The Schnoz of Doom Read online

  If there were cows in deep space, it would be called cow space, and that’s an udderly different thing altogether.

  Kevin ran around the corner of the factory and slammed into Joules, who had stopped abruptly. She elbowed him and pointed her stick down the narrow gap that ran between the crumbling brick wall and the dense brambles.

  “Look!” she said.

  Kevin looked where Joules was pointing, which was halfway to the far corner of the factory. A small gray creature huddled next to the crumbling wall. Kevin squeezed past Joules and tiptoed toward the creature, while Joules followed several feet behind him. (Any closer would have damaged her sense of smell.)

  Kevin took three steps, then paused as the brush rustled behind him and sent a shiver down his spine. He took a few more steps and stopped three feet from the gray creature. Kevin raised his butterfly net.

  Again, the brush rustled.

  “What’s that?” he whispered.

  “It’s the wind,” said Joules.

  Kevin raised a finger into the air.

  “There isn’t any wind,” he said.

  They listened carefully. Only the distant sound of a raven echoed through the still air.

  Joules pointed her stick at the creature.

  “Catch it and let’s get out of here!”

  Kevin took a step. Then another step. He raised his net, held his breath, and—SWOOP!

  Kevin scooped the creature into his net and swung it high over his head. A round blue eyeball flew out of the net, bounced off Joules’s cheek, and dropped to her feet.

  “Aaaaah!” Joules screamed and jumped backward into a large, spiky bramble that jabbed her leg.

  “Ouch!” she yelled, jerking her leg back.

  Kevin snorted with laughter and reached into the net. He pulled out a dingy gray toy bunny with one missing eye.

  “Not funny!” said Joules, punching Kevin in the arm.

  “Want to bet?” asked Kevin, wiggling the moldy bunny in front of her face.

  Joules grabbed the stuffed rabbit, hurled it into the brambles, and gave Kevin the stink-eye of all stink-eyes.

  “Keep going,” she said.

  Kevin thought about saying something stupid like “Eye-eye” or “Keep an eye out for more bunnies,” but he knew better.

  Kevin and Joules crept farther along the wall, past an exceptionally thick tangle of brambles. Just before the next corner of the factory, they found a mound of garbage with everything from soup cans to mildewed stuffed toys.

  She poked her stick into the mound of trash. A cloud of dust burst into the air and—FWOOSH!

  A small gray rabbit with an enormous nose burst out of the pile and hopped around the corner on its tiny feet.

  “Get it!” yelled Joules.

  Kevin ran around the corner, swinging his tiny butterfly net in front of him.

  SWOOSH!

  A giant, long-handled bass-fishing net scooped up the big-nosed rabbit in one smooth motion. Joules and Kevin rounded the corner just as the owner of the net jumped onto a blue bike and sped away.

  “Woo-hoo!” yelled Mack Buckley. “Extra credit!”

  As Mack rode away with the net over his shoulder, the rabbit inside stared back at the twins with swirly blue eyes.

  “Get back here!” yelled Joules. “That’s our rabbit!”

  Mack was gone. Joules kicked the brick wall, sending a shower of mortar dust flying into the air. The dust tickled Kevin’s nose.

  “Aaaaa-choo! Aaaaa-choo!”

  Kevin pulled a pack of tissues from his backpack and blew his nose.

  “Let’s go home,” said Joules.

  “Aaaa-choo! Aaaa-choo!”

  Joules did not wait for Kevin to finish his sneezing. She ran for the bikes at the front of the factory. Had she waited—had she even looked back at her sneezing brother—she might have noticed the very large, very rabbit-shaped shadow stretching over Kevin as he stood blowing his nose.

  The large-nosed shadow rose up behind the boy. It stretched to twice Kevin’s height. The shadow loomed behind him and raised its shadow-claws above Kevin’s head. The shadow leaned closer and closer as Kevin squeezed his nose tight and blew—

  Honk!

  The shadow froze. Kevin blew his nose again.

  Honk!

