Robo-Dodo Rumble Read online

  She held up a sheet of paper that said:

  Interlude

  The worst part of it all was that Robo-Dodo’s plan was working!

  “Look, Didi, the line of customers is so long that nobody could get into my store even if they wanted to.”

  “Trust me,” grumbled a cactus on a pogo stick, “we don’t want to! Your cookies are too expensive!”

  “But I make them from scratch every day with my own two wings!”

  “Face it, chump,” said the cactus, “you’re too slow and old-fashioned.”

  “But—” I started, but I was interrupted by screeching tires!

  The cactus pogo-sticked out of the way just as a fancy limo skidded to a stop.

  A horse got out. It was the President of the United States of America, Horse G. Horse.

  “Get out of my way!” he yelled and shoved us aside.

  “Look out, President of the United States coming through! I’m the President, so I get to cut the line! Outta my way! I want cheap cookies and I want them now!”

  Lots of my other old customers were in line, too. I saw Mimi Kiwi, Vanessa Cow Cow, twenty-three pig scientists, Leggy Snake, Debra Zebra, and . . . Inspector Flytrap and Nina!

  “Inspector Flytrap! What are you telling me? Are you buying cookies from that robot, too?”

  “No way, Koko,” said Inspector Flytrap. “We only buy cookies from you!”

  “Oh, thank goodness!” I said. “Are you here to buy cookies right now?”

  “Sorry, Koko. We’re on our way to solve a BIG DEAL mystery down at the harbor. Something strange is in the water.”

  He and Nina pushed through the crowd and zoomed off toward the harbor on their skateboard.

  “Even Nina wouldn’t eat my cookies . . . “ I sobbed.

  “But she did chew a hole in the President’s tire,” said Didi.

  “Well, that’s good news!”

  “Also, I have a daring plan!”

  “That’s GREAT news!”

  PART 3

  The Monster from Beneath the Sea

  Chapter 7

  “Come on in the store and have a cookie—a GOOD cookie—and tell me your plan,” I said.

  “Can we come, too?” asked the baby chicks.

  “Yes, but no pooping on the chairs,” I said.

  “We promise,” lied the baby chicks.

  We all went into the store.

  “I just pulled the last batch of cookies out of the oven,” the Queen said.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said. “I just hope it is not the last batch EVER! We could be out of business by lunchtime.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Didi with her eyes sparkling. “It’s going to be Robo-Dodo’s last batch when we use my daring plan!”

  “Whoo-hoo!” said the baby chicks.

  “We are going to sneak back into Robo-Dodo and switch all the ingredients tubes,” said Didi, her beak in the air.

  “Yee-haw!” said the baby chicks.

  “And the robot’s last batch will be EXPLODING COOKIES!” yelled Didi, waving her wing in the air.

  “Yahooooo!” shouted the baby chicks, waving their wings in the air!

  “Hold on just a dimpleham minute!” I said, waving my wing in the air. “What are you telling me with the exploding cookies?”

  “You know . . . vinegar and baking soda? You put them together and they explode?”

  “Of course I know that,” I said. “That’s why I would never put vinegar and baking soda into the same recipe! It would make a big mess in my kitchen!”

  “Exactly!” said Didi. “And you only make small batches. Robo-Dodo makes BIG batches! Just imagine what would happen if it filled that giant bowl of cookie mix with vinegar and baking soda . . . KABLOOEY!”

  “Yippie-I-O-Ki-Yay!” yelled the baby chicks.

  “I’m sorry, Didi,” I said. “We cannot do that.”

  “What?” asked Didi.

  “Why not?” quacked the Queen.

  “Aw, come on, please,” begged the baby chicks. “We want to see Robo-Dodo blow up!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I am a cookie baker. I bake things and I make things, but I don’t blow things up.”

  Chapter 8

  A single tear rolled down the Queen’s bill.

  “Koko Dodo, your speech has moved me to tears!” she said royally.

  “Yes,” said Didi Dodo. “It reminded us all to be kind and good.”

  “NO!” declared the Queen. “It reminded me that I’ll be out of a job if he has to close this cookie shop! I decree that you stop squawking and do something!”

