Didi Dodo, Future Spy: Recipe for Disaster Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Angleberger, Tom, author. | Chapman, Jared, illustrator.

  Title: Didi Dodo, future spy: in recipe for disaster! / by Tom Angleberger; illustrated by

  Jared Chapman.

  Other titles: Recipe for disaster!

  Description: New York: Amulet Books, 2019. | Summary: When Koko Dodo’s secret chocolate sauce is stolen just before an important cooking contest Didi, a dodo bird, devises a daring plan to help—whether he wants her to or not.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018018956 (print) | LCCN 2018024277 (ebook) | ISBN 9781683354758 (All e-books) | ISBN 9781683354758 (hardcover pob)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Spies—Fiction. | Stealing—Fiction. | Baking—Fiction. | Contests—Fiction. | Dodo—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.A585 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.A585 Did 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Text copyright © 2019 Tom Angleberger

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 Jared Chapman

  Book design by Pamela Notarantonio

  Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  ABRAMS The Art of Books

  195 Broadway New York, NY 10007

  abramsbooks.com

  For Erica Finkel

  —T. A.

  CONTENTS

  Opening

  PART 1

  Her Majesty’s Super Secret Fudge Sauce

  PART 2

  Dodos Don’t Fly

  PART 3

  Food Court Royale

  GRAND FINALE

  Where Dodos Dare

  Epilogue

  Opening

  Inspector Flytrap’s phone rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  Finally, a really loud taped voice said: “Hello, you’ve reached the office of Inspector Flytrap and Inspector Nina the Goat. They are not in the office today, because Inspector Flytrap’s grandmother has come to visit. Please leave a message at the sound of the bleat.”

  “Bleat,” said a very bored taped voice.

  “This is Koko Dodo!” I shouted into the phone. “What are you telling me about a grandmother? I’ve got a BIG DEAL mystery for you to solve! My Super Secret Fudge Sauce has been stolen! Right before the Queen’s Royal Cookie Contest! What am I going to do? Who will help me? Who? WHO?”

  Then a taped voice said, “Are you still talking? Don’t bother. Nina the Goat will probably eat this tape before I get a chance to listen to it anyway. Good-bye.”

  Click.

  I began to sob.

  PART 1

  Her Majesty’s Super Secret Fudge Sauce

  Chapter 1

  I was still sobbing when someone came into my store, Koko Dodo’s Cookie Shop.

  She was wearing roller skates. And she came in really, really, really fast. TOO FAST!

  She smashed into my cookie case, flew into the air, knocked over a bowl full of chocolate chips, and landed in a fresh batch of snickerdoodle dough.

  “Have no fear, Didi Dodo is here!” she said.

  “Do you want to buy a cookie?” I asked.

  “Well, maybe,” she said, “but I really came because I heard you needed help.”

  “Oh my goodness, I really do! If you can help me, I’ll GIVE you the cookie. But … how did you know I needed help?”

  “I’m Didi Dodo, Future Spy. I know many things and have many daring plans.”

  “A ‘future spy’?” I asked. “Does that mean you’re from the future?”

  “No.”

  “Does it mean you can see into the future?”

  “No.”

  “Does it mean you have lots of futuristic gadgets and spy gear?”

  “No.”

  “Then what does it mean?” I asked.

  “It means I will be a spy someday.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Then Didi Dodo sprang to her feet— actually, to her wheels—and waved one wing in the air.

  She held her beak high.

  Her eyes sparkled, and so did the cookie dough stuck to her tail feathers.

  “But,” she announced, “TODAY IS THAT SOMEDAY!”

  Chapter 2

  Didi handed me a little card.

  It said:

  “Can you also use a spoon?” I asked her.

  “Well, sure,” she said, “of course I can use a spoon!”

  “Great, because I need you to mix up a new batch of snickerdoodle dough! The old batch has too many of your feathers in it!”

  I quickly tossed her three eggs, half a stick of butter, two cups of flour, a teaspoon of vanilla, a pinch of salt, four figs (sliced), and three strips of bacon (crispy).

  “So,” she said while stirring, “I hear your Super Secret Fudge Sauce has been stolen.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s gone! Oh, boo-hoo! Boo-hoo!”

  “Can’t you just make some more?” she asked.

  “That’s the worst part!” I told her, holding up an empty jar. “I am out of the secret ingredient that makes the Super Secret Fudge Sauce so super!”

  “Well, what is the secret ingredient?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I told her. “It’s a secret!”

  “If you want me to help you, you’ll have to tell me. Don’t worry, I’m a Future Spy, I can keep a secret.”

  “BUT I CAN’T!” I admitted. "That's why my mom never told me what it was. It's a family recipe!"

  “That’s weird,” said Didi Dodo.

  “It’s worse than weird!” I shouted. “It’s terrible! Because now I can’t get more of the secret ingredient to make more of the Super Secret Fudge Sauce to put on the cookies to win the Queen’s Royal Cookie Contest, which takes place this afternoon!”

