Danger Guys on Ice

  “Zeek, it’s a … a … beard!”

  FOUR

  Zeek backed up and hit the wall behind him. “Oh, man! Of all the caves in this mountain, we had to fall into the one with the frozen dead guy!”

  I brushed away the snow to get a better look at the shape. It was a guy, all right. But not just any guy. Big jaw. Big teeth. Big club. Big hair.

  “Zeek!” I cried. “This is a cave guy! In fact, I bet this is one of the cave guys in that drawing. The really big one with the club. This is incredible! A real live cave guy—except that he’s dead, of course.”

  “Maybe he’s not dead,” Zeek said, leaning over the shape.

  I stopped brushing the ice. “No way.”

  “It could happen,” Zeek said. “I saw this movie once—”

  Uh-oh. Red alert. When Zeek goes into a panic, he always talks about some totally impossible movie thing as if it could really happen.

  Also, his voice gets funny—kind of high and squeaky.

  “It was about a huge fly trapped in the ice—”

  “Zeek,” I said, “this caveman’s been frozen for probably fifty thousand years.”

  “So was this fly! And then some crazy scientist unfreezes it and trains it to attack and—”

  Zeek was getting totally carried away. I had to go into my teacher voice, quick. I do that when Zeek gets a nutty idea into his head and it takes over. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that works.

  “Now, now, Zeek,” I said, talking like our teacher, Mr. Strunk. “The caveman is not really alive, you know? I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal explanation—”

  “Normal?” he squeaked. “You think any of this is normal?”

  Red alert, level two. The squeaky voice.

  “Zeek Pilinsky, take your seat.”

  “Look, Noodle, the ski lift breaks, I lose my skis, an avalanche nearly kills us, you lose your skis, we get pushed off a cliff, we fall almost to the center of the earth, but—oh, great!—we get mushed flat on a ledge instead, and then we discover a fifty-million-year-old dead guy who at any moment could get up and—”

  “Fifty thousand,” I said.

  “What?” he squeaked.

  “Fifty-thousand-year-old dead guy, not fifty-million-year-old dead guy.”

  “It’s the DEAD GUY part I don’t like!—”

  RRRR. The cave started to rumble around us.

  “What was that?” Zeek’s eyes got wide. The rumbling got closer.

  “Noodle, I don’t like this. The ice on that guy is not all that thick. Any second it could just—”

  KKRRRREEEEEEKKKKKK!

  A narrow crack split the ice right over the caveman’s face.

  “HE’S ALIVE!” Zeek screamed. “JUST LIKE THAT FROZEN FLY!”

  The ice crackled across the cave floor.

  The walls shook. Icicles and rocks crashed down from above.

  “Cave-in!” I shouted. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “Great plan,” Zeek cried. “Where?”

  He had a point. On one side of us was the Pit of Death. On the other was the pizza-sized hole in the wall.

  I did some quick thinking. Pit of Death? Pizza? Pit of Death? Pizza?

  I went for the pizza. “This way!” I shouted.

  We dodged the falling rocks and clambered up the wall. We both jumped for the pizza hole.

  Suddenly—KREKKK!—the ice broke apart, and the caveman started to move!

  FIVE

  “Aaaaaeeeee!” screamed Zeek, as he dived into the opening.

  “Eeeeeaaaaa!” I cried, as I jammed myself in next to him.

  “Ugh!” we both yelled, as we stopped halfway through.

  “Noodle, I’m stuck! Help!”

  “I can’t! I’m stuck, too!”

  We squirmed, we twisted, we tugged, we pulled. Nothing. We couldn’t budge.

  Our heads were sticking into total darkness. Our legs were still dangling in the caveman’s cave. And something was going on back there.

  “Noodle,” cried Zeek, “your hipbone is grinding into my stomach. Move it or I’ll throw up!”

  “Shhh! I want to hear what’s going on.”

  Zeek swallowed loudly. I listened. The rumbling was over. No more big crashing rocks. Now it sounded like ice breaking up.

  “It’s him!” Zeek gasped. “He’s testing out that huge club of his! Noodle, he’s going to see our legs and he’s going to grab them and pull us—!”

