Hamstersaurus Rex vs. Squirrel Kong Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Rudy —T.O.D.

  For Andy and Detlef, my first heroes—T.M.

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  BACK AD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

  CREDITS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  CHAPTER 1

  MR. COPELAND’S MOUTH was moving and there were definitely sounds coming out of it. If I had to guess, I’d bet those sounds were words; probably even sentences. But I wasn’t listening. Instead, I was doodling in my notebook. If I had to give my current masterpiece a title, I’d call it Mutant Half Hamster, Half Dinosaur Shooting Eye Lasers at Spaceship.

  I glanced over my shoulder to the back of the room. My live model was curled up in the corner of his cage in a little furry/scaly ball—so cute/ unsettling!—snoring away. I guess Mr. Copeland’s voice had a similar effect on both of us. I squinted and erased Hamstersaurus Rex’s mouth for the third time. I was having a lot of trouble getting the drool to look sparkly enough.

  “. . . And so, in conclusion: the Stamp Act,” said Mr. Copeland, slamming his teacher’s guide shut and startling everyone. An instant later, the final bell rang and drowsy sixth graders began to empty out into the hall.

  I made my way toward Hammie’s cage, but Martha Cherie, honor student and self-designated “Hamster Monitor,” beat me to it.

  “Smells like Hamstersaurus Rex could use a change of bedding,” she said, crinkling her nose.

  Hammie squinted at her, apparently insulted.

  “You know, Martha, if you wanted to take the afternoon off, I’m pretty sure I could handle it,” I said. “After all, I am Deputy Junior Hamster Monitor.” I flashed my official ID and lanyard.

  “Maybe one day, Sam,” said Martha, “when you’re ready.” She gave me a condescending pat on the top of the head.

  “Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug. Then I locked eyes with Hammie Rex and gave him our secret sign. It was a simultaneous double wink that you might mistake for a blink if you didn’t know what you were looking at. The little guy grunted in acknowledgment. I turned and left.

  Out in the hall, I found my best friend, Dylan D’Amato, wrestling an oversized duffel bag out of her locker.

  “Yo, Sam,” said Dylan, “you want to come up to the athletic fields and see me toss a few? We’re going to be using tournament-grade discs today.”

  “Wish I could watch your disc golf practice, but right now I’m late to a meeting of Meeting Club,” I said.

  Dylan rolled her eyes as I kept walking. On the second floor, I ducked into the library and waved hello to the librarian, Mrs. Baxley. Then I made my way to 223b, a converted broom closet that held the school library’s least-checked-out books. I sat down on a big stack of hardcover copies of Collector’s Guide to Paper Clips, Third Edition to wait.

  “I hereby call this meeting of Meeting Club to order,” I said to no one. Yes, I was the sole member (and president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer) of Meeting Club. Contrary to what Dylan might think, the club wasn’t totally made up. After filling out the necessary paperwork, the school had officially recognized the organization. I’d even gotten a designated meeting space and an annual thirty-five-dollar budget. Basically, Meeting Club gave me the perfect excuse for hanging around the school after hours without too much supervision.

  Not long ago, getting caught alone after school would have been a very dangerous proposition for me, thanks to my longtime werewolf-obsessed bully, Kiefer “Beefer” Vanderkoff. But Beefer was gone now. Last Science Night, he finally took things too far. SmilesCorp—makers of fine foods, swimming pool liners, laser guidance systems, and pretty much everything else you can think of—sent a representative, Roberta Fast, to our school to show off a new prototype snack: the invisible doughnut. Beefer used the occasion to try to publicly feed Hamstersaurus Rex to his pet boa constrictor, Michael Perkins. Thirty-five destroyed science projects, $4,800 worth of damage, and one broken trophy later, and Beefer Vanderkoff had been expelled from Horace Hotwater Middle School.

  I checked the clock: 2:47. Martha ought to be done changing Hamstersaurus Rex’s bedding and on her way to her private conversational Portuguese lesson by now. Perfect. I adjourned Meeting Club and returned to our empty classroom. Luckily, no one had yet fixed the broken lock on the door. I ducked inside.

