by Steve Cole
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Map of Trashland
Once Upon a Slime . . .
Chapter One: On Pongo Beach
Chapter Two: Junkjacks Ahoy!
Chapter Three: Something in the Water
Chapter Four: Deep-Sea Dread
Chapter Five: Tentacles of Terror
Chapter Six: Captives in the Cliffs
Chapter Seven: High Tide and Low-Lifes
Chapter Eight: Showdown with the Squid
Chapter Nine: The Allies Attack!
Chapter Ten: Cast-Iron Cataclysm
About the Author
Also by Steve Cole
Copyright
About the Book
Plog, Furp, Zill and Danjo aren’t just monsters in a rubbish dump. They are crime-busting super-monsters, here to save their whiffy world!
A sinister ghostly squid has been spotted at sea, attacking anything in sight – and then vanishing! What’s going on? The Slime Squad are on the case – and they’re going underwater!
To Matthew Roberts, David Ghanaiah,
Aidan Manley and Robbie Connolly
ONCE UPON A SLIME . . .
The old rubbish dump was far from anywhere. An enormous, mucky, rusty landscape of thousands of thrown-away things.
It had been closed for years. Abandoned. Forgotten.
And then Godfrey Gunk came along.
Godfrey wasn’t just a mad scientist. He was a SUPER-BONKERS scientist! And he was very worried about the amount of pollution and rubbish in the world. His dream was to create marvellous mutant mini-monsters out of chemical goo – monsters who would clean up the planet by eating, drinking and generally devouring all types of trash. So Godfrey bought the old rubbish dump as the perfect testing-ground and got to work.
Of course, he wanted to make good, friendly, peaceful monsters, so he was careful to keep the nastiest, most toxic chemicals separate from the rest. He worked for years and years . . .
And got nowhere.
In the end, penniless and miserable, Godfrey wrecked his lab, scattered his experiments all over the dump, and moved away, never to return.
But what Godfrey didn’t know was that long ago, tons of radioactive sludge had been accidentally dumped here. And soon, its potent powers kick-started the monster chemistry the mad scientist had tried so hard to create!
Life began to form. Amazing mini-monsters sprang up with incredible speed. Bold, inventive monsters, who made a wonderful, whiffy world for themselves from the rubbish around them – a world they named Trashland.
For many years, they lived and grew in peace. But then the radiation reached a lead-lined box in the darkest corner of the rubbish dump – the place where Godfrey had chucked the most toxic, dangerous gunk of all.
Slowly, very slowly, monsters began to grow here too.
Different monsters.
Evil monsters that now threaten the whole of Trashland.
Only one force for good stands against them. A small band of slightly sticky superheroes . . .
The Slime Squad!
Chapter One
ON PONGO BEACH
Plog the monster, leader of the Slime Squad, stood on the smelly shore with his furry ears folded forwards, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare. As he gazed out over the vast Septic Sea, a breeze blew in and ruffled his orangey fur. “Ugh!” His long, ratlike snout twitched with the yucky whiff of the place. “No wonder they call this place Pongo Beach . . .”
But Plog knew this was no time to think of his nose.
He was on a mission.
Plog pulled a pair of battered binoculars from his waistcoat and peered about keenly. No boats were afloat on the oily water. The lumpy bulk of the Heavy Metal Hills glowed rustily to his right. The Cast-Iron Cliffs stretched behind in a wide, gleaming sweep, dwarfing the gunky brown shore.
Plog kept his eyes peeled for any sign of the glowing seal-like creatures – known as junkjacks – that the Slime Squad had come here to find. They were supposed to be Pongo Beach’s only inhabitants.
Supposed to be . . .
Suddenly, Plog saw something large and dark come crashing out of the water just in front of him. He jumped backwards, slipped and fell to the gooey ground. The crab-like creature bore down on him – then shrugged off its wetsuit, spat out a snorkel and waved his powerful pincers in Plog’s face. “Yoo-hooooo!”
“Danjo!” Plog complained. “You gave me a real shock.”
