The Case of the Battling Bots Read online

  Seymor loosened his grip on my collar. If I didn’t think of something quick, I’d be taking a one-way trip down onto my principal’s head.

  Another roar erupted behind us.

  “And the winner is Rizzo Rawlins!” Miss Blinx’s voice boomed over the cheering crowd.

  Seymor spun to face the arena. I whizzed around with the big ogre and away from the back of the bleachers. In the middle of the arena, Rizzo’s battle bot shuffled around in a jerky victory dance. The Thrasher had been thrashed. It lay on the ground in a crumpled heap.

  I had missed the battle, but it was clear Rizzo’s illegal code had helped him win.

  Seymor jumped in the air and high-fived his brother. The combination of jumping and high-fiving was clearly too much for the ogre’s tiny brain. His left hand forgot what his right hand was doing. He let me go. I crashed onto the bleachers and scrambled away before the big lug realized what he’d done. At the speed his brain worked, I probably had a week or two’s head start, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I raced down the bleachers and headed to the Troll Patrol’s tech pit. There would be tears and anger at losing the battle-bot finals. But I was doing a victory dance inside.

  I had proof that Rizzo had cheated. That proof was now riding on the back of my principal. If I could get my hands on the code sniffer, justice would be served to that dog-faced bully.

  The door to Principal Weaver’s office loomed over us like an end-of-the-year report card.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tank said.

  “This is a terrible idea,” I said. “But it’s the only one we have.”

  We had argued all night about this plan. After Rizzo’s victory in the battle-bot arena the day before, we’d joined the Troll Patrol at the Bouncing Bugbear Café, where they were drowning their sorrows with double grubnug-fudge smoothies. There weren’t enough smoothies in all of Rockfall Mountain to drown out the feeling that they had been robbed.

  Before landing on Principal Weaver’s sticky back, Tank’s code sniffer had proved that Rizzo powered his battle bot with illegal code. He’d cheated. And he’d won. We needed to get the sniffer back from Weaver or the Rawlins Reaper would be going to the Slick City Battle Bot Cup at the brand-new Slurp Stadium next week. Our clients, the Troll Patrol, deserved to go to the finals. It wasn’t right. It was also personal.

  All year, I had watched Rizzo cheat in class. Math tests, science quizzes, coloring contests. You name it, Rizzo Rawlins cheated. He bribed the school math whizzes for test answers. His goons sabotaged classmates’ experiments. He hired professional artists to do his cut-and-paste craft projects. Rizzo Rawlins had to win at everything, every time, any way he could. I had seen the trail of broken dreams in my schoolmates’ tears. When I’d seen the sad faces of the Troll Patrol, I knew Rizzo’s cheating had to stop. And I was the goblin to make that happen.

  The only monster who could stop Rizzo was on the other side of that door. Principal Weaver. She was the meanest principal on this side of the Dark Depths. When you got in trouble, she didn’t put you in detention—she put you on the menu. Her policy was “three strikes and you’re lunch.” Last year, Zazzie Malawar, a troll in the fifth grade, got into trouble three times in one month. He went into Weaver’s office and was never seen again. Some say his family moved away. Others say he became a troll burrito for Principal Weaver and her army of spider babies. That was one mystery I was not willing to solve.

  “We can’t stand here all day,” Tank said.

  “Don’t rush me!” I snapped.

  The doors swung open. A thick strand of web silk shot out from the darkness and smacked into my chest. Another strand stuck to Tank’s chest. The strands yanked us through the doorway and into the darkness.

  So much for not being rushed.

  Principal Weaver’s eight eyes peered at us through the gloom of her office. Sticky webs covered every surface.

  Tiny shapes scuttled along the walls. Rustling legs scurried across the floor. Weaver’s children. A baby spider crawled across my foot, sending a cold shiver along my tail. It pounced on something smaller in the dark and spun it into a sticky cocoon. Then it carried its prize back to the corner and disappeared into the wall of webs.

  “Aren’t they adorable?” Principal Weaver said. “Spinning their own webs! They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

  Weaver’s spider babies were her eyes and ears around the school. Always lurking above. Always listening. Always watching. No doubt the spider babies told Principal Weaver we were just outside her door. But they couldn’t tell her why we were here.

  Thankfully, Tank could. My detective partner got straight to the point.

  “Rizzo Rawlins is cheating,” she said.

  Principal Weaver swallowed the last bite of her snack.

  “Rizzo? Never!” she said. She slid down her web and landed on her desk. Under the layer of webbing I spied the round shape of the code sniffer. “He’s a model student. You could both learn a lot from him.” The kids at Gravelmuck had already learned a lot from Rizzo. We had all learned what it feels like to be lied to, bullied and cheated. I was done learning from that kobold.

