. “I have way too
much
laundry
to do.” Then the aliens
escorted him to an enormouse Laundromat,
where he got busy
washing
more alien
spacesuits.
Poor Trap!
The effects of the Hypnotizer still hadn’t
worn off
!
A Party . . . with
a Surprise!
Um . . .
Hooray!
Hooray!
Hooray!
The party was
very embarrassing
for
me. The cheesix put a mozzarella necklace
around my neck and began to carry me
around like a
HERO
.
“Look, this is a
mistake
,” I said. “I am
not the Cheesemaster! I’m
not a hero!”
But nobody
listened to me.
As night fell,
music
began to
play, and
everyone
Shuffle and
shake!
Go, Robo!
Hee, hee!
began to
dance
.
Benjamin and Bugsy had a
lot of fun, especially when
Robotix tried to teach the aliens
his favorite dance, the
Robot
Shuffle
.
The cheesix were
confused
at first, but
they picked it up quickly.
Dance with me!
No, me first!
Me too!
Umm . . .
Party on!
As it turns out, the cheesix were very
good dancers
, and they could dance
all night without stopping. And GUESS
WHO they wanted to dance with? Me!
I danced and danced until my fur was
frazzled
and my whiskers were
DROOPING
. The cheesix didn’t understand
how
tired
I was.
“Cheesemaster, don’t you like the music?”
one asked me. “We can put on Taylor Swiss!
Or do you like space rap? How about some
Chee-Z
?”
I couldn’t take it anymore!
I marched up to King Spherus on my
tired
paws.
“Your Majesty, when does the dancing
end?” I asked. “My muscles are as
wobbly
as string cheese!”
“You can go to sleep now, Cheesemaster,”
the king replied. “Tomorrow you have a
busy
day!”
“Busy?” I asked, suspicious.
“Tomorrow you will complete the
second part of the prophecy,” King
Spherus answered, smiling. “That’s when
the Cheesemaster challenges the
Slurp
Monster
to a duel and frees our people!”
Ooh, the
horror!
Duel? Slurp Monster?!
I broke out into a cold sweat. My whiskers
began to
tremble
in fright.
“Slurp Monster?” I asked.
“The Slurp Monster lives on the other
side of our planet,” the king explained. “He
is a
horrible
,
GIANT
,
furry
monster!”
“
M-m-monster?
” I stammered.
King Spherus nodded. “The monster
spends most of his time
sleeping
. But when
he wakes up, he comes out of his cave and
stomps on our
mozzarella
bushes — then
slurps up way more mozzarella than he
needs! He
stomps
and
slurps
until he’s
exhausted, and then he goes back to sleep.”
“And how exactly do you expect my
brother to DUEL
this monster?” Thea
asked.
“He’s the
hero
—
he should know,” the
king replied. “And when he wins, he can tell
the monster not to bother us anymore.”
nightmare
!
I didn’t want to
fight
a monster. I wasn’t
the Cheesemaster
—
but none of the aliens
You’re not
going anywhere!
Umm. . .
believed me. There was only one thing I
could do:
run
!
I didn’t get very far before the king’s
guards
surrounded me.
“Take him to the
luxury
space cell!”
King Spherus commanded. “We must treat
the Cheesemaster well, but we must also
make sure he doesn’t
run
off
. We’ve waited
two hundred years for him to arrive!”
I’m Not a Warrior!
I’m Not!
That’s how I ended up in a luxury space
apartment — one with
bars
on the
door and windows!
I huddled on my bed,
SHAKING
like a
spacequake.
“Oh, for a
million
moons
! How am I
supposed to duel a giant monster? I’m not a
warrior
. I’m a space captain who would
rather be a full-time
writer
!” I wailed.
All I could think about was the horrible
Slurp Monster, who would surely reduce me
to space dust
in an astrosecond!
Suddenly, I heard a voice from the
window
.
What will I do?
“Geronimo! We’re here!”
I turned and
saw
Thea with Benjamin,
Bugsy, Sally, and Robotix!
I
jumped
up. “How great to see you!”
I exclaimed, relief washing over me. “How
did you
find
me?”
“It was easy,” Thea replied. “After all that
dancing, the cheesix fell into a
deep sleep
.”
Zzz
“The whole city
is
snoring
,
including the
king!” Sally
continued. “So it
was simple to
follow the
guards without
being noticed.”
“And we
found a way to
help
you, Uncle,” Benjamin added.
I brightened up. “
Really?
You
can
get
me
out?
”
“Well, not exactly . . . ” Thea replied, her
voice trailing off.
Sally nodded. “Actually, Captain, we don’t
have the
technology
to deactivate the
LASER
bars in your cell.”
It’s a
flash drive!
What is it?
“
So
then
how
are
you
going
to
help
me?
” I asked in a tiny voice.
Benjamin pulled a small
gadget
from
his pocket. It looked like a piece of cheese.
He passed it to me through the bars.
“We can help you
defeat
the monster,”
he said.
I turned as
pale
as
mozzarella.
“We contacted
the
MouseStar 1,”
Benjamin went on. “Hologramix gathered all
known data on the
Slurp
Monster
and put it on this flash drive for you. If you
connect it to your wrist computer, you can
see all the information.”
Bugsy nodded. “We discovered that the
monster has a few
weaknesses
,” she said.
“You can
STUDY
them as you prepare for
the duel.”
I couldn’t believe it. “But I’m not a
warrior
! What good will it do me to
know my monster’s weaknesses if I
faint
as
soon as I see him?”
