The Word-Gobblers

(An excerpt from my 5th-grade reading workbook, The Scratch Papers, now out-of-print. Previous excerpts: one, two, three, four.)

Professor Scratch had an archenemy named Moog the Merciless, who also had a time machine. Moog lived somewhere far under the ground. When he wasn't doing mean things, he was fond of playing an electronic organ.

Moog also had some slaves. They were fat, pink things that looked like large wads of bubble gum with eyes. They were known as Word-Gobblers because all they ate were books and magazines. Once upon a time they ate fern-herbs. But there hadn't been any fern-herbs since 1736. That's why they were slaves to Moog the Merciless. He kept promising to ride his time machine back to 1736 to get them some fern-herbs.

The W.G.'s, as Word-Gobblers were called, really were a decent sort, but they didn't have much education. They ate all the books before they could read them, and so they didn't learn very much. That's one reason they had to go one working for Moog the Merciless.