Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid Read online

Immediately the driver hit the brakes. She tried to go in reverse. But the bus stalled instead.

  Cupid noticed the stopped bus and the little kids inside, and he was sure they all wanted to be in love.

  “Think! Think! Think!” Franny said as Cupid nocked an arrow on his bowstring.

  The bus driver screamed.

  The kids screamed.

  Franny wished she had put a reverse button on the Biggerizer. Suddenly she thought of her brother. “Freddy!” she said, and she turned the Biggerizer on herself.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND

  Cupid aimed, and—twang!—he released a giant arrow, sending it rocketing toward the bus just as Franny came hurtling through the air.

  She slammed her right foot on top of the bus and dug her left foot into the dirt as she had seen her brother do countless times.

  With a mighty push, Franny was off.

  Franny weaved her way through the streets, riding the bus like the biggest skateboard in the world.

  Cupid flew after her in hot pursuit, firing arrow after arrow, which Franny ducked and dodged as she tried desperately not to wipe out.

  I have to get back to my lab, she thought, and she headed toward Daffodil Street.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  MOM ALWAYS SAYS TO WEAR YOUR HELMET

  (WHEN YOU BECOME GIGANTIC AND SKATEBOARD ON A SCHOOL BUS)

  Franny carved her way around a tight turn and hurtled toward home.

  “This skateboarding is kind of fun,” she said. “It’s not nearly as hard as Freddy says it . . .”

  Franny bounced a wheel off the curb, breaking an axle and sending Franny flying.

  “ . . . iiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!” she yelled as she tumbled through the air and landed on her front lawn with a very painful crash.

  Cupid landed at the end of Daffodil Street and stomped toward the stopped bus. He had an arrow all ready to go.

  This looked like the end.

  Franny’s head was spinning. She dragged herself in front of the bus and glowered defiantly.

  Cupid pulled back on the arrow and again took aim . . .

  . . . just as a mouthful of craggy, pointy teeth sank into his giant, squishy butt.

  Cupid howled and jumped, and the arrow intended for Franny missed her by an inch.

  As Cupid spun around, Franny saw Igor dangling from Cupid’s sore pink rump.

  Igor had saved her. He had saved the kids on the bus.

  Cupid snatched Igor off his butt and threw him to the ground.

  He was about to return his attention to Franny when he got a good look at Igor.

  Igor was ugly. He was small and pitiful. But more than anything, Cupid could sense that Igor was heartbroken.

  And broken hearts were something of great interest to Cupid.

  “Good. Cupid’s distracted.” Franny groaned. “Now we can get out of here!” She started to limp away, slowly dragging the bus with her.

  Cupid held Igor down with his big, fat, pink foot and stared at him. This, thought Cupid, is the brokenest broken heart I have ever seen.

  This called for an extra-big arrow. Cupid reached for the biggest one he had.

  CHAPTER, EIGHTEEN

  NOPE. NOT TACOS.

  Franny hadn’t taken more than three feeble steps before she stopped. She remembered when Igor helped with the monster. That actually was pretty funny, she thought.

  She remembered when he helped with her X-ray projector. Also pretty funny.

  She remembered how he had risked his life to save her.

  She let go of the bus. She was overwhelmed by a strange and powerful electrical charge crackling through her body.

  A side effect of the Biggerizer? An injury to her nervous system sustained in the bus wipeout? Yesterday’s cafeteria tacos not sitting so well?

  Franny felt strangely empowered. She felt strong, and focused.

  This wasn’t high voltage. This wasn’t a chemical reaction. This wasn’t a supernatural phenomenon.

  She looked at Igor.

  “Egads,” Franny whispered, and her heart melted.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IT’S MAD SCIENCE TIME

  Must save Igor” was all Franny could say. But how? Franny’s massive brain ran calculations and scenarios at a blurring speed.

  Franny knew she could never take Cupid in a fight. He had that bow and arrow. And besides, it wouldn’t be right to clobber a baby, even a fifty-foot one. A baby’s a baby, right?

  As Cupid put the arrow in the bow, Igor looked over at Franny.

  “A baby’s a baby!” Franny exclaimed “He might be a gigantic, destructive, arrow-slinging Cupid, but he’s still a baby!”

  Franny pulled the roof off her house and tore through her beloved laboratory. “Where are you? Where are you?!” she yelled.

  Finally she stopped.

  “There you are!” she yelled, and fired the Biggerizer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  UDDER MADNESS

  Back at the street Igor closed his eyes as hard as he could and waited for the twang of Cupid’s arrow.

  But he didn’t hear a twang.

  He heard a splash. Or was it splosh? It was that sort of squirty sound you hear when you turn the garden hose on full blast. Then he heard slurpy sounds and a moo.

  He opened his eyes. Cupid was slobbering up a long stream of some liquid.

  And at the other end of the long stream was Franny.

