I froze. Hammie grunted. Serena bumped into me. Then Beefer. Then Martha. The four of us nearly toppled over. I whipped the camera around.
“Is it the Mind Mole?” I whispered into the walkie-talkie. “Is it Gordon Renfro?”
“Too far away. Can’t tell,” said Dylan. “But they’re headed your way!”
“Guys, somebody’s coming,” I whispered to the rest of the group.
“What do we do?” said Serena.
“Execute Maneuver 72B,” said Martha.
“Refresh my memory,” said Serena. “What maneuver is that?”
“Is it doing a cartwheel?” said Beefer. “I hope it’s doing a cartwheel!”
“Did any of you read the mission handouts I gave you?” said Martha.
We all mumbled excuses.
“It means hide!” said Martha.
The four of us scattered for hiding spots. You never think about it, but when you’re blindfolded, hiding is almost impossible: If you can’t see, how do you know if you can’t be seen? It was like something out of Coach Weekes’s old meditation tapes.
I was thinking this as I climbed under what I believed to be a pinball machine and smacked my head pretty hard. I stifled a yelp, but the UltraLite SmartShot slipped from my fingertips and clattered across the floor.
“Sam, what am I looking at?” said Dylan. “Why does it seem like you’re under a particularly gum-encrusted foosball table?”
“Sorry!” I whispered into the walkie-talkie. “I dropped the camera! And I obviously can’t see where it went!”
Still blindfolded, I groped around for it. The floor was super gross on my fingertips: years of spilled soda and RaddSpudd toppings. I didn’t find my UltraLite SmartShot. But I did find something wet and something hairy. Blech.
Just then I heard footsteps. I froze. Hammie Rex squirmed in my pocket. The little guy was amped up and raring to go. I put a hand on him to calm him. Sure enough, the footsteps were slowly approaching. I held my breath. They got louder . . . and louder. They stopped right beside me.
The footsteps continued on. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Martha shrieked. I yanked off my blindfold and tossed it away.
“Help me!” cried Martha.
I scrambled out from under the pinball machine and saw Martha backing away from . . . Grumpy Grampy Gopher.
“Give us the PaleoGro!” squealed Grumpy Grampy, who I realized now was someone in another Country Gopher mask. He wore the striped polo shirt of a RaddZone employee. “We told you to bring the hamster! Where is he?”
“Which hamster?” said Martha, her voice trembling. “Personally, I know multiple hamsters.”
“You think this is a game?” screeched Grumpy Grampy. “We are not amused!” He lunged toward Martha and grabbed her with both arms.
“Oh, we brought the hamster, all right!” I said. “Chomp ’im, boy!” Hammie Rex launched out of my pocket and bounded toward Grumpy Grampy. With a flying, slobbery dino-bite, he snapped onto his forearm.
“Aaaagh!” grunted Grumpy Grampy, stumbling backward and flailing.
“Way to go, Spikehead!” cried Serena.
“Ninja jump rope attack!” cried Beefer as he and Serena ran at Grumpy Grampy, holding the rope low between them. They swept his legs out from under him and he hit the ground. A second later, Beefer and Serena were on top of him, trying to hold him down and wind the rope around his arms.
“You think you can defeat us with mere . . . jumping ropes? Risible!” cackled Grumpy Grampy as he struggled violently. “You are all but grubs compared to us!”
Hammie snorted at him.
“Snort all you want, fool. Your time is at an end!” cried Grumpy Grampy. “We shall relish your particular doom!” One of his arms broke free. Beefer jumped on it and squashed it to the ground. The commotion echoed throughout RaddZone.
“What do we do?” I said.
“I don’t know!” said Serena. “I don’t think we can hold him for too much longer!”
“I have an idea!” said Martha. She got close to Grumpy Grampy’s face and stared right into the eyeholes of his rubber mask. She whipped something shiny out of her pocket. It was an old-fashioned watch on a chain. “Okay, uh, I want you to relax.”
“Do we look relaxed?” squealed Grumpy Grampy.
“Focus on the sound of my voice,” said Martha, swinging the pocket watch back and forth in front of his eyes. She glanced down at his name tag on his shirt, which said “Jason.” “Imagine you’re in a very calming, safe place, Jason. Maybe a hammock?”
