Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 1 Read online

  and the Seriously Scary Attack of the Evil Alien Pizza Person

  by L. Bob Rovetch

  illustrated by Dave Whamond

  For Niko, who started it all,

  and for Kia, who finished it—L.R.

  To Maria and Zachary—D.W.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Hearing Voices

  Chapter 2 Partners till the Very End

  Chapter 3 The Big Cheese

  Chapter 3½ Introducing Cheese Face

  Chapter 4 Mutant Students

  Chapter 4½ It’s All in the Timing

  Chapter 5 FlyingWeenie to the Rescue

  Chapter 6 Mozzarella Misery

  Chapter 7 He’s Alive!

  Chapter 8 She’s Alive!

  Chapter 9 Barf-o-Rama

  Chapter 9½ Spicy Hamster

  Chapter 10 One More Time

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Hearing Voices

  The day I met Hot Dog was just like every other day at Lugenheimer Elementary School. Right up until lunchtime, that is.

  “Yum! A cookie, salami, french fry and banana sandwich with chocolate syrup, ketchup and mayo,” said my best friend, Clementine.

  “You make the grossest sandwiches,” I said.

  “They’re not gross,” said Clementine. “They’re creative. Maybe you should try being a little more creative with your lunch sometime, Bob.”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m happy with my—”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t tell me,” said Clementine. “Your peanuts and pizza. You’ve had the exact same lunch every single day since first grade. I just don’t get why you won’t ever try anything new.”

  “Some people like new stuff, and some people like the same stuff,” I explained. “I’m a samestuff kind of a guy. Besides, peanuts are cool. And pizza? Well, just one slice of pepperoni pizza contains—”

  “I know, I know,” Clementine interrupted me again. “Exactly blah-blah vitamins and blahblah minerals and blah-di-boring-blah, blah, blah!”

  Our friend Marco laughed so hard that milk came squirting out of his nose.

  On top of being a same-stuff kind of a guy, I guess you could say I’m also a useless-facts kind of a guy. I remember all kinds of useless stuff, like how many teeth great white sharks have (about 3,000). And how much of the Earth is covered by deserts (about one-fifth). My parents say I have a memory like an elephant. I say that’s why I always need to keep plenty of peanuts handy.

  Right about then, somewhere between Marco’s nose squirting milk and me totally losing my appetite, I heard it.

  “Hey, buddy!” a strange voice called. “Would ya hurry up and open this thing? I could use a little air in here.”

  “What did you say?” I asked Clementine.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Clementine replied.

  “Was that you?” I asked Marco.

  “Was what me?” Marco asked, wiping milk off his shirt.

  “That voice,” I said. “Where did that weirdsounding voice come from?”

  “In here!” the voice shouted. “Open up your stinkin’ lunch box!”

  “Whoa! That was a good one,” I said to Marco. “How’d you learn to talk without moving your mouth like that?”

  “Dude, I told you I didn’t say anything,” said Marco.

  I knew no one could actually be talking to me from inside my lunch box, but I opened it anyway. And that’s when my life changed forever. Someone actually was talking to me from inside my lunch box. And that someone was a hot dog!

  Chapter 2

  Partners till the Very End

  “What took you so long?” asked the talking hot dog. “A couple more minutes and I woulda been lunch meat!”

  I didn’t know what to do. I mean, it’s not like there’s a rule book that tells you how to act if you find a talking hot dog in your lunch box. So I slammed the lid down as fast as I could and pretended nothing was wrong.

  “Dude! What’s your problem?” asked Marco.

  “Are you okay, Bob?” asked Clementine. “You look like you’re gonna puke!”

  “I, um, gotta go,” I said, grabbing my lunch box and running out of the lunchroom.

  “Have a nice trip!” Barfalot said as I ran by. He stretched out his leg and tripped me with his foot, launching me straight into the trash can. “See ya next fall!”

  “‘See ya next fall!’ That was a good one!” Pigburt and Slugburt giggled.

