by Tony Abbott
Zeek looked over at me. “Well, buddy, if this is the end, at least we’ll be together.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at the walls closing in. “We’ll be so together, they won’t be able to tell us apart!”
Zeek laughed. He stuck his thumb up in the air, for maybe the last time. I did the same.
Then he took out the video camera and pointed it at me. “Any last words?”
I jumped up. “That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“If we were in a real movie, what would we do to save ourselves? I mean, we’re Danger Guys! We’re the heroes here!”
Zeek sat up. “Well, we’d probably have some cool props to help us out? Like maybe a ladder.”
“That would be too easy. Let’s check our backpacks. We’ve got to have something!”
Zeek opened his. “Blank tapes. Extra battery. Sunglasses. Those two flashlights from the Vulcan. Not much. What’s in yours?”
“I don’t even know. My dad packed it this morning.” I turned it upside down and one thing dropped out on the floor.
Clunk!
“A lunch box? Oh yeah, Noodle. What every hero needs.”
“Hey, not just any lunch box. My official Indiana Jones lunch box. We can eat while we think.”
I opened the box and took out a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich made on waffles. That’s a specialty my mom makes me because she knows about me and waffles.
I gave half of it to Zeek as the walls slid closer.
“Last meal?” he asked me.
I tried to smile.
Then, I had a brilliant idea. The most brilliant idea ever. I mean, the reason they call me Noodle is because of ideas like these. This idea—
“Hurry, Nood. It’s getting a little tight in here!”
Okay. I opened the lunch box face down on the floor between the crushing walls. It was right underneath the hole that we had fallen through.
“Perfect,” I said. “Now we stand on it, one foot on the front, one on the back. And we wait.” I smiled big. “Simple!”
“Simple death, you mean!”
“Hey, pal,” I said. “It’s our only hope. Now hand me a flashlight. If this goes the way I want it to, we’ll need something to bonk some skullheads.”
“And if it doesn’t go the way you want it to?”
I shrugged. “Then we’ll be human mush in—ten seconds.”
“Tough choice. Not!” Zeek jumped up with me on the lunch box.
Clank-clank-clank. The walls came closer.
Six feet. Five feet. Four feet. Three feet.
“Noodle, I just want to say that you’re my best friend in the whole world and we’ve had the greatest times and if we did it all over again I wouldn’t change a—a—aaaeeeooowww!”
CRRRRRUUUUUUUNCH!
NINE
The walls hit the lunch box. They made a horrible grinding sound. They kept squeezing—squeezing—squeezing—
SNAP!
My lunch box snapped closed with such force we shot like rockets right through that hole in the ceiling just as the walls came crashing together!
Instantly we found ourselves in a hall in the castle surrounded by fifty Boneheads.
Their empty jaws were grinning at us. Their swords waved in the air in front of our noses.
“Wipe those smiles off your skulls, you creeps! You’re up against Danger Guys now!”
I held up my flashlight and shook it in their faces.
Suddenly—fwing! An icy shaft of blue light shot out of the open end.
The Boneheads stepped back.
“Whoa, Zeekie! It’s not a flashlight!”
Zeek hit a switch on his, and the light flung out instantly. “Laser swords! Noodle! Just like they used in Space Wars!”
The blades hummed as we moved them back and forth through the air. Sparks flew off them.
Zeek smiled.
I smiled too. We were thinking the same thing.
“Swordfight!”
Clang! Clink! Chong!
It was incredible.
“The Power is with us!” we shouted, as we drove the skeletons back into the main hall.
Instantly we saw Zeek’s parents, his little sister, and all the others huddling against the wall near some long curtains.
“Hooray!” they cheered when they saw us.
“Good audience,” Zeek yelled.
Our swords whizzed through the air like helicopter blades. We were like Rick Starmover and Hal Sono in Space Wars: The Return.
I laughed out loud, thrust my sword straight out, and spun around on my sneaker.
Clack-plink-snap-crunch! Four skeletons bit the dust! I twirled again. Two more crashed to the floor.
Another Bonehead clattered over and started waving his sword at us.
“Yeah,” snorted Zeek. “As if—!”
Clang! Zeek slammed him on the head. Sparks went up. Bony went down.
“Ha-ha!” I yelled. “There’s no stopping the forces of justice and goodness and right and—”
“Emily!” Mr. Pilinsky screamed.
I looked up to see one of the Boneheads chasing Zeek’s sister up the stairs to the balcony.
“I’ll save her!” I shouted.
I leaped onto a stuffed chair, bounced high, pulled myself up to the balcony, and jumped down between Emily and the Bonehead. I waved my sword and grinned at him.
But the Bonehead grinned, too. He chopped down with his jagged blade. I swung my laser sword up. Clank! Sparks showered all around. I leaped up to the balcony railing and walloped the bone guy on the head.
He didn’t like that. He climbed up to the railing, too. I thrust my sword straight at him. Too bad for him he didn’t have rubber-soled extra-grip sneakers. He slipped backward, I tapped him once more with my sword, and he toppled over the side. Crash! He shattered on the floor.
“My hero!” Emily cried. She ran to safety, clapping the whole way. Boy, that felt good.
