Super Schnoz and the Invasion of the Snore Snatchers (7 page)

“Me either,” I agreed. “But we have to turn out the lights. If the aliens don't think I'm asleep, they may not come.”

The Not-Right Brothers and I played a few rounds of Electronic Battleship until around midnight.

“I guess it's time,” TJ said.

“You got that right,” I said, crawling into bed and flicking off the light.

Jimmy, TJ, and Mumps unrolled their sleeping bags on the floor and slid inside.The only sounds were the occasional fart by Mumps, followed by a round of raucous laughter. My eyelids felt as heavy as bowling balls, but I fought the urge to sleep.The Not-Right Brothers, on the other hand, gave in to the sandman too easily. Soon, all three of them were crashed out, thin lines of drool dripping from their open mouths.

I tossed and turned in my bed, trying to stay awake. My discipline paid off. As the crimson-colored numbers of the alarm clock flashed 4:00 A.M., I felt a gust of warm, heavy air pass over my body. My eyes squinted in the semidarkness. I saw a dark shadow forming above my bed.

“Jimmy, Mumps, TJ!” I shout-whispered. “Something's happening.”

“Huh…” Jimmy mumbled in his half-sleep.

“Whatta…?” TJ muttered, turning over in his sleeping bag.

A pungent electrical smell filled the room. I watched as the shadow slowly molded into the shape of two little gray aliens. The space invaders hovered at the foot of my bed, staring at me with large dark eyes, each holding a flexible hose the size of a sewer pipe.

CHAPTER 16

INTO THE SHADOW

I
reached for the walkie-talkie. “Vivian! They're here!” I yelled.

Before I could say another word, the aliens lunged at me.They shoved a hose up each nostril. Instantly, I began to snore, a loud, grinding snivel that made the walls of my bedroom shake and the coffee can full of pennies on my dresser crash to the carpet.

The aliens' dark eyes beamed with fluorescent green light.They were communicating with each other, but I had no idea what they were saying. One of the aliens waved a lightning-bolt-shaped wand over my head. Suddenly, the room started spinning; my brains rattled against the sides of my skull. I felt like they were sucking my insides out through my nose!

“Do…do…do something…” I managed to utter to my friends. But they just stood there (except for Mumps, who was still crashed out in his sleeping bag, completely oblivious to what was going on) with their mouths hanging open, fear etched on their faces.

My bedroom door swung open. I looked up and saw Vivian. She dove at the aliens and managed to tackle one to the ground.

“Yuck!” Vivian cried out. “They're all slimy and slippery!”

Jimmy leaped into action. He grabbed the other alien and shoved him to the ground.

“And they smell too!” Jimmy shouted.

The alien Vivian was holding slithered from her grasp and came at me again. He gripped both hoses and shoved them deeper into my nostrils. I writhed in pain, begging my friends to help me. This time TJ lunged at the spaceman, ripping the hose from the alien's bony hands and pinning the snore thief to the ground.

“Duct tape them!” I yelled to Vivian. “Before they get away!”

Vivian went to work, wrapping each Apnean in layers of silver duct tape. While she secured the bad guys, TJ flicked on the lights and gently pulled the hoses out of my nose.

Mumps rolled over in his sleeping bag. “Did the aliens come?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Take a look,” I told him.

Mumps sat up, took a long gander at the duct-taped aliens, and then conked out cold.

The aliens' eyes lit up like a Fourth of July fireworks show. They were communicating with each other, so Vivian shut them up by blindfolding them with a strip of duct tape.

“That should keep you Apneans quiet for a bit,” she said.

“What should we do with them?” TJ asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Don't know.”

“Let's haul them back to the Nostril,” Vivian suggested. “We don't want Schnoz's mom waltzing inside his room only to find two space aliens wrapped in duct tape.”

“Great idea,” I said. “We'll carry the slimy buggers out of the house before my parents wake up.”

“Ahem…” Jimmy grunted, and then pointed to the floor.

I looked down and saw for the first time how the Apneans stored my snores. They used some kind of large metal box that looked like a battery. Connected to the battery were the two hoses.The power of my snores went through the hoses and into the battery.

