Downright Dangerous

by Ellen Potter

“So what did he give you to do this?” I asked. “Money?”

  They shook their heads.

  Hobbs pulled out a lollipop from his pocket and held it up. He pushed a button on the stick and the lollipop started spinning.

  “You did it for a spinning lollipop?”

  He nodded his head.

  Then Lucy and Linus took their motorized lollipops out of their pockets and started spinning them, too.

  Here’s an interesting fun fact:

  Spinning lollipops sound an awful lot like robot yellow jackets.

  Once I shooed Linus, Lucy, and Hobbes back to their apartment, I went to look for Pandora.

  Luckily, green-headed people are easy to spot.

  “Yeah, I saw her,” Julius said. “She ran right out the lobby door just a few minutes ago. She was headed in the direction of the playground.”

  “Thanks!” I said and ran toward the door, too. Behind me I could hear a rustle of plant leaves and the sound of Potted Plant Guy laughing.

  “Heh, heh, heh.”

  Pandora was in the playground. Well, not exactly in the playground. She was about a foot above the playground. Riding on my hovercraft!

  “Hey!!” She waved to me as she zoomed by. “Did you know this thing flies?”

  It was flying really well, too. She zipped around the monkey bars and leaned to the left to make it swoop back toward me. I have to admit it … she could ride that thing like a pro.

  I had a big smile on my face. Because now I was pretty sure that my hovercraft could win the contest. I didn’t know what Sid’s entry was going to be, but I doubted it would be anywhere near as cool as what I had built.

  As soon as I thought that, guess who comes walking into the playground?

  That’s right.

  Sid Frackas.

  “HA!” I said to Sid. “Looks like you wasted your money on those spinning lollipops. My hovercraft is alive and well”—Pandora did a figure eight—“and totally awesome.”

  “How disappointing for me,” Sid said while watching Pandora on the hovercraft.

  But he didn’t look disappointed. That should have been a tip-off, but I was just so excited about my hovercraft, I didn’t think about it. Suddenly, Sid whipped a walkie-talkie out of his pocket, turned around, and whispered something into it.

  In a matter of seconds, about a dozen Tidwell Towers kids came rushing into the playground, including Cat, Perry, and Boris. The strange thing was, they were all wearing yellow raincoats. On the back of the raincoats the words “Bubble Blaster Jackets” was crossed off in magic marker. In its place someone had written ANTI-ALIEN PATROL on each jacket.

  “What did you do, Sid Frackas?” I demanded.

  “I just sealed your doom,” he said coolly.

  “There it is!!!” Boris shouted. He was pointing at my hovercraft.

  “LET’S GO GET IT!!” shouted Cat, and held up a bow and arrow.

  “No! Wait!” I yelled. “That’s for the Lego contest!”

  “Who cares about a Lego contest!” Myra said. “We’re trying to get the alien on that flying saucer!”

  I looked at Pandora. And her crazy green hair. And her silver cape. Floating a foot off the ground.

  Uh-oh.

  The Anti-Alien Patrol all rushed toward Pandora and the hovercraft.

  Cat was holding her bow and arrow with the water balloon on the tip. She took aim, pulled her arm back, and the arrow went soaring through the air, straight for the back of Pandora’s head. Pandora ducked just in the nick of time, and the arrow hit the playground slide. Only it wasn’t water that was in the balloon. It was some yellow-brownish stuff. I didn’t even want to think about what that was.

  Then Myra used the Toilet Paper Launcher, and a roll of toilet paper shot into the air. It started unwinding all over the place and dropped down directly over Pandora. She banked the hovercraft to the right to avoid it and started weaving between the swings.

  Go, Pandora!

  Just then I noticed that a couple of kids on the Anti-Alien Patrol had shoved something in their mouths and were chewing like mad.

  Bubble Blasters! A few good hits from one of those things, and my hovercraft would be toast!

  “STOP!” I screamed.

  Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get any worse, I spotted Boris rubbing something between his hands. Then he picked up his shirt and put it in his belly button and pointed his belly at Pandora.

  Oh no! He had preheated a Belly Button Popper!