“We will not!” shrieked Grumpy Grampy. “Hammocks are for the weak!”
“What’s she doing?” said Serena.
“I think she’s hypnotizing him,” I said.
“But he’s already hypnotized!” said Beefer.
“Then she’s double-hypnotizing him,” I said. “Or maybe unhypnotizing him?”
“Every muscle is starting to loosen,” said Martha. “The tension is leaving your body.”
“Lies!” squealed Grumpy Grampy. “All lies! We are extremely tense!”
“Your breathing is slowing down!” said Martha. “I’m going to count backward from forty-seven—”
“Is there any way you can hurry it up, Martha?” I said. “We don’t have much time!”
“But this is how I learned it at Magician Camp,” said Martha.
“Just try!”
Martha turned back to Grumpy Grampy, still swinging her watch. “Okay, I’m going to count backward from, let’s say, eleven, and when I reach one, the Mind Mole’s stranglehold on your psyche is going to be broken. Do you understand me, Jason? When I utter the phrase ‘Advanced Placement,’ you will awaken, clearheaded and free from all mental control.”
“We will not!” said Grumpy Grampy. “We will crush you like beetle larvae!”
“Eleven . . . ten . . . nine,” said Martha.
“You cannot hope to counter our power, you unctuous goody-goody!”
“Eight . . . seven . . . six . . .”
“You trifle with dangerous forces beyond your ken!”
“Five . . . four . . . three . . .”
“We will destroy yoooooooou!”
“Two . . . one,” said Martha. “Advanced Placement!”
Instantly, Grumpy Grampy stopped struggling. Beefer and Serena relaxed their hold. Martha and I looked at each other.
“. . . Um,” said Grumpy Grampy quietly. “What’s, like, happening or whatever?”
Martha put her watch back in her pocket. Serena pulled the rubber mask off. It was the floppy-haired teen who ran the RaddZone racetrack.
“Hate to tell you, guy, but you got mind-controlled by an evil mutant mole,” said Serena.
“Um, okay,” said Jason. “Why are you all wearing ninja masks?”
“Somehow that’s even harder to explain,” said Serena. “Beefer?”
“They look cool,” said Beefer with a shrug.
Jason blinked. He looked like he was either going to start crying or like his floppy-haired head would explode.
“Or, you know what?” said Serena. “Maybe this is aaaaalllll a dreeeeeam.”
“It is?” said Jason with a flip of his bangs. “That would be so lame.”
I gave Martha a high five. She didn’t appear to have ever received one before.
“You broke the Mind Mole’s control!” I said.
“Huh, yeah, I guess I did,” said Martha.
“Maybe now we can save Cartima—”
BZZZHT! A familiar electrical crackle rang out through RaddZone. All at once, the lights flickered back on. The arcade machines and games began to play their songs and ring their bells and make their bleeps and bloops and flash every color of the rainbow all at once. The power was back on. And the normal cacophony of RaddZone filled the air.
Hamstersaurus Rex gave a low growl.
“What are you worried about, little guy?” I asked.
“Them,” said Serena, looking past me.
Six masked figures surrounded us—Gomer, Big Virgil, Sweetie Pie, Dweasel, Leisl, and Aunt Ellie Mae—the rest of the Country Gopher Family!
“Who are they?” whispered Martha in horror.
“We are the Mind Mole,” said the Country Gophers in eerie unison.
CHAPTER 22
“UM, MS. RADDENBACH,” said Jason, “why are you, like, wearing a Sweetie Pie mask from the prize counter?”
“Flee, you fool,” said the Country Gophers. “You are useless to us now!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Jason, and he leaped to his feet and ran for his life.
It was just us and the Country Gopher Family now. And they really didn’t look like they were in the mood for a jamboree. Hamstersaurus Rex let out a ferocious roar that shook the ground.
“You’ve brought us the hamster, yet that was only half the bargain,” said the Country Gophers, circling around us. “We still hold Cartimandua captive in our alpine fastness. Give us the PaleoGro!”
“You want it, Mind Mole?” said Serena. “Here it is.” She pulled the PaleoGro canister out of her messenger bag and held it up.
The Country Gophers moved toward her.
“Or is this it?” said Beefer as he pulled an identical canister out of his backpack and twirled it on his fingertip.
