David Baldacci - Fries Alive

The first book in the Freddy and the French Fries series, 2005

To Spencer and Collin, my two favorite Fries.

FREDDY T. FUNKHOUSER stood at the door of the Burger Castle and scratched his ear, which was a little difficult since he was wearing a chicken costume. He rubbed his beak and practiced his clucking as he waited for customers. His father, Alfred Funkhouser, insisted that Freddy greet each customer that came into the Funkhouser family’s restaurant with a welcoming “cluck-cluck.”

“Pow-pow-pow!” said Alfred Funkhouser as he rolled by on skates, dressed in his tomato costume, shooting seeds from the automatic seed shooters attached to his forearms. The seed shooter was one of Alfred’s many strange inventions. “Take cover, incoming. Ack-ack-ack!” cried out Alfred as he fired all over the place.

“Better save the ammo for the paying customers, Dad,” Freddy said as he patiently picked the tiny seeds off his wings.

“Right-O, Freddy. How many customers have we had today?”

“That would be, like, zero,” said Freddy’s thirteen-year-old sister, Nancy, as she flounced by in her ketchup-bottle costume. An aspiring actress, the tall, skinny Nancy Funkhouser flounced dramatically everywhere, swishing her flaming red hair this way and that. She had a large trunk of costumes in her bedroom she had gotten from an old theater and dressed up in crazy outfits all the time. She constantly spouted dialogue from plays, movies, TV, and commercials.

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” cried out Nancy to an invisible audience. The five Guacamole brothers, who worked at the restaurant dressed as French fries, looked up, sniggered, and went back to their card playing and magazine reading.

“Cluck-cluck,” replied Freddy, staring at his sister and tapping his beak with his left wing. “Cluck-cluck, here I am, O Nanny Boo-Boo. Herefore art I am.”

Freddy and his Dad sometimes called her “Nanny Boo-Boo” because when he was very little, Freddy would run to his big sister when he got hurt and say, “Nanny, Boo-Boo.” Even though he was nine years old now, Freddy still called her that when he wanted to make her mad. He considered making his sister miserable one of the most important jobs he had, because she certainly tried to make his life miserable every chance she got.

“Hmmpph,” she snorted. “You’ve ruined my concentration. I can’t possibly work under these conditions,” she complained.

“You’re not working right now,” pointed out Freddy.

“Duh. We don’t have any customers. They’re all over there cramming dead cows into their mouths.”

Nancy pointed her bottle top across the street to the enormous and fancy burger restaurant owned by the Spanker family. Patty Cakes, which served everything from burgers to cakes, was far more than a restaurant. The place had its own Ferris wheel, roller coaster, splash rides, movie theater, video arcade, and lots more. Their competitor’s sign had a large plastic charcoal hamburger patty sitting on top of a pink cake. The patty and cake logo was on everything, from the staff uniforms to advertisements in the paper to the Patty Cakes blimp that glided all over town. The Spankers drove a big pink Cadillac that played the ditty: “Patty-cake, patty-cake, Spanker man, follow us, follow us to Spanker Land.”

It made Freddy want to puke every time he heard it.

“Beef – it’s what’s for dinner,” said Nancy dramatically, and then fell to the floor in a moving death scene before standing and taking a bow. “Thank you, thank you,” she murmured. “No, no encore, really, not another encore, my adoring fans. Fifteen is enough. Well, perhaps just one more.”

Freddy could only shake his head. Of fifty million sisters he could have had, he got her. He said, “I’ve performed a rigorous calculation and concluded that the fat and sodium content of a number six deluxe special at Patty Cakes is equal to eating four fatted calves and five pounds of salt.” Freddy liked to use big words when he talked about scientific stuff.

“Right-o, Freddy,” agreed his father. “I’ve made the same calculation. Not very healthy fare.”

“But that’s why everyone goes there, Dad,” explained his daughter, “because it’s bad for you and grease tastes good.” She performed a little tap dance and squirted ketchup out of her costume’s head. “Good to the last drop,” she recited to her adoring fans.

“It doesn’t taste half as good as Dad’s soybean and tofu burgers or carrot and eggplant hot dogs,” Freddy shot back. “Or how about the fat-free fries that make your hair grow?”

Alfred Funkhouser piped in, “And don’t forget the Vroom shakes, which increase brain cell function fourteen-and-a-half percent on average, according to my latest tests.” He searched the pockets of his tomato costume. “Now where did I put those results?”

“Well, the brussels-sprout-and-cauliflower doughless pizza gave me gas,” replied Nancy.

“That’s what they invented air fresheners for, dear,” said her father.

“What we need,” said Freddy, “is to get the word out and let people know about us. The Spankers have commercials all the time on TV, and they have people passing out coupons on all the streets. We should be doing that too.”

“You doof! All that costs money – money we don’t have,” said his sister.

“That’s just not fair. Our food is lots better than theirs, and it’s good for you too.”

“That’s why our float in the Founders’ Day parade is so important,” Alfred said. “It’ll help to remind everyone in town about the Burger Castle.”

“It’ll be the best float ever!” shouted Freddy. “I’ve been working on something top secret in my lab for it.”

“What is it?” asked his father.

“I can’t tell you yet, Dad, it’s a surprise.”

Nancy said, “I thought I’d act out all the plays of Shakespeare while we’re driving along the parade route. You know, to give the crowd something really special.”

Her father scratched his chin. “All of Shakespeare’s plays, Nanny Boo-Boo? Umm, the parade route’s not that long.”

“Dad, my name’s Nancy, remember?” she scolded. “Don’t worry, I’m going to talk really fast. And you never know; I might even get discovered along the way.”

“Discovered? Like by the people from the nuthouse?” piped in Freddy. “Does that mean I can have your room when they take you away in the straitjacket with duct tape over your mouth?”

“Hmmpph,” said Nancy as she flounced away with a squirt of ketchup aimed at her little brother.

A few minutes later Freddy walked outside to inspect the Burger Castle sign that hung across the front of the restaurant. The project he was working on for the float competition was based on the sign, and studying the sign helped him think about how the float design should look. The Burger Castle had once been a Laundromat made to look like an old castle complete with drawbridge and turrets. When the Funkhousers bought it, the turrets were sagging like frowning faces and its walls were crumbling. The floors were uneven, the doors didn’t open, and there were few windows. It was very dark inside.

The tall, thin Alfred Funkhouser had rubbed his sharp chin as he stared at the grand wreck for the first time. He then whipped out a level and plumb line and, using a thingamabob that looked like something very dangerous if it were thrown at you, he made a calculation. “It’s three-quarters of an inch from total collapse. It’s perfectly perfect!” he proclaimed, putting a hand through his jet black hair and rubbing a spot off his glasses.