This isn’t right. How could she?”

  Holding the shirt in front of her, she turned back to the door and shouted: “Poppy! Are you in your room? Poppy? Get in here! This minute!”

  Reggie heard footsteps in the hall. A few seconds later, his sister appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Hey—what’s up?” Poppy said.

  Then she saw the cut-up strips in her mother’s hands.

  Poppy’s eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open. “Oh no,” she murmured. “What’s that?”

  Mrs. Foreman shook the shirt. “It’s your brother’s Christmas shirt,” she said through gritted teeth. “How could you do this, Poppy? How could you?”

  Poppy took a step back into the hall. “Huh? Me?” she cried.

  “Why?” her mother demanded angrily. “Tell me. Why? What on earth possessed you to destroy a brand-new shirt?”

  “I … I didn’t!” Poppy cried. “You don’t really think I did that—do you?”

  “I sure don’t think the dummy did it!” Mrs. Foreman cried.

  “But I never—” Poppy started.

  Reggie took the shirt from his mother and held it up. “I don’t get it, Poppy,” he said. “Why are you trying to make us believe your dummy is alive? I don’t get the joke. Why are you doing this?”

  “I … I didn’t do it!” Poppy stammered. “I would never do something like that.” She stared at the ripped-up shirt. Her expression changed. “Oh, I get it,” she said, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “You did it—didn’t you, Reggie? You cut up your own shirt to get me in trouble!”

  “That’s not true!” Reggie screamed. “I was at Diego’s house. I wasn’t even here. How can you think—”

  “You didn’t want me to have a dummy of my own,” Poppy cried. “You always have to be the star—don’t you? So you did this to your shirt to get me in trouble so Mom and Dad would take Mister Wood away from me!”

  “No way!” Reggie shouted. “No way! No way!”

  Mrs. Foreman stepped between them. “Enough!” she said. “I mean it, you two. That’s enough.”

  “You can’t blame me—” Poppy started.

  Her mother raised a finger to her lips. “Silence. Poppy, your brother was at Diego’s house all morning. You were the only one home. So I have no choice but to think you were the one who destroyed his shirt.”

  “But—but—but—” Poppy sputtered.

  “You will have to pay for it from your allowance,” Mrs. Foreman said. “Cutting up a shirt is twisted. This dummy war has to stop right now. Do you understand?”

  Poppy lowered her eyes but didn’t reply.

  “Now, get changed. Both of you,” their mother said. “Hurry. We’re going to be late to your cousin Jake’s party.”

  Poppy muttered something under her breath. She slumped out the door. Her mother followed, shaking her head. Reggie went to his closet to find a clean shirt.

  None of them saw the Mister Wood dummy sit up in the bed and wink.

  * * *

  Well, readers, how long will it take Reggie and Poppy to figure out what is really going on here?

  I don’t want to give it away.

  But let me just tell you—things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

  Reggie liked his cousin Jake. But his birthday party wasn’t much fun. For one thing, there weren’t any other kids there. Just some aunts and uncles and their friends. And since it was the day after Christmas, they all seemed pretty tired and not in a partying mood.

  Reggie was happy to get home, head to his room to change into his pajamas, and go to bed. He found the cut-up blue shirt on his bed, a reminder of the unpleasant afternoon. How could Poppy go so far overboard?

  He balled it up and stuffed it into the wastebasket beside his desk. Junior, his dummy, grinned at him from his place on the bookshelf against the wall.

  Reggie yawned. He thought about texting Diego and telling him about Mister Wood with the scissors in his hand, the new Christmas shirt cut into pieces, and Poppy pretending she didn’t cut it.

  But it was late, and he felt sleepy. The story could wait until tomorrow.

  The bedroom window was open. A warm breeze made the curtains rustle. Reggie settled into the darkness and was just drifting off to sleep when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Huh?” He blinked himself alert and sat up with a startled cry. He squinted up at Poppy, who leaned over him.

  “Reggie, are you asleep?” she whispered.

  “Not anymore,” he murmured. He turned and lowered his feet to the floor. “What do you want, Poppy? What are you doing in here?”

  “I … I’m scared,” she stammered.

  He frowned at her. “Scared? Scared of what?”

  “Listen to me.” She grabbed hi
s shoulder again. “Stop being angry and listen, okay?”

  He nodded. Even in the dim light, he could see the fear on her face.

  She dropped beside him on the edge of the bed. The curtains blew into the room, and the warm, damp breeze washed over them.

  “Can we talk for real?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper. “I mean, can we be honest with each other?”

  “Sure,” Reggie said. His eyes locked on hers. What was troubling her?

  “You know I didn’t cut up your shirt,” she said. “You know I would never do anything like that. Right?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Well, I didn’t do it,” Poppy continued. “And I know you didn’t do it, either. I just said that to Mom before because … because I didn’t know what to say.”

  Reggie groaned. “So you’re going to tell me that Mister Wood did it? You woke me up with that same story?”

  “Just listen to me,” Poppy insisted. “I know you think I’m making it up. But I’m scared, Reggie. If you and I didn’t cut up that shirt … who did?”

  “Poppy, give me a break.”

  “And on Christmas at Aunt Halley’s? I really didn’t say those horrible things,” Poppy whispered. “I really thought you did it. That’s not even my sense of humor.”

  She tugged on his pajama sleeve. “Come on. Try to believe me. I really am scared. I don’t know if he’s alive or not, but—”

  “That only happens in movies,” Reggie said, pushing her hand away. “Let’s get real here.”

  “I … I closed Mister Wood up in my closet,” Poppy stammered.

  Reggie squinted at her. “You what?”

  “I stuffed him in there and shut the door. I didn’t know what else to do. I really am frightened of him. I think he’s watching me. And that sick grin on his face …”

  “Is this another trick you’re playing?” Reggie demanded.

  Poppy raised her right hand. “I swear.”

  Poppy really does look upset, Reggie thought.

  “Okay. Don’t be scared. Let me come and take a good look at him,” Reggie said. “I’m sure you’ve just worked yourself up for no reason.”