  I heard the tssssss sound and the popper, covered with Boris’s belly-button hair, came shooting at Pandora. I ran toward her, waving my arms.

  “Duck, duck!” I shouted. But when I turned around I saw that the popper was now headed directly for me! I was paralyzed with fear as I watched the furry missile coming closer, closer, CLOSER—

  Then, woooooosh—there was a rush of air as Pandora swooped in beside me. Grabbing me by my waist, she pulled me onto the hovercraft a second before the popper would have clocked me in the head and off we sped.

  “Look!” Boris screamed. “The alien has Otis! That thing will take him back to the mother ship and do weird experiments on him!”

  “Come on, guys, we have to save him!” Perry shouted.

  “It’s okay, everyone!” I cried out to them. “It’s just Pan—” but before I could finish, Cat had let one of her arrows fly. It hit me on my shoulder and the yellow-brownish gunk splattered all over me and Pandora.

  To my horror, Pandora licked it off her arm.

  “Yummers, honey-mustard dressing,” she said.

  “Sorry, Otis!” Cat screamed.

  I glanced backward. The entire Anti-Alien Patrol was charging at us, their yellow jackets flapping like mad.

  Yellow jackets.

  Then I remembered Potted Plant Guy’s curse:

  You will be attacked by a swarm of angry yellow jackets.

  “Pandora!” I cried. “Put the hovercraft on Deep-Pile Carpet speed!”

  I grabbed Pandora around her waist and she hit the switch.

  The hovercraft lurched forward so fast we both almost toppled backward. Then it took off. Man, that hovercraft was cooking! We were whipping across the playground at top speed. Cat’s arrows were splattering all around us and the sky was filled with unraveling toilet paper rolls.

  Up ahead I could see some of the kids stuffing gum into their Bubble Blasters.

  “Quick, Pandora,” I cried, “head for the log tunnel!”

  Pandora swerved around and aimed for the opening of the tunnel made to look like a long wooden log. It would be a tight fit. An inch to the right or the left and we wouldn’t make it. But Pandora had really good aim. We zipped right into the tunnel no problem, just as the Bubble Blasters started shooting bubble gum at us. We could hear the gum hitting against the outside of the tunnel. Ping!! Ping-ping! Ping-ping! Ping-ping-ping-ping!

  Then it got quiet. They must be out of gum, I thought. They’d be chewing those gum bricks right about now, ready to reload. If we hurried, we could zoom right out of the playground and be safe and sound back in Tidwell Towers. Julius would make everyone drop their anti-alien gear. And I would defeat Sid Frackas.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  Unfortunately Boris was waiting at the other end of the tunnel. And he was aiming his belly button right at us.

  The force of that hairball knocked Pandora and me right off the hovercraft. We landed in a pile by the sand pit. The hovercraft flew a few feet more before getting tangled in the swings.

  That’s when Sid saw his chance.

  “Smash the flying saucer so the alien can’t escape again!” he cried.

  The Anti-Alien Patrol rushed in and surrounded the hovercraft. Before I could stop it, I heard the sound of Legos crashing and then the stomp, stomp, stomp of sneakers on a vacuum cleaner motor.

  “Aww, I’m sorry, Otis,” Perry said after everything settled down and I explained that Pandora was Gunther’s girlfriend, and the hovercraft was my Lego contest entry.


  “We were just trying to protect you,” Cat said. She even put her arm around me. Usually when she does that, something bad happens next. But this time, she just patted my shoulder.

  Myra was still suspicious, though. She turned to Pandora and asked point-blank, “Did Trevor poop you out?”

  “Who’s Trevor?” Pandora asked.

  Which seemed like a weird response, if you think about it.

  “Trevor is the guy who ate one of the little yellow alien eggs in the ketchup container,” Myra said.

  “Yellow eggs?” Boris said. “In a ketchup container? No one told me the eggs were yellow and in a ketchup container.”

  “Does that matter?” I asked him.

  “Well, yeah. Because those weren’t alien eggs,” Boris said. “They were Red Wiggler worm eggs.”

  “Worm eggs!” Cat cried. “What were worm eggs doing in a ketchup container in the playground?”

  “I was giving them some fresh air,” Boris said.

