Stampede of the Supermarket Slugs Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Bill Doyle

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2012 by Scott Altmann

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Doyle, Bill H.

  Stampede of the supermarket slugs / by Bill Doyle; illustrated by Scott Altmann.

  p. cm.

  “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  Summary: Cousins Keats and Henry tackle the difficult job of ridding the Purple Rabbit supermarket of a giant Wallenda slug.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98312-2

  [1. Slugs (Mollusks)—Fiction. 2. Cousins—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction.]

  I. Altmann, Scott, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.D7725 St 2012

  [Fic]—dc23 2011012227

  Random House Children’s Books supports

  the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For my big brothers, Tom and John

  —B.D.

  For Dylan and Addie

  —S.A.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. MR. CIGAM SPEAKS

  2. THE PURPLE RABBIT

  3. SUPER SUCKER 8000

  4. LOST ANN’S FUND

  5. MIXED-UP MAGIC

  6. CHECK BACK SOON!

  7. STAMPEDE!

  8. SLUG SHOWDOWN

  About the Author

  1

  MR. CIGAM SPEAKS

  “RUN FASTER!” HENRY shouted to his cousin. “They’re catching up!”

  “I’m … trying …,” Keats huffed.

  One of his legs was tied to Henry’s. They were running on a trail through the woods. Keats heard footsteps right behind them. His heart pounded as he fought to speed up.

  Then Henry and Keats burst out of the woods into bright sunshine.

  The waiting crowd cheered. The cousins were winning the three-legged race!

  Each year, the mayor of Tophat threw a giant summer picnic. Everyone in the small town packed the park for a day of food, music, and games.

  “There’s the finish line!” Keats panted. He spotted their moms up ahead with other cashiers from the Purple Rabbit Market.

  Keats’s mom whooped. “Way to go, boys!”

  “Watch out behind you!” Aunt Elena warned.

  Keats glanced back and his stomach flip-flopped. The eight-year-old Riske twins were right on their heels!

  “Don’t worry, cuz,” Henry said with a wink. “It’s in the bag.”

  Usually Henry and Keats made a good team. They were both nine and best friends. But Henry was faster and taller than Keats. So running with their legs tied together was tricky.

  Still, they just had to hang on a little longer.

  “We’re going to win!” Keats said with a grin. He was used to finishing books first, not races. Then—

  Splat! A sheet of paper flew out of nowhere and covered Keats’s face.

  “I can’t see!” he yelled, and stumbled against Henry.

  Keats peeled off the paper. He tried to toss it away. Instead, the paper soared up in the air. Like a dive-bombing bird, it shot down again.

  Splat! It covered Henry’s eyes. “Ack!” he cried. He made a blind rush for the finish line, jerking Keats sideways.

  Keats crashed face-first into the grass. As he fell, he yanked Henry down with him.

  The Riske twins whizzed past and won the race. Crawling, Henry dragged Keats across the line for second place—just in time. They rolled out of the way as the other teams sped to the finish.

  Henry laughed. “That was hilarious!” he said, pulling the paper off his face. He shoved it in his pocket so he could untie their legs.

  Keats spit out a mouthful of grass. “That was the opposite of hilarious,” he groaned. Had he really just wiped out in front of the whole town?

  As everyone clapped and hooted, the mayor strode over from the judges’ table. He gave the Riskes the first-place trophy. Then he handed a tiny second-place medal to the cousins. Henry pinned it to his shirt and made a funny bow.

  “Thank you, you’re too kind!” he gushed, kidding around. “Thank you to all our fans!”

  “Oh brother,” Henry’s mom said. She put an arm around Henry’s shoulders and ruffled Keats’s hair. “Congratulations, Keats. I’m surprised you could even finish the race with a ham for a teammate!”

  After the awards were handed out, the crowd broke apart. People wandered over to the barbecues to start grilling lunch.

  When they were alone, Henry offered the medal to Keats. But Keats shook his head. He felt lousy about falling down. “Keep it,” he said. “You deserve the medal more. I tripped.”

  “How about we share it?” Henry said. “Besides, tripping wasn’t your fault. This crazy sheet of paper was out to get us!” He took the paper from his pocket and started to rip it up.

  Meep. A sound came from the paper.

  Keats frowned. “What’s that noise?” he asked.

  Henry shrugged and kept shredding the paper.

  Meep! Meep!

  “Hold on,” Keats said. He took a closer look. Parts of a drawing were on each scrap of paper. A nose covered one piece. An ear was on another. A third piece had an eye—and the eye was winking at him!

  All thoughts of the race flew out of Keats’s head. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked.

  Henry’s jaw had dropped. He tugged Keats over to a picnic table. They put the paper back together like a puzzle.

  Soon a colorful drawing of a face gazed up at them. The face had a patch of hair on top and a pointy beard. It was Mr. Cigam, the magician! He had hired the cousins to do odd jobs around his house earlier that summer.

  “Stunner,” Henry said. “This must be some kind of magic note!”

  Keats nodded. “It was trying to get our attention during the race.” He put the last piece—the mouth—in place. Right away, Mr. Cigam started to talk.

