Cosmic Boy Versus Mezmo Head! (6 page)

“But, King Greblak, why are you not dressed in the traditional Zaldoonian uniform?” the alien asked.

Jeff began to sweat. He felt the sweat seeping down under his cabbage leaves.

“Are you saying you don't like my outfit?” Sean asked sweetly.

“No, no, my king!” Klatoo answered. “Forgive me, I—”

“Forgive you?” Jeff exploded. “But you haven't conquered Earth yet!”

Mike continued to fiddle with the damaged wires on Jeff's helmet.

Klatoo's yellow eyes blinked in the bright spotlight. “There are hands behind one of your wondrous heads, oh great one.”

“Uh …” mumbled Jeff. “Uh … but enough about me! Why isn't Earth ready?”

Klatoo bowed his Mezmo Head. “The earthlings … they are mighty, King Greblak.”

“We are?” yelled Sean from beneath his leafy disguise. “Yahoo! The cabbage dude thinks we're mighty! He thinks—“ Sean stopped. Klatoo's big yellow eyeballs began to burn. “Ooops,” said Sean quietly.

“Earthling children!” shrieked Klatoo. “You dare to impersonate the great King Greblak of Zaldoon? You … pish-posh!”

KKKK!
The alien's helmet began to pop and spark and sputter. It flared and flamed.

A huge fireball shot up from the Mezmo Head helmet at the same instant as Mike jumped up and shouted, “Jeff, your head is fixed!”

In a flash, Jeff bolted from the throne and fired his ultimate and final and ultra and mega Cosmic Boy blast!

KLA—BLAMMMMMMO!

11

Just Normal Weird

K
A—WHOOOOOOOOM!

A ball of white-hot flame exploded in the auditorium of W. Reid Elementary School and blew out into the hallway.

Jeff's plastic helmet took the blast hard. It burst into a thousand pieces, and he went hurtling out of the auditorium at incredible speed.

“Ugh! Ouch! Umph! Whoa!
Crunch!”

When the explosion died down, a lone figure staggered up the hall. “Ohhh! My Mezmo Head! I have failed! I have dishonored my great King Greblak!” Klatoo's futuristic Mezmo Head helmet was melted down and smoking on his leafy green head.

“Whew!” said Sean, crawling out into the hall. “What is that smell?”

“Burnt cabbage,” muttered Liz, picking herself up from the floor next to Holly.

“It's Klatoo!” shouted Jeff, jumping up from the floor. “We zapped his head! We won! We shorted him out! We won!”

Suddenly—
RRRRRRRR!
An eerie sound penetrated the school from outside. Jeff and his friends ran out to the sidewalk and looked up.

“Whoa!” gasped Sean. “It's big!”

Big? It wasn't big. It was enormous! And round! With thousands of lights on it!

“Oh, no, a spaceship!” cried Mike. “We're doomed. We defeated Klatoo, but we're too late. His alien friends are here! All is lost!”

The enormous round spaceship billowed slowly out of the clouds like some special effect in a super-expensive Hollywood movie.

The ship hovered over Grover's Mill. The entire town grew dark in its shadow.

VRRRT!
An opening appeared in the bottom of the hull. Piercing green light flooded from the opening onto the sidewalk in front of the school.

“It's going to fire!” yelled Holly. “Take cover!”

But Jeff didn't move. He knew what was going to happen. He watched as the light flared brighter and brighter. Then a single beam of green light shot down at Klatoo, the Mezmo Head from Zaldoon.

“Now he's going to get it,” Jeff said to himself.

Klatoo floated up the beam and into the giant ship. He moaned the whole way up.

“It's taking him away!” shouted Holly.

Jeff could hear Klatoo being yelled at because he couldn't control the kids' brains. “Too full of stuff!” Jeff heard Klatoo plead. But it was no good. King Greblak was yelling really loud.

“Ahem!” Principal Bell stormed out of the school, his accordion still strapped on. “If they are trying out for our play, I'm afraid tryouts are only for students from our school.”

