“I haven’t finished with you yet,” Caleb replied. He squeezed my shoulder. “Now that I’ve cleaned the bad puppet out of you, I’m going to turn you into the greatest puppet anyone has ever seen!”
“But — but —” I sputtered, straining at the belt that held me down. “No — wait! Please! What are you doing? What do you mean?”
I gazed up and saw the big green dome sliding down again.
“WAIT!” I screamed. “STOP! I don’t understand. What are you doing?”
“Those three puppets on the floor out there were of poor quality,” Caleb explained. “Inferior. Beneath my talents. You were about to become an inferior puppet, too. But I cleaned you. I got rid of the puppet infection.”
“And now —?”
“I cured you so I could turn you into a better puppet!” Caleb exclaimed. “You will be amazing! You will be a winner, Ben. You will be famous. The world’s most famous puppet!”
I watched the dome slowly lowering to the table. “No! Please —” I begged. “Please!” I struggled to pull myself up. But my waist and hands were tightly fastened.
“Let him go!” Jenny screamed. “You can’t do this!”
“Out of my way!” Caleb cried. He shoved Jenny and Bird aside and darted toward his computer table.
But he didn’t get there.
I turned my head when I heard a clattering at the door. The dome hung a few feet above the table. I raised my head — and saw the three puppets stagger into the room. They moved quickly to surround the startled Caleb.
The knight raised his sword. The princess tackled Caleb around the knees. The sultan leaped onto Caleb, covering his head with his long purple robe.
“Revenge!” the sultan screamed in a deep, booming voice. “Revenge for all you did to us!”
“Go away! Get out of my way!” Caleb screeched, thrashing his arms at them. “You are inferior! Get away from me! You are inferior!”
The puppets fell upon him, tangling him in their costumes and their strings.
Jenny and Bird wasted no time. They unfastened the belt over my chest and uncuffed my hands. Bird grabbed my hand and hoisted me down from the table. “Let’s go!”
“Come back!” Caleb wailed, still struggling to untangle himself from the three puppets. “Ben, I can make you great! I can make you famous!”
I took a deep breath and followed Bird and Jenny out of the lab. We were running full speed. Our shoes slapped the dusty floor as we bolted back down the long halls.
Did I glimpse someone in a doorway? Was someone else in the building? I didn’t stop to find out.
We ran out into the alley and kept running. The sunlight felt so good on my face. My human face.
We waved down the bus and jumped onboard. Great timing.
My heart was still racing as we took seats in the back. “What were we thinking?” I said. “How could we have been that crazy just to win five hundred dollars in a dumb school variety show?”
“You’re right,” Bird said. “That was crazy. We’ll have more fun. We can sit in the audience and boo everyone!”
As we rode away, we thought it was the end of the puppet people. But Caleb had one more surprise for us….
On the afternoon of the variety show, Bird, Jenny, and I sat in the third row of the auditorium, ready to boo everyone who performed. Of course, I planned to save my loudest boos for Anna and Maria.
Teddy Swanson came onstage first. He did a pretty good yodeling song. The audience started clapping along. Teddy could really yodel.
But halfway through, something got stuck in his throat, and Teddy had to run offstage to get a drink of water. When he came back, his voice kept cracking and he couldn’t yodel at all. He trudged offstage, shaking his head.
Everyone clapped, but it was sarcastic clapping.
“Be nice, everyone,” Mrs. O’Neal warned. She introduced the Barry sisters, Courtney and Jessica. They played kazoos. Totally embarrassing.
“Please. Shoot me now,” I whispered to Jenny.
She raised a finger to her lips. “Give them a break.”
“But Courtney can’t even remember the tune,” I whispered.
“It’s harder than it looks,” Jenny replied.
Bird started bopping in his seat and clapping along. But he was just being funny.
Vee Cheng came onstage next and played a solo clarinet version of an old Elton John song. After a minute or two, she messed up. She lowered her clarinet and turned to Mrs. O’Neal. “Can I start over?”
“Just keep going, Vee,” Mrs. O’Neal said cheerily. “We’re all enjoying it.”
Vee kept going. And she played beautifully. We didn’t boo her. She was too good.
“And now we have a very unusual puppet act,” Mrs. O’Neal announced.
Puppets? I sat forward in my seat and stared at the stage.
Two tall puppeteers wearing red ski masks over their faces strode to the front of the curtain. I studied them for a while. I didn’t recognize them.
Then my eyes lowered to the marionettes they held — and I gasped in shock.
The puppets were life-sized. And so totally real looking.
I was so startled, it took me a while to recognize them. The puppets were Anna and Maria!
The two masked puppeteers were operating Anna and Maria puppets. They made the two girls spin around and do a wild dance.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I knew I was watching living puppet people.
