by Steve Cole
“Gracious me,” cried Furp, spying a strange assortment of pipes and hoses sticking out from the side of the roof like an extraordinary sculpture. “Whatever’s that?”
“Those pipes are attached to a very large tumble dryer a few floors below,” Conk-Whopper explained.
Onzo nodded. “We wash and dry hundreds of clothes here every day. The tumble dryer sucks in air, heats it up to dry the clothes, then spits it out through these pipes.”
“Very clever,” said Furp approvingly.
“And kind of dull.” Zill yawned. “No sign of socks up here. Where do we go next?”
“To the Churn-a-rama room!” cried Conk-Whopper, hopping into the lift, his afro a-quiver. “That’s where we make New-formula Sudz. Come and see!”
The Squad squeezed in with Conk-Whopper’s workers and went down two floors to a large, gleaming metal room. It smelled of mouldy lettuce and was dominated by a massive round paddling pool full of soapy water, churning and bubbling as though seething with nuclear sharks. More employees were working beside the pool, scooping out pails of water and pouring them through sieves to collect a whiffy yellow powder.
“There it is,” said Conk-Whopper proudly, leading the way down a steep staircase to the pool. “The powder is dried and put into boxes as New-formula Sudz.” He sniffed the air. “Hang on. Something doesn’t smell right . . .”
Plog blushed through his fur. “Er, that might be me. When I fought those socks I took my boots off and most of the water spilled out. And when my feet are out of water . . .”
“They go slimy and stink,” Danjo put in.
“Yes, I remember.” Conk-Whopper smiled. ‘Don’t worry, my friend. Fill your boots with special Sudz water – you’ll make the metal tougher and brighter and your feet will smell great too!”
Plog gratefully took off his heavy boots and filled them with soapy water from the pool. “Ahh,” he said as the air smelled only of old lettuce again. “That’s better!”
“Too right it is,” said Zill cheekily.
“Now then!” Conk-Whopper’s cloak rustled as he and his assistants swept up another flight of steps, this time towards a red door. “Next I shall show you the Sudz labs where I invented my amazing washing powder . . .”
The Squaddies followed him outside into a corridor – and Plog heard a distant wailing cry from somewhere at the far end. “Someone’s in trouble!” he cried. “Quickly!” He set off at a run with Zill, Furp and Danjo just behind him, cutting a fine dash in their posh new outfits.
“There’s nothing that way but the sewing rooms in the basement,” Conk-Whopper called after them as his minions milled about in alarm. “That’s where the freebie clothes were made . . .”
Then Plog skidded to a stop and his friends did the same as the cry was followed by peals of crazy laughter. Louder and wilder, it echoed up from a spiral staircase at the end of the corridor.
“That sounds like Jurley,” Zill realized.
Furp frowned. “But Mr Conk-Whopper said she wasn’t allowed to look around.”
“She must’ve sneaked back inside,” said Danjo. “But what does she think is so funny?”
“Wait here while I scout around.” Plog clenched his fists and ran down the stairs four at a time. But as he burst out at the bottom he couldn’t believe his eyes.
There was Jurley, leaning against a door marked ‘SEWING ROOM – KEEP OUT’. She was holding a bag stuffed full of half-made designer clothes – clearly stolen from inside. And beside her was a giant killer sock, all ragged and frayed and purple, with nasty yellow spots.
“Jurley!” Plog gasped. “Why were you laughing? What are you doing with . . . that?”
Jurley’s eyes were wide as she turned from Plog to the sock. “Get him!” she cried.
And with a room-rocking roar, the spotty death sock obeyed and slithered towards Plog!
Uh-oh, thought Plog. “Look out, everyone!” he yelled up the stairs. “Sock alert!” Even as he spoke, Spotty hurled out a loose thread and lassoed him round the middle. He squeezed and shook Plog hard, this way and that – but thanks to his extra-tough jacket the furry monster could barely feel it. With a hiss of anger, Spotty threw Plog up the stairs – just as Danjo and Zill were on their way down.
