Goosebumps: The Blob That Ate Everyone by R. L. Stine Page A

wider, I realized I was staring at its mouth.
    The mouth opened wider. Wider.
    Wide enough to swallow a human!
    And then a fat purple tongue plopped out. The tongue made a wet SPLAT as it hit the grass.
    “Ohhhhh.” I groaned again. My stomach lurched. I nearly lost my lunch.
    The end of the tongue was shaped like a shovel. A fat, sticky, purple shovel.
    To shovel people into the gaping mouth?
    Thick, white slime poured from the monster’s mouth. “It—it’s drooling !” I choked out.
    “Run!” Alex cried.
    I turned—and tripped on the edge of the driveway.
    I landed hard on my elbows and knees.
    And looked back—in time to see the drooling, pink mouth open wider as the
tongue wrapped around me… pulling me, pulling me in.

 
 
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    Alex stared at me, her mouth open wide. “Zackie, that is awesome !” she
declared.
    Adam scratched his curly, black hair and made a face. “You call that scary?”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s about as scary as Goldilocks and the Three
Bears.”
    I held the pages of my story in one hand. I rolled them up and took a swing
at Adam with them.
    He laughed and ducked out of my reach.
    “That is an awesome story!” Alex repeated. “What do you call it?”
    “ ‘Adventure of the Blob Monster’,” I told her.
    “Oh, wow,” Adam exclaimed sarcastically. “Did you think that up all by
yourself?”
    Alex gave Adam a hard shove that sent him tumbling onto the couch. “Give
Zackie a break,” she muttered.
    The three of us were hanging out in Adam’s house. We were squeezed into what
his parents call the rec room.
    The room is so small. Only a couch and a TV fit.
    It was spring vacation, and we were hanging out because we didn’t know what
else to do. The night before, I stayed up till midnight, working on my scary
story about the Blob Monster.
    I want to be a writer when I grow up. I write scary stories all the time.
Then I read them to Alex and Adam.
    They always react in the same way. Alex always likes my stories. She thinks
they’re really scary. She says that my stories are so good, they give her
nightmares.
    Adam always says my stories aren’t scary at all. He says he can write better
stories with one hand tied behind his back.
    But he never does.
    Adam is big and red-cheeked and chubby. He looks a little like a bear. He
likes to punch people and wrestle around. Just for fun. He’s actually a good
guy.
    He just never likes my stories.
    “What’s wrong with this story?” I asked him.
    The three of us were crammed onto the couch now. There was nowhere else to
sit.
    “Stories never scare me,” Adam replied. He picked an ant off the couch arm,
put it between his thumb and finger, and shot it at me.
    He missed.
    “I thought the story was really scary,” Alex said. “I thought you had
really good description.”
    “I never get scared by books or stories,” Adam insisted. “Especially
stories about dumb monsters.”
    “Well—what does scare you?” Alex demanded.
    “Nothing,” Adam bragged. “I don’t get scared by movies, either. Nothing ever
scares me.”
    And then he opened his mouth wide in a scream of horror.
    All three of us did.
    We leaped off the couch—as a terrifying screech rang through the
room.
    And a black shadow swept over the floor.

 
 
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    The shadow swooped by our feet, so fast I could barely see it.
    I felt something brush my ankle. Something soft—and ghostlike.
    “Whoooa!” Adam cried.
    I heard hurried footsteps from the living room. Mr. Levin—Adam’s dad—burst into the doorway. With his curly black hair and bearlike, round body, Mr.
Levin looks a lot like Adam.
    “Sorry about that!” he exclaimed. “I stepped on the cat. Did it run past
here?”
    We didn’t answer him.
    We were so stunned, we all burst out laughing.
    Mr. Levin frowned at us. “I don’t see what’s so funny,” he muttered. He
spotted the cat, hiding beside the couch. He picked it up and hurried away.
    The three of us dropped back