  “What’s the Queen’s Royal Cookie Contest?”

  “WHAT’S THE QUEEN’S ROYAL COOKIE CONTEST?” I yelled. “It’s the most important cookie event of the year! Every year, the Queen chooses the best cookie in the world, and every year for the last twenty years that cookie has been MY COOKIE with MY FUDGE SAUCE with MY SECRET INGREDIENT!”

  I pointed at my trophies. Didi barely glanced at them!

  “And you say this Royal Contest takes place this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great! I have a daring plan!”

  Chapter 3

  A buzzer went off.

  I pulled a batch of gingersnaps out of the oven and slid a tray of uncooked gingerbread bigfoots in.

  Then I started rolling out some Swedish nut wafer dough.

  “Don’t you want to hear my daring plan?” asked Didi.

  “No,” I said. “I do not like daring plans.”

  “But this daring plan will catch the thief!”

  “Do you have any plans that are not daring? Maybe an easy, no-problem, foolproof, can’t-go-wro
ng plan? Those are the plans I like!”

  “Well, that kind of plan isn’t going to catch the thief, get back your fudge sauce, or win you another royal trophy.”

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll listen to your daring plan.”

  “Great! So, the first thing we do is—”

  BANG BANG SMASH BANG

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she yelled.

  “I’m smashing nuts for my Swedish nut wafers!” I yelled back, still smashing.

  “Would you please stop that for a minute and listen to my daring plan?”

  “Is it OK if I sprinkle the nuts while you explain the plan?” I asked.

  “If you must …”

  “Thank you.”

  Sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle!

  “OK. So here’s the plan:

  “I have two problems with that plan,” I told Didi.

  “What? It’s a perfect plan!”

  “Not quite. First, the cookie contest is at the mall, so there’s no throne to leap out from behind.”

  “Fine, we’ll find something else to leap out from behind. What’s the other problem?”

  “The other problem is that I DO NOT WIN THE TROPHY!” I yelled.

  “But you catch the thief!”

  “I don’t want to catch the thief. I want MY TROPHY!”

  “What about justice?”

  “Is there a trophy for justice?”

  “Hmm … not usually.”

  “Then I don’t want justice! I want to win the ROYAL COOKIE CONTEST!”

  Didi stopped stirring.

  She waved one wing in the air.

  She held her head high.

  Her eyes sparkled, and so did the butterscotch stuck to her forehead.

  “I have a daring plan to do both!”

  Interlude

  “First,” said Didi Dodo, “we need to go find DJ FunkyFoot.”

  “Are you kidding with me? I have old-fashioned sugar cookies with rainbow sprinkles in the oven! I can’t go looking for a rapper, no matter how funky his feet are!”

  “But DJ FunkyFoot isn’t a rapper! He’s a butler,” she said. “AND he’s a Chihuahua.”

  “Gross! What are you telling me about a Chihuahua?”

  “A Chihuahua is a kind of dog, and dogs have really powerful noses.”

  “I don’t have time for his powerful nose or his funky feet OR anything else but these cookies!”

  “If you want to win that contest, you’d better turn the oven off and put your skates on!”

  I turned the oven off. I put my skates on.

  “Uh, those are ice skates,” said Didi.

  “What are you telling me for? I know they are ice skates. I am a former champion ice dancer. Haven’t you heard of the Triple Koko? I invented that move!”

  “Great, but there’s no ice outside. It’s the middle of summer. You need roller skates.”

  “I don’t have roller skates.”

  “Then hop on my back and let’s go start my daring plan!”

  I hopped on her back. She skated out the door and into the street!

  At first, I was worried that we’d be run over by a car. But after she picked up speed, I was afraid that a car would be run over by us. And one was! We banged into a pickup truck driven by an angry kiwi and went flying into the air.

  “This plan is too daring!” I yelled in midair.

  “This isn’t actually part of the plan,” she answered, still in midair.

  We landed in a heap in front of the Fancy Froo Froo Hotel and Disco.

  “But here we are anyway,” she said.

  We went inside.

  “Excuse me,” she asked the moose behind the front desk. “Could you call up to Countess Zuzu Poodle-oo’s room and ask her butler to come down here?”

  The moose took a deep breath and yelled, “DJ FUNKYFOOT, YOU ARE WANTED IN THE FRONT LOBBY BY A COUPLE OF DODOS!”

  Several minutes later, the elevator doors opened, and a very serious-looking Chihuahua came out.

  “How may I be of service?” the Chihuahua asked stiffly. “Smell this,” Didi said, handing him the empty jar.

  He took a big sniff.

  “Can you tell us what was in it?” Didi asked.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And can you tell us the answer by rapping?” I asked.

  “I regret to say that I cannot, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I cannot think of anything that rhymes with Cousin Yuk Yuk’s Pickled Rhubarb Relish.”

