Nightmare at the Book Fair Read online

  I looked for a door, a hallway, anything that would get me out of there.

  “Forget about cosmetic surgery,” he continued. “You want a nose job? Just drop in and get an entirely new nose! You’ll be able to order it from a catalog! I’ll open a chain of human parts stores. It will be bigger than McDonald’s. We’ll have drive-through windows. Billions and billions served! Ahahahahahahaha!”

  His evil cackling laugh reverberated off the walls of the old house. This is just a bad dream, I tried to convince myself.

  “You’re not real,” I told him, as I took a few hesitant steps forward. “You’re some kind of special effect. If you were real, I could just reach out and touch you.”

  “Go ahead then.”

  I reached my hand toward him, expecting to be able to poke my finger right through him. But I didn’t get the chance. He grabbed my finger with his hand.

  “I could use one of these,” he said, and then he did that evil cackling laugh again before he let go of my finger.

  “You’re insane!” I shouted.

  “Was Edison insane?” Professor Psycho shouted gleefully. “How about Einstein? Some call it insanity. I prefer to think of myself as…a divergent thinker.”

  “Look, mister,” I yelled, “what you are is crazy, and I’m getting out of here.”

  I bolted past him into the same hallway I had come in from, but I wasn’t more than a yard past the door when somebody tackled me. He was a horrible, disgusting, hideous-looking monster, his face bent and distorted in a tortured, grotesque mask of disfigurement. And I wasn’t looking in any fun-house mirror this time.

  “Arghhhhhhhh!” the thing grunted, as it picked me up like a feather and slammed me down in one of the kitchen chairs.

  “This is my assistant, Ivan,” Professor Psycho said. “He fled Estonia before the fall of the Soviet Union. Say hello to our guest, Ivan.”

  It didn’t look as if Ivan was capable of human speech.

  “Ivan was one of my early experiments,” Professor Psycho continued. “Sadly, his face transplant didn’t turn out exactly as planned.”

  “Let me go!” I screamed, as Ivan stretched a rope around my chest and tied it to the chair.

  “The problem is that it’s so hard to find attractive donors,” Professor Psycho said.

  “You’ll never get away with this!” I yelled. “My parents will be here any minute!”

  “That’s what they all say,” he said, chuckling. “Relax, Mr. Dinkleman. This won’t take long. Ivan will be carrying out the actual procedure. I prefer to watch on my Webcam. Things can get…uh, messy, and I detest the sight of blood. Good luck, Trip.”

  With that, he hobbled away with his cane. I struggled to get out of the ropes, but Ivan had tied me up tightly. He opened the kitchen drawer, but instead of knives and forks and spoons, he took out all kinds of weird medical instruments and put them on the kitchen table.

  “Look, Ivan,” I said to him. “I’m sorry about your botched face transplant. That Professor Psycho guy is nuts. You don’t need to stay with him. Let’s get out of here! What do you say? You and me, together.”

  “Arghhhhhhhh!” Ivan grunted. He picked up a long sharp thing from the table and held it over my face. I shrank back in the chair.

  He was about to cut me when a door slammed. The next thing I knew, a girl burst into the kitchen. This was no ordinary girl. She was beautiful, with long blond hair and blue eyes.

  She had one of those laser pointers in her hand. She pushed a button and directed the beam at Ivan’s face. Smoke started pouring out of his head, and he dropped the knife instantly. He grabbed his face and ran out of the room, screaming all the way down the hall.

  “Who are you?” I asked the girl. “How did you get in here?”

  “My name is Carrie,” she said. “We’re going to save you!”

  “We?” I asked. “Who are we?”

  “The Resistance,” she replied.

  “Where’s Professor Psycho?”

  “I killed him,” Carrie told me. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. I’ve got to check on the others. Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

  “No, don’t go!” I called after her. “Untie me first!”

  “No time for that!” she said, as she ran out of the room.

