“The guys who met their match against a bunch of science geeks were the best you got?” Warner asked.
“Children aren’t usually armed with advanced alien technology,” said Klyk. “Now let me think. There’s a chance Zeff might still be on the way.”
“Zeff?” Kevin said. “Was he a really big insect guy with a robot suit?”
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” Klyk asked.
“Umm,” said TJ, butting in. “Mim kind of blasted him away with that de-atomizer ray thingamajig.”
“He de-atomized Zeff?” Klyk said, hanging his head solemnly.
“Yeah,” said Tara. “We thought Zeff was trying to kill Mim.”
“Well, Mim was Zeff’s mortal enemy,” said Klyk. “Mim ate Zeff’s entire planet. Zeff was the only one who escaped, and he vowed to track Mim down to get his revenge.”
The kids sat for a minute in the late night quiet before the miniaturized alien crime fighter spoke again.
“You need to tell me as much about Mim’s behavior as you can,” Klyk said.
“Like what?” Tara asked.
“Has he been eating?” said Klyk.
“Are you kidding? That’s all he does,” Warner said. “He ate all my candy.”
“He ate all the spiders, too,” TJ added. “Why?”
“The more Mim eats, the hungrier he gets,” Klyk said with a grave face. “He starts off small and then moves on to much bigger things.” He paused for a moment, scratching his head. “What about the gear?” Klyk continued. “You seem to be equipped with the most state-of-the-art alien self-defense machines. Does Mim have anything?”
“Uh . . . ,” Kevin said. “He might still have that thing he used to vaporize Zeff.”
“It looked like a big lightsaber,” Warner added.
“It’s a photon blaster,” TJ said. “Duh.”
“A photon blaster.” Klyk considered the facts. “With that and his energy from eating, Mim will be hard for me to contain in my current state.”
“Maybe we can reprogram the shrink ray to reverse itself and make you bigger. I can probably tweak the code.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Klyk said. “But we have to do it fast. Once Mim’s appetite reaches critical mass, he could devour your whole planet in less than a day.”
“Then we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Kevin. “Let’s go.”
Thin blades of sunlight shone through the slats in the blinds of the bunkhouse window as morning broke. Kevin squinted bleary-eyed as he woke up. Warner, Tara, and TJ were sprawled out in different places across the room. “Guys, wake up! We fell asleep!”
“Huh?” Tara’s eyes popped open. “What time is it?”
“Quarter to seven,” Kevin said. “TJ, we have to finish the program update.”
“I already finished it,” TJ grumbled, half-asleep. “I put the final touches on the program and loaded it onto the shrink ray before I passed out. What do you think I am, some kind of slacker?”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Kevin said. “Let’s go give it a test run!”
“Someone hit the snooze button on Kevin, will ya?” Warner said, still trying to get a few winks in. “Kevin, you can continue being super annoying five minutes from now.”
TJ, still sleepy, raised his index finger at Kevin and said, “Boop.”
Kevin took a breath and sank back down into his pillow. “Wait,” he said. “Where’s Klyk?”
“I’m under the bed,” said the miniaturized alien. “These weapons are useless!”
“What weapons?” Kevin dropped off the top bunk and looked under the bottom bed. He gasped at what he saw underneath.
Klyk had opened all of TJ’s prized collection of action figures from their mint-condition packaging. He was fiddling with the little plastic toy gadgets. “These devices are fakes. A cruel ruse!”
“OOOOH!” Kevin exclaimed, looking at the vintage toy packages torn asunder. “TJ’s gonna be ticked!”
“What’s TJ gonna be ticked about?” asked TJ, crawling across the floor to look under Kevin’s bed. His bleary eyes squinted behind his glasses, and he squealed like a baby.
“What’s he shrieking about?” Klyk asked Kevin as TJ hyperventilated.
“You just ripped open his favorite toys in the entire world, which would have been worth a lot of money one day if you hadn’t done that,” Kevin explained.
“These pieces of elementary junk?” Klyk held up a vintage action figure’s tiny plastic accessory. “I thought these men were in cryostasis.” The alien pointed to the lifeless toys lying in the shadows under the bed.
