A Second Look Read online

  Glyker put on a serious face. “I mean it’s great you got all the babies out safely.” He headed toward the front door. “Just leave these Rabbids to me.” Then he grabbed the knob to fling the door open dramatically.

  Except it was locked.

  “Oops,” another woman apologized. “Sorry. We forgot to tell you we locked them in.”

  “Good thinking,” Glyker assured her as she took out a key and unlocked the door. “We don’t want these Rabbids going anywhere.”

  Glyker flung open the door and leaped inside, ready for anything.

  Nothing happened.

  It was quiet inside the daycare center. Extremely stinky, but quiet. He saw several used diapers on the floor, but no Rabbids.

  Where were they? Had they gone out the back door? Or a window? Agent Glyker stood in the middle of the room, thinking about his next move.

  THWAP!!!

  A used diaper hit Glyker squarely in the head and slid down his back.

  “BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!!”

  Glyker whipped around and spotted a Rabbid standing in a doorway leading to another room. The Rabbid was laughing. At Glyker. Hard. In fact, the Rabbid was laughing as though he’d never seen anything so funny in his whole life.

  Glyker didn’t like being hit with a used diaper. He really didn’t like being laughed at. Feeling really mad, he ran toward the Rabbid. The Rabbid took off to the other room. As soon as Glyker crossed through the doorway . . .

  THWAP! THWAP!

  The two other Rabbids nailed him right in the face with a couple more used diapers.

  “BWAH HA HA HA HA!!!”

  For a second, Glyker couldn’t see. He wiped the diapers (and their contents) off his face, blinked, and looked for the Rabbids. They were heading through a door into a small kitchen.

  “Halt!” he yelled. He doubted it would do much good, but it made him feel more official.

  Careful not to slip on any diapers, Glyker sprinted into the kitchen. The three Rabbids were standing on the other side of the room. They didn’t have any diapers in their hands, but one of them was holding a rope.

  Glyker smiled. “Now I’ve got you,” he gloated.

  Then one of the Rabbids pointed up, right above Glyker’s head. “Oh right,” Glyker said. “Like I’m going to look up. Oldest trick in the book!”

  The Rabbid shrugged and yanked on the rope. SHABLORP-BLOP-BLOP-BLORP! Hundreds of used diapers fell on Agent Glyker, burying him in a stinky pile.

  As he dug his way out of the diaper pile, Glyker saw the last Rabbid disappearing through an open window. He looked back at Glyker, grinned, and waggled his butt.

  By the time Glyker ran out the back door, they were gone.

  “Now the Rabbids are going after our children. This is serious!” he thought. “Also, I seriously need a bath.”

  CHAPTER 7:

  Bubbles!

  The next day the Rabbids found themselves in a wonderful place full of flowers, bushes, and beautiful trees. They didn’t know it, but it was the city’s biggest park.

  But the Rabbids weren’t interested in flowers, bushes, and beautiful trees. They’d seen all those things before.

  “Bwhaaah.” One of the Rabbids yawned, bored.

  They wanted to see something new. Something they’d never seen before. Something like . . . that! A big bubble, glistening with a rainbow of colors, floated by!

  “Bwoooooh!” said the Rabbids as they watched the bubble rise on the wind.

  POP! The bubble hit the branch of a maple tree.

  “Bwaaah.” The Rabbids moaned, disappointed. They looked around to see if another bubble would float by.

  “Bwah!” shouted one of the Rabbids, pointing. Another bubble! The Rabbids jumped as high as they could, trying to catch the wonderful see-through ball.

  POP! This time the bubble popped without even touching anything. “Bwaah.” The three Rabbids sighed.

  Then one of the Rabbids got an idea. “Bwah bwah!” he cried, motioning for his two fellow invaders to follow him.

  The idea the Rabbid had gotten was this: Maybe if they went back in the opposite direction the bubble had been floating, they’d find out where it had come from.

  The idea worked splendidly.

  As the Rabbids pushed through a row of bushes, they saw something wonderful. Something miraculous!