BAM! Plog struck Zill and she tumbled into Danjo, who lost his balance and bumped against the wall. He aimed a burst of icy-cold slime at Spotty – but Furp was also bouncing down the steps and couldn’t stop in time. He thumped into Danjo and knocked the crab-creature’s claw – so the flood of freezing slime sloshed over Jurley instead! With a yell she vanished beneath the chilly blue mess.
“Whoops!” said Danjo and Furp together.
“Don’t worry,” Plog panted. “Jurley’s a baddie! She was stealing Conk-Whopper’s clothes and she told the sock to get me.”
Furp gasped. “Of course – she’s turned up every time we’ve seen the socks. She must’ve been working with them all the time!”
“What’s happening?” called Conk-Whopper from the top of the stairs.
“There’s a killer sock down here!” Plog shouted. “Evacuate the building right now. We’ll hold him off.”
As Conk-Whopper ran away, Furp leaped forward to fight Spotty. But a loose thread lashed out and caught him round the middle, stopping him in midair. “Good job I’m wearing this extra tough pullover!” he cried as the sock shook and squeezed. “Can’t feel a thing!” But then the sock smashed him into the ceiling. Furp yelped as his crash helmet erupted in sparks.
“Furp!” Thinking fast, Zill spat out a slime-line and tugged him out of the sock’s woolly clutches. He smiled at her dizzily, then collapsed.
“You’ll pay for that, sock!” Plog yelled.
“No,” Spotty gurgled. “YOU will pay for trying to thwart our master’s plans . . .” The sock sprinted forward and the cold wet wool of his gaping mouth closed around Plog like a sweaty, stinking vice.
“Hey!” Plog spluttered – as with a disgusting squelching, slobbering noise, the giant killer sock started slurping him up inside!
Chapter Six
SHOCK SOCK CONFESSIONS
“Plog!” Danjo cried, grabbing his friend’s legs and trying to pull him back out of the sock’s throat.
Zill bit and swiped at the spotty giant. “Give him back, you smelly sack of wool!”
Clamped inside the sock’s gruesome, grotty mouth, punching the inside of his soggy throat, Plog heard them distantly. But every blow went BOING! as it struck the elasticated sides. He could feel himself growing weaker. If he took a breath now, the cheesiness might finish him off.
One last chance, Plog thought. The sock had sucked him inside up to his bottom but his legs were still free. He opened them wide like scissors around the huge monster, then brought his heavy booted feet together as hard as he could on the sock’s neck. THWOMP! At last, with a sick-making slurpy noise, Spotty spat Plog out and staggered backwards.
“Well done, Fur-boy, you weakened him,” cried Zill. “Now, while he’s in a daze – watch THIS!” Flicking her head, she spat out a staggering set of slime-lines that splattered over Spotty, sticking the killer sock fast to the wall.
“And just to make super-sure he stays still,” said Danjo, “I’ll ice up his little woollen butt!” He fired freezing slime from his cold pincer, icing Spotty silently in place.
“Phew!” Plog wiped his brow. “Well done, everyone.”
“We did it,” Danjo cheered. “We actually beat one of those things!”
“But not before Spotty beat my crash helmet,” said Furp dizzily, studying the dented metal. “I’m OK – but all my gadgets are broken.”
“Those socks are tough all right. And Jurley must control them somehow.” Plog walked over to the skinny blue monster, still cased in ice and fast asleep on the floor. “She’ll just have to make them surrender.”
Danjo nodded. “How did she get all the way down to this basement with a giant sock, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Plog ad
mitted. Ignoring the KEEP OUT sign, he opened the door to the sewing room. It was dark and shadowy. The floor was piled high with material and patterns. Sewing machines sat on a dozen desks. Plog switched on the light and saw muddy marks on the far wall. “What made those?” he wondered.
“You did it!” Conk-Whopper’s familiar booming voice made Plog jump as he came bounding up, his cloak swooshing about him. “You caught a sock – and just as Onzo’s sent everyone home for the day.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said Plog. “We don’t know if the other socks are planning to finish whatever they started here.” He looked at Furp and sighed. “We’d better tell PIE what happened. He’ll tell us what we should do next.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, my dear Plog.” Furp tapped his dented helmet. “My link to PIE is broken. It will take ages to repair it.”
