Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 4 (2 page)

I was running for my life down a soggy dark tunnel, but I wasn’t running fast enough.
Squishy-squooshy, squishy-squooshy
—the Game Gator was getting closer and closer, and there was still no sign of Hot Dog anywhere! My mind was racing. Why wasn’t he showing up? Where in the world could he be? What if he decided to give up being a superhero? If I had to play this so-called game on my own, I was such dead meat!

“HOT DOGGGG!” I yelled as I ran. “HELLLLLP MEEEEEE!”

But Hot Dog didn’t show. For all I knew, I was never going to see him, or anyone else, ever again!

“Oh, forget it!” I panted. “What good is a stinkin’ superhero partner if he’s not there when you need him, anyway?”

Right then I saw a ray of light shining down from a hole up above.
Squishy-squooshy
—the slimy sounds were getting closer.

I jumped toward the light, grabbed on to the opening at the top of the tunnel and pulled myself up. I held my breath and waited for the
squishy-squooshy
sounds to get quieter. When I was sure the Game Gator had lost my scent, I breathed a gigantic sigh of relief.

Other than a messy pile of junk in the corner, the room I’d ended up in was straight out of a king’s palace. There was fancy velvet and gold stuff all over the place, and right in the middle of the room was another egg. It was just like the last one, only bigger!

“Fancy meeting you here!” said Clementine.

“Clementine?” I said. “How did you—? I mean, when did you—? I mean, this egg! We have to get away from this egg!”

“No joke, Einstein!” said Clementine. “You should have seen the critter that hatched out of one of those things and chased me. It was fast
and ugly
!”

“That’s exactly what happened to me!” I said. “Wait! Don’t tell me …
you’re
Player One!”

“And
you’re
Player Two?” She gasped. “Bob! This is a disaster! Whichever one of us makes it to the finish line first gets out of here alive. But the other one, the loser—”

I didn’t wait for the end of her sentence.

“I’m too young to die!” I panicked.

“What about me?” said Clementine. “I’m three whole months younger than you are!”

“You are not!” I argued. “I’m three months younger than you are! Look, we don’t have time to fight about this stupid stuff. We have to do something—
now
!”

“Wait! I think I’ve got it!” said Clementine. “What if we make up our own rules? If we play as a team, we can both reach the finish line at the very same time!”

“Perfect!” I agreed. “That way there won’t be any losers!”

“Exactly,” said Clementine. “Only winners!”

But before we could make a move, the buzzers, bells, whistles and music went off all over again. The gigantic egg was glowing. The gigantic egg was rumbling…

KABLAM! The gigantic egg blew wide open like a red-hot volcano! And out of the fiery flames stepped the freakiest alien we’d met so far! We were amazed to see the biggest alligator in the universe breaking out of that egg, but when he opened his mouth to talk, we were speechless!

Mr. G. rapped like a rap star and might have even kind of been cool. That is, if he hadn’t been—well—an extraterrestrial alligator!

“Uh-oh,” Clementine whispered. “He’s onto our plan!”

Mr. G. must have overheard Clementine because the next thing he rapped was

“Wait! You have it all wrong!” Clementine said, thinking fast. “We’re not friends! As a matter of fact, Player Two and I hate each other’s guts!”

“And muscles and bones and nerves and arteries!” I added helpfully.

“Why—I wouldn’t be friends with Player Two if he were the last person on Earth!” Clementine went on. “Just look at this skinny little weasel! His knees are bony, his ears are funny, not to mention the fact that he’s a terrible dresser!”

“And you can’t believe how much I hate Player One’s guts!” I chimed in. “Oh, sure, she might look kind of cute on the outside, but underneath she’s mean as all get-out! Plus she eats really gross sandwiches! If I were looking to team up with somebody, Player One would be my way, way,
way
last choice!”

Clementine and I winked at each other and crossed our fingers. If we were lucky, Mr. G. would never guess that we were just trying to fake him out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t our lucky day.

He said,