Michael K. slalomed down the Ninth Street sidewalk on his SPHDZed skateboard. Venus checked the map on her phone and pedaled her bike right behind Michael K.

“The closest Dunker’s is on Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street,” called Venus. “It’s got to be that one.”

“We cannot let the Spaceheadz catch Santa!” yelled Michael K. “If they do, he will know they are aliens in a second. And our whole Spaceheadz Brainwave will be for nothing!”

Michael K. ollied the curb and thanked his lucky stars that he and Venus were at least rolling downhill. Then he started thinking about stars. Then he started thinking about planets. Then he started thinking that Earth was a planet and would get turned off if the Spaceheadz got caught by the AAA. Then Michael K. really started to freak out. He pushed off for more speed, zoomed around a lady pushing a shopping cart, and just missed a man walking a little dog.

Michael K. and Venus zipped around the corner at Fifth Avenue. They flew past Eighth Street.

“Right there!” yelled Venus. “Striped awning on the right.”

There was the Dunker’s Donuts. A line of people stood behind red velvet ropes.

Michael K. and Venus were still a half a block away. And Michael K. was just about to say, “I hope we are in time.”

He only got as far as “I hope . . . ” when the noise of a huge, horrified crowd scream came out of the Dunker’s.

“Oh no,” said Venus. “That can’t be good.”

And it wasn’t.

Because next the entire crowd of moms and dads and kids and strollers burst out of the Dunker’s Donuts and onto the sidewalk, screaming and yelling and moaning and crying.

“Ahhh!” screamed a dad pulling two scared-looking kids behind him.

“Aiieeeee!” yelled a mom running with her little girl in her arms.

As the crowd surged past, Michael K. and Venus fought to work their way inside the doughnut shop.

We were so close, thought Michael K.

A skinny man dressed in some kind of red-white-and-blue underwear ran through the crowd.

“We are too late,” Michael K. called to Venus above the screams and yells of the crowd. “Umber must have arrested the Spaceheadz and freaked everyone out.”

Venus looked at the panicked crowd all around them.

“Maybe . . . but why does everyone smell so bad?”