So, I grabbed a log and beat it on the floor seventeen times. “I’m using Morse code to ask him where Merle is,” I said.
The beaver smacked his tail on the ground thirty-two times, which translated to, “Sure. Walk this way, homeslice.”
We followed the beavers down a long corridor.
We found Merle in a huge chamber, on an operating table surrounded by crawdad monsters.
“Oh, no! They’re performing horrible experiments on Merle!” I said.
“No, wait,” said Gramma. “That one is giving Merle a checkup. He’s taking Merle’s blood pressure just like a veterinarian would. Why, I think that crawdad is really—”
“Nate Farkles! Yes! It’s true.” It was Hans Lotion and his grandson, Jurgen (aka The Phantom of the Water Park). “Please excuse ze mess. Zis place may smell like raw sewage but ze rent is cheap and zey allow pets.
“It is here, underground, zat I have perfected a vay to transform any beast into a crawdad.”
“Now why would you wanna go and turn a perfectly good veterinarian like Nate into a crawdad?” asked Grampa.
“Hee! Hee!” laughed Hans. “It is all part of our master plan to get revenge on Castle Vaterhösen for vhat zey did to my Jurgen.”
CHAPTER 14
Blue Moon
“It vas a long, long, long, long time ago. Actually, it vas last summer. Ve came to Castle Vaterhösen for some fun in ze sun. Jurgen brought his little friend, Penelope. Zey vere so cute you could just pinch zem.
“Jurgen vas riding ze vaterpark’s steepest, scariest ride, Dead Dog Drop.
“Zat’s vhen it happened. Jurgen vas going so fast zat his svimsuit blew right off. Ze poor little guy vas just in his birthday suit.
“Everyvone laughed at him. Hee! Hee! Actually, it is pretty funny now zat I zink about it. Jurgen hasn’t spoken a vord since and he’s never shown his tushy in public again, vhich is good because zere are laws against zat kind of zing.
“Now, Jurgen has sworn he vill have his revenge by ruining Castle Vaterhösen and turning everyone into half-human/half-crawdad mutants. It is his dream.”
“Well, I guess it’s good to have goals,” said Grampa.
“But how?” I asked. “How do you turn someone into a crawdad? I’ve been trying for years and it never seems to work.”
CHAPTER 15
Craw Shucks!
“I present you ze greatest invention since ze Pop-Tart, ze Crawdad Restructuring Ultrasonic Device, or C.R.U.D. for short. It is made of several common household items: a hula hoop, a nine-volt battery, a crawdad, and vone plutonium thermosonic reconfibulator.”
“Oh yeah,” said Grampa. “I think I have one of those out in the garage.”
“Any creature zat passes through ze hoop vill be combined vith a crawdad. Look, I vill demonstrate vith zis duck.”
Hans’s duck jumped through the electrified hoop and came out the other side a mutant freak!
“He is now half crawdad/half duck. I shall call him Crawduck. Later, ve vill make a Crawdog and, if ve have time, a Crawdonkey.
“Ve can access any part of ze park through zese underground tunnels. Zat is how ve kidnapped Nate. Ve have also placed a giant C.R.U.D. device in ze latest attraction zat is opening in just ten minutes. Anyvone who gets on zat ride vill come out feeling a little…crabby. Hee hee!”
Hans tied us up and walked over to his monitor. “Before ve leave, I have a special torture in store for you.”
“Oh, no,” said Grampa. “You’re gonna hook up a car battery to our pinky toes and put fire ants in our drawers, aren’t you?”
“Nooo, hee hee!” said Hans. “I have somezing much vorse—you vill vatch zis video of Barney’s Christmas Miracle on continuous repeat.”
“I’ll take the fire ants,” said Jubal.
Hans and Jurgen took off to terrorize the park and left us with the crawdads.
“Merle!” I said. “Use your tail to summon the beavers to come gnaw through these ropes. Do it quick, before Barney sings ‘I’m Dreaming of a Purple Christmas’!”
Merle started beating his tail frantically.
But the beavers were being held back by the evil Crawduck who was taunting them with his giant claws and terrible celery-and-peanut-butter breath.
“I guess we’ll have to save ourselves,” I said.
CHAPTER 16
Give Yourself a Hand
Grampa managed to free one of his hands. “Help me scoot over to that electric hula hoop.”
“Grampa!” I yelled as he reached for the C.R.U.D. “Don’t do it! That’s your bowling hand!”
But Grampa stuck it through the hoop anyway. “Aaaaaaaaahhh!!” he screamed. “It tickles!”
