Hamstersaurus Rex Gets Crushed

by Tom O'Donnell

  “All right,” said Beefer. “Ninja shake.” He stuck out his hand.

  I shook it. “Deal,” I said.

  Beefer looked at me expectantly.

  I sighed. “Ninja deal.”

  Now he smiled. “You know, Sam, I think it’s pretty awesome that you went from being a bad guy to being a good guy.”

  “Come on!” I said.

  “And now, in true ninja fashion, I must vanish without a trace.” Beefer reached into his pockets and pulled out a smoke bomb and a lighter. He started trying to light it.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” I yelled, slapping the smoke bomb out of his hands. “Don’t do that in my house!”

  “Can I do it in the yard?”

  “I guess. But not near any of my mom’s flowers.”

  A few minutes later, I looked out my window and saw Beefer standing on the front lawn. He lit the smoke bomb and ran away. It stained some of the grass blue.

  The next day before school, I stood by the sixth-grade lockers and waited. Today was a landmark occasion for the Rex & Gibbs Detective Agency. We’d just closed our first four cases! Finally, I saw Tina Gomez walking down the hall, chatting with her friends.

  “Hey, Tina, guess what I found,” I said.

  “Hmm,” said Tina, “some sort of enchanted mask that can turn its wearer into any animal?”

  “Uh . . . no,” I said. “This.” I held out her worn-down eraser.

  “What happened to it?” said Tina, crinkling her nose.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Somebody used it, I guess.”

  “Eh, you can keep it,” said Tina. “I’ll just get another one. They only cost, like, twenty-five cents, you know.”

  Before my head could explode, I saw Drew McCoy.

  “Drew, my main man,” I said, “I found your Legend of Max Stomper #338 gold-foil variant cover. Voilà!” I held up his comic book. A couple of pages fell out.

  A look of horror spread across Drew’s face. “The issue was mint,” he said, flipping through it. “Max Stomper’s face has been ripped out of every single page.”

  “You can still kind of tell what’s going on,” I said. “From what I gather, Max Stomper is often stomping.”

  “Sam, why did you show me this?” said Drew, now pale as a ghost. “What was once a thirty-nine-dollar collector’s item is now a . . . a human tragedy.” He walked off, shaking his head.

  “I was trying to help,” I said.

  At this point I almost didn’t want to find Dwight Feinberg. But I did.

  “Hey, man. Here’s your instant camera,” I said, shoving it toward him with no fanfare.

  “Thanks, but I already bought a new one,” said Dwight. “And then I lost that one, too. Hey, maybe you can help me find it?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  So far, solving cases hadn’t been the thrill ride it was cracked up to be. Still, I knew one person who would be grateful for the result of my detective work.

  “Missing something?” I said. I held out the Disc-whippers away jersey I’d recovered to Dylan.

  “My jersey!” cried Dylan. “Oh man, now Coach Weekes won’t have to kill me, except he kind of already wants to because I broke my ankle and basically tanked our whole season.” She unfurled it: metallic mauve and purple, “D’AMATO 03” on the back. But I noticed that a little triangle of fabric had been snipped out of it. I frowned.

  “Huh. Didn’t see the hole before,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, Sam, my dad can patch it,” said Dylan. “So where was it?”

  “In a weird tunnel,” I said.

  “A weird tunnel where the ghost of Horace Hotwater lives?” said Dylan, her eyes widening. “Well, ‘lives’ is the wrong word, but you know.”

  “Nope. The tunnel belongs to one Gordon Renfro, who’s been creeping around like a total creep.”

  “Renfro!” said Dylan, pounding her fist into her palm. “That guy?!”

  “Yep,” I said. “He stole Dwight’s camera to take spooky surveillance photos of Hammie Rex. You’ve got to see his new disguise. It makes the ‘Todd Duderotti’ ponytail-and-shades ensemble actually look subtle.”

  “Is Wilbur working for him?” said Dylan. “Do you think that’s how he came by his evil steroid ferret or whatever?”

  “Could be,” I said. “Anyway, the good news is, there is no ghost.”

  Dylan frowned. “But I saw a jersey literally levitate, Sam. How could Gordon Renfro manage to pull that off?”