“Come on,” said Kevin. “Let’s get the supersizer ready for testing.”
Warner placed his hand on TJ’s shoulder, comforting his friend as he mourned the loss of his priceless plastic pals.
Tara flicked the light switch on her way over to the shrink ray, but nothing happened. She flipped it up and down a few more times, but the room remained dark. “I think the power’s out.”
“Yeah,” said TJ, trying to get online with his laptop. “There’s no internet connection either.”
Warner picked up his smartphone. “No cell service, either.”
“Hey guys, check this out,” Tara said, peering out the window. “Notice anything different?”
The boys gathered around and looked out across the camp. Almost everything was the same, except all the power lines were missing. Kevin couldn’t even see the radio satellite tower that usually hovered in the distance.
Klyk strolled out from under the bed. “Mim,” he said.
“He’s cut off all our communication,” said Tara.
“Well, at least we have the walkie-talkies,” TJ said.
“Hey, what about Cody, Nick, and Bailey?” Kevin said, looking down at Klyk. “What was that stuff you guys were shooting with?”
“We call those cell blocks,” said Klyk. “They’ll be fine. That chemical substance is not lethal.”
“How do we get them out?” Warner asked.
“You don’t,” said Klyk. “I do.”
When they reached the site of the previous night’s campfire shootout, Kevin took Klyk out of his backpack and placed the mini alien in front of their three cell-blocked counselors. They watched Klyk place the palm of his hand on Bailey’s transparent cocoon first, but nothing happened.
Klyk scratched his head in confusion. “It’s supposed to know our handprints so when we want to release someone, we’re the only ones who can. But it’s not working.” He tried again on Cody’s and Nick’s cocoons, only to get the same results. “Maybe it can’t read my hands, they’re so small.”
“Time to get super-sized, Klyk,” Kevin said, and placed him on a tree stump while TJ set up the new supersizer on its tripod legs. Kevin took hold of the shrink ray and peered at the computer display. It looked almost as it did before, except now there was a new percentage scale on the screen to increase size. “Let’s see,” Kevin said. “You were about five times bigger before I shrank you, so we’ll set the laser to five hundred percent.”
“Ready,” Kevin said, “aim . . . whoa!—stop!”
Out of the leafy bracken, Poobah, Mim’s arachnopod, suddenly leaped between Klyk and the unshrink ray.
“Hold your fire!” Warner ordered TJ.
Tara trembled at the sight of the hybrid alien beast, which walked right up to the device and sniffed at it.
“Poobah,” Kevin said. “No! Sit!”
Poobah looked up at Kevin and snarled, then gobbled up the alien gadget in one huge gulp.
“Noooo!” Kevin yelled.
The arachnopod glowed red from the inside out and then ZAP!—the wild arachnopod let out a squeal that almost busted Kevin’s eardrums as it grew to five times its own size in an instant. Poobah’s tentacles widened to the width of pillars, and its hairy spider legs were now as thick as tree trunks.
Klyk put his hand on his forehead and shook his head.
“At least we know it works,” TJ said.<
br />
The size of a ranch house, the amphibious alien creature managed to squeeze nimbly between two large trees, squirming its way through the dense wooded terrain.
“Come on!” Kevin shouted, picking up Klyk off the tree stump and chasing after the extraterrestrial amphibian. “We have to get that shrink ray back.”
“How? You just saw him eat it!” Warner said. “Are you insane?”
“I’m beginning to think so,” Kevin said, and rushed off into the woods.
Poobah appeared again at the fringe of forest nearest the lake. Leaping off its massive spider legs, it bounded its way out of the woods and toward the mess hall. Poobah’s tentacles flung up as it soared through the air and hacked off two huge tree branches, snapping them like they were twigs. It landed squarely on all eight of its appendages simultaneously. The earth trembled beneath its weight.
This is so not good, Kevin thought as he watched a group of campers and counselors make their way to the mess hall for breakfast.
Kevin sucked in a lungful of air as he watched the campers and remaining counselors swing their heads toward the tremor. It didn’t take long before the first scream rang out.
