Even though it claims to be a novel, this story is actually a novelette...

—The Editorial Triumvirate

A novel about potatoes and insanity from outer space!

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment...."

--Herbert George Wells in The War of the Worlds

The word "potato" can be defined as (1) sweet potato, (2) an erect herb (Solanum tuberosum) that has compound pinnate leaves, white, yellow, blue, or purple flowers, and green, yellowish, or purplish berries, is native to the highlands of South and Central America, and is widely cultivated especially in the temperate regions as a garden vegetable, (2½) the edible starchy tuber that is an enlargement of an underground stem of this plant, or (3) any of several other plants of the genus Solanum. The name's Fromage. Chunky Cheez--with a z-z-zed. And Callisto is a moon of Jupiter.

"Great Callisto! Remove your potatoes from my lederhosen!" ordered Gunther Eisberg.

His brother, Ernest, had stuffed potatoes into his lederhosen in the closet.

"Great Callisto! My potatoes? These are not my potatoes! These must be your potatoes!" replied Ernest.

Gunther stared at his lederhosen. It was stuffed to the top with potatoes. There was a very large hole in it.

"Great Callisto! A hole! In my lederhosen! My favorite lederhosen! Aw!" exclaimed Gunther. "I'm too fat! No wonder the potatoes ripped my lederhosen!"

Gunther frowned. He started to cry.

Ernest dropped two of the potatoes into the toilet and flushed it.

The pipe expanded, and then water spewed out the toilet bowl.

"Great Callisto!" shouted Gunther.

He grabbed the plunger and started plunging.

Gunther heard horrible sounds. Water flew into his face from below.

"Great Callisto!" repeated Gunther.

Suddenly, he heard an odd noise. It sounded like a vacuum cleaner in the toilet.

Then, in an instant, Gunther was sucked into the toilet.

The toilet flushed by itself.

It was a great day at the waste treatment plant.

Ernest Eisberg was going on a tour.

"Great Callisto! And this is where all that stuff from the sewers comes out!" explained the tour guide, unenthusiastically.

"Great Callisto! Hey, what's that?" screamed Ernest, pointing at a fat boy that fell out of the sewage pipe.

"Great Callisto! Help! It stinks in here! What is this stuff? Aw, darn! It's poo-poo!" gasped Gunther, spinning around in the sewage tank.

He was sucked into another pipe and across a screen.

Then he was unloaded into a settling tank. He floated to the surface.

Then he was pumped into another settling tank.

Then he was sucked into a pipe and dumped into a the sludge digester.

Then he was dumped onto the sludge drying bed.

The next day, Ernest Eisberg went to the store.

He wanted to grow his own flowers.

Ernest bought several packets of begonia seeds and a big bag of fertilizer.

"Great Callisto! Get me out of here!" yelled Gunther, who was trapped in the bag of fertilizer.

Ernest ripped open the bag.

"Great Callisto! Why did you flush those potatoes down the toilet? Why?" demanded Gunther.

Ernest said nothing.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

Gunther opened the door.

There were eight creatures that were two feet tall. They looked like big potatoes.

"Great Callisto! Why do these things happen to me? I hope this is a dream! It's not real! Potato people do not exist! Or do they?" sighed Gunther.

"Great Callisto! Greetings, stranger! We are the Gubachuks! We are very pleased to meet you!" droned the potato creatures in unison.

Gunther slammed the door. He could hear the Gubachuks flying across the street.

The doorbell rang again.

Gunther opened the door.

There were hundreds of Gubachuks. Each one made him want to vomit.

"Great Callisto! Gubachuks?! No, not the Gubachuks! Please! What have I done? Have I eaten too many potatoes?" cried Gunther.

He shut the door.

The Gubachuks broke down the door.

Gunther screamed.

The Gubachuks marched up the stairs and followed Gunther.

"Great Callisto! No! I've had enough with potatoes! Please!" pleaded Gunther.

Gunther grabbed a Gubachuk and flushed it down the toilet.

The fire hydrant in front of Gunther's house exploded.

Gunther flushed the other Gubachuks down the toilet.

The roof blew off.

Gunther's neighbors' houses exploded.

Then Gunther's house went boom.

Debris scattered over the neighborhood.

"Great Callisto! Look what you've done!" said Ernest.

"Great Callisto! We're back!" announced the Gubachuks, crawling out of the toilet.

"Great Callisto! Aw, darn! It can't be! It's a phantasmagoria! I'm seeing things!" soliloquized Gunther.

"Great Callisto! You are correct! You are seeing things! You are seeing Gubachuks! We are here to stay! Then we will take over your miserable world!" droned the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! I am seeing things! Things that are here but aren't supposed to be here! No! Ernest, do you see them?" questioned Gunther.

Ernest responded, "Great Callisto! I see them! They're cute!"

He grabbed one and hugged it. It exploded.

A horrible odor diffused into the remains of the neighborhood. It smelled like vinegar and baking soda.

"Great Callisto! Hug them all!" commanded Gunther.

Gunther and Ernest embraced the remaining Gubachuks. They all exploded.

The smell was worse.

Their faces turned blue, then green, then pink, then purple with green stripes and spots.

Gunther vomited.

It looked like potatoes.

Gunther choked. His lederhosen was shrinking.

"Great Callisto! " interjected Gunther.

His eyeballs bulged out. They were green.

Green smoke was everywhere. It sounded like a leaky helium tank. It felt like a humid, sticky, hot swamp in Florida. It tasted like every disgusting food known to man mixed up and dumped into a dumpster. And the smell! Oh, it was stinky! So stinky! Too stinky! It was much too horrid to describe here.

"Great Callisto! What's that smell?" said a man in China.

"Great Callisto! Great enchilada!" said someone in Madagascar.

"Great Callisto! Where did that smell come from?" said an astronaut in the space shuttle Atlantis.

Stinky! Stinky! Stinky! It smelled so horrible that the other extraterrestrials planning to invade Earth were stunned and had to return to their home planet.

It was so stinky that just a waft of the odor from a mile away would combust the mucus in one's nasal passages and temporarily disable one's olfactory abilities.

Smell that smell!

Now you know the hazards of using potatoes incorrectly!

Potatoes are for eating and experimenting only!

Do you know how to make a potato-powered lamp?

First, wrap a copper wire around a zinc-coated object and another copper wire around a copper-coated object. Drop the potato and squeeze it vigorously without breaking the skin. Then insert the copper- and zinc-coated objects into the potato. Make sure not to let them touch inside the potato. Then connect the other ends of the wires to a galvanometer. Now you can see the electric current of the potato. Disconnect the wires and connect them to a light bulb. It shines!

Ali Bobby Ahkaboom observed the baboon at the zoological preserve.

"Great Callisto! Baboon, baboon! Hello, baboon! Are you home? Do you watch Jonny Quest? Fat baboon! Are you a buffoon baboon? Hello? Wake up! Rise and shine! Shine your butt! Hello? Baboon?" said Ali Bobby.

The baboon frowned.

"Great Callisto! Look at this, Ed!" said Ali Bobby. "Feed the baboon TaterChunks®! It says so right here! We can buy some!"

He stuck a quarter in, but it didn't fit.

"Great Callisto, Ali Bobby! It says that it accepts 40 Danish öre only!" said Edmund McDexter, his best friend.

"Great Callisto! 40 Danish öre! We're not in Denmark!" replied Ali Bobby.

He looked at the TaterChunk® vending machine.

"Great Callisto! What?! It accepts Danish öre only! Aw, darn!" said Ali Bobby.

Ali Bobby observed the baboon. The baboon observed Ali Bobby.

Hmmm...monkey! thought Ali Bobby.

Hmmm...idiot! thought the baboon.

The baboon stuck his rear end at Ali Bobby. It was red. Bright red.

"Great Callisto! Something stinks!" said Ali Bobby. He didn't know what.

Hmmm...stupid anthropoid creature! thought the baboon.

"Great Callisto! Hey, Ali! It's one of those feed-the-animal thingies again! Feed Bigfoot! Aw, darn! It accepts only one Ethiopian birr! Hey, it's another one! And this one accepts 25 United States cents!" said Edmund.

Ali Bobby inserted a quarter.

Out came a container containing TaterChunks®.

"Great Callisto! Feed the Gubachuks! What's a Gubachuk?" asked Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! I don't know. Do you?" responded Edmund.

"Great Callisto! I don't know either. Do you? Hey, it says, 'Don't feed the Gubachuks!' What should we do?" asked Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! Well, why do they sell TaterChunks® for Gubachuks if we're not allowed to feed them?" said Edmund.

"Great Callisto! Hmmm...good question!" acknowledged Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! And why do they have that goofy contraption in the cage for opening the containers?" said Edmund.

"Great Callisto! Hmmm...better question!" acknowledged Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! Then I think we'll feed the Gubachuks!" opined Edmund.

"Great Callisto! Hmmm...great decision!" acknowledged Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! Okay, Ali. Where's the container of TaterChunks®?" inquired Edmund.

"Great Callisto! I don't know!" said Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! Don't tell me you ate all of it!" said Edmund.

"Great Callisto! Oopsie! I confess! I ate the Gubachuks' TaterChunks®! Now they'll starve to death! And then all life will stop evolving! And then alien invaders drop that antimatter bomb on the uninhabited Earth and boom! All that's left of Earth is a lot of electrons, protons, neutrons, pions, muons, neutrinos, and all of those other subatomic particles floating desolately through space. All alone. Nothing left. All gone. All gone!" said Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! Ali Bobby, I thought this story was supposed to be humorous!" said Edmund.

