by Steve Cole
Back in the dryer room, Furp was getting more desperate with every passing minute. “We have to stop that jumbo dryer.” He peeped out from behind the upturned desk – and Onzo nearly shot his nose off with a chunk of concrete.
“You need a distraction,” Jurley muttered. “Conk-Whopper, can you kick off your sandal so it flies through the air?”
“Good plan,” breathed Conk-Whopper, wriggling onto his back. “Onzo can’t fire at my sandal and Furp at the same time . . .”
WHOOSH! Propelled by a flick of Conk-Whopper’s toes, the silvery sandal soared upwards.
CRACK! Onzo opened fire.
And at the same moment, Furp pounced out of hiding at incredible speed.
Onzo barely had time to look up before a pair of metal pants collided with his nose! “OUCH!” The overblown assistant collapsed and Furp quickly scooped up his concrete catapult – just as Plog, Danjo and Zill came crashing back inside.
“Those woolly nightmares are right behind us,” Zill panted. “Have you wrecked the dryer yet?”
“No!” wailed Furp.
“Good!” Plog replied. “The socks have had a wash in New-formula Sudz. It means they’re stronger than ever. But it also means that if we can turn up the heat . . .”
“Of course!” The frog-monster grinned. “One blast of heat will prime the pinch-and-pucker particles, and a second will start them shrinking – just as it did with our own clothes.”
Danjo punched the air. “So if we can get them in the tumble dryer, we’ll be home and, er, dry – while the socks will be small and shrivelled!”
Zill looked worried. “But how do we get them inside it?”
With a massive crash, the door and the wall around it exploded to reveal the four killer socks in all their savage, slightly soggy splendour.
“Destroy the Slime Squad!” Klukk commanded from his cracked smellyvision set. “Nothing else matters! Nothing!”
Jurley gasped. “That’s how you have to get them inside – by using yourselves as bait!”
“She’s right, it’s the only way,” said Plog, leading the charge for the dryer. “Come on.”
“Wait,” Zill gasped as they reached the enormous round door of the machine. “Those Sudzy socks haven’t had the first burst of heat yet.”
“That’s easily fixed,” Danjo told her. Hot slime erupted from his left pincer with the force of a fire-fighter’s hose. The socks took a serious dowsing and started to steam. But the bubbling slime only made them even angrier. They slithered towards the Squaddies at breakneck speed, woollen jaws widening . . .
“Tiny flaw in this plan,” Zill realized. “If we hide inside the dryer, we’ll be trapped – the socks will squish us in seconds!”
“When I checked it out before, I noticed an inspection panel at the back,” Furp said breathlessly. “Perhaps we can get through it and double back round.”
“It’s worth a try,” Danjo agreed. “’Cause when danger looms large, the Slime Squad cries—”
“CHARRRRGE!” Plog bellowed. He was the first to fling himself into the cavernous metal drum inside the dryer but the others soon followed. The clatter of Danjo’s peg-like feet, Zill’s paws and Furp’s pants echoed wildly all around him as the Squaddies ran to a square of metal like a tiny door in the back of the dryer.
Danjo groaned. “That’s your inspection panel? A flea couldn’t fit through that!”
“A flea isn’t as tough and determined as we are,” Plog told him – as Zill kicked in the panel with four paws and a “Hi-yaaa!”
Red Sock flopped inside the dryer. Spotty threw out a thread and dragged himself inside after his fiery friend as Zill and Furp scuttled through the narrow gap.
Danjo tried to follow them. “Oh, no!” He waved his legs helplessly. “I’m stuck!”
Plog glanced behind him and saw Tartan and Stripy climbing inside, as Red Sock and Spotty wriggled relentlessly closer . . .
“Sorry, Danjo,” he said – and kicked his friend hard up the bottom!
“OW!” Pop! Danjo was forced through the hatch.
Dodging a blaze of sockfire, Plog forced his way through the small crawl space and joined his friends. As Zill quickly spat a web of slime-lines to block the hatchway, Danjo helped Plog up with a grin. “Thanks, pal. I’ve never been so grateful for a boot up the butt!”
“Come on,” Furp urged his friends. “We’ve got to get out of here, double round and shut the dryer door on those socks before they know what’s happening!”
Exhausted, gasping for breath, the Squaddies ran through a short tunnel of pipe work until they reached a dead end.
“This is the only way out,” Furp declared.
Desperate now, Plog, Danjo, Furp and Zill punched, kicked and bit their way through the side of the giant dryer! Free at last, they finally flopped down to the floor.
“Well done,” called Conk-Whopper. “Now, close the dryer door, turn the dial to setting two and hit the red button.”
“Quickly!” Jurley added. “The socks are starting to get out again!”
Plog and his friends bundled back round to the front of the tumble dryer. Sure enough, in the big round doorway the socks were already rearing up like horrible serpents. The hunched shadow of Klukk seemed to stare out at them through his two-way screen. “You can never escape, Squaddies!” Klukk gloated. “My socks are indestructible!”
“But that smellyvision set isn’t,” Plog shouted. He grabbed Furp’s broken crash helmet and hurled it with all his strength at the screen. KA-ZTTTT! The set exploded in Stripy’s mouth, giving him such a shock that he fell back into his fellow socks, knocking them over.
