The Case of the Hooking Bull Read Online Free PDF

once it was pretty dark in there. Captain Alfred grinned at me through the pothole window and waved. Then I seemed to hear him climbing on top of the ship. Maybe he was checking for leaks or something, or maybe . . .
    HUH?
    Fellers, something was happening to the ship!
    MAYDAY, MAYDAY!!
    RED ALERT!
    CODE THREE!
    DEFCON FIVE!
    YIKES!
    All at once I lost control of the ship. My controls went dead, my instruments blanked out, the ship went into a deadly spiral dive, and holy smokes, I was tumbling around and around and around.
    And around and around, and bumping my head!
    The cabin temperature was rising and I caught the scent of heated metal. We had a fire in the cockpit! We were falling out of control! I was tumbling and flying around and getting beat to smith­er­eens!
    I don’t know how I did it, but at the very last moment I pulled her out of that deadly spiral dive and executed a smooth landing. Next thing I knew, Little Alfred had opened the hatch and was pulling me out of the burning cockpit.

    Just in time too. I mean, the smoke and flames had just about gotten me.
    He pulled me out of the burning wreckage, boy, what a crash, and let me tell you, he looked scared. I could understand that. It had been pretty tough for both of us, but even tougher for him than for me. At least I’d been inside the cockpit. That poor kid had been up on top of the ship!
    We were just lucky we didn’t lose him.
    At that point, he said something that I didn’t understand. He said, “Sowwy, Hankie. I wondered what that button would do.”
    Button? Didn’t make any sense to me. The kid must have been scared out of his wits, didn’t know what he was saying.
    Well, you can’t believe how glad I was to plant my paws back on good old Planet Earth! It would be a long time before I ever climbed into another one of those spaceships.
    I checked my body for damage: no busted bones, no blood, no serious cuts, just a lot of bruises that didn’t show. In other words, I had somehow managed to walk away . . .
    But I did feel dizzy and noticed a certain queasy feeling in my stomach. All that tumbling around. And around and around, and walking straight seemed out of the question as I staggered across the floor, feeling dizzy and more than slightly queasy in the stomach.
    And all at once I thought of strawberry ice cream and wished I hadn’t. If a guy knew for sure that he was going to crash a spaceship, the last thing in the world he’d want to eat would be strawberry . . .
    You know, I was feeling kind of sick. Course, even your most experienced pilots get a touch of . . . boy, was I feeling lousy! And dizzy. Ran into the trash can and bounced off the kitchen cabinet, and just the thought of strawberry ice cream made me want to . . .
    Uh-oh.
    In spite of injuries and dizziness, I managed to stagger through the kitchen and into the living room. I needed to go outside, is what I really needed, but the door . . . and there wasn’t time any­way, so I . . .
    I, uh, found this nice little spot behind Sally May’s couch. It was quiet, isolated, dark. I guessed that nobody had ever visited that deserted piece of carpet, and probably nobody ever would. Hence, nobody would ever know . . .
    I felt much better now. Most of the dizziness and so forth had vanished, and I made my way around the front of the couch and headed for the back door.
    But as I passed the front of the couch, a long bony hand reached out and grabbed me, and a mysterious voice said, “What are you doing in here, pooch?!”

Chapter Six: Attacked by the Couch Monster

    H ave you ever run into a Couch Monster? Neither had I. They aren’t too common in our country, but it certainly appeared that I had just been grabbed by one.
    I’m not sure what causes a couch to turn into a Couch Monster, but I can report what I learned about this one. When I entered that living room, the couch was just a couch. But as I was leaving, it