Shifty Business Read online

  Raymond didn’t say anything. He was too busy drooling, and it was difficult to drool and think at the same time.

  When they reached the waterfront, they discovered another problem. There was more than one cruise ship. “Which one is it?” Jo asked.

  Raymond pointed across the bay.

  A ship was heading out to sea. People were wandering around the deck, and they were glittering in the moonlight.

  “Diamonds,” Jo said.

  “Gazillionaires,” Raymond’s look said.

  Hmm, Jo thought. A ship full of gazillionaires.

  A submarine lurking beneath. She walked up and back on the dock, thinking. And then it hit her—

  “They’re going to sink the ship!” she said. “That’s why they have a submarine.”

  The problem was that the ship was out there, and Jo and Raymond were still onshore. And Jo Schmo didn’t know how to swim. I know ... what kind of superhero doesn’t know how to swim? She looked down at her dog and said, “It’s up to you, Raymond. Can you get me to the ship?”

  “Do dogs have fleas?” Raymond’s look said. “Hang on.”

  Jo attached a leash to Raymond’s collar. Then they jumped into the water and Raymond started dog-paddling. But this was not your average dog paddle. This was superhero dog paddle—zero to sixty in one minute and six seconds. As Raymond paddled, Jo hung on to the leash and water-skied behind him.

  Water shot up from her feet into her nose, causing her to sneeze, and when she did, she shape-shifted.

  But she didn’t shift into Frankenstein’s monster.

  She didn’t shift into a werewolf.

  She didn’t shift back into Jo Schmo.

  She shifted into a ship’s anchor and sank to the bottom of the bay. Unfortunately, anchors don’t have noses. She couldn’t sneeze herself into a different shape. She just sat at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay, looking very anchorlike.

  16

  Shifty Business

  Raymond didn’t realize that Jo had shape-shifted again and was now sitting at the bottom of the bay. But he did feel her let go of the leash. When he turned around, there was no sign of her.

  His look said, “Where’d you go, Jo?”

  There was only one place she could have gone. Down. And Raymond knew that Jo couldn’t swim. He dove beneath the surface and looked around. There was nothing down there, just an anchor, looking very anchorlike.

  It’s me, Raymond, Jo thought. For some reason, the anchor had eyes. She could see Raymond dog-paddling above her. But she didn’t have arms to move or a mouth that she could blow bubbles with. Or a nose to sneeze herself into another shape.

  Things were looking pretty grim for Jo Schmo.

  When Jasper “Scoop” Johnson heard the lady with the teacher voice say the word “emergency” and that it involved saving lives, he knew there was a story behind it. So he followed her and her dog as they raced toward the waterfront. For some reason, he found himself chasing people on motorized skateboards lately. Just the other day he had followed Frankenstein’s monster. Chasing a lady with a teacher voice was much less scary.

  Now he was standing on the dock, watching her water-ski behind a dog-paddling dog. And then, suddenly, she was gone.

  What just happened? he thought. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Did the teacher-voice lady just turn into an anchor and sink? No one would believe that story.

  And right then, Jasper “Scoop” Johnson decided to quit the newspaper business and start writing fantasy stories for kids. It was way more interesting.

  While Jasper “Scoop” Johnson was pondering a career change, Jo Schmo was sitting at the bottom of the bay, wondering what to do.

  She thought back to the day her grandpa had read the chapter on shape-shifting. According to the manual, shape-shifting was all about thinking the right shape-shifting thoughts. Now, without arms, mouth, or nose, all she had were thoughts. She tried to clear her mind. All thoughts of home or school or friends or her mother’s sponge cake—she put them aside. She even stopped thinking of Kevin with his great hair, Mitch, who looked spectacular in green, and David, with his seventeen adorable freckles.

  It was now or never, either shape-shift or spend the rest of her life rusting away in the salt water. She put all her energy into shape-shifting. But she didn’t want to change into Jo Schmo. She was at the bottom of the bay, and Jo Schmo couldn’t swim.

  Concentrate, she said to herself. Shift into something that can swim.

  And before you could say “Jo Schmo shape-shifted into a killer whale and swam to the surface for a breath of fresh air,” Jo Schmo shape-shifted into a killer whale and swam to the surface for a breath of fresh air.

  17

  Whale of a Problem

  Ever since the two hammerhead sharks, Phil and Harvey, had been punched in the nose by a gigantic metal hot dog, they’d been feeling pretty low.

  “Would you look at that?” Phil said, pointing to a killer whale swimming to the surface for a breath of fresh air. “Just when you think you’re the king of the bay.”

  Harvey nodded. “Tell me about it.” The killer whale was even bigger than the hot dog.

  And right then the two of them decided to leave San Francisco Bay, and they were never seen in the area again. They moved to Mexico, where they had heard there weren’t any killer whales.

  The question was, were there any hot dogs with great boxing skills?

  Raymond took one look at the killer whale and dog-paddled in the other direction. He didn’t like the way the whale was looking at him. And he didn’t like those teeth.

  “It’s me, Raymond. It’s Jo.”

  Raymond kept paddling. Whales couldn’t be trusted, especially ones who could talk. “Raymond’s the coolest dog ever.”

  Raymond stopped paddling and turned around. He gave her a look that said, “Wow. You’ve really put on weight, Jo.”

  Jo didn’t have time to explain that she’d been an anchor for the past several minutes. There was no time. Someone was about to sink a cruise ship full of gazillionaires.

  “Follow me,” she said. She grabbed Raymond’s leash in her teeth and swam as fast as her little fins could take her. Actually, they were big fins, but you get the idea.

