“Um, hello. Hi . . . I mean, er, greetings,” I stammered into the camera. I usually worked with a script. “Are there any, you know, ghosts here?”
No answer. I panned the camera left and right and watched the swimming green shapes on the LCD screen. I saw a fuzzy white shape. Was that a ghost? No, it was my thumb on the lens.
“Specifically,” I continued, “is the ghost of Horace Hotwater—the shorts-wearing founder of Maple Bluffs who died in a tragic soup-related accident—here in this room?”
No answer.
“If there are any ghosts, spirits, demons, or Frankensteins, please give me a sign.”
From the corner, Hamstersaurus Rex made a whining noise. I hadn’t been watching him, but the little guy was sniffing and scratching at the baseboard. I turned the lights back on and walked toward him.
“What are you looking at, pal?” I said.
Hammie Rex whined again and stomped his foot. I noticed that the floor around him was considerably less dusty than the rest of the room. I bent down to inspect the baseboard.
“Looks normal,” I said.
Hammie Rex growled and banged his head against the baseboard. When he did, I could hear a hollow ring. I slowly traced my fingers along the baseboard. Sure enough, I felt a seam. I pulled on it, and a section came loose. Behind it was a dark, circular tunnel, about six inches wide, right into the foundation of the building. I crouched and looked in. I couldn’t see very far, but I could tell that it went all the way through the concrete, into the dirt beyond.
“Okay, that’s a little creepy,” I said. “Probably shouldn’t do this, but here goes.” I took a deep breath and plunged my hand into the hole. Luckily nothing bit me. My arm went in as far as my shoulder but didn’t reach the end.
“Hmm. I think this might be a job for you, pal,” I said to Hamstersaurus Rex.
I had an idea. Using a rubber band, I carefully mounted my UltraLite SmartShot onto Hamstersaurus Rex’s head. Then I wirelessly synced it with the old laptop that I used for editing my films (such unreleased future blockbusters as Chinchillazilla vs. MechaChinchillazilla and Abraham Lincoln Was a Hamster?!). I fiddled with the inputs, and suddenly I could see what Hammie Rex was seeing, live, in real time.
“All right,” I said. “Time to spelunk.”
Hamstersaurus Rex grunted and trotted into the tunnel. I watched on my laptop. It kind of looked like a first-person-shooter video game, all in monochrome green. I could see that the tunnel ran for about three feet and then opened onto a wider chamber.
“Whoa,” I said as Hammie looked from right to left, swiveling the camera with the turning of his head.
The chamber was filled with a weird assortment of debris. Shredded junk food wrappers carpeted the floor. Something glinted among them. It was a shiny, rumpled cloth. I could just make out A-M-A-T-O in block letters.
“Wait a second,” I said. “That’s Dylan’s away jersey!”
By one wall, I saw a chemical canister that appeared to have come from the school lab. I noticed a pop-up book from the library called Dinosaurs Are Neat! There was also a self-help book for grown-ups called How to Not Be Unlikable. Beside it was a comic book, The Legend of Max Stomper #338, with several pages torn out.
“And that’s the comic book that Drew McCoy is missing!”
Near the books was a gnawed pencil nub and a worn-down eraser.
“And that’s Tina Gomez’s eraser!” I said.
As Hammie Rex continued to turn his head, I gasped. An instant camera—the kind that spits out photos right after you take them—lay in the dirt. It had to be Dwight Feinberg’s!
Rex & Gibbs had just closed three cases in one fell swoop. But that wasn’t the most shocking thing about the weird little cache of items. The final wall was covered with surveillance photos of Hamstersaurus Rex! They were taken at a distance and in various locations, sometimes with me and sometimes without. It was clear that Hammie hadn’t been aware of the photographer. I know I wasn’t. Mixed in with the snapshots were clippings from our local newspaper, the Maple Bluffs Bee-Intelligencer: there was an article about the Science Night when Hamstersaurus Rex fought Michael Perkins. There was another about Principal Truitt offering Hamstersaurus Rex a novelty check to thank him for his heroics at the disc golf tournament. The place was like a spooky shrine to the little guy.
“What the heck?” I said under my breath.
Just then, I heard someone coming down the basement stairs.