“Better a real shock than a smelly sock,” said Danjo, shaking water from his three sturdy legs and adjusting his golden shorts. “Although I did find one of those on my undersea scouting swim.” He peeled a large blue sock from under his armpit. “Would you like that too?”
“No, thanks,” said Plog. “I’m trying to give them up.” He scrambled back to his feet. “Did you see any junkjacks under there? Or any bad guys?”
“It’s so dark and gloopy I couldn’t see much at all.” Danjo tossed away the sock and stretched. “Maybe we should just sunbathe for a bit?”
“Good idea,” called Zill, a black-and-white skunky poodle monster in a gold leotard. She waved at them from a ledge high up on the Cast-Iron Cliffs. “I’ve taken a look from above as you asked, Fur-boy. Lovely view of Goo York from up here, and of the whole Poo-nited States . . .” She coughed out a long gooey strand of slime, fixed it to the side of the cliff, then gripped it with all six of her legs and abseiled down. “It looks like there’s a junkjack camp further up the beach, but it’s deserted. They’ve probably all gone fishing.” Reaching the beach, she put on a cool pair of shades. “Until they get back, let’s chill out. Life in the Slime Squad is so tough, we could use a break.”
Danjo grinned. “That’s for sure!”
Plog nodded with feeling. Being a slime-sloshing superhero was hard work. Together with their friend Furp – a technological whizz-frog who was also scouting the area right now – Plog, Zill and Danjo battled constantly to stop evil mutant-monsters from taking over Trashland. Led by a shadowy mastermind who went by the name of Lord Klukk, the monsters were getting rougher and tougher all the time.
Luckily, besides their natural bravery, agility and freaky slime-charged powers, the Squaddies had one other advantage over their fearsome foes – their boss, the All-Seeing PIE. This super-duper super-computer kept a close watch over Trashland and whenever he picked up on something dodgy, he sent the Squad to investigate. And PIE had sent them here to the shores of the Septic Sea because he sensed that something really dodgy was kicking off . . .
But what?
“Come on, Plog,” urged Danjo, lying down on the stinky sand. “Chill out and warm up.” He squirted himself with hot slime from his left pincer and rubbed it into his crusty skin. “This stuff’s not only great for bringing down bad guys – it makes a wicked sun tan lotion!”
“What’s this?” Furp the frog-monster hopped into sight, his round metal pants rattling as he did so. “Sleeping on the job?”
“Catching some rays,” Zill retorted. “A quick holiday.”
“Sunbathing? Puh!” Furp turned up his nose. “Give me a nice shady lab and some slime to work on any day . . .”
Plog smiled. As well as being a big-brained superhero who could stick to any surface, Furp was an expert on all things slimy. “I suppose you didn’t see any junkjacks either?”
“Not one,” Furp admitted, his golden crash helmet sparkling in the sunshine. “So while we wait for them to show, I’ll just pop back to the Slime-mobile and finish perfecting my ‘Slime-Power Plus’.”
Zill peered at him over her shades. “Yo
ur what?”
“Slime-Power Plus is a special serum packed with raw, slimy energy,” Furp explained. “It can boost any power supply – batteries, engines, anything – and will make them run better, brighter, faster and longer.”
Plog nodded thoughtfully. “Furp, this Slime-Power Plus wouldn’t have anything to do with that massive, top-secret gadget you made me and Danjo load up before we left, would it?”
Furp chuckled. “Just you wait and see, my dear Plog.” He hopped away to the Slime-mobile, their invisible monster-truck mobile-HQ parked further along the beach. “Just you wait!”
“There you go, Fur-boy,” said Zill. “If the All-Seeing PIE didn’t want us to take a break he would have told us through his radio-link in Furp’s helmet. Now, take your shoes off. Feel the sand between your toes.”
Plog glanced down at the big iron, water-filled boots he wore and shot her a look. “You know that if my feet ever dry out they start oozing the most revolting, smelly, gloopy slime in the world!”
“Well then, come paddling in the sea with me.” Zill jumped up and waded into the water on her hind legs, her tail wagging. “Ooooh, I haven’t been to the seaside in ages . . .”
