The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz

by Alan Silberberg

  Craz sucked in his gut and then threw the Lantern door open and leaped into the room. Surprised, all four aliens immediately turned toward him.

  The stench of alien BO hit him hard. “Whoa. Someone needs to hit the showers,” Craz said with a pinched nose. “And, Gary, way to rock that creepy eye-twitch thing.”

  The giant cockroach alien bared his pointy teeth and hissed, ready to pounce. But Marcia held up a hand to keep Gary in line. Then her eyes narrowed as she raised her scepter and aimed it at Craz.

  SPLOOSH! A blob of green goo shot straight at him.

  “Ninja instincts!” Craz shouted as he quickly lifted the garbage can lid and blocked the ooze, spraying a splatter of the stuff all around him.

  “You want to play that way?” he shouted before grabbing the fire extinguisher off the wall. “Eat my foam!”

  Craz sprayed the room wildly, not even aiming. He just needed to make the aliens angry enough to chase him, and judging from the way the four started moving toward him, he thought he’d done a pretty good job.

  Matt watched Craz bolt from the office with the four different-size aliens on his tail. He took a deep breath. Now it was up to him, and even though all he wanted to do was take off in the other direction, he forced himself to walk into the Lantern office.

  “Whoa,” Matt said, staring at the monstrous pile of green, which looked like something a huge alien dog might leave behind.

  He hated to admit it but he really did enjoy seeing Skip and Diesel looking so scared. Up close Diesel’s weasel eyes blinked repeatedly, a silent plea for help. In contrast Skip just looked annoyed, probably because a piece of choco­late was suspended just inches from his mouth and it was obviously driving him crazy.

  Matt poked the blob with his finger. The stuff was icy cold to the touch and disgustingly thick, like cafeteria pudding. Getting the pen back was going to be gross, but he really had no other choice than to roll up his sleeve and plunge his arm deep into the mess.

  SPLURGLE!

  The sound was as disgusting as the goo felt, pushing through the slippery sludge. Matt had to turn his head away so that he could fish around with his whole arm buried inside the blob. Finally he found Diesel’s fist and was able to pry his fingers open and grab hold of the pen.

  “Uh-oh,” Matt said, realizing that getting out of the goo was actually harder than pushing into it. Matt needed to hold on to the radiator with his free hand to pull himself out of the blob, which finally burped him out with a wet, sucking sound. Matt quickly wiped the pen on his pants and tossed a final look at Diesel and Skip. He took out his cell phone and snapped a picture. “Now, that’s front-page news. Don’t you think, Skip?”

  He didn’t wait for a response. He had a cartoon to draw.

  38

  NOWHERE TO HIDE

  CRAZ DID HIS BEST TO OUTRUN THE ALIENS, which would’ve been a whole lot easier if he wasn’t so out of shape.

  “What do you guys think about a quick time-out?” he wheezed to the four creatures closing in on him.

  “Qwizzle-glp!” yelled Marcia as she fired a blob of slime at Craz, which trailed through the air—a certain direct hit. At the last second Craz threw himself to the ground, causing the mess to miss and instead land with a wet SPLORT that encased the water fountain in a bubble of green, gooey gunk.

  “Fair enough,” Craz said, getting to his feet and then bolting straight into the empty gym. He really hoped Matt had done his part and that a new cartoon would be saving his butt soon, because this running-around thing was getting old.

  He scanned the gym for someplace to hide, but all he saw was a bin full of red rubber dodgeballs, which he quickly ducked behind. Peering around the corner of the bin, he watched the gym doors swing open and saw the four aliens come inside.

  He was toast.

  MATT RACED PAST THE GUIDANCE COUNSELOR’S office, glad that Mrs. Liefer wasn’t there to hand out a detention slip for his running in the halls. He chuckled to himself, wondering what kind of detention the aliens would get for wanting to take over the school.

  The pen was safely stuck in his jeans pocket, and he clutched in his hand the new cartoon he’d drawn. Unfortunately, thanks to Craz, the fire extinguisher had totally soaked the Lantern’s copier in foam. Matt had to find another machine—and fast.

