The announcer grabbed Liz’s skateboard, jumped on, started the motor, and roared off through the tables.
“Hey!” cried Liz. “He’s stealing my project!”
4
Going Shopping?
Without another word Principal Bell snatched Potadio off Mike’s table, raised him high in the air, and brought him up to the stage.
He’s so much more! everyone sang.
“This is getting weird,” said Mike.
“Weird is the word,” cried Liz. “I’m going after Rock Storm. And you’re coming with me!”
Mike paused. “But my Potadio …”
Liz dragged him to the door. “Your dumb potato will be fine, Mike. Let’s go!”
“You probably shouldn’t call him dumb,” mumbled Mike, running after Liz. “He talks.”
When they got outside, Rock Storm was racing down School Road toward Main Street. “Yes, master,” he droned. “I will, master!”
He rode Liz’s skateboard as if he were in a daze, zigzagging on and off the sidewalk.
Liz looked back over the top of the school at the WYRD radio tower. She pulled a tissue from her jeans pocket and wiped her nose. “It doesn’t look like he’s going back to WYRD.”
The tall blond radio announcer with the big voice shot across Main Street. He jumped up onto the sidewalk on the other side. Then he jerked around and stared behind him.
Liz blew her nose hard.
“Duck!” said Mike.
Liz frowned. “That’s not nice. I have a cold.”
“No, I mean get down!” Mike pulled Liz behind a newspaper stand and peeked over.
Rock Storm scanned the street and slipped into Pay & G’way, Grover’s Mill’s grocery store.
“He’s going shopping,” Mike said.
A few moments later, Rock Storm was out of the store and rolling back across the street. He carried a brown grocery bag. “Now, master, now!” he kept murmuring.
“Who’s he talking to?” said Liz.
The announcer stumbled up the WYRD steps and disappeared behind the big glass doors.
“What do you think?” said Mike. “Maybe he’s just out of Wheat-O cereal and needs more.”
A moment later—Krrzzzzz! The reception dish on top of the WYRD building began to turn. Jagged sparks, almost like lightning, shot off it.
“Something’s going on in there,” said Liz. She trotted up the steps, pulled open the doors, and darted inside the building. “And I want my Motorboard back. Even if it didn’t win a prize.”
Inside, a hissing, buzzing sound filled the air.
“It’s coming from down there,” Mike whispered. He pointed to a room at the end of a hall. A strange, blue glow came from the doorway. Sparks sputtered and flew out the door.
“This is creepy,” whispered Liz. “It’s not normal. It’s … weird science.”
Mike knew exactly what she meant. He felt a twinge of something when he saw those sparks. They reminded him of his own science project.
They crept up to the room and peeked inside.
Rock Storm was babbling to himself as he fiddled over the big control board in front of him. He was bathed in a strange blue light.
Krrrzz! Sparks flew up all around him.
“Master,” the man droned. “Your plan is working!” Rock Storm didn’t even notice that there were two kids in the room with him.
Mike edged behind the announcer and peered around him. What he saw shocked him.
Potatoes! A dozen dusty brown spuds, sparking and sputtering and giving off a blue glow.
Wires ran from the potatoes straight into the control board and up to the radio tower broadcasting signals on top of the building.
Liz nudged Mike. “What’s going on here?”
Mike frowned. “The potatoes. I think they’re … they’re … doing radio stuff?”
Bong! the clock on the Double Dunk Donut Den next door chimed the hour.
Sssss! the big pan on Usher’s House of Pancakes across the street hissed the hour.
Rock Storm, his face blue in the glow of the sparking potatoes, flipped a switch on the control board. Then he slumped down in his chair.
“Welcome to the WYRD call-in hour,” he droned. “Hello, caller. You’re on the air.”
A voice crackled from the speaker across the room. “Well, snap my suspenders and holler at my hogs!” said the voice. “My name’s Farmer Tom. People call me Farmer Tom ‘cause I’m a farmer, don’t ya know!”
“And the reason for your call?” Storm droned.