  “Obviously with scientific . . . science,” I said. “Because he’s a scientist.”

  Dylan didn’t look convinced.

  “Okay, I’ll admit Hamstersaurus Rex and I haven’t pieced together all the clues yet,” I said. “But this explains a lot. If Renfro’s back in the picture—”

  “Renfro’s back in the picture!” said Martha, appearing out of nowhere like some sort of future-valedictorian/chameleon hybrid. “I’m going to redouble Cartimandua’s security. From now on, she’s going to be under twenty-four-hour video surveillance.”

  “I don’t know if that’s strictly necessary. But speaking of Cartimandua,” I said, mentally reciting the words I had prepared in advance, “I want to express my deepest and most obligatory regrets that you somehow hurt your own feelings regarding Cartimandua being taken out of her cage for the sake of love et cetera and so forth.”

  Martha cocked her head.

  “Masterful non-apology,” said Dylan.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’m sorry, Martha. Happy?”

  “Apology accepted, Sam,” said Martha, brightening. “You know, in the future, you should consider not doing anything wrong in the first place. Like me.”

  “I’ll consider it,” I said. “Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, I need your help with something. Can you figure out what this is?” I handed her the action figure that had the PaleoGro hidden in its chest cavity.

  “It’s an action figure . . . which is sort of like a crude doll?” said Martha, holding it at arm’s length. “I couldn’t tell you much more than that. I don’t really watch cartoons. I mostly stick to the nightly news.”

  “Don’t let appearances fool you, Martha,” I said. “It’s what’s inside that counts.” I popped the head off the Tiny Wizard and shook the PaleoGro canister out.

  “PaleoGro?” said Dylan. “That sounds really familiar, but I can’t remember why.”

  “That canister looks like it came from the school lab,” said Martha. “We should return it.”

  “Not so fast,” I said. “After Squirrel Kong destroyed the lab, it was remodeled to be totally state-of-the-art, right? Do you guys remember who paid for that?”

  “SmilesCorp,” said Dylan.

  “And when Gordon Renfro was pretending to be Todd Duderotti,” said Martha, “he was secretly using the new school lab as his home base to hunt down Squirrel Kong and Hamstersaurus Rex.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I think Renfro is back because he needs stuff from our school lab.”

  “But why can’t he just get whatever he needs from SmilesCorp?” said Dylan.

  “No idea,” I said. “All I know is that he was willing to break into Horace Hotwater in a disguise to try to steal this canister of ‘PaleoGro.’”

  “I’ll tell Elaine to change the locks on the lab door,” said Martha.

  “Elaine?” said Dylan.

  “Oh, you would probably know her as Principal Truitt,” said Martha.

  Dylan shook her head.

  “Good thinking, Martha,” I said. “And can you try to figure out what PaleoGro is?”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Martha. “Which is usually better than everyone else’s.” She pocketed the canister.

  Dark thoughts of Gordon Renfro preoccupied me for the rest of the day. Yet again, Wilbur Weber didn’t show up to school. I asked around to see if anybody had heard anything about him, but no one had. Turns out the kid didn’t have many (non-snail) friends and nobody had seen him since
the incident at RaddZone. Was he off regrouping with Gordon Renfro and his weird little animal friend? Were they plotting their next evil move? Another attack on Hamstersaurus Rex?

  I was zoning out beside the good water fountain when Coach Weekes tapped me on the shoulder.

  “How’d it work out?” he said.

  “How did what work out?” I said.

  “My Success Coaching for your sad ‘friend’?” said Weekes, with several exaggerated winks and nudges and nose taps. “Because here’s what I’m thinking: I could have a completely new career as an advice columnist. I already picked out the perfect name: Goalkeeping with the Success Coach.” He stared at me expectantly for several seconds.

  “It’s a sports pun?” I said.