  I had to cut the ropes, and fast. That Ivan lunatic could be coming back any second to finish me off himself. The knife he had dropped was still on the table, just out of my reach. Grunting, I slid the chair over so it was closer to the table. I leaned over, and picked up the knife in my mouth. Being careful not to cut myself, I rubbed the knife against the rope on my hand until the rope broke. My hands free, it was easy to take off the rest of the ropes. I ran out of the kitchen, down the hall, down the steps, out the door, and…

  Where was I?

  The boardwalk was gone! The haunted house was still there, but now it was out in the country, out in the middle of nowhere. There was a full moon in the sky. Off in the distance, an owl hooted and thunder clapped in applause.

  This was weird. I hoped I was dreaming.

  “Mr. Dinkleman!”

  I turned around. It was Professor Psycho!

  “I guess I’m just going to have to do your face transplant myself,” he said, as he hobbled toward me.

  I could outrun the guy, easy. I mean, he was walking with a cane. But there was a bike leaning against the fence. I could make a faster getaway on it.

  I hopped on the bike and started pedaling, but the pedals wouldn’t turn. Something was wrong. I looked down to see the chain had slipped off the gear. Professor Psycho was getting closer.

  “Where’s Carrie?” I shouted. “What did you do to her?”

  “I want your face,” he moaned. “Give me your face!”

  I tossed the bike aside and took off on foot, running as fast as I could. The branches of the bushes on either side whipped me in the face as I ran past them. The ground was uneven, and my foot caught on something—a root maybe. I didn’t see it coming. The next thing I knew, I was in the dirt.

  “Leaving so soon, Trip?” Professor Psycho said. “We were just starting to have fun.”

  He was standing right over me now, holding some weird medical instrument.

  “I thought you were dead!” I shouted.

  “The reports of my death were, shall we say, exaggerated.”

  “Please!” I begged. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I tried to be reasonable with you, Trip. But my patience has worn thin. Face it; it’s time to face the music. It’s all about supply and demand. You have a face, and I need a face. So face the facts. This is no time to save face.”

  “Please!” I begged. “No more face puns.”

  Professor Psycho was waving his weird medical instrument over my head.

  “Nooooooooo!” I screamed.

  I put both hands up in the air to shield my face.

  Chapter 3

  Sports Fiction

  The Game on the Line

  I put both hands up in the air to shield my face. A guy in a football jersey slapped his palms against mine.

  “Yeeeee-haaaaaaaaa!” shouted the player who high-fived me. “Dink, you rule!”

  Huh?

  The guy looked vaguely familiar to me. He was wearing a green Philadelphia Eagles football jersey. I looked down. So was I.

  What the heck was going on?

  I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it, because a few seconds later the rest of the Eagles had run over and were jumping on me, pounding me, and telling me I was The Man. Photographers swarmed around, blinding me with flashes. A stadium full of people were on their feet screaming.

  “Dinkleman! Dinkleman! Dinkleman! Dinkleman!”

  “Dink,” yelled the guy who high-fived me, “that was the awesomest catch I’ve seen in my life!”

  “What?”

  “Look for yourself,” he said, pointing at a giant screen in the corner of the stadium.

  I watched as the ball was snap
ped, and the quarterback of the Eagles dropped back to pass. A guy on the other team—it looked like the 49ers—broke through the line and was about to tackle him, but the quarterback spun away and scrambled out of the pocket. Then he heaved a long bomb.

  At that point the video slowed down so you could see the laces turning as the ball arched toward the end zone. The receiver left his feet and dove—full extension—catching the ball with his fingertips a couple of inches above the ground. Somehow, he held on to it even though he was creamed immediately by the guy covering him.

  After he caught it, the receiver got up, looking a little dazed, and spiked the ball. One of his teammates ran over and gave him a high five. Then he just stood there in the end zone. Like me, standing there in the end zone.

  I touched my nose. The guy on the screen touched his nose. I stuck out my tongue. The guy on the screen stuck out his tongue. I turned around. It said DINKLEMAN on the back of the guy’s uniform.

  The guy on the screen was me!

