The Genius Files 2 Never Say Genius Read online

  DAN GUTMAN

  THE

  GENIUS

  FILES

  NEVER SAY

  GENIUS

  DEDICATION

  To Barbara Lalicki, Laura Arnold,

  Elyse Marshall, and all the folks at HarperCollins,

  who have been so supportive.

  EPIGRAPH

  “Every bad thing that happens in the world is good for somebody.”

  —Nobody said this. But somebody should have.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1. What the Heck Happened?

  2. You Want Fries with That?

  3. The Evil Archie Clone

  4. The First Cipher

  5. Unexpected Guests

  6. Let’s Kill Two

  7. “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough”

  8. Cruising Indiana

  9. Never Argue with a Grown-up

  10. On the Road to Paradise

  11. I Scream. You Scream.

  12. Duct Tape and Rock and Roll

  13. The Loud Family

  14. Preserving the Hoover Legacy

  15. The Next Cipher

  16. The Guy with the Black Cowboy Boots

  17. Y’all New to These Parts?

  18. The Spy Guy

  19. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

  20. Day at the Museum

  21. Over My Dead Body

  22. Till Death Do You Part

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Photos

  About the Author

  Note to the Reader

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?

  There were eight items on Coke McDonald’s To Do list on June 25. But having his body lowered into a vat of boiling oil was not one of them.

  SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PEP was on the list.

  DO A DUMP was on the list.

  WASH MY CLOTHES was on the list.

  CLEAN UP MY STUFF was on the list.

  But nothing about being lowered into a vat of boiling oil.

  And yet, oddly enough, having his body lowered into a vat of boiling oil—along with his sister, Pepsi—was the one thing that Coke McDonald was actually going To Do on June 25.

  Hold on for just a minute here. Before I tell you how Coke and Pep were lowered into a vat of boiling oil, you really need to read a book called The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable. Because if you didn’t read that book, this one is going to make no sense at all. It would be pointless. So get a copy of that book and read it. Then come back and start this one again.

  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

  Okay, did you read it?

  Liar!

  What do you want me to do, read it to you? You lazy bum! If you don’t want to read The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable, get the audio book. If you’re really lazy, you can just Google it and read the summary online. What do I have to do, tuck you into bed at night too? Sheesh. I’m busy. What’s the matter with you kids today?

  Fine, don’t read The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable. See if I care. Basically, this is what happened…

  (Deep breath)

  Coke and Pep—they’re twins—were walking home from their school in California when a mysterious guy wearing a bowler hat started chasing them in a golf cart. Some lady wearing all red named Mya appeared out of nowhere and threw an exploding Frisbee grenade to take out the bowler dude. But Coke and Pep had to jump off a cliff after Mya got hit in the neck by a tranquilizer dart shot by another mysterious bowler dude (the first guy’s brother) riding a golf cart. Luckily, Mya had given the twins wingsuits to wear, so they could jump off the cliff, fly through the air, and land safely on the beach.

  (Deep breath)

  Following me so far? Good.

  You see, what Coke and Pep didn’t realize was that they had been recruited to be part of a secret government program run by the eccentric Dr. Herman Warsaw. He’s a genius inventor who had decided that the grown-ups of the world were hopeless. The only way to solve our problems would be to use the skills of the smartest kids in America. He called his program—wait for it—“The Genius Files.” As a reward for being a part of this dangerous program, the kids were promised a million dollars when they turned twenty-one.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t look like Coke and Pep would ever reach that birthday, because someone was trying very hard to kill them. The next day at school, they were locked in the detention room and almost burned alive when the school was set on fire. The fire was set by their germ-phobic health teacher, Mrs. Higgins, who turned out to be an evil psychopath. Fortunately, the twins were rescued by the obese deaf/mute janitor Bones, who turned out to be skinny and quite talkative after he removed his fat suit.

  Bones was part of The Genius Files team (as was Mya). To track the McDonald twins’ every move, he used a staple gun to implant tiny GPS devices designed by Dr. Warsaw in their skulls.

  (Deep breath)

  Still with me? Great!

  The next day the twins started on a cross-country summer RV trip with their clueless parents, who must never learn about The Genius Files program. Along the way to their Aunt Judy’s wedding in Washington, D.C., Coke and Pep…

  Watched a building blow up moments after they left it.

  Were pushed into a ditch at the top of a singing sand dune in Nevada and left to die there.

  Witnessed their dad go through his midlife crisis by seeing how fast he could drive the RV on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

  Visited lots of oddball tourist destinations (a museum devoted to Pez dispensers, the National Yo-Yo Museum, the largest ball of twine in the world, and the second largest ball of twine in the world), because their mom runs a popular website called Amazing but True.

  Were thrown into a giant vat of SPAM in Minnesota.

