Goosebumps #54: Don’t go to Sleep! (R.L. Stine)

All Matt really wants is a little freedom from his family. His older siblings Pam and Greg make fun of him all the time, ignore him when they’re supposed to take care of him, and get him into trouble. He also wants a bigger bedroom because his bedroom is too small for all of his stuff, but his mom claims they need the guest room for his grandparents’ once a year visits.

The final straw comes when his brother throws the family dog (who he hates) on his chest and his brother sticks him with making dinner. After everyone goes to sleep, Matt sneaks into the guest room and falls asleep. He wakes the next day with enormous feet and finds that he became a teenager. When he runs downstairs, he discovers that Pam and Greg are now younger than him and he has to attend high school.

The classes are harder, no one likes him, and guys in black keep following him around. He tries explaining what happened to his teachers, but they think he read too much science fiction. He runs into a younger girl named Lacie, but she is the only nice person he sees all day.

The next day Matt wakes up to no siblings and parents he never saw before, plus a pet cat. He is back in a younger body, but his dad drops him off at a new junior high. He runs into Lacie, who doesn’t recognize him from before, but she still helps him escape the men in black.

Every time Matt falls asleep, he wakes up in a completely different body. One day he becomes a chubby boy, the next day he’s a young boy, etc. He even wakes up in the body of a circus performer-lion tamer with six brothers and sisters. After waking up in an old man’s body, he forces himself to fall asleep and wakes up as a monster. He runs through town and Lacie helps him escape, only to lead him to the men in black. They let him sleep and he wakes up the next day as a human.

Lacie and the guys explain that they are the reality police. The guest room of his house was a hole in reality and when he fell asleep there, he slipped into another reality. There is no way of bringing him back, so they plan on putting him to sleep permanently. He keeps jumping into bodies of real people and they can’t have him disrupting the lives of others.

Matt manages to escape and runs home, but no one recognizes him. He decides that if he goes to sleep in his own bed, then it will fix everything. Since he can’t get inside, he falls asleep and wakes up as a squirrel. He runs inside, but his sister catches him and sticks him in a cage. He escapes, runs into his room and falls asleep.

Matt wakes up in his regular body the next day and gleefully kisses Pam, Greg and his mom. His mom announces that she has a little surprise for him. Since he’s getting older and needs more room, she cleared out the guest room for him…