CHAPTER 6

SHADOW IN THE NIGHT

Rise and shine, Schnoz!”

My eyes shot open. I sat up in bed and saw Vivian, TJ, Mumps, and Jimmy standing in my room.

“What are you guys doing here so early?”

“It’s not early,” Jimmy said. “It’s ten thirty in the morning.”

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. “I can’t believe I slept so late.”

“You may have slept late, but the town of Denmark sure didn’t,” Mumps said. “Take a look out your window.”

I slid out of bed and peered between the curtains.What I saw outside nearly blew my nose away. There were fallen tree limbs and debris all over my backyard. Something had toppled my next-door neighbor’s chimney like a set of Jenga blocks.

“What happened?” I asked, still not believing what I was seeing.

“Your snoring is what happened,” Jimmy said.

“Scientists from the Seismological Laboratory said last night’s tremor was a 5.8 on the Richter scale,” TJ explained.

Vivian joined me at the window. “Your snoring is getting worse,” she said. “The earthquakes are becoming more destructive. If this keeps up, Denmark and maybe the entire state of New Hampshire could become one massive sinkhole.”

“Don’t worry,” Mumps said, slapping me on the back. “I don’t care what they’re whispering downtown, we won’t let them make you move.”

The room grew silent.Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers had worried looks on their faces.

“What do you mean make me move?” I asked.

The gang hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, and then Vivian finally spoke up.

“There will be a special town council meeting in the next few days,” she said. “That’s when they’ll vote whether to kick you and your family out of Denmark.”

“From what my dad told me,” TJ said, “the damage caused by your snoring is becoming more costly than all the money the coffee shops and noise-reduction stores are raking in.”

I held my nose in my hands and felt like crying. “But my honker saved this town!” I roared. “ECU and Muzzle were about to destroy everything! They can’t kick me out!”

“We still have time to fix your snoring before the vote,” Vivian said. “Let’s check out the video we took last night of you sleeping. If it’s sleep apnea, we can go to a doctor to fix you up.”

Sleep apnea. Video cameras. With the news of my possible banishment, I had forgotten all about last night’s experiment.

“Your snoring messed up the two cameras on either side of your bed,” TJ said. “But, amazingly, not the one hanging above your head.” He hooked a cable from the camera to his laptop. After downloading for a minute, the video was ready to watch in full HD.

I had absolutely no idea how boring watching a video of me sleeping could be.

“I can’t take much more of this,” Jimmy said six hours later.

“Tell me about it,” Mumps said. “Melting Barbie dolls in the microwave is a thousand times more fun.”

Vivian pulled Mr. Sticky from her pocket. “Stop complaining or I’ll sic my assault gecko on you.”

“I don’t get it,” TJ said, scratching his head. “We’ve watched nearly all of this tape and Schnoz hasn’t made one little peep of a snore.”

“Just fast forward to the end and get it over with,” I suggested.

“Rewind to the part where Schnoz farts and picks his butt in his sleep,” Mumps said. “That was hilarious!”

TJ laughed. “That’s my favorite part!” Just as he was about to hit rewind, the entire screen momentarily went black, as if a huge storm cloud had passed over my room.

Vivian sat up and pointed to the screen. “Stop it right there!” she squealed. “What was that dark shadow?”

What happened next was like something from a horror movie.

“Ahhhhh!” Jimmy screeched in terror. “It’s a ghost…a demon…”

“Hush up!” Vivian scolded. “We’re trying to watch.”

I gazed in wide-eyed dread as the shadow circled my bed. Slowly, the dark mass molded into the shape of a solid figure. The being was about four feet tall with wrinkly gray skin. The head was unusually large in proportion to the rest of its body, with huge eyes and small openings for the mouth, nose, and ears.

“OMG!” TJ squealed. “It’s an alien from outer space!”

Two large hoses appeared in the alien’s long, bony hands. The space creature then lubricated the ends of the hoses with a green, mucus-looking substance and shoved them directly up my quivering nostrils.

On the tape, I flailed and groaned but was still obviously asleep. My nostrils flared wide and I started snoring, loud snuffling snorts that made the walls of my bedroom shake.

The alien looked directly into the camera with its dark, soulless eyes.The picture grew fuzzy and then went completely black.