Plog saw the smile on her face and decided to join her. He pulled off his boots and ran quickly into the gloopy water; it lapped at his fur, its oily surface alive with rainbow patterns.
Then, suddenly, he caught a dart of orange movement. “Look, Zill – a goopfish.”
“Ahhh.” Zill smiled down as more of the harmless little fish swam up. “They’re so sweet!”
Plog looked around and frowned. The water was thick with little orange shapes now. “I’ve never seen so many.”
Zill lowered her snout to the water. “Hello, little fishies – OW!”
Two little goopfish were greedily chomping on her nose!
“Hey!” Plog quickly brushed them off – but as he did so, they latched onto his fingers. “Ouch!” He gasped even louder as maybe fifty more of the little swimmers bit into his furry bottom. “ARGH!”
“They’ve gone crazy,” Zill gasped as the savage goopfish overwhelmed her, dragging her down beneath the churning water. “Get out of here, Fur-boy – it’s like they want to eat us!”
Chapter Two
JUNKJACKS AHOY!
“Zill!” Plog pushed more of the crazed goopfish away as he grabbed desperately for his friend to stop her sinking under. “Danjo, help!”
“On the case!” Danjo was already splashing into the water. Almost at once, a small white jellyfish leaped out of the water and landed on his head. “Hey, get off!” Danjo protested as its tentacles whipped round his eyestalks. “That stings!”
“The sea-life around here’s gone berserk,” Plog shouted as more goopfish tried to chow down on his ears. Finally, he lifted Zill out of the water by her tail and hurled her over his shoulder. She landed in a heap on the beach, and the goopfish fell twitching away from her.
“Thanks,” Zill panted. But as she wiped her eyes, she could see both Plog and Danjo floundering in the thick, dark water. Swiftly, she spat out a thick slime-line and looped it around their middles. Then she tugged with all her strength and tried to reel them in, like an angler making the biggest catch of her life. SPLOOSH! Plog was pulled clear of the water and landed with a crash on the shore. But the goopfish had dragged Danjo down and he’d slipped through Zill’s slimy lasso.
“Come on,” Zill urged Plog, “we must go back in and help him.”
“I think I’ll be able to help Danjo more by staying out of the water.” Plog held his ugly bare feet up to the hot sun - because as soon as his feet dried out, his natural slime began to ooze with super-smelly results! Zill choked and held her nose as stinking, bright-yellow goop trickled from his toes to his heels like melting ice cream running down a cone. Then Plog used his tail to propel himself through the air – landing feet-first in the sea with a colossal SPLOSH beside the crimson crab-monster. And as his ultra-toxic tootsies bubbled in the water, the goopfish and jellyfish broke off their attack, stunned into submission.
“Whoa, thanks!” Danjo popped out of the water like a big crabby cork and Plog helped him wade back to the beach. “I’m not sure which was worse,” he joked, “that aqua-attack or your slimy rescue . . .”
Plog grinned and quickly put his boots back on. “You’re welcome!”
“Look at my leotard,” Zill complained. “Now it’s full of holes.”
Danjo peered at his golden shorts. “My waistband has been chewed too.”
Just then, Furp opened the Slime-mobile’s invisible door and hopped outside. “What’s all the noise? I was just loading some Slime-Power Plus into my secret invention when I heard you shout. Did I miss something?”
“Oh, no,” said Zill, rolling her eyes. “We were just enjoying a swim – with some killer sea-life.”
“What got into those things?” Plog wondered. “Goopfish are normally sweet, harmless little things – but this lot tried to chomp us and drown us. And I never heard of jellyfish attacking passing monsters before.”
“The really weird thing is, they gave me no bother at all when I went for my swim earlier,” said Danjo.
“That is odd,” Plog agreed. “I wonder what changed their mood and made them so hungry?”
Furp was looking past him, out to the horizon. “Perhaps they can tell us.”