  “Rarrrrugh,” said Hammie Rex from his cage, which scientists will probably one day determine means “I love you.”

  “Hey, little guy. I rarrrugh you, too,” I said, pulling out my Junior Deputy Hamster Monitor key and unlocking the PETCATRAZ Pro™ (reputedly the strongest small rodent cage on the market). If Martha knew I was taking Hamstersaurus Rex out for unscheduled, unauthorized purposes, her head would explode.

  I opened my pocket. Hammie Rex sprang out of his cage, turned a quadruple somersault, and landed inside.

  “Wow, that was one extra somersault than normal,” I said. “You must be really excited to get started. Save some of that energy for the set.”

  I listened in the hallway. Nothing. The coast was clear, so I quietly tiptoed to my locker to grab a few things: some props, my clapboard, three bags of Funchos Marinara and Cream Cheese Flavor-Wedges (A SmilesCorp Product™), and most important of all, my brand-new UltraLite SmartShot digital camera, the best birthday gift my mom ever got me.

  Nobody was around, so I propped the back door of the school open with a rock and Hammie Rex and I headed out into the woods behind Horace Hotwater. It was a cool fall afternoon. Hammie Rex hopped out of my pocket and bounded along the ground behind me. He liked crunching through the dead leaves. We made our way through the underbrush to a clearing. It was only a few hundred feet from school, but we might as well have been in the Amazon rain forest. This was where the movie magic happened.

  You see, I was currently directing my first feature film, starring none other than Hamstersaurus Rex. Not to brag, but it was definitely going to be a huge blockbuster with major crossover appeal. I quickly built the set: a cardboard diorama of a miniature cityscape. I added a few Matchbox cars and some army men to complete the scene. Then I popped the universal memory card into my camera.

  “All right. Places, everyone,” I said, looking around for my only actor. “Come on, time to electrify the screen with your magnetic presence, little guy.”

  Unfortunately, Hammie was pretty distractible in the wild. He often disappeared for long stretches to chase butterflies, stomp acorns, and sometimes gnaw on cool rocks. So I used my most effective motivational technique: I ripped open a bag of Funchos and emptied it onto the city diorama.

  From out of nowhere, Hammie Rex pounced on the pile of Flavor-Wedges and started devouring them in the most gruesome manner imaginable. I set the camera low—an angle that made a five-inch hamster look like he was fifty feet tall—and hit the Record button.

  “Okay. Chinchillazilla vs. MechaChinchillazilla, scene twenty-two, take one,” I said, and I clapped my film clapper.

  After finishin
g the Flavor-Wedges, Hamstersaurus Rex raged around the miniature city looking for more. He kicked a tiny truck out of the way. Then he stuffed a couple of army men into his mouth and roared ferociously. Great stuff! I filmed with my SmartShot in one hand and simultaneously flipped through my script with the other.

  “We continue to receive reports of some sort of gigantic, mutant rodent creature thingie terrorizing our fair city of Buenos Aires!” I read in a newscaster voice. “Will no one be able to stop Chinchillazilla and save us?”

  Hamstersaurus Rex snarled and stomped a tiny sports car until its wheels popped off.

  “Wait,” I said, panning the camera left. “What’s that on the horizon? Can it be? Another gigantic rodent monster beast? But this one seems to be made completely of . . . metal?! And cut!” I stopped recording and clapped the clapper again. I had no idea why I was clapping it but I figured it was important. Hamstersaurus Rex was still smashing the toy car into the dirt.

  “Cut,” I said. “Nice work, pal, but I think we might be losing a little bit of that subtlety I loved so much in your audition. The audience needs to believe that even though Chinchillazilla is a gigantic radioactive mutant, he’s hurting on the inside.”

  Hamstersaurus Rex ignored my direction and grabbed a cardboard skyscraper in his stumpy little front paws, which he used to start pummeling the sports car. Once you got the little guy rampaging, it sure was tough to get him to stop.

