Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 1 (5 page)

“Well, partner,” said Hot Dog. “It looks like we didn’t need the plan after all.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s making those bubbles?” I pointed at the spot of goo where Cheese Face had disappeared. Was that the top of Cheese Face’s head?

“Oh, no!” cried Clementine. “She’s back!”

“Quick! The plan!” I screamed at Hot Dog.

Hot Dog was hanging on to Miss Lamphead’s favorite rain-forest mobile, mumbling, “Plan, plan, think, think, must remember plan.”

“Combo Number Five!” I shouted. “The plan is Combo Number Five!”

I had no idea what “Combo Number Five” meant. I knew thousands of random facts, but not this one. Was it the first letter of a combination lock that held the key to destroying Cheese Face? Or some kind of signal for the Big Bun to send a
real
superhero to come save us? All I could do was cross my fingers and hope that Hot Dog remembered what it meant. Did he???

“Thanks, partner!” Hot Dog said. “I’ll be back in a flash!” He waved good-bye and flew out the window.

“Back in a flash? Back in a flash? He can’t be serious!” Clementine howled. “
We’re
going to be
pizza
in a flash! Wonderful superhero you got yourself there, Bob. The world’s about to end, and he decides to take a little break!”

Speaking of flashes, my life started flashing before my eyes as Cheese Face bubbled up from the bottom of the slimy hot-dog-topping swamp. She was at least five times bigger than before. She was everywhere! She slowly opened her humungous black hole of a mouth, crocodile style, and swallowed the pitiful pizza soldiers in one gross gulp.

“
Eeeewww!
” Clementine said, covering her eyes. “What a way to go!”

Then Cheese Face spotted Clementine and me on top of the art-supply cabinet. The time had come. It was finally our turn. Pizza people or not, we were about to be devoured.

I turned to Clementine and said, “Well, I guess this is good-bye.”

“I’m sorry for making fun of your boring lunches,” said Clementine. “Those peanuts actually did come in handy, tripping Barfalot and his soldiers and everything.”

“No problem,” I said. “And thanks for eating all that gross cheese to rescue me.”

“A lot of good it did,” Clementine said, looking queasy.

Just then Cheese Face’s huge mouth surrounded us like a gigantic, dark cave. It smelled worse than a million rotten eggs. I’d never been so scared in my life. “If only I’d
just stayed in bed,” I kept thinking. “If only, if only…”

Just then, Hot Dog crashed back in through the window, joining us in the stinky cave of Cheese Face’s mouth just before it closed shut.

“Sorry it took me so long,” he said, catching his breath. “But you should have seen the line at Mr. Chang’s Yummy Garden Restaurant. It took
forever
to get this chow mein, wonton soup, egg roll and fortune cookie.”

“I don’t believe it!” yelled Clementine. “The world’s about to end, and
you’re
stopping for takeout?”

“This isn’t just any takeout,” said Hot Dog. “This is Combo Number Five!”

“Do you actually expect us to believe that chow mein is going to save the world?” asked Clementine.

“Yep!” Hot Dog smiled. Then he jumped straight down Cheese Face’s throat, Combo Number Five and all.

Seconds after Hot Dog took the plunge, Cheese Face made a spooky, whale-dying-in-athunderstorm kind of a noise. The stinky cave opened right up and Clementine and I jumped out of Cheese Face’s mouth.

“I don’t know if that was really, really brave or really, really stupid of Hot Dog,” I said.

Cheese Face’s belly started rumbling. The whole room rocked, rattled and rolled. It felt like we were in a radical earthquake. Then— “BLEEEGGGHHH!!!” It was the biggest granddaddy burp of all time.

Hot Dog shot out of Cheese Face’s mouth like a cannonball. Then everyone Cheese Face had gobbled up oozed right back out of her mouth in a sticky stream of goo. But they weren’t coming out as pizza soldiers. They were coming out as their regular human selves!

“I know this isn’t exactly the best time for bad jokes,” said Clementine. “But don’t you think it’s funny that Barfalot just got barfed— a lot?”

Cheese Face didn’t stop hurling. She kept right on going until there was nothing left of her at all. In the end, all that remained was poor old Miss Lamphead standing in a puddle of yuckiness, looking seriously confused.

“What just happened?” Clementine asked Hot Dog.

“It’s simple,” Hot Dog answered. “Everyone knows that the only way to stop an evil mutant alien from Pizzalopolis is with a precise mixture of ingredients: chow mein, wonton soup, egg roll and fortune cookie, otherwise known as—”

“Combo Number Five!” Clementine and I jinxed each other.

“But I couldn’t have done it without your memory, partner!” Hot Dog said. “Or your quick thinking, Clementine.”

“Thanks.” Clementine smiled proudly.

“Well, I guess it’s cleanup time,” said Hot Dog. He pushed yet another bun button, and the coolest rain-but-not-rain shower poured down on everyone and everything except Clementine and me. The river of goo was gone, Cheese Face was gone and, last but not least, Hot Dog was gone.

Miss Lamphead cleared her throat, blew her nose into her lacy purple handkerchief and said, “Now, where was I again, class? Oh, yes, I believe I was collecting your math homework. My goodness, it’s so warm in this room. Let’s open a few windows and let some air in, shall we?”