The Birthday Party of No Return! by R. L. Stine Page A

icing stuck to my hands. My face itched. I tried to scratch it and icing smeared my cheeks.
    I glimpsed myself in the wall mirror. Blue and white icing covered my hair.
    Everyone in the room was going nuts. Kids were shouting and shrieking and running around. Cory stood in the broken glass from the TV screen, staring at the mess from the fallen food table. Staring. Just staring.
    I tried to brush icing off my pants. I felt someone grab my shoulder. Hard.
    I looked up to see Mrs. Duckworth. Her face was red. She had her jaw clenched. I swear I could see fire shooting from her eyes.
    She squeezed my shoulder until I cried out. “Come with me, Lee,” she said through gritted teeth.
    Across the room, a girl slipped on the sticky spilled soda and fell onto a pile of pizza slices. Kids were still shouting and shaking their heads in disbelief.
    Mrs. Duckworth led me up the basement stairs, away from the party. “Don’t touch anything,” she said. “I’m warning you — don’t touch anything. I don’t want icing all over my house.”
    â€œS-sorry,” I stammered.
    We reached the kitchen. She let go of my shoulder and turned to face me. She studied me from head to foot. “Are you okay, Lee? You’re not hurt?”
    â€œI — I’m okay, I guess,” I murmured. I brushed a lump of icing off my cheek. But then I didn’t know where to put it. So I wiped it on my jeans.
    â€œI’m calling your parents,” Mrs. Duckworth said. “To come pick you up.”
    â€œOkay,” I said softly.
    â€œYou ruined Cory’s party,” she said, squinting hard at me. “You didn’t do all that to be funny — did you?”
    I swallowed. My throat was suddenly very dry. “Funny?” I squeaked. “No. I —”
    â€œSo it wasn’t deliberate?” she asked.
    I shook my head. “No way. It was an accident. Really.”
    â€œIt was a lot of accidents,” she said. She made a face. Like she had just bitten into a really sour lemon.
    â€œI — I’m sorry,” I stuttered.
    â€œI mean, it’s hard to destroy a TV, knock over a heavy food table, and sit on a birthday cake,” she said. “Very hard to do all that.”
    I nodded. “Just bad luck,” I muttered. I didn’t know what else to say. Then I added, “I didn’t sit on the cake. I fell on it.”
    She made a hmpf sound. Then she picked up a phone and called my house.
    I sighed. How could she think I did all that on purpose?
    Cory is my friend. I would never deliberately ruin his birthday party. Never.
    My mom pulled up in the car five minutes later. She let out a cry when she saw me. I told her I was okay. I said I had an accident with the cake. I said I’d explain later.
    Mom apologized at least twenty times to Mrs. Duckworth.
    â€œIt was quite unusual ,” Mrs. Duckworth said. She kept using the word unusual . Then she excused herself. “I have a lot of cleaning up to do.”
    Cory came upstairs to say good-bye. I told him I was sorry that I wrecked his party.
    I pulled him into the front hall. “It’s the claw,” I said. I whispered so my mom wouldn’t hear. She was still in the kitchen. She was on her phone, calling Dad.
    Cory stared hard at me. “What about the claw?”
    â€œMine is different from yours,” I said. “Something bad happened to it. Now it’s bad luck all the time.”
    I sighed. “Everything that just happened downstairs? The mess I made? All because of the claw. It gives me bad luck instead of good.”
    Cory shook his head. “Lee — didn’t you read the instructions?”

Instructions?
    I had a sudden flash. I remembered opening the box the claw came in. And I pictured the small, square sheet of paper that fluttered out of the box.
    Arfy grabbed it and ran away with it.
    Were those the instructions?
    â€œCome with me,” Cory said.