by Tony Abbott
Jeff turned.
Holly’s face was pale, her eyes wide with fear.
On either side of her were hooded creatures, clutching her tightly by the arms.
And towering over them all was Exetor, head mole alien.
8
Zoll Base One!
“I knew I smelled humans!” Exetor growled.
“Grok! Grok!” his band of hooded mole soldiers snorted.
Exetor smiled a smirky smile and removed his hood. It was then that Jeff and Holly finally saw the mole alien’s face up close.
It was leathery and black and wrinkly with tiny red eyes pulsing out under a single fuzzy eyebrow. His long snout had little white whisker things twitching around on the end of it.
“Whoa!” said Holly, pulling back from the snout. “With a snorter like that, you can probably smell what we had for breakfast!”
“Wheat-O cereal!” the creature grunted at Holly. Then his whiskers twitched some more. “With sliced banana and two-percent milk!”
Holly nodded, her eyes wide with wonder. “Exactly right!” She slid a stick of gum out of her pocket and started chewing it. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Of course it is!” the creature growled. “It’s always embarrassing when you are face-to-face with a superior being!”
“Nose-to-nose,” Jeff muttered to himself.
Then the mole alien raised his giant paws. They were a cross between little shovels and furry brown mittens.
“I am Exetor,” he said. “Project Leader of Zoll Base One.” His voice sounded hollow and deep.
“Uh, sure,” said Jeff. “And you live down here?”
“Seven hundred of us,” Exetor explained. “For the last week we’ve been digging under your town. Digging and building what you see here!” He pointed his paws at the city around them.
“That explains the manhole covers popping,” said Jeff.
“And the rumbling below the streets,” added Holly. “And the bumps, and sewer problems, and every other creepy thing that’s been happening in Grover’s Mill!”
“All part of our glorious invasion!” snorted one of the mole creatures behind Exetor. “When Zoll comes in his cloud ship, he will lead us up through the sewers into your town!”
“How nice!” said Holly. “Do you always travel first class?”
“Oh, we’ll conquer all the towns that way,” the mole went on. “We’ll take over the world, then the solar system, then the galaxy, then—”
“Enough!” shouted Exetor, lowering his eyebrow at the other mole. “Now the earth-lings know too much. We must destroy them!”
“Whoa, time out!” gasped Jeff. “Hey, we already forgot your plan. Right, Holly?”
“Forgot what?” said Holly, forcing a laugh. “See, we don’t know anything about your plan! I mean, what plan? We don’t know anything about a plan. Or anything!”
“Right,” added Jeff. “So, we’ll just grab our friends and go.”
“Friends?” Exetor snorted with disgust. “You mean … these?” He moved a giant lever, and—vrrrrt!—the ground opened.
“Oh, no!” Holly gasped when she saw them.
Up from the center of the floor rose four large glass tubes. They turned slowly on a round platform. One of the tubes was empty. The other three had people in them.
“Liz!” cried Holly. She ran over with Jeff.
But their friends stood perfectly still in the tubes.
“Are they … dead?” gasped Jeff.
“Merely asleep,” replied Exetor. “As you soon will be. And when mighty Zoll comes—”
Holly couldn’t take it. She whirled around. “Listen, mole nose! You think you’re going to invade? You think you’re going to take over? Well, let me tell you about Grover’s Mill! It’s filled with kids like us who will fight for our freedom and the freedom of our friends and families!”
“Nice speech,” smirked Exetor. “But you are all prisoners! Prisoners of the mighty Zoll!”
“Zoll!” repeated the others, slapping their hooded heads hard with their shovel paws. Then they slowly began to close in on the two kids.
Jeff got boiling mad, too. “Hold on, there, bathrobe boys! Just who is this guy Zoll, anyway?”
The moles froze in their tracks. They all looked at Exetor. Their snout whiskers twitched under their hoods.
The leader’s furry eyebrow shot up. “Zoll?” he gasped. A quizzical look wrinkled across his leathery face. “Why … Zoll is Zoll!”
He stopped, as if that answer was enough.
“Zoll is Zoll, huh?” said Holly. “Well, thanks a bunch for clearing that up.”
