by Steve Cole
It wasn’t. The astrosaurs soon saw that the shuttle had been wrecked! Water sloshed about on the floor. All the controls had been destroyed, and the space radio was smashed into a hundred pieces. Even Teggs’s emergency supply of ferns had been scattered into the sea. He quickly guzzled up the few leaves still remaining.
“Who could have done such a thing?” Arx spluttered.
“I know!” said Teggs grimly. “Dipping ferns in salty water ruins the flavour!”
Arx frowned. “Um, I was talking about the damage done to the shuttle, Captain.”
“Oh. Er, yes.” Teggs quickly swallowed his food. “Well, I’ll give you one guess.” He pointed to a large white spike left behind in a ruined control panel.
It was a megalodon tooth!
“Nice try, shark brains,” Teggs shouted out to sea. “But if we can’t contact Admiral Rosso ourselves, the dimorphodon can do it for us. I’ll call them on my communicator.”
But all he heard back was the harsh, empty sound of space static.
“Uh-oh,” said Arx. “Someone is blocking our signal with a powerful jamming device.”
“But who?” said Teggs. “I thought the megs had no technology?”
The triceratops frowned. “It seems that we have underestimated them.”
“Well, right now I estimate we’re in big, big trouble.” Teggs crossly whumped his tail against the soggy shuttle. “We’ve lost Gipsy, we can’t get reinforcements, and now we’ve got no way of getting Gastro or the bactrosaurs off Kleen Island.”
“I know,” said Arx. “It seems the megs have caught us all together in their terror-bird trap!”
Chapter Six
TERROR DOWN THE TOILET
High on the cliff tops, in the gardens of Queen Soapi’s palace, Iggy was walking with Gastro. The terror bird was carrying Janice the hoof-maiden to her room while the queen told her people the bad news about the megs.
Suddenly, Janice wriggled in his arms. “Are you all right?” asked Gastro.
The hoof-maiden nodded quickly and got down. Then she trotted giddily away, bumping into a bush as she went.
“Funny girl,” Iggy said, and Gastro agreed. “Now then, how about taking me to the Spotless Survival Suit workshop?”
The workshop was a gleaming white building surrounded by perfect hedgerows. Through the window, Iggy could see all five of the other terror birds hard at work as they sang a tuneless little ditty about what fun it was to sew. Gordon and Godfrey’s claws were a blur as they stitched the suits with their trim little talons.
“My boys are devoted to finishing the Survival Suits on time,” Gastro explained. “They all love the bactrosaurs. If they’re not checking the toilet pipes, they’re in here working.”
“Can I go inside and see the suits like Soapi said?” asked Iggy eagerly.
“First you must have a good wash,” said Gastro. “No one’s allowed inside unless they’re spotless!” He pointed to some bathrooms nearby.
“Cheek!” Iggy fumed as he crossed the square. “I’m as clean as a carrot!”
The bathrooms were bright and well lit. Through a doorway, Iggy spotted a large, white china seat with a hole in it. “A flush toilet!” he declared. “I suppose I may as well give it a go.”
He perched his scaly bottom on it, careful to keep his tail up in the air.
But then something grabbed hold of his bottom and pulled hard!
“Argh!” Iggy shouted in surprise. And before he could mutter another word he was dragged right down the toilet!
It was too dark to see what had grabbed hold of him. With a bump and a bounce and a bang-bang-BANG he went tumbling through a maze of slimy pipes. Finally, with a stinky SPLAT he fell out into a very nasty brown puddle.
“Well, now I really do need a shower,” he groaned. “I wish I’d grabbed a Spotless Survival Suit first – this would be the perfect test!”
He looked around. He was in a dark, dirty tunnel. “Any megs hiding around here?” Iggy yelled, putting on his stun claws. “I’ll turn you into shark paste!”
Then he heard a squelching, slithering, slurping noise coming from round the corner, as if a mile-wide slug was dragging itself towards him.
“Who – who’s there?” said Iggy nervously, raising his fists.
But this was one enemy he couldn’t fight – a huge landslide of stinky sludge! It filled the tunnel as it surged towards him, ready to engulf everything in its path.
Iggy turned and ran for his life . . .