“What do we do with that stuff?” TJ asked.

“Bring it back to Robo-Nose,” Vivian said, slipping on one of the alien costumes.

Jimmy and TJ looked at each other with the same uneasy expressions on their faces.

“Do you mean that we should still try to infiltrate Robo-Nose?” Jimmy asked.

“Of course,” Vivian said. “That was the plan. Now get on your alien outfits.”

Jimmy and TJ reluctantly pulled out their costumes and started to change. That's when the light in the room dimmed like a storm cloud passing over the sun.

“It's the shadow,” Vivian gasped. “Get on your costumes before it disappears!”

The shadow was actually beautiful, almost hypnotic in a strange way. The shady gloom wasn't distorted, but clear and crisp like a shadow puppet against a white screen. I lifted my nose, wondering if the thing had any smell, when some invisible force grabbed hold of my nostrils.

“Help!” I cried out. “Something's pulling me by the nose into the shadow!”

Vivian jumped onto the bed and grabbed my leg. She tugged with all her might, but her effort was useless.The vacuum was too powerful.

“Someone throw me an alien costume for Schnoz to wear!” Vivian shouted. “Hurry! Before it's too late!”

Jimmy ripped off his costume and tossed it to Vivian. The suction doubled in force, inhaling Vivian and me along with the hoses and battery into the dark depths of the shadow.

CHAPTER 17

THE OLFACTORY BULB

T
he intense pressure of the shadow propelled Vivian and me through a long tunnel.The journey felt like being inside a giant neon glow stick. A fluorescent green hue—the same shade as the Apneans' eyes when they communicated with each other—illuminated the passageway as we traveled into another dimension.

I looked up and saw that we were heading straight for an even brighter light. Vivian and I clutched each other's hands as we burst through a thin snot bubble and landed feetfirst in a small room.

“Where are we?” I wondered.

Vivian shrugged. “I have no idea.”

The wheezing sound of Robo-Nose's snore-propulsion system hummed in my ears. A wall behind me began to shimmer like a precious jewel. I saw the outlines of three Apneans forming in the cascade of colors.

Vivian pulled on her alien mask and tossed me my costume. “Put this on before they materialize!”

The alien outfit Jimmy had stitched together fit me nice and snug, but the mask was another story.The thing wouldn't fit over my nose!

“Help me!” I hollered to Vivian. “They're almost visible!”

Vivian yanked at the mask, trying with all her might to slip the disguise over my beak. “This is like a grown man trying to put on a four-yearold's sock,” she grunted. “On the count of three, we'll give one giant tug. One…two…three…!”

The mask slipped over my nose just as the Apneans appeared in the room. Without even acknowledging us, they picked up the snore hoses and battery storage and then scurried away.

“What should we do now?” Vivian asked.

“We need to stay under the radar and try to find the ship's weakness,” I said. “Remember, these creatures are out to destroy Earth.”

Vivian handed me another jar of cayenne pepper. “Just in case,” she said, and then we walked through the shimmering door and into Robo-Nose.

We walked down a long corridor. The walls were metallic colored, and every few yards were weird glistening doors.The Apneans barged in and out of them without giving us a second glance.

“I think our costumes are working,” I said.

“Let's go in one of the doors and check things out,” Vivian suggested.

“Um…are you sure?” I hesitated. “What if we walk through a door and it's an Apnean ladies' restroom?”

Vivian brushed me off. “These aliens are highly advanced beings. They probably don't even have genders or go to the bathroom.”

I took a deep breath and we stepped through a door. The experience was like taking a shower with rainbow water. Brilliant colors washed over us as we materialized on the other side. We saw two Apnean heads behind a privacy wall. Their eyes were flaming with fluorescent green light, obviously in deep conversation with each other. The Apnean closest to us reached up and pressed a button. A loud whoosh like a toilet flushing filled the room. My nose caught a whiff of a stinky, familiar scent.

“What's that bad smell?” Vivian whispered to me.

“Apnean poop,” I said. “This really is an alien bathroom.”

Before the other Apnean could flush his space age potty, Vivian and I rushed back into the hall.

“There goes your theory that Apneans don't have bodily functions,” I said.

