Future Ratboy and the Attack of the Killer Robot Grannies

by Jim Smith

  Twoface scratched one

  of his noses, and then

  went to scratch the other

  one, but changed his mind.

  ‘Hey, I’ve got it!’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘Mr X and the robot grannies are after Bunny’s arms!’

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  We caught up with Splorg and Not Bird and skidded to a stop on the pavement opposite Bunny Deli, me doing a hover-forward-roll again because of how

  keel I am.

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  ‘Stick with me, gang!’ said Twoface, using his two faces to look both ways before crossing the road. ‘Good work, Twoface!’ he smiled, patting himself on the back, and I spotted a giant metal scorpion, climbing up the side of the building with its giant snappy claws.

  ‘Mr X’s giant metal scorpion!’ cried

  Splorg, and a shudder went down my

  spine and all the way to the end of

  my tail.

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  ‘We’ve got to stop him!’ said Twoface, putting

  his hands on his hips and staring up at the building, then gasping. ‘BUNNY!’ he boomed. Bunny was clambering up the fire escape steps away from the metal scorpion, towards the giant

  plastic cheesebleurgher.

  ‘HELP ME!’ she screamed,

  as thunder clapped in the sky above, and I wondered if the storm thought it

  was watching a show in

  a theatre or something, what with it clapping

  and everything.

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  ‘I’m coming, Bunny!’

  cried Twoface, sticking one of his sticky hands on to the side of the building and starting

  to climb after

  the scorpion.

  DOREEN XL97-220 appeared behind us, lifting a crumpled-up old tissue out of her purse and throwing

  it at my head.

  ‘TAKE THAT, RATBOY,’ she bleeped, as the tissue bounced off

  one of my aerials and landed in a puddle.

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  Splorg and Jamjar ran round to the bottom of the fire escape and started running up it. ‘Come on, Ratboy!’ shouted Splorg, as I parked my wheelie bin, and looked down at my feet, which were floating a centimetre off the pavement, thanks to Socky.

  I plonked Not Bird on my head, grabbed my bin by its handle, and closed my eyes. ‘Operation Fly All

  The Way To The Roof, Save Bunny, Then Get Zapped Home By Lightning!’ I boomed, as the sky started to clap again.

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  ‘BY THE POWER OF PLAYING IT KEEL TIMES A MILLIKEELS!’ I boomed, feeling my aerials waggle as I zoomed through the air. Then I opened my eyes, looked down again and realised I was only a centimetre off the ground.

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  Not Bird was still on my head,

  waggling my aerials with his beak,

  and DOREEN XL97-220 had clip-clopped

  over to the fire escape and was

  blocking anyone else from going up.

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  ‘Hmmm, looks like we’re gonna have to do this the hard way!’

  I said, hover-forward-rolling over to DOREEN XL97-220 while trying to come up with another superheroish plan.

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  ‘Got it!’ I smiled, clicking my fingers and pointing at a little cloud that was gliding by. It was floating above a grumpy-looking dog, who was walking past holding a lead, taking a purple hamster for a walk.

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  ‘WHAT’S THAT?!’ I cried, and DOREEN XL97-220 turned her head to look. ‘Ha, ha, made you look!’ I giggled, hover-running between her legs and up the stairs.

  ‘NOT. SO. FAST,’ bleeped DOREEN XL97-220, her coily metal arm shooting out of its socket after me.

  ‘NOT!’ screeched Not Bird, pecking at her big fat metal bum, not that it did anything.

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  ‘WAHHH!’ I screamed, as she grabbed me by the tail and flipped me back on to the pavement.

  ‘DON’T MIND IF I DO.’ she bleeped, pincering Socky off the end of my tail and slotting him into the side of her head for safe keeping.

  ‘SOCKY!’ I cried, even though all he ever did was make me float a centimetre off the ground, and I peered up at the side of the building, just to see how everyone else was doing.

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  Twoface had reached the roof of the building and was whacking Mr X’s giant metal scorpion over the head with one of the giant plastic zigzaggedy chips from the giant plastic Cheesebleurgher Meal Deal.

  Splorg and Jamjar were almost at

  the top, and Bunny had climbed up the massive straw sticking out of the giant blue cup. She was cowering inside the hole at the top of it, looking a tiny weeny bit scared.

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  ‘How in the keelness am I gonna get up there now?’ I said out loud, even though I was only thinking it. And that was when I spotted Not Bird fluttering into my bin and back out of it, this time with the brown paper bag full of donuts in his beak.

  ‘Thanks, Not Bird, but I’m not really

  hungry right now,’ I said, thinking what a rubbish sidekick he could be sometimes, and the sky

  clapped, this time

  with some

  lightning

  too.

