SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Junior Novel Read Free Page A

tellin’ me it’s time to stop gloating.” He picked up Plankton, who was still sobbing.
    He noticed what looked like a loose thread. “Heh!” he said. “Looks like you’re fallin’ apart at the seams!”
    When Mr. Krabs pulled on the thread, Plankton’s skin unraveled, revealing metal underneath. It wasn’tPlankton he was holding. It was a tiny Plankton robot!
    â€œHuh?” Mr. Krabs said.
    â€œPoor me,” cried the robot. “Sob…. Sob….”
    â€œA ROBOT?” Mr. Krabs shouted.
    Inside the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob walked into Mr. Krabs’s office and saw … the open safe!

S pongeBob gasped. “Plankton?”
    Startled, Plankton whirled around, knocking the fake formula bottle off the pressure plate with the real formula bottle. An alarm sounded.
WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!
    â€œUh-oh,” Plankton said. “That ain’t good.”
    A computer voice came over a loudspeaker: “Initiating lockdown sequence.”
    Outside, Mr. Krabs heard the alarm go off. “Me formuler!” he cried, dropping the tiny Plankton robot.
    As Mr. Krabs ran to the front door, the robot continued to whimper, “Poor me…. Sob…. Sob….”
    Inside the Krusty Krab, the lockdown sequence had begun. Metal shutters slammed down around every part of the restaurant.
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!
The big sheets of metal surrounded Squidward’s workstation.
    â€œHuh?” Squidward said. Another metal shutter slammed into place. “Ow,” he said, trapped.
    Metal shutters closed off the kitchen, the bathrooms, and even the customers’ food so no one could possibly escape from the restaurant. Outside, Mr. Krabs watched a heavy metal shutter cover the front doors.
    He ran as fast as he could, yelling, “Oh, no! OH, NO, NO, NO!” But he was too late. The last shutter closed.
SLAM!
    â€œNOOOOOO!” Mr. Krabs wailed. “Squidward! Can you hear me? Open up! SQUIDWARD!”
    But Squidward was tightly enclosed in metal shutters. He couldn’t get out of his little boat cash register station, let alone walk to the front door and somehow open it.
    The Plankton robot picked itself up and started to dance. “Ha, ha. Victory dance,” it gloated in its electronic voice.
    Back in Mr. Krabs’s office, SpongeBob and Plankton were struggling over the bottle that held the Krabby Patty secret formula.
    â€œGimme that!” SpongeBob panted.
    â€œCome on, SpongeBob,” Plankton urged. “Join me and we’ll be rich and powerful … until I eventually betray you!” He realized what he’d said. “Uh, JOIN ME!”
    SpongeBob shook his head violently. “No! NEVER! I’m on Team Krabs for life!”
    Outside the front door, Mr. Krabs used all the strength he could muster to force the metal shuttersopen. He burst through the front door and called out, “PLANKTON!”
    In the office, SpongeBob and Plankton were still trying to pull the formula bottle away from each other. They tugged. They strained. They yanked with all their might.
    Suddenly, the bottle vanished into thin air!
    SpongeBob’s mouth hung open. He was completely flummoxed. “What? Where’d it go?” he asked.
    â€œWhat?” Plankton said, equally confused. “Molecular deconstruction? But I proved that to be a scientific impossibility seven times!”
    Mr. Krabs dashed in. He immediately saw that the safe was open and Plankton was standing there. The REAL Plankton—not a robot.
    â€œWhere’s me formuler, Plankton?”
    Plankton raised his tiny hands and shrugged. “I … I … I don’t know. It just disappeared.”
    â€œWhy should I believe YOU, you lyin’ liar?” Mr. Krabs roared.
    SpongeBob stepped forward. “Normally I’d agree with you, Mr. Krabs,” he said. “But this time he’s telling the truth! The formula just vanished … like