Hamstersaurus Rex vs. Squirrel Kong Read online

  I reached into my pocket, pulled out Hamstersaurus Rex, and gingerly set him down on the floor. Even Hammie looked grossed out by Beefer’s natural habitat. He kept shifting from foot to foot, wrinkling his nose.

  “I know it isn’t pleasant,” I said. “But we need to find something—stray squirrel hairs, quadcopter batteries, some sort of magic amulet that makes rodents grow—to prove Squirrel Kong exists and hopefully figure out Beefer’s next move.”

  Hammie gave a determined little growl and then began to dig through the mess, flinging out old Choconob wrappers and greasy paper napkins and the occasional pair of underpants. Soon, the little guy completely disappeared underneath the thick floor coating of Beefer garbage.

  Meanwhile, I checked the drawers of Beefer’s nightstand. The bottom one was entirely full of illegal fireworks. The second drawer only contained used bandages. The top drawer was full of moldy hot dog buns. Blech.

  It was like the world’s most disgusting archaeological dig site. After fifteen minutes of searching, the most suspicious items I’d found were a beautiful cherry wood lute and an amateur guide to operating a ham radio. In short: ample evidence that Beefer Vanderkoff was a total weirdo, but no proof of any wrongdoing.

  Just then I heard a growl from Hammie. The little guy had found something. I tromped through the mess to join him. Hamstersaurus Rex now stood on a big mound of dirty clothes and junk food wrappers in the corner. I took a deep breath and started to dig, too. Buried under the pile of Beefer’s stuff, I had soon uncovered a scuffed wooden trunk. There was a heavy padlock on it.

  “All right,” I said to Hamstersaurus Rex. “Time for a dino-chomp.”

  Hammie opened his jaws wide and then bit down on the lock as hard as he could. With a metallic clang, it fell away in two pieces. I carefully opened the trunk.

  It was completely full of Funchos Flavor-Wedges. Hamstersaurus Rex gurgled with glee. He had located Beefer’s Flavor-Wedge stockpile.

  “You always think with your stomach instead of your head,” I said to Hammie Rex.

  With a crazed look in his eyes, Hammie licked his chops and dove into the trunk. He started gobbling his way through the Flavor-Wedges. Under the dwindling orange pile of Funchos, something caught my eye. It was a small, leather-bound book. I reached in and picked it up. It looked like a journal of some sort. I brushed the orange flavor dust off it and cracked it open.

  Sure enough, inside was Beefer’s handwriting. Nearly illegible, the scrawls in the journal were so crabbed and tiny that I could barely make out what any of it said. As best as I could figure, it was pages upon pages of strange rants about bizarre, nonexistent animals. I saw a few handwritten URLs that were links to truthbusters.com, the crank conspiracy theory website that I’d run across when trying to find Squirrel Kong myself. Had Beefer lost his marbles? Toward the end, the journal turned into some sort of observation log with times and dates. Perhaps this was how he was planning the Squirrel Kong attacks?

  I quickly flipped to the final page. It had today’s date, with the following words:

  My jaw fell open. Beefer’s next Squirrel Kong attack was targeting SmilesCorp!

  CHAPTER 14

  “MOM, HE’S PLANNING something. Something big,” I said. “And it’s going down tonight!”

  “Let me get this straight,” said my mom. “You’re saying that at the stroke of midnight, Kiefer Vanderkoff—the kid who broke a trophy over his head at Science Night—is going to somehow destroy SmilesCorp?”

  “Yes!” I said. “He’s making his ‘final assault’ on SmilesCorp Building Seven! Your coworkers could be in danger.”

  “First off, Building Seven is the accounting department,” said my mom. “Does Kiefer hate numbers or something?”

  “Probably!”

  “Second, nobody will be around at midnight except security. And security is very, very tight. I go to SmilesCorp five days a week. We have armed guards and metal detectors and everything. I have to swipe my ID card just to get in the door! This Kiefer might be a tough sixth grader, but I’m certain that the SmilesCorp team can handle a twelve-year-old boy who, according to you, isn’t even very bright.”

