Mr. Peabody & Sherman Junior Novelization (Mr. Peabody & Sherman)
Read Mr. Peabody & Sherman Junior Novelization (Mr. Peabody & Sherman) Online
Authors: Erica David
“Mr. Peabody & Sherman” © 2014 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C. Character rights TM & © Ward Productions, Inc. Licensed by Bullwinkle Studios, LLC. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House, a division of Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
randomhouse.com/kids
eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-37153-7
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-385-37141-4
v3.1
Dear Reader,
Allow me to introduce myself. Peabody here. You may have heard of some of my accomplishments. I’m a scientist, an inventor, a Nobel Prize winner, and an Olympic gold medalist, but my greatest achievement is being father to my adopted son, Sherman. When people see us together, they’re often surprised. After all, it’s not every day that a literate dog such as myself wins the right to raise a human boy.
When it comes to being a good parent, I leave nothing to chance, especially when it comes to my boy’s education. So I did what any father would do: I invented a time machine. That way Sherman could see history firsthand.
What follows is our story. It’s the simple tale of a dog and his boy, their time machine, and what happens when the universe tries to pull them apart. It’s one adventure Sherman and I will never forget!
Sincerely,
Mr. Peabody, PhD, Esq., DOG, etc., etc.
“W
hat should I do, Mr. Peabody?” Sherman asked. The boy’s eyes were wide with fear. He stood in front of a mob of angry French peasants who pushed and stomped and waved their torches in the air.
“Off with his head!” the mob shouted.
Sherman winced. His father, the brilliant scientist and inventor Mr. Peabody, had been clapped into a guillotine in the middle of a public square. A sharp blade hung suspended above his neck. Within seconds the executioner would drop the blade and chop off his head with a
thwack
!
“Mr. Peabody, what should I do?” he asked again nervously.
“Nothing, Sherman!” Mr. Peabody replied. There was
no reason for his son to worry. As usual, Mr. Peabody had it all figured out.
Mr. Peabody and Sherman had gotten into the sticky situation earlier that day, when they had attended a party. But not just any party…
Mr. Peabody led Sherman into a grand ballroom in the luxurious palace of Marie Antoinette, the queen of France. The party was taking place in the year 1789—more than two hundred years in the past! Fortunately, time travel was no obstacle for Mr. Peabody. He’d built a time machine called the WABAC (pronounced “way back”). It allowed him to travel to famous moments in history—such as the French Revolution—and teach Sherman all about them.
Sherman blinked in wonder behind his thick glasses. He’d never seen so many fancy foods and fancy people in one place. French aristocrats were dressed in expensive silk clothing with bows that made them look like neatly wrapped presents. The queen’s dress was so ornate and colorful, she looked like a fancy dessert. She was a pudgy, round woman whose fluffy white hair was piled high on her head like a tower of whipped cream.
Mr. Peabody introduced Sherman to the queen.
Sherman was delighted to meet her, but he was even more delighted to see the enormous cake on the table next to her. It was taller than him, and absolutely smothered in frosting.
“Wow! That’s a lot of cake, Mr. Peabody,” Sherman said.
“Marie Antoinette was a woman with a prodigious appetite for all things … covered with frosting. But her expensive tastes made her the target of much criticism,” Mr. Peabody explained.
“Why?” Sherman asked.
“Because during Marie’s reign, the common people of France were exceedingly poor,” answered Mr. Peabody.
Sherman nodded. He tried to understand what his father was telling him, but when he looked at the cake again, his stomach rumbled in anticipation. “Can I have some cake now?” he asked the queen.
“Mais oui,”
Marie replied.
“Sorry,” he said. “
MAY WE
have some cake?”
“MAIS OUI,”
the queen answered.
Confused, Sherman turned to Mr. Peabody. “Can she not hear me through the hair?”
Mr. Peabody started to explain that
mais oui
means “of course,” but the queen shouted,
“LET ZEM EAT CAKE!”
The queen’s voice rang through the palace. Through a window, two French peasants in the courtyard were spying on her party. When they heard what she’d said, they got angry. Why should she and her fancy friends have cake when they were poor and starving? The spies raced away to tell the other peasants what they had heard.
Soon a huge mob of angry peasants carrying torches gathered outside the palace. They were determined to storm the castle and round up the wealthy aristocrats. The peasants shouted, stomped their feet, and threw rocks at the palace windows.
“Vive la Révolution!”
they yelled.
Suddenly, a large brick smashed through the ballroom window and landed in Marie’s cake. Mr. Peabody realized it was time to leave. He said goodbye to the queen and turned to go but discovered Sherman was missing.
“Sherman? Sherman!” he called, looking frantically around the room.
Just then, the ballroom doors burst open and the mob of peasants barged in. They took one look at Mr. Peabody in his fancy clothes and narrowed their eyes. They thought he was one of the rich aristocrats.
“Seize him!” they roared.
