“SWEET! YES!” Lin said. She wrapped her arms around Cornelia, and I quickly launched the SpyZoom app on my phone. I swiped through the buttons until I found the Grappling-Grabber controls, then I called Pizza to my side.
Lin and I each locked an arm together and held on to our Microsaurs with the other. The pack of tiny-raptors was closing in tight. Mr. Blue Tongue chomped at the air like he was chewing an invisible steak, and I was ready to get out of there!
“Hold on tight!” I said. I pressed down on the Grappling-Grabber button, and the device glue-tied to Lin’s back fired straight up into the back of the Fruity Stars Lab. Then I raised the retract lever on my phone all the way to full speed, and Lin, Cornelia, Pizza, and I were yanked out of the cave in a flash!
We tumbled to the soft, grass-covered ground, and the sunlight on my face never felt so good. But we didn’t have time to sit and enjoy things, because we both knew that the oviraptors would be coming out of the cave any second.
“Quick. Get Pizza and Cornelia to the penny platform,” I said, and Lin totally understood.
“We’re taking them with us,” she said as she started pushing the baby Microsaurs toward the side of the nearly destroyed Fruity Stars Lab.
“I’m not leaving them here until we figure out how to satisfy those oviraptors,” I said as I ran inside the lab.
Professor Penrod had discovered that the copper pennies were the perfect conductor for his CEPs, Carbonic Expansion Particles. So, while the cold aluminum of the metal step was part of the Shrink-A-Fying process, the sun-warmed copper penny was the key to expanding back to normal size.
I cranked a few levers, twisted a few knobs, and sparked a flame beneath the soda can that Professor Penrod used to hold his CEP mixture. It didn’t take long for the CEPs to start boiling up into the twisting tubes of the Expand-O-Matic, and I knew I had just enough time to run outside the lab and jump on the penny with Lin and the twins.
The showerhead above Lin dripped an orangish-golden drop and I lunged for the penny platform just as the Expand-O-Matic coughed out a puff of fine mist. Toasty-warm, golden particles danced all around us, glittering in the sunshine and sparkling against our skin.
I looked down to watch the ground shrink beneath me as Lin and I returned to our normal size. But Pizza and Cornelia almost disappeared as they stayed tiny, looking lost and afraid on the penny platform.
“Where’s Cornelia?” asked Lin.
I picked up the penny, balancing the twins carefully on its shiny copper face. “They are right here. Perfectly safe and fine,” I said. “Hold out your hand.”
Lin did, and I tipped the coin and Cornelia slid into the palm of her hand. I placed Pizza in my hand before returning the penny to the Microterium.
“Oh my gosh, she’s soooooo tiny!” Lin said. “Why didn’t she grow?”
“She didn’t need to. They are already regular-sized,” I said. “The Expand-O-Matic doesn’t make you bigger. It brings you back. This is as big as a Microsaur can get.”
“Oh yeah,” Lin said. “Which is fine with me, little cutie.” Lin used the very tip of her finger to scratch under Cornelia’s chin. I heard the tiniest squeak from my palm, and I smiled down at the micro-sized Pizza. He curled up in a ball and fell asleep. He’d had a long day, too.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” I asked.
“Almost. But I need that last corn dog in your backpack first,” Lin said.
“Oh man. It’s in pretty bad shape. Let’s go get some fresh ones at my house,” I explained.
“It’s not for me,” Lin said. She curled her hand around Cornelia, then unzipped my pack and pulled out the most smooshed, dirty, beat-up, sad-looking corn dog on the planet. “This looks perfect.”
Lin leaned down and stuck the corn dog in the hole that led to the dark cave below the Fruity Stars Lab. She tilted her head and looked off into nothing as she held the corn-dog stick. “Almost ready,” she said. “Just one more second.”
One second turned into three, then five, then ten. She lifted the corn dog out of the hole and smiled big and wide as she inspected it. A pack of tiny-raptors clung to the bottom of the smashed-up corn dog.
“I’ll be right back,” Lin said. She took a few big, careful steps, carrying the corn dog and the hungry pack of tiny-raptors to the very back of the Microterium. I watched as she carefully placed the corn dog, which was about a hundred times bigger than the tiny-raptors, in the shade of a little bonsai tree, then stood and nodded down at what she had done.
