The Mystery of Silas Finklebean

  Text and illustrations copyright © 2006

  by Freddy and the French Fries, LTD

  All rights reserved.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group, USA

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

  First eBook Edition: January 2006

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-03394-7

  Contents

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1: Fries Definitely Alive

  CHAPTER 2: The Spanker Whammo

  CHAPTER 3: Theodore’s Coconutdumdum

  CHAPTER 4: The Mystery of Silas Finklebean

  CHAPTER 5: Harold J. Pumpernickel

  CHAPTER 6: No Spy Fry

  CHAPTER 7: Curly to the Rescue

  CHAPTER 8: The Finklebean Special

  CHAPTER 9: Some Funky Answers

  CHAPTER 10: The Star of Nancy

  CHAPTER 11: The Science of Competition

  CHAPTER 12: Lydia the Lunatic

  CHAPTER 13: The Junkyard Joust

  CHAPTER 14: Harold Returns the Favor

  CHAPTER 15: Ask a Librarian

  CHAPTER 16: The Power of Purple and Blue

  CHAPTER 17: The Primo Fakeout

  CHAPTER 18: Testing Time

  CHAPTER 19: The Spanker Switcheroo

  CHAPTER 20: A Matter of Time

  CHAPTER 21: The Future Now

  CHAPTER 22: Busting Out the Bean

  CHAPTER 23: All’s Well That Ends Funky

  Don’t miss David Baldacci’s first book about Freddy!

  To Mrs. Doss’s and Mrs. LeBlanc’s first

  gratfe class,

  where Freddy and the French Fries

  really came to life.

  CHAPTER 1

  FRIES DEFINITELY ALIVE

  Nine-year-old Freddy Funkhouser and his thirteen-year-old sister, Nancy, were counting up the receipts for the night at their family restaurant, the Burger Castle. As they were finishing, their father, Alfred, walked out from the kitchen, opened a large white umbrella, and instantly vanished.

  “Omigosh,” said Nancy. “Now he’s really done it. This is worse than him blowing himself up all the time with one of his screwy inventions.”

  Suddenly Alfred reappeared, holding the closed umbrella. “My inventions aren’t screwy, dear, just sometimes slightly ahead of their time.”

  “Cool, Dad,” said Freddy excitedly. “You made yourself invisible.”

  “Not exactly. This umbrella refracts light particles and gives the appearance that the person using it has vanished. Here, try it.”

  Freddy opened the umbrella, raised it over his head, and disappeared.

  “Oh, Dad, if only you could make it permanent,” said Nancy, looking longingly at the spot where her brother no longer was.

  Freddy reappeared and handed the umbrella back to his father. “Dad, that is, like, sooo awesome. Why don’t you call it ‘The Invisibrella’?”

  “That’s a really cool name, Freddy. I’m working on a bowl that will do the same thing.”

  “An Invisibowl?” Nancy said dully.

  “Invisibowl. That’s a good one too,” Alfred said.

  “It certainly has some interesting applications.” He whispered to Freddy, “But it certainly doesn’t top what you did.”

  Like his father, Freddy was an inventor. And he had invented something — or somethings — super special that had helped his family recently win a parade float competition against their rivals, the Spanker clan, who owned the enormous Patty Cakes Restaurant across the street.

  “Where are they, by the way?” his father asked.

  “Hey, guys,” called out Freddy, “over here.”

  The five — or six, if you counted heads — figures came out from the dining area. They were all superpowered French fries that Freddy had built and brought to life with the help of a billion-jiggy-watts lightning bolt. Each Fry was a different color and didn’t look anything like a human, so when they weren’t working at the Burger Castle, Freddy had to disguise them with regular clothes, wigs, and makeup.

  Theodore was an incredibly smart blue crinkle-cut Fry; Ziggy was a tiny yellow Fry; Si and Meese were skinny red shoestring Fries (with one body and two heads); Wally was an enormous purple waffle Fry; and Curly was a green curlicue Fry. The Fries were all disguised as guys except for Wally, who wore a polka dot dress, wig, and high heels. In the small town of Pookesville, where the Funkhousers lived, he was known as Wilma.