“Well, I’m out in my field a minute ago, and—boom! The dirt flies up all around me and them critters just sorta rolled outta the ground and took off across my field! Hundreds of ’em.”
Rock Storm just stared. Then his neck began to twitch, and his eyes started rolling around.
“Um … what critters, sir?” Mike said into the radio microphone.
“Why taters! Spuds! Po-ta-toes!” answered the voice of Farmer Tom. “Thousands of ’em.”
Liz shot a look at Mike. She leaned into the microphone. “And can you tell us where the potatoes went?”
“That-a-way!” the farmer’s voice answered.
“This is radio, sir,” said Mike. “We can’t see where you are pointing.”
“Well, bust my laces and string my fiddle!” Farmer Tom yodeled. “Over yonder! There! Straight to Grover’s Mill!”
5
School Daze
Clank! The microphone slid from Mike’s hand and hit the control board. A shiver of fear ran down his neck. “Potatoes? Coming here?”
Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed Mike by the shoulders. “Master says, humans are bad!”
“Whoa!” yelled Mike. He tried to twist out of Rock Storm’s grasp, but the announcer held tight. He swung Mike around and lifted him off the ground. Storm rolled his eyes, stuck his tongue in and out, and began blinking really fast. Really really fast.
“He’s looking weird at me!” cried Mike, his feet dangling below him. “I don’t like it!”
In a flash, Liz yanked a potato from the control board and pitched it hard at the announcer.
“No!” screamed Rock Storm. He dropped Mike and caught the potato. He began to pet it.
“We’re outta here!” cried Liz. She grabbed Mike, found her skateboard, and shot out the door. A second later they were on Main Street.
“What was that all about?” gasped Mike. Then he came to a dead stop. He looked down the street between WYRD and the Double Dunk Donut Den. Mike could see beyond the town to the desert spreading out to the west.
He had seen this same scene every morning from his school bus.
But something was different about it this time.
“Liz, look!” Mike pointed out to the flat brown distance. Dozens of little spirals of dust were coming from the west. “They’re coming! Farmer Tom was right, potatoes are coming this way!”
The dust spirals grew into a dark cloud.
KRRZZZ! Wild sparks sputtered and shot off the radio tower and into the air.
“That’s it!” cried Mike. “Radio waves. Just like my Potadio. It all makes sense.”
“Not to me,” said Liz, beginning to run.
“Rock Storm hooked the potatoes up to the broadcast tower,” Mike began, keeping up with her. “Just like I hooked my potato up to the radio. My potato came alive. And so did these potatoes! They sent a signal to every other potato in the world. And they’re all coming here!”
“Oh, right. That makes perfect sense,” Liz said, as she tore around the corner of School Road. “Potatoes talking and sending signals? Sure. I mean this is the Zone, after all. And did your potato tell you why this is happening?”
“No, but I have a feeling we’ll find out,” Mike said. “Once we get back to school.”
And something told Mike that what they would find at school would definitely not be good. The minute the two kids slammed through the school doors, Mike knew he was right.
The place was
very quiet. The gym was empty. Jeff Ryan was standing alone in the front hall. He was wiggling his fingers in his ears and tapping his foot very fast. “Oooh!” he said. “Ahhh!”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Mike.
Then Jeff held his hand up as if he’d just heard something. “Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah, sure. I’m coming!” He stumbled quickly down the hall, tapping his feet. “Oooh!” he droned. “Ahhh!”
“It’s like he’s hearing something,” said Liz.
Before they could follow him, Sean and Holly came stumbling out of the cafeteria. Their hands were dripping with red stuff.
“Uh-oh. Now what?” mumbled Mike.
“Ketchup,” Sean said, flicking his eyelids and scratching his ears. “We just emptied all the ketchup containers.”
“That’s … helpful,” said Mike. “I guess.”
“Uh, Holly …” Liz began.
“Don’t call me Holly,” said Holly, her voice starting to drone a little. “I’m Spudlet thirty-nine.”
