Hamstersaurus Rex Gets Crushed

by Tom O'Donnell

  They nodded.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Thanks for chipping in, I guess.” I plopped down on Martha’s bed. “I’m just frustrated because at this rate, there’s no way we’ll be able to stop the Mind Mole and save Cartimandua.”

  Hamstersaurus Rex gave a snarl. Serena fed him a sardine. I didn’t know he liked sardines.

  “Maybe we could all blindfold ourselves,” I said. “His mind-control power requires direct eye contact. If we don’t look into the Mind Mole’s eyes, he can’t hypnotize us.”

  “Um, if we’re all blindfolded, how are we even going to move around and stuff, much less save Carta-Magna?” said Serena.

  “Her name is Cartimandua,” snapped Martha. “It’s really not that hard.”

  “Serena’s right,” said Dylan. “I already tried to keep my eyes closed. Didn’t exactly work out for me, now did it? Everybody who has crossed paths with the Mind Mole has ended up getting hypnotized: Gordon Renfro, Wilbur, Jared, Sam, me, and now Agent McKay. No one was able to resist.”

  “Hang on! That’s not true!” I cried as I suddenly remembered. “There was someone who looked at him and didn’t get hypnotized!” I leaped to my feet. “Gotta go! Everybody keep working on an awesome, foolproof master plan, but there’s one more person I need to talk to. I’ll be back in an hour. I’ve got a hunch!” I dashed for the door.

  Hamstersaurus Rex and I stood on the porch of an old house with flaking paint and a weedy, overgrown yard. Forget school, I thought, this was a place the ghost of Horace Hotwater ought to haunt. Hammie Rex shot me a quizzical look, as if to ask why we were here.

  “This is where Old Man Ohlman lives,” I said. “You know, the tinfoil hat guy who complained to Agent Gould about seeing that creepy mole. He must have been talking about the Mind Mole!”

  I rapped on the door. There was no answer.

  “Hello, Old Ma— I mean, Mister Ohlman?” I yelled. “Are you home, sir?”

  Inside, I heard someone stirring. I knocked again. At last the inner door swung open. Old Man Ohlman, as always wearing his tinfoil hat, glared at me from inside the screen. “I told the other fellow from the telephone company that I’m actually quite fond of bees!” he yelled. “I thought that would be the end of it! But here you are, all set to ruin my Tuesday!”

  “What? No. It’s Saturday.”

  “You don’t think a Tuesday can be ruined on a Saturday?” said Old Man Ohlman. “That shows a dearth of imagination!”

  “Look, I’m not from the telephone company,” I said. “I’m a sixth grader.”

  He squinted at me. “So did you hit a baseball into my backyard, then?” said Old Man Ohlman. “Sorry, sonny, that baseball is mine now! I got hundreds of ’em. Boy, if you saw my collection you’d cry. Hee hee.”

  “That’s not what I’m here about either. I want to ask you about a mole!”

  “You mean the one on my elbow?” he said. “I happen to like the way it looks, and that’s all I care to say on that matter!” He rolled his sleeve down so I couldn’t see the mole on his elbow.

  “No, no,” I said. “Like a mole that digs in the ground and eats bugs and stuff.”

  “Are you funning at my expense, young fella?” he said. “For shame! I’m a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War. I have half a mind to tell you to get gone. You’re scarin’ away all my best bees!”

  I looked around. “I don’t see any bees.”

  “Aw, nuts! Then you already done scared ’em!” He shook his head mournfully and started to shut the door.

  “Sir, please just hear me out,” I said. “I was there when you made your complaint.”

  “I make complaints all day, every day, to anyone who will listen,” said Old Man Ohlman. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “At Maple Bluffs Animal Control, you said you saw a mole that looked at you ‘real mean.’”

  Old Man Ohlman pondered this. “Indeed I did. Had a head like a cantaloupe. Stared at me like he was tryin’ to drill a hole through me with them little eyes. What of it?”

  “I want to know what happened then,” I said. “Did the mole . . . command you to do things?”

  “Command me?! What are you, nuts, kid? It was a mole!” said Old Man Ohlman. “What happened then was that I yelled at it to get off my lawn and it did. And then I yelled at some pinecones to get off my lawn and they just sat there. Incredibly rude!”

  “Just like I thought,” I cried. “You’re immune to the Mind Mole’s powers!”