  At a birthday party, a young man was showing kids how to make all kinds of bubbles. He had a plastic wading pool full of bubble solution. He also had a bucket full of wands to dip into the pool and then wave through the air.

  “See,” he said, “with this hoop I can make a really big bubble!”

  And he did. The Rabbids watched, amazed. Then they ran forward. . . .

  It was a good thing Agent Glyker had put up several of Director Stern’s posters in the park. One of the moms at the bubble party called the number on the poster immediately. But she was too upset to give very good information.

  “RABBIDS! HERE! AT THE PARK! RUINING OUR BIRTHDAY PARTY! INVASION!!!” she screamed into her phone.

  Glyker held the old-fashioned phone in his office farther away from his ear. “Which park?” he asked. “You mean the big park in the center of the city?”

  “YES!” the mom shouted. “HURRY!”

  CHAPTER 8:

  To the Park!

  Agent Glyker got to the park as fast as he could. Once there, he quickly found the site of the ruined bubble party.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  All the little kids were huddling under a tree with their parents and the Bubble Guy, watching the Rabbids.

  Two of the Rabbids were using bubble paddles like tennis rackets, batting a bow from a birthday present back and forth. When they got tired of this, they went back to tearing open all the presents.

  “Those are my presents!” wailed a little boy.

  The leader Rabbid picked up the pool of bubble solution and drank it all. Then he started belching huge bubbles.

  BUUUURRRPP!

  “My bubble solution!” protested the Bubble Guy.

  Agent Glyker had learned his lesson about yelling at the Rabbids to stop. He decided to sneak up on them, hoping to grab at least one of them.

  But the Rabbids spotted Glyker creeping toward them. They seemed to recognize him from the daycare center. They pointed and laughed.

  “BWAH HA HA HA HA!”

  As the leader laughed, streams of bubbles poured from his wide-open mouth.

  As soon as he realized he’d been spotted, Glyker started running toward the Rabbids.

  But they took off running too. And they were faster than Glyker.

  Glyker ran up to a guy who was renting bikes. He flashed his badge, shouted “Official intruder investigation!” jumped on a bike, and pedaled away.

  “Hey!” yelled the guy. “You’ve got to pay for that!”

  “I’ll bring it back!” Glyker called back over his shoulder.

  “You’re supposed to bring it back and pay for it!” the guy shouted.

  The Rabbids saw that Glyker was gaining on them now that he had a bike. Where could they go that no bike could go?

  “Bwah ha!” said the leader, spotting the small lake in the middle of the park. (A few bubbles came out of his mouth as he spoke.) He led the other two Rabbids out onto a paddleboat. At first they weren’t sure how to make it go, but then they saw a couple in another boat, pedaling with their feet.

  “BWAH!” shouted the leader, pointing at the boat’s pedals. The other two Rabbids got to work pedaling.

  “Hey!” yelled the guy in charge of the boats. “You’ve got to pay for that!”

  Glyker rode up on the bike, jumped off, and leaped into a paddleboat. He started pedaling like mad to catch up with the Rabbids.

  “Hey!” yelled the boat guy again. “What is this? Free day?”

  “Yay!” said a nearby kid. “It’s free day!” He tried to climb into a paddleboat, but the boat guy stopped him.

  Glyker was getting closer to the Rabbids. />
  “BWAH BWAH!” shouted the leader as though he were saying “FASTER!” The other two Rabbids started pedaling even faster.

  Even though his legs were starting to ache, Glyker pedaled as fast as he could. His paddleboat churned through the water, kicking up waves. He was gaining on the Rabbids again. They were headed toward the grassy edge of the lake. Were they going to jump out and run?

  The leader turned around and faced Glyker. “BUUURRRPP!” he roared, belching out a huge bubble.

  The bubble blew right into Glyker’s face and popped. “Eww!” Glyker said. The bubble smelled horrible!

  Distracted by the stinky bubble, Glyker swerved, pedaling his boat right into the shallow mud near the shore. SHPLOOMPF! He tried turning the pedals, but they wouldn’t budge. He was stuck!

  As he helplessly watched the Rabbids pedal away in their boat, he saw the leader wave at him. “Bwah bwah!” he called back to Glyker.

