Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict (3 page)

‘Listen to me,' said Eleanor, turning slowly as she spoke in a low, murderous voice. ‘To tell you the truth, I don't care which of you is the Great White Bum. What I really want to know is, which one of you is responsible for
this
?'

Eleanor pointed at the giant brown blob.

The four Great White Bums were silent.

‘Well?' said Eleanor, her eyes flashing.

‘He did it!' said the Great White Bum in front of her, pointing to the one at her left.

‘No, I never!' said the accused Great White Bum, turning a deep red and then pointing to the Great White Bum at her right. ‘It was him!'

‘Liar!' said the Great White Bum at Eleanor's right, pointing at the Great White Bum behind her. ‘It was him!'

‘No, it wasn't,' said the Great White Bum behind her. ‘It was him!'

Eleanor looked at where he was pointing.

It was pointing at Zack's bum.

‘How could
I
have done it?' said Zack's trembling bum. ‘Look at me! I'm tiny!'

‘You are
now
,' said the first Great White Bum. ‘Better out than in, I always say.'

The Great White Bum burst out laughing at its little joke. The others joined in.

‘Right,' said Eleanor, not impressed. ‘That does it. Now you're all going to pay. Zack, you and your bum hit the deck. Now!'

Zack and his bum did as they were instructed.

Eleanor whipped out a Nail-rifle XR-5000 from her bum-fighter's belt, dropped to one knee and spun in a fast circle, spraying the Great White Bums with a double-barrelled burst of six-inch reinforced tungsten-tipped roofing nails.

‘Ouch!' said the Great White Bum in front of her.

‘Double-ouch!' said the Great White Bum at her left.

‘Triple-ouch!' said the Great White Bum at her right.

‘Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!' said the Great White Bum at her rear.

‘Don't you mean “quadruple-ouch”?' said the first Great White Bum.

‘I'll be the judge of what I'm feeling,' said the rear bum, letting fly a giant brown blob at the bum in front.

Eleanor and Zack shielded their faces with their hands. SPLAT!

It was a direct hit and pieces of fresh giant brown blob splattered everywhere.

The other Great White Bums laughed.

‘Find that funny, do you?' said the freshly hit Great White Bum. ‘Well, laugh it up, funny boys!' And so saying, it launched two giant brown blobs at the giggling bums.

Suddenly the air was alive with giant brown blobs flying in all directions as the four Great White Bums pounded each other in an ear-splitting, nostril-burning free-for-all.

‘Come on!' said Zack, putting his bum down and picking up his shovel.

‘What are you doing, Zack?' said his bum.

‘We've got to get the others out!' said Zack. ‘Before it's too late!'

‘It already is too late,' said Eleanor sadly. ‘The blob will have set hard by now.'

‘No!' said Zack. ‘My parents are in there!'

‘I know, Zack,' said Eleanor. ‘So is my father. But there's nothing we can do for them now. All we can do is save ourselves and keep fighting. It's what they would have wanted.'

Zack looked at the blob. He looked at Eleanor. He knew she was right, but he still couldn't bring himself to leave.

Eleanor grabbed his arm. ‘Get a grip, Zack,' she said, pulling him away.

Z
ack grabbed his bum and the three of them ran down the hill towards what remained of the Bum-fighting Academy after the zombie bums' foiled invasion.

Suddenly, all was quiet behind them.

‘Uh-oh,' said Zack, turning around. ‘I think they've noticed we're missing.'

‘How do you know?' said Eleanor.

Zack put out his hand and grabbed Eleanor, bringing her to a dead stop.

‘Zack! What do you think you're . . . ?' she started, but then a giant brown blob smashed down right in front of her—right where she would have been if Zack hadn't stopped her.

‘Thanks,' said Eleanor.

‘No problem,' said Zack.

‘Wrong!' said Zack's bum. ‘We've got plenty of problems. Look!'

The four Great White Bums had indeed stopped pounding each other and had turned their attention back to the bum-fighters. Four giant brown blobs were already flying through the air towards them.

SCHLOOOMPH!

A giant brown blob crashed down behind them.

SCHLOOOMPH!

