First Contact
Page 2
As he quietly climbed the rungs of the ladder, he could hear the other two Rabbids flinging furniture. “Bwah . . . bway . . . bwee!” SPLOOSH! “BWAH HA HA HA HA!”
Finally Glyker reached the top of the ladder. He peeked over the end of the diving board.
The Rabbid was still there. But he was starting to lean over the edge of the board. At any second, he might drop into the water.
It was now or never!
Glyker hauled himself up onto the diving board and ran toward Bikini Goggles. He was about to grab the Rabbid from behind . . .
. . . when the creature whipped around, gasped in surprise (“Bwaa?”), and jumped over Glyker . . .
. . . who couldn’t stop himself and ran right off the end of the board. (He might have been able to stop himself if the diving board wasn’t now covered in slippery, slimy sunscreen that had fallen off the Rabbid’s head. But then again . . . probably not.)
“AAAAHHHHH!” he screamed as he plummeted through the air.
BLOOOSHH! Glyker hit the water headfirst and sank all the way to the bottom. He pushed off the pool floor, shot to the surface, and gasped for air.
Treading water as best he could in his soaked clothes, he looked around.
No Rabbids. They were gone.
As he climbed out of the pool, dripping wet, Agent Glyker thought, First they invade our library. Then our public pool. What’s next?
CHAPTER 8:
WHAT’S NEXT
At the end of a long hard day working at the zoo, the zookeeper locked the front gate and headed home.
But three special visitors were still inside.
The Rabbids slowly emerged from the bushes. They wandered through the zoo, amazed by every animal they saw.
They tried to open their mouths as wide as the hippopotamus. This just made their jaws ache.
They tried to stretch their necks to be as long as the giraffe’s. But then they realized they didn’t really have necks.
They tried talking to the monkeys. “Bwah!” said the Rabbid leader, holding up his hand in greeting. “Bwah bwah bwah!”
The monkeys just stared at him.
“BWAH!” shouted the Rabbid.
“Ooh ooh! Aah aah! Ee ee! Oo WAAAHHH!” screamed the monkeys.
They talked back to the monkeys. “Bwhooh bwhooh! Bwaah Bwaah! Bwee Bwee! Bwoo BWAAAHH!”
The monkeys started swinging around on the ropes in their cage. That looked fun! The Rabbids jumped up and started swinging through the zoo’s trees, leaping from branch to branch.
But their short arms soon grew tired. The leader dropped to the ground, and the other two Rabbids landed behind him, breathing heavily.
“Bwoooooh!” the leader exclaimed, looking at the big animal caged in front of them.
It was a magnificent lion with a full, dark mane and a long tail.
When the lion noticed the three Rabbids staring at him, he roared. “ROOAAARRR!”
The Rabbids jumped back, startled. Then they opened their mouths and roared back. “BWOOOAAARRR!”
The lion started pacing back and forth, walking from one end of his cage to the other, staring at the bizarre creatures on the other side of the black bars.
The Rabbids watched the lion pacing. The cage didn’t seem big enough for such a huge beast. They looked at each other and nodded in agreement.
This animal needed more room . . .
CHAPTER 9:
ZOOM TO THE ZOO!
That evening Agent Glyker stayed late in his crummy little office working on his report. A puddle of pool water dripped off his sopping-wet clothing onto the floor around his broken old chair.
AGENT GLYKER’S REPORT (CONTINUED)
* * *
• Rabbids are NOT afraid of heights.
• They’re good jumpers, just like the rabbits they resemble.
• They like to throw chairs in pools.
• They’re hard to catch.
• They seem to like to wear things on their heads, including life preservers, magazines, and sunblock.
Summary: After invading a place of learning, the Rabbids chose to invade a place of leisure. What does this mean?
Agent Glyker stopped typing and read over his notes. His observation that the Rabbids liked to wear things on their heads caught his attention. That was a particularly clever observation, if he did say so himself. Could this information somehow help him capture a Rabbid?
He was afraid that if he didn’t catch a Rabbid soon, he’d be fired. Director Stern had hinted as much that afternoon.
Here’s what his hint sounded like: “GLYKER, IF YOU DON’T CATCH A RABBID SOON, YOU’RE FIRED!”
The ugly old brown phone on his desk rang. BRRRRING! As soon as he picked it up, he heard his boss’s voice blaring, “GLYKER! Have you got the TV on?”
“There’s no TV in my office, Director Stern.”
Stern ignored this. “There’s some kind of disturbance down at the zoo. You’d better get down there pronto. Smells like Rabbids to me!”
Glyker was confused. “You can smell things through your TV?”
