Scratch

Hello. As some of you may know, I'm writing a series of short stories called The Adventures of Goldie the Superdog! If you haven't read the first one already, you can do so here: http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=62127

Anyway, I wan't to know what you think of the second one:


Goldie turned to look at the explosion, and suddenly felt a surge of electricity run through his body. The driver pushed him off and ran in the opposite direction to the other explosion. Goldie got back up and saw the driver running away. But he didn’t have time to catch him. He had to deal with whatever that explosion was.

The family inside the car were panicking. Huge bits of metal and wood were all over the car, preventing the family from getting out. The engine was heavily damaged when part of the barrier fell on it. And the train was coming.

Goldie ran as fast as his little legs would take him. Goldie could just about see the railway crossing now, and he wasn’t pleased. He leapt on the roof of the car, and looked left and right to see if a train was coming. He couldn’t see one yet, but he knew that there wasn’t very long between each train. He only had 3 minutes at most.

Goldie jumped down onto the bonnet of the car and kicked off the part of the barrier that had fallen on it. There was a 2 and a half year old boy in the back seat of the car, who was watching Goldie.

“Super Ted!” he shrieked with joy.

Goldie turned to look at him, smiled, and then turned back. The two parents in the car couldn’t believe their eyes. They just stared at it him amazement. They watched as he threw to the side a big piece of metal in front of the car. Goldie then went to the back of the car.

With all his strength, he pushed the car forward as fast as he could. Bits of metal dragged along with it, some of it sliding off and falling on Goldie. But he was not beaten. He managed to get it off the track in less than 10 seconds. Now he had to stop the train from crashing into the destroyed part of the track.

Goldie had to get to the train quickly, but he didn’t know which direction it was coming from! Fortunately, Goldie had a very clever trick up his sleeve. Well, he didn’t actually have sleeves, but he did have a very clever trick. He laid down on the ground and felt for the vibrations coming from the train. He worked out that the train was definitely coming from the right.

Goldie got up and charged as fast as he could towards the train. It was still about a minute and a half from the railway crossing, but Goldie hadn’t really thought about how he was going to stop it. He could just about see it now; the enormous lump of metal driving towards him at more than 100 miles an hour. But he was not afraid. He laughed in the face of danger.

Goldie jumped at the train with all his might… and bounced back onto the train track a few hundred meters away. Goldie was very dazed and could hardly stand up. When he did, he quickly dropped to the ground again. He stayed as flat as he could as the train passed over him. Just before the end of the train went past, Goldie shot his arms up and grabbed onto the train.

He only just managed to get it. He was now hanging on to the very end of the train. The sleepers on the track kept hitting his dangling legs, making it a very uncomfortable experience. Suddenly, one of his legs touched the third rail! A jolt of electricity surged through his body, but he just managed to keep his grip on the train.

Strangely, after he touched the third rail, he felt better. He felt that he could hang on to the train easier. He had an idea! He let go of the train with one hand, and with the other hand, he grabbed on to the third rail. The initial jolt was shocking, but it was also refreshing.

He tightened his grip on the third rail, and with his newfound strength he grabbed on to it harder than he’d ever done before. The tighter his grip, the more electricity ran through his body, in turn making his grip tighter. Eventually, the strength of Goldie’s grip was too much even for the train. It slowed down to a stop a few meters in front of the railway crossing. Goldie had done it!

Suddenly, Goldie noticed something attached to the underneath the train. It was a bomb! Goldie grabbed it and tore it off the train. It only had 10 seconds of countdown left. Goldie pulled out one of the wires, put his hand over the exposed end and absorbed all the electricity from it. The Countdown stopped.

Goldie examined the bomb, looking for a label or something to work out where it came from. He found what he was looking for. There was a label, with the words: “Salt Industries” written in massive letters on the back. Goldie recognised that name. He looked in front of him, into the distance, and saw a huge building also with the words: “Salt Industries” on the front of the building. Goldie decided he would go and investigate.

When he got there, he looked around the building for a secret way in. He saw that there was an open window at the very top of the building. There was also a drain pipe going up the building just next to the window. Goldie grabbed onto it and began climbing. When he got to the window, he pulled himself inside, and looked around.

It looked like any other boring office. It had a desk and a table with a computer on it. There was nothing suspicious looking. Goldie walked over to the computer, to see if he could find any useful information on it. He went to press the on button, but then he realised that it wasn’t a button at all. It was just a sticker. He then examined the monitor, and found that it was just cardboard.