  “Then my hovercraft was busted up because of WORM EGGS?” I cried.

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Sid Frackas said. “Listen, Dooda, Tidwell Towers is only big enough for one Lego genius, and you’re looking at him.” Then he started laughing. His tongue flopped all the way out of his mouth and waggled around.

  “Hey, what are those bumpy things on your tongue, Sid?” Cat asked.

  We all looked at his tongue. There were these little red blisters all over it.

  Sid yanked that flounder-tongue right back into his mouth. “Anyway, get ready to congratulate me on winning first prize in the Lego contest, Dooda. You won’t be able to fix that thing by tomorrow.”

  I looked at the messed-up hovercraft and the smashed vacuum-cleaner motor.

  He was right. Even if I could rebuild the Legos, there was no way I’d be able to find another vacuum-cleaner motor in time.

  I was so bummed about my hovercraft that I had no appetite for dinner. No one else was eating much, either. Gunther and Pandora were too busy making goo-goo eyes at each other. And Mom and Dad were too busy text-messaging each other about Gunther and Pandora. Even Smoochie didn’t seem very hungry.

  I couldn’t sleep that night, either, and not just because I was lying on the floor in a sleeping bag while Pandora was scratching her scalp in my bed.

  “Are you sad about your hovercraft?” Pandora said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to see me do shadow puppets with my toes?” she asked.

  “Kind of,” I said.

  So she did the entire Charlie Brown Christmas Special with her toes. It was really good, too. Her big toe looked exactly like Charlie Brown’s head.

  Pandora may not be so bad after all.

  The next day, right after lunch, the doorbell rang. Mom answered it, and Cat, Boris, and Perry burst in, all looking very happy.

  “You won, Otis!” Perry said.

  “That’s impossible,” I told them. “I never even entered the Lego contest.”

  “Not that contest,” Perry said. He handed me a piece of paper. “Go on. Read it.”

  I read out loud:

  “Look what it says below.” Perry pointed to the next item.

  “A new vacuum cleaner!” Mom cried.

  I’m not going to lie to you. For a half second I considered taking apart the new vacuum cleaner and rebuilding the hovercraft.

  But Mom looked so happy about the vacuum cleaner. And even though winning the Dingle-Dork of the Week award wasn’t nearly as good as winning first prize in the Lego contest, it was better than Most Amazing Lunch Box of the Year award.

  Plus, I really like Tootsie Rolls.

  * * *

  So it all turned out okay in the end. True, I didn’t win $500 and Lego fame and glory. But neither did Sid. He didn’t even get a chance to enter the Lego contest. It turned out those blisters on his tongue were from foot and mouth disease. He spent the whole next week sick in bed.

  Pretty cool, huh? It gave me an idea for my next Lego invention. I’m not going to tell you about it just yet, though. I might jinx it. Maybe you don’t believe in jinxes, but trust me, they’re real. Since I’ve moved to Tidwell Towers I’ve learned that anything can happen.

  I grew up in NYC, where I lived in an apartment building nearly as weird as Tidwell Towers. I’ve written ten books, including THE HUMMING ROOM, THE KNEEBONE BOY, OLIVIA KIDNEY, and SLOB. Although I’ve never owned a farting horse, I do have a bull terrier who beeps his horn pretty regularly. I live in Maine and am still waiting to see a moose.

  To get in touch with me and learn more about my other books, visit ELLENPOTTER.COM.

  David drew all the pictures for this book, in addition to writing the songs for both Otis books’ soundtracks. When he’s not playing with Legos or daydreaming, he creates art for magazines, books, and Web sites all over the world, including THE NEW YORKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and NICKELODEON. He lives in the same city as Otis, but his neighbors aren’t nearly as crazy.

  Drop him a line at DAVIDHEATLEY.COM.

  A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK

  An Imprint of Macmillan

  OTIS DOODA: DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS. Text copyright © 2014 by Ellen Potter. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by David Heatley. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  ISBN: 978-1-250-01177-0 (hardcover) / 978-1-250-01179-4 (ebook)

  Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

  First Edition: 2014

  mackids.com

  eISBN 9781250011794

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