  PART 2

  Dodos Don’t Fly

  Chapter 4

  “Where are we going now?” I yelled as Didi Dodo skated us out of town.

  “To Cousin Yuk Yuk’s Pickled Rhubarb Relish Farm!” she shouted back. “It’s down in Dangerously Steep Valley.”

  “How far down?”

  “All the way down!”

  All the way down was a long way down!

  And we kept picking up speed as we went!

  “This is TOO daring!” I yelled.

  And then the pavement ended and the road became a dirt road.

  Now we were picking up speed and going whumpita-whumpita-whumpita!

  “Are you kidding me with this whumpita-whumpita-whumpita! Please, slow down!” I yelled.

  “I don’t know how to slow down!”

  I remembered how she had landed in my snickerdoodle dough.

  “I am guessing you don’t know how to stop, either!” I shouted.

  “Nope!” she shouted back.

  “Do you know how to dodge that cow that is in the middle of the road?”

  “No!” she shouted back. “But my daring plan is for you to jump and for me to duck!”

  I jumped. She ducked. The cow took a photo of us with her phone.

  “You crazy birds are in big trouble now!” the cow said. “I’m going to post this on FaceMoo and my 51,008 friends are all going to write rude comments about you!”

  “We’ve got bigger problems than that!” I shouted back. “The bridge is out up ahead and we can’t stop!”

  “Can’t you just fly away?” yelled the cow.

  “No, dodos can’t fly!” I yelled back.

  “Wow, you’re in big trouble!” yelled the cow. “If you die, I’ll tell my 51,008 friends not to be too rude about it.”

  “THAAAAAAAAAANNNNNKSSS!” I yelled as we zoomed over the edge of the road and plunged down down down down down down and down into Dangerously Steep Valley.

  Chapter 5

  “I told you it was too daring!” I shouted.

  “Now, we’re falling to our DOOM!”

  “No,” said Didi Dodo. “We are falling to our relish!”

  “Our relish? What are you telling me about—”

  “Just look down,” she said.

  “I don’t want to. I’m afraid of heights.”

  “Well,” she said. “We’re not as high up as we used to be …”

  I looked down. She was right. We weren’t that high up anymore.

  “We’re about to hit the ground!” I shouted.

  “No,” said Didi Dodo. “We’re about to hit the relish.”

  “Why do you keep talking about relish?”

  “Because we are about to land in a giant vat of it,” said Didi Dodo. “You may want to hold your nose. And close your eyes.”

  Well, that was the first sensible thing she had said all day.

  Splash!

  Chapter 6

  “WHUT ARE YOO BURDS DOON IN MAH RELISH?” bellowed a very angry yak wearing a three-piece suit.

  “Trying to swim!” I cried, trying to swim.

  The yak grabbed us both by the beaks, yanked us out of the vat, and tossed us on the ground.

  “YOO BURDS JUS ROONED YUK YUK’S RELISH!”

  “Are you Cousin Yuk Yuk?” I gasped.

  “OF COORSE I AM CUZIN YUK YUK! NOW SHUT UP AN TELL ME WHAT YOO DUM BURDS ARE DOIN!”

  “Uh … I …” I sputtered. I did not know how to answer his question without making
him even more angry.

  I looked at Didi. Why wasn’t she saying anything? Aren’t spies supposed to be able to talk themselves out of trouble?

  But after talking fast all morning, she now had her beak shut tight!

  It was up to me.

  I held up the empty jar.

  “We’d like to buy some relish.”

  “YOO ROONED A WHOLE VAT OF RELISH JUSTA BUY A TINY JARFUL?!”

  “Uh … yes?” I whimpered.

  He roared, “I’M GUNNA STUFF YOO IN THAT JAR, BURD!”

  “Please do not do that! I will not fit in the jar!”

  “YOO WILL AFFER I STOOMP YOO!”

  Cousin Yuk Yuk lowered his head and charged at us!

  Didi waved her wings around like she was trying to tell me something.

  “Are you saying that you have a daring plan to escape and that I should jump on your back and you’ll skate between the yak’s legs at the last second and then we’ll zoom around the vat, race through the barn, rush past the other angry yaks that are headed this way, jump over the manure pile, bounce over the fence, and escape?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “OK,” I said. “While it is daring, it actually seems less daring than staying here and getting stoomped. Let’s do it!”

  And we did. JUST BARELY!

  Interlude

  “Well, your daring plan half worked,” I said. “We got away from the herd of angry yaks, but … we didn’t get any rhubarb relish and now I can’t make the—”

  Didi waved at me to be quiet.

  Then she waved at me to hold out the jar and remove the lid.

  Then she spat out a whole beakful of pickled rhubarb relish into the jar.

  “Gross!” I said.

  “You’re telling me!” said Didi. “I hate rhubarb! But now you have your secret ingredient! You can make your fudge sauce, put it on your cookies, and win the Queen’s Royal Cookie Contest!”