by Brian Elling
CARTOON NETWORK BOOKS
Penguin Young Readers Group
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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TM and © Cartoon Network. (s16). All rights reserved. Published in 2016 by Cartoon Network Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. Printed in the USA.
eBook ISBN 9780515156874
Version_1
Table of Contents
Copyright
Title Page
A New Way To Walk
Bewere!
Clarence’s Dream Job
Trophy Hunters
Clarence’s Pet
Weather or Not
Clarence, Sumo, and Jeff walked home from Belson’s house. Belson lived far away, so it was a really, really long walk.
“We’ve been walking forever,” Sumo said with a sigh.
Clarence kicked a loose pebble into the gutter. “I know, right? Walking is always the same. This foot, that foot. This foot, that foot. Even running is just walking but faster.”
“We could skip home. That’s different,” Jeff said, hopping down the sidewalk. Clarence and Sumo skipped with him for a few steps and then stopped.
“I only skip when I’m in a magical forest,” Clarence announced. “But what if we found a new way to walk? Like this!” First, Clarence walked pigeon-toed. Then he walked on his tippy-toes. Then he took giant steps. Then he took a million tiny steps. He even walked backward.
Sumo bounced down the street next to him, monkey-style. “Nah, I feel like these walks have all been done before. Maybe we should try walking on our hands?”
Clarence saw Mr. Reese sitting in an old chair on the lawn of his apartment building. He sat next to a sign that read YARD SALE! “Hey, you guys! Maybe Mr. Reese has something to make walking more fun.”
Clarence, Sumo, and Jeff ran up the driveway. The yard was full of all kinds of things with price tags on them. There was one of those exercise bikes with handles that move back and forth, a workout bench with safety bars so people can’t drop weights on their faces, brand-new running shoes with gold laces, and a shriveled basketball.
Mr. Reese was surprised to see them. He jumped up from his rickety chair. “Oh hello, boys. Can I interest you in some brand-new exercise equipment?”
“Is this brand-new?” Sumo asked as he pulled a wig out of a box. The wig looked like it could fit Mr. Reese.
“How’d that get in there? That’s not for sale!” Mr. Reese grabbed the wig and hid it behind his back.
Clarence looked around at all the junk in the yard. Then he saw a really big trampoline with two pairs of roller skates next to it. The trampoline had a safety net around its edge so no one could fall out.
Clarence smiled. “I think I just found a new way to walk!”
He ran over to Mr. Reese. “Mr. Reese, how much for the roller skates AND the trampoline?”
Mr. Reese shifted his balance from one foot to the other. “Well, let’s see. Those are some quality products. How about one whole dollar?”
“Throw in the wig and you got yourself a deal,” said Sumo.
Mr. Reese frowned. “Sumo, I told you. The wig isn’t for sale. It has . . . sentimental value.”
Sumo shrugged his shoulders. “Fine! Pay the man.”
Jeff took a crisp dollar bill out of his pocket and gave it to Mr. Reese. Mr. Reese was excited. He ran inside the house shouting, “My first sale! Woo-hoo!”
Clarence got to work on his invention right away. He grabbed a roller skate, put it on the leg of the trampoline, and tied the laces as tight as he could. He even used double knots.
Then he did the same on the other three legs. It looked like the trampoline was wearing shoes. In a few minutes, Clarence’s creation was finished. “Welcome aboard my New Way of Walking Machine!”
Jeff was hesitant. “Okay, I guess we should give it a whirl,” he said as he climbed inside the trampoline’s safety net. Sumo climbed over the net, launched onto the trampoline, and started bouncing up and down immediately. “I love it! This is the best thing since illegal fireworks!”
Clarence gave the trampoline a big push down the driveway, then jumped aboard. “Here we go!”
He zipped the safety net so they couldn’t fall out. The trampoline rolled down Mr. Reese’s driveway, picking up speed fast!