  The other two Rabbids laughed. The secret agent growled in frustration. He had a feeling his boss wasn’t going to be very happy when he heard about this.

  CHAPTER 9:

  The Boss Isn’t Happy

  SHPLORP. SHPLUMPF. SHPLORP. SHPLUMPF.

  Agent Glyker trudged down the hallway to his crummy little office, leaving a trail of mud prints on the floor. He hoped Director Stern hadn’t heard him coming in.

  No such luck.

  “GLYKER!” bellowed Director Stern from his much nicer office. “GET IN HERE!”

  Glyker sighed and headed down the hallway to his boss’s office, trying to wipe all the smelly lake mud off his shoes before he got there.

  When Glyker stepped meekly into the office, Stern glared at him. “So,” Stern said, “I see muddy shoes. I see an agent who’s in serious danger of being fired. But I don’t see a Rabbid.”

  “No, sir,” Agent Glyker admitted. “But I was really close. I almost had one.”

  “Yeah?” Director Stern sneered. “Well, ‘almost had one’ equals ‘almost fired’! Did you put up those posters?”

  Glyker nodded eagerly. “Yes, sir! Every one! In fact, our last call was in response to—”

  BRRRRING! The boss’s phone rang. “Yeah?” he answered gruffly. But then, as he listened to the caller, he started to nod and smile. “That’s great. Thank you. We’ll be right there.”

  He hung up. “Another Rabbid sighting. At the concert hall. The orchestra’s playing tonight, and the mayor himself will be there.”

  “I’m on it!” Agent Glyker said, turning to go.

  “Hold it,” Director Stern said, standing up. “I don’t want you messing this up. I’m coming with you.”

  Glyker gulped. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  CHAPTER 10:

  Concert Chaos

  Agent Glyker and Director Stern jumped out of Glyker’s car and hurried up to the front doors of the concert hall. The hall’s manager was waiting for them, nervously pacing and wringing his hands.

  “Thank goodness you’re here!” he cried. “It’s terrible! Rabbids! In my concert hall! And the mayor is here tonight!”

  Director Stern put up both hands and made a calming gesture. “Okay, okay, relax,” he reassured the manager. “Everything’s going to be fine. Now, where are the Rabbids?”

  The manager threw his hands up in the air. “Who knows?! All I know is two of our patrons said they saw three Rabbids entering the hall just before the concert started.”

  Stern looked very determined. “We’ll find them,” he promised. “Come on,” he said to Glyker, heading into the concert hall.

  But the manager stopped the two investigators before they opened the fancy gold doors. “The concert’s already started! You’ll have to do this very quietly!”

  Agent Glyker patted the manager’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re secret agents. Quiet is our specialty.”

  Director Stern and Agent Glyker slipped into the back of the concert hall as silently as possible. Onstage, the city’s symphony orchestra was playing a slow piece of classical music.

  Glyker and Stern stared hard, searching for Rabbids. But they didn’t see any. The concert seemed to be going smoothly.

  “Maybe this was a false alarm,” Stern whispered.

  Then . . . SQUEAK! In the middle of a quiet passage featuring the violins, a clarinet squeaked loudly. The audience murmured. SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

  The conductor scowled. Had the clarinetist made a horrible, loud mistake?

  Glyker pointed at the back of the symphony. “There!” he hissed. A Rabbid was strolling offstage. And he was carrying a clarinet, twirling it like a baton.

  “Should I jump onstage and make an announcement?” Glyker asked. “If we stop the concert and have the ushers guard the doors, we can catch them for sure!”

  As Glyker headed down the aisle toward the stage, Stern grabbed his arm.

  “Forget it!” Stern whispered, pulling him back. Annoyed music-lovers turned and glared at them.

  At the back of the hall, Stern whispered, “I don’t want to panic everyone and start a stampede. Also, I don’t want to ruin this concert for the mayor. He loves classical music!”

  Other loud sounds started to pop out of the orchestra: cymbals, tambourines, and gongs. The Rabbids had found the percussion section.