“You have no choice, Ger,” Thea said.
I sighed. “All right. I promise I will
do
my best
.”
I needed to get to work. I didn’t have much
time
to learn all the secrets of the
Slurp
Monster
!
The Power of
Tickling!
Thea and the others left, and I
inserted
the flash drive into my wrist computer.
Rays of light shot from
the watch and quickly began
to take shape. Blinking, I
watched as two rodents whom
I knew
very well
appeared
before me.
“Professor Greenfur?
Grandfather? What
are you doing here?”
I asked.
“I knew you
would fall for it like
You
cheesehead!
Grandfather?
Professor?
a
cheesehead
, Grandson!” Grandfather
William replied in a booming voice. “We’re
not real! What you are seeing is a
three-
dimensional
image of us,
PROJECTED
from your wrist computer!”
I reached out to touch them, but my
paw passed right
through
them as though
they were cosmic clouds. They were
holograms
, just like Hologramix back
on the ship!
“I’m
confused
,”
I said. “I thought the
flash drive contained
data
about the Slurp
Monster, not you!”
“
We’ve
got the data for you,” Grandfather
replied. “Thea tells me that you’re
afraid
to
duel this monster. Is that right?”
“Well, basically . . .” I began.
“You’re as
soft
as cream cheese!”
Grandfather barked. “You need to buck up
and act like hard cheese, like a sharp
cheddar!”
“So you want me to act like cheese?” I
asked, confused.
At that point, an image of the Slurp
Monster
projected
from my wrist. Professor
Greenfur began to speak.
“As you can see, the Slurp Monster has six
arms and
one big eye
,” he began.
I gulped. “And one
enormouse
mouth!”
“They are very
rare
creatures,”
Professor Greenfur continued. “In fact, only
one or two can be found in each galaxy.
Despite their terrible appearance, they are
not as
tough
as they look. They have a
major
weak spot.”
Now I was curious. “What’s their weak
spot?”
“They are extremely
ticklish
!” the
professor replied.
Cosmic cheddar, those beasts were
ticklish? I couldn’t believe it.
“There is one way to
defeat
this monster,”
Professor Greenfur went on. “Allow the
creature to grab you. Just before you are
swallowed up, tickle it with a feather.”
“Did you say I should let it
grab
me
?” I asked nervously, but the professor
ignored me.
Then tickle
it with a
feather!
Let it grab me?
“If this maneuver is carried out correctly,
the monster will start LAUGHING
and give
up the duel,” Professor Greenfur explained.
“So
listen
up
, Grandson!” Grandfather
barked. “Tomorrow, when the duel begins,
Thea will toss you a feather. The rest should
be as
easy
as taking cheese nuggets from
a baby rodent.”
I frowned. Tickling a
GIANT
space
monster didn’t sound easy to me!
“Our time is up,” Grandfather said.
“Hologram projection will drain the battery
life of your wrist computer pretty quickly.
Behave like a
true captain
tomorrow, you
hear?!”
The images
faded
, and I was alone in my
cell. I tried to sleep, but images of the Slurp
Monster
danced
in my worried mind . . .
When I did fall asleep, I had terrible
Grrrrrrr!
Poor me!
Grrrrrrr!
nightmares
that the Slurp Monster
grabbed me and
gobbled
me down in
one bite!
Galactic Gorgonzola
, how scary!
Snore . . . Rumble!
Yawn . . .
Hey there!
The next morning,
King
Spherus
and
a group of guards came to get me.
“Cheesemaster, did you sleep well?” the
king asked. “Are you ready for the
big
duel
with the Slurp Monster?”
“Actually, I
tossed
and
turned
all
; night,” I replied. “I was too
afraid
to sleep!”
The king burst out
laughing
.
“Ha! That’s
a good one,
Cheesemaster. I like a hero with a
sense
of humor
.”
I knew there was nothing I could say to
convince him that I was not a
HERO , so
I didn’t say anything. The guards led me out
of my cell and brought me to a small
space
shuttle
. We departed for the other side of
the planet, where the monster lived.
During the trip I
looked
out the
window and saw that a space shuttle from
the
MouseStar 1 was following us. I kept
my snout shut, because I knew that my
friends
were behind me! That gave me
a bit
(but just a bit)
of courage.
When we landed, the ground began to
shake
. . .
“Just what we need
—
a
spacequake
!” I
yelled.
“That’s not a spacequake, Cheesemaster,”
Snore . . . Rumble
King Spherus said, amused. “It’s just the
Slurp Monster,
snoring
! His snores are
so strong they make the ground RUMBLE
.”
Shooting stars!
The Slurp Monster was
bigger
than I’d realized!
I thought maybe I could use the situation
Spacequake!
Snore . . . Rumble
to my
advantage
. “If the monster is
snoring so hard, maybe this isn’t the best
time to wake him,” I suggested. “We might
just make him angry.”
“The Slurp Monster is
always
angry,”
King Spherus replied. “Anyway, I know
a trick that can help you
defeat
the
monster.”
“
A trick?
” I asked hopefully. “Well, that
changes everything. What is it?”
King Spherus frowned. “You’re pretty
impatient
for a hero, Cheesemaster. I’ll tell
you when the time is ready.”
I sighed. The king just didn’t get it. I wasn’t
impatient . . .
I was frightened out of my fur!
A Rude Awakening
We stepped out of the shuttle in front of a
large
cave
.
“That is where the Slurp Monster
sleeps
,” King Spherus explained.