UNCLE JOHN’S THE HAUNTED OUTHOUSE BATHROOM READER® FOR KIDS ONLY
Copyright © 2013 by the Bathroom Readers’ Press (a division of Portable Press). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
“Bathroom Reader” and “Bathroom Readers’ Institute,” and “Portable Press” are registered trademarks of Baker & Taylor. All rights reserved.
For information, write: The Bathroom Readers’ Institute
P.O. Box 1117 Ashland, OR 97520
www.bathroomreader.com
Cover design by Jane Sheppard
Cover illustration by Scot Ritchie
Folio illustration by Patrick Merrell
“How to Talk to a Ghost” illustration
by Nicholas R. Halliday
eISBN: 978-1-60710-922-8
eBook edition: September 2013
READERS RAVE
Some books print fancy reviews written by fancy book critics. Borrring! At the BRI, we care more about what our faithful readers have to say.
“This book is the best book in the world I’ve ever read, since now I’ve read it!”
—Trevor G.
“I inadvertently stole one from my teacher. (Sorry Mr. Mont!) I got hooked, my family got hooked, and now I have my nieces and nephews hooked!”
—Michael C.
“I remember reading the first Bathroom Reader as a kid, and learning that Barbie had a last name. (Roberts!)”
—Katie F.
“I love your books! I have eleven books. I take them to school and everyone loves to read them. ”
—Andrew S.
“Waassssuuuupppp! I just wanted to shout out to all the cool dudes and chicas working on the Bathroom Reader staff! I became totally addicted to the BRs last year! My life hasn’t been the same since!”
—Kim B.
THANK YOU
The Bathroom Readers’ Institute sincerely thanks the people whose advice and assistance made this book possible.
Gordon Javna
Kim T. Griswell
Trina Janssen
Jay Newman
Brian Boone
Jane Sheppard
Scot Ritchie
Rich Wallace
Carly Schuna
Jahnna Beecham
Kelly Milner Halls
Mark Haverstock
Elizabeth Armstrong Hall
Molly Marcot
Megan Todd
Sandra Neil Wallace
Nancy Coffelt
Valeri Gorbachev
John O’Brien
Will Strong
Michelle R. Weaver
Patrick Merrell
Nick Halliday
Joan M. Kyzer
Jill Belrose
Carly Stephenson
Melinda Allman
Blake Mitchum
Brandon Walker
JoAnn Padgett
Aaron Guzman
Ginger Winters
Jennifer Frederick
RR Donnelley
Publishers Group West
Thomas Crapper
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BATHROOM LORE
Harry Potty & the Chamberpot of Secrets
Bathroom Shrieks
Going, Going…Still Going
Hanako the Toilet Ghost
A Haunted Outhouse
HORRIBLE HISTORY
Terrible Tyrants
Curse of the…
Medieval Football
More Terrible Tyrants
A Fate Worse than Death
We All Fall Down
Tick-Tock, Mummy’s in the Clock
SCARE WEAR
What’s that in Your Hair?
The Evil Eye
Spookified Pins
Turn a Hat into a Horror
Fashion Fails
SHIVERS & SHAKES
In the News
Fear Factoids
What’s in Your Suitcase?
In the News: Dead Thirsty
Costumed Kooks
Urban Legends
Scary-Stupid Criminals
In the News: Dead Weird
Locked In
Top 10 Phobias
Redneck Rodent Roast
FREAK SHOWS
Villainesses
Reel Screamers
Creepy Comic Heroes
IF YOU DARE
Who’s Haunting Who?
Run, Mummy, Run!
Banish Trouble
10 Scary Things to Do After Dark
Pumpkin Games
How to Make a Shrunken Head
Pranked!
How to Talk to a Ghost
Trouble Doll
Kick the Severed Hand
GRIMACES & GRINS
That’s Zomedy!
Ghastly Headlines
Monster Mania
Wretched Riddles
Ghoul School
Deadly Words
EERILY TWISTED TALES
I’ll Never Throw Up!
A Chillin’ Tale
The Vulture
The Legend of Pee-Pee Hollow
The Blob
Attack of the Killer Peanut
Knock Three Times
Chicken Wings
Something Wicked
Watch Out for Barry!
Zombie-rella
The Black Dog
Stinkpot
Snake & Shake
Monkey Butt
GRAPHIC TALES
Wienerstein
Step By Step
Through the Forest in the Night
The Creature from the Black Lagoon Has a No Good, Very Bad Day
The Haunted Outhouse
Day Creature
The Howler
Black and White Party
The Haunted Shopping Cart
The Forgotten Guest
Nice or Naughty?
One Windy Autumn Day
Bony Legs
The Tell-Tale Fart
THAT’S BEASTLY!
Natures Beasts
The Hairy Truth
Beastly Big
Canine Corpse Patrol
Howl at the Moon
Purple Pee-ple
Terror in the Water
BARFARAMA!
Finger Foods
Too Icky to Eat
The Gross Gourmet
Chocolate Chip Cookie D’oh
Bloody Band-Aids
CREEPY CRAWLERS
Snakes in the Toilet
Don’t Bug Me!