  Mmm … mmm. Mmm-de-mmm.

  Zeek got quiet. “Is that … humming?”

  I listened closely. “Yeah. Humming. But …”

  “A caveman who hums?” Zeek hissed. “Noodle, please get us out of here. Now!”

  “How can I think with you spitting in my ear?” I whispered.

  The ice kept cracking. The humming went on.

  “I’ve got it!” I gasped.

  “You’ve got a plan to get us out?”

  “No, I’ve got that song! It’s from an old TV show. I think it was called … The Uggo Show!”

  Then I sang it softly.

  “Back in the Age of Ice,

  When weather wasn’t nice,

  Meet Uggo and his pals,

  They’re cool Neanderthals!”

  I laughed. “Remember that song? It’s so old!”

  There was a moment of total quiet. I was sure Zeek was making one of his faces. “No kidding it’s old, Noodle. A caveman is humming it!”

  I knew a frozen dead Neanderthal caveman could not be humming a TV theme song. I knew that. Of course I did. I did!

  “It’s impossible, Zeek,” I whispered. “I’m pretty sure the caveman’s dead.”

  “Yeah, but he’s humming!”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “But he’s humming.”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “I don’t like that combination!” Zeek cried. He tried to move. “Another thing I don’t like is your hipbone in my stomach. It’s starting to give me a pain.”

  “Okay,” I said, “just don’t make any loud—”

  KA-FOOM!

  An explosion rocked the cave, and we blasted from the hole like human cannonballs. Tons of rocks and ice blasted from the hole, too. In fact, the hole itself got blasted away along with us!

  We whizzed through the darkness.

  Umph! I hit a wall and got dumped on the ground.

  Umph! Zeek got dumped next to me.

  I felt around in the dark. There was something hard and cold running beneath me. Something metal.

  “Where are we now?” I mumbled.

  Suddenly—Flink!—there was light next to me. It was coming from Zeek’s forehead.

  “Your head!” I yelped. “It’s glowing!”

  “A miner’s hat, Noodle! I found it over here on the ground. Here’s one for you.”

  He passed me a hard hat with a light on the front. “Cool,” I said, switching it on. “Now let’s see what I’m sitting on. Shine your head over here.”

  Two shiny silver rails glinted in the light from our hats. The rails led back up to the blown-up cave on one side, and down past us and around a turn on the other.

  “Zeek, we must be in a tunnel in the old mine I read about at the lodge. I bet these rails lead to—”

  Clack-clack-clack. Grrrrr. Errch. Clack. Clack.

  “What was that?” Zeek hissed, grabbing me.

  I shined my light back up the tunnel to the blasted cave. There, a big, rusty tub on wheels was creaking down the rails toward us.

  “A mining car,” I said. “The kind they used to use to move stuff around in the old mine. The explosion must have knocked it loose.”

  It was a mining car, all right. And it was rolling toward us. But there was something else, too.

  Something we could see in our headlights as the car got closer.

  “Um … there’s someone in it, Noodle,” said Zeek quietly.

  In the flickering light from our hats we could see an enormous icy shape sticking up from the mining car. B
ig hair. Big club. Big teeth. Big jaws.

  “It’s him!” Zeek gasped. “And he’s driving!”

  RRRRR! The car hit a bump on the rails and took off. It picked up speed. Lots of speed!

  SHOOM! In seconds, Zeek and I were racing down the dark bumpy tunnel, trying to keep ahead of the mining car.

  CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

  We stumbled into turns, over bumps, and down steep drops. The lights on our heads made crazy shadows on the rough walls as we ran. The tunnels zigzagged through the mountain like the Sling Shot ride at the Mayville carnival.

  And still the mining car came at us.

  I shot a look back at Uggo in the car.

  He was about to mow us down.

  CLACK-CLACK-UMPH!

  Suddenly, I was thrown into the air.

  Bong! My head hit something hard.

  I heard a groan, and Zeek’s headlight went out.

  The last thing I saw was Uggo’s huge shape lunging toward me.

  Then everything went dark for me, too.

  SIX

  Waffles.

  My brain was thinking of waffles. Maybe because when I hit whatever I hit, it made little waffle dents in my head.