  “Okay, maybe he’s not very bright,” I admitted. “But it isn’t just him we’re talking about. Beefer has a remote-controlled quadcopter and a giant squirrel that can bust through walls!”

  “Well, when you put it that way it certainly does sound serious. Should we call the president or go straight to the UN Security Council?” said my mom, an edge of sarcasm creeping into her voice.

  “I tried calling the police,” I said. “But the guy who answers the phone just hung up on me. He thought it was a prank call.”

  “Sam, I hesitate to indulge you, but what’s your evidence for any of this?”

  “I went over to Beefer’s house earlier and I found his crazy master plan all written out in a pile of Funchos Flavor-Wedges.”

  “And did you tell Kiefer’s parents what you think is going to happen?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then you’ve done your part.”

  “But they didn’t believe me about any of it, either.”

  “Hmm. Yeah. I wonder why not,” said my mom, cocking her head.

  “They don’t know what’s going on,” I said, throwing up my hands. “They’re just nice people who don’t understand that they’ve accidentally raised a monster in their own home!”

  “If you told his parents that you think he’s up to something, then that’s all you can do,” said my mom.

  “You don’t believe me, either,” I said.

  “Look, Bunnybutt, I love that you have such a powerful imagination. I love your drawings and I love the movies that you’ve made. But there comes a point when you have to put that aside and deal with the real world.”

  “But that’s what I’m trying to do!” I said. “The real world has giant squirrels in it!”

  “Sam, this was fine when you were five or six,” said my mom, “but you’re really getting too old for this kind of thing.”

  So that was that. We ate dinner in silence. Beefer’s parents weren’t going to help me. The police weren’t going to help me. My mom wasn’t going to help me. After dinner, I called Dylan.

  She sighed. “Man, I wish I could, but my parents are having a night out and I have to watch all three of my brothers. If I sneak out of the house, I’m liable to come back to a smoking crater. I’m really sorry, Sam.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Maybe I can persuade Martha.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” said Dylan. “Good luck.” She didn’t sound hopeful.

  I called Martha’s house but nobody picked up. Maybe she wasn’t home. Maybe she was still mad at me.

  It was close to ten o’clock now, the traditional Sam Gibbs bedtime. I said good night to my mom, brushed my teeth, and climbed into bed. Then I waited until I could hear her snoring in her bedroom before I snuck back out to the living room, grabbed a few things, and stuffed them into my backpack. Then I made my way out to the garage. I still had one steadfast ally in my fight against the forces of darkness.

  I opened the “Extension Cords” hypoallergenic habitat. Hammie Rex looked like he was ready for action.

  “I know I won’t be able to do this without you. You’re my right-hand hamster.”

  He snarled in solidarity. I opened my shirt pocket and the little guy hopped in. Then I grabbed my bike and pedaled out into the night.

  It was after eleven now. I rode through the dark and empty streets of Maple Bluffs toward SmilesCorp headquarters. Hammie Rex poked his head up to feel the cool night breeze on his furry little face. We were on a mission. I knew where and when Squirrel Kong would attack. If I was in the right place at the right time, I might be able to capture footage on my UltraLite SmartShot digital camera or maybe get a confession from Beefer—the proof I needed to exonerate Hammie Rex.

  I’d been to SmilesCorp a few times with my mom over the years. Truthfully, the place had always kind of creeped me out. It w
as a series of ultra-futuristic office buildings in a wooded area on the edge of town, not far from the Antique Doll Museum. The SmilesCorp campus was surrounded by a huge deserted parking lot, lit at regular intervals by streetlights. I rode my bike between the buildings until I got to the one that displayed the number seven above its entrance. It was two stories tall, all smoked glass and brushed steel. Inside it was dark.

  I hid my bike in the meticulously landscaped bushes. Then I crouched behind a bench that gave me a good view of the glass double doors that led into Building Seven. I switched my camera to night-vision mode. On the display, my dark surroundings now glowed eerie shades of vivid green. The digital clock on the display counted down the seconds. Hammie Rex sniffed quietly.

