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

  believe something.

  112

  ‘It’s true, Ratboy . . .’ said Jamjar, and

  then she said the ridikeelest thing I’d

  ever heard.

  ‘About a million years ago, all the

  cows on earth started saying “MOON”

  instead of “MOO”. Scientists realised

  the cows wanted to go to the moon!

  So they flew them all to the moon!

  Now all the cows in the whole world

  live on the moon!’

  113

  The lift doors hissed open again

  and Bunny stepped back out, minus

  Dr Smell. ‘Ratboy doesn’t believe all

  the cheese is made on the moon!’ said

  Splorg, and Bunny sighed, looking all

  tired like my mum does sometimes.

  She wandered over

  to the fridge and

  stuck her hand

  through the door,

  scrabbling around

  for something inside.

  ‘Keelness times a

  millikeels!’ I said,

  because I’d never seen

  a reach-through-able

  fridge door before,

  and Bunny pulled out

  a wrapped-up

  rectangle of Cheddar.

  114

  ‘Made on the moon!’ said Bunny,

  holding up the Cheddar for me to see

  it. The label on it was a photo of a

  pretty-looking cow, with her name,

  ‘Delores’, written underneath.

  Delores had very long eyelashes, and

  earrings in the shape of half-moons

  hanging off her big, hairy ears. At the

  bottom of the label, in tiny letters,

  were the words, ‘Made on the Moon’.

  115

  Twoface stuck his tongue out and

  did a raspberry noise with his other

  mouth. ‘Told you, Ratboy!’ he grinned,

  then he snapped his fingers. ‘Jamjar!

  You’ve got a UFO,’ he said. ‘Let’s fly up

  to the moon and get Dr Smell’s nose

  back!’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ I said, which is

  something I’ve always wanted to say.

  ‘Me and Not Bird haven’t got time to

  go to the moon - we’ve got to work

  out how to get home!’

  116

  Jamjar pulled the Triangulator out

  of her pocket. She pointed it at my

  wheelie bin, which had been sitting

  next to me minding its own business

  the whole time.

  ‘Hmmm, very interestikeels,’ she said,

  pushing her glasses up her nose. ‘Seems

  like this bin is some kind of portal.

  Only problem is, its coordinates have

  been blown. Perhaps if we reversed the

  polarity on the liddification variables,

  we could reboot its circuit boards and

  restabilise the field generators,’ she

  blurbled, and I turned to Splorg, hoping

  he might know what she was going on

  about.

  117

  ‘What she’s saying is, the only way

  you and Not Bird are ever going to

  get home is if your bin gets zapped by

  lightning again - with you two inside it,

  of course!’ said Splorg, and Twoface

  sighed.

  ‘Are we going to the moon or not?’

  he moaned, stomping his foot, and

  Jamjar started tapping her

  Triangulator again.

  118

  ‘Looks like there’s a big space storm

  coming . . . might be a bit blustery,’

  she said, and then she paused for a

  millisecond and clicked her fingers.

  ‘Hey!’ she cried, looking up at me

  through her big round glasses. ‘We

  could zap you and Not Bird home with

  some space-lightning while we’re there!’

  119

  ‘The UFO’s in the bedroom!’ said

  Jamjar, so we all zoomed upstairs

  in the lift, me floating a centimetre

  off the floor thanks to my tail still

  being plugged into Socky.

  Dr Smell was lying face-up in my bed,

  snoring through his mouth. It was the

  bottom bunk of a bunk bed, and I

  guessed the top one was Splorg’s,

  because on the wall next to it was

  a 3D photo of two bald blue-headed

  aliens.

  120

  ‘Are they your mum and dad?’ I said,

  wondering if it was OK to ask, then

  realising it was too late because I

  already had.

  121

  ‘Yeah,’ said Splorg, plucking the photo

  off the wall and sticking his finger

  into it. The finger poked against his

  dad’s big bald blue head, and it

  wobbled like a raspberry-flavoured

  jelly.

  ‘What happened to them?’ I said,

  peering over Splorg’s shoulder at

  the photo. His fat, sweaty dad was

  wearing a suit and shouting at

  someone on his phone. His mum was

  staring into the lens of the camera,

  pouting her lips like a blue duck.

  ‘Oh, not much. They went out to

  dinner at some flashy new restaurant

  right next to a black hole. The black

  hole swallowed them up whole while

  they were eating their puddings,’

  said Splorg all normally, like he

  was telling a really boring

  story.