Meanwhile, in a small under-sea cave, Gipsy’s eyes fluttered open. She remembered the megs closing in around her, and Captain Teggs yelling her name. She had tried to swim away from the enormous super-sharks, but had crashed into some coral and knocked herself out.
Now she saw that there were bars blocking her way – she was a prisoner. Through the bars she could see a splendid cavern, covered in red and gold seaweed. Then a dark shape swam up in front of the entrance.
It was a huge meg with a bright gold crown perched upon his smooth head. Two slightly smaller fin-maidens bobbed about behind him in the blue water.
“I am King Fin,” burbled the regal creature. “And you are my prisoner. Confess your crimes, landlubber!” Gipsy frowned. “But I haven’t done anything. I only came here to talk to you.”
“Rubbish!” sneered King Fin. “You are a landlubber spy for those ugly brutes up on dry land. First you try to drive us away, now you are planning a full-on attack!”
“What attack?” spluttered Gipsy. “You’re the ones who attacked those bactrosaurs who swam too far out to sea.”
“We were only trying to help them,” said King Fin sniffily. “We tried to carry them back to shore, and the silly things went crazy!”
“Really?” Gipsy frowned. “You mean you weren’t trying to eat them?”
“Ugh!” said King Fin. “We eat fish, not smelly, dirty dinosaurs!”
“Well, what about when you tried to wriggle up onto the beach?” said Gipsy.
The king glared at her. “Two of my fin-maidens were washed up there after a storm. They asked for help, and what did they get? A poke with a pole!”
“Oh dear,” said Gipsy. “I think there’s been a terrible misunderstanding here. Why didn’t you explain to Queen Soapi what had happened?”
“After the way she treated my people?” He pushed his smooth grey nose up in the air. “I have vowed never to talk to her again!”
“But why are you attacking the island now?” Gipsy asked. “We are going to get that gutless Gastro,” King Fin hissed. “He is a traitor to his own people.”
Gipsy gulped. “Then it is a terror-bird trap!”
“And as for his bactrosaur buddies . . . They started this dirty war, but they will soon find it’s going to get a lot dirtier!”
“What do you mean?” said Gipsy. “Queen Soapi didn’t start anything. You did.”
“Don’t be cheeky.” King Fin waved at one of his fin-maidens, who swam quickly away. “You came here to spy on our top-secret weapon, didn’t you?” he burbled. “Well, I’ll show it to you myself. Tremble in fear at the sight of . . . the tank-tank!”
Suddenly, Gipsy heard the roar of an engine, and the sound of something heavy rumbling closer. She saw the fin-maiden was now floating inside a very curious contraption. It looked like a large aquarium on big, chunky wheels. Two huge guns stuck out from either side.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” King Fin swum and shimmied about it in excitement. “Part fish tank, part real tank. With these we can drive onto the island and get all you landlubbers!”
Gipsy felt her head-crest flush blue with alarm. “Drive onto it? I thought you were trying to sink it?”
“Shut up, stripy!” King Fin shook his tail. “Look! See these guns? They fire deadly dollops of dung! That’ll teach those yukky bactrosaurs not to mess with us.”
“But they don’t want to mess with you!” Gipsy protested. “If you and Queen Soapi would only talk to each other—”
“The time for talking is over,” said the king.
“Hang on, where did you get this tank-tank thing?” Gipsy demanded. “I didn’t think you had any technology.”
“You thought wrong then, didn’t you?” King Fin retorted. “Fin-maidens, there are now enough tank-tanks for all of us. We shall all become mega-megs! Gather my army in the meeting-cave. I shall give my greatest ever speech . . . and then we shall strike!”
Gipsy’s heart was sinking faster than Kleen Island. She knew that a dreadful battle was looming. And, while she was stuck in here, she was helpless to stop it!
Chapter Seven
IN THE DUNG!
Teggs was very worried as he stomped across the beach with Arx. “How can we stop King Fin’s army of super-sharks with nothing but coconut catapults? And what about Gipsy?”
“I hope Iggy can fix your auto-swimsuit quickly,” said Arx. “If only we had brought extra costumes! Then he and I could come with you.”
“Wait!” Teggs stopped still. His keen eyes had noticed something grey peeping over the top of a large rock. “See that?”