  She had used the Biggerizer on the Personal Cow and was squirting an irresistible gush of fresh milk. Cupid had dropped his bow and arrow and was following it like the big, chubby baby he was.

  Franny maneuvered him to a spot where she could get a clean shot at him.

  And while Cupid busied himself with the cow, Franny activated the Manifester in reverse. With one blast, she returned him to his proper form as the Cupid in a valentine card.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  LGMS SEEKS ULD

  (LITTLE GIRL MAD SCIENTIST SEEKS UGLY LITTLE DOG)

  Franny stood in her yard. Cupid was no longer a threat and the kids were safe, but strewn on the lawn around her was the smoldering wreckage of her lab.

  She should have been the saddest little mad scientist ever.

  But she wasn’t. She was happy. In fact, she was very happy.

  Igor was okay, and as smart as Franny was, she would never ever be able to explain why, at that moment, that was the most important thing.

  She stooped down and picked him up. He looked frightened and sad.

  “Um, thanks for saving my life,” she mumbled.

  Igor trembled. He looked as though he would cry.

  “You know,” she said, “we mad scientists are sort of excitable. And, uh, sometimes we say things that we don’t really mean.”

  Igor blinked. His eyes widened a bit.

  “And really, this is all mostly my fault. I’m the one that made the Manifester and the Biggerizer in the first place.”

  Igor smiled a little.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m going to need an assistant to help me get back to normal size and also help put this lab back together.

  “And, uh, I was thinking that I’d like you to be my assistant, if you want to. I’d really like it.”

  Franny felt that strange rush of electricity surge through her again. There was something about revealing how she felt that was almost as powerful as feeling it.

  And, incredibly, it seemed to have an effect on Igor.

  He sat up straighter. He somehow looked less ugly. His breath got better, and as he wagged his tail happily, dozens of fleas and ticks jumped off his back. They must have realized that Igor was no longer the type of dog that they could infest.

  “You’re going to be the best lab assistant in the world,” Franny said.

  Igor jumped from her hand and immediately started to help clean up the yard

  He knocked a flask into a beaker, which blew up, leaving a twelve-foot-wide crater
in the yard.

  “Okay,” Franny said. “Maybe not the best.

  “But you’ll be MY lab assistant.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  IT MUTTS BE LOVE

  Franny and Igor worked together as if they had known each other forever.

  They fixed the bus and got the kids off to school.

  They built a device to shrink Franny back to normal size.

  Along the way they learned that Igor could help a lot by holding things that Franny’s giant hands would have probably broken.

  And then they made all the Valentine’s Day cards that Franny needed to give to Miss Shelly and her classmates.

  “This thing is just too dangerous,” Franny said, and together they destroyed the Biggerizer.

  But not before they used it just one more time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AND THAT’S THAT

  Miss Shelly and the kids looked out the window. It looked like a giant brown mountain had suddenly appeared in front of the school.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” Franny said as she walked in. She handed her cards to Miss Shelly and the kids.

  “Franny!” Miss Shelly said. “Are you responsible for that, that thing out there?”

  “I am,” Franny said. “Happy Valentine’s Day. It’s for you.”

  “For me?” Miss Shelly said. “Really, Franny, I don’t know what that thing is, but I’m quite sure I don’t want it.”

  “Suit yourself,” Franny said smiling. “But it’s not a ‘thing.’

  “It’s a chocolate-covered cherry.”

  Miss Shelly gasped

  “You said something about candy.”

  Miss Shelly and the kids went outside for a closer look, and Miss Shelly let them dig in.

  “It looks like you were hit with one of Cupid’s arrows,” Miss Shelly said with a happy wink as she enjoyed a taste of the candy.

  “I thought so too,” Franny said seriously, “but after a complete examination, I found that I wasn’t even nicked.

  “No, Miss Shelly, there’s something strange at work here, a phenomenon I just can’t explain. It could take me months to unravel this.”

  “Months,” Miss Shelly said, and she watched as Franny, Igor, and the kids slurped up the giant chocolate-covered cherry.

  She opened the envelope that Franny had given her and looked at the card inside.

  And Miss Shelly felt that same strange surge of power that Franny had felt crackle through her from head to toe.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, Franny,” she whispered.

  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 © 2004 by Jim Benton

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUKG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Book design by Dan Potash

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in pen and ink.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Benton, James K.

  Attack of the 50-foot Cupid / [written and] illustrated by Jim Benton—1st ed.

  p. cm—(Franny K. Stein, mad scientist ; #2)

  Summary: Frannie tries to prevent chaos when her new lab assistant, Igor, a dog of many breeds, accidentally lets loose a giant, fifty-foot, arrow-shooting cupid.

  ISBN 978-0-6898-6292-2

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9517-3 (eBook)

  [1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. Science—Experiments—Fiction. 3. Valentine’s Day—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction S. Humorous stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B447547At 2004

  [Fic]–dc22

  2003018635