"Great Callisto! Huh? Oh, well! I'll buy another one!" decided Ali Bobby.

He inserted a coin into the machine. It didn't fit.

"Great Callisto! No wonder! It's an Ethiopian birr!" said Ali Bobby.

He put the birr back in his pocket. He pulled out another coin. It was shaped as an egg with two indentions that looked like eyes.

"Great Callisto! Where did this come from? It's a Calamarian zreika!" said Ali Bobby.

After several hours of pulling foreign and extraterrestrial coins out of his tiny pocket, Ali Bobby found a quarter. It was dated 1932.

"Great Callisto! Oh, well!" said Ali Bobby.

He inserted it into the machine.

Out came another container of TaterChunks®.

Finally, Ali Bobby inserted the container into the slot in the cage.

A machine retrieved it, opened it, and fed the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! Look at those Gubachuks! I didn't know such animals existed!" said Edmund.

"Great Callisto! They look like potatoes, but larger!" said Ali Bobby.

Suddenly, a computer voice said, "Great Callisto! Please do not feed the Gubachuks!"

"Great Callisto! Huh?" said Ali Bobby.

The Gubachuks started inflating. Larger. Larger.

"Great Callisto! What the heck?" said Edmund.

Larger. Larger.

The Gubachuks filled up the cage.

Larger. Larger.

Suddenly, the cage exploded.

Larger. Larger.

The Gubachuks were the size of a stratocumulus cloud.

Larger. Larger.

Then they all exploded. And there was a horrible smell. If you want to know what it smelled like, read "Gunther's Gubachuks" above.

Dee Dee tiptoed silently into Dexter's room. Dexter wasn't there.

She grabbed The Neverending Story from the bookshelf and opened it.

Inside was a button. Dee Dee pressed it.

The wall opened. There was Dexter's secret laboratory.

And there was Dexter, pouring some bubbling chemical into a flask.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Dexter!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! Dee Dee, can you not see that I am pouring acetic acid into Flask Lambda containing sodium bicarbonate?" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Can I try it?"

"Great Callisto! No, Dee Dee! Absolutely not!"

"Great Callisto! Okay!"

Dee Dee grabbed the test tube containing acetic acid and dumped it into the flask.

It bubbled and fizzed and bubbled and fizzed.

Then it exploded.

It smelled like vinegar and baking soda.

It was vinegar and baking soda.

"Great Callisto! Fire extinguisher!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! Dee Dee, why must you ruin every single experiment that I attempt?" said Dexter.

Three days later, Dee Dee sneaked into Dexter's laboratory again.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Dexter! I want you to meet my friends, the Gubachuks!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! What are you talking about? My lexicon does not have "Gubachuks" in it!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Hello, Dexter! We are here to conquer your miserable world! Thank you!" droned the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! What in the chthonic underworld?" said Dexter.

The Gubachuks smiled and repeated their droning.

"Great Callisto! Egads! Why did you allow these despicable potato people into the lab, Dee Dee?" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! I don't know!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! You are doomed, Dexter! Ha ha!" droned the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! No! Computer, destroy these 'Gubachuks' at once!" ordered Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Yes, Dexter!" said the computer.

"Great Callisto!" said Monkey.

A cryogenic ray shot out of nowhere. It froze the Gubachuks.

Frozen.

"Great Callisto! Yes! I have defeated my opponents!" said Dexter.

Suddenly, the Gubachuks exploded.

And there was a horrible smell!

Ditto.

It is time for a new superhero.

(If you have been reading my stories, then you would notice that I create a lot of superheroes!)

Bungalow! Bungalow! Bungalow! Bungalow!

"Great Callisto! I am Bungalow! Your friendly local superhero!" said Bungalow. "I sense trouble ahead!"

Bungalow flew into the little town.

It was being attacked by the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! My mission is to destroy the Gubachuks. The clarity of it! How cogent! How cohesive! How compelling and convoluted! How didactic! How dogmatic! How effusive and emphatic! How florid and fluid! The rapport! The adage! How poignant!" said Bungalow.

Bungalow could not destroy the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! How abstruse! How arduous! How futile! How heinous! To impede the Gubachuks is a must! How impenetrable they are!" said Bungalow.

Bungalow was a big failure. The only thing he could do was speak his vocabulary. He didn't know many words anyway.

"Great Callisto! They enervate! They are indolent, listless, sedentary, soporific, and dilatory! They like stupor and torpor! They have a paucity of energy! Therefore, I will defeat them!" said Bungalow.

But Bungalow still could not defeat the Gubachuks.

The people of the town were getting impatient. What is this idiot doing, speaking words that nobody understands! He does nothing to try to stop the potato people! Why? The superhero is useless. Useless!

"Great Callisto! I have ebullience! I am in a farce! I am frenetic! I am garrulous! I am gratuitous! I am insipid! I am ponderous! I am sonorous! I am in a squalor! I am superfluous!" said Bungalow.

But Bungalow was useless in fighting the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! It is specious! They slander me! A ruse! They think I'm egregious! Facetious! To pander! Why? The propriety!" said Bungalow.

Ditto.

"Great Callisto! It is wry! A lampoon! A parody!" said Bungalow.

Ditto "dittoed."

"Great Callisto! They want me to abdicate! But I must annihilate these Gubachuks! It is benevolent! They think that I am despotic! They think I am dictatorial! Too haughty! Imperious! Omnipotent! Patronizing! They say I usurp! But I do not!" said Bungalow.

Ditto-ditto-ditto.

"Great Callisto! They say I am adamant! Assiduous! Conscientious! It is true! I am diligent! And dogged! Exemplary, fastidious, and intrepid! Meticulous! Obstinate! My tenacity! They try to milk it! No! I am punctilious!" said Bungalow.

Yawn.

"Great Callisto! They want to alleviate me! Send me to an asylum! But I am auspicious! Benign! Emollient! They want me to mitigate their pains! To mollify them! But they sanction me! It is substantiated! I want to exculpate myself!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Looks like fun!" said one of the townspeople, eating popcorn. Chomp! Crunch! Break!

"Great Callisto! They want to debunk me! No! I am not deleterious! Disingenuous! Disparate! No! I am not! Fabricated, recalcitrant, spurious, and capricious! No!" said Bungalow.

Ja! Ja! More dittoes are coming.

"Great Callisto! They disdain me! They glower at me! They think I'm hackneyed! They scream pejorative language! They use plagiarism! They think I'm too trite! They think I'm vacuous! They vilify me! They disparage me!" said Bungalow.

Three dittoes for a quarter! Fresh, hot, delicious dittoes! Three for a quarter!

"Great Callisto! They think with aberration! They are dubious of me! They believe that I am ostentatious! No! The quandary! I am stymied! They think that I am wily!" said Bungalow.

Recycle your dittoes! Save the world!

"Great Callisto! They say I am not aesthetic! Not decorous! They think I need to be embellished! They think I am idyllic! Too much a medley! They don't want to make a mural of me! What? Opulent? Is that what they are saying! Is it true? No! It must not be! I am ornate! I am pristine! Serene! Lucid!" said Bungalow.

Last day of the great ditto sale! 25% off! Come quick! Sale ends today!

"Great Callisto! I am affable! Amenable! Amiable! I like camaraderie! I am cordial! Gregarious! Salutary! Sanguine! Innocuous!" said Bungalow.

Hold your horses! More dittoes are coming! No! I didn't mean bring your horses in here!

"Great Callisto! I am not brusque! Cantankerous! Caustic! Contemptuous! Feral! Fractious! Incorrigible! No! They are wrong! They think I am an ingrate! Insolent! Malevolent! Notorious! Obdurate! Repugnant! Unpalatable! Parsimonious! They are all wrong!" said Bungalow!

Three dittoes? Okay, that'll be 25 cents! You want fries with that?

"Great Callisto! I am itinerant! But not remote! I am your friendly local superhero! Not transitory! I am unfettered!" said Bungalow.

Ditto, ditto, ditto! Ditto, ditto, ditto!

"Great Callisto! I am not a harbinger of evil! Not ominous! I do not portend! I am not prophetic! I am impromptu!" said Bungalow.

Dittottid is a palindrome! But it's not a true word!

"Great Callisto! Ambiguous? Ambivalent? An arbiter. Surely you are mistaken! I am not inconsequential!" said Bungalow.

Civic is the only five-letter English palindrome made from Roman numerals! Three dittoes!

"Great Callisto! They say I am ample! Burgeoning! The Gubachuks! They are capacious! Copious! Permeated! Prodigious! Replete!" said Bungalow.

Three ways to describe the Gubachuks: Ditto, ditto, and ditto.

"Great Callisto! They say I have sincerity! Frank! Pragmatic! A purist! No! I am terse and insightful! Not curtailed!"

Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Boring. Very boring. Ditto. Whatever.

"Great Callisto! The weather is arid! There is a conflagration! A nocturnal one! It is temperate!" said Bungalow.

How many dittoes did you say you wanted again?

"Great Callisto! They say I am clandestine! Plotting a coup! No! They say I have enmity! Heresy! Implacable! A maverick! Mercurial! Pugnacious! Rancorous! They say I have a stratagem! I am wary! I thwart the good things! No reclamations! Furtive! Impetuous!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! And Rikki-tikki-tavi fought his way through the bathrooms of Bungalow!"

--Gnilpik Draydur

"Great Callisto! They say I catalog equanimity! It is feasible! It is apt! I am solvent! It is facile! Liquid! Plausible!" said Bungalow.