  When they were at the Burger Castle, though, the Fries wore no disguises at all. The customers just assumed that the brightly colored Fries were in costumes because all the Funkhousers wore funny outfits too: Alfred was a tomato, Nancy was a bottle of ketchup, and Freddy dressed as a chicken and clucked in greeting to each customer.

  “Boy, Mr. F,” said a beaming Si, who was always happy. “That rutabaga meat loaf with a reduction sauce made out of pansies and candle wax with just a dash of that thingamastuff you made in your laboratory was a big seller today. What an aroma. Mm-mm.”

  Meese, who was always sad, scowled at his twin and said, “It smelled like elephant poop and gave me a headache.”

  Alfred replied, “Well, that strong smell halts runny noses on the spot.”

  “But we’d sell a lot more of it if you’d just change the name,” said Nancy. “The ‘Snot Stop Special’ isn’t really all that appetizing when you think about it, Dad,” she added, rolling her eyes.

  “That’s nice, dear,” said her father absently.

  At that instant Howie Kapowie came running into the restaurant waving a piece of paper. Howie was Freddy’s only friend — well, his only human friend, anyway. He was even smaller than Freddy and had rumpled black hair.

  “Hey, Freddy, did you see?”

  Freddy took the paper and read it while the Fries and Alfred crowded around.

  “Wow,” said Freddy. “A science competition.”

  “With a hundred-dollar first prize and your picture in the Pookesville Tatter newspaper,” said Howie. He popped three cheese cubes in his mouth and chewed slowly while he fantasized about victory. “Do you realize how many cheese cubes I could buy with a hundred dollars?”

  “Howie,” said Freddy, “we can work on a project together.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. I mean, after all, you’re the real scientist, but I make a pretty darn good sidekick.”

  “Hey,” bellowed Wally. “Maybe you can invent some food. Not just any food. A mountain of food. No, a whole mountain range of food. No, a whole mountain range of food that keeps growing back even after you eat it.”

  As he talked, Wally’s eyes grew bigger and bigger and his butt and belly stretched wider and wider.

  Freddy gave him a poke and whispered, “Ix-nay on the purpulis enormosis thing.” Purpulis enormosis was the Latin name that Theodore had christened Wally with because, well, he was purple and enormous. And he, like the other Fries, could morph into virtually anything he wanted to. Nancy watched this spectacle very suspiciously.

  While Howie and Alfred already knew what the Fries really were, Nancy was still clueless about their origin. Freddy wanted to keep it that way.

  “I hear Adam Spanker’s entering the competition,” said Howie.

  “In a battle of brains, I’m not afraid of Adam Spanker,” said Freddy confidently.

  Adam Spanker headed up a gang that struck fear into the hearts of children all over Pookesville. His father, Stewie Spanker, was the Pookesville police chief,
town mayor, and he owned the Patty Cakes restaurant. It was hard to say who was meaner, the father or the son.

  “You never know; he can be tricky,” warned Howie.

  “That’s good advice,” said Alfred Funkhouser. “Okay, we’re heading home, Freddy. Do you want to ride with us?”

  “We’ll walk home, Dad,” answered Freddy. “It’s sort of a tight fit with Wall — I mean Wilma in the station wagon.”

  After Nancy and their dad had left, Freddy, Howie, and the Fries went into a back room where Freddy took off his chicken costume, and the Fries started to put on their human clothes. Curly pulled several baseballs out of his locker and started tossing them in the air. He entertained the customers at the Burger Castle with his juggling skills and liked to practice whenever he could.

  Wally had just put on his high heels and was trying to cram his dress over his head when he stumbled and bumped into Curly.

  “Whoops!” said Wally. The collision sent the baseballs Curly had been tossing bouncing down a set of steps leading to the basement. “Sorry, Curly.”

  “That’sokayWallyaccidentshappen,” mumbled Curly. He strung all his words together because Freddy had made a mistake when constructing the green Fry’s voice box and hadn’t yet figured out how to fix it.

