Danger Guys on Ice (3 page)

I did some quick thinking. Pit of Death? Pizza? Pit of Death? Pizza?

I went for the pizza. “This way!” I shouted.

We dodged the falling rocks and clambered up the wall. We both jumped for the pizza hole.

Suddenly—
KREKKK!
—the ice broke apart, and the caveman started to move!

FIVE

“Aaaaaeeeee!” screamed Zeek, as he dived into the opening.

“Eeeeeaaaaa!” I cried, as I jammed myself in next to him.

“Ugh!” we both yelled, as we stopped halfway through.

“Noodle, I'm stuck! Help!”

“I can't! I'm stuck, too!”

We squirmed, we twisted, we tugged, we pulled. Nothing. We couldn't budge.

Our heads were sticking into total darkness. Our legs were still dangling in the caveman's cave. And something was going on back there.

“Noodle,” cried Zeek, “your hipbone is grinding into my stomach. Move it or I'll throw up!”

“Shhh! I want to hear what's going on.”

Zeek swallowed loudly. I listened. The rumbling was over. No more big crashing rocks. Now it sounded like ice breaking up.

“It's him!” Zeek gasped. “He's testing out that huge club of his! Noodle, he's going to see our legs and he's going to grab them and pull us—!”

Mmm … mmm. Mmm-de-mmm.

Zeek got quiet. “Is that … humming?”

I listened closely. “Yeah. Humming. But …”

“A caveman who
hums
?” Zeek hissed. “Noodle, please get us out of here. Now!”

“How can I think with you spitting in my ear?” I whispered.

The ice kept cracking. The humming went on.

“I've got it!” I gasped.

“You've got a plan to get us out?”

“No, I've got that song! It's from an old TV show. I think it was called …
The Uggo Show
!”

Then I sang it softly.

“
Back in the Age of Ice,

When weather wasn't nice,

Meet Uggo and his pals,

They're cool Neanderthals!
”

I laughed. “Remember that song? It's so old!”

There was a moment of total quiet. I was sure Zeek was making one of his faces. “No kidding it's old, Noodle.
A caveman is humming it!
”

I knew a frozen dead Neanderthal caveman could
not
be humming a TV theme song. I knew that. Of course I did. I did!

“It's impossible, Zeek,” I whispered. “I'm pretty sure the caveman's dead.”

“Yeah, but he's humming!”

“But he's dead.”

“But he's humming.”

“But he's dead.”

“
I don't like that combination!
” Zeek cried. He tried to move. “Another thing I don't like is your hipbone in my stomach. It's starting to give me a pain.”

“Okay,” I said, “just don't make any loud—”

KA-FOOM!

An explosion rocked the cave, and we blasted from the hole like human cannonballs. Tons of rocks and ice blasted from the hole, too. In fact, the hole itself got blasted away along with us!

We whizzed through the darkness.

Umph!
I hit a wall and got dumped on the ground.

Umph!
Zeek got dumped next to me.

I felt around in the dark. There was something hard and cold running beneath me. Something metal.

“Where are we now?” I mumbled.

Suddenly—
Flink!
—there was light next to me. It was coming from Zeek's forehead.

“Your head!” I yelped. “It's glowing!”

“A miner's hat, Noodle! I found it over here on the ground. Here's one for you.”

He passed me a hard hat with a light on the front. “Cool,” I said, switching it on. “Now let's see what I'm sitting on. Shine your head over here.”

Two shiny silver rails glinted in the light from our hats. The rails led back up to the blown-up cave on one side, and down past us and around a turn on the other.

“Zeek, we must be in a tunnel in the old mine I read about at the lodge. I bet these rails lead to—”

Clack-clack-clack. Grrrrr. Errch. Clack. Clack.

“What was that?” Zeek hissed, grabbing me.

I shined my light back up the tunnel to the blasted cave. There, a big, rusty tub on wheels was creaking down the rails toward us.

“A mining car,” I said. “The kind they used to use to move stuff around in the old mine. The explosion must have knocked it loose.”

It was a mining car, all right. And it was rolling toward us. But there was something else, too.

Something we could see in our headlights as the car got closer.

“Um … there's someone in it, Noodle,” said Zeek quietly.

In the flickering light from our hats we could see an enormous icy shape sticking up from the mining car. Big hair. Big club. Big teeth. Big jaws.

“It's
him
!” Zeek gasped. “And he's driving!”

RRRRR!
The car hit a bump on the rails and took off. It picked up speed. Lots of speed!

SHOOM!
In seconds, Zeek and I were racing down the dark bumpy tunnel, trying to keep ahead of the mining car.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

We stumbled into turns, over bumps, and down steep drops. The lights on our heads made crazy shadows on the rough walls as we ran. The tunnels zigzagged through the mountain like the Sling Shot ride at the Mayville carnival.

And still the mining car came at us.

I shot a look back at Uggo in the car.

