Beast from Beneath the Cafeteria! Read online

  Sssss! The oversize pan atop Usher’s House of Pancakes hissed the hour.

  “RRROOOAAARRRRR!” went Gorga. He stopped stomping and headed for the center of Grover’s Mill, drooling at the restaurants.

  “Uh-oh,” gasped Liz. “He wants a snack. He’s going to get bigger again. Let’s get out of here!”

  But Gorga had other ideas. He spotted the two tiny figures running down the street. He rolled his big red eyes. He licked his long teeth.

  The ground thundered.

  A dark shadow fell over the two kids.

  “Gorga!” screamed Liz. “He’s going to squish us!”

  8

  What Science Never Does

  Splaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

  Well, almost!

  Just inches from the two kids, Gorga’s enormous clawed foot stopped. A sudden squealing sound pierced the air. Gorga turned to listen.

  It was a motorcycle screeching around the corner from Main Street.

  And driving the motorcycle was—Miss Lieberman!

  “Whoa, she really gets around!” gasped Mike, jumping out of the way.

  Miss Lieberman spun to a stop right in front of the two kids. A head popped up from a sidecar attached to the motorcycle.

  “Principal Bell!” shouted Liz.

  “Don’t worry, children” said Mr. Bell, leaping out of the sidecar. He was dressed from head to toe in an army uniform. “We’ve got an oversized school wrecker on the run!”

  Just then, the beast’s huge foot slammed down, causing a huge crack in School Road.

  “Yeah, on the run!” shrieked Mike. “Not!”

  Mr. Bell jumped back into the sidecar. “Miss Lieberman, step on it!”

  “Before Gorga does!” yelled Liz.

  The assistant principal nodded, pulled down her goggles, and gunned the engine. The motorcycle screeched off with Gorga in hot pursuit.

  “And don’t forget the writing contest!” Principal Bell called back. “All entries due tomorrow!”

  “What was that contest again?” Mike asked.

  “It doesn’t matter, Mike,” huffed Liz. “I don’t think we’re going to make it to tomorrow!”

  In the distance, Liz spotted the domed head of the Welles Observatory. It looked safe. “The Observatory!” she yelled. “It’s our only chance!”

  “Great!” said Mike. “My folks can help us!”

  The two kids took off down Main Street.

  Bong! The oversized donut clock on the roof of the Double Dunk Donut Den rang out again.

  It was the last time.

  In one quick swipe, Gorga tore the thirty-foot clock right off the Den’s roof and took a bite.

  “SPAH!” Gorga coughed, spitting wood chips and heaving the giant wooden pastry down the street right at the two kids.

  “That’s another one for my list!” cried Liz, ducking as the donut shattered on the street. “No Big Food Signs!” Two minutes later she and Mike were dashing up the wide steps of the Welles Observatory and Science Museum.

  At the top of the steps, Liz looked back.

  Gorga dunked his head through the open roof of the Donut Den, slurped in a mighty slurp of donuts and crullers, and grew ten feet taller.

  Then he stomped the Den flat!

  “Grover’s Mill!” cried Liz. “It’s being destroyed stomp by stomp and slurp by slurp!”

  “Well,” said Mike, “you said you wanted things to change. Come on!”

  Sure, thought Liz. She’d even made a list of things to change. But was this what she wanted?

  Mike pushed on two giant doors, which opened into a large room with a domed ceiling.

  Inside, a man dressed in a white laboratory coat was staring into a giant telescope. Liz recognized him as Mike’s father.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Mazur, shifting his glasses and licking his teeth, which seemed far too big for his mouth. “Small … familiar … boy … person.”

  “Mike,” said Mike.

  “Yes, yes, quite right,” the man said. He pushed a button. Zzzzz!—a narrow slit opened in the ceiling and the telescope pushed out.

  “Gorga’s out there, Mr. Mazur,” said Liz. “He’s a huge dinosaur and he’s wrecking everything! The whole town! What can we do?”

  The man pulled a long Gooey Bar from his lab coat, unwrapped it, and began to munch. “First, let’s get a look at the creature, shall we? Science helps us understand all things.”

  Liz wasn’t really sure about that, but it did make her feel better. Well, a little.

  At least until Mike came over and tapped her on the shoulder. He showed her his hands. They had greenish powder all over them.

