“Er, maybe the captain didn’t explain
himself thoroughly,” Trap piped up. “The
comet is on a
trajectory
that will cross
your planet’s orbit. You have to
leave
here
immediately!”
“And where should we go,
mouse
?”
the king asked
indignantly
.
“F-for now, you could be guests on our
ship
,” I replied hesitantly. I really didn’t
TRUST
this king! “But we will definitely
help you find another planet to live on.”
The king seemed
intrigued
by my offer.
“Another planet?” he said thoughtfully.
“Well, well. It would be
interesting
to
have two planets at one’s disposal instead of
just one. I’ll think about it!”
Then he ordered us to leave.
Trap and I
LOOKED
at each other,
perplexed. Was it possible the cosmosaur
didn’t understand the
danger
he and
his fellow aliens were in?
“I’m afraid you can’t
think
about it,” I
squeaked timidly. “You have to act
right
now
if —”
“Enough!” The king roared, baring his
fangs. “I give the commands around here!
And I command that the
Feast of the
Hot Sun
will go on whether the planet is
destroyed or not!
Subject closed!
”
The rest of the cosmosaurs roared in
approval. The king gestured for silence.
“Now, take our, er, guests away!” he
ordered. “I have to
rest
. Tomorrow we will
have a banquet of . . . what did you say you
were again? Ah, yes
—
roasted
spacemice
!”
Wh-what?
Had I heard him correctly?
A banquet of roasted spacemice?!
“Are you sure you translated that
correctly?” I asked Robotix. “We’re here to
save them and they want to
eat
us? There
must be a
mistake
!”
“No, that’s what he said,” the little robot
answered
irritably
. “I don’t make
mistakes, Captain!”
Trap and I exchanged a glance. In a split
second, I made a
decision
.
“
We have to ruuuuuun!
” I shouted.
Trap and I grabbed Benjamin’s and
Bugsy Wugsy’s paws and
ran
. Robotix
followed close behind us. But in no time, a
cosmosaur
grabbed
us and pulled us into
one of the caves. Then he ordered two other
cosmosaurs to stand in front of the cave and
keep us from
escaping
!
Mousey meteorites!
We were done for!
ah . . . ah . . .achoo!
I began to
tremble
from the tips of
my ears to the end of my tail. We were
prisoners
of aliens who wanted to
gobble us up, and there was a
COMET
headed straight for us!
“Uncle?” Benjamin’s voice interrupted my
thoughts. “What are we going to do now?”
At that exact moment, my wrist phone
beeped
. It was Thea calling from
MouseStar 1!
“Come in, Captain,” she said. “How’s
the mission going? Have you warned the
cosmosaurs
?”
“You could say that,” I replied. “We
warned
them, and they
captured
us!”
“Captured ?!” Thea gasped. “But why?”
“Well, it turns out the cosmosaurs aren’t
cute
and cuddly
like we thought.
They’re enormouse and hungry, and they
want to
roast
and
eat
us!”
“What?!” Thea replied. “That means
something’s wrong with the
ENCYCLOPEDIA
GALACTICA
. And it’s the
captain’s
duty to make sure we’re using the most
updated
version.”
Huh?! The captain’s duty?
Oops
.
“Um, well, I guess I
forgot
to do that . . .”
I muttered under my whiskers.
“So we
ventured
to this planet
thinking we’d find friendly aliens, and
instead we found mice-munching
monsters
!”
Trap squeaked angrily.
My snout turned bright
red
with
embarrassment. This mess was
all
my
fault
!
“Please, let’s not argue
now,” Benjamin interrupted
us. “We’ve got to come up
with an
escape
plan!”
“That’s right!” Thea agreed
through my wrist phone. “In the
meantime, I’ll get the space shuttle
ready to pick you up.”
Trap sat down on a
rock
so that he
could calm down a bit. A minute later . . .
drriiiip
!
A
drop
of water fell on
his head.
“That’s it!” Trap
exclaimed suddenly.
“If water is dripping
from the ceiling, that
means there’s an
opening
somewhere!”
We all looked
UP
.
There was a tiny hole in the wall of the cave
where water and a feeble
flicker
of light
came through.
“Yes!” cheered Trap. “We can get out!”
“But how?” Benjamin protested. “That
hole is so
high
.”
“I’ll take care of it!” Robotix said proudly.
“This is a job for a highly
advanced
robotic being. Namely, me!”
He took out a propeller, activated the
flight mode, and lifted himself up a couple
of inches from the
ground
.
“I’ll go up first,” he explained. “Then I’ll
lift each of you up with my
MECHANICAL
ARMS
!”
That sounded
perfect
! It was an
excellent plan, except for the fact that right
at that moment . . .
“Ah . . . ah .
. . achoo!”
I exploded in a huge
sneeze
. Then I lost
my
balance
and landed right on top of
the little robot.
Crunch!
Robotix tipped over and his propeller
blade
cracked
!
“Geronimo!” Trap
moaned
. “Look
what you just did!”
“I’m so sorry,” I
whispered
.
“When my snout
itches
like that, I just can’t control myself!”
As if that weren’t enough, my galactic
sneeze had attracted the
attention
of the
two cosmosaurs at the entrance to the cave.
They turned toward us
menacingly
.
“What’s going on in there?” they asked.
(Robotix continued to
translate
for us.)
“Oh,
nothing
,” I replied nonchalantly.
“We’re just
exercising
a bit!”
But the two
cosmosaurs
didn’t buy it.