Clarence and Sumo bounced as high as they could. “This is awesome,” Sumo yelled, flying higher and higher. It was like he was on the moon! Clarence bounced up next to him. “Look at me, I’m air-walking!” he shouted, kicking his feet like he was running in midair.
Jeff held on tight to the safety net as the trampoline zoomed toward the street. “Aggghghghhhhhhhhh! Is there a way to steer this thing?”
“Lean left!” yelled Sumo.
Clarence, Sumo, and Jeff leaned left. The trampoline turned out of the driveway and rolled down the sidewalk.
Clarence did a belly flop. “Come on, Jeff! Jump!”
“Here I goooooo!” Jeff let go and hopped up and down on the trampoline. But he couldn’t keep his balance. “Woaaaahhhhh! Everything’s moving! Outside of me! And inside!” Jeff bounced around like a dented Ping-Pong ball.
Sumo did a double backflip. “Good idea! Let’s try to make ourselves throw up!”
Sumo and Clarence ran in circles on the trampoline and the whole thing started to spin. Now they were spinning while they were rolling and bouncing.
“It’s like all the best carnival rides in one!” Clarence yelled to the sky.
The trampoline zoomed down the sidewalk, faster and faster. It zoomed past the playground. It zoomed past Clarence’s mom’s hair salon. Then the fire department, the library, and the pet store. It zoomed right out of Aberdale!
The pavement at the edge of town ended, and the trampoline zipped down a dirt road. Jeff pointed ahead. “We’re headed for the Old Mill Duck Pond!”
“Uh-oh! I think I forgot to invent one thing,” yelled Clarence, his hair flapping in the wind.
“What’s that?” Sumo screamed.
“Brakes!!!!!!!!”
“Aggghghghghghh!” they all screamed as the trampoline rolled down a huge hill and onto a dock. The trampoline hit the posts at the end and bounced them right into the pond! Ducks flew all over. Quack! Quack!
SPLASH!!!
Clarence, Sumo, and Jeff swam to shore and got out of the water. They were soaked!
“That was so fun!” screamed Jeff. “I felt like I was a junior astronaut at space camp!”
Sumo dumped water out of his sneakers. “Yeah, I didn’t even miss not getting to throw up! We should find even more new ways to walk.”
Then Clarence looked up the hill, toward home. Aberdale was far, far away. It was just a tiny speck on the horizon. “Don’t worry, Sumo! I think we have lots of time to do that.”
Clarence, Sumo, and Jeff looked at the road ahead and laughed. Then they started the lo
ng walk home.
It was a dark and stormy night. Clarence, Jeff, and Sumo were watching a movie. The scariest movie ever . . . Wereturtles III. It was about people who grow shells and turn into evil snapping turtles!
“I’m so scared,” said Clarence. “But I think I like it.”
Sumo and Clarence sat on the edge of the couch. They couldn’t take their eyes off the television. Jeff hid behind a cushion. He could barely watch.
A scientist’s face twitched on the TV. “Oh no! It’s happening again! I’m turning into a turtle!” The scientist fell to the floor. His apron ripped. His body grew a shell. His skin turned all scaly. His neck stretched and his eyes turned green. “Ahgghghgghghh!”
Clarence and Sumo jumped. Jeff jumped even higher. They were super-scared! Clarence turned to Jeff. “This movie is so fun. I wish I could be a wereturtle!”
“Well, you can’t, Clarence. Because wereturtles aren’t real,” snapped Jeff.
Sumo leaned close to Jeff. “Yes, they are! My brother said people turn into all kinds of things when there’s a full moon.”
Jeff looked out the window. The moon was full. Really full. He swallowed hard. “Gulp!”
“You mean like weresnails, weregiraffes, or werepigeons?” asked Clarence.
“Happens all the time,” Sumo said confidently. “I heard that one time, one of the lunch aides at school turned into a werepear and ended up in a salad.”
Jeff hugged his couch cushion even tighter. “None of that has been proven by scientists.”
Sumo snorted. “Yeah, because scientists are wereturtles. Have you learned nothing from this movie?”
