March of the Mini Beasts

by Ada Hopper

  “In a second, Mom,” said Gabe. He scanned the kitchen for the mini beasts. But all seemed normal.

  Juanita suddenly started waving her arms and giggling. “Oooh, oooh, ahh, ahh!”

  “Honey, could you see what Juanita wants?” Gabe’s mom asked.

  Gabe followed Juanita’s eyes to the ceiling. Swinging from the light above his mother’s head was the tiny chimp.

  Except, it wasn’t so tiny anymore. It was now the size of a pigeon.

  Dr. B.’s invention had worked after all. The mini beasts were alive . . . and they were growing!

  Chapter 7

  March of the Mini Beasts

  * * *

  Gabe couldn’t believe his eyes. His once pocket-sized toy was now a medium-sized chimp!

  When his mom wasn’t looking, Gabe tried to grab it. But the chimp swung out of his reach!

  “Oooooh, ahh, ahh!” the not-so-mini beast cried.

  “What was that, honey?” Gabe’s mom asked.

  “Uh—I was just saying, ‘Oooohh, ahh, can’t wait for chocolate-chip pancakes!’ ”

  Gabe’s mom smiled. “Bueno. And there are bananas on the table too.”

  Bananas! thought Gabe. Perfect!

  Suddenly, the chimp swung in a wide arc and accidently knocked over Juanita’s sippy cup. Milk splattered all over.

  “Waaaaaaahhhh!” Juanita cried.

  “Oh, chiquita.” Gabe’s mom sighed. “Come on. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”

  Phew, thought Gabe. Saved by the spill.

  The moment they were gone, Gabe waved a banana for the chimp, and it eagerly jumped down.

  “Gotcha!” Gabe cried triumphantly. “One down, three to go.”

  Gabe turned . . . and found Cesar Jr. lapping up the spilled milk.

  He rolled his eyes. “Figures. Two down, two to go.”

  Just then the doorbell rang. It was Laura and Cesar.

  Cesar crouched down by his hippo. “What did you feed Cesar Jr.? He’s huge!”

  “Dr. B.’s invention worked,” Gabe said. “The mini beasts aren’t just alive. They’re growing!”

  “Where are the others?” Laura asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Gabe.

  “Stand by.” Cesar stared off into space, scanning his memory for the pages on the giraffe and elephant. “Giraffes like reaching for the tender foliage at the tops of trees. And elephants love water.”

  “The giraffe won’t be tall enough to reach the trees,” Laura observed. “It wouldn’t reach much higher than, say . . .”

  She pointed out the window.

  “My mother’s flower garden,” Gabe finished for her.

  The friends raced outside just in time to see the giraffe hopping to reach the low-hanging tulip leaves.

  “He’s jumping like I taught him!” Laura grinned. Thinking fast, she waggled a tree branch in front of the giraffe. It jumped over it, right into her waiting arms.

  “Now for the elephant,” Gabe declared. “Cesar said they like water. And I know a place that’s full of water all the time!”

  He led his friends around the corner of the house to the birdbath.

  Sure enough, there was the little elephant! Now the size of a small dog, it trumpeted merrily, spritzing water all over itself with its trunk.

  In one quick motion Gabe snatched the elephant from the birdbath. The elephant did not like that. It shot a spray of water right in Gabe’s face.

  “You have a way with mini beasts,” Cesar remarked.

  Gabe sighed. “We have to find Dr. B. before they get any bigger.”

  Just then Gabe’s mom stepped out onto the patio with Juanita.

  “Gabe, will you watch your sister while I finish the pancakes?”

  “Sure, Mom,” called Gabe, hiding his not-so-mini beasts behind his back.

  The moment Gabe’s mom went back inside, Juanita began laughing and pointing again.

  “Uh-oh,” said Gabe. “The last time she did that, she saw . . .”

  “Puppy!” Juanita cried.

  The friends looked where she was pointing and gasped.

  Juanita hadn’t spotted a puppy.

  She’d spotted Stego racing across the lawn.

  Dr. Bunsen’s crazy growth ray had hit Stego, too!

  Chapter 8

  A Dino-Sized Problem

  * * *

  “Quick, grab him!” Gabe cried frantically.

  The friends sprinted to catch the dino.

  “It’s slide tackle time!” exclaimed Cesar.

  Cesar made a wild dive for the dinosaur . . . and Cesar Jr. slipped from his grasp. Now the hippo was loose too!

  “PUPPIES!” cheered Juanita.

  “I can use your mom’s garden hose to lasso them,” Laura shouted.

  She grabbed the rubber hose and tried to throw a loop around Stego’s horns. But the dinosaur’s spikes pierced the tubing. Water sprayed everywhere, knocking the mini beasts from Gabe’s and Laura’s arms.

  Now all five were on the loose!

  Juanita squealed in delight. “AHHH!”

  “Is everything all right out there?” Gabe’s mom called from the kitchen.

  Gabe felt like his head was going to explode. “Yeah, Mom!” he shouted.

  “This is a disaster,” he said to his friends. “What are we going to do?”

