My Best Friend Is Invisible Page 7

“No! Be my friend!” Simon cried. “I need you for my science project!”

  Simon turned to Dad. “Can I have him, Dad? PLEASE! Can I have him for my science project? I really need him!”

  “That wouldn’t be fair,” Roxanne replied. “Sammy found him first!”

  “Everyone — quiet!” Mom ordered. “Brent — I’ve seen pictures of your species in a textbook. Hmm … let me see … what are you called?”

  “I’m called a human,” Brent answered shyly.

  “That’s right!” Mom snapped her fingers. “Now I remember. Human.”

  “Yuck,” Roxanne muttered, making a disgusted face.

  “I know I’m ugly,” Brent said sadly. “That’s why I didn’t want you to see me …” His voice trailed off.

  I stared at Brent in disbelief. A human. I’d never heard of one before.

  I tore my five eyes away from him and turned to Dad. “I know he’s ugly, Dad. But I think I’d like to keep him,” I said. “Can I? I’ll take good care of him. I promise!”

  “No. I don’t think so, Sammy.” Dad studied Brent for a moment. “I think we’d better take Brent to the zoo.”

  “Huh? The zoo?” I cried. “Why, Dad? Why does he have to live in a zoo?”

  “Well, he’ll get much better care there,” Dad answered. “After all, humans are an endangered species!”

  An invisible hand grabbed me and pulled me off the ladder.

  I landed on my back on the gym floor with an “Oooof!” My head made a loud THUD as it banged the floorboards.

  I raised myself slowly, blinking hard, trying to shake off the shock. Then I pulled myself up on my elbows and saw Ben Jackson laughing.

  Thalia Halpert-Rodis dropped her lipstick into her bag and came running over to me. “Tommy — are you okay?” she demanded.

  “Yeah. Fine,” I muttered. “I was just testing the floor. You know. Seeing how hard it is.”

  “It isn’t as hard as your head!” Ben joked. “You’re going to have to pay for breaking the gym floor!” He laughed again.

  “Ha-ha.” Thalia rolled her eyes, then made a disgusted face at him. She turned to me. “Don’t encourage him, Tommy. He’s about as funny as a dead pigeon.”

  “I think dead pigeons are funny!” Ben insisted.

  Thalia rolled her eyes again. Then she grabbed my hand and tugged me to my feet.

  I felt so embarrassed. I wanted to go hide under the bleachers.

  Why am I always such a total klutz?

  No invisible hand pulled me off the ladder. I just fell. That’s what I usually do if I find myself on a ladder. I fall off.

  Some people are climbers. I’m a faller.

  But I really didn’t want to look like a geek in front of Thalia and Ben. After all, I just met them. And I really wanted to impress them.

  That’s why I signed up for the Dance Decorations Committee. I wanted to meet kids. It’s hard to make new friends when you start a new school in sixth grade.

  Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.

  My name is Tommy Frazer and I’m twelve. Just before school started this fall, my dad got married again. And right after the wedding, we moved to Bell Valley.

  We had to move so fast, I barely had a chance to say good-bye to my friends. And before I could catch my breath, here I was — the new kid at Bell Valley Middle School.

  I didn’t know anyone here. I hardly even knew my new mom!

  Can you imagine what it’s like to suddenly have a new school, a new house, and a new mom?

  The first couple of days at Bell Valley Middle School were hard. Kids weren’t unfriendly. But they already knew who their friends were.

  I’m not shy. But it was really impossible to just go up to someone and say, “Hi. Want to be my friend?”

  I was pretty lonely the first week or so. Then last Monday morning, Mrs. Borden, the principal, came into our room. She asked if anyone wanted to volunteer for the Dance Decorations Committee. She needed kids to decorate the gym.

  My hand was the first to shoot up. I knew it would be a great way to make new friends.

  So here I was after school in the gym two days later. Making new friends by falling on my head like a geek.

  “Do you think you should see the nurse?” Thalia asked, studying me.

  “No. My eyes always roll around like this,” I replied weakly. At least I still had my sense of humor.

  “The nurse left, anyway,” Ben said, checking his watch. “It’s late. We’re probably the only ones in the building.”

  Thalia shook out her blond hair. “Let’s get back to work,” she suggested.

  She opened her bag and pulled out her lipstick. I watched her apply a thick coat of red to her lips, even though they were already red. Then she brushed some kind of orangey powder on her cheeks.

  Ben shook his head but didn’t say anything.

  Yesterday, I heard other kids teasing Thalia about her makeup and lipstick. They said she was the only girl in sixth grade who uses that stuff every day.