  “Young man, I got to tell you, you are truly eccentric,” said Old Man Ohlman. “And that’s coming from me!”

  “Mr. Ohlman, you’ve got to help me,” I said. “My class hamster is in grave danger and you’re the only one in the world who can save her!”

  A faraway look came over Old Man Ohlman as he stared out toward the horizon. “Is this finally my chance?” he said, almost to himself. “To right wrongs? Stick up for the powerless and realize my true potential? After a long and cranky life of cantankerous cootery, is now the moment when I, Foster Olroyd Ohlman VII, become . . . a true hero?” He licked his gums. “Nah. I gotta polish my Baby President figurines. Later, kid!”

  “What?” I cried.

  Hamstersaurus Rex popped out of my pocket and roared at his terrible attitude.

  “Ha!” said Old Man Ohlman. “You think I never been roared at by a hamster before? Go on, now! Get gone! You’ll attract bees!”

  And with that, he slammed the front door in my face.

  It was a long, sad walk back to Martha’s house. Our only hope for stopping the Mind Mole had decided to polish his Baby President figurines instead. I privately hoped he broke one.

  “Don’t worry, dude,” I said to Hamstersaurus Rex. “We’ll think of something.”

  Back in Martha’s room, everyone was hard at work. Beefer and Serena were arguing over the RaddZone blueprints. Serena was arranging the few unbroken Debbie Future dolls for tactical placement while Beefer overexplained to her how to use his set of bulky walkie-talkies. Martha was studying Sue Sandoval’s notes and cross-referencing with a stack of science textbooks. Dylan alone sat in the corner, lost in thought.

  “How’d that hunch pan out?” she asked.

  “Wasted effort,” I said as I flopped down on the floor. Hammie Rex licked my face. “The one person in the whole world who seems to be immune to the Mind Mole’s power—”

  “Power! That’s it!” cried Dylan. “I just remembered where I’ve seen PaleoGro before!”

  We all turned to stare at her. Even Hamstersaurus Rex.

  “A little while back,” said Dylan, “I was alone in Coach Weekes’s office. He was in the boys’ locker room, and I was waiting for him to finish dying his moustache—”

  “He dyes it?!” cried Martha.

  “Oh yeah,” said Dylan. “That thing is as white as the driven snow.”

  “Who’s Coach Weekes?” said Serena.

  “Tell you later. It’s a whole thing,” I said. “Dylan, please continue.”

  “Well, I didn’t have anything else to do, so I started looking at the stuff on his shelves. I got to reading labels of his health supplements. Along with ten percent Biceptrex, thirteen percent reconstituted bison whey, seventy-six percent ground pill bug meal, Dinoblast Powerpacker is exactly one percent PaleoGro.”

  “DinoBlast Powerpacker?” I said. “That’s the junk that Hamstersaurus Rex ate that turned him half dinosaur!”

  “Oh no,” said Martha. “This is bad. This is really, really bad.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Sam, while you were gone, I took a look at the file Dr. Sandoval kept on Hamstersaurus Rex,” said Martha. “Hammie has genetic receptors coded into his DNA that were designed to activate when exposed to a mystery chemical. In the file, the name of the chemical is redacted.”

  “Um,” said Beefer, “for Sam’s benefit, what does reda—”

  “Marked out,” said Martha. “But now I know that the mystery chemical must be PaleoG
ro.”

  “So?” I said.

  “So, Specimen #4449 has the same genetic receptors,” said Martha. “That’s why he wants the stuff.”

  It slowly dawned on me what she was saying.

  “The Mind Mole is going to use the PaleoGro to eliminate his one weakness,” said Martha. “He’s going to give himself dinosaur powers. Just like Hamstersaurus Rex.”

  “Then we can’t hand it over,” said Serena. “With dino-strength on top of his freaky mental powers, he’ll be . . .”

  “Unstoppable,” I said. “But what choice do we have? Cartimandua’s life is on the line and time is almost up. We have to do it.”

  “Well,” said Serena. “The good news is that I think I may have found another way in.”

  CHAPTER 20

  AT 11:37 A.M., Martha, Beefer, Serena, Dylan, Hammie Rex, and I entered the Coat Barn at the West Oaks Shopping Center. We weren’t there for the “Best of the Vest: Mega Sale on Tweed Vests.” In fact, we had no intention of buying anything at all. We were on a mission.

