Mr. Peabody & Sherman Junior Novelization (Mr. Peabody & Sherman) (6 page)

BOOK: Mr. Peabody & Sherman Junior Novelization (Mr. Peabody & Sherman)
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Sherman leaned on the bellows and blew a puff of air across the fire. The blast sent a hot coal hopping from the flames onto Sherman’s foot. He howled in pain, kicking the coal away. Unfortunately, it bounced into a pile of straw and instantly set it ablaze.

Sherman tried to smother the fire by stomping on the flames. The statue’s mouth filled with thick, heavy smoke, making it hard for them to breathe. Mr. Peabody coughed into the megaphone.

At the sound of the peculiar cough, Ay stopped the guards escorting Penny to the gate. “Anubis, you sound
unwell,
” he said, growing suspicious.

“Ahem, well, I have been feeling a little under the weather, but I’m feeling much better now, thank you!” Mr. Peabody replied hurriedly.

The smoke was clearing in the statue’s mouth as Sherman put out the fire. He squelched the last of the flames with a mighty stomp. At that moment, the stone beneath Sherman’s feet rumbled and cracked. The first cracks were small, but they spread quickly as the rock splintered apart. With a thunderous boom, the statue’s lower jaw broke off in one enormous chunk.

“Aaaargh!”
Sherman yelled as he and Mr. Peabody tumbled headlong to the ground. They landed in a heap on the wedding dais and scrambled to their feet.

King Tut was not at all pleased to discover he’d been tricked. He ordered his guards to seize the two Anubis impersonators. The guards marched onto the wedding platform, determined to capture them.

Mr. Peabody spotted the statue’s stone jaw just a few feet away. Thinking quickly, he maneuvered it to the top of the stairs leading from the dais. He called out to Penny and Sherman to join him, and together they hopped onto the jaw. With a quick push, they were off. They tobogganed down the steps, bowling over guards left and right!

At the bottom of the stairs, the jaw slammed into a wooden ramp, which launched Penny, Sherman, and Mr. Peabody into the air. They flew across the courtyard and landed in a cart of oranges next to a huge stone statue of the sun god Ra.

Sherman was relieved to see the familiar statue surrounded by scaffolding. The WABAC was parked at the very top. If they could reach the time machine before the guards caught them, they could make their escape.

The Egyptian servants hurried after them, with King Tut leading the charge. He rode high on Ay’s shoulders in a royal piggyback, calling for the return of his precious desert blossom, Princess Hatsheput.

Penny, Sherman, and Mr. Peabody scrambled out of the orange cart and ran toward the scaffolding. Mr. Peabody helped Penny and Sherman onto a wooden plank held in place by a gnarled length of rope. With King Tut’s guards getting closer by the second, Mr. Peabody grabbed the rope in his paws and dashed away from the kids to create a distraction. The guards took the bait and hurled their spears at the clever canine.

Mr. Peabody dodged the pointy weapons with the grace of an Olympic medalist in the long jump—which, fortunately, he happened to be.
Thunk! Thunk!
The spears missed and landed in the wall behind him.

Mr. Peabody looped the rope around the shafts and tugged. The rope snapped, yanking him into the air and hurtling the wooden plank skyward. Penny and Sherman sailed to the top of the statue, colliding with an airborne Mr. Peabody. They landed in a tangle of arms and legs in front of the WABAC.

The three fugitives clambered aboard the time
machine and prepared for immediate takeoff. As Mr. Peabody took the controls, Penny realized she was eager for the trip home. At least in the present, there was no chance of being turned into a mummy!

A
s the WABAC hurtled through space-time, Mr. Peabody detected a problem among the flashing lights and blinking gauges of the sophisticated time-travel machine.

“All this zipping about the cosmos has drained our power supply,” he told Penny and Sherman. “We’re going to have to make an unscheduled stop.”

The WABAC sputtered to a stop in an Italian village during the Renaissance, a period of enlightenment when art and science flourished all across Europe. Mr. Peabody loved to visit this particular village because his good friend Leonardo da Vinci, the famous inventor and painter, lived there.

But today Leonardo was in a bad mood. “How many times I gotta tell you, Mona Lisa. I can’t-a paint-a da
picture until you smile!” he howled in frustration as Sherman, Penny, and Mr. Peabody walked into his workshop.

Leonardo’s workshop was an inventor’s wonderland. Peculiar sketches, paintings, and drawings hung from the walls, and every available corner was stuffed with curious contraptions and abandoned inventions. In the middle of the room, Leonardo stood in front of a half-painted canvas, glaring daggers at a mysterious dark-haired woman. The woman crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out at Leonardo. She absolutely refused to smile.

Mr. Peabody cleared his throat and Leonardo noticed that he had guests. “Peabody, my old friend! What a welcome interruption! Believe-a you me, this-a woman, she make-a me nuts!”

The woman in question, Mona Lisa, chose that exact moment to blow a loud raspberry in Leonardo’s face. He turned red with anger and shook his paintbrush at her menacingly.

Before things could get worse, Mr. Peabody stepped in and offered to help. If he could get Mona Lisa to smile for her painting, then Leonardo would help him fix the WABAC’s power supply.

According to Mr. Peabody’s calculations, getting Mona Lisa to smile wouldn’t be difficult. “You see, humor is not immune to the laws of science,” he explained. “Using algorithms, we can extrapolate what is universally considered funny, thus producing a formula that is scientifically certain to cause laughter. Case in point: the pratfall.”

