by M. D. Whaleb
The chimp-colored lady professor covered her mouth like she was sick. She muttered angrily to Chan, then disappeared from the screen. School was out for today.
Peter squeezed the reduced flatulence enchilada into the garbage chamber, then Willy pressed the lever to project it out into space.
Everything was once again all right with the universe.
CHAPTER 9
The Kids in the Moon
At last they were orbiting the Moon. Craters and boulders passed below.
“Whoa, that’s a lot of green cheese,” Peter said.
Willy rubbed his eyes. “You really think the Moon is made of green cheese?”
“Put it this way. We’ve just sat through about two zillion science lessons. Did they ever mention even once that it isn’t made of green cheese?”
“Wow, you’re right!” Willy squeezed his face to the glass. “It doesn’t look very green, though.”
“Don’t you get it? That’s the crust,” Peter said. “Like those cheese wheels, where you peel off the wax first.”
Willy smacked his lips. “Can’t wait to cook up some macaroni and green cheese.”
Peter sat in the Commander’s seat and pressed the call button. “Hello? Mission Control dude? You there? We’re at the Moon. Tell us how to land this thing.”
Chan’s smiling face formed on the screen. Wait a sec... smiling? Something was wrong here.
“Oh, really? Since when do you need my help? You already know how to land on the Moon.”
Chan leaned into the camera until all they saw were angry lips and teeth.
“Or you would, if you’d paid attention to a single word I’ve said over the past five days, instead of belching and farting and picking your noses.”
“Those aren’t farts, those are descriptions of your face,” Peter said. “Just talk us through it.”
“Oh, you’d like that, huh? Just talk you through it. Like I’ve been talking through your empty little skulls this whole time. Well, here’s your chance to put those burpy brains to the test, you little twits.”
Willy’s lip trembled. He let out a great big sob. They were so close to the Moon, so close to making history, so close to some tasty-looking cheese.
“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” Chan sighed. “All right, I’ll help just this once. But next time you visit another planet, you’re on your own.”
“So what do I do?” Peter said.
“Not you,” Chan said. “Your brother there.”
“But I’m Mission Commander!” Peter protested.
“Sorry, that’s the price of being a rude little snot. Little brother sails the ship. No? See you, then. Over and—”
“Okay!” Peter blurted. With a nasty sneer, he blasted a fart into the Commander’s seat cushion, then traded places with Willy.
“Okie dokie,” Chan said. “See that big red button? Yeah? Put your finger on it and—Ha! Fooled you! That’s the self-destruct button. Kidding! Press that green one next to it when I tell you. That’s for the reverse thrusters.”
Willy’s belly tightened, his finger trembled on the button. “What happens if I push it too soon?”
“You over-shoot the Moon and head out forever into space.”
“And if I push it too late?”
“You crash land in a pile of crushed metal. Got me?”
“Y-y-y-y-y—” Willy’s teeth chattered so hard he couldn’t finish the word.
“All right. On your mark...get set...” Chan said, “...three...two...one...”
Willy swallowed hard. His guts felt like they might explode.
“GO!”
Willy pressed the button, but no matter how hard he jabbed, it wouldn’t go down!
“It’s stuck!” Willy cried.
“It’s glued in place by dried blueberry pie filling and mushroom soup,” Peter said. “We’re gonna crash!”
“You’re gonna crash!” Chan said.
The Moon’s surface loomed larger. “We’ve got to dissolve it!” Willy cried.
He stood on his seat and unzipped his pants. A little squirt was all it took.
Sparks flew, and a couple nearby switches started smoking. But the gunk around the green button bubbled and fizzed. But while zipping, Willy’s finger got stuck in his fly.
“Press it!” Willy ordered Peter.
“No way. I’m not touching your wee. I’d rather crash!”
“Argh!” Willy dove from his seat and rammed his nose onto the reverse thruster button.
The space capsule shuddered. Engines fired. Gears turned, hydraulic pumps hissed. The Moon’s surface came at them more gently.
Willy dropped back into his seat, gripping the armrests like bird claws. He didn’t know if he was dizzy from fear and excitement or the smell coming from the control panel.
The rocket thrusters quit. Landing gear struck the surface with a soft, squishy sploop!
Sploop? Shouldn’t it have been more like whack or at least boing?
“That was actually good thinking, Commander,” Peter said.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Willy replied.
They gave each other high fives, then announced to the world:
“Greetings, Earthlings, from the first kids on the Moon!”
CHAPTER 10
One Small Toot
Of course, they immediately started fighting over who got to take the first step on the lunar surface.
“Older ones exit first, like at school final bell,” Peter said, scrambling into his spacesuit while knee-kicking Willy away from the door.
“Younger ones first, like at school assembly,” Willy said, fastening his helmet with one hand while punching Peter with the other.
They pushed and tugged and kicked, and would have bitten if they weren’t wearing helmets, until Peter finally said, “Tell you what. We’ll go together. I’ve got a little speech, and you can lead off. Fair?”
Willy released the hammer hold on his brother’s neck. “I dunno. Fair, I guess.”
