Tank & Fizz Read online

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Text copyright © 2015 Liam O’Donnell

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 Mike Deas

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

  recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known

  or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  O’Donnell, Liam, 1970–, author

  Tank & Fizz: the case of the slime stampede / Liam O’Donnell; illustrated by Mike Deas.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0810-2 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4598-0811-9 (pdf).—

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0812-6 (epub)

  1. Graphic novels. I. Deas, Mike, 1982-, illustrator II. Title.

  III. Title: Tank and Fizz.

  PN6733.036T35 2015 j741.5'971 C2014-906602-3

  C2014-906603-1

  First published in the United States, 2015

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951651

  Summary: A goblin detective and a technology-tinkering troll set out to solve the mystery

  of the escaped cleaning slimes.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing

  programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through

  the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British

  Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Jenn Playford

  Illustrations and cover image by Mike Deas

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, Stn. B

  Victoria, BC Canada

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  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

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  18 17 16 15 • 4 3 2 1

  For Atticus,

  the newest little monster in our clan.

  — Liam O’Donnell

  For Annie

  — Mike Deas

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Slime Surprise

  Slimes and Spiders

  Clues and Bullies

  Gremlins and Tentacles

  Snag Speaks

  Caught in Weaver's Web

  New Caretakers and Deal Makers

  Quakes and Dust

  Shadows and Strangers

  Weekend and Writers

  News and Tickles

  Bullies and Balls

  Purple Goes Pow

  Ticklebot 2.0

  Smuggling Slime

  Cloak and Swagger

  Hoarding the Hoard

  Gremlin Tea Party

  Return of the Slime

  The principal’s car got eaten first.

  One minute it was sitting in the parking lot, the next it was under a jiggling green slime the size of a school bus. And it wasn’t alone.

  Slimes covered Gravelmuck Elementary. Globs slurped across the playground. Goopy tentacles wrapped around metal climbing frames. Bubbling puddles lurched through the school’s front gates. Green gunk gooped everywhere. It looked like a slag giant with a nasty cold had sneezed on our school.

  But I should stick to the facts. Facts are important in my line of work. The name is Fizz Marlow. I’m in fourth grade. I solve mysteries. Hey, it’s better than doing homework. Oh, and I’m a goblin. You don’t have a thing against goblins, do you? Good.

  To a detective like me, facts are like cookies. Chocoslug cookies. Yum.

  Fact number three might be nitpicking, but even a kobold in first grade knows cleaning slimes don’t have teeth. They are all about the acid. Sizzling acid that can strip the scales from your back and take the shine out of your wings. Slimes are efficient cleaners. The best in Rockfall Mountain. That’s the place we goblins call home. Slime acid is perfect for getting dried troll boogers off drinking fountains. It scrapes bugbear poop off polished stone floors pretty good too.

  This morning, Principal Weaver’s front fenders were on the menu. Eaten or dissolved, the effect was the same—no more car. Old Eight-Legs would be walking home today.

  Tank was my best friend, troll-tinkerer and detective partner. Now she could add lifesaver to that list. With another slime coming our way, that life didn’t look like a long one.

  The slime had us cornered on the steps of Mr. Trellik’s antique shop. The old troll lived in his shop, which was across the street from our school. He was always yelling at kids to stay away, keep the noise down and basically stop being kids. Rumor had it that the stone statues for sale in his shop were really the remains of children who had got too close to his front door. Tank and I were real close. That didn’t seem to bother my best friend.

  “That mailbox is made of solid brass,” Tank said. She pulled a pair of zoomers over her eyes. She adjusted the dials on the goggles to get a closer look. “No wonder the slime went straight for it.”

  “And I thought it was because of my sparkling personality.”

  The door behind us whipped open, totally ruining my witty comeback.

  Tank and I both fell backward and landed face to toe with a pair of warty feet.

  Mr. Trellik glared down at us.

  “Whatever it is you’re selling, I don’t want it!” Mr. Trellik snapped.

  The old troll was the color of slug soup. Steam drifted up from the tiny teacup in his large hand. One fact about Mr. Trellik—the old troll loves his tea. Mr. Trellik’s eyes nearly popped out of his bald head when he saw the massive slime at the bottom of his stairs.

  “My mailbox!” he shrieked. He marched down the stairs, shaking his teacup at the slime. “You filthy brute! How dare you eat my property!”

  “Careful, Mr. Trellik!” boomed a deep voice from the other side of the street.

  Mr. Snag, our school caretaker, ran across the road. He carried a long toolbox in his big hands. The large ogre was out of breath. His round belly heaved in and out. It looked like a mud ball getting pumped up and deflated over and over again.

  “My slimes ain’t filthy,” Mr. Snag said when he caught his breath. “Don’t be hurting their feelings.”

  “Feelings!” Mr. Trellik spat. “These blobs are barely alive. They certainly don’t have ears, and I doubt they have feelings.”

  “That might be true, but you don’t have to go and say it. Besides, my slimes can’t resist the taste of such high-quality brass.”

