Chapter 9

Chapter 9 OOMF. Princess Pulverizer grunted loudly as she tried once again with all her might to knock the guards out of the way. She pushed so hard that the worm crown fell from her head. But still the mole mountain did not move. OOMF. She grunted even more loudly, pushing harder. The guards wavered just a bit, then steadied themselves. OOMF! Princess Pulverizer threw her full body weight into the guards. And then... The wall of moles began to break apart! The creatures tumbled from one another's backs and began running in the opposite direction.

"Wow! I guess all those push-ups came in handy," Princess Pulverizer congratulated herself. She flexed her muscles proudly and hurried out of the room. Except it hadn't been the push-ups. In fact, Princess Pulverizer hadn't been the one to move the moles.

Lucas had moved them! And he hadn't even had to flex a muscle. All he'd had to do was bring treats for the mole guards. He stood there outside the room, throwing slugs, centipedes, and ants down the long tunnel with all his might. And the mole guards were hurrying to scoop them up and scarf them down. Princess Pulverizer stared at Lucas in surprise. It was a brilliant plan. And he'd thought of it all on his own. "Am I happy to see you," Princess Pulverizer said. She looked at the crowd of mole guards chowing down on bugs. "Bringing them treats was a great idea." "No mole can refuse a juicy slug cluster," Lucas said. "The bugs weren't hard to find,

either. Even in the dark, I could feel them running around." "Why did you run off?" Princess Pulverizer asked him. "It would have been so much easier if you'd just stayed near the opening in the first place." "I was worried about you dueling Sir Surly," Lucas said. "I thought you might need my help fighting him off. So I went looking for a place where I could climb out." "I managed to beat him," Princess Pulverizer boasted. "He's our prisoner now. Dribble is guarding him." "Wow! You won your first duel!" Lucas congratulated her. "All by yourself." "Yup." Truthfully, the princess had had more than a little help from a snake, but she didn't feel the need to tell Lucas that. She doubted the snake would ever take any credit —seeing as how snakes can't talk. "How did you know I was down here? And how did you find me?" Princess Pulverizer

asked Lucas. "You don't have a candle to light your way." "I couldn't see. But I could hear you asking the mole guards where they were taking you," Lucas explained. "Then I heard all that oomfing you were doing trying to get out of that room. I just followed the sound." "Where did you learn to do that?" Princess Pulverizer inquired. "When you spend as much time with your visor falling down over your eyes as I do, you figure out how to get along using your other senses." Princess Pulverizer laughed. Lucas did seem to have his visor down over his eyes a lot of the time. "We gotta get moving," Lucas told the princess. "It won't take the mole king long to figure out you've escaped. Come on, follow me." Even though Princess Pulverizer hated taking orders from anyone, she knew Lucas

was right. So she followed him. This time. As she ran off beside Lucas, Princess Pulverizer looked up, searching for an opening in the top of the tunnel. But there was no sign of daylight anywhere. And to make matters worse, Princess Pulverizer and Lucas soon reached a fork in the road. One path went to the right. The other to the left. Either one might lead them to freedom. Or straight back from where they'd come. There was no real way to tell. "I think we need to go this way," Princess Pulverizer said, pulling Lucas to the right. "No, I think it's to the left," Lucas countered. "Let's let the arrow settle this," Princess Pulverizer said. She began to reach into her bag. "It will bring us to where Dribble is waiting. I'm sure it—"