Suddenly, a scary rumbling sound came from the couch—they all froze in terror. “All this scariness is making me hungry.” Clarence laughed, patting his growling tummy. “Time for more Pizza Poppers!”
“Or are they werepoppers?” Sumo teased.
“Cut it out, Sumo!” Jeff shrieked.
Clarence walked into the kitchen, where Chad was reading a magazine. He looked up. “How’s the movie?”
“It’s really good,” said Clarence. “But I’d like it more if Sumo and Jeff would stop arguing about whether werestuff exists or not.”
Chad flipped the page of his magazine. “I guess they’ve never seen a grown man attacked by his salad.”
“Hmm. Maybe we can teach them a lesson,” said Clarence.
Chad grinned. “Seeing is believing!”
While Sumo and Jeff watched the movie, Clarence sauntered in from the kitchen with the tray of Pizza Poppers. “Who wants some?”
“I do,” said Sumo. “Me too,” said Jeff. They ran over to Clarence.
But when they got close, Clarence dropped the tray of Pizza Poppers and fell to floor. “Oh no! It’s happening again!” Clarence gasped. His face twitched! He curled up on the floor and pulled at his T-shirt, like he was about to rip himself out of it. “Stay away!”
Then the lights went out!
Sumo and Jeff clung to each other. They were both shaking in their sneakers.
Lightning crashed! Thunder clapped! In the moonlight, Jeff and Sumo saw a strange, shadowy figure on the floor, right where Clarence used to be. It was huge. It had hair all over its body. And it was wearing Clarence’s T-shirt!
Jeff and Sumo screamed. “Aghgghgghh!”
Then the figure spoke. “What’s so scary, guys? It’s just me, Clarence.” But the figure’s voice didn’t sound like Clarence’s. It sounded like a terrifying monster’s.
The creature emerged from the shadows. Sumo pointed at the monster in front of him. “Oh no! Clarence turned into a . . . wereChad!”
Jeff backed away from the wereChad. “Stay away! Stay away from me.”
“But I’m hungry for brains!” The wereChad growled, stomping closer and closer to the boys.
Sumo backed up against the wall. “Okay, big guy! Take it easy!”
The wereChad crept closer. “Who are you calling ‘big guy’?”
Jeff cowered in the corner. “He didn’t mean big as in BIG. He meant big, like you have a big personality! Hee-hee. Yeah, that’s what he meant. Please don’t eat us.”
But it was too late. The wereChad lunged at Sumo and Jeff. Sumo ducked and scrambled away. Jeff got caught in the wereChad’s hairy grasp. The monster lifted Jeff high in the air.
“Oh no! My brain! My beautiful square brain,” yelped Jeff.
Sumo dashed across the room, bounced on the couch, and flew into the air. He landed on the wereChad’s back. “Don’t eat my friend!” he cried, covering the wereChad’s eyes with his hands.
“Whoa, I can’t see, little bro,” said the wereChad. Then Jeff wiggled out of the wereChad’s grasp and stomped on his foot! “Owww!”
The wereChad hopped on one foot around the room, with Sumo on his back. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” He knocked over the lamp. He stumbled over the coffee table and spilled popcorn on the carpet. He knocked the paintings off the walls. He even got his foot stuck in one of the planters!
Clarence ran into the living room from the kitchen and turned the lights back on. “Surprise! We scared you!” yelled Clarence.
Sumo and Jeff froze, in shock. They looked at the wereChad in Clarence’s T-shirt. Then they looked at Clarence, who had no shirt on. His bare belly shone in the moonlight.
Clarence smiled. “You want to know how? You want to know what we did?”
Sumo and Jeff were silent. They looked like they were about to faint.
Clarence bounced around the room, reenacting the whole scene. “Okay, I’ll tell you! Chad turned off the lights, and then I gave him my T-shirt, and then, um, he pretended to be me but as a wereChad! And then we scared you! We scared you so good! You should have seen your faces; they were all like . . . Aghghhhhh!” Clarence stuck his tongue out and made the silliest face he could.
