Chapter 1 NO FAIR!

  Henry loved Saturday lunches. On Saturdays he got to have dinosaur chicken nuggets and applesauce.

  Henry glanced at the kitchen calendar.

  Today’s date had a big red heart on it. That’s weird, he thought. It’s not even Valentine’s Day!

  “Why is there a heart drawn on today’s date?” Henry asked his mom and dad, who were also eating their lunch at the kitchen table.

  His parents looked at each other. Then they kissed.

  Henry covered his eyes. GROSS! he thought.

  “Today is our anniversary!” said Dad.

  Henry peeked between his fingers. “What’s that?”

  “An anniversary remembers a special event from the past,” said Mom. “We got married on this day many years ago.”

  “Tonight we’re going to a fancy restaurant called Jacky’s to celebrate,” Dad said. “We got a wonderful babysitter to stay with you while we’re away.”

  Henry’s mouth dropped open. “A BABYsitter? But I’m not a baby!”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Then we’ll call him a HENRYsitter,” he replied.

  “Doesn’t Heidi need a sitter too?” Henry asked.

  “Nope! I’m sleeping over at Lucy’s tonight!” Heidi entered the kitchen, carrying a duffel bag. She held a fluffy pillow under her arm.

  “May I PUH-LEASE spend the night at Dudley’s?” Henry asked.

  Dad shook his head. “We already talked to Dudley’s parents, but Dudley is visiting his grandparents tonight.”

  Henry didn’t give up. “What about Max?” he asked.

  “Max has a little cold,” Mom replied, resting a hand on Henry’s shoulder.

  Henry turned to Heidi in a last attempt to be saved. Heidi shrugged. “Sorry, bud, but Lucy and I plan to stay up ALL night talking. About things you’re not allowed to hear.”

  Henry folded his arms tightly against his chest. “NO FAIR! Everyone’s going to have fun tonight except ME.”

  Chapter 2 I AM GROWN UP!

  “I’m old enough to stay home alone. What could possibly go wrong?” Henry asked.

  “Hmm,” Dad said. “I would feel better if a sitter was home with you.”

  “Besides, would you really want to eat pizza all by yourself?” Dad asked.

  “Pizza?” Henry echoed. His face brightened just a bit.

  Dad nodded. “I ordered pizza delivery for you tonight!”

  Henry loved eating pizza, but not with a sitter. He planted his elbows on the table and rested his cheeks on his fists.

  I don’t need a sitter to open the door for a pizza! I can do that all by MYSELF!

  Heidi left for Lucy’s house, and Mom and Dad excused themselves from lunch. Henry tried to do a jigsaw puzzle, but all he could think about was: How can I convince Mom and Dad that I don’t need a sitter?

  After a while, Henry heard the mail truck stop in front of the house. The mailbox squeaked open, then shut.

  This gave Henry an idea. He opened the door, ran out to the mailbox, and grabbed the mail.

  There was an ad for the grocery store, a boring white envelope for Dad, and a shiny flyer saying that the Splash Town pool had opened for the summer.

  Henry zoomed upstairs and found Mom in her bedroom. She stood in front of the mirror, fastening the belt on her dress.

  “I got the mail!” announced Henry. “All by myself!”

  Mom turned to look at Henry. “Thank you.”

  Henry put a hand on his hip. “So… I don’t need a sitter. RIGHT?”

  “I’m thankful you got the mail,” Mom replied, “but you can’t stay home alone.”

  Henry flopped onto his parents’ bed, disappointed.

  Henry rolled onto his side and watched Mom put on fancy hoop earrings.

  He scrunched up his face. Why do grown-ups like to dress up so much?

  But it did give Henry another idea. He rolled off the bed and raced to his bedroom.

  Chapter 3 NO CRAYONS

  Henry pulled out his suit from the back of his closet. First he put on his dress shirt but it grabbed in the armpits. Henry felt like the Hulk before he bursts out of his clothes.

