Adventure #3
and the Dangerously Dizzy Attack of the Hypno Hamsters
by L. Bob Rovetch
illustrated by Dave Whamond
For Sam, Kate and Tom—because hamsters
are the next best thing to voles. —L. R.
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1: 17 Days
Chapter 2: What Lunch Box?
Chapter 3: Rejects
Chapter 4: Happy Happy Hamsters
Chapter 5: Late Fees
Chapter 6: Bye-Bye, Miss Toenail; Hello, Hypnodini
Chapter 7: Prepare to Be Destroyed
Chapter 8: Hot Dog to the Rescue
Chapter 9: New Wallpaper
Chapter 9½: Can You Relate?
Chapter 10: The Experiment
Chapter 10½: Psycho Hypno Hamsters
Chapter 11: Teamwork
Chapter 12: Blue Stuff
Chapter 13: Time Warp
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter 1
17 Days
I’m Bob, and I miss my old life! In my old life I only worried about regular little stuff, like keeping my annoying brother out of my room and passing the spelling tests I forgot to study for. In my old life I never even thought about getting erased by little pencil people or escaping from prisons made out of cheese.
But ever since a superhero hot dog popped out of my lunch box, called me partner, and told me we were gonna save the world from evil space aliens, I switched to worrying about big stuff. And I mean really big stuff!
“What are you doing with that calendar?” I asked Clementine at recess.
“I’m trying to figure out when the next alien invasion will occur,” she answered.
Clementine and I are best friends. We’re also the only ones who have any memory of Hot Dog and the freaky aliens who keep “visiting” us here at Lugenheimer Elementary.
“Would you quit worrying about it?” I said, trying to be the cool one. “All that crazy stuff is over with!”
“Be realistic!” said Clementine. “Hot Dog said he’d be back after the Cheese Face attack, and he was. Hot Dog said he’d be back after the pencil-people attack, and he will be! You have to admit it, Bob. Hot Dog always seems to know when trouble’s coming.”
“Heads up, Bobby Boy!” Marco yelled, passing me a football.
“I’ll play in a minute!” I said, kicking it back.
“So,” Clementine said, putting her last X on the calendar, “it was exactly two months and two days between the first and second attacks. And if my calculations are correct, Hot Dog should be showing up for the next big battle in exactly seventeen days. I just think we should be prepared is all.”
“Okay,” I said. “You prepare our superpower anti-alien attack-proof suits, and I’ll go get our invisible jet boat–rocket ship out of the garage!”
“You can joke about it all you want,” said Clementine, “but when the next batch of alien freakazoids decides to take over Lugenheimer Elementary and we’re not ready, nobody’s going to be laughing. Especially you!”
Chapter 2
What Lunch Box?
I thought all day and night about what Clementine said. If her calendar calculations were correct and another alien invasion really was going to happen in 17 days, maybe we should do something. The one thing I knew for sure was that we were definitely on our own. If we tried to warn our parents or the police or anyone, they’d just think we had overactive imaginations or tell us to stop eating so much sugar.
The next morning I hid my lunch box under the big bag of Chomper’s dog food in the cupboard below our kitchen sink.
“Why are you smelling the dog food?” asked my strange little brother, Bug.
“None of your beeswax,” I answered politely.
“I want to smell it, too!” he said, squeezing next to me under the sink.
“Why do you always have to copy everything I do?” I asked him. “If I said the dog food was yummy, would you eat it?”
“Good idea!” Bug said, picking up a piece of Chomper’s kibble.
Here’s what I was thinking: Hot Dog only shows up in my lunch box, so if there’s no lunch box, there won’t be any Hot Dog. And if there isn’t any Hot Dog, there won’t be any aliens. Looking back on it, I see how stupid that sounds, but right then it made perfect sense.
“Hmm,” said my mom. “Have you seen your lunch box, Sweetie? I can’t find it anywhere!”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine with a paper bag.”
“But your lunch box keeps everything so nice and fresh,” said my mom. “I just can’t imagine where it could be!”
Later that day in the lunchroom, Marco said, “Hey! Where’s your lunch box?”
“Who cares?” I answered.
“But, dude,” said Marco. “You’ve had that same lunch box since first grade!”
“So?” I said, wishing he’d get off the subject.
“So I miss it!” he said. “I seriously miss that lunch box!”
“You are so weird!” I laughed.
Clementine took a huge bite of her disgusting sandwich creation and mumbled, “So really, Bob, where is your lunch box?”
“Oh! Hey, Clem!” I said. “I just remembered we have to go work on that, um, incredibly important science project right now!”
“What are you talking about?” she said, taking another huge bite. “That thing’s not due till Friday.”
I gave her an uncomfortable look that meant, “Would you please just get off the lunch-box subject and play along with me here?” Luckily, Clementine got the hint.
“Oh!” she said. “You mean that science project! You’re right; we’d better go work on it pronto! Hate to dine and dash, Marco. See you in class.”
“Since when have you guys gotten so excited about doing homework?” asked Marco.