  As you can probably guess, Barfalot, Pigburt and Slugburt—the Terrible Triplets— are dirty, rotten bullies. Barfalot’s the leader, and the other two are his brainless bodyguards.

  Anyway, I didn’t have time to get into a fight. I climbed out of the trash can, picked up my lunch box and ran to the boys’ bathroom as fast as I could.

  I double-checked to make sure I was alone. Then I slipped into a stall and locked the door.

  I was hoping I’d open my lunch box and realize that the whole thing had just been some kind of weird daydream. But when I looked inside, the hot dog was still there.

  “Who are you?” I whispered. “How come you’re in my lunch box?”

  The strange little guy stood up on my pizza. “Hot Dog’s my name, fightin’ bad stuff’s my game!” he said, with his tiny little hot-dog hands on his tiny little hot-dog hips.

  “Ohhh-kaaay,” I said.

  “Whenever there’s big alien trouble on another planet, the Big Bun sends one of us superhero hot dogs from Dogzalot to help out,” he said proudly.

  “The Big Bun?” I laughed.

  “Hey, buster!” the little guy said, shaking his finger at me. “If the Big Bun says you got big trouble, then believe you me, you got big trouble!”

  “All right, I believe you! I believe you!” I said. “But how come you’re in my lunch box?”

  “Well, kid, it’s like this,” he said, sitting down on my bag of peanuts. “I kinda got this, well, this … what is it they call it again? Oh, yeah! This little, uh, memory problem.”

  “Memory problem?” I repeated.

  Hot Dog sighed. “Seems on my last mission I kind of bumped my head on Rocky the Rock Monster’s fists. Hey, how was I supposed to know the guy’s hands were made out of granite?”

  Hot Dog sighed again.

  “Anyway, the Big Bun says from now on I need backup,” Hot Dog explained. “She doesn’t trust me to handle the job alone. Says I gotta have a partner with a good memory. You know, just until mine gets back to normal.”

  “Um, excuse me, Mr. Hot Dog, sir,” I said. “Are you saying this, uh, Big Bun picked me to be your partner just because I have a good memory?”

  That was pretty hard for me to believe. You’d think if an alien ruler was going to pick a human to save the planet, she’d pick some extra special kid, like my buddy Marco. Marco won the spelling bee for our entire county. Plus, he’s the best skateboarder at Lugenheimer Elementary.

  But me? Well, I’m just Bob—pretty much your normal, average guy. Bob, who does fine in school, but doesn’t take home any awards. Who plays sports, but doesn’t score the winning point. Who tries to be nice and stuff, but doesn’t save the world or anything! And now a superhero hot dog was saying I got picked to be his partner because I have a good memory? Talk about weird!

  But unless I was dreaming, weird or not, it was true!

  “Listen, kid,” Hot Dog said, leaning in close. “You don’t have to call me mister. Call me Hot Dog. After all, from now on it’s me and you stickin’ like glue. Partners till the very end!”

  “The very end of w-what?” I asked rather nervously.

  “The very end of my mission on your planet, of course,” said
Hot Dog.

  “Oh! That very end!” I said. “So, er—what exactly is your mission on my planet?”

  Just then, the bell rang.

  I was dying to find out what Hot Dog’s mission was, but I’d have to wait. My teacher, Miss Lamphead, hated it when we were late. “Come on,” I said. “I gotta get to class. I can’t wait to show you to my friends.”

  “No sirree, Bob!” Hot Dog said, hiding under my pizza. “This mission is top secret. I’ll hide out here until the time is right.”

  “Right,” I said, making sure to leave my lunch box open a crack for air.

  I took a deep breath and walked down the hall, trying my best to look like someone who didn’t have a talking hot dog in his lunch box.

  Chapter 3

  The Big Cheese

  I made it to class just as the late bell rang.

  “Is everything all right, Bob?” Miss Lamphead asked nicely.

