Free Scare School by R. L. Stine Page A

again.
    I kicked open my saxophone case. Bent quickly. Lowered the imp into the case.
    One spindly green leg dangled over the side. I tucked it in. Slammed the case shut. And with trembling hands fastened the clasps.
    “Gotcha,” I muttered again.
    I felt so dizzy, I had to sit down. I dropped beside the sax case and struggled to catch my breath.
    The floor tilted up in front of me. I shut my eyes tight and waited for the dizziness to pass.
    I’ve done it! I told myself happily.
    I’ve captured the imp! In a few hours, everyone will know what I’ve done!
    I could hear the imp banging inside the case. He gave the case several hard thumps. But the metal clasps held.
    No way he could pop open the lid.
    When I opened my eyes, my gaze fell on a white slip of paper attached to the case.
    It took me a few seconds to realize it was the imp’s note from the day before.
    READ MY LETTER: WHO WILL DROP FIRST? From inside the case, the imp gave the lid another hard thump.
    I stared at the note. Stared at the words one by one.
    In my excitement, my brain jumped from thought to thought.
    I remembered what I had read about imps. I remembered how they like games and tricks. How they like wordplay.
    Wordplay.
    READ MY LETTER.
    LETTER. DROP FIRST.
    The imp thumped against the case again, trying hard to escape.
    But I ignored him as these thoughts flew through my mind.
    The imp’s messages had been a game, I decided.
    A trick.
    The imp wanted everyone to guess. He wanted everyone to figure out who he was.
    I stared hard at the scrawled letters on the note.
    MY LETTER. DROP FIRST.
    DROP MY FIRST LETTER.
    And suddenly, I had the answer. It all made sense.
    I knew. I knew!
    I turned to the saxophone case. I gripped it with both hands.
    “I know who you are!” I shouted.

25
    The imp stopped banging on the case. A heavy silence fell over the room.
    “I figured out your little word game,” I said. “I know who you are.”
    The imp remained quiet.
    I shook the case. “Hey, did you hear me?” I called. “I won! I beat you!”
    Still no sound from inside the case. Had I suffocated him? Should I risk opening the lid to see if he was okay?
    I grabbed the clasps on the sax case and flipped them up. My hands trembling, I raised the lid and gazed down at the small green creature. He had pressed himself into the folds of the case. He staredup at me with wet black eyes and didn’t move.
    I reached down and wrapped my hands around his narrow waist. Then I lifted him out of the case.
    “Simpson, I know it’s you,” I said. “So snap out of it. Playing dead isn’t going to help you.”
    He blinked. And ran a pointed purple tongue over his green lips. “Put me down,” he whispered.
    I continued to hold him in front of me. “If I put you down, you won’t run away?”
    He shook his head. His shoulders slumped. He gazed at me sadly with those wet black eyes. “I can’t run away. You have defeated me. By guessing my identity, you have taken away my powers.”
    I set him down on the floor. He stretched his skinny arms above his head. Then he let out a long, sad sigh.
    “Oh—!” I cried out as he began to grow.
    His body inflated like a balloon. His bones made loud cracking noises as he changed into a human.
    Into Simpson.
    Simpson, fully dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt.
    “How did you know it was me?” he asked in a muffled whisper.
    I moved between him and the door in case he planned to try an escape. I kept my muscles tensed.
    No way I would let him get away.
    “I figured out your word game,” I replied. “The word imp—it’s hidden right in your name. Drop thefirst letter. Drop the first letter of Simpson—and you get impson . Imp is the hidden word.”
    He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re smarter than I thought,” he muttered. He sighed again. “I had a good thing going here, but now it’s over.”
    He shook his head. “Imps have to play word games. We have to tease humans with them. It’s our nature. But I never