Future Ratboy and the Invasion of the Nom Noms. Jim Smith

are some factoids about Mr X:

      1. He is the evilest man in Shnozville.

      2. He stomps around town inside a giant metal scorpion, zapping stuff with its tail.

      3. He zapped the wheelie bin that transported me here from the past, and now it’s disappeared, which means I might never get back home.

      ‘Any luck finding your bin, Future Ratboy?’ asked Dr Smell, stuffing his hanky back into his pocket, and I stared at the bite marks above his nostrils, thinking how they looked a bit like eyebrows. If his nostrils had been eyeholes. And the bite marks had been hairy.

      ‘No, we haven’t been able to find it at all,’ I said sadly, imagining my mum and dad and little sister sitting on the sofa at home, wondering where I was.

      Twoface kicked me up the bum, but in a nice way, and Jamjar pulled a turquoise plastic triangle out of her jacket pocket. She tapped it with one of her loads of fingers.

      ‘I’ve been trying to locate Ratboy’s bin with my Triangulator,’ she said, looking down at the triangle. ‘It seems Mr X’s lasers discombobulated the bin’s internal metrics. I reset the Triangulator’s homing modules, but even that didn’t do the trick!’

      ‘I see . . .’ said Dr Smell, his eyes staring blankly in front of him like he was watching TV, and the Floaty Note 6000 did a little cough to remind us about Bunny’s shopping.

      ‘Anywaaay . . .’ said Twoface, squirting another splurt of walnut and pavement flavour chocolate milk into his mouth. ‘I’d love to stand around here all day talking about bins, but we’ve got hand care products to buy.’

      ‘Of course, don’t let me stop you having your fun!’ said Dr Smell, disappearing into his perfume shop, and we headed off down the street.

      I peered up at the sky, careful not to look at the suns. ‘Still can’t believe there are two suns here in the future!’ I said, and Twoface rolled his eyes because he still can’t believe that I still can’t believe there are two suns.

      Three Nom Noms - one yellow, one orange and one green – whizzed past on the other side of the street, stopping to bite a three-headed dog on its noses.

      ‘They’re everywhere!’ whimpered a voice from behind a bollard and I spotted Splorg’s cup-covered nose, sticking out like a sore thumb. Actukeely, not at all like a sore thumb. More like a nose with a cup stuck over the end of it.

      I ran over to the bollard and jumped on top of it, Future-Ratboy-zooming my eyes around, trying to see where all the Nom Noms were coming from.

      The two suns were shining in my eyes, and all I could see was a sky full of annoying-looking hairy rectangular silhouettes.

      I said in my superhero voice.

      squawked Not Bird, following the Floaty Note 6000, which had floated off down a tiny little side street.

      We followed the Floaty Note 6000 across the road and down the tiny little side street, waggling our hands in the air to protect our noses from all the Nom Noms.

      ‘Tinderbox Alley,’ said Twoface, reading what it said on a dirty old street sign. ‘Never been down here before . . .’

      The side street was about a centimetre narrower than the width of a hover-car, which meant there were no hover-cars going down it - only people. The buildings on either side zigzagged into the sky and each one had a tiny little shop at the bottom of it.

      A man wearing a back-to-front hover-cap, a baggy white F-shirt^* and really, really long shorts^** was walking down the middle of the road with his arms stretched out in front of him like a zombie and his nose twitching in the air.

      *F-shirts are for people whose arms are both on the same side.

      **Actukeely, they were trousers.

      ‘Hey, I’ve seen him in Bunny Deli loads of times!’ said Jamjar, pushing her glasses up her nose for the eight-millionth time that day, and I wondered why she didn’t invent a pair of glasses that didn’t slide down her nose.

      Just then an old lady in a hover-wheelchair vroomed past us, her eyes staring straight ahead.

      ‘Doesn’t she come into Bunny Deli sometimes too?’ said Twoface.

      Not Bird fluttered over to Splorg and landed on his head, which is something Not Bird likes to do.

      screamed Splorg, running round in a circle like his ears were on fire. ‘Let’s get the keelness out of here!’

      ‘Calm down, Splorgy Baby, it’s only Not Bird!’ I chuckled, as the Floaty Note 6000 floated up to a dingy, closed- looking shop.

      ‘Harry’s Handy Hand Shop,’ said Jamjar, reading what it said on the sign above the door.

      ‘Quick, before we all get chomped!’ said Splorg, turning the handle, and the door creaked open.