A giant brown blob crashed down in front of them.

‘Go left!' yelled Zack.

SCHLOOOMPH!

‘Go right!' yelled Zack's bum.

SCHLOOOMPH!

‘Don't move!' said Eleanor.

They were surrounded. Again.

Zack, Eleanor and Zack's bum huddled together.

Zack realised it would only be a matter of moments before they were buried beneath a fresh giant brown blob.

He sighed, closed his eyes and blocked his nose.

T
hey waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But the blob didn't come.

Zack peered out from underneath his fingers and looked back up the hill. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. ‘Hey!' he whispered to Eleanor and his bum. ‘Look!'

As the four Great White Bums prepared to launch a new round, another Great White Bum flew down out of the sky and landed behind them.

Only this one was even whiter than the others.

The four Great White Bums didn't appear to notice the new bum until it picked two of them up by the top of their cheeks, swung them through the air and smashed them together.

The bums fell limply to the ground.

‘Wow!' said Zack's bum. ‘That's impressive!'

‘Yeah,' said Eleanor. ‘But why is it attacking its own kind?'

‘Who cares?' said Zack's bum. ‘Let's run.'

‘Good idea,' said Zack.

The bum-fighters seized their chance. They picked their way through the minefield of brown blobs and ran for the safety of the Bum-fighting Academy mess hall.

After dispatching the other two Great White Bums in a similar fashion, the whitest of the Great White Bums flew down towards the tiny bum-fighters and landed in front of them, blocking their way.

Eleanor drew her nail-rifle. ‘Eat six-inch reinforced tungsten-tipped roofing nails!' she yelled, firing off the few remaining rounds. But the nails had no effect. They simply made a metallic pinging sound as they bounced off the bum's shiny white hide.

The Great White Bum just stood there silently.

‘I'm out of tricks,' said Eleanor desperately. ‘What have you got, Zack?'

‘This!' said Zack as he removed his medal and flung it, like a ninja star, at the Great White Bum's left cheek.

But the medal, like Eleanor's nails, bounced harmlessly to the ground.

‘That's me out,' said Zack. He turned to his bum. ‘You got anything?'

His bum emitted a short burst of gas.

‘Pathetic,' said Eleanor. ‘But thanks for trying.'

Then the Great White Bum leaned down towards them.

‘Nose-pegs on!' said Eleanor. ‘It's going to gas us!'

But instead of gassing them, the Great White Bum emitted a dazzling beam of bright white light.

‘Aaagghh!' yelled Zack's bum. ‘I'm burning up!'

‘Me too!' said Zack. ‘And I can't move!'

‘Me neither!' said Eleanor, trying to cover her eyes with her jacket.

It was as if the light was sucking every bit of energy from their bodies.

So
, thought Zack grimly:
out of the frying pan and
into the fire.
They'd escaped from the horror of the brown blob—only to be cooked to a crisp by a Great White Bum's death ray.

Zack tried to shield his eyes from the glare, but as he brought his arm up to his face he was amazed to see it become transparent and then disappear.

Zack looked down.

His whole body was disappearing.

Right in front of his eyes.

E
verything went black.

But only for a moment.

Zack blinked.

And blinked.

And blinked again.

His eyes, still dazzled by the light, slowly adjusted to their new surroundings. Zack saw that he, his bum and Eleanor were standing in exactly the same positions they were in when they'd been caught in the light.

The only difference was that they were now standing in the centre of a glass cylinder in a room that was filled with computers, levers, pulleys, cogs, springs, dials and wires. There was a bank of security camera-style
screens on one wall transmitting grainy black-and-white images. Zack squinted, but was too far away to work out exactly what the images were.

‘Teleportation complete,' announced a soothing female voice.

Zack spun around to see who had spoken, but there was nobody there. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time.

‘Teleported?' said Zack. ‘Are we
inside
the Great White Bum?'

‘I guess so,' said Eleanor, tapping the glass around them with a puzzled look on her face.

‘Wow,' said Zack. ‘I didn't know Great White Bums had control centres.'

