54 - Don't Go To Sleep Read Free

cereal.
    Nothing weird about that, right?
    The only thing was, they looked different too. If I was sixteen, Pam and Greg
should have been nineteen and twenty.
    But they weren’t. They weren’t even fifteen and sixteen.
    They looked eleven and twelve!
    They’d gotten younger!
    “This is impossible!” I screeched.
    “This is impossible!” Greg echoed, making fun of me.
    Pam started giggling.
    “Mom—listen to me!” I cried. “Something weird is going on. Yesterday I was
twelve—and today I’m sixteen!”
    “ You’re the weirdo!” Greg joked. He and Pam were cracking up. They were
just as obnoxious now as they were when they were older.
    Mom was only half-listening to me. I shook her arm to get her attention.
    “Mom! Pam and Greg are my older brother and sister! But now suddenly
they’re younger! Don’t you remember? Greg is the oldest!”
    “Matt has gone cuckoo!” Greg cracked. “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”
    Pam fell on the floor laughing.
    Mom stood up and set her plate in the sink. “Matt, I don’t have time for
this. Go upstairs and get dressed right now.”
    “But, Mom—”
    “Now!”
    What could I do? Nobody would listen to me. They all acted as if everything
was normal.
    I went upstairs and got dressed for school. I couldn’t find my old clothes.
My drawers were full of clothes I’d never seen before. They all fit my new,
bigger body.
    Could this be some kind of joke? I wondered as I laced up my size-ten
sneakers.
    Greg must be playing some crazy trick on me.
    But how? How could Greg get me to grow—and get himself to shrink?
    Even Greg couldn’t do that.
    Then Biggie trotted in.
    “Oh, no,” I cried. “Stay away, Biggie. Stay away!”
    Biggie didn’t listen. He ran right up to me—and licked me on the leg.
    He didn’t growl. He didn’t bite. He wagged his tail.
    That’s it! I realized. Everything has really gone crazy.
    “Matt! We’re leaving!” Mom called.
    I hurried downstairs and out the front door. Everybody else was already in
the car.
    Mom drove us to school. She pulled up in front of my school, Madison Middle
School. I started to get out of the car.
    “Matt!” Mom scolded. “Where are you going? Get back in here!”
    “I’m going to school!” I explained. “I thought you wanted me to go to
school!”
    “Bye, Mom!” Pam chirped. She and Greg kissed Mom good-bye and hopped out of
the car.
    They ran into the school building.
    “Stop fooling around, Matt,” Mom said. “I’m going to be late for work.”
    I got back into the car. Mom drove another couple of miles. She stopped…
in front of the high school.
    “Here you are, Matt,” Mom said.
    I gulped. High school!
    “But I’m not ready for high school!” I protested.
    “What is your problem today?” Mom snapped. She reached across the front seat
and opened my door. “Get going!”
    I had to get out. I had no choice.
    “Have a good day!” she called as she pulled away.
    One look at that school and I knew—I was not going to have a good
day.

 
 
4
     
     
    A bell rang. Big, scary-looking kids poured into the school building.
    “Come on, kid. Let’s move it.” A teacher pushed me toward the door.
    My stomach lurched. This was like the first day of school—times ten! Times
a zillion!
    I wanted to scream: I can’t go to high school! I’m only in the seventh grade!
    I wandered through the halls with hundreds of other kids. Where do I go? I
wondered. I don’t even know what class I’m in!
    A big guy wearing a football jacket marched up to me and stuck his face in my
face.
    “Um, hello,” I said. Who was this guy?
    He didn’t move. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there, nose to nose with
me.
    “Um, listen,” I began. “I don’t know what class to go to. Do you know where
they keep the kids who are about—you know—my age?”
    The big—very, very big—guy opened his mouth.
    “You little creep,” he muttered. “I’m going to get you for what you did to me
yesterday.”
    “Me?” My