“ULP!”

Evan swallowed hard as the doughy goop exploded. The force of the blast sent the candy chunk flying down his throat.

He started to cough and choke.

With a hard splat, globs of sticky dough hit him in the face. The yellow goo spread over his hair and covered his eyes.

“Hey!” Evan choked out. He frantically wiped the dough from his eyes, blinking hard.

He could taste it on his tongue. “Yuck!” He spit it out and rubbed the sticky stuff off his lips. Then he pulled thick wads of goo off his face.

“It’s stuck to my hair!” Andy wailed.

“Help me! Help me!” Kermit’s cries sounded as if they were coming from far away. Evan quickly saw why. Kermit was buried under a big heap of yellow goop.

Pulling dough from his hair, Evan hurried behind the lab table. He reached down with both hands and tugged Kermit up from under the dough.

“Wow. I’m kind of dizzy!” Kermit cried. He leaned heavily against the lab table. His hands slid in the yellow goo that covered the table.

“I’ll never get it out of my hair!” Andy wailed, tugging at her hair with both hands. “Never!” She turned to Evan. “It wasn’t supposed to explode. Just get big. I guess something in the dough made it blow up.”

Wiping dough off the front of his T-shirt, Evan gazed around the basement. The yellow dough had splattered over everything. Now it dripped down the walls, making soft plopping sounds as it hit the floor.

“That was an awesome explosion!” Kermit declared. His eyeglasses were covered with yellow goop. He pulled them off and squinted around the room.

He turned to Andy. “Did you put something in the bowl?”

“Never mind,” Andy replied, still pulling sticky yellow globs from her hair.

Kermit tugged her arm. “What was it? What did you put in my mixture?”

“Why do you want to know?” Andy demanded.

“So we can do that again!” Kermit declared gleefully. “It was so awesome!”

“No way we’re doing it again!” Evan moaned.

Their revenge on Kermit hadn’t exactly worked out, Evan realized bitterly. Kermit should be in tears by now. Or he should be quivering in fear and terror.

Instead, his eyes were dancing with excitement and he was grinning from ear to ear.

We were total jerks! Evan thought sadly. Kermit is loving this!

Kermit pulled out a cloth and cleaned his glasses. “What a mess!” he declared, gazing around the room. “Evan, you’re going to be in major trouble when Mom gets home.”

Evan swallowed hard. He had forgotten about Kermit’s mom.

She had given him one last chance to prove that he was a good baby-sitter.

Now she was going to come home to a basement splattered with sticky yellow goop from floor to ceiling. And Kermit was sure to tell her the whole thing was Evan’s fault.

Aunt Dee will tell everyone in the world why she had to take the job away from me, Evan thought unhappily. And I’ll never get another baby-sitting job as long as I live.

Bye-bye, video game, he thought grimly. No way he’d ever earn the money for one now.

“This is your fault!” he snapped at Andy, pointing an accusing finger at her. A spot of yellow dough stuck to his fingernail.

“My fault?” Andy shrieked. “You’re the one who wanted to teach Kermit a lesson!”

“But you’re the one who wanted to use the Monster Blood!” Evan cried.

“Look at my hair!” Andy wailed. “It’s solid goop! It looks like I’m wearing a helmet! It’s ruined! Ruined!” She uttered an angry growl.

Kermit giggled. He bent down and picked up a chunk of the sticky yellow dough. “Think fast!’ he shouted—and heaved it at Evan.

The dough ball hit the front of Evan’s T-shirt and stuck there. “Stop it, Kermit!” he shouted angrily.

“Let’s have a dough fight!” Kermit suggested, grinning. He scooped up another handful of the stuff.

“No! No way! Stop it!” Evan cried. He pulled the dough ball off his T-shirt. “This is dangerous! We’ve got to clean this up!”

Kermit flung another big chunk of yellow goo at Evan.

Evan tried to dodge out of the way. But his sneakers slipped on a big, slimy puddle of goop, and he hit the floor hard. He landed on his side with a loud “OOF!”

Kermit let out a gleeful laugh. “That was awesome!” he declared. “What a shot!”

Andy hurried over and helped tug Evan to his feet. “Maybe we can vacuum it all up,” she suggested. She turned to Kermit. “Where does your mom keep the vacuum cleaner?”

Kermit shrugged. “Beats me.”

Evan leaned against the lab table. His hand rested in a puddle of dough, but he didn’t care.

He suddenly felt strange.

His entire body started to tingle. His stomach felt queasy. He shut his eyes, trying to force the strange feeling away.

But the tingling grew stronger.

He heard a shrill whistling sound in his ears. His muscles started to ache. He could feel the blood throbbing at his temples.

“Maybe we can mop it up,” Evan heard Andy say. But her voice sounded tiny and far away.

He turned to see her pick up a mop and bucket from against the basement wall.

That bucket is too tiny, Evan thought. Why does Andy want to use such a tiny mop?

The room tilted—to the right, then to the left.