Super Schnoz and the Invasion of the Snore Snatchers (5 page)

There was nothing.

“Maybe it was a moose or a black bear,” TJ whispered.

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever it was, it's gone now.”

And that's when a cannon blast of frigid water hit me full force in the stomach.The water pressure was so powerful it knocked me off my feet and sent me nosefirst into a thick maple tree. My Mardi Gras mask flew off my head and landed on a branch above my head. Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers got the same treatment. The intense surge of water sent them flying a good ten yards into a stand of white pine.

When I came to my senses, I saw Dr. Wackjöb emerge from the woods dragging a fifty-footlong fire hose.

He looked at Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers. “That's what you get for trespassing!” He then turned to me, an angry scowl on his face. “And as for you, Gríöarstór Nef, that was for ruining two hunks of my precious hákarl!”

CHAPTER 11

ROTTEN SHARK MEAT

I
reached for my bottle of cayenne pepper, ready to sneeze Dr. Wackjöb back to the Paleozoic Era, but Vivian stopped me.

“Stop spraying us!” Vivian shouted. “We have proof that aliens exist!”

Dr.Wackjöb lowered the fire hose. “What kind of proof?”

“A video,” TJ said. “The kid you called
Gríöarstór Nef
—whatever that means—has been visited by aliens. They shove big pipes up his honker and make him snore.”

A look of skepticism washed over Dr.Wackjöb's face. He held up the hose, like he was going to water blast us again. “I've been laughed at and shunned by the scientific community,” he said bitterly, “I won't allow a bunch of children to make fun of me too.”

“We're not here to make fun of you,” Vivian pleaded, and then plucked the flash drive from her pocket and tossed it at Dr. Wackjöb's feet. “Plug this into your computer and watch it for yourself,” she said. “It's a video of weird aliens doing some nose experiment on Schnoz.”

Dr.Wackjöb picked up the flash drive, rubbing it gently with his fingers like it was a precious diamond. He looked at us, back down to the flash drive, and then back at us again. “What are your names?” he asked.

“Vivian.”

“TJ.”

“Mumps.”

“Jimmy.”

“Andy,” I said. “But my friends call me Schnoz.”

“Or, if you get on his bad side,” TJ added,“he'll become Super Schnoz and pepper-sneeze you all the way back to Iceland. This guy's whiffer has the power to blow up a fleet of armored tanks and blast an eighteen-wheeler in half.”

Dr.Wackjöb stared at my nose for a long second. “I like the name
Gríöarstór Nef
for you better. Follow me. My computer's in the observatory.”

All of us looked like dripping wet rats as we trekked to the observatory.

Vivian handed me my mask. “Here,” she said. “You're not Super Schnoz without your disguise.”

“I might as well leave it off now,” I said. “Dr. Wackjöb's seen my face so what does it matter?”

The Not-Right Brothers and Vivian plugged their noses as soon as we stepped into the compound.

“That smell is disgusting,” Jimmy choked.

“It reeks like your gross old Super Schnoz suit,” Mumps gagged.

“That's the building where he dries the meat,” I said. “The place is full of the stuff.”

“Ask him what it is,” Vivian said.

I broke away from the gang and caught up with Dr.Wackjöb. “Excuse me, but can you tell me about that meat drying in that building? What's it called again?”

“Hákarl,” Dr. Wackjöb said, not breaking a stride. “It means
rotting shark
in the Icelandic language. It's a delicacy in my country served at the midwinter Þorrablót Festival.”

My nostrils flared wide. Any food that started with the word
rotting
made my nose hairs tingle with delight. “How do you make it?” I asked.

Dr. Wackjöb explained the fine art of hákarlmaking as we walked. A butcher kills, guts, and debones the shark. He then leaves the meat to rot in a hole covered with stones for two months. After that, he dries the meat in a well-ventilated room for another two months.The Hákarl is then ready for eating.

“Why do you let it rot?” I wondered. “I mean, why not eat it fresh?”

“Sharks that live in the waters around Iceland are poisonous,” Dr.Wackjöb answered in his funny accent. “Those sharks don't have urinary tracts like you and me. That means they must secrete their urine from their skin. The high amounts of uric acid in the meat are so concentrated that eating it can cause people sickness. If you allow the shark to decay, the urine is naturally removed from the flesh making it digestible.”

I looked over my shoulder to see if Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers had caught Dr. Wackjöb's hákarl explanation. From the sickly green expressions on their faces, I could tell they heard every word.

The observatory was a lot bigger than I had remembered from my first visit. The place had a round roof and was as large as a four-story building.When we walked inside, I saw computers, printers, and other beeping gadgets that looked so hi-tech I didn't know what they were for.

Above our heads was something extraordinary.

“The glass is beautiful,” Vivian said with a hint of awe in voice.

“Like something from a church,” Mumps said.

“What you are looking at,” Dr. Wackjöb explained, “is a telescope mirror that allows me to see ten billion light-years into the universe. I call it the Cosmoscope, and the viewer can observe planets that orbit distant suns. I have seen new planets form in spectacular supernova explosions.”

“This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life,” TJ said, his mouth hanging open in wonderment.

“Where did you get the glass for the lens?” Jimmy asked.

“I made it myself,” Dr.Wackjöb said with pride. Vivian's eyes lit up. “How'd you do it?”

