Read Online 50 - Calling All Creeps! by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) - Free Book Online Page A

them!” Brenda whispered. She made a stirring motion with her hand.
    “Huh?” I stopped a few feet from the door.
    “Stir the seeds in!” she whispered urgently. “You’ve got to hide them!”
    “Oh. Right.”
    I turned and crept back up to the big tray of macaroni and cheese. I picked
up a long wooden spoon and stirred the seeds into the macaroni. Then I turned to
sneak back out.
    I took three steps—when two strong hands grabbed my shoulders roughly from
behind. “What are you doing in here, young man?” a woman barked.

 
 
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    The hands spun me around. I stared up into the angry face of Mrs. Marshall.
“What are you doing in here?” she repeated.
    Mrs. Marshall is the nice cook. She’s our favorite. She always kids
around with everyone at lunchtime when she dishes out the food.
    But she wasn’t kidding around now. She knew I didn’t belong in the kitchen.
    Her black curls pressed against her hair net. She tilted her head, hands in
her white apron pocket, waiting for me to answer her question.
    I glanced to the door. Saw the four Creeps peeking in.
    “Mrs. Marshall,” I whispered. “Don’t serve the macaroni.”
    She squinted at me. “Huh? Speak up, young man.”
    “Don’t serve the macaroni,” I whispered, a little louder. I couldn’t say it
much louder. Wart and his three friends would hear me. “Please—don’t let anyone eat the
macaroni,” I begged.
    “What are you saying?” she demanded loudly. “Why are you whispering?”
    “Don’t serve the macaroni,” I repeated, still in a whisper. “It’s poisoned!”
    She uttered an angry groan. “Young man, our macaroni is delicious,” she
declared. “I’m so sick and tired of jokes about our food.”
    “She’s right!” Another cook, Mrs. Davis, chimed in from across the room. She
waved a long mixing spoon at me. “We make good, wholesome food here. It’s like
home-cooked. And we’re tired of all the horrible jokes.”
    “We have feelings, you know,” Mrs. Marshall added.
    “We use real cheese in the macaroni,” Mrs. Davis called, still waving her
spoon. “None of that artificial stuff. And real macaroni noodles.”
    “That’s right!” the third cook called. She was new. I didn’t know her name.
“Give him a taste, Alice. Give him a taste of the macaroni. He’ll see how good
it is.”
    Mrs. Marshall leaned over me. “Good idea. Would you like a little bowl of
macaroni?” She stepped over to the food counter.
    “Try it. You won’t make any more jokes,” Mrs. Davis said.
    Mrs. Marshall started to spoon out a little bowl of macaroni for me.
    I backed up toward the door. “No. Please. No thank you,” I sputtered.
    I reached the doorway. “I… I had a big breakfast,” I told them.
    I turned and ran out. And bumped into the four Creeps. They all cheered.
    “Commander… you have done it!” Wart cried happily. “You have planted the
seeds!”
    They cheered again, and clapped and slapped me on the back. All four of them
were grinning their heads off.
    “Now we just have to wait till this afternoon,” Brenda declared. “This school
will be crawling with Creeps!”

 
 
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    I didn’t go near the lunchroom at lunchtime. I hid in a stairwell instead. My
stomach was growling, but I didn’t care.
    I couldn’t bear to see all the kids gobbling down the macaroni. Swallowing
the little seeds that would turn them into squirrel-eating Creeps.
    A school full of purple lizard monsters, I thought miserably. And all my
fault… my fault.
    All afternoon, I didn’t hear a word my teacher said. Iris tried to talk to
me, but I pretended to be listening really hard to the teacher.
    I sat at my desk, studying the other kids. Watching for signs that they were
changing. Waiting for the seeds I had planted to do their evil.
    But I didn’t see anything odd. No bumpy purple skin. No long, flicking
tongues.
    The kids all appeared normal.
    After school, the four Creeps were waiting for me in the playground.