“That ought to satisfy them for a while,” she said.
“For sure,” I said. I heard a little HOOONK-HOOOOOONK rising up from below and looked down at my feet. I looked over at Lin, who was carefully making her way back to me.
“Hey. Honk-Honk, Bruno, and Zip-Zap are back,” I said. “Everything is back to normal.”
Lin joined me and we looked down at our tiny friends and the completely destroyed empty box of cereal. “Well, not everything is back to normal. The Fruity Stars Lab has seen better days.”
“Well, I guess we could try to fix it up. I think there’s some supplies in the…” I was going to suggest a plan for rebuilding the Fruity Stars Lab when Lin shouted me right out of my train of thought.
“IT’S FOUR THIRTY-SIX! I bet Icky Vicky is blow-drying her hair right now! She’ll be ready to race in no time!”
“Well then, what are we waiting for?” I said. “We’ve got work to do!”
CHAPTER 15
BACK TO THE TRACK
When you’re so small you can use a pencil eraser as a beanbag chair, it takes a long time to travel through the lush landscape of the Microterium. The place is massive and filled with everything from live rivers and swamps to bone-dry canyons. The more Lin and I explored the place, the more amazed I was at how much time it must have taken Professor Penrod to build it.
But when you are regular-sized, it seems pretty small. I mean, I could run from one end of the old secret, hideaway barn to the other in a few seconds. It’s the fastest way to travel, but it was almost impossible to do without crushing the carefully crafted landscape, not to mention the Microsaurs that lived there. There was only one place you could easily walk in the Microterium when you were regular-sized: the three stepping-stones Professor Penrod had placed between the Expand-O-Matic and the metal platform below the Shrink-A-Fier.
On our way back to the metal step, Lin reached down and picked up the world’s smallest skateboard. It was right where she had left it earlier, between the Shrink-A-Fier and the first rock stepping-stone.
I wanted to quickly gather up the upgrade parts we’d scattered throughout the Microterium as we dealt with the tiny-raptors, but we had to find a place for the twins first. I found a small glass jar and carefully placed Pizza inside it.
“Here. Hold this while I try to pick up the upgrades,” I said as I passed the jar of Pizza to Lin. She added Cornelia in with her brother and the two tiny-saurus rexes snuggled up tight.
Standing on the wooden floor, careful not to press against the metal step and trigger the Shrink-A-Fier, I leaned out over the swamp and tried to reach The Bolt’s upgrades that we’d left behind in the desert canyon.
“I can’t reach,” I said.
“Here, let me try,” Lin said. She stood on the very edge of the barn-lab floor. “Grab my hand and lower me down.”
Lin and I made a human chain as I lowered her down over the swamp. It only added a few inches, but she was able to grab the Slap-Clapper and the Goo-Cannon. I pulled her back up to the step and she handed me the half-shrunk upgrades.
“Sorry, Danny. That’s all I could reach,” Lin said as I stared at the parts in my hand.
I checked my watch. The race was going to start in less than seven minutes. I tucked the tiny parts in my pocket, gave Lin a smile, and shrugged. “Well, I guess we’ll have to beat Vicky the old-fashioned way. With good driving,” I said.
“And the Hammer of Doom. Don’t forget that,” Lin said.
> I looked back into Professor Penrod’s secret barn-lab, and there on the floor was the destroyed package, The Bolt, and the Hammer of Doom. The upgrade was in pretty bad shape, but I thought I could turn it into something useful in the next thirty seconds if I hurried.
“Okay. Here’s the plan,” I told Lin. “You make someplace more permanent and cozy for Pizza and Cornelia, and I’ll turn that RC car into a champion.”
“Deal!” Lin said.
I shucked off my backpack, then fell to my knees and started working on The Bolt. All of the upgrades except for the Hammer of Doom were still microsized, so my choices were limited. I had really wanted to tweak the settings on the car while I was small to get a closer look at the engine, but I didn’t have time to ring the water out of my shirt, let alone monkey around with The Bolt’s performance. The race was starting in four minutes and twenty seconds, and it would take us three minutes and forty seconds to get there. Especially with Lin’s skateboard being microsized.
