Gabby Duran and the Unsittables Novelization

by Disney Books

  “Whoa,” said Gabby, stunned. There was so much to learn about alien life. She could not wait.

  Jeremy tossed a taquito in the air and tried to catch it in his mouth. The taquito ricocheted off his face and into his lap. He threw it toward his mouth again. This time, the taquito flew over the back of the couch he was lounging on.

  Gabby chuckled. He’d master it eventually. In the meantime, she had about a zillion questions for the Gor-Monite kid. She started with the most obvious. “So what’s up with your shape-shifting, huh? Can you just change into whatever you want?” she asked, tucking her straight brown hair behind her ears.

  “I wish,” Jeremy said dreamily. “Gor-Mons are digestive shape-shifters, which means I can only change into things I eat.”

  Gabby stared at Jeremy’s pint-sized human form. “So…you, like, ate a kid?”

  “The hair of one,” said Jeremy with pride.

  “Cool, cool,” said Gabby, a little grossed out and a lot fascinated. She keyed another arbitrary sequence into Swift’s fancy phone and the hologram disappeared.

  Jeremy eyed the flip phone with envy. “I can’t believe Principal let you use that. He never lets me do anything, because he thinks I’ll mess up and let everyone know we’re aliens. You know, I’ve never even been bowling. Or to the movies. Or a drive-through.”

  Gabby gasped at the injustice. What kind of cruel alien species didn’t believe in the greatest human invention ever? “Seriously? You’ve never been to a drive-through? That’s messed up, man. Drive-throughs rule.”

  “I bet they do!” Jeremy kicked one foot against the other, frustrated. He knew this stupid planet had a lot more to offer than just this dumb old house. If only his lame uncle would let him get out and explore it. “Sometimes I wish he trusted me more, you know.”

  Gabby felt for the kid. “Yeah, I know how that goes. My mom doesn’t really trust me, either. Even though I’m pretty much the most responsible person I know.”

  Just then, a disturbingly loud gurgling sound interrupted their conversation. It was coming from Jeremy’s human-form stomach. He pulled aside his navy button-down shirt and slowly lifted his striped tee. His stomach was bubbling and rolling in an unnatural way. He was almost 100 percent positive his Earthling body wasn’t supposed to be doing that. “Um . . .” He looked at Gabby quizzically. “What’s happening to me?” His voice trembled slightly with fear.

  “Probably nothing,” said Gabby, who was freaking out a little on the inside. Jeremy’s stomach was sloshing and churning in a grotesque way. “But still . . .” She grabbed her personal cell and quickly dialed Principal Principal.

  He picked up immediately. “Yes, Gabby . . . ?” She’d caught Swift in the middle of explaining CPR to the teachers.

  “Hey, Swifty, quick question.” Gabby did her best to sound casual and nonchalant, as if what she was about to ask was no biggie. “Hypothetically, if Jeremy’s stomach was, like, uh, bubbling a little, what would that be all about?”

  Jeremy’s stomach grumbled and snarled loudly, as if he’d eaten a monster.

  “Well, Jeremy assimilates the molecular structure of anything he ingests,” explained Swift. “So if you gave him soda pop, for example, it would mean that his body had absorbed the volatile, carbonated qualities of the drink, effectively turning him into a time bomb that would explode in approximately one hour, destroying him and anything else within a hundred-foot radius. But you definitely did not give him soda pop, correct?”

  Gabby eyed the empty root beer bottles that littered the couch. Jeremy had guzzled down four of them. “You think I’d do something that irresponsible?” Gabby guffawed. “Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know me at all.”

  “Very well, then. I have to go. Bye-bye,” said Swift, returning to his safety seminar.

  Gabby was mortified as she turned to face Jeremy. She had no clue how to break the news to him gently. “So,” she said, waving her hands around nervously, “don’t make a whole big thing of it, but it looks like you’re gonna blow up.”

  Jeremy sprang from the couch. His panicked little face said it all. He did not want to explode.

  Gabby and Jeremy rushed into the Duran house and beelined for the kitchen trash can. “Okay, no need to panic,” said Gabby as she frantically dumped the garbage can out on the floor. “We’ve got like”—she did the math in her head—“forty-seven minutes to figure this out.”

