Squeak! Giggle giggle. Squeak!
It was the cutest thing Chooch had ever seen! The little fuzzy creature looked up at him with saucer eyes and cheerfully squeaked some more. Charmed, Chooch bent down and gently offered his giant metal hand. After giving it a few sniffs, the critter trustingly climbed into his palm.
Chooch held the little fuzz ball and it affectionately rubbed against his cheek, making a sort of purring sound. This got Chooch so excited, he almost started clapping his hands in delight, but remembered he was holding the critter and that would not have been a very good idea. He called Clive over to see his new little friend.
By the time Clive arrived, there were several darling fuzz balls climbing all over Chooch, gently pawing him with their tiny raccoon-like hands and purring loudly, which seemed to summon even more of them from underground.
“Look at all the Fuzzy Wuzzies, Clive!” Chooch said. “That’s the name I just made up for these little guys!”
“Hmmm,” said Clive as he scanned the creatures with his device. “Carbon-based life-form, mammal, most likely sentient, quite possibly intelligent.”
“And they’re cute!” Chooch said, giggling as they nuzzled his face.
“Define ‘cute,’” said Clive as a critter climbed up his leg.
“All set!” Luno said, striding up to Clive and Chooch, now both crawling with the darling downy soft creatures. “What are those?”
“I believe Chooch has named them Fuzzy Wuzzies,” said Clive. “But I have decided to categorize them as Bellus creaturus. I will present a full report of my findings in twenty-four hours, Mr. Zorgoochi.”
Chooch asked, then begged Luno to let him bring a few of them home. He promised he would feed and walk them and Luno wouldn’t have to do a thing. Really!
Luno couldn’t deny they were cute and began to actually consider taking a few home as a critter rubbed against his neck and purred.
“They look hungry!” said Chooch. “What do you think they eat?”
“According to my readings,” said Clive, brushing a critter off his device, “these creatures are the only living organic matter on this entire asteroid, which means there is no sustenance for them here.”
Luno thought this was rather odd as one of them crawled up his leg, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was from the inside of his space suit!
As Luno shook his leg to get it out, more critters climbed on the three of them and giggled and squeaked, which seemed to cause even more of them to pour out from the ground. Soon Luno, Chooch, and even Clive were wriggling around giggling, looking like they were wearing living fur coats.
Luno rolled around on the ground to get them off, but then found himself rolling down a hill into a massive crater. He got up, still crawling with them, and saw something very strange.
“Hey, you guys!” Luno shouted. “Look at all these ships—ouch!”
One of the critters nipped him. Covered in creatures, Clive and Chooch lumbered down the hill and saw a vast expanse of abandoned spaceships, some partially disassembled. Luno wondered what they were all doing there. Soon more critters were nipping at him, some actually biting! Ouch!
“Naughty, naughty Fuzzy Wuzzy!” said Chooch, yanking one off his finger. “Ow!”
“Yes,” agreed Clive. “Please refrain from biting me. It causes me to experience what I understand to be a sensation called pain.”
“Yee-ouch!” Luno cried. Several critters bit down hard and it really hurt! “Let’s get out of here!”
As the three of them ran to the pod covered in cute, but increasingly vicious creatures, Luno tripped. He got up and saw what he tripped over: a shredded space suit!
“Help!” Chooch cried. Luno turned to see that he tripped, too, but not over a space suit. It was an alien skeleton!
And it was stripped to the bone.
Luno quickly helped Chooch to his feet and they desperately hurried toward the ship. A steady stream of the adorable little creatures poured out of the ground and were in hot pursuit!
“I have formulated a theory on how the Bellus creaturus, or the more colloquially known Fuzzy Wuzzies, acquire nourishment, Mr. Zorgoochi,” said Clive. “Since there is no actual sustenance on this asteroid, they must attract food to it.”
“Wait a minute—ouch!” said Luno, pulling them off his head. “You mean we’re their food? How?”
“The reason we each perceived something different on the billboard was due to the fact that the structure is both a transmitter and receiver,” Clive calmly explained. “These creatures cleverly constructed a device that received our deepest desires through our brain waves and then transmitted them back to each of us through the sign in order to attract us to this asteroid.”
