by Gary Urey
“And we know that Robo-Nose is flying at the speed of snores,” Vivian added. “They’re going to land soon, probably sometime this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest.”
“Plus,” TJ said, pointing at Vivian and me, “They are going to be looking for you two.”
My heart plunged into my stomach. From the look on Vivian’s face, I could tell she felt scared too. I hadn’t been this afraid since Vivian and I swan-dived into the Gates of Smell.
“Super Schnoz,” Vivian said. “You are the only person who can save us.”
“Blow them to smithereens with the cayenne cannon!” TJ cheered.
“Pepper sneezes have no effect on them,” I said, patting a jar of cayenne strapped to my belt. “I tried it when the Apneans were chasing Vivian and me. They have some kind of invisible shield that deflects the snot.”
“Just like Magneto from the X-Men,” Mumps said. “He has a force field that can block out matter and energy. The field is strong enough to withstand a hundred nuclear bombs.”
“Except that there is a big difference between Magneto and the Apneans,” Jimmy said.
“What’s that? Mumps asked.
“Magneto is a fictional comic book character and Apneans are real!”
“Shhhhh!” I hissed, pressing a finger to my lips. I don’t want my mom to wake up again.”
“The reflective shield they possess means we can’t fight them with conventional sneezes,” Vivian said.
“Then how are we supposed to destroy them?” Jimmy asked.
“We need to lure Robo-Nose to Dr. Wackjöb’s compound with the stinky hákarl.”
“Why?” TJ asked.
“Robo-Nose is Schnoz’s evil doppelgänger,” Vivian explained. “We all know that Schnoz can’t resist stinky smells. That means the giant booger factory snoring its way toward Earth loves nasty scents too.”
I walked over to the window and looked outside. The first winks of dawn peeked over the WMNF. Summer was ending; school would be starting soon, and that meant fall allergies. I was severely allergic to pollen from plants belonging to the genus Ambrosia—otherwise known as ragweed. I could already feel my nose tingling, eyes itching, and gallons of snot pouring from my honker. The ragweed made my sinuses throb and ears plug up so bad it felt like my head was going to implode.
“I got it!” I screeched.
“Got what?” Vivian asked.
“I know how we can defeat Robo-Nose! We plug up its nostrils so the thing implodes from the inside!”
I heard my mom’s bedroom door open. Her feet stomped angrily down the hallway toward my bedroom.Vivian hid under the bed, I jumped under the covers, and the Not-Right Brothers slipped into their sleeping bags.
“Sweet dreams,” Mumps chimed, and then we all pretended to be asleep.
CHAPTER 20
STAGING AREA
The next morning, Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers met me inside the Nostril. I put on my tights, cape, Mardi Gras mask, and instantly became Super Schnoz!
“Schnoz, your idea to plug up Robo-Nose’s nostrils is good,” Jimmy said. “But how can we pull it off?”
“That flying snotter is massive,” Vivian said. “There isn’t enough ragweed on the whole planet to stuff that muzzle up.”
“We have to think of something,” TJ said.
“What about Krazy Glue?” Mumps suggested.
“It would take enough Krazy Glue to fill up Lake Winnipesaukee to close up that metallic honker,” I said. “The thing is massive.”
Vivian paced around the Nostril, thinking. She peeled Mr. Sticky from the window and stroked his rough, leathery skin. “Did you know that a gecko’s sticky toe pads are so strong they can hold the weight of two adult males?”
“So?” Jimmy grunted. “What’s your point?”
“I don’t have a point,” Vivian said. “I was just saying.”
“I read all about geckos,” TJ said. “They have tiny hairlike thingies called setae on the base of their toes. Over two million setae could fit neatly on a quarter. Their feet are one of the stickiest substances on the planet.”
“Maybe we can use Mr. Sticky to plug up Robo-Nose,” Vivian said.
“That’s a great idea!” Jimmy said sarcastically. “Let’s go round up a billion geckos and shove them up Robo-Nose’s booger factory.”
“It was just a suggestion,” Vivian fired back. “I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas.”
“Let’s talk to Dr. Wackjöb,” I said. “Maybe he knows what to do.” I popped my nose out the door and took a sniff. “The wind is picking up. It’s a good time to fly.”
Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers positioned themselves in the harness. I pulled the straps tight, a gust of wind inflated my nostrils, and we were sailing into the sky.We were cruising at an altitude of two thousand feet when I saw something large punch through Earth’s atmosphere.
“Look at that big plane!” Mumps gushed.
“That’s not a plane,” I heard Vivian say. “It’s Robo-Nose.”
I watched as the flying snout speeded toward the WMNF, the rumble of my stolen snores powering its humongous nostrils. Robo-Nose was an invincible snoring machine. The massive mechanical mucous maker made me quiver with anxiety. I would have to fight my evil twin nose-to-nose and nostril-to-nostril in an epic battle to save Earth.
Would I have enough nose power to do the job?
“Fly faster, Schnoz!” Jimmy shouted.
Robo-Nose descended like a cruise missile into the forest outside of town. A huge blast of green booger bombs shot from its beak followed by a massive explosion. Trees, rocks, and other debris exploded into the sky.
“That thing just blew up Dr. Wackjöb!” Vivian cried.
From a trick I learned from watching a TV show about peregrine falcons, I pinned my arms at my sides and dove at breaknose speed toward Dr. Wackjöb’s compound. We came within a few hundred feet and my nostrils spread wide. A familiar, tangy stench tingled my nose hairs—hákarl. The round dome of the Cosmoscope was still intact.
“Robo-Nose didn’t blow anything up!” I shouted to my friends. “I see the Cosmoscope and smell the rotting shark meat!”
“Then what did that thing just destroy?” Jimmy asked.
“I’m going to drop you off at Dr. Wackjöb’s compound and find out,” I said.
I deposited my friends off and then did a reconnaissance flight. Robo-Nose had blasted a clearing in the woods about five miles from our present location. Dozens of Apneans buzzed around like flies on a dead squirrel. They were clearing away fallen trees and brush, preparing a staging area for their world conquest.
They assembled what looked like a row of army barracks and a large storage building for supplies. Space-age-looking land rovers rolled out of Robo-Nose, carrying two massive hunks of metal shaped like rectangles. The Apneans placed the blocks on top of each other. But they didn’t touch.They just hovered in midair like two magnets repelling each other.
I knew from science class that magnets also draw things together. Robo-Nose fired up its snore engines and hovered between the two floating magnets. Instantly, the space nose’s nostrils started flaring.The ground below quaked with tremors. I was just about to turn and fly away when a fleet of booger-shaped blobs flew out of Robo-Nose.
The booger blobs were vehicles the size of large jellyfish. Two weapons that looked like torpedo launchers were at their sides. The blobs positioned themselves in battle formation and test fired at the surrounding pine trees. Lethal, laser-like nose hair rockets shot from their guns, blasting the towering trees into toothpicks.
A rocket ricocheted off a large rock and then beelined in my direction. I managed to duck out of the way, but the rocket’s tailwind made me bank sharply to the left.The gust of sudden wind caused my butt to rise in the air, and, like the rudder on an airplane, made me pitch downward into a descent. I inhaled with all my might, desperately trying to gain altitude, but it was no use.
I was crashing nosefirst into Robo-Nos
e’s staging ground.
CHAPTER 21
BATTLE OF THE BOOGER BLOBS
I hit the ground so hard my nose was impaled by a mound of dirt. As I struggled to free myself, a sharp pain ripped through my backside. An Apnean had shot me in the butt at close range with a lighting wand!
“Owww!” I screeched and yanked my nose from the ground.
Mucky soil had packed into my nostrils like cement. My face scrunched up, my eyes closed tightly, and I sneezed. The sludge lodged inside my nose discharged directly into a platoon of Apneans. They must not have been wearing their invisible shields, because the expulsion sent the invaders tumbling into the forest.
The Booger Blobs were on me fast. A round of nose hair rockets blasted in my direction. Before they could send me to nose-picker heaven, I inhaled a large gust of wind and soared into the sky. I attempted to outmaneuver them, but they were too fast. Remembering the Forest Moon of Endor chase scene from my all-time favorite movie, Star Wars Episode VI, I dived straight for the heart of the dark forest.
I dodged and ducked my way through the trees, careful of low hanging branches and fallen limbs. The booger blobs were hot on my nose. Hair rockets exploded all around me. I snorted a snoot full of cayenne pepper and shot a spicy blast right at them. Just like when I was on the Apnean ship, my snot bomb ricocheted off of their invisible shields and bounced harmlessly away.
The lead booger blob—which was a dark green color like the infected snot from a cold—soared to my rear.The thing was so close I could hear the slurping sound of its phlegm-powered engines.
Click…click…
The sound of the booger blob locking and loading its nose-hair guns was unmistakable. In an act of desperation, I scraped the forest floor with my hand and grabbed a handful of sticky pinecones. I hurled the seed cases over my shoulder directly at the booger blob.
The pinecones miraculously penetrated the deflection shield and stuck to the flying mucus like a Band-Aid. I watched as the booger blob sputtered. Snot fuel sprinkled from its tank, and it crashed to the ground in a brilliant explosion of loogies and gray-green discharge. Another booger blob raced beside me. Before the snotty thing could raise its rockets and fire, I swung my head and nudged the alien with my nose. My efforts knocked the booger blob off balance just enough for me to bombard it into submission with more pinecones.
I didn’t have time to ponder why pinecones breached their invisible shields and not the Cayenne Cannon. Maybe when I speared one with a pinecone, it affected their balance and sent the slimy things into a deadly tailspin.
A nose-hair rocket blasted past my head and nearly ripped off my nose. I turned and saw two-dozen more booger blobs racing after me. Six of them were gaining on me fast. I knew I could never fight that many at once in nose-tonose combat. So instead of throwing pinecones with my hands, I shoved them up my nostrils and fired them like missiles from a jet fighter. One by one, the booger blobs dripped away like a runny nose on a winter day.
I flew as fast as I could, inhaling deep snorts to keep up my speed and velocity. When I was sure no more Booger Blobs were coming after me, I inflated my nostrils and rose over the forest canopy.
That’s when I saw Robo-Nose expel a blast of hot air from its nostrils.The rancid nasal expulsion withered vegetation and scorched the earth. The giant nose’s snoring became so loud it made my ears ring. The olfactory energy made the floating magnets grow hotter. Flashes of brilliant emerald green and pink lights illuminated the sky. The light show was spectacular, like having a front row seat at the aurora borealis. I was spellbound until I looked back down at the ground.
The earth below Robo-Nose was shaking violently. A small fissure had split open the ground and was growing larger. Forty-foot high trees toppled and two-ton boulders rolled into the crack like toy marbles. I watched helplessly as the crevice slowly expanded outward in all directions.
More booger blobs appeared on the horizon. Apnean ground troops formed a column and marched along the fault line. They were heading straight toward Dr. Wackjöb’s compound and then on to Denmark for the destruction of our town.
CHAPTER 22
POLYDIMETHYLSILOXANE AND CARBON NANOTUBES
The Cosmoscope was shaking like a dog in a thunderstorm when I landed back at the compound. I rushed inside the observatory and saw Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers desperately trying to stabilize the giant telescope.
“Help us, Schnoz!” Vivian shouted when she saw me.
“Grab this strap and secure it to the wall,” Dr. Wackjöb ordered.
I tugged the long leather strap and hooked it to an iron peg screwed into the wall. Jimmy did the same on the other side. After a few tightening adjustments, the Cosmoscope stabilized into position.
“Robo-Nose started an earthquake,” I said, out of breath.
“I figured it was either that or a massive elephant herd was stampeding our way,” Jimmy said.
“What do we do now?” Mumps asked, a look of fear in his eyes. “Are we all going to die?”
“No one is dying,” I consoled him. “Not as long as Super Schnoz is still alive and sniffing!”
“What did you see out there?” TJ asked me.
I filled them in on everything, from landing nosefirst into the dirt, getting my butt zapped with a lightning wand, to my epic battle with the booger blobs. Dr. Wackjöb turned as white as vanilla ice cream when I told him about the giant magnets and the magnificent light display.
“What’s happening?” Vivian asked, seeing the seismologist’s concerned expression.
