28 - The Cuckoo Clock of Doom by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Page B

girls shouted. They unclutched their
hands and jumped on top of me.
    “Ow!” I cried.
    “Hold his arms!” Mona ordered. Ceecee obeyed. Mona started tickling me under
the arms.
    “Stop it!” I begged. It was torture. “Stop it!”
    “No!” Mona cried. “That’s what you get for trying to catch us!”
    “I… didn’t…” I had trouble getting the words out while she tickled
me. “I didn’t… try to…”
    “Yes you did!” Mona insisted.
    I’d forgotten that Mona used to be so bossy. It made me think twice. If I
ever make it back to my real age, I thought, maybe I won’t like Mona so much
anymore.
    “Please stop,” I begged again.
    “I’ll stop,” Mona said. “But only if you promise something.”
    “What?”
    “You have to climb that tree.” She pointed to the tree by the fence. “Okay?”
    I stared at the tree. Climbing it wouldn’t be such a big deal. “Okay,” I
agreed. “Just get off me!”
    Mona stood up. Ceecee let go of my arms.
    I climbed to my feet and brushed the grass off my pants.
    “You’re scared,” Mona taunted.
    “I am not!” I replied. What a brat! She was almost as bad as Tara!
    Now Mona and Ceecee chanted, “Mikey is scared. Mikey is scared.”
    I ignored them. I grabbed the lowest branch of the tree and hauled myself up.
It was harder than I thought it would be. My four-year-old body wasn’t very
athletic.
    “Mikey is scared. Mikey is scared.”
    “Shut up!” I yelled down at them. “Can’t you see that I’m climbing the stupid
tree? It doesn’t make sense to tease me about being scared.”
    They both gave me that blank look Mona had given me before. As if they didn’t
understand what I was saying.
    “Mikey is scared,” they chanted again.
    I sighed and kept climbing. My hands were so small, it was hard to grip the branches. One of my feet slipped.
    Then a terrible thought popped into my head.
    Wait a minute.
    I shouldn’t be doing this.
    Isn’t nursery school the year I broke my arm?
    YEEEEOOOOOOWWWWW!

 
 
19
     
     
    Morning again.
    I yawned and opened my eyes. I shook my left arm, the one I broke climbing
that stupid tree the day before.
    The arm felt fine. Perfectly normal. Completely healed.
    I must have gone back in time again, I thought. That’s the good part about
this messed-up time thing: I didn’t have to wait for my arm to heal.
    I wondered how far back I went.
    The sun poured in through the window of Tara’s—or my—room. It cast a
weird shadow across my face: a striped shadow.
    I tried to roll out of bed. My body slammed against something.
    What was that? I rolled back to look.
    Bars!
    I was surrounded by bars! Was I in jail?
    I tried to sit up so I could see better. It wasn’t as easy as usual. My stomach muscles seemed to have grown weak.
    At last I managed to sit up and look around.
    I wasn’t in jail. I was in a crib!
    Crumpled up beside me was my old yellow blankie with the embroidered duck on
it. I sat beside a small pile of stuffed animals. I was wearing a tiny white
undershirt, and—
    Oh, no.
    I shut my eyes in horror.
    It can’t be. Please don’t let it be true! I prayed.
    I opened my eyes and checked to see if my prayer had come true.
    It hadn’t.
    I was wearing diapers.
    Diapers!
    How young am I now? How far back in time did I go? I wondered.
    “Are you awake, Mikey?”
    Mom came into the room. She looked pretty young. I didn’t remember ever
seeing her this young before.
    “Did you get lots of sleep, sweetie pie?” Mom asked. She clearly expected no
answer from me. Instead, she shoved a bottle of juice into my mouth.
    Yuck! A bottle!
    I pulled it out of my mouth and clumsily threw it down.
    Mom picked it up. “No, no,” she said patiently. “Bad little Mikey. Drink your
bottle now. Come on.”
    She slid it back into my mouth. I was thirsty, so I drank the juice.
Drinking from a bottle wasn’t that bad, once you got used to it.
    Mom left the room. I let the bottle drop.
    I had to know how old I was. I