A vast thundering sound came from behind the round door, echoing across the empty space of the warehouse. The terror that came from my armpit didn’t sound happy. Was it because it was now trapped in the Dungeons of Snerbville? Or was it because I wasn’t there with it?
“Hey! Is anyone there?!” I pleaded. “Hello?”
The Snerb kept pulling me slowly forward, one step at a time, and the space between me and the door was getting dangerously short.
Vexler’s voice boomed into the warehouse through speakers high up on the warehouse walls.
“Hold, please,” she said.
Wild sounds of a struggle behind the giant round door echoed into the warehouse. The hose attached to my armpit slackened so I ran as far as I could into the warehouse. But then there was a groan and something that sounded like a wet sneeze from far away and the hose jerked harder than it ever had before. It pulled me off my feet.
The Snerb was dragging me across the floor!
Barker Mifflin darted through the small gap followed by Fen. I tried to stand up but couldn’t and tumbled forward as the orange furry hose kept pulling.
“I’m in trouble here guys!” I yelled.
Vexler’s voice filled the warehouse, and for the first time, she was yelling: “now, fen stenson, now!”
Fen was holding something that had a flame coming out of one end.
“Is that a blowtorch?!” I asked.
The flame grew longer and bluer and more dangerous looking.
“no way you’re using that on my armpit!” I yelled.
“Closing security door in ten seconds,” Vexler said. “Any longer and we’ll risk a full-blown Snerb infestation.”
“She’s right, Jenny,” Barker said. “There are a lot of Snerbs behind that door. We gotta cut you loose.”
“But a blowtorch?! There must be a better way!”
“Ten, nine, eight . . .” Vexler’s countdown started, and the round door began to close. The gap was only big enough to keep from crushing the hose.
“What if we let the door close on the hose?” I argued. “That could totally work! I’ll just wander around Nevermind with a furry orange rope hanging from my armpit for the rest of my life. I can do that.”
I was only a few feet from the door now, and the distant sound of the angry Snerb felt farther away than it ever had before.
“You can’t live like that,” Fen said.
“Five, four, three . . .”
“Trust me, Jen-Jen,” Fen said.
The Snerb pulled one more time, harder than before, and I was flush against the door. The only thing left of the Snerb that wasn’t on the other side was me.
“Two . . .”
There was nothing left to do but trust my friends, so I nodded, closed my eyes, and held my arm up.
“One . . .”
I heard the blowtorch hiss and whine, and when the flame landed in my armpit, it sounded like a saw cutting through iron. I opened my eyes and saw sparks flying everywhere.
“Hold still; we got this!” Fen screamed.
“Door closing,” Vexler said.
One more burst of sparks and then I heard a loud snap sound. The end of the Snerb slithered and shook and flopped. It disappeared into the gap and the door slammed shut.
“Extraction complete,” Vexler’s voice announced, as calm as ever.
“We did it!” Fen yelled. “We totally did it!”
“We sure did,” Barker agreed.
I stood up and lifted my arm over my head. I pulled my T-shirt back so I could see my armpit. About three inches of orange hose hung there.
“You missed a spot,” I said.
“It’s not a blowtorch,” Fen explained as the end of the hose shriveled and started to turn to orange dust.
“It’s a molecule-busting laser torch,” Fen said.
The tube shriveled more and more and then turned entirely to dust. I felt my armpit, smooth and completely normal.
“It’s gone,” I whispered. “It’s actually gone.”
“It sure is!” Fen said. “Plus, we have this cool laser torch!”
“Give me that thing before you hurt yourself,” Barker said.
I had to agree, a weapon like that was safer in Barker Mifflin’s hands than any other kid I knew.
I heard the garage door opening at the other end of the warehouse.
“Please exit the building,” Vexler said over the speakers. “And tell no one what you’ve seen. Dangerous people are watching! Leave and don’t come back!”
We began walking toward the garage door and a part of me wished we could tell everyone what had happened. What a story! But then I thought about the punchline—Jenny had a monster living in her armpit—and I was glad Vexler told us to keep it quiet.
“You guys wanna come over for dinner?” I asked.
“I’d love to!” Fen said.
“I’ve got hand-to-hand combat training in half an hour,” Barker said. “Maybe next time.”
The garage door started going down again and we ran for the exit. Vexler knew how to keep people on a schedule.
“What’s it like in there?” I asked.
“Where?” Fen replied.
“In Snerbville.”
Fen and I both turned to Barker, who had a faraway look in his eye.
“There’s a whole world under there,” he mused. “Tunnels and chambers, bridges and lagoons and secret passageways. I’m going there someday; just you wait.”
Fen flashed an awkward smile. “Uh . . . that’s great.”
“Barker Mifflin, you were made for that place,” I said.
“Don’t you know it,” he agreed.
Fen and I went one way, Barker went the other, and we strolled toward my house in the twilight of a quiet evening in Nevermind. I know this might sound hard to believe, but if something like this was going to happen, it was bound to happen in Nevermind. It’s not even the strangest thing that’s ever happened here. And hey, I got a new best friend, I grew a creature out of my armpit who now lives happily in someplace called Snerbville, and I only have a few lingering questions.
Who is Vexler, really?
Where exactly is Snerbville and what’s down there?
And will Barker Mifflin ever go back there?
I’m glad you were along for the ride, but you know what we say in the town of Nevermind, right? We say . . . never mind. In other words, pretend this didn’t happen, tell no one, and don’t try to find Nevermind on a map, because if you think a monster growing out of my armpit is weird, wait until you hear about the forty-foot chicken terrorizing a farm just north of town.
But that’s a story for another time.