“Okay, when I raise my thumb, you cut your loudest trumpet-blower fart.”
“That’s the speech?”
“That’s your part,” Peter said. “Ready?”
He opened the hatch. Together they stepped onto the top rung of the exit ladder. Peter did a thumbs-up toward the outside camera.
Willy spread his cheeks and let rip the first fart ever heard on the Moon.
“That’s one small toot for man,” Peter recited, then blew a zinging foghorn. “One giant fart for mankind.”
Together they jumped.
In the Moon’s low gravity they floated down, down, down, until their feet struck something solid.
Or not exactly solid.
Actually, it was kind of gummy.
Willy raised one boot. Thick goo stuck to the bottom. He reached down to feel the surface.
His fingers went right through.
It felt like macaroni cheese sauce. He scooped up a handful. Peter dug both gloves in and gathered up a big wad of the stuff.
Back inside the landing vehicle, they removed their helmets and studied the glop they’d collected. It was cream-colored, with little yellow-gray chunks.
Peter stuck his nose close. “You’re not gonna believe what it smells like.”
Willy sniffed and didn’t believe it. “Should we taste it?”
“You first.”
“No, you first.”
“No, you,” Peter said.
“Oh yeah, mister smartypants?” Willy said. “You’re all, ‘the Moon is made of green cheese’ and now you’re scared to try it? Well, I’m not scared.”
He dipped a finger into the substance and pressed it lightly to his tongue.
“Huh?” He tasted again.
“It is indeed onion dip.”
Peter shoved his finger in and sucked the whole thing off.
“You’re right! We just made the biggest scientific discovery of the century! The Moon isn’t made of green cheese—it’s made of onion dip!”
“What?”
“We’ve found the biggest hoard of onion dip in the whole universe! Everyone knows the Universal Law of Snacking: you can’t eat onion dip without rippled potato chips!”
Chan’s voice surprised them from the overhead monitor: “Open the floor panel between the command seats.”
Peter bounded over and unlatched the panel, revealing a compartment with at least a hundred jumbo sized bags of rippled potato chips.
Willy spun toward the screen. “You mean...you knew?”
“People have been here before, you know,” Chan said.
Peter stammered, “Then why—?”
“We had to keep it secret. Otherwise, the Russians, and especially the French, would be crowding the Moon’s surface with onion dip mines.”
“But what about the moon rocks that astronauts brought back in the past? Weren’t those real?” Peter said, as he ripped open a bag of chips. He and Willy feasted on fresh, delicious lunar onion dip while Chan continued.
“Oh, those. You see, early on, the top onion dip companies heard rumors. They got together to build their own private rockets, with plans to exploit the Moon. We had to convince them the rumors were false.
“Those moon rocks? Bits of broken concrete from a demolished parking garage. Slipped them in the space capsules after they returned to Earth.”
“So who actually knows?” Willy asked with his mouth full.
Chan took a deep breath, and said, “Top Lunar Program management. The original astronauts. And now you guys. And the President, which is why...never mind.”
“Never mind what?” Peter said. “What’s the real reason for this mission?”
“We didn’t want to do it,” Chan said. “But the President’s having this potluck barbecue party with the Russians and wants to show off with about twenty gallons—um. Sorry, I can’t reveal any more. Don’t you breathe a word of any of this!” Chan signed off.
Willy and Peter spent the rest of the day hopping around the Moon’s surface, having onion dip cannonball fights and sliding down onion dip slopes, all of which felt really weird in the Moon’s light gravity. Finally, they filled a couple buckets with Moon dip, went back inside, and scarfed it down with rippled potato chips. Less than a minute after swallowing each mouthful, their tummies would rumble, and out would shoot farts of such aggressive force and nose-dissolving stench that they were left choking for breath.
“This stuff is awesome!” Willy wheezed.
“If only we had orange soda,” Peter panted.
Willy was enjoying a long, growling fart, when suddenly he froze. He stood up and looked around. “Hey, have you seen Squeaky?”
Peter got to his feet. They searched under every seat and cabinet, every compartment, every crawl space, every drawer.
“Do you suppose...?” Willy said.
He pressed his nose to the window and scanned the glaring creamy surface of the Moon.
At last his eye caught onto a squiggly line in the gooey ground, winding around craters and disappearing into the distance. A line that could only have been made by a hamster ball.
CHAPTER 11
Dark Side of the Moon
Willy placed an urgent call to Mission Control.
“We need the Moon Buggy! Tell us how to use it, quick!”
“You mean the Lunar Rover?” Chan rubbed his eyes like he’d just woken from a nap.
“Whatever,” Willy said. “How do we unpack it and drive it?”
“Either of you guys have a license?”
Peter and Willy gawked at each other. Who needed a driver’s license on the Moon? “Just tell us how to set it up,” Peter said. “We’re in kind of a hurry.”
“Mind telling me what’s the urgent need?” Chan picked up a cup of coffee and took a long, deep sip.
“Our hamster got loose.”
The monitor suddenly filled with brown, runny liquid and the sound of Chan gagging. “What. Hamster?”