  “Yes, Miss Lamphead,” I said, sliding my lunch box under my desk.

  “Are you sure, dear?” she asked. “You don’t look very well.”

  “Maybe it was that little trip Bob took to the trash can!” Barfalot yelled out.

  “Ha, ha, that’s a good one!” Pigburt and Slugburt snorted. “‘Little trip to the trash can!’ Ha, ha!”

  “Please wait your turn to talk, boys,” Miss Lamphead said. “I’ll call on you just as soon as I can.”

  Miss Lamphead was always nice and thoughtful, even to the Terrible Triplets. But all of a sudden she was the one who didn’t look very well.

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Lamphead said, patting her forehead with her lacy purple handkerchief. “I hope I didn’t accidentally eat something with cheese at lunchtime. I’m terribly allergic to cheese, you know.”

  At first Miss Lamphead just looked kind of pale. But then she started getting sort of yellow and strange looking. Suddenly she stared straight at me with this freaky, wild-eyed expression. Then when she opened her mouth to talk, somebody else’s voice came out.

  “We do not tolerate late children on Pizzalopolis,” she roared. “And we will not tolerate late children here! You will write ‘I am extremely dumb for being late’ 437 times in a row. And when you are done with that, you will erase every speck on this floor with your pencil eraser!”

  I started feeling sick to my stomach.

  “Wow,” I heard Hot Dog say. “She’s even stricter than the Big Bun!”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I whispered. “Miss Lamphead’s usually really, really nice.”

  “Excuse me, Miss Lamphead,” Clementine said, raising her hand. “What do you mean Pizzalopolis? I thought you were from Nebraska.”

  “Who said you could talk? You noisy, nosy child!” snapped Miss Lamphead. “You will write ‘I am extremely dumb for asking questions in school’ 964 and a half times. And then you will make lots and lots of tiny little pencil marks on the floor for Late Bob over there to erase.”

  “Bob and Clementine sittin’ in a tree,” sang Barfalot, “E-R-A-S-I-N-G!”

  “Ha, ha!” snorted Pigburt and Slugburt, who had no clue what E-R-A-S-I-N-G even spelled.

  Well, that’s when things got really interesting. Miss Lamphead turned from sort-of yellow to all-the-way yellow, kind of like cheese. In fact, exactly like cheese. My teacher was turning into a gigantic cheese pizza right in front of our eyes! Pepperoni and all kinds of other pizza toppings popped up all over her body, which was getting bigger and rounder every second. Oh, and did I mention the mozzarella? Melty mozzarella oozed out of her nostrils. That was the sickest part of all!

  Chapter 3½

  Introducing Cheese Face

  I know this whole thing sounds impossible, but it’s true. My sweet old teacher had turned into an evil mutant alien pizza person faster than you could say “hold the anchovies.” It was like watching a seriously scary horror movie, only there was pizza instead of popcorn, and the movie was real!

  Cheese Face (formerly known as Miss Lamphead) planted her big, round body right in front of the classroom door. There was no escape.

  Chapter 4

  Mutant Students

  Cheese Face pointed her long, cheesy finger and—ZAP!—the entire row of kids next to the door turned into walking, talking (and, I hate to admit it, but kind of delicious-looking) kid-size pizza slices with hands and feet and faces. The rest of the class totally freaked out. Everyone started screaming.

  The icky mutant pizza monster laughed.

  “Just a few million more pizza-slice soldiers to follow my every command and I will rule the world!”

  I leaned down and whispered into my lunch box. “Um, Hot Dog, I think I might have just figured out what your mission is.”

  “Like I said,” Hot Dog whispered back. “If the Big Bun says you got big trouble, then believe you me, you got big trouble!”

  Cheese Face pointed at the desks by the hamster cage, and a bunch more kids turned into pizza soldiers.

