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!
SpongeBob gasped. “Plankton?”
Startled, Plankton whirled around, knocking the fake formula bottle off the pressure plate with the real formula bottle. An alarm sounded. WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!
“Uh-oh,” Plankton said. “That ain’t good.”
A computer voice came over a loudspeaker: “Initiating lockdown sequence.”
Outside, Mr. Krabs heard the alarm go off. “Me formuler!” he cried, dropping the tiny Plankton robot.
As Mr. Krabs ran to the front door, the robot continued to whimper, “Poor me…. Sob…. Sob….”
Inside the Krusty Krab, the lockdown sequence had begun. Metal shutters slammed down around every part of the restaurant. SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! The big sheets of metal surrounded Squidward’s workstation.
“Huh?” Squidward said. Another metal shutter slammed into place. “Ow,” he said, trapped.
Metal shutters closed off the kitchen, the bathrooms, and even the customers’ food so no one could possibly escape from the restaurant. Outside, Mr. Krabs watched a heavy metal shutter cover the front doors.
He ran as fast as he could, yelling, “Oh, no! OH, NO, NO, NO!” But he was too late. The last shutter closed. SLAM!
“NOOOOOO!” Mr. Krabs wailed. “Squidward! Can you hear me? Open up! SQUIDWARD!”
But Squidward was tightly enclosed in metal shutters. He couldn’t get out of his little boat cash register station, let alone walk to the front door and somehow open it.
The Plankton robot picked itself up and started to dance. “Ha, ha. Victory dance,” it gloated in its electronic voice.
Back in Mr. Krabs’s office, SpongeBob and Plankton were struggling over the bottle that held the Krabby Patty secret formula.
“Gimme that!” SpongeBob panted.
“Come on, SpongeBob,” Plankton urged. “Join me and we’ll be rich and powerful … until I eventually betray you!” He realized what he’d said. “Uh, JOIN ME!”
SpongeBob shook his head violently. “No! NEVER! I’m on Team Krabs for life!”
Outside the front door, Mr. Krabs used all the strength he could muster to force the metal shutters open. He burst through the front door and called out, “PLANKTON!”
In the office, SpongeBob and Plankton were still trying to pull the formula bottle away from each other. They tugged. They strained. They yanked with all their might.
Suddenly, the bottle vanished into thin air!
SpongeBob’s mouth hung open. He was completely flummoxed. “What? Where’d it go?” he asked.
“What?” Plankton said, equally confused. “Molecular deconstruction? But I proved that to be a scientific impossibility seven times!”
Mr. Krabs dashed in. He immediately saw that the safe was open and Plankton was standing there. The REAL Plankton—not a robot.
“Where’s me formuler, Plankton?”
Plankton raised his tiny hands and shrugged. “I … I … I don’t know. It just disappeared.”
“Why should I believe YOU, you lyin’ liar?” Mr. Krabs roared.
SpongeBob stepped forward. “Normally I’d agree with you, Mr. Krabs,” he said. “But this time he’s telling the truth! The formula just vanished … like magic!”
“It’s true!” Plankton cried, nodding vigorously.
Mr. Krabs wasn’t buying it. He grabbed Plankton and taped him to his desk. SpongeBob watched his boss, looking worried. “Mr. Krabs, I’m telling you,” he insisted. “Plankton is innocent!”
“What are you going to do, Krabs?” Plankton asked, his voice trembling a little. “Pour hot oil on me? Put bamboo shoots under my nails?”
Mr. Krabs shook his head. “No,” he said seriously. “Knock-knock.”
Plankton grinned. “Knock-knock jokes?” he sneered. “I can do this all day, Krabs.”
“Knock-knock,” Mr. Krabs repeated.
“Oh, boy,” Plankton said, smiling and rolling his eye. “Who’s there?”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy who?”
“Jimmy back my formuler, Plankton!” Mr. Krabs answered.
Plankton looked confused. “Well, that’s stupid, but how is it torture?”
“You’ll see,” Mr. Krabs said, chuckling as he put on soundproof headphones.
SpongeBob was thinking hard. “Jimmy … back … my … formula,” he said to himself slowly. “Oh! I get it!” He started to laugh his high, annoying laugh. “DI YI YI YI YI YI YI!”
He kept laughing. And laughing. And laughing …
“MAKE IT STOP, KRABS!” Plankton screamed.
But Mr. Krabs just stood there wearing his headphones. And SpongeBob kept laughing. “DI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI!”
“OH, MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE!” Plankton shrieked.
“DI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI YI! DI YI YI YI YI YI YI …”
As SpongeBob continued to laugh at the knock-knock joke, Squidward opened the door to the office. Behind him, a throng of angry customers scowled and complained.
“Mr. Krabs?” Squidward said. But Mr. Krabs couldn’t hear him because of his headphones. And SpongeBob was still laughing as Plankton writhed in psychological pain.
“Zip it,” Squidward commanded. SpongeBob immediately stopped laughing.
Plankton looked immensely relieved. “Oh, thank you, Squidward,” he sighed.
Squidward ignored Plankton’s apology. “The customers are getting restless,” he said. “They’re asking for … REFUNDS.”