I turned to Jenny. Her eyes were also bulging in shock.
“Jenny,” I whispered. “Anna and Maria — they did follow us to Caleb’s lab. Look at them. Look at them!”
I squeezed her arm. I shook my head in disbelief.
“Oh, wow. Wow. They followed us to Caleb’s,” Jenny said. “And Caleb did it! He turned them into puppets!”
And now everyone recognized the two girls, and the audience began going nuts. The whole auditorium erupted in cheers and shouts and wild applause.
The two girl-puppets whirled across the stage. Howls and shrieks rang out from the kids watching and echoed off the auditorium walls. It had to be the most amazing, most awesome thing anyone had ever seen.
Anna and Maria were now puppets, and beneath their strings, they glided and slid and bowed and stepped in a beautiful, graceful dance.
I turned to Jenny and Bird. I had to shout over the screams and cheers of the crowd. “Do you believe it?” I cried. “They win again!”
The swamp at night makes trickling sounds, gurgling, popping. The river water is alive, and the sand shifts and moves as if it’s restless. The chitter and whistle of insects never stops. Birds flap in the low, bent trees, and red-eyed bats flutter low, dipping into the water for a fast drink, then soaring to meet the darkness.
The eerie sounds made Becka Munroe’s skin tingle. She sat alert in the slender rowboat, every muscle in her body tensed and tight. She kept her eyes on the dark shore line. Her hands on the oars felt cold and wet.
“Donny, you’re crazy,” she said, her voice muffled in the steamy night air. “I don’t like this. We shouldn’t be here.”
“They won’t miss their stupid rowboat,” her boyfriend Donny Albert said. His oars splashed water, then hit sand. The river was shallow enough here for their boat to get stuck. “We’ll leave it for them up shore.”
“I’m not talking about stealing this boat,” Becka said, fighting the shivers that rolled down her back despite the heat of the night. “Why are we here? Why are we on the river at night in this frightening swamp? I … I can’t see a thing. There isn’t even a moon.”
Donny snickered. “For thrills,” he said. “Life is so boring, Becka. Tenth grade is so boring. Go to school. Do your homework. Sleep and go to school again. We have to do something crazy. Something exciting.”
Becka sighed. “I can’t believe I agreed to come out here at night. Why did I do it?”
She could see his grin even in the dim light. “Because you’re crazy about me?”
/> “Just plain crazy,” she muttered.
Something splashed up from the water and thumped the side of the boat. “Did you hear that?” Becka cried. “What was it? A frog?”
“Snake maybe,” Donny said. “The river is crawling with them. Some are a mile long.”
“Shut up!” Becka snapped. She had a sudden urge to take an oar and swing it at Donny’s head. “You’re not funny. It’s scary enough out here without you trying to scare me more.”
He laughed. “You’re too easy to scare. It’s not much of a challenge. I don’t think —”
He didn’t finish his sentence. His mouth remained open and his dark eyes bulged. He was staring past Becka. His chin began to quiver and a low moan escaped his throat. He raised a finger and pointed.
Becka heard the splash of water behind her. And the heavy slap of footsteps on wet sand. “Donny — what —?” she uttered. Then she turned and saw the huge creature.
It took her eyes a few seconds to focus. At first, she thought she was staring at a tall swamp bush, some kind of piney shrub looming up from the sandy bottom.
But as soon as she realized it was moving in the water, taking long, wet, splashing strides … she knew it was alive. Knew it was a terrifying creature.
“Row! Hurry! Row!” Donny’s scream came out high and shrill. He bent over the oars and began to pull frantically. She could hear his wheezing breaths. But they were quickly drowned out by the grunts of the swamp monster that staggered toward them and its thudding wet footsteps.
The creature stood at least ten feet tall. It was shaped like a human but covered in dark fur like a bear. Chunks of wet sand fell off its fur as it staggered forward. And it raised curled claws and uttered an angry howl of attack.
“Oh, help. Oh, help.” One oar slipped out of Becka’s hand. She grabbed at it and caught it before it dropped into the water. She didn’t even hear her muttered cries. She leaned forward and began to row as hard as she could.
“Row faster!” Donny cried. “Faster! We can get away. It’s slow. We can get —”
A hard jolt shook them both. Their bodies snapped forward, then back. The oars flew from Donny’s hands.
Becka knew at once what had happened. The boat had hit a sand bar.
The swamp creature uttered another animal cry, like a bleating elephant. Water splashed high as it leaned forward, brought its clawed paws down, preparing to grab them.
His oars in the water, Donny rocked the boat from side to side. Becka desperately dug her oars into the sand, pulling … pulling.
Its prow stuck deep in the sloping sand hill, the boat didn’t move. The two teenagers sat helpless as the grunting, howling creature advanced.