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ I said in my

  superhero voice, patting Splorg on

  the shoulder I’d just been peering

  over, and he shrugged.

  123

  ‘Don’t be. They were always going off

  somewhere, leaving me at home to

  watch TV on my own,’ said Splorg,

  and I thought how lucky I was that my

  mum and dad hardly ever went out.

  Twoface was on the other side of the

  room, standing next to his and Jamjar’s

  bunk bed. A pink, scratched-up little

  UFO, half the size of my mum and

  dad’s car, was standing on the carpet

  with Jamjar inside it.

  124

  ‘Bagsy sitting in the front!’ shouted

  Twoface, jumping into the passenger

  seat next to Jamjar, who was fiddling

  with some flashing buttons and

  adjusting the rear-view mirror.

  Splorg stuck his photo back on the wall

  and smiled his dinosaur smile. ‘Anyway,

  Bunny took me in after that. She’s

  the keelest - just like a real mum!’

  he said, and

  Jamjar and

  Twoface both

  nodded.

  Bunny ran into the room, huffing and

  puffing as she handed me a brown

  paper bag. I peered into it and spotted

  a donut sitting on top of a pile of

  other donuts that went on into the

  distance as far as I could see.

  126

  ‘Just a silly little farewell pressie,’ she

  warbled, giving me a ten-armed

  cuddle.

  ‘You be careful up there, Ratboy,’ she

  said, peering out of the window at the

  moon.

  Splorg clambered into the back seat of

  the UFO, and Not Bird fluttered after

  him, landing on his head.

  127

 
‘Thanks for everything, Bunny,’ I said,

  even though she hadn’t done that

  much apart from be really nice to me.

  I plonked my bin in the back seat next

  to Splorg and slid in next to it, making

  myself as comfortable as possible,

  which wasn’t very.

  128

  Jamjar pressed a thumb down on her

  Triangulator and the bedroom wall

  lowered like a drawbridge on a castle.

  ‘Ooh, and don’t forget to pick me up

  some Edam!’ shouted Bunny, as the

  UFO hovered off the carpet and we

  zoomed into the sky.

  129

  ‘Everything keel, Not Bird?’ drawled

  Splorg, as we wobbled through space

  at a millikeels miles per keelness.

  130

  ‘NOT!’ squawked Not Bird, who was still on top of Splorg’s head, looking like a wig that was about to be sick.

  I grabbed a donut out of my brown paper bag and stuffed it into my mouth. ‘WAAAHHH!’ screamed the donut, as I chomped it up with my teeth and swallowed it whole.

  131

  ‘Mmm, talking donuts!’ I smiled, grabbing another one and holding its hole up

  to my eye like a squidgy telescope.

  I peered through it and spotted

  Earth, floating away from us at superkeelness speed. ‘Keel times a

  millikeels!’ I gasped, dropping the donut back into the brown paper bag, and it breathed a sigh of relief, even though I was definitely going to eat it later.

  132

  Twoface twizzled one of his faces round from the front seat, bonking Not Bird off of Splorg’s head.

  ‘Remember gang, if Dr Smell’s nose is on the moon, that means Mr X and the killer robot grannies might be there too,’ he said, and Not Bird fluttered over to me for a cuddle, looking a tiny bit scared.

  ‘Don’t worry Not Bird, I won’t let

  Mr X and his horrible killer robot

  grannies stop us from getting home!’

  I said, my eye swiveling down to look at donut number two again, and the UFO jolted, then swerved, then spluttered.

  133

  ‘We’re entering the moon’s meteorocheesiological force field!’ cried Jamjar, dodging a passing taxi, and the driver waggled his arm out the window. Not that it looked much like an arm. It was more of a leg. With three feet on the end of it. Also, each foot had nineteen toes.

  Twoface grabbed the sides of his seat and gritted both sets of teeth as Jamjar spun the steering wheel to

  the right and prodded about fourteen buttons, all at the same time. ‘Firing up the reverse-velocity turbo-thrusters for landing!’ she said, and my telly belly started to fizzle.

  134

  I looked down and spotted a familiar-looking cow, peering out of the fuzzy screen. ‘HELP ME!’ mooed Delores the made-on-the-moon-cheese cow. There was something different about her, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.

  ‘Hey, isn’t that Delores?’ said Splorg, pointing at my telly belly, and the UFO started to shudder.

  ‘Hold on, this is going to be bumpy!’ cried Jamjar, as I slotted donut number two into my mouth and we shot through a storm cloud, crash-landing on the moon.

