by Tony Abbott
“Sto-aaa-ooo-aaa-oop!” moaned Holly as the hairy paw dropped to the floor and a tentacle snapped it away across the room.
“Oh, now you’re going to get it!” cried Liz from the kitchen set of Tiny Folks Fight Big. She grabbed an enormous pair of scissors.
“Oh, a cutup, are you?” snorted Octa-Loona. “Didn’t anyone tell you that’s dangerous?”
“Ha!” Liz snarled back. “I’m just going to even up the sides!” The blades opened as Liz charged.
“Ge-etttt herrrr, Lizzzz!” shouted Holly, still being shaken around above the queen’s head.
Holly was amazed at how her friends battled the evil queen. Just like in the movies, they were everywhere, fighting, making incredible moves.
Thwing! Thwong! The octopus queen swung around and faced Liz. A tentacle twirled out and grabbed Liz tightly by her ankles.
“No!” Liz strained as she was hoisted high above the ugly woman.
“Sorry,” said Liz, squirming toward Holly. “I tried.”
Holly smiled at her. It didn’t look good for them, but she knew what she and her friends had to do. Bottom line. Stop Octa-Loona and her pet. Because if they didn’t, the slimy queen would slither off to another town. Gigantopus would wreck it. Then another and another.
Planet after planet! Galaxy after galaxy!
No way! They had to stop this now. Here. On the galactic battlefield known as Grover’s Mill!
“Ugh!” grunted Holly, trying to squirm out of the tentacles’ grasp. “Got … to … free … ourselves!”
No good. She was caught.
Thwang! Another of Octa-Loona’s slithery tentacles grabbed Mike by his foot. “She’s got me!” he cried. “It feels creepy on my leg!”
Thwip! Thwap! Sean and Jeff were caught as they tried to pelt her with rubber brains from the set of Whose Brain Is This, Anyway?
“Ooooh, yesssss!” the octopus woman wailed. “Puny two-armed humans! I have you all!” Her three remaining tentacles twirled up to her lips. Then she let out a high-pitched whistle. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Nice sound effects!” said Holly, struggling against the slimy suction pads. “But you can’t keep us up here forever!”
“I could!” Octa-Loona blurted out. “But I’ve got other fish to fry! Get it? And anyway—”
YEEEOOWW! A shocking sound pierced the studio from outside and the front hangar door ripped off its hinges.
Enormous Gigantopus himself crashed inside the studio. His tentacles flailed and slapped!
“My ride is here!” Octa-Loona cried out, clapping with her free tentacles. Then—thump! thump! thump! (five thumps, actually) she hurled the kids across the room.
Through the open hangar door, Holly saw the destruction Gigantopus had left in Grover’s Mill. The water tower was down. The WYRD radio tower was crumpled. Slime was everywhere.
“And now, to finish our plan!” cried Octa-Loona.
“Why do aliens always have to have plans?” snarled Holly. She was feeling very angry.
“Why do humans always need to know?” Octa-Loona snapped back. “Besides, you’ll find out when the time is right.”
Gigantopus’s tentacles wrapped gently around the queen and pulled her to the top of its giant green dome. She sat there.
“To Grover’s Mill!” the octopus-headed woman proclaimed. And the beast lumbered off.
Holly turned to her friends. “We can’t let this happen! Think of the Dunk twins! Think of Grover’s Mill! We need to fight back! We need to stop them! Get the big green octopus and the octo-lady!”
Octa-Loona whirled her dome around and glared with her big red eyes. She pointed her tentacles at Holly. “You want to come so bad? Okay then!”
“B-b-but,” sputtered Holly. “What I meant was—”
THWAP! Before Holly could move, the Gigantopus twirled a tentacle across the floor and grabbed her by the ankle.
“Hey! Not my sister, you don’t!” yelled Sean. In a panic, he glanced around. He ran to the set of Saturn by Saturday and grabbed a five-foot-long rocket made from wrapping paper tubes.
He charged at top speed, holding the rocket like a spear. “This nose cone is going right for that ugly dome!”
“Sean!” shouted Liz. “Watch out!”
But Octa-Loona saw him, too. “Eat the boy! That’ll teach him to call me ugly!”