“Could be a meg,” Arx whispered. “One that has learned to live on dry land!”
“Maybe it can help us find Gipsy,” said Teggs, and with a fierce growl he charged towards it. One strike of his powerful tail pulverized the rock – but there was no megalodon hiding behind it. Only a bundle of grey, shiny material.
Arx prodded it with his biggest horn. “It’s a kind of auto-swimsuit!”
Teggs beamed. “Just what we need! Brilliant!”
“But where did it come from?” said Arx. “Let’s smooth it out a bit . . .”
As they did so, it became clear that the suit was the same shape as an extra-big meg.
“I don’t get it,” said Teggs. “Since when did a shark need a swimsuit?”
“Look, Captain.” Arx pointed behind him. “That rock was hiding a hole in the cliff face.” He pulled lumps of rock away to reveal a dark cave-mouth. “It must be a secret tunnel. I wonder where it leads?”
“Let’s find out,” said Teggs, squeezing into the gap. “Phwoar! What a stink! It’s worse than a sewer!”
The narrow passage seemed to go on for miles. The smell got worse the deeper they went.
“I think my nose is going to fall off!” Arx gasped.
The tunnel turned out to be a kind of side street, leading to a much larger, slimier tunnel. As soon as they entered it, a spooky noise came out of the darkness: “Woahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
It was Iggy! He came charging out of the darkness like a thousand raptors were snapping at his tail. He ran straight into Teggs and Arx, and all three of them fell down in a bundle of legs, tails and horns.
“Iggy!” gasped Teggs, pulling the tip of the iguanodon’s tail from his nostril. “Where did you spring from?”
“Quick, Captain,” gasped Iggy. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
A huge, brown, stinky, sludgy, slimy tidal wave was gurgling towards them.
“Into the side tunnel!” cried Teggs.
He and Arx grabbed hold of Iggy and dived back into the hole they had come through – just before the thick, sewer-stinking sludge could swallow them up.
“It’s bactrosaur poo!” Iggy explained. “Mixed in with millions of gallons of bactrosaur wee! These tunnels are sewage pipes leading from the bactrosaurs’ flush toilets. I was sucked down one of them – that’s how I got here.”
“Disgusting!” cried Arx. “Toilet mess should be recycled safely and cleanly, not dumped down here to make a dung mountain!”
Suddenly, the tunnel lurched and shook and tilted. “Uh-oh! The island is sinking again!” shouted Teggs.
“Aha!” cried Arx. “I understand now – it’s the dung! Don’t you see?”
“I see it all right,” said Iggy. Already the sticky brown sludge was beginning to seep into the narrow passage.
“No, I mean that is why we are sinking!” Arx was hopping from foot to foot in excitement. “The toilets were built about a year ago, right? And ever since then, tons and tons of niffy nasties have been pouring down the pipes into these underground caves every day. The sheer weight of all this untreated dung is making the island sink!”
Teggs stared at Arx in amazement. “So the megs aren’t sinking the island after all . . . It’s Gastro and his dodgy plumbing!”
“And that explains why the megs are so angry,” Arx added. “As the island sinks deeper, the dung is leaking out into the sea . . . polluting the waters for miles around!”
“No wonder they’re ready to go to war,” said Iggy. “So much for those terror birds being Very Important Plumbers! How could Gastro do such a rotten job?”
“Maybe someone has sabotaged the sewer system,” Arx suggested. “Just like they sabotaged the shuttle.”
“I wonder . . .” Teggs felt a shiver go down him from the tip of his tail to the top of his toes. “I just wonder . . .”
In the dark, murky depths of King Fin’s domain, the invasion of Kleen Island was ready to begin.
Gipsy could hear the growl and rumble of hundreds of tank-tanks as they trundled away across the sea bed.
Soon the megs would reach the shores of Kleen Island. The bactrosaurs would stand no chance against the tank-tanks’ deadly dung-shooters. How had a race of super-sharks built such dreadful weapons when they had no other technology? She knew she must find out – and warn Queen Soapi before it was too late.
So while the megs were busy, Gipsy picked the lock of her cage with a sharp shell and a stiff strip of seaweed.
“Yes!” she hooted, as the lock burst open.
