‘What? What have you worked out?’ said Twoface. He was sitting on a hover-swivel-chair, fiddling with some of the buttons on the wall.

‘It’s the Nom Noms!’ said Jamjar, backing away from Splorg a bit. Splorg didn’t seem to notice though – he was too busy staring through the little window at all the cardboard burgers.

‘NOT!’ screeched Not Bird, and Jamjar carried on explaining.

‘Don’t you see,’ she said, pointing at Splorg’s bite marks and then through the window. ‘Everyone in X BURGER’s been bitten by a Nom Nom!’

I Future-Ratboy-zoomed my eyes in on Dr Smell’s nose, and the hover-cap man’s, and the old lady’s too. Jamjar was right – they all had little bite marks above their nostrils.

‘There must be something about the Nom Nom bites that’s making people want to eat X BURGERS!’ said Jamjar.

‘No wonder poor old Splorgy Baby’s been acting so strange,’ I said, and Twoface nodded, leaning forwards to look at a screen that was on the wall in front of where he was sitting.

he said.

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ said Jamjar. ‘Our best friend is turning into a zombie, and you’re more interested in a stupid TV screen!’

Twoface swivelled round in his chair. ‘I’m just trying to work out what in the name of unkeelness is going on,’ he said, pointing at the screen. ‘Now look at THIS!’

An image of a rotating Nom Nom had popped up on the screen, with the words ‘OPERATION SHNOXVILLE’ written above it.

‘SHNOXVILLE?’ said Jamjar. ‘What in the unkeelness is SHNOXVILLE?’

Just below the screen was a little slot, about the width of Jamjar’s Triangulator. ‘Hmmm . . .’ said Jamjar, pushing her Triangulator into the slot and crossing all her fingers. ‘This is a long shot, but it might just work,’ she said, pulling the triangle back out and peering down at it.

she grinned.