They Came From Planet Q

by Laura Dower

  Walter appeared, his face illuminated by a flashlight. He looked like a guy from the haunted house on Halloween.

  “I’m so sorry, kids,” he said. “Everything’s gone kerplooey again! But you already know that.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Stella whispered.

  “Is the B-Force getting stronger?” I asked.

  “Stronger, yes,” Walter said.

  “Thanks to the increased magnetism caused by the pending arrival of the movie bots and their retrieval of the firequartz,” Jesse said, “I bet the electricity all over Riddle has been short-circuited. That includes this castle.”

  “Yo, Jess,” Damon said. “English, please.”

  “A changing magnetic field creates electrical current,” Jesse said. “So if the magnetism cuts in and out, then the electricity might cut in and out, too . . .”

  “Or shutdown completely?” Stella asked.

  Walter nodded. “Indeed. Very well said, Jesse.”

  “Magnets make electricity?” Stella said. “But I thought electrical current created magnetism.”

  “It works both ways,” Jesse explained.

  “So the power in the castle is short-circuiting because of all the magnetism?” I asked.

  Walter nodded. “Yes, Lindsey,” he explained. “When one magnetic force gets hit with another force, like electricity, the molecules inside the object get mixed up . . .”

  “And the magnetism goes away!” I said.

  Walter nodded. “Exactly. Good work, Lindsey.”

  “Just a little something I learned from a friend,” I said, indicating Jesse, of course.

  “Aaaaah!” Damon blurted. His face had gone white. “I can’t listen to this science mumbo jumbo anymore. This Monster Squad mission is just too scary for a bunch of fifth-graders. We need Leery. We need an escape route out of Riddle. We need—”

  The castle’s power rumbled back on and we all looked up. The overhead lights buzzed like wasps again.

  Beeeeep! Beeeeep! Beeeeep!

  “Aha!” Walter cried, clicking a beeper on his belt. “The communication system is back online! Thank goodness! Let’s go get Leery! We have to go before we lose power again! We have a lot to report!”

  “And even more to ask,” I added.

  CHAPTER 8

  LEERY THEORY

  We raced to the round room near the castle entrance. Leery Castle looked much safer with all the lights turned on. Walter had installed a new, enormous screen monitor for the communicator. We could see Leery almost life-size, speaking to us from halfway across the globe.

  When we fought the Beast with 1000 Eyes, Leery had been out of town in the arctic. Today, he was at the Great Wall of China looking for rare specimens of bamboo. I wondered if that meant our next potential B-Monster would be a plant—or distantly related to a panda bear. There was nothing predictable about the Monster Squad. Eventually we’d have to face all B-Monsters: fish, bird, animal, and plant.

  Right now the B-Monster was a robot.

  The picture on the communicator screen was crystal clear. We could see Leery as if he were in the room with us. The Great Wall curved for miles in the distance.

  “You have come so far since your first Monster Squad mission, my friends,” Leery said to all of us.

  “Fight the B-Monster! Fight the B-Monster!” Damon yelled out. Stella looked so annoyed. But it didn’t bug me. Damon just didn’t want to look like a chicken in front of Leery. That was understandable. I wanted to show off every time we came face-to-face with Leery, too.

  Walter moved the communicator around so we could each say our own hello. He was in great spirits. He actually greeted me by name.

  “Lindsey!” he said. “Walter tells me that you have something that belongs to me . . .”

  And then Oswald Leery did something I’ve never seen him do.

  He took off his dark glasses.

  It was a little unnerving. After all, his eyes were full of cataracts that turned them a smoky, whitish green color, almost alienlike.

  “Hold the camera closer to the screen so I can see it,” Leery said in his gravely voice. “I am so pleased that your grandfather saved that camera and that you used it to identify the B-Monster bots. It photographed the B-Force.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse said. “But we still haven’t actually seen any bots in the flesh. Well, up close.”

  Stella pushed me over so she was front and center at the communicator, and not me. I think she was just jealous because Leery talked to me for so long.

