Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 2 (2 page)

“That’s right,” said Hot Dog. “The Scribbler—the dastardly, dangerous and extremely pointy leader of the Pencil Snatchers gang. They’re out to take over the universe, one pencil at a time. They sneak into school desks and beam the ordinary pencils to Pencilvania. Once the regular pencils are out of the way, the pencil snatchers take their place.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Isn’t Pennsylvania a state in America?”

“Different Pencilvania,” said Hot Dog. “The Scribbler’s Pencilvania is a terrible planet
where innocent pencils are forced to live in crowded pencil cases
without any paper at all!”

As I stood there in the dark, stinky janitor’s closet, trying to feel sorry for captive pencils on another planet, I heard footsteps.

“Freeze!” I whispered to Hot Dog. “Someone’s coming!”

The door blasted open. Mr. Spudbucket, the school janitor, reached his hand inside the dark closet. “Where’s that moldy old mop gone to this time?” he grumbled as he fished around. I tried to dodge his hand, but before I knew
it, he was grabbing my hair and pulling really, really hard. I stifled a scream and shoved the mop in his direction. Luckily, he finally grabbed the mop, slammed the door shut and walked away.

“Phew! That was close,” I said, rubbing my head. “Now, how about I go home and you save the world without me?”

“Sorry, kid,” said Hot Dog. “The Big Bun wants you in on this deal. Did you forget? You’re the one who’s supposed to remember the plan!”

In the old days, before I’d ever heard of superhero hot dogs and evil dudes from other planets, I was actually kind of proud of having a good memory. But ever since I met my so-called partner, Mr. No Memory, it didn’t seem all that lucky anymore.

“If we don’t hurry back to that classroom,” Hot Dog said, climbing inside my lunch box, “you might not have a
home
to go home
to!
”

I wanted to go back to class about as much as a turkey wants to be the guest of honor at
a Thanksgiving dinner. But I went anyway, and everything seemed to be okay. The Scribbler was gone, and my desk was all cleaned up. Maybe the Scribbler had changed his mind and decided to go bug some other planet. Maybe Hot Dog could zip right back to Dogzalot and tell the Big Bun that there was no problem down here on Earth after all. Maybe everything was going to go back to nice, boring old normal at Lugenheimer Elementary. Maybe?

Miss Lamphead gave me a new pencil and let me redo the spelling test. This time the words came out like they were supposed to. But I could hardly breathe for the rest of the day. When the last school bell finally rang, I grabbed my stuff and made for the exit.

“Bob! Wait!” Clementine called. “You gotta fill me in. That wasn’t really throw up, was it? Where did you go? Is Hot Dog still in your lunch box? Is everything okay?”

“Evil pencil slime, janitor’s closet, unfortunately yes and who knows?” I answered.

“Work with me here, Bob,” said Clementine. “A little more information might be helpful.”

Since Clementine was the only other person in the world who knew about Hot Dog and remembered the whole horrible Cheese Face incident, I figured she deserved to know. When we got to the sidewalk, away from everybody else, I told her exactly what Hot Dog had told me.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Miss Lamphead threw your yucky pencil and paper into the trash can and had Barfalot take it outside. That means—”

“The Scribbler could be anywhere!” I finished.

“We have to tell somebody!” said Clementine.

“No! No! Don’t tell!” Hot Dog’s muffled voice cried out.

The little guy was jumping and kicking so hard it sounded like someone was popping popcorn in my lunch box. We cracked open the lid to hear what he was saying.

“No one can know,” he panted. “This kind of information is simply too much for normal human beings to handle.”

“So what does that make Bob and me?” asked Clementine. “
Abnormal
human beings?”

“Well,” Hot Dog said. “Let’s just say you two aren’t exactly
normal
.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” I demanded.

“Relax, partner, I’m just jokin’ around.” Hot Dog laughed. “Hey, that’s what we partners do. We joke around, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right, good one!” I said, trying to act cool.

But I couldn’t help wondering if Hot Dog knew some kind of top-secret information about Clementine and me. I mean, think about it. The Big Bun could have matched Hot Dog up with any partner on the planet. I know I sure wouldn’t be
my
first choice if I were looking for some Earthling to help save the world. I was so busy wondering about Hot Dog’s “joke” that I didn’t even see the water balloons coming.

“Attack the puker!” Barfalot came running from out of nowhere.

“Attack the puker!” repeated his brainless bodyguard brothers, Pigburt and Slugburt.

“Too bad you puked all over the place, and yours truly had to take out your cootie-covered trash,” Barfalot blurted as he bombarded me with water balloons.

“Yeah, too bad!” repeated Pigburt and Slugburt.

“You guys are such jerks!” I yelled. “That wasn’t even puke! That was—”

“
Nothing!
” Hot Dog yelped from inside my lunch box. “Didn’t you hear a word I just said? That is TOP-SECRET INFORMATION!”

Just then a mega-huge water balloon exploded all over Clementine.

“You can stick around if you want to, but I’m outta here!” she said, running away. “Just don’t forget to e-mail me tonight. I can’t wait to hear how Hot Dog does at your house!”

“My house?” I thought. “Oh, no! I can’t take Hot Dog to my house!”

Between my curious parents, my nosy little brother and my hungry basset hound, keeping Hot Dog a secret would be next to impossible. But what choice did I have? I scooped up my lunch box and ran home.