Dedication

  This one is for Benjamin Rosenthal.

  A ten-burp salute to our editor extraordinaire!

  —P.C.

  For Mom and Dad,

  the BEST teachers ever

  who encouraged me to dream . . .

  and to have a backup plan.

  —B.S.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Back Ad

  About the Author and Artist

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Hi, I’m Harold Fuzzwonker, and today I’m visiting Fizzopolis at ten o’clock on a Monday morning. Why, you might ask, am I not at school on this fine Monday morning? Why am I walking past the Fizzopolis lagoon instead of working on some math problems for my teacher, Miss Yoobler?

  Because it’s SUMMER VACATION! No classes! No homework! No Miss Yoobler! And most importantly, no Garvin Snood watching my every move in class. Let me repeat, IT’S SUMMER VACATION! Okay, so obviously I’m excited, and when I get VERY excited, I use ALL CAPS.

  “Why is everybody meeting over there?” I asked. Floyd, my best good buddy, was sitting on my shoulder munching on a hunk of cheddar cheese. He cheese-mouth-mumbled something in my ear, but I understood him.

  “I agree,” I said as we passed the Ping-Pong table. “Let’s go check it out. Whatever it is, it must be important. And if it’s important, we need to know about it.”

  Floyd told me I was right, and added that we practically ran the whole place so why weren’t we invited to this important gathering of Fizzies?

  To say that we run the whole place might be a slight exaggeration. My dad, Dr. Fuzzwonker, actually runs Fizzopolis. Most of the time Floyd and I go to school and help out in the afternoons with Fizzy chores.

  “Hey, everybody!” I yelled as I approached the gaggle of Fizzies. Nobody turned around. Velma, a Fizzy with a big round nose and green fur and arms that hung all the way to the ground, let out an A+ burp that lasted about twelve seconds.

  “Good one, Velma,” I said. “What’s going on here? Shouldn’t we all be working?”

  Floyd grumbled on my shoulder. He wanted a Fuzzwonker Fizz in the worst way, but I ignored him.

  What I figured out pretty fast was this: everyone was ignoring us because they were staring at a giant poster stuck to the Fizzomatic machine. My dad was standing next to it, fielding questions. I couldn’t see the poster hanging behind a bunch of furry Fizzies, so I pushed my way to the front. All the Fizzies fizzed as I walked past them, so by the time I popped out on the other side, my hair was totally full of static. I looked like a clown.

  “Stop laughing at my weird hair,” I said to Floyd.

  I stared up at that sign and as I read it, the big fat grin on my face got bigger and bigger. This is what it said:

  FIZZIES VS. FOOD COMPETITION!

  10 MINUTES TO COOK, FLIP,

  AND EAT PANCAKES

  Each team will be comprised of

  one cooker/flipper, and one eater

  THE TEAM THAT EATS

  THE MOST PANCAKES WINS!

  SIGN UP YOUR TEAM NOW

  FIZZIES VS. FOOD WILL TAKE PLACE

  IN ONE WEEK

  WINNERS RECEIVE:

  1. Fame!

  2. A full stomach!

  3. A custom Fuzzwonker Fizz flavor of your choice!

  4. Fame!

  “Floyd!” I yelled. “We could totally win this thing. Look at all that fame we’d get! And we could come up with our own flavor!”

  Floyd was nodding like a lunatic. My best good eating buddy was on board.

  “Are there any more questions?” Dr. Fuzzwonker asked. He was standing in a white lab coat, holding a clipboard and a pen.

  That little blowhard Grabstack raised his paw and stepped forward like he owned the place. “Could you offer a tad more fame?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Grabstack,” my dad said. “I’m afraid I cannot offer any more fame. There’s no more room on the poster.”

  Grabstack looked at the poster and nodded as if he understood.

  “If that’s all the questions,” my dad said, “let’s get back to work so we can finish for the day. Then there’ll be more time to practice for the contest!”

  My dad pulled me aside as all the Fizzies hustled back to their jobs.

  “You and Floyd should take the next week off. Consider it your paid summer vacation. Every kid needs a break.”

