Zack looked at Eleanor.
Eleanor looked at Zack.
‘Methane madness,’ they said in unison.
‘No,’ said Ned. ‘Just a piece of inspired design and a lot of hard work. She’s the ultimate bum-fighting machine. I built her out of the parts of crashed and abandoned bum-mobiles I found in the Great Windy Desert.’
‘Robobum is a girl?’ said Zack’s bum. ‘Eerrgghh!’
‘Yes, well . . .’ said Ned. ‘It gets lonely out there in the desert. Introduce yourself, Robobum.’
‘Hello. I am Robobum,’ said the soothing female voice they had heard earlier. ‘Fully riveted reinforced steel cheeks. Turbo-assisted jet repulsion units. Nuclear wart-head equipped. Matter transport assisted entry and exit. Inside and outside voice options. Onboard tea- and coffee-making facilities. And I am self-wiping!’
‘Well,’ said Ned, proudly. ‘What do you think?’
‘Is this your idea of a joke?’ said Eleanor.
‘Joke?’ said Ned, a little taken aback. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Making us think that we were being burnt up by a Great White Bum’s death ray,’ said Eleanor. ‘That’s what I mean.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ned. ‘But I couldn’t think how else I could get you inside. Robobum can broadcast her voice outside, but I hardly think you would have accepted an invitation to climb aboard. Please forgive me. And try to look on the bright side: you’re now safe inside the ultimate bum-fighting machine. Not only can she travel across land, fly through the air and swim through the sea, she can . . .’
‘Ned,’ interrupted Eleanor. ‘I’m glad you’re so happy with your new toy, but you’re too late.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Ned. ‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘But everybody else is dead. Half an hour ago a giant brown blob hit the open-air chapel. Everyone was squashed. Zack’s parents. My father. The Kicker, the Smacker and this year’s entire intake of bum-fighting recruits.’
‘We’re the only ones who got out alive,’ said Zack.
Ned shook his craggy, grizzled head that showed the scars and blast-marks of a lifetime of bum-fighting. ‘I’m afraid I have even worse news,’ he said softly.
‘What could possibly be worse than that?’ said Eleanor.
Ned didn’t reply. He motioned them to follow him over to the bank of screens flickering on the far wall. ‘See for yourself,’ he said.
CHAPTER 12
BUMAGEDDON
Zack stood in front of the fifty-screen display and blinked. He’d never seen so many television screens at the same time. Or so much destruction.
One screen showed giant brown blobs pounding the pyramids of Egypt into rubble.
Another screen showed a gang of Great White Bums tearing the Eiffel Tower from the ground.
A third screen showed New York being swamped by giant waves of brown sludge.
It was hard for Zack to know which screen to look at.
It was even harder to make sense of the sheer scale of the unfolding disaster. All Zack knew was that it was impossible to look away.
‘Zack?’ said his bum. ‘I’m scared. Can you hold my hand?’
Zack took his bum’s trembling hand in his as they watched the unfolding mayhem.
‘This is for real?’ said Zack.
‘Yes,’ said Ned sadly. ‘Live via bumcam. Robobum has access to satellites transmitting images from around the world twenty-four hours a day.’
Zack clutched Eleanor’s arm. He’d seen isolated towns ravaged by bum attacks before, but nothing on this scale. And he could tell, judging by the expression on Eleanor’s face, that neither had she.
Bumquakes. Stink-tornadoes. Brown rain. Crapalanches. Vast armies of Great White Bums hell-bent on giant-brown-blobbifying the entire world to bumblivion.
‘Bumageddon,’ whispered Eleanor, as she stared open-mouthed at the nightmarish images on the screens.
CHAPTER 13
BUMAGEDDON?
‘Bumageddon?’ said Zack.
‘Bumageddon,’ said Ned, nodding solemnly.
‘Oh no!’ said Zack’s bum. ‘Not Bumageddon!’
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘Bumageddon.’
CHAPTER 14
PROPHECY
‘Well, that’s just great,’ said Zack. ‘Now that we’ve got that cleared up, would somebody mind telling me what Bumageddon actually is?’