  He ran toward the teachers’ lounge, hoping Craz was holding up okay.

  LYING BEHIND THE DODGEBALL BIN, CRAZ KNEW he was trapped. With the aliens edging closer, he had a choice to make: become a green slime statue or fight his way out of this mess.

  Gary’s scary hiss mixed with the awful alien stench that was getting stronger and more disgusting. “It’s now or never,” Craz tried to convince himself. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  He jumped to his feet and faced the aliens, who were just yards away from capturing him. Marcia raised her scepter, but Craz was quicker. He reached into the bin and grabbed a ball, which he threw with surprising accuracy.

  WHAM! He knocked the scepter out of her fingers, and all eyes watched it skitter across the shiny gym floor and disappear underneath the bleachers.

  “What’d you expect?” Craz shouted as he balanced two more of the rubber balls in his hands. “Fourth-grade dodgeball champ . . . runner-up.”

  The aliens were stunned. Craz was on fire, and every ball he threw hit one of his targets. “That’s for picking on me in second grade. . . . That’s for not inviting me to your tenth birthday party. . . . And that’s for . . . Uh-oh.”

  Craz had emptied the bin and now stood totally defenseless in the face of four really angry beings from outer space. “You know, maybe we can just talk about this,” he said, and chuckled nervously as Marcia, Gary, Tommy, and Cindy were free to move closer. “I have a juice box and half a tuna sandwich in my locker. Anyone hungry?”

  In response Gary snarled, showing off his razor-sharp teeth, and Tommy’s arms slowly extended from his metallic body, ready to rip at Craz, who suddenly had the urgent need for a bathroom.

  “Back off!” It was Matt, who had heard Craz’s yelling from the hallway and had raced to the gym. Copying the cartoon would have to wait. His friend needed help. Matt was trembling on the inside, but he tried to make his voice sound deep and confidant. He still kind of squeaked. “One more step and I’ll turn you all into kittens.” He held the pen like it was a light saber that could strike down his opponents with one swift move. “Don’t think I won’t do it!”

  In the moment it took for the aliens to turn and stare at Matt, Craz grabbed the empty dodgeball bin and pushed it as hard as he could, knocking them all over like intergalactic bowling pins.

  “Strike!” Craz shouted as he sprinted across the gym to Matt. He gave his friend a stinging high five. “I would’ve been happy with a spare.”

  They turned to run out of the gym, but Matt suddenly couldn’t move.

  “Craz! My leg!”

  Looking down, both boys saw that Tommy had extended one of his tentacle arms across the gym floor, and it was now clamped onto Matt’s ankle. Making things worse, the arm was retracting back inside his robot body, pulling Matt with it.

  “Gimme your hand,” Craz yelled, trying to pull Matt away from the alien grip. But Craz was no match for the robot’s strength. Matt and the new cartoon were sliding faster toward the alien group.

  It was too late to give the drawing to Craz, but Matt had another idea.

  “Craz, catch!” Matt pulled the pen from his pocket and tossed it across the floor. “You know what to do.” He shoved the cartoon in his other pocket.

  Craz picked up the pen. “Actually, I don’t have a clue. You’re the cartoonist.” He watched Matt get lifted by the seat of his pants.

  “Just dr
aw something that fixes this!” Matt shouted as Tommy swung him back and forth like a freshly caught fish. “Hurry!”

  39

  CRAZ TO THE RESCUE

  CRAZ MADE IT TO THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE. HE locked the door from the inside and caught his breath. He had the pen. Now he just had to use it.

  The first thing he did was quickly scope out the room for essentials, which for him meant finding something to eat. Luckily, it had been Mrs. Petrone’s birthday yesterday, so a slab of half-stale cake was still in a bakery box by the sink. Craz lifted the lid, grabbed a hunk of the vanilla-swirl cake, and snarfed it down in one humongous bite. Braced for the sugar rush, he picked up a few pieces of paper from the recycling bin and then sat down at the teachers’ long table, ready to save the day.

  All he had to do was draw something to stop the aliens. How hard could that be?