  “But what can we do?” I moaned. “Look out the window! Look at all those customers lined up for Robo-Dodo’s cheap cookies!”

  “They’re gone,” said the baby chicks.

  “What are you telling me with gone?” I gasped.

  “Yep,” said the baby chicks. “They all ran off screaming while you guys were squawking and we were pooping on the chairs.”

  We ran outside to see.

  The chicks were right! Everybody was gone. We were standing in the middle of an empty street!

  Actually, it wasn’t totally empty.

  Inspector Flytrap and Nina were zooming toward us on their skateboard.

  “Aha!” Flytrap was yelling. “I have solved the BIG DEAL mystery at the harbor! The strange thing in the water was a GIANT SEA MONSTER that’s going to EAT the whole CITY!”

  “Big eel,” said Nina, pointing straight up with her hoof as they whizzed past us.

  We looked up and saw the head of a giant sea monster rising above the city.

  “Uh-oh,” said the baby chicks.

  “That IS a big eel!” I shouted. “What should we do now?”

  “Get out of my way!” yelled a rude voice. It was President Horse G. Horse galloping away from the monster.

  “Mr. President, shouldn’t you do something about the eel?”

  “I AM doing something! I’m getting the hoober rufus out of here!” he neighed and galloped off.

  “What should we do now?” I shouted.

  A motor roared. Tires screeched. A food truck skidded to a stop.

  “Hop in!” shouted Penguini, who was driving the food truck. “I’ll give you all a ride out of town! And free breadsticks.”

  “No, thanks,” said Didi.

  “What are you telling me with the ‘no thanks’?” I squawked. “Don’t you want to get away from the sea monster?”

  Didi raised her beak in the air.

  “Uh-oh,” said the chicks.

  Didi waved her wing.

  “Uh-oh,” said the Queen.

  Didi looked at me with her eyes sparkling.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  I turned to Penguini.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Didi has a daring plan to save the city, so we’ll stay here.”

  “But we will take some free breadsticks,” said the baby chicks.

  Penguini tossed the breadsticks out the window and zoomed off.

  We were alone in the city with a giant sea monster that was now taking big bites out of buildings!

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “First,” said Didi, still waving her wing, “we get a penny!”

  Chapter 9

  We got the penny. That was all the money that was left in my store, since no one had bought any cookies all day!

  “Now what do we do with the penny?” I asked.

  “We’re going to buy cookies from Robo-Dodo,” said Didi Dodo.

  “WHAT ARE YOU TELLING US?!” we all yelled.

  “I’m telling you that we are going to buy cookies from Robo-Dodo,” said Didi Dodo.

  “But we don’t want its nasty cookies,” said the baby chicks. “Yuk!”

  “And I don’t want to support its business,” I said.

  “And I was going to use that penny to get a gumball,” said the Queen.

  “Don’t you trust me?” asked Didi Dodo.

  “Of cou
rse we do,” I said.

  “Then tighten up your skates, ‘cause we’ve got another jump to make!”

  “What do we do?” asked the chicks.

  “Do you know any musical numbers?”

  “We learned to sing ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ and do the Achy Breaky country line dance by watching YouTube.”

  “Great,” Didi told them. “Just wait for your cue.”

  Minutes later, we were up at the top of Gertrude’s Used Ski Jump ramp again. The giant eel monster was right in front of it.

  “This ramp is even scarier now,” I cried, “because there’s a giant eel monster right in front of it!”

  “You’ll just have to make sure you jump over the giant eel monster!” said Didi Dodo, and she pushed me over the edge.

  We zoomed down the ramp, then up the ramp, then through the air . . . directly at the giant eel’s giant mouth!

  I may be a flightless bird, but I was flapping my wings like crazy!

  But as I went higher and higher, the eel opened its mouth wider and wider!

  “We’re not going to make it!” I yelled to Didi.

  “Yes . . . we . . . are . . .” said Didi, also flapping like crazy. “Baby chicks, hit it!”

  Far down below, the baby chicks began to sing “Achy Breaky Heart” and do the Achy Breaky country line dance.

