The Verruca Bazooka Read online

  One solitary observer watched the boys enter the male changing rooms with the bag containing Snivel, and then watched them emerge later without the bag. The watching eyes narrowed suspiciously and the mind behind them made a decision…

  Outside the swimming pool Jack and Oscar lay in the shadow of the trees that lined the car park and waited. When the last swimmers had left they got up and approached the rear emergency exit of the pool. The doors opened and there was Snivel, letting them in exactly on time. The boys hurried inside. In the changing room Oscar quickly got into his swimming trunks. At the same time Jack fitted the doggy scuba kit to Snivel. Finally Jack fixed some special fake verrucas he had made using modelling clay to the soles of Oscar’s feet. Oscar looked down at the green blobs on his feet. “Ugh,” he said. “They look rank.”

  “Thanks,” said Jack. “I reckon the Squillibloat won’t be able to resist them!”

  Preparations complete they headed for the pool. Oscar got into the water and immediately began to splash around as if in trouble. Jack and Snivel found a place to hide behind a cupboard of floats. As they had hoped, the lifeguard heard the noise and came running. At the poolside he hesitated. He looked around. The building was empty. Maybe he didn’t have to save this human. Who would know?

  Jack whispered urgently to Snivel. “How do we know it’ll bother to save him?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Snivel. “It’s your plan.”

  “Thanks for your help,” snapped Jack. The alien was still just standing at the side of the pool watching the ‘drowning’ Oscar. “If he lets a kid drown he’ll lose his job, and if he loses his job he’ll lose access to the pool, and all the people and…all the veruccas!” Jack snapped his fingers. “Quick, into the pool,” he ordered Snivel. “Make sure Oscar shows him his feet! And remember, you have to be right underneath the Squillibloat for the trap to work.”

  Snivel gave him a withering look. “I told you that in the first place,” he said. “Silly human b—”

  He was cut off by Jack slipping on his oxygen mask. “Who are you calling silly?” he said. “I’m not the dog in the scuba gear.”

  He pushed Snivel into the water. Breathing air from the silver tanks, the Snot-Bot swam submarine-style towards Oscar. Like a torpedo he rammed Oscar’s back causing him to tumble backwards in the water, and shooting his feet clear of the surface.

  Immediately the alien spotted the multitude of verrucas on the drowning boy’s feet. And now it leapt into action. It wasn’t going to let this opportunity go!

  SPLASH!

  In seconds the lifeguard-alien-thing was at Oscar’s side, dragging him to the edge of the pool. As expected, a tentacle slithered out and sucked up one of Oscar’s verrucas.

  “Ugh!” said Oscar, shuddering. “What was that? Something touched my foot!”

  “Probably a poo,” announced the lifeguard in a bizarre croaky voice. “Floating in the water. Human children can be so disgusting.”

  “Human! What do you mean human children?” asked Oscar, extending the conversation to create a diversion. Meanwhile Snivel swam into position underneath the alien.

  Jack sensed his moment. Taking a deep breath, he broke cover and grabbed the necklace from around the lifeguard’s neck. He needed to get hold of the Blower part before trapping the alien in the Snivel-trap.

  He pulled with all his strength but the necklace refused to break free.

  With a roar of anger the alien burst out of the lifeguard costume, revealing his true form. In the flesh the Squillibloat was even more disgusting than the hologram had suggested. Six of its larger tentacles wrapped around Oscar and pulled him under the water.

  “Remove your hand from my property or I will drown your friend,” roared the creature. Two of its upper tentacles wrapped themselves around Jack’s legs. Jack began to panic – this wasn’t going to plan at all. If only the alien had eaten more of the fake “veruccas”…

  Suddenly there was a whoosh as the wave machine started up. Who turned that on? wondered Jack. But there was another development, too – the lower tentacles of the creature were now sucking up all the “veruccas” from Oscar’s feet – Jack’s special fake ones, made from modelling clay and laced with…chilli powder.

  The waves were building up in strength now but the Squillibloat didn’t seem to have noticed. It was turning bright red and gasping for breath.

  “What…have…you done…to me…?” it gasped.

  Jack felt the grip of the tentacles relax. Swivel was in position but if he activated the Trap now Oscar would get caught along with the alien. What to do?

  Suddenly a solution appeared in the form of Ruby, surfing the waves like a professional. “Surf’s up!” she shouted, and as she flew past them on her board she reached down and pulled Oscar free.