But even as she sneaked away, a huge, fat megalodon swam into the palace chamber. It saw her at once.
Gipsy raised her hooves, ready for combat. “I don’t want to fight,” she insisted, “but we must stop your king. He’s about to make a big mistake!”
“Bigger than you think,” said the meg. “But not as big as the mistake you astrosaurs made in coming here . . .”
As the monster swam closer, Gipsy frowned to see a large zipper running down the length of its body. This wasn’t a real meg, it was someone in a costume!
“I’ve come here to clear up any loose ends,” chortled the fake-finned impostor. “And that includes you!”
Gipsy didn’t recognize the voice, but she recognized the terrifying talons that sprang from the shark-suit.
She was all alone against a terror bird!
With an evil squawk, it reached out to get her . . .
Chapter Eight
LET BATTLE BEGIN!
“Guys, I reckon that Gastro has tricked us all!” Teggs looked gravely at Iggy and Arx. “He’s been using dung to weigh down the island and stir up the megs. And at the same time he’s been faking those cave attacks to stir up the bactrosaurs!”
“Then it wasn’t a real meg that attacked me in the cave,” realized Arx. “It was an impostor. Probably that goofy Godfrey wearing the shark swimsuit we found on the beach – he was hiding in the cave too, remember?”
“With a wingful of stolen shark teeth,” Teggs growled. “I never trusted those overgrown canaries. I’ll bet one of them smashed up our shuttle so we couldn’t get help. Then another one swam after me and Gipsy to stop us learning the truth – that the terror birds are trying to start a war between the megs and the bactrosaurs!”
“But there’s one thing I still don’t understand,” said Iggy. “Gastro and all five of his terror-bird chums were at the Survival-Suit workshop when I went to the bathroom,” Iggy explained. “So how could one of them have pulled me down the toilet?”
“If there are more terror birds here than Gastro’s been letting on, we’d better flush them out – and fast.” Teggs gave a crooked smile. “Come on, boys, we must find Queen Soapi before it’s too late. We’ve got a war to stop!”
But what Teggs didn’t realize was that Queen Soapi was already ready for action.
She stood in the palace courtyard, watching as her warriors and ho
of-maidens carefully washed their coconuts and catapults. Then they started to climb daintily into their Spotless Survival Suits, helped by some of the terror birds.
“We shall stand guard on the shore,” Queen Soapi announced. “If the invaders so much as poke their sharky noses out of the ocean, we shall be ready for them!”
The bactrosaurs hooted and cheered – not at the thought of fighting shark-monsters, but because they were all rather taken with their dazzling new outfits.
Gastro bowed down before Queen Soapi. “It is time to put on your own Spotless Survival Suit, Your Majesty.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Gastro. Whatever happens today, I am proud to have known you. You are a true friend to all bactrosaurs.”
Gastro smiled. “Don’t mention it,” he said.
Gipsy dodged aside as the monster tried to grab her. “I might have guessed,” she said. “You terror birds have been helping the megs! Which one are you?”
“Gordon,” said the disguised bird. “But, just to be fair, we’ve been helping the bactrosaurs too. See, the boss wants Queen Soapi and King Fin to battle each other.”
“Why?” Gipsy demanded.
“There are too few of us to invade this planet,” Gordon explained, lunging forwards. “So we will just stand back and let the bactrosaurs and the megs wipe each other out. See, the boss has made sure that this battle will end in a draw!” He chuckled. “Or do I mean a dead heat? Anyway, as the only people left on Atlantos, we will happily inherit it – without lifting a wing!”
Gipsy ducked beneath him. “The DSS will stop you.”
“They can’t. As far as the rest of the universe is concerned, this fight was nothing to do with us!” Gordon swiped at her with his talons, missing her by millimetres. “We simply stepped in to take the planet once it was empty.”
“But what about the terror birds back home?” Gipsy reminded him. “Or was that story about being wanted a big lie?”
“No it was true all right.” Gordon grimaced. “But the boss is going to take care of that,” said Gordon. “Just like I am going to take care of you.”
Gordon’s claws slashed through the water once more as he bore down on Gipsy.
Teggs, Arx and Iggy burst out of the cave in the cliff face and rushed along the beach.