  At 12:03 a.m. I saw a blur of movement on the camera. A dark figure crept along the wall of Building Seven. On the display I could tell—even though he was wearing a ninja mask—that it was Beefer Vanderkoff. Sure enough, he was clutching the quadcopter controller in his hand. I panned right and left. He seemed to be alone. No Squirrel Kong. Yet.

  “All right, boy,” I whispered to Hammie Rex, “sic him.”

  It was the moment Hamstersaurus Rex had been waiting for. He lit out at full speed toward Beefer, who was now trying to pick the lock of the main door of Building Seven with a playing card. Without a sound, Hammie Rex sprang into the air, spreading his jaws extra-wide. Despite his ninja training or whatever, Beefer never saw the attack coming. An airborne Hamstersaurus Rex chomped down as hard as he could on Beefer’s butt.

  Beefer let out a high-pitched wail that sounded a bit like someone letting the air out of a blimp. Then he started to spin wildly. Hammie Rex held on fast, his teeth firmly sunk into Beefer’s haunches.

  “Gotcha, Beefer!” I cried, leaping to my feet. “This is a citizen’s arrest. Stop right there.”

  Beefer didn’t listen. A final bout of wild flailing managed to dislodge Hammie Rex.

  “You’re not going to get away with it,” I cried, approaching with my digital camera in hand. “If you confess to everything, maybe you’ll only get life in prison!”

  Beefer took off. Hammie snarled and ran after him and I followed close behind. I watched Beefer disappear around the corner between Building Seven and Building Nine.

  As I rounded the corner myself, I saw that he’d blundered into a dead end. A tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire blocked the other end of the alley between the two buildings. Beefer was frantically trying to pull open the Building Seven service entrance, even though it required an ID. When he saw me, he froze and then shifted into his bizarre “anteater style” karate stance. Hammie Rex leaped in front of me, growling dangerously and baring his pointy Jurassic teeth.

  “Consider your attack foiled,” I said.

  “My attack?” said Beefer. “You’re the one with the crazy bum-biting killer hamster that you told to eat me!”

  “And I’ll do it again, too, if you don’t stand down,” I said. “Only this time I’ll tell him to bite off your whole hand! You’ll never play Renaissance music again!”

  Hammie Rex roared. Beefer flinched.

  “It’s over, man,” I said, “I know all about your little pet.”

  Beefer blinked. “You do?” he said. “Then tell me what they’ve done with him!”

  “Huh? How should I know? All I know is that wherever your quadcopter sprays that Funchos Flavor-Wedge dust, that’s where Squirrel Kong attacks!”

  “Sam,” said Beefer, dropping his fighting stance, “if this is one of your dumb so-called humor jokes, I don’t get it.”

  I pointed the camera at him. “Admit it! That thing in your hand is a remote control for a quadcopter!”

  “This?” said Beefer, holding it up for me to see. “This is a ham radio.”

  “But I know you planned Squirrel Kong’s ‘assault’ on SmilesCorp. You wrote it down in your psycho journal!” I held up his notebook.

  “You read my diary!” shrieked Beefer in a higher tone than when Hammie Rex chomped his posterior. Even through the ninja mask, I could tell he was mortified.

  “What? I mean, okay, yes, I guess technically I did.” I felt a little embarrassed when he put it that way.

  “That’s really low, Sam. Even for you,” said Beefer. “Look, since you read my private diary, you ought to know the only reason I’m here is to get him back!” He threw both hands out like it was obvious.

  “Your penmanship was terrible,” I said. “Get who back?”

  “Michael Perkins!” said Beefer. “For a nerd, you sure are dumb, Sam.”

  “Wait. You think your pet snake is here? Inside SmilesCorp?”

  “I know he is!” said Beefer. “Michael Perkins was my best friend . . . my only friend. But SmilesCorp took him from me.”

  I’d heard that rumor, but my mom said it wasn’t true. “Why do you think that?” I asked.

  “Because Michael Perkins ate part of their precious invisible doughnut and they wanted to pump his stomach to get it back! It was one of a kind and they spent a zillion bucks to invent it. Or maybe they even wanted to study the effects of how it made him turn invisible or something! After Science Night, when your mean hamster flung my defenseless boa constrictor out the window, I never saw him again. I came back and searched and searched the school parking lot and I didn’t find any sign of him.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe Michael Perkins just slithered away? Personally, I wouldn’t want to live with you.”

