The Trouble with Fuzzwonker Fizz Read online

  Miss Yoobler shook her head sadly and looked at Sammy. She held the sandwich out. “I’m sorry he doesn’t seem to understand. But at least this appears to be edible.”

  “It touched his forehead,” Sammy said.

  Miss Yoobler reeled back and held the sandwich as far away from herself as she could. She marched over to the garbage can and dropped it inside.

  The class settled down and we returned to watching The History of Flour.

  Floyd started bashing into me from inside my backpack. It felt like he was doing barrel rolls into my rib cage, so I squashed him against the back of my seat.

  When school finally let out, Sammy and I ran to our bikes. We had to get out of there fast and figure out what the heck was going on with my best good buddy.

  “Where to?” Sammy asked as we started off.

  There was only one place where we could safely let Floyd out into the open. It was a place where no one from the outside world would see him.

  “Fizzopolis!” I said, and we tore off into the neighborhood at triple speed.

  “Oooooh, look,” I said when we arrived in the kitchen at my house. “Pancakes.”

  “Stand back. I’m hungry!” Sammy said. “Miss Yoobler threw my lunch away.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. Thanks again for saving my bacon.”

  “It cost me a bologna sandwich, but it was worth it.”

  There were nineteen pancakes in the stack (I counted them) and it teetered back and forth like a skyscraper in an earthquake. We took turns throwing them at each other like Frisbees and catching them in our mouths. Talk about a good time. I opened my backpack and dropped the last five inside, then cinched it tight again before Floyd could climb out.

  “Come on, let’s get into Fizzopolis where it’s safe,” I said.

  “Will do, super-duper palomino,” Sammy said. But she had a mouthful of pancake, so it came out like Fu fo, foofer foofer fafofifo.

  We opened the refrigerator door and I leaned deep inside and found the hot sauce. I turned it like a lug nut.

  “Hot SAWCE,” I said slowly, and the refrigerator moved about three feet to one side.

  “I love your house,” Sammy said. She reached down and picked up a nickel covered in dust bunnies and handed it to me.

  “Thanks, I was looking for that,” I said, and pushed a button on the wall.

  “Remember the most important rule of Fizzopolis?” I asked.

  Sammy nodded as the elevator doors opened.

  “Don’t tell anyone about all the cool stuff down there,” Sammy said. “Got it!”

  I handed Sammy a huge stick of bubble gum and put another stick in my mouth. We chewed and chewed until the gum was nice and gooey and then we threw both wads into the elevator. They hit the floor with a slobbery slap sound. We jumped into the elevator and made sure to land with one shoe each on a wad of gum so we were good and stuck.

  “Here we go!” I said, and I pressed the button for Fizzopolis.

  It felt like I was skydiving without a parachute as we plummeted underground.

  “I can’t get enough of this elevator!” Sammy said. But then our feet slipped out of our shoes and we spent the rest of the trip stuck to the ceiling. Both of us tried to crawl down the side of the wall but only made it halfway before the elevator stopped. We fell face-first on the floor and lay there like two bags of rice.

  “Note to self,” Sammy said as she sat up. “Always tighten laces before entering Fizzy elevator.”

  “I feel like we’ve covered this a thousand times,” I said.

  “Or two thousand,” Sammy said. “We’ve definitely covered it.”

  “Always tie shoes super tight,” I said as we put our shoes back on and yanked them off the gum stuck to the floor. “Come on, let’s go find my dad.”

  We started off through the vast expanse of Fizzopolis. There are giant looping trees everywhere. They’re purple and blue and green, and they rise hundreds of feet toward the high ceiling. There are caves and rock formations and a twisty-turny lagoon. There are conveyor belts by the hundreds, moving bottles of Fuzzwonker Fizz from place to place, and the gigantic Fizzomatic machine sits right in the middle of everything.

  It’s loaded with pipes and buttons and levers. This is the machine that makes Fuzzwonker Fizz, the most popular soda pop in the world. Packed with twenty essential vitamins and minerals and 100 percent totally sugar-free, its signature feature is the burps it creates. They’re the longest ones in the history of burping, and if you get a rare one, they are also unbelievably loud. If you can imagine King Kong belching, it’s probably louder than that.

  And like I said earlier, the other thing the Fizzomatic machine makes is Fizzies.

  “Hi, Franny,” I said as we walked past the lagoon. “How’s the cleanup going today?”

  Franny is one of the many Fizzies in Fizzopolis. She has a hose for a nose so she can suck up water from the lagoon. Franny made a whole bunch of watery snarfing noises.