“JUST GET TO THE ZOO!” Stern bellowed, and hung up.
Agent Glyker stood up, slipped in the puddle of pool water, and fell. WHAM! He got up and hurried down the hall toward the exit, rubbing his sore butt.
But as he passed the Closet of Super-Secret Spy Gadgets, he paused. Since he was new, he wasn’t authorized to take anything out of the closet without special permission.
But what was the point of being a spy if you couldn’t use super-secret gadgets?
At the zoo’s front gate Agent Glyker zipped over to the zookeeper and a policeman. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Neighbors complained about roaring, howling, and screeching,” the policeman said, consulting his notebook.
“Is that unusual at a zoo?” Glyker asked.
“We think some animals may be out of their cages,” the cop continued.
“Did you go inside to check?” Glyker asked.
“Are you kidding?” the zookeeper exclaimed. “That’d be incredibly dangerous!”
The zookeeper was right.
Glyker had only gone a few steps into the zoo when he spotted one of the Rabbids strolling along. He started after him but quickly noticed there was something between him and the Rabbid. Something big, furry, and white.
A polar bear!
Glyker froze. Though furry and cute looking, polar bears were extremely dangerous. Luckily, the polar bear hadn’t noticed him. When it turned its head away, Glyker dove behind a drinking fountain.
He cautiously looked out. The polar bear wandered off to another part of the zoo.
Glyker carefully made his way through the dark zoo, hoping to catch sight of another Rabbid.
He heard a CRREEAK! It sounded like a rusty gate opening. He investigated, and saw . . .
A rhinoceros stepping out of its enclosure!
Uh-oh.
Glyker froze again. Maybe if he didn’t move, the rhino wouldn’t notice—
“BWAAH!”
Glyker whipped around and saw a startled Rabbid. Before he could grab it, the Rabbid sprinted away, right past the rhino.
Now the rhino definitely noticed Glyker.
Pawing the ground, it lowered its head, aimed its long sharp horn right at him, and charged!
“WHOA!” Glyker yelled, putting his hands out, strongly suggesting that the rhino stop.
The rhino ignored this suggestion.
Glyker turned and scrambled up into the nearest tree. Lucky for him, rhinos can’t see that well. The rhino ran past the tree, enjoying its freedom.
Glyker lowered himself to the ground and headed in the opposite direction from the rhino.
It seemed as though the Rabbids had let all these animals out of their cages. Was this part of their master plan? Glyker wondered.
He’d have to be extra careful. First a polar bear, then a rhino . . .
And now a lion.
The huge lion wa
s trying to open a concession stand with its claws. He must have smelled the food stored inside.
But just past the lion, on the other side of the stand, were three Rabbids!
They looked like they were heading out of the zoo. There was no way Glyker could get past the lion and catch one of them.
But he wasn’t going to lose them again. Not this time.
Thinking quickly, he pulled something out of his pocket and threw it at the Rabbids. Then he jumped into a trash can to hide.
The lion went on scratching at the concession stand.
The thing Glyker threw hit one of the Rabbids in the back of the head.
“Bwah?”
The Rabbid stopped and looked at the ground to see what had hit him.
It was a hat.
“Bwaaaah!” the Rabbid said, excited. He bent down, picked up the hat, and popped it on his head.
Then he hurried to catch up with his two fellow Rabbids and left the zoo.
Inside the trash can, Agent Glyker smiled. (Even though it really stank in there.)
CHAPTER 10:
WHY HE SMILED
Once he’d gotten safely out of the zoo (barely avoiding a tiger, an elephant, and an ostrich), Agent Glyker pulled a small rectangular device out of his pocket.
BOOP! BOOP! BOOP!
The booping dot on the device’s screen moved across a map of the city. It showed exactly where the Rabbids were. Glyker had attached a tiny transmitter to the hat he’d thrown at the Rabbids. So now the transmitter was sending a signal to the device Glyker held in his hand.
This is more like it, Glyker thought. Instead of chasing the Rabbids through construction sites and pools and zoos, I’ll just wait for them to fall asleep. Then I’ll sneak up on them.
Staring at the device, Glyker climbed into his lousy old car.
The super-secret gadget led Glyker to the municipal dump on the edge of the city. The booping dot had stopped there. Glyker hoped that the Rabbids hadn’t just thrown the hat in the dump and moved on. He was counting on their love of putting things on their heads.
And he was right.
Glyker turned off the booping sound and made his way toward the signaling transmitter, carefully picking his way around the mounds of trash. Holding his nose, Glyker passed a big pile of used diapers. Suddenly, he spotted the hat.
