Say Cheese - and Die Screaming! by R. L. Stine

 
 
1
     
     
    “Greg Banks!”
    A shiver ran down the back of my neck as Mr. Saur called my name. I had been
slumping low in my seat in the last row of the classroom. I tried to hide behind
Brian Webb, the big gorilla of a kid who sits in front of me.
    And I folded my hands and prayed that Mr. Saur wouldn’t call on me to give my
report next.
    “Greg Banks!” he called.
    I felt another cold shiver. Then my legs started to shake as I climbed to my
feet. Then my throat tightened until I could barely breathe.
    I hate giving reports in front of the whole class.
    Especially when I haven’t had much time to practice. Especially when we’re
not allowed to have notes. Especially when half of our grade in English
depends on how we do on this report.
    I cleared my throat and made my way up to the front of the classroom. I was
halfway there when Donny Greene stuck his big white sneaker into the aisle and
tripped me.
    I stumbled—but didn’t fall. The whole class exploded in laughter, anyway.
    Mr. Saur frowned at Donny. “Donny, do you have to trip every person
who walks by you?” he demanded.
    “Yes,” Donny replied with a straight face.
    And once again, the whole class burst out laughing.
    Everyone thinks Donny is a riot. Everyone but Mr. Saur.
    Mr. Saur doesn’t think anyone is funny. That’s why we call him
Sourball Saur. He probably wouldn’t think that was funny, either!
    Mr. Saur is tall and thin and nearly bald. He never kids around. He never
smiles. His mouth is always puckered, as if he’s just bitten into a lemon.
    Sourball Saur.
    He’s sort of a legend at Pitts Landing Middle School. Everyone tries not to
get him. My best friends—Michael, Bird, and Shari—were lucky. They’re in
Miss Folsom’s class. I was the only one who got stuck with the Sourball.
    I stepped up beside his desk and cleared my throat again. I wondered if
everyone could see my knees shaking. My face felt burning hot. My hands were cold as ice.
    Does everyone get this nervous when they stand in front of the class?
    Mr. Saur folded his pale, skinny hands on his desk and cracked his knuckles.
“Okay, Greg, let’s hear your true story,” he said.
    I cleared my throat for the thousandth time. I took a deep breath. Then I
started to tell the story of what happened to my friends and me last summer….
    “I was hanging out with my friends. Bird, Michael, and Shari. We had nothing
to do, and we were kind of bored. So we dared each other to do something
exciting. We dared each other to sneak into the Coffman house.”
    Mr. Saur raised a hand to interrupt me. He frowned his sour frown. “What’s
the Coffman house?”
    “It’s a haunted house!” Donny Greene called out.
    “It’s where Donny lives!” Brian Webb mumbled, loud enough for everyone to
hear. It got a big laugh.
    Mr. Saur raised both hands for quiet and gave everyone his lemon expression.
    “It’s a deserted, old house in my neighborhood,” I told him. “We went inside.
Down to the basement. And we found an old camera. And that’s what my true story is about. Because the camera had evil powers.”
    Mr. Saur groaned and rolled his eyes. Some kids laughed. But I took another
deep breath and continued my story.
    “It was an instant camera. The picture popped right out. But it was never the
picture we snapped. It always showed something terrible happening.
    “I took the old camera home. I snapped a photo of my dad’s new station wagon.
The photo slid out. In the photo, the station wagon was totaled. Completely
wrecked. And then, a few days later, my dad was in a terrible accident. The
photo came true.”
    I glanced around the room to see how my story was going over. A few kids were
laughing. Others were staring at me hard. Trying to decide if I was for real.
    Brian Webb tried to make me lose it. He stuck his two pointer fingers into
his nostrils and twirled them around. He thinks he’s funny, but he’s just gross.
    “I took a snapshot of my friend Bird