  They were pretty mean to her. One girl said, “Thalia thinks she’s painting a masterpiece.”

  Another girl said, “Thalia couldn’t go to gym class because she had to wait for her face to dry.”

  A boy said, “Her face must be broken. That’s why she’s always fixing it!”

  Everyone laughed really hard.

  Thalia didn’t seem to mind all the jokes and teasing. I guess she’s used to it.

  Before school this morning, I heard some kids saying that Thalia was stuck-up. That she thought she was soooo beautiful, and that’s why she was always paying so much attention to her looks.

  She didn’t seem stuck-up to me. She seemed really nice. She was pretty awesome-looking, too. I wondered why she thought she needed to wear makeup at all.

  Thalia and Ben look a lot alike. They could be brother and sister, but they’re not.

  They are both tall and thin. And they both have blue eyes and curly blond hair.

  I’m short and a little chubby. And I have black hair that sticks straight out like straw. It’s real tough hair. I can brush it for hours, but it still goes wherever it wants.

  My new mom says I’ll be really handsome as soon as I lose my baby fat. I don’t think that was a very good compliment.

  Anyway, Thalia, Ben, and I were painting some big banners to go up on the gym wall. Thalia and I were working together on a banner that read BELL VALLEY ROCKS!

  Ben started to paint a poster that read DANCE TILL YOU PUKE! But Mrs. Borden poked her head in and asked him to think of a better slogan.

  He groaned and grumbled and started over. Now his poster read WELCOME, EVERYONE!

  “Hey — where’s the red paint?” Thalia called to Ben.

  “Huh?” He was down on his hands and knees, using a thick brush to paint the W in WELCOME.

  Thalia and I were also down on the floor, painting the black outlines to our poster. She climbed to her feet and stared down at Ben. “Didn’t you bring any red paint down to the gym? I only see black.”

  “I thought you were bringing it,” he replied. He pointed to a stack of cans under the basketball hoop. “What are those?”

  “All black,” she told him. “I asked you to bring down some red — remember? I want to put red in the middle of the letters. Black and red are the school colors, you know.”

  “Duh,” Ben muttered. “Well, I’m not going upstairs for it, Thalia. The art room is on the third floor.”

  “I’ll go!” I volunteered, a bit too eagerly.

  They both stared at me.

  “I mean, I don’t mind,” I added. “I can use the exercise.”

  “You really did hit your head — didn’t you!” Ben joked.

  “Do you remember where the art room is?” Thalia asked.

  I set down my brush. “Yeah. I think so. You go up the stairs in back — right?”

  Thalia nodded. Her curly blond hair bounced whenever she moved her head. “Right. You go up three flights to the top
floor. Then you go straight down the hall to the back. Turn right. Then turn right again. And it’s at the back.”

  “No problem,” I said. I started jogging to the double gym doors.

  “Bring at least two cans!” she called after me. “And some clean brushes.”

  “And bring me a Coke!” Ben called. He laughed.

  What a joker.

  I started running at full speed to the exit. I’m not sure why I started to run. I guess I was trying to impress Thalia.

  I lowered my shoulder. And burst through the double doors.

  And barreled at full speed into a girl standing in the hall.

  “Hey!” She let out a startled cry as we both toppled to the floor.

  I landed on top of her with a groan.

  Her head made a loud CRACK as it hit the concrete floor.

  Stunned, we both lay there for a second. Then I rolled off her and scrambled to my feet.

  “Sorry,” I managed to choke out. I reached out to help her up.

  But she angrily shoved my hand away and climbed up without my help.

  As she stood, I saw that she was at least a foot taller than me. Tall and broad-shouldered and powerful looking, she reminded me of those women wrestlers on TV.

  She had white-blond hair, which had fallen over her face. She was dressed all in black. And she stared at me furiously with steel-gray eyes.

  Frightening eyes.

  “I’m really sorry,” I repeated, taking a step back as I stared up at her.

  She took a heavy step toward me. Then another. Those cold gray eyes froze me against the wall.

  She scowled. And moved closer.

  “Wh-what are you going to do?” I stammered.

  R.L. Stine’s books are read all over the world. So far, his books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children’s authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written the teen series Fear Street and the funny series Rotten School, as well as the Mostly Ghostly series, The Nightmare Room series, and the two-book thriller Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and Minnie, his King Charles spaniel. You can learn more about him at www.RLStine.com.

  Goosebumps book series created by Parachute Press, Inc.

  Copyright © 1997 by Scholastic Inc.

  Cover art by Tim Jacobus

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, GOOSEBUMPS, GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, 1997

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-82075-2

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