MAD SCIENCE
Exploding Urine
Skeleton Keys
The Body Farm
Scary Smart
That’s Crazy!
Dr. Puke
Body Breakdown
TERRA SCARA
Dead Zones
Holey Florida
The Grimy Truth
GET SPOOKED!
No-Noggin Goblins
Ghosts and Roses
Team Spirits
America’s Most Haunted Schools
HOWL-I-DAYS
Unlucky 13
Feed the Animals
Día de los Muertos
Happy Howl-O-Ween
Dark Destinations
Halloweenies
Take a Bite Out of Transylvania
THE LIVING DEAD
Gruesome Greece
Night of the Living Dead
Out for Blood
The Talking Dead
&nb
sp; Zombie Apocalypse
NO FEAR!
Who’s Afraid?
Brave Hearts
Death-Defying Daredevil
DR. JOHNENSTEIN’S LABORATORY
Same Mold, Same Mold
Bloody Miracle
The Bouncing Eyeball
DARK AND STORMY
Tri-State Twister
Deadly Weather
Answer Pages
CHILLING GREETINGS
NOT LONG AGO, in a little red house with creaking doors and strange smells coming from the bathroom, we created an enchanting book of magic, mystery, science, history, and totally twisted tales. It’s called The Enchanted Toilet. It’s packed with amazing stories about castles and kingdoms and fairies and knights…but, I digress. The book you have in your hands is NOT filled with glitter glue and magic and Elvis impersonators (sorry, no time to fill you in...). Oh, no, my reading friends. This book began with a lightning bolt, a crash of thunder, and—bwa ha ha!—a rubber duckie.
One dark and stormy night, while I was writing the flesh off my fingers, a strange noise came from the front porch of the Bathroom Readers’ Institute. I opened the door and saw… nothing really. But as I started to close the door, something so weird, so horrifying, so completely unbelievable waddled out of the shadows and said…
IT’S TIME TO TELL MY STORY . . .
Who was I to refuse? I invited the creature in, said “Stop looking at my neck like that!” and took down its ghastly tale (see page 99). And that’s when I realized: My pointy-toothed visitor couldn’t be the only monster with an eerily twisted history. I would find more stories about gruesome creatures and creepy ghosts and sewer pipes that go bump in the night! Then I’d stitch them all together to create a terror-filled book called…The Haunted Outhouse.
HOLD ON TO YOUR NECK BOLTS!
Flip through the pages of this Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader for Kids Only and you’ll find headless ghosts, haunted schools, bouncing eyeballs, severed hands, foods too icky to eat, history’s most terrifying tyrants, and the U.S. government’s advice for surviving a zombie apocalypse. You’ll also find more than a dozen eerily twisted tales of horror, plus fourteen illustrated graphic horror tales. Every page is guaranteed to make your knees knock together no matter where you sit down to read.
By the way, that annoying little monster smelling up the pages? That’s Count Fartula. If anything in this book really stinks—the jokes, for example—it’s his fault. We think he’s the fart fairy’s second cousin twice-removed (see The Enchanted Toilet). I asked the fart fairy to magic him out of the book, but she refused, so I turned him into a game: “Find Count Fartula.” To play, simply count how many times he appears in the book. Then turn to page 285 and discover your reward. (No peeking, or I’ll send Count Fartula to stink up your house. Pee-uw!)
May all your outhouses be haunted…
Go with the flow!
UNCLE JOHNENSTEIN
THAT’S ZOMEDY!
A few laughs from the undying art of zombie comedy.
Q: What do you get when you cross a zombie with a snowman?
A: Frostbite.
Q: Do zombies eat candy with their fingers?
A: No, they eat the fingers separately.
Q: Where’s the safest room in your house to hide from zombies?
A: The living room.
Q: What did the zombie eat after his teeth were cleaned?
A: The dentist.
Q: Why did the zombie take a nap?
A: He was dead tired.
Q: What did the zombie say when he saw his favorite movie star?
A: “I’ve been dying to eat you!”
ZOMBIE KID: “Mommy, do I have Daddy’s eyes?”
MOMBIE: “Yes, dear. Now eat them before they get too cold.”
Q: What’s dead, flies around, and likes to sting your brain?
A: A zom-bee.
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Interrupting Zombie.”
“Interrupting Zom-”
“BRAAAINS!”
IN THE NEWS
Truth really is stranger than fiction.
SPIDER INSIDE HER
Put this one at the top of your nightmare list: A Chinese woman, only known as “Ms. Lee,” went to China’s Changsha Central Hospital, complaining of an itchy ear. When Dr. Liu Sheng took a look inside, he found…a spider living in the woman’s ear canal. Apparently it had crawled in while Lee was asleep. The doctor feared that extracting the spider with surgical equipment might cause it to drill its barbs deeper. So she washed the spider out with a saline solution.