Suddenly, Gigantopus dropped Holly—thud!—and flung his tentacles out for Sean.
THWONG! Sean’s rocket spear flew apart in his hands. “Oh, not again!”
Gigantopus’s powerful suction pads grasped Sean and pulled him toward the big dome.
“No—“ Holly began to scream, jumping up from the floor. “You leave him alone!”
Suddenly—SLOOOOOP!
Sean was slurped up into the giant mouth in the octopus’s dome!
“Sean?” Holly cried out. “Sean! Answer me!”
But the only answer Holly got was—BWAP!—as the giant octopus burped.
7
Alone—With Them!
“Sean is my brother! I gotta go!” Holly screamed as the last of Sean vanished into the beast’s slimy mouth.
“Go where?” asked Liz. “You don’t mean—”
But without another word, Holly raced across the hangar, and leaped into the slimy jaws of the giant octopus!
“Yuuuuuuuuuck!” she screamed.
When Holly jumped she expected to land in a soft oozy mushy octopus mouth with lots of slimy saliva dripping all over her. And maybe teeth.
CLONG! Something closed shut behind her.
Octopus jaws?
No, Holly skidded across a floor. A metal floor. In a metal room. And in a dim light shining down from the ceiling of the room, she saw her brother Sean sprawled on the floor next to her, totally slimed.
“Sean! You’re alive!” she cried.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “But I feel all gross.”
Next to him, hunched on the floor, were two very identical, very wide, very round men.
“And the Double Dunk twins!” cried Holly. “You’re alive, too!”
“And getting thinner by the minute,” Rob Dunk complained. “I’m sure our Double Dunk clock has struck noon by now!”
“But no one has fed us yet,” agreed his brother Bob. “What kind of place is this?”
“It’s a giant octopus,” said Holly. “I think.”
“Well,” said Rob. “Did you come to save us?”
Holly got up from the floor. “I think it’s a little too soon to say.” She looked around. The “mouth” that had eaten them was really a hatch in the middle of the floor. And above them, in the center of the ceiling, was another hatch of some kind, with a window in the middle.
Sean shook his head. “I think we got ourselves into a really big mess this time, Holly. Sorry I got swallowed. You didn’t really have to come after me.”
“Oh, hey, it was something to do.” Holly smiled. She tried to peer up through the hatch. “We have to see what’s up there.”
“Perhaps we can be of help?” said Rob Dunk. “You may not have noticed, but my brother and I are big, like our donuts. Why not stand on us?”
Rob Dunk and Bob Dunk rolled to the middle of the room, right under the top hatch. Holly and Sean stepped carefully up onto their stomachs and peered through the window.
“Whoa!” gasped Holly when she stepped down again. “Now we’ve really done it. Weird is weird, Sean, but this is an actual alien spaceship! And we’re inside it!”
“So it’s definitely not a real octopus,” said Sean.
“There’s a latch up there,” said Holly. “If we can turn the handle, we can open it. Then we jump in behind that big control panel. Let’s go.”
The two kids stepped up on the twins’ round stomachs again and quietly turned the hatch handle.
“This is it, Holly,” said Sean, placing his feet squarely on Rob Dunk’s waist. “With just a little bounce, we can be up there. Ready?”
“Ready,” said Holly, ho
lding her breath.
Rob Dunk turned to his brother and rubbed his middle. “The things we do!”
“Yes, the things!” agreed his twin.
Boing! Boing! Boing! Sean and Holly bounced once, twice, three times, and they were in the air! In a flash, the kids were through the hatch and into the upper control room.
They dived behind a large control panel, lighted with strangely colored lights.
“Good,” whispered Sean. “No one saw us.”
Holly nodded, looking around. They were inside an octopus-shaped spaceship, in a large eight-sided room with a domed ceiling. Running around the walls was a long control panel. Seated at the controls were creatures with green domes like Octa-Loona.
Two of the octopuses wore dusty overalls.
“Hey,” whispered Holly. “It’s the two Acme delivery guys. Only, now they have octopus heads!”
“On them it looks good,” Sean whispered.
Whrr! Bzzzz! Nnnnn! The equipment buzzed.
