King of the Mole People--Rise of the Slugs Read online

  A Crown Rumble was the Moles’ less body-crushing way of selecting a king. They put the crown on the head of any prospective rulers, and whoever got the loudest rumbles won.

  “But you’re the better person for the job!” I yelled, and I really believed it, and not just because I was delirious from lack of sleep.

  “All he needs is a vote of confidence! Come on, let’s do the rumble right now!” I said, taking off the crown and holding it toward Ploogoo. “Rummmmble! Come on, Oog, join in!”

  Oog gently pushed the crown over my own head and then rumbled loud enough to be heard for blocks. I’d forgotten how loud Mole rumbles could be. Which wasn’t surprising—I was so tired I could barely remember my name.

  “Doug!” I heard my dad’s voice call. Oh yeah, that was my name. “Wow, what a transformation back here!” I heard him say.

  “Quick! Everybody out of here!” I whispered, and the rest of the Moles disappeared into the bushes surrounding the grave hole. Oog paused on the edge.

  “Oog stand behind you, King. You our King!”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but what if I stop being your—?”

  Oog popped out of view as my dad appeared, looking around at the new yard. “I hardly recognize it!” he said. “I sort of thought it had a certain charm the way it was. But I guess you thought it needed an update. You certainly worked hard on it.” And then, seeing my face: “Maybe too hard. You don’t look so great, sport!”

  “Don’t worry, Principal Wiggins,” I babbled. “Miss Chips is doing a great job supervising us … The decorating will be completed on time … There’s nothing to worry about…”

  “Sounds like you could use a good, nourishing breakfast,” said my dad. “How ’bout some eel waffles with eel syrup!”

  I told him that sounded great, but to make those waffles to go, because I had to get to class. He asked if I was sure I was okay, and I told him I was fine, everything was on track, there was no reason to worry about me whatsoever.

  School—Thursday

  I woke up at my desk with an eel waffle stuck to the side of my face.

  You might think falling asleep in class would give me something in common with Miss Chips and mellow her out toward me, but no. She treated it like I was mocking her, and got so irritated she gave everybody a surprise test on photosynthesis. The waffle nap had done nothing to help my memory, and I got a zero on the test. Although I’m not sure I knew the answers anyway.

  It was now Thursday, and Miss Chips had made it clear we’d better get all the dance decorations done before the end of the day, as she was tired of spending extra time at the school. So we did at least have that in common. I wanted to get home as soon as possible and start sleeping so that I could wake up well rested Friday morning and greet the news cameras with a smile.

  All I needed was for everything to go perfectly smooth with the decorations.

  I was so blurry-eyed with exhaustion that I didn’t register any concern at the final size of the Eiffel Tower, looking huge lying on its side on the gym floor. Or at the sight of a rope wrapped around its top, running out a window, and tied to the back of the groundskeeper’s lawn tractor.

  I also wasn’t concerned when Principal Wiggins showed up and asked me to comment on the job Miss Chips had done supervising the committee. This time Miss Chips’s cauterizing glare had no effect on me since my eyes were too closed for hers to make contact with.

  “Don’t worry, Dad…,” I babbled to Principal Wiggins. “The tombstones are straight … The bat poop is cleaned up … There’s nothing to worry about…”

  I wasn’t even concerned when Pennyworth ran into the gym and started waving an object in Becky’s face that was about a foot long and oval, saying “Movement!” and “I was right! I was right!” and boasting that after the scientist he’d called arrived to verify what a valuable find it was, he was going to be copious amounts of famous. Then he hoisted the object aloft and cackled like a villain from a bad movie. I think we were witnessing someone transform into a megalomaniac.

  By then, through my bleariness, I was growing a bit concerned, because I realized what Pennyworth was holding was the Slug egg. If I’d understood him correctly, something inside it was moving, and he’d convinced some scientist to come examine it. The inherent flaw in my plan to put off taking the egg back to the Slugs suddenly became apparent: sometimes eggs hatch.