  Gabby reminded herself to breathe. She was the indomitable Gabby Duran; she could do this. She sifted through food-soaked takeout containers, used tissues, and wrappers.

  Jeremy watched her with concern. “I’m gonna be okay, though, right, Gabby? I mean, after I blow up?”

  “Um…yeah, sure. Why not?” Gabby knew nothing about Gor-Monite biology, but she was pretty sure self-explosion was bad no matter what planet you hailed from.

  “Bingo! Orientation materials!” she yelled, picking up a thick binder. Gabby flipped open the binder and began to read through the pages with speed. She came to a stop on a chapter titled “So Your Gor-Mon Child Is Going to Blow Up.”

  Yup, that pretty much summed up her current situation. She scanned the page, zooming past the part with scientific diagrams of molecules that might as well have been written in Alien. Finally, she spotted a paragraph in English.

  “Okay, here we go . . .” she said, then read aloud: “‘To prevent explosion, feed your child sodium silicate—a mineral found in the soil of Zzzansar VII, some polydimensional light beings, and Gor-Monite breath mints.” She slammed the binder shut with satisfaction. She had this!

  “That’s it! Swift’s always popping those weird mints!” Boom. Problem solved.

  Jeremy was beyond relieved. “Baller! I’ll just call him and—”

  Gabby batted Jeremy’s phone out of his hands. “No way, you doof! He cannot find out about this.”

  Jeremy crinkled his forehead. “Wait. I thought we didn’t want me to blow up?”

  Gabby glared at Jeremy. Did she have to spell it out for the kid? Then she remembered Jeremy wasn’t a kid, or at least not a human one. She took a patient breath and explained. “Jeremy, do you see that mantel over there?” She nodded toward the fireplace shelf, which was lined with Dina’s and Olivia’s accolades and awards. “My whole life, my mom and sister have been doing these great things and getting all these awards. But me? I’ve always just been the family screwup.”

  She looked at Jeremy and got real. “This babysitting job is my chance to do something great, too. Principal Swift is trusting me with one of the most important jobs in the galaxy, and I am not about to make him think I can’t do it.

  “Now let’s do the responsible thing and go steal some breath mints,” she proposed.

  Gabby and Jeremy crouched outside the double doors of the school cafeteria, watching Swift’s in-progress safety seminar. The best Gabby could tell, Swift was attempting to teach the faculty about the Heimlich maneuver. He held a CPR dummy and with every movement yelled, “Abdominal thrust, abdominal thrust!”

  Gabby gazed past Swift at his suit jacket, which was slung over the back of a chair a few feet behind him. In its pocket was the coveted Gor-Monite breath mint tin. Target acquired.

  “Now,” Swift continued, looking down at the dummy, which wore a T-shirt and a baseball cap, “it’s always important to wear a hat.”

  Gabby didn’t want to hurt Swifty’s feelings or anything, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t how the Heimlich worked. But no time for that lesson. She had an explosion to stop. And based on the cacophony coming from Jeremy’s stomach, she assumed her time was running out.

  “You sure about this?” asked Jeremy. His stomach growled and roiled.

  “No, you’re right. Let’s just go home and let you explode,” said Gabby, straight-faced. What did she have to do to earn a little faith around here? “C’mon, trust me! I’m a wizard.” She had everything under control.

  Just then, she heard someone say, “Gabby?”

  She spun ar
ound. Standing right behind them was Wesley. Gabby did her best to act natural. “Oh. Hi, Wesley. What, uh, what are you doing here, after school?”

  Wesley leaned in, just in case anyone else was listening. “Well, I left some trash in my locker and I gotta get to it before Dobek does, because my DNA is all over that stuff.”

  Gabby nodded. She should have guessed it was something like that.

  Wesley paused for a moment. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? I, uh . . .” Gabby searched for a logical explanation.

  “We’re here to steal my uncle’s breath mints so I don’t explode,” Jeremy offered all matter-of-factly. The future leader of Gor-Monia stuck out his hand toward Wesley and introduced himself. “I’m Jeremy, by the way. I’m an ali—”

  A powerful pulse of energy rippled through Wesley, causing him to collapse in a heap.