To Mr. Krabs, “refund” was such a horrible, terrifying word that he could hear it even through his soundproof headphones. “REFUNDS?” he said, gasping.
Sure enough, the customers were chanting “Re-fund. … Re-fund…. Re-fund” like a mob of zombies.
Mr. Krabs grabbed SpongeBob by his skinny arms. “Listen up, boy!” he cried. “Get in there and make me customers some Krabby Patties!” He hustled SpongeBob out of his office and shoved him through the kitchen door. Then he hurried back to hi
s office.
“All right, Plankton …,” Mr. Krabs started to say. But when he looked at his desk, he saw that Plankton was GONE!
“Huh?” Mr. Krabs said. He had used his strongest tape to hold Plankton down.
“AAAAHHHH!” SpongeBob screamed from the kitchen. Mr. Krabs ran to see what was wrong. When he burst into the kitchen, he found his fry cook staring into the freezer.
“SpongeBob! What’s wrong, boy?” Mr. Krabs asked. Then he looked into the freezer himself.
It was empty.
“WE’RE OUT OF KRABBY PATTIES?” Mr. Krabs screamed.
SpongeBob started to sweat despite the cold air pouring out of the freezer. “How can we make more Krabby Patties without the secret formula?”
Mr. Krabs paced around the kitchen, concentrating. “You’ve GOT to have that formuler memorized by now! You musta made a MILLION of those things!”
“But as you are aware, sir,” SpongeBob reminded him, “the Employee Handbook clearly states, and I quote, ‘No employee may in part, or in whole, commit the Krabby Patty secret formula to any recorded, written, or visual form, including memories, dreams, and/or needlepoint.’”
Mr. Krabs sobbed. “Oh, curse you, fine print!”
Out in the dining area, the crowd of hungry customers was still chanting. “Re-fund…. Re-fund…. Re-fund….”
Mr. Krabs looked determined. “I’ve never given a refund in me life. And I’m not about to start TODAY!”
He burst into the dining room and told the angry mob that Plankton was the one who had taken the Krabby Patties away from them. SpongeBob tried to tell his boss that Plankton hadn’t taken the secret formula, but Mr. Krabs ignored him. He led the furious customers out of the Krusty Krab and over to the Chum Bucket to get Plankton.
SpongeBob was left standing alone in the Krusty Krab. “But Plankton didn’t do it,” he said.
In the Chum Bucket, Plankton was telling Karen what had happened. “I had the secret formula right in my greedy little mitts, and then POOF! It just disappeared!”
The mob burst into his restaurant, led by Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs grabbed Plankton and carried him outside.
“All right, Plankton,” Mr. Krabs said menacingly. “We’d like to have a word with you….”
Mr. Krabs roughly threw Plankton to the ground. Squidward, the starving customers, and Karen gathered around.
“Heh, heh,” Plankton managed to chuckle. “You all look very hungry. Can I get anybody a Chum Burger?”
Mr. Krabs leaned over Plankton. “Enough with the niceties, Plankton,” he snarled. “This is the last time I’m gonna ask you: Where is me formuler?”
Plankton tried to scoot away from his enemy. “I told you, Krabs! I don’t have it!”
“Wrong answer,” Mr. Krabs said, lifting his foot to stomp Plankton.
“STOP!” cried a voice.
Mr. Krabs hesitated and looked around. He saw his fry cook. And he looked mad.
“All right, Plankton,” SpongeBob said with a growl. “I can’t do my job without that formula. And when I can’t do my job, I get mad. REAL mad!”
He kicked over a trash container. Then he quickly knelt down and cleaned up the garbage that had spilled all over the ground.
“Oh, sorry about that,” he said. He held up an empty can. “You guys have a recycling bin for this? No? Okay, I’ll just hang on to it and throw it away later.” He put the can in his pocket and stood up.
“All right, Mr. Krabs,” SpongeBob growled. “Let me get in on this!”
Plankton looked confused. “What’s going on around here?” he asked.
SpongeBob walked over to Plankton, pushing up his short white sleeves. “You may wanna stand back a little, Mr. Krabs,” he warned. “This could get messy.”
“Let’s hope so,” Mr. Krabs said.
SpongeBob leaned over and shoved his face close to Plankton’s. “So you won’t talk, eh, Plankton?” Plankton blinked. “I didn’t wanna have to do this …,” SpongeBob said.
He pulled out a bottle of bubble solution, unscrewed the cap, and removed the wand. Then he expertly dipped the wand in the soapy liquid.
“Here comes the pain,” SpongeBob said.
“Soap in the eye, eh?” Mr. Krabs said approvingly. “Diabolical.”
SpongeBob took a deep breath and pursed his lips. Plankton held up his tiny hands.
“No!” Plankton cried. “Stop! Don’t—”
SpongeBob blew a large, shiny bubble that surrounded Plankton completely. Mr. Krabs looked puzzled. “Wait,” he said. “That doesn’t look painful.”
SpongeBob turned to Mr. Krabs. “Mr. Krabs,” he explained. “You may not understand what I’m about to do today, but someday we’ll look back”—he jumped inside the bubble with Plankton—“and have a good laugh.”