She ignored my comment and kept walking. After exploring for a bit, we discovered that Robo-Nose was broken up into three levels: the lower Nose Hair, the middle Mucous, and the upper Olfactory Bulb.

“The Olfactory Bulb is where we want to be,” I said. “That's the nerve center of this operation.”

“How do you know?” Vivian asked.

“Trust me. I know my nose, and this whole spaceship is a giant replica of my pie sniffer. The Olfactory Bulb's job is to transmit smells from the nose to the brain.That's why dogs and I have such superior senses of smell. Our Olfactory Bulbs are quadruple the size of a normal human.”

“Let's go,” Vivian said, and we headed for the upper level.

Robo-Nose's Olfactory Bulb was brimming with activity. Apneans hustled back and forth, their eyes afire with green light. A viewing deck with a giant glass screen peered into endless space.

“Do you see that blue dot in the distance?” Vivian asked.

“Yes,” I said back. “Do you think it's Earth?”

“Absolutely. Look behind you.”

I turned around and saw a screen with a map of the planet Earth. Three important-looking Apneans were pointing at the screen, zeroing in on North America. They zoomed in closer until only the state of New Hampshire popped up on the screen. After another quick magnification and the town of Denmark and the surrounding woods appeared in plain view.

“That's where they're headed,” Vivian said. “Our little town.”

“I hope Dr. Wackjöb is watching Robo-Nose's descent to Earth on the Cosmoscope,” I said.

A flurry of activity broke out behind us. Vivian and I turned and saw a bunch of anxious-looking Apneans surround another large screen. We watched with dread as my bedroom popped up on the display. A movie played out before our eyes, showing the Not-Right Brothers fighting the snore-sucking aliens, and Vivian and me disappearing into the shadow.

The Apneans had recorded the whole scene.

CHAPTER 18

RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES

A
loud, flashing alert signal blasted from the intercom system.

Vivian grabbed my hand. “They know we're on the ship,” she said, panic gripping her vocal chords. “Let's get out of here and figure out what to do next.”

We nonchalantly walked out the Olfactory Bulb so as not to draw any unwanted attention and disappeared down the hall.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Vivian asked when we got to the Nose Hair level.

I brushed away the bristly, booger-crusted hairs that were dangling from the nasal lining ceiling. “I have no idea,” I said. “But we're not leaving until we can figure out this flying snot machine's weakness.”

Vivian paced back and forth, thinking. “Weakness…weakness,” she muttered out loud. “If this ship is an exact design of your nose then it must have the same weaknesses as you.”

“We went over this a few days ago. My nose doesn't have any weaknesses.”

“Remember that day you got hit in the snoot by a dodgeball in PE class?”

“Of course I do. My honker bled so bad that the nurse alerted every bloodmobile in the state. I single-handedly supplied every hospital in New England with a year supply of type O positive blood.”

“What if we figured out a way to cause Robo-Nose to have a massive nosebleed?”

“Not very likely unless you can find a dodgeball the size of the moon.”

Vivian pulled up her mask and looked me in the eye. “We have to think of something fast,” she said. “One of two things is going to happen very shortly. Either the Apneans are going to find us and kill us, or they're going to land on Earth and destroy the planet.”

The options didn't sound good to me.

“There's one nice thing from this experience,” I said.

“Like what?” Vivian grunted.

My nostrils flared and my scent receptors tingled with pleasure. “All the new alien smells for my scent dictionary,” I took a long, deep sniff. “The Apneans' stinky odor, their tangy poop, and the perfume of the strange shimmering doors. I love all these new smells!”

Vivian's eyes grew as big as softballs. “That's your weakness!” she shouted. “Smells!”

I raised my eyebrows, not understanding what she was trying to say. Then it slowly dawned on me.
Smells
were my weakness and my strength all wrapped into one!

“You are a genius!” I told her. “Robo-Nose and I have the same weakness—smells!”

“Exactly. What's the smelliest thing you have ever smelled?” she asked.

“The Gates of Smell,” I answered.

“Okay, then what's the
next
nastiest thing you have ever whiffed? There's no way we're ripping up the gym floor and exposing that nasty pit.”