  We huddled around a circular rack of factory-irregular parkas in a deserted corner of the massive store. No one was watching. I gave a nod. We ducked inside the rack.

  “Okay. It should be just inside the dressing rooms to the left,” said Serena. “An old service entrance that connects Coat Barn to RaddZone next door.”

  “Nice work, Serena,” I said.

  “Thanks, guy,” said Serena. “Hopefully we don’t all die.”

  “I feel like going through the door is maybe, probably, definitely against the rules,” said Martha. “What if somebody calls the security guard we all end up in prison?”

  “An innocent hamster’s life is on the line,” I said. “What does that patch on your jacket say?”

  “Spelling Bee District Champion,” said Martha.

  “Other arm,” I said.

  She looked. “A Hamster Monitor Always Gets Her Hamster.” Martha gave a resolute nod.

  “Besides,” I said, “the Mind Mole must be stopped, and no one else is going to do it for us. He’s an evil little creep with a chip on his shoulder that’s even bigger than his melon head. With his powers, he can control anyone. So far it’s been limited to our little town. But think of all the damage he could do if he put his twisted mind to it.”

  Hammie Rex seconded this with a loud growl. I shushed him and hoped we hadn’t spooked any customers who might be shopping for irregular parkas. Luckily it was a very slow Saturday for Coat Barn.

  “All right,” I said. “The plan requires one of us to hang back.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Dylan.

  “You sure?” I said.

  “If I go with you guys, I’ll just mess up again,” said Dylan. “Safer to have me here, where I can’t blow it too bad.”

  “Okay, if that’s what you want,” I said. “Beefer?”

  “Try not to get your ear grease all over this,” said Beefer as he handed her one of his walkie-talkies.

  “You’ll need these, too,” I said. I reached into my backpack and handed her my old laptop and the blueprints that Serena had printed out. “The clock is ticking. Everybody ready?”

  Martha nodded and touched her arm patch. Dylan gave me a wry thumbs-up. Serena shot me a peace sign. Hamstersaurus Rex snarled, ready for action.

  “Wait!” cried Beefer. He started to rummage around in his duffel bag.

  “C’mon, Beefer,” I said. “We really don’t have time to waste.”

  “This is important!” he said as he pulled out a piece of purple cloth and handed it to Serena. She unfolded it. It was a ninja mask.

  “You made this?” said Serena.

  “Yep,” said Beefer. “It’s purple, on account of your hair. I figured purple was probably your favorite color.”

  “It’s not, but thanks,” said Serena. “This is weirdly . . . thoughtful.” She put her mask on.

  “Dylan, for you,” said Beefer. He handed her a ninja mask upon which he had monogrammed the word “DISCWIPERS.”

  “Discwipers?” said Dylan.

  “It’s your disc golf team!” cried Beefer.

  “Oh, right,” said Dylan. “Yep, that’s us: the Horace Hotwater Discwipers.” She put her mask on. “Thanks, Beef.”

  “And a most regurgitated mask for you, m’lady,” said Beefer. He pulled out a grayish speckled ninja mask with an odd spiral horn coming out of it.

  Martha’s eyes lit up. “It’s a narwhal,” said Martha. “That happens to be my favorite northern-latitudes sea mammal!”

  “I know,” said Beefer. “I’ve always known.”

  Martha hugged him. Beefer yanked on his own mask. “And mine’s covered in music notes on account of my interest in Renaissance music. Well, that’s pretty much everybody. Let’s go.”

  “Hey,” I said. “What about me?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Beefer. “I forgot to make you a mask. Sorry, Sam.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I didn’t want one anyway. Dumb custom ninja masks . . . seem so cool but actually aren’t . . .”

  “Sam, I’m kidding,” said Beefer. “Here you go, buddy.” He pulled out a mask for me. It was orange and white, with felt fangs and little round ears. “It’s a Hamstersaurus Rex mask.”

  “Aw, man,” I said as I pulled it over my face. It was kind of lumpy, but it fit okay. I was touched. “Thanks, Beefer! Okay, guys, let’s—”

  “Hang on! There’s one more mask in here,” said Beefer. He reached into his bag and pulled out a tiny piece of fabric about the size of his thumb. He handed it to me.

