You Can't Scare Me! Read Free Page A

Otherwise, she’ll never let us forget today.”
    â€œBut she’s so brave, so totally fearless,” Charlene said, shaking her head. “What could we possibly do to frighten her?”
    We all moaned quietly, shaking our heads, thinking hard.
    Then I saw an evil smile break across Molly’s face. She pushed her glasses up on her nose. Behind them, her brown eyes sparkled with excitement. “I think I have an idea,” she whispered.

5
    â€œMy brother has a disgusting rubber snake,” Molly whispered. Her excited grin grew wider.
    The four of us huddled together on the edge of the backseat. Every time the bus bounced, we nearly fell to the floor.
    â€œCourtney isn’t afraid of snakes,” Hat interrupted. “She likes to pet them. Remember?”
    â€œThat was a stupid green snake,” Molly whispered. “My brother’s rubber snake is big and black. The mouth is open. It’s got these huge, pointy white fangs. It’s got a fierce expression on its face, and —”
    â€œDoes it look real or does it look fake?” I asked.
    The bus hit a hard bump. We all bounced a foot straight up.
    â€œIt looks real,” Molly replied, her eyes flashing behind her glasses. “And it feels warm and kind of sticky.”
    â€œYuck!” Charlene exclaimed, making a face.
    â€œHe’s scared me with it a dozen times,” Molly confessed. “It’s so real and disgusting, I’m fooled by it every time. Once when I reached under my pillow in the middle of the night and felt it there, I screamed for at least an hour. No one could get me to stop.”
    â€œGreat!” Hat declared.
    I still had my doubts. “You really think it’ll make Courtney scream?”
    Molly nodded. “She’ll freak. She’ll totally freak. This rubber snake is ugly enough to scare a
real
snake!”
    We all laughed loudly. Some kids in the front turned to see what was so funny. I could see Courtney and Denise in the front seat, writing in their notebooks. They were probably copying their work sheet lists over. They both
had
to be perfect students in every way.
    â€œI can’t wait to scare Courtney,” I said as the bus pulled up to our school. “You sure you can get this snake from your brother, Molly?”
    Molly grinned at me. “I know which drawer he keeps it in. I’ll just borrow it.”
    â€œBut what are we going to do with it?” Charlene demanded. “How are we going to scare Courtney with it? Where are we going to hide it?”
    â€œIn her lunch bag, of course,” Molly replied.
    The four of us climbed off the bus with big smiles on our faces.
    The lunch bags were kept on a low bookshelf in the back of our classroom. My class always eats lunch right in our classroom. Our school is very small, so a cafeteria was never built. Courtney’s lunch was always easy to spot. It was the biggest one on the shelf.
    Her mother always packed her
two
sandwiches and
two
boxes of juice. Plus a bag of potato chips and an apple, some string cheese, and usually a fruit rollup or two.
    I don’t know why Courtney’s mom gave her such big lunches. There was no way Courtney could eat it all. She became a big hero at lunchtime because she shared a lot of it with kids who had crummy lunches.
    The next morning, I got to school a little late. The lunch bags were already spread out on the low shelf. I could see Courtney’s overstuffed brown paper bag at the end.
    I studied Courtney’s lunch bag as I set mine down at the other end. Had Molly succeeded in her mission? Had she stuffed the rubber snake into the bag?
    I couldn’t tell by looking at the bag. But I
could
tell by looking at Molly. Her face was bright red, and she kept darting nervous glances at me.
    Yes.
    Molly had succeeded.
    Now we just had to survive the three and a half hours until lunchtime.
    How would I be able to concentrate on anything? I kept turning