  “Seriously, cut,” I repeated. “Hey, cut. Cut! Here, have some food.” I ripped open another bag of Flavor-Wedges and dumped them out. Hamstersaurus Rex abandoned what was left of the car went at the pile like a lunatic, crumbs and slobber flying.

  “Let’s move on to the scene where MechaChinchillazilla makes his first appearance,” I said.

  Owing to his immense acting talents (and the fact that I didn’t have access to any other small rodents) Hamstersaurus Rex would also be playing the part of MechaChinchillazilla, the robotic archenemy of Chinchillazilla.

  “First, we need to get you into your MechaChinchillazilla costume,” I said, and I pulled a roll of aluminum foil out of my backpack.

  But when I turned around, Hamstersaurus Rex was nowhere to be seen. Distracted again! I listened and heard a faint rhythmic thumping sound.

  “Hamstersaurus Rex, where are you, buddy? You’re needed on set,” I called out. “Hammie Rex to set!”

  The thumping continued. It somehow sounded like it was getting louder now.

  Thump . . . thump! . . . THUMP!

  “Hey, Hammie,” I said, “how am I supposed to film a giant rodent monster movie without the—”

  THUMP!

  The ground shook beneath my feet. Deeper in the darkness of the forest, something caught my eye—a tall shape lumbering between the trees. Each heavy step it took sent vibrations through the forest floor. I couldn’t make out much, but I could see that it was massive: twice as big as a full-grown adult, and covered in fur. I felt my stomach drop into my sneakers.

  “. . . Um. I think that’s a wrap for the day, Hammie,” I whispered. “We need to get out of here. Like, right now.”

  But there was still no sign of the little guy. I didn’t know what the monster in the woods was—a Kodiak bear four thousand miles from its natural habitat, a crazed sasquatch with a taste for human flesh, or even, dare I say it, a genuine Beefer-approved real-life werewolf—but I certainly didn’t want to find out. All my instincts said to run. But I just couldn’t leave Hammie Rex behind.

  Luckily, I still had a surefire way to summon Hamstersaurus Rex. I tore open the final bag of Funchos. A second later, the particular Flavor-Wedge smell—savory, tangy, utterly unlike anything found in nature—hit my nostrils.

  “Come on, Hammie. Here, boy,” I whispered, shaking the bag. “Follow your nose! But hurry!”

  In the distance, the gigantic creature had stopped moving. It sniffed the air. It flicked its tail, which somehow looked too bushy to be that of a werewolf. Then it turned its massive head and looked right at me.

  “Oh no,” I said under my breath. “No, no, no, no.”

  The ground began to rumble. Thump. Thump. Thump. THUMP. THUMPTHUMPTHUMP . . .

  The beast was charging right toward me, barreling through the underbrush like a runaway bulldozer. I shrieked and started to back away, but I tripped over my film clapper and fell, sprawling, onto my back. The creature burst into the clearing and let out a booming screech.

  I was staring up at a twelve-foot-tall squirrel.

  CHAPTER 2

  “HERE LIES SAM Gibbs, Pulverized by a Squirrel the Size of a Small Orca.” As an epitaph, it would certainly stand out in the cemetery. Still, it didn’t seem like the most peaceful way to go.

  A foot from my head, the colossal rodent flattened all of cardboard Buenos Aires with a single stomp, sending shock waves through the ground. I was frozen with terror, speechless and unable to move. I could only assume my skull would get stomped next, which was too bad. I really liked my skull.

  Just then, I heard a snarl. An orange blur shot through the air and landed on the ground between me and the giant squirrel. It was Hamstersaurus Rex! His fangs were bared and the fur on his haunches was bristling. The little guy meant to battle the beast.

  The giant squirrel paused and blinked. It seemed genuinely confused by this aggressive display. Honestly, I was, too. What was Hammie Rex thinking? Dino-strength or no, he was approximately 1/4,000th of the monster’s size. The squirrel casually raised its other foot to squash the little guy like a bug. Hamstersaurus Rex roared in defiance and didn’t budge. I had to do something.

