S.O.S.

by Alan Katz

  Dedication

  To Rose, whose superpowers amaze and delight

  —Alan Katz

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Field Trip!

  Chapter 2 Something Is Up

  Chapter 3 Grilled Cheese

  Chapter 4 Ring the Bell

  Chapter 5 Driver-Napped!

  Chapter 6 Evil Detector 3000

  Chapter 7 The Red Laser

  Chapter 8 Into the Lions’ Den

  Chapter 9 High Fives!

  Chapter 10 One Hundred Words of Wisdom

  Chapter 11 Chitter-Chitter-Blotz

  Congratulations!

  Super Awesome Games

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The second graders of 311B could always rely on Mrs. Baltman for a funny Monday sign. And they especially enjoyed this one, because it was both hilarious and true. They were taking a class field trip to the city zoo!

  Milton Worthy walked to his desk and blurted out to no one in particular:

  “I’m ready to do schoolwork. What? No work today? Field trip? Oh, okay, if you insist. I’ll just put my schoolbooks away.”

  Milton laughed. Wow, did he crack himself up.

  “Hello, everyone. As you know, today is our long-awaited class trip,” Mrs. Baltman said. “We will be leaving soon; please take your seats.”

  “Please take our seats to the zoo?” Milton asked her. “Won’t they be hard to carry around?”

  Mrs. Baltman thought about what Milton had said. Then she started laughing. A lot. It was the kind of laugh that teachers don’t usually laugh in front of their students.

  And that made the kids laugh too. It was the kind of laugh that kids don’t usually laugh in front of their teachers.

  Everyone was still laughing as Mrs. Baltman’s classroom phone rang. She answered it and said, “Ha-ha—hello?—ha-ha.”

  The person on the other end of the phone must have said something very serious. Because Mrs. Baltman abruptly said, “Oh my!”

  Then her eyes darted around the room, and . . .

  . . . she started coughing.

  And coughing. And coughing. The kind of coughing that would get her a starring role in a cough drop commercial.

  But this wasn’t a commercial. It was a classroom.

  Everyone stopped laughing.

  Milton looked at his teacher. Then he followed her eyes to where the class kept Noah, their pet ferret.

  Noah was inside the cage, mindlessly gumming some num-nums.

  Milton was confused. He knew that the last time Mrs. Baltman coughed like that, it was because Noah had escaped and tried to take over the world.

  But the cage was locked. The ferret was gumming. All seemed right with the world. Until . . .

  . . . a shadow appeared in the classroom doorway.

  It was the shadow of someone Milton immediately recognized.

  Someone he knew very well.

  So well, in fact, that he’d had breakfast with her that very morning.

  It was . . .

  . . . none other than . . .

  Take a guess. Who do you think it is?

  . . . Milton’s mother, Rose Worthy.

  Mrs. Worthy was a full-time mom and a sometimes substitute teacher.

  She was also a superhero: a proud member of the Society of Substitutes. As part of the S.O.S., she was experienced in saving the world from ferrets and other classroom creatures that turned evil.

  Milton’s mom stepped into the classroom and whispered a few words to Mrs. Baltman. Mrs. Baltman nodded (while still coughing), and she waved goodbye to the kids and left the room.

  Now Milton was really confused. He couldn’t see any problem or threat. So why was his mother taking over the class?

  “Good morning, everyone,” Mrs. Worthy said as she wrote her name on the board. “Mrs. Baltman isn’t feeling well and had to go home. I will be taking over for today. But don’t worry; we will still be going to the zoo.”

  What is happening? Milton asked himself.

  “Please line up at the door,” Mrs. Worthy said. “Bring your lunch bags, and let’s leave the classroom in an orderly fashion.”

  The kids did as Mrs. Worthy had requested. Only one of them left the line—Milton ran ahead to question his mother.

  “What’s going on?” Milton whispered to Mom. “Why are you here?”

  Mrs. Worthy leaned in and quietly said, “Milty, Chief Chiefman at headquarters just got a C.T. of an F.W.D.A.”

