Wyatt Burp Rides Again Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

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  About the Author and Illustrator

  Text copyright © 2012 by Greg Trine

  Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Frank W. Dormer

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Harcourt Children’s Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The text was set in Adobe Garamond and King Cool KC Pro.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  4500388513

  1

  Bad Guys? What Bad Guys?

  Now that the evil Dr. Dastardly was behind bars, all was quiet in San Francisco. Bank robbers stopped robbing, jewel thieves stopped thieving, cat burglars stopped bothering cats ... and Jo Schmo didn’t know what to do with herself. Jo was a crime fighter, and right now there were no crimes to fight. So she went into her backyard and banged on the door of her grandpa’s shack. Her grandpa Joe, that is. It can get a little complicated when there are two Joes in one family—Jo and Joe. But more about that later. For now, Jo was banging on the door of ... Joe.

  “Who’s there?” the old man yelled.

  “It’s Jo.”

  “Joe?”

  “No, Jo.”

  “Oh, Jo. Thought I was talking to myself for a second there. Come in, Jo.”

  Jo opened the front door to the shack and went inside. “I’m bored, Grandpa,” Jo began. “Bored with a capital B”

  This was true. Jo Schmo was bored. Bored with a capital B. And a capital O and a capital R and a capital ... well, you get the idea. The only thing worse than being bored with a capital B was being bored with a capital X. If you were bored with a capital X, it meant not only were you bored but also you’d lost your ability to spell.

  “Bank robbers, car thieves, terrorists ... I’m not picky, Grandpa,” Jo said.

  “Not to worry, Jo,” Grandpa Joe said. “The bad guys must be taking a break. It happens.”

  If there was anyone who understood crime fighting—and bad guys—it was Jo’s grandpa, who was a retired sheriff. “Thirty-five years in law enforcement, Jo. Trust me. The bad guys are just taking a break. Sooner or later something will happen and—”

  “I’ll be there to stop them?”

  “You’ll be there to stop them.”

  Jo hoped so. Since capturing the evil Dr. Dastardly and his semi-evil assistant, Pete, Jo had been twiddling her thumbs, waiting for the next crime wave.

  She’d settle for a crime ripple.

  Jo made a fist. “Hope something happens fast, Gramps. My Knuckle Sandwich is starting to get rusty. If I don’t use it soon, I might forget how.” The Knuckle Sandwich was Jo’s favorite move. It was even more effective than the Siberian Ear Tweak.

  Grandpa Joe moaned but said, “You can practice on me if you like.”

  “Okay,” Jo said. “Put your face over here, Gramps.”

  Grandpa Joe leaned closer.

  Smack!

  Nope. Jo Schmo’s Knuckle Sandwich wasn’t rusty at all.

  Jo left her grandfather’s shack and hopped on the Schmomobile. Not every superhero had a supervehicle, but Jo did. The Schmomobile was a supercharged skateboard with a sidecar for her dog and sidekick, Raymond.

  “Ready to catch some bad guys, Raymond?” Jo asked.

  Raymond gave her a look that said, “Do I like fire hydrants? Are polar bears white? Can fish swim?” Well, you get the idea.

  Both Jo and Raymond were in the mood to catch bad guys. If they could find any.

  2

  A Crime Ripple

  It was true that no major crime waves were occurring at that moment in San Francisco, where Jo Schmo lived. But that didn’t mean there weren’t crime ripples. And sometimes if you have enough crime ripples, they can join together and become a crime wave, which can work its way up to a crime tsunami. Actually, there hadn’t been a crime tsunami in San Francisco in years. They were due for one.

  But back to the crime ripple.

  The crime ripple in question was happening right under Jo Schmo’s nose. Before Jo became a superhero, the most popular girls at Prairie Street Elementary School were Gertrude McSlime and her best friend, Betty Sludgefoot.

  “I miss being popular,” Gertrude said.

  “Me too,” said Betty. “We need to do something about Jo Schmo.”