The name's Ditto. Ditto Ditto. And I'm here to celebrate the autumnal equinox!

"Great Callisto! I am biased! Incontrovertible! The jurisprudence! I want to be vindicated! I am penitent!" said Bungalow.

What the heck?

"Great Callisto! It is incumbent! Indigenous! Innate! Inveterate! Parochial! Pervasive!" said Bungalow.

Eh?

"Great Callisto! They impinge me! I am not laconic! I do lament! They say I am obsolete! Reticent! No! A sanction! Suppressed! They say I am surreptitious! But no! I am not truncated! They wane!" said Bungalow.

I do not understand what you are saying.

"Great Callisto! I am not ephemeral! They call me obscure! Tacit! Tenuous! Timorous! The trepidation!" said Bungalow.

Eh? I cannot understand!

"Great Callisto! I am not immutable! Mundane? Prosaic! I am prudent! I have tenets! Not stoic! Austere! I fight crime with one genre? Staid? Archaic!" said Bungalow.

Wee buh dee buh dee buh dee buh dee!

"Great Callisto! I do not emulate! I am not naïve! Nascent? Novice!" said Bungalow.

Eh? Cuckoo!

"Great Callisto! I am not toxic! Brittle! I don't have malice! Malfeasance! No!" said Bungalow.

Eh? Egg? Egghead!

"Great Callisto! A dilettante, you say? Perhaps a bit eclectic? I am intuitive! Laudatory! Novel! Paramount! Urbane! The epiphany! I am trenchant! Not whimsical!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Bungalow! We don't know what you're saying, but you need to destroy the Gubachuks!" said a person.

"Great Callisto! Attention! Gubachuks, halt! This is your captain speaking! Captain Crunch! I command you to explode!" said Bungalow.

The Gubachuks exploded and there was a horrible, horrible, (ditto) horrible smell!

"Great Callisto! Ah, what a wonderful day!" said Jacob, the putty farmer. "Kind of boring, isn't it, without the old paisano! And he was insane! And Mr. Zhlupp! And the paisano again! Why did he ride my old horse, Brownie, into Green Lake? Why?"

"Great Callisto! Hi, Jacob! We're searching for cheese!" said Jacob's two flying pigs, Herbert and Claude.

"Great Callisto! Huh? No! You can't do that! No!" said Jacob.

The story of the cheese is another story.

Herbert never came back. He was the fat one.

One day it was raining Gubachuks!

"Great Callisto! Hey, what's that?" said Claude.

"Great Callisto! What's what?" said Jacob scratching his thermometer. It read 159° F.

"Great Callisto! What's that thing?" said Claude pointing to a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! I don't know! Let me check!" said Jacob.

He grabbed his calculator and pressed a bunch of buttons.

"Great Callisto! That's a Gubachuk!" said Jacob.

"Great Callisto! Ooh, Gubachuks!" said Claude.

The Gubachuks got stuck in the Silly Putty®. They exploded.

Ditto.

The alarm clock rang inside Bungalow's bungalow.

"Great Callisto! I am the great Hong Kong Phooey!" said Bungalow. He smashed his alarm clock with a hammer.

"Great Callisto! What did you say?" asked Bungalow's sidekick, Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Nothing!" said Bungalow. "The people of Taterville need our help! I can sense it!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Okay!" said Potaton.

They flew to Taterville.

"Great Callisto! I have learned a valuable lesson! When Gubachuks are present, never speak your vocabulary!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Whatever!" said Potaton.

Taterville had been evacuated due to Hurricane Zachary. The Gubachuks were nowhere in sight.

"Great Callisto! Well, what do you know? I misperceived!" said Bungalow. "I need to improve my telepathic abilities!"

"Great Callisto! Um, Bungalow?" said Potaton. "That wasn't a perception. That was a nightmare."

"Great Callisto! A nightmare? What's a nightmare?" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Something like that!" said Potaton, pointing at the trees flying around them.

"Great Callisto! Oh, the hurricane! I forgot about that! Wait, I don't have any telepathic abilities!" said Bungalow.

The winds were gaining speed. Faster, faster. 170 miles per hour and counting.

"Great Callisto! Bungalow? What's pi to the power of pi?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! 36.46215961!" said Bungalow, using his Sharp® EL-531L Scientific Calculator with Advanced Direct Algebraic Logic.

"Great Callisto! What's the pi root of pi?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto!" said Bungalow.

The wind threw the calculator out of his hand.

"Great Callisto! Smurf it!" said Bungalow. "My favorite calculator! Gone! Gone with the wind!"

The calculator flew around and around. It bonked Bungalow in the head.

"Great Callisto! Let's get out of here!" said Bungalow.

They flew away.

It was raining. Raining.

It was a falling ocean.

"Great Callisto! Ow! My calculator just hit my head!" said Bungalow. "My calculator! I need it!"

Bungalow flew back.

He found the calculator inside a mailbox.

Then a gigantic wave crashed over him.

Bungalow was never seen again.

Bungalow!

Bungalow!

Bungalow!

!wolagnuB Bungalow!

Great Callisto! Bungalow! Your friendly local superhero! Call 52-333-BUNGALOW for more information.

And Potaton too! Your friendly local superhero's friendly local sidekick! Call 52-333-POTATON.

Or visit us online at www.superhero.sf/bungalow.

Chunky Cheez was born in 2153 in Perigee Colony on the moon! And Chunky Cheez is his real name! He has written two other novels, The Bantam Mole Tooth and Cheezland. Both are available on floppy disks. Chunky Cheez writes his stories in Cheezamation! His favorite television show is Dexter's Laboratory, an old cartoon that premiered on April 28, 1996. Chunky Cheez now lives in Transcension Colony on Mars. Just kidding.

"Great Callisto! Why? Why? Where is Bungalow?" said Potaton. "I will have to work alone, then!"

Potaton flew to New Tater City. The Gubachuks were there.

"Great Callisto! Beware, Gubachuks! It is I, Potaton!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! We are taking over your stinky, little world!" droned the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! Funny!" said Potaton.

The Gubachuks exploded.

A horrible smell diffused into the troposphere.

And to this day, no one knows the cause of the explosion.

Or so it seems.

There was a knock on the door.

Allan Baxter woke up.

He crept up the door.

There were chattering voices outside.

Knock! Knock! Crack! Wham! Knock!

The knocking grew louder.

Allan bit his finger.

Knock! Knock! Belch!

There were little squeaky voices outside.

Then the door fell over on top of Allan.

A bunch of creatures stepped on him.

"Great Callisto! We are taking over your pathetic little world!" droned the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! No!" said Allan.

His worst nightmare had come true.

Little potato people!

Everywhere!

Egads!

Allan kicked the first Gubachuk.

It flew out the window and bounced across the street.

Down came a tuna fish. It was the size of a car. It came from the sky. Spooky!

Down came a refrigerator. It bounced off the tuna fish and crashed into the pavement.

There were potatoes inside. But they weren't potatoes! They were...they were...(gasp!)...Gubachuks!

"Great Callisto! Heh heh! Oh, my! Oh, my! Mommy! Please! I want my mommy!" said Allan. "I am doomed! Doomed! Doo-med! Egh!"

There were forty Gubachuks. They were everywhere.

"Great Callisto! Nightmare! Funny!" said Allan.

The Gubachuks exploded with a horrible smell.

There was a knock on Potaton's door.

It was Bungalow!

"Great Callisto! Bungalow? I thought Bungalow was never seen again!" said Potaton.

Knock! Knock!

Potaton opened the door.

It wasn't Bungalow!

It was eight Gubachuks!

"Great Callisto! We are taking over your miserable little world!" droned the eight Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! Ek. Pok. Tuk. Yek. Yak. Mak. Hek. Guk!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Funny!" said a voice. It was Bungalow!

The Gubachuks exploded.

Horrible smell.

"Great Callisto! What's that smell?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Ah! What a wonderful day!" said Hubert Huber.

He bounced outside.

There was a potato on the sidewalk. It looked like Abraham Lincoln.

"Great Callisto! That's weird!" said Hubert.

And more potatoes fell from the sky. And more. And more!

"Great Callisto! It's raining potatoes! Hey! This one looks like a lagomorph! I like lagomorphs! They're so cute!" said Hubert Huber.

"Great Callisto! Ah! What a wonderful day!" said Hubert.

All sorts of stuff fell from the sky. Toothpaste. Potatoes. Gallium. Potatoes. Walnuts. Gubachuks. Potatoes. Celery. Mushrooms. Paramecia. Potatoes. Gubachuks. Potatoes. Gubachuks. Gubachuks. Gubachuks. Gubachuks. Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! What are these? They look funny!" said Hubert.

The Gubachuks exploded with a horrible smell.

"Great Callisto! I am a Gubachuk! I come from the planet Gubach! They call me a potato person!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Bungalow? Are you all right?" said Potaton.

Potatoes fell.

Gubachuks fell.

"Great Callisto! Funny!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! What he said! Ditto!" said Bungalow.

Boom.

Smell.

Stink.

Meet Bob. Bob is the average guy. Not too much. Not too little. Exactly average. And he's, well, average.

One day, Bob was in his history class.

"Great Callisto! In 1492, Christopher Clumsibus left Spain on a journey to the Indies. He said that the world was not flat and that it was in fact a cube! Therefore, he could sail around the world to India. He sailed on three ships: the El Niño, the Pinto Bean, and the Santa Claus. But there was an accident. The Pinto Bean was struck by lightning. It exploded! It sank toward the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean into the ruins of Atlantis. The two remaining ships sailed in the wrong direction. Northwest! They reached land! Clumsibus called it Newfangledland!" said Bob's history teacher.