  “Stand back!” a voice cried behind them.

  Gabe turned just in time to see Dr. Bunsen racing into the backyard like a bizarre superhero, magnifying goggles in place and his white lab coat blowing in the breeze. He brandished a cannon-like machine with a net on the end.

  The friends jumped back just in time.

  “HUZZAH!” cried the doctor.

  He fired the machine, releasing a soft mesh net across the yard. In one fell swoop, all the mini beasts were wrangled, even Stego!

  The Data Set sat on the lawn, panting, exhausted, and stunned.

  Raising his goggles, the doctor broke into a huge grin. “It worked! They did indeed grow!”

  Back in Dr. Bunsen’s laboratory, there was a large pen for the beasts to scamper around in. Reunited with their zebra friend, the not-so-mini beasts rolled and wrestled.

  “Dr. Bunsen, did you figure out a way to fix this?” Laura asked.

  “Alas, no,” he admitted. “It seems the growth and life effects are quite irreversible. Based on my observations, the beasts will be full-size by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Laura. “We can’t raise real-life wild animals.”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes, it is quite a dilemma. I was hoping my three new—some might say ‘snoopy’—friends would have an idea. Can you think of anywhere that might take care of exotic animals?”

  “You mean a zoo?” Cesar joked.

  Gabe, Laura, and Dr. Bunsen stared at him.

  “Cesar, you’re a genius!” Laura cried. “We’ll take them to the zoo! They’ll be perfectly safe there.”

  Cesar blushed. Then he picked up one of the doctor’s chocolate bars and took a bite. “What can I say? With great appetite, comes great brain power.”

  Chapter 9

  Operation: Zoo!

  * * *

  The next morning four very ordinary-looking people pushed a very ordinary-looking stroller through Newtonburg Zoo. But underneath the pink blanket covering the stroller was a very, very unordinary-looking shape.

  Cesar peeked beneath it. The wide-eyed mini beasts stared back at him.

  “Tell me again why we can’t just give the animals to the zoo rather than sneaking them in?” complained Cesar.

  “Because they’ll want to know how we got ahold of a zebra, a giraffe, an elephant, a chimp, and a hippo,” Laura explained for the hundredth time. “You can’t adopt wild animals as pets.”

  “Or extinct animals,” Gabe said, worried. “Dr. B., what are we going to do about Stego?”

  “Never fear,” said the doctor. “I have an idea that will keep your young dinosaur friend quite safe. But f
or now we have a stealth mission to complete!”

  Gabe nodded. “Right. Cesar, are you ready with the zoo schedule?”

  “You know it,” said Cesar. He had gone to camp at the zoo the past three summers and knew the animal-feeding routines by heart.

  “Good,” said Gabe. “Let’s go over the plan. The workers open the pens to feed the animals on a set rotation each day. We’ll use Juanita’s stroller—modified to hold the mini beasts, thanks to Laura—to sneak our animals to the pen entrances. The workers will think the mini beasts wandered out and will take them into the pens.”

  “The elephants are first on the schedule,” said Cesar. “That’s where we should—hey! Don’t touch that!”

  A little girl was tugging at the pink stroller blanket. She stopped mid-pull.

  “Sorry,” said the girl’s mother. “She just loves babies! Do you mind if we take a peek at your adorable”—the mother eyed the unusual shape moving under the blanket—“bundle of joy?”

  “No time, I’m afraid.” The doctor stepped in. “Must be off. Animals to see, schedules to keep—oh, look! Another stroller!” He pointed, and when the mother turned, he and the Data Set zipped off!

  At the elephant pen, the friends waited among the crowd of visitors. Right on schedule, the workers came. Stealthily, Gabe and Laura maneuvered the stroller to the pen entrance. The moment no one was looking, Gabe eased the little elephant out from under the blanket. It stumbled forward, bumping into the leg of one of the workers.

  “Whoa!” The worker looked around, confused. “How did you get out here? Back into your pen with Mommy!”

  “It worked!” Gabe whispered to his friends. “Come on!”

  With the same sneaky skills, they returned the zebra, the giraffe, and the chimp. Last was Cesar Jr., the hippo.

  The friends watched as the workers filed into the pen. But when they turned to the stroller, they saw Cesar Jr. looking up at them.

  “Where’s the blanket?” cried Cesar.

  The toddler from before was standing next to the stroller clutching the blanket. Her mother stared wide-eyed at the mini hippo.

  “Is that . . . ?” she started.

  “Gee, don’t you just love your stuffed hippo?” Gabe exclaimed, shoving the tiny mini beast into Cesar’s arms. “It’s so funny how you push him in the stroller while Dad is changing our baby sister.”

  Cesar looked at the mother. “Yes,” he said, deadpan. “I love playing with stuffed toys.”

  Before the mother could reply, the friends scurried away. Blending into the thick crowd, they quickly slipped alongside the pen entryway and nudged Cesar Jr. toward one of the workers.

  “Well, hey there, little fella,” the worker said when he noticed the tiny hippo. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

  Happily, Cesar Jr. bounded into the pen with the other hippos.

