Read Online Beware, the Snowman by R. L. Stine - Free Book Online Page A

truth.
    “He’s a monster!” Aunt Greta cried.
    The snowman stood still and silent, watching me furiously shuffle through the
pages.
    Where was that rhyme? Where?
    I glanced up. “Aunt Greta—?”
    She bent down and picked up a torn page from the snow. As her eyes moved over
the page, a smile spread over her face.
    The wind blew her coat behind her. Her eyes were wild. The page fluttered in
her hand.
    “Jaclyn, I can’t let you read the rhyme,” she said.
    “You—you have it in your hand?” I cried.
    “I can’t let you read it,” Aunt Greta repeated.
    And tossed the page over the ledge.

 
 
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    I let out a shriek.
    I watched the page float out over the ledge. I watched it fly up, then start
to drop.
    It’s lost, I realized.
    The second verse is lost forever.
    The swirling wind will carry it down the mountain, down the steep drop. It
will never be seen again.
    And then, I cried out again—as the wind carried the page up. Up. Back up.
    And into my hand!
    I grabbed it out of the air.
    I stared at it in amazement.
    And before Aunt Greta could grab it back, I raised the page to my face and
started to read the second verse of the rhyme out loud:
     
    “When the snows melt
    And the warm sun is with thee,
    Beware, the snowman—”
     
    “Noooooo!” Aunt Greta wailed. She dove toward me. With a desperate swipe, she
pulled the page from my hand.
    And ripped it to shreds.
    The snowman uttered a horrified groan. He bent. Reached out to grab Aunt
Greta.
    Too late.
    The jagged strips of paper fluttered to the snow.
    “Aunt Greta—why?” I choked out.
    “I couldn’t let you do it,” she replied. “He’s a monster, Jaclyn. He’s not
your father. I couldn’t let you free him.”
    “She’s lying,” the snowman insisted. “She does not want you to know me,
Jaclyn. She doesn’t want you to know your own father. She wants to leave me
trapped in this frozen cave forever.”
    I turned back to my aunt. Her face had grown stern and hard. She stared back
at me coldly.
    I took a deep breath. “Aunt Greta, I have to know the truth,” I told her.
    “I’ve told you the truth,” she insisted.
    “I have to know for myself,” I replied. “I—I saw the last line of the poem.
Before you grabbed it and tore it up. I know the whole poem, Aunt Greta.”
    “Don’t—” my aunt pleaded, reaching out to me.
    But I backed up against the icy cave wall, and I recited the rhyme from
memory:
     
    “When the snows melt
    And the warm sun is with thee,
    Beware, the snowman—
    For the snowman shall go free!”
     
    “No, Jaclyn! No! No! No!” Aunt Greta wailed. She pressed her hands to the
sides of her face and repeated her cry. “No! No! No!”
    I turned to the snowman and saw him begin to melt.
    The white snow oozed down his face and body like melting ice cream.
    The black eyes dropped to the snow. The face melted, melted onto the body.
The snow poured off the round body. The tree branch arms thudded heavily to the
ground.
    Slowly his real face came into view.
    Slowly his body emerged from under the snow.
    I stared as the snow dripped away.
    And then I opened my mouth in a shrill scream of horror.

 
 
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    A monster!
    An ugly, snarling, red-skinned monster stomped out from under the oozing
snow.
    Aunt Greta had told the truth. A monster was trapped inside the snowman. Not
my father.
    Not my father.
    A monster… such a hideous monster!
    Its head and body were covered with crusty red scales. Its yellow eyes rolled
wildly in its bull-shaped head. A purple tongue flapped from its jagged-toothed
mouth.
    “No! No! No! No!” Aunt Greta chanted, still pressing both hands against her
face. Tears ran down her cheeks and over her hands.
    “What have I done?” I wailed.
    The monster tossed back its head in a throaty laugh. He picked the poetry
book off the snow in his scaly, three-fingered hands. And he heaved it over the
side of the mountain.
    “You’re next!” he roared at