It was a cold, stormy day on Mars. The wind rushed over the Gubachuks' Mars base.

The emissary of the Gubachuks, Keruthar, paced back and forth inside the hospital.

There were seventy-three wounded Gubachuks. They had exploded.

"Great Callisto! Eesh! Stupid. Stupid! You pathetic fools! Look what you've done! Now you're all stuck here!" said Keruthar. "You disgrace the name of Gubach! Why? You all know that our home planet, Gubach, is too polluted for us to stay there much longer. We have to scout out this planet. Analyze it! Then live on it in peace and harmony with the inhabitants! Peace! Not war! War is bad! Bad! It's a failure! We don't want to harm the natives. We don't want to. It will only bring harm and disaster to us all. And you miserable sacks of manure have to dance all over the place and drone, 'We are taking over your miserable world!' What for? They think we are ridiculous? They call us 'potato people' after some edible tuber that they extract from the ground? They flush us down the thing that they call a 'toilet?' What? It doesn't matter. And this is a failure! They think we are their enemies! Terrible! Eesh! Egads! Ow! Stink! Ow! Burp! Pop! Melt! Horrible! Devastating! And now we are at war with these natives! Eesh! Look what you've done!"

The wounded Gubachuks were silent. No one said a word. No one said "a word."

Keruthar sighed, glanced at the other Gubachuks, and left the hospital.

He walked down the tunnel to the scientific research facility.

"Great Callisto! Ecthar! What new weapons do you have?" asked Keruthar.

Ecthar, the science advisor of the emperor of Gubach, replied, "I have a new virus. A computer virus. It can enter the technology of the inhabitants and make it usurp the government!"

"Great Callisto! Good!" opined Keruthar.

A radio wave carrying the virus entered a laboratory. Dexter's laboratory.

"Great Callisto! Yes! My interdimensional portal! It has been finished!" exclaimed Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Dexter!" said Dee Dee. "Can I try it?"

"Great Callisto! Why must you interfere with my inventions, woman!" said Dexter. "Can you not understand that I am trying to travel to another dimension?"

The radio wave bounced around the laboratory and entered the portal.

Dexter stepped through it.

Dee Dee stepped through it.

"Great Callisto! What? A virus? Oh, no!" said Dexter.

Meanwhile, in a little house far, far, far away, Bungalow was punching buttons on his calculator.

"Great Callisto! Puppy power!" said Bungalow.

Bungalow and Potaton were suddenly zapped.

They found themselves in funny little armor suits.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to Questworld!" said Iris.

Dexter and Dee Dee also found themselves in little armor suits.

"Great Callisto! Egads! What could have gone wrong?" asked Dexter.

They looked funny. Computer animation.

Picture Dexter in Questworld. Funny.

"Great Callisto! Who are you?" asked Dexter.

"Great Callisto! We are Bungalow and Potaton, your friendly local superheroes!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! I'm Dexter, boy genius, and this is my sister, Dee Dee!" said Dexter.

There was another zap.

And there were Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo.

Picture Scooby-Doo in an armor suit. Funny.

"Great Callisto! This is screwed up!" said Bungalow. "I've always said that cartoons were real!"

There was another zap.

"Great Callisto! Jonny Quest!" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! Jessie Bannon!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! This is really screwed up!" said Bungalow.

There was another zap.

And there were fifty Gubachuks in Questworld.

Picture a Gubachuk in an armor suit. Funny.

"Great Callisto! Who are these potato people?" asked Velma.

"Great Callisto! Beats me!" said Scooby-Doo.

"Great Callisto! Poo-poo shoo-shoo number two!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Huh?" said Fred.

"Great Callisto! Ditto!" said Daphne.

"Great Callisto! Egads!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Zoinks!" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! They're so cute!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! Pardon me, but how did we get into Questworld?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! I don't know!" said Jonny.

"Great Callisto! Me neither!" said Jessie.

"Great Callisto! Has the author, Chunky Cheez, gone nuts or what?" asked Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Who knows?" said Daphne.

There was a period of silence.

"Great Callisto! We are taking over your miserable Questworld!" said the fifty Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! What exactly is the point of this story?" asked Potaton.

There was another period of silence.

"Great Callisto! Hey, everybody! Did you know that the letters in 'twelve plus one' can be rearranged to form 'eleven plus two?'" said Shaggy. "And they both equal thirteen!"

"Great Callisto! I did not know that!" said Velma. "Why are chicken fingers called chicken fingers when chickens don't have fingers?"

"Great Callisto! It'll take me a long time to figure that one out!" said Bungalow. "Did you know that my name means a dwelling? And did you know that nine divided by zero is impossible, the square root of a negative number does not exist, and that zero divided by zero can be anything. Even pi! Did you know that there are nineteen versions of Scooby-Doo? Nineteen!"

"Great Callisto! No science can exist without mathematics!" said Jessie.

"Great Callisto! What three-dimensional figure can be created from a rectangle that when you draw horizontal and vertical lines across it, they will form two circles?" said Daphne.

"Great Callisto! Hmmm, a sphere?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Um, that thing! The, um, pointy thing! Whatchamacallit? The cone!" said Fred.

"Great Callisto! Please allow me to confer with my inner self! It is a lagomorph!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Nope! It's a ring!" said Daphne.

"Great Callisto! Can we please stop talking and prevent the Gubachuks from taking over Questworld?" asked Jonny.

"Great Callisto! But we're having so much fun!" said Scooby-Doo.

"Great Callisto! Fromage de l'escargot!" said Fred.

"Great Callisto! We are doomed. So funny!" said Jonny Quest.

There was a horrible explosion in Questworld.

And a horrible smell.

"Great Callisto! You have failed again!" said Keruthar. "Send down another virus into their 'Questworld!' And prevent the inhabitants from saying 'funny!'"

The Gubachuks exploded.

Bungalow was sleeping.

He was humming the theme songs of The Flintstones and The Jetsons simultaneously in his sleep.

Zap.

"Great Callisto! Who dares interrupt my subconscious resting?!" screamed Bungalow.

They were back in Questworld.

"Great Callisto! Zoinks! Look, Scooby! More Gubachuks!" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! Hadji! Shut down Questworld now!" said Jonny.

Questworld shut down.

"Great Callisto! Eesh!" said Keruthar.

Bungalow woke up.

"Great Callisto! Eesh!" said Bungalow.

Zap.

"Great Callisto! Hey, Potaton!" said Bungalow. "We're back in Questworld!"

"Great Callisto! I'm tired of Questworld!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! I'm not tired of Questworld!" said Jonny Quest.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-dooby-doo!" said Scooby.

"Great Callisto! Who's that?" asked Dee Dee.

It was Daphne Blake.

"Great Callisto! Hi!" said Daphne.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" said a voice.

Then came the Gubachuks. Hundreds of them.

Everybody screamed.

Bungalow, Potaton, Dexter, Dee Dee, Jonny, Jessie, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo ran down the hall. They tripped over Gubachuks.

I hope they'll make a movie out of this. I can't wait to see Dexter in Questworld!

Gubachuks. Hundreds of them.

They ran out of the building. The people, not the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to Level 2!" said Iris.

"Great Callisto! Look! Paratrooping Gubachuks!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Enable Questworld weapons!" said Jonny. They received weapons.

Jonny threw the bomb at the building. It exploded.

"Great Callisto! Gubachuks everywhere!" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! To flee or not to flee, that is the question! Is that a question?" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Bungalow, you said that cartoons are real! Why don't we summon all of the other cartoons?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! What? No!" said Bungalow.

Zap.

Every Hanna-Barbera cartoon was now in Questworld.

Picture the Smurfs in Questworld armor suits. Funny.

"Great Callisto! Cartoons everywhere!" said Velma.

"Great Callisto! Smurfs! Jetsons! Flintstones! Cow! Chicken! Snorks! I. R. Baboon! Monkey! Justice Friends! Action Hank! Puppet Pals! Secret Squirrel! Stupid dogs! SWAT Kats! Morocco Mole! Jabberjaw! Hong Kong Phooey! Johnny Bravo! Yogi Bear! The Powerpuff Girls?!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Who's Action Hank?" asked Shaggy.

There was silence.

Then came the Gubachuks. Hundreds of them.

"Great Callisto! Pass through that portal!" said Jessie.

Everybody passed through. Except the Gubachuks, of course.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to Level 3! You are on the planet Gubach, home of the Gubachuks!" said Iris.

"Great Callisto! Iris! Send us to Level 4!" said Jonny.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to Level 4! You are on the planet Mars, base of the Gubachuks!" said Iris.

"Great Callisto! Oh, man! My hair!" said Johnny Bravo.

Gubachuks! Everywhere! Hundreds and hundreds of them!

All of the extra cartoons ran away.

Only Bungalow, Potaton, Jonny, Jessie, Dexter, Dee Dee, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo were left. And Action Hank, too.

"Great Callisto! Bungalow, are we cartoons, too?" asked Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Who knows?" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! I am Keruthar, emissary of the Gubachuks!" said the weird-looking Gubachuk. But, then again, they were all weird-looking. "We Gubachuks mean you Earthlings no harm! We only want peace! We came here because our home planet, Gubach, was too polluted to survive on! Please allow us to live in peace on your planet! We also came to warn you about what you are doing to your planet! We can see into the future! Your planet is ruined! It has been completely depleted of life! And this is only a thousand years into the future! No, it isn't a comet or an asteroid! Not extraterrestrials either. Not a huge volcano! Something that you call 'global warming!' It ruins everything! Temperatures are searing! The lifeforms of your planet now have to seek shelter on two nearby worlds! Your moon and your neighboring planet, Mars, where Gubachuks and Earthlings must now live in peace in the cold, cold atmosphere! But you never listen to us! You don't recycle! You cut down rain forests! You stink!"