  I needed to get the egg away from Pennyworth and back underground without any further delay. And to do that I needed a subtle, well-contrived plan to remove it from Pennyworth’s possession.

  My plan failed, and Pennyworth started mocking me. But he wasn’t drawing from his regular material. He was saying he’d arrived in the science portable yesterday and had overheard me talking to Magda.

  The bleariness parted, and I got worried for real. He’d heard me talking to Magda! He started telling everybody that Magda and I talked to underground men, and I thought I was their King, and I collected ten bags of leaves to give to them for some reason.

  I thought I was sunk.

  But everybody just kept doing whatever they were doing. Fortunately nobody takes what megalomaniacs say seriously.

  “And he’s got news cameras coming to his house tomorrow to film it inside and out and display it all on the news!” announced Pennyworth.

  This, the kids got excited about. It was far less abstract than delusions of underground kingdoms. A straightforward chance to see all of a fellow student’s weirdness dragged out into the light. But little did they know I had turned the entire grounds into a plain, normal, home-and-garden paradise.

  But then I started feeling concerned again. One little word Pennyworth had said. What was it?

  “Inside.”

  With all the mess-ups outside, combined with mind-obliterating levels of sleep deprivation, I’d totally forgotten about Dreadsville Manor’s interior!

  It all came rushing to me at once: the shape-changing floor stains, the jars filled with eel jawbones, the wallpaper that dripped blood (or at least rusty water), my collection of space action figures (not necessarily deal breakers for selling a house, but not helpful for me personally).

  What difference would the yard make if everyone saw all of that? I had to fix it! But there was no way I was going to get it done on my own by morning. I needed help! I needed my faithful subjects! I needed Moles!

  Which meant …

  Dang it!

  Okay, one more trip to the Mole level. But this was absolutely going to be the last time! And after this, everything was going to be completely and totally fine!

  “Go!” yelled Marco to the groundskeeper sitting outside on the tractor.

  7

  MOLE LEVEL, ABSOLUTELY LAST TIME

  “Hey, it’s King Quits-a-Lot again,” said the Round Mole.

  “Quit calling me that!” I said. “I’m just here to talk to Ploogoo.”

  “Oh no! Did I misunderstand again?” he said. “I keep believing you when you say we’ll never see you down here anymore. Am I too trusting?”

  “I’ll be out of here in ten seconds. Ploogoo! PLOOGOO!”

  “Gee whiz, I better stop being so naive. I’ll never make it in this world if I continue being so gullible.”

  I really couldn’t stand this Mole.

  “Hello, King,” said Ploogoo, barely looking up from an upside-down flower that he was absently picking pieces of root off of in a Mole variant of “she loves me, she loves me not.”

  Then he started in about the Bull Slugs again. I tried to cut him off, but he droned over me like a robot playing a prerecorded message.

  Ambassador Gurge of the Bull Slugs was tired of being put off by the Moles. They wanted to speak to the Mole King immediately about compensation for the Croogy deal. Ambassador Sputz of the Common Slugs was trying to keep the peace, but Gurge was out of patience, and said that if the Moles didn’t give them their due soon, the Bull Slug King was going to challenge the Common Slug King to a Great Slugging and take over both tribes
, and then declare war on the Moles.

  I told him that all sounded very important, but to get ready, because I needed him and one other Mole to meet me at the grave hole in half an hour for a super-secret, super-quiet mission. Ploogoo looked up at me with a sudden sparkle in his eyes, as much as Mole eyes could sparkle.

  “That’s it!” he said. “You mean for me to ask Lindoog, don’t you? To feel needed, to be asked for aid, to be appreciated for personal talents … a girl would love that, wouldn’t she?”

  I shrugged. Whatever got him fired up to help with the job was fine by me.

