by Steve Cole
“No, no, my dear Plog,” said Furp. “Fire over the ground in front of us. Soak it silly!”
“‘Silly’ is right.” Plog ducked as the poos fired yet more muck missiles. “What’s the point of spraying the ground? Your ‘stick you’ slime is super-quick-drying, remember?”
“But I’ve just added in my attempt at an antidote!” Furp cried. “Remember when I tried to unstick you and Danjo? It makes my super-duper slime-glue softer and less sticky – but not for very long.”
“Of course!” Plog nodded. “A few seconds later, the slime goes back to being super-sticky – but hopefully it will stay soft long enough for the Cyber-Poos to trample through it with shields off.”
“With luck, they won’t realize the ground’s getting stickier and stickier,” Furp agreed. “Until it’s too late!”
The Cyber-Poos kept on coming, shooting their sprays and missiles. Plog opened fire at ground level, backing away towards the crane as he went, and Furp did just the same.
“Squish them!” snarled Poo-Poo Prime.
“Squelch them!” SMELL yelled. “Keep squirting, Furp!” cried Plog.
“Made it!” Zill shouted. With the Slime-mobile’s doors still iced up, she and Danjo scrambled out through the broken back window.
The colossal crane with its electromagnet loomed overhead. Zill spat a slime-line up at the huge steel disc and swung up into the dusty driver’s cab with Danjo hanging onto her back paws. Once inside, she spun slime lines over the controls, pulling on different strands to try and get the magnet working. “You were right, Danjo,” she wailed. “No power!”
“We’ll see about that,” puffed Danjo, his pincers tearing through wires and workings. He pushed two bare wires together and the engine spluttered into life with a deafening roar. A hum of power started up and the huge steel disc of the electromagnet began to twitch . . .
“Woo-hoo!” Zill whooped. “Here we go!”
Danjo pointed down at SMELL and the tide of Cyber-Poos with a quivering pincer. “But here they come – straight for Plog and Furp!”
Plog finished drenching the ground as his slime-shooter finally ran dry. Furp threw his own weapon away as the last drop dripped from its nozzle. Then they looked up – and gasped.
Poo-Poo Prime and his forces were almost on top of them, while SMELL brought up the rear. The marauding mucksters got nearer and nearer. Parp grenade launch pipes rose slowly from their heads.
“All units, fire at my command,” droned Poo-Poo Prime.
Plog and Furp watched grimly as the Cyber-Poos sped closer, closer . . . and then began to slow down, as if their ploppy legs were suddenly caught in invisible treacle.
“It’s working!” Furp squealed, clapping with excitement as the Cyber-Poos stared down at their stuck feet in confusion and even SMELL strained to keep scraping forwards. “They didn’t realize how sticky we’d made the ground.”
“But they can still get us with their weapons.” Poo-Poo Prime fired a parp grenade and Plog quickly kicked it away with a CLANG of metal before it could explode. “See what I mean?”
“You cannot stop us,” roared SMELL, his lid snapping open and shut like the jaws of some deadly animal. “Our destiny is to conquer!”
“I’d say your destiny was up in the air, SMELLy-pants!” Plog turned and shouted up at Zill and Danjo in the crane. “Now, guys – while they’re still stuck – hit that mega-magnet!”
Zill heard him and jumped through the air, grabbing hold of a large lever meant for human hands to hold. “Hope this one starts the motor,” she gasped, swinging from it. “Oh, no – it won’t budge!”
“Let me help!” Danjo reached up and pulled on her brushy tail, helping her drag down the lever, slowly, slowly . . .
CLUNK, went the control. HUMMMMMMM went the electromagnet as it throbbed into life.
And suddenly, on the ground below, there was carnage!
Plog turned a somersault as his metal boots were yanked from his feet and shot like missiles towards the magnet. Furp struggled out of his large metal pants and helmet in the nick of time as they too went shooting through the air to cling to the steel disc dangling high above.
“Phew!” The frog-monster blushed. “I’m glad I’m wearing clean boxers!”
But the effect on the Cyber-Poos was far more spectacular. With their pooey feet stuck to the ground, their bodies began to stretch as the metal and wires that ran through them were pulled upwards by the penetrating power of the magnet.
“No!” groaned Poo-Poo Prime, his lights flashing as he grew taller and thinner with every passing second. “Nooooooooo!”
At last, with a squelchy, squashy, tearing sound, all the Cyber-Poos’ high-tech parts were tugged clean out of their dirty bodies. A storm of circuits, guns and silicon chips went flying through the air – and with a feeble chorus of warbling cries, the Cyber-Poos fell apart into mushy heaps of dung.
“This isn’t fair!” SMELL shouted, his casing dragged into the air by the tug of the powerful magnet. “I was going to rule! I was going to be the All-Seeing SMELL!”
“You’ll still have a pretty good view from up there,” Plog told him.
“You can send Lord Klukk a postcard,” Furp added.
BEEP! The shadowy bird-monster’s image appeared on SMELL’s screen. “What’s going on?” he squawked. “I’ve lost contact with the Cyber-Poos.”
“And that’s not all, Klukk,” Plog shouted. “I think you’ll find you’ve lost everything!”
Finally, the electromagnet’s hold on SMELL’s metal body was too great. With a final shriek that mingled tunelessly with Klukk’s roar of frustration, SMELL went shooting upwards into the air and smashed into the steel disc with enough force to shatter his casing and blow the poo right out of his metal body.