  Gabe, Laura, Cesar, and Dr. Bunsen stood with the now empty stroller, beaming.

  “We did it, guys!” Gabe exclaimed. “We saved the mini beasts!”

  Chapter 10

  The Adventure of a Lifetime

  * * *

  The next morning the friends returned to Dr. Bunsen’s laboratory.

  “You never did tell me why you call yourselves the ‘Data Set,’ ” Dr. Bunsen commented. “What does it mean?”

  “Well, you see,” began Laura. “We’ve gathered enough data—”

  “It’s an acronym,” interrupted Gabe. His friends looked at him.

  “It stands for ‘Danger, Action, Trouble, Adventure!’ It’s kind of our thing.”

  “Yeah!” Cesar and Laura both exclaimed. “Exactly!”

  Dr. Bunsen nodded thoughtfully. “In light of our adventure, I’d say that’s an excellent description.”

  “But we still have Stego,” Gabe pointed out. “Can we help him?”

  A gleam came to the doctor’s eye. “I believe I have the perfect invention for our dino dilemma. Follow me!”

  The friends trooped after the doctor down the stairs of the mansion. To their amazement, the basement held another, even larger laboratory!

  “This is where I keep my prototypes,” the doctor explained. “For years I’ve been working on a time-travel portal. It works, but I haven’t had an opportunity to test it. I believe this is the perfect chance!”

  “A time-travel portal?” Gabe repeated. “You mean we’ll send Stego back to prehistoric times?”

  “Precisely!” said the doctor. “Where he’ll be with his own kind.”

  Gabe nodded. “I guess that is best.” But he looked a little sad.

  Laura placed a hand on his shoulder. “Think of it this way. Now Stego can be a real dinosaur. He’ll be happier than ever!”

  “You’re right,” Gabe said. He walked over to where Stego waited in a large terrarium, built by the doctor, munching on banana leaves.

  “Bye, buddy,” he said. “I’m going to miss you. But you gave us the adventure of a lifetime!” He looked to his friends. “Right, DATA Set?”

  They smiled. “Right!”

  “Okay!” said the doctor. “It’s off to a prehistoric home for Stego! And . . . huzzah!”

  The doctor pressed a glowing button on the wall. In a bright green flash, the dinosaur vanished and was whisked away to the Jurassic period.

  “Problem solved!” cheered the doctor. He waited for a response, but there was none.

  “DATA Set?” he asked again.

  The friends weren’t there. The only thing the doctor saw was an empty laboratory. No dinosaur. No Gabe, Laura, or Cesar.

  Small pops of electricity snapped from the time machine. The DATA Set were gone. “Oh, dear,” said Dr. Bunsen to himself. “I suppose I should have told them to stand back.”

  CHECK OUT THE NEXT DATA SET ADVENTURE!

  Fwoosh. A hot breeze rustled through the jungle tree leaves.

  Screech! A wild animal’s cry echoed in the distance.

  Rummmmmble.

  “What was that?” Laura whispered nervously.

  “That was my stomach,” Cesar admitted. “I should have eaten a bigger breakfast.”

  The friends rolled their eyes. But another wild animal cry rang out, and Laura, Gabriel, Cesar, and Stego the Stegosaurus huddled closer together.

  “Guys,” said Gabriel, “I don’t think we’re in Newtonburg anymore.”

  Gabe was right. These three whiz kids, known as the DATA Set, were indeed no longer in Newtonburg. The question was, where were they?

  Ada Hopper has been extremely inventive ever since she was little. There was nothing that a rubber band and some tweezers couldn’t fix, no question that couldn’t be answered by scouring the library, and no way she wasn’t escaping over that backyard fence! When not working, Ada enjoys karaoke, spending time with her family, and going on the occasional adventure.

  Sam Ricks grew up creating stories about toxic fruitcakes and peanut butter—snatching aliens. He is the illustrator of several books for young readers, including the DATA Set series. Sam earned his BA from Brigham Young University and his MA from the University of Baltimore. He, his wife, and their five children live in Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit Sam at SamRicks.com.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  First Little Simon hardcover edition April 2016. Copyright © 2016
by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. LITTLE SIMON is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and associated colophon is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by John Daly. The text of this book was set in Serifa.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hopper, Ada. March of the mini beasts / by Ada Hopper ; illustrated by Sam Ricks. – First Little Simon paperback edition. pages cm – (The DATA Set ; #1) Summary: “Three second-graders who love science get thrown in a wild spiral of adventures after meeting their reclusive neighbor, Dr. Gustav Bunsen. When Dr. Bunsen’s growth ray hits a crate of animal figurines, the toys not only start growing, but also come to life” — Provided by publisher. [1. Science—Fiction. 2. Inventions—Fiction. 3. Clubs—Fiction. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Ricks, Sam, illustrator. II. Title. PZ7.1.H66Mar 2016 [Fic]—dc23 2015009203

  ISBN 978-1-4814-5729-3 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-5728-6 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-5730-9 (eBook)