by Bill Doyle
“Ugh,” Keats moaned as he came to rest in the middle of Main Street.
He lay there for a second, checking for broken bones. But nothing hurt too badly. He lifted his head and looked around. The town was quiet. No cars. No people. No slugs.
Then he felt a rumbling coming through the ground. Keats jumped to his feet.
Thirty slugs charged over the top of the hill. Stretched in a line across the street and oozing slime everywhere, the stampede of slugs headed straight for him!
Keats’s stomach flip-flopped. His legs wanted to run, but he forced himself to stand perfectly still.
“Act like a cheese puff,” he told himself over and over. “Act like a cheese puff.”
The slugs showed no sign of slowing down. Would they just steamroll over him?
When they were about fifty yards away, Squirt’s head turned toward Keats and he did a double take. He shouted, “Splurp? Splarb?” The entire line of slugs slowed. A couple tilted their heads at Keats, their eyes going wide. They all stared, almost like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
It was a super slug’s dream come true—a giant cheese puff!
The slugs started moving again, faster than before. Feeling like a cowboy in a Western, Keats stood his ground. He had to keep them from going to the picnic.
“Come and get me,” he whispered.
Keats let them get close. He could see the whites of their eyes. They were only forty feet away. Thirty. Twenty. Keats waited just one more second—
And then he ran.
8
SLUG SHOWDOWN
FOR THE SECOND time that day, Keats was in a race. But this time he couldn’t trip.
He sprinted down the street past the beauty parlor and the post office. He could hear the slugs oozing along behind him. The thought of a cheese-puff dinner seemed to give them extra speed.
Keats wanted to shout for help. But no one was around to hear him. And if he did, the slugs might decide he wasn’t actually a cheese puff. Then they’d head off toward the picnic again.
Besides, Keats figured he could keep them running around the small town until Henry arrived. He’d lived here his whole life. He knew every nook and corner. And though the slugs were fast, he was faster.
Still, with thirty giant slugs chasing him, he got distracted. Keats ran by the library and down the street toward the diner. Without thinking, he took a quick left.
And just like that, Keats found himself in the town’s one and only dead end. He was in the alley between the diner and the movie theater … and the alley ended in a brick wall.
Uh-oh.
Keats spun around. The slugs were close. With no time to backtrack, he ran up to the brick wall. Was there a door? No luck.
Keats gasped. Now he knew why they called it a dead end.
Squirt and the rest of the slugs flooded into the alley, filling it with their slimy bodies. They chittered away, excited to have trapped the world’s largest cheese puff. Their mouths opened.
“Wait!” Keats held up his hands.
At the sound of his voice, Squirt cocked his head again. Keats could imagine him thinking, Weird, I’ve never heard a cheese puff talk before.
“Splurp?” Squirt said. He sounded unsure.
One of the slugs inched forward. It gave Keats a quick lick and then jerked back as if to say, Blech!
Keats knew he must taste awful. Barbecue sauce mixed with octopus legs and clementine juice couldn’t be tasty. The slug took another lick. Again, it jerked back with a blech!
Squirt’s eyes opened wider. He knew he had been tricked. This wasn’t a giant cheese puff!
“Splurp!” Squirt commanded. His voice sounded as furious as a slug’s can sound. “Splarb!”
The slugs crawled forward. Their mouths gaped, showing crooked rows of pointy teeth.
“I’m not a cheese puff!” Keats shouted.
Squirt didn’t seem to care anymore if Keats was a cheese puff or not. The slugs were so close now, he could smell the cheese on their cold breath.
Keats pressed his back against the brick wall. The slugs inched even nearer, getting ready to bite down—
“Hold it right there, Squirt!” Henry screeched into the alley on his bike. He had an orange vacuum-bag ball under one arm.
The slugs paused. They twisted around to look at him.
“Henry!” Keats shouted. “Holy moly, am I glad to see you!”
The slugs eyed Henry for a moment. Squirt gave a slug shrug, and they all turned back to Keats. He shuddered as their eyes fixed on him again.
“I know I said to knock off the World’s Greatest Plans,” Keats called to Henry. “But if you have one, I promise to never make fun of them again!”
Henry smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.” He unpinned the second-place medal from his shirt. “My World’s Greatest Plan is to share this medal.”
Henry threw it like a disk. It spun through the air toward Keats, who reached up and caught it. But what was he supposed to do with it?
“Don’t worry, cuz,” Henry said with a wink, just like he had during the race. “It’s in the bag.”
Aha! Keats returned the wink. He unhooked the pin from the medal and held it out like a little sword.
Squirt’s lips seemed to form a smile at the silly weapon. And Keats smiled back. Because he had guessed what Henry was going to do.
“Say cheese, Squirt!” Henry said, and hurled the vacuum bag filled with cheese-puff powder over the heads of the slugs.
