by Tony Abbott
Something moved in the back of the room, and the lights slowly went up.
“Incredible!” I gasped.
It was a room just like the science lab at school, only bigger. There were smoking test tubes and beakers crowded on long tables. Maps of the stars were pinned to the walls. And a huge computer with a blinking screen whirred against the back wall.
“What is all this?” I asked.
“Behold! My secret underground command center.”
Zeek glanced over at me as if he couldn’t believe any of it. “His what?” he whispered.
“I built it myself,” the man continued. “I took things from the school—a test tube here, a radio there. That is, until they found things missing and made me leave. The fools!”
Zeek couldn’t take it anymore. “What is going on here?” he blurted out. “You mean you built this place under the school? Are you serious?”
“I AM A GENIUS!” Morbius screamed. “And now, with the rocket ride you brought me, I’ll prove it to everyone!”
“Oh, yeah, what are you going to do, fly it into outer space?” Zeek started to laugh.
“Exactly!”
Zeek stopped halfway through his laugh. His mouth dropped open. Mine did, too.
“With the help of my X-5 Morbius Booster engine, I will explore space as no one has before. And after that …” He started to snort and chuckle so hard that his glasses slid down his nose. “After that I’ll fly back and drop the Morbius Monster Bombs.”
“Drop bombs?” I looked at Zeek. “Drop bombs on what?”
“Oh! That would spoil the surprise!”
Then Morbius started to laugh a really scary laugh, like somebody in a bad Halloween movie.
“Pssst, Noodle,” Zeek whispered. “I must have missed something. Does he really mean it?”
“Oh, I mean it!” Morbius cut in. “And you little brats won’t—won’t—aaachoo!—stop me either! Primus will make sure of that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a rocket to work on.”
Morbius started laughing again and zapped a remote-control device at a door. It opened and he went through, cackling to himself and pushing his glasses up on his nose.
When he was gone, I told Zeek, “Listen, buddy, we’ve got to stop that nutty professor. Now!”
“Yeah, but what about this Primus guy he’s talking about? What kind of name is Primus?”
I had a hunch what kind of name it was. But first things first. “Zeek, I’m squeezed tight in these straps. Are yours any looser?”
He squirmed around. “No way, these are solid. But wait a second. I think maybe …”
Zeek started to twist himself up. He almost disappeared into the couch cushions.
“What are you doing?” I asked. Zeek said something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. His mouth was somewhere way under the rest of him.
A couple of seconds later he bounced up off the couch and stood on the floor in front of me, smiling. “Ta-da!”
“Cool! How did you do that?”
“Gymnastics, buddy. I do it all the time.”
I could hear the sounds of Morbius working on the rocket. Drilling, hammering, whirring. And every now and then a crazy laugh.
“Hurry, Zeek. Monster Bombs, remember!”
“Right,” Zeek said. Then he grabbed the metal straps holding me down and started to breathe heavily. He gritted his teeth. He groaned. And he pulled.
“Work those muscles, Zeekie.”
He pulled until his face began to turn purple.
Snap! One strap broke. Snap! The other strap broke.
“Just call me Schwarzenegger!” Zeek laughed. “Come on, pal. Next stop, Brainiac the Maniac.”
But I couldn’t budge. I saw something across the room.
“Um … Zeekie? What about him?”
“Him who?”
I took Zeek by the shoulders and turned him around.
“Oh. You mean him!” Zeek muttered. “Now I know what kind of name Primus is.”
SIX
There, standing about ten feet away, was an enormous metal man. Tiny lights flashed around his huge head. And his three massive iron arms had ugly clamps at the ends.
Kkk-thunk! Kkk-thunk! The robot’s heavy iron feet scraped across the floor.
“Oh, man! This isn’t happening,” Zeek moaned. “Tell me he’s not real.”
“Oh, he’s real,” I said. “He’s just not human.”
I took a quick look through the door. It was still open. “Listen, the rocket is down there. So is Morbius. We’ve got to stop him before it’s too late.”