  “And her little dog, too.”

  “Her dog’s name is Too? I thought it was Raymond.” Yep. You guessed it. Betty wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. She was one taco short of a combination plate. Her elevator didn’t go to the top floor. The lights were on but nobody—

  Well, you get the idea.

  “Yes, Raymond and Jo. They have to go.”

  The girls were longtime members of the Society of Mean Girls (SMG), which had taught them how to be mean and popular at the same time, but recently Gertrude and Betty had decided to step up their game. The Society of Mean Girls wasn’t enough when you were dealing with a superhero who had a supervehicle.

  So Gertrude and Betty had joined the National Society of Supervillains and Evil-Deed Doers (NSSEDD). If Jo Schmo was a superhero (and she was), then Gertrude and Betty had to become supervillains.

  “Or my name isn’t Gertrude McSlime.”

  “It’s not?” Betty said. Maybe she was two tacos short of a combination plate.

  “Got any ideas on how to get rid of Jo Schmo?” Gertrude asked her friend.

  Betty shook her head. “Ideas? That sounds an awful lot like thinking.” Which was not easy to do if your name was Betty Sludgefoot.

  “Okay, I’ll come up with the plan. But I’m going to need your help.”

  “I’m in,” Betty said.

  Jo Schmo had to go, and the two girls wanted her gone as soon as possible.

  “I’ll be the supervillain,” said Gertrude.

  “And I’ll be the evil-deed doer,” said Betty.

  3

  wyatt Burp

  Jo Schmo knew nothing of the crime ripple that was going on right under her nose. She was too busy being bored and waiting for a major crime wave to start. This, of course, was her problem. She was so busy looking for something big, she didn’t see the small stuff. Like the evil plans of Gertrude McSlime and Betty Sludgefoot.

  Gertrude and Betty were in Jo’s fourth grade class and were giving Jo their best dirty looks. Dirty looks were how crime ripples began. Gertrude and Betty would eventually move on to evil thoughts, followed by dastardly deeds, but you had to start somewhere.

  But Jo didn’t notice the mini crime wave beginning in the back of the room where Gertrude and Betty sat. Jo had her mind on other things.

  She glanced at her cell phone. If anything happened, her grandpa Joe would send her a text message about it. But there were no messages on the phone. No bad guys to catch. And Jo didn’t see the dirty looks coming her way from Gertrude and Betty.

  “All right, class,” Mrs. Freep said. “Get out your history books. Today we’re going to talk a
bout bad guys.”

  Jo’s ears perked up. Bad guys were her favorite subject. Taking care of evil-deed doers was her life’s work. Easy A, thought Jo.

  In the back of the room, two other sets of ears also perked up. Gertrude McSlime and Betty Sludgefoot knew a thing or two about bad guys. And they weren’t even guys.

  Easy A, thought Gertrude.

  “During the California gold rush,” Mrs. Freep began, “there were many outlaws, including the infamous Wyatt Burp.”

  All morning long, Mrs. Freep told her class stories of Wyatt Burp and the Hole in the Head Gang. Wyatt Burp, the supervillain. Wyatt Burp, the superburper. He’d once blown the vault doors off the First National Bank of San Francisco with a single burp, and the smell of what he’d had for breakfast lingered in the air for days.

  “I wish I lived back then,” Jo whispered to herself. She wouldn’t be a bored superhero if she could do battle with Wyatt Burp. “If only I could go back in time.”

  Jo Schmo wasn’t the only one whispering in Mrs. Freep’s class. Gertrude leaned toward Betty and said, “Maybe we could burp like Wyatt Burp.”

  “Jo Schmo wouldn’t know what hit her,” Betty whispered.

  That afternoon the two semi-supervillains from Prairie Street Elementary School joined the National Society for the Advancement of Burping (NSAB).

  “If Wyatt Burp could do it, so can we,” said Gertrude McSlime.

  Betty Sludgefoot agreed.