‘Affirmative,’ crackled Robobum. ‘Bumageddon. The complete destruction of the world by bums. As prophesied in the ancient text, The Book of Bumageddon, where it is written, “And enormous bums will conquer the world and complete and utter devarsetation will follow. Giant brown blobs will rain down upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. An evil stench will cover the land. And bums will rule the world again as they did in their glorious prehistoric past.” ’
Zack gasped. ‘Did the ancient texts say anything about how to prevent it?’ he said.
Ned shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They just said it would happen.’
‘But how?’ said Zack. ‘And why? Where did all these Great White Bums come from?’
‘That I do know,’ said Ned. ‘One week ago I was in the Great Windy Desert hunting for stinkant juice. Robobum uses it exclusively. It’s the most powerful fuel source in the world. A single drop will take you around the world and back—but it’s very hard to find. I’d been searching all day without much luck. I was about to head back when I felt a huge tug on the divining rod. It was stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before. Next thing I knew, the ground crumbled beneath me and I fell into what turned out to be an ancient stinkant nest. It was huge. I spent the better part of two weeks mapping it before I discovered a tunnel which led me to an enormous cave containing a vast reservoir of prehistoric stinkant juice. I filled my canisters and was about to leave when I noticed something written on the wall.’
Ned paused here, apparently unnerved by the memory.
‘What was written on the wall, Ned?’ said Eleanor. Ned pulled a crumpled notepad from his top pocket. ‘I wrote it down,’ he said. He flipped through the pages, took a deep breath and began to read. ‘ “WARNING! THE GREAT WHITE BUM IS USING THE BROWN HOLE TO SEND PREHISTORIC GREAT WHITE BUMS FORWARD THROUGH TIME. STOP HIM OR THE WORLD IS DOOMED.” ’
Ned closed the pad and put it back into his pocket. ‘That’s all it said. And underneath there were three skeletons, huddled together.’
Eleanor looked sceptical. ‘Are you sure you weren’t suffering methane madness down there?’
‘It wasn’t methane madness,’ said Ned. He reached into his pocket again and pulled out a bar of soap. ‘One of the skeletons was holding this.’
Zack looked at the soap and gulped. Imperial Leather . . . his grandmother’s favourite brand.
CHAPTER 15
SOAP
‘Are you all right, Zack?’ said Eleanor. ‘You’ve gone all white.’
‘That’s my . . .’ said Zack, finding it difficult to put what he was thinking into words, ‘that’s my grandmother’s soap. You know how fanatical she was about washing her hands.’
Now it was Ned’s turn to be confused. ‘Your grandmother’s soap?’ he said. ‘That’s impossible, Zack. I carbon-dated that message. It was 65 million years old.’
‘Sixty-five million?’ said Zack. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive,’ said Ned. ‘I had Robobum check the results.’
‘But that’s crazy,’ said Zack. ‘How could my gran be writing 65-million-year-old messages?’
‘Beats me,’ said Ned, shrugging.
‘Unless,’ said Eleanor thoughtfully. ‘Unless we weren’t the only ones who made it out the other end of the brown hole.’
‘You think Gran survived as well?’ said Zack. ‘But we didn’t see her on Uranus.’
‘Maybe she didn’t go to Uranus,’ said Eleanor. ‘Maybe . . .’
‘Hang on,’ said Ned, his mouth open in astonishment. ‘Are you saying t
hat you got sucked into a brown hole and ended up on Uranus?’
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘After the zombie bum invasion . . .’
‘Zombie bum invasion?’ said Ned, even more astonished than before.
Eleanor and Zack looked at each other.
‘Ned,’ said Eleanor, ‘how long were you underground in that stinkant nest?’
‘Hard to say,’ said Ned, frowning. ‘About two weeks, I think—I kind of lost track of time.’
‘Did you have any contact with the outside world while you were down there?’ said Zack. ‘Radio? Bumcam?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ned. ‘I was too far underground. What on earth happened?’