COLOR ME YELLOW
A roadkill-raccoon got an extra stripe when a Pennsylvania road crew painted a yellow traffic line over its corpse. A biker who came across the roadkill thought the foul-up was some kind of joke. “When I saw it, I almost wrecked my motorcycle I was laughing so hard,” he said. It was no joke: The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation usually has a clean-up vehicle ahead of a paint truck to clear debris—and dead raccoons. But on that day, no truck was available. The striped racoon has since been cleaned up, but a foot-long gap remains where “Old Yeller” used to be.
FEAR FACTOIDS
Proof that there’s nothing to fear but stupidity itself.
•In 1990, members of a Congressional subcommittee wanted to know more about computer terrorism so they could come up with ways to fight it. The committee’s research included watching Die Hard 2.
•In 2002, the New York Times reported a rumor about Bakili Muluzi, the president of the African country of Malawi. Muluzi had been accused of colluding with vampires to collect human blood for international aid agencies. Villagers believed the rumor. They stoned one man to death for “helping vampires” and attacked three Catholic priests they suspected of vampirism.
•A black leopard caused mass panic in Xiamen City, China in 2007. The beast was spotted on a busy downtown sidewalk. “Dogs were scared and passersby were running for their lives,” said one observer. “Some of them ran into traffic, causing a backup.” Police brought in a specialist from the local zoo to put the animal to sleep so it could be captured. But after watching for awhile, officers noticed something odd: the leopard never moved. One daring officer went up and touched it. That’s when he realized it wasn’t a real leopard. It was a stuffed toy leopard.
I’LL NEVER THROW UP!
An Uncle John’s Eerily Twisted Tale!
PETER PAN WAS THE ODDEST EATER at Lost Bay Elementary in Lost Bay, Connecticut. He could eat anything. When he ate an entire pumpkin, all the boys chanted, “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater.” But teasing only encouraged Peter. Pretty soon, he was shoving anything into his mouth on a dare. The Lost boys brought Peter silverware, plates, and small appliances. Peter gobbled them up. They brought lawn furniture, discarded treadmills, and their little sisters’ Big Wheels. Peter gulped them down. And, unbelievably, it all stayed down.
“You keep eating all that junk and you’re going to throw up,” warned Peter’s big sister, Wendy.
Peter put his hands on his hips and declared, “I won’t throw up. I won’t throw up.”
But, one day, Peter went too far. He ate his entire neighborhood—houses, sidewalks, street lamps, and streets. He spared the people, mostly because they got in their cars and screeched away (leaving no forwarding addresses). And that’s how Peter and the Lost boys ended up with no moms or dads or sisters and no place to live.
Peter invited the Lost Boys to a tire roast beside Lost Bay. No one sat too close to the campfire. Partly because the smell of roasting tires made them gag, and partly because of the rumor that Peter had eaten the hand off a pirate who now had to wear a hook.
“I know I said I’d never, never throw up,” Peter told the boys. “But I created our problem, and throwing up may be the only way to fix it. Do you believe I can do it?”
“Yes!” the boys cried. “We believe!”
“If you believe,” Peter said. “Then clap your hands.”
The Lost boys clapped and clapped. And soon they heard a rumbling that sounded as if it came from a distant star. (The second star to the right, actually.) The rumbling grew louder and louder until—at long last—Peter threw up. Bricks and gates and small appliances and weather vanes and finger bones and street lamps gushed out of his mouth and poured into Lost Bay. When the whole mess settled, it had become an island filled with odd-shaped trees and unusual little houses and wondrous play structures.
“Our own island!” the boys cried. “What should we call it?”
Peter shrugged. “How about Never Never Land?”
“That sounds like an amusement park,” said Stinky Bell, the smallest and smelliest of the boys.
“It can be whatever we want it to be,” said Peter. “And we can do whatever we want.”
And that’s how Peter Pan and the Lost boys came to live at Never Never Land, the happiest place on Earth, next to Disneyland, of course, but that’s another story.
THE END
WHAT’S IN YOUR SUITCASE?
Get caught with any of these at airport security, and it could be an open-and-shut case.
A TIGER CUB. During a bag scan, staff at a Bangkok airport saw an object that looked a lot like a real animal on their x-ray images. Officers from livestock and wildlife departments were called in to open and inspect the bag. What they found inside? Stuffed tiger toys and a live—though sedated—two-month-old tiger cub.
BARBIE. When airlines can’t find the owners of unclaimed luggage, they send the luggage to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. People can visit the Center and buy the items that were found. A woman bought a Barbie doll for her daughter at the Center. The daughter pulled the head off the Barbie doll, and $500 in rolled bills fell out of the doll’s body–plenty of cash for a night on the town with Ken.
A SEAL’S HEAD. A biology professor flying from Boston’s Logan International Airport to Denver had the severed head of a harbor seal in his luggage. He told airport security officers that he’d found a dead seal on a beach and cut off its head to use for “educational purposes.” Not good. And not legal. Federal laws make it illegal to remove body parts from a dead mammal. And transporting wildlife body parts? Don’t even think about it unless you have a permit. The professor didn’t. If charged, he could be fined up to $20,000 and spend a year in prison.