“So these cute-looking little things actually made that transmitter/receiver harvested from the ships back there?” Luno asked, climbing the delivery pod’s ladder.
“I assume by ‘cute,’” said Clive, peeling a few critters off his glasses, “you mean cunning and bloodthirsty.”
Chooch asked what happened to the pilots of all of those ships, but before Clive could deliver his homicidal hypothesis, Luno cut him off and told them they were all off finding a snack for the Fuzzy Wuzzies.
Luno shook off as many as he could as he climbed up the pod’s ladder, opened the hatch, and jumped in. In a moment his head popped up and he tossed out a few frozen pizzas from the onboard freezer.
Immediately, the critters swarmed off Clive and Chooch and all over the pizzas. They quickly climbed into the pod and Luno slammed the hatch, but had to open it again to toss out one last critter.
Squeak! Giggle giggle. Squeak!
As he fired up the engine, Luno saw that the evil Fuzzy Wuzzies had already consumed the pizzas (and the box) and were turning their hungry attention toward the pod. As they swarmed all over it, the sound of thousands of tiny nibbling teeth echoed as Luno ground the pod into gear and turned on the windshield wiper to brush a few of them off.
“I don’t want to call them Fuzzy Wuzzies anymore,” said Chooch, rubbing his arms and legs. “From now on I’m calling them Bitey Whities.”
No sooner did the pod lift off and the last Fuzzy Wuzzy drop off, laser fire was pinging off the sides of the delivery pod!
P-twang! P-twing!
Luno looked in the rearview screen.
“Quantum delivery ships at six o’clock!” Luno shouted, dodging their fire.
“I believe you are incorrect, Mr. Zorgoochi,” Clive said.
“Yeah!” said Chooch, pointing at the control panel clock. “It’s only three o’clock!”
Using every bit of his driving skills, Luno evaded Quantum’s fire; spinning, turning, loop-the-looping, zigzagging. He’d never driven like this before, but somehow at this very moment he just knew how. It was a lot like playing his favorite electro game, Asteroid Dodger, except he couldn’t pause it to go to the bathroom and if he blew himself up, he couldn’t just start over again. He’d be dead.
“Quantum Pizza is quite ruthless,” said Clive.
“Yeah,” shouted Chooch from underneath the control panel. “They don’t have Ruth! Whoever she is.”
Luno knew Clive was right. Quantum wasn’t going to give up, but what could he do?
He had no weapons.
No ideas.
And no choice.
Luno did the only thing he could think of: hide in the asteroid belt dead ahead. Maybe the Quantum ships would be satisfied they ran him off the main spaceway and go back to their deliveries.
Luno gritted his teeth, slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and aimed the pod toward the relative safety of the dangerous mass of deadly sharp-pointed floating asteroids.
Then he looked in the rearview.
They were still chasing him.
It was hard enough driving at top speed dodging massive rocks and laser fire, but it was that much harder with Chooch blubbering buckets of tears and muttering, “There are several emergency exits on this aircraft. Please tak
e a few moments now to locate your nearest exit…”
Drawing on the many hours he had clocked playing Asteroid Dodger, Luno zipped through the maze of planetoids and, much to his surprise, didn’t kill himself. If his mother could see him now, she’d never complain about him playing electro games ever again!
After gaining a considerable lead, Luno managed to hide the pod in the center of a cluster of asteroids and land on one. The Quantum ships passed overhead a few moments later, buzzing around like angry space hornets looking for him.
As they sat parked on one of the asteroids among the giant rocks, Luno held his breath and he held his hand over Chooch’s mouth to keep him quiet. Clive, on the other hand, was entirely unaware of the life and death situation they were in and calmly pecked away at his device.
It felt like an eternity, but the Quantum ships eventually gave up and returned to the main spaceway.
Whew.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hold the Mushrooms
“I changed my mind, Luno,” Chooch whined. “I wanna go home—now!”
