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It feels like these scary books just came out of NOWHERE. The last series that was really popular at my school was the Underpants Bandits books, but those are yesterday's news now. In fact, I saw a kid walking down the hall with an Underpants Bandits book earlier this week, and an eighth-grader gave him an atomic wedgie. I'm not usually a big fan of scary stories, because when I read them I end up having nightmares. But Rowley's even more of a chicken than I am, because all the books He picked out were from the Spineticklers JUNIOR series, which are supposed to be for kindergarthers.

Spineticklers JUNIOR SCAREDY CAT AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE BY I.M. SPOOKY At least I'm brave enough for the REAL stuff. One of the books I bought is about this guy who gets frozen and then wakes up in the future. Spineticklers WAKE ME UP IN THE YEAR 3000 BY I.M. SPOOKY I thought it was just a bunch of science fiction, but Albert Sandy said he heard about this rich guy who's doing it for REAL.

Albert said he saw this news report about an old billionaire who's really sick, and he paid a ton of money to freeze himself. Then, in a hundred years, he's gonna get UNfrozen. He's betting that by then they'll know how to cure every disease and he can go on living forever. This freezing thing sounds like a great plan to ME. And if I strike it rich one day, I'm gonna do the EXACT same thing. But I'm not gonna wait till I'm old like that billionaire.

The way I see it, if you freeze yourself when you're too old, then when they unfreeze you in the future, you're gonna be too grumpy to have any fun. GET OFF MY LAWN! So if I win the lottery or something in the next few years, I'm gonna use the money to buy myself a one-way ticket to the future.

I'm not telling anyone about my plan, though. There's this jerk at our school named Phillip Crivello, and his parents are rich. So if he gets the same idea as me, I could still be dealing with him a hundred years from now. But I'm not sure if a hundred years is far enough to go. By then I'm sure I'll have a bunch of great nieces and nephews who need babysitting, and I'm not spending all that money just so I can change a bunch of dirty diapers in the future.

I'm planning on staying frozen a lot longer, like a THOUSAND years, because by then things will be REALLY interesting. I'm not willing to go any further than that, though, because who KNOWS how much human beings will have evolved by then.