“Sure,” Zeek said. “But … you know. I mean, well, Iron Man. He’s in the way.”
“Maybe we can slip by him and get through the door,” I whispered. “He seems pretty slow.”
But in a blinding flash the robot reached for the remote and zapped it. The door slid shut.
“Oh-oh,” I said. “Excellent aural receptors.”
“Good ears, too.”
“Okay, so maybe he’s quick,” I said. “But he’s no match for the Danger Guys. And besides, we’re talking about bombs here! So first we take out Robby the garbage can. Then we neutralize Dr. Destructo!”
Zeek grinned that old grin and jabbed his thumb in the air. I love it when he does that. It means we’re in business.
But it wasn’t so easy. Between us and all that stuff I said was the huge silver guy. He was coming at us. And he didn’t look happy.
“I’ll get the remote,” Zeek shouted. He lowered his Fizz Blaster 2000 straight at the remote. It was still in one of Primus’s clamp-hands.
Fizz fizz fizz! A spray of water jetted through the air like an arrow. Direct hit! The remote flew out of the clamp-hand and hit the floor.
The robot didn’t like that. He also didn’t like it when I dived for it right under his big arms. I caught the remote and tossed it back behind me to Zeek.
“Noodle! Watch out!”
I tried to roll out of the way. Too late.
Primus grabbed me by the leg and threw me up in the air. Then he grabbed Zeek and threw him up. Then he started to, well, juggle us!
“Whoa-ooaa-ooaa! Let us down, you big …”
Yeah, he had good ears. Wham! I landed in a heap on top of the big computer. Zeek ended up by the couch. Luckily he still had his Blaster.
He pumped it and then aimed.
“Go for the eyeballs!” I called out. Zeek gave it all he had. But the spray just made Primus madder. He turned on Zeek with a vengeance.
Kkk-thunk! Kkk-thunk!
I had to do something. I jammed my hand into my pocket and fished around for something. What I came up with wasn’t promising. A hand buzzer and a rubber band.
Great, if I wanted to make the tin man laugh, or if the rubber band could pierce metal.
“Noodle, it’s too late for me. Run for your life!” yelled Zeek.
No way was I leaving my pal. Primus was lifting a metal desk high over his head and was about to crush Zeek with it.
There was no time to think. I wound the hand buzzer up all the way and wrapped the rubber band around the button. Then I threw it on the floor right in front of the robot.
Zzzzzzzzz!
Suddenly Primus stopped. He bent over slowly to look at the buzzer.
That was my chance. “Zeek! Move it!” I leaped off the computer right onto the iron guy’s back.
That made Primus really mad. He started swinging me around.
“Whoa! You big—”
My legs crashed into the lab table. Test tubes and other junk went flying.
“Hold on, Noodle!” Zeek ducked out of the way and darted behind the robot. He slammed Primus behind the knees and the robot sank to the floor.
“All right, that trick still works!”
But the big guy wasn’t finished yet. He growled a horrible growl, pulled himself back up, and swung me again.
Then Zeek yelled, “Noodle! His control panel. It’s under his middle arm. I’ll keep him busy whil
e you go crazy with the switches.”
Then Zeek did something really off the wall.
He started to sing.
“My mom taught me this one,” he said.
He sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
It was horrible. Zeek can’t sing at all.
The robot threw two of his arms up and covered what I guess were his ears. With the other one he tried to stop Zeek from going into the second verse.
That left me free to jam my fingers into the control panel.
“Hurry, Noodle, I’m running out of words!”
I flipped every switch I could find. Finally I hit the right one—sssssssss! The robot ground to a stop, inches from Zeek. His control panel sizzled. His lights flashed. His gears wound down. Then nothing.
“You big … scrapheap!” I said.
Zeek hit the remote and the door opened. “Come on, buddy. We’ve got a job to do.”
That’s when the robot made his last move.
SEVEN
Primus twitched and I screamed.
“He’s alive!”
In a flash the robot’s middle arm shot up and punched a red button on the wall. Then he fell silent.
