When Billy Dilley's science fair project, the Cheeserator, gets struck by lightning and goes haywire, Billy and his lab partners Zeke and Marsha find themselves stuck in a strange underground land called Subterranea-Tania.
Plot[]
For the end of the year science fair, nerdy kid Billy Dilley is assigned two "lab friends", though they prefer the more accurate "lab partners", for different reasons. Marsha Dwannelle, who is trying to get a story for her school paper so that she can attend a friend's sleepover, and Zeke McBongo, who needs a passing grade in science or else he will have to take summer school. They create the Cheeserator, a giant drilling machine that drills holes in giant wheels of cheese. While showing it off on the football field, a freak lightning storm causes the machine to suddenly begin drilling into the ground taking the three students down, along with Billy's nonchalant pet rat Anaximander, to a subterranean world.
Upon reaching the bottom, Billy immediately deduces that they have discovered a brand new world never seen by surface dwellers. He believes that numerous creatures live at the bottom including the wormasaurus rex. While showing off their ritual to how they greet their friends, they stumble upon Gorks, lizard like beings who immediately imprison them. Marsha begins crying when she realizes she will not attend the sleepover while Zeke begins slapping a fly on his face. That combined with other things makes Billy and friends create a rhythm that distracts the guard and allows them to escape. However, Billy's hair gets stuck in a wheel and he is mistaken for entertainment and forced to do an act for King Gorkager.
Billy's act turns out to be bad and he angrily tosses a cup of water on a guard, making Gorkager laugh. Billy then destroys a fruit in front of him which makes all the Gorks respond positively. When the actual entertainment arrives, Billy is outed as a surface dweller. Gorkager prepares to kill him, but Marsha and Zeke arrive and perform the wormasaurus rex dance. Believing the three to be the ancient creatures, Gorkager lets the three go. As they settle in for the night, Billy admits that it might take the whole three months of summer to fully repair the Cheeserator, but Marsha and Zeke do not mind. They proceed to play pillow fight with each other.