Sean raced over. “Hey, everybody! The song! I remember it now!” Sean sang as Mr. Bell played.

His fingers, they
Command the stars
From Pluto all
The way to Mars

Space Ahoy!

    Cosmic Boy!

VOOOOOM!
The spaceship left. It sucked up Klatoo's alien tower with the saucer on top. Main Street uncurved itself.

Jeff smiled at his friends. “I'm not Cosmic Boy anymore,” he said, scratching his head for the first time since that morning. “But I'm sort of glad.”

“Amazing,” said Liz after it was all over. “We just can't get away from it, can we? I mean, no matter what happens to it, Grover's Mill is here to stay.”

“I always knew it would be,” said Mike.

Jeff kept scratching his head. It felt so good. He looked down Main Street, straight once again. People were starting to fill the shops, the restaurants. Soon it would look just as it had that morning. “Maybe it's not so incredibly weird, after all.”

Bong!
The Double Dunk Donut Den's donut-shaped clock chimed the hour.

Sssss!
Steam rose from Usher's House of Pancakes' giant pan into a cloudless sky.

A sky with no spacecraft in it. For now.

“Right, Jeff,” said Sean. “Just normal everyday weird.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Weird Zone series

1

Non-Weirdness

S
itting alone on the top row of bleachers, Liz Duffey looked out over the baseball field behind W. Reid Elementary School.

“First day of summer vacation,” she said to herself. “First Monday with no school. First baseball game. Incredible sunshine. This is all so—”

“Odd!” yelled a voice below her. “Odd-odd-odd!”

Liz frowned. “That's not what I was going to say … for once.” She turned to see Mike Mazur and Holly Vickers standing behind home plate.

“I'm odd,” Mike insisted, holding one hand behind his back, ready to choose sides for the game.

“You're odd, all right, Mike,” Holly said with a laugh. “So I guess I'll be even. Ready? Set. Go!” She thrust out her hand, showing three fingers.

Mike stuck out two fingers. “Ha! The odd team wins! I choose Liz and we're up first.” He smiled up at Liz.

Liz made a face at him as she jumped down the bleacher steps to the field. “Oh, goody, I'm on the odd team. What I always wanted.”

“Don't let it get you down, Liz,” Holly joked. “Odd is pretty normal around here.”

Holly's brother Sean strolled up to the plate with Jeff Ryan. “Odd, even. Why do we have to do math during the summer?”

Liz chuckled and handed a glove to Jeff.

“Baseball is the absolute coolest game,” said Sean. He dropped a pair of bats and ground a brand-new baseball between his palms.

Bong!
The Double Dunk Donut Den's donut-shaped clock on Main Street chimed the hour.

Sssss!
The pancake pan sitting high above Usher's House of Pancakes steamed the hour, too.

“And now it's official,” Liz said, picking up one of Sean's bats. “Time to play ball!”

Holly pulled on a glove and took up her position at first base. Sean trotted to the pitcher's mound and began to stretch. Jeff strode out between second and third to his favorite position of shortstop.

“Blast one out to left field,” Mike said, crouching behind the plate to catch for Liz. “You'll get a good triple at least.”

Liz swung the bat around and nodded. “My dad told me that centuries ago this field had all kinds of caves running under it. Tunnels and pits and stuff that people used to live in.”

Liz's father, Kramer Duffey, was an archaeologist who dug holes and found prehistoric fossils and artifacts all around Grover's Mill.

“Caves?” Mike mumbled. “That's weird.”

From home plate Liz could see all the way north of town to the secret army base. Jeff Ryan's mother worked there. In the east was the Humongous Horror Movie Studios where Mr. Vickers made scary low-budget films. And in the west was one of her father's archaeological sites.

“Sure it's weird.” Liz tapped the plate with the bat. “That's because Grover's Mill is right in the center of a giant triangle of weirdness. It's obviously been that way forever.”