We listened intently to Dr. Wackjöb's every word as he described the fascinating process. “I heat chunks of glass in a large furnace at two thousand degrees Fahrenheit,” he explained. “The glass melts into a syrupy liquid and then drains into a large mold. The glass takes ninety days to cool enough for the finishing touches.”

“How do you make—” TJ started to ask, but Dr. Wackjöb cut him off.

“Enough questions for now,” he said. “I want to see this video.”

I snatched the flash drive out of the seismologist's hand. “No one sees this video until you answer my question,” I said, my nostrils flaring. “What does
Gríöarstór Nef
mean?”

CHAPTER 12

PLANET APNEA

G
ríöarstór Nef means
vast nose
in Icelandic,” the doctor explained.

In an instant, the Not-Right Brothers were laughing so hard that tears rolled down their cheeks.

“We should have called you Super Gríöarstór Nef!” TJ guffawed.

“Very funny,” I said sarcastically. “I wonder what loser translates to in Icelandic.”

“Loser is
tapar
in my native language,” Dr. Wackjöb said.

“Knock it off, you guys,” Vivian ordered. “All four of you are
tapars
as far as I'm concerned. Let's watch the video so we can get down to business.”

I handed the flash drive back to Dr.Wackjöb and he connected it to his computer.The video started to play and his already pale complexion grew even paler when the creepy shadow materialized into an alien on the screen. I winced inside as the little gray nose-molester shoved the hoses up my two sniffers.

When the video ended, Dr. Wackjöb was speechless. He sat up, walked over to the Cosmoscope, and sat there in silence for what seemed like an hour.

“Um…excuse me, Dr. Wackjöb,” Vivian said. “Aren't you going to tell us what you think of the video?”

“It's…it's…” Dr. Wackjöb stuttered. “Utterly amazing. It's the concrete proof I have been searching years for.”

“Then why do you seem so upset?” Mumps asked.

“I'm not upset. I'm just stunned because four American children found the proof before me, a highly educated scientist.”

“Who cares who found it,” I said. “The question is what are we going to do about it?”

“We have another one,” TJ said.

“Another what?” Dr.Wackjöb asked.

“Last night's video of Schnoz sleeping.”

“Then let's see if our vast-nosed friend had another alien abduction.”

When Dr. Wackjöb said the words “alien abduction,” a cold shiver went up my nose. I had never thought of my experience in those terms before. But that was my reality. I was the unconscious victim of a human nose experiment conducted by aliens from outer space.

The first six hours of the video were all the same—me sleeping—so Dr. Wackjöb fast-forwarded until we saw the first wisps of a shadow form above my bed. It took all of my courage to keep watching. I mean, who knew what the aliens were going to shove up nose next?

“This is the same thing that happened the night before,” Vivian said.

Dr. Wackjöb pressed a finger to his lips, indicating for everyone to be quiet. This time, the shadow formed into
two
aliens. They were identical with tiny slits for noses and mouths and huge eyes.The hoses they used for my nose were twice as large as they'd been the first night.When the aliens shoved them inside my nostrils, I flailed so much that a third alien materialized from the dark cloud and held me down.

Then the snoring happened: loud, rumbling snorts that shook the room and made my dresser topple over. A small crack fissured its way up my wall. The aliens turned and looked at each other. Their once dark, soulless eyes now beamed with a fluorescent green light.

I heard a loud thump directly behind me. Mumps had passed out again.

“They're communicating with each other,” Jimmy said.

“I bet they're talking about how big Schnoz's nose is,” TJ said. “Or about all his boogers.”

“They're Apneans,” Dr.Wackjöb muttered.

“That's exactly what I thought too,” Vivian said. “Schnoz has a horrible case of sleep apnea.”

Dr. Wackjöb shook his head. “I said
Apneans
, not apnea. Follow me to the Cosmoscope.”

Dr. Wackjöb turned on a switch, played with some knobs, and the farthest corners of the universe, looking as if they were only inches away from our faces, popped up on a giant screen.The celestial sky twinkled like someone had spilled a jar of silver glitter onto black construction paper.

A series of
oohs
and
ahhs
went up from Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers. Dr. Wackjöb positioned the mouse on his computer and a flash of light in the middle of deep space appeared on the screen.

“Is that a star?” TJ asked.

“No,” Dr.Wackjöb replied. “It's a planet, proof that other life-forms exist in the universe. I have named it Apnea.”

“Why Apnea?” I wondered out loud.

“Apnea comes from the Greek, meaning
to breathe
,” Dr. Wackjöb explained. “The study of this planet is my living breath. It is all I live for. That is why I have named the planet Apnea.Watch as I zoom in closer.”

The screen grew fuzzy for a moment and then became as clear as a green booger on a white tissue. Mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, buildings, and UFOs flying through the planet's airspace came into view.

“Wow,” Vivian said. “This is just like looking at Google Maps, but instead of a neighborhood you can see a whole planet.”

“Gríöarstór Nef,” Dr. Wackjöb said to me, “this is the planet Apnea, four billion light-years from Earth. Home of the aliens that are snatching your snores.”

CHAPTER 13

SNORE DESTRUCTION

W
e have to let the world know!” TJ shouted. “This is the greatest discovery in the history of mankind!”