‘It’s a long story*,’ said Zack, ‘but after the Great White Bum was blown out of the bumcano last month, as you know, he was flung through space and collided with Uranus. The collision created a huge explosion that caused a whole load of bums to turn into zombies, which then attacked the Earth. We fought them off, but ended up chasing the Great White Bum back into outer space where we were sucked into a brown hole, along with my gran—the Pincher—and two other bum-fighters, the Flicker and the Forker. We didn’t know what had happened to them. Until now, that is.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ said Ned. ‘Are you saying that one of those skeletons might have been your gran?’
‘It would certainly explain the soap,’ said Eleanor. ‘And the message. The brown hole must have sucked her, the other bum-fighters and the Great White Bum back to prehistoric times—when prehistoric bumosaurs ruled the Earth!’
‘So you think the Great White Bum is using the brown hole as some sort of bridge from the past to the present?’ said Zack’s bum.
‘It’s possible,’ said Eleanor. ‘And not just the Great White Bum. All of the Great White Bums.’
‘But why?’ said Zack. ‘Why doesn’t he just stay there with all his pals where he belongs?’
‘Ah,’ said Ned. ‘I think I can answer that one. If my—and Robobum’s—calculations are correct, that message was written just before a very important event in the Earth’s history. Less than twenty-four hours after that message was written, a giant arseteroid slammed into the Earth and caused the extinction of all the bumosaurs, including the Great White Bums.’
‘And my gran,’ said Zack, stunned.
‘And your gran,’ said Ned.
*For the full story see Zombie Bums from Uranus, Andy Griffiths, Pan, Sydney, 2003.
CHAPTER 16
REWIND
Zack felt dizzy as he tried to make sense of Ned’s words.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ said Eleanor, frowning. ‘The Great White Bum is actually a Great White Bumosaur, a relic from the times when Great White Bumosaurs ruled the Earth.’
‘Correct,’ said Ned.
‘And in the original history of the Earth all of the Great White Bumosaurs—except for the Great White Bum—were wiped out when a giant arseteroid hit the Earth.’
‘Correct again,’ said Ned.
‘But now, the Great White Bum has taken advantage of the brown hole’s closeness to the Earth to provide an escape route from the doomed past to the safety of the present.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ned.
‘So the answer is simple,’ said Eleanor.
‘It is?’ said Zack’s bum.
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor. ‘We have to go back in time and stop the Great White Bum from carrying out its evacuation.’
‘But how?’ said Zack.
‘I’ll spell it out for you,’ said Eleanor. ‘We go back to the past. We use Robobum’s nuclear wart-head to terminate the Great White Bum once and for all. Without the Great White Bum’s help, the other Great White Bums won’t be able to return to the present. They’ll die—as they did, and as they should have done—when the arseteroid hits. Meanwhile, we’ll return to the present . . . a Great White Bum-free present.’
Zack gulped as he realised what Eleanor was proposing. ‘But that’s dangerous,’ he said.
‘So is staying here, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ said Eleanor.
‘But brown holes are unpredictable,’ said Zack. ‘We went into the same brown hole as the rest of them and we didn’t go back into the past. What makes you think that it will work this time?’
‘There’s a better . . .’ started Ned, but he was cut off by Eleanor.
‘Let me handle him,’ said Eleanor. ‘He’s a bit slow.’
‘I am not slow!’ said Zack.
‘You are,’ said his bum.
‘Thanks for your support,’ said Zack. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’
‘On your backside to be exact,’ said his bum.
Zack ignored his bum and turned to Eleanor. ‘All I’m saying is what your father told us, over and over. They are too dangerous. And besides, my mum made me promise.’
Tears filled Eleanor’s eyes. ‘Zack,’ she said slowly, ‘neither your mum nor my dad is alive anymore. Promises made back then don’t count. Neither do warnings. That was another world ago. Things have changed, and we have to adapt or we could very well end up extinct ourselves.’
Zack was silent.
‘Besides,’ said Eleanor. ‘We owe it to their memory to try to stop this. It’s what they would have wanted us to do, no matter how dangerous.’ She paused. ‘It’s what they would do—if they could.’
