Mr. Peabody & Sherman Junior Novelization (Mr. Peabody & Sherman) (10 page)

“Mr. Peabody, what are we going to do?” Sherman whispered worriedly.

Mr. Peabody, the supergenius, was out of ideas—except one.

“RUN!”
he shouted.

M
r. Peabody ran for the penthouse elevator and dove inside with Sherman and Penny close behind. The door slammed shut just as they heard Miss Grunion yell, “He’s kidnapping the children!”

Mr. Peabody leaned forward and hurriedly punched the button to take them to the WABAC room.

“I know I told you never to bite, Sherman,” Mr. Peabody said. “But there’s no way I was going to let that woman take you away from me!”

Sherman looked at his dad and smiled. He couldn’t have been prouder to have a dog for a father. “That’s okay, Mr. Peabody. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes—even me,” Sherman said, grinning.

Mr. Peabody smiled at his son, wondering exactly when the boy had become so wise.

The elevator doors opened and Mr. Peabody, Sherman, and Penny raced along the corridor to the WABAC. They quickly climbed on board the time machine.

“And now to return to our proper timeline and erase this mess!” Mr. Peabody announced. He tapped in a series of complicated sequences on the navigation console and then pressed the launch button.

The WABAC’s engines revved powerfully. But suddenly, just as the ship was about to take flight, the console sparked and the engines powered down.

“What’s wrong?” Sherman asked.

Mr. Peabody carefully checked the instrument panel. “Oh dear,” he said with a sigh. “The WABAC can’t seem to find a wormhole. We can’t go back to the past!”

Seconds later, Penny, Sherman, and Mr. Peabody heard footsteps in the corridor outside the WABAC room. The police had arrived, and they were running down the hall along with Miss Grunion and the Petersons.

“That dog’s got my daughter!” Paul Peterson yelled.

Inside the WABAC, Mr. Peabody worked hurriedly on the ship’s computer.

“Well, we have to go somewhere!” Penny said desperately. Mr. Peabody looked up from his work. He realized that Penny was right—escaping was the most
important thing. Swiftly, he prepared to take off. A large panel in the roof of the penthouse slid open, revealing the sky. Mr. Peabody punched the launch button again, and this time, instead of traveling into the past, the WABAC took to the skies in the present.

T
he WABAC zoomed across through the clouds with Mr. Peabody at the helm. He piloted the ship skillfully between the tall buildings of New York City. A dark, swirling vortex had opened up in the sky very close to Mr. Peabody’s penthouse. The clouds churned and rumbled, and lightning forked on the horizon.

Mr. Peabody looked at the roiling sky with a sinking feeling. He knew it was more than just bad weather. “Our cosmic doubles colliding must have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum,” he said.

Just then, something hit the WABAC’s windshield—
THUMP!
It was Leonardo da Vinci! The Renaissance man had unexpectedly dropped from the sky!

“Hey-a, Peabody!” Leonardo said in his heavy Italian accent. Penny and Sherman stared in surprise
as the famous inventor slipped off the windshield and disappeared.

PLUNK!
There was another loud sound as Robespierre made contact with the glass. His face was smushed against the windshield in a rubbery grimace. “I will get you, dog!” he shouted before slipping out of sight.

PLONK!
This time King Tut appeared. “Penny, my bride!” he yelled as he slid off the glass.

“We really need to get back to the past!” Mr. Peabody said, concerned.

“Looks like the past is coming to us,” Sherman replied.

Meanwhile, Miss Grunion, the Petersons, and the cops were following the WABAC from the ground in a police car. They sped through the streets of the city in hot pursuit of the shiny red time machine.

“Follow that orb!” Miss Grunion shouted.

Suddenly, the air crackled and seemed to split apart! A giant wooden horse fell out of the swirling vortex in the sky and landed right in front of the police car. The impact was so hard, it sent the car flying into the air!

A hatch opened in the rear end of the Trojan horse. King Agamemnon poked his head out just in time to see the flying police car. It was headed straight for him!

“Arghh!”
he shouted, ducking back inside.

The police car smashed through the rear of the wooden horse and skidded to a stop inside. Dazed from the crash, Miss Grunion, the Petersons, and the police climbed out of the car.

