Free Dudes, the School Is Haunted! by R. L. Stine

you’ll be gray like us.”
    “No—!” I insisted, spinning away from the mirror. “There’s got to be a way.
Hasn’t anyone ever escaped?”
    Seth’s answer shocked me.
    “Yes,” he said softly. “One girl escaped from Grayworld. Just a few weeks
ago.”
    “After fifty years, one of us made it back to the world,” Mona sighed.
    “How?” Ben and I cried at the same time.
    “How did she do it?” I demanded.
    They all shook their heads. “We don’t know,” Eloise replied sadly. “She just
disappeared. We’ve been waiting for her to come back for us.”
    “When the elevator opened tonight, we thought it was her,” Eddie said. “We
thought she had come back to rescue us.”
    Greta!
    Her face flashed into my mind.
    Of course! Greta, that strange girl with her gray eyes, her white-blond hair,
her all-black outfits.
    Greta had escaped from Grayworld. Greta had returned to the world of color.
No wonder she was so eager to get her hands on Thalia’s bright lipstick!
    Greta…
    Why hadn’t she returned to rescue her friends?
    How did she make her escape?
    My eyes traveled to the elevator at the back of the room. Open! I
ordered it silently. Open up—now! Please open!
    But, of course, the gray doors remained shut.
    I shoved my hands into my khakis pockets. Thinking hard, trying to fight down
my panic, I started to walk to the front of the room.
    Ben slumped into a chair, shaking his head sadly. “This can’t be happening,”
he muttered. He pounded the desktop angrily. “This can’t be happening!”
    “Think, Tommy. Think,” I instructed myself out loud. “There’s got to be a way
to stop the gray. There’s got to be a way to bring the color back. Think!”
    My mind raced. I was too frightened to think clearly.
    Every muscle in my body tensed.
    Thinking hard, I pulled out the plastic lighter from my pocket. Nervously, I
twirled it between my fingers. Slid it from hand to hand.
    Think! Think!
    I fumbled with the lighter. It fell out of my hand and clattered onto the
floor.
    I stared at it as I bent to pick it up. The lighter had been bright red. But
now the plastic had faded to gray.
    But the flame…
    Suddenly, I had an idea.
    I stood up and turned to the others. I raised the lighter. “What if…” I
started, thinking hard. Excited by my flash of hope.
    “What if I lit up the room with yellow light from the other world? Do you think the color—the yellow light—would wash away
the gray?”
    “You already tried it—outside,” Ben reminded me.
    “But that was outside,” I replied. “What if I light it near the wall? Do you
think the bright color will make the gray wall fade away so that we can escape
to the other side, the side of color?”
    They stared back at me, their eyes locked on the lighter in my hand.
    I didn’t wait for their reply.
    “I’m going to try it,” I announced.
    I raised the plastic lighter high.
    Their eyes followed the lighter as I raised it high.
    “Good luck,” Ben whispered. “Good luck to us all.”
    I clicked the lighter.
    Clicked it again.
    Clicked it.
    Clicked it hard.
    It wouldn’t light.

 
 
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    I slammed the lighter onto the desktop.
    “It’s out!” I wailed. “I used it up. It’s out of fluid.”
    “No—” Ben cried. “Try it again, Tommy. Please—give it one more try.”
    I groaned and picked up the lighter. My hand was trembling. My throat
suddenly felt so dry.
    It seemed like such a good idea. If only I could get it to flame.
    “Here goes,” I murmured, raising the lighter again. “One more try.”
    My palm slippery from sweat, I nearly dropped the lighter again. I tightened
my grip on it. Raised my thumb.
    Clicked it.
    Clicked it again, harder.
    And the flame shot up.
    “Yesssss!” Ben cried.
    But his happy cry faded quickly.
    The flame leaping up from the lighter was gray.
    Everyone groaned.
    I stared at the gray flame, dancing on top of the gray lighter. Held tight in
my gray fist. “It’s no use,” I