Luno patiently explained they had just two more deliveries to go and then they would be heading back to the pizzeria. He was determined to make up for not getting paid by the Infernals by being the best delivery boy ever and getting two great big tips. Then he’d give them to his dad as payment for the pizza he got stiffed on.
Geo would never have to know.
“Planet Fungi,” Luno said, pointing to a tiny tan-colored dot on the dashboard radar screen. “Our next delivery.”
Within moments, Luno was making a perfect three-point landing. The only problem was, the pod had four wheels. He still had to work on that.
“Stay put,” Luno told Clive and Chooch as he slid the large pizza with extra mushrooms out of Chooch’s oven and into a box. “I’ll be right back.”
Right on cue, Chooch threw another temper tantrum. Luno first tried to reason with him. When that didn’t work, he tried being firm, but couldn’t be heard over Chooch’s crying.
“Oh, all right,” Luno sighed. “You can come.”
Chooch immediately stopped crying as if flipping a switch. In fact Chooch actually did. It was a small red one on his lower left side.
“I would like to accompany you as well in order to gather information about this Planet Fungi,” said Clive, following them out of the hatch.
Luno just shook his head. What was the point of arguing? That would only make him later than he already was.
Luno climbed down the side of the pod and planted a foot into the moist ground. Planet Fungi was dark, damp, and kind of creepy.
They made their way through a forest of giant pale trees, but upon closer inspection, Luno discovered they weren’t trees at all. They were enormous mushrooms!
“Why would someone who lived on a planet with all these mushrooms want a mushroom pizza?” Luno asked. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
As they trudged on, Luno picked his head up, threw back his shoulders, and smiled, determined to be the most cheerful and courteous delivery boy in the Mezzaluna Galaxy. He was sure he was going to get that great big tip!
And then it hit him.
What if Quantum already got here first? What if …
Luno stopped himself, shook it off, and forced himself to hold the pizza box high and proud. His father, mother, Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza, and pretty much all of his ancestors depended on him not to mess up—again.
He marched on.
“Hey, look!” said Chooch, picking up a shredded piece of fabric.
“It reads ‘di Mension Pizza,’” said Clive. “What does that mean, Mr. Zorgoochi?”
“It’s a pizzeria from the Pimento Nebula,” Luno said, examining what looked to be part of a delivery boy’s cap. “That’s weird.”
Luno had heard of di Mension Pizza. It was another family-owned pizzeria, just like Zorgoochi.
Then Luno noticed something else—a torn piece of what appeared to be a pizza box. He held it up close and examined the microscopic circuitry running through the cardboard. He’d heard about a new kind of delivery box that had moisture control built right in so the pizza didn’t get soggy, but couldn’t remember which pizzeria had invented it.
“Uncle Cosmo’s Pizza,” read Chooch, holding up another shredded piece of fabric.
“Hey! That’s the place that invented this box,” said Luno, tossing it away. “I wonder what all this stuff is doing here.”
Before Clive could submit his theory, the ground began to rumble, shaking them so much they lost their balance and fell to the ground.
When Luno looked up and saw the giant mushrooms uprooting themselves, he knew he had to get out of there—fast!
Luno was helping Clive and Chooch to their feet when a massive white stalk wrapped around him and lifted him up to the very cap of the mushroom. Luno found himself dangling before what looked like a face.
“I am Champignon!” bellowed the mushroom. “Queen of Planet Fungi! Genuflect before me, tiny human!”
“Huh?” asked Luno.
“Bow!” shouted the queen. Her breath smelled like delicious fresh mushrooms and wet dirt.
Luno tried as best he could, but it wasn’t easy. He straightened up and spoke in a confident yet polite manner, hoping this was merely the way pizza delivery boys were greeted on Planet Fungi.
“Did you order a large Zorgoochi Pizza with extra mushrooms, ma’am?” Luno asked, holding the box up high, but then he turned to see several mushrooms emerging from the darkness waddling toward him.
“Legatus!” shouted the queen, clapping two of her stalks together. “Extract the receptacle from the human!”
“Huh?” the mushroom asked.
“Take the box!” the queen said, smacking the mushroom in the back of the cap.
