Freddy and the French Fries #1:

by David Baldacci; aRudy Baldacci

  “I told you he was alive,” chirped the happy voice.

  “Hey, what’s going on up there?” bellowed a deep voice.

  A very authoritative voice declared, “I believe that the young man will fully recover posthaste. There seems to be no permanent damage done and all neuromuscular systems appear to be functioning normally.”

  “Yeah, but is he going to be okay?” asked the deep voice.

  Freddy’s eyes finally focused and he gaped.

  Five—no, six faces and ten—no, twelve eyeballs looked back at him.

  Freddy screamed. And then they screamed. And then Freddy smiled, really, really big. He was excited, not scared. They were his Fries, and they had come to life! There was Ziggy, the yellow Fry, and Theodore, the blue Fry, and Curly, the green Fry, and . . . He stared at the red Fry. It had two heads and only one body. Freddy started jumping up and down.

  “I did it! I did it!” he yelled.

  “Hey, that tickles,” said the deep voice.

  Freddy looked under his feet and saw that the thing he was standing on was purple. He raced to the side of whatever they were on and looked over.

  “Hey, there,” said the deep voice.

  Freddy was standing on the purple Fry’s enormous stomach.

  “How’d you make yourself into a raft?” asked Freddy.

  “I’m not sure. It just seemed like a good idea, and then it just happened.”

  Freddy beamed. “Potato-nanotechnology — you just can’t beat it.” Freddy held on tight as the storm passed over them, rocking the purple boat and soaking them with rain.

  Freddy rubbed his eyes clear and looked over to shore and saw Howie lying there. “Hey, Howie, are you okay?” he yelled.

  Howie slowly came to, looked at the Fries, and promptly fainted again.

  Freddy felt a tug on his shirt.

  “What were you doing at the bottom of the lake?” asked the small yellow Fry.

  “I was trying to bring you to life and got hit by a big wave.” They looked at him in confusion. “You see, you’re my Fries,” said Freddy. “I made you.”

  The blue Fry adjusted his thick glasses that made him look very smart. “You created us? How very interesting.”

  “And you each have lots of special features,” Freddy continued.

  The blue Fry smiled knowingly. “I myself feel quite brilliant.”

  “I just feel hungry,” moaned the purple Fry, and the floor moved under their feet. “There, did you hear that rumbling? I have to eat forty-three-and-a-half times a day just to sustain my present figure.”

  “But I don’t understand . . . I thought my experiment failed,” said a confused Freddy. “The million jiggy-watts wasn’t enough —” Just then there was another flash of lightning. And then Freddy realized what had happened.

  “The lightning bolt that hit the raft must have had lots more electricity than a million jiggy-watts. That must have brought you to life.”

  Wow, thought Freddy. This is the greatest experiment ever. This is history! I’ll be famous! And this might only be the beginning. I’ll be on the cover of every magazine; I’ll be on TV. And if I get really, really famous, I might even have my own cartoon show. . . .

  He was lightheaded with the possibilities. Serious and important people would ask him things like, “Now, Dr. Funkhouser, what is your view on the state of the world, sir?” And he’d say something clever like, “Well, Mr. Ambassador, I personally think a ton of chocolate chip cookies in every household would improve the state of the world. That and duct-taping the mouths of every big sister in America.”

  “You mean to say,” said the blue Fry, “that the lightning bolt interacted with us, causing a reaction of enormous kinetic energy, and now we have discernible motor and intellectual skills as a result of this spontaneous elemental combustion?”

  “Yes,” shouted Freddy gleefully.

  “Wow,” said the purple Fry. “And here I thought that big spark that fried my butt had made us come to life.”

  “And I named you too,” added Freddy breathlessly.

  The little yellow Fry looked up and asked in an excited voice, “What’s my name?”

  “You’re Ziggy.”

  The yellow Fry swelled up and his face contorted into something really frightening. “ZIGGY!” cried the yellow Fry so loudly that the air coming out of his mouth made Freddy’s hair stick straight up.

  Freddy looked at the small Fry fearfully. “Don’t you like it?”

