Read Online Night of the Living Dummy by R. L. Stine - Free Book Online Page B

Kris and Mr. Wood.
    Am I really doing this? Kris asked herself.
    Can I do this?
    Her heart was pounding so hard, she couldn’t hear Mrs. Berman’s introduction. Then, suddenly, the audience was applauding, and Kris found herself walking across the stage to the microphone, carrying Mr. Wood in both hands.
    Mrs. Berman, her flowery dress flowing around her, was heading offstage. She smiled at Kris and gave her an encouraging wink as they passed each other.
    Squinting against the bright spotlight, Kris walked to the middle of the stage. Her mouth felt as dry as cotton. She wondered if she could make a sound.
    A folding chair had been set up for her. She sat down, arranging Mr. Wood on her lap, then realized that the microphone was much too high.
    This drew titters of soft laughter from the audience.
    Embarrassed, Kris stood up and, holding Mr. Wood under one arm, struggled to lower the microphone.
    “Are you having trouble?” Mrs. Berman called from the side of the stage. She hurried over to help Kris.
    But before the music teacher got halfway across the stage, Mr. Wood leaned into the microphone. “What time does the blimp go up?” he rasped nastily, staring at Mrs. Berman’s dress.
    “What?” She stopped in surprise.
    “Your face reminds me of a wart I had removed!” Mr. Wood growled at the startled woman.
    Her mouth dropped open in horror. “Kris!”
    “If we count your chins, will it tell us your age?”
    There was laughter floating up from the audience. But it was mixed with gasps of horror.
    “Kris—that’s enough!” Mrs. Berman cried, the microphone picking up her angry protest.
    “You’re more than enough! You’re enough for two!” Mr. Wood declared nastily. “If you got any bigger, you’d need your own zip code!”
    “Kris—really! I’m going to ask you to apologize,” Mrs. Berman said, her face bright red.
    “Mrs. Berman, I—I’m not doing it!” Kris stammered. “I’m not saying these things!”
    “Please apologize. To me and to the audience,” Mrs. Berman demanded.
    Mr. Wood leaned into the microphone. “Apologize for THIS!” he screamed.
    The dummy’s head tilted back. His jaw dropped. His mouth opened wide.
    And a thick green liquid came spewing out.
    “Yuck!” someone screamed.
    It looked like pea soup. It spurted up out of Mr. Wood’s open mouth like water rushing from a fire hose.
    Voices screamed and cried out their surprise as the thick, green liquid showered over the people in the front rows.
    “Stop it!”
    “Help!”
    “Somebody—turn it off!”
    “It stinks!”
    Kris froze in horror, staring as more and more of the disgusting substance poured from her dummy’s gaping mouth.
    A putrid stench—the smell of sour milk, of rotten eggs, of burning rubber, of decayed meat—rose up from the liquid. It puddled over the stage and showered over the front seats.
    Blinded by the spotlight, Kris couldn’t see the audience in front of her. But she could hear the choking and the gagging, the frantic cries for help.
    “Clear the auditorium! Clear the auditorium!” Mrs. Berman was shouting.
    Kris heard the rumble and scrape of people shoving their way up the aisles and out the doors.
    “It stinks!”
    “I’m sick!”
    “Somebody—help!”
    Kris tried to clamp her hand over the dummy’s mouth. But the force of the putrid green liquid frothing and spewing out was too strong. It pushed her hand away.
    Suddenly she realized she was being shoved from behind. Off the stage. Away from the shouting people fleeing the auditorium. Out of the glaring spotlight.
    She was backstage before she realized that it was Mrs. Berman who was pushing her.
    “I—I don’t know how you did that. Or why!” Mrs. Berman shouted angrily, frantically wiping splotches of the disgusting green liquid off the front of her dress with both hands. “But I’m going to see that you’re suspended from school, Kris! And if I have my way,” she sputtered, “you’ll be suspended for life