The Island of Dr. Libris Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hulk.
    And it wasn’t an actor on stilts or a puppet. No way.
    This was real.
    “I will smite you!” Antaeus bellowed as he squeezed Hercules tightly.
    “Oh, the beast does grip me most mightily,” gasped Hercules. “What can I do to defeat him, Billy of the goats that are gruff? Tell me! Quickly!”
    Billy backed away from the gate. “I don’t know!”
    “Is this, then, how Hercules must meet his end? Crushed like the many I myself have crushed?”
    “No, I don’t think so. You still have a ton more adventures left in the book.”
    The rock dude squeezed Hercules tighter.
    Billy’s legs felt like wet noodles.
    Dirt and moss were caked in the creases of Antaeus’s gnarled knees. He had the earthy, stinky smell of a monkey cage.
    Billy didn’t think Dr. Libris’s island was a secret theme park staffed by actors anymore.
    He did, however, wonder if this was all some kind of major hallucination.
    Maybe his mother was right.
    Maybe he ate too many peanut butter crackers.
    Maybe all those ingredients he’d seen on the side of the packages—junk like thiamine mononitrate and polysorbic phosphitate or whatever they put in them to make them bright orange—had totally fried his brain.
    “Help me!” gasped Hercules, firmly locked in the rock man’s tightening grip. “Please!”
    CRUNCH!
    Yow.
That sounded like a bone snapping.
    For half a second, Billy thought about running back down the path, jumping into his boat, and rowing home.
    Maybe he could head over to Nick Farkas’s house, kiss up to the head bully, and spend the rest of his summer playing
Space Lizard’s Revenge.
    But Billy knew that if he ran back to the cabin, he’d never be able to read another one of Dr. Libris’s bookswithout wondering why or how they sprang to life. Plus, hallucination or not, Hercules needed help.
    That was when Billy remembered he still had the bookcase key in his pocket.
    Would it work on the island gates?
    There was only one way to find out.
    But what if the second he unlocked the gates, the block-headed monster grabbed him, too?
    Hercules yelped like a dog does when you accidentally step on its tail.
    Billy sucked in as much air as his lungs could hold.
    “Hercules needs my help.”
    (Okay,
that
was something Billy never,
ever
thought he’d hear himself say.)
    He slid the bookcase key into the gate lock.
    The gates sprang open.
    And Billy stepped into the clearing on the other side.

“Stop!” Billy shouted at Antaeus. “That’s Hercules! Zeus is his father. You could wind up in big, big trouble. We’re talking lightning bolts, buddy!”
    Suddenly, a muddy sinkhole gurgled open in front of Billy’s feet.
    “Foolish mortal!” laughed the muck.
    It had heaved itself up into two humps around the hole, like lips around a mouth.
    Yes, now the dirt was talking to Billy, too. And it sounded like a lady.
    “Too many peanut butter crackers,” said Billy. “Too many peanut butter crackers …”
    “My son Antaeus is not afraid of Zeus, god of the skies. For Poseidon, god of the seas, is
his
father.”
    “And, um, who exactly are you?” Billy asked the quivering sinkhole.
    “I am Gaia! Mother Earth! Antaeus is my son.”
    Billy tried to sort it out in his head.
    “No wonder he looks like a big walking hunk of dirt. He gets that from you.…”
    “Indeed. And none shall defeat my son so long as he remains in my loving embrace.”
    “Is that why every time he hits the ground, he bounces back bigger and stronger? Is it because his mother, Mother Earth—the ground—gives him more power?”
    “Hmmmm. You are wise for one so scrawny. You have discovered our family secret.”
    “Well,” said Billy timidly, “I like to figure stuff out.”
    “Too bad. After my son crushes Hercules, he must crush you!”
    With that, Mother Earth slammed her sludge mouth shut and vanished, leaving behind nothing but a soggy sinkhole to mark the spot where she’d appeared.
    Billy’s mind was racing. He had an idea.
    He jammed two