  The yellow Fry returned to normal size and smiled pleasantly. “Oh, I think it’s really swell, thanks.”

  Freddy swallowed nervously. How could Ziggy go from furious to nice so quickly? Had he mis-wired the yellow Fry’s brain?

  “And me?” asked the tall blue Fry. “What’s my moniker?”

  “You’re Theodore,” said Freddy. “And you’re Wally,” he said, leaning over the side of the purple raft.

  Wally smiled and then started drinking part of the lake. “I need lots of liquid in my diet,” he explained. “It guards against, you know, that poop backup thingie.”

  “You’re referring to constipation,” said Theodore.

  Wally nodded and his eyes grew huge as he said in a low voice, “Right. Constantinople is bad, very, very bad.”

  “And us?” said one of the two redheads.

  “Hmmm,” said a puzzled Freddy. “I hadn’t given you names. And there used to be only one of you.”

  The unhappy-looking redhead’s mouth drooped even more and his eyes were downcast. “Oh, it’s okay. I probably don’t deserve a name anyway.”

  The other redhead was smiling broadly and looked ready to laugh at any moment. He smacked his twin on the back. “Hey, I bet he’ll come up with a great name for us. Uh, names, that is.” He looked at Freddy. “You will, won’t you?”

  Freddy looked very uncomfortable for a moment, but then it hit him. He had split the wiring on the chip in the red Fry’s head to give it two personalities. When the Fry had separated into two heads, each had taken one of the personalities: sad and happy.

  “I’ve got it,” he exclaimed. He pointed to the smiling redhead. “You’re Si.” He pointed to the depressed redhead. “And you’re Meese.” He laughed. “Get it? Sia — meese?”

  Si and Meese looked clueless.

  “Siamese twins,” said Theodore in his authoritative voice. “The pairing of identical persons within one body. Decidedly rare indeed. Although I believe the more modern term is ‘conjoined.’”

  “Hey,” pouted Wally, “I was just about to say that.”

  “But con and joined just don’t have the same ring as Si and Meese,” said Freddy.

  “Rare, huh?” said Si. “Wow, I told you he’d come up with a great one. That’a boy, Freddy.”

  Meese looked even more depressed. “If it’s so rare I bet no one will remember it.”

  Freddy looked over at the green Fry that was staring at him from under his ball cap, but then the Fry quickly looked away. Freddy said, “Don’t you want to know what your name is?”

  The green Fry shook its head, but he did turn one anxious eyeball in Freddy’s direction. “You’re a curlicue fry, so I named you Curly.”

  Curly looked like he wanted to smile but didn’t exactly know how. So instead he blew his nose very loudly and wiggled his enormous ears.

  “Good job, Curly,” Freddy said. “You’re a good nose blower and ear wiggler.”

  “Thankyouverymuch,” mumbled Curly.

  “And what’s your name?” asked Theodore.

  “Freddy. Freddy T. Funkhouser.”

  “What’s the T stand for?” asked Theodore.

  “Tesla. He was a very famous inventor. My dad’s an inventor too.”

  “Cool, what does he invent?” said Wally. “Uh, what’s invent mean?”

  “To construct something of originality using one’s imagination and know-how,” said Theodore.

  “Hey, you’re an inventor, Freddy, because you invented us,” exclaimed Ziggy.


  “That’s right!” said Freddy. “In fact, I’m well on my way to being the most famous inventor ever.” A crack of lightning hit near them. “But right now we need to get to shore, fast.”

  “No problem, little dude,” said Wally. He turned his mouth to the water and started blowing. The purple raft shot toward land.

  Freddy’s mind was going a million miles a minute. He could see now that simply sticking the Fries on the Burger Castle float was kid stuff. Very soon everyone would know them. And he and his dad would be famous together. They wouldn’t need the Burger Castle to make a living.

  He turned to the Fries. “I need time to think of the best way to introduce you to the world. So until then, you have to stay hidden.”

  The Fries all looked at each other, and finally Theodore said in his deep voice, “You have our solemn word that we will henceforth remain incognito.”

  “Yep, incockadoodle,” added Wally.