“Yeah?” one of them replied. “Well, we
think you were trying to
escape
!”
The other one pointed to the hole at the
top
of the cave.
Holey craters!
They were on to us!
One of them immediately rolled a giant
boulder
in front of the hole. Then the
aliens sat in front of the entrance to the cave
and began to
snore
.
I'll catch you!
When
darkness
fell, Benjamin turned on
the
light
on his wrist phone.
“Luckily, we’ve got these,” he squeaked.
The beam of light
lit
up
the cave wall,
illuminating the den where
we were being held
captive
. I, too,
lit my wrist phone,
but I aimed it in the
wrong
direction
.
Instead of the wall,
the light hit my snout,
blinding
me for a
second!
I
staggered
around the cave,
STELLAR SWISS!
accidentally
flashing
the light all around me.
“Be careful, Uncle G!” Benjamin warned.
“You’re going to wake up the cosmosaurs!”
But it was too
late
.
The two aliens guarding the cave opened
their
eyes
. We cowered in
fear
, wondering
what they would do
next
. But they didn’t
even seem to
notice
us! Instead, they
focused on the beam of light. Then they
stretched out their sharp claws and tried to
catch
it!
“What are they doing?” Trap whispered.
I didn’t have a
clue
!
“It looks like they’re
attracted
to the
light,” I replied.
“That’s it!” Bugsy Wugsy squeaked. “We
can use the
light
to escape!”
“What do you mean?” I asked, perplexed.
“I get it!” Benjamin said, pointing his
wrist phone’s
light
at a spot on the wall
near the two cosmosaurs. The aliens got up
and began
chasing
after the light.
“They follow the light as if it’s
prey
,”
Bugsy Wugsy explained.
Now I understood! We could trick the aliens
into following the light around instead of
guarding
the entrance to the cave. Then
we would be able to
slip
past them!
Without losing a moment, we put our
plan into
action
. We activated the light on
one of our wrist phones and attached it to a
root
hanging from the cave’s ceiling.
The
beam
of light reached the ground
beyond the entrance to the cave! The first
Galactic Gorgonzola!
cosmosaur ran after the
light
, and soon
the second alien followed the first. Quickly
and
quietly
as mice, we scampered out of the
cave undisturbed.
*I'll catch you!
melted Martian
cheese
.
run, geronimo,
run!
As soon as we had escaped, I called Thea.
“We got away!”
“Stellar Swiss, that’s great!” she exclaimed.
“I’ll wait for you with my shuttle at the same
spot
I left you!”
We followed the directions on the map
and hightailed it down the
rocky
path. In
seconds I was out of breath, my legs
burned, and my paws were
so heavy it felt as if I was
running on two wheels of
I didn’t think I would be able to make
it back to the shuttle! But then I heard
Benjamin’s sweet voice
encouraging
me.
“Just a little farther, Uncle!” he squeaked
Look!
”
There it was! Thea’s shuttle was waiting
for us. The hatch was
open
and the engine
was
running
! We were saved!
But suddenly a
strange
feeling washed
over me, setting my
fur
on edge. I felt as
though someone — or something — was
watching
us.
How weird
.
I looked to my right as I ran, but there
was nothing there. Still, I felt the strange
presence.
Very weird.
Then I looked left, but there was still
nothing.
Very, very weird.
Finally, I glanced behind me.
Holey
craters!
A pair of
bright
yellow eyes
was staring right at me.
Wait a minute
— it wasn’t just
one
pair of eyes. No, there were
ten
pairs!
Martian mozzarella!
That’s
twenty
eyes!
With what little breath I had left, I
shouted
to my friends.
“The cosmosaurs . . .
puff
. . . are
right . . .
pan
t
. . . behind us!” I yelled.
“Run as fast as you
caaaaan
!”
There was only one small
hill
between me
and the shuttle. But I could feel a cosmosaur’s
hot
breath on my fur. The alien was trying
to
bite
my tail! I began running in a
zigzag
so he wouldn’t
catch
me.
Meanwhile, Trap, Benjamin, Bugsy Wugsy,
and Robotix had already climbed
safely
inside the shuttle. They
cheered
me on,
* If I catch you . . . * * You’re done for, mouse!
** *You’re not gonna get away!
but I was losing steam. I turned for a second
and saw the
sharp
, pointy fangs of the
cosmosaur right
behind
me. I thought I was
a goner for sure!
Then things got even
worse
!
I felt a little
tickle
on my snout, just below
my whiskers. A second later . . .
“Aaaaaaaachoooo!”
The force of the sneeze made me close my
eyes, and I
tripped
on a rock. Luckily, I
went flying forward and sailed through the
shuttle’s
open
hatch. I was
saved
!
As soon as I realized my fur was safe at
last, you guessed it —
I fainted
!
never give up!
When I woke up, we were back on board
MOUSESTAR
1
.
“Mmmm,” I murmured. “What’s
that delicious smell?”
“It’s Cook Squizzy’s
galactic
Gorgonzola
extract!” Trap
explained. “I told him if he held
the bottle open under your nose,
you’d come to
immediately
!”
“Are you okay, Uncle G?”
Benjamin asked worriedly.
“Now that we’re all
safe
, I’m fine,” I
exclaimed as I gave my nephew a big hug. “I
just gave myself a bit of a
bump
!”
I touched the
lump
on the top of my head.
“Whew!” I sighed. “We had a close call
losing those —
Aaaaaachooo
!”