  “Um, Dad?” asked Mike. “What’s this green stuff? It’s on everything.”

  Mr. Mazur chuckled, then fiddled with the telescope controls. “Ah, the green cloud!”

  “What?” asked Liz, staring in shock as Mr. Mazur pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Did you say a green cloud?”

  Mr. Mazur nodded. “One of my own experiments, actually. I, ah … hmmm. I seem to be quite hungry since that night, actually. Candy, mostly.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another long Gooey Bar.

  “That stuff’s not good for you,” Liz said.

  Mike looked at her. “Never mind that. Your father said a green cloud drifted across the desert the night the dino egg hatched, right?”

  Liz frowned. “But what does the cloud do?”

  Mr. Mazur wrinkled his nose. “Actually, under certain kinds of circumstances, a green cloud can do some very odd things.”

  “What sorts of things?” asked Liz.

  “Well, judging from my own experience,” Mr. Mazur said, “I’d say, it caused an appetite for food. Mostly candy and sweet things.”

  “But you can reverse it, right?” asked Mike, trying to wipe the green stuff off his hands.

  Mr. Mazur scratched his head. “Actually, your mother has forbidden me to do anymore experiments.” He shrugged at Mike. “So you see …”

  Liz knew this was not good. She stormed back and forth across the big room. “Okay, so a dinosaur—Gorga—gets zapped by this strange cloud. Why? Hey, it’s Grover’s Mill, that’s why. Then he gets really hungry. Well, sure. He hasn’t eaten for sixty-five million years. So he comes to our cafeteria. And he snarfs up the hamboogers. Then he goes after candy, then donuts, then he—Wait!”

  Mike stopped wiping his hands on his pants and looked at Liz. “Okay, I’m waiting.”

  It was like fireworks exploding in her head. In seconds Liz knew the answer. She pulled an apple from her backpack and began to laugh.

  “Hey,” said Mike, “how many apples do you carry around, anyway?”

  “Never mind that,” snapped Liz. “The point is—Gorga spat out the apples!”

  Mike searched Liz’s face, trying to get it. “Of course! Gorga spat out the apples. Yeah, I get it. Wow, that’s brilliant, because … because …” Mike shook his head. “Because why, exactly?”

  “Because he only likes junk food!” cried Liz. “School food! Donuts! They make him bigger!”

  Mike thought about that. “So, to make him smaller, we do … um … what?”

  Mike’s father peered into the telescope. “Actually, Gorgo is getting smaller. He’s going away.”

  “Smaller?” said Mike.

  “Going away?” said Liz.

  “Science never lies,” Mr. Mazur said, smiling.

  WHAM! A door at the back of the room swung open and a woman in a white lab coat stormed in. “Mortimer!” she shouted. “How many times have I told you—you’re supposed to look in the small end of the telescope!”

  “Oh, dear!” said Mr. Mazur.

  That’s when Liz realized something horrible. “So you mean, Gorga isn’t getting smaller?”

  “He isn’t going away?” asked Mike.

  “RRROOOAAARRRRR!”

  Nope. Gorga was bigger.

  And Gorga was there!

  9

  With a Stick and a Song!

&nb
sp; “RRROOOAAARRRRR!” Gorga stuck his big scaly head—now the size of a dump truck—into the slit in the dome. He looked all around.

  “He’s gonna slurp!” yelled Liz. She grabbed Mike and pulled him down behind the telescope. Mr. and Mrs. Mazur ducked.

  SPPPLURRRSSSSSH! All the drawers in all the cabinets burst open and hundreds of packages of candy and chips and other junk food went flying up through the slit and into Gorga’s jaws!

  “My candy!” yelped Mr. Mazur.

  “Mortimer!” cried Mrs. Mazur in disgust.

  The suction from Gorga’s slurp was even stronger than before.

  Liz’s bangs flapped up. Her grip started to loosen. The Mazurs’ lab coats swirled up over their heads. Mike’s feet were leaving the floor.

  Liz knew that any second they would all be flying into that huge mouth hole. She had to act.

  She did act!

  With all her might, Liz reached up and hit a button on the telescope stand.

  Zzzzz!—the narrow slit in the ceiling closed swiftly on Gorga’s neck, trapping his giant head inside the dome!

