Читать книгу The Garbage Monster from Outer Space - John R. Erickson - Страница 5

Chapter One: Prowlers in the Night

It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. It all began innocently enough. Never in my wildest dreams would I have supposed that I would run away from the ranch, join up with a band of wild cannibals, and then be attacked by a Garbage Monster from Outer Space.

Pretty heavy-duty stuff, huh? You bet it was. A lot of dogs couldn’t have handled all that adventure, and a lot of dogs would have been scared to death by an invasion of Garbage Monsters from Outer Space. For me, it was just another job on the ranch.

Have I mentioned that I’m Head of Ranch Security? I am, and it’s a very dangerous job. When monsters from outer space land, I’m the one who gets the call.

Anyways, it must have been around 0600 on the morning of September the something. The fourteenth or fifteenth, I guess. It was still pitch-black outside and the air had the smell of fall. Drover and I had spent most of the night doing Sweeps and Patrols of headquarters.

We were exhausted. Who wouldn’t have been exhausted? We had checked out the machine shed, the chicken house, the corrals, and the saddle shed. We had routed a couple of Night Monsters out of those bushes near the cellar and barked a reply to a bunch of noisy coyotes.

Drover was ready to call it quits. So was I. We’d done our job. We’d brought the ranch through another dangerous night and it was time to warm up our gunnysacks. We fluffed up our sacks and collapsed. Within seconds, we were both . . . I almost said “sound asleep,” but at that very moment, I heard a sound.

Was that some kind of clue? Think about it. “Sound” and “sound asleep.” Maybe not, but the point is that just as I was standing on the diving board of life, preparing to go soaring into the swimming pool of . . . something . . . sleep, I suppose . . . just as I was so-forthing, I heard an odd sound.

Clunk.

I responded at once. I lifted one Earascope and used it to probe the darkness for other soundatory patterns. Sure enough, there were more sounds: scratching, rattling, and rustling sounds. Some­thing was going on out there, and even though we were worn out and exhausted, we had to respond. After all, we were the elite troops of the Security Division, the ranch’s first line of defense against . . . well, you name it. Anything and everything.

“Drover, I’ve just picked up some strange signals on E-scope. You’d better go check it out.”

I heard new odd sounds, these coming from Drover: “Mork snirk buzz bumble.”

“Drover, wake up. You’ve been chosen for an important mission. Congratulations and wake up.” No answer, just more incoherent grunts and wheezes. “Drover, I’ll give you a count of three to wake up. One. Two. Porkchop sizzle pizzle buzz­bomb murgle.”

Okay, maybe I dozed off in the middle of the . . . hey, who wouldn’t have dozed off? I was exhausted, wiped out, worn down to a nubbin from all the cares and worries of protecting the ranch. But it was a short doze. I was jerked from the warm vapors of sleep. E-scope was picking up more signals out there in the darkness.

Clunk. Scratch. Rustle. Rattle.

Okay, that did it. I hit the Exit Sleep button and kicked all the Wake-up Circuits over into Data Control’s master program. I jacked myself up to a sitting position and . . . well, yawned. That’s what we do when we’ve been yanked out of a peaceful sleep. It’s very important. It loosens up the jaw muscles and the tongue muscles, and it also rushes fresh air into the body cavity.

I yawned and then beamed a hot glare at my sleeping assistant. “Drover, wake up.” Nothing but grunting and wheezing. I would have to go to sterner measures. “Drover? Scrap Time!”

Now get this. His head shot up and he leaped to his feet and began staggering around in a circle. “Scraps! Oh my gosh, it’s dark, I’m blind! Hank, help, I can’t see, and somebody stole one of my legs!”

“Easy, son. You’re not blind.”

“Then how come I can’t see anything?”

“It’s still dark. I haven’t barked up the sun yet.”

“Oh my gosh, what day is it? Who’s on first? Where’s my leg?”

Waking up Drover was always an interesting experience. “Your leg is just where you left it, and so is the day. Just relax.”

“Oh, okay.” He collapsed into a heap, I mean, went down like a rock.

“Hey, get up. You’ve got work to do. Get out of that bed or I’ll have to growl you out.”

He staggered to his feet again. “No, don’t do that, you know I can’t stand criticism in the morning.” He blinked his eyes and looked around. “Gosh, it’s dark. I thought you said it was Scrap Time. You lied.”

“I did not lie, Drover. I told a small fib to wake you up. There’s a huge difference between a fib and a lie.”

“Like what?”

“A fib is a small lie for your own good.”

“What’s so good about it?”

“You’ve been chosen, out of all the dogs on the ranch, to lead an important mission. I didn’t want you to miss out on this great opportunity. Congratulations.”