As the helmet dropped back down to the floor, Zill spat out a slime-line and snagged the dryer door. All four Squaddies heaved on the end to slam the door shut.
Then Furp scaled the side of the towering machine and twisted the main dial. “Setting two, right?”
“Right,” said Conk-Whopper. “Two seconds dried a ton of clothes . . . so let’s see what thirty seconds will do to those evil socks!”
Furp pressed the red button and jumped clear as the machine lurched and shook and rumbled into life, shaking, tumbling, setting its insides spinning ever faster . . .
“NOOOOOOOOOO!” Klukk’s cries carried from inside. “I warn you, Squaddies. The next time we meet it will buk-buk-be face to face – and a terrible fate shall buk-buk-befall you all!”
“Oh, put a sock in it!” Plog shouted.
The mad chicken-monster’s further ravings were lost beneath the roar of the dryer as it sent shock waves through the whole Sudz Building . . .
And then, with a PING! the dryer stopped. Its door swung open, and four tiny, shrivelled clumps of wool and fluff tumbled out from inside.
“So much for the killer socks.” Plog grinned at his friends as they sighed with relief. “I guess they just couldn’t take the heat!”
Later, once Furp had used Plog’s foot slime and Sudz to whisk up some more anti-shrink, Jurley and Conk-Whopper were finally free to join the Slime Squad in some post-sock celebrations. They danced and sang and jumped around on the roof – and made plans for the future.
“I’ll wash all my free giveaway clothes in anti-shrink and make sure they are harmless,” Conk-Whopper declared. “Then the big launch of New-formula Sudz can go ahead safely.”
“I’m sure it will be a huge success,” said Zill.
Onzo, sitting glumly in the corner, heaved a sigh. “Bah! Not fair!”
“Cheer up, Onzo,” Danjo called. “Perhaps they’ll use Sudz to wash your prison uniform in monster jail!”
Conk-Whopper turned to Jurley. “I will pay you back, of course, for the fabric the socks stole from you. And all the money Onzo was going to get for helping me invent the fabric toughener will cover the costs of rebuilding your factories.”
“Thank you,” said Jurley. Then she turned to Plog and gave him a hug. “And thank you too. All of you!”
Plog blushed. “Just doing our job, Jurley.”
&nb
sp; “And doing it with style!” Danjo said happily.
“Now let’s go back to base.” Zill yawned. “I feel completely washed out.”
“Don’t mention washing!” groaned Furp.
“It’s a shame Klukk got clean away,” Plog reflected. “But we’ll sock it to him the next time we meet – or our name’s not THE SLIME SQUAD!”
About the Author
Born in 1971, Steve Cole spent a happy childhood in rural Bedfordshire being loud and aspiring to amuse. He liked books, and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with titles ranging from pre-school poetry to Young Adult thrillers (with more TV and film tie-ins than he cares to admit to along the way). In other careers he has been the editor of Noddy magazine, and an editor of fiction and nonfiction book titles for various publishers. He is the author of the hugely successful Astrosaurs, Cows in Action, Astrosaurs Academy and Slime Squad series.
Also by Steve Cole:
[ASTROSAURS]
Riddle of the Raptors
The Hatching Horror
The Seas of Doom
The Mind-Swap Menace
The Skies of Fear
The Space Ghosts
Day of the Dino-Droids
The Terror-Bird Trap
The Planet of Peril
The Star Pirates
The Claws of Christmas
The Sun-Snatchers
Revenge of the Fang
The Carnivore Curse
The Dreams of Dread
The Robot Raiders
The Twist of Time
The Sabre-Tooth Secret
The Forest of Evil
Earth Attack!
The T-Rex Invasion
The Castle of Frankensaur
[ASTROSAURS ACADEMY]
Destination: Danger!
Contest Carnage!
Terror Underground!
Jungle Horror!
Deadly Drama!
Christmas Crisis!
Volcano Invaders!
Space Kidnap!
[COWS IN ACTION]
The Ter-Moo-nators
The Moo-my’s Curse
The Roman Moo-stery
The Wild West Moo-nster
World War Moo
The Battle for Christmoos
The Pirate Moo-tiny
The Moogic of Merlin
The Victorian Moo-ders
The Moo-lympic Games
First Cows on the Mooon
The Viking Emoo-gency
The Udderly Moo-vellous C.I.A. Joke Book
Astrosaurs Vs Cows in Action: The Dinosaur Moo-tants
[SLIME SQUAD]
Slime Squad Vs The Fearsome Fists
Slime Squad Vs The Toxic Teeth
Slime Squad Vs The Cyber Poos
Slime Squad Vs The Supernatural Squid
Slime Squad Vs The Killer Socks
Slime Squad Vs The Last Chance Chicken
Slime Squad Vs The Alligator Army
Slime Squad Vs The Conquering Conks
For older readers:
Z. Rex
Z. Raptor
Z. Apocalypse
THE SLIME SQUAD vs THE KILLER SOCKS
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17490 4
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2014
Copyright © Steve Cole, 2011
Map © Steve Cole and Dynamo Design, 2011
Illustrations copyright © Woody Fox, 2011
First Published in Great Britain
Red Fox 9781862308800 2011
The right of Steve Cole to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
