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

choked out.
    I clicked off the flame and shoved the lighter back into my pocket. I turned
to Ben. “Sorry,” I muttered glumly. “I tried.”
    Ben nodded, swallowing hard.
    I gasped. “Ben—your face! Your cheeks!”
    “Gray?” he asked softly.
    I nodded. “Your nose is all that’s left,” I told him. “Your nose has the only
color.”
    “Yours too,” he reported.
    The five gray kids stood in silence across the room. Seth shook his head
sadly.
    What could they say?
    This had already happened to them. They had lived in a black-and-white world
for fifty years.
    And now Ben and I were doomed to be part of that cold, gloomy world.
    I rubbed my nose. How long would it keep its color? I wondered.
    How long until I became one of them?
    My eyes wandered to the elevator. If only Ben and I had taken the stairs to the art room. If only…
    Too late to think about that now.
    I stared hard at the elevator doors. Once again, I silently ordered them to
open.
    I let out a startled cry when I heard a loud, rumbling sound.
    Everyone jumped up. Alert. Listening.
    The rumble grew to a roar. “What’s happening?” Ben cried.
    “The elevator!” Eloise gasped, pointing.
    We all hurried across the room. We were just a few feet away—when the
elevator doors slid open.
    We all stepped up to see who was inside.
    “Greta!” I cried.

 
 
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    No. Not Greta.
    To my shock, Thalia stood in the elevator doorway.
    She peered out tensely. Her blond hair gleamed in the elevator light. Her
blue dress sparkled brightly. The color almost hurt my eyes.
    A red-lipped smile spread over her face. “I found you! I did it!” she
cried happily.
    She came running out of the elevator. With a happy cry, she threw her arms
around Mary and hugged her tight. Then she hugged Eloise and Seth, Mona and
Eddie.
    Happy cries rang out from everyone.
    “Thalia—you came back!”
    “Are you okay?”
    “We’ve been waiting for you!”
    “Whoa—wait—the elevator!” I cried. “Don’t let it go!”
    I made a frantic dive.
    Too late.
    The doors slid shut.
    I crashed into them and bounced off. “Nooooo!” I let out a long, frantic
wail. “Nooooooo! The elevator! The elevator!” I banged on the doors with both
fists.
    I spun around to face Thalia.
    She gasped and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh—I’m so sorry!” she cried.
Her blue eyes grew wide. “I—I was so happy to see my friends, I forgot!”
    “But—but—” I sputtered.
    Trembling, I slumped against the wall. Our one chance to escape. Too late…
too late…
    The five gray kids circled around Thalia, hugging her, laughing, asking her a
thousand questions.
    “We missed you so much!” Eloise cried. “We waited for you to come back and
rescue us.”
    “I missed you guys too,” Thalia told them. “I tried to come back. But I
couldn’t find the way. I didn’t know how to get back here—until tonight.”
    She turned to Ben and me. “I escaped a few weeks ago,” she explained. “Just
before school started. I went over to your world, the real world. But I had to
disguise myself.”
    “You mean—” I started.
    “The makeup,” Thalia continued. “The makeup and the lipstick. I had to keep
putting that stuff on all the time. To cover up my gray skin. I—”
    “But your eyes—” I interrupted. “They’re blue.”
    “Contact lenses,” she explained. She let out a long sigh. “It was so hard, so
much work. I had to be so careful. I had to apply coat after coat of makeup and
lipstick. I couldn’t let anyone know.
    “Kids made fun of me,” Thalia sighed. “But that wasn’t the worst part. I
wanted to stay in the world of color and brightness. But I was a fake. A phony,
covering up with makeup. I no longer belonged there. I belonged here in
Grayworld.”
    Thalia sighed again. “But I couldn’t find the way back. Then tonight, you and
Ben didn’t return to the gym. I went searching for you. I found the hole in the
boarded-up wall. And I found the