26 My Hairiest Adventure by R.L. Stine

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

15

“How come you kept your jeans on in gym?” Jared asked.

“Huh?” His question caught me by surprise. It was the next day, and we were walking along the slushy sidewalks, lugging our instruments to Lily’s house for another band practice.

“You refused to change into gym shorts, remember?” Jared said, swinging his keyboard case at his side.

“I… was just cold,” I told him. “My legs got cold. That’s all. I don’t know why Coach Rafferty gave me such a hard time.”

Jared laughed. “Rafferty nearly swallowed his whistle when you sank that three-point jump shot from midcourt!”

I laughed, too. I am the worst shot in school. But I was so crazed about my hairy knees, so totally pumped, that I played better than I’d ever played in my life.

“Maybe you should wear jeans all the time!” Coach Rafferty had joked.

But, of course, it was no joke.

I ran all the way home after school and spent nearly half an hour locked in the upstairs bathroom, shaving the clumps of black hair off my knees.

When I finally finished, both knees were red and sore. But at least they were smooth again.

I spent the rest of the afternoon closed up in my room, thinking hard about what was happening to me. Unfortunately, all I came up with were questions. Dozens of questions.

But no answers.

Sprawled on my stomach on top of the bed, my knees throbbed as I thought. Why did my knees grow hair? I asked myself. I didn’t spread any INSTA-TAN on my knees. So why did the ugly black hair sprout there?

Had the INSTA-TAN worked itself into my system? Had the strange liquid seeped into my pores? Had it spread through my entire body?

Was I going to turn into some kind of big, hairy creature? Was I soon going to look like King Kong or something?

Questions—but no answers.

The questions still troubled me as I crossed the street with Jared, and Lily’s white-frame house came into view on the corner.

The sun beamed down above the two bare maple trees that leaned over Lily’s driveway. The air felt warm, almost like spring. The snow had melted a lot in one day. Patches of wet grass poked up through the white.

In the yard across the street from Lily’s house, a half-melted snowman looked sad and droopy. My hightops splashed through the slushy puddles as Jared and I carried our instruments up the driveway.

Lily opened the door for us. She and Kristina had already been practicing. Lily was wearing a bright red-and-blue ski sweater pulled down over pale blue leggings. Kristina wore faded jeans and a green-and-gold Notre Dame sweatshirt.

“Where’s Manny?” Lily asked, closing the front door behind Jared and me.

“Haven’t seen him,” I replied, scraping my wet sneakers on the floor mat. “Isn’t he here?”

“He wasn’t in school again today,” Kristina reported.

“We’ve got to get serious,” Lily said, biting her lower lip. “Did you talk to Howie today? Did he tell you what his dad bought him?”

“A new synthesizer?” I replied, bending to open my guitar case.

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.