Free Body Switchers from Outer Space by R.L. Stine Page B

them,” Chad-Two said. “Chad-One has been misbehaving. He stole this one’s body.” He pointed at me. “No wonder he’s been acting so strange the last couple of days—he had someone else’s brain!”
    Pepper grabbed my sleeve and pulled on it. “Who are those people with sitcom damage?” she whispered to me.
    â€œGrown-up aliens.”
    â€œWhat’s a shink?” she whispered.
    â€œIt’s a machine that shrinks you and turns you into a pebble,” I whispered back.
    â€œNobody shrinks me!” she yelled.
    â€œIt doesn’t hurt,” Chad-Two said again. He shoved my shoulder to get me moving toward the yellow circle.
    I tripped over that blue box on the floor again and fell across the edge of the yellow circle.
    I reached out for anything to break my fall and grabbed the shink from Chad-Two’s hands.
    I hugged it to my belly and curled around it as I fell.
    I’m not sure exactly how it happened. Only it was way better than falling into a tray full of spaghetti!
    I had the shink in my arms, and Mom and Dad and Chads One and Two were racing toward me.
    They all looked horrified!
    I felt as if everything were moving in slow motion.
    I lifted the shink. I turned the fuzzy side toward them.
    What if I couldn’t remember the right way to touch the pads?
    They were closing in on me! Mom had her arms out to grab me, and for the first time I noticed how long and red her fingernails were!
    I tapped the square black pad twice. I tapped the round black pad three times. I tapped the square black pad twice again!
    For a second they kept coming. Then they all shrieked! Just like the rat. They shrank, twisting and squirming, until they were tiny statues on the floor!

19

    I t was a good thing I had that lifter in my pocket. Otherwise there was no way Pepper and I would have been able to cart all that stuff home, even though we shrank it all down—the spaceship, the shed, the body-switching machines, and all those other gadgets I didn’t understand.
    I even double-shrank stuff the aliens had already packed into those big hard-sided cases.
    The machine was on the reversible setting when I blasted everything. So all the stuff ended up having those little black touch pads on it. I can tap it back up to life size any time I want to.
    I keep everything on the top shelf in my closet.
    I found an excellent place in my basement to hidethe shink so no one would ever find it. Especially Pepper.
    Sometimes late at night when everyone else is asleep, I take out one of the machines and tap it up just to look at it. Just so I can convince myself that everything I went through was real—and not some weird, horrible nightmare!
    The aliens didn’t shrink down as much as everything else did. They are about three and a half inches high, and you can tell by looking at them that they’re people.
    Pepper keeps them on the top shelf with all her best dolls.
    I’m thinking of starting a cartoon series about this superhero who can make things bigger and smaller and defeats body-switching aliens. And gets revenge on everyone who ever called him a dork.
    I still trip over things. And I’m still klutzy. But Pepper doesn’t tease me as much as she used to. She has major respect for me now.
    Because she got caught in the shink blast, too.
    And now—any time I want—I can tap that little black pad on the back of her neck. I can make her really small and really quiet for as long as I like.
    I guess you could say things are really looking up for Will the Spill.

Are you ready for another walk down Fear Street?
Turn the page for a terrifying sneak preview.

    FRIGHT CHRISTMAS

I grabbed the doorknob and turned it. The door remained locked.
    I jiggled the knob.
    Tugged on the door again.
    It didn’t budge.
    It was bolted shut—from the outside.
    Which meant I was stuck in a closet in Dalby’s Department Store! On Christmas Eve!
    A small wave of