Sumo climbed down from Chad’s back. “I knew that.”
Jeff breathed for the first time in minutes. “Me too,” he chirped. “Everyone knows werestuff isn’t real.”
The front door swung open. A giant hunchbacked creature was standing in the rain!
Sumo, Jeff, Chad, and Clarence all jumped and clung to each other! “It’s a wereturtle!” screamed Clarence.
The creature stepped into the house. It wasn’t a wereturtle. It was Clarence’s mom. She was holding a big flat box. “Pizza’s here!”
The guys looked at each other. “We knew that!” they all said at the same time.
“Or is it a werepizza?” teased Clarence’s mom. She opened and closed the pizza box like it was a giant mouth.
Clarence, Jeff, Sumo, and Chad all screamed louder then they’d ever screamed before. “AHGHGHGGHGHGHGH!”
Clarence ran inside in the house. “Mom, Mom! Guess what happened at school today?”
Clarence’s mom turned off the kitchen faucet. “Okay. Let me guess. You got seven chicken nuggets instead of six because two of them were stuck together?”
“Better!” said Clarence. “It was Career Day. We all drew pictures of what we want to be when we grow up.”
Clarence handed his picture to his mom.
She studied the drawing. “Oh, I see. This is very . . . ah . . . impressive.” She rotated it. Then she rotated it again. She couldn’t tell which way was up.
The picture had all kinds of scribbles on it. There were exploding cars, crushed buildings, and army men shooting lasers. In the center of the drawing, there was a huge lizard with flames coming out of its mouth. The lizard had a face that looked like Clarence’s.
“You want to be a fire-breathing dragon that eats the city?” his mom asked.
“At first! But Ms. Baker said to pick something easier. So I decided on president of the backyard.” Then Clarence flipped the page over. “See?”
On the other side, there was a stick figure of Clarence wearin
g a bow tie. He was standing in the backyard. The yard was labeled BACKYARDLAND. It had its own flag and everything, just like a real country.
Clarence’s mom stuck the picture to the refrigerator with a magnet. “Well, it’s good to aim high!”
Then Sumo and Jeff showed up at the back door. Clarence’s mom slid it open for them.
“Hi, Ms. Wendell. I’m going to be a banker when I grow up,” said Jeff.
“And I’m going to test waterslides!” said Sumo.
Clarence’s mom gave them a double thumbs-up. “That’s great, you guys.”
“Mom, Ms. Baker said careers take lots of practice, so is it okay if I go outside to start my new nation?” asked Clarence.
“As long as you don’t hurt yourself, Mr. President.” She chuckled.
Clarence straightened his T-shirt before opening the sliding-glass door. “I could get used to hearing that.”
He and Sumo ran out to the backyard. Jeff tagged along after them. “Ooh! I hope we get to make our own passports!” whispered Jeff as he closed the door behind him.
Clarence looked around the yard. The sun was shining. The birds chirped. He took a deep breath. What a great day to be president, he thought to himself.
Then he turned to Sumo and proclaimed in a low, deep voice, “Raise the flag!” He even sounded like a president!
“Aye, aye, Chief,” Sumo said, saluting his new leader. Sumo took an old rag and drew a Clarence face on it. He put the rag on a stick and stuck it in the ground.
Clarence stood in front of the chicken coop. “Okay, time for the Backyardland pledge of allegiance.” He put his right hand over his stomach. Sumo did the same. Jeff sighed and joined them.
Clarence took a deep breath. “I pledge allegiance to the United States of Backyardland, and to the chicken coop for which it stands—one nation, in the middle, with grass and liberty for all. The end!”
Then Clarence, Sumo, and Jeff looked at each other. “Now what?” asked Jeff.
“I guess now I do president-type stuff,” replied Clarence. “You know, like stop wars and say things like . . . hear ye, hear ye!”