“We don’t have ages.” Plog sighed. “Tell you what – while you stay on guard here, I’ll drive back to base in the Slime-mobile and talk to PIE in person. I’ll take Jurley with me.”
“Good idea,” said Zill. “Her socks can’t get to her there.”
Furp nodded. “And super-smart PIE will soon sort her out.”
“Well, I’m glad the rest of you are staying,” said Conk-Whopper. “Since I’ve sent home my workers, perhaps you could help stitch the last of my special Sudz giveaway clothes?”
“Do we have to?” grumbled Danjo.
Zill grinned. “I’m afraid sew!”
Plog carried sleeping Jurley to the Slime-Mobile. Even wrapped up in an ice-sludge blanket she didn’t weigh much. But his heart was heavy. She seemed so nice and normal, he thought. Not like Lord Klukk’s usual evil hench-monsters at all . . .
He drove back to the secret HQ as quickly as he could. Jurley slept all the way, and only stirred a little when Plog entered PIE’s office.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” stormed the super-computer.
Plog blinked. “Er . . . meaning of what?”
“Your feet smell of roses!” PIE boomed. “My sensors whiffed it a mile off.”
With a cautious sniff, Plog realized PIE was right. The aroma of mouldy lettuce from the Sudz water had changed to something sickly-sweet and fragrant. “Dumb feet,” he muttered. “My slime’s so toxic, it starts a chemical reaction with just about anything. I’ve probably turned a harmless washing powder into deadly poison!”
“You have certainly changed it somehow,” PIE agreed. “Where are Furp, Danjo and Zill? My sensors saw you fight the killer socks, but then . . . WAIT!” Exclamation marks peppered his computerized face. “You have brought a stranger to our secret base!”
“She’s the boss of the socks,” Plog explained. “I thought you’d want to question her yourself. Furp’s helmet got damaged so we couldn’t tell you any other way. He and the others are on guard at the Sudz Building – and Jurley was asleep the whole way so she doesn’t know where our base is . . .”
“She must not learn my true identity,” PIE hissed. “It is too dangerous.” He paused, his sensors pulsing and flickering. “Hang on – Jurley Whirly, owner of the fabric factories that burned down, is the cunning controller of the killer socks? Do you mean to say she wrecked her own businesses?”
“I didn’t!” Jurley said weakly, looking up at PIE. “Where am I? What’s that?”
Plog remembered what PIE had said about it being dangerous for her to know the computer’s true identity. “Um . . . that’s my . . . auntie,” he said awkwardly. “Auntie PIE.”
PIE rattled like he might explode. “Auntie?”
Plog cleared his throat. “Er, Jurley, I took you to my aunt’s house because she knows a fib when she hears one. So you’d better tell us the truth.” He glared at her. “Like how you just happened to turn up at the Cotton-Picking Thread Store when it was being sock-burgled.”
“Coincidence!” Jurley cried. “I was stocking up on new thread, since my whole supply had burned to nothing. I wanted to be served first when they opened. I wasn’t expecting another fire – and giant socks ahead of me in the queue!”
Plog snorted. “And what about the way you sneaked into Conk-Whopper’s building with a sock?”
“I didn’t!” Jurley retorted. “I went inside by myself while you lot were up on the roof, because Conk-Whopper’s free clothes were made with fabric stolen from my fabric factories!”
“As if!” Plog scoffed. “Auntie PIE, that’s a lie, right?”
“My sensors show she is telling the truth, nephew Plog,” said PIE solemnly.
“I only sneaked back so I could find some real proof,” Jurley went on. “And I found it in the sewing room. That’s why I stuffed my bag full of bits of fabric – I was going to show them to you.” She pulled out some samples. “They were mine to start off with, see? Moonberry Red and Yellow Snit-Snot – two colours made only by me!”
PIE’s screen hummed. “She is telling the truth again – um, Plog dear.”
Plog frowned. “But, Jurley, we heard you laughing madly like an evil villain – and you were with that spotty sock.”
“I laughed madly because he was a tickling sock,” Jurley explained. “He burst into the sewing room and took me by surprise. He might have tickled me to death if you hadn’t shown up.”
“But you told him to get me!” cried Plog.