Grampa sported a fancy new crawdad claw that cut through the ropes with ease.
And opening stubborn pickle jars was a cinch!
“Go on without me!” Grampa said, fighting off the crawdads with his claw as we made our escape.
“We won’t leave you!” I yelled.
“Be brave!” Grampa said. “And tell your Gramma that, despite her terrible casseroles, I love her!”
“I’m right here!” said Gramma angrily.
“Oh, yeah,” said Grampa.
So, Gramma led the way as we burst out of the sewers and raced toward the grand opening of the mystery ride. If we were going to make it, we had to take a shortcut through the park.
We crossed the Zipper Zapper, which Hans and Jurgen had filled with real electric eels.
Then we jumped across Hot Rockin’ River, which was now flowing with actual molten lava!
Then we stopped off for Hawaiian shaved ice, but the phantom had replaced the fruity syrup with prune juice. Jubal found this strangely delicious.
CHAPTER 17
Get This Potty Started
We finally arrived at the new ride, a five-story toilet! Dame Drenched stood at the top and addressed the crowd.
“We are proud to present the latest in quality family entertainment. I give you Mount Flushmore.”
We raced to the top just in the nick of time.
“Wait!” I yelled. “You can’t let people on this ride! The phantom has placed a giant C.R.U.D. at the bottom of this toilet. Anyone who rides it will come out looking like an Alaskan king crab!”
“Smashing!” said Dame Drenched.
All of a sudden, Hans and Jurgen jumped out and pushed us all into the swirling johnny!
“Enjoy your svim!” said Hans.
CHAPTER 18
The Royal Flush
We swirled toward the bottom of the toilet at lightning speed.
“Well, this is it,” I said. “Maybe it won’t be so bad being half crawdad. We’ll be unbeatable at arm wrestling and we’ll never need to buy another nutcracker again.”
When we reached the bottom, Grampa and his beaver friends had blocked the drain with a giant beaver dam!
“How did you get to the bottom of the toilet before we did?” I asked.
“We came in through the rear!” said Grampa.
“Very clever!” Hans yelled from the rim. “Your vell-placed logjam has spoiled our party. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my king-size plunger. So, instead, I vill crank up ze flow to full blast and turn zis toilet bowl into a fishbowl.”
“Speaking of fishes!” said Gramma. “I brought us a secret weapon!” Gramma pulled Paco’s fish-bowl out of her big hair! “I just couldn’t leave him in that hot house all day.”
“Swim, young Paco,” Gramma said, releasing him into the rushing water. “Turn off that valve, fulfill your destiny!”
Most people don’t know this, but Paco’s daddy was an Atlantic salmon and jumping upstream was his specialty.
Paco swam all the way up the raging current and shut off the valve.
CHAPTER 19
Put Your Hans Up
Water park police swooped in on Hans and Jurgen, but they had one more trick up their sleeves.
“Just thought you should know, ve have activated ze self-de
struct button on ze C.R.U.D.,” said Hans. “In exactly thirty seconds, zis potty gonna go boom! Hee hee!”
“You hear that, Grampa?” I said. “This baño’s gonna blow any second!”
“I guess it’s time for my Creole Commode–Cracker Chop!” said Grampa.
Grampa used all of his might and chopped the porcelain bowl. It shattered and we all jumped through the hole.
We managed to escape just as the C.R.U.D. exploded!
“The toilet’s launching into the sky!” I yelled.
“Darn! I should have used it when I had the chance!” said Grampa.
Russian cosmonauts reported seeing the latrine launch from outer space.
Back on Earth, our troubles were not over yet. The crawdad monsters attacked and Jubal was holding them off with Dippy Dots ice cream pellets.
“Hans!” I yelled. “Tell us how to transform them back into humans and er… ducks.”
“Vhy vould I tell you?” said Hans.
“Because if you don’t, Grampa will sing every song from The Sound of Music, karaoke-style, while I eat a whole box of delicious peanut buttery Spudscout cookies without even giving you a bite.”
“I don’t care,” said Hans nervously. “Enjoy your silly cookies.”
“Mmm!” I said, smearing chocolate all over my face. “I like to eat three at a time, like a big chocolatey peanut butter sandwich, then I wash it down with some ice-cold glistening milk.”
“Okay! Okay!” screamed Hans. “You people are so cruel! I’ll tell you how to change zem back. Zeir bodies are unstable. If you submerge zem in salty vater zat is above eighty-five degrees, zey vill change back. Now, give me a cookie.”