  “See? I knew you’d get it and absolutely love it!” he cried, clapping me on the back. “Anyway, yeah, my thing is going to be to use a ton of sports puns and metaphors. For example, opportunity is like a football: when somebody tosses it your way, you just gotta hold on tight and run with it! And try to not get tackled. And go for the two-point conversion.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already put a lot of—”

  “Got my resignation letter all typed up and ready to go!” He whipped out a folded sheet of paper and shoved it at me. “And you can be sure this bad boy has a few choice words for Principal Truitt, too. That woman never gave me the knee-sock budget I requested. Not once.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Coach!” I said. “I think you might be getting a little ahead of yourself. Honestly, your advice didn’t work out so well. My friend got out of his comfort zone and it was a disaster. Things are even worse than before. So.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like your quote-unquote ‘friend’ is really stuck behind the eight ball, success-wise. Another sports metaphor,” said Coach Weekes, pocketing his letter of resignation. “Time for some advanced success coaching.” He cracked his knuckles.

  “Fine,” I said. “Whatever you say.”

  “Success Coach’s second rule: be direct!” said Coach Weekes. “Stop beating around the bush. Come right out and say what your goals are: Give me my knee-sock money! No, I won’t pay for this floor-model toaster I broke! Yes, I will be an astronaut, even though I failed the physical exam and the background check! And so forth, et cetera, Gibbs.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  Weekes’s success coaching hadn’t gotten Hammie anywhere before. In fact, it was so wrong, it was basically the opposite of right. That got me thinking. What if Hammie did the opposite of what Success Coach said this time? Instead of being direct, he could be indirect. Mysterious, even! What if Cartimandua received a nice, thoughtful gift from a “secret admirer”? Maybe that could add a little bit of excitement and turn this whole catastrophe around. What to get her, though? I knew Cartimandua liked lettuce.

  On my way to lunch, I swung by Meeting Club HQ and collected a despondent Hamstersaurus Rex. I ran the plan by him, and he didn’t object (or react in any way other than to frown). So I tucked him into my shirt pocket and headed to the cafeteria.

  “Hi, can I have some lettuce?” I said to Judy, the lunch lady.

  “I got six types of lettuce,” she said, crossing her arms. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “Give me all of them,” I said.

  Now she was doubly suspicious. “How come?”

  “What can I say?” I said. “I’m a lettuce head!”

  Somehow she was persuaded. I took all six types of lettuce and arranged them into a beautiful lettuce-y bouquet, which I tied with a ribbon that was actually tape. Then I filled out a card. “To: Cartimandua. From: Anonymous. Please enjoy this lettuce.” Hmm. It needed a little something more. At the bottom I wrote, “Best of luck in all your future endeavors” like I’d seen on a greeting card once. Perfect!

  Hammie peeked out of my pocket and watched me express his heartfelt and poetic sentiment and attach it to his extremely thoughtful gift. “She’s going to love this, buddy,” I whispered to him. “Nice work!” I hurried back to our classroom before lunch was over.

  I found Mr. Copeland reclining in his swivel chair. He suddenly snapped awake.

  “Please don’t tow my car!” he screamed. Mr. Copeland looked around and gathered himself. “Just resting my eyes. Wait, what are you even doing here, Sam? It’s lunchtime.”

  “I’m here to deliver this lettuce bouquet to Cartimandua!” I triumphantly showed it to him.

  “Seventeen years of teaching and I’ve never had a class that was this into hamsters,” said Mr. Copeland, shaking his head. “Anyway, don’t let me stop you.” He gestured toward the hamster cage.

  Cartimandua was inside, licking a stray piece of lint. I opened the little door to the PETCATRAZ Pro™.

  “Why, hello, Cartimandua,” I said. “I have a special gift from a secret admirer.” I gave her the lettuce. “Pretty artfully arranged, huh? The romaine makes a nice contrast with iceberg, I find.”

  She sniffed at the bouquet. Then she nibbled a little bit.

  “So far, so good,” I whispered to Hammie Rex in my pocket. I felt him stir.

  Cartimandua ate more lettuce. She clearly loved her gift.

  “Well,” I said, backing toward the door. “I’ll just leave you to think about how thoughtful this amazing gift is and wonder who the mysterious and handsome—”

  Cartimandua barfed everywhere.

  “Yikes!” said Mr. Copeland, looking up from his yogurt cup. “Is that normal?”

  “Um,” I said. “I thought she liked lettuce?”

  “How should I know?” said Mr. Copeland. “Sam, if you poisoned the new hamster, Martha’s never going to let me hear the end of it!”