Exetor strolled over to the one empty tube. Then he stood back, folded his arms, and smiled. “You see, in the universe there are four things: solid, liquid, gas, and Zoll.”
“Uh-huh.” Jeff chewed his lip. “And where do we fit in?”
The mole’s snout whiskers flicked up and down. “You fit into this glass tube!”
9
What’s That You’re Wearing?
An instant later, a hatch on the empty tube popped open. A bunch of mole aliens grabbed Jeff and threw him in. Then they came for Holly.
“Get your paws off me, you, you—moles!” she cried, trying to get free. But the moles held tight.
“We’re short on Earthling Destruction Tubes,” said Exetor. “You don’t mind sharing, do you?”
“We do, actually,” said Holly, still struggling. “That’s something you gotta learn about earthlings. We have to have our own tubes. Sorry, I’ll wait for the next one.”
“OH, JUST GET IN!” Exetor shouted.
The mole aliens snorted and tossed Holly into the tube with Jeff. Then Exetor pressed a button on the outside of the tube.
Ssss! A stream of pink gas shot into the tube.
“Holly!” cried Jeff. “The sleeping gas!”
Before Jeff could think another thought, Holly spat out her bubble gum and slapped it over the nozzle. The gas stopped.
“Whoa! Quick thinking, Holly!” said Jeff.
“Oh, big deal,” snorted Exetor. “Zoll can destroy you himself.” Then he and his mole aliens scurried over to a giant control panel near the landing area.
“Don’t worry, Holly,” said Jeff. “We’ll get out of here. We’ll save our friends. We’ll stop the invasion. We’ll be heroes.”
“Sounds great, Jeff,” said Holly. “How?”
Jeff didn’t answer right away. Mostly because he had absolutely no idea how. Not a clue. But it felt better to pretend that he did. “Can’t tell you, not in front of them.”
Holly nodded. “A secret plan! That’s cool.”
Yeah, right, thought Jeff. So secret even he didn’t know it. It would take a miracle to get them out of this one.
Jeff tapped on the tube. “Hey, Mr. Mole. Why are you invading here? I mean, why attack our town?”
Exetor smirked again. “Simple. We needed a place where no one would notice us!”
Jeff instantly remembered the faces of Principal Bell and Mrs. Vickers when he and Holly told them about the aliens. “He’s got a point.”
The moles continued to work. They turned dials, moved levers. Some were checking screens with little green lights blinking on them.
Holly tried to stare a hole in Exetor’s back. Then she turned to Jeff. “Oh, I wish this were one of my dad’s movies. Then I could just walk out when it came to this part.”
Jeff glanced around the cavern. The whole situation didn’t look good. Their tube was sealed up tight. Their friends were taking a deep snooze. The control panels all around them were groaning and whining. The mole aliens were grunting.
And soon this guy Zoll would come and lead his stupid invasion!
Invasion.
The word sounded horrible. Scary. Grover’s Mill taken over by mole aliens. Ugly mole aliens. Who would stop them? Who could stop them?
Jeff swallowed hard. “Hey!” he called out. “Why does Zoll hate earthlings?”
Exetor smirked. “Why? Beca
use Zoll is Zoll!”
“Again with the Zoll-is-Zoll thing,” said Holly, very annoyed.
“Silence!” shrieked Exetor. “He is coming!”
VRMMMM! Suddenly, the ground above them rumbled. Thunder boomed in the cavern.
“Open the landing port!” Exetor cried.
VRRRRT! High above them, the foundation of the pretty blue house slid aside, the roof of the house opened, and a giant cloud lowered itself through the house.
“Whoa!” cried Holly. “Even in The Weird Zone this is weird!”
Exetor raised his furry paws high above him and proclaimed, “To the glory of—Zoll!”
The cavern suddenly exploded in a burst of incredible bright light! A white cloud swirled down, filling the air.
“The invasion force!” gasped Jeff. “This is it!” He was scared, and angry. There were just seconds left! “Holly, we’ve got to get out of here!”
As the air turned misty and foggy, Jeff began kicking at the hatch door with his new sneakers. “I’ll get us out of here if it’s the last thing I—whoa!”
“Um … Jeff?” Holly said.