  And just as Stella stepped up to ask something, Leery’s face starting to turn to static. Ha!

  Walter hit the control panel and the picture came right back.

  “Sometimes I wish I never created They Came from Planet Q,” Leery said, sighing. “I never should have imagined a world where Earth could be destroyed for good . . .”

  “But it can’t be! It won’t be!” I cried. “We watched the movie again just a few moments ago, Dr. Leery.”

  “We can get the firequartz away from the robots just like Roger Rogers did,” Damon said. “In the movie, Roger Rogers used a contraption he called the ‘zapper’ to suck all the power out of the firequartz. We can do the same thing!”

  “But my friends,” Leery said, slipping his glasses on once again. “Roger Rogers was a superhero and you kids are—”

  “We’re super, too!” Stella cried.

  There was silence on the other end of the communicator. Oswald Leery cleared his throat. He faced the camera and smiled.

  “You will find the firequartz in the cellar under the mall,” Leery said. “I have no record of the coordinates, but it’s there. When we made the movie, we mined the entire area and removed most of the stone except for one slab that wouldn’t fit in our mine vehicle. But don’t be fooled by its size. It might not seem so powerful, but rest assured it is.”

  As Leery faded from the screen I looked each of my fellow Squadders in the eye. I saw fear, but I also saw resolve. There was only one thing left to do: “Guys, it’s time to rock and roll!”

  CHAPTER 9

  MALL OR NOTHIN’

  On the limo over to the mall, Jesse starte talking science again: magnets, planets, and special forces.

  “Tell me again how magnetism works,”I said to him

  “The core of Earth is molten iron, which is like this huge magnet. The field of magnetism goes from the north pole to the south pole. And magnetism is the line of―”

  “Blah, blah, aaaaah!”Damon groaned. “I see your mouth moving, dude, but I don’t get a word of what you’re saying.”

  I chuckled. “He’s just trying to help us understand how magnetism works. We need to know these things. We need to know our B-Monster inside and out.”

  As we got closer to the mall, I kept my eyes glued to the road. We had just passed the Drive-O-Rama drive-in sign and billboard, when Walter hit the brakes—hard.

  I whipped out my camera, ready to snap. “What is it? What is it?” I cried.

  “Traffic jam!” Walter called back. “Right up there! At the mall entrance. I’m going to have to find another way in.”

  Walter spun the steering wheel and turned onto a grassy road behind the mall instead.

  What a bumpy ride! We were tossed around like popcorn kernels in a pot. One of the limo’s car cushions actually flew across the backseat—and I nearly flew across with it! Then a panel in the ceiling clicked open and everything dumped out at our feet: cups, papers, boxes, CDs, rubber bands, envelopes, old magazines. Junk.

  “Hey, Lindsey,” Jesse said, pointing to one of the papers. “Isn’t that a map of the mall?” And sure enough, there on the floor, was a half-crumpled map of the Petroglyph Mall. It must have been left over from when Leery was devising the bot B-Monsters for They Came from Planet Q. What amazing timing! How lucky we were! Even from this distance, way out in the fields, I saw how Petroglyph Mall had grown overrun with people and vehicles and a crazy, swirly storm of objects in the air. The B-Force h
ad gone crazy with blaring sirens and blazing spotlights. The sky was bearing down, too, dark like a storm, like night coming in.

  I hated to think what would happen if we didn’t figure out how to destroy the B-Monsters before it got pitch-black out here. I could just imagine those red robot lights coming after us in the dark, dark cornfields . . .

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

  I jumped into the air. Scared myself.

  “Look at all those security guards!” Jesse cried. “I bet your dad is over there, Lindsey.”

  I squinted and I couldn’t make out my dad, but I saw at least three times the number of guards stationed there since this morning. We’d only been away from the mall for a matter of hours! In that short time, the B-Force had escalated beyond any of our imaginations! They’d already brought in triple the reinforcements.