As Mr. Krabs and the angry mob watched in disbelief, SpongeBob and Plankton floated up into the sky in their bubble.
“Hey!” cried one of the angry customers. “They’re getting away!”
“Sorry, Mr. Krabs!” SpongeBob called down from the rising bubble.
Mr. Krabs shook his fist up at SpongeBob. “So you’ve been runnin’ the long con on me, eh? All these years you’ve been workin’ for PLANKTON!”
“They’re in CAHOOTS!” shouted an angry customer.
“Yeah, I guess that’s the short way of saying it,” Mr. Krabs admitted. Then he jabbed his claw up toward the floating bubble. “STOP THAT BUBBLE!”
He and the mob ran after the bubble on the ground. They even launched one customer at the bubble. He hit it and held on for dear life.
“Please tell me there’s something soft under me,” he said to SpongeBob and Plankton.
“Um … nope,” they answered.
He fell off, screaming.
“SPONGEBOB!” Mr. Krabs shouted as he watched the bubble disappear into the distance. “You were like an underpaid son to me! I would’ve expected Squidward to stab me in the back …”
At the sound of his name, Squidward woke from a brief snooze. “Huh? What? Huh?” he mumbled.
“… but SpongeBob?” Mr. Krabs continued. “Me most trusted employee?” He took a deep breath. “You know what this means, Mr. Squidward?”
“We get the rest of the day off?” Squidward asked hopefully.
“No,” Mr. Krabs said, shaking his head. “This be but a harbinger of what I fear lies ahead. For you, for me, for all of Bikini Bottom. The Krabby Patty is what ties us all together, and without it, there will be a complete breakdown of social order! A war of all against all! Dark times are ahead! Dark times indeed!”
Squidward scrunched up his face. “Seriously?” he asked. “Aren’t you overreacting a bit?”
But when he looked around, Squidward saw that Bikini Bottom had already erupted into flames. People were looting stores and fighting each other over scraps of food. The town had become a violent, ugly place. And Squidward and Mr. Krabs themselves were suddenly wearing leather outfits that made them look tough.
“Welcome to the apocalypse, Mr. Squidward,” Mr. Krabs said dramatically. “I hope you like leather.”
“I prefer suede,” Squidward said.
Surrounded by attentive seagulls, Burger Beard read from the old book he’d stolen. He held it open to a picture of Bikini Bottom in flames. “‘And so,’” he said. “‘Bikini Bottom became an apocalyptic cesspool forevermore.’”
He snapped the book shut. “The end.”
The seagulls were very upset. “What?” they cried. “No! The book has more pages than that!”
Humming and singing to himself, Burger Beard strolled over to the ship’s wheel and steered.
A seagull landed on the wheel and said, “There is NO WAY that’s the end of the story!”
“Well, of course it is!” Burger Beard insisted. “I’ll show you. Turn around.”
The seagull turned, and Burger Beard plucked a feather from its tail. “Hey!” the seagull cried. “I need that to fly, you jerk!”
Burger
Beard dipped the point of the feather in black ink and wrote THE END in his book. Not wanting the story to end, one of the seagulls tried to pull the book out of his hands.
“Gimme that book!” the seagull squawked. He accidentally tore loose the page that Burger Beard had written on.
“HEY!” Burger Beard shouted. “Let go of that!”
The pirate scrambled to grab back the torn page, but he slipped and fell on the deck. KLUNK!
The seagull flapped its wings and flew off the ship with the page in its beak. Then it dropped the sheet into the water. “I shouldn’t be littering,” the seagull admitted, “but that ending was GARBAGE!”
Burger Beard jumped to his feet and started swatting at the seagulls. “Why, you sky scum!”
The page with THE END on it slowly sank into the briny depths….
In Bikini Bottom, things had gone from bad to worse. Chaos reigned everywhere. Lawlessness ruled the streets. Fires, robbery, people bumping into each other without saying “Excuse me”—you name it.
Somehow Patrick didn’t notice. He strolled into the Krusty Krab and cheerfully said, “Good morning, Squidward! I’ll have the usual … with cheese.”
Squidward shook his head. He couldn’t believe Patrick hadn’t heard the news. “We’re out of Krabby Patties right now.”
“Out of Krabby Patties?” Patrick said, surprised. “Okay, then, just gimme a double Krabby Patty.”
Mr. Krabs ran out of the kitchen, waving his claws in the air. Flames shot out of the kitchen door. “Patrick!” he shouted. “THERE ARE NO KRABBY PATTIES!”
“No Krabby Patties? NOOOOOOOO!” he wailed.
SpongeBob peered through the bubble as it flew over his hometown. “Look what’s become of Bikini Bottom!” he cried. “We really need to get that formula back!”
“Hmm,” Plankton mused. “Get the secret formula, you say? Excuse me. I need a moment.”
He turned away from SpongeBob and talked to himself. “With that formula, I could rule the WORLD!” He muffled his evil laughter as best he could. Then he turned back to SpongeBob.
SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Junior Novel Page 2