  “Sorry, bud,” said Gabby. She held Swift’s alien flip phone open in her hand. “Couldn’t let you hear that last part.” Gabby felt a little bad about zapping her only friend, but she took solace in the fact that Wesley would have loved nothing more than to know that not only did alien technology exist but he’d been zapped by it. She reasoned it would pretty much be the best day of his life.

  Jeremy’s stomach rumbled and rolled, reminding Gabby she couldn’t worry about Wes right then. The solution to all their problems lay just on the other side of the cafeteria door. She needed a plan.

  “We just need a distraction so we can get those min—” Something in the school’s trophy case caught Gabby’s attention. Among the soccer championship cups and badminton participation plaques sat the school mascot, a taxidermic condor. Gabby eyed the animal and smiled; she was having an aha moment.

  “How would you feel about eating some dead bird?” she asked Jeremy.

  Nobody did distractions like Gabby Duran.

  A few minutes later, Swift stood at the front of the cafeteria, heading toward the grand finale of his staff safety seminar. “And one more abdominal thrust!” Swift pronounced. With that, he tossed the first-aid dummy to the floor and clapped his hands together. “Now, that brings us to our next issue: my automobile is currently covered in duct tape. Can anyone give me a ride home?”

  None of the staff members volunteered.

  Just then, Jeremy, having taken the form of a condor, burst into the room with his wings flapping. He squawked, then dive-bombed the staff, who scattered in panic. Swift, however, didn’t run. He held his head high and stood his ground against the unwelcome creature.

  “Aha! I told you this day would come!” Swift yelled to his staff. Just as he’d predicted, the birds of the planet had come to attack. “Couldn’t defile my vehicle, so you came for me instead, eh, bird? Well, come at me! Now, no one panic! I will establish dominance.”

  Swift raised his hands and beckoned the bird forth. Then he broke into what Gabby could only describe as a gawky peacock strut. Swift flapped his arms about in a fit. He jerked his neck back and forth in an ungainly fashion and paraded around the room making koo-kaw sounds. She’d never seen anyone fully commit to birdcalling like that. It was weirdly impressive.

  “Koo-kaw. I’m the boss. I’m the boss here,” Swift shrieked at condor Jeremy, his arms thrashing about.

  With Swift fully distracted by his bird dance, Gabby darted for his suit jacket and searched his pockets. Yes, she found it! She grabbed the tin of mints, gave condor Jeremy a thumbs-up, then took off for the music room, where she and Jeremy had agreed to meet.

  In the classroom, Gabby paced among the cellos and drum sets and stared at the clock. They had just enough time for Jeremy to eat a mint before he went ka-blam. If he didn’t show up soon, her plan would be toast.

  Finally, Jeremy rushed in, huffing and puffing.

  “It’s about time,” said Gabby.

  “Sorry, that guy really hates birds,” he said, trying to catch his breath. Gabby couldn’t argue with that.

  “You get the mints?” he asked.

  “Right here,” said Gabby, holding up the tin with relief.

  Gabby and Jeremy leaned over the tin as she opened it, then both immediately stood up in shock. What? No! It couldn’t be.

  “Empty,” gasped Gabby.

  Jeremy stared at the bare tin in disbelief. Swift had popped every last Gor-Monite mint. Their plan had failed. “No mints. I’m gonna blow up,” he said, slumping into a blue plastic chair. His stomach grumbled in confirmation. Jeremy glowered at Gabby. “You know, I’m starting to think you might not be a very good babysitter.”

  Alien said what? Nobody called Gabby Duran a bad babysitter. She flashed her signature smile. Was it time to panic yet? Nope, not in a million light-years. “No, I’m a great babysitter. And we’ve still got one more shot.”

  Gabby grabbed Jeremy’s hand and sprinted down the hall with him. All fury and fire, they burst into the cafeteria, where Swift was still straightening up from the recent condor attack.

  “Hey, Swifty!” she yelled, not bothering to slow down. Her eyes zeroed in on Principal Principal Swift’s mouth, which at that moment contained exactly one barely eaten Gor-Monite breath mint.

