Frantastic Voyage
Page 2
“Gum!” Franny said. “That dog has been swallowing his bubble gum!”
Franny had been so close, but now it looked like it was over. She was completely trapped by the gum, and time was running out.
“Wait a second,” she said, and she wiggled her way over to the peanut brittle. “These edges are almost like broken glass!” She rubbed the strands of gum up and down the edge of the peanut brittle and began cutting and slicing until she was free.
She grabbed the Doomsday Device and pulled out her screwdriver. “You can’t stop a mad scientist with a little gum,” she said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BUT YOU CAN STOP ONE WITH A LITTLE SCREWDRIVER
Franny smiled confidently. She hadn’t expected the gum, hut everything else was going according to plan.
“All have to do now is slip this teeny little screwdriver into this great big screw and then I can open the bomb and turn it off.
“Great big screw? Teeny little screwdriver?” Franny gasped. “Gadzooks! I miscalculated! The screwdriver is too small to open this screw. I can’t get the device open before it explodes!”
Franny looked around Igor’s stomach. “If only there were something in here I could use.” But Igor hadn’t swallowed a screwdriver.
Yet.
“The walkie-talkie!” Franny said. “I’ll just tell Igor to swallow a screwdriver!”
She looked at her watch again. “But I’ve got to hurry. We’re running out of time!”
Franny pushed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Igor! Can you hear me? Igor.”
She looked at the small screen on her wrist. Igor was not responding. He just kept staring at the television.
“Igor! Can you hear me?”
Franny looked at the tiny screwdriver again and she realized the second miscalculation she had made.
“My mouth, my vocal chords, my voice! They all got smaller. Of course Igor can’t hear me. My teensy voice is just too soft now!”
Franny sat down on a lump of what may have once been a pancake—gooey, yes, but actually kind of comfy.
“Let’s see now. Trapped in dog stomach. No way to radio for help. Bomb going off any minute. Even if Igor were to lie down on his own, I still could never roll the bomb out in time.
“Think, Franny, think.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHANNEL SURFING
Franny looked at her equipment. She had a screwdriver, her watch, and the remote control fox the Shrinkerizer.
“Yeah, the remote control,” she said, suddenly grinning broadly. She quickly unscrewed the back and started making some adjustments.
“I made Igor’s TV and its remote control. I should be able to rewire this one so that I can control the TV from here!”
Franny looked at her wrist screen and pushed a button on the rewired remote control. She could see the channel change on Igor’s television.
“Success!” she shouted “Now watch carefully, you little tube head,” she said.
Franny started switching channels feverishly. She could see the channels fly past Igor’s gaze.
She passed commercials for cars, toys, blue jeans, and hamburgers.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” she yelled. “Trying to save the world here!”
Finally she stopped on a commercial for corn chips.
“This is what I need,” she said.
Igor watched the commercial for a minute and then Franny saw him leave the room. In a moment he was hack with a bag of corn chips.
“I knew he’d want them!” Franny said.
Franny saw fragments of munched-up corn chips start tumbling into Igor’s stomach. “Perfect, exactly what I need,” she said, grabbing two triangular bits and pulling them to one side.
“Now hopefully all the corn chips have made him thirsty.”
Franny watched Igor on her little screen. He may have been thirsty, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
Franny could hear the Doomsday Device ticking down.
“Oh, come on, Igor. Who doesn’t get thirsty from corn chips?” she yelled.
“I think he needs a little inspiration,” she said, and started changing the channel again.
She found a broadcast of a marathon with tired, hot runners racing down a scorching road. “This should make him thirstier,” she said. And Igor ran out of the room.
He returned a moment later wearing running shoes and a number on his chest.
“No, no, no!” Franny yelled. And she changed the channels until she found a movie about some people lost in the desert.
“Look how thirsty they look! This will get to him.”
Igor ran out of the room and returned with sunscreen and a map of the desert.
“No! No! No!” Franny yelled, and she changed the channels until she found a science show about the sun.
“The surface of the sun is over ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit,” the narrator explained.
“This should do it,” Franny said, and watched as Igor ran out of the room.
He returned a moment later with a glass of juice.
“No! No! No!” Franny shouted. “Juice won’t work!” She started clicking through the channels feverishly.
The fate of the world depended on Igor not drinking the juice.
Just then she found what she was looking for. “Yes!” Franny shouted.
Igor stopped with the glass just inches from his mouth to have a look at the root-beer commercial Franny had switched to.
Igor watched the kids pouring the sparkling cold root beer into tall glasses. His eyes widened while they enjoyed big gulps of the delicious icy soda. He started to drool in his lap as they licked the delicious foam from their lips. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He ran from the room.
He returned a moment later with a can of root beer. He plopped down on the floor and began drinking greedily.