Zack looked at the sickening images on the screens.
He knew Eleanor was right, but he was still terrified.
‘There is another way,’ said Ned.
‘Another way?’ said Eleanor. ‘What are you talking about?’
CHAPTER 17
PREPARATIONS
‘Well,’ said Ned, ‘apart from her other features, Robobum is fully equipped for time travel.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’ said Eleanor.
‘I’ve been trying to,’ said Ned. ‘But you wouldn’t let me.’
‘Time travel?’ said Zack. ‘But don’t you need a . . .’
‘Perambulic merimbulator?’ said Ned.
‘Yes!’ said Zack, who’d studied time machine technology for a school project.
‘I’ve got one,’ said Ned. ‘Robobum instructed me how to make a rudimentary one out of a Milo tin and an old mattress spring.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Zack. ‘And it can go all the way back? Sixty-five million years?’
‘Yes,’ said Ned. ‘At least, I think so.’
‘What do you mean, you THINK so?’ said Eleanor.
‘Well,’ said Ned. ‘I’ve never actually tested it. I’ve been too busy. But you know what they say about time travel? There’s no time like the present!’
Zack rolled his eyes at Ned’s joke.
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ said Eleanor. ‘Let’s do it!’
‘Right you are,’ said Ned. ‘Robobum . . . prepare for time travel!’
‘Affirmative,’ said Robobum. ‘Please enter the passenger pods and secure safety harnesses. I will then present a short film about time travel safety.’
‘Skip the safety presentation,’ said Ned. ‘We have to get out of here before we end up Bumageddonised ourselves. We’ve got a human race to save.’
‘Understood,’ said Robobum. ‘Safety presentation suspended. But please exercise extreme caution at all times. Even the tiniest change to the past may have catastrophic effects on the future.’
‘Warning heard and understood,’ said Ned. He led Zack, Zack’s bum and Eleanor over to a bank of what looked like six glass coffins.
‘Well, whatever we do,’ said Zack’s bum as it lay down in one of the pods, ‘it can’t be any worse than what’s already happening.’
‘The small bum speaks the truth,’ said Robobum.
CHAPTER 18
COUNTDOWN
‘Time travel commencing in T-minus 20 seconds,’ announced Robobum.
Zack took a deep breath as he climbed into his pod. His stomach was churning. They were about to voyage 65 million years into the past on the most
important bum-fighting mission ever undertaken in the entire history of bum-fighting.
The world—as they’d known it—was doomed. Bumageddon was nigh.
‘Time travel commencing in T-minus 15 seconds,’ announced Robobum.
Zack looked at Ned, who was adjusting the dials on the temporal navigator—a dome-like structure that allowed them to control both the direction and the distance of their passage through time.
‘Time travel commencing in T-minus 10 seconds,’ announced Robobum.
At last Ned finished setting their course. He walked up to his pod, climbed inside and strapped himself in. He signalled to Zack to do the same.
‘Time travel commencing in T-minus 5 seconds,’ announced Robobum. Five . . .’
Zack fumbled with his belt.
‘Four . . .’
‘Stupid belt!’ said Zack.
‘Three . . .’
‘Great!’ he said. ‘Most important mission ever, and no safety belt!’
‘Two . . .’
Zack clutched the handgrips on his pod as tightly as he could.
‘One . . .’
Zack closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 19
650,000,000 BC
Zack held his breath and waited . . . but nothing seemed to happen. He opened his eyes. ‘When do we leave?’ he said.
‘We’re already there!’ said Ned, climbing out of his pod.
‘What do you mean?’ said Eleanor, sitting up. ‘It didn’t feel like we moved at all.’
‘No,’ said Ned. ‘Technically speaking, we didn’t move. Time moved through us.’
‘Huh?’ said Eleanor, frowning.
‘We must have moved somewhere,’ said Zack, standing in front of the bumcam monitors. ‘Look!’
Eleanor, Ned and Zack’s bum came over and joined Zack at the screens.
Bumcam now consisted of a single super-sized image provided by a hidden camera mounted on the top of Robobum.
Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict Page 3