Suddenly, the floor started to rumble.
Weee—weee—weee! An alarm went off. Lights started flashing all over the laboratory.
“Self-destruct! The whole place is going to blow!” cried Zeek.
“Quick,” I yelled. “The door is closing! We’d better hurry!”
We dived over the robot and leaped out the door an instant before it slammed shut. We hit the floor running.
We found ourselves in a narrow passage lined with huge electric generators. They were going crazy. Sparks were flying everywhere. The whole corridor was flashing red and blue.
At the end of the passage I could see a sign. It read: LAUNCH ROOM—KEEP OUT!
“That’s it!” I cried. “We’ve got to stop Morbius!”
Zeek pulled the remote from his pocket and zapped the door. It slid open and we dashed in just as a fireball came shooting up the corridor. The door closed behind us.
We looked around.
“Holy cow!” I gasped. Zeek’s mouth fell open. I guess he agreed with me.
It was the rocket command room. Rows and rows of computer stations circled a big screen.
At the far end of the room was a long ramp.
“Oh, no!” Zeek nudged me. “He’s serious!”
Yeah, it was the little purple rocket, all right.
But it was different. On the back of it was a silver engine the size of one of those tanks they use to blow up helium balloons.
“The Morbius Booster,” I gasped. “It looks pretty powerful.”
And that wasn’t the only difference. Strapped under each green fin was a stubby black can.
“You know what those are, don’t you, Zeek?”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Bombs.”
“I knew it!” Zeek whispered. “He’s crazy.”
“That’s the word,” I said.
Then something moved.
“No, boys, the word is genius. That’s what they’ll call me when they see what I can do!”
It was Morbius. He stepped out from the shadows. He pointed a funny-looking weapon at us.
“But it’s nothing to the thrill I’ll get when I drop those bombs!”
“No way, Ray!” I shouted. I grabbed Zeek’s Fizz Blaster 2000 and aimed it at Morbius. “Zeekie, jump in!”
Zeek looked at me. “Jump in? Where?”
“The rocket. I’ve got a plan!”
Zeek started to run.
“Little troublemakers!” Morbius cried. “This rocket is programmed to drop those bombs. Nothing you can do will stop that! I can zap you into dust if I want to.”
He hit the trigger on his gun and a thin green ray shot out. It blew a big hole in the floor near my feet.
I pumped the Blaster. “Zeek, the robot trick!”
“You mean sing?”
“No, the trick with the knees!”
Zeek punched his thumb in the air and started to run. Morbius followed him with his zapper, but Zeekie, the football star, dodged every shot.
Then I let go with a spray that saturated Morbius.
He whirled back around to shoot at me, but Zeek hit his knees from behind and he went stumbling forward.
“Now!” I shouted. “Into the rocket!”
I tossed the incredible Fizz Blaster 2000 to Zeek and we bounded across the room and into the rocket. I flipped all of the switches and punched all of the buttons and pulled all of the levers I could find.
Suddenly the door burst open.
“Oh-oh. He’s back!” It was the robot. And he was glowing red-hot.
“Primus!” shouted Morbius. “Stop them!”
Kkk-thunk. Kkk-thunk.
Primus started up the ramp.
But Zeek blasted the floor in front of him and the robot slid back into Morbius, just as another shot left the ray gun.
Zap! The green beam went wild.
“All right! The Zeek Man scores!”
Suddenly, I hit the right button and the booster fired up. Morbius started screaming.
“You can’t do that! IT’S MY ROCKET!”
The little purple rocket jolted up the ramp.
Green rays were exploding all around us.
“Step on it, Noodle!”
I closed the cockpit cover.
I hit the stick.
And the rocket blasted through the hatch and out into the air.
EIGHT
We shot up instantly.
“Tell me what you see!” Zeek yelled. “I can’t look!”
“Playground …” I said.
“Okay.”
“School …”
“Yeah.”
“Mayville …”
“Oh?”
“Clouds …”
“Noodle, don’t say it!”
