Free Akiko on the Planet Smoo by Mark Crilley Page A

lit passage behind them. I strained to get a good look, half expecting another Shnum-Crusher to come out, claws waving in the air. But whoever it was who set up these fights had found a much more frightening opponent for Spuckler.
    There was a low growling that clearly came from some kind of animal. At first all you could see was the snout. It was big and green and covered with smooth, shiny skin like a salamander’s. Then slowly, bit by bit, the creature moved forward into the light until we could all see exactly what it was: a giant lizard, about fifty feet tall! It looked sort of like a
Tyrannosaurus rex
, except that its head was about twice the size of its body, and its teeth were . . . well, they were just plain
unbelievable
. I mean, this animal couldn’t even shut its own mouth, that’s how big its teeth were. It also had beady black eyes, pointy claws, and a long shimmering tail. But all you could see were those teeth, I swear.

    â€œA d-dinosaur!” I gasped.
    â€œTechnically it’s a
Jaggasaur,
Akiko,” Mr. Beeba corrected, “but I’m sure you have the right idea.”
    Spuckler suddenly looked very small and harmless in comparison to the Jaggasaur. When the lizard creature saw him, it let out this incredibly loud roar that echoed all over the arena. The spectators cheered and whistled and just generally went crazy. They were looking forward to seeing Spuckler get gobbled up right there in front of them!
    Spuckler turned around and started running away from the creature as fast as he could. It looked like he had lost his nerve and had decided to make a run for it. The Jaggasaur took off after him, and the crowd roared with glee. Though Spuckler was really quick and had gotten a pretty good head start, the monster lizard was closing in fast. Before long Spuckler was only a few feet ahead of the creature, who was snapping wildly at the air with his enormous teeth missing Spuckler by just a couple of inches.
    Then I realized Spuckler wasn’t running away at all. What he was doing was sprinting as fast as he could toward the wall of the arena. And when he got so close that he was only a few yards from the wall, he suddenly changed direction and trotted off to one side. The Jaggasaur, of course, was far too big and heavy to change direction that quickly, so he flew head long into the wall at about a hundred miles an hour! Chunks of the wall went flying, and the Jaggasaur flopped over onto the ground, leaving a big dent in the wall where he’d hit.

    There was an astonished gasp from the crowd, followed by booing and hissing. Spuckler didn’t seem to mind, though. He strutted around the ring with his hands up in the air, acting like they were cheering him on.
    â€œThank you, thank you!” he said as the crowd shouted even more angrily. “ ’Tweren’t nothin’.”

By then the Jaggasaur had recovered and began slowly creeping up behind Spuckler. Mr. Beeba and Gax and I tried to warn him by yelling and waving our hands, but he couldn’t hear because of all the noise from the crowd. Spuckler had no idea the Jaggasaur was anywhere near him until the creature reached out and grabbed him around the waist with one of his outstretched claws.
    Next thing we knew, Spuckler was being spun around in circles like a lasso. I was getting dizzy just looking at him. He must have gone around fifty or sixty times before the Jaggasaur let go, sending him soaring up into the sky like he’d been fired out of a cannon. We all just followed him with our eyes as he rose higher and higher into the air. He went up so high, in fact, that I thought he might fall somewhere outside the arena.
    â€œHeavens!” Mr. Beeba cried, following the curve of Spuckler’s skyward path. “He’s going to land right on top of
us
!”
    Sure enough, Spuckler came crashing down onto the roof of our cage, nearly crushing it as he bounced off and landed on the