But when I turned to run down the stairs, three more Boneheads were grinning at me.
My laser sword started to sputter. Then it died out.
“Uh-oh!” I gasped.
The Boneheads held out their swords and lunged at me but—incredibly—they crumpled to the floor at my feet.
“Ha! Scared you, didn’t I?” I smirked.
Then I saw the real reason.
Emily. She was smiling and holding out a curtain rope. “I tripped them,” she said. “Is that okay?”
“Unbelievably okay! I—”
“Nooooooodle!” cried Zeek. His laser was fizzling out too. I jumped down to help him.
But when the Boneheads saw that we had no weapons, they backed us up against the wall.
They waved their long swords in our faces. They grinned their ugly grins at us.
And they came in for the kill.
TEN
Zeek looked over at me. “Any last words?”
“I’ve got an idea!”
“I like those words.”
I grabbed Zeek’s backpack, pulled out the video camera, pointed it at the bone guys, and turned it on. “Lights! Camera! Action!” I yelled.
What happened next was a truly amazing video experience.
The Boneheads stopped just inches from us. They lifted their heads all at once. Then they linked their bony arms together, kicked their feet from side to side, and started to dance!
“Score one for the Noodster!” Zeek cried. “A chorus line! Pal, you’re brilliant. Of course they’re going to act for the camera—they’re movie stars!”
Yeah, sometimes I amaze even myself.
I started talking like a director. “Okay, fellas, out of the hall, outside, and up to the wall.”
The Bonehead chorus was creaky, but they were professionals. They danced just where we told them to go.
A couple of seconds later we were up on the outside walkway around the castle.
“Hey, Zeek, this directing thing is cool!” I said, waving the skeletons back. “A little farther left, ge
ntlemen! A little more. A little more—!”
Splash! The whole army of Boneheads went crashing over the wall and into the moat below.
“Hooray!” came a cheer from the courtyard.
“All right, Noodle! We did it. We saved everybody. Some incredible day, wasn’t it?”
I just looked at Zeek and shook my head.
“Why are you shaking your head? I don’t like that. We’re done here, Noodle. Aren’t we?”
“Nice try,” I said. “The Big Brain, remember?”
Zeek made a face, but he knew I was right.
When we got to the main hall, I talked to the tour guide. He told me what I needed to know.
“The Big Brain is right in this castle, son. But you can’t go in alone. It’s a powerful computer, and after a storm like this, it could do anything.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But, we’ve got to shut it down before someone really gets hurt.”
I turned to Zeek’s mom and dad. “We’ll meet you all at the Paragon gate. My pal and I have a job to finish.” I was getting really excited.
“We’ll send help!” Mrs. P. called over her shoulder. Everybody ran for the entrance.
Zeek tapped me on the shoulder. “But help won’t get here in time, will it, Nood?”
I shook my head.
“And we could face even worse dangers in there, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We could.”
“So it’s a journey into the unknown, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.”
We just looked at each other for a long time.
We started to smile.
Those old thumbs jabbed up.
“Let’s do it!”
ELEVEN
Within seconds, we were deep in the castle. We crept along quickly and silently. Torches high on the walls flickered and shadowed the way.
“Noodle, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
We rounded a corner and found ourselves facing an enormous set of iron doors.
“I’ve got a feeling, too,” I said. “We’re here.”
Zeek looked at me. He didn’t smile. But he did shove his thumb up. I nodded and did the same.
“Together, then. One. Two. Three!”
The huge doors swung open without a sound. Inside was a long room. The ceiling was fifty feet high. The floor was made of shiny marble.
Along each of the side walls were long red curtains. The place looked like a throne room.
Except that at the far end, taking up a whole wall, was a giant computer. It was the size of thirty refrigerators. Sparks were shooting off it like fireworks and fizzling on the floor.
The whole thing was glowing.
“The Big Brain!” I said. “Boy, that lightning must have zapped it pretty good.”
“I can see the switch,” Zeek whispered. “Let’s shut this baby off and blow it up. Simple.”
“Too simple,” I muttered, stepping toward the computer. I was right.
Boom! Ba-boom! A bolt of lightning suddenly blasted down in front of us. Then another.
The whole room started to quake. Thunder exploded from every corner.
“Noodle! It’s the end of the world!”
WHOOM! One enormous wall burst into flames like a tidal wave. Then another and another exploded into fire until we were completely surrounded.
There was no escape. Thunder rumbled and lightning crackled all around us. The air filled with black smoke.
“Zeeekie!” I shouted. “Where are you?”
“Nooodle!” he yelled. “I’m afraaaid!”
Then—in a blinding flash—it came to me.
It was another one of those golden moments. I laughed out loud at my idea.
The walls of fire were closing in on us, the lightning was exploding, the thunder crashed and boomed.
I jumped up and shouted.
“CUT! CUT! CUT!”
Instantly, the fire storm vanished. The thunder silenced. The lightning stopped.
Everything went quiet. The room was just like it was before.
Zeek looked up. “Noodle? What—?”
“Effects, Zeek,” I said. “Special effects. The computer thought it was the climax to a horror movie. All we had to do was stop the movie.”
