Future Ratboy and the Attack of the Killer Robot Grannies Read online

  ‘You’re flying, Ratboy! Just like a superhero!’ she cooed, and Twoface’s two faces screwed into one big fat angry one.

  ‘That’s not flying - it’s FLOATING!’ he scoffed, pointing all four of his eyes at me at once. ‘Ratboy’s not a superhero. Look at his costume - it’s just an anorak with a scuba-

  diving mask stretched over it,

  for crying out keel! THIS is

  a superhero!’ he shouted,

  pointing at himself.

  81

  Not Bird ruffled up his fur. ‘NOT!’ he squawked, giving me a thumbs up with the thumb bit of his wing.

  Bunny rubbed Twoface’s hood, trying to calm him down. ‘Twoface’s mum and dad are superheroes too, aren’t they, Twoface?’ she smiled, picking a bit of fluff off one of his hood-wings, and I wondered why Twoface needed to live in an orphanage if he had a superhero mum and dad.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not as keel as it sounds,’ said Twoface, looking up at Bunny while staring down at the table at the same time. ‘They’re so busy saving the universe, I hardly ever see them . . .’ he mumbled.

  ‘That’s why Twoface is staying with us for a bit!’ Bunny smiled, giving him a cuddle, and he squirmed out of it, even though I could tell he quite liked it.

  I thought of my mum and dad and little

  sister, sitting in our living room,

  wondering where

  I was. ‘Don’t worry

  Lampposts, I’ll be

  home soon!’ I

  whispered in

  my superhero

  voice, and I

  felt my belly

  do a rumble.

  83

  I glanced down at my tummy, and its TV screen fizzled to life. ‘HELP ME!’ crackled a bald man with a missing nose, which is a pretty weird thing to see on your stomach.

  ‘Hey, isn’t that Dr Smell on Ratboy’s belly?’ asked Splorg, scraping out

  of his chair at Splorg-speed and walking over. Jamjar squinted through her glasses at the bald

  man, and I wondered who in the keelness Dr Smell was.

  84

  ‘ANY-way . . .’ I said in my superhero

  voice, mostly just to change the

  subject from my belly. ‘What are

  your superpowers, Twoface?’

  Jamjar de-squinted her eyes and looked up from my telly belly. ‘He can look both ways at once!’ she smiled, pointing at Twoface’s head. ‘What with the two faces and everything . . .’ she said, and Twoface did a double-grin.

  Not Bird sniggled at how rubbish Twoface’s superpowers sounded and I gave him a nudge, holding in a chuckle myself.

  85

  ‘AND I’ve got sticky hands . . .’ said Twoface. ‘For climbing up walls and stuff!’ he grinned, and he poked one of my zigzaggedy chips with a sticky finger and lifted it out of its packet, popping it into one of his mouths.

  Which I had to admit was pretty keel.

  86

  ‘Keel to meet a real life superhero!’

  I said, scraping out of my chair and holding out my hand, and Twoface shook it with his sticky one.

  87

  Bunny Deli’s doors whooshed open and

  a familiar-looking man staggered in.

  The main reason he was familiar-looking was that he was the bald

  one with the missing nose I’d just seen on my telly belly.

  ‘My nose! Somebody’s stolen my nose!’ cried the man, who was wearing a shiny silver suit. A hover-tie floated

  in front of his glow-in-the dark

  pink shirt, and I made a note inside

  my brain to buy my dad one for a present before I went home.

  88

  89

  ‘Dr Smell!’ shrieked Bunny, rushing over to the man, and I thought how weird it was to be called Dr Smell when you haven’t got a nose. ‘What in the name of Shnozville happened to you?’

  Splorg lolloped over to me and cupped his hand round my ear. ‘Dr Smell owns the perfume shop down the road.

  He makes the keelest perfume in the whole of Shnozville - it’s Bunny’s favourite!’ he whispered, moving his cupped hand up and down to

  keep it where my ear was,

  seeing as my tail

  was still

  plugged into

  Socky and I

  was floating

  around like a

  balloon.

  90

  Dr Smell took a deep breath, but not through his nose, because it was missing.

  ‘It was the weirdest thing,’ he said, starting to tell Bunny his story.

  ‘There I was in my shop making a

  new batch of perfume when I heard

  a clip-clopping noise,’ he warbled. ‘I turned round, and blow me down with a feather if I wasn’t face to face with a pair of robot grannies!’

  He lowered himself down on to a chair and nicked one of my zigzaggedy chips.