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  ‘NOT!’ squawked Not Bird, waggling the donut bag in his beak, and his shiny black eyeballs peered into mine, as if

  he was trying to tell me something.

  I scrinched my eyes shut, trying to wonder how a boring old brown paper bag filled up with a never-ending

  supply of donuts could possikeely

  help me at a time like this.

  ‘Oh my keelness, Not Bird! Keel idea!’ I cried, and I tucked my telly belly into my trousers and straightened out my aerials, getting ready to fly up to the roof.

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  ‘I’m coming, Bunny!’ I smiled, forward-rolling over to Not Bird and grabbing the brown paper bag, and I peered in at the pile of donuts disappearing off into the distance.

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  ‘Hold on tight, Not Bird!’ I grinned, grabbing the bin and turning the bag upside down, and donut number five fell out, then donut number six, then number seven, going all the way up to infinity.

  ‘WAAAHHH!’ I screamed, as the bag

  shot into the air, pushed by the

  never-ending stream of donuts.

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  ‘Ratboy!’ grinned Twoface three

  milliseconds later, as I let go of the

  bag and jumped on to the roof with

  Not Bird and my bin, a tower of

  multicoloured donuts shooting past

  us towards the moon.

  He pulled a giant chip out of the giant

  chip packet and threw it over to me. ‘Whack the scorpion over the head

  with it!’ he shouted, whacking the scorpion over the head with his one.

  ‘OWWW!’ boomed Mr X’s voice, and I peered through the V-shaped window on the front of his scorpion.

  A shadowy figure standing at a control desk pressed a button, and

  a bright green laser shot out the end of the scorpion’s tail.

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  ‘WAAAHHH!’ I screamed, throwing my giant plastic chip, and the laser zapped it into a million normal-sized ones. ‘These chips are a lot lighter than you’d imagine!’ I shouted, pulling another one out of the packet, and Twoface nodded, looking over at the giant plastic cheesebleurgher.

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  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he smiled.

  ‘I don’t know, what are you thinking?’ I said, thinking maybe he was thinking we could all go for a cheesebleurgher once this was finished. Not that that was what I was thinking, seeing as I was thinking I was going to get zapped home by lightning inside my bin with Not Bird as soon as we’d saved Bunny.

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  ‘I was thinking we could use the cheesebleurgher as a giant Frisbee

  to throw at the scorpion!’ shouted Twoface, and I nodded, even though it sounded like the ridikeelousest

  idea ever.

 
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  Twoface backed towards the cheesebleurgher while I distracted

  Mr X with my giant chip. Splorg and Jamjar had reached the roof, and were climbing up the straw towards Bunny, which was a lot easier for Jamjar, seeing as she had five arms.

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  ‘MUCH. HEAVIER. THAN. THE. CHIPS,’ wheezed Twoface, lifting the cheesebleurgher above his head

  and zigzagging around on the

  spot underneath it.

  ‘I LAUGH IN THE FACE OF YOUR GIANT PLASTIC CHEESEBLEURGHER!’ roared

  Mr X from inside the scorpion, his

  shadow pressing a button, and a bright green laser shot out of the scorpion’s tail towards Twoface.

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  The cheesebleurgher bun exploded, firing giant plastic sesame seeds the size of Not Bird in every direction, and Twoface staggered towards the edge of the building, still carrying a giant slice of gherkin.

  ‘Urgh, I HATE gherkins!’ he wailed, one of his

  feet waggling over

  the edge.

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  ‘Twoface!’ screamed Jamjar from inside the hole at the top of the straw, and I dropped my chip, leaping to grab Twoface’s arm, or his leg, or one of his two noses.

  ‘By the power of keelness!’ I shouted, grabbing one of the little wings sticking out of his hood, and the gherkin fell through the air, crashing on to

  DOREEN XL97-220 below.

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  ‘BEHIND YOU, RATBOY!’ cried Splorg, and I twizzled my head round to see the window on the front of the scorpion, smashed to pieces by a Not-Bird-sized sesame seed.

  Inside, growling at me, was Mr X.

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  ‘YOU BROKE MY SCORPION’S WINDOW!’ boomed Mr X, even though it was

  one of the giant plastic sesame seeds that’d broken it, not me.

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  The scorpion stomped towards me, snapping its giant claws, and I looked around for another giant plastic chip to whack it with. ‘Catch!’ shouted Twoface, throwing me the last chip, and I caught it with one hand, which is the sort of keel thing I do.