  The shadow rabbit tilted its head back and forth, then grew taller. And taller. And taller still.

  Kevin crumpled the tissue, tossed it to the ground, and ran after his sister.

  As the putrid-smelling boy ran away, a now medium-sized rabbit, which had, until a moment ago, been quite small, hopped from behind the decaying wall of the factory, its enormous shadow dissolving away in the full sunlight. The rabbit drummed its tiny feet rapidly on the ground and sniffed the air with its large schnoz. It snagged the crumpled tissue with one razor-sharp claw and pressed the cool, damp tissue to its schnoz. It breathed in the lingering stench as it watched the boy disappear beyond the edge of the factory. The rabbit dropped the tissue, flashed its fangs, and followed.

  The house was deserted when Kevin and Joules got home. Mr. and Mrs. Rockman were on their weekly SPAM shopping trip. Joules sank into a kitchen chair and gulped down an icy glass of water.

  “We need to get cooking,” Joules said.

  “Good,” said Kevin. “I’m starving. That was a long ride.”

  “We’re not cooking dinner,” said Joules.

  Kevin knew that Joules wasn’t talking about dinner. She was talking about splurp. Splurp was a special and highly toxic combination of nastiness that they had invented in the kitchen of an abandoned NASA facility near Camp Whatsitooya. It was a nauseating purplish-greenish-brownish goop with the power to neutralize the band of Fierce, Large, Ugly, and Ferocious Furballs that had taken over the camp and had threatened to take over the whole planet.

  “We shouldn’t do that,” said Kevin, who was exhausted and just wanted to eat and take a shower. He was too tired to spend the next three hours mixing up a brew nasty enough to fight aliens.

  “Besides, we don’t know enough yet,” he reasoned. “We might not need it. These might just be really ugly bunnies.”

  “Look me straight in the eye and tell me these are just really ugly bunnies,” said Joules. “Besides, their eyes are the same.”

  “I know,” said Kevin, “but we don’t have any evidence that splurp will affect them at all. We need to study them.”

  Kevin flipped open his notebook and looked at a drawing he’d made of the Fluffs they had encountered at camp.

  “They don’t look like these rabbits from camp,” he said. “We need a chart to help figure this out.”

  “Their eyes look the same,” said Joules. “I don’t know if splurp will work on them if they go alien-crazy on everyone, but we need to be prepared. Just in case.”

  “Maybe we need to do both,” said Kevin.

  “Okay,” said Joules. “You make a chart. I’ll get the SPAM.”

  Joules pulled out the soup pot and raided the pantry. She pulled out six cans of SPAM, that delicious canned meat that her parents were famous for using in their recipes. Mr. and Mrs. Rockman adored SPAM. In fact, the Rockmans were the reigning SPAM King and SPAM Queen at the International SPAMathon in Cheekville, Pennsylvania.

  But wait! Those of you who were paying attention to the first paragraph of this chapter will remember that the Rockmans were out buying SPAM. Why would they do that when they clearly had cans of the delicious cubed meat in their cupboard? Here’s why. Because you can’t have too much SPAM. Truly. It is not possible.

  Those of you who didn’t notice that the Rockmans were out buying SPAM when they already had some should pay more attention. Really! Paying attention helps build stronger brains. (This message was brought to you by your English teacher, who—it should be said—is getting a little tired of spending a teacher’s income to pay for commercials and offer bribes. English teachers work hard. They care deeply about your education. But they do not get paid in gold doubloons. Perhaps if your school district started paying in gold doubloons, things would be different. But it doesn’t. So until it does, be grateful you have such a caring English teacher and pay attention!)

  When suddenly . . . we stopped talking about your English teacher and got back to the story! Joules opened the SPAM and drained the juice into the soup pot. For good measure, she tossed in a few chunks of meat to help the brew. She raided the fridge and added all kinds of things she could not identify—which was almost everything—and a few that she could: ketchup, mustard, mushroom soup, prune juice, Trix cereal, pickles, peanut butter, hot sauce . . .