  Jack took his chance and yanked backwards, pulling the necklace clear. “Activate Snivel Trap!” he screamed. There was a flash of blue light and a sound like a thunderclap and suddenly the Squillibloat was gone, sucked into the Snivel Trap which now floated benignly on the surface of the pool.

  At the shallow end Oscar was getting to his feet, helped by Ruby.

  “You guys have got some serious explaining to do,” she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ruby was amazed at their story but she couldn’t ignore the evidence of her own eyes. She had spotted Snivel’s third eye right away and the Squillibloat had been even harder to discount. She had to accept that the whole story, from talking bins to snot-stealing aliens, was true.

  “But what about you?” asked Jack. “What were you doing here?”

  Ruby explained about seeing them go into the changing rooms with the bag and then coming out without it. “I knew something was going on,” she told them, “so I hid in the changing rooms to find out what. Good job I did, really.”

  Oscar thanked her again for saving him. Ruby looked around. “I wonder what happened to the real lifeguard?”

  They made a quick search of the building and found him, covered in slime and locked in an equipment locker. They left the poor man looking for a shower and made their excuses. Somehow, without anyone saying anything, Ruby seemed to have become part of the team. Carrying the Snivel Trap between them, Jack and Oscar headed for the park and the bin containing Bob. Ruby walked with them, clutching the necklace.

  Bob was delighted to see them. Ruby thought it a bit odd that he stayed hidden in the bin, but when she questioned this he told her it was a security issue and it was important for their safety that he remain unseen. Ruby nodded and handed over the necklace.

  “That’s the first part of the Blower safely in our hands,” Bob told them.

  “And here’s the Alien who had it,” said Jack, placing the Snivel Trap in front of the bin.

  A beam of bright blue light suddenly appeared from the bin, shining down onto the trap. The light seemed to…wibble. It was so bright Jack had to shield his eyes. Then suddenly the light vanished, as if someone had flicked an off-switch. When Jack opened his eyes, Snivel was sitting there in his usual dog form, tail wagging happily.

  He still had three eyes.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for Snivel,” Bob told them. “Next time you see him he’ll have your next mission for you…”

  And with that, the Snot-Bot jumped into the bin, and disappeared.

  “Whoa,” said Ruby. “Did you see that? It’s like a rabbit and a hat, only it’s a dog and a bin, and the dog vanished instead of appearing, because usually with a rabbit and a hat it’s the rabbit that gets magicked out of the hat and—”

  “Ruby?” said Jack.

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.”

  Ruby looked shocked for a moment, then burst out laughing. Jack grinned. A couple of days ago he’d been a geeky inventor with only one friend. Now he was part of a gang – and best of all, he was a GUNGE agent!

  There’s just one more piece of unfinished business, thought Jack as he said goodbye to his friends and walked up the path towards his
front door.

  Mum.

  He was meant to be Grounded. What on earth would she say when he came home now? He’d probably be Grounded until he collected his pension.

  As he reached for the door knocker the door swung open and his mum was standing there in the doorway.

  “Why did you lie to me, Jack?” she demanded.

  Jack lowered his head in shame. Here it comes, he thought, the big shouty bit.

  But Mum didn’t shout, instead she bent down and gave him a hug.

  “You’re a hero Jack! And you didn’t even tell me!”

  Jack looked at his mum, startled. What on earth? And then he realised. Of course –this didn’t have anything to do with Earth. It had to be GUNGE. They’d told her about his work. He realised that his mum had the phone in her hand. She thrust it at him.

  “The man from the RSPCA just told me all about it,” she said, “and he said he wants to speak to you.”

  Jack took the phone and put it to his ear. RSPCA? Then he heard a familiar voice in his ear.

  “Just go along with everything I say,” said Bob. It was strange to hear his voice coming from a phone instead of a bin. Jack nodded and made the murmuring noise his mum always made when listening to someone on the other end of a phone.

  Bob quickly filled Jack in on what he had told his Mum. The story was that Jack had rescued Snivel from a sack in the pond in the park. Some horrible man had tried to kill his dog but Jack’s quick action had saved him. The business with the tennis net had been a well-intentioned attempt to catch the would-be dog killer, which had unfortunately trapped the park-keeper instead. And just this evening Jack had been at the vet’s paying for vital injections that Snivel needed – from his own pocket money.

  Jack thought the last detail might have been a bit too much; his pocket money would hardly stretch to much of a vet’s bill, but his mum was so pleased to be hearing such positive things about her brave boy that she never questioned a word.

