by Jim Benton
Mary clapped and smiled. Franny made a note to herself that if elected, she’d need to keep that promise.
Franny navigated the Frandidate skin around the room. It grew taller for the kid who liked basketball, and even looked like it was wearing a uniform.
Then it looked like a chef, a grandma, a superhero, and an elf. It changed its voice, its size, and even how it walked, to suit each individual kid.
The skin gave Franny the ability to sense what each kid wanted to hear, and so she talked about the things each kid liked.
And sometimes Franny didn’t talk at all. She discovered that the Frandidate could do the talking all by itself. It didn’t have a big brain, but this talking didn’t seem to require a lot of thought.
Franny just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
And after she had finished talking to everybody, Franny took her seat.
“Franny for President! Franny for President!” all the kids chanted. Even the kids who had been running against Franny were cheering for her now.
Miss Shelly didn’t know what to think, but there was only one conclusion to make. “Looks like we don’t even have to vote. Franny, you win by a landslide.”
The words made the Frandidate’s skin tingle, as if it had received a little electric shock. It liked the feeling, and so did Franny.
As president of the class, she might find it tricky to keep all the promises she had made, but Franny was a genius, and she was confident that she could handle the job.
CHAPTER TEN
FROM THE PINK HOUSE TO THE WHITE ONE
Franny was delighted. She wore the suit all the way home, and as she saw people, the suit made little changes in itself based on what it sensed they wanted it to be.
When she got home, she looked in the mirror. The Frandidate skin, sensing Franny’s feelings, wiggled, and wriggled, and changed.
In the mirror, Franny didn’t see a little girl who had won a class election anymore. She saw a leader, the president of a country: the President of the United States of America.
The thought made the Frandidate’s skin tingle again, like a little more electric power had been run through it, and the sensation made Franny smile.
“Why not?” she said. “Once elected, I can use my genius to do all sorts of great things for people, and if they choose to vote for me, it’s not like I’m trying to take over the world or anything. It’s their choice.”
Franny started to slip out of the Frandidate suit, but the zipper stuck and she couldn’t get the suit all the way off.
“I’ll fix the zipper later,” she said, walking around with the skin halfway off.
“Igor, warm up my Satellite-Snagger,” she said, and Igor pointed the device toward the sky.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ICU, ICU, AND ICU2
Franny had Igor lock on to a television satellite. She knew he could do it, because once Igor had locked himself in the lab and used it to make every TV in the world play Miss Wizzywozzle’s Story Time. Because he loved the show, he wanted to make everybody else love it too.
Last month Franny had figured out how to get a return picture from other people’s TVs. If she wanted to, she could simply type in your name and then watch you through your TV.
She called it the ICU2, and she had quite a few laughs at people walking around in their underpants, but she had never thought of a really good use for it—until now.
Franny revealed her plan to Igor.
“You just keep that satellite locked in position. The cameras will be on me inside the Frandidate skin,” she said, pulling the skin on the rest of the way.
“The system is going to activate every TV in the country, and the ICU2 will send us a picture of the viewer. The Frandidate will sense what each person wants, and it will change its shape according to those feelings. All I’ll need to say is something like ‘vote Franny K. Stein for president.’ ”
Igor looked a little uncomfortable. The Frandidate skin helped Franny sense Igor’s concerns.
“This is not like taking over the world,” said Franny. “If the voters elect me as president, it’s because they freely choose to do so. It’s not by force. I’m not making them do it. It’s their choice.”
Igor nodded. That made sense.
“And think of all the good I could do if I got elected.”
Igor nodded again.
“Now, look at this,” she said. “The system will automatically measure the amount of success we’re having, so we can look at this Support Meter and know second-by-second just how many voters we have on our side.”
Igor looked at the clock.
“Don’t worry about the timing. The Frandidate moves fast, and as it does more and more of this, my calculations say that it will get easier and easier for the skin to do its thing.”
Igor pointed at a second camera, which was aimed at the Frandidate from a different angle.
“Oh, right. And it’s going to do it twice as fast as you might have imagined. Wait until you see this.”
The Frandidate skin wriggled and squirmed, and Igor watched a second set of features erupt out of its head.
“See?” Franny said from inside. “We can use both cameras: Isn’t it great? It’s two-faced!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I KNOW WHERE YOU STAND. HERE’S WHERE I LIE.
The cameras and monitors hummed. Images of people started popping up and the Frandidate swiftly got impressions of what they wanted and instantly changed its appearance.
From inside, Franny marveled at the Frandidate’s skill. It changed to look like a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. It became old, it became young. It could look like a man or a woman. It could imitate anything.
Franny could sense what the Frandidate was feeling.
“Vote for Franny K. Stein,” Franny said, and it came out in hundreds of accents, dozens of languages, and countless different voices.
And it sounded very persuasive. The Support Meter continued to climb, and the Frandidate’s skin tingled more and more as it did.
It really loves the support, Franny thought.
Every few minutes, Igor would get worried and peek up from his satellite controls. When the Frandidate saw that he was looking, it would turn into Miss Wizzywozzle, and Igor felt calm again.
It is nice to have Miss Wizzywozzle in the lab, he thought, even if deep down he knew it wasn’t really Miss Wizzywozzle.
“And if elected, I’ll make sure that old ladies never get sick,” the Frandidate told one old lady.
How am I going to keep that promise? Franny thought.
“I will outlaw brussels sprouts,” it said to another person. “And everybody will get their own unicorn.”
“Wait a second!” Franny shouted. “I can’t promise that,” she said, but her voice didn’t come out of the Frandidate’s mouth. It was ignoring her now, and saying everything for itself.
Franny tried to get the zipper opened, but it had completely disappeared.