“The Apneans’ mission to destroy Earth has begun,” Dr.Wackjöb said grimly. “They will cause massive earthquakes, tsunamis, climate change, and ultimately our species’ extinction.”
Vivian, Mumps, and I looked out the observatory window. In the distance, I heard the awful phlegm-sucking sounds of the booger blobs’ engines. The trees were shaking; the Apneans were getting closer.
“Now that we know what they’re trying to do, let’s come up with a plan to stop it.” Vivian said.
“We already thought of a plan back at the Nostril,” I told her. “Robo-Nose must be destroyed. It’s like killing the queen of a beehive. Once the queen bee is gone, the hive is doomed.”
“Perfect analogy, Gríöarstór Nef,” Dr. Wackjöb said to me. “But even my superior mind cannot think of how we can destroy it.”
“We don’t need a superior mind to stop that extraterrestrial snot maker, we just need a superior nose!” Vivian pulled Mr. Sticky from her coat pocket. “That and my little cold-blooded friend. We already know how to destroy Robo-Nose.”
I smiled at Vivian and then looked Dr.Wackjöb in the eye. “We have to plug up Robo-Nose’s nostrils. If we can do that, the whole schnozola will break apart like a battered piñata at a little kid’s birthday party.”
The floor shuddered beneath our feet. Dr. Wackjöb grabbed a door handle to stabilize himself. “You are absolutely right,” he said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Who cares who thought of it!” Vivian hollered. “We’re running out of time!”
Dr. Wackjöb stared at the ceiling, muttering to himself. “Nose, nasal passages, blockage. Congestion, allergies, head cold, nasal polyps…I got it!” he yelled.
“What is it?” TJ asked.
“We need to make some kind of synthetic mucus,” Dr. Wackjöb explained. “It must be the thickest, most gelatinous substance on earth.”
“The footpads on a gecko’s feet make some of the stickiest substances on earth,” Vivian said.
Dr. Wackjöb nodded his head. “Setae. You are absolutely right. All I would need to produce synthetic setae quickly is polydimethylsiloxane and carbon nanotubes, which I have inside my laboratory.”
“What about sticky pinecones?” I suggested, and then I told him how the pinecones were able to pierce the booger blob’s invisible shields.
“It probably wasn’t the pinecone itself that had the penetration power,” Dr. Wackjöb said. “But rather
the resin surrounding the pinecone. That’s another good source of stickiness.”
“We have two ingredients,” Jimmy said. “Synthetic gecko feet and pinecone gunk. Is that enough to make fake snot?”
“We’ll need a liquid base to hold all the ingredients together,” TJ said.
“You can use my own snot for a base,” I offered. “It’s almost allergy season and my mucus is as thick as whale blubber.”
“Perfect,” Dr.Wackjöb said. “Let’s get to work!”
CHAPTER 23
TRAIL OF HÁKARL
Dr. Wackjöb drained the above-ground swimming pool behind the Cosmoscope. Everyone stood back as I filled it back up with every drop of my gooey snot. The pool looked like a giant bowl of tapioca pudding topped with green raisins.
“That is plenty for the base,” Dr. Wackjöb said. “Mumps, I need you to collect as many pinecones as you can carry. TJ, follow me to the laboratory. I will need an assistant to make the adherent mixture.”
Mumps disappeared into the woods and Dr. Wackjöb and TJ hurried into the laboratory. The dirt rumbled underneath our feet. Robo-Nose’s angry snores grew louder. Dr.Wackjöb’s compound and the town of Denmark were first in line for the Apneans’ total domination of Earth.
“How are we supposed to shove fake snot up Robo-Nose’s nostrils anyway?” Jimmy asked.
I shrugged. “Dr.Wackjöb will let us know.”
“We need to lure Robo-Nose to us,” Vivian said. “Just like in Hansel and Gretel, but instead of a trail of bread crumbs we leave Robo-Nose a trail of rotting, urine-soaked shark meat.”
Jimmy plugged his nose. “Schnoz, you need to get it within whiffing distance of Robo-Nose. The smell of the stuff makes me want to throw up.”
“He’s right,” Vivian added. “I can’t go anywhere near the stuff either.”