Peter told him the whole story, except the part about Squeaky’s poop floating around and getting into the machinery.
Chan wiped his camera lens. His shirt was a mess of coffee stains. “You’re telling me a hamster has been running loose the entire voyage?”
“Anyway, he hasn’t damaged much, except a few wires, which is maybe why one of the computers died, and maybe he got into the breakfast food, and maybe chewed up a couple control switches, but—”
“Oh, you two are so dead,” Chan’s lips hardly moved over his red-faced sneer.
“When you get back to Earth you are both dead as doorknobs. Deader. I mean, you’ll wish you were doorknobs. You’ll wish you never were born. When I get my claws on you, I’ll—”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, okay,” Peter broke in. “Um, the Lunar Rover, remember? We’ve got a hamster to rescue.”
Chan sighed. “Try Storage Module C. The manuals are in a slot on the door. Meantime, I’ve got to download some torture instructions. Oh, you guys are mincemeat!”
The screen went blank.
Putting together the Lunar Rover turned out to be easier than some of the fancy Lego sets they’d owned. In the end it was the coolest-looking thing either of them had ever built.
They just had to take loads of selfies with their phones, which luckily ran out of power and died. Otherwise, they might have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing.
Then they fought over who got to drive.
“I’m better at driving amusement park bumper cars,” Willy said.
“Yeah, well I’m seven levels above you in Grand Stolen Auto.”
“Let’s draw straws,” Willy said.
“What straws?” Peter said. “How about who farts the longest?”
“That’s fair.”
Since they’d eaten nothing but potato chips and onion dip all day, the contest got off to a quick start.
Willy flexed his stomach muscles, adjusted his butt, and whistled out a high-pitched squealie that went on for so long that he got dizzy from lack of oxygen inside his space suit.
“78.3 seconds,” Peter announced. “Now me.”
Peter showed off by farting the theme tunes of two science fiction movie series, for which he claimed extra points. Despite that, his fart lasted only 76.9 seconds.
He tossed Willy the key.
Since no road trip is complete without snacks, they stuffed the Rover with bags of rippled potato chips, then set off on their lunar journey.
Willy did his best to follow the hamster ball’s trail. Bouncing over rough ground, rumbling through wide, bowl-shaped craters, all made his stomach queasy.
He was driving up a steep ridge, when he blasted out a rancid, blustery fart. The smell was so sharp it made his nostrils itch.
“Ah...ah...”
He needed so badly to scratch his nose and stop himself from...from...
He sneezed so violently his head snapped back. Willy couldn’t see a thing through the thick snot and undigested chips and onion dip all over his visor.
Without thinking, he took his hands off the wheel to wipe the glass, though of course it was all on the inside.
“Slow down! Turn left!” Peter yelled. “We’re going over a cliff!”
Willy’s helmet speaker was gummed up with phlegm, so he couldn’t hear a thing. Anyway, he was too busy screaming his lungs out.
Peter grabbed the wheel, but it was too late.
They were flying through empty space.
On the positive side, Peter’s newest shriek of terror cleared Willy’s helmet speakers.
BAM! They struck the surface. Though, this being the Moon, it wasn’t exactly a bam; more like boomph.
Willy used his nose to wipe a clear spot in the glass.
They were at the bottom of a deep crater, where it was black as a moonless night. Or earthless. He searched the sky, but Earth was nowhere to be seen. Even the radio connection to Mission Control had gone silent.
“We’re on the dark side of the Moon!” Peter said.
“And we’ve lost the hamster trail.”
Willy began to cry, which was actually useful, since he could clean the visor by shaking his head and splashing it with tears.
“But we found something else,” Peter said.
Way over in the middle of the crater was a strange-looking structure: black and shiny in the weak starlight, shaped like a short, wide, upside-down ice cream cone.
A thick cable rose from the cone’s peak and continued up into space, connected way overhead to...
Willy stopped breathing. No, this couldn’t be real. He tapped his brother’s shoulder, but Peter was staring straight up, too.
At a big, scary alien starship.
CHAPTER 12
Breath of Fresh Air
The heavily armed alien spaceship hovered in space above the Moon.
It looked like a giant spider, with glowing quantum engines on each leg, and weapons pointing everywhere, which Willy recognized from comic books as Photon Plasma Beam Cannons.
“We better get out of here,” Willy said.
“No way!” Peter replied. “We need selfies with aliens. Then Mission Control will call us heroes instead of being mad.”
“I’m sure they know about it already.”
“How could they? This is the dark side of the Moon. You can’t see it from Earth. We’ve just made the biggest discovery in human history. We’ll be legends!”
“Let’s just take some pictures from here first, and—oh, poop-dee-doo!”
Both phones were dead, of course, after wasting their batteries on about two hundred and fifty selfies with the Lunar Rover.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Peter said. “We’ll go back to the Lander, recharge batteries, inform Mission Control, and—um. Uh oh.”
Willy sensed dark forms looming behind him.
He turned.
He gulped.
He and Peter said: