Chris Tebbetts has collaborated with James Patterson on five other books in the Middle School series as well as Public School Superhero. He is also the author of The Viking, a fantasy adventure series for young readers. He lives in Vermont.
Jomike tejido is an author-illustrator who has illustrated more than one hundred children’s books. He is based in Manila with his wife and his six-year-old daughter, who loves playing with her dog. Oso is a fluffy chow chow who has a cameo appearance here.
BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON FOR YOUNG READERS
The Middle School Novels
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Middle School: Big Fat Liar (with Lisa Papademetriou, illustrated by Neil Swaab)
Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Middle School: Ultimate Showdown (with Julia Bergen, illustrated by Alec Longstreth)
Middle School: Save Rafe! (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Middle School: Just My Rotten Luck (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Middle School: Dog’s Best Friend (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Jomike Tejido)
The I Funny Novels
I Funny (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)
I Even Funnier (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)
I Totally Funniest (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)
I Funny TV (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)
The Treasure Hunters Novels
Treasure Hunters (with Chris Grabenstein and Mark Shulman, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)
Treasure Hunters: Danger Down the Nile (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)
Treasure Hunters: Secret of the Forbidden City (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)
Treasure Hunters: Peril at the Top of the World (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)
The House of Robots Novels
House of Robots (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)
House of Robots: Robots Go Wild! (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)
The Daniel X Novels
The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidge)
Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)
Demons and Druids (with Adam Sadler)
Game Over (with Ned Rust)
Armageddon (with Chris Grabenstein)
Lights Out (with Chris Grabenstein)
Other Illustrated Books
Give Please a Chance (with Bill O’Reilly)
Jacky Ha-Ha (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Kerascoët)
Public School Superhero (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Cory Thomas)
For previews of upcoming books in these series and other information, visit middleschoolbooks.com, ifunnybooks.com, treasurehuntersbooks.com, and jimmypatterson.org.
For more information about the author, visit jamespatterson.com.
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Learn more about our initiatives at JimmyPatterson.org
Isaiah is a special mouse—he can talk and laugh and read, just like you!
And he’ll do anything to find his missing ninety-six brothers and sisters.
Even if it means dealing with cats, hawks, and the biggest danger of all… humans!
AVAILABLE
DECEMBER
2016
CHAPTER 1
“The world is always biggest when you’re small.”
—Isaiah
My story starts on the day I lost my entire family. I’m running as fast as I can behind my big brothers and sisters. Down the hall. Past the mop bucket. Toward the open door.
We’re escaping from a place that’s foul and creepy and 100 percent HORRIBLE!
It’s also the only home my family and I have ever known.
My brothers and sisters are leading the way to our freedom. All ninety-six of ’em. I’m the youngest, not to mention the smallest. All I have to do is tail after them, just like I always do. Wherever they lead, I will follow. I know it’ll be a safer place. And better. It has to be!
Abe says so. Winnie, too.
We squeeze through that tiny crack between the door and the wall and enter the Land of the Giants.
Outside.
The place none of us has ever been before.
Have I mentioned how terrified I am?
Oh, no!
A lumpy black mountain reeking of rancid vegetables blocks our way forward. It forces my family to split up. To scatter in all directions.
“You guys?” I cry. “Wait up!”
They can’t wait. It’s too dangerous.
I try taking a shortcut to catch up with them. I run over the mountain.
Bad idea.
My right rear paw punches through something as thin as an eggshell. My leg plunges down into a slimy hole, and I can’t lift it out. This isn’t a mountain. It’s a big, black plastic sack filled with garbage.
“You guys?”
My brothers and sisters have totally disappeared.
And I’m trapped.
So, I do what I always do. I panic.
“HELP!” I yell.
This escape was my big brother Benji’s idea. But Benji’s gone. So are Abe and Winnie and—
I hear the heavy thuds of human shoes behind me.
Someone’s coming.
I yank at my leg. It won’t budge. I yank again.
On the third yank, I finally tug my foot free. I need to run. I need to find my family. Because without them, I don’t have any idea where I’m supposed to go or what I’m supposed to do!
On the other side of the garbage mountain, I skirt around a crumpled bag labeled D-O-R-I-T-O-S and reach a ledge.
“Winnie? Abe?”
I look around. Can’t see anybody.
Then I look down.
There’s a three-foot drop to a steel grate covering a dark tunnel.
I close my eyes tight and leap.
I land with a splash in cold, scummy water. I hate when my feet get wet.
“You guys?” I call out. “Did anybody else take the sewer drain? Anybody? Hello?”
No answer. Not even a squeak. Just my own voice echoing back at me.
I’ve heard humans say, “Are you a man, or are you a mouse?” when one of them is afraid and the other one needs him to be brave.
Well, I am definitely a mouse.
My name is Isaiah. I have never been more frightened in my whole life, and that’s saying something, because my whole life has been one big fright fest. But it doesn’t get any worse than this.
I don’t know where I am. And I’ve lost my family. Or they lost me.
Either way, for the first time in my life, I’m completely alone.
CHAPTER 2
“God gave us the acorns, but He doesn’t crack them open for us.”
—Isaiah
I hear a siren.
Flashes of red light slice through the darkness, along with the shrieks of a siren. Yipes! Someone just sounded the alarm.
I want to hide forever in the darkest corner of this dripping drain, but something inside me says, Keep running, Isaiah. Never let them catch you! Go find your family! Hurry! Move it or lose it!
I scamper deeper into the darkness.
&n
bsp; I’m extremely speedy. It’s all those months I spent on the exercise wheel. Swinging out my tail for balance, I round a blind curve. The strobing flashes of red disappear. So does all the other light. I use my whiskers, just like Mom taught me before she disappeared from the Horrible Place, to feel my way along the damp walls. I barrel headfirst into a black tunnel of nothingness.
And my feet keep getting wetter.
Suddenly, up ahead, I see a split shaft of light.
It’s another storm drain.
I scuttle up the slick side wall and come out in an alley littered with trash, some of which looks pretty tasty. But when you’re a mouse on the run, trying to catch up with the rest of your family, you really can’t stop for a snack, no matter how tempting. I slip on a squishy brown banana peel, slide sideways toward a pile of boxes, and skid through an opening skinnier than a page in a book.
When I glide out (on my bottom) on the other side, I hear voices.
Human voices.
“Find them, you idiot!” snarls one. “Find them all!”
“This isn’t my fault,” blubbers the other. “I only left the ding-dang door open for a second.”
I don’t wait to hear any more.
I scale the side of a building. Climb straight up it using tiny holes that humans wouldn’t even know were there. When I reach the top, I see a thick, black utility line swaying in the breeze. I spring off the wall, fly through the air, and land with a boing and a bounce.
Using my tail for balance, the way a tightrope walker uses a pole, I race along the bobbing wire.
Soon I’m over another alley. Or maybe a toxic waste dump. The air smells so extremely gross, it makes my whiskers quiver. Rust. Putrid chemicals. The scent of rotting eggs.
My ears are blasted by the shrieks of that alarm horn. It makes my spine shiver all the way down to the tip of my tail. I need my brothers and sisters to buck me up and make me brave.
But I still can’t see any of them.
I shout down to the ground anyway. “You guys? Abe? Winnie? Anybody? Where are you?”
Read more of Isaiah’s adventures in
WORD OF MOUSE
AVAILABLE
DECEMBER
2016
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by James Patterson
Illustrations by Jomike Tejido
Excerpt from Word of Mouse © 2016 by James Patterson
Illustrations in excerpt by Joe Sutphin
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact
[email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
JIMMY Patterson Books / Little, Brown and Company
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First ebook edition: October 2016
JIMMY Patterson Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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ISBN 978-0-316-39889-3
E3-20160908-JV-PC
James Patterson, Dog's Best Friend
(Series: Middle School # 8)
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