  I tossed the bag of Funchos and snatched Hammie out of the way, right before the squirrel’s foot came down like a pile driver. THWAM!

  In an instant, I was on my feet, racing back toward the school at top speed. Branches whipped at my face and brambles tore at my clothes as I ran. Hammie growled and squirmed against my grip, still spoiling for a fight.

  I reached the school only to find that it was shut and locked. The rock I had used to prop it open had been kicked out of the way. The janitor, Mr. Grogan, must have done it. I pounded on the door but no one came. From the woods behind me, I heard the bloodcurdling cry of the giant squirrel again. I stuffed Hammie into my shirt pocket and took off once more.

  I ran all the way around the school—looking over my shoulder the whole way—and I didn’t stop until I got to the athletic fields. My lungs were burning and I was soaked with sweat by the time I found Dylan. She was tossing discs at a basket-shaped target a few dozen feet away. Across the field, Tina Gomez and Dwight Feinberg, the other two members of the newly formed disc golf team, were working on their fundamentals.

  “So, you just couldn’t hold back your Discwhipper spirit,” said Dylan, grinning as she saw me approach. She threw her disc at a sharp angle at the ground. It bounced off the turf and took flight, dinging the target and landing in the basket. “By the way, we’re called the Horace Hotwater Discwhippers now. Pretty great team name, huh? I came up with it.”

  “Big . . . ,” I wheezed, struggling to catch my breath.

  “Big? Sam, we’re gonna be huge! Coach Weekes and I even found another school that has a team and luckily they’re only three states away. In two weeks, the Discwhippers are going to face off against the West Blunkton Flingmasters in an exhibition tournament right here in town. SmilesCorp has agreed to sponsor it. We’re gonna have uniforms and everything!”

  “. . . squirrel!” I managed to get out between gasps.

  “Oh, okay. Um, naked mole rat, I guess,” said Dylan. “Your turn?”

  I doubled over and put my hands on my knees.

  “Look, ‘Name a Rodent’ is a fine game, Sam,” said Dylan, “but I’ve kind of got to get back to practice.”

  “I was attacked by some sort of . . . twelve-foot-tall . . . Squirrel . . . Kong!” I sputtered.

  Dylan cocked her head. “Well, that’s exciting!”

  “No, it was terrifying!” I said.

&n
bsp; “D’Amato! Are we here to practice our forehand throws or our jaw muscles?” Coach Weekes was stalking across the field toward us.

  Dylan scowled. “Sorry, Coach.”

  “Gibbs, you’re not a Discwhipper,” said Weekes. “What the heck are you doing here?”

  “A giant squirrel attacked me,” I said.

  “I’m assuming that’s a metaphor for something. Just remember: when we face adversity, adversity also faces us. Now get your chakras off my field!” He bowed and pointed to the bleachers.

  “Chakras?” I said.

  “Coach recently found his spiritual side,” said Dylan under her breath. “Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll talk later.”

  Still shaking from the adrenaline, I took a seat. I spent the last twenty minutes of disc golf practice jumping at every noise and scanning my surroundings for any sign of the monster. On the field, Coach Weekes was getting increasingly frustrated with the two non-Dylan team members, peppering his usual bluster with a few strange New Age-y phrases. Inside my pocket, Hammie Rex was still in a fighting mood, snuffling and growling.

  “Look, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” I whispered to him. “I know you’re tough. But a squirrel that big? One stomp from that thing and you’re a fuzzy pancake.”

  A clanging noise came from the field. Dwight had somehow lodged one of his discs in the scoreboard. Coach Weekes sighed.

  “All right, that’s it for today. Get out of my sight,” said Weekes, shaking his head. “I want you all to go home and meditate on not being terrible at disc golf. Namaste.”

  The other two Discwhippers shuffled off the field. Dylan jogged over and sat down on the bleachers beside me. I was finally able to relay the whole Squirrel Kong attack to her.

  “Really?” said Dylan, stroking her chin. “Chinchillazilla vs. MechaChinchillazilla? That’s the title you want to go with for your movie? It’s a little clunky.”