CHAPTER 10
“HAMMIE, THE CROISSANT is out of the oven,” I whispered. “Repeat: the croissant is out of the oven!”
When we’d started being detectives, we’d worked out a bunch of secret codes. Either the little guy didn’t hear me, or he’d forgotten what “the croissant is out of the oven” was code for. Come to think of it, maybe I’d forgotten what it was code for. It was either “Somebody’s coming” or “Destroy the dossier.” I wrote it down somewhere. But where?
Agh! Whoever it was, was nearly at the bottom of the steps now. As much as I didn’t like the thought of trapping Hammie inside the hole, we were out of time. I hastily replaced the loose section of the baseboard and leaped to my feet. Then I turned the light off and frantically looked around for a hiding spot. There were no good ones, so I dove behind the boiler itself, careful not to touch it and burn myself. I crouched there in the dust as still as I could, trying not to think about spiders. Now I could see a shadow in the slice of light beneath the door.
The door slowly creaked open. Silhouetted in the door frame was an odd man wearing an obviously fake, white beard and a ludicrously oversized ten-gallon hat. Despite the “disguise,” it took me approximately four milliseconds to recognize him: it was none other than Gordon Renfro, Horace Hotwater Middle School’s recently departed science teacher, who had gone by the alias “Todd Duderotti” and who also just happened to be a SmilesCorp spy. I couldn’t believe it. What was he doing here?
Gordon Renfro stepped into the boiler room. Lucky for me, he didn’t bother to turn on the light or he likely would have seen me. Instead he made straight for the corner.
Oh no, I thought.
He crouched and pulled aside the loose section of the baseboard.
No, no, no . . .
It made sense now. Of course it was Gordon Renfro who had taken photos of Hamstersaurus Rex and squirreled away a bunch of strange chemicals in a weird hole! But how did Wilbur Weber fit in to all of this? Were he and Renfro working together? What would a brilliant-yet-evil SmilesCorp scientist want with a sixth-grade snail enthusiast? And what about the weird little super-strong rodent in Wilbur’s backpack? How did it fit in?
My questions would have to wait, though. I had more immediate concerns. Gordon Renfro dropped to his belly and reached inside the hole. For several long seconds I held my breath as I watched him groping around inside. I hoped against hope that Hammie Rex had the good sense to lie low. Of course, good sense had never been Hammie Rex’s strong suit.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” shrieked Gordon Renfro as he yanked his hand out of the hole. Hamstersaurus Rex had chomped onto three of his fingers, and the little guy was holding on for dear life. Gordon Renfro squealed in pain and flapped his hand around like it was on fire. On the tenth or eleventh shake he finally managed to dislodge Hamstersaurus Rex, who went flying.
“Freeze, Renfro!” I yelled. “We got you surrounded, see!” (For some reason I’d lapsed into an old-timey cop voice.)
This startled Gordon Renfro, and he stumbled backward. There was a loud klang!—like a church bell getting rung with a glazed ham—as he smacked the back of his head on a metal pipe.
“Ow ow oweee!” he muttered, stumbling forward and clutching his head in pain. His ten-gallon hat was partially crumpled. By this time, Hamstersaurus Rex had found his bearings and was ready to rejoin the fray. He did a flying hamster pounce and bit down hard on Gordon Renfro’s butt.
“AAAAAAH-ha-ha-hawabagogga!” wailed Renfro, half running, half stumbling for the
door. He practically tripped over that stupid fake beard twice on his way out. At the base of the stairs, he froze and turned to face me. “You may have won this round,” he squealed in a grating, high-pitched voice, “but you haven’t seen the last of us! Our plans will soon come to fruition! You’ll see!”
Hamstersaurus Rex let loose a thunderous roar. Gordon Renfro slammed the door shut, and I heard him prop something against the outside, locking us into the boiler room. Hammie shook the UltraLite SmartShot off his head and charged. He hit the door headfirst like a battering ram. KALANG! It gave a little but didn’t open. Outside I heard the sound of footsteps fading up the stairs. Gordon Renfro was getting away. Hammie backed up and ran at the door again. KALANG! It gave more this time, and I heard something crack on the other side. I stopped him.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I said. “He’s gone. But I’m hoping we’ve got all the evidence we need.”
I picked up the UltraLite SmartShot. Sure enough, the digital camera had kept filming the whole time.