  The eel couldn’t help itself. It glanced down to see who was singing and dancing.

  It was just enough!

  We barely cleared its huge mouth, then skated up its head, past its beady eyes, onto its fin, and jumped into the air again.

  Down below, the chicks were yelling “Yee-haw” and waving tiny bandanas.

  We landed back on top of Robo-Dodo, dodged a few laser blasts, and skated straight into the same hole we had used earlier.

  But this time, Didi grabbed on to the butter hose and I grabbed on to Didi. She swung us out of the bowl, over the oven, and right into Robo-Dodo’s control room.

  “Boo-hoo-hoo,” said Robo-Dodo. “All my cus-to-mers have gone a-way.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Didi, holding up the penny. “We found one more customer for you.”

  “Great,” said Robo-Dodo. “Which one of you wants all the coo-kies you can eat?”

  “Oh, it’s not for us,” said Didi. “It’s for the giant eel.”

  “Uh . . .” said Robo-Dodo. “How ma-ny coo-kies can a gi-ant eel eat?”

  “TONS!” said Didi. “So you better start baking.”

  “I do not want to,” said Robo-Dodo. “That sounds like a bad biz-ness deal for me.”

  “Too bad,” said Didi. “You’re a robot. You have to do what you are programmed to do, and you are programmed to give your customers all the cookies they can eat in return for . . . one penny.”

  Didi put the penny into Robo-Dodo’s coin slot.

  “Noooooooooooooooooooooo,” groaned Robo-Dodo as the penny clanked down into its money box.

  A little screen flashed PAID.

  “Oh well,” said Robo-Dodo. “I guess a do-do’s got-ta do what a do-do’s got-ta do. But I do not like it!”

  Just then, my phone rang.

  “This is Koko Dodo,” I said. “What are you telling me?”

  “Koko, this is the Queen! The giant eel monster is headed downtown to destroy famous city landmarks!”

  “Oh no!” I yelled. “The Queen says the giant eel monster is headed downtown to destroy famous city landmarks!”

  “Ask her to follow it on her motor scooter,” said Didi. “We’ll be there as soon as we can!”

  “But, Didi,” I said, “how can we get the cookies to the eel if—”

  But Didi was already waving her wing, lifting her beak, and doing the sparkly eye thing.

  “I have a plan!”

  “How daring is it?” I asked.

  “How dar-ing is it?” Robo-Dodo asked.

  Didi flipped a switch that said MANUAL LEG CONTROLS.

  “Hold on to your beaks,” she said, “we’re about to find out!”

  GRAND FINALE

  That’s a Lot of Cookies

  Chapter 10

  Didi pulled a huge lever. Robo-Dodo took a giant step forward with its right leg.

  STOMP! The whole city seemed to shake!

  She pulled another lever, and it took another giant step with its left leg.

  STOMP!

  “Hey!” yelled Didi, pushing and pulling the levers faster and faster. “This actually works!”

  STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP!

  I looked out of one of Robo-Dodo’s eyes. We were about to stomp on . . . MY COOKIE SHOP!

  “Look out!” I yelled.

  “Don’t worry about me,” ordered Didi, spinning a steering wheel so that Robo-Dodo just missed stepping on my shop. “I need you to reprogram Robo-Dodo’s recipe.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I’m telling you that its cookies are terrible.”

  “That is hurt-ful,” said Robo-Dodo, “but al-so true. I wish I could bake like you do, Ko-ko. Boo-hoo-hoo . . .”

  “Aw,” I said. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Would you two cut the yakkity yakkity and fix that recipe?!” yelled Didi. “We’ve got to make sure these cookies are the best-tasting thing in the whole city!”

  I started typing my best recipe into Robo-Dodo’s electronic brain. Let me tell you, it is not so easy to type while riding in a giant metal bird that is running down the street on robot legs and crashing into every trash can and medium-size taco stand in sight.

  Finally, I fixed all the typos and hit Save. Then I hit Bake.

  From the Kitchen of Koko Dodo

  Koko Dodo and Robo-Dodo’s Chocolate Fish and Chip Cookies

  This recipe makes approximately 58,392 cookies.