  Greetings, Henry and Keats!

  I have a new odd job for you. A Wallenda slug has invaded the Purple Rabbit Market! If I cannot get rid of it, the supermarket will be named a hazard zone and shut down.

  Your tasks are to catch that slug and remove it from the supermarket before someone else discovers it. When you complete those two things, I will arrive to pay you for your work.

  Sincerely,

  Archibald Cigam

  P.S. I’ve left you the recipe for Sleep-Slug Potion in the store’s office. The recipe is in the—

  Mr. Cigam’s voice was cut off. A gust of wind blew the scrap of paper with his mouth off the table.

  “Get that mouth!” Keats said. “He was about to say where the recipe is!”

  The scrap fluttered in the air like a butterfly. Keats dove for it but missed. Henry chased the mouth as it wafted over a big bowl of cheese puffs. It landed in a jug of pink punch. Henry stuck both hands in the punch.

  A little girl licking cheese-puff powder off
her fingers watched him splash around. “Yuck,” she said, and ran off.

  “Sorry!” Henry called after her. He plucked the paper out of the jug and put the mouth back in the picture. But the paper was all soggy. The words came out sounding mushy.

  “Theeee … recipeee,” Mr. Cigam’s mouth said, “is … in the …”

  Henry and Keats leaned forward to hear better.

  “… lost Ann fund.…”

  Then the paper lips became so soggy, no words came out at all.

  “The potion recipe is in ‘lost Ann’s fund’?” Henry said. “Who’s Ann?”

  Keats shook his head. “I have a bigger question. Do we even want to do this?” he asked. “The last time we worked for Mr. Cigam, we almost got eaten by a crazy shark-headed zombie!”

  Henry’s face turned serious. “Cuz, we have to do it for our moms,” he said.

  The cousins looked over at the snack table. Their moms were laughing with the other workers from the Purple Rabbit Market. If the store were shut down, they would all lose their jobs.

  Keats sighed. “We don’t have a choice,” he agreed.

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Henry said, scratching his chin. “After all, how tough can it be to catch one slug?”

  Keats’s stomach flip-flopped again. When Henry scratched his chin, it was a sure sign that he was lying.

  2

  THE PURPLE RABBIT

  THE COUSINS HOPPED on their bikes and pedaled up and down the hills of Main Street. The library, the basketball court—all of Keats’s favorite spots sat empty. It felt like riding through a ghost town.

  The supermarket had closed for the picnic, too. The front doors were locked, so Keats and Henry went around to the back of the store, where trucks made deliveries. The big metal door slid open with a loud squeak.

  Inside, the Purple Rabbit was quiet and dark. Keats shivered. He’d never been in the store when no one else was around.

  Henry flicked on the lights. The ends of thirteen shopping aisles stretched out in front of them. Each had high shelves packed with cans, boxes, bags, and jars.

  “How are we going to find a tiny slug in this huge place?” Keats asked.

  Henry shrugged. “Mr. Cigam gave us that magic wand after our last job. Maybe we should have brought it along.”

  “I left the wand at home this morning,” Keats said. “I knew you’d use it to win races at the picnic. Or for one of your nutty World’s Greatest Plans.”

  “My World’s Greatest Plans are not nutty!” Henry protested.

  Keats rolled his eyes. “What about your idea to make our own cotton candy from cotton? Or raffle off a playdate with bats? Or when—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.” Henry laughed. “I promise no World’s Greatest Plans for today, all right?”

  Keats groaned. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “This time I mean it, I swear.” Henry drew an X across his heart with a finger. “Let’s just catch the slug and get back to the picnic.”

  They decided to split up to search the store. Henry headed off to hunt through the meat department, snack aisle, and cleaning products. Meanwhile, Keats checked produce, frozen foods, and the bread aisle. But he found no sign of the slug among the bananas, ice cream, or bagels.

  Keats was digging through loaves of bread when he heard a clattering sound. Henry flew around the corner on the back of a shopping cart.

  “Whoa, Thunder!” Henry said. He came to a halt and stepped off the cart.

  “Thunder?” Keats asked, trying to hide his smile.

  “What?” Henry grinned back. “You call your bike Roget after the thesaurus guy. Why can’t I name a shopping cart?”

  Keats laughed, and then glanced at his watch. They’d already been in the store for twenty minutes. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the whole picnic. And the fireworks!” he said. “We need to be smarter about hunting the slug.…” He snapped his fingers. “I got it!”

  Keats pulled Henry over to one of the checkout lanes. He ducked behind the counter and pushed aside a few grocery bags on the shelf. Behind them, he saw what he was searching for—a stack of coupon books.

  “Mom brought one of these home yesterday,” Keats said, grabbing a book off the top of the pile. “A map of the store is on the back. We can use it to check—”

  “ATTENTION, ALL SLUGS!”

  The words made Keats jump. Henry had picked up a microphone for the sound system and was yelling into it. His voice boomed out of speakers around the store.

