SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Junior Novel (2 page)

“He's closing in!” SpongeBob called.

Patrick peered through a pair of binoculars … which he was holding backward. “I think we have a few minutes before he gets here,” he said calmly. SpongeBob reached up and flipped the binoculars around. “HE'S RIGHT ON TOP OF US!” Patrick screamed.

SpongeBob kept firing the big gun, but the propellers of Plankton's plane shredded the potatoes into French fries.

“It's gonna take a lot more than potatoes to bring THIS baby down!” Plankton gloated. But just then, the potatoes knocked the wings off his plane. The plane plummeted to the ground and crashed.
WHAM!

SpongeBob and Patrick celebrated on the roof with a victory dance. “We did it! Woo-hoo!” shouted SpongeBob.

“Yeah! In your FACE, Plankton!” Patrick said.

Then SpongeBob spotted something floating
gently through the sky: a parachute. “Wait a minute, Patrick,” he said. “Look!”

Dangling from the parachute was a tank. “He's got a tank!” SpongeBob cried.

Inside the tank, Plankton loaded a pickle as ammunition and manned the controls. “Well, Krabs,” he said, “you're certainly in a pickle now!” He laughed at his own terrible pun.

The tank shot the pickle at the Krusty Krab. It hit the restaurant and exploded, blowing SpongeBob and Patrick off the roof. They screamed as they fell, but after they hit ground, they stood up, breathing hard. They saw the tank rolling closer!

SpongeBob frantically cranked a field radio and shouted into it. “Your orders, sir?”

From his office, Mr. Krabs answered, “EXTRA KETCHUP! EXTRA MUSTARD! HOLD THE MAYO!”

“Yes, sir!” SpongeBob called, hoisting giant squeeze bottles onto his shoulders.

Patrick lifted a giant jar of mayo over his head. “Hold … the … mayo!” he grunted. His arms shook with the effort of holding the huge jar over his head. He and SpongeBob watched as the tank rolled closer and closer….

“I
can't hold this mayo much longer!” Patrick gasped.

“Wait for the order, soldier!” barked SpongeBob.

Finally, their radio crackled and Mr. Krabs shouted, “Unleash the condiments!”

“With relish!” SpongeBob cried as he shot ketchup and mustard at Plankton's tank. But the tank just kept on coming, firing exploding pickles at the Krusty Krab. Patrick heaved the giant jar of mayo right in front of the tank.
CRASH!

“MAYO?” Plankton said. “It's gonna take a lot more than MAYO to stop—”

BOOM!
The tank ran into the mayo and exploded, sending globs of white goo flying everywhere.

“Oh, mayo …,” Patrick said fondly, “is there no problem you can't solve?”

But SpongeBob was carefully watching the wreckage of Plankton's tank. He saw movement. “NOW what?” he asked.

SpongeBob watched in horror as a giant metal robot rose from the smoldering ashes of the tank. Plankton was working the robot's controls from a seat inside its head. He laughed a long, loud, evil laugh and pushed on a control stick. The robot stomped forward.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ground shook with every step the giant robot took.

Patrick stared up at the robot. He took off his helmet and handed it to SpongeBob. “I just remembered,” he said. “I don't work for Mr. Krabs.” He ran off.

SpongeBob dropped the helmet and sprinted for the front door of the Krusty Krab, yelling, “Robot! Robot! ROBOT! ROBOT! GIANT ROBOT!” The terrifying robot chased him.

Inside his office, Mr. Krabs was staring at the closed door. He could hear the thundering steps of the robot coming closer and closer. He could also hear SpongeBob screaming, “ROBOT! ROBOT!”

SpongeBob burst into the office and slammed the door shut behind him. “Mr. Krabs!” he said breathlessly. “Plankton's here and he's got a giant robot!”

“Quick, boy!” Mr. Krabs responded. “Bar the door!”

SpongeBob shoved a flimsy chair under the doorknob. “Got it!” he said, satisfied.

The robot burst through the door and the wall surrounding it.
SMASH!
It flattened SpongeBob and stomped right up to Mr. Krabs. “I'll take one secret
formula,” Plankton demanded. “To go!”

The robot's big mechanical hand reached toward Mr. Krabs, who cowered and groaned, until suddenly …

… the robot sputtered and froze.

Mr. Krabs uncovered his head and looked up, puzzled. “Eh?” he said. SpongeBob peeled himself off the floor and stood up, wondering what the robot was doing.

Inside the robot's head, Plankton stared at a gauge. The needle pointed to
E
. “Oh, BARNACLES!” Plankton cursed. “I'm out of gas!”

He opened a little door, climbed out of the robot's head, and walked down its extended arm to Mr. Krabs. “I'm not through yet!” he vowed. “I've got something that'll make you hand over that formula … something you CAN'T resist!”

Mr. Krabs folded his arms and smiled. “And just what would that irresistible thing be, Plankton?”

Plankton whipped out his wallet. Mr. Krabs gasped. “Money!” he wheezed.

“That's right, Krabs!” Plankton said, grinning. “I'll BUY the formula from you!”

SpongeBob grabbed Mr. Krabs's arm and desperately tried to pull him away from Plankton. “No, Mr. Krabs!” he cried. “Don't do it!”

“No, I won't,” Mr. Krabs said. “Of course not.” But
then he asked, “How much?”

“One … dollar,” Plankton offered.

“Sold,” Mr. Krabs said.

SpongeBob gasped.

“YES!” cried Plankton triumphantly.

S
pongeBob couldn't believe Mr. Krabs was going to sell the priceless Krabby Patty formula for just one dollar! Swaggering over his long-awaited victory, Plankton opened his wallet.

It was empty.