  136

  I opened my eyes and didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered I was in a UFO. On the moon. Which was made out of cheese.

  I stuck my head out of the window and looked around. We’d landed on

  an island of Cheddar, surrounded by

  a sea of wavy milk. Parmesan flakes circled in the sky like snow, and a couple landed on my hood, making me feel like a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese.

  137

  ‘Argh, my nose!’ cried Twoface. ‘Argh, my other nose!’ he cried again. He was upside-down on top of Jamjar, his bum squidged into her face.

  ‘Everyone OK?’ whimpered Splorg from his seat, poking his head over the top of my bin, and Not Bird squawked ‘NOT’, even though he was fine.

  ‘All keel here!’ I said, looking down at my belly for Delores, but she’d disappeared.

  There was a hover-bridge in front of us leading to the main part of town, so we all jumped out of the UFO and ran across the bridge to look for her.

  139

  An enormous purple cloud rumbled above us like a giant space-monster’s duvet. In the distance, a bolt of lightning zigzagged through the sky. ‘If this weather keeps up we’ll be home in no time!’ I said to Not Bird, wheeling my bin behind me.

  ‘NOT!’ squawked Not Bird, as a

  cow drove past us in a Brie-shaped hover-van, heading towards a mahoosive cheese factory in the shape of a slice of Emmental. A floating screen hovered next to the factory, playing cheese adverts at full volume.

  ‘Mooooon cheese is the keelest!’ mooed Delores on the screen, her moon earrings swaying, and I tried to work out what’d been so different about her on my

  telly belly.

  140

  I parked my wheelie bin and pulled donut number three out of my brown paper bag. ‘OH PLEASE DON’T, MR RATBOY,’ it begged, as I held it up to my mouth, and my eyes zoomed in on Delores’s ears.

  141

  ‘I’ve got it!’ I said, swallowing the donut in one go. ‘She didn’t have any ears!’

  I cried, running towards the cheese factory with my bin behind me.

  ‘Where in the unkeelness are we going?’ cried Twoface, running after me. Splorg and Jamjar were behind him, also running, even though no one knew what the keelness was going on except for me.

  142

  ‘The cheese factory, of course!’ I shouted, Not Bird fluttering next to me like a donut without a hole. ‘Delores’s ears have been stolen, just like Dr Smell’s nose!’ I said.

  Twoface skidded to a stop, and his two faces stopped nodding. ‘Hang on a millikeels, why are we running to the cheese factory then?’ he said, and I swiveled my head around.

  143

  ‘Delores MUST work in the cheese factory!’ I shouted, hover-jogging backwards, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. ‘All we have to do is find her, then we can catch Mr X and the killer robot grannies that stole her ears - and Dr Smell’s nose!’ I cried, running out of breath from all the explaining I was doing.

  Twoface screwed his two faces up into one big stupid one, trying to work out what was going on. ‘I’ve got it!’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘Let’s head to the cheese factory and look for Dolores!’

  he boomed, starting to run towards

  it, and I looked up at the storm cloud, which was rumbling even

  more than before.

  144

  The doors of the giant cheese factory whooshed open and we skidded to a stop in front of the reception desk. ‘Welcome to the cheese factory!’ mooed a stupid-looking cow with cross-eyes and buck teeth from behind the desk.

  145

  Twoface slammed his hand down on the desk and tried to lift it back up, which wasn’t easy, what with it being all sticky. ‘We need to see Delores!’ he boomed, looking left and right at the same time.

  ‘Just one second,’ said the cow, pressing

  a button on his phone with his hoof

  and smiling at us pleasantly while

  waiting for an answer.

  146

  I smiled back, feeling bad about that Cheesebleurgher Meal Deal I’d eaten earlier. From now on I was going to be a vegetarian, I thought to myself. Then I thought about how tasty

  the cheesebleurgher had been, and

  I changed my mind.

  ‘Delores? This is Dwayne from reception,’ mooed Dwayne into his phone. ‘I’ve got a boy with two faces, an alien with a big blue bald head, a girl with five arms and and a floating ratboy with a TV on his belly here in reception for you . . .’

  Not Bird did a cough and pointed

  one of his wings at himself. ‘NOT!’ he squawked, and Dwayne held his hoof up, mouthing ‘sorry’ for le
aving him out. Which isn’t easy when you’re a cow. Actually, wait a second, yes it is.