“We’ll have to come back and unshrink everything later,” Lin said as I examined our last upgrade.
“Yeah. And we’ll have to see if we can straighten out the Fruity Stars Lab, too. It’s a shredded mess,” I said.
I didn’t have time to screw the Hammer of Doom to The Bolt like I had in the past, but I did the next best thing. I slipped my belt from my waist, circled it around the car, and tightened the upgrade to the top.
“Is that going to work?” Lin asked while she found an empty tin in my backpack that had once been full of mints.
“It might not smash down the same way it did before, but it’s better than nothing,” I said.
Lin pulled a fluffy piece of gauze from my first aid kit and stuffed it in the box. She punched some holes in the top of the empty mint box with a nail she found on the floor of Penrod’s barn-lab.
“How about this?” she asked.
“It’s perfect,” I said. I handed her the sleeping Pizza, and she put him and Cornelia in the box. Then she carefully tucked the new Microsaurus rex nursery in her pocket.
“I’m done,” I said. “Let’s RUN!”
Lin led me out of Professor Penrod’s top secret barn, and I followed her as fast as I could as we made our way to the Dump Track.
It was 4:47 when we arrived, and Icky Vicky was ready to leave. Her driver was buzzing her purple bug around the track, and she was standing there with her arms crossed, tapping her foot, a bored look on her face.
“You’re late, AND you’re soaking wet,” Icky Vicky said. “Classic Danny and Lin move.”
“We had swimming lessons, too,” I said as I swung my backpack off.
“Really? Were they in a mud puddle? Because you guys are filthy,” Vicky said.
“You’re just jealous. Everyone knows swimming in mud is good for your skin,” Lin said.
“Not that kind of mud,” Vicky said.
“We going to race or trade beauty secrets?” Lin asked.
I removed The Bolt from my backpack and started it up. I gave the controls to Lin and she spun it around in circles, kicking up a dust cloud so thick that Vicky coughed.
“Oh, we’re going to race all right,” Vicky said. “But where are all your upgrades?”
“We lost them in a desert while being chased by a pack of wild dinosaurs,” I said, telling the truth since I knew there was no way she would believe it anyway.
“You guys are so weird,” Vicky said.
“Weird and ready to win,” Lin said.
“Daddy? Are you ready?” Vicky asked.
“Of course, Victoria, darling.”
Lin parked The Bolt at the starting line, and Vicky’s driver pulled the purple beetle up next to our RC car. While we’d been busy with an epic raptor battle, Vicky’s car had been back in the shop. There were new upgrades hanging all over it, and most of them looked very familiar. It had a big speaker on the back, a glass cannon filled with black goop, a grappling hook on a silver spool, and two big plastic hands that looked ready to slap. But the real kicker was the red hammer strapped to the top of the car.
“Boy, those upgrades look familiar,” I said. “Wherever did you get the idea for those?”
Vicky looked over at me and wrinkled her nose, and right then I knew I wanted to beat her more than just about anything in the whole wide world.
“Are you ready?” Vicky’s dad asked.
Lin was too focused to respond. I tapped Lin on the shoulder to get her attention. She looked ready to me, but I needed to know how she was feeling. “Are you ready for this?” I asked.
She looked at me and gave me a dangerous smile. “You kidding me? Dude. We just defeated a hungry pack of oviraptors while riding on the backs of Microsaurs. After that, beating Icky Vicky in an RC car race will be a walk in the park.”
“Oh yeah. We’re ready,” I answered, full of confidence.
“On your mark! Get set! GO!!!” Vicky’s dad shouted.
Both cars burst forward, sending dirt clods and goop spraying behind them in an arching rainbow. The cars were nose to nose going into the first turn.
“Smack them, Daddy!” Vicky shouted, and her dad pressed a button. The hands on top of the car took a swing at The Bolt, but Lin was ready for it. She swerved to the left, ducking under an old high chair.
“Fire the hammer, Danny,” Lin said.
“Not yet,” I said. The belt that I had tightened around The Bolt was starting to come loose, but it was still holding on to the Hammer of Doom. We’d have only one shot, so we had to make it count.