(I really like cartoons. And calculators. Cartoon Network is my favorite channel. There are cartoons all the time everywhere. Cool animation programming for all ages. Cartoon Network. Screwy, ain't it?)

Nope! Don't think so! It's not the end! Too early!

"Great Callisto! That was spooky! That was the worst nightmare I've ever had!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Nightmare?" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! First there's this spooky sound! Then some guy's, like, quoting the first paragraph of H. G. Wells's War o' the Worlds! Then there's this long definition-a-thingy about the word potato! And then something about cheese! Fromage or something! Is that French? Solanum tuberosum or something! What's that supposed to be? Swahili? Then there's a story about Gunther, the fat kid! His brother, like, flushed potatoes down the toilet or something! So Gunther plunges the toilet! Isn't that funny? Plunging the toilet! Plunge, two, three, four! Plunge, two, three, four! Ha ha! That's funny! Funny! Really funny! Too funny! Then he gets sucked into the toilet, and he goes around and around with the poo-poo down at the waste treatment plant! Then his brother buys a big bag of fertilizer! And guess who's inside? Fat kid Gunther, that's who! Then the doorbell rings! And it's these little potato people from outer space called Gubachuks! Isn't that funny?"

"Great Callisto! Duh!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! And Gunther and his brother hug the Gubachuks and they all blow up with a horrible smell! Funny! Then comes Ali Bobby! He and his friend are at the zoo! Gubachuks! Then there's boy genius Dexter! And Dee Dee blows up the lab! And more Gubachuks! Then there's you-know-who. That's right! Your friendly local superhero! Bungalow! And there's all these dittoes and everything! And Gubachuks! And I use all these words that I don't understand! Isn't that funny? Then there's Jacob, the putty farmer! And Silly Putty®! And Gubachuks! Ha ha ha! Funny, isn't it? I know what you're thinking! I need free tickets to the place with the padded walls! Padded walls! Sounds nice! Then in Chapter 5, I return! Bungalow! Bungalow! And Potaton, too! And more Gubachuks! Then there's all this stuff about the author, Chunky Cheez, that no one cares about. Then comes you! Potaton! But I'm nowhere to be found! Then comes Allan and more Gubachuks! I'm cracking up! Then comes me and you! Your friendly local superheroes! Then comes Hubert Huber! Funny name! Ha ha! And guess what? More Gubachuks! Then comes me again! Bungalow! I like saying that! I really do! Then comes Bob! Bob is your average guy! And his history teacher talks about Clumsibus's discovery of Newfangledland! Then come those little Gubachuks! And then there are we again! Plus a bunch of cartoons! Funny, huh? I'm getting sleepy!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Bungalow, that wasn't a nightmare! That was real!" said Potaton. But Bungalow was already asleep.

"Great Callisto! It's me calculator! Me bonny good calculator!" said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Sharp® Scientific Calculator EL-531L! You bought a new one!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Yep! Sure did!" said Bungalow.

Bungalow had forgotten about his adventures. All he remembers is the meteorite with the bandage on it. But that's another story.

"Great Callisto! Evacuate! She's gonna blow!" said a Gubachuk.

Everybody on Gubach was running around like crazy. Gubach was going to explode.

"Great Callisto! Your Highness! We need to evacuate now!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Sure! Why not?" said Falthar, emperor of the Gubachuks. "Are we going to that scouting base near the blue planet? The base on Mars?"

Bungalow woke up.

"Great Callisto! Ah! It's a wonderful day! Hear the birds sing! Smell the flowers!" said Bungalow.

He looked out the window.

"Great Callisto! Say! Where are the flowers?" said Bungalow. "Sort of redundant, isn't it? Superfluous, too! A good synonym for both would be the word 'pleonastic' or something!"

He looked up at the sky. There were Gubachuk spaceships. Hundreds of them. He looked toward the horizon. There were paratrooping Gubachuks. Thousands of them. He looked down toward the ground. He saw anxious, angry Gubachuks. Trillions of them.

"Great Callisto! We're doomed," said Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! No! Gubachuks! Everywhere! This can't happen!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! But we have our friends, Dexter and Jonny Quest! And Scooby-Doo, too!" said Bungalow.

Zap.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to Questworld, Bungalow and Potaton!" said the computer.

No one was there.

"Great Callisto! That's odd! Where's everyone else?" said Bungalow.

They waited for three minutes.

"Great Callisto! Watch out!" said Jonny Quest, suddenly.

It was Dr. Jeremiah Surd!

"Great Callisto! Surd! No, not you! Please! We're already battling the Gubachuks!" said Jonny.

Out of nowhere came Jessie, Dexter, Dee Dee, Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo.

"Great Callisto! Tie him up!" said Jonny.

They tied Surd up.

"Great Callisto! Eesh! What have I done?" said Surd.

"Great Callisto! The voice! That's not Surd!" said Jonny.

The mask fell off. It wasn't Surd. It was a Gubachuk!

"Great Callisto! Tie the Gubachuk up!" said Jonny.

They tied the Gubachuk up.

"Great Callisto! Eesh! What have I done?" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! The voice! That's not a Gubachuk!" said Jonny.

The mask fell off. It wasn't a Gubachuk. It was Action Hank!

"Great Callisto! Action Hank!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Action Hank!" said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Look! There's my interdimensional portal!" said Dexter.

Everybody walked through.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to my laboratory!" said Dexter.

Picture Scooby-Doo and Jonny Quest in Dexter's laboratory. Funny.

"Great Callisto! So this is the famous Dexter's laboratory!" said Jonny.

"Great Callisto! Let's go back to Questworld!" said Fred.

They went back.

But they weren't in Questworld anymore.

They were on Mars.

The Mars outpost of the Empire of Gubach, to be exact.

In other words, the Gubachuks are coming! The Gubachuks are coming!

"Great Callisto! Look, Gubachuks!" said Daphne.

The Gubachuks captured the Earthlings.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Bungalow. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Potaton?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the ridiculous Earthling in the flamboyant costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Bungalow. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Bungalow' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Potaton. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Bungalow?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the intelligent Earthling in the flamboyant costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Potaton. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Potaton' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Dexter. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Dee Dee?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the very intelligent Earthling in the laboratory costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Dexter. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Dexter' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Dee Dee. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Dexter?"

She walked down the hall.

She paused. She heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the dumb Earthling in the pink costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Dee Dee. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There she is! The one called 'Dee Dee' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Jonny. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Jessie?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Jonny.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the persevering Earthling in the boring costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Jonny. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Jonny' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Jessie. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Jonny?"

She walked down the hall.

She paused. She heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Jessie.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the red-haired Earthling in the pink and violet costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Jessie. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There she is! The one called 'Jessie' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Fred. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Daphne?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Fred.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the authoritative Earthling in the weird costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Fred. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Fred' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Daphne. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Fred?"

She walked down the hall.

She paused. She heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Daphne.

"Great Callisto! Listen! It's the weird Earthling in the weirder costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Daphne. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There she is! The one called 'Daphne' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Velma. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Shaggy?"

She walked down the hall.

She paused. She heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Velma.

"Great Callisto! Look! It's the knowledgeable Earthling in the weirdest costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Velma. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There she is! The one called 'Velma' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Shaggy. "Zoinks! I'm lost! Where's Scooby-Doo?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! Look! It's the cowardly Earthling in the swampy costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Shaggy. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Shaggy' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where am I?" asked Scooby-Doo. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Shaggy?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Scooby-Doo.

"Great Callisto! Look! It's the canine Earthling in the hairy costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Scooby-Doo. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Scooby-Doo' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Scooby-Doo, where are you?" asked Action Hank. "Jinkies! I'm lost! Where's Mandark?"

He walked down the hall.

He paused. He heard footsteps. And some talking.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Gubachuks!" screamed Action Hank.

"Great Callisto! Look! It's the heroic Earthling in the military costume! We are so fortuitous!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oops! I wasn't supposed to scream that!" said Action Hank. "Oh, well! Nobody will notice!"

"Great Callisto! There he is! The one called 'Action Hank' or something!" said the Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Who's that?" asked Dexter.

"Great Callisto! It's me!" said a voice.

"Great Callisto! Mandark! How did you get on Mars?" asked Dexter.

"Great Callisto! I followed you into Questworld!" said Mandark.

"Great Callisto! You followed us into Questworld?" asked Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Yes! I followed you into Questworld!" acknowledged Mandark.

"Great Callisto! Then how come you are on Mars?" asked Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Who knows? Do you know? I doubt it! You don't know! Why ask me?" said Mandark.

"Great Callisto! I don't know! How should I know? Maybe there was something wrong with Questworld?" suggested Dexter.

"Great Callisto! I don't think so! Maybe! Maybe. Maybe not! Ha ha!" said Mandark.

"Great Callisto! Mandark, how do you think we

This the story of the Gubachuks that you have been waiting for.

Once upon a time, there was a planet that orbited the star Alpha Centauri B. It is 4.3 light years away. This is a fact. Alpha Centauri B does exist.