  Cable news crews were setting up their satellite dishes, but Jesse said transmissions probably weren’t even making it out of the parking lot. The B-Force was growing! Every metal object was becoming magnetized to every other metal object. That’s why there had been no reports of this on the news! The news cameras had all stopped working.

  As we drove, Walter struggled a little bit with the steering wheel. Something was pulling on the car! Fortunately, Oswald Leery’s vehicles come equipped with anti-lock and anti-magnet brakes.

  Leery always planned for every emergency.

  “Is your skin tingling?” Stella asked. “Because it feels like my skin is tingling . . .”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “We all feel that,” Jesse said. “It’s the B-Monsters. It’s the B-Force. They’re almost here.”

  Indeed, that electric feeling in the air meant the Planet Q robots had to be only seconds away from entering Earth’s atmosphere.

  I held my breath and counted down to one.

  We didn’t have a final plan, but we were ready.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

  CHAPTER 10

  MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US

  “My stars!” Walter cried. “The mere presence of the B-Monster has turned the entire mall into an enormous magnetic field! Astounding! If only the crowds knew what was really going on. They think it’s some kind of strange weather pattern.”

  This B-Force was as uncontrollable as ever! Every time I went to take a new photograph, the magnetic pull threatened to rip my camera right out of my hands.

  We looked over at one of the enormous, overflowing piles of metal objects growing higher than the tallest building in Riddle. Now there was actually a red sports car hanging off it, somehow suspended from a steel girder. In fact, every steel object imaginable, big and small, had made the pile taller and taller. There were horseshoes, hubcaps, power tools, metal fences, a hunk of the divider from the road outside the mall, and a whole bunch of major household appliances.

  “This is what must have happened in Spain and in Australia!” I cried. “It’s why the metal objects flew out of museums and lawnmowers shot through the sky! The bots must have flown through all those places . . .”

  “Looking for their firequartz!” Jesse said.

  “And magnetizing everything big and small!” I added.

  The photographers were all around us, scrambling for the best picture and scoop they could get. I knew they couldn’t see or photograph the robots (they weren’t Monster Squad, after all), but there were plenty of other things to take pictures of. Even the sky made a good photograph right now: It was this deep scarlet red color, like it was on fire.

  The magnetism was a problem for some cameramen, who struggled to hang onto cameras while they shot footage of the chaos. More often than not, the magnetism pulled them around in addition to their cameras. I saw one guy get lifted all the way up into the air and dropped into the same pile as the washing machines and garbage cans! Luckily, he appeared unhurt.

  Walter had smartly bypassed a lot of this magnetic mess by driving as far away from the magnetic pile as he could. He dropped us off in the mall parking lot where no one was parked. While we investigated the B-Monster, he planned to wait with the limo.

  We had to hike back to get near the mall, but at least we were safe. I was feeling tougher now. We all were. Stella kept muttering, “Kiiiiiya!” under her breath. We were finally ready for some real action.

  “Good luck, Monster Squad,” Walter said as we walked away from the limousine. “May the force be . . .”

  “With us!” I cheered.

  At first we headed directly for chaos central—that is, the mall’s front entrance. But then Stella realized that there was no way for us to get inside! Security had every entrance and exit in a major lockdown. I think I saw my dad right there in the middle of it all! If he saw me—or any of us—back here after the evacuation orders, he’d flip a wig.

  “I know you don’t want to,” Stella whispered, “but shouldn’t we just ask your dad to let us in?”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “He kicked us out last time—when it wasn’t even half as dangerous. There is no way Dad will let us go inside the mall now. Besides, Wally is probably over there, waiting to pounce.”

  “Who needs Dad?” Damon said. “I have the map from the limousine!”

  We all crowded around the map to check it out. There were plenty of entrances marked, but they were all out front.

  “Except for here!” Jesse slammed his hand down on the paper. “A loading dock out back. Excellent.”

