The Search for Snout by Bruce Coville

Author:Bruce Coville [Coville, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2014-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

12

Split Personality

I WAS STILL TRYING TO figure out who it could be when a familiar voice called, “Rod? Rod, where the heck are you?”

Elspeth!

My heart rose and sank in a single instant. She was our one hope for getting out of this mess. But if she didn’t shut up, Smorkus Flinders would catch her before she could do us any good.

I listened with dread, expecting to hear the sound of Smorkus Flinders capturing her at any moment. I wanted to cry out a warning, but feared it would only increase the chances of the monster realizing she was on the loose.

Elspeth continued walking toward us. When she was only a few feet from our door, I hissed, “Elspeth! In here!”

She grinned when she walked into the room. “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you guys!”

“Shhhh!” I hissed desperately. “Smorkus Flinders is on the loose. You don’t want him to hear you!”

She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about that turkey!”

“What do you mean?” asked Grakker.

Elspeth waved her hands as if the monster was a minor detail. “I put him in suspended animation about twenty minutes ago.”

We stared at her in astonishment.

Elspeth smiled. “I bet you’d like me to let you loose, wouldn’t you?”

“Like it?” roared Grakker. “I order you to free us instantly.”

“You could order me if I was a member of the Galactic Patrol,” said Elspeth. “But you told me I couldn’t join. So you don’t get to give me orders.”

I thought Grakker’s eyes were going to bulge right out of his head. “Undo these rings this instant!”

“They’re probably too complicated for me,” said Elspeth, settling to the floor. “After all, I’m just a little girl. I suppose I might be able to work it out. But I think we should talk first. I might want to cut a deal here.”

The rumble in Grakker’s throat was something like the sound I imagine an angry tiger must make.

“Captain, let me,” said Madame Pong. I could tell she was dying to get up and switch modules on him. She probably wished Elspeth had a head where you could switch modules, too.

Grakker grumbled, but nodded.

“Elspeth, I know you’re angry,” said Madame Pong.

“Angry!” shouted Elspeth, scrambling to her feet. “Just because you’re such snots you would put a little kid in suspended animation? Why would that make me angry?”

“Why don’t you tell us how you dealt with Smorkus Flinders?” said Madame Pong soothingly.

Elspeth smiled, and I realized again how clever Madame Pong was.

“Well,” said Elspeth, “when I woke up and there was no one waiting to greet me, I wondered where everyone was. I mean, even though you’re the kind of creeps who would freeze a kid just because she wanted to come on an adventure, I figured unless something had gone really wrong, at least Madame Pong would be there. I thought maybe you had all died in some horrible accident and I had been drifting for five thousand years in suspended animation and was lost in the deepest part of space

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