So, there was a planet called Gubach. And on this planet, life evolved similarly to life on Earth. There was an intelligent form of life. A gubachutoid creature. A Gubachuk!

And then things got a little smarter. And smarter. And smarter.

So then the Gubachuks developed advanced technology. Telepathizers.

The government of the Gubach was a monarchical democracy. It was ruled by an emperor and the people. The people would vote on things, and the emperor would be in charge of keeping Gubach from falling apart.

The emperor at this time was Poopthar. Poopthar conferred with his advisors, and finally, he acknowledged that there was a planet 4.3 light years away. Gubach was very polluted and needed somewhere to go. This planet, Earth, was also polluted, but it could be convinced to stop polluting.

The Gubachuks, for some odd reason, were against this information.

"Great Callisto! He errs! Usurp him!" they said.

And so the people, who virtually had more power than he did, forced Poopthar to abdicate his throne. They sent him to Lekch, a neighboring planet.

The leader of the rebellion was Falthar. Falthar became the emperor of Gubach. After conferring with his advisors, he publicly acknowledged that Poopthar was correct. There was indeed a planet 4.3 light years away. It was inhabited.

This time the people did not rebel against the government. Four hundred Gubachuks were sent out to travel to the solar system of Earth.

The first outpost was on Mars. They could observe the Earthlings there.

They built other outposts, too.

There was one on Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Another was on Io, another moon of Jupiter. And two more on Ganymede and Europa.

Then the moved closer to Earth. They built an outpost on the terrestrial satellite. You would call it the moon.

Then two capsules crashed into Earth. The Gubachuks built two more bases. These were the most dangerous. One was at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The other was in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Finland.

Then they built the last outpost. It was Enceladus. The location of Enceladus cannot be revealed here. It is top secret. To the Gubachuks, that is. But you'll have fun searching for the location of Enceladus. It's not so far away.

The outpost on Enceladus was under the ground. Two kilometers under the ground.

Keruthar, the emissary, was in charge of the mission.

They were to make peace with the inhabitants.

The mission failed. The Earthlings believed that the Gubachuks were their enemies. And now the Gubachuks were at war with their only hope for survival. Perhaps not.

got here? How?" asked Dexter.

"Great Callisto! I don't know how!" said Mandark.

"Great Callisto! Look! It's Dee Dee, Action Hank, Jonny, Jessie, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Scooby-Doo!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! They are out there! Gubachuks!" said Velma.

"Great Callisto! Gubachuks? Where?" said Jonny.

They were back in Questworld again.

Not anymore. They were in some scary neighborhood.

"Great Callisto! I wouldn't be surprised if I saw a guy in a hockey mask with a chainsaw!" said Daphne.

Thunder crashed.

Lightning struck.

Somebody screamed.

It was Dexter. He had been struck by lightning.

"Great Callisto! Oh, come on! It's not that funny!" said Dexter.

Lightning struck Dexter again.

"Great Callisto! Strike two!" said Norville "Shaggy" Rogers.

"Great Callisto! Let's go back to Questworld!" said Jonny.

"Great Callisto! How?" asked Velma.

"Great Callisto! Let's fly!" said Scooby-Doo.

"Great Callisto! Hey, Scooby! Come back here! You don't know how to fly!" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! I don't?" asked Scooby.

He fell down. Into a log. Into a log in a bog. A dog on a log in a bog. That rhymes.

"Great Callisto! We can fly!" said Mandark. "Anything can happen in a cartoon!"

They flew back to Questworld.

"Great Callisto! Why am I a character in this crazy novel?" asked Dexter. "I am terrified of Gubachuks!"

"Great Callisto! Go Chunky Cheezers!" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! Eh?" asked Action Hank.

This is the scary part of the story. If you are brave enough, read on. If you are not, go to part five. Read on. But only if you're brave enough.

It was a cold, stormy night. The night of the twenty-first day of the twelfth month. The night of the winter solstice.

Lightning struck. Thunder crashed. Spaceships crashed.

Crash! went the thunder.

Smash! went the spaceships.

Wham! went the lightning into the spaceships.

Boom! went the spaceships.

Great Callisto! went everything.

More spaceships came.

It was next year. It was a cold, stormy night. The night of the last day of the tenth month. The night of Halloween. The night of Friday the 31st.

"Great Callisto! What the heck? What are these monsters running around here? I don't think we landed on the right planet!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Hey! That's one of our fellow Gubachuks out there!" said another Gubachuk.

The Gubachuks exited their spacecraft.

"Great Callisto! Hey, we need to be going back to Mars!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Huh?" said the fat kid in the potato costume. The mask fell off.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! Egads! One of our fellow Gubachuks has transformed into an Earthling!" said the Gubachuk.

It was one year and three days after the first invasion. The first, not the second.

It was a cold, stormy night. The night of the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month. The night of Christmas Eve.

"Great Callisto! Hey, look! A prowler! Some fat guy in a red costume! He's stuck in the chimney!" said a Gubachuk. "I think he's coming out of the chimney! He's got a big bag of stolen goods! And he's trying to escape by having reindeer pull him off of the roof! I didn't know the inhabitants were that insane!"

"Great Callisto! I know! Why don't we help him out?" said a Gubachuk.

He fired lasers at the house.

The fat man flew out of the chimney. He looked like a falling star.

He landed on the Gubachuks' interplanetary vehicle.

Crash!

"Great Callisto! Who are you? Are you nuts? I am Santa Claus! I'm trying to deliver presents to the little kids!" said Santa Claus.

"Great Callisto! You are very foolish! You cannot fool us! With all of your technology, you're trying to convince us that you were delivering presents to kids by climbing down the chimney?! You are insane!" said the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! Gubachuks! You have failed three times!" said Keruthar. "Falthar is disappointed in you! You have disgraced the name of Gubach! Try again!"

The Gubachuks returned to Earth. They would try once again to invade Earth.

It was a hot night. It was the night of the fourth day of July. It was the night of Independence Day.

"Great Callisto! We will succeed this time!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! They have spotted us! They are returning fire!" said another Gubachuk.

The fireworks hit the spaceship. Whack! Whack! Whack!

The spaceship was spinning around. Around and around.

"Great Callisto! No! We have failed again!" screamed the Gubachuks.

The Gubachuks returned to Earth.

It was a cold, stormy night. The night of the tenth day of November.

"Great Callisto! What's that?" asked a Gubachuk.

It was a rolling ball of snow.

"Great Callisto! Avalanche!" screamed the Gubachuks.

The spaceship flew away. It crashed into a tree and flew back toward the origin of the avalanche.

It rolled up the mountain. Up. Up. Ascending the mountain. Then it dropped into a crater. The ground was rumbling.

A Gubachuk glanced out the window of the spaceship. He saw a sign.

"Great Callisto! Mount Rainier? What's that?" he asked.

Suddenly the summit exploded. It was a volcano. The spaceship flew into space. It crashed into the Gubachuk base on Mars right in front of Falthar, the Emperor.

"Great Callisto! You have failed horribly! And you have wrecked the base!" screamed Falthar.

"Great Callisto! Sorry!" said the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! We are doomed!" said Falthar. "I know! Why don't we send someone else? How about Keruthar? He is trustworthy! He was the one that I sent to scout out the planet in the beginning!"

Keruthar's spaceship landed on Earth.

"Great Callisto! We come in peace!" said Keruthar, stepping out of the spaceship. "I am Keruthar, emissary of the Gubachuks! We mean you no harm!"

"Great Callisto! Sir, you're speaking to a bunch of trees!" said a Gubachuk.

Keruthar's spaceship landed somewhere else.

"Great Callisto! We come in peace!" said Keruthar, stepping out of the spaceship. "I am Keruthar, emissary of the Gubachuks! We mean you no harm!"

"Great Callisto! Cool! Talking potatoes!" said a kid.

"Great Callisto! Let's go somewhere else!" said Keruthar.

Keruthar's spaceship landed somewhere else.

"Great Callisto! We come in peace!" said Keruthar, stepping out of the spaceship. "I am Keruthar, emissary of the Gubachuks! We mean you no harm!"

His words sounded weird. The environment felt weird. Fish were swimming around them.

Keruthar saw a big fish. Its mouth was open. Keruthar could see rows of sharp, pointed teeth.

Keruthar's spaceship landed somewhere else.

"Great Callisto! We come in peace!" said Keruthar, stepping out of the spaceship. "I am Keruthar, emissary of the Gubachuks! We mean you no harm!"

"Great Callisto! Aw, shut up! I know who you are! You've landed at the Gubachuk base on Mars!" said Falthar.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no! My calculations were incorrect!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! I am very disappointed in you Gubachuks! You disgrace the name of Gubach! You never get anything done right!" said Falthar.

It was a cold, stormy night. The Gubachuks at the base at the bottom of the Baltic Sea were freezing.

"Great Callisto! There is a city called Helsinki in there! It is inland!" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! Abandon base! Abandon base!" screamed the Gubachuks.

What kind of a chapter title is that?

Oh, well! Who cares?

It was a cold, stormy night in Questworld.

(They just don't learn from their mistakes!)

"Great Callisto! Where's everybody?" asked Bungalow.

"Great Callisto! Let's go," said Potaton.

"Great Callisto! Good idea! Very good idea!" said Bungalow.

It was a cold, stormy night! Whatever!

"Great Callisto! Abandon base! Abandon base!" screamed the Gubachuks.

It was a cold, condensing, stormy night!

"Great Callisto! Asteroid!" screamed the Gubachuks.

It was a cold, stormy night.

