It Came From Beneath the Bed!

by James Howe

  “Save me!” Delilah cried.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” Howie cried back. “Why doesn’t he save you?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend!” Delilah sobbed. “I made that up. I couldn’t stand worrying about you. You’re too brave, too good, too smart, too strong—”

  “Stop!” Howie shouted, even though he didn’t really want her to. “I’ll save you!”

  Of course, to most people standing around, the conversation sounded like this:

  “Woof!” Delilah cried.

  “Yip yip yip yip,” Howie cried back. “Yip woof woof!”

  “Whine whine yip yip woof!” Delilah sobbed. “Yip yip yip. Yip yip yip yip yip. Yip woof yip, woof yip, woof yip, woof yip—”

  “Woof!” Howie shouted, even though he didn’t really want her to. “Yip woof woof!”

  The question was, How was Howie going to save Delilah? Why had Pudgykins picked her up in the first place? Except for that one moment when he’d eyed Howie as if he were snack food, the big Pudge seemed to have more of an attraction to smelly socks and old sweat-shirts and the contents of garbage pails and . . .

  “That’s it!” Howie cried. Delilah smelled like garbage! That’s why Pudgykins wanted to eat her! But she wasn’t garbage. She was an innocent puppy who was the future mother of Howie’s children.

  Howie gasped. He couldn’t believe he was thinking such a thing. It was true! He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Delilah! He wanted them to take long strolls along the beach together, sniffing for clams. He pictured them romping in the rain, sharing a laugh when the people they lived with complained later that they smelled like wet dogs. He saw them chasing pigeons in the village square as church bells chimed and . . .

  “Howie!” Delilah called out. “Stop thinking so much and save me!”

  “I will!” Howie called back. “I’ll save you, Delilah! Hang on! Don’t let Pudgykins eat you!”

  “That’s good advice!” Delilah responded. “You’re so smart and intelligent!”

  “Get their sneakers!” Howie commanded Harold and Chester and several other pets who had gathered around and weren’t being distracted by fire hydrants.

  “Whose sneakers?” Chester asked.

  “The kids’ sneakers,” Howie answered. “Now!”

  Suddenly, all the kids in the crowd were being forced to give up their sneakers by dogs tugging at them and cats scratching at them.

  “Say,” said Police Officer Fogerty, “I think these animals are onto something here. The overgrown koala bear appears to like smelly things. It looks to me like that bright, fast-thinking wirehaired dachshund puppy is trying to get all the animals to get all the kids to take off their sneakers and fling them at the koala in order to save that beautiful but not very smart puppy hanging from the koala’s clutches.”

  Howie thought, I couldn’t have put it better myself.

  “Come on, men!” the police officer went on. “Let’s help them out!”

  Before you could say “world domination,” all the kids in the crowd were taking off their smelly sneakers and tossing them at Pudgykins. Unfortunately, because the koala was so big, most of the sneakers landed somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles.

  “Get a fan!” Officer Fogerty commanded. “And a long extension cord!”

  Before you could say “a finely tuned concert piano,” all the sneakers were heaped in a huge pile and a fan was set up behind them.

  “On!” Officer Fogerty shouted.

  Someone flipped a switch, and the odor of a thousand gym classes wafted through the air. Several women and a couple of men fainted.

  Howie looked up, his heart in his mouth.

  (This is just an expression. Howie did not really have his heart in his mouth. This is not anatomically possible.)

  Delilah was inches away from Pudgykin’s open jaws. She was hanging there as limp as last month’s lettuce.

  “Pudgy!” Pete cried. “Look down here! Look at the nice smelly sneakers we have for you!”

  Just as the koala bear was about to partake of a morsel of dog, he turned his head and looked down at the crowd. Maybe it was the sound of Pete’s voice. Or maybe the scent of sweaty feet had finally reached his nostrils.

  Whatever it was, he slowly lowered the paw holding the delirious Delilah and reached out for the pile of sneakers. “Food!” he said. “Yum!”