And as it loomed over them, spreading its arms, gnashing its pointed teeth, their final screams echoed off the bent trees, sending bats fluttering to the sky.
“What are you doing? Turn that off!”
Kelli Anderson jumped at the sound of her father’s voice.
She watched him stride across the den, grab the remote, and click off the TV. He turned and squinted through his black-framed eyeglasses at Kelli and her brother Shawn. They sat on the edges of the long black leather couch, a bowl of nacho chips between them.
Kelli crossed her arms in front of her and glared at him. “Why did you turn it off at the good part?” she demanded.
“Why were you watching that movie?” he asked. “Swamp Beast III?”
Shawn had his hands clasped tightly in his lap. His dark eyes were wide, his expression frightened. “Kelli wanted to show me where you’re making us move to,” he whispered.
Their dad shook his head. “By watching a horror movie?” He took off his glasses and rubbed the top of his nose. He did that a lot. It either meant he was thinking hard or he was trying to control his temper.
“Kelli, you’re twelve,” he said. “You’re the older sister. You should know better.”
“But, Dad —” Kelli started.
He raised a hand. “Silence. You know your brother is afraid of scary movies. You know Shawn has nightmares. How could you be so thoughtless?”
Kelli shrugged. “I … didn’t think it would be that scary.”
Of course that was a lame reply, but it was the best she could do. Kelli knew the truth. She really did want to scare Shawn. If he was seriously scared, maybe their dad wouldn’t drag them away from New York City to a Florida swamp.
Shawn did that thing with his shoulders that he always did when he was feeling tense or scared. He kind of rolled them so that it looked like he was shivering. “Dad … ?” he started in a tiny voice. “Are there really swamp monsters where we are moving?”
Kelli groaned.
Their dad’s cheeks reddened. He was totally bald, and when he got angry, the top of his head turned red, too. Kelli always thought he looked like a light bulb lighting up. A light bulb with glasses.
“Of course there aren’t any swamp monsters,” he told Shawn. He turned to Kelli. “Look how you scared Shawn. You should apologize to him.”
Kelli tried to recite the multiplication table to calm down. But she was terrible with numbers. She didn’t get past 2 times 2. “Sorry, Shawn,” she finally muttered. “Sorry you got scared by a dumb movie.”
“That’s not much of an apology,” her dad said. “You get scared sometimes, don’t you, Kelli?”
“No,” she answered. “I don’t. Never.”
Shawn suddenly shot his head forward and screamed, “BOO!” practically in Kelli’s ear. He laughed. “Made you jump.”
“Did not,” Kelli said. “You can’t scare me, wimpo.”
“Hey, what have we said about calling names?” their dad demanded. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Listen, you two. Living next to Deep Hole Swamp is going to be the most exciting year of your lives.”
“Maybe too exciting,” Kelli said. She tossed back her black hair. She knew she was about to cause trouble. About to frighten Shawn and annoy her father even more. But she didn’t really care. Whatever works, she thought. Whatever it takes to keep me in New York City with my friends.
Her dad took the bait. “What do you mean by that, Kelli?”
“I went online,” she said. “I read stuff about Deep Hole Swamp. A lot of people say there are monsters living in the swamp. Just like in Swamp Beast III.”
“Really?” Shawn asked in a tiny voice. He did his shoulder thing again.
“No. Not really,” their father said, frowning at Kelli. “You know there’s a lot of bad information online. You don’t trust everything you read — do you?”
Kelli’s dark eyes challenged her father. “Some things are true.”
“Well, monster stories aren’t true,” he said. “I’m a scientist, remember?”
Kelli rolled her eyes. “We know. We know. Dr. Andersen. You’re a marine biologist. You remind us every day.”
Her dad gritted his teeth. Kelli knew she was making him angry. But she didn’t care. She really didn’t want to move to a swamp in Florida for a year.
After their parents divorced, their mom moved to Seattle. Kelli didn’t want to live there, either. She only wanted to live in New York. Now she was going to have to split her time between TWO places she hated.
She saw Shawn, skinny, pale Shawn, sitting on the edge of the couch, trembling. She felt bad that she had to scare him. But what choice did she have?
R.L. Stine’s books are read all over the world. So far, his books have sold more than 300 million copies, making him one of the most popular children’s authors in history. Besides Goosebumps, R.L. Stine has written the teen series Fear Street and the funny series Rotten School, as well as the Mostly Ghostly series, The Nightmare Room series, and the two-book thriller Dangerous Girls. R.L. Stine lives in New York with his wife, Jane, and Minnie, his King Charles spaniel. You can learn more about him at www.RLStine.com.
Goosebumps book series created by Parachute Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2015 by Scholastic Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing, October 2015
e-ISBN 978-0-545-63096-2
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R. L. Stine, Night of the Puppet People
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