I wanted to tell him the truth and say, “Since a couple of months ago, when the all-mighty ruler of the planet Dogzalot (otherwise known as the Big Bun) decided to beam a flying weenie into my lunch box and make me his alien-fighting Earth partner!” But I didn’t.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Clementine whispered on our way out of the lunchroom.
When I told her what I’d done to my lunch box, she just laughed at me.
“I thought you were the one who said we didn’t have anything to worry about!”
“I guess your calendar thing kind of got to me,” I confessed. “I mean, maybe we should be doing something to protect ourselves.”
“Maybe,” said Clementine. “But what?”
Chapter 3
Rejects
When the end-of-lunch bell rang, my class went to the library for Career Day. First up was Lupi’s mom, who told us some fairly good stories about her job as a firefighter. Next was Marco’s kind-of-annoying dentist dad, who thought flossing was the most exciting invention known to humankind.
“My, my! What fascinating careers!” said our librarian, Miss Toenail. “All right, Angelina, it’s your turn to introduce your mother.”
“Um, okay,” Angelina said. “This is my mom, and she, uh, works in a toy factory.”
“Thank you, Angelina,” said Miss Toenail.
Angelina’s mother plopped a big box down on the table. It had tons of tape and the word “Rejects” stamped all over it.
“Hey, Bob the Slob and Clementine Porcupine!” yelled my least favorite person ever (otherwise known as Barfalot). “Look, a box chalk full of rejects—just like you!”
“Yeah!” laughed Barfalot’s brainless bodyguard brothers, Pigburt and Slugburt. “Cause there’s rejects in that box, and you guys are rejects, too! Get it?”
“Wow!
You guys are sooo clever!” Clementine smiled sweetly while rolling her eyes.
“Quiet, everybody,” said Miss Toenail, “so we can find out what’s inside the box.”
“Howdy, boys and girls, and thank y’all for invitin’ me here today!” Angelina’s mom said all excitedly. “I am so very lucky to work at a toy factory! It is a real fun job! I am in charge of makin’ sure that all the toys comin’ off the assembly line are one hundred percent perfect! But I’m gonna let you boys and girls in on a little secret. Once in a while some of our toys just aren’t right. They’re just a bitsy bit defective. Can anyone tell me what the word defective means?”
“That’s easy!” shouted Barfalot. “Defective is what Bob and Clementine are!”
“Yeah! Get it?” Pigburt and Slugburt laughed even though there’s no way they knew what defective meant.
“Uh, well, maybe I’ll just tell y’all,” said Angelina’s mother. “Defective is when for one reason or another somethin’ is wrong with our toys. And since we at Bloppo International sell only the very most perfectly perfect toys, we always destroy our defective rejects.”
“Yeah! Rejects should be destroyed!” Barfalot said, looking straight over at Clementine and me.
“Yeah!” Pigburt and Slugburt repeated as usual.
The Terrible Triplets were jerks to everyone, but lately they’d totally had it out for Clementine and me.
“Shhh!” Miss Toenail said, putting her finger up to her mouth librarian style.
“As I was sayin’,” Angelina’s mother went on, “for some strange reason the toys in this box came out with a whole bunch of defects. And my boss said that since they were so—uh—different, it would be all right if I gave them to you nice little boys and girls. So, well, here y’all go. There’s a Happy Hamster in this here box for each and every one of you!”
Barfalot, Pigburt and Slugburt ran up to the box and grabbed a bunch of Happy Hamsters.
“Calm down, children,” said Miss Toenail. “Let’s all take turns!”
But nobody was taking turns. Even Marybell Marshall, the most polite person in my whole class, was pushing and shoving to get to the box. It was like those Happy Hamsters had some kind of special magnetic power. Angelina’s mother was right. These toys really were different!
Chapter 4
Happy Happy Hamsters
“All righty then!” said Miss Toenail. “Would everyone please say thank you to all these nice parents for helping us out with Career Day?”
Unfortunately for Miss Toenail, the kids were paying even less attention to her than usual. Nobody said thank you. Nobody said anything at all. They all just sat there staring blankly at their Happy Hamster toys.
“Oh, I am just so embarrassed!” Miss Toenail told the Career Day parents as they left the library. “It looks like we’re going to have to have ourselves a little talk about manners!”
Clementine and I checked out our Happy Hamsters and saw that their big, bulging eyes were lighting up and spinning around in psychedelic swirly yellow circles.
“Whoa! These things are awesome!” I said.
“I guess,” said Clementine. “Only mine’s making me feel sort of carsick.”
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “I am starting to feel kind of dizzy.”
Clementine and I might have been feeling a little bit funny, but by the looks on our classmates’ faces, they were feeling downright out of this world!
“That’s strange,” said Clementine. “It’s almost like they’re being hypnotized by their hamsters.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“But it can’t be!” said Clementine. “According to the calendar, we still have sixteen days to go!”
“Have you ever thought that maybe your calendar idea could just be a great big bunch of doggy doo-doo?” I asked nicely.
