02 - Stay Out of the Basement by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Page A

girl.”
    “Give me a break,” Margaret groaned, giving him a playful shove as she jogged
to the back door. “You throw like a chimpanzee.”
    “How come Dad got fired?” he asked.
    She blinked. And stopped running. The question had caught her by surprise.
“Huh?”
    His pale, freckled face turned serious. “You know. I mean, why?” he asked, obviously uncomfortable.
    She and Casey had never discussed this in the four weeks since Dad had been
home. Which was unusual since they were pretty close, being only a year apart.
    “I mean, we came all the way out here so he could work at PolyTech, right?”
Casey asked.
    “Yeah. Well… he got fired,” Margaret said, half-whispering in case her dad
might be able to hear.
    “But why? Did he blow up the lab or something?” Casey grinned. The idea of
his dad blowing up a huge campus science lab appealed to him.
    “No, he didn’t blow anything up,” Margaret said, tugging at a strand of dark
hair. “Botanists work with plants, you know. They don’t get much of a chance to
blow things up.”
    They both laughed.
    Casey followed her into the narrow strip of shade cast by the low ranch-style
house.
    “I’m not sure exactly what happened,” Margaret continued, still
half-whispering. “But I overheard Dad on the phone. I think he was talking to
Mr. Martinez. His department head. Remember? The quiet little man who came to
dinner that night the barbecue grill caught fire?”
    Casey nodded. “Martinez fired Dad?”
    “Probably,” Margaret whispered. “From what I overheard, it had something to do with the plants Dad was growing, some
experiments that had gone wrong or something.”
    “But Dad’s real smart,” Casey insisted, as if Margaret were arguing with him.
“If his experiments went wrong, he’d know how to fix them.”
    Margaret shrugged. “That’s all I know,” she said. “Come on, Casey. Let’s go
inside. I’m dying of thirst!” She stuck her tongue out and moaned, demonstrating
her dire need of liquid.
    “You’re gross,” Casey said. He pulled open the screen door, then dodged in
front of her so he could get inside first.
    “Who’s gross?” Mrs. Brewer asked from the sink. She turned to greet the two
of them. “Don’t answer that.”
    Mom looks very tired today, Margaret thought, noticing the crisscross of fine
lines at the corners of her mother’s eyes and the first strands of gray in her
mother’s shoulder-length brown hair. “I hate this job,” Mrs. Brewer said,
turning back to the sink.
    “What are you doing?” Casey asked, pulling open the refrigerator and removing
a box of juice.
    “I’m deveining shrimp.”
    “Yuck!” Margaret exclaimed.
    “Thanks for the support,” Mrs. Brewer said dryly. The phone rang. Wiping her
shrimpy hands with a dish towel, she hurried across the room to pick up the phone.
    Margaret got a box of juice from the fridge, popped the straw into the top,
and followed Casey into the front hallway. The basement door, usually shut tight
when Dr. Brewer was working down there, was slightly ajar.
    Casey started to close it, then stopped. “Let’s go down and see what Dad is
doing,” he suggested.
    Margaret sucked the last drops of juice through the straw and squeezed the
empty box flat in her hand. “Okay.”
    She knew they probably shouldn’t disturb their father, but her curiosity got
the better of her. He had been working down there for four weeks now. All kinds
of interesting equipment, lights, and plants had been delivered. Most days he
spent at least eight or nine hours down there, doing whatever it was he was
doing. And he hadn’t shown it to them once.
    “Yeah. Let’s go,” Margaret said. It was their house, too, after all.
    Besides, maybe their dad was just waiting for them to show some interest.
Maybe he was hurt that they hadn’t bothered to come downstairs in all this time.
    She pulled the door open the rest of the way, and they stepped onto the narrow stairway. “Hey,