Veggie Power Unleashed

Chapter 4

Professor Pip Parsnip’s laboratory looked less like a place of serious science and more like a collision between a rainbow and a recycling bin. Tubes bubbled with liquids in shades of fuchsia and lime, while stacks of petri dishes teetered precariously, each holding a miniature ecosystem of something green and leafy. Eater Boy, who had arrived expecting sterile white walls and stern pronouncements, blinked. He’d eaten a small library yesterday – just the fiction section, he’d promised himself – and the ensuing indigestion had been… well, *loud*. Mayor Mildred Munch had been less than thrilled, and the front page of the *Daily Chronicle* had screamed, “Bookworm Buildings Vanish!” Eater Boy, slumped in a chair that seemed determined to swallow him whole, felt a familiar pang of despair. He *wanted* to be good, but his stomach had other ideas, usually involving concrete and rebar.

“Ah, Eater Boy, my boy, my burgeoning gourmand!” Professor Pip, a whirlwind of tweed and wild, silver hair, bustled towards him, holding a rather large, oddly shaped root. “Come in, come in! Don’t mind the… enthusiastic germination. Today, we embark on a culinary quest of cosmic proportions!”