29 - Monster Blood III (2 page)

Oh, wow! Evan thought, pulling the bill of his Braves cap down over his face.
I can’t bear to watch this. This is sad. Really sad. Kermit is such a jerk.

“Go ahead. Try it,” Evan heard Conan say.

Evan raised the cap so he could see. “Uh… Kermit… maybe we should
go in the house now,” he whispered.

“Go ahead. Make me invisible,” Conan challenged.

“You really want me to?” Kermit demanded.

“Yeah,” Conan replied. “I want to be invisible. Go ahead, Kermit. Pour it on
me. Make me disappear. I dare you.”

Kermit raised the beaker over the gray muscle shirt that covered Conan’s
broad chest.

“Kermit—no!” Evan pleaded. “Don’t! Please
don’t
!”

Evan made a frantic grab for the beaker.

Too late.

Kermit turned the beaker over and let the thick blue liquid pour onto the
front of Conan’s shirt.

Out of the corner of his eye, Evan saw a monarch butterfly fluttering over
the low hedges. I wish I were a butterfly, he thought. I wish I could flap my
wings and float away.

As far away from here as I can get!

The blue liquid oozed down the front of Conan’s muscle shirt. All three boys
stared at it in silence.

“Well? I’m not disappearing,” Conan murmured, narrowing his eyes suspiciously
at Kermit.

Then his shirt started to shrink.

“Hey—!” Conan cried angrily. He struggled to pull off the shrinking shirt.
It got tinier and tinier. “It—it’s
choking
me!” Conan shrieked.

“Wow!” Kermit squeaked, his black eyes glowing excitedly behind his glasses.
“This is cool!”

Evan gazed in amazement as the muscle shirt shrank down to a tiny shred of
cloth. And then it vanished completely.

Now Conan stood in front of them bare-chested.

A heavy silence fell over the backyard. All three of them stared at Conan’s
broad, bare chest for a few moments.

Conan broke the silence. “That was my best muscle shirt,” he told Evan
through gritted teeth.

“Uh-oh,” Evan uttered.

“I like your nose that way,” Andy told Evan. “It kind of tilts in both
directions at once.”

“I think it will go back to the way it was,” Evan replied, patting his nose
tenderly. “At least it stopped hurting so much.” He sighed. “All the other cuts
and bruises will go away, too. In time.”

It was two days later. Evan sat across from Andy in the lunchroom at school.
He stared down sadly at the tuna fish sandwich his mom had packed for him. He
hadn’t taken a bite. His mouth wasn’t working exactly right yet. It kept going
sideways instead of up and down.

Andy wiped a chunk of egg salad off her cheek. She had short brown hair and
big brown eyes that stared across the table at Evan.

Andy didn’t dress like most of the other kids in their sixth-grade class. She
liked bright colors. A lot of bright colors.

Today she wore a yellow vest over a magenta T-shirt and orange Day-Glo
shorts.

When Andy moved to Atlanta in the beginning of the school year, some kids
made fun of her colorful clothes. But they didn’t anymore. Now everyone agreed that Andy had
style. And a few kids were even copying her look.

“So what happened after Conan the Barbarian pounded your body into coleslaw?”
Andy asked. She pulled a handful of potato chips from her bag and shoved them
one by one into her mouth.

Evan took a few bites from a section of his tuna fish sandwich. It took him a
long time to swallow. “Conan made me promise I’d never look in his yard again,”
he told Andy. “I had to raise my right hand and swear. Then he went home.”

Evan sighed. He touched his sore nose again. “After Conan left, Kermit helped
me hobble into his house,” Evan continued. “A little while later, Aunt Dee got
home.”

“Then what happened?” Andy asked, crinkling up the empty potato chip bag.

“She saw that I was messed up,” Evan replied. “So she asked what happened.”

Evan shook his head and scowled. “And before I could say anything, that
little rat Kermit piped up and said, ‘Evan picked a fight with Conan.’”

“Oh, wow,” Andy murmured.

“And Aunt Dee said, ‘Well, Evan, if you’re just going to get into fights
instead of taking care of Kermit, I’m going to have to talk to your mom about
you. Maybe you’re not mature enough for this job.’”

“Oh, wow,” Andy repeated.

“And the whole thing was Kermit’s fault!” Evan shouted, pounding his fist so
hard on the table that his milk carton tipped over. Milk spilled over the
tabletop, onto the front of his jeans.