  Dropped five days’ worth of human waste on the head of Mrs. Higgins (their germ-phobic, psychopath health teacher, remember).

  Were given a series of increasingly difficult secret messages, which they had to decipher.

  Had a climactic confrontation with the person who had been trying to kill them.

  In the end, guess who was trying to kill Coke and Pep the whole time? It was Dr. Warsaw, the inventor of The Genius Files. Ha! Who’d a thunk it?

  (Deep breath)

  Whew! Let’s see you try to sum up a 304-page book in just three breaths.

  The story really wasn’t nearly as complicated as it sounds … if you read The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable. It just seems that way when you try to compress a lot of stuff into a few paragraphs.

  Anyway, that’s basically what happened in the first book. Now you don’t have to read it yourself. You could even write a book report on it if you wanted to.

  Our new story begins in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where Mission Unstoppable left off. If you’d like to follow the McDonalds on their trip east to Washington, it’s easy. Get on the internet and go to Google Maps (http:// maps.google.com/), MapQuest (www.mapquest.com), Rand McNally (www.randmcnally.com) or whatever navigation website you like best.

  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

  Okay, now type in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and click SEARCH MAPS. Click the little + or – sign on the screen to zoom out until you get a sense of where the twins are. See it? That’s the starting point.

  Now that we’ve gotten all that preliminary nonsense out of the way, let’s get to the cool part—the part where Coke and Pep get lowered into a vat of boiling oil…

  Chapter 2

  YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?
>
  Happy birthday to you…

  It was June 25. The McDonald family (Coke, Pep, their mom, Bridget, and dad, Dr. Benjamin McDonald) were sitting in the RV in the parking lot of The House on the Rock. Mrs. McDonald had baked a little cake in the microwave oven. Dr. McDonald stuck thirteen candles in it and lit them. That’s the problem with getting older—at some point your birthday cake becomes a fire hazard.

  “Can you believe we have a couple of teenagers on our hands, Ben?” asked Mrs. McDonald, shaking her head at the wonder of it all.

  “Do you remember the day they were born?” he replied (as if she could ever forget). “I held each of them in my arms like a couple of footballs. I remember it like it was yesterday. And now look at them.”

  Coke and Pep sat in the backseat, silent. They were still stunned after what had happened to them at The House on the Rock. Just minutes earlier, they had been captured by Dr. Warsaw in The Infinity Room, a pointy extension that hung off the house like the beak of a huge bird. Dr. Warsaw had given them a choice: die by electric shock from the wireless iJolt he had invented, or plummet one hundred fifty feet to their deaths. They chose neither. Instead, Pep knocked the iJolt out of his hands with a Frisbee, and Coke used his famous Inflictor karate move to kick Dr. Warsaw out of The Infinity Room and to his virtually certain death. It would be awhile before the twins would be ready to return to anything resembling normal.

  “It’s time for your birthday presents!” Mrs. McDonald announced.

  “Yay!”

  A while was over. The twins, being of short attention span (like most thirteen-year-olds) instantly forgot all about Dr. Warsaw and their ordeal at The House on the Rock.

  “What did you get us?” Pep asked anxiously, clapping her hands together.

  “Just a little souvenir to help you remember our fun time in Wisconsin,” Dr. McDonald told them. With that, he presented them with a framed photo of The Infinity Room.

  Coke gulped and Pep lurched backward in her seat involuntarily. Somebody had died at The Infinity Room. And it had almost been them. They certainly didn’t need a constant reminder hanging on the wall.

  “But that’s not all!” said Mrs. McDonald, in her best infomercial voice.

  She presented each of the twins with a little plastic bag filled with what appeared to be those Styrofoam peanuts that are used to pack boxes.

  “What is it?” Pep asked.

  “Cheese curds!” Mrs. McDonald exclaimed. “You can only get them in Wisconsin. Go ahead, taste one. When you bite into them, they squeak.”

  “We also got you some genuine Wisconsin Cheeseheads,” Dr. McDonald added, pulling the big goofy yellow hats out of a bag and handing one to each twin. “Cool, huh?”

  “It’s awesome, Dad,” Pep said semi-sarcastically as she put on her Cheesehead.

  “We knew you’d like them,” said Dr. McDonald.

  He pulled out of the parking lot and into the first gas station on the road to fill the tank of the RV. Then he merged onto Route 14 East heading out of Spring Green. Dr. McDonald had attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin and knew the area well. Soon they were in the country, passing by the rolling hills and dairy farms of southern Wisconsin.

  “Look, a cow!” Pep hollered.

  “Big wow,” Coke said. “What, you never saw a cow before?”

  “Be nice to your sister,” warned Dr. McDonald.

  “It’s Wisconsin!” Coke said. “Do you have any idea how many cows they have in Wisconsin?”

  “I give up,” Pep admitted. “How many?”