“Check the Octo Meter!” commanded a watery voice from somewhere in the center of the room. “The Octo Scope reports that we are ready to begin the Octo Plan!”
Holly peered up. She saw her.
Octa-Loona, Queen of Planet X, her tentacles twitching down over the arms of a throne. The throne was made in the shape of a big seashell.
The queen rose. “My people, we are so close to fulfilling our mission. This is a perfect occasion for the singing of our planetary anthem!”
She strode to the center of the control room. Her voice got all underwatery as she began to sing her patriotic alien song. It went like this.
Oh, splendid Planet X!
Our tentacles we flex!
We bow our domey necks
to you,
We make our starry treks
for you,
Oh, Planet, Planet X!
While Octa-Loona was singing her song, the workers at the controls turned and faced her.
Slimy tears dribbled down their domes.
They began to sniffle. The song makes them homesick,” whispered Holly.
“Yeah, well, it makes me just regular sick,” Sean grumbled. The octopus monsters wiped their tears then placed their tentacles over their hearts.
This caused Gigantopus to slow down. Suddenly Sean lost his balance. He fell back into Holly and they both sprawled out onto the floor.
“Ooops!” mumbled Sean.
“Ah!” said Octa-Loona, whirling around. “Our human specimens!”
The two octo-monsters with overalls came over. Their tentacles shot straight out, trapping Holly and Sean in a cage of slimy arms.
Octa-Loona strode over. “Our people will enjoy these two when we make our triumphant return.”
“Return?” Holly swallowed hard. “To where?”
“Didn’t you hear the song?” Octa-Loona said with a smile. “To splendid Planet X, of course!”
8
An Octopus With a View
“Planet X?” asked Holly. She turned to Sean. “What? How? When?”
But Octa-Loona didn’t bother to explain. She simply snapped her tentacles. “Press the Octo Pedal!” she boomed. “Start the Octo Rockets!”
The craft began to whir. Holly could feel the octopus-shaped spaceship tilting suddenly. Then it began to lift up into the air. Her legs felt tingly, as if she were going up in an elevator.
“Sean, we’re moving!” cried Holly. She turned to the queen. “Okay, what is the Octo Plan?” she demanded.
“Ah, the Octo Plan!” The leathery mouth on Octa-Loona’s dome stretched into a smile. “Wasn’t it clever how we delivered our attack ship to your father?”
“Yeah,” said the chubby Acme guy. “They thought we were humans! Dat’s a good one!”
Octa-Loona folded her tentacles. “The Octo Plan is no secret. All you have to do is read.” She pointed at a giant blackboard on the wall.
“Let me guess,” said Holly. “The Octo List?”
There were four items listed.
1. Lock up Octo House.
2. Blast off for Earth.
3. Locate typical Earth town.
4. Bring back sample.
“So what are we?” asked Sean. “Samples?”
“No,” said Octa-Loona. “That is!” She pointed to the Octo Screen on the control panel. In view on the screen was the entire town of Grover’s Mill below them.
Holly saw from the view screen that the ship was rising slowly over the town. The shiny trail of slime on the ground below was steaming and smoking in the hot sun. It formed a huge octopus-shaped star completely around Grover’s Mill.
Holly gasped and looked at Sean. “That’s it! The slime,” she started. “The trail of slime.”
Sean waited. “I don’t get it.”
Holly gulped. She knew it was triple weird, but every one of her brain cells told her it was true. The octo-creatures from Planet X were going to take Grover’s Mill!
“Don’t you see?” Holly said. “It all makes sense! Just like when my T-shirt started burning. The slime is burning into the earth around Grover’s Mill! It’s separating the town from the ground around it! These creatures are going to rip Grover’s Mill right out of the ground and take it with them! Back to Planet X!”
“Whoa!” Sean frowned. “That sounds just a little weird.”
“I know!” cried Holly. “It’s a lot weird!”
Octa-Loona stepped over to the two kids. Her tentacles slithered back over her shoulders and braided themselves quietly. “Your sister is right. We’re taking Grover’s Mill back to Planet X!”
Sean turned to Octa-Loona. “Bring a whole town across the galaxy? How?”
