AAAARGH!!! (16 page)

and a whole lot of

“Now what did you do?” TJ demanded.

Herby shrugged. “I might have forgotten to remove her gills and fins.”

“Herby!”

“Oh, all right,” he sighed. Once again he reached for his Swiss Army Knife.

And as Herby prepared to turn everything back to normal, TJ somehow feared—no, she somehow
knew
—that normal would not be something she would be experiencing for a very long time. Until then, TJ Finkelstein would be your average, run-of-the-mill seventh grader plagued by two very sweet but very clueless time stumblers from the 23rd century.

TIME TRAVEL LOG:

Malibu, California, November 2

Begin Transmission:

All-school bully from the future stopped by. Despite his disguise, Tuna and I are positive it’s Bruce Bruiseabone, winner of the Worst Breath in the World Contest. We fear he could really zwork things up for our subject (who, by the way, is still smoot to the max).

End Transmission

Thelma Jean Finkelstein, better known as TJ to her friends (all four of them—unless you leave out her goldfish and pet hamster, which brings it down to two friends), ran through the empty cafeteria, screaming her lungs out.

And when she wasn’t

she was yelling,

Now, you might call her behavior a little weird (which may be why she has only two friends). But weirder than that weirdness is that the
HE
in her little screamfest just happened to be an African elephant the size of a Chevy pickup who, unlike a Chevy pickup, had some very bad breath.

Weirder than
that
weirdness was that the African elephant (complete with large tusks and a crummy mood) was shouting in a very bad British accent,

“Excuse me, miss. If you don’t mind, I should like to speak with you a moment!”

Weirder than
that
weird weirdness was the
US
TJ happened to be screaming about. And who, exactly, was the
US
?

Actually, they were nobody. (Unless you counted the two invisible teenagers from the 23rd century who were running beside her.)

First, there was Thomas Uriah Norman Alphonso the Third. Or for those who don’t enjoy spraining their tongues, Tuna. On TJ’s other side ran Herby, a tall surfer dude with long blond bangs and the exact same number of brain cells as TJ had friends (
after
you subtract the goldfish and hamster).

The boys had traveled back in time to do a history report on TJ because, believe it or not, someday when she was through screaming her lungs out and being chased by African elephants through school cafeterias, TJ would become a great world leader.

But until then, she had other things on her mind like:

“No worries, Your Dude-ness,” Herby shouted. “I’ll transport us home!” With that he pulled out his trusty Swiss Army Knife (sold at 23rd-century time-travel stores everywhere), opened its Transporter Beam Blade and

The good news was Herby transported them out of the cafeteria.

The bad news was he missed TJ’s house (unless she had moved to the top of Mount Everest).

The top of Mount Everest!
you say?

Yeah, that’s what TJ was saying too. Only more like:

“How odd!” Tuna yelled over the howling wind.

“That we’re on Mount Everest?” Herby shouted. “Or that the elephant is still behind us?”

“Actually, I’m talking about the end of the giant glacier we’re approaching.”

“What end?” Herby shouted. “What glacier?”

“The end we’ve just reached and the glacier we are now jumping

Wanting to be part of the conversation, TJ threw in her own comment—the always clever and very appropriate

And refusing to be left out, the elephant, who was falling beside them, added,

But thanks to Herby’s great thinking (and accidental good luck), he tried the Transporter Beam Blade again and