  “One point two million,” Coke said.

  There was no point in arguing with him. Coke had a photographic memory. He could remember virtually anything he ever saw, touched, heard, smelled, or tasted. And one day, several years earlier, he happened to be reading the back of a milk carton that said there were 1.2 million cows in Wisconsin. Of course, there could be more cows now, or less. But at some point in time, there were definitely 1.2 million cows in Wisconsin.

  “Hey, speaking of cows,” Dr. McDonald said, “do you know what kind of milk comes from a forgetful cow?”

  “What kind?” everybody asked.

  “Milk of amnesia!”

  “Lame, Dad,” Coke said.

  Actually, Coke thought his father’s joke was minorly funny. But it’s not cool to laugh at your parents’ jokes, as you well know.

  It seemed like there were dairy farms everywhere. Wisconsin is the cheese capital of the world. Coke put on his Cheesehead to get into the spirit of it. Pep munched on cheese curds, which actually did squeak when she bit into them, and they were also delicious.

  “The people in Wisconsin probably put cheese on their cornflakes,” Coke commented as he looked out the window.

  “Cheese is a funny word,” said Pep. “Isn’t it odd that we say ‘cheese’ when we take a picture?”

  “Everybody does that, doofus,” Coke said.

  “Don’t call your sister a doofus,” said Mrs. McDonald. “It’s not nice.”

  “But why do we say ‘cheese’ when we take a picture?” Pep asked.

  “Probably because it forces people to smile,” Dr. McDonald said. “You can’t say ‘cheese’ without smiling.”

  “Well, you can’t say ‘disease’ without smiling either,” Coke pointed out. “Why don’t people say ‘disease’ when they’re getting their pictures taken?”

  “Well, everybody likes cheese, and nobody likes disease,” said Mrs. McDonald.

  “Doctors like disease,” Coke said. “If we didn’t have diseases, all the doctors would be out of a job. We wouldn’t even need doctors anymore. So it’s actually in a doctor’s interest for there to be lots of people with diseases. If all those people were suddenly cured, it would be a disaster for the medical industry.”

  Everybody thought about that for a few minutes.

  “With that logic,” Pep said, “if cars never broke down, all the mechanics would be out of jobs.”

  “That’s true,” Coke agreed.

  “If there were no arguments,” said Dr. McDonald, “we wouldn’t need lawyers.”

  “I guess every bad thing that happens in the world is good for somebody,” said Mrs. McDonald. “Sometimes good things can be bad things. And sometimes bad things can be good things.”

  Everybody chewed on that as they drove past the barns and silos that dotted the Wisconsin countryside. The twins were happy and relaxed for the first time since school had let out. Their long nightmare was finally over. They wouldn’t have to worry about Dr. Warsaw or Mrs. Higgins or any of those bowler dude psychos who had been trying to kill them. Now they could enjoy the rest of their trip to Aunt Judy’s wedding in Washington. It was like a great weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

  They had no idea that in a matter of hours, they would be hearing the sizzle of boiling oil as it splattered against their skin.

  Mrs. McDonald fiddled with her portable GPS to find out that it is 885 miles from Spring Green, Wisconsin, to Washington, D.C.—almost sixteen hours of straight driving. That is, if you were going to do the whole trip without stopping, which would be crazy. The plan was for them to stay overnight in Chicago and Cleveland, and also a few other smaller towns along the way.

  “We have nine days to get to Washington for Aunt Judy’s wedding on the Fourth of July,” she announced. “So there’s plenty of time to stop off along the way and see some cool sights.”

  Mrs. McDonald had not seen her sister Judy in ten years, ever since they’d had an argument about a boy Judy was dating. But that was ancient history now, and she was excited and a little nervous about seeing her sister again.

  “You’re not going to force us to go see the largest cow in the world and stuff like that, are you Mom?” asked Coke.

  “I promise,” Mrs. McDonald said. “No giant cows.”

  Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).

  Click Get Directions.

  In the A box, type Spring Green WI.

>   In the B box, type Middleton WI.

  Click Get Directions.

  The McDonalds had been driving for less than an hour on Route 14 when they entered the town of Middleton, Wisconsin, not far from Lake Mendota.

  “Stop the RV, Ben!” Mrs. McDonald suddenly shouted.

  Dr. McDonald was getting used to these sudden exclamations from his wife. He stomped on the brake and the RV screeched to a halt, almost getting rear-ended by the Toyota Camry behind it.

  “What is it?” Dr. McDonald said angrily.

  There was a sign at the side of the road…

  Visit the National Mustard Museum

  “No!” Coke moaned. “You gotta be kidding me! We already went to the Pez museum. We went to the yo-yo museum. And now this. Do we have to go? I hate mustard.”

  “Aren’t there any giant cows around for us to look at?” asked Pep.