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  Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York

  Copyright © 2005 by Mark Crilley

  Billy Clikk logo by Mark Crilley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-51435-6

  Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to Tetsu and Kei Hirabayashi and their families.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Yearling Books You Will Enjoy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  CHAPTER 1

  Billy Clikk dug his fingers into the Peruvian murgwod’s dorsal fin. This was not easy. The murgwod was soaking wet and covered in mud, and that was on top of the inch-thick layer of slimy exoblubber that coated its entire body. Add to this the fact that Billy was sweating from every pore after a long day trudging through the Peruvian jungle to get to this spot—an area of shallow water at the edge of a muddy branch of the Rio Urubamba—and the conditions for maintaining a good grip on a murgwod were about as poor as they could possibly be.

  The murgwod could snap at the air and growl all it wanted. Billy wasn’t going anywhere. Billy and his parents, Jim and Linda Clikk, had been charged with finding and neutralizing this creatch, and now that Billy had it in his grasp he wasn’t about to let it get away.

  As Billy struggled to improve his grip, he surveyed the fearsome beast he was now riding like a bucking bronco: the red, muscular body, the seven-toed feet and their daggerlike claws, the long spiky reptilian tail, the rhino-ish head, the single fiery yellow eye, and the jaws that featured the most ferocious set of incisors Billy had ever seen.

  “Got it!” Billy called to his parents, realizing even as he did so that they were unlikely to hear him from where they were, searching in vain for the murgwod more than half a mile up the river. It was just Billy’s luck that Orzamo, his half-dog half-lizard friend, was at his parents’ side at the moment instead of his. (Billy had actually encouraged her to go help them out, knowing that his parents were pretty tired from a creatch op they’d handled in Norway a day or two earlier.)

  No biggie, thought Billy. Dad let me take on that nine-legged malanoobu by myself last week in Mauritania. How much harder can a murgwod be?

  The murgwod let out a furious growl followed by several defiant grunts, as if it had heard Billy’s thoughts and was offended by the comparison. It then launched into an especially vigorous bout of thrashing. Billy dug his heels into the murgwod’s ribs, refusing to be thrown.

  “Take it easy, pal,” Billy said. “I’m just doing my job here.”

  Just doing his job.

  Billy found it useful to treat his bizarre double life—half the time an average sixth grader in Piffling, Indiana, the other half a globe-trotting creatch battler for the top-secret monster-containment organization known as AFMEC—as if it were no big deal. If he stopped and thought about it for too long it would probably drive him nuts. In fact, pretty much every aspect of his life now required putting certain thoughts out of his head as he focused on the task at hand. This Peruvian murgwod, for instance. If Billy allowed himself to dwell on the fact that this particular murgwod had been terrorizing villagers up and down the Rio Urubamba for the past three weeks, swallowing their chickens and pigs whole and, on occasion, leaving men and women with missing limbs and hideous scars … well, he’d be a lot better off not dwelling on it. So he didn’t.

  “All right,” said Billy, panting loudly as he prepared to take things to the next level. “Just work with me here and you’ll make things a lot easier for both of us.”

  Billy knew the standard procedure for dealing with a murgwod. He’d studied all the steps just a few months earlier, preparing for his first round of AFMEC entrance exams, and had gone back to the Sea Creatch Guidebook to memorize them word for word while gearing up for the current creatch op. He also knew that every step in the murgwod subduing procedure (“Grasp the dorsal fin firmly with both hands while maneuvering your legs into the riding position,” “Beware of the murgwod’s prehensile tail, an agile fifth limb with a viselike grip”) was designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to allow you to knock the creature out with a single shot from a fully loaded Skump pistol, expertly fired into the cranial artery: a half-inch-wide blood vessel tucked just beneath a fold of skin at the base of the murgwod’s neck.

  Billy was right where he needed to be to fire that shot, and no doubt the murgwod’s cranial artery was where it needed to be to receive it, but Billy’s Skump pistol—the one he’d used just moments before to force the murgwod out of hiding—was buried in the mud on the shore behind him. He’d chucked it there when he realized he’d run out of ammo.

  Good thing I brought a klimper dart with me.

  Billy wiped the sweat from his eyes for the umpteenth time that afternoon, reached down, and pulled the dart container out of his back pocket. He wished that his Affy friend Ana García could be there to see him as he snapped it open with his left hand while maintaining his grip on the murgwod’s fin with his right. She was the one who had taught him how to open a klimper dart case with one hand. She was also the one who had thought he was crazy when he proceeded to practice doing it for hours on end, first with one hand, then the other. (“Next thing you’ll be opening one with your feet,” she’d said with a laugh. Billy had been too embarrassed to admit he’d already been working on that. And had become pretty good at it, as a matter of fact.)