  “I’ll go get them.” Wally threw his dress on the floor and rushed down the steps and through an open door at the bottom. A second later, they heard a big crash.

  “Here we go again,” said Freddy wearily. Yet not even Freddy could imagine how much trouble Wally would be getting them into this time.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE SPANKER WHAMMO

  Freddy got to the basement first. He looked down at the purple blob lying on the floor in front of him. “Wally, are you okay?”

  Wally slowly rose on thick, quivering ankles.

  “How do people walk in these itsy-bitsy thingie-wingies?” complained Wally about the ladies’ shoes he wore. “My tootsies are like hamburger.” Wally suddenly got a strange look on his face. “Hamburger! I am soooo hungry.”

  The other Fries caught up.

  “Wally,” said Theodore in his deep, scholarly voice, “you really need to become more proficient in navigating with that particular style of footwear.”

  “Theodore,” complained Wally, “I’m sort of busy trying to figure out how to walk in these dumb shoes, okay?”

  “What’s that?” squeaked Ziggy, pointing at the spot where Wally had hit the wall.

  “Lookslikeaholewithsomethingbehindit,” mumbled Curly, examining the break.

  Everyone crowded around Curly, but it was too dark in the hole to see anything.

  “I’ll go get a flashlight,” Freddy said. Moments later he returned and shone a light in the hole.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Wally.

  Si said, “It looks like a passageway. I bet at the end of it there’ll be a pot of gold and nothing but good times.”

  “I’m sure there’re monsters in there just waiting to eat us,” Meese whined. “Black holes are never good for you. That’s why they’re dark and scary.”

  Freddy peered through the opening. “There is a passageway. I wonder where it goes?”

  “Well, the aperture is too diminutive for us to proceed,” opined Theodore.

  “Yeah, and the hole’s too little to get through,” added Wally, scratching his head.

  Theodore looked at the big purple Fry and sighed. “That’s what I just said.”

  “Wecouldtrytomaketheholebigger,” mumbled Curly.

  “I’m not sure my dad would like that,” cautioned Freddy.

  “COMING THROUGH,” roared Wally, who had morphed into a giant purple bowling ball and was rolling right at them.

  Freddy and the other Fries jumped out of the way just in time. Wally hit the wall and broke right through it, disappearing into the darkness.

  “Wally!” Theodore cried out as the others peered through the new, very large hole. “Did you suffer bodily impairment?”

  Wally yelled back, “Nope, but you oughta see the huge boo-boo on my butt.”

  Following Freddy, Howie and the Fries cautiously entered the secret passageway.

  “Wow,” said Freddy as he shone the light around. “It looks like something inside a medieval castle in Europe.”

  “But the Burger Castle’s not very old, is it?” asked Theodore.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Freddy. “Before we bought it and turned it into a restaurant, it was a Laundromat. I thought those owners had built it, but maybe not.”

  They found Wally rubbing his very large behind.

  “Are you okay, Wally?” asked Howie.

  “I’m cool, little dude. Lucky I didn’t hit my head and mess up my big brain.”

  “Yeah, lucky,” said Ziggy as they continued down the windy passageway.

  Theodore, who, unlike Wally, had two large computer chips for his brain, said, “I calculate that the direction of this tunnel is running north by northeast at precisely forty-five degrees.”

  “Wait a minute,” exclaimed Freddy. “That means it’s headed toward the Patty Cakes restaurant.”

  Wally rubbed his huge hands together and sniffed the air. “Yummy. I thought I could smell all that grease frying.”

  Ziggy grabbed Freddy’s pants leg. “Uh, Freddy, can we get out of here now? It’s sort of, well, spooky down here.”

  Wally reached down and picked up the little yellow Fry and put him on his broad shoulders. “Not to worry, little papoosie, nothing’s gonna get you while big Wally’s around.”

  Just then they heard a loud squeaking noise from the direction they were headed.

  “AAAAAHHHHH!”

  Freddy was knocked down and lost the flashlight, which went out, plunging them into darkness.

  “Ouch!” cried out Ziggy amid lots of scuffling.

  Curly mumbled, “Wouldwhoeveritisplease-getoffme?”