  Stern and Glyker ran as quickly (and as quietly) as they could to get to the stage. They hoped they could corner the Rabbids without ruining the concert.

  From backstage, the secret agent and his boss could see the Rabbids poking around in the percussionists’ equipment. One of the Rabbids picked up a triangle and threw it like a ninja star. It flew across the stage and landed—KLANG!—on the wooden floor.

  A percussionist saw this and fumed with fury, but kept playing.

  Another Rabbid found a pair of drumsticks and stuck them in his mouth. Then he did his best imitation of a walrus.

  Glyker and Stern snuck behind the back curtain to get closer to the Rabbids. . . .

  The third Rabbid found a cymbal. Delighted, he put it on his head to wear as a hat.

  By the time Glyker and Stern reached the other side of the stage, the Rabbids had disappeared.

  Where were they?

  Glyker looked around desperately. Then he spotted them. The three Rabbids were climbing up a ladder that went all the way up to the top of the concert hall.

  He pointed and hissed, “There!” Director Stern grinned. “Now we’ve got ’em,” he said. “Come on—let’s use the ladder!”

  As the concert continued far below, Glyker and Stern climbed the ladder way up into the space where the long velvet curtains hung over the stage. Above them, they could see the three Rabbids quickly climbing all the way up to the ceiling.

  When they reached the top, the Rabbids pushed open a trapdoor and climbed through it. For a moment, Glyker and Stern could see the stars in the night sky.

  Then the trapdoor shut. CLANG!

  CHAPTER 11:

  Up on the Roof

  “Push harder!” Director Stern growled. Agent Glyker was trying to push the trapdoor open, but it seemed to be stuck.

  Actually, it wasn’t just stuck. On the other side, the three Rabbids were sitting on it.

  But then one of them noticed something interesting on the roof of the concert hall. It was the opening of an air shaft, but to the Rabbid, it looked like a huge musical instrument.

  “Bwoooh!” the Rabbid said, jumping off the hatch to go investigate. His two fellow Rabbids jumped off to follow him.

  When he reached the air shaft, the Rabbid yelled, “BWAAAHHH!!!” into it. Far below, in the concert hall, the conductor scowled as a loud “BWAH” interrupted the symphony. The mayor looked at his wife, puzzled.

  CLANK! Glyker finally managed to shove open the trapdoor. He and Stern hurried up through it.

  There was a full moon, so they could easily see everything on the roof: air shafts, air-conditioning units, and a bucket someone had left behind . . .

  But no Rabbids.r />
  Then Agent Glyker pointed silently. There was one Rabbid on one side of the roof and another on the other side, near the edge.

  Director Stern nodded. He understood that Glyker thought they should each run and grab one of the Rabbids.

  Without saying anything, Glyker and Stern ran toward the Rabbids. The Rabbids spotted them coming and yelled.

  “BWWAAAAAHHHH!!!”

  Agent Glyker (who was younger and quicker than Stern) got to his Rabbid first. He dove and grabbed the Rabbid around the waist. The Rabbid yelled and squirmed, but Glyker held on tight.

  “Got him!” Glyker yelled.

  “HELP!!!” Stern answered.

  Glyker looked over toward his boss. He was hanging onto a railing with his feet dangling over the edge of the roof!

  When Stern had run toward the other Rabbid, the creature had leaped out of the way at the last second, and Stern hadn’t been able to stop himself. He’d almost fallen off the roof! Now he was grasping the railing, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on. . . .

  Agent Glyker didn’t hesitate for a second. He let the Rabbid go, ran over to his boss, and tugged him back up onto the roof.

  When they looked around, a yellow spaceship, shaped like a submarine, was landing on the other side of the roof. The three Rabbids ran into it. Just before they went inside, all three waggled their butts at Glyker and Stern.

  “No!” Agent Glyker yelled. “Stop!” But he knew they wouldn’t.

  FWOOOOM!!! The spaceship zoomed up into the night sky and disappeared.

  Glyker shook his head. He knew what this meant: no Rabbid, no job.

  “So,” he finally said, “I guess I’m fired.”

  Director Stern looked at him for a moment. Then he asked, “What’s your job title again?”