  Rizzo Rawlins had everyone fooled, including Principal Weaver. Actually, it was the Rawlins family fortune that had Weaver fooled. Mr. Rawlins owned a bunch of stores across Rockfall Mountain. The Rawlinses had money. And they spent a lot of that money on the school. That money had also given Rizzo a lifetime of straight As and gold stars.

  “Rizzo Rawlins and his family have been very good to this school,” Principal Weaver said. “I won’t have any bad words said about them.”

  Bad words were all I had. It was a good thing my throat felt like it was stuck shut with webs and no words could come out.

  “It’s the truth,” Tank said. She stamped her foot. Well, she tried to, but it was stuck to the floor, so she ended up with more of a squish than a stamp. “Rizzo used computer code he didn’t write to control his battle bot. That’s why his bot was so fast on the battlefield. That’s how he won the last battle!”

  “The proof is right there on your desk.” My words came out in a croak, but it was enough.

  One of Weaver’s legs tapped the web-coated code sniffer.

  “This is yours?” Principal Weaver rubbed three legs along her backside. “You dented my abdomen dropping it on me like that.”

  “I didn’t drop it,” I said. “It was Julius and Seymor.”

  “Enough!” Weaver snapped. “I don’t want to see this ridiculous contraption again.”

  She pushed the code sniffer off the desk. A pair of baby spiders scurried out. They climbed over the code sniffer like it was a tasty first-grader. Together, they rolled the ball into the shadows. Tank’s whole body slumped as she watched all her hard work disappear forever.

  “You are just sad your troll friends didn’t win,” Principal Weaver said. “You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Trying to blame poor Rizzo. He works hard, follows the rules and is nice to everyone at the school. Now get back to class before things get too sticky for you.”

  Webs splatted onto our backs. Two large spider babies hanging above the door reeled in the webs and dragge
d us out of the office. The door slammed in our faces.

  The meeting was over. Rizzo was still battle-bot champion and still a cheat.

  After school, Tank and I crouched in a glowshroom patch. Principal Weaver’s words rang in my ears.

  “How can that old spider not see Rizzo is a cheater?” I said.

  “Because Rizzo’s dad has paid for half the school,” Tank said beside me. She kept her zoomers pressed to her eyes as she spoke.

  “So that means his son gets to cheat his way into the Battle Bot Cup?”

  “Not if we can help it,” Tank said. “Now keep your voice down and quit squirming.”

  Squirming is what I do best when I’m crammed into a small space. Tank and I had followed Rizzo from school to his dad’s warehouse. The kobold and the Gutro twins had gone in the back door about an hour ago. We had not seen them since. With Tank’s code sniffer lost in Weaver’s webs, we had to find more evidence to prove Rizzo was cheating. That called for a good old-fashioned detective stakeout. And that had brought us to this glowshroom patch. Stakeouts always left me with a cramp in my tail.

  “Here he comes,” Tank said.

  Slurp Stadium was the newest addition to Slick City and Mayor Grimlock’s pet project. The massive concrete arena dominated this part of town. It was almost finished. Metal scaffolding still stood in front of the far end of the stadium, and a small army of troll and goblin workers swarmed around the building. The construction workers all wore the same gray SlurpCo Industries coveralls and tired faces. They were working around the clock to add the final touches before the Battle Bot Cup.

  The mayor had ignored complaints from local monsters who didn’t want Slurp Stadium built. He’d even ordered a whole glowshroom grove torn down to make room for it. The stadium was named after its biggest sponsor, SlurpCo. The company owned half of Slick City and mined the goopy slick out of Fang Harbor. Slurp Stadium was supposed to be the best thing ever to happen to Slick City. Or the biggest disaster, depending on which monster you spoke to.

  Rizzo and his goons rolled into the empty parking lot across from the stadium. Tank and I skated behind a dumpster that smelled of rotting haggle fish.

  “We’re not going to be able to see anything from here,” I said.

  “We won’t have to,” Tank said. She pulled a metal box out of her backpack. It had a propeller on one side. “This will be our eyes.”

  “Yep, and it’ll silently record everything,” Tank said. She sent the bot buzzing into the air. “We just have to get it close to Rizzo without him spotting it.”

  “That plan didn’t work out very well with your code sniffer.”

  “Yes, but this time I’m in charge, Fizz.”

  We crouched behind the smelly dumpster. Rizzo and his goons wouldn’t be able to see us, but we could see them. We had ringside seats to whatever no-good Rizzo was up to.

  The parking lot blurred on the screen of Tank’s little phone. The mechanical bot focused on Rizzo and his goons.

  “They’re just standing there,” I said. “Are they lost?”

  “How can they be lost, Fizz?” Tank said, her eyes glued to the screen. Without looking up, she pointed off to her right. “Slurp Stadium is right there! I know it’s new and all, but it’s kind of hard to miss.” The screen on the wall behind Rizzo buzzed loudly. It flashed, and the smiling face of the troll selling cavity-fighting fangpaste vanished. Another face appeared. I could tell from the sharp jaw and angry eyes that it was definitely not selling dental products.