  Too bad my mining hat flew off just before I hit the wall. I could still hear that Bong! going on in my head.

  I sat up and groped around in the dark. Cold rocks. Cold rails. Ice. Ice. Ice.

  “Zeek?” I said.

  “Uggo?” he groaned. “Is that you?”

  Yeah, Zeek, the funnyman.

  Flink! A light went on about twenty feet away. It was Zeek’s headlamp. Then it began to flicker.

  “Your light’s going out,” I said. “I’ll try to find mine.”

  In the dim glow I could see that we were in a big icy cavern. The mining car—and Uggo—were nowhere in sight.

  The car must have pushed Zeek out of the way and thrown me in the air. The rails ended behind me at the wall I was smushed against.

  Zeek got up, wiggled, checked his arms and legs, and started along the tracks over to me.

  Just as I found my mining hat on the ground, something happened.

  I heard some rocks sliding and scraping.

  “Noodle! I’m slipping—”

  Instantly, Zeek’s light did a weird zigzag in the air and then flashed down in front of me.

  “Noodle-oodle-oodle!” his cry echoed.

  I grabbed for him, but I was too late. I watched his light disappear into the darkness far below.

  “Zeekie!” My call bounced around and around the dark cavern.

  I shined my light into the shadows. The rails that led across to the tunnel were dangling over a deep, dark chasm. Another deadly Pit!

  My brain went nuts! I must have been thrown right over the chasm. But Zeek hadn’t seen it!

  He’d fallen between the rails straight into the pit below us. And now he was gone. On his birthday! He was lost somewhere down there. I knew for sure—

  “Um … could I have some help here?”

  Zeek?

  I shined my light down. About halfway across the ravine, clutching the skinny rails, were two hands.

  “Zeekie!”

  KKRRR! The rails started to wobble. They were coming loose on our side of the ravine.

  “The tracks are going to fall!” he screamed.

  There was no time for anything fancy.

  I dropped to the ground and slid out onto the tracks. Rocks and ice tumbled into the ravine. The rails sagged with the weight of both of us.

  Good thing we hadn’t eaten any cake yet.

  I was flat on the rails, reaching out to Zeek, just like you reach for someone who’s fallen through the ice at a pond.

  He let go of one rail, swung up a hand and grabbed mine. He did the same with the other.

  Inch by inch, I pulled him back to the ledge. We scrambled up just in time.

  CRASH! The rails tore loose from the ledge, and the tangled mess of iron plunged into the darkness of the ravine. It made a horrible sound.

  I was shaking all over. I was so nervous, I had to sit down.

  Zeek sat next to me. “Thanks, pal. You were great.”

  “Two Pits of Death in one day,” I said. “What are the odds?”

  Zeek smiled in the light from my head. “Pretty good, if you’re a Danger Guy.” He gave me a slow thumbs-up sign.

  I did the same. I was still shaking, though. “Zeek, I’ve been thinking about the cave back there. The explosion. I mean, Uggo’s just a dead Neanderthal.”

  “You hope.”

  “No, listen, Zeek. Cavemen don’t hum TV theme songs. You have to be alive to do that. There was someone else in that cave when we got stuck. Someone who set off that explosion. Someone who got that mining car moving. Someone in this mountain.”

  I tried to stand and look around, but I slipped on a patch of ice and knocked my head on the wall.

  Bong! It hurt. Again.

  Zeek grabbed my arm. “Hey, do that again.”

  I rubbed my dented head and gave him a look. “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “No, listen. Your head bonged the wall.”

  “Twice.”

  “But, Noodle. We don’t go bong when we hit rock, do we?” He tapped the wall. Bong-bong!

  “It’s metal!” I whispered. “A door! A secret door! I knew it! Zeek, this proves there is someone else here.”

  “Someone who likes caves and knows TV songs?”

  “Right.” I searched the wall all around the door. Then I stopped. I found what I was looking for.

  I turned to Zeek and pointed to a little red button on the wall. “There’s only one way to find out for sure.”

  Zeek looked at the red button. “What are we going to find in there, Noodle?”

  I shrugged. “Could be something very normal. Another dark tunnel, maybe. Just rocks and ice.”