  YOU WILL NEED:

  82 50-gallon tanks of Robo-Dodo Brand™ instant cookie mix

  3 50-gallon tanks of Robo-Dodo Brand™ fake butter

  2 tons of Robo-Dodo Brand™ Almost Chocolate™ chocolatey chips

  257 boxes of baking soda

  One boatload of fresh-caught fish

  Pinch of salt

  A giant cookie-making robot

  DIRECTIONS:

  Tell giant cookie-making robot to make the cookies.

  Enjoy!

  ALTERNATE RECIPE TO MAKE JUST ONE COOKIE

  YOU WILL NEED:

  1 packet of Betty Crocker Mug Treats Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

  1 can of tuna

  1 microwave-safe coffee mug

  A microwave oven

  A can opener if needed for tuna

  Measuring spoon (teaspoon)

  DIRECTIONS:

  Tear open one packet of mug cookie mix. Pour the mix into mug.

  Open can of tuna carefully so that the juice does not spill out.

  This step should probably be done over the sink or at least a paper towel. If tuna juice goes everywhere, your kitchen is going to stink!

  Carefully pour tuna juice from can into teaspoon. Then pour tuna juice from teaspoon into can. Do this four times. (Five times if you spilled some.)

  Save the tuna for your lunch.

  Use the spoon to stir the juice into the mix until it’s all nice and gloopy. Use the spoon to push all the gloop into the bottom of the mug.

  Place mug in microwave. Close the door. Microwave for sixty seconds.

  LET IT COOL DOWN!!! ARE YOU CRAZY, GRABBING A HOT CUP AND SPOONING OUT MOLTEN HOT FISH COOKIE?!

  Enjoy!

  Chapter 11

  Robo-Dodo fired up its ovens and started squirting ingredients into the mixing bowl.

  “The first batch will be rea-dy in twelve min-utes,” it said.

  “Great!” hollered Didi. “Now we just need to catch that eel!”

  My phone rang.

  “This is—”

  “I know who it is!” quacked the Queen. “You dodos better get down here fast! The eel just busted up the central library!”

  “That does it!” yelled Didi
Dodo. “I’m putting this thing on turbo speed!”

  She pushed a big button that read WARNING: DO NOT PUSH—TURBO SPEED!

  Didi slammed the levers forward and stomped on the brake. Robo-Dodo landed gracefully in front of the central library.

  Actually, it was more like the RUINS of the central library! Books and bricks were scattered everywhere.

  In the middle of it all was the Queen on her scooter, with the chicks riding on the back.

  “The monster is headed for the art museum!” she yelled through the phone.

  “Oh no!” I yelled back. “Not the art museum where they have the famous Mona Spaghetti painting!”

  “Yes! That art museum! Now, quick! Follow me!”

  The Queen revved her engine and zoomed down the street. I couldn’t hear them, but I could plainly see that the baby chicks were screaming “UH-OH” at the top of their tiny lungs. (And also possibly pooping on the scooter seat.)

  Didi worked the levers, and Robo-Dodo zoomed after them at top speed.

  “How are those cookies coming?” Didi yelled over her shoulder.

  “The first batch of fif-ty thou-sand coo-kies is rea-dy,” answered Robo-Dodo.

  “Great! Load them onto the cookie conveyor belt and start baking more!” she ordered. “Koko, do you see that big button that says ‘DEFINITELY DON’T PUSH THIS BUTTON? NO KIDDING! SERIOUSLY! THE OTHER ONE WASN’T THAT BIG A DEAL, BUT THIS ONE WILL CAUSE COMPLETE COOKIE CHAOS!’?”

  “Yes, Didi, I see it,” I said. “But I am afraid to push it.”

  “But that button is part of my daring plan!”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m afraid to push it!”

  “Well, which is scarier: the button or THAT?”

  She pointed out the window. The giant eel monster was right in front of us!

  “THAT!” I answered. I held one wing over the big scary button, ready to push when we got to that part of the plan . . . but I was hoping we wouldn’t get to that part of the plan.