Camp Director Dimpus looked up in horror at the massive arachnopod as campers shrieked and ran frantically for the mess hall. “Everyone inside!” he yelled. “Everyone inside!”
Kevin, Tara, TJ, and Warner sprinted out of the woods, merging into the onrush of campers hustling into the cafeteria.
Poobah stalked off the lakeside and onto the lawn, towering over one of the younger campers, who Kevin recognized was Bobby Little. Bobby stood in front of the ten-foot arachnopod, paralyzed with fear. The behemoth octo-spider craned its hideous face down at him and sniffed.
“Ahhhhh,” Bobby screamed at the top of his lungs. He reached into his fanny pack and drew out two cans of OFF!, which he proceeded to spray in the beast’s eyes.
Poobah reared back on its hindquarters and cast a broad shadow over Bobby Little.
Bobby tried to run, but one of the arachnopod’s tentacles shot out and wrapped around Bobby’s waist, lifting him up into the air. Bobby let out another high-pitched squeal, and Kevin rushed over to help his fellow camper.
“Poobah!” Kevin shouted at the humongous space creature. “Put him down!”
SQUAAWW! The arachnopod shrieked and threw Bobby to the grass. Bobby bounced back up to his feet and took off running for the mess hall, while Kevin stood face-to-face with the alien beast.
“Good Poobah,” he said. “Nice Poobah.”
The arachnopod’s tentacle shot out again, straight for Kevin’s head. Kevin leaped out of the way and ducked as one of the other tentacles came swiping for him.
“Run, Kevin!” Tara and Warner shouted from the mess hall. Kevin sprinted toward the entrance with Poobah on his heels, shooting globs of alien titanium silk at his ankles.
Once everyone was inside the cafeteria and safe under one roof, Dimpus slammed the door in Poobah’s wretched spider face.
Kevin grabbed his knees, bent over at the waist, gasping for air.
“Do a head count!” Dimpus ordered, and the counselors started accounting for all the kids. Luckily, the entire camp had made it to breakfast on time except for Bailey, Cody, and Nick, who were still frozen out in the forest.
“See?” Alexander stomped forward after everyone had calmed down for a second. “I told you there were aliens!”
“Hey, settle down,” said Tara’s counselor, Marissa, as she came out of the back kitchen with a battery-operated radio. “We have a broadcast signal.” She flipped it on and tuned it to the local news.
“In addition to multiple reports of large objects around the area inexplicably gone missing, an entire All-You-Can-Eat restaurant has just vanished,” the local newscaster’s voice reported.
“Mr. Brewer.” Dimpus turned around to address Kevin. “Did you and your team have a hand in this?”
“I’d say a couple hands, sir,” Alexander butted in.
“Kevin, what’s going on here?” Dimpus said. “I want some answers!”
Well, Kevin thought. I guess the arachnopod’s out of the bag anyway.
“It’s true, sir.” Kevin hung his head in shame. “We didn’t invent a telepathy helmet. It came from outer space. We actually built a galactascope and made contact with an alien named Mim. We’d been hiding him in camp for the past few days, planning to bring him to the convention. But it turns out Mim’s kind of a bad guy, so we need to stop him before he devours the, um, entire planet. Sorry.”
“Say that again, Mr. Brewer,” Dimpus said, his eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and disappointment.
Alexander stood up now, puffing out his chest. “A cheater in our midst. Shame on you, Kevo. Can’t say that I’m all that surprised, though. I guess that makes me the winner, right, Dimpus? No offense to Team Quasar, but my hovercraft is way better than some soda that turns your hair purple.”
Dimpus turned to them, looking even more flustered. “It was going to be the telepathy helmet, with the hovercraft as runner-up. But now that you’ve just confessed to cheating, Kevin, I guess the Vainglorious Math Nerds are indeed the winners of this year’s convention.”
“Yes!” Alexander pumped his fist and high-fived Luke and Dante.
“Umm, hey, nimrods,” Tara interrupted. “There’s kind of more important stuff going on here than the Invention Convention. . . . Like saving the world.”
SQUAWW! The arachnopod let out another hideous screech, which was followed by a loud thump that shook the mess hall as Poobah’s giant tentacles slammed against the sides of the building. The windows started to crack, and another high-pitched twitter sounded from the alien beast.
