Astrosaurs 20
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“I’ll organize everyone in the cave,” Splatt offered.
“And we will be standing by to help you if things go wrong,” Netta promised.
“OK, guys,” said Teggs. “Here’s what we do . . .”
Five minutes later, Teggs and his helpers were waiting nervously for their face-off with the ravenous ’rexes. Teggs wasn’t sure he would hear them coming over the pounding of his heart.
“My uncle fought T. rexes with dung-torpedoes and laser-blasters at the Battle of Bellif lop.” Damona sighed and looked down at the bright, rubbery bundles in her arms. “What have we got? Tents!”
“You know what to do,” Teggs murmured.
“Yes.” Blink clutched a small pile of deflated tents to his chest. “And our timing must be perfect.”
Dutch nodded. “A second too late and it’s,‘Hello, T. rex tum’ time!”
Suddenly, they felt the ground tremble under their feet, and heard heavy footsteps crashing towards them.
“Good luck, everyone,” Teggs whispered.
The next moment, with an ear-splitting roar, all six T. rexes smashed through the nearby bushes. At the sight of the plant-eaters their piggy eyes grew wide as saucers. Their little arms twitched. Their big jaws dribbled.
Lord Slyme pushed to the front of the scaly scrum. “What have us here?” he hissed. “A juicy jumble of jelly-soft dino-dinners! Me a brilliant hunter!”
“Brilliant?” Teggs scoffed, as Slyme stamped towards him. “I think you’ve got an inflated opinion of yourself!”
The horrible hunter opened his jaws to bite him in half. But Teggs hurled the tent into Slyme’s mouth and yanked on the black cord. The tent puffed up in a moment – and so did Slyme’s throat!
“MRRRRPH!” he spluttered, his little arms waving in the air. It looked as if he had swallowed a space-hopper!
Angrily – but also stupidly – the other T. rexes attacked in the same way. Dutch dumped his tent in the mouth of one of them and yanked on the cord. Its head inflated like a big balloon!
Another tried to catch Blink. But Blink flapped into the air. As the T. rex looked up, Blink dropped three tents down its neck and pulled the strings. The monster’s stomach swelled up and it bounced about helplessly.
Trebor dealt with another T. rex just as Dutch had. But Akk was not so lucky. Her tent inflated by accident before she could get it into anyone’s mouth. Two ’rexes charged towards her . . .
“Teggs!” shouted Damona. “Let’s play skittles!”
Teggs took one look at the T. rex with the round, inflated tummy and understood what she meant. Together, the two cadets whacked the evil hunter with their tails. They sent it rolling like a giant, scaly bowling ball! It knocked over the two T. rexes before they could grab Akk. Akk quickly jumped on their heads and knocked them senseless.
That left just one T. rex standing. But it was the fastest of all. It darted forward and sank its teeth into Teggs’s tail!
“Yeeeowwww!” Teggs yelled, as powerful jaws lifted him into the air . . .
“All charge!” yelled Dutch.
He, Damona, Trebor and Akk ran at the T. rex at the same time. They smashed into its scaly stomach and sides. The T. rex gasped. Teggs slipped from its jaws and tumbled to the ground. At the same moment, Blink swooped down and chucked another two saggy tents into the monster’s mouth.
“URRPH!” spluttered the T. rex. Its jaws were yanked open as the tents inflated, and its eyes nearly popped from its head! It staggered back, tripped over Lord Slyme’s oversized neck and crashed to the floor.
“We beat them!” cried Trebor, grabbing Akk in a hug.
“But what about Teggs?” cried Blink. “He’s not moving!” Blink, Dutch and Damona raced to the stegosaur’s side. But was it too late . . .?
Chapter Nine
A SNAPPY SOUVENIR
“Dude!” Dutch crouched over Teggs. “Wake up. Your plan totally worked!”
“Please wake up,” Blink added. “You’re the most daring dino of all. You can’t leave us!”
“Yeah, come on, you dumb, brave stegosaur,” said Damona, nudging his cheek with her horns. “You must be all right. If you’re not, I will never forgive you!”
Teggs’s eyes flickered open. “I . . . I . . .”