  “Just nod and say yes,” instructed Bob.

  Jack did as he was told and then hung up. Immediately his mum gave him a huge hug. Jack hoped none of his friends were passing and pushed the front door closed with his foot. As the door swung closed Snivel jumped through the gap.

  Mum looked down at the canine-droid and sighed. “He’s an odd-looking thing but if you promise to look after him, I guess we can keep him.”

  Jack grinned. “Thanks, Mum.”

  Mum started walking towards the kitchen.

  “Now let’s get you something to eat. My little hero…”

  Snivel winked at him with his third eye. Boy and canine-droid shared the same thought: she doesn’t know the half of it…

  When they got to the kitchen door, Snivel hung back. “As long as she’s getting you something to eat,” he said, “do you reckon you could find a snotty tissue?”

  Half a mile away, in the trans-dimensional weirdness that existed, impossibly, inside the bin, Bob the GUNGE agent walked along a dark corridor of glass-walled cells. One was lit up. Inside, the unconscious form of the Squillibloat lay on a bed. At the end of the corridor was a free-standing shelving unit with four individually lit platforms.

  Bob placed the necklace that Jack had taken from the Squillibloat onto the first of the platforms. For a moment the necklace glowed with a spooky green light and then faded.

  One down, thought Bob to himself with satisfaction. And three to go.

  The Squillibloat had been fairly easy. They were not a race known for their intelligence. The boy and his friends had conducted themselves well, but the next mission would be far more of a test…

  Bob walked back along the corridor. Soon, with Jack’s help, all these cells would be occupied and the four bits of the Blower would be his. And then…well, then Earth would be safe and everything would be OK…

  Wouldn’t it?

  Preview

  Take a sneak peek at book 2 in the Gunk adventure!

  The first part of the plan was the easiest. Getting into the actual elephant enclosure wasn’t too difficult. Oscar’s lock-picking soon had them through a gate which gave them access. As Jack had predicted, the crowds had hurried off to see feeding time with the penguins and, with no one around to watch them, most of the elephants had trudged inside.

  The giant elephant that was of most interest to Jack and his friends was standing in one of the hay-filled bays, relaxing – exactly how they wanted him. Jack smiled at Ruby.

  Oscar opened the bag of elephant treats and approached the giant pachyderm. “Here you are, Jumbo, just for you…” he said, holding the bag out. The elephant reached out with his trunk and took something from the bag. It was an apple. The elephant bent his trunk back and popped the apple into his mouth.

  “Plenty more where that came from,” offered Oscar, stroking the elephant’s trunk with his other hand.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Jack asked Ruby.

  “Absolutely,” she said with a grin. While Oscar kept the elephant occupied she quickly used her climbing skills to shimmy up the trunk and onto his head. From there she got herself into position on the elephant’s shoulders. Now she could begin to reach down towards the ear where the mysterious earring was glowing.

  Suddenly there was a horrified cry.

  “Oy!” It was the elephant keeper, and he was standing in the doorway. With the terrifying sound of a plum splitting, but amplified about a thousand times, the alien abandoned its disguise, shedding and shredding his ‘human’ skin to reveal his true form. It was even worse in the flesh than it had been in Snivel’s hologram projection. It was like looking at a giant insect, a bit like a cross between a house fly and a mosquito. Despite losing its human disguise it was still capable of speech.

  “Get away from there, human half-grown!” it screeched in a high-pitched tone. “Or I will suck your friend dry.”

  Without warning it pounced on Oscar, pulling him to the ground.

  Petrified, Oscar broke wind. The alien roared with delight. “Let the harvest begin!” it cried and thrust its head directly towards poor Oscar’s bum.

  While Jack looked on in horror, the alien took a deep breath and began to expand. Before his very eyes the Burrapong was getting bigger.

  Oscar’s cheeks were sucked in and his eyes bulged. A horrible squeal came from his mouth.

  “It’s vacuuming up his farts!” said Snivel. “All of them. We have to stop him before he pulls Oscar inside out!”

  Collect all the books in the GUNK Aliens series!

  The Verruca Bazooka The Elephant’s Trump

  The Dogs Dinner

  The Sewer Crisis

  Copyright

  First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2009 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  The HarperCollins website address is:

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  FIRST EDITION

  Copyright © HarperCollins 2009

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-37955-2

  HarperCollins assert the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

  Conditions of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Find out more about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com