Furp hopped up to the driver’s cab and stuck there slimily. “Well done,” he told Zill and Danjo. “Now, kill the power.”
Danjo pushed Zill up in the air and the lever clonked off again. SMELL’s smoking remains fell to the ground in a rain of wires and metal parts, landing in the enormous puddle of melting muck.
It was all that was left of the menace of the Cyber-Poos. Danjo slid down from the crane’s cab on a slide of slime-ice, holding Zill tightly in his arms. Furp jumped down to join them, and Plog gathered them all up in a big group hug. “We did it!” he cheered.
Furp nodded gravely. “But the biggest challenge is yet to come.”
“You mean getting PIE back home?” said Zill. “No sweat – we’ll just tie him to a load of balloons and use the Slime-Mobile to tow him back to base.”
“And then stick the Big Booster back where we found it,” Danjo added.
“No, I did not mean that,” said Furp. He looked at the sloppy, stinky pool of poop and metal before them with a sigh. “The biggest challenge will be finding my pants and crash helmet in that revolting muck-pool!”
“And my boots too.” Plog looked down at his ugly feet, which were already oozing smelly slime. “Oh, well. At least my tootsies can’t smell any worse.”
“Ha!” Zill held her nose and grinned. “Well, good luck with that, guys. I think Danjo and I will go and tell PIE the good news – that his Big Booster’s safe and he’ll soon be back in action.”
“And back where he belongs,” Danjo agreed. “With his ever-loving teammates – the Slime Squad!”
Hours later, as the sun began to set over Trashland’s curious landscape, a monster passing in the right place at the right time might have witnessed something rather unusual.
A very happy super-computer came floating out of a hole in Silicon Ditch, supported by a flock of seagulls and ninety-nine red balloons. An extremely dirty frog-monster sat on top of the mechanical marvel’s monitor, with an equally mucky rat-bear-thing beside him.
“With my Big Booster back, I’ll soon be the All-Seeing PIE again,” the computer cried, drifting happily through the air. “But I must say, it’s nice to get out and see Trashland properly once in a while . . .
”
A thick slime-strand hung down from the computer’s base like a towrope, and a skunky poodle monster held it in four paws. A large, red crab-creature with three legs helped her to tie it to an invisible vehicle, and then the whole loopy lot of them zoomed away. At that moment, far below, in a small village near the Heavy Metal Hills, a little monster and his mum looked up at the incredible sight. “Mummy, mummy!” said the child. “What’s THAT?”
“I do believe it’s the Slime Squad,” said the mum, smiling as the heroic figures faded into the twilight. “Great gonking honk-wobblers – whatever will they get up to next?”
Don’t miss the Squaddies in
THE SLIME SQUAD vs THE SUPERNATURAL SQUID
About the Author
Born in 1971, Steve Cole spent a happy childhood in rural Bedfordshire being loud and aspiring to amuse. He liked books, and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with titles ranging from pre-school poetry to Young Adult thrillers (with more TV and film tie-ins than he cares to admit to along the way). In other careers he has been the editor of Noddy magazine, and an editor of fiction and nonfiction book titles for various publishers. He is the author of the hugely successful Astrosaurs, Cows in Action, Astrosaurs Academy and Slime Squad series.
[ASTROSAURS]
Riddle of the Raptors
The Hatching Horror
The Seas of Doom
The Mind-Swap Menace
The Skies of Fear
The Space Ghosts
Day of the Dino-Droids
The Terror-Bird Trap
The Planet of Peril
The Star Pirates
The Claws of Christmas
The Sun-Snatchers
Revenge of the Fang
The Carnivore Curse
The Dreams of Dread
The Robot Raiders
The Twist of Time
The Sabre-Tooth Secret
The Forest of Evil
Earth Attack!
The T-Rex Invasion
The Castle of Frankensaur
[ASTROSAURS ACADEMY]
Destination: Danger!
Contest Carnage!
Terror Underground!
Jungle Horror!
Deadly Drama!
Christmas Crisis!
Volcano Invaders!
Space Kidnap!
[COWS IN ACTION]
The Ter-Moo-nators
The Moo-my’s Curse
The Roman Moo-stery
The Wild West Moo-nster
World War Moo
The Battle for Christmoos
The Pirate Moo-tiny
The Moogic of Merlin
The Victorian Moo-ders
The Moo-lympic Games
First Cows on the Mooon
The Viking Emoo-gency
The Udderly Moo-vellous C.I.A. Joke Book
Astrosaurs Vs Cows in Action: The Dinosaur Moo-tants
[SLIME SQUAD]
Slime Squad Vs The Fearsome Fists
Slime Squad Vs The Toxic Teeth
Slime Squad Vs The Cyber Poos
Slime Squad Vs The Supernatural Squid
Slime Squad Vs The Killer Socks
Slime Squad Vs The Last Chance Chicken
Slime Squad Vs The Alligator Army
Slime Squad Vs The Conquering Conks
For older readers:
Z. Rex
Z. Raptor
Z. Apocalypse
THE SLIME SQUAD vs THE CYBER-POOS
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17488 1
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2010
Text copyright © Steve Cole, 2010
Map © Steve Cole and Dynamo Design, 2010
Illustrations copyright © Woody Fox, 2010
First Published in Great Britain
Red Fox 9781862308787 2010
The right of Steve Cole to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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