  When they reached the ship, Jo shape-shifted back into Jo Schmo. By now she’d gotten the hang of shape-shifting. It really was all about thinking the right shape-shifting thoughts. And she couldn’t remain a killer whale if she wanted to get to the bottom of things. So she was back to her normal self. It felt good to have legs again.

  Raymond gave her a look that said, “I missed you, boss.”

  “Thanks,” Jo said. Then she grabbed Raymond and tossed him onto the deck of the ship and climbed up after him.

  “Follow me, Raymond,” Jo said as she ran along the deck.

  “What are we looking for?” Raymond’s look said.

  “A bomb big enough to sink a cruise ship.”

  All the gazillionaires were inside having dinner. The decks were deserted, except for a few unconscious crew members, obviously the victims of someone’s knuckle sandwich. Jo kept running. And this is what she saw:

  Lounge chair, lounge chair, unconscious crew member, lounge chair, lounge chair, big box going tick, tick, tick, lounge chair, lounge chair—

  Wait a second!

  Jo stopped and backed up. There was a huge box with a digital clock attached, counting down the seconds.

  30, 29, 28...

  Less than thirty seconds, Jo thought. She lifted the top off the bomb. The insides were full of whirling gizmos and wires of different colors—red, blue, green, black.

  One of them would deactivate the bomb. But choose the wrong one and KABOOM!

  Jo was pretty sure that blowing herself up could ruin her whole day.

  25, 24, 23...

  She started to sweat. “I built the Schmomobile,” she told herself. “I created a time machine. I should be able to deactivate this thing.”

  But time was slip
ping away.

  19,18,17 ... tick, tick, tick...

  18

  Kaboom!

  12, 11, 10...

  Jo looked at the red, blue, black, and green wires. Which one was it?

  Raymond’s look said, “Don’t look at me. I’m just a dog.”

  7, 6, 5...

  “Red,” Jo said. “It’s gotta be the red one. Red is the color of fireworks. It’s the color of things that go KERPOW.”

  Not to mention KABOOM.

  Jo reached for the red wire, but Raymond put out a paw to stop her. Then he gave her a look that said, “Isn’t that an ON/OFF switch?” Raymond didn’t know how to read, but he was pretty sure he’d seen those words before.

  Jo flipped the switch, and the ticking stopped.

  Just in the elbow of time.

  Oops!

  Just in the nick of time.

  “Good work, Raymond,” Jo said.

  “Thank you,” Raymond’s look said.

  Now that the bomb was deactivated, Jo picked it up and tossed it out to sea.

  KABOOM!

  Guess it wasn’t deactivated after all.

  The explosion didn’t sink the ship, but it did cause a large metal hot dog to surface. Seconds later a hatch on top opened and out poured smoke, followed by Numb Skull, Harry Knuckles, and Dyno-Mike.

  The first thing out of Numb Skull’s mouth was, “Curses!” followed by ... some curses.

  Raymond’s look said, “Perpetrators!” which is dog language for bad guys.

  And right then Jo sneezed.

  Raymond couldn’t bear to look at her. Who knew what he’d find? Frankenstein’s monster? A werewolf? Mrs. Freep? A killer whale?

  But it was just Jo. She was still one hundred percent Jo Schmo. Not only could she shape-shift when she wanted to by thinking the right shape-shifting thoughts, she could also not shift when she sneezed.

  Numb Skull and company were still standing on top of the submarine, coughing from all the smoke.

  “Sponge cake!” Jo yelled. This was the lofty thought that caused her to fly. She swooped down on the trio of bad guys. “Knuckle Sandwiches coming right up.” Numb Skull, Harry Knuckles, and Dyno-Mike didn’t know what hit them. But they sure felt it.

  Jo and Raymond hung around until the Coast Guard arrived to haul the bad guys off to jail, then she and Raymond took off. Literally.

  “Sponge cake,” she said, lifting off the ground, holding Raymond.

  The gazillionaires, who had heard the explosion and were now standing on the deck, cheered. It was nice to have a superhero in town.

  Moments later, Jo and Raymond touched down lightly in their backyard on Crimshaw Avenue and went in to talk to Grandpa Joe. He’d heard all about it on the police radio. He’d even heard the KABOOM.

  “Great work, Jo,” he said. He loved having a granddaughter who saved the world. Not to mention cruise ships.

  Once word got around that Numb Skull’s evil plan had failed, the crime tsunami all but died away. It went from crime tsunami to crime wave to crime ripple to calm seas.

  “It’s all because of you, Jo,” Grandpa Joe said proudly. “How do you feel?”

  “It wasn’t all me, Gramps,” Jo said, looking down at her dog. “I had help. How do you feel, Raymond?”

  Raymond gave her a look that said, “Not too shabby.” Then he gave her another look that said, “We should celebrate.”

  “Excellent,” Grandpa Joe said. “What should we do?”

  Jo smiled. She knew the perfect way to celebrate. On Friday afternoon, after she got home from school, she shape-shifted into a frog, hopped into her grandpa’s shirt pocket, and, for the first time in her life, got into the movies for free.

  About the Author

  GREG TRINE has never been a superhero, but he loves writing about them in his series The Adventures of Jo Schmo. Greg lives in southern California with his family. He is also the author of the Melvin Beederman, Superhero series. Visit him at www.gregtrine.com.

  About the Illustrator

  FRANK W. DORMER is the author/illustrator of Socksquatch and The Obstinate Pen, and the illustrator of the acclaimed Aggie and Ben series and the superhero series The Adventures of Jo Schmo. Frank is an elementary school art teacher lives with his family in Connecticut. Visit him at www.frankwdormer.com.

  Footnotes

  * Canada and France are into long bathroom breaks for some reason. Don’t ask.

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