  For Matt it would’ve been a cinch. He’d simply whip off a cartoon that could set things right. But Craz knew he couldn’t really draw. Sure Boyd T. Boone had told him how to make a simple bike and which lines to use to draw an iguana. But actually drawing a comic that would turn four aliens back into kids? He panicked. He couldn’t draw people. At all! And each time he tried to make a cartoon, the paper was just a mess of scratchy lines and ink stains. He knew it didn’t have to be perfect. But without Boyd T. Boone’s help, the more he tried, the worse he got.

  He bounced his leg nervously as the crumpled sheets of paper piled up. He pictured poor Matt, a helpless hostage of those awful creatures, but even guilt didn’t make his artistic efforts any better.

  “I’m just the idea guy,” he heard himself say in defeat, and then he remembered Boyd T. Boone telling him ideas are just as important as the art.

  That’s when he looked out the window and saw the football team still practicing in the fading afternoon light. Coach Arakanian was screaming his head off at the exhausted players, who were lined up in formation shouting over and over, “We’re the Killer Bees! Killer Bees! Killer Bees!”

  It was such a simple solution that Craz had to smile. Why not? he asked himself before grabbing a new sheet of paper and drawing something he knew he could get right.

  40

  BUZZ

  “GARGIL-MINTEEFRESCH!” MARCIA SHRIEKED AS she paced back and forth in front of Matt, whose hands were tied behind him by one of the gym climbing ropes.

  “Great speech today, Marcia,” Matt said nervously. “Hey, remember that time I let you use my calculator? Good times, right?”

  Behind Marcia, Gary flexed his cockroach muscles and tested his sharp claws by making ominous snips in the air. His glowing purple eyes seemed to bore holes through Matt. If Marcia hadn’t been there, Matt was sure Gary would have been using his pincher claws to trim more than just his hair. But Marcia was running things, which meant Matt was safe from real harm. For now anyway.

  Tommy was busy using his long tentacle arm to try to find Marcia’s scepter under the bleachers. That left Cindy keeping watch by the gym door, with all three eyes scanning in opposite directions. Matt couldn’t help but wonder if Cindy liked him. He didn’t care if it was Cindy the girl, or Cindy the alien, as long as one of them thought he was okay.

  “Frizz-u-lach!” Marcia said, and clapped her weird hands together. Tommy had just rescued her scepter, along with one high-topped red sneaker and a broken badminton racquet. Those extendable arms were really something.

  While Marcia rushed to retrieve her weapon, Matt wondered what was taking Craz so long. He’d had plenty of time to draw a new cartoon. The aliens should have turned back into student council kids by now. He checked the large clock on the wall—five fifteen. In just over an hour the building would be full for parent-teacher night. If things didn’t get back to normal soon . . . Matt didn’t want to picture the chaos.

  Suddenly Cindy started making weird screeching noises. Something was happening in the hallway, and based on the way she was quickly scurrying away from the door, it couldn’t be good.

  Matt was aware of the buzzing noise before he saw what was causing it, but the sound was enough.

  “Bees,” Matt said as he instinctively tried to reach for the EpiPen that was hanging around his neck. Just the thought of being stung and the potential deadly effect made him cold and sweaty. And with his hands tied behind him, he instantly knew he would have no way to save himself if he got stung.

  Marcia and Tommy stood in the middle of the gym, trying to figure out what was going on. Only Gary seemed excited by the sound, and he clicked his pinchers together as he ran toward the noise.

  Panicked, Matt squirmed against the ropes to try to loosen the knots. At first it was painful and the rough rope burned his skin. But suddenly the rope went slack and simply slid off his wrists.

  He turned around and was eye to eyes with Cindy.

  Matt reached to hold her hand-paw things. “Cindy. Thank you.” She smiled. At least Matt thought that’s what she did. The buzzing grew deafening right before the doors burst open and the gym filled with a blitz of giant bees.

  “Killer bees!” shouted Craz, who was the last to arrive in the gym. He blew a coach’s whistle. “Attack!”