  Mr. Trellik took a sip of his tea, considering Mr. Snag’s words.

  “I do only use the finest materials.” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you butter me up, you old ogre! Get that slime off my mailbox before I call the police!”

  Judging from the sirens in the distance, the cops were already on their way. Mr. Snag’s large ears drooped down the sides of his hairy head like a pair of sad wings.

  Poor Mr. Snag. He was always cleaning up other people’s messes. He got your ball down when an older monster roofed it. He unblocked the toilet when Rizzo Rawlins and his goons jammed it with toilet paper or some unlucky first-grader. This mess was different. All caretakers in Slick City need a license to use cleaning slimes. There are strict laws on who can control slimes. In the wrong hands or left to slurp around on its own, a slime could cause a lot of damage. My school’s dissolved playground was proof of that. And so was Mr. Snag’s worried face.

  Mr. Snag was in charge of the slimes at Gravelmuck Elementary. He watched over them like they were his own children. This mess was his mess.

  The ogre pulled a small glass cube out of his toolbox. He tapped the cube. It h
ummed and grew bigger, until it was the size of a backpack. When it had finished growing, Mr. Snag held a solid-looking glass box. One side of the cube opened like a door.

  Mr. Snag held the glass box closer for us to see. “This ain’t magic,” he said. “It’s the finest in trollish engineering.”

  Tank’s troll ears perked up. She was an aspiring engineer. To her, Mr. Snag’s boxes were like candy to a double-mouthed sugar sucker.

  “Are those sunken pistons?” she said.

  Mr. Snag grinned. “And invisible gearing. A machine so perfect, it beats magic in every way.”

  Mr. Snag placed the box on the ground beside the blob. He reached into one of the many pockets on his red coveralls and pulled out a small piece of dark stone.

  “Obsidian.” He winked. “Slimes cannot resist the taste of obsidian.”

  He dropped the obsidian pieces into the box. Immediately, the slime oozed toward the black stone.

  “Can it smell it?” I said.

  Mr. Snag shook his head. “Slimes don’t have noses, Fizz. They feel the vibrations of stones. It’s like they can hear rocks. And when they hear obsidian, they come slurping.”

  The slime totally forgot about Mr. Trellik’s brass mailbox. It poured itself onto the obsidian and into the glass box. Amazingly, the box was able to hold the entire slime’s body.

  “Another feat of engineering.” Mr. Snag grinned. “Tiny pistons in the box’s lining massage the slime and make it shrink to fit in the box.”

  He pushed the lid closed with one large foot and picked up the glass box. Inside, the slime happily devoured the chunk of obsidian like it was a candy-coated rock bug.

  “Won’t the slime’s acids just eat through the glass?” I asked.

  Mr. Snag’s large ears wiggled with delight. “That’s the beauty of it! The glass is actually made from refined slick.”

  “The goop sucked up from under the harbor?”

  “The very stuff,” Mr. Snag said. “Slimes can’t stand the stuff, so they don’t eat it.”

  The slime’s body squished up against the glass of the tiny box. Already, the piece of obsidian was smaller.

  “Impressive,” I said.

  Mr. Trellik snorted. “I’ll be more impressed when these beasts are gone from the front of my shop! I have a very important shipment coming today. I cannot have slimes here to greet my customers.”

  The old troll pointed to a poster hanging beside the door to his antique shop.

  “Firebane!” I said. “The dragon from the Dark Depths?”

  “The very one.” Mr. Trellik grinned. “He has come upon hard times and chosen to sell off some of his estate.”

  “You mean, ill-gotten loot,” Mr. Snag said. “That old dragon has terrorized the good people of Rockfall Mountain for centuries.”

  “That is not my place to say.” Mr. Trellik shrugged. “I’ll have the wealthiest monsters from all over Rockfall Mountain visiting my store this weekend. Slimes are not invited!”

  I peeked inside his shop. The place was packed with old furniture, parts of ships and display cases of gems and jewelry. The floors were black as the Dark Depths and polished to a shine. I’d never been inside, but it looked like a fun place to get lost. If Mr. Trellik wasn’t around, that is.

  “It’s a good thing the slimes didn’t get a look at the floor inside the shop,” I whispered to Tank.

  “Obsidian,” she said. The floor tiles of Trellik’s shop were made of the slimes’ favorite treat. “You can’t cut through that stuff. All the banks are built out of it. It is expensive, but very secure.”

  “And delicious if you’re a slime,” I said.

  A shadow fell across the front of the antique shop. A voice bellowed from above.

  “Do not panic!”

  “You’re making a big mistake!” I shouted. Not like that was going to stop the police from stuffing Mr. Snag into their car.

  “You’ve got the wrong ogre!” Tank said.

  Something was definitely wrong. I felt it right down to my tail. And a good detective knows to listen to his tail. I ran down the steps to the police car.

  “Mr. Snag loves his cleaning beasts,” I said to the cop holding the car door open. “He would never let them escape like this.”