  I was thankful for the offer, but I knew my dad was giving us time off for a very different reason.

  “You’d like to keep Floyd out of Fizzopolis for a week, wouldn’t you?” I asked.

  Floyd was high maintenance. He was always getting into mischief in Fizzopolis and making a lot of messes.

  My dad tried to cover. “Who, him?” He pointed at Floyd. “Why would you say such a thing? We all love having Floyd around as much as possible.”

  My dad winked about nine times at me, so I got the idea. It wasn’t me that needed a break from working in Fizzopolis. It was my dad who needed a break from Floyd!

  “And just think, you could use this time to practice for FIZZIES VS. FOOD. You might even win!”

  All that fame and our very own flavor of Fuzzwonker Fizz.

  “You got a deal, Dad,” I said. “We’ll take the vacation.”

  As we headed for the elevator, I heard my dad sigh happily, like he was about to enter a day spa and have his toes pedicured.

  I had it all figured out.

  I would cook and flip, Floyd would eat and eat and eat. We’d have to be in perfect sync if we’re going to win, and that meant practice, practice, practice.

  “Number one sixteen, coming up!” I yelled. I flipped the pancake over my head and it bounced off the ceiling, took a nosedive, and landed in Floyd’s open mouth. It was his 116th pancake in fourteen minutes.

  Floyd made a bunch of munch munch munch sounds and pounded his chest with his tiny fists. “Hit me again!” he yelled. When Floyd yells and he’s not sitting on my shoulder with his head right next to my ear, it’s hard to hear him. He has a very small voice, like what you might imagine a mouse would sound like if it could yell at you. Floyd made some more munch munch munch sounds, and I poured six more flapjacks onto the griddle. Fizzies vs. Food was only a week away, and Floyd would be going up against stiff competition. There would be tons of other Fizzies competing, and they were all a lot bigger than Floyd.

  I turned around and looked at my best good buddy.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked. We were hoping to get Floyd up to 150 in ten minutes. We were way short.

  Floyd wobbled back and forth like he was going to pass out, then he pulled his tongue out of his head with his paw. It was dry as a bone.

  “You must be parched,” I said. “Let’s call it a day and go work on the landing area for my jump over the house.”

  Floyd’s tongue was lying on the counter like a piece of dried leather. The poor little dude was thirsty. Seriously, 116 pancakes will do that to a guy. I went to the refrigerator and searched for a bottle of Fuzzwonker Fizz. I looked behind a head of cabbage, but there was none there. I peeked behind the eggs and the cheese and inside the fruit crisper. No Fuzzwonker Fizz.

  “That’s weird,” I said, scratching my head. “We’ve never, ever, in the history of ever, run out of Fuzzwonker Fizz.”

  Floyd waddled over with his gut sticking out and his tongue dragging behind him. He jumped on my shoulder and his tongue slapped me in the back of the head.

  “Could you put that thing back in your mouth?” I said. “It’s gross. And dangerous.”

  Floyd pointed to the milk in the fridge and practically broke my eardrum. “MIIIIIIILLLLLLLLK!”

  “I wish I could give you a Fuzzwonker Fizz,” I said. “In a pinch, milk will have to do.”

  I uncorked the milk jug and leaned the opening toward Floyd. He opened his mouth about as wide as a manhole cover and I poured the entire gallon in there. I don’t know where he puts this stuff.

  He burped. Milk burps are generally lame compared to Fuzzwonker Fizz burps, and this one was no exception.

  Floyd asked if he could use the bathroom.

  “By all means, please do,” I said.

  While Floyd was gone I turned off the griddle and stacked up the six pancakes he hadn’t eaten. I held them like a sandwich and started munching while I took one last look inside the refrigerator for a bottle of Fuzzwonker Fizz.

  Not a single bottle in there.

  By the time Floyd got back I was as thirsty as he was, but he’d guzzled down all the milk. I slurped a warm glass of water from the tap and nearly barfed all over the kitchen floor.

  “We need Fuzzwonker Fizz in the worst way,” I said. I thought that if we went down into Fizzopolis, my dad might put us to work and cut our vacation short. “Let’s go see if Sammy has any we can borrow.”

