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Ho-Ho-NOOO!
Copyright © 2011 by Bill Myers. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration copyright © 2010 by Peter Bollinger. All rights reserved.
Designed by Stephen Vosloo
Edited by Sarah Mason
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920,
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
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Build: 2013-04-01 08:42:28
To Michael Lau. Thanks for your help
and diligence these many years.
TIME TRAVEL LOG:
Malibu, California, December 18
Begin Transmission
Subject is not fond of video games. I, on the other hand (spit-spit), am not fond of geraniums.
End Transmission
“Fire proton torpedoes!” Captain Tuna shouted.
“Aye, aye, Captain!” the ever-loyal (and always dim-witted) Lieutenant Herby called back. But before Herby could reach over and push the button labeled
WARNING:
Push only if you want to blow stuff up and make a real cool mess!
their spaceship was struck by a powerful explosion. The craft lurched violently to the left and was suddenly filled with the sounds of
“Oh no!” Captain Tuna shouted.
“Oh what?” Lieutenant Herby shouted back.
“He hit us with the Stupid Song Bomb!”
Not only was the entire spacecraft filled with the silly stupidity, but so were the brains of the entire crew (i.e., Tuna and Herbyâwell, actually, only Tuna for sure, since medical science has yet to determine if Herby has a brain).
“Augh!” Captain Tuna cried, grabbing his head in agony.
“Groovy!” Lieutenant Herby said, tapping his foot in ecstasy.
“Raise the deflector shields!” Captain Tuna shouted.
But Herby was too busy singing along to hear the orders.
Another explosion hit, throwing the craft to the right.
Captain Tuna leaped from his chair and staggered toward the control panel. “Must . . . stop . . . the . . .
music!”
But before he arrived, they were hit again.
And again.
Just when Tuna was about to lose his mind (leaving the spacecraft with a grand total of zero minds), the singing was interrupted by an even worse sound.
“Greetings, zwork-oids!” Tuna spun around and gasped. There, on the giant viewing screen, was the vilest of all villains, Bruce Bruiseabone. He stood on the bridge of his own spaceship, laughing his creepy
laugh.
Captain Tuna watched in horror as the villainous man put his villainous hands on his villainous hips and spoke (what else?) villainously.
“And so, my mini-micro-minds, we meet again.”
“What do you want from us, you fiendish fiend?” Tuna shouted.
“I want you to hand over the keys to your spacecraft.”
“Never!”
“What?” Bruce shouted back. “You dare challenge me, the most villainous of all villains?”
“That's right!” Tuna yelled defiantly.
“We're the heroes of this story,” Herby explained, “and heroes always win!”
“Have it your way.” Bruce turned to one of his crew members and shouted, “Fire torpedoes!”
Once again the ship lurched, and Tuna's brain (and whatever there was of Herby's) filled with
“AUGH!” Tuna
augh
-ed. “Shh,” Herby
shh
-ed. “This is my favorite part.”
“Not only will you hand over your keys,” Bruce shouted again, “but you will give me those giant foam dice hanging from your rearview mirror.”
“Oh no!” Tuna cried. “Not the foam dice!”
“Guys?” a female voice suddenly called from below.
Another bomb struck:
“Guys!” The female creature stuck her head up through the spaceship's floor. She had dark hair, wore glasses, and was incredibly smoot (at least according to Herbyâwell, all right, according to Tuna, too). “What are you two doing?” she shouted.
Immediately Tuna grabbed his Swiss Army Knife (sold at 23rd-century time-travel stores everywhere) and closed the blade. The holographic video game disappeared. No more spacecraft, no more Bruce Bruiseabone, and no more irritating music. The fancy starship had changed back into a dusty attic.
“Hey,” Herby complained, “I was really getting into that song.”
He got a frown from the femaleâa seventh-grade girl better known as Thelma Jean Finkelstein (TJ to her friendsâall four of them, if you count her goldfish and hamster). She'd just moved from Missouri to Malibu, California (which explains why she had only four friends). If that wasn't bad enough, she had become the history project of Herby and Tuna, a couple of goofball teenagers from the 23rd century who'd traveled back in time to do a school report on her. Apparently she was going to grow up to become somebody important (if she survived junior high).