Dial M for Mongoose (8 page)

"Wow." I patted the ladder that led up into the pantry. "No wonder he could rob the cafeteria so easily."

Natalie whistled. "Pretty slick for an underground highway."

I got to my feet and started down the passage. "Wonder where this goes..."

"Do you think it's safe?" asked Natalie.

"No," I said. "But if we wanted safe, we should've become cheese testers. Come on."

Carefully, we crept onward, hugging the wall. The tunnel was quieter than a king snake in a snowbank. Before long, we reached another ladder, which led up to a trapdoor.

Muffled voices and crowlike squawks drifted through the floor.

"The office," I whispered. Natalie nodded.

We resumed our trek through the tunnel. It began sloping downward, and the farther we went, the

colder it got. Two smaller tunnels fed into it from the left, but we stuck with the main passage.

"Just think of all the burrowing it took," said Natalie. "That's a lot of earth to move."

I grinned. "I can dig it."

She groaned. "This explains all the dirt piles around the playground."

Natalie brushed the wall with a wing tip as we walked down, down, down. "Must have taken more than just one bad guy to do all this burrowing."

"Unless we're talking about one monster-sized earthworm," I said.

"Mmm," said Natalie dreamily. "Giant worms."

But I didn't get the chance to hear about her food fantasies. Because just then, we rounded a bend in the tunnel and saw its destination.

"Holy mole, Batman," breathed Natalie.

"You ain't a-woofin', sister," I said.

The tunnel ended at the lip of a crater. Stretching below and above was a huge cavern, lit with spotlights and dangling Christmas bulbs. Somewhere nearby, a generator rumbled.

"This explains the extra-high electricity bill," I said.

Small, round doors studded the sides of the cavern, all around. And way out in the middle, a huge earthen throne arose.

"Look!" said Natalie.

Kids labored below us, lugging buckets. I spotted Popper, Bo Newt, and about a dozen other students, all handcuffed to a ladder and dragging it by their ankles.

"This is either Santa's dirt workshop," I said, "or the winter palace of the Worm King."

"Wrong on both counts, peeper," growled a familiar voice.

And up over the lip of the cavern crawled Erik Nidd.

"Erik!" I said, backing up. "I never figured you for a tunnel spider."

His fangs glistened in a wicked smile. "Ya never figured on a lot, shamus."

Natalie and I edged back into the tunnel as Erik, the rat Kurt Replie, the ferret Bosco Rebbizi, and our old friend the eggplant-nosed mole climbed up onto our level. My tail bumped against some empty buckets.

"
You're
behind it all?" I said to the tarantula."The stealing, the burning—"

"The cave-in," said Natalie.

"
That
was a mistake," snapped Eggplant Nose. "
Somebody
didn't follow my digging instructions."

Bosco waved a finger at the mole. "And
somebody
forgot that I'm a ferret, not a prairie dog."

"So
you're
behind it all?" I asked Eggplant Nose, slipping my tail through the bucket handles.

"Pal, you are
way
too curious," he said. "That's gonna land you in real trouble one of these days."

I gave him a friendly grin. "Like now?" In a flash, I whipped my tail and slung the buckets straight into the thugs.

The Stinkers staggered back, disoriented.

Natalie and I whirled around and beat feet.

"Snatch 'em, boys!" cried the mole.

The gang gave a yell. Footsteps thundered behind us.

We pounded up the passageway with the bullies in hot pursuit. Round the twists and turns we went, higher and higher. Somehow, we carved out a lead.

But the tunnel was a lot trickier going uphill. My legs grew heavier than a cheater's conscience. My lungs burned. Soon I was panting like a black dog on a summer day.

Natalie and I rounded a corner. The first side passage lay just ahead, and the Stinkers were still out of sight.

"Quick!" I hissed. "In here!"

I took off my hat and flung it farther up the main tunnel. Then we dove into the smaller passage and scrambled up it.

Natalie and I pressed ourselves to the wall. I tried to quiet my steam-train breathing and slow my drum-soloing heart.

Behind us, muffled voices echoed.

"This way!" said Erik. "That's Gecko's hat."

Their footsteps thudded on.

I exhaled. Natalie gave me a shaky thumbs-up.

"Wait," said Bosco's distant voice. "They're just the kind of low-down sneaks that would try to give us the slip." Footsteps padded closer.

I shot a worried look at Natalie.

"I smell fresh gecko!" cried Bosco, his voice suddenly loud. "Up here!"

Natalie and I hightailed it. The side tunnel narrowed and rose. After another minute of full-tilt running, we turned a bend.

I stopped short. Natalie piled into me.

"Dead end?!" she said.

The passage sloped up sharply into the ceiling. My scrabbling hands touched wood.

"Another trapdoor." I put my shoulder to it. "Push, Natalie!"

We shoved, hard. It didn't budge.

The Dirty Rotten Stinkers rounded the final corner and spotted us.

"Hah!" cried Erik. "Say your prayers, Gecko."

The bullies rolled forward slowly, deliberately, smiling evil smiles.