“Moon …”
“Noodle, stop!” He opened his eyes.
The speed was incredible. My stomach was somewhere on the ground. My face was stretching back into the seat. I turned to look at Zeek. He looked real funny.
We were shooting through the atmosphere like an arrow. Mayville was already far below us.
“Well,” I said, “at least this time the rocket is going straight.”
Zeek turned to face me. He had a look. “It’s going straight, all right. Straight up! Can’t you stop this thing?”
For once I didn’t have a plan. I had tried everything. The switches. The buttons. The levers. The sticks. Nothing seemed to work now.
“Zeek, we must be on automatic pilot. Morbius is really controlling the rocket. I can’t change course.”
“So what do we do? Wait for it to crash?”
I didn’t like to think about that. The booster was blasting away loudly behind us.
“Um … Zeek? I don’t like those noises.”
“Well, of course you don’t. We’re flying to outer space in a toy. Noodle, this is a toy!”
“At least we’ll be famous,” I said, trying to make him feel better. “Two kids who blasted off in a toy and—”
“And were lost in space forever!” said Zeek. He slammed his fist down on the control board.
When he did that, a hidden panel slid down in front of him.
“A radio! Noodle, it’s a radio. We’re saved! We can phone home, just like E.T. They’ll send up the Space Shuttle and save us!”
I picked up the microphone, flipped a switch next to it, and started speaking. “Hello. Hello. This is Noodle Newton. I’m with my friend Zeek Pilinsky and we’re in this rocket and we need help to get back to Earth. Hello, Air Force. Marines. Army. Coast Guard. FBI. PTA. Mom. Dad. Anybody. Come in. Over!”
We waited. Suddenly, the radio crackled in response. And a familiar sound came from the speaker.
“Aaa-choo! Hello, space cadets. Are you enjoying yourselves?”
“It’s that rat, Morb
ius,” Zeek said.
“I heard that,” the voice snarled. “Don’t worry. You’ll come back soon. The next phase of your flight will begin shortly. Good-bye, boys.”
Then Morbius let out one of his creepy laughs and the radio went dead.
“Oh, terrific,” Zeek said. “He laughs, and we’re going to die.”
Zeek looked pretty bad. He does this every once in a while when things look hopeless.
I looked over the side and saw the great huge mass of nothing all around us. Just blue. And here we were, the two of us in this toy, with blue space all around us. Maybe Zeek was right. But I tried to cheer him up.
“Look,” I said. “Don’t worry. We’re probably being picked up on somebody’s radar screen right now. It won’t be long before—”
“Before they shoot us down? That’s what they do to things they see on radar screens, you know.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe we really were in trouble this time. It did look pretty bad. Zeek and me all alone in space. Earth getting smaller and smaller. I started to feel scared.
Then I turned and saw that Danger Guy patch on Zeek’s shoulder.
And then I saw Zeek.
For some reason he had started pushing all of the buttons on the panel at once.
“You know, Noodle, you’re right,” he said. “We can’t give up. If a computer is running this rocket, let’s jam the computer. We can do it. I know we can!” Then he smiled at me and jabbed his thumb in the air.
I did, too. Yeah, what a team!
That’s when Zeek noticed a little digital clock on one of the side panels.
He looked at his watch.
“Stupid clock,” he said. “It says five o’clock. It’s not five o’clock. Look, now it’s going backward. Four-fifty-nine. Four-fifty-eight.”
I took a look at the numbers. “Um … Zeek? That’s not a clock. It’s a timer.”
Just then the radio crackled again. “Aaa-choo! Phase two of your flight has just begun.”
I picked up the microphone. “Listen, Morbius. Tell me what we’re programmed to blow up.”
Morbius laughed his crazy laugh. “Why, Mayville School, of course!”
“You’re not a genius, you’re nutty,” Zeek yelled. Then he switched off the radio.
Just then the timer hit 4 minutes, 30 seconds, and—whooom! Down we went, rocketing back into Earth’s atmosphere at unbelievable speed.
