Teeny Weenies: The Boy Who Cried Wool Read online

  “No,” I said. “There’s nothing else like them.”

  Mom tossed a bag of kisses in the shopping cart and moved down the aisle. I stared at the empty place as if I could make the missing candy corn appear. It didn’t, of course.

  I had to do something. I loved candy corn. I loved the way it tasted, the way it smelled, and the way it looked. I even loved the clickety-tink sound it made when you grabbed a handful from the glass candy dish. While Mom was sifting through two dozen identical bags of salad greens, in search of the best one, I walked over to the customer service desk, in search of answers.

  “Can I help you?” the man on the other side asked.

  “There’s no candy corn,” I said. “It’s almost Thanksgiving, and we have to buy candy corn.”

  The man gave me a sad smile. “I know how you feel. I love it myself. But the manufacturer is out of it. They had some sort of production problem at the factory. We have to wait for a new supply.”

  “How long will that take?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to guess,” the man said. “It could be next week. Or even next month?”

  “Next month?” I said in a louder voice than I’d planned. “That will be Christmastime.”

  The man shrugged. “Sorry. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Well, if he couldn’t do anything, I decided it was up to me to fix things. When we got home from the market, I looked up the candy corn company, Sweet Tooth Confections. It was just outside of town. That was close enough for me to get there on my own. Right after breakfast the next morning, I hopped on my bike and headed out.

  The factory was a small brick building down a side road. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot, so I figured it was open. I pedaled up to the door, hopped off my bike, and turned the knob. It opened.

  “Hello?” I called. Nobody answered. I walked inside. There was a small room with a desk. Nobody was there, either. At the back of the room, I saw a door with PRODUCTION LINE written on it.

  I went through it and found myself at one end of a short hallway. I walked along it. “Hello?”

  Still no answer.

  The hallway led to another small room with a hole in the middle of the floor. I walked up to the hole and bent over it. I saw what looked like a sliding board.

  “Weird,” I said. But there was no other way to get anywhere. I had to use the slide, or give up and go home. I’m not a quitter. I stepped on the slide, then dropped to a sitting position.

  “Whoa!” I shouted. I hadn’t planned to shout, but it was a slick slide. It was a lot more slippery than any slide I’d ever been on.

  It was also a long, steep slide. By the time I reached the end, I was zooming so fast the wind was buzzing in my ears. There was a ramp at the end like on a ski jump. I got launched into the air, right toward a rope with a handle on the end. It looked like some sort of zip line. I grabbed the handle and zipped across the room. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream, so I let out a whoop that could have been either of those things.

  That’s when I saw them.

  And when they saw me.

  They looked like large rocks, lined up all along the room, filling shelves on either side of me. That was really weird. It got weirder when the rocks opened their eyes.

  They had huge eyes, the size of basketballs.

  They had much huger mouths. They all opened their mouths. Thousands of white pointy teeth glistened at me. The monsters howled and leaped at me.

  I hung on to the handle.

  There was a terrifying, deafening crash right behind me. I looked over my shoulder. The monsters on either side all crashed into each other, each pair just missing me as I passed them. They bounced back, right to the spot where they’d leaped from. Their eyes spun like they were dizzy.

  Something shot in the air and then showered down on me. I heard thousands of clinkey-clicks as they fell to the floor.

  “Yay, it works again!” someone shouted as my wild ride came to an end at a ledge and I let go of the handle.

  A door opened, and people ran into the room, carrying hoses. I guess the hoses were part of a vacuum system. The people sucked up all the monster teeth. I snatched one before it could be pulled away.

  “Candy corn?” I asked, staring at it. It looked like candy corn. The white tips were what I’d seen in the monsters’ mouths. I sniffed it. It smelled like candy corn. I took a tiny nibble.

  It was delicious!

  “Thank you!” one of the workers yelled from below. “They’d been unproductive for weeks. We couldn’t get them to leap. Our old line-zipper retired, and nobody else seemed to have what it takes. Your scream is the perfect pitch.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. Even as I watched, new teeth were growing in the monsters’ mouths. “Doesn’t it hurt them to lose their teeth?” I asked.

  “Nope. They enjoy it,” the man said. “Right?”

  The monsters all nodded and grinned.

  “Want a job?” the man asked.

  “What do I have to do?” I asked.

  “The same thing you just did,” the man said.

  I thought about the frightening ride. I didn’t have to think for long. “Sure,” I said. “That would be fun.” And I was deliciously good at it.

  STARSCAPE BOOKS BY DAVID LUBAR

  Novels

  Flip

  Hidden Talents

  True Talents

  Monsterrific Tales

  Hyde and Shriek

  The Vanishing Vampire

  The Unwilling Witch

  The Wavering Werewolf

  The Gloomy Ghost

  The Bully Bug

  Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie Series

  My Rotten Life

  Dead Guy Spy

  Goop Soup

  The Big Stink

  Enter the Zombie

  Story Collections

  Attack of the Vampire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  Beware the Ninja Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  Check out the Library Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  The Curse of the Campfire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  In the Land of the Lawn Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  Invasion of the Road Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  Wipeout of the Wireless Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales

  Teeny Weenies: Freestyle Frenzy and Other Stories

  Teeny Weenies: The Intergalactic Petting Zoo and Other Stories

  Teeny Weenies: My Favorite President and Other Stories

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID LUBAR credits his passion for short stories to his limited attention span and bad typing skills, though he has been known to sit still and peck at the keyboard long enough to write a novel or chapter book now and then, including Hidden Talents (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults) and My Rotten Life, which is currently under development for a cartoon series. He lives in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, with his amazing wife, and not too far from his amazing daughter. In his spare time, he takes naps on the couch. You can sign up for email updates here.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  BILL MAYER is absolutely amazing. Bill’s crazy creatures, characters, and comic creations have been sought after for magazine covers, countless articles, and even stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. He has won almost every illustration award known to man and even some known to fish. Bill and his wife live in Decatur, Georgia. They have a son and three grandsons.. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  The Boy Who Cried, “Wool!”

  All You Can Eat

  Busting Pumpkins

  The Sock Drawer

  Leave It Be

  Esther’s Sentence

  The Horn of Plenty

  Trick and Treat

  Hammer It Out

  The Silver ’Shroom

  Gobble Gobble

  Candy Corn

  Starscape Books by David Lubar

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations,

  and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the

  author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE BOY WHO CRIED WOOL AND OTHER STORIES

  Copyright © 2019 by David Lubar

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Bill Mayer

  All rights reserved.

  A Starscape Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  120 Broadway

  New York, NY 10271

  www.tor-forge.com

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-17349-2 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-18776-5 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250187765

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational,

  or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and

  Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442,

  or by email at [email protected].

  First Edition: September 2019