  Just then I heard a squeak-squeak sound coming from the pet corner. I looked over and realized that no one, not even a hamster, was safe from this evil alien’s pizza magic. Our class pet, Esmeralda, was now a bite-size slice of pizza with whiskers and a tail.

  The pizza-slice kids were walking around like cheesy zombies. Everyone else raced to the back of our classroom, away from Cheese Face. Everyone except Barfalot.

  “Hey! No fair!” whined Barfalot, who was still his regular annoying self. “How come they get to be pizza soldiers and I don’t? I’d be better at taking over the world than those stupid jerks any day!”

  Cheese Face slowly turned her weird, drippy body to face Barfalot. “You are the whiniest, brattiest, rudest little creature I’ve met on this worthless planet so far,” she said in a low, creepy voice. Then she smiled. “I like it! I’m going to make you the general of my army. I will boss you around, and you will boss them around.”

  And with one point of Cheese Face’s famous finger, my least favorite person in this entire world became my very worst nightmare: General Barfalot, uniform, tomato sauce and all.

  Chapter 4½

  It’s All in the Timing

  “Oh, goody gumdrops,” said Clementine. “Not only do I get to become an unattractive food item, I also get to be bossed around by a dork with the IQ of a freckle’s freckle.”

  Clementine was right. Seeing sweet old Miss Lamphead transformed into a mutant pizza was bad. Watching my friends turn into pizza-slice zombies was even worse. But having to follow Barfalot’s orders, now that was going too far.

  “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job or anything,” I whispered into my lunch box. “But isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to come in?”

  “It’s all in the timing,” said Hot Dog. “Just watch and learn, kid. Just watch and learn.”

  “Hey, you! Late Boy!” Cheese Face belched. “Wanna tell the rest of the class why you’re talking to a lunch box?”

  “N-n-n-no th-thank you,” I stuttered.

  “OPEN IT!” she shouted.

  Now I know I’d only known Hot Dog since lunchtime, but a guy has to protect his partner, right? I mean I couldn’t let down the Big Bun, could I?

  “No!” I said. “I won’t!”

  “Then I’ll open it myself!” Cheese Face said, snatching the lunch box out of my hands.

  And that’s when things got really, really interesting.

  Chapter 5

  Flying Weenie to the Rescue

  My lunch box exploded open, and Hot Dog flew into the air. “This pizza party’s over!” he announced, just like a real superhero.

  “Who’s the flying weenie?” asked Marco.

  “That’s no flying weenie,” I said. “That’s my partner, Hot Dog. He’s going to save us!”

  “Ohhh-kaaay,” said Clementine. “But if he’s our only chance, I’m not exactly getting my hopes up.”

  Cheese Face tried to zap Hot Dog. But Hot Dog kept flying around the classroom, doing triple flips and fancy loops. Cheese F
ace missed every time.

  “Whoa! Awesome tricks!” said Marco. “Somebody get that little dude a skateboard!”

  “Okay, back me up here, partner,” Hot Dog called down to me.

  “What do I do?” I called back.

  “You’re the one with the memory,” said Hot Dog. “Just remember the plan!”

  “What plan?” I panicked. “You never told me the plan!”

  “Are you sure?” said Hot Dog. “I could have sworn I told you the plan.”

  “Believe me,” I said. “You never told me the plan!”

  “Oops! My mistake!” Hot Dog said, zipping around Cheese Face’s drippy, grabbing hands. “Now let’s see—what was the plan again?”

  Clementine rolled her eyes and gave me this look. It was a this-flying-weenie-is-off-his-rocker-and-we’re-doomed-for-sure kind of a look.

  I wished that when the Big Bun was up there on Dogzalot choosing a superhero hot dog to save our planet, she had picked one who still had a memory and didn’t need a partner. But no such luck.

  Just then Hot Dog said, “I remember now! The plan is Combo Number Five!”

  “GOTCHA!” Cheese Face cried. She had Hot Dog trapped in one hand. The other hand was busy zapping the remaining kids into pizza-slice soldiers.