  “ARRGGG!” He gurgled, he pushed, he wiggled, he pulled, he strained. His eyes got redder and bulged. But he couldn’t get free.

  “Let’s get to my mom’s restaurant!” Liz cried out. “I have a plan!”

  The two kids tore out to the front steps of the observatory and started for the white and blue awning of Duffey’s Diner. “Hurry!” Liz yelled.

  But in the middle of Main Street, on its way to the same white and blue awning, was something ugly. Something horrible.

  It was a mob! A mob of angry townspeople. They had their eyes on Duffey’s Diner. They had torches. They had sticks. They had attitudes. But worst of all, they had a song!

  Oh, see mighty Gorga

  From the dinosaur ga

  raveyard roar and eat and kill!

  “Zoners!” cried Liz. “They’re out of control!”

  “They’re also out of tune,” said Mike.

  Liz ran. “We have to stop them.”

  “Yeah,” Mike agreed. “Before they get to the second verse!”

  No! Too late!

  Oh, see mighty Gorga

  Stomp till there’s no more Ga-

  -rover’s—rover’s—rover’s Mill!

  Suddenly—Errrrch!

  Screeching to a stop in front of the diner was a huge army tank. It had BOARD OF EDUCATION stenciled on the side.

  A hatch on the tank opened. A man wearing a camouflage army uniform and helmet popped out. He pulled off a foggy pair of goggles.

  “Principal Bell!” gasped Liz. “Again!”

  “Commander Bell, now,” Mr. Bell said. “The superintendent has given me emergency powers. Now listen up, people. Our intelligence experts tell us the beast is after only one thing—food, food, food!”

  Liz made a face. “That’s three things.”

  Mr. Bell went on. “However, if there is no food, Gorga will go away. Since he has already destroyed our beloved Donut Den and House of Pancakes, that leaves only one restaurant still standing—Duffey’s Diner! I’ve sent for attack planes to bomb Duffey’s Diner to smithereens!”

  The crowd cheered.

  “No!” Liz screamed. “You can’t do that! We need my mom’s restaurant! I figured it all out. There’s only one way to defeat Gorga!”

  “Explain, Miss Duffey,” boomed Mr. Bell.

  “Sing a song!” roared the crowd. “We did!”

  Liz stepped slowly before the crowd. She thought for a second. Then she began to sing.

  Wherever slimy burgers ooze—

  Gorga will be there!

  Wherever cheeses taste like glues—

  Gorga will be there!

  One thing alone can stop the beast

  From making Grover’s Mill his feast

  With Duffey’s health food you can’t lose—

  And prices are fair!

  “Oooooh!” gasped the crowd. “Good song!”

  “It’s the best I could do on short notice,” said Liz.

  Liz’s mother and father stepped out of the diner. “We’ll do whatever we can,” they said.

  Then the crowd parted and two very round figures came forward. Two very round, very identical figures.

  One of them spoke. “Hi, I’m Bob Dunk and this is my brother Rob Dunk. We’re the Double Dunk twins!”

  The crowd applauded.

  “Thank you,” continued Bob, holding back tears. “Even though the Donut Den is no more, we’d like to offer our secret donut recipes to help defeat the beast!”

  Everyone cheered again.

  “I’ll help, too,” snarled an angry voice, “if I must!” An elderly gentleman limped out of the crowd and frowned at everyone. It was Mr. Usher, owner of Usher’s House of Pancakes.

  The crowd cheered again.

  “That’s the Grover’s Mill spirit!” said Mr. Bell.

  Suddenly Miss Lieberman popped out through the open tank hatch.

  “Did someone say Grover’s Mill?” She shook a set of pink pom-poms. “Give me a G!”

  “Geeeee!” roared the crowd.

  “Give me an R!”

  “Rrrrrrr!” roared the crowd.

  “Give me an O!”

  “Rrrrrrr!”

  Mr. Bell stared down at the crowd. “‘Rrrrr’? That’s not right. Now give me an O!”

  “RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

  A small man with thick glasses pushed his way quickly through the crowd. “Ah, actually, the beast creature is coming!” It was Mr. Mazur. And he was pointing.

  Gorga was starting to break free of the observatory dome.

  Soon the beast would be stomping up

  Main Street! At full speed! And really mad!

  “Everyone back to school!” Liz screamed.

  “Oh, man!” groaned Mike. “And I thought we were out for the day!”

