Herbert's Wormhole Read online

  “Let’s waste this lizard!” Sammi said, straight-faced.

  The three of them leaped into the air and landed together, on one another’s shoulders. Alex stood on the base, Herbert on his shoulders, and Sammi on the top. They began to sway, shifting their weight back and forth. The base-on-a-chain swung like an upside-down pendulum, each time getting closer and closer to the video-villain.

  LAZ-ROW puffed his horrible self up and prepared to laser-fry the three silver heroes. His tail drew up behind him. All at once, he fired his laser eyes and lunged his tail. Herbert, Sammi, and Alex launched themselves into the air in three different directions. Herbert blocked the laser shot.

  Sammi turbo-chopped the beast’s deadly tail, lopping off the poisonous spike.

  Alex thrust his TurboStaff into its laser-blasting eye. The alien leader tossed its head back and let out a thunderous shriek.

  Its awful voice shook the stadium and its walls, echoing across the city of Merwinsville. Its red flesh exploded into a million holographic chunks, and it disappeared in a puff of very realistic-looking video-vapor.

  The screen went black.

  The crowd went wild.

  Alex, Herbert, and Sammi stood together on a base and drifted down as they soaked up the cheers pulsing from the stands, from humans and G’Daliens alike. The three heroes smiled at one another as they touched down onto the field.

  “That was awesome!” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” Herbert agreed. “I never thought I’d say this about a video game, but that was actually kind of fun.”

  Alex looked at him. “A video what?”

  Old Man Herbert flipped off the antigravity switch. As the fans flooded the field, an explosion of confetti blasted into the air, raining down and covering the field like a blanket of brightly colored snow. Humans and G’Daliens in the crowd lifted up Alex, Herbert, and Sammi and carried them out of the Meteor-Dome, into the streets.

  The return of gravity left GOR-DON in a tough spot—hanging by a tentacle from the bottom of the MonitOrb. He clung as long as he could, then POP! He finally dropped to the field like a sack of slugs.

  An orange vest hit him in the head.

  Mr. Illinois stepped up and loomed over him with a dustpan and broom. “I’ll get your confession for my case report Monday morning. First, I assume you haven’t forgotten how to use these,” he said. “I need this field clean for my son’s practice tomorrow, so I want all this confetti swept up by dawn, Gorgonzola.” He smiled at the rumpled pile of alien and walked out of the stadium to join the celebration.

  CHAPTER 35

  The crowd carried Alex, Herbert, and Sammi through the streets of Merwinsville, across the plaza, and to the steps of the museum, where they were presented with a ridiculously large, gold-plated keycard to the city. The three of them waved and smiled as they took the poster-sized keycard. Herbert scanned the crowd.

  “Do you guys see Old Man Me anywhere?”

  Alex shook his head. “I hope I made it to a hundred and ten,” he said as he waved to the crowd below.

  “I doubt I make it to eleven,” Sammi said. “I blew off, like, a half-dozen prepaid, nonrefundable activities today—my parents are gonna kill me.” Alex looked at her and she smiled back at him. “Totally worth it, though.”

  The three of them waved and smiled as they slowly walked backward, up the stairs. They reached the giant museum door. Herbert reached behind him and tried to turn the handle. “The door’s locked!” he whispered. Alex offered his brand-new, giant gold keycard to the city. Herbert scoffed. “That doesn’t actually open any doors, you ignora—”

  Alex swiped it through a slot on the giant door handle, and it clicked open. “Nice theory, Slewg,” he said.

  The three of them slipped inside. The confused crowd watched them disappear. They all glanced at one another, then rushed up the steps after the three of them.

  Chicago was standing inside the museum door. “I thought you guys might need help with your exit strategy again,” he said.

  As the crowd reached the door and started banging on it, Alex stepped forward. “Chicago, we’ve got something to tell you. We’re, uh, not from here.”

  Chicago chuckled at them. “I know. You’re from the past, came through a wormhole, blah, blah, blah.”

