David Baldacci - Fries Alive

“What about the Fries?” screamed Freddy over the claps of thunder.

“We can always make more. But there’s only two of us.”

Both boys jumped in the water and swam for their lives. Freddy looked back as he was swimming. The raft was heading right for the big wave.

“Fries!” screamed Freddy. He turned around in the water and started swimming toward the raft, but the current was so strong that the raft was pulling farther and farther away from him.

At that instant a bolt of lightning so big it looked like a wall of electricity coming down from the heavens hit the raft full force. A split second later the wave washed over the Fries, pushing the inflatable raft underneath the water. There were no more Fries. There was no more anything.

And then the wave kept on coming, right at Freddy!

“Swim, Freddy, swim!” called out Howie, who was already on the shore and waving to his friend.

Freddy took one last look at where the Fries had been and then turned and swam as fast as he could. But still the wave grew closer and closer.

Howie danced along the shoreline, waving his hands and yelling, “Swim, SWIM!” He was so scared he kept stuffing cheese cubes in his mouth between screams.

But Freddy couldn’t swim any faster than he was. The wave was now twenty feet high and right on top of him.

“NOOOO!” screamed Howie.

“NNOOOOO!” yelled Freddy even louder.

The wave crashed right on top of Freddy.

Howie stuffed all his remaining cheese cubes in his mouth, swallowed, and then passed out.

Freddy felt himself being pushed down, down, down into the cold grip of the water.

Oh boy, he thought, I’ve really done it now. If I survive this, Dad’s gonna kill me.

Then something grabbed Freddy and propelled him to the surface so fast that it felt like he was on a rocket. He exploded out of the water, and kept going up, up, up… And then he was going down, down, down. And he landed on something very soft and very warm.

“Is he dead?” said a voice.

“Nah, he’s going to be just fine, better than fine, absolutely terrific in fact,” exclaimed a very happy-sounding voice.

“I’m sure he’s dead,” said a gloomy voice.

“Why do you say that?” asked another voice.

“Because nothing good has ever happened to me, that’s why,” replied the gloomy voice.

Freddy finally managed to open his eyes. Now he knew he was dead.

All he could see were colors, swirling colors, right before his eyes. It was pretty, but sort of nauseating at the same time. He sat up, his eyes still not focused. He rubbed them but he still saw rainbows of color.

“I told you he was alive,” chirped the happy voice.

“Hey, what’s going on up there?” bellowed a deep voice.

A very authoritative voice declared, “I believe that the young man will fully recover posthaste. There seems to be no permanent damage done and all neuromuscular systems appear to be functioning normally.”

“Yeah, but is he going to be okay?” asked the deep voice.

Freddy’s eyes finally focused and he gaped.

Five-no, six faces and ten-no, twelve eyeballs looked back at him.

Freddy screamed. And then they screamed. And then Freddy smiled, really, really big. He was excited, not scared. They were his Fries, and they had come to life! There was Ziggy, the yellow Fry, and Theodore, the blue Fry, and Curly, the green Fry, and… He stared at the red Fry. It had two heads and only one body. Freddy started jumping up and down.

“I did it! I did it!” he yelled.

“Hey, that tickles,” said the deep voice.

Freddy looked under his feet and saw that the thing he was standing on was purple. He raced to the side of whatever they were on and looked over.

“Hey, there,” said the deep voice.

Freddy was standing on the purple Fry’s enormous stomach.

“How’d you make yourself into a raft?” asked Freddy.

“I’m not sure. It just seemed like a good idea, and then it just happened.”

Freddy beamed. “Potato-nanotechnology – you just can’t beat it.” Freddy held on tight as the storm passed over them, rocking the purple boat and soaking them with rain.

Freddy rubbed his eyes clear and looked over to shore and saw Howie lying there. “Hey, Howie, are you okay?” he yelled.

Howie slowly came to, looked at the Fries, and promptly fainted again.

Freddy felt a tug on his shirt.

“What were you doing at the bottom of the lake?” asked the small yellow Fry.

“I was trying to bring you to life and got hit by a big wave.” They looked at him in confusion. “You see, you’re my Fries,” said Freddy. “I made you.”

The blue Fry adjusted his thick glasses that made him look very smart. “You created us? How very interesting.”

“And you each have lots of special features,” Freddy continued.

The blue Fry smiled knowingly. “I myself feel quite brilliant.”

“I just feel hungry,” moaned the purple Fry, and the floor moved under their feet. “There, did you hear that rumbling? I have to eat forty-three-and-a-half times a day just to sustain my present figure.”

“But I don’t understand… I thought my experiment failed,” said a confused Freddy. “The million jiggy-watts wasn’t enough -” Just then there was another flash of lightning. And then Freddy realized what had happened.

“The lightning bolt that hit the raft must have had lots more electricity than a million jiggy-watts. That must have brought you to life.”

Wow, thought Freddy. This is the greatest experiment ever. This is history! I’ll be famous! And this might only be the beginning. I’ll be on the cover of every magazine; I’ll be on TV. And if I get really, really famous, I might even have my own cartoon show…

He was lightheaded with the possibilities. Serious and important people would ask him things like, “Now, Dr. Funkhouser, what is your view on the state of the world, sir?” And he’d say something clever like, “Well, Mr. Ambassador, I personally think a ton of chocolate chip cookies in every household would improve the state of the world. That and duct-taping the mouths of every big sister in America.”

“You mean to say,” said the blue Fry, “that the lightning bolt interacted with us, causing a reaction of enormous kinetic energy, and now we have discernible motor and intellectual skills as a result of this spontaneous elemental combustion?”

“Yes,” shouted Freddy gleefully.

“Wow,” said the purple Fry. “And here I thought that big spark that fried my butt had made us come to life.”

“And I named you too,” added Freddy breathlessly.

The little yellow Fry looked up and asked in an excited voice, “What’s my name?”

“You’re Ziggy.”

The yellow Fry swelled up and his face contorted into something really frightening. “ZIGGY!” cried the yellow Fry so loudly that the air coming out of his mouth made Freddy’s hair stick straight up.

Freddy looked at the small Fry fearfully. “Don’t you like it?”

The yellow Fry returned to normal size and smiled pleasantly. “Oh, I think it’s really swell, thanks.”

Freddy swallowed nervously. How could Ziggy go from furious to nice so quickly? Had he mis-wired the yellow Fry’s brain?

“And me?” asked the tall blue Fry. “What’s my moniker?”

“You’re Theodore,” said Freddy. “And you’re Wally,” he said, leaning over the side of the purple raft.