  As the concoction simmered, lovely sweet and flowery aromas filled the room. Aromas that reminded Joules of a sunny spring day filled with blooming flowers.

  Ha! That was a lie. And if your spring days smell like Joules’s concoction, you might consider moving.

  Soon, the concoction plopped and splurped and turned the color of the tile in a campground shower.

  “I think it’s done,” said Joules.

  “Me too,” said Kevin.

  Joules turned off the burner and looked at Kevin’s chart.

  “That about sums it up,” she said.

  “Yep,” said Kevin. “Pass the splurp.”

  WHAT WE KNOW

  WHAT WE NEED TO FIND OUT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

  Almost nothing

  Everything else

  When suddenly . . .

  Joules and Kevin Rockman once more entered the front doors of TBD School. Actually, while this seems very sudden to you, it was not at all sudden to them. Seventeen hours had passed since they had left school. During those hours, the Rockman twins had visited the Snottie’s Tissue Factory, returned home, cooked up a batch of splurp, and filled two large spray bottles, which they stuck in
side their backpacks. After that, they ate dinner, went to bed, got up, got dressed, and returned to school. Phew! They were busy!

  Now that you know all these things, their being back at school probably does not seem sudden to you, either. Perhaps we should start again.

  When finally . . .

  Joules and Kevin Rockman once more entered the front doors of TBD School. As always, they were greeted by Principal Posner and her band of too-slow-to-avoid-being-bandaged-up students.

  A first-grade girl entering just before the twins sneezed as she passed the principal.

  “Into your elbow!” yelled the principal. “Always sneeze into your elbow! Are you trying to contaminate everyone?”

  The stunned girl paused and dutifully raised her elbow to her nose. Principal Posner jumped into action. Within seconds the girl was bandaged head to toe with her bent arm wrapped securely over her face. She looked like a triangle-headed mummy.

  “Four-point-five seconds,” Principal Posner said proudly, admiring her work.

  As Joules and Kevin quickly slipped past her, Joules bumped into a tall mummy with red high-top sneakers.

  “Mmmmmm,” groaned the mummy.

  “Hey, Eric,” said Joules.

  “That’s not Eric,” said Kevin. “It’s Elizabeth.”

  “Nope,” said Joules, pointing at a girl by the lunchroom. “That’s Elizabeth.”

  “Well, that’s Eric over there,” said Kevin.

  “Whatever,” said Joules.

  Joules and Kevin ducked into the biology room and took their seats at their usual lab table. They were not shocked to find Mack already sitting in his seat with his hand raised. Nor were they surprised to see a new cage on the floor containing the big-schnozzled gray rabbit he had snatched away from them at the factory.

  However, they were surprised by something else. The first cage, which had been a small, square cage with a small rabbit only seventeen hours ago, was now a bulging metal orb crammed to the bursting point with a massive gray creature whose ragged fur poked through the cage’s grille. The rabbit, which had been the size of a Chihuahua only seventeen hours earlier, had grown into a mangy, growling gray beast much bigger than a Chihuahua. It was now the size of a Chihuanard.

  The rabbits pressed their faces against their cages. They wobbled their noses and sniffed the air hungrily while staring intensely at Kevin. Their blue eyes swirled while they drummed their tiny feet rapidly against the cage floors.

  “They’re creeping me out,” he whispered to Joules.

  “I think they like you,” said Joules. “Maybe it’s your smell.”

  “What? I smell?” Kevin asked. “That’s not possible. I showered when we got home from the factory! How do I smell?”

  “Bad?” suggested Joules, scooting away.

  “No way!” said Kevin.

  “Ooh!” said Joules. “I just remembered I need to sit up there.”

  She swooped up her books and sprinted to an empty seat at the front table. Kevin looked around to see if anyone was watching, then gave a sly sniff toward his shirt. It was no use. He was too stuffed up to tell if he smelled or not. He looked around again to see if anyone had seen him. As he turned, he noticed that the bowl of jala-sauer-fu he had dumped onto his pants the day before was now back on the counter and was filled to the brim with the green goop.