  I was still woozy. Two of the Eagles put their arms around me and helped me to the sideline.

  “Where’s Professor Psycho?” I asked them. “Where’s the funnel cake?”

  “Professor Who?” one of the guys said. “Are you okay, Dinkleman? We need you, man. This is the Super Bowl!”

  “That hit on the head scrambled his brains.”

  “You remember me, right, Dink?” said the guy who had first high-fived me. “Lionel? We’ve been best friends since we were kids. I was your backup on the high school team. I was your backup in college. And now we’re on the Eagles together. Right?”

  I looked at the guy. It was Lionel! He looked as if he was ten years older. What was he doing here? Something was seriously wrong.

  In the stands, maybe eighty thousand people were giving me a standing ovation. But all I felt was a sense of relief. There was no haunted house here. No Professor Psycho performing bizarre medical experiments on me. No Ivan. I was big. I was strong. I had muscles. I would make an awesome lacrosse player.

  I felt my face. I had a mustache. But it felt like my face. I didn’t have a face transplant.

  “Dinkleman! Dinkleman! Dinkleman!”

  “We love you, Trip!”

  I looked up at the scoreboard.

  PHILADELPHIA 27

  SAN FRANCISCO 24

  Fourth quarter. My miraculous catch must have put the Eagles ahead.

  “Coach, I think Dink needs some help!” Lionel told a guy who was wearing street clothes and headphones. “He may have had a concussion.”

  “Dinkleman, how many fingers am I holding up?” the coach asked me.

  “All of them,” I replied.

  They lowered me to the bench and somebody handed me a glass of water.

  “Trip, you’ve done all you could for us,” the coach told me. “You’re finished for the day. Lionel! If we get the ball again, I’m gonna need you in there at wide receiver.”

  “Yes sir!” Lionel said, putting on his helmet.

  Our kicker kicked the extra point to make it 28–24. The 49ers returned the kickoff to their 40-yard line. There were three minutes left on the clock, and the 49er quarterback didn’t waste a second of it. He completed a series of quick short passes to the sidelines and stopped the clock when his receivers stepped out of bounds.

  A field goal wasn’t going to beat us. The 49ers needed to score a touchdown or we would be Super Bowl champions.

  The clock was ticking down. They had the ball on our 20-yard line when their quarterback faked a handoff, rolled right, and took off down the sideline. A few good blocks and a few missed tackles later, he was diving into the end zone.

  PHILADELPHIA 28

  SAN FRANCISCO 30

  The 49ers kicked the extra point to make it 31–28. The two-minute warning was given. Automatic time-out. What had been euphoria on the Eagles bench had turned into gloom. The coach gathered us all around him in a huddle.

  “You remember what happened to us last season, right?” he said. “We finished 0 and 16. Remember the game where the Packers humiliated us 64–0?”

  The players nodded their heads solemnly.

  “And you know what happened to us this season, right?” he continued. “We went 16 and 0. We went from worst to first!”

  “Worst to first! Worst to first!” the players chanted.

  “And do you know why we went from worst to first?” the coach asked.

  “’Cause we worked our butts off!” Lionel shouted.

  “Yeah, that had a lot to do with it,” the coach agreed. “What else?”

  “Was it because the Green Bay Packer bus went over a cliff and killed half the team?” some other guy shouted.

  “That had a lot to do with it too,” said the coach. “And what else?”

  “Those aliens came and gave us special powers,” some other guy said.

  “Yeah, that helped too,” said the coach. “But I think we all know the number one reason why we’re here playing in the Super Bowl today. It’s because of Coach Lip.”

  Everybody bowed his head. Some were sniffling.

  “There’s no need for me to go back and rehash the tragic Frisbee accident at Hoover Dam,” the coach said. “We all know what happened.”

  “The coach had that Frisbee in his hands,” Lionel said.

  “And we’ve got this game in our hands,” the coach said. “We can grab it. Or we can drop it. That’s going to be up to you. But whatever you do, let’s dedicate these last two minutes to Coach Lip. Let’s win this one for the Lipper.”

