Double Trouble Read online

  Over by my desk, I saw me holding a crumpled piece of paper and saying, “All we have to do is build an accurate model of a famous structure, such as the Eiffel Space Tower, using . . . HEY, WHO ARE YOU?!”

  “I’m you,” I said. “From the future!”

  “Cool,” Past Me said. “Quick, tell me who wins the next Galactic Series. If I bet the right way, I can be rich!”

  “No idea,” I said. I yanked the paper from his hand and fed it to the paper shredder. “All I know is that you and Beep can’t start your ice pop stick project. And you especially can’t use the duplicator ray!”

  “You mean this one?” Past Me said, pulling it out.

  I grabbed the ray and tossed it in the paper shredder too. Which caused the shredder only to spark and jam, but still.

  I turned to Beep. “Beep, we did it! We came to the past and prevented ourselves from duplicating ourselves! Now there’s no Beep Two and no Backward Bob and no Evil Lani and everything can get back to normal!”

  “Actually,” Past Me said, “with you two here, there are now two of each of us.”

  I slapped my forehead. “I can’t stand this anymore! Okay, I’ll tell you what.” I pointed at Past Me. “You’re going to temporarily shrink Beep and me and put us in a time-velope. Then you’re going to send us back to the future.”

  “But aren’t our duplicates in the future?” Past Me said.

  “Well, just send us ahead five minutes or something,” I said. “As long as you don’t use the duplicator ray, our duplicates won’t exist.”

  “But isn’t there another Bob five minutes from now?” Past Me asked.

  “No, because we’re the future us!”

  “Wow,” Past Me said. “Time travel is so confusing.”

  “Best not to think too hard about it,” I agreed.

  “Beep make chart,” Beep said, handing me a diagram of our plan.

  “Guess it checks out,” I said.

  And even though it didn’t involve dancing pirates, that’s what we did.

  Splog Entry #16:

  Making the Grade

  Okay, Beep and I are back in our room now, five minutes ahead of the past Beep and Bob we’d just left.

  I let out a big sigh. “Now, Beep, it’s really over. Whew!”

  “Double whew!” Beep said.

  I smiled. “Maybe too soon for double anything, Beep.”

  Beep clapped.

  I suddenly felt my weariness. “All right then,” I said with a stretch. “I think we’ll sleep well after all the excitement.”

  Beep picked up the original ice pop stick. “But what about project?”

  “I don’t think . . . ,” I began, but then I remembered how it felt to almost win a ribbon. Maybe, just maybe, I could try a little harder.

  “Okay, Beep. But this time we’re not using any fancy rays. We’re doing it the old-fashioned way,” I said. “Eating lots of ice pops!”

  Beep clapped. “Plan good! Plan double good!”

  Even with Beep’s help, I knew we’d never have enough for a truly award-winning project. But then I remembered something else. I rushed to the door and opened it just as Lani was passing by.

  “Oh, hey,” I said. “You’re up pretty late studying for your eighth-grade finals.”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  I shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  Beep giggled.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “I was wondering if you wanted to come in for a little snack? All the ice pops you can eat.”

  Lani smiled. “Sure, I could use a little break. Sometimes I wonder if I work too hard.”

  Beep giggled again.

  And so we stayed up and ate ice pops, and by the time we were done, I had constructed a nice Eiffel Space Tower. It didn’t have flashing lights, and it was so small, it fit in my backpack. But I was proud of it anyway.

  “You know, deep down,” I said, “I think I have what it takes to get pretty good grades after all.”

  “Deep, deep, deep!” Beep said with a smile, and swallowed the last ice pop whole.

  *SEND*

  Bob’s Extra-Credit Fun Space Facts! (Even though nothing is fun about space!)

  Light is fast. Really fast. Really, really fast. Really, really, really fast. Really, re . . . okay, I’m writing “really” too much, but this report is supposed to be 200 words long. And that’s a lot of words. I mean, it’s really a lot of words. I mean it’s really, really . . .

  Anyway, if you want to get technical, light travels at 186,282 miles per second. So in the time it takes for Beep to say “Yay-one-thousand!” light can go more than halfway from the Earth to the moon, even with a brief stop at the Intergalactic House of Pancakes. But even at that super speed, light from the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, takes more than four years to get here, and light from the farthest known star, Icarus, takes over nine billion!!!!!

  Sometime back in all that time long ago is when dinosaurs existed, but there are no dinosaurs in space. At least, there better not be. I used to think there were no spiders in space, but sadly I was wrong. I mean, I was really wrong. Really, really wrong. Really, really, REALLY . . . okay, I’m just about to 200 words. And now Beep is craving strawberry pancakes, so I better go. See ya!