  Tank zoomed the camera closer on the face on the billboard.

  “Your bug have sound?” I said.

  “Sort of,” Tank said. She tapped her phone screen. “I just rewired the microphones, but I haven’t had a chance to test them.”

  She adjusted the controls on the screen. A low buzzing came through the phone’s speakers. The buzzing turned to words.

  “You did well, kobold,” said the face on the ad.

  “It worked out this time,” Rizzo said. The phone’s tiny speakers made it sound like he was trapped in a tin can. “But for the next round, we’ll need something more.”

  The speakers went suddenly quiet.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Mic failure on the bot,” she said with a shrug. Tank tapped the controls on her phone. “I told you I haven’t had time to test it out.”

  “Get the sound back!” I reached for the volume control. “What about pressing this button?”

  Tank swatted my hand away.

  “Hands off, Fizz! The controls are really touchy. Let me do the driving.”

  “I don’t want to drive. I want to hear!”

  “Just watch the screen,” Tank said. “At least we can still see.”

  What we saw didn’t make any sense. What was Rizzo up to? Why was he out here in an empty parking lot after school? Who was that weird mask on the screen on the wall? And since when could ads talk to monsters?

  Whatever the mask was saying, Rizzo liked it. He jumped up and down and barked with glee.

  At Rizzo’s command, Julius and Seymor ran to the garbage bin beside them.

  Tank flew her spybot closer. The little bot hovered just above Rizzo and the twins. They didn’t even notice.

  On-screen, we saw Julius rummaging through the garbage, tossing out empty coffee cups and food containers. He pulled out a small square of metal and held it up. It was the size of a lunch box. Wires sprouted from the box on all sides. Rows of lights ran along the edges.

  “What is that?” I leaned in close to Tank’s phone to get a better look.

  “Get off me, Fizz.” She pushed me back with one hand. “You’re going to make me—”

  THUNK!

  We both froze.

  Mangy fur filled the screen on Tank’s phone. The image blurred, shook and then zoomed into focus on a pair of beady eyes and a long snout.

  Rizzo stared back at us through the bot’s camera.

  “Fly away!” I hissed.

  Tank tapped and swiped at the bot controls. “I can’t,” she said. “Rizzo grabbed the spybot. I can’t get away.”

  Rizzo’s toothy grin took up the entire screen. He dropped the bot to the ground. The last thing we saw was the bottom of Rizzo’s boot stepping down hard. Then the screen went blank.

  “Busted,” I said.

  “Literally. My spybot is trashed!” Tank said. “Thanks to you, Fizz.”

  There was no time for apologies.

  I poked my head around the dumpster. Rizzo pointed in our direction.

  “Get ’em, boys!” he shouted.

  The Gutro brothers charged toward us on their skateboards.

  “Here we go again,” I said.

  Tank hopped on her board and skated out of the parking lot.

  Being chased by Rizzo’s goons twice in one week was definitely a new record for me. I didn’t want to add getting caught twice to my list of achievements. I hopped on my board and raced out of the parking lot too.

  I caught up to Tank across the s
treet. She rolled toward the looming shadow of Slurp Stadium.

  Everything was a mess of scrambling security guards, snapping cameras and screaming goblins.

  Okay, that last one was me. But someone had me by the tail and was yanking really hard.

  It was the mayor.

  I had landed on his head, still riding my skateboard. Not a bad trick, but Mayor Grimlock didn’t see it that way. In fact, at this particular moment he didn’t see much of anything.

  “Get off me, you filthy pest!” he snarled.

  I scrambled off the mayor and fell to the ground. I landed beside Tank under the glare of many cameras.

  The cameras went crazy, snapping photos of Mayor Grimlock helping Tank and me to our feet. Rufus, the mayor’s goblin assistant, shuffled us off to one side.

  Sanzin stepped in front of us and addressed the reporters.

  “Amazing! Mayor Grimlock saves two darling monsters with his own body!” The troll’s black hair was gelled to perfection, and his suit was pressed to match. Gem-encrusted rings covered his fingers, and around his neck hung a pendant holding a single purple jewel. Sanzin flashed a sparkling smile to the gathered reporters. “As president of SlurpCo Industries, I’m proud to say our mayor is a hero! Because of his selflessness, these two darling little monsters have been spared from harm.”

  I wasn’t sure what planet big, tall and warty was on. It definitely wasn’t the one where Tank and I squashed the mayor of Slick City. But if it was a planet where Tank and I didn’t get in trouble for squashing the mayor, I was fine with it.

  “Fizzy!” a voice cried out from the pack of reporters.

  Rana Marlow, also known as Mom, pushed her way to the front of the crowd. She scooped me up in a big hug and checked me over for broken bones. “Are you okay?”