Evan was so upset, he didn’t even move out of the way. “And do you know the
worst thing?” Evan demanded. “The
worst
thing?”

“What?” Andy asked.

“Kermit did it deliberately. He knew what that blue mixture would do. He knew
it would shrink Conan’s shirt. Kermit wanted me to get pounded by Conan. He did
the whole thing to get me in trouble with Conan.”

“How do you know?” Andy asked.

“The smile,” Evan told her.

“Huh? What smile?”

“The smile on Kermit’s face. You know that twisted little smile he has where
his two front teeth stick out? That’s the smile he had when he helped me back to
the house.”

Andy tsk-tsked.

Evan finished the section of tuna fish sandwich. “Is that all you’re going to
say?” he snapped.

“What can I say?” Andy replied. “Your cousin, Kermit, is a weird little dude.
I think you should teach him a lesson. Pay him back.”

“Huh?” Evan gaped at her. “How do I do that?”

Andy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you could… uh…” Her dark eyes
suddenly flashed with excitement. “I know! Doesn’t he have a snack after school every day? You could slip some Monster Blood into his
food.”

Evan gulped and jumped to his feet. “Hey—no way! No way, Andy!” he shouted.

Several kids turned to stare at Evan, startled by his loud cries.

“Don’t even think it!” Evan shouted, ignoring the stares. “No Monster Blood.
Ever! I never want to hear those words again!”

“Okay, okay!” Andy cried. She raised both hands, as if to shield herself from
him.

“By the way,” Evan said, a little calmer, “where is the Monster Blood? Where
did you hide it? You didn’t take any of it out—did you?”

“Well…” Andy replied, lowering her eyes. A devilish grin spread across her
face. “I put a little bit of it in the tuna fish sandwich you just ate.”

Evan let out a cry so loud, it made two kids fall off their chairs. Two other
kids dropped their lunch trays.

His eyes bulged and his voice rose higher than the gym teacher’s whistle.
“You—you—you—!” he sputtered, grabbing his throat.

Andy laughed. She pointed at his chair. “Evan, sit down. I was only joking.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me,” Andy said. “It was a joke. The Monster Blood is home, safe
and sound.”

Evan let out a long sigh. He sank back into the chair. He didn’t care that he
was sitting in the milk he had spilled.

“Annndrea,” he said unhappily, stretching out the word. “Annnndrea, that
wasn’t funny.”

“Sure it was,” Andy insisted. “And don’t call me Andrea. You know I hate that
name.”

“Andrea. Andrea. Andrea,” Evan repeated, paying her back for her mean joke.
He narrowed his eyes at her sternly. “That new can of Monster Blood your parents sent you
from Europe—it really is hidden away?”

Andy nodded. “On the top shelf of a closet in the basement. Way in the back,”
she told him. “The can is shut tight. No way the stuff can get out.”

He stared hard at her, studying her face.

“Don’t
look
at me like that!” she cried. She balled up the sandwich
tinfoil and tossed it at him. “I’m telling the truth. The Monster Blood is
totally hidden away. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Evan relaxed. He pulled the Fruit Roll-Up from his lunch bag and started to
unwrap it. “You owe me now,” he said softly.

“Excuse me?”

“You owe me for playing that stupid joke,” Evan said.

“Oh, yeah? What do I have to do?” Andy demanded.

“Come with me after school. To Kermit’s,” Evan said.

Andy made a disgusted face.

“Please,” Evan added.

“Okay,” she said. “Kermit isn’t that bad when I’m around.”

Evan held up the sticky Fruit Roll-Up. “Want this? I
begged
my mom not
to buy the green ones!”

* * *

After school, Evan and Andy walked together to Kermit’s house. It was a gray
day, threatening rain. The air felt heavy and wet, as humid as summer.

Evan led the way across the street. He started to cut through the backyards—but stopped. “Let’s go the front way,” he instructed. “Conan might be hanging
out in back. Waiting for us.”

“Don’t say
us,”
Andy muttered. She shifted her backpack to the other
shoulder. She scratched her arm. “Ow. Look at this.”

Evan lowered his eyes to the large red bump on Andy’s right arm. “What is
that? A mosquito bite?”

Andy scratched it some more. “I guess so. It itches like crazy.”

“You’re not supposed to scratch it,” Evan told her.

“Thanks, Doc,” she replied sarcastically. She scratched it even harder to
annoy him.