  91

  I thought back to earlier that day and did a mini superhero gasp. ‘Hey, me

  and Not Bird were chased by two killer robot grannies just this morning!’

  I said, and Twoface

  rolled all of his eyes.

  ‘Don’t be ridikeelous, Ratboy!’ he said, and his other face nodded. ‘Yeah Ratboy, nobody comes face to face with a killer robot granny and lives to tell the tale!’ he scoffed, even

  though Dr Smell

  was right in the middle of

  telling HIS

  tale.

  92

  Dr Smell gave Twoface the look a man with no nose gives someone when

  they’re ruining his story. ‘Anyway,

  where was I . . .’ he said, stealing

  another chip. ‘Ah yes, one of

  the robot grannies pulled a

  crumpled-up tissue out of

  her sleeve and waggled

  it under my nostrils.

  Now, it must have

  had some kind of

  sleeping potion on it,

  because the next

  thing I knew, I’d

  woken up and my

  nose had disappeared!’

  he cried, peering

  down with cross-eyes

  at his missing nose.

  93

  I looked over Not Bird and mouthed the words, ‘MAVIS 3000’.

  ‘NOT!’ mouthed Not Bird with his beak, which isn’t an easy thing to do, seeing as a beak isn’t really a mouth, it’s a beak.

  ‘Oh, Bunny, how will I ever be able to make your perfume without my precious hooter?’ sobbed Dr Smell, flopping off his chair on to the floor. Bunny whipped a soggy old flannel out of her apron pocket and patted it on his forehead.

  94

  ‘Ooh, those robot grannies, they give me the willies!’ she said, and I looked

  at Not Bird and giggled, because Bunny had just said ‘willies’.

  ‘Killer robot grannies are nothing to giggle about, Ratboy,’ said Jamjar, looking serious, and I stopped giggling and did my superhero face.

  95

  Splorg turned to Twoface, waiting to hear what he had to say, seeing as he was the real superhero out of all of us.

  ‘Sounds like something Mr X might be mixed up in . . .’ muttered Twoface, tilting all four of his eyebrows into their serious positions, and I tilted my eyebrows to their pretending-I-am-listening-to-Twoface positions.

  Twoface’s other face nodded. ‘Good thinking, Twoface,’ he said, patting himself on the back, and I wondered who in the keelness Mr X could be.

  So I asked.

  ‘Er, who’s Mr X?’ I said, and everybody went quiet.

  96

  ‘Mr X is the evilest man in the whole of Shnozville,’ boomed Twoface with both his mouths at once.

  Jamjar took her glasses off and cleaned them on her scientist’s coat. ‘He was an orphan too, once - when he was a boy like you,’ she said, pointing at me with all twenty-five of her fingers.

  97

  I shouted, and Not Bird sq
uawked.

  Jamjar raised one of her eyebrows,

  then carried on talking. ‘The only

  difference is, Mr X didn’t have

  someone nice like Bunny to look after

  him - HIS Bunny was a mean old lady,

  isn’t that right, Twoface?’ she said, but

  Twoface just ignored her.

  98

  He was pacing up and down Bunny Deli,

  scratching his head, and I wondered if

  he had two tiny brains inside it, or one

  normal-sized one.

  ‘This is Mr X,’ drawled Splorg, slowly

  pulling a white plastic cube out of his

  pocket and holding it up in his

  blue palm.

  ‘What, he’s that little white cube?’ I

  said, peering down, my shiny full-stop

  nose almost touching it.

  99

  ‘No!’ chuckled Splorg, prodding the

  cube with his finger, and a floating

  see-through screen popped up.

  A mean-looking man with a pointy

  nose wearing a brown cloak rotated

  on the screen. ‘THIS is Mr X,’ he said,

  and I floated over to get a better look.

  ‘Doesn’t look very scary to me,’ I said,

  and Not Bird chirped, which I think

  might’ve meant he agreed.

  100

  Splorg gave the cube another tap,

  and Mr X shrunk. A giant silver metal

  scorpion with a V-shaped window for

  a face appeared next to him, snapping

  its claws. Its tail curled in the air above

  its body like an evil question mark and

  two glowing green eyes stared ahead,

  blankly. A door on the side of the

  scorpion slid open and Mr X climbed

  in and sat down in a chair, scowling

  through the glass.