Something was going on with Jeff.
Jeff was … changing. Well, his feet were!
Thwonk! Flang! Chank-choonk! Grink! Jong!
The sneakers started to grow! Coiling up from the top of each sneaker was some kind of liquid metal stuff that covered Jeff’s legs and went solid in an instant.
“Jeff,” cried Holly. “What are you doing?”
But the sneakers weren’t finished.
Flang! Glanch! Plung! Long, thick pieces of metal shot up from his waist, met across his chest, and coiled down his arms.
“I can’t stop it!” Jeff yelled. “It’s going by itself!”
Fwink-fwank-fwunk! A chunk of gray metal slithered up his chin and shot over his head, forming a giant spiked helmet.
By this time, the whole cavern was filled with fog.
And there stood Jeff. In the glass tube. Wearing a total armored suit!
He turned his head easily and said through a grille over his mouth, “Bet you can’t buy these in just any shoe store!”
Holly nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. Now, how exactly did you do that?”
Jeff tapped the tips of Holly’s sneakers.
Thwonk! Flang! Chank-choonk! Grink! Jong!
A moment later, there were two of them.
“Cool suits,” said Jeff, opening and closing his iron hands. “Suddenly, I don’t feel so helpless anymore. What do you say we rescue our friends?”
“Let’s do it!” said Holly.
But before they could do anything, the underground world exploded with a rainbow of jagged light.
Zoll had landed!
10
Here’s … Zoll!
KLA-BLAMMO!
An enormous explosion of white, purple, green, and orange light filled the underground cavern!
The light faded to reveal a large, silvery cloud ship resting on the loading area.
VRRR! The ship opened. And he, Zoll, the great one himself, appeared on the platform in the center of the giant underground city.
Holly nudged Jeff with her armored elbow and whispered. “He’s … tiny!”
It was true. Zoll was much smaller than the other mole aliens. His fur was light brown. He looked like a kid mole. But he wore big chunky blue boots and swirled a long silver cape.
“I’m Zoll, don’t ya know!” he proclaimed to everyone in a high voice. “I’m wondrous! I’m all sparkly in my cape! And I’m cute!” Then his mole whiskers flicked out and he growled in a lower voice. “And I wanna take over the world!”
Then Zoll pointed to his feet. “Like the boots? They’re new!”
Exetor and the moles bowed before Zoll and began swatting their heads.
Jeff nudged Holly and whispered, “They haven’t seen us yet!”
“Shall we introduce ourselves?” asked Holly.
“Yoohoo! Mole guys?” Jeff growled. “Take a look at us! We’re metal—and we’re mean!”
Exetor and his creatures looked up from the floor. It was as if their eyebrows hit the ceiling. Their red eyes bugged nearly all the way out. Their snout whiskers got all twitchy.
Zoll’s eyes pulsed with rage. “Hey!” he shouted at Jeff and Holly. “Who are you two weird robots? Didn’t anybody tell you that there are only four things in the universe—solid, liquid, gas, and me?”
“I told them!” cried Exetor.
The two kids popped the tube hatch open and jumped down like superheroes right into the middle of the mole guys.
“We’re Jeff and Holly!” said Jeff, smiling in his helmet.
“We’re Jeff and Holly!” Zoll repeated, snarling. “WELL, I’M ZOLL—AND I’M INVADING YOUR TOWN!” Then he growled and pulled something from under his cape. It was a jagged bolt of something pink. He hurled it at Jeff.
ZAM! It blasted like lightning on Jeff’s spiky helmet!
Jeff shook his head. “Cool!” he said, laughing. “No pain at all!”
Then Holly held out her arm and suddenly—zammmm!—a bolt of blue energy from the tips of her fingers blasted the mole aliens.
“Also cool!” she said as the mole aliens dived to the ground. “I like the sneakers, but I looooove the accessories!”
Zoll hopped down from the platform and scurried over to Exetor. He had an angry look on his snout. “You were supposed to get everything ready! I brought my personal attack force in very spiffy cloud ships all the way from Zollkan—at snacktime, no less—and everything’s not ready!” Zoll’s voice was screechy.
“Destroy the enemies!” Exetor yelled out, pointing at Jeff and Holly.