“He’s alive!” Blink turned a somersault. “Yay!”
“Shh,” said Damona, straining to hear. “He’s trying to say something.”
“I . . . think . . .” Teggs raised his head weakly to look at her – then grinned. “I think you’re standing on my foot!”
“Teggs!” She scowled, backing away. “I thought you were hurt.”
“I’m fine now!” Teggs cried, bouncing up and hugging his friends. “Apart from some tooth-marks in my tail. Well done, all of you.”
“Hooray!” yelled Netta, leading the other cadets from the cave. They all burst into applause.
“You’ve turned T. rex into T. wrecks!” Splatt cried, dancing round the scaly monsters as they lay groaning on the ground. “Let’s tie them up, quickly.”
Damona frowned. “But we don’t have any ropes.”
“Then we must find some,” said Teggs. “All of us!”
The cadets worked as a team. Some dug up tough tree roots. Some went to their first-aid kits and knotted bandages together. The T. rexes only had small arms so they were quite easy to tie up. One lambeosaur even found a giant snake! It coiled itself around Lord Slyme’s legs and arms very happily, gripping them tight. The T. rex wriggled helplessly in the serpent’s grip.
“No one treats me like this,” snarled Lord Slyme with some difficulty. “No one!”
“We do,” said Teggs. “The cadets of Astrosaurs Academy!”
Suddenly, the sound of huge engines filled the air. Everyone stared in astonishment as a giant craft swished down from the sky.
“It’s the astro-jet!” Teggs yelled, as the mighty space-plane landed close by.
A moment later, Commander Gruff stuck his head out through the doors, an unripe banana clamped in his mouth as always. “Looks like you new recruits had a little trouble here.”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle, sir,” said Teggs, smiling at Damona.
“We worked together and got the job done,” Damona agreed. “Although obviously I was best—” Dutch nudged her in the ribs. “Ow!”
“How come you came back for us early, sir?” asked Blink.
“When those T. rexes crashed they sent a call for help to their home planet,” Gruff revealed.
“Right!’ Dutch turned to Blink. “We heard them say they would, remember?”
“Well, we picked up their signal and came flying to get them,” said Gruff. “But it seems we wasted our time!”
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Teggs, smiling at his friends. “The sooner this lot get off Astro Prime, the better!”
“Us agree,” moaned the T. rex with the inflated stomach. “Us definitely agree!”
Commander Gruff took charge and things were soon sorted out. Lord Slyme and his slaves were sent back to Teerex Major with a warning never to return to plant-eater space. And more astro-jets arrived to take Teggs and all his fellow cadets back to Astrosaurs Academy.
Teggs was exhausted. He slept for twenty-four hours. When he woke up his tail was throbbing – but otherwise he felt fine. In fact he was so hungry he ate his mattress! Then he, Blink and Dutch went to the Learning Zone for their afternoon class.
“Oh, no!” Blink squawked.
“What’s up, dude?” Dutch wondered.
He shook his beak. “In all the excitement, we never got anything for show-and-tell!”
“Bad luck, Teggs!” Damona smirked. “Looks like you might not be getting your Planet Explorer’s medal after all!”
Teggs’s heart sank. “Damona’s right. We haven’t completed our mission!”
Netta giggled, and Splatt pulled out a giant pine cone from under his desk. “We brought back this. It’s bound to win the special prize!”
Just
then, Commander Gruff stomped into the classroom. Everyone saluted.
“OK,” Gruff said impatiently. “You had some unexpected action in your camp yesterday, but it’s time to get back to business. We will start with show-and-tell.”
“Oh, no!” groaned Dutch.
Every team had something to show. Damona’s Darlings had their giant pine cone. The Triceratops Troop produced a perfect pink eggshell. The Leaf-Loving Squad pulled out a funny-shaped stick . . . and so it went on.
“Hmm, not bad,” said Gruff, as Trebor showed off a fossil spider. “And what about the Daring Dinos? What have you got?”
“Um . . .” Blink blinked so hard he blew some paper off his desk. “We seem to have . . . accidentally . . . er . . .”
“Forgotten to get anything,” Dutch concluded.