The Country Gophers hesitated.
“Or maybe this,” said Martha, holding up another.
“Nah, it’s got to be this one,” I said, waggling mine. Martha’s label maker had allowed us to make perfect decoys for the real canister.
“Maneuver 181C-4!” cried Martha.
We stared at her.
“Scatter!” she said.
Each of us took off at top speed in a different direction.
“Halt!” cried the Country Gophers. “Do not flee from the Mind Mole!”
We didn’t listen.
Serena ran for the racetrack. She hopped the barrier and got into kart number twelve.
“C’mon, start! Start!” cried Serena as Sweetie Pie clambered over the wall after her. With a squeal of the tires, Serena sped off, leaving Sweetie Pie in the dust behind her.
Martha dashed for the ball pits.
“We’re coming for you, Cartimandua!” she cried. With a huge leap she dove into the extra-deep one and disappeared under the colored balls, a bit like a mole herself. Dweasel and Leisl Gopher waded in after her. I desperately hoped she would be okay.
Beefer squared off against Aunt Ellie Mae. He tucked his canister into his belt and put up his dukes. Wait, how could that be? He wasn’t wearing a belt— No, he was! It was his fabled karate clear belt!
“Time to fight gopher with gopher!” cried Beefer as he assumed an odd fighting stance: both hands pulled up close to his chest while he did chewing motions with his mouth. “Gopher style!”
I made a mad dash past the claw machines before I smacked right into Big Virgil Gopher, a barrel-chested kid who had to be at least fifteen. He wrapped a beefy arm around my neck and put me in an unbreakable headlock.
“A mildly clever diversion,” said Big Virgil as he ripped the PaleoGro canister from my grasp. “But in the end we will prevail. For we are the Mind—OOF!”
Hamstersaurus Rex head-butted him hard in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of his lungs. I wriggled out of his grasp, scooped up Hammie, and scrambled around the corner toward the snack bar. I dove behind a trash can overflowing with crumpled red-foil RaddSpudd wrappers.
A few seconds later, Big Virgil lumbered past, still searching for us. “You won’t get far!” he shrieked as he continued on. “The Mind Mole knows all!”
I waited till he was out of sight before I made a move.
“Dylan, you still there?” I whispered into the walkie-talkie.
I heard a crackle. “Still here,” said Dylan. “Is everyone okay?”
“Not sure, but we created one heck of a diversion,” I said. “The Mind Mole said he has Cartimandua in his ‘alpine fastness.’ Do you know what that means?”
“Honestly, that’s more of a Martha question,” said Dylan, “but I think it’s like a mountain hideout.”
“Mountain hideout?” I said. “Mount Putta-Putta!” I gazed up at the fake volcano, looming ominously over RaddZone as it trailed fake smoke into the air.
“But the Mind Mole will be expecting you,” said Dylan. “There’s only one way up to the top.”
“Maybe there isn’t,” I said. “Can you take a look at the blueprints?”
“One sec,” said Dylan. “Yeah, you’re right! There’s a maintenance ladder around the back, so they can refill the dry ice tanks! I can guide you there.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Over and out.”
I turned to see Hamstersaurus Rex pawing the floor.
“All right, dude, this is it. The final showdown,” I said. “Seems like the Mind Mole is focused on you. Maybe we can use that somehow.”
Hammie Rex jumped up and down and stamped his little dino-feet. He was ready.
“Time to save Cartimandua and stop the Mind Mole, once and for all.”
Hammie Rex snarled and kicked a wadded-up ball of RaddSpudd foil. As it bounced across the floor, I had an epiphany.
CHAPTER 23
HAMMIE AND I climbed the long maintenance ladder on the far side of Mount Putta-Putta. By the time we reached the top, I was covered in sweat. Now we crept close to the lip of the crater—me on all fours, Hammie on his tiptoes—for a better look.
“Wha—happe—g?” crackled Dylan in my earphone. “What—see?”
“Dylan, you’re breaking up,” I said. “Can you hear me? Dylan?”
“—hear—I’m n—”
“What?” I said. “Dylan, are you there?” All I heard was static. I’d lost the signal.