  10

  To Eat and to Destroy

  As the crowd ran for cover, Liz and Mike dashed down School Road, past the crumpled sign that read DEAD END, and up the steps to the ruined main lobby of W. Reid Elementary.

  The tank rumbled behind them along with the whole mob of torch-carrying, stick-toting townspeople.

  Holly ran up to Liz and Mike. Sean and Jeff were right behind her. “You guys need some help?” asked Holly. She smiled at Liz.

  Liz nodded. “It could be dangerous.”

  “Cool,” said Sean, nudging Jeff. “A mission.”

  The five friends strode toward the school.

  “Halt!” Mr. Bell boomed, jumping from the tank and standing in front of the school doors. “The freedom of the free world is at stake! If you five students fail in your mission, we will be forced to use state-of-the-art nuclear weapons. Life as we know it may end.”

  Liz frowned. “Oh, no pressure or anything. Could we at least have ten minutes?”

  Mr. Bell looked deep into her eyes and smiled. “One second more and we start bombing!”

  “Thanks for your support,” said Mike.

  “Kids, wave!” Mr. Vickers called out from the crowd. He held up his camera. “We’re rolling!”

  Moments later in the main hallway, Liz was giving instructions to Holly, Sean, and Jeff. “Meet us in the gym in five minutes.”

  The kids nodded and split up. Liz pulled Mike with her. In seconds, they were climbing down through the trapdoor to the kitchen food cellar.

  At the bottom was Mr. Sweeney, the janitor. He was dressed like a ninja, with cleaning brushes and tools crisscrossing his chest on a wide belt. Mops of all different sizes lined the walls. “Stand back, you little invaders!”

  Liz and Mike explained everything.

  Mr. Sweeney listened. “My school—a battleground?”

  Mike nodded. “And we’ve only got minutes.”

  Mr. Sweeney sprung over to a door at the far end of the cellar and led them into a dark tunnel. The tunnel wound through turn after turn.

  “Where exactly are we going?” Mike asked.


  “Into the depths of my school,” the janitor said. There were doors on both sides as they passed. One had a skull and crossbones across it. Another was marked TOP SECRET. Still another said TEACHERS’ LOUNGE—SUB-LEVEL ONE.

  “I know every inch of the place,” Mr. Sweeney went on. “I’ve lived down here for years.”

  Liz turned to Mike. “That’s a fun thought.”

  Finally the tunnel stopped at a huge iron door.

  Vrrrrt! The door opened to a room jammed with enormous crates of food ingredients.

  “My secret underground supply room!” the janitor exclaimed. “My home!”

  “Come on, we’re running out of time,” said Liz, looking around. “Mike, help me choose the ooze. What looks bad?”

  Mike’s eyes flashed. “What doesn’t?” He strode over and tapped a big round drum. “Easy-Cheese, definitely.” He pointed to a high shelf. “All-Sauce, of course.” He whirled around. “Oh, and lots of this Meat-Treat stuff.”

  Within minutes, the three had collected dozens of tubs of food stuff. They hauled it all back through the tunnels and upstairs into the gym.

  Holly and Jeff came running in with a bunch of mops. Sean pulled in a bucket on wheels.

  “My mops!” cried Mr. Sweeney. “My bucket!”

  Liz looked up at the jagged hole that she had first seen that morning. The afternoon light shone down on the gleaming wooden floor.

  “Okay, guys,” said Liz. “Let’s get cooking!”

  Mike opened the food tubs while Holly and Jeff began to mix the ingredients right there on the floor, using the mops from the supply closet. Sean splashed the mess with dirty water.

  The Double Dunk twins came in with a hand truck. So did Mr. Usher. They all brought big containers and mixed their stuff in with the rest.

  “This is smelling pretty gross, Liz,” said Mike.

  “Keep stirring,” snapped Liz, looking out the window toward the observatory. “Gorga’s nearly unstuck. If this doesn’t work, Grover’s Mill could be a thing of the past.”

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, I kind of like it here. Except for Gorga and all.”

  Liz smiled a half smile. “Yeah, well, just don’t become a Zoner, okay?”

  Errrrch! The sound of squealing tires from outside. “That’s my mom and dad,” said Liz. “Mr. Sweeney! Help them back their truck around to the side door. They’ll do the rest.”