Let's Get Invisible by R. L. Stine Page A

knew he was right behind me.
    And I knew that if he caught me, I’d be lost. Lost inside this blank world,
unable to see, to hear, to smell, to touch anything, lost in the cold glass
forever.
    Another silent, bobbing face.
    And so I kept running.
    Until the colors returned.
    Until light bent to form shapes.
    And I saw shadows moving and shifting in front of me.
    “Stop, Max!” I heard my reflection’s voice right behind me. “Stop right
there!”
    But now he sounded worried.
    And so I kept running, running into the colors and moving shapes.
    Suddenly, Zack turned off the light.
    I came bursting out of the mirror, into the tiny attic room, into an
explosion of sound, of color, of hard surfaces, of real things. The real world.
    I stood up, panting, gasping for breath. I tested my legs. I stomped on the
floor. The solid floor.
    I turned my eyes to my friends, who were standing in front of me, startled
expressions on their faces. My mom, I realized, must have retreated back
downstairs.
    “Did you make the switch?” Zack asked eagerly, his eyes glowing with
excitement.
    “Are you one of us?” Erin asked at the same time.
    “No,” said a voice—my voice—coming from just behind me.
    We all stared into the mirror.
    Inside it, my reflection, red-faced and angry, glared out at us, his hands
pressed against the glass. “He got away,” my reflection told my friends. “The switch wasn’t
made.”
    “I don’t understand!” I heard April cry. “What’s going on, guys?”
    Zack and Erin ignored her. They stepped up quickly and grabbed me by the
arms. They spun me around roughly.
    “The switch wasn’t made,” my reflection repeated from inside the glass.
    “No problem,” Erin told it.
    She and Zack forced me up to the mirror.
    “You’re going back in, Max,” Zack said heatedly.
    He reached up and pulled the light cord.

 
 
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    The light flashed on.
    I went invisible.
    My reflection remained in the mirror, open palms pressed against the inside
of the glass, staring out.
    “I’m waiting for you, Max,” he said. “In a few minutes, you’ll join me in
here.”
    “No!” I shouted. “I’m leaving. I’m going downstairs.”
    “No, you’re not,” my reflection said, shaking his head. “Erin and Zack won’t
let you escape. But don’t be so frightened, Max. It’s all quite painless.
Really.” He smiled. It was my smile. But it was cold. Cruel.
    “I don’t get this,” April was protesting back by the door. “Will someone tell
me what’s going on?”
    “You’ll see, April,” Erin told her soothingly.
    What am I going to do? I wondered, frozen in panic.
    What can I do?
    “Just a few more minutes,” my reflection said calmly, already celebrating his
victory. His freedom.
    “April, get help!” I cried.
    She spun around at the sound of my voice. “Huh?”
    “Get help! Go downstairs. Get help! Hurry!” I screamed.
    “But—I don’t understand—” April hesitated.
    Erin and Zack moved to block her path.
    But the door suddenly swung open.
    I saw Lefty stop at the doorway. He peered in. Saw my reflection.
    He must have thought the reflection was me.
    “Think fast!” he shouted, and he tossed a softball.
    The ball smashed into the mirror.
    I saw the startled look on Lefty’s face. And then I heard the crash and saw
the mirror crack and shatter.
    My reflection didn’t have time to react. He broke into shards of glass and
fell to the floor.
    “Nooooo!” Erin and Zack shrieked.
    I popped back into view just as Erin’s and Zack’s reflections floated up off
the floor. They were sucked into the broken mirror—screaming all the way—sucked into it as if a powerful vacuum cleaner were pulling them in.
    The two reflections flew screaming into the mirror and appeared to crack into
hundreds of pieces.
    “Whoa!” Lefty cried, gripping the door with all his strength, pressing his
body against the doorframe, struggling to keep himself from being sucked into
the room.
    And then