  “That’s nice, kid.” The cop smiled like I was some first-grader bragging about losing a fang. He pushed Mr. Snag into the backseat of the car. “Your caretaker has keys to both the slime cages and the front door of the school. We know what we’re doing.”

  “Zip it, Osborne!” A large ogre in a rumpled overcoat came around from the other side of the car. He looked like he washed his face in lemon juice. “This is a police investigation, not show-and-tell with the kiddies.”

  Osborne’s grin vanished. “Sorry, Detective Hordish.”

  Hordish turned to us.

  “Keep your snouts out of my investigation, kids.” He waved Tank and I away with a big meaty hand. “Now run along. I’m sure you have homework to finish.”

  Hordish and Osborne climbed into their police car. Mr. Snag stared out at us through the back window.

  The caretaker’s long ears hung down the sides of his hairy face. His large eyes stared out at the school he had taken care of since before Tank and I were even born. Slime damage was everywhere—cars dissolved, fences melted away and the playground filled with puddles of slime acid. It was a mess, and Mr. Snag was going to take the blame.

  The police car roared to life and sped downtown to the police station.

  “This ain’t right, Fizz,” Tank muttered through gritted teeth. “Mr. Snag would never hurt the school or his slimes like this. We have to do something.”

  “We are,” I said. “We’re going to find out who really released the slimes.”

  Recess stinks when your playground is a crime scene.

  After the police hauled Mr. Snag away, Principal Weaver led us all back into our school. The teachers tried to teach as usual. Outside, the police cleaned up the remaining slimes from the schoolyard. When the recess bell rang, we got a closer look at the damage.

  Gravelmuck was a mess. The parking lot was full of holes and half-eaten cars. The slides and climbing equipment were a mangled mess of metal.

  The police had wrapped half of the schoolyard in fat yellow Do Not Cross tape. Every ogre, troll and goblin from kindergarten to grade eight was shoved into one corner of the playground. That didn’t leave a lot of room to stretch your wings or swing your tail. The duty teachers were pretty busy breaking up accidental clawings and the not-so-accidental scorchings.

  With Mr. Snag taken away by the cops, I wasn’t really in the mood for recess anyway. I had a mystery to solve. Tank and I have been solving mysteries since kindergarten. We’ve cracked many cases around our school, from missing tail-warmers to lost lunches. Clearing Mr. Snag’s name was definitely going to be our biggest challenge so far.

  With the teachers busy running crowd control, Tank and I had our chance to dig for some clues. Thanks to Officer Osborne’s loose lips, we knew the slimes had escaped through the front door of the school. The question was, how did they get through the door?

  Thankfully, Tank always came to school prepared. I’m not talking about pencils-and-paper prepared. I’m talking troll-tinkering, network-hacking prepared. As a junior engineer, Tank is never without her tool belt. I don’t pretend to know how half the stuff works. From sonic hatchdrivers to pocket-sized spectroscopic enhancers, Tank is the troll with the tools.

  “Mr. Snag would definitely have the key,” Tank said. “You still think he’s innocent?”

  “My tail thinks so,” I said. “And you know what I always say.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Smart detectives always listen to their tails.”

  It was getting late. Recess would be over soon. I ducked under the police tape to grab what little recess was left.

  Instead, something grabbed me. Two somethings, actually.

  A pair of burly ogre hands lifted me off the ground. An identical pair held T
ank in place. Identical hands for identical twins. The Gutro brothers, Seymor and Julius. Two of the meanest grade-seven ogres you’ll ever meet. These two don’t bother shaking down the kindergartners for lunch money—they shake down the teachers. A bigger payoff for a pair of big goons.

  “Look what we caught,” Seymor said.

  “A couple of snoopy snoops,” Julius said, finishing his brother’s sentence. They did that all the time. It was like they shared a brain, which seemed about right. They definitely didn’t each have one of their own.

  “Principal Weaver will not be pleased,” said the little dog-faced kobold standing with the twins.

  Rizzo Rawlins. The nastiest kobold in the whole school district and the one giving the orders to the Gutro brothers. Rizzo was small even for a kobold, but his family’s money made him a lot bigger.

  Like all kobolds, Rizzo was covered in patchy orange and black fur. He had beady little eyes and sour breath that could peel the crust off a dung dweller’s backside. He moved in close and gave me a full whiff.

  “Let us go, Rizzo,” Tank said. “We’re not bothering you.”

  “Not so fast!” Rizzo barked. Literally. When the guy spoke, half his words came out as barks. That’s kobolds for you. “Your friend Mr. Snag is in a lot of trouble. And he deserves it.”

  “You’re just mad because he caught you writing love poems in the boys’ washroom last week,” I said.

  “They weren’t poems!” Rizzo said. His fur bristled around his face. “They were warnings to snoops like you. Rizzo Rawlins runs this school. You go snooping around these halls, you got to check with me first.”

  “You know something about the escaped slimes, Rizzo?” Tank asked.

  “What I know and what I tell trolls like you are two very different things.”