Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jasper Goes for a Ride
Noodles tilted his globe-like head down toward Lefty in a quizzical fashion. His antennae ears rotated with a whirring sound, and he asked, “Beep boop?”
Ebenezer cackled. “Hah! That bucket of rusty bolts doesn’t know how to defend himself! What did you expect him to do?”
But Lefty wasn’t finished. He had squirmed and struggled and wiggled, and he was finally able to wrestle his tablet from the pocket of his lab coat. Jack watched as Lefty launched a music app, and funk began to radiate from the tablet. It wasn’t nearly as loud as the stereo had been, but it was clearly audible, nonetheless.
“What?” Ebenezer’s eyes widened behind his round glasses. “Stop that, at once!”
But it was too late. Noodles had already begun to tap his foot, and the fingers of one hand were snapping in time to the rhythm.
“Dance, Noodles, dance!” Lefty cried. “Get down and boogie!”
Jasper had drawn closer, and he had maneuvered himself behind the robot in an effort to access the power cell. Now, he saw that Noodles was about to launch into break-dancing mode.
The janitor only had time to voice his concern in the briefest of thoughts: “Uh-oh.”
And then Noodles was a whirlwind of dancing limbs, boogying and bopping his way across the basement. In a most ill-advised strategy, Jasper had wrapped his powerful arms around Noodles, in an effort to restrain him.
But Noodles’ passion for break-dancing proved too strong, and Jasper’s attempts to contain the robot were useless. He could only ride upon Noodles’ back like a bucking bronco, holding on for dear life. He had both arms wrapped around the shoulders and head of the robot, but in all the chaos, he somehow managed to keep hold of his precious broom.
Noodles was in a real frenzy of break-dancing fury, tearing across the laboratory in a cyclone of tumultuous destruction. Cabinets and computers were sent soaring, gadgets and gizmos put into flight.
“Egads!” Ebenezer shouted. “Quickly, Jasper! Remove the power cell, and deactivate that thing!”
“Easier said than done,” Jasper managed to articulate, between his grunts and groans of effort.
It was all he could do to simply hang on to Noodles, and it seemed highly unlikely that he would be able to do as Ebenezer asked. The power and energy of Noodles was truly astonishing! For he was break-dancing as if not even aware of Jasper’s weight, and the janitor was a huge man. But for all of his size, Jasper might as well have been a bug, clinging to the back of a wild boar.
“I’m going to fire the MegaNet!” Ebenezer warned, as he pointed the odd contraption at Noodles.
“Confound it, give me a chance to jump clear!” Jasper exclaimed, in a voice that was uncharacteristically high-pitched.
“Quickly! Stand back!” Ebenezer ordered.
Before Jasper had a chance to disembark of his own will, Noodles launched into a high-speed series of consecutive 360-degree spins.
“Whoa… whoa… whooooa!” Jasper cried.
Even from his compromised position, Jack could not help but chuckle at the janitor’s plight. True, he lay captured on the floor in a giant net, but it was delightful to see Jasper thrown about like a rag doll.
“Sweet sassafras!” Jasper yelled, as he lost his grip on Noodles, who continued to spin about.
The janitor soared through the air in a most improbable manner, given his large mass and general opposition to any and all manner of tomfoolery. Cursing all robots as he went, he collided with a large bookcase full of scientific volumes and notebooks, and the force of the impact sent the whole thing tumbling over.
To Jack’s horror, this created a domino effect, and an enormous chain of large bookshelves, cabinets, and hardware was soon crashing throughout the laboratory… and the path of destruction was headed straight for the three of them, who were bound upon the floor!
“Chew, Nibbler, chew!” Jack urged his dog.
Nibbler, who had never ceased his nibbling on the material of the net, picked up the pace. His eyes followed the tumbling articles that were falling throughout the laboratory, and he needed no further encouragement to accelerate their escape plan. His teeth gnashed upon the net, and doggy slobber went flying every which way.
“Gears and sprockets!” Lefty exclaimed. His eyes grew wide behind his glasses, as he watched the impending disaster draw closer. “We’re going to be squashed!”
Nibbler chewed and chewed, but it was all for naught. The cabinets crashed down over the three of them, before his teeth could sever the net. Jack pressed his eyes closed, and then he heard his uncle groan as the things fell upon them.
“Oof!” Lefty gasped.
Jack slowly opened his eyes, and he saw that his uncle had absorbed the brunt of the impact. Since Lefty was the biggest body in the net, the cabinets and other junk had landed upon him first, leaving Jack and Nibbler free from harm. The weight from the collision must have forced Lefty to press against the tablet, for the music stopped short. With the disappearance of the funk, Noodles slowed and stopped, becoming an easy target for the MegaNet.
“Take this, you bucket of bolts!” Ebenezer cried.
He fired the MegaNet, and Noodles became ensnared. The robot tried waving his slinky-like arms about, to rid himself of the heavy-duty net, but this just made him get even more tangled up. His clumsiness undid him, and Noodles soon clanged to the floor.
“Beep boop,” he lamented.
“Now, Jasper!” Ebenezer shouted. “Before somebody else decides they want to blast some funk music around here! Must I do everything myself?”
“I’m on it,” Jasper assured his evil cohort, in an off-kilter voice that belied his rather woozy condition.
The janitor staggered forward, swatting his broom at imaginary stars, or birds, or whatever he perceived to be circling his befuddled head. Regardless of Jasper’s impaired condition, he was slowly making his way toward the immobilized Noodles… and Jack could do nothing but watch.
The Green Beans, Volume 2: The Strange Genius of Lefty O'Houlihan Page 27