Mr. Peabody took two steps and then purposefully keeled over and fell flat on his face. “Is everyone amused?” he asked.

No one laughed. In fact, Mona Lisa looked downright bored.

“Hmm, the data was so clear,” Mr. Peabody said, puzzled by the fact that his humor formula had failed. He sat up and accidentally bumped into Leonardo’s half-finished painting. The canvas wobbled on the easel.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Peabody, I got it!” Sherman said, racing toward the painting.

“No, no! Sherman!” Mr. Peabody tried to stop the boy, but he wasn’t fast enough. Sherman tripped and fell headlong into the easel. The heavy canvas toppled and smashed Mr. Peabody over the head.

Mr. Peabody staggered to his feet, and everyone
began to laugh. With his head poking through the painting, it looked like his own body had been replaced by Mona Lisa’s!

Mona Lisa couldn’t keep from giggling. Finally, a smile spread across her lips.

“Perfecto! Hold-a dat smile!” Leonardo shouted, and picked up his paintbrush. He winked at Sherman as he set to work on a new canvas. Mr. Peabody might have been the famous scientist, but it was Sherman who’d discovered the formula for funny.

A short while later, Leonardo and Mr. Peabody were hard at work building a generator that would supply power to the WABAC’s fuel cells. Mr. Peabody asked Sherman to help. He thought it would be a good chance for the two of them to spend some father and son time together.

“Okay,” Sherman agreed. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“Why don’t you fetch the hammer for Mr. da Vinci?” said Mr. Peabody.

Sherman quickly searched the workshop and found a hammer nearby. On his way over to Leonardo, he took a careful look at the contraption they were building. It was made of interlocking wooden cogs and gears with
blades that spun slowly like an old-fashioned propeller.

Curious, Sherman looked closer at the mechanism and noticed that one of the cogs was coming loose. It didn’t take him long to see why. Mr. Peabody was busy hammering a gear on the other side of the device, and it was knocking the cog out of place.

“Mr. Peabody…,” Sherman called, trying to warn him.

“Well, done, Sherman. Very helpful,” Mr. Peabody replied absently. He was so absorbed in his work that he wasn’t paying attention.

Sherman decided to take matters into his own hands and fix the loose cog himself. He pushed the wooden cog back into place and whacked it with the hammer. The whole contraption shuddered, vibrating with each swing of Sherman’s hammer. On the other side of the machine, a huge gear lurched forward and smacked Mr. Peabody in the face.

“Sherman!” Mr. Peabody shouted. But it was Sherman’s turn to be absorbed in his work. He kept hammering, accidentally whacking Mr. Peabody with each blow.
“Sherman!”

At last, Sherman stopped. “Yes, Mr. Peabody?”

“The hammer? Da Vinci?” Mr. Peabody reminded him.

Sherman turned the hammer over to Leonardo and asked if there was anything else he could do to help. Leonardo shook his head politely but emphatically. If Sherman helped any more, the whole machine would fall apart!

Just then, Penny popped her head through the open door of the workshop. “
Psst.
Sherman, let’s go explore!” she said.

“I’m supposed to be having father-son time with Mr. Peabody,” he replied dutifully.

Penny gave Sherman a mischievous smile. “Wouldn’t you rather be having fun with me?”

Sherman blushed and broke into a goofy grin. Penny ducked out the door, and Sherman started after her.

“Sherman! Where are you going?” Mr. Peabody asked. “We need your help here.”

“No, we don’t!” Leonardo said quickly. “I mean, we can manage somehow. He’s a boy, Peabody. Let him have his fun. Let him go.”

Before Mr. Peabody could answer, Sherman thanked him and raced from the room. Suddenly, Mr. Peabody felt oddly lonely.

Leonardo saw the expression on his friend’s face
and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “He’s-a growing up, Peabody. Like a baby bird, leaving the nest. Isn’t it wonderful?” he asked.

Mr. Peabody tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work. He wasn’t ready for Sherman to leave the nest.

E
xploring led Penny and Sherman to the attic of Leonardo’s workshop. If the downstairs had seemed crowded with inventions, it was nothing compared to the attic. The cavernous room was packed wall to wall with paintings and models and gadgets in different stages of development.

Penny threaded her way through the attic with Sherman right behind her. Both of them stared in wonder at Leonardo’s fantastic devices.

“Look at all this stuff,” Penny said. “It’s old, but it’s cool. This guy really is a genius.”

She wandered toward the far end of the room and stopped in front of what appeared to be a giant model airplane. The plane was definitely old-fashioned and looked more like a hang glider than a jet. It had a thin
wooden frame with two canvas-covered wings and a fanlike tail. Below the wings were a platform with a pilot’s seat and what looked like steering controls. The whole contraption was perched on a ramp and attached to an enormous rubber band.

Sherman’s eyes grew wide with excitement. He realized he was staring at the prototype for one of Leonardo’s most famous inventions: the flying machine.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could fly it?” Penny whispered.

Sherman nodded. The flying machine practically called out for an adventure, but he had a feeling Mr. Peabody wouldn’t approve.

BOOK: Mr. Peabody & Sherman Junior Novelization (Mr. Peabody & Sherman)
11.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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