The stone floor was familiar. So was the steam, the countertop full of apparatus and the smell of old tuna sandwich. Lickpenny’s secret laboratory.

“Why are we in the lab?” whispered Addy.

“ONION RINGS.”

“Shhh!” said Addy. “We’re in enemy territory.”

“SORRY. ONION RINGS.”

“I thought there was something else,” said Wylder, “but … my onion rings? From lunch?”

He checked the comic, and found the three of them in a panel under the caption INKHILL MOUNTAIN, 6 MONTHS AGO. He couldn’t see any onion rings.

Uncle Vim was on his feet, humming like an excited bumblebee. Addy yanked him back down.

The heavy door on the far side of the lab screeched slowly open. The three human intruders scrambled to hide behind the table. Catnip’s nose peeped out from under Addy’s hair.

“Scum-puppy!” Lickpenny shouted through a curtain of steam. “Hurry up with the catalyzer! You good-for-nothing, lazy glob of putrid phlegm!”

This was all the way Wylder remembered it, only “Where are the onion rings?” he wanted to know.

Vim traced the comic panels in his book with his finger. Wylder followed along in his own copy.

“OH,” said Vim. “THE ONION RINGS ARE ON THE NEXT PAGE.” He licked his thumb, about to turn the page. Addy stopped him.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Two comics now, right? Do it together. Don’t blow it! Three. Two. One. Go!”

TH-THWIP! Easiest page turn yet, like driving over a speed bump.

“HERE WE ARE,” whispered Vim. They were exactly where they’d been—behind the table in Lickpenny’s lab—but it was a few minutes later.

“Why are you standing there like an old umbrella?” bellowed the professor. “Prepare the siphon at once!”

Nevins, his face glum and resentful, stirred the boiling pot of catalyzer.

“Sludge.”

Nevins had spotted the onion rings.

Addy crammed the box into one of the pockets on her vest and high-fived Wylder. Whew! Phase one in fixing the comic plot accomplished!

Wylder thought he understood. He must have dropped the onion rings during the first flashback. Nevins dumped them into the pot, and the strange new ingredient changed the catalyzer formula, making Snap and Krackle behave crazily.

Now the lab was in turmoil. The two familiar robots stomped in circles alongside Vim’s early versions of them. There must have been a half dozen—what did Addy call them?—mechanizmos altogether, including a monopod, jumping up and down on its giant foot, and a robot with arms like steam-shovel buckets and metal fingers that clamped open and shut. There was even a girl robot missing scraps of her face. Yuck! Wylder shrank away from her. That had to be Poppy, Snap and Krackle’s sister. Nevins, on the ground, rolled over just in time to avoid being stomped by the monopod.

“Who are you?” Lickpenny worked a controller so that the steam-shovel robot threatened Uncle Vim.

“I MADE YOU,” said Uncle Vim. “THINK OF ME AS DADDY!”

“This is no time for jokes!” shouted Addy.

“SORRY!”

“Attack!” cried Lickpenny. “Attack!”

The robot lurched forward, faster than you’d ever think possible. One of his jointed metal arms shot out to grab the comic book in Vim’s hand. There was a ripping, grinding noise, and a papery dust drifted to the floor. Vim let out a startled shriek and jerked his hand away—empty.

“Time to gooooooo!” shouted Addy. They jammed themselves through the door and ran.

The three hustled along a hallway that had been carved from the rock of the mountain. The walls and ceiling were rounded. Torches burned in sconces.

“Much worse with all the extra robots!” said Wylder between puffs.

“I DON’T LIKE HOW THINGS JUST SHOW UP WHEN I’VE FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT DRAWING THEM!”

Vim paused for a second, catching his breath and sighing at the same time.

“MY COMIC GOT CHEWED TO BITS.”

“But we got the onion rings,” said Addy.

The robots clanked and hissed behind them, joined now by a gang of shouting boys.

Boys?

Wylder looked over his shoulder. “Nevins,” he said. “More than one of him.”

“Backpack and jeans,” muttered Addy. “Backpack and jeans.”

They came to a fork in the tunnel. Without hesitation, Vim led them to the right.

“FOLLOW ME.”

Totally sure of himself. Well, after all, thought Wylder, Vim was the one who’d imagined the whole setup.

Two minutes later, they reached a dead end.

“Nice one, Uncle Vim,” said Addy.

A chilly draft seeped in from who knew where. Wylder shivered. A torch flickered over their heads, making the shadows dance.

“I SWEAR THERE’S A SECRET DOOR HERE THAT WILL TAKE US OUTSIDE.”

“Why don’t we just turn the page?” said Wylder. “I still have my comic.”

“Your comic?” Addy raised an eyebrow.

Behind them, a metallic clamor and angry shouts echoed through the tunnel.