"Great Callisto! Comet!" screamed the Gubachuks.

It was a cold, stormy night.

"Great Callisto! Space probe!" screamed the Gubachuks.

It was a cold, stormy night.

"Great Callisto! Refrigerator!" screamed the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! It was a very cold and stormy night," said a voice.

Everybody screamed.

"Great Callisto! The crazy genera, er, genii of Xebecville strike again!" said a voice.

Everybody screamed.

Q: What are Gubachuks?
A: They are people from Gubach.

Q: Why do they look like potatoes?
A: Because you perceive of them as potatoes. To one who does not know what a potato is, a Gubachuk resembles a tuber. To a Gubachuk, Gubachuks are Gubachuks.

Q: Who is Bungalow?
A: Your friendly local superhero.

Q: Who is Dr. Quest?
A: Jonny Quest's father.

Q: What is a xebec?
A: A kind of ship.

Q: Why is "Potaton" so much like "potato?"
A: They simply coincide.

Q: Why are the Smurfs blue?
A: They're not. They're green. Adjust your TV.

Q: Who's Mandark?
A: Mandark is Dexter's rival.

Q: Who's Action Hank?
A: Action Hank is some guy that Dexter admires.

Q: Who's Krunk?
A: Krunk is a Justice Friend.

Q: Who is Major Glory?
A: The Justice Friend that is Dexter's favorite superhero.

Q: Where is Enceladus?
A: It is one of Saturn's many moons.

Q: What's a potato?
A: An edible, starchy tuber.

Q: What's a tuber?
A: A thickened portion of an underground stem.

Q: What's a stem?
A: The main ascending axis of a plant.

Q: What's an axis?
A: A line around which something rotates.

Q: What's a line?
A: A set of points having length without thickness.

Q: What's a set?
A: A number of things belonging together.

Q: What's a number?
A: An amount of objects.

Q: What's an amount?
A: A value.

Q: What's a value?
A: The worth of a thing.

Q: What's a worth?
A: Excellence of any kind.

Q: What's excellence?
A: The quality of excelling.

Q: What's a quality?
A: That which makes a being or thing such as it is.

Q: What's that?
A: What's what?

That's the longest chapter title I've ever seen!

Eesh! Are you still interested in this novel? You know, it's more than ten thousand words long right now.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Bungalow!

Bungalow!

Bungalow!

Wait! That's not Bungalow! That's a Gubachuk spaceship!

Help! The Gubachuks are coming!

There is a Gubachuk outpost on our natural satellite.

"Great Callisto! Look! What's that?" said a Gubachuk.

"Great Callisto! It's some interplanetary vehicle! And a plaque!" said another Gubachuk. "It says,

'HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND!'"

"Great Callisto! Huh? They came in peace? We came in peace too! And they want us to leave in pieces!" said the first Gubachuk.

It was a cold, stormy night.

The setting: Gubachuk Outpost on the terrestrial satellite. The natural one.

The Gubachuks were screaming!

"Great Callisto! Help! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a black hole!" screamed the Gubachuks.

"Great Callisto! Huh? This is too confusing!" said Falthar. "All of our Gubachuk outposts are destroyed except for two. Send me to Minsk! I mean Enceladus!"

Mars exploded.

Falthar reached the Gubachuk outpost on Enceladus safely. No Gubachuks were hurt.

"Great Callisto! Ah! So this is Enceladus! Moon of no craters!" said Falthar.

The base was below the surface.

Enceladus was covered with ice.

"Great Callisto! Time for Plan Zed!" said Falthar. "The Earthlings have something that they call 'foreign exchange student' or something! By disguising yourself as one, you can capture the Earthlings! Ha ha ha!"

"Great Callisto! Go Gubachuks!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! You will be the 'foreign exchange student,' Keruthar!" said Falthar.

"Great Callisto! Me? Why me? I can't be a flubber chunks stunt!" said Keruthar.

They sent Keruthar to Earth.

Keruthar rang the doorbell.

"Great Callisto! Greetings! Salutations! I am a flubber chunks stunt! My name is Keruthar, emissary of the Gubachuks! I am from Gubach!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! Hi! You must be the foreign exchange student from Cuba! You already know a lot of English! That's great! Hubert! Kenny, the foreign exchange student, is here!" said Mrs. Huber.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Kenny! I'm Hubert Huber!" said Hubert Huber. "These are my friends, Gunther Eisberg, Ali Bobby What's-his-name, Allan Baxter, and Bob. Jacob, the putty farmer, lives down the street. We visit his farm to get Silly Putty®. I've got a whole collection."

The doorbell rang.

It was Kenny, the foreign exchange student from Cuba.

"Great Callisto! I am Kenny, from Cuba! I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Huber!" said Kenny.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Kenny! Hubert! Kenny is here!" said Mrs. Huber.

"Great Callisto! Mom, Kenny's already here!" said Hubert.

"Great Callisto! If that's Kenny, then who is this?" said Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! I don't know!" said Bob.

"Great Callisto! Oh, no!" said Gunther.

"Great Callisto! It's a Gubachuk!" said Allan.

"Great Callisto! No! Okay, I confess! I am a Gubachuk!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! Kill him!" said Bob.

"Great Callisto! No! I do not mean you any harm! Please don't kill me!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! Fine!" said Gunther.

"Great Callisto! Okay!" said Allan.

"Great Callisto! Sure!" said Bob.

"Great Callisto! Whatever you say!" said Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! If you're a Gubachuk, then who's that?" said Hubert.

Everybody looked at Kenny.

"Great Callisto! Wait! I am the real Kenny, from Cuba!" said Kenny.

"Great Callisto! Who wants Kenny when we have a Gubachuk from outer space!" said Allan.

"Great Callisto! It's not that far away. Gubach is only 4.3 light years away. Alpha Centauri!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! No! No! Don't kick me out!" said Kenny.

"Great Callisto! Throw him out the window!" said Gunther.

They tried to push Kenny out the window, but he was too fat.

They threw toothpaste at him.

Kenny fell out the window and into the pool.

"Great Callisto! Look! Everything's wet, and the pool is empty! Except for Kenny!" said Hubert.

"Great Callisto! Hi! I'm Gunther!" said Gunther. "I have a calculator! 'LIMITED WARRANTY: SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION warrants to the first consumer purchaser that this Sharp brand product (the 'Product'), when shipped in its original container, will be free from defective workmanship and materials and agrees that it will, at its option, either repair the defect or replace the defective Product or part thereof at no charge to the purchaser for parts or labor for the time period(s) set forth below.

"This warranty does not apply to any appearance items of the Product nor to the additional excluded item(s) set forth below nor to any product the exterior of which has been damaged or defaced, which has been subjected to misuse, abnormal service or handling or which has been altered or modified in design or construction.

"In order to enforce the rights under this limited warranty, the purchaser should follow the steps set forth below and provide proof of purchase to the servicer.

"The limited warranty described herein is in addition to whatever implied warranties may be granted to purchasers by law. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR USE ARE LIMITED TO THE PERIOD(S) FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE SET FORTH BELOW. Some states do now allow limitations on how long an implied warranty lasts, so the above limitation may not apply to you.

"Neither the sales personnel of the seller nor any other person is authorized to make any warranties other than those described herein or to extend the duration of any warranties beyond the time period described herein on behalf of Sharp.

"The warranties described herein shall be the sole and exclusive warranties granted by Sharp and shall be the sole and exclusive remedy available to the purchaser. Correction of defects, in the manner and for the period of time described herein, shall constitute complete fulfillment of all liabilities and responsibilities of Sharp to the purchaser with respect to the Product and shall constitute full satisfaction of all claims, whether based on contract, negligence, strict liability or otherwise. In no event shall Sharp be liable, or in any way responsible, for any damages or defects in the Product which were caused by repairs or attempted repairs performed by anyone other than an authorized servicer. Nor shall Sharp be liable, or in any way responsible, for any incidental or consequential economic or property damage. Some states do not allow the exclusion of incidental or consequential damages, so the above exclusion may not apply to you.

"That's my calculator! It's got this equation bar, so you can see your equation! It can do arithmetic operations, functions, random numbers, angular unit conversions, memory calculations, fraction calculations, decimal and sexagesimal conversions for time, and coordinate calculations! My Sharp® Scientific Calculator EL-531L!"

"Great Callisto! What was that all about?" said Ali Bobby.

"Great Callisto! Tomorrow, we go to school!" said Hubert.

The next day, Keruthar and Hubert went to school.

"Great Callisto! Mrs. Hcabug, I'd like you to meet my friend, Keruthar! He's from Gubach!" said Hubert.

"Great Callisto! Welcome to my class, Kenny! So, you're from Cuba!" said Mrs. Hcabug.

"Great Callisto! What's that?" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! That? That's Mr. Upchuck! He's the janitor!" said Hubert.

"Great Callisto! He looks like something that you want to flush down the toilet!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! Ew!" said the class.

"Great Callisto! I never noticed that before!" said Hubert.

"Great Callisto! I see little circles, squares, triangles, and other regular polygons! A circle is a regular polygon with infinite angles!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! Whatever," said Hubert.

School was over.

"Great Callisto! Let's go fishing!" said Hubert.

They went fishing.

"Great Callisto! I got something!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! It's corn!" said Hubert.

"Great Callisto! Plan Zed has failed!" said Falthar. "Failed!"

"Great Callisto! Cerworn Nattook!" said Keruthar.

"Great Callisto! We are ruined!" said Falthar.

Suddenly, a ship landed on Enceladus. Squash people got out.

