Brain That Wouldn't Obey! Read Online Free Page A

Carbonese stepped back. “Stop or I will blow my whistle,” she warned.
    But the students kept coming.
    Mrs. Carbonese backed into the blackboard. The sweater fell off her shoulders! Her glasses tumbled to the desk! Her whistle slipped from her lips!
    â€œTake your seats this instant!” she shrieked.
    But they didn’t. And in that instant, Mike realized that this was a battle of good against evil.
    And evil was winning.
    â€œWe can’t let this happen!” Mike cried out. “Liz, block for me!”
    Liz barreled forward against Sean and the other students. Mike dived between desks to the front of the room and grabbed Mrs. Carbonese.
    â€œMrs. C., come with us!” Mike cried. “We’re trying to save your life!”
    The teacher turned to Mike with a frightened look. “You rude boy, I will not be your wife!”
    Mike paused. “Oh, never mind, just run!”
    Liz climbed onto the AV cart in the back of the room and kicked against the rear wall. Whoosh! In a second she was up by the door with Mike and Mrs. Carbonese. She jumped out into the hall and ran.
    Clack-clack! Mrs. Carbonese struggled to keep up with the two kids.
    A moment later the hallway was filled with potato-brained students, stumbling after them.
    â€œWe need to get you to safety, Mrs. C.,” said Mike. Then he noticed a door down the hall, not far from the main school doors. “Yes! We’ll hide you in Mr. Sweeney’s supply closet!”
    â€œBut … but …” Mrs. Carbonese mumbled.
    Before she could object, the two kids pushed her gently into the closet with the brooms and mops and cleaning fluids and shut the door.
    â€œYou’ll be safer in there,” Liz called through the door.
    â€œBut the smell!” came the muffled cry. “And it’s dark in here!”
    â€œSorry!” cried Mike. “We’ll be back for you—“ But that was all he could get out. From behind him he heard something strange. Something horrible. Something musical.
    Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
    Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
    When Mike turned around, he froze in terror.
    Out of the shadows came Principal Bell, Miss Lieberman, and Mr. Sweeney. They were pulling a long chain as they sang.
    Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
    Yo-he-ho! Yo-ho!
    On the end of the long chain was one of the janitor’s rolling buckets. And sitting in the bucket, an evil grin growing across his gnarly, bumpy skin, was—
    â€œPotadio!” shrieked Mike. “They’re treating him like some kind of king! He’s already taken control of the school! What more does he want?”
    The answer came with a sudden, terrifying, school-shattering noise.
    BLAAAAAMMMMM!
    The school’s front doors blasted open and a cloud of thick brown dust blew into the main hall.
    Out of the cloud rolled hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of dirty brown potatoes!
    â€œMy new students!” cried Principal Bell.
    â€œMy floors!” cried Mr. Sweeney.
    â€œMy army!” cried King Spud.

7
    The Horrible, Horrible Plan
    M ike ducked behind the double doors of the cafeteria. Liz jumped down next to him.
    â€œHe called them his army!” Mike hissed.
    The potatoes rolled across the floor and bowed before Potadio. “Come, my spudlets,” the large potato said. “And listen to my wonderful, wonderful plan!”
    Sparks shot off from the huge brain as the teachers pulled the giant vegetable’s rolling bucket down the hall and off into the shadows.
    â€œHe’s growing bigger every minute,” said Liz.
    Mike slumped to the floor. “Oh, man, what have I done? I made this monster. And all I wanted was to be a scientist, an inventor.”
    Liz looked over at him. “Dr. Frankenstein was like that. Just a guy with a science project.”
    â€œThanks for reminding me.” Mike made a face. “Our lives, the school, our town, maybe the whole world, are at stake. And all because of me. Potadio is all brain.