“That’s better!” mumbled Zoll. “I like the destroy part.”
A pack of mole aliens rushed at the two kids.
ZAM! ZAM! Holly let another blast of blue laser stuff fly out from her metal fingers.
The moles jumped for cover.
Jeff turned to Holly and grinned. “Fancy shooting, partner! Now’s our chance to save our friends. Let’s go!”
The two super-robotic totally armored heroes leaped across the landing area to the three giant tubes. With incredible strength, they blasted open the hatches and pulled their friends out.
The three sleeping kids woke up, but they were groggy.
“Can’t I have just one more?” Mike muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“I was not picking my nose,” said Sean in a daze.
“It’s spelled w-e-i-r-d,” Liz mumbled sleepily.
Holly grinned at Jeff. “Our friends are back!”
“Friends!” screamed Zoll. “Zoll doesn’t allow friends! And guess what? I’M ZOLL!”
ZWAMMO! The little lord of the moles hurled another pink bolt at Jeff and Holly. Then he plucked a little pink box off his belt and shouted into it. “Calling all cloud ships! Calling all cloud ships! BEGIN THE ATTACK—NOW!”
BLAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!
The cavern rocked and thundered from an incredible blast! The cloud ships were attacking Grover’s Mill!
11
The Battle for Our World
The giant underground city quaked and shook as the cloud ships began their attack from above.
“We’d better get up there!” said Holly, easily lifting Liz and Mike into the air.
Jeff tossed Sean over his shoulder and raised his other arm over his head. He jumped a little.
WHOOOOM! A small rocket on the back of his armored suit shot out a cool blue flame and Jeff soared thirty feet up the cavern.
A moment later, both armored friends were sweeping up to the surface.
“Hey!” yelled Mike, waking up on Holly’s shoulder. “Robots are flying us around!”
“Too bad,” mumbled Liz, slumped over Holly’s other shoulder. “That means we’re still in The Weird Zone!”
The five kids blasted up through the blue house and out to street level.
There were dozens of cloud ships circling over Grover’s Mill and blasting the groun
d below.
KLA-BAMM! KLA-BAMM! The ground shook and quaked with each explosion. A giant-sized bite of donut flew off the Donut Den and crashed to the ground.
“They’re making a mess of our town!” cried Holly.
“And my lawn!” shrieked Mr. Sweeney as a horrible, screeching purple ray hit his yard, sending chunks of dirt and grass high in the air.
“Come on!” cried Jeff. “Let’s get up there! We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do!”
Holly turned to him. “That’s sort of like Zoll is Zoll, Jeff! But I think I know what you mean.”
They set their friends down gently, and watched them run to Mike’s house for safety.
Then, like human rockets, the two armored mole fighters shot off into the sky, each of them holding their arms out and flying straight for the circling alien spacecraft.
BLAMMM-O! Blast after blast shot from the clouds at the kids!
But the two friends put on their own awesome display of laser power!
ZANG! KEEOOW! Jeff and Holly zoomed in and out and between the giant spaceships, dodging their screeching rays and answering them blast for blast!
Suddenly, the clouds began to spin around and around. An instant later, they all merged into one huge cloud over Grover’s Mill. The town grew dark.
“The big attack!” cried Jeff. “Let’s blast that oversize cotton ball into orbit!”
Holly gave him the okay sign with her metal fingers and shot off into the sky over Lake Lake.
Jeff soared high toward the cloud, then dropped into a steep dive to draw the ship’s fire.
BLAM! BLAM! Bolts of purple lightning followed him. They missed, blowing a chunk of fin out of the fish-shaped Baits Motel.
Holly looped around the Grover’s Mill water tower, skimmed low over the W. Reid Elementary School gym, and then cut back up toward the ship.
Then both at once, she and Jeff fired spray upon spray of red-hot laser rays directly at the heart of the cloud.
ZAM!—Z AM!—KA-BLAM!
The huge cloud rocked and shook and bucked and jerked and then was silent.
“Victory!” Jeff cried out loud. He glanced around. He was soaring hundreds of feet above Grover’s Mill. His hometown looked like a little toy village below him. It seemed so helpless.