  Strange things were happening in Mrs. Freep’s fourth grade class. A superhero was dreaming of going back in time, and a supervillain and a dastardly-deed doer were dreaming about learning how to burp more effectively.

  4

  Clank Kaboom Slam

  While Gertrude McSlime and Betty Sludgefoot were busy joining the National Society for the Advancement of Burping (NSAB), Jo Schmo was getting excited about a certain supervillain who’d wreaked havoc in San Francisco during the California gold rush. Wyatt Burp was one nasty fellow. If only Jo could travel back in time to meet him. She could introduce him to her Knuckle Sandwich.

  “Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa.” Jo banged on the door of the little shack in her backyard. “It’s me, Jo.”

  “Oh, Jo. Come in.”

  Jo went inside. She could barely keep from jumping up and down. She was one excited superhero. “Do you believe in time travel, Grandpa Joe?”

  Grandpa Joe pulled on one bushy eyebrow. “Time travel?”

  “Uh-huh. The bad guys are still on break. But Wyatt Burp is up to no good.”

  “Wyatt Burp?”

  “Yes. He once blew the vault doors off the First National Bank of San Francisco. The smell of what he’d had for breakfast lingered for days. If I can build a time machine, I can go after him.”

  “Hmm...” Grandpa Joe didn’t know what to say. Hmm would have to do.

  Jo couldn’t wait for a better answer. She was pretty sure she could build a time machine if she put her mind to it. After all, she’d built her supercharged Schmomobile in a single night. “Wyatt Burp, I’m coming for you,” Jo said as she ran for the garage.

  Tinker, tinker, tink, rattle, rattle, CLANK. All night long, strange sounds came from Jo Schmo’s garage. Not only tinker, rattle, and clank, but now and then a snap, crackle, and pop. And sometimes a KABOOM and a SLAM. If something didn’t fit, you made it fit—that was Jo’s motto.

  Jo’s dog, Raymond, looked at her with an expression that said, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Is ice cream tasty? Is the ocean wet? Do dogs have fleas? Of course I know what I’m doing,” Jo said as she swung the sledgehammer.

  Tinker, tinker, tink, rattle, rattle, CLANK, KABOOM, SLAM. Jo kept working. When the sun came up, she stood back and looked at her creation. “That’s a time machine if I ever saw one,” Jo said.

  Jo had never seen a time machine. What did she know?

  “What do you think, Raymond?”

  Raymond’s look said, “Beats me. I’m just a dog.”

  “Trust me. It looks like a time machine. The question is, will it work?”

  And more important, did they have tasty doggy snacks during the California gold rush? Raymond thought. There was no point in going back in time to catch Wyatt Burp if there were no tasty doggy snacks.

  5

  The outhouse ... uh ... Time Machine

  The time machine didn’t look much like a time machine. It looked more like an outhouse with tubes and pipes sticking out. But at least it was big enough for Jo, her dog, and the Schmomobile. If Jo was going back in time to do battle with Wyatt Burp and the Hole in the Head Gang, she would need a vehicle to get around.

  Would the time machine work? That was the question.

  “And what about those doggy snacks?” Raymond’s look said.

  “Never mind about that,” Jo said. “Climb aboard, Raymond.”

  Jo put on her superhero cape, then attached Raymond’s. Immediately, he began to drool. He couldn’t help himself. Something about that cape made him drool like it was going out of style. And it was. Drooling had been out of style for years—even for a dog!

  Jo grabbed the Schmomobile and set the dial on the time machine for 1849. “California gold rush, here we come.” She pushed the start button, and before you could say “Jo Schmo and company shot back in time to 1849,” Jo Schmo and company shot back in time to 1849.

  The outhouse ... uh ... time machine landed on Crimshaw Avenue (Jo’s street) before there was a Crimshaw Avenue. In 1849, it was just a patch of grass overlooking San Francisco Bay.

