Read Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang for Free Online Page A

erector sets and made pinprick holes in kites. He sought out the most complicated model kits, removed the English instructions, and replaced them with sheets written in Japanese. Then he turned to the chemistry sets, switching the labels on tubes. “That ought to make for an explosion or two,” he cackled.
    So happily immersed was Mr. Fox in his wrongdoing that seconds passed before he noticed that somebody had switched on the lights.
    “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
    Too late. For right before him, in Day-Glo blue Jeans, her golden cape flying, stood the intrepid Shapiro.
    “Aaargh,” cried Mr. Fox, turning to flee.
    But his path to the stairs was blocked by the fearless O’Toole, his golden cape flying.
    Mr. Fox swerved, he pitched a chemistry set at O’Toole, and clambered over the games counter, seizing a bow and arrow. “Say your prayers, brats,” he chortled.
    “Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Shapiro, doing a backward flip over the costume counter and coming to her feet, broadsword in hand. “Not yet, fatso!”
    Ducking a volley of arrows, O’Toole seized a cricket bat, tossed a ball in the air, and swung the bat, hitting the ball straight as a bullet at Mr. Fox.
    Then a rubber-suction arrow caught the charging Shapiro in the forehead, and she reeled backward, stunned.

    “And how would you like a taste of the same medicine?” cried Mr. Fox triumphantly to O’Toole.
    But before he could fire, the intrepid Shapiro ducked under the magic counter, surfacing to pelt their onrushing tormentor with what seemed like a handful of flour, but was actually sneezing powder.
    “Aaach-choo,” cried Mr. Fox, bending over double. “Aaach-choo!”
    In an instant, Shapiro was at his throat, broadsword in hand.
    Quivering with fear, Mr. Fox sank to his knees. “Mercy,” he pleaded between sneezes. “Mercy. I suffer from high blood pressure. My nerves are shot. I bleed easily.”
    Shapiro drove the sword tip against the coward’s throat.
    “You wouldn’t harm an old man who wears glasses,” cried Mr. Fox.
    “We’re going to spare you, you wretch,” said O’Toole.
    “We have other uses for you,” said Shapiro.
    “Aaach-choo,” said Mr. Fox. “Aaach-choo!

CHAPTER 15
    eanwhile, at the children’s prison, Jacob Two-Two had spread the word, and all the prisoners were waiting for the sign.
    Waiting, waiting.
    Until finally in the afternoon, an especially gloomy afternoon, as Jacob Two-Two stood watch on a balustrade of the hidden prison, staring into the surrounding waters, murky and foul-smelling, he suddenly saw something very odd happen. A crocodile that he had been following with his eye slithered onto the marshy shore, heaved, flipped over onhis back, and died. The letter
C
was emblazoned on his stomach. Then another crocodile flipped over, dying, this one still in the water, the letter
H
painted on his stomach.
    Soon all the prisoners were gathered on the balustrades, watching in amazement. More and more crocodiles were flipping over, dead, and the letters on their bellies read
R, I, E, L, W, D, O, P
. Properly put together, this could only mean one thing!
    “CHILD POWER!” shouted one prisoner after another.
    “It must be …”
    “ … The Infamous Two.”
    “We’re going to be rescued!”
    Even as they leaped up and down gleefully, the prison alarms sounded, and Slimers, armed with slime guns, took up their positions. Then the man who was supposedly the slimiest Slimer of them all, The Hooded Fang, unwrapped his slime-ball cannon, which commanded the surrounding waters. “This is going to be a massacre,” he promised.
    On the opposite bank, still unseen through the fog, stood the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O’Toole, andwith them, hands bound behind his back, their guide, the nefarious Mr. Fox. The intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O’Toole were armed only with rubber-suction arrows, cricket bats, slingshots, and broad swords, all from the toy shop on Regent Street.
    “Remember,”