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

declared O’Toole, “Jacob Two-Two says that we are not to set off in the boat until two o’clock. Or everything is lost.”
    But what, wondered O’Toole, if Jacob Two-Two fails, as he had promised, to render all the Slimers helpless? What’s his plan? Can it work? So much – too much, perhaps – depended on a boy who was still very little.
    Who couldn’t cut a slice of bread that wasn’t a foot thick on one end and thin as a sheet of paper on the other.
    Or count the laundry.
    Or ride a two-wheel bicycle.
    Who had to say everything two times, because nobody ever listened to him.
    But who, even now, accompanied by Pete and a stumbling Oscar, was racing through the fog to the fog-making workshop, hiding whenever a platoon of Slimers marched past them.
    Finally, Jacob Two-Two slipped through an open door and ran past the furnaces to the Fog Control Room, followed by a breathless Pete and Oscar.
    The Control Room was abandoned, as they had hoped.
    Jacob Two-Two climbed onto a tabletop and pulled on the Control Switch with all his might. Pete pulled on Jacob Two-Two. Oscar pulled on Pete.
    “Pull,” cried Jacob Two-Two. “Pull!”
    They pulled.
    “And again! And again!”
    Oscar pulled Pete, Pete pulled Jacob Two-Two, and Jacob Two-Two pulled on the switch handle. They pulled and pulled, until the handle finally sank to its off position.
    “What do you think, Shapiro?” asked O’Toole.
    “It’s too late to turn back. We must go forward according to Jacob Two-Two’s instructions.”
    So, at exactly a quarter to two, Shapiro picked up her megaphone. “Hooded Fang,” she called out, “we’re coming to get you. Surrender while you can. Tell your men to come out with their hands up.”
    The Hooded Fang answered with a withering burst of slime-ball fire, careful to aim over thechildren’s heads. “Come and get it, you twerps,” he hollered.
    “Wait! Don’t shoot,” pleaded a terrified Mr. Fox. “It’s me. It’s Fox here.”
    At precisely two o’clock, the leaky rowboat started out across the putrid, fog-bound water, Mr. Fox, his hands untied, bailing water frantically.
    Another hail of slime-fire hit the water.
    “One more volley,” boasted The Hooded Fang, “and the waters will turn red with blood.”
    But, even as he spoke, a miracle occurred. To everyone’s astonishment, the fog began to lift. For the first time within living memory, the sky over the children’s prison began to brighten. It grew brighter and brighter, until, lo and behold, there was the sun. The actual sun! The prisoners, overwhelmed, reached out – they stretched their pale arms to touch the sunshine. They cheered, they stamped their feet. “The sun,” they cried. “The sun! The sun!”
    The Slimers couldn’t tolerate it. The sun blinded them, and suddenly they began to stumble and fall. Their slime-guns popped off here and there but always in the wrong direction. The Hooded Fang fired his slime-ball cannon fitfully, also to no effect, before heretreated, shielding his eyes with his hands. “Put it out,” shouted The Hooded Fang. “Somebody please put out the sun!”
    The sun grew stronger and stronger. And in the water, sparkling in the sunlight now, the Child Power boat struck for the shore.
    “Watch out for the wolverines,” cried a prisoner.
    But the wolverines, also blinded, tripped and fell over the snakes, and the snakes scurried for the shelter of the darkest, deepest holes on the island. Within minutes, the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O’Toole, their golden capes flying, were scaling the prison walls. With some help from the prisoners, they easily disarmed and tied up the weeping, blinded Slimers. Then Shapiro and O’Toole sought out Jacob Two-Two.
    “You’re marvelous,” said the intrepid Shapiro.
    “Wonderful,” said the fearless O’Toole.
    “But how did you know the sun would come out at two o’clock?” they both asked at once.
    Jacob Two-Two explained that the fog was man-made at the