"Push harder!" I cried.

And with one last "
Oof!
" we slammed the trapdoor back on its hinges, tumbling out into...

The janitor's office?

Jerry Dooty slumped on a stool just above us, staring down with his mournful eyes.

"Mr. Dooty," said Natalie. "Help us!"

We scrambled to our feet.

"Another problem for my to-do list?" he whined. "What is it this time?"

Bosco's head and shoulders emerged from the trapdoor. "They saw our operations, boss."

The gopher sighed. "My, that
is
a problem."

"
Boss?
" I said.

Jerry Dooty grinned and picked up a fancy golden crown from the table. "I prefer 'All-Powerful Emperor of the Underground,'" he said. "But 'boss' is a start."

My brain felt like a locomotive that had piled into a Jell-O mountain. The wheels were spinning, but I couldn't get any traction.

"You
huh?
" I said. "You
whuh?
"

The gopher
tsk-tsked.
"Really, I would've thought a detective would be a little sharper than that. Yes, I'm the genius behind it all."

"
You?
" said Natalie.

Jerry Dooty placed the crown on his head."What, you don't think I'm smart enough?" He pouted. "Nobody ever does. I'm
so
unappreciated, even as an emperor."

"But...
emperor?
" I said.

"Yes," said the gopher. "I'm tired of the way things are run around here."

"Us, too," said Erik, peeking up through the hole in the floor.

Mr. Dooty gestured to the trapdoor."So I decided to create my own underground empire, with a little help from my minions. Like it?"

Natalie and I exchanged a quick glance.

"Yeah, it's, uh, swell," I said.

"Especially the twinkly lights," Natalie added.

The janitor nodded. "Thanks. I wanted it to be cheery."

My stunned gaze wandered around the room, from the deranged gopher, to the bottles of cleaning products, to the Stinkers peering up through the floor.

"So you got Ms. DeBree fired?" I said. "Why?"

"She was just too darn clean," said the janitor.

I blinked. "How's that?"

He waved a paw. "Always tidying things up, poking her nose into stuff. She was getting suspicious. Maureen could have derailed my whole plan."

Natalie shifted from foot to foot. She cut her eyes at the trapdoor and floor bolt, then back to me. I gave a tiny nod.

"One thing I don't get," she said."Popper saw Ms. DeBree running away just before that building caught fire."

"Hah!" said Erik. "Should I tell 'em, boss?"

"That's
emperor,
" said Jerry Dooty.

"
I'll
tell them," a new voice cut in.

I turned to see the weasel assistant janitor pushing through the office door. "You!"

"Yes," he said, tossing a lighter from paw to paw.
"Funny how from behind, a weasel looks just like a mongoose."

Natalie snapped her forefeathers."I
knew
there was something odd about him."

"His bad-guy vibes?" I said.

"No, the way he moves," she said. "Mongooses dash, weasels bound. And Popper said the culprit bow-bow-bounded away. So it couldn't have been a mongoose."

I shook my head. "You spend
way
too much time watching the Natural Channel. But good work, partner."

Bosco the ferret raised a paw." 'Scuse me,boss—"

"
Emperor!
" snapped Mr. Dooty.

"—but are we gonna stand around jawing all night, or are we gonna chain these two up on the work crew?"

The janitor adjusted his crown. "Excellent idea, minion."

"The name's not Minion," said Bosco."It's Bosco."

They glared at each other. The weasel kept on tossing his lighter.

Natalie threw me another sharp look and cut her eyes back to the open trapdoor. "Now!" she cried.

Together we sprang for the door, lifted it, and slammed it—
thonk!
—right onto the heads of the Dirty Rotten Stinkers.

Muffled
ow
s rose through the floor as I snapped the bolt home, locking the bullies below.

"Hey!" said Emperor Dooty. "That's not fair!"

With my quick gecko reflexes, I snatched the lighter from the weasel, mid-throw. "Neither is
this,
but I'm doing it anyway."

I grabbed the nearest jar marked
FLAMMABLE,
unscrewed the lid, and held the lighter near it.

"You wouldn't," said the weasel.

"Just try me, Sparky," I said, backing toward the exit.

Natalie slipped around me and went to the door. "Stand back, or you'll find out who
else
around here can play with fire."

The pyro weasel eased off to stand beside the janitor.

"You are a dead lizard," growled Jerry Dooty.

"You should know about dead," I said. "Because, judging by your breath, something died in your mouth."

I managed a cocky chuckle, but I just knew my parents would kill me if they found out about this.

Natalie opened the door. I backed through it, still holding the lighter and the solvent.

"Sayonara, nutbags!" I said.

Wham!
Natalie slammed the door, I tossed the lighter and cleaning fluid into the bushes, and we
screamed out of there like a kindergartner with a brand-new trike.

Parents and kids stared as we blew past.

Fhomp!
The janitor's door banged open behind us. I risked a glance back.

Emperor Dooty and his minions spilled into the hall. The gopher took in all the witnesses. With both hands, he made a
keep cool
gesture to his crew.