5 Ups and Downs

UPS AND DOWNS "Yeow!" Andrew screamed. He crashed into something rubbery. "Yoof!" Andrew squinted. It was very bright. The light hurt his eyes after the darkness of the nose. "Thudd, what happened?" he asked. meep… "Harley sneeze!" said Thudd. "Sneeze can go one hundred miles an hour— fast as tornado!" Andrew's eyes started to get used to the light. It looked as if they were at the mouth of an enormous cave. They were stuck to the very top of it.

Suddenly Andrew knew where they were. "We're at the end of Harley's nose," said Andrew, "at the top of Harley's nostril!" meep… "Drewd! Look!" Thudd said. "Oody's fingers!" "Where?" asked Andrew. meep… "Down!" said Thudd. Way below, Judy was dangling by her fingertips from the bottom edge of Harley's nostril. "Help!" she screamed. "I can't hold on much longer!" Suddenly a pink tidal wave curled up toward Judy. It was Harley's tongue! It was covered with gigantic bristles, like a monster hairbrush. "Look out!" Andrew shouted. Judy screamed. The tongue picked her up and swooped her toward Andrew.

Andrew reached out to grab Judy as the tongue went by. But all Andrew got were wet tongue bristles. Then the tongue swooped back into Harley's mouth. meep… "Oody gone!" cried Thudd. "Almost gone!" a voice gasped from above. "I'm on top of Harley's nose. Andrew, get out of that nostril and get up here!" Andrew leaned out of the nostril and looked up. Getting to the top of Harley's nose would be like climbing a craggy black cliff.

Andrew tucked Thudd into his back pocket and started to climb. The front of Harley's nose was covered with pits and cracks. Andrew used them to grab on to. Being sticky with nose goo helped. I feel like a fly walking up a wall, Andrew thought. Maybe I can use this nose goo stuff in one of my inventions! Finally, Andrew scrambled over the edge of the nose. It felt good to be somewhere flat, even if it was the top of a dog's nose. meep… "Want to see, please," said Thudd. Andrew put Thudd into his shirt pocket. Ahead was a strange sight. It looked like a blown-down forest of scaly tree trunks. But it was really thousands of dog hairs all leaning in one direction. Judy was leaning against one of the hairs. On her face was a "wait till I get my hands on you" look. Andrew looked over the edge of the nose cliff.

"This nose could really use a safety railing," he said. "This is not funny," Judy said. Suddenly everything spun to the right. Andrew was glad he was still sticky. He was too sticky to fall off the nose! "Harley must be getting ready to take a nap!" Judy said. She was clinging to one of the dog hairs. "He always turns around and around first." Finally, Harley curled up in the shade. Harley's sigh rumbled below them like an underground train. Judy and Andrew sat down at the edge of the dog-hair forest. "So how do we get un-shrunk?" Judy asked. "We set the Atom Sucker to UN-SHRINK," said Andrew. "We have eight hours from when I turned it on." "What happens if we don't get back in eight hours?" asked Judy.

Andrew looked away. "Um… the Atom Sucker might kind of… explode."