A few sprinkles of rain came down as they made their way up Kermit’s
driveway. Evan opened the front door and stepped into the living room.

“Kermit—are you here?”

No reply.

A sour smell attacked Evan’s nostrils. He pressed his fingers over his nose.
“Yuck. Do you smell that?”

Andy nodded, her face twisted in disgust. “I think it’s coming from the
basement.”

“For sure,” Evan muttered. “Kermit must already be in his lab.”

“Kermit? Hey—Kermit, what are you doing down there?” Evan called out.

Holding their noses, they made their way quickly down the stairs. The
basement was divided into two rooms. To the right stood the laundry room and
furnace; to the left the rec room with Kermit’s lab set up along the back wall.

Evan hurried across the tiled floor into the lab. He spotted Kermit behind
his lab table, several beakers of colored liquids in front of him. “Kermit—what’s that disgusting smell?” he demanded.

As Evan and Andy ran up to the lab table, Kermit poured a yellow liquid into
a green liquid. “Uh-oh!” he cried, staring down at the bubbling mixture.

Behind his glasses, his eyes grew wide with horror.

“Run!” Kermit screamed. “Hurry! Get out! It’s going to BLOW!”

The liquid swirled and bubbled.

Kermit ducked under the lab table.

With a cry of horror, Evan spun round. Grabbed Andy’s hand. Started to pull
her to the stairs.

But he had only taken a step when he stumbled over Dogface, Kermit’s huge
sheepdog.

“Oof!” Evan felt the wind knocked out of him as he fell over the dog and
landed facedown on the tile floor. He gasped. Struggled to choke in a mouthful
of air.

The room tilted and swayed.

“It’s going to BLOW!” Kermit’s shrill warning rang in Evan’s ears.

He finally managed to take a deep breath. Raised himself to one knee. Turned
back to the lab table.

And saw Andy standing calmly in the center of the rec room, her hands at her
waist.

“Andy—it’s going to BLOW!” Evan choked out.

She rolled her eyes. “Evan, really,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Did you
really fall for that?”

“Huh?” Evan gazed past her to the long glass table.

Kermit had climbed back to his feet. He was leaning with both elbows on the
table. And he had the grin on his face.
That
grin.

The twisted grin with the two front teeth sticking out. The grin Evan hated
more than any grin in the world.

“Yeah, Evan,” Kermit repeated, mimicking Andy, “did you really fall for
that?” He burst into his squealing-high laugh that sounded like a pig stuck in a
fence.

Evan pulled himself up, muttering under his breath. Dogface hiccupped. The
dog’s tongue tumbled out, and he began to pant loudly.

Evan turned to Andy. “I didn’t really fall for it,” he claimed. “I knew it
was another one of Kermit’s dumb jokes. I was just seeing if
you
believed
it.”

“For sure.” Andy rolled her eyes again. She was doing a lot of eye-rolling
this afternoon, Evan realized.

Evan and Andy stepped up to the table. It was littered with bottles and glass
tubes, beakers and jars—all filled with colored liquids.

On the wall behind the table stood a high bookshelf. The shelves were also
jammed with bottles and jars of liquids and chemicals. Kermit’s mixtures.

“I was only a few minutes late getting here,” Evan told Kermit. “From now on,
don’t do anything. Just wait for me.” He sniffed the air. “What’s that really
gross smell?”

Kermit grinned back at him. “I didn’t notice it until
you
came in!” he
joked.

Evan didn’t laugh. “Give me a break,” he muttered.

Andy scratched her mosquito bite. “Yeah. No more jokes today, Kermit.”

The big sheepdog hiccupped again.

“I’m mixing up something to cure Dogface’s hiccups,” Kermit announced.

“Oh, no!” Evan replied sharply. “No way! I can’t let you give the dog one of
your mixtures to drink.”

“It’s a very simple hiccup cure,” Kermit said, pouring a blue liquid into a
green liquid. “It’s just maglesium harposyrate and ribotussal polythorbital.
With a little sugar for sweetness.”

“No way,” Evan insisted. “You’re not giving Dogface anything to drink but
water. It’s too dangerous.”

Kermit ignored him and continued to mix chemicals from one glass beaker into
another. He glanced up at Andy. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

“It’s a really big mosquito bite,” Andy told him. “It itches like crazy.”

“Let me see it,” Kermit urged.