  While Matt and Craz ran from the gym, the oversize bees swarmed into formation, and then Paulie Frick ran a play that would’ve made Coach Arakanian proud. Even Gary’s pinchers were no match for the enormous lethal stingers, which came at the aliens from every angle.

  Defensively Marcia was able to score a direct hit with her scepter, dropping linebacker bee Barry Heinz to the floor in a dense green gob. But that only riled up the rest of the bee team, and if there’s one thing you don’t want to do to a swarm of killer bees, it’s make them even madder!

  The aliens didn’t stand a chance.

  41

  BEE FREE

  “KILLER BEES, CRAZ? YOU KNOW I’M ALLERGIC.” Matt was jammed inside a locker, hoping to stay hidden from the bees. “What were you thinking?”

  Craz let out a long sigh. “Sorry, Matt. I forgot, okay?” He was stuffed into the locker too. The coat hook pushed painfully into his back, and there was a ripe smell that came from either someone’s long-forgotten lunch or him.

  “Tell me again how you thought this was a good idea?” Matt asked.

  “Simple,” said Craz. “Once I realized there was no way I could draw the aliens back into kids, I went with the bee idea. Basic striped circles with wingy things. Anyone can draw that. And they’re natural predators.”

  “But they’re attacking us!” Matt was furious.

  “Right,” Craz admitted. “My bad.”

  BAM!

  Out in the hallway the double doors shook from the impact of a bee blocker’s helmet. The bees were done with the aliens in the gym. Now they were hunting Matt and Craz.

  Matt fumed silently but finally spoke. “You could’ve killed me back there. Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

  “Hey, last time I looked, you aren’t about to be goo-ified by aliens. How about a thank-you?”

  “Thank you? What is wrong with you? You’re an idiot!” Matt was glad they were separated by the metal locker wall. It kept him from choking Craz. “All you had to do was draw one thing. You couldn’t even do that right.”

  Craz shook his head in the darkness. Matt had hit a nerve. “Hey, I’m sorry I’m not a great artist like you, Matt. But at least I tried to actually do something. Not run in the other direction. Man, you’re afraid of everything!”

  The hallway filled with the angry sound of the whole killer bee football team. Matt and Craz held their breaths as the buzzing grew louder and more threatening.

  Looking through the ventilation slats, Matt watched as the bees swarmed past. He let out a
quiet sigh of relief, but Craz had nailed it. He was afraid of everything, and he hated himself for it. “Hey, Principal Droon has a copy machine in his office, right?”

  Craz was still mad, but he answered anyway. “Yeah. Why?”

  Matt nodded. He knew what he had to do. He grabbed the pen from Craz’s pocket and then flung the locker door open. Leaping into the hallway, he glanced toward the bees, who were at the far end of the hallway. Once they saw him, it was going to be a race that he had to win. Or else.

  Craz cracked open his locker. “Matt, what are you doing?”

  But Matt was already running down the hallway, away from the bees. Craz peeked farther out from his locker and saw the team turn around and fly after Matt, which meant they’d also just spotted him.

  “Oh, man!” Craz had no choice but to slam the locker door shut and hope the bees would respect his privacy.

  Fat chance.

  ROUNDING THE CORNER, MATT HEARD THE BEES gaining on him and was glad to see the door to the main office. For a second he pictured Cindy. His heart sank a little, knowing that as soon as he copied the new cartoon, she wouldn’t remember the smile they’d shared back in the gym. Of course, she’d be a girl again, but Matt knew liking her had never been only about what she looked like.

  Matt shot into the principal’s office and quickly pushed a chair against the door.

  “Can I help you?” a startled Principal Droon asked Matt, who had no time to explain a thing.

  First Matt unfolded the cartoon he’d already made. Sure it had been stuffed in his pocket and was all creased, but that shouldn’t matter. He quickly added a new panel to it that would turn the bees back into football players. He also decided that Mrs. Bentz had probably been a pirate long enough too.

  Matt ignored the angry bees battering their helmets against the barricaded door. He desperately pushed the loose pile of papers from the top of the copy machine and then opened the lid and slapped his cartoon down onto the glass.