  It was a miniature ninja mask with human eyes, ears, and hair made of felt.

  “And that’s a Sam mask for Hammie Rex to wear,” said Beefer.

  Hamstersaurus Rex shot me a look. I shrugged and gently pulled it over his head. The mask looked kind of weird on the little guy. But also kind of awesome.

  We did a last-minute inventory to make sure we had the rest of our gear ready. Then all of us but Dylan grabbed an irregular parka off the rack and made a beeline for the dressing rooms.

  Sure enough, just inside on the left was a door marked “Do Not Enter.’” With her Swiss Army knife, Serena jimmied the lock. We entered.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE DOORWAY LED into a short, dusty hall that looked like it hadn’t seen much use in years. At the end of it was another door, stained with rust. According to the blueprints, this one opened right onto the ground floor of RaddZone.

  I took out a pair of Serena’s earphones—styled as little sparkly gargoyles—and put one in my ear.

  “That’s a decent mid-price pair of ’buds,” said Serena. “Not gonna lie, with the XD-58s, you’re going to lose a little in the bass range, but overall a pretty bright sound. I think you’ll be quite pleased with the fidelity.”

  “Cool?” I said.

  I plugged the earphones into the jack in Beefer’s walkie-talkie and held down the Talk button. “Um. Hi?” I whispered. “What’s up?”

  “Try not to get your thumb grease all over it,” whispered Beefer.

  From inside my pocket, Hammie Rex grunted at him.

  The walkie-talkie crackled. “Hi, Sam,” said Dylan. “Just chilling inside this coat rack. You?”

  “We’re about to enter RaddZone,” I said. “Let me turn the camera on.” I pulled my UltraLite SmartShot camera out of my bag. In night vision mode, it showed the dim hallway in a palette of glowing greens. I turned on its wireless capability and panned around. “You getting this, Dylan?”

  “One sec,” said Dylan. “Yep. I’m looking at the laptop and I see what you’re seeing. Neat!”

  “Okay, the feed is up,” I said to everyone. “We’re good to go.”

  “Commence Operation Sightless Snake,” said Martha.

  Martha pulled a coiled jump rope out of her backpack. She held the plastic handle at one end and handed me the other. Beefer and Serena both grabbed on to the middle of the rope.

  “Blindfolds on,” said Martha.
<
br />   Each of us tied a bandana over our eyes. The world was pitch-black now. Totally disorienting.

  “Can anybody see anything?” said Serena.

  “Nope,” I said. “But I can still smell Beefer.”

  “Who said that?” said Beefer.

  “Ow! Don’t step on my foot!” said Martha.

  “Sorry,” said Beefer. “Agh! Something hairy touched my neck!”

  Serena snickered. “Just messing with you, man.”

  “Stop it!” said Beefer. “Not cool!”

  “Shhh!” said Martha. “Listen.”

  “Don’t worry, it wasn’t a poisonous scorpion,” said Serena.

  “Wait? How do you know?” said Beefer.

  “I think I hear police sirens,” said Martha.

  “That’s just my squeaky shoe,” I said. “All right, everybody: forward march!”

  We awkwardly shuffled forward through the door. Holding on to the jump rope, we were like a blind snake; I was the head and Martha was the tail. Except we weren’t exactly blind. With my other hand, I held my digital camera out in front of me, which was streaming live back to the laptop in front of Dylan, who in turn was giving us directions.

  “Okay,” said Dylan over the walkie-talkie, “it’s looking like you’re just to the left of Alien Autopsy: Turbo, about twenty feet from the snack bar.”

  “Any sign of Cartimandua or the Mind Mole?” I whispered into the walkie-talkie as I panned the camera right and left.

  “Not seeing anything,” said Dylan. “No lights on. Looks pretty deserted.”

  “Then let’s start searching,” I said. I tugged the jump rope twice: the mutually agreed-upon silent signal for “move forward.”

  And so we slowly started to wind our way through RaddZone with Dylan as our eyes, guiding us forward and warning us of obstacles. Four blindfolded kids holding a jump rope wasn’t the most efficient way to move—I banged my shins approximately seventy-eight times between the door and the Muscle Meter—but this way we couldn’t get mind-moled.

  We’d covered a couple hundred feet when Dylan came back over the walkie-talkie. “Guys, wait!” said Dylan. “I see someone. They’re coming your way.”