  “Now to find Wyatt Burp. Hop in the Schmomobile, Raymond. Let’s go.”

  While Jo Schmo was busy going back in time, Gertrude McSlime and Betty Sludgefoot were busy concocting an evil scheme to get rid of Jo—and her little dog, Too. Actually, the dog’s name was Raymond, not Too, but you get the idea.

  The point is, they had to get rid of Jo Schmo, and they had the perfect plan to do it.

  During the night, while Jo was busy tinkering, kabooming, and clanking, Gertrude and Betty hijacked a crane and wrecking ball. They had water balloons as a backup. If the wrecking ball failed, at least they could get Jo Schmo wet. It was a start.

  They set up the wrecking ball along Jo’s usual route to school and waited. Little did they know that Jo had gone back in time to 1849. It would be more than a hundred and fifty years before Jo showed up. It would be more than a hundred and fifty years before she was even born.

  Time travel sure was complicated.

  6

  The Hole in the Head Gang

  Wyatt Burp was not your average, run-of-the-mill outlaw. While most villains used their six-shooters, shotguns, and the occasional stick of dynamite to do their dirty work, Wyatt used his famous sarsaparilla-powered burp. Wyatt’s burp was legendary. He once knocked a guy off his horse with a single burp.

  Yes, sir, this man could burp. But he didn’t work alone. Wyatt was the leader of a pack of desperadoes called the Hole in the Head Gang. They’d wanted to call themselves the Hole in the Wall Gang, but that name was already taken.

  Hole in the Head it was. Wyatt didn’t care, just as long as he could be the leader.

  “What day is it?” Wyatt asked Festus, the Number Two Man in the gang. Festus wasn’t second in command. He just smelled bad, which was why they called him the Number Two Man.

  “It’s Thursday,” Festus replied.

  Wyatt Burp scratched his chin. “Thursday? Is that Rob-a-Train Day?”

  “Wednesday is Rob-a-Train Day,” said Festus.

  “Rob-a-Bank Day?”

  “Monday is Rob-a-Bank Day,” said Festus. “And Tuesday is Blow-Something-Up Day.”

  “I love Tuesdays,” Wyatt said with a smile. “What do we do on Thursdays again?”

  “Thursdays are Drink-a-Lot-of-Sarsaparilla-and-See-What-Happens Day.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Wyatt, opening a bottle of his favorite soft drink. Drink-a-Lot-of-Sarsaparilla-and-See-What-Happens Day sounde
d a whole lot like Blow-Something-Up Day. “I love Thursdays, too.”

  Festus grinned. He also liked Thursdays. When Wyatt drank a lot of sarsaparilla, anything could happen, which made life in San Francisco very interesting, especially if you were a member of the Hole in the Head Gang. Even if you were the Number Two Man.

  “Let’s ride,” Wyatt Burp said to his gang as he climbed into his saddle.

  “Where to?” asked Festus.

  “Let’s go to town and see what happens.” He took another swig of sarsaparilla, preparing for the day.

  Yep, Thursdays were just like Tuesdays. Something might blow up, and it wouldn’t be from dynamite.

  While Wyatt Burp and the Hole in the Head Gang were getting ready for Drink-a-Lot-of-Sarsaparilla-and-See-What-Happens Day, Jo Schmo was speeding through the streets of 1849 San Francisco on the Schmomobile with Raymond in the sidecar drooling like it was going out of style. In 1849, drooling wasn’t out of style at all. It was still very popular among dogs. Raymond would fit right in.

  Unfortunately, a superhero driving a supercharged skateboard would not fit right in. Jo Schmo was the talk of the town. She pulled to a stop on Market Street and asked a man walking by, “Do you know where I can find Wyatt Burp?”

  “Wyatt Burp?”

  “Yes.”

  “The sarsaparilla-drinking, notorious-burping outlaw?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The guy who once blew the doors off a bank vault with a single burp, and the smell of what he had for breakfast lingered in the area for days?”

  “That’s him.”