  101

  ‘That’s Mr X’s giant metal scorpion,’

  said Splorg, his black eyeballs quivering

  with fear. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen it in

  real life - mostly he sends his killer

  robot grannies out to do his dirty

  work,’ he trembled, and the floating

  see-through screen fizzled into thin air.

  102

  ‘Why’s he called Mr X?’ I said, peering

  through the window of Bunny Deli,

  half expecting a robot granny or a

  giant silver metal scorpion to come

  stomping round the corner any second.

  103

  Twoface stopped pacing and pointed

  all four of his eyes at me. ‘Because he’s

  very CROSS,’ he said.

  ‘Cross?’ I said, as Not Bird fluttered

  through the air and landed on my

  head.

  104

  ‘Yeah, cross . . . like an “X”, get it?’

  smiled Jamjar, looking down at

  Dr Smell on the floor where he was

  still lying.

  He was doing a sniffing face, except

  without the twitching-end-of-nose bit,

  so really it was just a completely still

  face. ‘The weird thing is, I can still smell

  stuff . . .’ he said, as if we were all

  still listening to his story about how his

  nose got nicked. ‘Like now . . . all I can

  smell is cheese!’ he chuckled, then he

  started crying again, because having

  your nose stolen really isn’t a laughing

  matter.

  105

  Jamjar whipped a turquoise plastic

  triangle out of her white coat pocket

  and started tapping at it with one of

  her twenty-five fingers.

  ‘What in the unkeelness is that?’ I said,

  wondering how many new things I

  could see in one day.

  106

  ‘This?’ said Jamjar, flipping the triangle

  in the air and catching it in another

  hand. ‘This is my Triangulator!’ she

  smiled, and she carried on tapping.

  ‘Very interesting . . .’ she muttered,

  scratching the tip of her nose,

  and Dr Smell looked at

  it jealously.

  ‘What’s very interesting?’ said Splorg.

  ‘Well, according to my Triangulator,

  there’s a ninety-nine point nine, nine,

  nine, nine, nine percent probability

  that maybe Dr Smell can smell

  cheese because his nose has been

  transportatorised somewhere cheesy . . .’

  said Jamjar, looking up from her

  triangle.

  107

  I lifted the bun off my half-eaten

  cheesebleurgher and peered inside,

  checking to see if Dr Smell’s nose was

  part of my Cheesebleurgher Meal Deal,

  and Bunny gave me a wink like my

  mum does when she thinks I’m being

  sweet.

  ‘Hey, I’ve had an idea!’ said Twoface,

  clicking his fingers, and we all looked

  at him. ‘Maybe Dr Smell can smell

  cheese because his nose is somewhere

  cheesy . . .’ he said, and I was just

  about to say how that was Jamjar’s

  idea when Dr Smell started snoring.

  108

  ‘Is Dr Smell OK?’ asked Splorg, and Bunny

  patted him on his bald blue head.

  ‘He’ll be fine, Splorg. Having your nose

  stolen is a tiring business,’ she said,

  scooping Dr Smell up with all ten of her

  arms and carrying him over to

  the see-through lift at the back of

  the deli.

  109

  ‘Don’t mind if Dr Smell lies

  down in your bed for a while,

  do you, Ratboy?’ she huffed,

  pressing a button next to the

  lift, and I gave her a double

  thumbs up, seeing as I wasn’t

  going to be in the future long

  enough for it to really be

  mine.

  Bunny and Dr Smell zoomed

  up in the lift through a hole

  in the ceiling, and Twoface

  went back to scratching his

  head. Jamjar was busy

  tapping something into her

  turquoise plastic triangle.

  110

  ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea!’

  shouted Splorg, and I

  jumped, which was the

  first time I’ve ever

  jumped when I was

  floating off the

  ground already. ‘Maybe

  Dr Smell’s nose is on

  the moon!’ he grinned.

  I smiled over at Not Bird,

  and he sniggled. ‘What’s

  so funny about that?’

  said Splorg, looking

  all confused.

  111

  ‘Everybody knows the moon’s not

  made out of cheese, Splorg!’ I said,

  flicking the last bite of cheesebleurgher

  into my mouth and swallowing it

  whole.

  ‘WRONG!’ honked Twoface, double grinning. ‘Don’t you know anything,

  Ratboy?’ he said, and before I could

  say something back, he’d carried on

  talking. ‘I suppose you missed it while

  you were being zapped here from the

  year MINUS ZERO, but all the cheese in

  the world is made on the moon these

  days!’

  I rolled my eyes and did my

  face I do when I don’t