  “Look!” Kevin yelled. “It’s not me!”

  “Keep telling yourself that!” said Joules, making a sour face and pinching her nose shut.

  “Funny,” said Kevin.

  At that moment, Mr. H came in, hung his coat over Mack’s raised hand, and sat down without noticing the students.

  Joules and Kevin breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. H was safe. Most people would not be worried about Mr. H. After all, he was a grown man capable of running away if something frightened him. But Joules and Kevin knew better. Mr. H, like their parents, did not find the unknown frightening. They found it thrilling. They were curious about everything and sought answers to all the questions they encountered. It’s what made them scientists. It also made them forget that sometimes the unknown can be interesting and deadly.

  After twenty minutes, Mr. H looked up, freaked out about the short freshmen staring at him, and finally began class for real. His lecture was “Thermochemical Properties of Albumen and Protein Emulsions and the—”

  Hey!

  Wake up!

  You were dozing off. It’s true that chemistry can be challenging, but it won’t help if you fall asleep. Now, where were we . . . Oh yeah . . .

  Mr. H’s lecture was “Thermochemical Properties of Albumen and Protein Emulsions and the Diffusion Rate of Glucose and 3-carboxy-3-hydroxypentanedioic Acid Molecules in Dihydrogen Monoxide Solution.”

  Phew! That was a mouthful. Okay. Take a quick nap if you need to recover. We’ll wait.

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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . la la la la . . . . . . . . . . . La la la la . . . . . . . . . . . LA LA LA LA . . . . . . . . . LA! LA! LA! LA! . . . . . LA! LA! LA! LA! . . . . . Oh. We’re sorry. Did our singing wake you? Well, now that you’re up, let’s continue!

  Mr. H hummed as he danced around the class, pulling items from the cabinets and performing a series of experiments. He reached into the tiny refrigerator on the counter behind his desk and pulled out a glass beaker filled with a gloppy yellow liquid. He rapidly whisked the mixture until it frothed, then poured it into a metal pan over an electric hot plate. He was happy as a clam. He asked Joules to assist.

  “Please stir this,” he said, handing a wooden spoon to Joules.

  She stirred the yellow liquid, which instantly clumped together.

  “Wait a minute,” Joules said. “Are we making scrambled eggs?”

  “We are making science!” said Mr. H gleefully.

  He opened a can of frozen orange juice and dumped it into a flask of water. He stirred it with a long glass rod.

  “Watch those molecules diffuse!” he said.

  He reached into his briefcase, pulled out a piece of bread, a pair of tongs, and laboratory goggles. He lit a Bunsen burner and stuck the bread over the flame.

  “Wait until you see tomorrow’s lesson!” he said, pulling a giant bag of potatoes from a cabinet and dropping it on the counter. Before Mr. H could describe the next day’s lecture—“Methods to Preserve the Structure of Fragile Polysaccharide Molecules in a Lactose Infusion of Common Fatty Acids—Or, How to Make Great Mashed Potatoes”—the bell rang.

  As the other students packed up to leave, Kevin walked over to Joules and Mr. H.

  “Have you noticed how big and weird that rabbit looks now?”

  Mr. H arched his eyebrows and looked over his round glasses. He gave Kevin a kind but nudging look.

  “Remember our lesson from yesterday, Kevin?” he asked. “That is an Other. If it flew, we would reclassify it. But that has not flown. Has it?”

  “Well, no,” Kevin said. “But look at it! It’s massive and it has fangs and—”

  “Kevin,” said Mr. H with a wink. “You watch too many movies. You should try looking at the world in an organized way like your sister! Try taking better notes in class. Now, off you go.”

  “Yeah, Kevin,” said Joules. “You should try using a notebook sometime. They’re the best.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes at his sister, who stuck her tongue out at him when Mr. H turned around to scoop some of his experiment onto a plate. He squirted some “red emulsion,” which you might recognize as ketchup, onto his eggs and sat down to eat. The conversation was over.