  My eyes traced the map from the dock all the way through to a service elevator and downstairs to the mall’s lowest level. I wanted to know what obstacles might be in our way. There were a bunch of stores and stalls, but best of all, this map showed fire exits and stairwells. If we were able to slip downstairs, we could bypass some of the main shops and find an entrance to what lay under the mall . . .

  Was the mysterious firequartz down there? We hoped so!

  The loading dock was located at the far end of Building G. That had to be our way in! The four of us scurried around the mall exterior to the opposite side.

  As we walked around, I noticed the sky again. The scarlet red glow had all but turned to black.

  “Up in the sky!” Stella cried. “Something is up there!”

  “Our B-Monster!” I said. “It’s finally here!”

  “It’s the UFOs from Planet Q!” Damon cried.

  They were circling over the mall—dozens of metal B-Monsters—and I did not know what to say or do. The sound was deafening, like a swarm of the creepiest bats ever or a brigade of helicopters with nowhere to land. And the UFOs looked so fake, too, even from far away. It was hard to imagine that this mixed-up mess of bolts could transform into killer, driller robots!

  But that’s exactly what they were.

  “We have to hurry!” Stella said. “We have to find the firequartz rock before they do!”

  Stella got to the loading dock entryway first. She tried pressing the control panel for the loading dock door. Then I flipped another switch. Nothing happened.

  “Wait! The power is all messed up!” Jesse shouted over the noise around us. “Electromagnetism, remember? It won’t let us open the door.”

  “Look! Over there! A manual lever,” Damon said. “Yes!”

  We quickly dashed over to a large turning gear. I pulled the gear handle. Stella pulled me. Jesse pulled Stella. Damon pulled Jesse. It only took a few minutes before the door budged. We were able to open it just enough to slip inside.

  As I rolled under the door, I glanced up once more at the sky. It was now black with flashes of silver metal. The last of the UFOs were coming in for a landing. Others were already transformed into standing robots with red glowing bulbs on their heads. I blinked hard.

  Was this really happening?

  “Lindsey! Inside! Quick!” Jesse yelled. Then Damon released the door and it slammed down, narrowly missing my head.

  “Now where to?” Damon asked.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know how to get upstairs from here. We took out the map again and searched for someth
ing—anything—that might tell us where to go next. Lucky for us, Jesse had his nifty penlight keychain in his back pocket.

  Considering all the crazy noises we’d left outside, this place was a total tomb. The loading dock doors must have been soundproof. And the trouble with scary quiet is that it only makes things that much . . . well, scarier. Damon was so jittery, I could barely get him to stop shaking.

  Thankfully, we were able to read the map, work our way through the dock’s darkness, and find a door marked MALL LOBBY, TWO FLIGHTS UP.

  “Everyone ready?” I asked the group. “Because it’s mall or nothing from this point on!”

  “Ha!” Damon said, cracking a smile.

  “All for pun and pun for all!” I joked.

  We raised up our four right hands and did a Monster Squad high five . . .

  And then we burst through the door like a bunch of TNT.

  CHAPTER 11

  ATTACK OF THE BOTS

  The B-Force inside that part of the building nearly knocked me flat.

  The magnetism in the mall was so strong that it lifted me right off my feet for a split second and then deposited me with a swoosh against the window at Burger Stall. It was a good thing that glass didn’t break! We grabbed onto poles and nailed down chairs so as not to get carried away. But the force kept pulling me from side to side to . . .

  “It’s your belt! Undo your belt, Lindsey! It’s metal!” Stella shouted.

  Quickly, I pulled the belt off and fell to the floor.

  Drat that metal belt buckle, I thought.

  Everyone else took off lt off whatever they had on that might be magnetic, too. Stella took off her barrettes and earrings. Damon took off a chain from his neck. Jesse dumped a fistful of coins out of his pocket. I was very glad that my eyeglasses weren’t metal. I wouldn’t have been able to see a B-Monster without them!

  We had to work overtime just to stay on our feet! One false move and we’d find ourselves on some scrap heap in the parking lot. Every second counted.