“Gosh, thanks.” He yawned.

“Don’t yawn when I’m talking to you. It’s impolite and disrespectful.”

“But I just woke up.”

“That’s no excuse. There’s a time to yawn and there’s a time to un-yawn.”

“I ate an onion once. Made me sick as a dog.”

“Well, what did you expect? If you’re a dog, Drover, you can’t very well be sick as a horse. Had you ever thought of that?”

“Not really.”

“So there you are. It all fits together.” There was a moment of silence. I thought I heard him yawn again. “Did you just yawn?”

“No, that wasn’t me.”

“Good. What were we discussing? I seem to have lost my train of thought.”

“Onions.”

“Yes, of course. Drover, you should never eat an onion. It will make you as sick as a horse, but that’s not what we were talking about.”

“We’d just decided to go back to bed.”

“Exactly. Well, good night, Drover, I hope you get a good . . . wait a minute. I just woke you up.”

“Yeah. I fibbed, but it was for my own good. You said that was okay.”

I stuck my nose in his face and gave him a growl. “Listen, you tuna, I woke you up for a very important reason. I picked up signals on E-scope. I want you to check it out. Do you have any problem with that?”

“Yeah. What’s an E-scope?”

“Ears, Drover. Earatory Scanners. Earascopes.”

“That’s three names. I only have two ears.”

“If you keep blabbering and wasting my valuable time, you might end up with only one ear. Now get out there and see what was causing those odd sounds.”

He walked around in circles. “Which way? I don’t know where to go, and boy, this old leg is . . .”

“Over there, Drover, toward the garbage barrels. I’ll stay here and defend Command Central. We’ll maintain constant radio contact. Oh, and your code name for this mission is Flaming Pretzel.”

He burst out with a silly giggle. “Tee-hee, that’s funny—Flaming Pretzel.”

“It’s not funny at all, Drover. It’s not only very serious, it’s also Top Secret. Do you realize that we’re the only dogs in the world who know the true meaning of Flaming Pretzel?”

“Yeah, and even I don’t know what it means.”

“Exactly, and neither do I. That gives you some idea of just how secret and important this mission is. Even those of us who will carry out the mission can’t be trusted with its true meaning. Congratu­lations, Drover. Now get on with it. Good hunting.”

With much whimpering and whining, he set out on his mission. Once he was gone, I . . . heh, heh . . . did a quick spin around my gunnysack and flopped down. See, I had done some calculations and figured that I could grab ten minutes of sack time before I had to bark up the sun. When you’re Head of Ranch Security, you grab your sleep when it’s grabbable, because when it’s not grabbable, it’s . . . snork murk borgle muff . . .

Perhaps I dozed. Yes, I’m sure I did, but I was soon dragged from my slumbers by the crackling of the radio.

“Hank, this is . . . I forgot my name, over.”

“Porkchop.”

“Okay. Hank, this is Flaming Pork Chop, over, and I’ve found something out here, over and over. You’d better come check it out, over and over and over.”

Huh? Over and over and over? Who was . . . what the . . . oh, yes, it was Drover. Do you get the secret meaning? Over + Dr = Drover.

I shook the sleep out of my vapors. “This is Command Central to Flagrant Pretzel. Come back on that last repeat. Report. Repeat the report.”

“I’ve found something out here and it looks pretty serious. You’d better come see, over and under.”

I heaved a sigh and pushed myself up on all fours. Well, my sleep was finished and duty was calling. I yawned. We always yawn first thing . . . I’ve already said that. I yawned and stretched and rolled the muscles in my enormous shoulders, and lumbered out into the predawn darkness to find my nincompoop assistant.

Chances were that he had found nothing at all, or maybe a stray cricket, but I had to check it out. That was my job, after all, and when you’re Head of Ranch Security, the bug stops here. Within seconds, I had located Drover’s position.

He was crouched behind a chinaberry tree. “Okay, what seems to be the problem?”

“Well, let me think here. I saw three garbage barrels.”

“Yes, that checks out. Those are Sally May’s garbage barrels. She puts garbage in them and burns it once a week. What’s the point?”

“Well, there’s no garbage in them.”

“Hmm. That’s odd. How do you explain that?”

“Well, it’s scattered all over the ground.”

“Hmmm. That’s even odder. Sally May isn’t the kind of woman who throws her garbage on the ground. I don’t like the sound of this, Drover. Could it be that she’s undergone a complete change of personality?”

“Yeah, either that or those five coons tipped over the barrels and scattered the garbage.”

HUH? Five coons?

And so it was that the mystery began, a mystery that would soon lead me into deadly combat with a clan of coons, and would end with me being . . .

You’ll see.