You could have heard a pin drop in the quiet classroom. Teggs felt dreadful.
Gruff cleared his throat. “You were very brave in the wilderness, boys, and I am proud of you all.” He sighed. “But I cannot break the rules. If you did not bring back anything to show and tell, you have failed the mission – and I cannot give you your Planet Explorer medals.”
“Wait!” squawked Blink. And he pecked at the bony barbs at the end of Teggs’s tail.
“Ow!” Teggs yelped. “What was that for?”
Dutch grinned. “Looks like you did bring something back after all, dude!”
Blink opened his beak – and Teggs saw a large, ivory spike lying there. He grinned. “A T. rex tooth! It must have got stuck in my tail when that monster bit me.”
“Cool!” cried Trebor, and the rest of the class joined in with oohs and ahhs.
“I suppose it’s quite a good show-and-tell,” said Damona huffily. But then she managed a smile. “OK. It’s brilliant.”
“Indeed it is!” Commander Gruff grinned. “In fact – it’s going to win the special prize – a whole starship full of fresh food to chomp on.”
“Wheeeee!” cried Blink, as Dutch gave him and Teggs a high-five.
“And everyone can join in the feast,” Teggs declared. “We will have a party in the dino-dorms tonight!” Damona, Netta and Splatt led the cheering that followed, and Teggs beamed round at his fellow cadets. “We’ve made it through our first mission at Astrosaurs Academy . . . and I can’t wait to find out what we’ll be getting up to next!”
THE END
About the Author
Photo: RebeccaJudge.com
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, the voice of a Dalek and an editor of fiction and nonfiction book titles for various publishers.
ALSO BY STEVE COLE:
Read all the adventures of Teggs, Gipsy, Arx and Iggy!
1 Riddle of the Raptors
2 The Hatching Horror
3 The Seas of Doom
4 The Mind-Swap Menace
5 The Skies of Fear
6 The Space Ghosts
7 Day of the Dino-Droids
8 The Terror-Bird Trap
9 The Planet of Peril
10 The Star Pirates
11 The Claws of Christmas
12 The Sun-Snatchers
13 Revenge of the Fang
14 The Carnivore Curse
15 The Dreams of Dread
16 The Robot Raiders
17 The Twist of Time
18 The Sabre-Tooth Secret
19 The Forest of Evil
20 Earth Attack!
21 The T. Rex Invasion
22 The Castle of Frankensaur
Read all the adventures of Teggs, Blink and Dutch at the Astrosaurs Academy!
1 Destination: Danger!
2 Contest Carnage!
3 Terror Underground!
4 Jungle Horror!
5 Deadly Drama!
6 Christmas Crisis!
7 Volcano Invaders!
8 Space Kidnap!
Meet the time-travelling cows!
1 The Ter-moo-nators
2 The Moo-my’s Curse
3 The Roman Moo-stery
4 The Wild West Moo-nster
5 World War Moo
6 The Battle for Christmoos
7 The Pirate Moo-tiny
8 The Moo-gic of Merlin
9 The Victorian Moo-ders
10 The Moo-lympic Games
11 First Cows on the Moon
12 The Viking Emoo-gency
If you can’t take the slime, don’t do the crime!
1 The Fearsome Fists
2 The Toxic Teeth
3 The Cyber-Poos
4 The Supernatural Squid
5 The Killer Socks
6 The Last-Chance Chicken
7 The Alligator Army
8 The Conquering Conks
Visit www.stevecolebooks.co.uk for fun, games, jokes, to meet the characters and much, much more!
EARTH ATTACK
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17364 8
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 2013
Text copyright © Steve Cole, 2012
Cover illustration by Dynamo Design © Random House Children’s Books, 2012
Map copyright © Charlie Fowkes, 2005
Interior illustrations by Woody Fox © Random House Children’s Books, 2012
DESTINATION: DANGER
Text copyright © Steve Cole, 2008
Cover illustration & map by Dynamo Design © Random House Children’s Books, 2008
Interior illustrations by Woody Fox © Random House Children’s Books, 2008
First Published in Great Britain
Red Fox 9781849414005 2012
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.
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