06 Let's Get This Party Haunted! by R.L. Stine

Author:R.L. Stine [Stine, R.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

TENSE.

That's how I'd describe the start of my birthday party.

Kids from my class started arriving around four o'clock. I kept checking my watch and looking for Traci. No sign of her.

By four-thirty, Marci Gold, Ashley Fromm, and a lot of Traci's other friends had arrived. But there was no sign of Traci.

My dad went bowling with some of his buddies, so I didn't have to worry about him. And that morning, I'd begged my mom to stay out of sight.

I tried to explain to her that if you're twelve years old, it's just not cool to have your mom all over your party, acting like you're six.

She didn't seem to like that.

And she totally didn't listen.

She stood at the front door greeting everyone as if it was her party. She stopped every kid and said how grown-up they looked and how tall they'd gotten.

Yikes.

She kept fluttering around the living room and den, talking to my friends. It was so not cool.

And then she came over to me and said, “Maxie, dear, isn't the music too loud? Everyone has to shout.”

“Mom, it's a party!” I screamed.

A lot of kids heard me and laughed.

The cool kids all hung together in the hall and didn't mix with any of the other kids. I kept checking my watch every two minutes. Where was Traci?

The phone rang. I ran to answer it. It was my friend Aaron's mother. She said Aaron couldn't come to my party because he was grounded.

He had torn all the stuffing out of his little sis-ter's teddy bear and turned it into a hand puppet. I could hear his sister, Kaytlin, sobbing and sobbing in the background.

Aaron was always doing stuff like that. I'm sure he'd just wanted to give his sister a nice surprise. But it didn't work out.

Aaron and I were really good buddies. But I didn't see him much these days. We mostly IM'd each other —because he was grounded just about every day of his life.

“Well, that's bad news,” I told my mom.

“At least Quentin is here,” Mom said.

Quentin was upstairs in my room, practicing the magic tricks we were going to perform in a few minutes.

I checked my watch. Nearly five o'clock. Where was Traci?

“I have to leave for a few minutes,” Mom called from across the room. “I have to go to the bakery and pick up your cake.”

And then she shouted really loudly, “You won't play any kissing games while I'm gone, will you?”

Gulp.

I started to choke.

Everyone heard her. Everyone.

How embarrassing is that?

I wanted to hide. Marci and Ashley were laughing at me. And the other cool kids were all rolling their eyes and snickering and sneering.

Of course, things got worse.

As soon as Mom was out the door, Billy and Willy, the Wilbur brothers, started showing off, wrestling on the living room floor.

Kids started cheering and clapping. Until the Wilburs heaved into the coffee table and knocked over the tall glass lamp.

I let out a cry.

My mom's favorite lamp!

It smashed to the floor and shattered into a million pieces.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.