“I’m Spudlet forty-seven,” droned Sean.
“All right, you guys,” said Liz. “This is dumb. Joke’s over. Ha-ha. Now, what’s going on here?”
But Holly just turned to her brother, made a little fist with each hand, and shouted, “Spud!”
“Spud!” her brother shouted back.
Then they both stumbled down the hall after Jeff, muttering, “Yes, master!”
“I think I’m going to be majorly ill,” said Liz. She looked down the hall where her three friends were heading. “Our friends are way weird and this is way not funny.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha!” Laughter came tumbling up the hall.
“Something’s funny,” said Mike. “Let’s find out what.”
The laughter was coming from Mrs. Carbonese’s classroom. Liz and Mike ran up to the door. Kids were standing in a large circle around the teacher’s desk.
A voice was coming from the circle. “… So I said, ‘Who, me? I don’t have any bananas!’ ”
The kids doubled over with hilarious laughter. When they did, Mike glimpsed a big brown lumpy thing sitting on the teacher’s desk.
“Potadio!” shrieked Mike. “He got … big!”
It was Potadio, and he did get big. He was the size of a large watermelon now, and he had started to grow features.
A little mouth grinned and showed rows and rows of shiny white teeth. And here and there on the potato’s skin were lots of green eyes, some of them growing out into long leafy sprouts.
But the grossest part was the lump on top. The big pink bulge was much bigger and pinker and bulgier than before.
“Gross,” groaned Liz. “With a capital G.”
“Hey!” cried the potato, looking up. “Here’s the boy who gave me my wake-up call! Welcome to my world, Mikey boy!”
“Uh, sure,” Mike mumbled. He pointed to the bulge. “Is that really what I think it is?”
“If you’re thinking megahuge brain, you’d be megahuge right!” Potadio said.
“You’re controlling everybody, aren’t you?” Liz asked, stepping back. “Aren’t you?”
The potato snorted and jiggled. “With supersonic brain waves, I control people’s thoughts, yes. With a dome like mine, it’s a cinch. But right now, I’ve got bigger things on my mind.”
Then one of Potadio’s sprouts curled up like a hand and tapped the bulge on the top of his head. “Get it? Bigger things on my mind? Oh, I mash myself!”
The kids cracked up again.
“But seriously,” said the potato, “how do you like the names Spudlet eighty-six and ninety-nine? Catchy, huh?”
“No way!” said Liz. “You’re not getting us!” She grabbed Mike by the arm and pulled him back.
“Look into my eyes!” shrieked the potato.
Mike looked at the vegetable. “Which eyes?”
“Any of them, they all do the same thing!”
Mike looked. Then the potato with the brain squinted his many potato eyes and gritted his many potato teeth and held his potato breath.
His brain turned purple again.
A moment later, all the students in the classroom went nuts. Jeff rattled off the ABC’s completely backward in a high-pitched voice.
Holly did back flips over the desks.
Sean began to do a dance from the sixties!
Mike shook his head. “This is very sad.”
Potadio’s eyes narrowed at Mike and Liz. “What’s with you two? Don’t you hear it?”
Liz shrugged. “Like what, for instance?”
“Like eeeee, for instance! Like my supersonic brain waves controlling your mind!” The vegetable’s brain bulged bigger.
Mike listened. “Sorry, nothing. But then, I have an earwax problem.”
Liz pulled away. “Well, that sounds yucky.”
“So!” Potadio growled angrily. “If you won’t be my spudlets, this means war!”
6
Potatoes Can Rock and Roll!
Suddenly—clack-clack-clack!
Mrs. Carbonese came running in the classroom door. She looked at the potato with the brain sitting on her desk. “Oh! Are you a substitute? Well, you are not needed today. I am here, thank you.”
“Not for long!” cried Potadio. His brain bulged big again and one of his leafy arms jabbed out at the students. “Get her, spudlets!”
Jeff stopped his ZYX’s and picked up a little green box from the teacher’s desk. He opened it, and tossed bits of chalk to the other students.
