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

at the two squares for a long while. “I don’t get you,” he said
finally.
    I sighed. “Can you take the negative and make a positive of it? And can you
take the positive and make a negative?”
    Shari let out a sharp cry. She realized what my plan was.
    Maybe if we reversed the pictures, it would reverse our bodies.
    Terry would make a positive of Shari’s negative, and she’d grow back to her
normal size. Then he’d make a negative of my picture, and I’d shrink the way
Shari had.
    It seemed to make sense. Was it worth a try?
    Definitely.
    Terry took the two snapshots. He studied them closely. He scratched his head.
“I guess I could do it,” he said. “But I’m really busy in there. When do you
need it?”
    “NOW!” Shari and I both cried.
    Terry stared at us, then down at the two photos.
    I scratched the back of my neck. My arms were so fat, I could barely lift
them that high. In a few hours, I knew, I’d be too heavy to walk. Someone would
have to wheel me around in a wheelbarrow. No—make that two wheelbarrows!
    “Please!” I begged.
    “I just don’t have time,” Terry said.
    “I’ll give you my allowance for the next two months!” I cried.
    “Okay. I guess I can find the time. It’s a deal,” Terry replied. “Wait out
here.”
    He disappeared into the lab. We stood outside the door and waited.
    And waited.
    And waited.
    The longest half hour of my life.
    Mr. Kramer kept staring back at us from the front counter. Shari and I tried
to ignore him.
    I wanted to sit down. Carrying so much weight made my feet hurt. But I was
afraid if I took a seat, I’d break it. And I wouldn’t be able to get back up.
    So Shari and I stood outside the door to the lab. And thought about this new
plan.
    Would it work? Would reversing the photos reverse us?
    Finally, the door swung open and Terry stepped out. “Here,” he grunted. He
handed me the new prints. “Don’t forget what you said about your allowance.”
    “I won’t,” I promised. “Thanks, Terry.”
    I gazed at the new prints. Terry had done it right. A positive of Shari,
smiling into the camera. A negative of me, weighing four hundred pounds.
    “Now, get lost,” Terry said, glancing up to the front desk. “Go ahead. Beat
it. Before you make me lose my job.”
    I took Shari’s hand and started to pull her to the front of the store.
    Poor Shari. She really did feel light as a feather. She looked even paler and
skinnier than when we came into the store. Her hand felt like brittle bones.
    We stepped out of the store and stopped on the corner. I held the new prints
up so we both could see them.
    “Is it working?” I asked her. “Do you feel any different?”
    “Not yet,” she replied softly.
    “Neither do I,” I moaned.
    We stared at the new prints. And waited.
    We stood on that corner for at least half an hour. Staring and waiting.
    Waiting to feel different. Waiting for our bodies to change.
    But nothing happened.
    We didn’t change at all.
    “We’re doomed,” I murmured sadly. “Doomed.”
    A chunk of skin peeled off my forehead and dropped to the sidewalk.

 
 
25
     
     
    The next morning, I woke up early, before my alarm. I stretched and yawned.
Then I turned and struggled to pull my huge body out of bed.
    “Heave-ho!” I cried, straining every muscle.
    And I went flying across the room!
    “Oww!” I groaned as I hit the wall. I bounced off. Dropped to the floor.
Bounced up again.
    “What’s going on?” I cried out loud.
    And scrambled to the mirror. And stared at the reflection of my old face. My
old body.
    No folds of sagging flesh. No puffed-out cheeks or bulging balloon of a
belly.
    Me!
    I was back!
    I squeezed my arms. I rubbed my face. I pulled my hair.
    I felt so happy to see myself!
    I leaped onto the bed and started jumping up and down, tossing up my arms, and whooping and cheering at the top of my
lungs.
    “It worked! It worked!”
    Reversing the photo had reversed me!
    “Yaaaaay!” I let out a