Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8 "DID YOU HEAR THAT?" ASKED Wolfy. He had very good ears. He had ears like a wolf. But you didn't have to have ears like a wolf to have heard what Wolfy heard. The sounds were very loud. "I heard a KER-SPLOING!" said Franky. "I heard a CRACK!" said Vampyra. "And I heard a SNORGLE BELCH GLOBBLE MUCK!" said little Fern. "That might have been my stomach rumbling," said Boris. "All that work got me hungry for more cheese." "I don't know, Boris," said Wolfy. "I think it was something else. It sounded like it came from Stargazer's Point."

But they didn't have to go too far to discover what had made those noises. The walking trash pile was headed right for them. It was made of everything the rats had collected and all of Baron Von Grump's belongings. All that junk had formed into one big, quivering, lumbering pile of trash. "It can't be!" said Wolfy. "It is!" said Franky. "But how?" "Our trash!" cried Boris. "Do you know how long it took us to collect all that?" "Look out!" Vampyra said. The trash pile snatched the bags of litter right out of the scouts' hands and dumped

everything into its mouth. "SNORGLE BELCH GLOBBLE MUCK," said the trash heap. "HUNGRY! WANT MORE GARBAGE!" The giant pile of garbage slid slowly away from Stargazer's Point, headed for the one place it thought it might find more trash…. "The village!" Vampyra said. "We've got to warn them!" said Franky. Wolfy lifted his chin and let out a long, loud howl. Fern and the Little Junior Monster Scouts joined him. Speaking of the village… Everyone in the village had come out of their homes and their shops at the sound of Baron Von Grump's angry shout. Children stopped playing Snurgle Ball and stared at the windmill. Cows stopped giving milk. Chickens stopped laying eggs. Spiders

stopped spinning their webs. Everyone and everything stopped. Sure, Baron Von Grump was cranky, and unfriendly, and occasionally came up with devious plans to chase the villagers away, or make them stop doing things. You know, things like smiling, talking, singing, chewing gum, or playing Snurgle Ball. But nobody had ever heard him shout anything like the shout he had just shouted. The mayor thought for a moment. He thought back to that morning, when Baron Von Grump had come to buy cheese. But it wasn't the visit, or the cheese, that he was thinking about. He was thinking about what Baron Von Grump had said. About the one word that had knocked the mayor's hat clean off his head. "Everyone, listen closely," said the mayor. "Everyone knows that Baron Von Grump is cranky at times—"

"All the time," said one villager. "He doesn't even like when we chew gum." "And we know that he can be unfriendly," said the mayor. "He chased us away with rats!" said another villager. "He tried to cancel our birthday party," said a third villager. "His wild storm blew me right up into the air," said an old woman, knitting. "Rocking chair and all." "He hypnotized us and made us cluck like chickens and moo like cows," said a farmer, holding a chicken and petting his cow. "Yes, yes," said the mayor, "but he is our neighbor, and I think he might need our help. I've learned a thing or two from our friends, the Junior Monster Scouts, and—oh, look. Here they are now!" Wolfy, Franky, Vampyra, Fern, and the Little Junior Monster Scouts cubs raced into

the village, waving their arms and shouting. "Run!" they said. "Everybody, run!" Boris and the rats were right behind them. "It's a garbage monster!" the rats cried. "And it's—" "HUNGRY," said the pile of garbage, now even bigger than it was at Stargazer's Point. "SNORGLE BELCH GLOBBLE MUCK." The trash heap snatched up a fence, and a wagon, and a chimney, and swallowed them all in one gulp.