  “But King!” he said as I turned to leave. “What about the Bull Slugs?” He repeated some of the key words of the Bull Slug Ambassador, words like “demand,” and “challenge,” and “war.” That last one was a real zinger. And then he mentioned my “diplomacy skills.”

  I said I was so tired I could barely stand up, and that this secret mission was our top priority. But not to worry. Even though I couldn’t go meet with the Bull Slugs, I knew the perfect person to send in my place.

  * * *

  The curtains were covered with ducklings floating on a tangerine pond, and they hung in a back window of a house that looked like it was made of cake frosting, surrounded by a fence the very word “picket” was invented for, and bracketed by apple trees with apples so perfect no worm would dare pierce their skin.

  The house belonged to my next-door neighbors, a couple who were right around the midpoint of raising a daughter whose aesthetics were in unexpectedly sharp contrast to their own. The ducklings had all been markered in with black.

  I knocked on the window, and the ducklings parted.

  “What are you doing here, Underbelly?”

  I needed her help, that’s what. Why else would I be here? “Nothin’,” I said.

  “Are you sure my weirdness isn’t going to be too embarrassing for you?”

  I said probably. Then I told her what Ploogoo told me about the Slugs, and repeated those zinger Bull Slug Ambassador words like “demand,” and “challenge,” and “war.”

  “That sounds serious,” said Magda.

  “The Slugs just want respect from the Moles,” I said. “All they need is to feel heard, and have some sort of compromise figured out. It’s no biggie.”

  “If it’s no biggie, why don’t you do it? Too busy feather-dusting your tombstones?”

  I said I was. But she still didn’t offer to help. I’d spelled everything out. What was she waiting for?

  “So then … what is it?” she said. “What do you need?”

  “Will you … help?” And boom! Just like that, she said she’d help! It was the wildest thing!

  “But I’m not doing it for you,” she said, squinting at me. “I’m doing it for the Moles.”

  “Great,” I said. “If you get into any trouble, just call me on this walkie-talkie.”

  “Oh, so you’re not going yourself, but you’re ready to jump in with advice.”

  “Fine, don’t take it.”

  Magda snatched the walkie-talkie. “In case I need you to fetch me some clean socks,” she said with a grin.

  I turned toward my house. Holy cow, was Ploogoo right? Magda seemed to like being asked for help, to feel like I needed her. What do you know … I guess I was smart about girls after all!

  Maybe I should hit her with that appreciation thing too, I thought. I turned, but the pond of black ducklings had merged back together.

  * * *

  I found Ploogoo and Lindoog waiting for me at the grave hole. Lindoog didn’t look overly impressed, but Ploogoo looked hopeful.

  I had the crown with me and asked Ploogoo if it was necessary to wear it. He said technically it was, but he was willing to let it slide under the circumstances. I think Lindoog rolled her eyes.

  I snuck them into the house.

  “This place is amazing!” said Lindoog.

  I didn’t point out that Moles can hardly see three feet past their noses. If they had noses.

  I pulled out some magazines to show them what regular humans liked to see in a home, and then pointed to the many, many things in my home that didn’t match those things.

  I said we had till dawn to get things looking as much like the magazines as possible. And we had to do it quietly. I’d convinced my dad to hit the hay early so he’d look his best for the cameras, and I promised I’d be doing the same.

  But there was no time to sleep for me. Everything was riding on this. I was just going to have to pull up my socks, roll up my sleeves, and push through the night.

  8

  INTERVIEW

  I awoke to the sound of knocking on the door, and Friday morning light spilling through the windows.

  I’d fallen asleep! The blood-dripping walls—the shape-changing floor stains—the drapes that were more cobwebs than cloth! I hadn’t taken care of anything!

  The knock intensified, and I heard a woman’s voice announcing herself and some station letters. I realized I was still holding the crown. I turned it upside-down and put a plant on it, then opened the door. There was no choice but to face the music.