  They stared at him. “Old Man You told me all about it. You should get to know that guy. He’s like you, but older. And much, much cooler.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the advice.” Herbert said. The WHUMPING on the door suddenly grew louder, and the door began to creak open from the force of the mob.

  “Go before your fans tear you apart. I’ll slow ’em down.” They looked at him, and he smiled. “I still can’t believe I thought this town was boring! Come back soon, okay?”

  Sammi blurted out, “We will!” She grabbed the giant gold keycard to the city and handed it to him. Then she, Alex, and Herbert ran across the lobby, toward the Hall of Human History.

  The crowd burst in, and Chicago turned to face them. He looked down the opposite direction, to the far end of the museum. “Hey! There they go!” he yelled. The mob ran off in the wrong direction. Chicago smiled, put on his Meteors cap, and walked out the museum door.

  CHAPTER 36

  Alex, Herbert, and Sammi stood before the fake cave in the prehistoric diorama. “I was thinking maybe we should invite Chicago to our time someday,” Sammi said. “I bet he’d like it.”

  “Hmm,” Alex said, pretending to actually consider it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Besides, there are only three suits, one for each of us—Just us.”

  “Actually,” Herbert said, “I have one more that came with the video game. I could easily modify it for Chicago.”

  Alex shot Herbert a look of death. He stepped up to him like he was going to hit him. “For the last time—what the heck is a video game?”

  Herbert glanced at Sammi and asked, “Alex—what do you think we fought in that stadium back there?”

  Alex grinned. “What, did you lose your memory, too? The three of us just saved our city—and probably our planet—by kicking some seriously gnarly alien butt! We’re heroes! We’re alien slayers!”

  Herbert chuckled. “Okay, listen. I hate to inform you of this, but that whole thing was just a vid—” Sammi suddenly flipped the switch on Alex’s belt. The blue, shimmering wormhole opened up and began sucking Alex toward it. He yelled, “Last one home’s a rotten alien larvae pod!” and dived in.

  Herbert looked at Sammi. She shrugged. “So he thinks he just saved the world. That’s a pretty cool memory. I say we let him keep it.” She flipped her own switch and dived into the wormhole.

  Herbert fired up his own suit and looked back at the woolly mammoth. He smiled, then turned and stepped toward the warm, blue shimmering light. He felt it pulling him in. He closed his eyes and leaned toward the rock.

  In a flash, both Herbert and his wormhole were gone.

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  It was almost dawn when GOR-DON swept the very last piece of confetti into his dustpan. He slinked over to the Meteors’ dugout trash can and dumped it. He pulled something out of his vest pocket and looked closely at it.

  In his tentacle was a small photograph of a heavyset woman with a double chin, a hairnet, and thick eyeglasses. She smiled up at him, and had a big smudge of bright red lipstick on her tooth.

  The G’Dalien angrily threw the photo into the trash can. His lip quivered a bit, and he quickly reached back in to retrieve it. But something else caught his eye. He reached down with his tentacle and pulled it out. The box was old and faded, but the words were still legible: ALIENSLAYER: 3-D! VIDEO GAME SYSTEM. Scowling up at him from the box was LAZ-ROW, Evil Alien Overlord®. The bitter G’Dalien’s face twitched.

  He tucked the box under his vest and skulked out of the stadium. Sneaking through the shadows, he oozed home just ahead of the pink morning haze of another perfect day in Merwinsville.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

&n
bsp; We’d like to thank from the bottom of our hearts Richard Winkler, Tina Wexler, Jordan Brown, Karina Kliss, Alison Klapthor, David Caplan, and Dominie Mahl for all they did to help us bring our story to life.

  And the Nelson and Rao families, whose ever-present love, patience, support, and inspiration allow us the faith and freedom to create stories like this.

  And finally to our own personal alien slayer, Brenda Bowen, who has a gazillion more stories just waiting for the great fortune to meet her in the future.

  —Pete and Ro

  Credits

  Cover art © 2009 by Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao

  Cover design by Alison Klapthor

  Copyright

  HERBERT’S WORMHOLE. Copyright © 2009 by Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao. 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, down-loaded, 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.

  Adobe Digital Edition April 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-191114-9

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