  “Attention, all slugs!” he repeated. “Super savings specials on slug snacks await you in aisle eight!” He took a breath. “And now I’d like to entertain you with a song—”

  Keats lunged for the microphone. He clicked it off before Henry could start singing.

  “Henry, this is serious,” Keats said. “Our moms will lose their jobs. We need to find that slug before—”

  “No problem, cuz,” Henry said, gazing over Keats’s shoulder. “Done deal.”

  “Ha,” Keats said.

  Henry pointed behind Keats. “No, really. Look.”

  Keats turned around. His jaw dropped. The slug was wriggling down aisle eight toward them … as if it had heard Henry.

  “Holy moly,” Keats said.

  In many ways, the slug looked like the ones in his dad’s vegetable garden. Its slimy body was shiny yellow with bright orange speckles. Red eyes waved on the ends of two stalks on its head. And as it crawled along, a thick trail of gray slime oozed behind it.

  But in one major way, this slug was nothing like other slugs.

  “Oh man!” Henry shouted. “That thing is huge!”

  The slug was the length of Keats’s arm and looked like it weighed at least twenty pounds.

  “This can’t be real,” Keats said. He rubbed his eyes. But the creature was still there.

  Keats tucked the store map in his back pocket as the cousins slowly approached the giant slug. Henry crouched down next to it.

  “Careful!” Keats warned. “It might be dangerous!”

  “Don’t be a chicken,” Henry said. “It’s just a big bug.”

  “A slug’s not really a bug,” Keats couldn’t resist saying. “It’s a gastropod. Kind of a snail without a shell.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Henry said, not really listening. He grabbed the middle of the slug and picked it up.

  The slug’s eyes squinted shut. With a phlurrrrth, slime squirted out of its skin.

  “Yuck!” Henry cried. He dropped the slug. Keats jumped back as its jiggly body bounced against the floor. The slug’s eyestalks waved in opposite directions. Then it turned around and started back down the aisle.

  Henry snatched a dish towel from a display rack and wiped the slime off his hands. “Ugh,” he said with a wrinkled nose. “I feel like a giant just sneezed on me!”

  “We need another way to pick it up,” Keats said. He spotted a row of extra-large glass jars on a bottom shelf. He poked airholes in the lid of one with the pen in his jacket pocket. A few steps away, Henry found bright blue oven mitts. He put on two and tossed a pair to Keats. Then they each grabbed two spatulas with long handles.

  Following the slime trail, they quickly caught up with the slug. Henry and Keats got on either side. They slid the four spatulas under the slug and lifted. It was like picking up a log of pudding.

  “Easy does it,” Henry said. Carefully, they popped the slug into the jar. Keats screwed the lid on.

  Henry lifted the heavy jar and looked through the glass. “I think I’ll name this little guy … Squirt.”

  Keats laughed. “Okay, Squirt it is. Let’s take him out of the store. Then we can get back to the picnic!”

  As they headed toward the door, Squirt started doing something strange inside the jar. He twisted and stretched his body, pressing it against the glass in different shapes.

  “What’s Squirt up to?” Henry said.

  Keats took the jar to get a better look. “He’s making letters with his body!”
<
br />   Squirt made an l. Then an h, and more letters. He was spelling something.

  lhet me out oar u wil b sory

  Stunned, Keats said, “You know what that means?”

  “Sure,” Henry answered. “Squirt isn’t a very good speller.”

  “No,” Keats said. “It means that—”

  Just then Squirt squinted his eyes shut again. More slime squirted out of his skin. The jar filled up so fast that slime shot out of the airholes. Glops of it ran down the glass sides. The jar slipped from Keats’s hands, dropped to the tiled floor—

  And rolled away, taking Squirt with it.

  Like a hamster on a wheel, Squirt rolled his jar along the back wall of the store. He had enough speed to push through the swinging doors of the storage area.

  By the time Henry and Keats caught up with him, Squirt was bumping the jar against an enormous crate. Bang! Bang! The crate was twice as tall as Keats and the side of it read PUFF-TASTIC CHEESE PUFF SNACKS.

  “Hey, Squirt!” Henry said. “Knock it off! You’re going to give yourself a headache.”

  Squirt didn’t listen. He kept ramming the crate. Just as Keats reached for him, the side of the crate came loose. It fell over with a whomp, crashing onto the jar. The glass shattered. Squirt squirmed out from under the heavy wood and broken glass. He was free.

  “Rats,” Keats groaned. “Now we have to catch him again.”

  “Uh,” Henry said. “I think we’ve got bigger problems.” He backed away from the crate. “Much bigger.”

  Keats followed his gaze. Henry was staring into the dark crate. At first, all Keats could see were torn cheese-puff wrappers.

  Then, looking farther back, he saw what Henry meant. The crate was packed from top to bottom with giant slugs!

  3

  SUPER SUCKER 8000

  AS HENRY AND Keats watched in shock, twelve more Wallenda slugs tumbled out of the box. They piled up in a slimy heap behind Squirt. Like him, these slugs were huge. But their skin was green instead of yellow. And the beady eyes on their eyestalks were black, not red.

  “Unfair,” Keats whispered. “Mr. Cigam said there was just one slug.”