Fizzy root beer started pouring into Igor’s stomach. “Yahoo!” Franny yelled. “Success!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AGANIST GASTRONOMICAL ODDS
Franny started sticking her corn chips together with clumps of gum.
The bubbles in the root beer were increasing the pressure in Igor’s stomach.
She checked her watch. They were running out of time.
“Okay, Igor, let’s have one of your big, disgusting burps,” she said.
But Igor didn’t burp. The pressure was building in his stomach, but he wouldn’t burp.
Franny remembered what she had told him. “Gadzooks,” she said. “Igor is trying to follow my rule. He’s keeping himself from burping.”
Franny started changing channels. “We’ll see about that, Igor,” she said.
She found a music video with an irresistible beat.
Igor started tapping his foot.
Franny popped the back off her remote and made a few little adjustments. Now she could control the volume of Igor’s TV, and she made the music louder.
Igor’s shoulders started to move a little in time to the music.
Franny turned up the music a little more.
Igor’s tail started to sway back and forth.
Franny howled, “For the love of all humanity, shake what your mama gave you!”
Franny increased the volume as loud as it would go and Igor finally lost control.
He bopped, grooved, and danced just like the people in the music video.
His dancing was working on his stomach the way that shaking works on a bottle of root beer.
“He can’t hold this burp back forever,” Franny said.
As the pressure grew, Franny made the final adjustments to her corn chips, and stuck the Doomsday Device in place with more gum. She began her countdown: “5-4-3-2-1 . . . ”
Igor couldn’t hold it back any longer. The pressure in his stomach was just too great, and he burped a huge, gassy dog burp.
“Blastoff!” Franny yelled. She had built a Windsurfer out of the corn chips and held it tightly as she rode the root-beer burp straight up Igor’s thr
oat.
She rocketed right out of his mouth, moving much too fast to worry about his snaggly teeth, and skidded to a complete stop right in front of the Shrinkerizer.
She fumbled with the wires in the remote. She was starting to panic. Only a minute remained until the bomb went off.
“Calm down, Franny,” she said to herself.
She got the wires back in their original positions. She hit the button and enlarged to her regular size. She grabbed the Doomsday Device, opened it up with the screwdriver, which was now the correct size, and with only two seconds before it exploded, she managed to turn it off.
Igor, Franny, her lab, and half the world were saved.
She turned to Igor. “It’s okay now, Igor. We’re safe.”
Igor smiled.
“But I have to ask you: Why did you eat a doll’s foot?”
Igor shrugged. Seemed like a good idea at the time, he thought.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A WEAPON OF MASS AFFECTION
Franny wasted no time dismantling the Doomsday Device. “That might have been the worst thing I ever made,” she said.
Then she turned her attention to the TV she had built for Igor. “And this might be the second worst.”
Igor jumped in front of the TV. He knew Franny was about to smash it to bits.
“Stand aside, Igor. This thing has to go,” she said, and she began selecting an appropriate smasher from her collection.
Igor knew begging wouldn’t help. Then he noticed the remote control.
Franny chose a weighty battle-ax that had been useful in the past when other experiments had gone badly and had required swift disassembly.
Igor frantically clicked through the channels.
Franny raised the battle-ax. Igor kept switching, kept switching, kept switching until finally . . .
Franny froze in mid-swing. It was a science show about spiders.
The narrator said, “A single black widow spider can have more than twenty-five hundred babies a year.”
“Awww! Wook at the widdle babies,” she gushed, dropping the ax and settling into Igor’s chair.
Igor smiled broadly and cuddled up next to her.
“I know what you’re thinking, Igor,” she said. “You’re thinking that shows like this will persuade me to keep the TV.”
Igor smiled and nodded.
“Well, let me think. It’s true that the TV caused a lot of trouble, but I guess I was the one who made the Doomsday Device in the first place and without the television, we would’ve been blown to bits.”
“Okay, we’ll keep it. But you have to promise me a few things.”
Igor clapped.
“You can only watch it once in a while. There are lots of other things to do around here.”
Igor nodded.
“You have to try not to let it make you think that you want things. Commercials can be very tricky that way.”
Igor wagged his finger at the TV.
“And one more thing,” Franny said.
“You must never, ever, ever stop burping.”
Igor took a long drink of his root beer and let a huge burp fly.
Franny laughed and the two of them cuddled up in Igor’s chair and watched 2,500 adorable newborn babies eat a mountain of flies.
READ ALL OF FRANNY’S ADVENTURES
Lunch Walks Among Us
Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid
The Invisible Fran
The Fran That Time Forgot
Frantastic Voyage
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2006 by Jim Benton
All rights reserved, including the Tight of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Book design by Dan Potash and Lucy Ruth Cummins
Cover design by Laurent Linn
Cover illustrations copyright © 2006 by Jim Benton
The text for this book is set in Captain Kidd.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in pen, ink, and watercolor.
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-0229-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4424-9520-3 (eBook)