“No, I told you to get him!” Jurley shouted back. “And then Danjo iced me up and I banged my head. I wake up here, only to find that you and your weird-looking auntie think I’m behind this whole stinking sock plot – when it’s just got to be Conk-Whopper!”
Plog frowned. “Conk-Whopper?”
Jurley nodded fiercely. “He must’ve used the socks to steal the material for his giveaway clothing – and set the fires to cover his tracks.”
“Possibly,” said PIE. “And yet every sensor I possess tells me that Lord Klukk is involved in this evil affair. And that means there’s a lot more than washing powder and free gifts at stake.”
“I think you might be right, er, Auntie.” Plog grabbed Jurley’s hand and ran from the room. “Come on, we must get back to the others in Goo York and find out what’s going on. There’s no time to lose!”
Chapter Seven
THE BIG SQUEEZE
“I’m sick of stitching!” Danjo threw down his darning needle. “I shouldn’t be in a sewing room at all. I’m a superhero, not a tailor.” He crossed to the door and peered out to check on Spotty, still slimed and iced securely in the corridor. “You know, I was sure that the sock would’ve given us more trouble . . .”
“Be grateful,” said Zill, her six paws a blur as she sewed the seam of a pretty shirt. “Anyway, we’ve nearly finished.”
“Correction,” said Furp. “We have finished!” He held up a pair of five-legged trousers and nodded in satisfaction. “There!”
Just then, Calvin Conk-Whopper hopped inside with Onzo. Both wore huge smiles as they saw the big pile of finished clothes.
“Brilliant!” Conk-Whopper boomed, his afro waving as he clapped his several hands together. “And just in time.”
Onzo grabbed the clothes and chucked them into a big trolley. “To toughen them up, I’ll have them washed in New-formula Sudz straightaway!”
“Thank you.” Conk-Whopper smiled as his assistant whizzed out of the room. “Then all we need to do is dry them in the mega-dryer and send them out to the shops, malls and poopermarkets ready for the big launch of New-formula Sudz tomorrow.”
“The monsters of Goo York will go crazy for these lovely designer clothes,” said Zill. “Everyone will be washing in Sudz!”
Conk-Whopper looked at her. “I certainly hope so. Now, let’s follow Onzo to the laundry room!”
The laundry room was on the floor above. It was gigantic! Onzo was already unloading the wet clothes from a turbo-powered washing machine as big as a small house. Furp admired the tumble dryer beside it, which was even larger.
“What a beauty!” Furp declared. “No wonder it needs so many pipes and vents to push
all the hot air out into the atmosphere.”
“Speaking of heat . . .” Danjo pulled at the collar of his fancy shirt. “Is it just me, or is it getting hotter in here?”
“It’s a lot hotter in the dryer!” said Conk-Whopper merrily, hurling open its big round door.
The Squaddies helped shove the Sudz-wet clothes inside. Then Conk-Whopper slammed the door shut and pressed a big red button. With a sound like an exploding rocket, the tumble dryer roared into life – then two seconds later it stopped again.
“Is it broken?” Zill wondered.
“Nope – it’s finished!” Conk-Whopper reopened the dryer to reveal a steaming hot pile of clothes inside.
Onzo piled the outfits back into his trolley and wheeled it away. “I’ll just take this lot down to the mail room ready for sending,” he said.
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Conk-Whopper kindly. “Back in a minute, Squaddies.” As an afterthought, he tossed Furp a stylish broad-brimmed hat. “Here – since your helmet’s broken, wear this instead . . .”
Zill and Danjo sat down to wait while Furp popped on his hat and hopped into the dryer for a closer look. “Goodness me, just look at the energy banks in here. This thing can make far more heat than you’d ever need to dry off a bundle of clothes . . .”
“You were right about it getting hotter, Danjo.” Zill stuck out her tongue, panting softly. “When Conk-Whopper comes back we’ll ask him to turn down the central heating.”
“And I will ask him about this tumble dryer.” Furp pushed his head back out, the broad brim of his hat covering his eyes. “It’s crazy – its power has been boosted about a million times. You could use it to heat a whole city!”
Danjo pulled again at his collar. “This building’s hot enough as it is.”