  “Sounds like it’s going great,” Sammy said. I thought so too, since Franny was making happy sounds. She went back to work and we kept walking.

  We walked past more caves and trees and a Ping-Pong table. We said hi to a big yellow glob named George, and passed by Kevin, Stacy, and Phil—three more Fizzies who were too busy working to talk. All the Fizzies are different colors and if you pet them they crackle like their fur is carbonated.

  There were Fizzies all over the place doing important Fizzopolis work, like making sure the bottles got labeled correctly. They made sure if you purchased a bottle of Lucy Lemon flavor you didn’t end up with Larry Lime instead. Without the Fizzies to help get all the work done, there’s no way my dad could keep up with the skyrocketing demand for Fuzzwonker Fizz.

  “I’m surprised Floyd hasn’t bugged me to use the bathroom,” I said as we stared up at my dad’s tree house laboratory.

  Sammy leaned close to my backpack and listened. “He’s making a lot of weird noises in there. Should we check on him?”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, peeling off my backpack and setting it on the ground. “Better if Floyd freaks out down here than up there.”

  I undid all the knots I’d tied in the strings holding the flap shut. There were at least ten, so it took a while.

  “Better stand back,” I said. “He’s been in there a long time. He might go a little wacky.”

  Sammy took two steps back as Floyd’s green head popped out. He had a rascally look on his face, never a good sign.

  “Hey, little buddy,” I said. “What was all that about back at school? You almost got me in big trouble.”

  Floyd’s eyes darted back and forth like he was thinking about making a run for it.

  “What are you hiding in there?” I asked.

  Floyd spoke just loud enough for me to hear him. “Who, me?”

  I tried to peek around him into my backpack, but he kept moving to block my view. “Come on, Floyd. What have you got in there?”

  Floyd launched into the air three feet over our heads. He did two and a half somersaults and one twist in the pike position like he was in a competitive springboard diving competition, and my bag was a swimming pool.

  He landed inside with a thud.

  “He’s weird,” Sammy said.

  Both Sammy and I leaned over and looked into the backpack. It was a tight fit for two of us, and we bonked heads. If Floyd tried to jump out of the bag again, he’d have to go through our faces. Double ouch.

  “He’s trying to hide stuff,” Sammy said.

  She was right. Floyd was pushing all sorts of things behind my binder and my calculator. It was dark inside the backpack, but it was obvious Floyd was up to no good.

  “Come clean, Floyd,” I said in my most serious voice.

  Floyd got all bashful and stared at his belly button. He stepped away from the corner of my binder and pushed it aside.

  “Uh-oh,” Sammy said.

  “No kidding,” I agreed.

  There was something
in my bag that absolutely-positively-for-sure-without-a-doubt should not have been in there.

  About the Author and Artist

  PATRICK CARMAN is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed series Land of Elyon and Atherton and the teen superhero novel Thirteen Days to Midnight. A multimedia pioneer, Patrick authored The Black Circle, the fifth title in the 39 Clues series, and the groundbreaking Dark Eden, Skeleton Creek, and Trackers series. An enthusiastic reading advocate, Patrick has visited more than a thousand schools, developed village library projects in Central America, and created author outreach programs for communities. He lives in Walla Walla, Washington, with his family. You can visit him online at www.patrickcarman.com.

  BRIAN SHEESLEY is a five-time Emmy Award–winning director, animator, and designer of some of the most popular animated cartoon shows ever, including Futurama; Camp Lazlo!; King of the Hill; Fanboy and Chum Chum; Regular Show; and The Simpsons. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his family.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Credits

  Cover art © 2016 by Brian Sheesley

  Cover design by Joel Tippie

  Copyright

  Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  FIZZOPOLIS: THE TROUBLE WITH FUZZWONKER FIZZ. Text copyright © 2016 by Patrick Carman. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Brian Sheesley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Carman, Patrick.

  The trouble with Fuzzwonker Fizz / by Patrick Carman ; illustrated by Brian Sheesley. — First edition.

  pages cm. — (Fizzopolis ; [1])

  Summary: Ten-year-old Harold, the adopted son of a food inventor, discovers that his father’s latest invention, soda pop that produces the world’s longest burps, also generates furry creatures known as Fizzies.

  ISBN 978-0-06-239390-6 (hardcover)

  EPub Edition © February 2016 ISBN 9780062393913

  [1. Inventions—Fiction. 2. Imaginary creatures—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories.] I. Sheesley, Brian, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.C21694Tt 2016 2015010021

  [Fic]—dc23 CIP

  AC

  16 17 18 19 20 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

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