Read Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 4 Online
Authors: L. Bob Rovetch
Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 4
Adventure #4
and the Exceptionally Eggy Attack of the Game Gatorsby
L. Bob Rovetch
illustrated by
Dave Whamond
For the
other
Mr. G.—Guthrie Savage Friedman the Grea t —L. R.
Chapter 9: So Long, Clementine
Chapter 10: See Ya Later, Alligator
Chapter 11: Singin’ in the Rain
Chapter 12½: Singin’ in More Rain
Chapter 15: Yummy Sardine-and-Marshmallow-with-Rice-Noodle Sandwiches
The first time Hot Dog popped out of my lunch box, I was surprised. When he said I’d been picked to be his Earth partner, I was even more surprised. When he said we were going to be saving the world from scary space aliens, I switched from surprised to terrified!
My name’s Bob. I’m in the fifth grade at Lugenheimer Elementary, and I have the weirdest life! In just the last couple of months I’ve battled psycho hypno hamsters, pointy pencil people, and an extremely unfriendly pizza person.
It wasn’t my choice. The job totally got chosen for me by the Big Bun. She’s the leader of Dogzalot, a peace-loving planet full of superhero hot dogs who get beamed across the solar system to stop evil aliens and make the universe a safer place.
“Hey, Marco,” I said to my friend at recess. “You haven’t seen Clementine anywhere, have you?”
“Dude! I think I lost her!” said Marco.
“Yeah, right!” I laughed.
“No, I’m not kidding!” said Marco. “We were shootin’ hoops on the blacktop, and I turned my back for a millisecond, and she completely disappeared!”
“Okay,” I said calmly, “exactly what do you mean by
disappeared?
”
“I mean
dis-ap-peared!”
said Marco, “as in abracadabra, now you see her, now you don’t!”
“Oh, she probably just went to get a drink of water,” I told Marco.
But I knew Clementine would never just walk out in the middle of a basketball game. Clementine’s not the type to walk out on anything. I mean, other than her bad habit of eating unbelievably disgusting sandwiches at lunch, she’s basically the coolest person I know.
She’s helped Hot Dog and me deal with every alien attack so far. Plus, since Hot Dog sprays forgetting mist at the end of every mission, Clementine’s the only one besides me who has
any memory at all of the bizarre alien invasions that keep happening at our school.
Have you ever had a bad feeling? You know, the kind that ties your stomach up in knots? You know, the kind that almost instantly changes from a little bad feeling into a big bad actual thing?
If you answered no, then I’m happy for you— really I am! It’s so nice that you’ve lived such a wonderfully easy life. You’re probably the bestlooking, most talented, most popular person in your entire school, and you’ll probably grow up to be a famous actor or the president of the United States—or both.
But if you answered yes, if you know what it feels like to have a few little nervous butterflies in your belly turn into an army of killer bees,
then you can relate to how I felt when Marco vanished right in the middle of our conversation!
“Marco?” I called out all over the place. “Come on, quit messing around!”
But there was no Marco!
“Hey, Bob!” said Ricardo. “Have you seen Danny? He was goalie on our soccer team, and he just totally split!”
Before long every kid in my class was either missing or looking for someone. Was this some twisted game of hide-and-seek or—? I didn’t want to think about it. One minute we were all running around, calling out for our missing friends. And the next minute I was totally and completely by myself!
“Hello?” I said. “Anybody out there? Come out, come out, wherever you are! Okay, guys, that was a good one! Joke’s on me! I lose! Game’s over!”
“Oh, on the contrary,” said a loud, creepy voice. “This game has just begun!”
Something reached up from the blacktop, grabbed my shoes and yanked me underground. I was falling through a big dark tube. I was crashing down a never-ending pretzel-shaped slide! If I hadn’t been so sure I was gonna die, it would have been an awesome ride. But since I was pretty positive I was gonna die …
I shot out of the tube, crashed into a wall and landed spread-eagle on the ground. When my head finally stopped spinning, I got my next big shock. The wall I’d crashed into wasn’t really a wall at all. It was an egg. A
really big
egg!
“Greetings, Player Two,” said a voice. “And welcome to the Gator Game!”
“The what?” I asked, looking around to see who was talking.
“The Gator Game,” the voice repeated. “If you beat Player One, you will go on to compete in my Intergalactic Gator Game Championships! But if you lose—
bwa-ha-ha
!”
“
Bwa-ha-ha?
” I asked nervously.
“
Bwa-ha-ha
,” said the voice, “is Gator talk for ‘this game has only one winner, so if you value your life, you might not want to lose.’”
I had a bunch of questions: Where am I? Who are you? What have you done with my friends? and If I’m Player Two, then who’s Player One?
But before I could ask any of them, the underground room went crazy. Buzzers buzzed, bells rang, whistles whistled, lights flashed and earsplitting music blasted all around. If I wasn’t freaked out, it would have been cool.
“The object of the game,” said the voice, “is to make it to the finish line before Player One—”
“That’s it?” I thought to myself. “That doesn’t sound so hard.”
“Without getting caught by my little Game Gator here,” the voice continued, “who should be hatching … right about … NOW!”
The huge egg started to rumble and crack. BLAMMO! It exploded into a billion pieces, and a big reptilian creature busted out. I saw two exit signs flashing over two doorways. I picked one and ran for it.