  Keep reading for a preview of

  Too Much Space!

  by

  Jonathan Roth

  SPLOG ENTRY #1

  A Horrible Place Called Space

  Dear Kids of the Past,

  Hi. My name’s Bob and I live and go to school in space. That’s right, space. Pretty sporky, huh? I’m the new kid this year at Astro Elementary, the only school in orbit around one of the outer planets. There’s just one micro little problem:

  SPACE IS THE MOST TERRIFYING PLACE EVER!

  If you’ve been to space, you know what I mean: It’s dark, cold, airless—and it goes on for infinity! Okay, maybe it ends at some super huge wall. But what’s behind that wall? More space? Bigger walls? Giant space spiders?!

  Just kidding about that last one. There are no spiders in space.

  Are there?

  No really, are there?

  Beep just said to say hi. Beep is a young alien who got separated from his 600 siblings when they were playing hide-and-seek in some asteroid field. Then he floated around the void for a while, until he ended up here. Sad, huh?

  You know what’s even sadder? I was the one who found him knocking on our space station’s air lock door and let him in. Now he thinks I’m his new mother!

  On the bright side, everyone at school says Beep is super cute and fun to have around. And since he won’t leave my side, they let him join my class as the school’s first alien student. He’s definitely a quick learner—he picks up languages in no time, and his grades are already better than mine!

  Anyway, I’m writing these space logs (or splogs, as we call them) partly to tell you all about my hectic life, but mostly because it’s an assignment to show you how “great” things are here in the future. At the end of each week I’ll put all my entries into a time-velope and mail it to 200 years ago. If you receive this, please write back; and while you’re at it, please also include a pile of vintage twenty-first-century comic books! Thanks.

  Beep will help with the pictures. He’s super talented and loves to draw, though in his excitement he sometimes eats all his pencils.

  Hope you enjoy!

  SPLOG ENTRY #2

  Space Spiders!

  Astro Elementary is a big space station orbiting Saturn. I think they picked Saturn because it looks cool in the brochures.

  Trust me, I tried to get out of coming here. When I took the big admissions test, I filled out C for every answer. Instant fail, right?

  Wrong! Turns out I was the only kid on the planet this time to get a perfect score. Now everyone thinks I’m some kind of super space genius. I’m a failure even at failing! My parents were more surprised than anything, but as much as I begged, they wouldn’t let me stay ho
me or send my little sister in my place. She seemed particularly happy to see me go.

  Beep and I share a dorm room in the living section of the station. Class starts promptly at 8:00 a.m., so we sleep in until about 7:55, then quickly float through the curved halls to our classroom. (Since there’s no gravity in space, we have to float everywhere.)

  Professor Zoome is our teacher. She begins each day by taking attendance.

  “Zenith?” she called this morning.

  “Here,” Zenith said.

  “Flash?”

  “Here.”

  “Blaster?”

  “Here.”

  (Everyone in my class has pretty cool space names.)

  “Bob?”

  “Here,” I said. (Okay, so not everyone.)

  When she was done, Professor Zoome clasped her hands together and said, “Class, I have some very good news. After you finish your morning splog entries, we’re going on a field trip!”

  This time last year, when I was still in school on Earth, we had a field trip where we went on a hay-ride. I love hayrides!

  “To Pluto!” she added.

  “Pluto?” I gulped. Pluto didn’t have hayrides. It probably didn’t even have ponies.

  Continue Reading…

  Too Much Space!

  Jonathan Roth

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Author-illustrator Jonathan Roth is a public elementary school art teacher in Maryland who likes reading, writing, drawing, cycling, and napping. Though he has never left Earth, he has met four of the astronauts who have gone to the moon. Beep and Bob is his first series.

  BEEPANDBOB.COM

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  VISIT US AT SIMONANDSCHUSTER.COM/KIDS

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Jonathan-Roth

  Read all about Beep and Bob’s adventures in space!

  Book 1: Too Much Space!

  Book 2: Party Crashers

  Book 3: Take Us to Your Sugar

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Aladdin paperback edition December 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Roth

  Also available in an Aladdin hardcover edition.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

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  Book designed by Nina Simoneaux

  The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally.

  Cover designed by Nina Simoneaux

  Cover illustration copyright © 2019 by Jonathan Roth

  Library of Congress Control Number 2018957804

  ISBN 978-1-4814-8862-4 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-8861-7 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-8863-1 (eBook)