‘There's a lot we don't know about Great White Bums,' said Eleanor. ‘Including the fact that up to half an hour ago we thought there was only
one
of them. And that we thought we'd seen the last of it.'

‘I'm scared,' said Zack's bum, hugging Zack's leg.

‘Will you cut that out?!' said Zack.

‘But I'm scared!' said Zack's bum.

‘No need to be scared!' said a voice from behind them. ‘You're with friends now!'

Zack and Eleanor wheeled around.

A bearded man wearing a tattered bum-fighter's uniform and a big smile was standing in front of them.

‘N
ed?' said Zack. The last time Zack had seen Ned was when they were leaving his shack in the Great Windy Desert after he'd helped them to plug up a deadly bumcano. ‘Ned Smelly?'

‘The very one!' said Ned, stepping forwards to slide open the door of the glass tube and embrace his friends. Luckily the terrible body odour that had earned Ned his nickname was no longer evident. Well, at least it was no worse than any other retired bum-fighter's body odour. This was because Ned had given up his diet of needleweeds and stinkants in favour of much less stinky anti-bum energy bars.

The three hugged.

‘I came as soon as I could,' said Ned.

‘What are you talking about?' said Zack. ‘You've been swallowed by a Great White Bum! You have to go where
it
goes!'

Ned laughed. ‘Wrong,' he said. ‘She goes where I tell her to go. Welcome to
Robobum
!'

Zack looked at Eleanor.

Eleanor looked at Zack.

‘Methane madness,' they said in unison.

‘No,' said Ned. ‘Just a piece of inspired design and a lot of hard work. She's the ultimate bum-fighting machine. I built her out of the parts of crashed and abandoned bum-mobiles I found in the Great Windy Desert.'

‘Robobum is a girl?' said Zack's bum. ‘Eerrgghh!'

‘Yes, well . . .' said Ned. ‘It gets lonely out there in the desert. Introduce yourself, Robobum.'

‘Hello. I am Robobum,' said the soothing female voice they had heard earlier. ‘Fully riveted reinforced steel cheeks. Turbo-assisted jet repulsion units. Nuclear wart-head equipped. Matter transport assisted entry and exit. Inside and outside voice options. Onboard tea- and coffee-making facilities. And I am self-wiping!'

‘Well,' said Ned, proudly. ‘What do you think?'

‘Is this your idea of a joke?' said Eleanor.

‘Joke?' said Ned, a little taken aback. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Making us think that we were being burnt up by a Great White Bum's death ray,' said Eleanor. ‘That's what I mean.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Ned. ‘But I couldn't think how else I could get you inside. Robobum can broadcast her voice outside, but I hardly think you would have accepted an invitation to climb aboard. Please forgive me. And try to look on the bright side: you're now safe inside the ultimate bum-fighting machine. Not only can she travel across land, fly through the air and swim through the sea, she can . . .'

‘Ned,' interrupted Eleanor. ‘I'm glad you're so happy with your new toy, but you're too late.'

‘What do you mean?' said Ned. ‘You're alive, aren't you?'

‘Yes,' said Eleanor. ‘But everybody else is dead. Half an hour ago a giant brown blob hit the open-air chapel. Everyone was squashed. Zack's parents. My
father. The Kicker, the Smacker and this year's entire intake of bum-fighting recruits.'

‘We're the only ones who got out alive,' said Zack.

Ned shook his craggy, grizzled head that showed the scars and blast-marks of a lifetime of bum-fighting. ‘I'm afraid I have even worse news,' he said softly.

‘What could possibly be worse than that?' said Eleanor.

Ned didn't reply. He motioned them to follow him over to the bank of screens flickering on the far wall. ‘See for yourself,' he said.

Z
ack stood in front of the fifty-screen display and blinked. He'd never seen so many television screens at the same time. Or so much destruction.

One screen showed giant brown blobs pounding the pyramids of Egypt into rubble.

Another screen showed a gang of Great White Bums tearing the Eiffel Tower from the ground.

A third screen showed New York being swamped by giant waves of brown sludge.

It was hard for Zack to know which screen to look at.

It was even harder to make sense of the sheer scale of the unfolding disaster. All Zack knew was that it was impossible to look away.