Plankton's eye bulged in disbelief. “That's … that's … that's IMPOSSIBLE!” he yelled. “It was full of money just last week!”

He thought hard about where all his money could possibly have gone. “But then I bought that airplane. And that tank. And built that giant robot. I knew I shouldn't have put in such a nice seat. But I love comfort….”

Mr. Krabs chuckled. “Sounds to me like someone's just a wee bit broke!”

Plankton shrugged. “Well, Krabs, I guess you've won. I've spent every penny I've ever made trying to put you out of business.”

He pulled out a single penny.

“Except this one,” Plankton said. “My last penny. What can I do with one measly cent, anyway?”

Mr. Krabs looked at the penny and licked his lips. “You could give it to me,” he said. “Just a suggestion.”

Plankton stared at his last penny. He closed his eye and sighed. Then he opened his eye. “Here,” he said, giving up completely. “Take it.”

He tossed the penny to Mr. Krabs, who caught it with one eager claw. Mr. Krabs kissed the penny. Then he opened his safe, tossed the penny inside, and whispered, “Welcome home, little penny. Welcome home.” He closed the safe gently.

Plankton began to sob. “You've taken everything else! You might as well take my last penny!”

Mr. Krabs frowned. “You already gave it to me. And no take-backs!”

Huge tears flowed from Plankton's single eye. Mr. Krabs picked him up and carried him out of his office, stopping in the restaurant's dining area. SpongeBob followed his boss.

Holding Plankton in his big claw, Mr. Krabs said, “Well, Plankton, like a reheated Krabby Patty, you've been foiled again!”

He dropped the tiny villain onto the floor.
“Oof!”
Plankton grunted.

“I guess this means the secret formula is safe forever!”
SpongeBob said happily. “Right, Mr. Krabs?”

Mr. Krabs nodded. “It sure does, boy.”

Plankton let out a big sigh.

“Why don't you scurry along, Plankton?” Mr. Krabs said. “I've got a successful business to run.” He and the customers laughed. Plankton gave another sob, hung his little green head, and slunk out of the Krusty Krab.

“Thanks for coming!” Mr. Krabs called after his defeated enemy. “Have a nice day!”

Outside, Plankton walked over to a signpost, leaned his forehead against it, and wept.

A little while later, Mr. Krabs watched Plankton through a telescope. He was still leaning against the signpost. “He's been out there crying for twenty minutes,” Mr. Krabs said. “Pathetic.” He peered through the telescope, then snapped it shut. “I'm just gonna go out there and gloat a little!”

Humming a happy tune, Mr. Krabs hurried out the front door.

Meanwhile, inside the safe in Mr. Krabs's office, Plankton's last penny was doing something unusual for a coin.

It was moving.

The penny wiggled, stood on edge, rolled, and suddenly popped open. Hidden inside the penny was … PLANKTON!

He laughed and spoke into a tiny microphone hidden inside the penny. “Cyclops to Laptop,” he said. “Cyclops to Laptop. Come in, Laptop!”

In the Chum Bucket, Plankton's computer wife, Karen, was playing solitaire on her screen. She heard her husband and answered, “Laptop? You DO realize that nickname is demeaning. I have TWICE the processing power of a laptop!”

Plankton answered in code. “Chicken is in the bread pan, kicking out dough.”

But Karen didn't understand. “Wait,” she said, confused. “You're in a bread pan?”

Annoyed that she'd forgotten their secret code, Plankton snapped, “Never mind. Maintain radio silence.” He looked around the inside of Mr. Krabs's safe and spotted the Krabby Patty secret formula rolled up and corked in a bottle. “Finally!” he said, laughing triumphantly.

He was about to grab the bottle when he noticed it was sitting on a metal plate. “A pressure plate, eh, Krabs?” he said, snorting with contempt. “Amateur hour!”

Plankton opened the door to the safe and cautiously looked around Mr. Krabs's office. “Hm,” he said. Then he saw a ship in a bottle on Mr. Krabs's desk. “Perfect!”

He yanked the miniature ship out of the bottle and tossed it in the trash. After finding a pad of paper and
a pencil, he quickly scribbled a fake formula, tore out the page and rolled it up, then shoved it in the bottle. Plankton pushed the cork back in the bottle and admired his work.

“Not a bad likeness,” he said with a smirk. “Good enough to fool that idiot Krabs!”

Back in the safe, Plankton carefully slid the fake formula bottle onto the pressure plate, simultaneously easing off the real bottle. “Easy … easy …,” he said as he worked. After a moment, he'd done it: the fake formula bottle was on the pressure plate, and the real formula bottle was in his dishonest hand!

In the dining area, SpongeBob was using the telescope to watch Mr. Krabs outside. His boss was gleefully dancing around the sobbing Plankton. “Look at Mr. Krabs go!” SpongeBob said. “I've never seen him gloat this hard before.”

As he danced, Mr. Krabs sang a little song:
“Plankton's broke! Ooh! Ooh! Plankton's broke! Ah! Ah!”

Mr. Krabs stopped dancing and laughed. “Well, Plankton, me bunions are tellin' me it's time to stop gloating.” He picked up Plankton, who was still sobbing.

He noticed what looked like a loose thread. “Heh!” he said. “Looks like you're fallin' apart at the seams!”

When Mr. Krabs pulled on the thread, Plankton's skin unraveled, revealing metal underneath. It wasn't
Plankton he was holding. It was a tiny Plankton robot!

“Huh?” Mr. Krabs said.

“Poor me,” cried the robot. “Sob…. Sob….”

“A ROBOT?” Mr. Krabs shouted.

Inside the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob walked into Mr. Krabs's office and saw … the open safe!