"Great Callisto! Greetings, Guba brothers!" said Mukyak, emissary of the Lekchuks.

"Great Callisto! The Lekchuks! They're here!" said Falthar.

"Great Callisto! Falthar, Gubach has not exploded! It's still there! It just looks very empty!" said Mukyak.

"Great Callisto! Let's go home!" said Falthar.

So the Gubachuks went home.

Inside a bog,
I went for a jog
With a frog and a hog
And a dog named Og.
I fell off a log
In the fog and the smog
With a frog and a hog
And a dog named Og!

Frog! Hog!
Dog named Og!

Inside a smog,
I went for a bog
With a jog and a frog
And a hog named Dog.
I fell off an og
In the log and the fog
With a jog and a frog
And a hog named Dog!

Jog! Frog!
Hog named Dog!

Inside a fog,
I went for a smog
With a bog and a jog
And a frog named Hog.
I fell off a dog
In the og and the log
With a bog and a jog
And a frog named Hog!

Bog! Jog!
Frog named Hog!

Inside a log,
I went for a fog
With a smog and a bog
And a jog named Frog.
I fell off a hog
In the dog and the og
With a smog and a bog
And a jog named Frog!

Smog! Bog!
Jog named Frog!

Inside an og,
I went for a log
With a fog and a smog
And a bog named Jog.
I fell off a frog
In the hog and the dog
With a fog and a smog
And a bog named Jog!

Fog! Smog!
Bog named Jog!

Inside a dog,
I went for an og
With a log and a fog
And a smog named Bog.
I fell off a jog
In the frog and the hog
With a log and a fog
And a smog named Bog!

Log! Og!
Smog named Bog!

Inside a hog,
I went for a dog
With an og and a log
And a fog named Smog.
I fell off a bog
In the jog and the frog
With an og and a log
And a fog named Smog!

Og! Log!
Fog named Smog!

Inside a frog,
I went for a hog
With a dog and an og
And a log named Fog.
I fell off a smog
In the bog and the jog
With a dog and an og
And a log named Fog!

Dog! Og!
Log named Fog!

Inside a jog,
I went for a frog
With a hog and a dog
And an og named Log.
I fell off a fog
In the smog and the bog
With a hog and a dog
And an og named Log!

Hog! Dog!
Og named Log!

Inside a bog,
I went for a jog
With a frog and a hog
And a dog named Og.
I fell off a log
In the fog and the smog
With a frog and a hog
And a dog named Og!

Frog! Hog!
Dog named Og!

Potatoes: Another Poem

Potatoes!
I like potatoes!
I eat potatoes!
I regurgitate potatoes!
I eat potatoes!
I regurgitate potatoes!
I eat potatoes!
I regurgitate potatoes!

Why is the third hand of a clock called the second hand?

Who knows?

Two days after the Gubachuks left....

Great Callisto!

The Gubachuks were back!

And they were at war with Lekch for some unfathomable reason.

"Great Callisto! North to Antarctica!" said someone far, far away.

They built colonies. The Gubachuks and the Lekchuks.

The Gubachuks reestablished their colonies.

The Lekchuks built colonies on Pluto, Charon, Triton, Ariel, Umbriel, Oberon, Titania, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, and Iapetus. And Callisto.

Some of the Gubachuks were rebelling against Gubach. They were followers of Randomthar. They were the Randoman rebels. And they formed an alliance with Lekch.

Then, for some unfathomable reason, the Randoman rebels were at war with Lekch.

It was the Gubachuks against the Randomans.

It was the Gubachuks against the Lekchuks.

It was the Lekchuks against the Randomans.

And Earth was in the middle of all of it. The chaos, not the universe.

Oh, no! Not again!

It's time for another superhero.

His name is Superflu. It's French or something. Means "superfluous" or something.

Superflu is superfluous. He's not needed around here. Bungalow is our superhero.

See you next millenium.

There was a big battle in the solar system.

A bunch of spaceships were there. Gubachuks. Lekchuks. Randomans.

Down went the Axiom into Callisto.

The Verbatim went into Europa.

The Circa went into Ganymede.

The Quasar crashed into Io.

The Polymer crashed into Earth.

So did the Dextrorotation, the Chronocosm, the Celesta, and the Pumpernickel.

And a bunch more.

This is getting boring.

"Great Callisto! This is terrible! I want Randomthar imprisoned now!" said Falthar.

"Great Callisto! I'm sorry, but that is impossible!" said Keruthar.

Falthar sent a bunch of Gubachuk spaceships into space.

No one knows what happened to them.

"Great Callisto! This is terrible!" said Mukyak.

He had sent a bunch of Lekchuk spaceships into space.

No one knows what happened to them.

"Great Callisto! This is terrible!" said Randomthar.

He had sent a bunch of Randomchuk spaceships into space.

No one knows what happened to them.

"Great Callisto!" said Bungalow. "It's raining squash and potatoes!"

"Great Callisto! My lab! It is ruined!" said Dexter. "Dee Dee!"

This is another episode of Dexter's Laboratory. Interesting.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Dexter!" said Dee Dee. "Do you know how to dextrorotate, Dexter?"

"Great Callisto! Dee Dee, you are perturbing me!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! I can dextrorotate!" said Dee Dee.

Dee Dee dextrorotated four times.

"Great Callisto! I am surprised! You can actually dextrorotate!" said Dexter sarcastically.

Crash! went Dexter's laboratory.

"Great Callisto! Dee Dee!" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! Dexter, extraterrestrial message received!" said the computer.

"Great Callisto! An extraterrestrial message from where?" said Dexter.

"Great Callisto! From Callisto! Great Callisto!" said the computer.

"Great Callisto! Dextrorotate, Dexter!" said Dee Dee.

"Great Callisto!" said Dexter.

Dee Dee dextrorotated Dexter dextrorsely.

Crash! went Dexter's laboratory. Again, I think.

It was a Gubachuk spaceship!

"Great Callisto! Gubachuks again! Oh, no!" said Dexter, Dee Dee, the computer, and Monkey.

"We have returned to conquer your miserable world!" said the Gubachuks.

Crash! went Dexter's laboratory.

Dexter was never seen again. Or so it seems....

Departure: Quest Compound, Maine.

Destination: Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

"Great Callisto! We're going to check out a UFO crash!" said Dr. Quest.

"Great Callisto! Cool!" said Jonny.

"Great Callisto! Ditto!" said Race Bannon.

"Great Callisto! I agree!" said Hadji.

"Great Callisto! What he said!" said Jessie.

Bandit barked.

"Great Callisto! This is insane!" said Hadji.

"Great Callisto! You're insane!" said Jonny.

"Great Callisto! That thing is insane!" said Jessie, pointing at something far, far away.

It was purple. It had green spots and negative twenty-three and a half tentacles.

"Great Callisto! Ding, dong, ding, dong!" said Jessie.

Boom! went the monster.

There was a conflagration, and the monster was gone!

There was another explosion.

"Great Callisto! The Questor is sinking!" said Hadji.

Jonny Quest and the others were never seen again. Or so it seems....

"Great Callisto! We're going to dentist to get our daily dose of nitrous oxide!" said Fred.

"Great Callisto! We love that laughing gas!" said Velma.

"Great Callisto! Laughing gas!" said Shaggy.

They traveled to Dr. Cubechunks's office in the Mystery Machine.

"Great Callisto! Hi, Dr. Cubechunks! We came for our daily dose of laughing gas!" said Daphne.

"Great Callisto! Someone stole the nitrous oxide!" said Dr. Cubechunks.

Cubechunks. There's something weird about that name. Sounds almost like "Gubachuks!"

"Great Callisto! Stolen? This looks like a job for the Scooby-Doo Detective Agency!" said Fred.

"Great Callisto! They were stolen by a very insane man in a Yogi Bear costume!" said Dr. Cubechunks.

"Great Callisto! There's the insane man!" said Fred.

"Great Callisto! Hey, hey, hey!" said Yogi Bear.

"Great Callisto! That's not an insane man! That's Yogi Bear!" said Velma.

"Great Callisto! What did you say? Yogi Bear is insane?" said Shaggy.

"Great Callisto! That's not Yogi Bear! There's a zipper on the back!" said Daphne.

Fred yanked off the mask.

"Great Callisto! Bigfoot?" said everyone.

Fred yanked off the mask.

"Great Callisto! Luke Skywalker?" said everyone.

Fred yanked off the mask.

"Great Callisto! Werner Heisenberg?" said everyone.

Fred yanked off the mask.

"Great Callisto! Yogi Bear!" said everyone. "So it is Yogi Bear!"

"Great Callisto!" said Yogi Bear.

"Great Callisto! You stole the nitrous oxide!" said everyone.

"Great Callisto! What's that?!" said Yogi Bear.

It was a spaceship. A Gubachuk spaceship.

And Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo and everyone else were never seen.

This story is really getting boring.

It's time for the end. Or is it the beginning? Who cares?

Jonny Quest and everyone were teleported to the secret base of the Gubachuks on Enceladus. And there was an accident. Then there was a wormhole. So everybody went back to the time of the dinosaurs. And there was this asteroid that was going to hit Earth. So they decided to stop it. But Hadji, for some reason, said that history could not be changed. So they didn't do anything. No wonder. So history didn't change after all. And it was all Hadji's fault. Who cares?

65 million years later...

Even though it claims to be a novel, this story is actually a novelette...

—The Editorial Triumvirate

A novel about potatoes and insanity from outer space!

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment...."

--Herbert George Wells in The War of the Worlds