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  ‘WAAAHHH! IT’S MAVIS 3000!’ I cried, as MAVIS 3000 clawed her way on to the roof. ‘She must have clambered up the side of the building with her claws!’ I shouted, explaining everything to the gang in case they didn’t understand what was going on.

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  Not Bird zoomed through the air as lightning zigzagged all around us, the sky clapping him like HE was

  the superhero, not me

  or Twoface.

  ‘NOT!’ he screeched,

  pecking at MAVIS 3000’s bum, even though he should’ve known that didn’t do anything by now, seeing as he’d already tried

  it on DOREEN XL97-220.

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  MAVIS 3000 stood up and swatted Not Bird away while unwrapping a tiny little rectangle packet.

  Inside was a cube of pink bubblegum, which she popped into her mouth. ‘OPERATION GIANT BUBBLEGUM BALLOON!’ she bleeped, blowing a familikeels-looking pink bubble.

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  She chomped her teeth down and the bubble floated out of her mouth, towards my shiny full-stop nose.

  ‘Operation Don’t Get Swallowed Whole By Another Giant Bubblegum Balloon!’

  I shouted, waving my plastic chip, and the bubble wafted over to Twoface, swallowing him up whole instead.

  ‘WAAAAHHH!’ he screamed, lifting off the roof floor inside the giant pink bubble.

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  ‘HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!’ boomed Mr X, as Twoface floated off towards the moon. He waggled his joystick, and the scorpion turned to face Bunny, Jamjar and Splorg, who were now all sitting inside the hole at the top of the giant plastic straw. ‘NO MORE MR NICE GUY!’ he boomed, not that he’d been being very nice so far, and he pressed his button again.

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  The scorpion’s tail whipped into the air, and a bright green laser shot out of it, splicing the straw in half.

  ‘YIPPEE!’ bleeped MAVIS 3000, who was clip-clopping towards me, not that I was taking any notice - I was too worried about Bunny, Jamjar and Splorg.

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  ‘HELLLPPP!’ they screamed, as the

  straw toppled to the roof floor, and

  they rolled onto the ground like three

  giant drops of extra fizzy cola.

  The scorpion stepped forwards, placing its giant metal foot on Bunny’s fat belly, just enough so she couldn’t move. ‘Get off of her!’ screamed Jamjar, bashing the scorpion’s ankle with her five arms, while Splorg fished around in Bunny’s apron pocket like he was looking for something.

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  ‘Got it,’ he said, whipping out Bunny’s soggy flannel and patting her on the forehead with it.

  ‘NOT!’ screeched Not Bird, zooming towards the scorpion’s bum like a giant plastic sesame seed and pecking at it with his little beak. MAVIS 3000 carried on clip-clopping towards me, her coily metal arms stretched

  out in front of her.

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  I looked over at my bin where I’d parked it on the other side of the roof, and a lightning bolt exploded next to it. The bin shot up in the

  air, did a loop-the-loop, and crash-landed on the roof’s edge, swaying

  up and down like a seesaw. ‘MY BIN!’

  I screamed, dropping my giant plastic chip and running towards it.

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  The scorpion’s claws clamped shut and jaggedy triangles popped out of their edges, transforming them into rotating saws.

  ‘DON’T WORRY, THIS WON’T HURT A BIT!’ boomed Mr X, as the spinning metal teeth centimetred towards Bunny’s ten waggling arms, and another bolt of lightning zigzagged through the sky, just in case the whole thing wasn’t scary-looking enough already.

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  ‘HOO HOO HA HA HAAA!’ laughed Mr X, not that he sounded all that happy. ‘MY CREATION IS ALMOST COMPLETE!’ he roared, as I ran towards my bin.

  I skidded to a stop by the bin and dragged it back on to the roof, standing it up straight and jumping in.

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  ‘Why are you doing this to me?!’ screamed Bunny, as the saws spun towards her fifty fingers.

  ‘Yeah Mr X, why can’t you just leave everyone alone!?’ shouted Splorg, and

  I peered out of my bin and through a

  gap in the scorpion’s broken window, spotting Dr Smell’s nose, Delores’s ears,

  and Dindle Frogshnoff’s eyes, all

  bobbing around inside an

  enormous fish tank.

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  ‘The body parts!’ I gasped. ‘They’re all here!’

  ‘RATBOY ON TOAST!’ bleeped MAVIS 3000, who’d twizzled round and started

  clip-clopping after me in the opposite direction, but I just ignored her and carried on peering through the broken window.

  Next to the tank floated a see-hrough screen with a picture of the strangest-looking creature I’d ever seen on it. And I’d seen a lot of strange-looking creatures recently.

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