The Birthday Party of No Return! by R.L. Stine

Author:R.L. Stine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2012-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

At home, I hurried upstairs to my room. My foot felt better now. Or maybe I was getting used to the pain. But each step on the broken toe reminded me about my bad luck.

I knew I had to change my luck — right away. I didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to see claws everywhere I looked.

I knew what I had to do.

I had to get rid of the vulture claw.

I grabbed the rope pendant and tugged it off my neck. I held it up and studied the ugly thing.

It had changed from good luck to bad. And I just realized why.

I tugged at the torn talon. Arfy did this. It was all that big dumb dog’s fault.

He took it from me and chewed on it. He got dog saliva all over it. That’s when it changed. Arfy ruined it.

I wrapped the rope around it and stuffed the claw into my T-shirt drawer. I pushed it down under all the T-shirts. I didn’t want to see it again. I didn’t want to think about it.

I’ll make my own good luck from now on.

That’s what I was thinking when Mom stepped into my room. She was carrying a stack of neatly folded socks and underwear. “These are clean,” she said. “You can put them away.”

“No problem,” I said.

She dumped them on my bed. “How was the bowling thing?” she said.

“Don’t ask,” I replied.

“That bad?”

“Worse,” I said. “I dropped the ball on my foot.”

She squinted at me. “You’re supposed to throw it, not drop it.”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “You’re funny, Mom.”

“Did Cory win?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. Laura. But Cory got a free ice-cream sundae.”

“Lucky,” Mom said.

The magic word.

“That reminds me,” Mom said. “We need a birthday gift for Cory. His party is next Saturday. What do you think we should get him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He thinks he’s getting a Wii from his parents. Maybe we could buy him a game.”

“Well … you think about it,” Mom said. She turned and headed downstairs.

I didn’t think about it at all. I had homework to do and other things to think about.

Cory was a hard person to buy presents for. Because his parents always bought him everything he wanted. Lucky, right?

Later that night, it was time to change into my pajamas and go to sleep. I pulled pajamas from the dresser drawer. I guess I wasn’t paying attention because I slammed the drawer on my hand.

“YEOOWWWWWW.”

I shook my hand frantically. The pain just wouldn’t quit!

Were my fingers broken? Did I crack my wrist?

“That stupid claw!” I cried out loud. “It has to go. I’m going to have bad luck until I get rid of it.”

I grabbed the claw. I pulled it out from beneath the T-shirts.

Squeezing it in my fist, I held it in front of me and strode to the open bedroom window.

“Good-bye, claw,” I muttered. “Good-bye and good riddance.”

I raised it high. Pulled back my arm. And prepared to toss it out the window, toss it as far as I could.

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