Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 4 by L. Bob Rovetch Read Free Book Online Page A

big
egg!
    “Greetings, Player Two,” said a voice. “And welcome to the Gator Game!”
    “The what?” I asked, looking around to see who was talking.
    “The Gator Game,” the voice repeated. “If you beat Player One, you will go on to compete in my Intergalactic Gator Game Championships! But if you lose—
bwa-ha-ha
!”
    “
Bwa-ha-ha?
” I asked nervously.
    “
Bwa-ha-ha
,” said the voice, “is Gator talk for ‘this game has only one winner, so if you value your life, you might not want to lose.’”
    I had a bunch of questions: Where am I? Who are you? What have you done with my friends? and If I’m Player Two, then who’s Player One?
    But before I could ask any of them, the underground room went crazy. Buzzers buzzed, bells rang, whistles whistled, lights flashed and earsplitting music blasted all around. If I wasn’t freaked out, it would have been cool.
    “The object of the game,” said the voice, “is to make it to the finish line before Player One—”
    “That’s it?” I thought to myself. “That doesn’t sound so hard.”
    “Without getting caught by my little Game Gator here,” the voice continued, “who should be hatching … right about … NOW!”
    The huge egg started to rumble and crack. BLAMMO! It exploded into a billion pieces, and a big reptilian creature busted out. I saw two exit signs flashing over two doorways. I picked one and ran for it.

Chapter 3

Meet Player One
    I was running for my life down a soggy dark tunnel, but I wasn’t running fast enough.
Squishy-squooshy, squishy-squooshy
—the Game Gator was getting closer and closer, and there was still no sign of Hot Dog anywhere! My mind was racing. Why wasn’t he showing up? Where in the world could he be? What if he decided to give up being a superhero? If I had to play this so-called game on my own, I was such dead meat!
    “HOT DOGGGG!” I yelled as I ran. “HELLLLLP MEEEEEE!”
    But Hot Dog didn’t show. For all I knew, I was never going to see him, or anyone else, ever again!
    “Oh, forget it!” I panted. “What good is a stinkin’ superhero partner if he’s not there when you need him, anyway?”
    Right then I saw a ray of light shining down from a hole up above.
Squishy-squooshy
—the slimy sounds were getting closer.
    I jumped toward the light, grabbed on to the opening at the top of the tunnel and pulled myself up. I held my breath and waited for the
squishy-squooshy
sounds to get quieter. When I was sure the Game Gator had lost my scent, I breathed a gigantic sigh of relief.
    Other than a messy pile of junk in the corner, the room I’d ended up in was straight out of a king’s palace. There was fancy velvet and gold stuff all over the place, and right in the middle of the room was another egg. It was just like the last one, only bigger!

    “Fancy meeting you here!” said Clementine.
    “Clementine?” I said. “How did you—? I mean, when did you—? I mean, this egg! We have to get away from this egg!”
    “No joke, Einstein!” said Clementine. “You should have seen the critter that hatched out of one of those things and chased me. It was fast
and ugly
!”
    “That’s exactly what happened to me!” I said. “Wait! Don’t tell me …
you’re
Player One!”

    “And
you’re
Player Two?” She gasped. “Bob! This is a disaster! Whichever one of us makes it to the finish line first gets out of here alive. But the other one, the loser—”
    I didn’t wait for the end of her sentence.
    “I’m too young to die!” I panicked.
    “What about me?” said Clementine. “I’m three whole months younger than you are!”
    “You are not!” I argued. “I’m three months younger than you are! Look, we don’t have time to fight about this stupid stuff. We have to do something—
now
!”
    “Wait! I think I’ve got it!” said Clementine. “What if we make up our own rules? If we play as a team, we can both reach the finish line at the very same time!”

    “Perfect!” I agreed.