Freddy said angrily, “We’re not going to let Spanker and his gang run us out of town. Right, Dad?”

“Well, if we don’t start getting customers coming in soon, Freddy, the decision won’t be up to us. We won’t be able to afford to stay here. We don’t have much savings left.”

“Don’t worry, Dad, our float will win and this place will be packed.”

“I hope so,” answered his father.

“We will win,” said Freddy. But he wasn’t nearly as confident as he sounded.

As they were driving home that evening, Freddy fell asleep in the back of the station wagon. He dreamt that the Funkhousers had won the float competition and the Burger Castle was crammed with customers, and that he was big and strong and had just beaten up Adam and his whole gang all by himself. But when he woke up he was still Freddy Funkhouser, a nine-year-old boy who was small for his age, wore glasses, and had blond hair that always stuck up in back.

Freddy couldn’t use his brawn to beat Spanker since he didn’t have any. But he did have something Spanker didn’t have: A brain. A big one!

“Think, Freddy, think.” And then it hit him. He almost yelled out, he was so excited. He had the very thing that would win the competition and finally beat the Spankers and their fancy float.

When they got home Freddy raced to his secret laboratory.

“This means war, Adam Spanker,” he called out as he sprinted there. “And you’re going down or my name isn’t Freddy Tesla Funkhouser.”

CHAPTER2

THE FUNKHOUSER EXPERIMENT

Freddy had spent the last week reworking the special project he was doing for the Burger Castle float. Exhausted, he now leaned against the wall of his laboratory. His lab was underneath one of the old barns on the farm he and his family lived on.