Sean and Holly turned toward Mike and Liz. Their chalk bits were drawn like swords!
The others marched slowly toward Mrs. Carbonese.
“Wait,” the teacher said. “I haven’t given you the math problems yet!”
But the students kept coming. Jeff and the others stomped up the aisle, their fingers clutching sticks of chalk no longer than an inch!
Mrs. Carbonese stepped back. “Stop or I will blow my whistle,” she warned.
But the students kept coming.
Mrs. Carbonese backed into the blackboard. The sweater fell off her shoulders! Her glasses tumbled to the desk! Her whistle slipped from her lips!
“Take your seats this instant!” she shrieked.
But they didn’t. And in that instant, Mike realized that this was a battle of good against evil.
And evil was winning.
“We can’t let this happen!” Mike cried out. “Liz, block for me!”
Liz barreled forward against Sean and the other students. Mike dived between desks to the front of the room and grabbed Mrs. Carbonese.
“Mrs. C., come with us!” Mike cried. “We’re trying to save your life!”
The teacher turned to Mike with a frightened look. “You rude boy, I will not be your wife!”
Mike paused. “Oh, never mind, just run!”
Liz climbed onto the AV cart in the back of the room and kicked against the rear wall. Whoosh! In a second she was up by the door with Mike and Mrs. Carbonese. She jumped out into the hall and ran.
Clack-clack! Mrs. Carbonese struggled to keep up with the two kids.
A moment later the hallway was filled with potato-brained students, stumbling after them.
“We need to get you to safety, Mrs. C.,” said Mike. Then he noticed a door down the hall, not far from the main school doors. “Yes! We’ll hide you in Mr. Sweeney’s supply closet!”
“But … but …” Mrs. Carbonese mumbled.
Before she could object, the two kids pushed her gently into the closet with the brooms and mops and cleaning fluids and shut the door.
“You’ll be safer in there,” Liz called through the door.
“But the smell!” came the muffled cry. “And it’s dark in here!”
“Sorry!” cried Mike. “We’ll be back for you—“ But that was all he could get out. From behind him he heard something strange. Something horrible. Something musical.
Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
When Mike turned aro
und, he froze in terror.
Out of the shadows came Principal Bell, Miss Lieberman, and Mr. Sweeney. They were pulling a long chain as they sang.
Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
On the end of the long chain was one of the janitor’s rolling buckets. And sitting in the bucket, an evil grin growing across his gnarly, bumpy skin, was—
“Potadio!” shrieked Mike. “They’re treating him like some kind of king! He’s already taken control of the school! What more does he want?”
The answer came with a sudden, terrifying, school-shattering noise.
BLAAAAAMMMMM!
The school’s front doors blasted open and a cloud of thick brown dust blew into the main hall.
Out of the cloud rolled hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of dirty brown potatoes!
“My new students!” cried Principal Bell.
“My floors!” cried Mr. Sweeney.
“My army!” cried King Spud.
7
The Horrible, Horrible Plan
Mike ducked behind the double doors of the cafeteria. Liz jumped down next to him.
“He called them his army!” Mike hissed.
The potatoes rolled across the floor and bowed before Potadio. “Come, my spudlets,” the large potato said. “And listen to my wonderful, wonderful plan!”
Sparks shot off from the huge brain as the teachers pulled the giant vegetable’s rolling bucket down the hall and off into the shadows.
“He’s growing bigger every minute,” said Liz.
Mike slumped to the floor. “Oh, man, what have I done? I made this monster. And all I wanted was to be a scientist, an inventor.”
Liz looked over at him. “Dr. Frankenstein was like that. Just a guy with a science project.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Mike made a face. “Our lives, the school, our town, maybe the whole world, are at stake. And all because of me. Potadio is all brain. He’s super smart. I have to stop him.”
“We have to stop him, you mean,” said Liz.
Mike managed a weak smile. “Thanks. I couldn’t do it without you.” But deep inside, he knew it was not going to be easy. He had messed things up big time. He had to make them right.