Agamemnon flipped open the hatch again to investigate. He came face to face with Miss Grunion and reared back in horror. “What sort of creature are you?” he asked. “Are you a gorgon? A cyclops?”

“The name’s Grunion,” she answered, offended.

“It talks!” Agamemnon screamed, slamming the hatch shut.

Miss Grunion shook her head in disgust. One glance at the city streets told her that the Greek king wasn’t the last historical figure she’d meet today. The streets were practically crawling with people who’d fallen out of the hole that had opened up in the sky.

All history had broken loose, and she knew just who to blame.

N
ew York was a big city, and the people who lived there were used to seeing some unusual things, but they had never seen anything quite like this. The past was literally pouring into the present!

Albert Einstein, the famous physicist, was seen jaywalking on 72nd Street. At 125th Street, Marie Antoinette was seen chasing a cupcake truck. In Midtown, Leonardo da Vinci sped through Times Square in a flashy Italian sports car, and Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, strolled through the East Village.

Inside the WABAC, Mr. Peabody, Sherman, and Penny looked down at the chaos.

“There’s got to be another wormhole somewhere,” Mr. Peabody said, determined. Deep in concentration,
he scanned the WABAC’s display screens. “Aha! There’s one!”

He reached across the navigation console and slapped the launch button. Sherman and Penny leaned forward in anticipation. The WABAC’s engines surged, propelling them into the wormhole.

Seconds later, the time machine reappeared right where it had started.

Sherman turned to Mr. Peabody. “What happened?” he asked, confused.

“We didn’t go anywhere,” Penny said uneasily.

Mr. Peabody groaned. “All the wormholes are looping back to the present!” He’d been afraid something like this might happen. “The WABAC has no way back!”

Just then, a police helicopter swooped down in front of the ship. Before Mr. Peabody could react, the chopper launched a giant net. The net fell over the WABAC, putting an end to the time machine’s journey. Mr. Peabody had no choice but to land.

The WABAC touched down in the middle of Central Park, which was overrun with historical figures from the time vortex. If Sherman didn’t know better, he’d have thought he was looking at a costume party. King Tut
and his Egyptian servants raced across the Great Lawn, Robespierre and the French peasants traipsed through Strawberry Fields, and King Agamemnon and his Greek army trooped through Sheep Meadow.

A squadron of police cars arrived with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Miss Grunion jumped out of the lead patrol car, flanked by a troop of police officers.

“Come out, Peabody … with your paws in the air!” Miss Grunion ordered.

The door to the WABAC slid open, and Mr. Peabody came out with his paws up. Sherman and Penny followed.

“You’re under arrest for kidnapping, reckless endangerment, and a multiplicity of major traffic violations,” Miss Grunion informed him.

“You don’t understand. If that giant wormhole keeps expanding, it’ll rip apart the very fabric of space and time!” Mr. Peabody protested, pointing to the churning vortex in the clouds.

Miss Grunion glowered and clomped over to Mr. Peabody, pushing one finger into his chest. “Blah, blah, blah,” she muttered, unimpressed with his excuse. “For too long, you’ve bamboozled the world with your fancy jargon and that little red tie of yours, and look what’s come of it!”

As if on cue, the wind picked up, lightning slashed across the sky, and the Parthenon—a famous Greek temple—dropped out of the vortex. It crashed to the ground just behind the squadron of police cars.

Miss Grunion smirked. The universe had just proved her point. She turned to address the police officers, the historical figures, and the crowd of concerned citizens who had gathered in the park. “This is what happens when you let a DOG adopt a BOY! Take him away!” she shouted, snapping her fingers. “And keep a tighter leash on him this time!”

The policemen hurried forward with a dogcatcher’s collar attached to the end of a long pole. Slowly, they closed in.…

M
r. Peabody’s tail drooped as he watched the police approach. There was nowhere to run and nothing he could do. They snapped the collar around his neck roughly. Mr. Peabody yelped and dropped down on all fours.

“Let me go! You don’t know what you’re doing!” he yelled. The police ignored him and marched him toward a waiting patrol car like a common dog.