  “Gabby?” said a confused Swift. He’d given her explicit instructions: Jeremy was not to leave the house. “What are you—”

  Gabby ran full force at Swift, lowering her shoulder into his stomach. The mint he was sucking on flew from his mouth. Gabby followed the candy’s trajectory as it arced through the air and across the cafeteria, nearing Jeremy. Jeremy’s eyes grew wide. He stared at Gabby, who gave him an encouraging nod. He could do this. She believed in him.

  Jeremy stepped back, leapt into the air, and opened wide. Bull’s-eye! Jeremy threw his arms up in the air, victorious. “I did it!” he yelled. “I caught food in my mouth!”

  “Yeah! You’re not gonna die!” said Gabby, who’d run across the room to celebrate with him.

  “That, too!” he said as an afterthought.

  Gabby smiled as they high-fived. Why had she ever doubted herself? Who ruled at alien babysitting more than she did? So she almost blew up her Gor-Monite kid. But the important thing was that she didn’t. All’s great that ends great, right?

  Principal Swift cleared his throat and scowled at them from across the room. Gabby noticed that Swift didn’t look as happy as someone should when their nephew avoids total and complete explosion due to soda pop consumption. What was up with that?

  “What you two did today was completely reckless and could have easily resulted in Jeremy’s explosion,” Principal Swift said, glaring at Gabby and Jeremy across his office desk. He was clasping his hands together so tightly in anger that they were turning red.

  Jeremy looked at his uncle. “But—”

  Swift held up a hand, silencing him. “However, it did not,” he continued. Swift’s kind expression revealed that he’d been rather impressed with their high jinks. “And you did display remarkable poise and ingenuity in an emergency situation, which should probably count for something.”

  “So…am I fired?” Gabby asked, concern filling her voice.

  Swift paused for what seemed like the single longest moment of Gabby’s young life. “Given the circumstances, I think it’s fair to let you off with a stern warning this time—provided nothing like this ever happens again.”

  Yes! Gabby’s face burst into the biggest smile ever. She was the most relieved she’d ever been. Before babysitting, she had nothing in Havensburg. No friends. No joy. No place she fit in. But babysitting aliens gave her purpose. She’d hit her stride. She looked at Jeremy, who was still squirming nervously in his seat.

  “And you, Jeremy,” snapped Swift, turning his attention toward his wayward nephew.

  Jeremy sat up straight and braced himself for the worst. But it never came. Instead, Swift’s mouth formed a small smirk. “That aerial attack was very convincing. If you could convince me you were one of those winged abominations, perhaps I’ve underestimated you.”

  Jeremy smiled. That was th
e first compliment he’d ever received from his uncle. Huh, maybe he could swing this Gor-Monite supreme-leader-in-training thing after all. Baller!

  “And maybe to make up for that, you two could pick up some drive-through on the way home?” Gabby interjected. She knew she should have stayed silent, but who was she kidding?

  “Hmmmmmmmm. Fine. Why not?” said Swift, relenting. Secretly, he was quite curious about the primitive human habit of eating fastly prepared food while confined to one’s personal mode of transportation. Of course, it made total sense, as it allowed the Earthlings to accomplish two critical things at once: fuel their bodies and give their car that highly coveted fresh french-fry scent. What would these creatures think of next?

  “Baller!” shouted Jeremy, throwing in a fist pump.

  Gabby had one more favor to ask of Swift. “Also, can I borrow some of your trash? I sort of did something to a friend of mine and need to make it up to him.”

  When Wesley awoke, he found himself cramped inside the confines of the Havensburg Junior High janitor’s closet. “Ugh…what happened?” he said, trying to shake off the grogginess.

  Wesley froze. On the floor in front of him, someone had spelled out “Stop asking questions” in crumpled-up trash.

  An enormous grin spread across his face. “I was right!”

  He couldn’t wait to tell the other Mysteries of Havensburg Club members—er, member—about this. He had to go find Gabby right away.

  Standing in Gabby’s room, Dina watched expectantly as Gabby studied the homemade Daughter of the Month certificate with her name on it. “What do you think?” asked Dina, proud of her DIY work. Using pink and yellow highlighters, she and Olivia had spent an hour getting the doodles just right. “I figure we can put it on the mantel downstairs.”

  “Daughter of the Month?” Gabby put her hand on her heart. “Mom, this is incredibly lame.” And yet Gabby was quite touched by the gesture.