“Where are we gonna find that much warm, salty water?” Jubal asked.
CHAPTER 20
A Warm Welcome
“To the kiddie pool!” I yelled. For some weird reason, the water in the kiddie pool is always salty and over eighty-five degrees.
“Grampa! Get in and lure the crawdads into the water!”
Grampa got in and, sure enough, his hand changed back to its normal, bony self.
“Hey, crawdads!” Grampa yelled at the monsters. “Your mama eats barnacles off a beluga’s belly!”
“That’s cold,” said Jubal.
The angered crawdads jumped into the water and began to vibrate. Within seconds, they were transformed into their old selves.
“Boy! It’s great to be back to normal,” said Nate, “but I sure am gonna miss that tough, spiny exoskeleton.”
CHAPTER 21
How Could You Be So Shellfish?
Despite their diabolical plans, Dame Drenched was moved by Hans’s and Jurgen’s tale of his lost bathing suit.
“I hereby apologize for your traumatic experience at our park,” said Drenched. “I now present to you this forty-ounce Castle Waterhösen collector’s cup filled with a tasty carbonated beverage.”
Jurgen got emotional as he took a swig of the beverage.
“Look,” said Hans, “Jurgen is about to utter his first vord since ze incident.”
Jurgen just let out a long belch instead.
“Oh, well,” said Grampa. “It’s a start!”
So, that’s all there is. The police weren’t as understanding as Dame Drenched and they threw Hans and Jurgen back into the funny farm.
Gramma was given a ticket for smuggling animals into the water park.
Jubal and I used the C.R.U.D. to make some cool new critters, like the Crawdaisy and the Craw-donut. Coming soon to a pet store near you.
As for the first toilet into space, witnesses say they saw it crash back to Earth last Wednesday….
Where it landed, no one is quite sure.
Crackpot Snapshot
Now there’s a mega-budget movie about our crawdad adventure. Here are some exclusive photos from the red carpet premiere. Something’s a little wacky with that second pic. Help us find the differences before we publish it in the Hollyweird Reporter.
The answers are on the back. Anyone caught cheating gets their head dunked in Mount Flushmore!
Kirk Scroggs was born and raised in Austin, Texas and studied film at the University of Texas. He is the author and illustrator of the Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features series and the Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet series. He lives in Los Angeles.
Read all the Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features books!
Wiley & Grampa #1: Dracula vs. Grampa at the Monster Truck Spectacular
Wiley & Grampa #2: Grampa’s Zombie BBQ
Wiley & Grampa #3: Monster Fish Frenzy
Wiley & Grampa #4: Super Soccer Freak Show
Wiley & Grampa #5: Bigfoot Backpacking Bonanza
Wiley & Grampa #6: Hair Ball from Outer Space
Wiley & Grampa #7: Night of the Living Eggnog
Wiley & Grampa #8: Phantom of the Waterpark
Wiley & Grampa #9: Curse of the Kitty Litter
Wiley & Grampa #10: Jurassic Grampa
The Monster Book of Creature Features: Wiley & Grampa’s First Three Adventures
Read all the Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet books!
Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet
Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet: Clash of the Class Clowns
Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet: The Good, the Bad, and the Fuzzy
Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet: When Pigs Fly
For more great reads and free samplers, visit
www.LBYRDigitalDeals.com
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter 1: Beat the Heat
Chapter 2: Emergency Blues Flash!
Chapter 3: Kersplashic Park
Chapter 4: The River Mild
Chapter 5: Now That’s More Like It!
Chapter 6: Wet and Weird
Chapter 7: Snot so Fast
Chapter 8: Nothing to See Here
Chapter 9: Hans Solo
Chapter 10: Creature from the Nacho Cheese Lagoon
Chapter 11: Salsa Y Queso
Chapter 12: Catnapped!
Chapter 13: Sweet and Sewer Chicken
Chapter 14: Blue Moon
Chapter 15: Craw Shucks!
Chapter 16: Give Yourself a Hand
Chapter 17: Get This Potty Started
Chapter 18: The Royal Flush
Chapter 19: Put Your Hans Up
Chapter 20: A Warm Welcome
Chapter 21: How Could You Be So Shellfish?
Crackpot Snapshot
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by Kirk Scroggs, LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.lb-kids.com
Series design by Saho Fujii
The illustrations for this book were done in Staedtler ink on Canson Marker paper, then digitized with Adobe Photoshop for color and shade. The text was set in Humana Sans Light and the display type was handlettered.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: May 2008
ISBN 978-0-316-32392-5
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