  “Yeah, or …?”

  “Or, it could be something totally dangerous.”

  Zeek was quiet for a little while. He shook his head. Then he started to smile. “It’s that danger thing, isn’t it? It just takes over.”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  Zeek zipped his jacket all the way up. I tied my crusty bootlaces tight.

  We did our thumbs-up. We were ready.

  I pressed the button.

  VRRRRRUMP! The wall slid up and away.

  Yeah, it could have been something very normal.

  But it wasn’t.

  SEVEN

  We found ourselves staring into an enormous room built right in the center of the mountain.

  The craggy walls rose to a ceiling about fifty feet high. There was a skylight at the top. I could see snowflakes swirling outside. Zeek looked up at it, too. Then we stepped in slowly.

  The tracks continued a few feet along the floor from the outside tunnel, then stopped. The mining car was standing just inside the door, empty.

  The room beyond it was cluttered with weird scientific machinery. Big metal computers with lights and dials blinked against the far walls.

  “Someone’s been busy,” Zeek said. “This is some kind of super laboratory.”

  In the middle of the room was a blackboard covered with strange mathematical symbols.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” I said.

  Suddenly—VRRRMP! A door flew open on the other side of the lab. Zeek and I dove behind a blinking machine.

  The air roared with the growling and sputtering of a loud motor. I craned my neck to look.

  A shiny blue snowmobile drove slowly in.

  “Uh-oh,” I gasped. Strapped onto the back of the snowmobile was a giant chunk of ice.

  “Hey,” Zeek whispered, tapping my shoulder. “I know that chunk of ice!”

  We both knew that chunk of ice. It was Uggo. Still big. Still hairy. Still frozen. Just like he was fifty thousand years ago. Only now he was being driven around on a snowmobile.

  And guess who was at the wheel? The clown with the pink glasses and wild hair! He wore a
white lab coat and had a creepy smile on his face. His mustache was flopping up and down. He looked like someone from a bad horror movie.

  Mmmm-de-mmmm. He was humming the Uggo theme song.

  Zeek jabbed me in the arm. “You were right. I guess dead cave guys don’t hum.”

  The man stopped the snowmobile, loosened the straps around Uggo, and went over to a large control panel on the wall. He pressed a button.

  DJNNN! A big claw thing came down from the ceiling and closed around Uggo. It swung him over to a platform against the wall.

  Zeek turned and gave me a look. “I don’t like this, Nood.”

  He was right. It didn’t look good. I tried to check out the clown guy. Hanging from his belt was a silver pistol with blue streaks on it.

  It said Freez-Beamer on the side.

  What came next was worse. The guy looked closely at Uggo. Then he started to chuckle and giggle. Finally, he laughed out loud, shaking and twitching all over. He shook so hard, his glasses hit the floor. He twitched again, and his puffy black mustache fell off his face.

  “Noodle!” Zeek gasped, “he’s falling apart!”

  The man shook a third time and one bushy eyebrow dangled down.

  Finally—“Aaa-aaa-CHOOO!”—a supersonic sneeze echoed through the laboratory, and his big round nose came hurtling through the air.

  Splat! It landed on my right ski boot.

  I knew that sneeze anywhere!

  “It’s Mr. Vazny!” I shouted, jumping up.

  “Wha—?” the man cried out. Instantly he pulled the silver gun from his belt and swung it toward us.

  But, of course, I couldn’t stop blabbing.

  “You’re Mr. Vazny!” I shouted again. “Our old science teacher who became Dr. Morbius and tried to blow up Mayville, and Zeek and I flew all over the galaxy trying to stop you, and you almost killed us but the army came for you and locked you up, but you must have esca—”

  While I was babbling, the guy’s face got all weird. He went from shock to anger to kind of a nutzoid smile. His eyes became little slits. His real nose began to twitch.

  Zeek nudged me. “You can stop now, Noodle. I think he remembers us.”

  “YOU!” the man shouted. “YOU—YOU—YOU—TROUBLEMAKERS!”

  Yeah, he remembered us, all right.

  He waved his silver gun in front of our faces. “So! You two Action Boys or whatever you call yourselves have gotten in my way again, haven’t you?”