“Counselors!” yelled Dimpus. “Barricade the entry points! Campers, remain calm!”
Strong, thick strands of arachnopod silk began looping around the building. The windows squeaked under the strain.
“What the heck’s it doing?” Kevin opened his backpack and asked Klyk.
“It’s cocooning us in,” said Klyk. “We have to get out of here. If we’re trapped in here, we’ll never be able to stop it.”
As the counselors barricaded the doors, Kevin and the gang slipped out the back exit of the kitchen and climbed between the strands of arachnopod silk like the ropes on a pro wrestling ring.
“What about all the campers we’ve left behind?” Tara asked as the group made a mad dash for the boys’ bunk, where their alien defense weaponry was stashed.
“Don’t worry,” Klyk insisted. “They’ll be safer in there than out here with an arachnopod on the loose.”
“So why are we outside, then?” Warner huffed and puffed.
“Because we’re going to take this thing down.” Kevin ran ahead of the pack.
As they burst through the door to their room, Kevin snatched up the bag holding the force-field gloves, the freeze ray, and the wormhole generator. He put on the gloves, then tossed the wormhole generator to Warner, and Tara took the freeze ray. “Hey!” said TJ. “What do I get?”
“You get to carry me,” said Klyk. “Kevin, get ready. Everybody else fall in line.”
“Here we go,” Kevin whispered as they headed back outside and snuck around the corner of the cabin.
Kevin spied Poobah perched on top of the mess hall, finishing the cocoon-like web. The oversized beast jumped off the building, landing in the grass below, and Kevin and his teammates moved a little closer until Klyk ordered them to stop. They had a better angle now and Poobah hadn’t spotted them, or so it seemed. “Take your best shot,” Klyk said.
“With pleasure.” Tara lined up the freeze ray on the unsuspecting arachnopod and hit the button. ZAP! A blue pulse of cryogenic plasma fired across the lawn directly toward the alien’s midsection.
Poobah hopped straight up with the monstrous athleticism of a jumping spider. The blue laser landed on a tree trunk behind the arachnopod. The tree ceased swaying in the breeze, frozen by the pulse. Poobah touched back down in f
ront of them and hissed a stream of sticky webbing straight at Kevin’s face.
Kevin quickly brought the force-field gloves up to his face, bouncing the gelatinous web mucus straight back at Poobah’s hideous maw. YACK! The massive arachnopod choked on the web at the back of its throat, and Tara fired off another blast.
The freeze ray vibrated and then blurped a dead battery sound. The blue pulse glowed faintly, and then the device shut down in Tara’s hands. “It’s out of juice!” she said, shaking the gadget.
“Guys, chill out,” said Warner. “Let’s just give him a taste of this baby.” He patted the wormhole generator strapped to his wrist.
“And where would we send it?” Klyk asked. “There’s not a cell in space prison big enough to hold it.”
“You guys, we have to think of something,” said Kevin. “It’s our fault Poobah’s even here.”
“Kevin’s right, we have to use our brains against this thing,” said Tara. “It’s bigger than us, but it’s not smarter.”
“Looks like we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way,” Warner said, already running straight for the sports shed. The rest of the group followed.
“Everybody in!” TJ shouted, holding the door open. Behind them, Poobah lurked low to the ground like a prowling cat, staring straight at them. Tara and Kevin scrambled into the shed as TJ pulled the door shut. Kevin set Klyk on the floor and dropped down to peer through the keyhole, but he couldn’t get a visual. The arachnopod was out of his sight line.
“Did Mim say anything about the arachnopod?” Tara asked, searching through the shed for more tools that could bring Poobah down.
“Only that it’s one of the only things in the universe that he can’t eat,” Kevin replied.
“That’s right,” said Warner. “You’re a genius. The arachnopod is allergic to Mim’s fur, too.”
“Hey, check it out,” said Tara, wheeling over a caddy filled with tennis balls. “Mim’s fur is all over these things!”
“You guys,” said Warner. “I have an idea.” He went to the back of the shed and rummaged around before he came back dragging a portable tennis ball shooter.
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