CHAPTER 6

Hush Little Ellie

Ellie looked frantically around the lab. She needed to get back to being a full-sized superhero again. And to do that, she needed the Ultra Grower!

Now where is that gadget? Ellie wondered. If anyone would know, it was two super geniuses named Mom and Dad.

“Mooom! Daaad!” Ellie called as instruments beeped and crackled. But the Ultra Shrinker had shrunk her vocal chords, making her voice much quieter. The noise from the lab easily swallowed it up.

“MOOOM! DAAAD!” Ellie called again, mustering the might of her little lungs. But it was no use. Her parents couldn’t hear her.

If only they had Super Fluffy’s ears, Ellie thought. That dog can hear a chicken bone hitting the floor from anywhere.

Just then the sound of a barking dog struck like thunder. RUFF, RUFF!

Ellie turned and came face-to-face with a giant, drooling hairball. She braced herself as Super Fluffy stuck out his long pink tongue and gave her the biggest, slobbery-est kiss ever.

“Super Fluffy!” Ellie hugged his leg. “I’m so glad to see you! I need you to call Mom and Dad. If you bark, they’ll come running!”

Her furry friend seemed to understand. “Ruff, ruff! Ruff, ruff! Ruff, ruff!” Super Fluffy barked and barked.

Ellie plugged her ears as his voice boomed across the room. He was noisier than the lab’s erupting volcano plants.

Dad came around the island. “Hmm, it looks like we have a visitor,” he said, noticing Super Fluffy. He shook his head and walked over.

“Dad! It’s me!” Ellie darted after Dad as he strolled past. Suddenly he stopped, and she bounced off of him, landing back on the ground.

Dad turned, a curious look on his face. He shrugged his shoulders and whisked up the pup. “Sorry, boy. No dogs allowed in the lab,” he said. “We don’t want your nose turning into a tie-dyed Easter egg again. Now do we?”

He took Super Fluffy upstairs to the kitchen. As the pup whined, Dad closed the door before returning to the laboratory to work. Ellie was still trying to get on her feet again and fly after him when she saw Squeak crawling out from behind a cabinet.

It’s my job to take care of Squeak, she thought. I can’t leave him by himself, even to find Mom and Dad. What if he gets lost? He could end up in the batch of wolf DNA!

She doubted Miss Little would like a class pet that howled at the moon.

Ellie followed Squeak to the Gadget Gallery. He scurried up a ladder, then plopped into a pipe that was connected to the Ultra Hush-a-Bye. The gadget looked like an ordinary pipe organ, but it played the sweetest lullaby Ellie had ever heard. It was good at stopping evildoers like Big Baby. If that villain didn’t take a nap, well, look out.

The gadget’s pipes played a sing-song melody. Suddenly — Pop! — Squeak popped out of a pipe with one of the notes. His tiny feet soared above the pipe before he dropped back inside another pipe when the note stopped.

Pop! Drop. Pop! Drop. Squeak flew up and down with the music like a ballerina with whiskers.

“Hopping hamsters!” Ellie cried. She went to catch him, but he popped out of the pipe behind her. She turned and tried again on the next note, but he popped out of a pipe at the end of the row. It was impossible to know where he’d come out next.

Unless … With a blink, Ellie scanned the inside of the Ultra Hush-a-Bye. Her X-ray beams revealed pipes that were labeled with a note from the musical alphabet. They poked out of a tunnel where Squeak was crawling. When a new note played, air blew through the tunnel and sent him up the pipe that was marked with a C.

Ellie breezed to the top, and out popped the hamster. “OOF!” she said, catching the big fuzzy ball. She sagged a little under Squeak’s weight. “I guess you’re heavier now that I’m your size,” she told him. “Either that, or you’ve had too many treats.”

She turned away from the invention when Squeak started to squirm. His feet wiggled. His body jiggled. “I should call you Mr. Wiggles!” she said, her grip slipping.

As Ellie struggled to hold on to Squeak, she flew closer to a weather vane invention that was spinning in the Gadget Gallery. She didn’t notice the invention spinning toward her when — THUMP! — it bumped her from behind.

Ellie was tossed head over feet. Squeak flew out of her arms. Ellie turned like a windmill over Mom’s extra jars of anti-stain formula before landing in a puddle on the storage counter.

“What a mucky mess!” She stuck out her tongue at the ooey-gooey liquid that surrounded her. It oozed from a bottle that was lying nearby.

“Extra-Strength Superglue,” Ellie said, reading the label. She tried to shake off the glue. But it held her as strongly as a mutant spider’s web.

Just then, excited squeaking noises came from Cyclops’s tank. It was Squeak! He crawled into some dandelions that were piled high in the lizard’s food dish. Hamsters loved eating dandelions as much as giant, one-eyed iguanas did.

Squeak munched on a dandelion, unaware that the iguana was also snacking. Cyclops was watching TV, mindlessly grabbing the leafy greens before throwing them down his baggy throat. He didn’t see the hamster. His eye was glued to the latest episode of Name That Reptile!

Ellie gasped. She had to save Squeak from the iguana’s snack attack. Or else, he was going to end up in the belly of a scaly beast!