“Let me out! Stop the broadcast!” she howled, but her voice couldn’t escape the Frandidate skin, and worse: The skin was getting tighter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE THING THAT WOULD BE KING
Everybody will have everything they want!” the Frandidate exclaimed, waving its fist in the air. “I will put an end to all of those people that don’t believe as you do,” it snarled.
From inside the skin, Franny was trying her best to break free, but the skin was constricting around her.
“It must be the python DNA,” she whispered in a strangled gasp.
The Frandidate’s eyes became even more intense.
“King of the World!” it said. “Make me King of the World and all your dreams will come true!”
Franny could still barely see out one of the Frandidate’s eyes. The Support Meter indicated that the people watching at home believed the Frandidate. They were going to vote for this horrible creation. They were going to make it King of the World.
Franny was still
connected to the Frandidate’s mind, and she could even see the plan it was already beginning to form.
It never wanted that tingly feeling to stop. It would say anything for it. It would do anything to stay in control.
The Frandidate could destroy the world.
Franny felt herself beginning to faint. She was getting dizzy and it was hard to breathe. She knew that she wasn’t just wearing the Frandidate anymore; she had been swallowed by it. It was almost like she had been eaten.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
QUICK! WHAT CAN SET YOU FREE?
The Frandidate was making all sorts of claims to get people’s support.
“I will protect you from everything,” it bellowed. “The bad guys won’t be bad anymore.”
The Support Meter kept going up and up.
Igor suddenly had a very strong impression that it wasn’t Franny who was saying these things.
He looked at the Frandidate and it changed to look like Miss Wizzywozzle again, but it didn’t make Igor comfortable anymore.
Igor was sensing something else. Dogs are like that.
Igor knew he had to do something.
He couldn’t attack it—Franny was in there. He thought of turning off the camera, but as soon as he did, the Frandidate sensed his thoughts and extended a long tentacle to hold him in his chair while it worked the controls itself.
Suddenly, he thought of the one thing that had saved him before. Maybe, just maybe, it could work again, he hoped, and he acted quickly before the Frandidate could stop him.
Igor hit a few switches on the Satellite-Snagger and the system quickly locked on to a very specific television.
It locked on to the one in the pretty pink house with lovely purple shutters down at the end of Daffodil Street.
The ICU2 displayed Franny’s mom on the screen.
The Frandidate looked into her wide, honest eyes, and sensed exactly the one thing she wanted.
The Frandidate twitched and sweated.
Igor hit a few more switches and sent the broadcast to every home in the world.
It started to stammer and stutter. There was no way around this.
“I, uh. I just say whatever I know the viewers want to hear,” the Frandidate said softly, casting its eyes down in shame.
Inside, its muscles relaxed enough for Franny to catch her breath. It pulled back the tentacle that was holding Igor.
“The promises I made aren’t going to be kept, and I really don’t care much about the people that vote for me. Once elected, I’ll just do whatever I want,” it wheezed.
It began to look more like the stitched-up sack of skin it really was, and the Support Meter started to turn backward.
“I’m hollow inside,” it said. “I was put together. I was manufactured.”
People all over the world sat in front of their TVs, blinking their eyes, wondering what they had liked about the Frandidate in the first place.
“I’m nothing,” it finally admitted.
The truth was what Franny’s mom wanted, and that was what the Frandidate had given her.
Igor stopped the broadcast, and Franny burst through the skin, gasping for breath. The truth had saved her. The truth had set her free.
“We should print that on a T-shirt or something,” she said as she angrily kicked the floppy Frandidate skin out of the way.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JUST NOT CUT OUT FOR POLITICS
A few days later, Franny and her mom were sitting at the kitchen table. The front page of the newspaper was all about the new president.
“Sure glad they didn’t elect that Frandidate thing I made, huh, Mom?” she said. Franny knew she had almost destroyed the world again and was a little embarrassed about it.
“I’ll say,” Franny’s mom said. “That was a close one.”
“You know what’s weird, Mom? The Support Meter never fell to zero. There was still one person that didn’t totally abandon the Frandidate.
“That one person was me, Franny. After the facts came out, I never would have voted for the awful thing. But in the end, I did admire the fact that at least it told the truth. Anybody who tells the truth can’t be all bad.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Mom,” Franny said, smiling.
Franny followed her mom into the family room and asked her to sit down on the couch.
“Hey!” she said. “My new couch! You replaced it!”
It was a perfect pale green with light brown stripes, which was exactly the couch her mom had wanted at that very moment.
The couch had sensed it.
And down at the other end of the couch, Igor was surrounded in a pattern of dog bones and happy little Miss Wizzywozzle faces.
He no longer felt like everybody needed to like what he liked. It was okay if it was just for him.
This truly was a couch that could go with anything.
Franny’s mom was happy, and Igor was happy, and the couch could sense it, and it made the couch happy too: much happier than it had been when it had been the Frandidate.
Franny understood that her creation just wasn’t cut out to be president.
And somewhere in its tiny brain, the Frandidate realized it too. For the first time since its creation, it was no longer interested in where people stood on the issues.
It was much more interested in where they sat.
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
The Fran With Four Brains
The Frandidate
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 © 2008 by Jim Benton
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The text for this book is set in Captain Kidd.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in pen, ink, and watercolor.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Benton, Jim.
The Frandidate / Jim Benton. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Determined to be elected class president, mad scientist Franny K. Stein uses her Atomic Combiner to make a suit that makes her seem to be whatever a voter wants her to be, but the suit has plans of its own.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-0233-1 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-4169-0233-3 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-9664-4 (eBook)
1. Science—Experiments—Fiction. 2. Politics, Practical—Fiction. 3. Elections—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories. I. Title.
PZ7.B447547Frd 2008
Fic—dc22
2007050721