He was about to mow us down.

CLACK-CLACK-UMPH!

Suddenly, I was thrown into the air.

Bong!
My head hit something hard.

I heard a groan, and Zeek's headlight went out.

The last thing I saw was Uggo's huge shape lunging toward me.

Then everything went dark for me, too.

SIX

Waffles.

My brain was thinking of waffles. Maybe because when I hit whatever I hit, it made little waffle dents in my head.

Too bad my mining hat flew off just before I hit the wall. I could still hear that
Bong!
going on in my head.

I sat up and groped around in the dark. Cold rocks. Cold rails. Ice. Ice. Ice.

“Zeek?” I said.

“Uggo?” he groaned. “Is that you?”

Yeah, Zeek, the funnyman.

Flink!
A light went on about twenty feet away. It was Zeek's headlamp. Then it began to flicker.

“Your light's going out,” I said. “I'll try to find mine.”

In the dim glow I could see that we were in a big icy cavern. The mining car—and Uggo—were nowhere in sight.

The car must have pushed Zeek out of the way and thrown me in the air. The rails ended behind me at the wall I was smushed against.

Zeek got up, wiggled, checked his arms and legs, and started along the tracks over to me.

Just as I found my mining hat on the ground, something happened.

I heard some rocks sliding and scraping.

“Noodle! I'm slipping—”

Instantly, Zeek's light did a weird zigzag in the air and then flashed down in front of me.

“Noodle-oodle-oodle!” his cry echoed.

I grabbed for him, but I was too late. I watched his light disappear into the darkness far below.

“Zeekie!” My call bounced around and around the dark cavern.

I shined my light into the shadows. The rails that led across to the tunnel were dangling over a deep, dark chasm. Another deadly Pit!

My brain went nuts! I must have been thrown right over the chasm. But Zeek hadn't seen it!

He'd fallen between the rails straight into the pit below us. And now he was gone. On his birthday! He was lost somewhere down there. I knew for sure—

“Um … could I have some help here?”

Zeek?

I shined my light down. About halfway across the ravine, clutching the skinny rails, were two hands.

“Zeekie!”

KKRRR!
The rails started to wobble. They were coming loose on our side of the ravine.

“The tracks are going to fall!” he screamed.

There was no time for anything fancy.

I dropped to the ground and slid out onto the tracks. Rocks and ice tumbled into the ravine. The rails sagged with the weight of both of us.

Good thing we hadn't eaten any cake yet.

I was flat on the rails, reaching out to Zeek, just like you reach for someone who's fallen through the ice at a pond.

He let go of one rail, swung up a hand and grabbed mine. He did the same with the other.

Inch by inch, I pulled him back to the ledge. We scrambled up just in time.

CRASH!
The rails tore loose from the ledge, and the tangled mess of iron plunged into the darkness of the ravine. It made a horrible sound.

I was shaking all over. I was so nervous, I had to sit down.

Zeek sat next to me. “Thanks, pal. You were great.”

“Two Pits of Death in one day,” I said. “What are the odds?”

Zeek smiled in the light from my head. “Pretty good, if you're a Danger Guy.” He gave me a slow thumbs-up sign.

I did the same. I was still shaking, though. “Zeek, I've been thinking about the cave back there. The explosion. I mean, Uggo's just a dead Neanderthal.”

“You hope.”

“No, listen, Zeek. Cavemen don't hum TV theme songs. You have to be alive to do that. There was someone else in that cave when we got stuck. Someone who set off that explosion. Someone who got that mining car moving. Someone in this mountain.”

I tried to stand and look around, but I slipped on a patch of ice and knocked my head on the wall.

Bong!
It hurt. Again.

Zeek grabbed my arm. “Hey, do that again.”

I rubbed my dented head and gave him a look. “I don't think so,” I said.

“No, listen. Your head bonged the wall.”

“Twice.”

“But, Noodle. We don't go bong when we hit
rock
, do we?” He tapped the wall.
Bong-bong!

“It's metal!” I whispered. “A door! A secret door! I knew it! Zeek, this proves there is someone else here.”

“Someone who likes caves and knows TV songs?”

“Right.” I searched the wall all around the door. Then I stopped. I found what I was looking for.

I turned to Zeek and pointed to a little red button on the wall. “There's only one way to find out for sure.”

Zeek looked at the red button. “What are we going to find in there, Noodle?”

I shrugged. “Could be something very normal. Another dark tunnel, maybe. Just rocks and ice.”

“Yeah, or …?”

“Or, it could be something totally dangerous.”

Zeek was quiet for a little while. He shook his head. Then he started to smile. “It's that danger thing, isn't it? It just takes over.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

Zeek zipped his jacket all the way up. I tied my crusty bootlaces tight.

We did our thumbs-up. We were ready.

I pressed the button.

VRRRRRUMP!
The wall slid up and away.

Yeah, it could have been something very normal.

But it wasn't.