  No second chances with this sucker, Billy reminded himself as he raised the klimper dart into the air and prepared to jab it into the
murgwod’s neck. Klimper darts were nearly as effective as Skump pistols, but they contained only a single payload of klimp toxin. One inch too far to the left or right and this dart will be about as deadly as a big fat kiss on the lips.

  Billy watched and waited, remembering the words he’d memorized the night before from the guidebook: “The murgwod’s cranial artery reveals itself once every eleven seconds, raising the skin at the base of the neck by a mere fraction of an inch as blood courses through it. The well-trained Affy will take notice of this momentary irregularity in the surface of the skin as he aims and fires his Skump pistol into the artery at point-blank range.”

  Point-blank was out of the question. If Billy hoped to have even half a chance of piercing the murgwod’s leathery skin, he’d have to raise the klimper dart over his head and bring it down with all the force he could deliver.

  The murgwod let out a vicious growl and shook Billy so hard he almost fell off. Billy had to mash his whole body down against the murgwod’s back just to stay put. Making an accurate klimper dart stab under these conditions seemed next to impossible.

  I can do this. Just have to stay focused. Put everything else out of my mind.

  The murgwod slowed its thrashing for a moment. Billy sat up straight again, breathed deeply, and held the dart just above the murgwod’s neck before raising it into position high in the air.

  One shot. That’s all I need.

  Billy kept his eyes trained on the skin at the base of the murgwod’s neck, watching, waiting. The murgwod lurched violently back and forth. Dollops of its exoblubber pelted Billy in the face.

  Then he saw it: the skin swelling as blood coursed through the cranial artery. Bingo!

  But just as Billy was preparing to deliver the crucial blow, the murgwod ceased its thrashing, took hold of Billy with its tail, and dove headfirst into the river. Billy lost all sense of balance as he went entirely underwater. He’d barely had a chance to hold his breath before he went under, and for a moment he feared the worst: that the murgwod would just go to the bottom of the river and hold him there. But no. It had other plans.

  The murgwod resurfaced long enough for Billy to see where it was taking him: downstream, to a spot where the river descended into a treacherous patch of rocks and rapids.

  Urubamba rapids, thought Billy. I can handle that. A lifetime of extreme sports—including a near suicidal entry in Lunatic Louie’s Whitewater Madness rafting competition a year or two earlier (in which he’d bagged first prize)—had prepared Billy for the sort of risks that would have most kids his age wetting their pants.

  Even Billy had his limits, though. And when he took a moment to consider what lay beyond Urubamba rapids, he realized that all the extreme sports in the world wouldn’t be enough to bail him out this time.

  The falls, thought Billy. It’s heading for the falls!

  Urubamba Falls. A one-hundred-foot sheer drop to pounding water and jagged rocks. If Billy went over, the chances for survival were virtually nil. Murgwods, with their hard skin and flexible bones, were pretty much designed for going over waterfalls and sailing through without a scratch. Sixth graders like Billy Clikk were designed for going over waterfalls and breaking every single bone in their entire bodies.

  Billy tried to come up with a plan as the two of them plunged underwater again, his already aching limbs struggling to maintain a good grip on the dorsal fin. If he let go of it, the murgwod would use its tail to pull him under its belly, depriving him of both air and any means of seeing where they were going.

  Maybe I should just pry this tail off me and take my chances trying to escape, he thought. The murgwod will survive, but so will I.

  It might have been the smart thing to do, but Billy could not consider this as a serious option.

  No way. Can’t let this murgwod live to terrorize more Peruvians.

  The river grew rougher and louder as they entered the rapids. The murgwod darted between the rocks with ease and assurance. How many times had it gone over these falls before? Hundreds? Thousands?

  The murgwod surfaced long enough for Billy to catch sight of a battered tree trunk jutting out of the water, just yards from the edge of the falls.

  Gotta grab hold of that sucker. It’s my only chance.

  Billy jammed his klimper dart into his mouth and clenched it between his teeth, freeing up both arms to take hold of the tree trunk. He dug his heels into the murgwod with all his might, causing it to leap up out of the water as it sped toward the falls. Thrusting his arms out as far as he could, he flung them around the tree trunk just as they flew past it.

  “Yyyyaaaaggghh!” Pain jolted through Billy’s arms as they smashed into the tree trunk, sending splinters flying. It was pure agony, but he held on with all his might. There, no more than five yards in front of them, was the edge of the falls, roaring and churning and threatening to pull Billy and the murgwod over if he lost his grip for even an instant.