  Floyd is my best good buddy, and Sammy is my super-duper palomino. It’s good to have both if you can get them, just in case one is out of town or has the flu or falls into a hole or something.

  “Let’s go set up my next world-famous Pflugerville bike jump. We can do some practice jumps on the way,” I said as I mounted my red bike. I didn’t need to carry my books around in the summer, so instead I used this nifty fanny pack I found at a garage sale. Floyd fit in there perfectly, and it was a lot lighter to carry him around. Plus, he could be right up front and open the zipper so he could see what was going on.

  On the way to Sammy’s I jumped over seven different things, in the following order:

  A poodle.

  A pinecone.

  An oscillating sprinkler.

  A yard gnome.

  A paper bag (we went back and picked it up and put it in a trash can).

  A trash can (the one we put the bag in!).

  And an anthill (no ants were harmed in the making of that jump).

  We tried to jump over a cat sleeping on the sidewalk, but it woke up and ran away before we could get there. Cats are hard to jump over because they’re so skittish.

  By the time we got to Sammy’s front door, I was even thirstier than I’d been back at the house. We walked up to the door, but before I could knock, Sammy jumped out from behind a bush and pushed me into the yard. I landed on my butt.

  “Gotcha!” she yelled, and then she ran away.

  I stood up and Floyd jumped on my shoulder. There was no one around, so I didn’t make him get back in the fanny pack. We waited about ten seconds and Sammy came running around the other side of her house. She was really moving, but we hadn’t chased her, so she basically ran right into us.

  I tagged her on the shoulder.

  “Good strategy you got there,” she said. “But after you tag me you’re supposed to run away. That’s how the game works.”

  “Actually, if we could play this later, we’re searching for a bottle of Fuzzwonker Fizz,” I said. “We might die of thirst right here on your lawn if we don’t get one soon.”

  “Come to think of it, I’m thirsty, too,” Sammy said. She was out of breath from all that running. “Let’s see what flavors I have. Come on.”

  Floyd got back inside the fanny pack, just in case Sammy’s mom or dad or the little bundle of baby they had in there was awake.

  “How’s your little brother doing?” I asked. Her brother, Owen, wasn’t even a year old.

  “He tried to eat a paper cup yesterday,” she said. “I don’t think he’s all that bright. But I like him. He cracks me up.”

  We arrived at the fridge and she pulled the door open. There was a bowl of potato salad in there and Floyd jumped out of my fanny pack and started attacking it.

  “He just ate one hundred and sixteen pancakes,” I said. “He’s like a garbage disposal.”

  Sammy and I rummaged through her refrigerator. We explored behind the leftovers and the orange juice and the ham.

  “Looks like we’re out,” she said, peering inside one more time. “Come to think of it, I haven’t had a Fuzzwonker Fizz in days.”

  I just knew something was fishy. And when something’s fishy, usually the Snoods are involved.

  “Come on, you guys,” I said. “Let’s go check the Pfluger Mart. There’s got to be some Fuzzwonker Fizz there.”

  We took off on our bikes and headed for the supermarket in Pflugerville. I hardly spoke at all while we pedaled as fast as we could.

  Why wasn’t there any Fuzzwonker Fizz at my house or Sammy’s?

  Something was definitely, positively, for sure fishy!

  The Pfluger Mart is all the way on the other side of town, so we ended up stopping at Miss Yoobler’s house to drink out of her hose. I headed straight toward her begonias for a big jump, but I slammed on the brakes at the last second. She was standing right there with the water hose on.

  “Hi, Miss Yoobler,” I said. I acted cool as a cucumber, as if I hadn’t just snaked an epic skid mark on the pavement, leaving the smell of burned rubber in the air. “We’re riding to the Pfluger Mart and we’re dying of thirst. Any chance we could borrow your hose for a second?”

  Miss Yoobler didn’t turn in our direction. She kept watering the bushes by her front door.

  “She has headphones on,” Sammy said. “Let me try.”