  “Oh, a C.T. of an F.W.D.A.,” Milton whispered back.

  “Indeed,” his mother replied.

  “Um, can Y.O.U. tell M.E. what that I.S.?” Milton asked.

  Mrs. Worthy smiled.

  “A credible threat of a ferret world domination attempt,” she told the boy.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yes, uh-oh,” Mrs. Worthy said. “I’m very worried. Something is up. Something is definitely going down.”

  Milton was puzzled as to how something could be up and going down at the same time. But he was glad his mother was there to protect everyone as they boarded the bus.

  Milton found it strange that Fritz the bus driver didn’t greet the kids as he usually did on class field trips. Instead, he was facing away from the door, busily fussing with the sideview mirror.

  There was a flurry of activity as the kids filed onto the bus and into the rows. Those in the back wanted to be in the front. Those on the aisle preferred window seats. And Sarah Rosario made Morgan Zhou and Max Goen play rock, paper, scissors to determine who’d be lucky enough to sit with her.

  Milton had a lot on his mind. He plopped into the seat next to his mother and kept peppering her with questions.

  Milton was still puzzled. He was also more than a little concerned. He sat quietly on the ride to the zoo, which, by the way, was the bumpiest, bounciest, herky-jerkiest ride ever.

  When they pulled into the zoo parking lot, Fritz immediately ran off the bus. That seemed strange. But what seemed even stranger was what Milton saw moments later. It was a scene far worse than he had dared to imagine . . .

  Absolute, total chaos!

  Quite simply, the cages were empty and the zoo animals were running amok. Sloths were slithering. Leopards were loitering. Walruses were making a getaway. (It was a slow getaway, but still a getaway.)

  And as for the lions, tigers, and bears . . . oh my!

  “Mom! Look! Mom?” Milton yelled to his mother, who had seen the action and scurried to the back of the bus.

  While the kids were busy watching the out-of-control animals through the bus windows, Mrs. Worthy crouched low in the last row of seats and placed her portable, folding, wireless S.O.S. transmitter helmet on her head.

  As quietly as possible, Mrs. Worthy contacted Chief Chiefman and told him what was going on. The chief was upset but not surprised.

  “I’m upset but I’m not surprised,” he said. “This is proof of the C.T. of an F.W.D.A. Evil ferrets can be so evil.”

  “But, Chief,” Mrs. Worthy said, “Noah, the evilest ferret of them all, was safely back in his classroom cage gumming num-nums. He’s nowhere in sight.”

  “Agent W., as sure as I’m here in S.O.S. headquarters in a top secret location on the corner of Third and Main,” the chief said, “Noah is on the loose and behind all this.”

  “So what do we do?” Mrs. Worthy asked.

  “We think,” said the chief. “We think, and we hope. We think, we hope, and we eat grilled cheese.”

  “Why do we eat grilled cheese?” Mrs. Worthy asked him.

  “I happen to like grilled cheese,” the chief responded. “I sometimes eat it whe
n I think and hope.”

  Meanwhile, in row seventeen, Morgan couldn’t help but notice that Mrs. Worthy was speaking into her transmitter helmet.

  “Hey, Milton,” she said. “Your mom’s doing her superhero thing again, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Milton told her. “I think she’s calling the chief.”

  Mrs. Worthy’s transmitter helmet battery was running low. (The folding helmet models usually don’t have great battery life.) She struggled to hear the chief’s words:

  “Ker-zap?” Mrs. Worthy repeated. “Chief? Hello, Chief?”

  The helmet battery was out of power. The chief hadn’t said “ker-zap”—it was the sound the dying transmitter made.

  Mrs. Worthy found Milton staring out the bus window at the rampaging rhinos and filled him in on what had happened. Morgan heard too.

  “We need to get the animals back into their cages,” Mrs. Worthy said. “But how . . . ?”

  “Yes, how?” Morgan repeated, adding herself to the secret conversation. Mrs. Worthy knew Morgan and figured she could be helpful, so she didn’t mind.