  The murgwod growled its disapproval. It locked its tail even more tightly around Billy’s waist, yanking on him, trying to make him let go and join it in hurtling over the edge of the falls.

  No! We are not going over!

  The water pounded against Billy’s thighs and torso, bearing down on him like an endless avalanche. Billy’s muscles were tensed to their limits. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on like this for more than just a few seconds.

  Using his tongue and teeth, he maneuvered the klimper dart into position as best he could, then stared at the spot on the murgwod’s skin where he’d seen the cranial artery pulse moments before.

  No time to wait until it pulses again. I’ll have to do it from memory.

  Fortunately Billy had noticed a slight discoloration in the skin precisely one inch from where the cranial artery lay.

  This is it. Do or die.

  Billy pulled his head back as far as he could and slammed the klimper dart down into the fold of flesh at the base of the murgwod’s neck. Even without seeing it, Billy sensed he’d hit the bull’s-eye.

  GGGRRREEEEEEE-YYYYOOOOGGGHH!

  The murgwod let out a piercing scream as it loosened its grip on Billy and drew its lips back into a grimace of pain. It closed its eyes, slipped under the water, and went over Urubamba Falls for the very last time.

  CHAPTER 2

  Relieved of the murgwod’s weight, Billy pulled himself out of the water and up onto the tree trunk. He flopped on top of it, facedown, and decided to stay that way for the rest of the day. He’d have done it too, if his parents and Orzamo hadn’t shown up just minutes after he’d sent the murgwod to its watery grave.

  “Well done, Billy boy,” said Jim Clikk, standing on the shore. “That’s two creatches you’ve defeated single-handedly in just ten days. Something to tell your grandkids about.”

  “One more creatch like that,” said Billy with a cough, “and I’ll be lucky if I live long enough to have grandkids.”

  Jim Clikk chuckled knowingly. “You never forget your first murgwod. Never forget the pain, anyway.”

  “Oh dear,” said Linda Clikk as she and Orzamo made their way across the river to Billy, stepping carefully from one rock to another. “Looks like it cut you up pretty badly with its tail. We’ll have to get you back to AFMECopolis right away.”

  Billy groaned at the thought of repeating the grueling twelve-mile hike they’d made to get to this remote area. “Please tell me they can just send out a flying truck or something to pick us up.”

  Orzamo bleated her approval of this idea. Her forest creatch skin was suited to northern climes, and the giant Peruvian mosquitos were making a feast out of her.

  “No dice, Billy,” said Jim. “The Peruvian government had it written into their AFMEC contract that we won’t use any trans-gravitational propulsion out here.”

  Billy sighed. “Isn’t there some kind of rule about the Affys who didn’t battle the creatch carrying the one who did all the way back to camp?” He was joking, but wished it were true all the same.

  Lin
da Clikk put a sympathetic hand on Billy’s shoulder. “That’s one for you to add to the books when you get elected prime magistrate, dear. How about this, though? Your father and I will divvy up your backpack for the hike back.”

  Billy pulled himself up to a sitting position and grinned at his mother. “Give me a foot massage and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Linda Clikk smiled as she smacked Billy right in the middle of his forehead.

  “Nice incisions, Clikk,” said Mr. Numpler. Billy had successfully dissected his frog well ahead of all the other students in science class, and the teacher wore an expression of mild disbelief. “Very nice. Have you … done this before?”

  It was Monday morning, no more than twenty hours after Billy had sent the murgwod over Urubamba Falls. Now he was back at Piffling Elementary, struggling to stay alert after a night that had allowed very little time for sleep. Eighteen of the last twenty hours had been spent outside the United States: nine of them trudging back to camp through the forests of Peru; three of them flying in his parents’ gravity-defying BUGZ-B-GON van to AFMEC headquarters; one of them getting bandaged up—and receiving a shot of antibiotics for the murgwod-enom-induced infection—in the AFMECopolis hospital; two of them being debriefed by an overcaffeinated AFMEC paper shuffler named Hossenheffer (who berated Billy for not having rationed his Skump ammo more wisely); and five of them flying back to Piffling, Indiana, where his parents brought the van in for a bumpy landing shortly after dawn, dropping him at their house before rocketing off on a new assignment.

  “Nope,” said Billy. “First time, Mr. Numpler.” And it was the truth. Billy had never dissected a frog before. He had, however, dissected a twelve-legged klugganork just a few days earlier as part of his Affy entrance exams, and dissecting a frog was pretty much a cinch in comparison. A frog had only a single heart, for one thing. Klugganorks had seven—four of which were hidden in the legs—and if you couldn’t pinpoint all of them in under a minute then you could kiss your Affy-in-training status goodbye.