  They plowed in and started pointing their camera vigorously at everything. But each thing they pointed it at seemed to suck energy from their movements. The stains on the floor were gone. The walls were bloodless. The curtains and pillows and furniture had been cleaned and reorganized in a way that somehow transformed the whole place from haunted house to what the magazine referred to as “bohemian chic.” Ploogoo and Lindoog must have worked through the night. And things looked great!

  “Things look great!” said the reporter lady, but she said it as an accusation. “First the front yard is all fixed up, and now the inside looks like just any normal old house!”

  “Well, there’s this plant holder. It’s pretty outlandish,” said the cameraman.

  “This house was supposed to be weird! Where the heck is all the weird?” said the lady.

  I was smiling to myself. They were too late. My home was officially normal. If they were on the hunt for weird, they were completely wasting their time.

  That’s when I noticed the window drapes.

  “Welcome to our home,” said my dad, and the newspeople swung the camera toward him. The Moles might have de-weirded the house, but there was still my dad.

  “Eagle to Squirrel,” buzzed the walkie-talkie. “I’m here with the Moles, heading down to the Slugs.”

  The newspeople swung the camera at the walkie-talkie, then at me.

  “Did that person say she was with moles, and slugs?” said the lady.

  “I’m not the one you’re here for! He is!” I said, pointing at my dad.

  They turned the camera back on my dad’s giant teeth and started asking him about bringing up his family in a graveyard. I shoved Ploogoo and Lindoog out of the curtain and into the hallway. The walkie-talkie crackled again as I pushed them up the stairs.

  “I told you not to contact me unless it was an emergency!” I hissed into the walkie-talkie.

  “No you didn’t,” said Magda. “Anyway, it’s sort of an emergency. The Bull Slugs aren’t happy that you sent me instead of coming yourself.”

  I could hear Ambassador Gurge yelling about how this was yet another insult to Slugs from Moles, and a round of burping assent from what sounded like a large gathering of Slugs. I told her only real, full-on emergencies.

  “If you’re really interested in seeing the whole place, I’d be happy to give you a tour,” said my father, leading the news crew out of the living room. I ran up the stairs ahead of them. Two heads peeked out of my bedroom door. I hurried in and slammed the door behind me.

  “What are you both still doing here?” I whisper-yelled. “Hey, this room looks really good.”

  “We decorated this one in ‘Scandinavian Shabby,’” said Lindoog.

  “She’s so skilled at interior design,” said Ploogoo, smiling at her.

  “He got the idea to box up all those little plastic dolls,” said Lindoo
g, smiling back, and they poked each other and giggled.

  There was a knock at the door. “Sport? These folks are interested in having a peek in there,” said my dad.

  “Eagle to Squirrel!” squawked the walkie-talkie. “It’s become a full-on emergency!”

  “Not now!” I said, shoving Ploogoo and Lindoog into the closet.

  “They’ve discovered one of their eggs is missing,” said Magda. “And they remember seeing us outside the egg chamber. I told them they’re bonkers if they think we know anything about any missing egg.”

  “Uhh, actually … I might know a little something about it.”

  “What??” yelled Magda. “You know about the egg?” An uproar of grumbles and burps swelled behind Magda’s voice, and then, “Hey! Let go of me! Get your slimy appendages off of—”

  And then I heard Magda scream.

  More knocking. “What’s going on in there, Sport?” said my dad. “We’re coming in!”

  My dad entered, followed by an excited news crew, who looked crestfallen at the sight of yet another normal-looking room.

  “I thought I heard a scream,” said my dad.

  “Oh, it’s just Magda,” I said, holding up the walkie-talkie. “She was laughing at a joke I told her.”

  Ambassador Gurge’s fierce, guttural growl blasted forth. “I know where you are! I’m coming for you! And if you don’t return what you took, I’ll obliterate your entire world beneath an oozing wave of slime!”

  My dad smiled. “I’m so glad you two have finally become friends.”

  The news people left to keep searching for something worth filming.

  “Where are all your action figures?” asked Dad.