  “Lipper! Lipper! Lipper! Lipper!”

  We returned the kickoff to our 35-yard line. Decent field position. But we knew we weren’t going to be trying for a field goal to tie it up. Oh, no. We were going for the six points. We were going for the win.

  Our offense moved the ball to the 45, to midfield, to the 49ers’ 30-yard line. Lionel, who had replaced me, made a couple of good catches. But the clock was ticking down. There were thirty seconds left, and the goal line was still so far away.

  The team went into a hurry-up offense and snapped the ball while the 49ers were still setting up their defense. Lionel raced down the left sideline. The quarterback whipped the ball to him at the twenty. He caught it, faking out one defender and dashing to the ten. He was hit hard there by two guys, and he collapsed to the ground. Lionel didn’t get up. There were five seconds left on the clock when the coach called time.

  We all ran out to help. Lionel was holding his leg and moaning.

  “I think it’s broken!” he cried.

  They carried Lionel off the field on a stretcher. But we couldn’t focus on him now. There were five seconds left in the Super Bowl, and we had the ball on the seven-yard line.

  “Trip, can you go out there?” the coach asked me.

  “Me?” I said, as the Eagle team doctor came over.

  “Dinkleman has a probable concussion,” the doctor told the coach. “He should not set foot on this field. He should be in the hospital with Lionel. If Trip goes in there and gets a good shot to the head again, well, he might be permanently brain damaged.”

  “What do you want to do, Trip?” the coach asked me.

  “I…uh…,” I mumbled, “want to go home.”

  “He is obviously in no position to make this decision!” warned the doctor.

  “Okay,” said the coach. “We’ll let his wife make the decision.”

  “My wife?!”

  At that moment, this pretty blond girl was brought over. Wait a minute! I recognized her. She was the girl who had rescued me from Professor Psycho at the haunted house! It was Carrie! She was my wife?!

  “Are you okay, honey?” she asked, cradling my head in her hands.

  “Uh, yeah,” I told her. “Do you still have that cool laser pointer?”

  “Laser pointer?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s delirious, Mrs. Dinkleman,” said the doctor.

  “Trip, look at me,” Carrie said, as I g
azed into her deep blue eyes. “The guys need you now. Every man on this team has worked and struggled and practiced so hard for so long. And it all leads up to this moment. Do you think you can pull yourself together for just one more play?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “That’s my man,” she said. “You can go to the hospital after the game.”

  When they saw me coming out to the huddle, the crowd erupted.

  “Dinkleman! Dinkleman! Dinkleman! Dinkleman!”

  “This is it, guys,” the quarterback said. “Win or lose. Make or break. It all comes down to this. Red…49…left…triangle. On two. Got it?”

  “Uh, not exactly,” I said.

  “Don’t you remember the plays, Trip?”

  “His brain is fried from that hit he took,” said one of the other players.

  “It’s simple,” the quarterback told me. “I’m going to fake the handoff to Ronnie and give it to you instead. Follow him right up the middle. It’s seven yards. Ronnie will clear the path, and you jump over the pile if you need to. Nothing fancy.”

  “But I thought I was a receiver,” I said.

  “You are,” he said. “This will completely fool them.”

  We clapped hands and came out of the huddle.

  “24…21…2…hut…hut…hut…”

  The quarterback took the snap, wheeled around, and faked the handoff to Ronnie. I followed right behind him, looking in front for a hole to run through. I felt something hard jammed into my gut.

  Chapter 4

  Adventure

  Sixty Seconds to Live

  I felt something hard jammed into my gut. It was a fist.

  “Oooooooff!” I grunted, falling backward and landing in a pile of boxes.

  Frantically, I looked around. I was in a small plane. It was one of those twelve seaters, except that there were no seats. That was odd.

  The plane was humming and rumbling, bumping through turbulence. I looked for something to grab on to.

  “Have you had enough, Dinkleman?”

  The guy who had punched me was standing there. He was wearing a military uniform and punching one fist into an open palm.