At the same time, Keats tossed the second-place pin like a dart. The pin hit the vacuum bag dead-on. It burst with a pop!, and the cheese-puff powder inside exploded all over the slugs.
For a moment everything in the alley went completely still. Then with a tiny slurrrp, one slug stuck out its tongue and licked the skin of a nearby slug.
Its eyes lit up.
Kablam! The slugs burst into motion. They started tasting and then nibbling on each other.
“Splurp! Splarb! Splarb!” Squirt shouted. But the slugs didn’t listen. Their eyes went blank. They turned their teeth on each other, hungry for more cheese puffs.
Slugs gobbled up other slugs like piranhas in the Amazon. Squirt shrugged. He stopped splarbing and joined in the feeding frenzy.
Keats couldn’t watch anymore. He shut his eyes.
A minute later, the alley went very quiet. Keats opened his eyes. Henry was grinning at him. “How’d you like that World’s Greatest Plan?” he asked.
Keats looked down.
“Whoa,” he said. Just one slug remained. It was Squirt. Flopped on his back, he was too fat to turn over.
Henry crouched next to him. “Wow, that’s amazing,” he said.
“I know,” Keats agreed. “Squirt ate all the other slugs!”
“No,” Henry said, his grin getting bigger. “It’s amazing because that’s just what you look like after Thanksgiving dinner.”
Keats rolled his eyes. “Ha, ha,” he said. But then he laughed for real. “We did it!”
“We saved the town!” Henry clapped Keats on the back. “And we’ll still make it back to the picnic in time for the fireworks!”
The cousins found a clear plastic box with a lid in a nearby Dumpster. They picked up Squirt. He was as slimy as always but much easier to handle now that he was so full. Into the box he went.
As Henry and Keats shut the lid with a click, a long black limousine rolled into the alley. No one was driving, and the front seat was empty.
The back window of the limo rolled down. Mr. Cigam’s cheery, diamond-shaped face popped into view. The elderly magician waved to the boys. He had a corn chip in his hand.
“Greetings, Henry and Keats!” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Cigam,” Henry and Keats replied. They carried the box with Squirt over to the limo and set it down by a tire.
“Well done!” Mr. Cigam said. “You two must be hungry after such hard work. Snack?” He held a tray of chips up to the window. In the center of the tray sa
t an open jar of nacho cheese dip.
Henry groaned. But Keats laughed. Mr. Cigam seemed clueless that they could have used the dip … a half hour ago.
“No thanks, Mr. Cigam,” Keats said. “And I think you might lose your appetite after you see the store.”
“Pish,” Mr. Cigam said. “My magic is still good for something. I’ll have the Purple Rabbit shipshape by morning.”
“It’s your store?” Henry asked.
Mr. Cigam nodded. “I used to visit daily. But lately, I’ve been feeling a bit … I don’t know …”
“Turned around?” Keats guessed.
“Precisely.” Mr. Cigam’s smile dimmed. “In the old days, I’d never have feared a Wallenda slug. Even if that one slug can become a swarm after eating cheese puffs.”
Henry waggled a finger at the magician. “Don’t beat yourself up, Mr. Cigam. Those slugs are slime-time scary.”
Mr. Cigam chuckled. “Too true,” he said. “Now there’s the matter of payment. Here you are.” The chip in his hand changed suddenly into a gleaming gold coin. Henry’s eyes went wide.
Keats hesitated. “Seriously, Mr. Cigam, the supermarket is a disaster zone.”
“Kind of like you, cuz,” Henry said. He scraped an orange glob of octopus off Keats’s cheek. “I think we might have earned it.”
Keats took a whiff and had to agree. He accepted the coin. “Thanks, Mr. Cigam!”
“Excellent,” the magician said. “By the by, I have two stepsisters who could use your services. They might be in touch.”
“You hear that, Keats?” Henry said. “We’re getting to be real pros at magic! I can just hear everyone talking about us now. They’ll all say—”
BURRRP!
The loud noise came from the box at their feet.
“Oh, right,” Keats said. “We haven’t introduced you.”
“Mr. Cigam, this is one very stuffed slug named Squirt,” Henry said. “Squirt, say hello to the nice magician.”
As Mr. Cigam peered down at him, Squirt burped again. The slug stretched his plump body to form letters on the plastic box.
Henry crouched down next to him. “Keats, check this out,” he said, grinning.
Keats stooped so he could read the letters, too. And then he laughed as Squirt wrote, wats fer desrt?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BILL DOYLE grew up in Michigan and wrote his first story—a funny whodunit—when he was eight. Since then, he’s written other action-packed books for kids, like the Scream Team series, the Crime Through Time series, and the Behind Enemy Lines series. He lives in New York City with two sluggish, snack-loving dachshunds.
You can visit him online at billdoyle.net.