Mike laughed, pounding his glove with his fist. “At least since people used to live in those caves. Hey, wouldn't it be great if today turned out to be the first
non
-weird day? I mean, there's a first time for everything.”

Liz tapped the plate again. She knew what he meant. Their town had had a lot of first times.

The first time zombie Martians attacked the earth was in Grover's Mill. The first time a prehistoric dinosaur
egg
hatched out a living dinosaur was there. The first time octopus monsters from Planet X landed was there, too.

But the first non-weird day?

Tap! Tap!
Liz tapped the plate again. The sounds echoed beneath her.

“Get ready to strike out!” Sean yelled, starting his windup.

Liz pounded the plate again, a little harder.

Boom!
The ground rumbled deeply beneath the plate. It shuddered and quaked.

“Whoa! Did you hear that?” Liz said.

Mike stood up and frowned at the ground. “Sounds hollow …”

Liz pounded the plate some more.
Boom-boom-boom!
The ground around them started to shake and shift. Their legs wobbled as they tried to keep their balance.

“This isn't right.” Mike threw down his glove and picked up the other bat. He started to pound the plate, too.

“Hey!” Jeff shouted. “One batter at a time.”

But with every hit of the two bats, the ground rumbled and boomed louder and more deeply.

“Stop joking, you guys!” Sean yelled. “My fastball is gonna slow down if we don't start!”

“But—it's hollow under here!” Liz shouted.

RRRRR!
The earth rumbled sharply. It swelled under the plate and shifted with a suddenness that caught Mike off balance.

“M-M-Mike, watch out! C-c-c-cave in!” Liz stammered. “The g-g-g-ground!”

The g-g-g-ground exploded!

KA-BOOOOM!

Home plate shot up like a rocket and the earth erupted from below with a loud
wumping
sound. Huge chunks of dirt and rocks blasted out everywhere.

The ground sunk beneath Mike suddenly and he tumbled into a deep dark hole.

“Help!” he screamed.

But he wasn't down there for long.

Something was coming up out of the ground.

Something very big.

2

Head's Up!

“M
ike, what is going on?” Liz screamed, scrambling back to the backstop for protection.

“Something's down here! Something big! And it's moving!” he screamed from down below.

Dirt exploded out everywhere. The rumbling shook the earth under the field. Sean, Jeff, and Holly came running over.

A second later—
whoom!
—Mike rose up into view, sprawled on top of a giant flat stone. He leaped off when the stone came to the surface.

But the giant stone kept rising. It pushed itself up out of the ground and continued to blast up, higher and higher into the air. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty feet!

It was big! It was huge! It was enormous!

Finally—
RMMMM!
—the stone stopped. The ground thundered once more, then fell silent. The dust cleared around the huge stone.

It towered over the field.

“Whoa!” Liz gasped when she saw the size of the stone. “That was
under
us? It's … it's …”

“It's humongous!” Mike cried, looking up from the ground. Then he squinted. “It's also carved like a statue.”

Mike was right. The stone was a giant carved head. In the middle of the face was a long nose rising between sharp, high cheekbones. Underneath was a broad mouth and a jutting chin.

But those weren't the most striking features.

“Creepy!” muttered Holly, running over to Liz and Mike. “The eyes. The eyes are so deep and creepy!”

“For once, I've got to agree with you,” Sean said, moving up next to his sister. “Deep eyes are always creepy. Remember that movie our dad made?
The Creepy Creep with Eyes So Deep?”

“Yeah, but that creep didn't show up to ruin a baseball game,” Liz said. She looked up. Way up. “Talk about odd? How did this
thing
get here? And what even is it?”

Jeff jerked back from the big head. “Maybe he's … you-know-who. Grover.”

“Grover?” Sean said. “Who's Grover?”

“You know, the original Grover of Grover's Mill?” Jeff said. “Maybe it's a statue of him.”

Liz shook her head, circling around the big stone. “I don't think so. I've seen pictures of this kind of statue. But they're normally far away on jungle islands in the Pacific Ocean.”