Plog, Zill and Danjo turned – and got a shock. An unlikely fleet of sardine-tin boats had floated into sight and was drawing closer, each one steered by a crew of pale, bottle-nosed seal-monsters whose skin seemed to glow in the sunlight. Dressed in rags, their scaly snouts raised to the wind, they rowed with power and precision and lolly-stick oars, as though born to a life on the water.
“These must be the junkjacks,” Plog breathed. “We couldn’t find them – but they’ve found us.”
The junkjacks soon reached the shore, using ropes and grappling hooks to drag their tin-ships out of the dangerous water.
Plog watched as one junkjack – bigger, more grizzled and glowing a slightly brighter shade of green than the others – slithered across the beach towards him.
“Ha-harrr,” called the approaching monster in a gruff, pirate-y voice. “I is Dolofin, leader of the junkjacks.”
“We’ve heard you’re in trouble,” said Zill, “‘so we’ve come to help.”
“We’re the Slime Squad,” Furp added proudly.
“Us knows who you is.” Dolofin smiled. “Even in this far corner of the land, us has heard of Zill, Danjo, Furp and . . .”
“Plog,” said Plog.
“Bog, yes.” Dolofin nodded. “You is Bog.”
“No, Plog.”
“Fog?”
“PLOG!”
“No need to shout. I understand. You is Nog.” As Plog sighed, Dolofin turned to the others. “Pardon my manners. How do you all be doing?”
Danjo pointed towards the sea, which seemed calm again now. “To be honest, not so good after fighting the fish of fury in there.”
Dolofin nodded grimly. “Us thought us heard a commotion across the ocean. That’s why us came to see.” He sighed. “Commotions happen a lot round here – right, lads?”
The ragged band of junkjacks behind him muttered and nodded.
“The seaweed us eat is all disappearing,” one called. “Us has to go further and further across the Septic Sea to find it.”
“And the sea’s turned against us!” wailed another. “The goopfish try to nibble us. Jellyfish and sponges try to splat us.”
“I was even savaged by a septic sea cucumber the other day,” said Dolofin, holding up a scratched fin.
Furp frowned. “But the wildlife isn’t angry all the time.”
“No,” Dolofin agreed. “Sometimes it’s nice as pie.”
“It would be nicer IN a pie,” Danjo declared.
“Not for us,” said Dolofin. “Us can’t nosh nothing but seaweed. If us does, us gets the deadly screaming wibble-trots and dies.”
Plog d
idn’t know what the deadly screaming wibble-trots were, and he wasn’t keen to find out.
“And that’s not the worst of it,” cried a small, wrinkled junkjack. “Tell them about the squid, Dolofin!”
Plog frowned. “What squid?”
“You might be thinking us is bonker-crackers,” said Dolofin, “but us is being haunted by a giant ghost-squid!”
Furp looked doubtful. “Couldn’t it be a real squid?”
Dolofin shook his head. “Us has seen it vanish before our eyes, leaving only a few splats of gloopiness to prove it were ever there at all.”
“It lurks in the darkness,” twittered the small junkjack.
“It makes our precious seaweed disappear,” cried another.
Plog shivered. An air of mystery and menace had suddenly settled over Pongo Beach. “It all started one dark night, months ago,” Dolofin went on in a low, spooky voice. “The Cast-Iron Cliffs started a-rumbling. There was a grinding and a trembling and a rattling night after night, as if furious phantoms were shaking the cliffs from the inside. And when it finally stopped – that’s when the squid appeared for the first time.”
“Most mysterious,” murmured Furp.
“Us reckons the rumbling in the cliffs was the squid travelling up from the ghostly underworld,” called the wrinkly junkjack. “And now it has turned the other sea-life into its scary servants – set on our destruction!”
“But there’s no such thing as ghosts,” Danjo protested.
“Believe what you like,” said Dolofin. “But us junkjacks has seen that squid coming at us from out of the darkness . . . tentacles a-trembling, giant and stripy and hungering for our very souls . . .” He shrugged. “Or possibly for seaweed. Arrr, either our very souls, or seaweed – one of the two.”