I sat down to review the footage. First Hammie Rex surveyed the tunnel and the creepy chamber. Next a hand came groping in behind him (side note: Gordon Renfro really needed to clean under his nails. Blech). The hand grabbed the chemical canister near the entrance and started to pull it out of the tunnel. That’s when Hamstersaurus Rex bit down on Renfro’s fingers, and suddenly the footage became a nauseating POV Tilt-A-Whirl, as Hammie (and the camera) got slung around on the end of his flapping arm. I paused here. With his stupid fake beard askew, you could clearly make out Gordon Renfro’s face. Nice!
I rewound the footage and watched it again. This time it wasn’t for the purposes of investigation. It was for entertainment. All the sounds Gordon Renfro made were pretty funny (“AAAAAAH-ha-ha-hawabagogga”? Who yells that?). I rewound to watch it again, and something struck me. I paused the recording. Why was he reaching for that canister?
I showed Hammie Rex the tape and told him to retrieve the canister that Gordon Renfro was trying to grab from his little hidey-hole. Hammie barked and disappeared into the tunnel. He came back a minute later, rolling the canister with his nose.
“There’s another rodent with superstrength,” I said. “I bet it’s more Huginex-G.” That was the name of the proprietary SmilesCorp chemical that temporarily transformed a genetically modified squirrel into the behemoth Squirrel Kong.
I checked the label. Sure enough, the SmilesCorp logo was right there. But it wasn’t Huginex-G. It was something called “PaleoGro.” I’d never heard of it before.
“Well, if Gordon wants PaleoGro, that means he shouldn’t have it,” I said. I sent Hammie Rex back into the hole to clean out my classmates’ missing items.
A couple more dino-strong head butts broke the three-legged chair Renfro had wedged under the knob to keep us trapped inside. I took Hamstersaurus Rex back into Meeting Club HQ.
“Nice work today, little guy,” I said. “You deserve a treat.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out a bag of Funchos Rockin’ Hot Sauce and Chicken Noodle Flavor-Wedges (A SmilesCorp™ Product). Hamstersaurus Rex used to be uncontrollably addicted to junk food, but through the power of meditation, he had conquered his empty carb and artificial flavorings demons. Now he enjoyed them responsibly.
As the little guy ripped into the bag and gobbled down the salty snacks inside, I had a faint glimmer of hope. I didn’t want to jinx it, but Hamstersaurus Rex hadn’t moped in nearly an hour.
“Stay safe tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. “Sleep tight!”
Hamstersaurus Rex froze. A look of utter sadness started to spread across his little face.
“What?” I said. “What did I say?”
Hammie Rex sighed and slumped forward, totally depressed once again.
“What? Was it because I said ‘sleep’?”
Hammie Rex snorted pitifully.
“So I can’t even say the word ‘sleep’ now, because it reminds you that Cartimandua fell asleep on your hamster date? Come on, Hammie!”
The little guy was still moaning as I shut the door. I shook my head and headed for home.
Back at my house, I popped the head off an old Tiny Wizards action figure and hid the PaleoGro canister inside the toy’s hollow chest cavity. The canister was what Gordon Renfro went for first, so I figured it was the most important. Maybe Martha would know what PaleoGro was. I’d probably need to make peace with her first, though. I was crafting a sorry-ish sounding non-apology in my head when I heard a plink against my bedroom window.
I looked outside. There was a ninja standing in the bushes.
CHAPTER 11
I POKED MY HEAD out the window. “Um, can I help you?” I said to the ninja.
“Ninja cartwheel!” yelled the ninja, and he did an awkward cartwheel that destroyed a good bit of my mom’s tulip bed in the process. At the end of the acrobatic display, the ninja bowed and tried to pull off his mask. It was stuck. He struggled with it for a while.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“No. Shut up,” muttered the ninja, still fighting with the mask. Finally, he succeeded in yanking it off with a loud ripping sound. “Bet you didn’t know who I was,” said Beefer Vanderkoff, panting.
“No idea,” I said. “We get a lot of ninjas in this neighborhood.”
“Well, you were always a little slow on the uptake, Sam,” said Beefer. “Ninja parkour!” He ran at my house and tried to scale the wall up to my second-story bedroom window. Instead he sort of scrambled at the siding for a second and fell on his back with an “oof.” After that, he just lay in the grass gazing up at the sky.
