Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict by Andy Griffiths Read Free Book Online Page A

Eleanor.
    â€˜I cannot take credit for this outcome,’ said Robobum. ‘Thank Zack.’
    â€˜Me?’ said Zack, rubbing his head. ‘What did I do?’
    â€˜When you fell, your head hit the temporal navigator control panel,’ said Robobum. ‘The force not only initiated time travel, but at the same time fixed the loose screw that caused the 585-million-year error on our last trip.’
    â€˜I did all that?’ said Zack, proudly.
    â€˜It was the least you could do,’ said Eleanor.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ said Zack.
    â€˜You know exactly what I mean,’ said Eleanor. ‘It was the least you could do to make up for the botched attempt to kill the Great White Bum.’
    â€˜At least I tried,’ said Zack. ‘Better to try and fail than never to have tried at all.’
    â€˜No,’ said Eleanor. ‘Not in this case. In this case it was better not to try than to fail. You just made an enemy of the Great White Bum.’
    â€˜What are you talking about?’ said Zack. ‘He wasn’t exactly our friend to begin with!’
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘Because you tried to kill him.’
    â€˜You’ve been trying to kill him for a lot longer than I have,’ said Zack.
    â€˜Oh, really?’ said Eleanor. ‘I seem to remember that it was you who fired the first ever shot at him.’
    â€˜Huh?’ said Zack.
    â€˜Five hundred and eighty-five million years ago,’ said Eleanor. ‘And if my memory serves me correctly, I also seem to remember that you missed. ’
    â€˜Ned dived on me,’ said Zack.
    â€˜I was just trying to stop you from creating a bigger problem than we already had,’ said Ned.
    â€˜What could be bigger than Bumageddon?’ said Zack.

    â€˜Bumageddon didn’t exist at that moment,’ said Ned. ‘You were way out of line and way off mission. You might have killed the Great White Bum, yes, but by doing so, you might also have completely altered the course of bumolution and erased the possibility of humans even evolving.’
    â€˜Would that have been such a bad thing?’ said Zack’s bum.
    The bum-fighters all turned and glared at Zack’s bum.
    â€˜Just joking,’ it said quickly.
    â€˜I was only trying to do what I thought was best,’ said Zack quietly.
    â€˜Yeah, well, no more heroics,’ said Eleanor. ‘You might have a certificate and a medal, but bum-fighting is a team effort, and the sooner you realise that, the better.’
    Zack nodded dejectedly.
    Maybe she was right.
    Suddenly the silence of the forest was broken by a horrendous howl. The ground began to shake around them.
    â€˜What’s that?’ said Zack’s bum, as the howl sounded again, even closer this time.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Zack. ‘But whatever it is, it sounds like it’s in pain.’
    â€˜Robobum!’ said Ned. ‘Can you identify what is making that sound?’
    â€˜Insufficient data,’ said Robobum.
    Ned stood up and began rifling through a collection of books on an overhead shelf. He selected a thick volume called What Bumosaur is That? and beganquickly leafing through the pages. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say that’s the sound of a tyrannosore-arse . . .’
    â€˜And here it is!’ said Eleanor, as the image of an enormous, throbbing red bum, its cheeks lined with two rows of huge, sharp, dagger-like teeth, appeared on the screens and began charging towards them.

CHAPTER 26
TYRANNOSORE-ARSE
    Z ack stared at the bumcam screens. He had seen some terrifying and unpleasant sights in his short career as a bum-fighter, but few as terrifying—or as unpleasant—as this.
    â€˜What are you waiting for, Ned?’ said Eleanor. ‘Get this hunk of tin moving!’
    â€˜Robobum is not a hunk of tin,’ said Robobum. ‘I am Robobum. Fully riveted