  “Yes, how?” Milton echoed. “How, how, how, how, how?”

  “You can stop how-ing, Milton,” his superhero mother said. “After hearing the chief talk about grilled cheese, I think I have the answer . . .”

  “Look! That zebra is selling helium balloons to the buffalo!” David Tessler yelled as the kids continued watching the rampage from inside the bus.

  “The owl stopped yelling ‘Whooo’ and is yelling ‘Whyyy?’,” Sarah noted.

  “And there’s an ape totally mucking up the Monkeyland Gift Shop!” Max added.

  Everyone watched the animal antics, amazed. Everyone except Milton and Morgan. They leaned in to hear Mrs. Worthy’s plan.

  “Listen,” Mrs. Worthy whispered to her son and to Morgan. “Whenever we’ve been to the zoo, they ring a bell at feeding time, right?”

  “Right,” Milton said.

  “And if there’s one thing animals like better than running wild, it’s feeding time. Am I right?”

  “You are right!” Morgan agreed.

  “So . . . we just have to convince the animals that it’s feeding time, and they’ll return to their cages.”

  “But . . . the next feeding time isn’t until noon,” Milton said. “And it’s only ten thirty.”

  “Can sheep tell time?” Mrs. Worthy asked him. “Does a giraffe ever say, ‘Wake me at a quarter to three’? They eat when the bell rings!”

  “My mother’s right!” Milton exclaimed. “Good thinking, Mom . . .”

  “Thanks, Milty,” she said.

  “But . . . how do we get the feeding time bell to ring?” Morgan wanted to know.

  “Just leave that to me,” Mrs. Worthy told her.

  Mrs. Worthy stuck out her left hand and flipped the stone on her wedding ring. Yes, the front of the stone was a handy-dandy ferret decoder. But what she needed at the moment was located on the back of the stone: a surefire sound effects generator.

  “My wedding ring is preprogrammed with seven thousand four hundred and twelve sound effects,” she told Milton and Morgan. “One feeding time signal, coming right up!”

  Mrs. Worthy thrust her left hand out the bus window and pressed the stone with her right hand.

  “There!” she said, smiling.

  “I don’t hear anything!” Milton said. “It must not be working.”

  “It’s working perfectly,” Mrs. Worthy assured him. “Animals can hear sounds that humans can’t. My ring is sending out a signal that alerts the animals without scaring the humans in the zoo.”

  “Very cool, Mrs. W.,” Morgan said. “Very cool indeed.”

  What was even cooler than the silent signal was the effect it had on the animals. All at once, they stopped stampeding, charging, dashing, sprinting, and selling helium balloons. Instead, every creature on the loose followed the bees and made a beeline for their cages and other enclosures.

  The zookeepers chased after the animals. And as soon as they were in their cages, the zookeepers made sure to lock them in nice and tight. Within minutes, order was restored at the zoo. The crisis was over.

  “All clear,” Mrs. Worthy hollered out to a nearby zookeeper.

  And the zookeeper flashed the international sign for the animals are all back in the cages and it’s safe to come out—a big thumbs-up! “All clear,” she said.

  “Terrific,” Mrs. Worthy said with a sigh of relief. And then she turned to the class and announced, “All is calm at the zoo now!”

  But was it?

  Mrs. Worthy walked to the front of the bus and watched as all the kids stepped down onto the sidewalk. She wished that Fritz the bus driver had been there to help, but he was nowhere to be found.

  After the last of the kids had left the bus, Mrs. Worthy plugged her transmitter helmet into the dashboard charger. Then she joined the kids on the sidewalk.

  “Attention, please,” she said to the class. “We’ve had quite an unusual trip, but Zookeeper Alice is here to show us around. Let’s all be on our best behavior now that everything is calm and peaceful.”

  “Except for that incredibly loud banging coming from the luggage compartment,” David Tessler pointed out.

  “Yes, except for that incredibly loud banging coming from the luggage compartment,” Mrs. Worthy agreed. “Wait . . . loud banging?”