“But Hot Dog isn’t here!” Clementine continued. “Hot Dog always comes to help before the space aliens arrive!”
“Not this time,” I said sadly. “This time it looks like it’s just you and me!”
“Make that you and me and them!” Clementine shivered.
“Maybe we’re overreacting,” I said, turning my hamster upside down. “Maybe there’s some perfectly logical explanation for what’s going on here.”
All of a sudden this funny kind of humming noise filled the room. At first it sounded like one little honeybee; then it got louder and louder and louder—until it sounded like a zillion quadrillion killer bees zooming in for the kill. Only we couldn’t see any bees. We couldn’t see anything unusual at all!
“This cannot be good,” Clementine said, shaking her head. “I mean it, Bob! This really cannot be good!”
Chapter 5
Late Fees
“I don’t get it,” I said. “What’s making that noise?”
“I never thought I’d say this,” said Clementine, “but—I want Hot Dog!!!”
“Maybe something happened to him back on Dogzalot,” I said. “Maybe the Big Bun took away his superhero privileges for messing up on too many missions or something.”
“In that case,” Clementine said, walking away, “how about you deal with this one by yourself? After all, you’re Hot Dog’s so-called partner. I’m just an innocent bystander!”
Right then the loud humming sound changed to an even louder WEEEEEEEE kind of noise.
“Look!” Clementine said, pointing at our classmates. “They’re the ones making the noise! I think they’re being controlled by these toys!”
“What’s WEEEEEEEE supposed to mean?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” said Clementine. “But I have a feeling we’re going to find out.”
I’d like to be able to tell you that Clementine was wrong. I’d like to be able to tell you that we never did find out what WEEEEEEEE meant. I’d like to be able to tell you that that was the end of all the weirdness forever and ever and that everything went back to normal just like in the good old days at Lugenheimer Elementary. But I can’t.
“WEEEEEEEE,” everyone chanted, staring blankly into the swirling eyes of the hamster toys. “WE ARE HAPPY HAMSTERS. WE LIKE TO RUN.”
“I don’t know about you,” I said, heading for the door, “but I think I’ve had enough library time for today.”
“I’m right behind you,” Clementine said. “I’m sure not stickin’ around to find out how this story ends!”
“I’d love to let you go. Really I would!” Miss Toenail said, blocking the door. “But until you two return your overdue books, I’m afraid I can’t let you leave this room.”
Miss Toenail??? With all the weirdness, we’d completely forgotten about our friendly librarian.
“But we don’t have any overdue books!” said Clementine.
“Of course you do!” Miss Toenail said, handing us a list of book titles.
Clementine read some of the titles out loud: “How to Replace Electricity with Hamster Power; Good-Bye Gasoline, Hello Hamster Power; Reuse, Reduce, Rehamster; Human Beings Make Even Better Hamsters; and How to Hypnotize Humans So They Believe They’re Hamsters and You Can Rule the World.”
“But we never checked out any of these books!” I complained.
“Whoops! My mistake!” Miss Toenail said, ripping the list out of Clementine’s hand. “This is your list of overdue library books!”
The list that Miss Toenail pulled out of her pocket was seriously at least a mile long.
“The Complete Unabridged Encyclopaedia Britannica? Everything William Shakespeare Ever Wrote? The College Textbook of Psychology, Biology, and Every Other Ology Ever? Um, I’m an okay reader,” I said, “but this is ridiculous!”
“I can’t possibly let you leave this library until all four million, eleven thousand and sixty-two books are returned,” said Miss Toenail. “Either that or you can pay the late fees.”
“I have a buck fifty!” I said, reaching into my pocket.
“Good for you!” said Miss Toenail. “Now all you ne
ed is another seventy gajillion dollars and eighty-four cents, and you’re good to go!”
“WE ARE HAPPY HAMSTERS. WE LIKE TO RUN,” chanted our spaced-out friends (and enemies, if you include Barfalot and his brainless bodyguards).
“That does it!” said Clementine. “I am definitely throwing away my calendar!”
Chapter 6
Bye-Bye, Miss Toenail; Hello Hypnodini
Miss Toenail took out a big bag of sunflower seeds. “Who wants some yummy-nummy hamster treats?” she asked.
All the kids dropped their Hypnotic Hamster toys and ran to Miss Toenail with their tongues hanging out.
“Not so fast,” she said. “Treat time comes after exercise time in this library!”
That’s when things got extra-creepy. A gigantic hamster wheel slowly rose up from the library floor.
“Hop on, my little pets!” Miss Toenail shouted. “A hamster’s job is never done!”
Everybody hopped on the humongous wheel and ran.
“Don’t stop running!” said Miss Toenail in a cheerful voice, with a smile on her face. “Never, ever stop running!”
The kids still looked like their regular old kid selves, only they really seemed to believe they were hamsters.
“WE ARE HAPPY HAMSTERS. WE LIKE TO RUN,” they chanted as the wheel went around and around.
“You two, too, my precious little hamsters!” Miss Toenail said, shoving Clementine and me onto the wheel.
Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 3 Page 1