“If you want, we have stairs,” I said.
My mom raised an eyebrow as she saw me let Beefer in the front door. “Hey, isn’t that the kid who used to bully you?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Beefer, before I could respond. “But Sam hasn’t bullied me in quite a while, so I’ve decided to let bygones be bygones. When all is said and done, I think that deep down he’s actually a good kid.”
“Uh-huh,” said my mom. “And why are you dressed like a mime?”
“Ninja,” Beefer mumbled, now hanging his head in shame. “Makes more sense with the mask, except I washed it on hot instead of cold, and it shrank and I think I tore the inseam . . .”
“It’s cool, Mom,” I said. “Nothing to worry about.”
My mom nodded and went back to watching her Norwegian detective show.
“So, what do you want?” I said to Beefer, once we were in my bedroom. I realized that came out a little harsh. I sometimes had trouble remembering that Beefer was no longer the goon who gave me daily swirlies. In the battle against Squirrel Kong, he’d even helped. “Hi, by the way,” I added. There, that sounded a little bit friendlier.
“Don’t try to butter me up,” said Beefer, poking me in the chest. “You owe me!”
“Huh?”
“Remember how I single-handedly defeated that giant squirrel and saved the whole town?” said Beefer. “Maybe the world.”
“You threw your snake at a little helicopter,” I said.
“Well, anyway, crazy as it sounds, this time it’s me that needs your help,” said Beefer. He laughed to show how crazy it was.
“Ah, I think I know what this is about,” I said. “It’s called ‘deodorant,’ and yes, I can totally show you where they keep it at the pharmacy.”
Beefer stopped laughing and stared at me. “Words hurt, Sam,” he said.
“Huh. But I—I mean, okay. Sorry,” I said. Whatever my new relationship with Beefer was, it would definitely take some getting used to.
“Look, I heard you’re like a little junior kid detective now or something,” said Beefer.
“Sort of,” I said. “Today I solved the case of Dwight Feinberg’s Missing Instant Camera.”
“Don’t care,” said Beefer. “I have a real case for you. And it’s a doozy. Who knows how deep this thing goes? Very mysterious cloak-and-diaper stuff.”
“Cloak-
and-dagger,” I said.
Beefer turned pale. “You really think so? That’s even worse.”
“Look, just tell me what your case is and make it snappy,” I said, pulling out my detective notebook.
“I’m being followed. Everywhere I go—home, school, the dojo, lute lessons—I keep seeing the same girl. I’m pretty sure she’s either a member of a rival ninja clan or—and I don’t want you to wet your little pants when I say this, Sam—a werewolf.” Beefer paused for dramatic effect.
I sighed and started to put my notebook away.
“Hey, come on,” said Beefer. “Don’t you even want a description of the were-suspect?”
“Fine,” I said, not really wanting a description of the were-suspect.
“She’s got purple hair,” said Beefer.
“Wait a second,” I said, “I’ve seen her around, too. She was at Wilbur Weber’s birthday party! In a SmilesCorp T-shirt!”
I quickly caught Beefer up on everything that had happened so far: the sabotaged RaddZone go-kart, the weird squealing rodent in Wilbur’s backpack, and Gordon Renfro’s creepy little hidey-hole/stalker shrine to Hammie Rex. Beefer stroked his chin, deep in thought.
“So Martha’s still single?” he said.
“Huh?” I said. “I think you’re focusing on the wrong part of the story. Look, man, the point is that if Gordon Renfro is back, it means SmilesCorp is at it again. I’m sure they’re looking for—”
“Michael Perkins!” shrieked Beefer. “My beautiful bouncing baby boakeet!”
“I was going to say Hamstersarus Rex, on account of all the surveillance photos, but sure, maybe Michael Perkins, too,” I said. “I bet Purple Hair is in cahoots on account of her shirt.”
“Cahoots,” said Beefer, shaking his head ominously.
“Look, Beefer, I’ll help you try to find Purple Hair, but I’m going to need your help, too,” I said. “That freaky little rodent is still on the loose. It must be one of the mutants that got set free when we broke into SmilesCorp. If you see or hear anything, let me know.”
Hamstersaurus Rex Gets Crushed Page 6