  “No!” cried Beefer, his voice cracking as he spoke. “He was my best friend! Whenever he got out of his cage he always came back! Always!”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. I was starting to realize that Beefer felt the same way about Michael Perkins as I did about Hamstersaurus Rex. He really loved that snake.

  “Anyway, I started investigating online,” said Beefer. “There’s this awesome one-hundred-percent-reliable website called truthblasters.com—”

  “Come on,” I said, shaking my head. “That website is for crazy conspiracy theories.”

  “No, it’s not!” cried Beefer. “On Truthblasters, you can learn all about crop circles and how werewolves are real and the secret stuff that multinational corporations are secretly doing to take over the world without us even noticing!”

  “Wow. Can you just listen to yourself for a second?”

  “Oh, and I suppose the idea of a remote-controlled quadcopter that sprays Funchos Flavor-Wedge dust to make a giant squirrel attack specific targets sounds more realistic to you, huh, Sam?”

  “Okay. Fair point,” I admitted.

  “Anyway,” said Beefer, “I looked on Truthblasters and I found out that SmilesCorp has this crazy lab where they secretly do weird genetic testing to create their snacks and stuff. I’m sure that’s where they’re keeping Michael Perkins.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “If all you care about is rescuing your snake, then why were you spying on me at the Antique Doll Museum?”

  “How self-centered can you get?” said Beefer. “I wasn’t spying on you. I was spying on SmilesCorp. With binoculars, you can see Building Seven from the ADM parking lot. And with my ham radio I can listen to the walkie-talkie conversations of the security guards. Plus I was hoping I might, you know, bump into my ex-girlfriend.”

  “Your ex-girlfriend?” I said, confused.

  “Martha!” cried Beefer.

  I had to admit, if I applied some weird Beefer Vanderkoff anti-logic to it, his explanation mostly added up. But if Beefer wasn’t to blame, that meant that the real culprit behind Squirrel Kong was still at large.

  “And you swear you haven’t had anything to do with the twelve-foot-tall squirrel that keeps attacking Horace Hotwater Middle School?” I said.

  “I swear,” said Beefer. “Even though, if I’m being honest, that does sound pretty cool.”

  Hammie Rex growled at him.

  “Look, Sam,” said Beefer, “you keep blabbing about quadcopters. Well, I bet you the one you’re looking for belong
s to SmilesCorp. The company just started a pilot quadcopter delivery program for their online store. It was all over the news.”

  “Really?” I said.

  Beefer nodded. “And you should read some of the weird stuff they get up to in their Genetic Research and Development Lab that doesn’t ever get reported on. This is where they made the invisible doughnut that was all full of nasty fish DNA. Right here in Building Seven!”

  “Beefer, my mom works at SmilesCorp. She said this is the accounting department.”

  “No! Don’t you see? That’s what they want us to think,” said Beefer, tapping his head frantically. “If there is a giant squirrel terrorizing Maple Bluffs, I’m sure SmilesCorp had something to do with it. In fact, I guarantee you that it came out of this very building.”

  I was starting to feel sick. Beefer Vanderkoff was making sense. How could SmilesCorp not be behind Squirrel Kong?

  “The truth is through this door,” said Beefer.

  Beefer pointed to the heavy steel door to Building Seven.

  “Except it’s locked,” said Beefer, “so I’ll never be able to get Michael Perkins back.”

  He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the ground. He was making soft squeaking noises. It took me a moment to realize that Beefer Vanderkoff was crying.

  I looked at Hammie Rex. Hammie Rex looked at me. Neither one of us knew what to do.

  “Uh. It’s okay, man,” I said. “You could get another snake.”

  “I don’t want another snake!” said Beefer, tears and snot now soaking his ninja mask. “He was my friend and nobody will believe me. Nobody will listen to me. Nobody will help. There’s no way inside.”

  I knew how I would feel if Hamstersaurus Rex was sent away to the Irma Bergstrom Memorial Home for Troubled Small Pets. I would feel exactly the way Beefer did now.