“We have the technology!” Octa-Loona declared. “Just watch!”
The kids watched, but what they saw was unbelievable!
As the craft whirred high over Grover’s Mill, the eight giant tentacles stiffened straight out. Then from the ends of the tentacles shot thick cables that extended hundreds of feet down to the ground.
Suddenly—flang! flang! flang! (eight flangs, actually)—the ends of the cables plugged into the points of the octopus-shaped star that the slime had made around Grover’s Mill. The star that Gigantopus had made.
The cables began to turn. They hummed. They groaned. They drilled under Grover’s Mill.
“All secure, your majesty!” said the overall-wearing, pencil-chewing octopus delivery guy.
VRRRRRR! The spaceship began to lift.
And as it lifted, the tentacles strained and the cables pulled at the ground. Harder, harder.
“The earth’s crust around your town has been burned through,” explained Octa-Loona, beaming at how the Octo Plan was working. “Now, a simple tug … and …”
KKKKKKKKKKRRRRRIPPPPPP!
In a single, swift move, with an awful ripping sound that made Holly feel sick, Grover’s Mill, the entire town, peeled off from the ground beneath it!
The eight powerful tentacles pulled up, the spaceship lifted, and Grover’s Mill dangled above the ground. Dirt and roots and sewer pipes tumbled back down into the vast hole the town left behind.
Grover’s Mill swung back and forth slowly on the cables.
“This is so unbelievable!” shrieked Holly.
Sean nodded, his eyes wide in shock.
“Unbelievable, perhaps,” said Octa-Loona, daubing red lipstick on her green leathery lips. “Like your father’s movies?”
The Queen of Planet X laughed as the giant ship continued to rise.
9
Typical? As If!
RMMMM! Gigantopus’s engines rumbled louder and louder. Holly knew time was running out. Soon, the ship would blast off to Planet X with Grover’s Mill hanging underneath it.
Who knows what would happen to Grover’s Mill out there. The whole town could just slide off into space!
All her friends—Liz, Mike, Jeff—were down there. Her parents. Her life. Her room.
All of a sudden Sean started laughing.
; “What!” screeched Octa-Loona, her red eyes squinting and glaring at him.
“Typical?” Sean roared out. He pointed to the Octo List. “I just got that! Grover’s Mill—typical? I don’t think so!”
Holly instantly knew what he was doing. She started to laugh, too. “Oh, yeah, that is funny! You’d be much better off taking Washington or New York or Hollywood.”
“Grover’s Mill is the absolute weirdest town in the galaxy!” Sean added.
Holly nodded sincerely. “Really, it’s for your own good, Ms. Loona. No way do you want us!”
“Why not just put it back?” said Sean. “We’ll go home and you’ll go home and everybody will just forget the whole thing.”
“Ha!” cried Octa-Loona. “If this town were really as strange as you say, there would be a book about it! No, there would be a whole bunch of books about it!”
Sean looked at Holly. Holly looked at Sean.
“It’s too late anyway!” Octa-Loona declared, smiling a nasty smile. She thumped over to the octopus looking at the screen. “Nothing can stop us now.”
Nothing can stop us now. The words burned themselves into Holly’s brain. Nothing. No thing. She thought again of her father’s list of things. The third Humongous law.
Heat. Cold. Fire. Water. Water?
As the ship began to move, and Grover’s Mill swung back and forth, something large and round and blue came into view on the screen.
“Lake Lake,” Holly whispered. “Of course!” She turned to Sean and leaned closer so that the Acme guys couldn’t hear. “Gigantopus is only a spaceship, but Looney and her Loonettes are real octo-people. They need water. Remember how she was so excited about fish and stuff?”
Sean nodded. “You’re right. Water! We have to make them go back down. It’s our only chance …”
“Besides,” whispered Holly, “if I know Dad, he’s going to shoot his movie even if the town gets kidnapped to another galaxy.
You know, keep those cameras rolling?”
“Just the sort of final Humongous scene his movie’s going to need,” said Sean. “It’s perfect.”
“Hey!” shouted the chubby Acme guy. “What are you two whispering about?” His green dome was twitching to hear.