  As he began stuffing his mouth with Nikes and Adidas, as the crowd cheered, as church bells tolled and Officer Fogerty and his men shook one another’s hands and slapped one another’s backs, as the Red Cross revived the fallen few and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Stuffed Animals arrived to ensure that no harm would be done to any stuffed animals in the making of this book, as all the kids were shouting, “I always hated those sneakers, anyway!” and their parents were shouting, “If you think I’m going to run right out and buy you new sneakers just because some koala bear ate your old ones! . . .” As all this was going on, Howie ran to Delilah.

  “Oh, Howie,” she said, looking into his eyes the moment after she’d landed on the ground with a ka-phlumph, “you are my hero!”

  “Marry me,” Howie said, surprising even himself.

  “But you think I’m beautiful but not very smart,” Delilah said.

  “I’m the one who’s not very smart,” said Howie.

  “You’re right,” Delilah said with a laugh. “Oh, Howie, my Howie, yes, I will marry you.”

  Howie’s knees buckled.

  And they lived happily ever after.

  THE END

  HOWIES’S WRITING JOURNAL

  Uncle Harold said, “What happened to Pudgykins?”

  Oh. Right. Pudgykins.

  CHAPTER 10:

  “PUDGYKINS HELPS OUT”

  After Pudgykins ate all the sneakers, Pete’s brother, Toby, had a brilliant idea. “Instead of dominating the world,” he said, “why doesn’t Pudgykins help the world?”

  “What a dorky idea,” said Pete, who thought that world domination was the only cool thing worth going for.

  But everyone else liked Toby’s idea. They liked it so much that he got an A in science. (So did Pete.)

  Pudgykins now lives on an island in the middle of the ocean, where he eats most of the planet’s garbage that is brought to him on many barges and he is single-handedly responsible for improving the quality of the ozone layer.

  The only problem is that he keeps getting bigger.

  Scientists from all over the world are working on it.

  Including Pete Monroe.

  THE END

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  Uncle Harold is going to send my story to his editor!!!! He thinks it will be published!!!! I will be famous!!!!

  Delilah said I am still too full of myself, but if I promised to make her smarter in my next story, she’d start speaking to me again. I promised. I might even make her the hero next time. I’ve got a literary license, so I can do whatever I want, right?

  I just hope the editor lets me keep all those objectives.

  What’s next from Howie’s overactive

  imagination? Here’s a sample from

  Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!

  Dear Howie Monroe:

  I am in receipt of the manuscript of your book, It Came from Beneath the Bed! I found the tale gripping and would be honored if you would allow me to publish it. However, I believe it would work best as part of a series. Please send me another book as soon as possible. When I have received it, I will send you a contract and a check.

  Sincerely yours,

  The Editor

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  Wow! Uncle Harold sent my first book, It Came from Beneath the Bed!, to his editor, and he’s going to publish it! Now I’m not just a writer, I’m an author!!!!

  The only problem is I have to write another book.

  Writing one book was fun. But having to write another one sounds like work! What if I used up all my ideas on the fir
st book? What if I never have another idea again? Ever?!

  Wait a minute, I can’t give up before I even start. Let’s see. The first book was called It Came from Beneath the Bed!, so maybe I can call the second one It Came from Behind the Refrigerator!

  Or It Came from Inside the Garbage Can!

  Or It Came from Around the Corner of the Woodshed when the Moon Was Full and the Zombies Howled!

  Good one. Or . . .

  I’m getting a headache. It came from too much thinking!

  Who am I kidding? I’m not an author, I’m just a lovable, adorable, smart, and talented wirehaired dachshund puppy who got lucky.

  What if I were an author, though? I mean, like a person author? What would it be like to be someone other than me?

  What if I could be turned into someone else?

  But why? Why would somebody want to turn me into anything other than the lovable, adorable, smart, and talented wirehaired dachshund puppy that I am?

  Uncle Harold, who has written a whole bunch of books, says the best way to make a story happen is by asking lots of questions.

  So, okay, what if there was somebody who wanted to turn cute little puppies and other people into something else?

  And what if whoever it was came from someplace really far away? Like Cleveland. Or Mars.

  That’s it! I know what my next book will be!

  Who says writing is hard?

  Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteroid 6!

  By Howie Monroe

  CHAPTER 1:

  “A SUNNY DAY”

  It was a sunny day in the peaceful little village of Centerville. Howie, a lovable, adorable, smart, and talented wirehaired dachshund puppy (who was also humble), was on his way to his friend Delilah’s house.

  It sure is a sunny day, the observant puppy thought. On a day like this, nothing can go wrong.

  Just then, he heard a strange sound. Was it thunder? Impossible! Howie shrugged and continued on his way until he spotted Delilah basking on her back on the sidewalk in front of her house. “Delilah!” he yipped.

  “Howie!” Delilah yipped back.

  It was wonderful how easily they communicated.

  “I was hoping you would come over today,” Delilah said, putting her paws on the ground instead of up in the air, where they’d been just moments before. “Do you want to play Rip-the-Rag? Or how about Knock-Each-Other-Down?”

  How could Howie decide? They were both his favorite games! “You choose,” he told Delilah.

  Delilah sighed. “Oh, Howie,” she said, “you are such a gentleman.”

  Howie had to agree.

  Delilah tossed her blonde ears and cocked her head to one side. She thought and thought. Finally, she said, “Thinking is hard work.”

  Howie nodded. Delilah was beautiful, but not very bright. “Take your time,” he told her.

  Delilah thought some more and finally said, “I think we should play—”

  But her sentence was cut off by the strange sound Howie had heard on his way over. “Thunder?” he wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know how to play that one,” said Delilah. “Will you teach me?”

  “No,” Howie said. “I was talking about that strange sound. Did you hear it?”

  “Oh, that,” said Delilah. “It’s probably just a lawn mower.”

  Howie shook his head. “It’s not like any lawn mower I ever heard. I think we should go investigate.”

  “All right,” said Delilah. “But then can we play Rip-the-Rag?”

  “Sure,” Howie told her as they set off in the direction of the strange sound.

  Little did he know that they might never play Rip-the-Rag—or any of their favorite games—again!!!!

  JAMES HOWE never thought he would write for a living, since writing was too much fun to be considered a job. Many books and awards later, his story has turned out to be slightly different from what he expected. Mr. Howe is the author of the beloved Bunnicula books and the Pinky and Rex series. He has also written Morgan’s Zoo, A Night Without Stars, Stage Fright, and There’s a Dragon in My Sleeping Bag. Mr. Howe lives in New York State.

  Tales from the House of Bunnicula Books by James Howe:

  It Came from Beneath the Bed!

  Invasion of the Mind Swappers from Asteriod 6!

  Howie Monroe and the Doghouse of Doom

  Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh’s Tomb II

  Bud Barkin, Private Eye

  The Odorous Adventures of Stinky Dog

  Other Bunnicula Books by James Howe:

  Bunnicula (with Deborah Howe)

  Howliday Inn

  The Celery Stalks at Midnight

  Nighty-Nightmare

  Return to Howliday Inn

  Bunnicula Strikes Again!

  Bunnicula’s Pleasantly Perplexing Puzzles

  Bunnicula’s Long-Lasting-Laugh-Alouds

  Bunnicula’s Frightfully Fabulous Factoids

  Bunnicula’s Wickedly Wacky Word Games

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition June 2003

  Text copyright © 2002 by James Howe

  Illustrations copyright © 2002 by Brett Helquist

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.

  Designed by Ann Bobco

  The illustrations were rendered in acrylics and oils.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Howe, James, 1946–

  It came from beneath the bed! / by James Howe

  p. cm.

  Summary: With help from his uncle Harold, who wrote books about Bunnicula, Howie the wirehaired dachshund writes a story in which he saves the world from a science experiment gone awry.

  ISBN 978-0-689-83947-4 (hc.)

  [1. Authors—Fiction. 2. Science—Experiments—Fiction. 3. Dachshunds—Fiction. 4. Dogs—Fiction. 5. Toys—Fiction] I. Title.

  PZ7.H83727 It 2002

  [Fic]—dc21 2001022985

  ISBN 978-0-689-83948-1 (Aladdin pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8732-1