  Sammy sucked in a huge breath of air and then went all-in: “HEY, MISS YOOOOOOOBLER!”

  Miss Yoobler didn’t turn around. She was wearing crazy Bermuda shorts and a wide sun hat.

  “She must really be rocking out,” I said. “I’ll go ask her.”

  I got off my bike and walked through Miss Yoobler’s yard and stood behind her. Then I tapped her on the shoulder, which was a real stretch for me. She’s a lot taller than I am.

  Miss Yoobler totally freaked out. She jumped about ten feet into the air, turned the hose on me, and sprayed and screamed. By the time she figured out it was just me, Miss Yoobler had drenched me from head to toe.

  “Gee, thanks!” I said. “It’s darn hot out here today. That felt fabulous.”

  “Spray me next!” Sammy said, riding her bike through Miss Yoobler’s yard.

  “Get that contraption off my grass!” Miss Yoobler yelled.

  “It’s called a bike, Miss Yoobler,” Sammy said.

  Miss Yoobler sprayed Sammy so hard in the face she almost knocked her clean off the Green Pickle. The Green Pickle is what we call Sammy’s bike, on account of its green paint and green banana seat. It also has a cool chrome sissy bar that rises up behind her head, but that’s beside the point.

  “Whoa!” Sammy said. She wobbled all over the place, heading straight for the begonias. “Mayday, Mayday! I’m going down!”

  “Spray me again, Miss Yoobler!” I yelled. This was turning out to be way more fun than hanging around in Miss Yoobler’s classroom.

  Sammy got her bike under control in time to miss the flowers and circle back toward the sidewalk.

  “Nice save,” I said as Miss Yoobler took her headphones off. “Hi, Miss Yoobler. How’s your summer going so far?”

  Miss Yoobler hiked up her Bermuda shorts way past her belly button and looked down her long nose at me. Then she smiled.

  “I forgot how much I enjoyed taking the summer off from all your shenanigans, Harold Fuzzwonker. Thank you for reminding me.”

  Then she went bananas with the hose, spraying Sammy and me until we finally got the message and continued on our journey to the Pfluger Mart.

  “Have a great day, Miss Yoobler!” I yelled over my shoulder. “And thanks for the soak. We really appreciate it.”

  Floyd popped his head out of the fanny pack once we were out of sight and started bailing water. It was like a swimming pool in there.

  We kept pedaling and jumping over stuff. About ten minutes later, we finally arrived at the ginormous Pfluger Mart parking lot.

  “Almost there,” I said. “We’re finally gonna get some Fuzzwonker Fizz.”

  “Megaburps, here we come,” Sammy said.

  We locked our bikes in front of the sliding glass doors. The Pfluger Mart had everything you can imagine, which makes it a very distracting store. We cut through the sporting goods department and played a game of football in aisle number eleven. Floyd got out and tried to eat some Ping-Pong balls and we chased him into the electronics section.

  “Floyd,” I whispered. “Be careful, little buddy. Someone might see you!”

  A random kid saw Floyd running down the aisle and tried to grab him. “Mom! I want that toy!”

  The little runt chased Floyd all the way around a corner and then gave up.

  “This is getting out of hand fast,” I said to Sammy. “We need to find that Fuzzwonker Fizz and hightail it.”

  “You go thataway,” Sammy said, pointing down the aisle. “I’ll come around the other side and we’ll trap Floyd on the next aisle over.”

  “Good plan.”

  I crept forward quietly because Floyd only got rowdier if I chased him. When I turned the corner I saw him standing in the middle of aisle seventeen, staring up at the Legos. Sammy came around the corner at the other end of the toy section, and we both moved forward with our arms out.

  Floyd was so mesmerized by all the toys he didn’t even see us coming.

  “Gotcha!” I said. I held Floyd’s face right up next to mine and gave him my stern look.

  “You’re my best good buddy, but you can’t run around the Pfluger Mart like that. What if someone sees you?”

  “Someone already did,” Sammy said. The little kid was back and he was pointing at Floyd. I turned around and stuffed Floyd in my fanny pack and started walking double time.

 

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