And it was moving.
The Rabbid was still wearing it! And his two fellow Rabbids were nearby!
The three Rabbids looked very happy. As they picked through all the garbage, they made happy little sounds, almost as though they were humming to themselves. “Bwum bwa bwum bwa bweedly bwum . . .”
One picked up an old toaster. He stared into the two slots, turned it upside down, shook it, and tried wearing it on his head. He even licked it.
Another found a shoe. He tried talking into it like a telephone. “Bwa bwah?” Tried hammering with it. Grabbed the shoelace and whirled it around his head. Let go and . . .
WHACK!
The shoe hit the Rabbid wearing Glyker’s hat in the head. “BWAH HA HA HA!” laughed the Rabbid who’d thrown it.
The hat-wearing Rabbid was annoyed, but he just rubbed his head and went back to rummaging through the trash, searching for treasures.
As the long night went by, the Rabbids played with broken TVs, old radios, smelly dish towels, cracked vases, busted tricycles, and many, many other pieces of junk. Every time Glyker thought they were settling down to go to sleep, they found another broken object to mess around with.
And Glyker was getting sleepy . . .
Glyker woke with a start. The sun was coming up! He’d fallen asleep using a guitar case as a pillow and a wedding dress as a blanket.
Were the Rabbids gone? He looked around frantically and . . .
There they were! Fast asleep! Now was his chance!
He tiptoed over to the nearest Rabbid, who had curled up on an old green sofa. He leaned over and grabbed the Rabbid!
“BWWAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
As he tried to run back to his car carrying the Rabbid, its eyes turned red and it screamed. The Rabbid flailed its arms and kicked its legs, trying to climb onto Glyker’s head.
“Calm down!” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you!”
Then . . . THWACK! Something squishy hit Glyker in the back of the head. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! Three more somethings hit him as he ran. Smelly somethings.
The other two Rabbids had awakened as soon as their fellow Rabbid screamed. They grabbed used diapers from the big pile and threw them at Glyker.
One of the used diapers landed in front of Glyker. He stepped right on it and . . . FWOOP! He slipped and fell.
Before he could get up and run to his car, the other two Rabbids reached Glyker and their captured cohort. They grabbed the Rabbid’s arms and yanked him away from Glyker. As they ran away, Glyker saw one of the Rabbids pull an odd-looking device out and press a button on it.
“NO!” Glyker yelled after them desperately. “YOU’RE COMING WITH ME!”
But no one heard Agent Glyker yell, because his voice was completely drowned out by something much, much louder . . .
A spaceship.
CHAPTER 11:
THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT TIME
As Glyker watched helplessly, the spaceship landed right on top of the pile of used diapers. SHPLUMP!
The door opened and the three Rabbids ran inside. When the last one was in, he turned around, stuck his tongue out at Glyker, and made a very rude noise: PPVRRRRPPP!
The door closed and the spaceship flew away.
Back at the office Glyker finished telling Director Stern what had happened. For a moment his boss just sat in his big leather chair (which was much, much nicer than Glyker’s chair), scowling.
“So you’re telling me,” he said slowly, “that the Rabbids got in a spaceship and flew away.”
“Yes, sir,” Agent Glyker said, nodding.
“And that’s why you weren’t able to catch one and bring it in for questioning,” Stern continued.
“Right,” Glyker said.
“But you didn’t take any pictures of the spaceship,” his boss said, sounding angrier with each sentence.
“Um, no,” Glyker admitted. “I forgot.”
“You forgot,” Stern echoed in disbelief. “So tell me, Agent Glyker . . .”
“Yes, Director Stern?”
“WHY THE HECK SHOULDN’T I FIRE YOU RIGHT THIS INSTANT?” Stern roared.
Agent Glyker thought a moment. “Because,” he said, “those Rabbids will be back. And when they return, I’m going to get them. For absolute sure this time!”
Stern looked unconvinced.
“Also,” Glyker added, “I’m your nephew, Uncle Jim. Mom’d be really mad at you.”
Stern wiped his face and shook his head. “Just get out of my office,” he muttered.
Late that night on the other side of the city, a weird, eerie light lit up an empty field . . .
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Based on the TV series Rabbids™ Invasion as seen on Nickelodeon™
SIMON SPOTLIGHT
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
First Simon Spotlight edition July 2014
www.SimonandSchuster.com
© 2014 Ubisoft Entertainment. All rights reserved. Rabbids, Ubisoft, and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON SPOTLIGHT and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-4814-0038-1 (hc)
ISB
N 978-1-4814-0037-4 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-0039-8 (eBook)