I got scared.

But Pauly didn't.

Even though he was the one who nearly drank the stuff.

He had left his Welch's grape drink out overnight and found "things" growing in the jar in the morning.

He said the things looked like roots.

I said they looked like tentacles.

He blamed modern science for fiddling with nature until things go out of control.

I had heard his room was haunted.

He liked that idea, too.

He decided to keep the drink as a pet.

He started to feed it. He put vitamins in the jar at night, then measured the growth in the morning until the stink raised the wrath of his room mate Garrick downstairs who shouted: "Don't you go doing anything unnatural, you hear?"

After that, Pauly put a lid on the jar and forgot about it.

One night, the top popped and a gray glob oozed out.

The stuff might have taken over the table if the quick-witted Pauly hadn't grabbed up the jar and rushed out into the yard with it.

We doused it with gas and set it on fire.

I thought I heard something whimper.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Pauly made me buy him another bottle.

He wants to do it again.