“Yes, Your queen-atude!” said Legatus, who snatched the box from Luno and presented it to Queen Champignon. Then she opened it.
A loud gasp echoed throughout the forest. When the queen saw the pizza with extra mushrooms, her head drooped down and she wept. Then she looked up to the sky and bellowed, “Oh, sorrow! Oh, despair! I will avenge your demise, my fallen porcini subjects!”
The group of giant mushrooms stared woefully at the sliced mushrooms on the pizza, then put their stalks around one another and whimpered. The queen wailed and shouted about the tragedy of innocent little fungi being viciously and needlessly slaughtered.
“What’s fungi?” asked Chooch, who was now being lifted up by another of the queen’s stalks next to a dangling Luno.
“Unicellular, multicellular, or syncytial spore-producing organisms, including molds, yeast, and mushrooms,” said Clive, still on the ground, pecking away at his device, hardly noticing their dire predicament.
“Oh, now I get it!” Chooch smiled. “This is a mushroom planet! Hey, Luno! Did you know—”
“Silence!” shouted the queen.
Then the queen turned to Luno.
“Do you know what we do on Planet Fungi to rogue assassins of defenseless mushrooms who murder them and place them on pizzas?” asked the queen.
“You pay them and give them a great big tip?” Luno asked hopefully.
Gales of grim laughter erupted among the mushrooms until Queen Champignon raised a stalk, quickly silencing them.
The queen drew Luno closer and, with an evil grin, said, “Quid pro quo.”
“Huh?” Luno asked.
“What do squids have to do with it?” asked Chooch.
“Not squid! Quid!” shouted the frustrated queen. “Quid pro quo! We place them on a pizza!”
Luno gulped. Now he was positive he wasn’t getting a tip. And he wasn’t so sure if he was getting out of there alive either.
The mushrooms rubbed their horrible stalks together in anticipation of the deadly pizza party to come. The queen clapped her leaves and the group of mushrooms parted, revealing a full kitchen right there in the middle of the forest complete with a colossal wood-burning oven!
“Hey, look!” Legatus said, pointing at Clive. “Garlic!”
“We’ll only use half,” Queen Champignon said, picking him up. “Garlic gives me indigestion.”
Holding Luno, Clive, and Chooch, the queen shuffled over to the makeshift kitchen. She explained with wicked delight that she’d been ordering mushroom pizzas to lure delivery boys and then eating them as fitting revenge!
“Then aren’t you committing a similar atrocity?” asked Clive.
“Silence, garlic!” Queen Champignon bellowed. “I haven’t even ingested you yet and you’re already giving me indigestion!”
Luno, Clive, and Chooch helplessly hung there as the queen ordered the other mushrooms around.
“Can we go home now, Luno?” whined Chooch.
“I agree with Chooch, Mr. Zorgoochi,” said Clive. “I believe I have gathered enough data about Planet Fungi and I am also ready to leave.”
As Luno desperately tried to figure a way out, he watched one of the mushrooms spin a massive glob of dough in the air, much better than him, he noticed. Then the mushroom laid the dough out on a monolithic pizza stone and began to create the crust.
With an evil grin, the queen raised Luno, Clive, and Chooch into the air as the rest of the mushrooms gathered around and cheered.
“Now to exact retribution for our fallen comrades!” Queen Champignon announced to her mushroom minions.
“Huh?” the mushrooms asked.
The queen sighed and rubbed her weary eyes.
“I’m going to put them on the pizza,” she said flatly.
The mushrooms cheered!
Luno looked helplessly at Clive and Chooch as the queen carried them over to the pizza waiting for them on the massive stone.
“We’re up a creek without a poodle!” whined Chooch. “What are we gonna do?”
“Now don’t forget to spit out the bones!” the queen reminded her minions.
When he heard this, Chooch started to wail uncontrollably. “We’re gonna die!”
“Bravery” wasn’t in Chooch’s vocabulary, nor were lots of other words.
“Don’t cry, Chooch!” Luno said, even though he wanted to join him.
Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza : Delivery of Doom (9781250008459) Page 4