  Mrs. Worthy told the class that they should follow Zookeeper Alice to start the tour. She added that she’d check out the noise and catch up with them in a few minutes.

  Everyone happily went with the zookeeper, except for Milton and Morgan. They stayed behind in case Mrs. Worthy needed their help. Which she did, because . . .

  . . . when Mrs. Worthy ran to the compartment, she opened it to reveal . . . Fritz the bus driver! He was sitting there in nothing but his undies!

  Fritz scampered out of the luggage compartment. “I’ve been driver-napped!” he told them breathlessly. “By a ferret! A very mean ferret. He stole my uniform, and it really didn’t fit him well. Frankly, I don’t even know how he did up all the buttons, you know, since ferrets don’t have thumbs. He forced me into the luggage compartment”—and this is when Fritz really lost it—“and . . . and . . . and he drove the bus!”

  “That probably explains why the ride was so bumpy,” Milton noted.

  “You think it was bumpy for you,” Fritz exclaimed. “Try taking that ride while bouncing around the luggage compartment in your underwear!”

  “No thank you,” Milton told him.

  “Noah!” Mrs. Worthy said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how he did it, but it has to be Noah!” Mrs. Worthy sprang into action. She hopped back onto the bus and put her transmitter helmet on her head. Fortunately, the bus had been running and even a few minutes of the dashboard charger gave the helmet enough power to allow her to contact headquarters.

  Speaking quickly, she told the chief what had happened.

  Once again, he was upset but not surprised.

  And what he said in response left Mrs. Worthy both upset and surprised . . .

  The secret is out: you’ve read more than 2,370 words!

  The sad fact was, Noah had gotten free! The creature that Milton had seen at school mindlessly gumming his num-nums was actually a robotic ferret. Mrs. Worthy had heard about the Electro-Replace-a-Ferret Model 602, but had never actually seen one in action. (Model 602 featured the auto-gumming setting! Brilliant! Evil, but brilliant!)

  What was even worse, though, was that Noah had been the one who had caused all the mayhem. He had scurried off the bus and opened all the cages. He wanted the zoo animals to join his quest for world domination!

  Fortunately, the signal Mrs. Worthy had sent to announce a fake feeding time had restored order. But that was only a temporary solution. Because it was clear that Noah was on the loose somewhere in the zoo! And with Noah on the loose in the zoo, anything was still possible.

  “We’ve got to find him!” Morgan said.

&
nbsp; “Where would you hide if you were an evil ferret?” Milton asked.

  “I wouldn’t be an evil ferret,” Morgan told him. “I would be a kindly koala.”

  “I’d be a considerate kinkajou,” Milton said.

  “Or maybe I’d be a friendly flamingo,” Morgan added, standing on one foot to demonstrate.

  “Well, I’d be a superhero substitute,” Mrs. Worthy said. “And I’d start by using the Evil Detector 3000. It’s the latest in evil-detection technology!”

  Mrs. Worthy plucked what looked like an ordinary hairbrush from her purse—but when she twisted the handle, the bristles started vibrating.

  “The Evil Detector 3000 can seek out evil in a flash. It’s also quite effective for styling my hair on the go!”

  Milton and Morgan followed Mrs. Worthy and her Evil Detector into the zoo. All eyes were on the bristles of the hairbrush. Like a game of hot and cold, the bristles reacted as the brush sensed that they were closer and closer to evil. Until . . .

  . . . the bristles whizzed and whirred and lit up right outside the lions’ den.

  “There!” Mrs. Worthy said as she turned off the hairbrush. “Without question, the horrible, hideous, disgraceful, disgustingly evil Noah is right there . . . in the lions’ den.”

  “So all we have to do is go into the lions’ den and catch him, Mrs. W.?” Morgan wanted to know.

  “Exactly,” Mrs. Worthy said.

  “Um, Mom, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Look at that sign,” Milton told her.

  Milton’s mother read the sign.

  She had an immediate response: “I will say that even though he’s terribly evil, Noah has excellent handwriting. Look at how beautifully curved his Ss and Cs are!”