The Bolt raced around the course, but every time Lin made a move, the purple car was a second faster. “Blast them, Daddy. BLAST THEM!”
Vicky’s dad pulled a trigger, and the speaker in the back of the purple beast boomed. The sound waves missed The Bolt by less than an inch, but they smashed the toilet bowl just behind the car into bits.
The race continued for two and a half laps. We were in the lead one second, then following the next. Lin was an RC-car-driving ninja, dodging every upgrade trick Vicky’s car threw our way. We had half a lap left. Less than fifty yards stood between us and victory.
“It’s hammer time, Danny,” Lin said as we pulled up right behind the purple beetle.
“Not quite yet,” I said. The Hammer of Doom was barely strapped to the roof of the car. It bounced and bobbled around with every bump in the road. The retaining arm, a metal rod at the base of the Hammer of Doom that kept it from launching forward like a missile, had fallen off somewhere during the race. I knew that the Hammer of Doom was going to go sailing as soon as I launched it, so I made up a new plan right there in the middle of the race. “Aim for the old diving board.”
“But that’s the wrong direction,” Lin said.
“Trust me,” I said. My finger hovered over the HoD button. I was ready to launch our one and only shot.
“I hope you’re right, Danny,” Lin said. She cranked the car to the left, and Vicky squealed with joy.
“Ha! You went the wrong way!” she said. “I’m going to win! I’m going to win!”
“Oh, no you’re not,” I whispered. Then, just as the front tires of The Bolt touched the diving board, I pressed the button. The hammer swung so fast and hard it looked like a blur. Instead of crashing down on the ground in front of us, it launched forward, soaring through the air. It smashed into the glass screen of an old television. The TV toppled over, smashing down on the other end of the diving board. The Bolt was sent rocketing through the air. It flipped end over end, flying right over Icky Vicky’s purple bug, and came down with a thud right in the middle of the finish line. Car parts sprang out from The Bolt in every direction. It was a total wreck, but we had won the race.
“NO! NOOOO! That did NOT just happen!” Victoria Van-Varbles shouted.
Lin looked at me and gave me a wink. I held out my fist to her and she gave it a little bump. There was no need to brag, or rub our victory into Vicky’s face. We’d won the race fair and square, had a fantastic adventure, and in
side Lin’s pocket were two sleeping, adorable twin Microsaurus rexes—our day had turned out pretty great!
“Hey, Vicky,” Lin said. Vicky turned and glared at us. “Nice race.”
“It was NOT a nice race, but I’m going to beat you next week, or my name isn’t Victoria Van-Varbles,” Vicky said.
Lin and I shared a glance and I knew exactly what she was thinking, and I felt exactly the same. I turned back to Vicky and smiled. “Actually, I think we’re retiring from RC racing. The Bolt has run its last race.”
“That’s not fair!” Vicky said. “I want a rematch.”
“Sorry, Vicky. But Danny’s right. We’re retiring from the racing circuit,” Lin said.
“We’d stay and chat, but there’s a Pizza that needs my attention,” I said as I smiled at Lin.
We laughed as I stuffed what remained of The Bolt in my pack, then I walked side by side with my best friend toward home, knowing that the day had been pretty great indeed.
A VIDEO NOTE FROM PROFESSOR PENROD
“Hello again, Danny and Lin. I hope this goes through. Our last call was cut short. I tried to call you right back, but as I told you, the satellite phone here is a bit unpredictable.
“I thought that sending a message might be a little easier. By now you’ve taken care of the new Microsaurs in the package I sent. I’m sure they were quite a surprise, and I can’t wait to find out what was inside the egg! I hope it hatched and is bouncing around happily in the Microterium.
“I’m also sending this to tell you that I’ve found something else very exciting. It will be the largest Microsaur in the collection. By far, I’d guess. I’ve been tracking the large Microsaurs for weeks now, and I think I’m getting very close. The area they live in is in danger of being destroyed to make room for a factory, so it’s very important that I find them soon and bring them back to the safe and loving sanctuary of the Microterium before it’s too late.
Microsaurs--Tiny-Raptor Pack Attack Page 6