Goldie walked over to the door, but yet again it wasn’t real! It was just a picture on the wall. But Goldie wasn’t leaving until he found some useful information. He punched a hole in the wall, where the picture of the door was, and climbed through it. On the other side, there was a small, pale man sitting at a control panel. He looked at Goldie, shocked.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the man at the control panel asked, in a timid voice.

Goldie didn’t answer. Instead, he walked towards the man, who then ran at of the room very quickly. Goldie looked at the control panel, and then at the computer screens. There was a map, with certain places marked on it. He noticed that one of the marked places was the destroyed railway crossing. Another one of the marked places was the area of town where the rocket car had caused havoc in.

Then Goldie noticed that another of the marked places was flashing. It was a fireworks factory! Goldie guessed that it was flashing because it was the next target to be destroyed! Goldie had to get to it quickly. He climbed back through the hole in the wall, and then jumped out of the window.

He knew his way around the city fairly well, as he was taken on trips to lots to places with his owner. Goldie couldn’t imagine how disastrous it would be if a bomb went off in a fireworks factory. He had to get there as soon as possible.

When Goldie finally got there, he looked around the building for anything that looked like a bomb. Fortunately, it was a fairly small factory, so it didn’t take long for him to look around the outside of the building. He couldn’t find anything, so it had to be inside.

Goldie looked up the side of the building and saw an air vent. This time there was no drain pipe to climb up. But he had no time to waste! He punched his fist into the wall, and then punched his other fist in, but a bit higher than the first. He pulled out the first fist and punched that into the wall a bit higher. He repeated this until he had reached the air vent.

Goldie pulled the cover off and threw it on the ground. He climbed inside and began crawling through. It was very dark, so Goldie had the feel his way around. He turned the corner and further ahead in the vent he saw there was a grill. The light from the room below lit up a bit of the vent around it. Goldie crawled over to it and looked through.

He saw a stack of boxes, presumably with fireworks inside. Goldie tore off the grill and dropped down into the room. He saw that there were two shelves on each side of him. They were filled with boxes with a picture of a firework on each of them. Goldie looked behind the shelves in case the bomb was hidden there. It was!

It was lying on the floor next to the wall. He picked it up and examined it. It was almost exactly the same as the one on the underneath of the train, except this one was a little bit smaller. Goldie ran back round the shelf to the other side, and looked at the roof. There was an open sky light. The countdown on the bomb only had 5 seconds left! Goldie waited 2 more seconds before throwing it.

He threw it through the sky light, and it travelled more than 200 feet before finally exploding in a tremendous ball of fire! Goldie now had to get back to the Salt Industries building to stop the next attack. He ran through the nearest open door and sprinted towards the building.

When he got there, he saw that the window was still open. Goldie pulled himself up the drain pipe and climbed through the window. The hole he had punched in the wall was still there, too. He crawled through that, and found himself starring into the feet of Sir Alan Salt himself! Goldie looked up, and saw Alan glaring at him. Next to him, there was a security guard, holding a spray can and a lighter.

The security guard grabbed Goldie and quickly threw him to another guard, who was holding a large glass jar with a label on it, with the words “Unbreakable Glass.” Goldie landed inside the jar, and the guard slammed the lid on.

“You naughty little dog,” Alan muttered, shaking his head.

He walked towards Goldie, looking evil.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked himself, smiling.
“May I suggest the spinning blades of doom?” suggested one of the guards.
“You’re fired!” Alan shouted, pulling out a little remote with a big red button on it.
“No, please!” pleaded the guard.

Alan pressed the button, and the guard vanished into thin air! Goldie was horrified. He could only imagine all the other people Sir Alan Salt had fired.

“You didn’t have to kill him!” shouted Goldie.
“Oh, so you can speak. So I win that bet.”

He then pressed the button again, and three more guards disappeared.

“How does that even work?” demanded Goldie.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my engineer. Oh wait, I fired him!” replied Alan.

He then burst into an evil laugh.

“Anyway, time to deal with you. Guards, take him to the fire pit.”

After a brief walk through a few corridors, being passed between several guards, and the opening of many doors, Goldie ended up hanging from a rope above a pit of fire. It was in a circular pit, with the walls made out of very smooth metal.

“Enough meddling with my plans for market domination!” Alan shouted down to Goldie from a viewing platform above. “That rope will break in precisely 20 seconds, and you will for to your doom!”

Surely enough, after 20 seconds, the rope snapped and Goldie fell!

How will Goldie survive this evil trap? Find out next time!