  When they reached land, Freddy poured some water on Howie’s face to revive him. Howie sat up, and Freddy quickly introduced him to the Fries.

  “You did it, Freddy!” yelled an excited Howie.

  Freddy was beaming. “Yep. The Fries are officially alive.”

  CHAPTER

  THE FLIGHT OF THE FRIES

  By the time they got back to the barn that was on top of Freddy’s secret lab the storm had passed and the day was turning warm and sunny. Reminding the Fries to stay hidden in the barn, the boys left to go home and get ready for school.

  The Fries did keep their word about staying out of sight — until Wally got hungry and slipped outside to look for food, only to fall asleep. That wouldn’t have been a big problem except that Nancy Funkhouser, who’d left school early that day because she said she wasn’t feeling well, chose that time to slink out of bed and go swimming in the small pond near Freddy’s secret laboratory.

  After she finished her swim, Nancy decided to pick some flowers while she dried off. Next to Freddy’s lab there was a whole bunch of pretty ones. One by one she plucked them — reds and yellows and blues and — and then she saw a fat purple one. And it had five toes attached to it! She touched it and it moved. She jumped back. She touched it again and it moved again, and then she thought she heard a giggle.

  “Who’s that?” she said in a frightened voice.

  Wally sat straight up from where he had been taking a nap in the flowers.

  “It’s me, Wally,” he boomed out. Then he looked panicked. “Oops, I wasn’t supposed to let you see me. But since you’re here, do you have anything to eat?” He grabbed the flowers she was holding and swallowed them. “Nice appetizer. Can I see the dinner menu now?”

  A screaming Nancy ran off so fast her red hair stuck straight out behind her; it looked like her head was on fire.

  That scared Wally so badly he took off running too, and ran right into the barn door and knocked himself out. He lay on the ground, a great big purple blob.

  The other Fries peeked out of the barn and saw Nancy running off.

  “My educated opinion,” said Theodore, “is that we have been discovered.”

  “I bet they’ll come and eat us,” added Meese sadly. “And I just got my name too. Even if nobody will ever remember it.”

  “We have to hide,” squeaked Ziggy.

  “I bet we’ll find a great place to hide,” responded Si. “A super-duper swello one. Right, Meese?”

  “We’re all doomed,” replied Meese gloomily. “We’ll be crushed to bits. We probably only have seconds to live. Oh, well — it’s not like anyone will miss me.”

  “Yeah, but they’ll miss me. I’m a real fun guy to be around,” exclaimed Si. “And if you go down, I go down.”

  At that moment, Curly uncoiled himself so he was about twelve feet tall. He saw the two people coming over the hill. He tapped Theodore on the shoulder.

  “Ohboygottamovefastpeoplecoming,” he mumbled hurriedly.

  “Let’s expedite our removal from these environs with all due haste,” ordered an alarmed Theodore.

  “NO TIME FOR THAT, LET’S RUN!” shouted Wally, who had woken up and heard Curly.

  The Fries shot into the woods in such a blur of color that they looked like a running rainbow.

  Minutes later, Nancy came sprinting up holding a large frying pan in one hand and a can of bug killer in the other. Her father came puffing up behind her. His head and hands were bandaged. “Okay, Nanny Boo-Boo, where are they, whatever they are?”

  She sputtered, “They — it — that thing was right here. Right here!” She swung her frying pan around, and sprayed the bug spray. The only thing that did was to scare off a bunch of butterflies.

  “Now stop that, dear, you’ll hurt yourself.”

  Nancy kept swinging and spraying. “Me hurt myself? You blew yourself up again. You know, Dad, most people make waffles without a steam iron and a blowtorch.”

  “How very unexciting. Now what was it you saw again?”

  “A huge purple blobby thing. It was deeessssggusting, it really was. It had toes. And a big purple tongue. And two beady little purple eyes. And it spoke to me. It said its name was Wally.”

  “That’s nice,” her father began, and then he stopped abruptly. “I thought you were sick in bed. What were you doing out here?”