  Si said, “Boy, I’ve always wondered what it felt like to be smashed to a pulp.”

  “We’re all going to die, and I’m first in line,” yelped Meese.

  Freddy finally found the flashlight and turned it back on.

  “Wally!” he said in a scolding tone.

  The purple Fry had jumped on top of Howie and the other Fries while still holding Ziggy on his shoulders, causing Ziggy to hit his head on the ceiling.

  Wally looked sheepish as he climbed down. “I went up there for a better look.”

  “Come on, guys,” said Freddy. “We need to see where this passageway goes.”

  They cautiously moved along until they reached a doorway.

  “Go ahead and open it,” said Si. “I bet there’s a million bucks just waiting on the other side for us to grab.”

  “No,” said Meese frantically, “that’s where the monsters are, I’m telling you.”

  Theodore was examining the door. “It appears to be locked.”

  Freddy pulled a small device from his pocket.

  “Is that a new invention?” asked Howie.

  Freddy nodded. “The Wriggle-Jiggle. It’ll take care of that lock.” The Wriggle-Jiggle was a coiled piece of copper wire attached to a small power pack. Freddy put it in the lock, turned on the power, and the wire wound in and around the lock tumblers, pushing them to their open position. They heard a loud click, and the door swung open.

  “Pretty cool, Freddy,” said Si.

  “Thanks. I use it to get into my sister’s room and mess things up.”

  Carefully making their way through the door, they headed down a short hallway. Here, the passageway seemed to come to a dead end, until Curly pointed up and mumbled, “Lookslikeatrapdoor-intheceiling.”

  Freddy stood on Wally’s shoulders and slowly pushed against the door. To his surprise, it opened a few inches. Freddy peered through the crevice and gasped. He was staring directly into the office of Stewie Spanker, the owner of Patty Cakes.

  Stewie Spanker was so porky that he could barely fit in the chair behind his enormous desk. He was wear
ing a pink jumpsuit emblazoned with the Patty Cakes logo, and a plastic hat in the shape of a triple-decker hamburger and huge slice of pink cake — and he didn’t look very happy.

  Then Freddy noticed Stewie wasn’t alone. Standing to the side of the desk was Stewie’s son, Adam, who looked like a smaller version of his father.

  “I still can’t believe the Funkies won the float competition,” Adam was saying.

  “Don’t remind me,” roared Stewie Spanker. “I spent a ton of money having that float built. And we’ve lost lots of customers to those wackos. Who in the world would’ve thought people would actually eat food that was good for them? And like it!” He pointed a plump finger at his son. “Now we have to get back at them for that. You’re smart, Adam. You can think of a way, can’t you?”

  While not a very bright boy, Adam had a certain talent for coming up with ways to cause trouble. “I’ll think of something, Pop, and when I do” — he smacked a beefy hand into a thick palm — “Whammo! No more Funkhousers to bug us.”

  “I knew I raised you right,” said his father, smiling.

  “I’ll report back here tomorrow at the same time with my plan,” said Adam. “Hey, what was that?” he said suddenly, looking around.

  Ziggy had sneezed and the sound had carried into the office. Freddy quickly lowered the trapdoor and they all held their breath. A long minute passed and then Freddy eased the trapdoor up a fraction of an inch and peered through.

  He saw Adam leaving the office. Breathing a sigh of relief, Freddy lowered the door and got off Wally’s shoulders.

  “So what’d you hear, Freddio?” asked Si.

  Freddy quickly told the gang about the Spankers’ scheme.

  “So we simply return tomorrow at the same time and we’ll discern all the details of his nefarious plan,” said Theodore.

  “We can’t do that,” said Wally. “We have to be here listening to the yucky stuff they’re going to do to us.”

  Ziggy exclaimed, “That’s what he just said, Wally!”

  “Okay, guys,” said Freddy, “tomorrow we’ll be back. Once we hear their plan, we’ll be ready to beat them at their own game.”

  “Uh, Freddy,” said Howie, “every time we get mixed up with the Spankers, bad things tend to happen. Like, to us.”