I was right about the Mind Mole, though. He’d made his lair on the ninth hole of the mini-golf course, in the crater at the top of the volcano. And he’d definitely done some redecorating. In a makeshift laboratory in the corner, Gordon Renfro furiously mixed bubbling chemicals. Could he be preparing the Mind Mole’s dino-power concoction, ready to add PaleoGro as its final ingredient?
I shuddered as I saw the Mind Mole himself. He lounged on a throne of stuffed penguins, still wearing his tiny purple cape. With his little paws he casually gestured toward Renfro, manipulating his movements like he was conducting an orchestra that bored him.
To his left was a plate. On it was a RaddSpudd covered with thin strips of bacon that seemed to be . . . moving? No, it wasn’t bacon at all. His baked potato was loaded with earthworms! The Mind Mole took a big bite. I nearly threw up.
At the Mind Mole’s stumpy right paw, I noticed a power switch that was connected by a coiling wire to the Country Gopher Family Jamboree—he’d somehow moved the entire animatronic stage up to the top of the fake mountain!
I gasped when I spotted Cartimandua. She was tied up to Gomer Gopher’s snare drum. Was she already dead? No, just napping. But she was hardly safe. The drumstick Gomer Gopher usually held in his raised paw had been replaced with the oversized mallet from the Muscle Meter.
The Mind Mole’s devilish design became apparent: one flick of that power switch beside him, the mallet would come down and crush Cartimandua!
It was good that Hamstersaurus Rex didn’t go catatonic at the sight of her. He gave a growl of anguish instead.
“Hammie, shhh!” I said.
But it was too late. Gordon Renfro froze, and he and the Mind Mole simultaneously turned to look in our direction. I ducked back behind the lip of the crater.
“Ah, Hamstersaurus Rex. So you’ve made it to the proverbial mountaintop?” called out Gordon Renfro in a snide, squeaky voice. The Mind Mole was speaking through him now. “Our noble hero who’s sooooo special, whom all the kiddies adore sooooo much. Why don’t you come out of there where we can get a good look at you?”
“No chance, Mind Mole!” I yelled back. “I’ll give you the PaleoGro and you can let Cartimandua go. I brought Hamstersaurus Rex to ‘bear
witness’ like you said. That was the deal.”
I held the PaleoGro canister up over the lip of the volcano. I felt that staticky sensation right before it was ripped out of my hand by the unseen power of the Mind Mole’s telekinesis.
I heard the sound of Gordon Renfro opening it. He snorted. “This is baking soda with green food coloring in it. We won’t ask again. The PaleoGro. Now. Or Cartimandua meets her ignominious end as so much hamster goo!”
I didn’t want to do it. But what choice did I have? Hammie looked like he was in agony. It was all I could do to hold him back from charging in to save her—a move that would probably get him killed, too. I reached deep into the inside pocket of my backpack and pulled out a second PaleoGro canister. The real one.
“If I give it to you, you’ll release her?” I cried.
“We are a mole of our word,” said Renfro. “We will release Cartimandua.”
I held it up. Once again the canister flew from my fingertips. I heard a chemical whoosh. Again I risked a peek over the lip of the volcano to see that Gordon Renfro had dumped all of the PaleoGro into his bubbling concoction. Instantly it turned from a dull gray to a bright foamy purple.
Renfro cackled as he removed the beaker full of purple sludge from its burner. “You didn’t let us finish,” he said. “We will release Cartimandua right after Hamstersaurus Rex drinks this.”
On his throne, the Mind Mole clapped his grubby little paws together in smug satisfaction.
“Huh?” I said. “Why would Hamstersaurus drink it? I thought you wanted the PaleoGro to give yourself dino-powers!”
“Oh no,” giggled Renfro. “How laughably crude. The thought never crossed our brilliant mind.”
“Well, what is that stuff, then? Some kind of poison?” I yelled back. “No way Hamstersaurus Rex is drinking that!”
“Not poison,” said Gordon Renfro. “It is an antidote of sorts. This formula will turn Hamstersaurus Rex back into a regular hamster.”
CHAPTER 24
THE MIND MOLE now stood upon his plush penguin throne, his cape flapping behind him. Closer to me, Gordon Renfro spoke his words: “You know we and Hamstersaurus Rex come from the same laboratory. Indeed, this makes us brothers of a sort.”
Hamstersaurus Rex Gets Crushed Page 13