  “Good idea!” I cried. “Martha!”

  Cartimandua barfed again. I picked her up and ran.

  “Make way! Coming through!” I cried as I carried Cartimandua ahead of me down the hall. “Hamster horking over here!”

  “Whoa, what’s wrong with Carabiner?” said Omar Powell, jumping back as I rushed past.

  “Cartagena looks sick,” offered Julie Bailey helpfully.

  Cartimandua threw up twice more by the time I found Martha on her way back from lunch.

  “Sam, what happened?” cried Martha, snatching Cartimandua away from me. “This is Hamster Code Red!”

  “Uh. Looks like somebody gave her this.” I held out the limp, chewed-up lettuce bouquet.

  “Somebody?” said Martha as she pulled a stethoscope out of her backpack and started to monitor Cartimandua’s heart rate. “Who?”

  “Well, it says it’s from ‘Anonymous,’ so there’s really no way to prove—”

  Martha grabbed the card. “It’s your handwriting.”

  “Okay, technically, yes, it is my handwriting,” I said. “But you said she likes lettuce!”

  “I said she likes lettuce in moderation!” cried Martha as she strapped a tiny blood pressure cuff on Cartimandua’s front leg. “This is way, way too much lettuce for her! Cartimandua has a very sensitive digestive tract. You would know that if you ever bothered to read her medical history file.”

  “It was seventy-five pages long!” I said. “I got tired of reading about a genetic history of gingivitis on her father’s side!”

  Martha glared at me.

  “Sorry. I’ll read it. I promise,” I said. “Is she going to be okay?”

  Martha paused to read the tiny gauge on the miniature blood pressure cuff. “Luckily, yes,” she said. “But this is your final warning, Sam. Stop trying to play hamster matchmaker. It’s been a disaster.”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to help my little friend,” I said. “He’s depressed. He lies facedown on the floor all day long. He’s barely been eating. He’s basically lost the urge to smash things.”

  “Hamstersaurus Rex has brought nothing but trouble to Cartimandua,” said Martha.

  “Okay, you have a point,” I said. “But ultimately isn’t it better to have loved and barfed than never to—”

  “Sam, she obvi
ously doesn’t even like him anyway!” said Martha.

  I could feel the little guy wince inside my pocket as she said it. Before I could reply, there was a tap on my shoulder.

  “Uh, Sam,” said Jared Kopernik. He was standing sheepishly behind me with his hands behind his back.

  “Not now, Jared,” I said.

  “Sam, seriously,” said Jared, “I think you’ll want to read this.” He handed me an envelope and walked off.

  Martha and I called a time-out on our argument. She watched over my shoulder as I opened the envelope. Inside was a folded piece of paper. It read: “I owe you an apology. Meet me at my house after school.” At the bottom, it was signed “Wilbur Weber.”

  CHAPTER 12

  AFTER SCHOOL, I headed to Wilbur’s house with Hamstersaurus Rex in tow. Did he really intend to explain himself and let bygones be bygones? Or was this a Gordon Renfro/SmilesCorp trap? Was I walking into some sort of final, epic showdown? Wilbur’s creepy rodent beast against my dino-hamster, mutant versus mutant.

  Unfortunately, I seriously doubted Hamstersaurus Rex had the will to fight. He was limp as cooked pasta, sniffling in my pocket and not doing much else. I was never sure how much Hammie understood when people spoke, but somehow he’d gotten the gist of what Martha was saying: he and Cartimandua weren’t meant to be. He was at least eight times more depressed than before. Oh, how I longed for the days of continuous moaning. Now even moaning was too much effort for him.

  So I brought Dylan along for extra backup. Normally she was tough and capable. But today she wasn’t operating at 100 percent either. For one thing, she was on crutches, so the walk to Wilbur’s house was extra slow. For another, she still hadn’t gotten over the idea that she was somehow supernaturally cursed.

  “I’m worried, Sam,” said Dylan. “You say that there is no ghost and it’s just Gordon Renfro’s weird plans. But I still feel, like, a sense of doom. Ill omens. Dark portents. Like today’s the day something really bad is going to happen.” She shivered.