  “Why, of course I’m sick,” Nancy said as she quickly tried to think of something. “That’s why I believed I saw a purple fry, which of course is silly. I better go and lie down. I’m feeling faint.” She dropped the frying pan and bug spray, put her hand to her forehead, and started spinning around. “Everything’s getting dizzy and dark, Dad. I think it’s my time, my time to go to the great hereafter.” She started shivering. “So cold, so cold.” She dropped to her knees and started to moan. “Are you still there, Dad? It’s okay if you’re not. I can die all alone. Really. Oh, E.T. phone home, one last time, E.T., one final time,” she said tearfully. She swooned three times, gave a little gasp, clutched her chest, and then fell to the grass and lay still.

  Her father stared down at her, rubbing his sharp chin. “You probably just caught a bug. I’m going to give you a big spoonful of my special medicine. I just made a fresh batch out of rutabagas and extract of poppy seed oil with a pinch of jalapeno and just a dab of limburger cheese to open your sinuses. It’s a wonderfully wondrous concoction. And not only does it make me feel better, but I can also see out the back of my head, which is quite useful actually for a parent.”

  Nancy sat up and looked terrified. “No, Dad, please! Remember the last time? My hair hasn’t grown all the way back, and one ear’s still bigger than the other.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve worked those bugs out. You know that safety comes first with me.”

  Nancy looked at her dad’s bandaged head and hands and muttered, “Right.”

  As they walked off she said to herself, “I just know this is all Freddy’s doing. And I’m so going to get him back. Freddy Funkhouser, you are like sooooo in trouble.”

  CHAPTER

  THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS KID

  Freddy was so excited about becoming famous that he floated through most of his classes that day. He didn’t answer a single question asked of him, or if he did, the answer was wrong.

  “No, Freddy, Bugs Bunny was not the first president of the United States,” said his history teacher. “No, six times seven is not a cheeseburger with fries,” said his math teacher.

  Freddy was so distracted that he put his finger in the pencil sharpener and stapled his shirt to his desk. And at lunch he ate the wax paper his sandwich was wrapped in rather than the meatless bologna sandwich his father had made for him.

  Howie Kapowie had been watching Freddy all day. At lunch, when Freddy stuck his milk straw in his nose and tried to inhale, Howie Kapowie asked him what was wrong.

  But Freddy wasn’t listening. He was daydreaming about being interviewed on TV as the world’s most famous person. He had just been asked what he was going to do now that he had accomplished t
he greatest feat in world history.

  Suddenly, Freddy jumped on the lunchroom table, thrust his fist in the air, and shouted, “I’m going to Disney World. YYYYEEEAAAHHH!”

  When Freddy remembered where he was, he looked at everybody staring at him. Howie had been startled so badly that he had stuck a cheese cube in his right ear. Adam Spanker glared at him from another table and laughed. So did all his gang.

  “Funky Funkhouser, you’re such a loser,” yelled Adam. “I wish you’d go to outer space where you belong.” The gang all rolled with laughter.

  Freddy climbed down from the table after pulling his feet free from Darcella Macomber’s mashed potatoes and gravy. “Uh, sorry,” he said to Darcella.

  “Freak!” she exclaimed before storming out.

  “Uh, are you okay, Freddy?” asked Howie as he tried to get the cheese cube out of his ear. He didn’t like to waste his cheese cubes.

  “I can’t stop thinking about the Fries, Howie. It’s a pretty overwhelming concept. There’ll be all the press coverage, meeting the president and other world leaders, touring the globe, the awards and medals, money pouring in, making statues of me around the world, and then the excitement will really start.”

  “But, Freddy, I thought you made the Fries so that your family would win the Founders’ Day parade and save the Burger Castle,” Howie pointed out.

  Freddy looked at him like he was crazy. “Sure, that was the original plan, but that’s small potatoes, Howie. I have to think bigger now. I’m talking the world, not some crummy parade.”

  “But if you don’t put the Fries on the Burger Castle float the Spankers will win for sure.”

  “Who cares? My family won’t even be living in Pookesville much longer.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Who knows? New York, Paris, London, maybe even Hollywood.”

  “Hollywood?”

  “Think about it, Howie — animation is so last century. Anthropomorphic filmmaking iswhere it’s at. I can make more Fries and run my own studio.”