Zeek jumped up and down. “Noodle! You’re brilliant. You saved us!”
“Unh-uh, pal,” I said, smiling. “You did.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, remember this morning when I was telling you my story? Remember what I made you say?”
“Oh yeah!” said Zeek. “You told me to say, ‘I’m afraaaid.’”
“Right,” I said. “Then you said, ‘CUT!’ That was the magic word. All I did was remember it.”
“Hey, we did it together! We are one incredible team!” Zeek punched his thumb in the air and laughed. So did I.
Fssssss! The Big Brain sizzled. Sparks flew off in different directions.
I looked at Zeek. “All we have to do now is shut off that overheated pile of junk and we’re home free.”
“Right,” said Zeek. But he didn’t move.
The lights on the Big Brain flickered. It seemed like it was watching us.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s do it.” I didn’t move either.
Finally Zeek said, “Hey, what could happen?”
I smiled. Yeah, what could happen?
We walked slowly over to the computer. The Big Brain was hot. It was fizzling and growling to itself, as if it were mad.
“There’s the switch,” I said, pointing to a small red button.
We reached forward. Click. We shut it off together.
The sparks died.
The fizzling stopped.
The Big Brain went to sleep.
Suddenly—swoosh! The curtains along the walls opened. And golden afternoon sunlight streamed across the floor.
“Whoa!” said Zeek. “As if it never really happened.”
“Maybe it didn’t,” I said with a smile. “After all—this is Hollywood!”
Everyone cheered and clapped when we got to the front gate. Zeek’s mom and dad and sister gave us both big hugs.
Then the owner of the studio came over to us. He was glad we were all safe. He thanked us for saving everyone. “We’ll be doing a complete overhaul of our computer system,” he told us.
“Yeah.” Zeek smiled. “It has a severe attitude problem!”
Then the owner did an incredible thing. He said that Paragon Studio would like to make a movie with the tape from our camera!
“You boys wouldn’t mind being movie stars, would you?”
I didn’t have to think twice. Neither did Zeek.
We slid our sunglasses on and smiled big.
“Where’s our limo?” I said.
That’s when we heard it.
Two little kids from the tour were playing by the front gate while they were waiting to go home.
“Okay,” one kid said. “This time, I play Noodle and you play Zeek!”
“Coool!” the other kid said. Then he climbed the famous Paragon gate and did our thumbs-up sign.
“Danger!” he screamed.
I looked at Zeek. He looked at me.
“Noodle?” he said. “Who needs movies? We’re living the real thing!”
I smiled at him.
Yeah.
Danger Guys.
The legend continues.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Danger Guys series
ONE
“Did I say this was boring?”
That was my best friend, Zeek Pilinsky. He was leaning back on his elbows, staring out across the hot beach.
“Yeah,” I said. “Twice.” I was lying next to him on a beach blanket.
I had just flipped another page of Adventure magazine. But I wasn’t really reading it anymore. I had started to doze off.
“Well, I take it back,” Zeek said. “This isn’t boring. This is deadly!”
I had to agree. Nothing was happening. It was all
just kids with buckets, and parents talking.
“Come on, Noodle! You’re the guy with all the bright ideas. You’ve got to think of something!”
I usually do think of something. I am the guy with all the bright ideas. That’s why everybody calls me Noodle. And Zeek, he’s the guy with all the muscles. That’s why they call him … well … anyway, we’re pretty much a team.
“Noodle, we need something different. Something fun. You know, something exciting!”
“Zeek,” I said. “What you really mean is …”
“Yeah. Something DANGEROUS!”
I know how he feels. In the past couple of months, we’ve brushed with death no less than thirteen times. We’re Danger Guys. We live the life of danger.
Well, we did. Until now.
“How about something like this?” I cracked open the magazine to a picture of two people in underwater diving suits.
“The Emersons!”
Yeah, it was Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. They were the famous husband-and-wife exploring team we had met fighting treasure thieves.
“Now that adventure was different, fun, exciting, and dangerous!” I said.
“Right. But this?” Zeek said, looking out at the water. “If this keeps up, we won’t be Danger Guys anymore. We’ll have to call ourselves …”
“Cheeseburgers?”
My dad said that. He and my mom had just come back from the snack stand with a pile of burgers, some sodas, and a few bags of chips.
“All right, Mr. Newton.” Zeek laughed. “You can call us cheeseburgers, just don’t call us late for lunch!” Zeek grabbed a burger right off the top and stuffed it in his mouth.
“Listen, boys,” my mom said. “If you’re looking for something to do, you might watch those surfers over there.” She pointed down the beach to a bunch of guys with ponytails.
“I just heard them talking about something called the Golden Crest. You might ask them …”
Zeek grabbed my hand just as I was about to chomp my burger.
“Golden …?” he gasped.
“… Crest?” I whispered.
“Do you think it’s a ship? A sunken ship?”
“If there’s a ship, there must be treasure! Sunken treasure!”
Zeek and I shot up from the sand like rockets.
“Noodle, we’ve got to check this out!”
“Yeah, and we’ve got to go under cover.”