  Next he slid on his suit pants. The cuffs came to his ankles. His jacket was also small too.

  Henry bent down to put on his dress shoes. Riiiip! He split the seat of his pants. Oops.

  After tying his shoelaces, he also tied his necktie into a bow. Well, sort of.

  Henry ran back to Mom. Her eyebrows shot up when she saw him. “Oh my! You need a bigger suit!” she said.

  “I’m dressed just like a GROWN-UP! So may I go to dinner with you and Dad?” Henry asked.

  Then Henry looked down at himself. “We have to stop by the store first, though. I need some new pants.”

  “I’m afraid you won’t enjoy this restaurant,” Mom said gently.

  Henry blinked in surprise. “Why not?”

  “Because they don’t have a kids’ menu,” Mom replied.

  A button popped off Henry’s shirt and fell onto the floor. “NO kids’ menu?” he shouted.

  Mom shook her head. “No crayons or paper place mats to draw on either.”

  That sounds like a terrible restaurant! Henry shuddered at the thought.

  “It’s a three-course meal,” Mom added, “so dinner will be more than two hours.”

  Henry slapped his cheeks in disbelief. Who eats dinner for MORE than TWO hours?!

  Chapter 4 THE BIG SEARCH

  Henry returned to his room and took off his suit. Now what? He didn’t want to go to the restaurant with his parents anymore. But he didn’t want to stay home with a sitter either.

  No sooner had he thought this than his magic book swooped in front of him and opened to a spell. Henry read it over.

  The Grow Up Spell

  Do your parents hire a babysitter when they leave the house? Are you not even allowed to order a pizza all by yourself? If you need to grow up in a hurry, then this is the spell for you!

  Ingredients:

  1 pair of worn-out shoes

  1 expired food item

  1 watch

  1 dust bunny

  1 pen with no ink

  1 penny from 1958

  1 four-leaf clover

  1 test with a perfect score

  Place the ingredients in a bowl. Hold your medallion in one hand and hold the other hand over the mix. Chant the following spell.

  Just like a grown-up!

  Stay home alone!

  I can do anything all on my own!

  This is a LONG list of ingredients, thought Henry. But I need to find them all. How else will I be able to convince my parents I don’t need a sitter?

  He got right to work. Henry caught a dust bunny under his bed and checked it off his list. He found a spelling test with a perfect score in his backpack.

  Over the rug, he shook his piggy bank and sifted through the pennies. The oldest one was from 1994.

  Henry decided to skip the penny for now. He tested all his pens until he found one that wouldn’t write.

  In the garage Henry grabbed a worn-out pair of soccer cleats. Then he ran to the pantry and found an expired box of crackers.

  Henry decided to look for the four-leaf clover next. He taped two magnifying glasses together, side by side, to cover more ground at once. Then he crawled around the backyard and looked at every clover, but there were no four-leaf clovers to be found.

  The sliding glass door opened. “Henry!” Mom called. “Your sitter is here!”

  Henry groaned. He’d run out of time to cast his spell!

  Chapter 5 DID SOMEONE SAY “SPY”?

  Henry’s sitter had extra curly hair and was even taller than Dad.

  “This is Brendan Banks,” said Mom. “He’s a student at Brewster College.”

  “Hi,” mumbled Henry. He looked at his feet instead of at Brendan.

  “Heyyyy, Henry!” replied Brendan, making up for Henry’s lack of excitement.

  Mom and Dad hugged Henry. “We’ll be home before you know it!” they said.

  Henry watched his parents drive off. How could they ditch me? he wondered sadly.

  “What were you up to in the backyard?” Brendan asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” Henry kept looking out the window. There was no point in searching for the spell ingredients now that the sitter had arrived.

  Brendan sat on the couch. Henry picked at the tape on his magnifying glasses.

  “Were you looking at bugs?” asked Brendan. “Should I be calling you ‘Henry the Scientist’?”

  Henry shook his head. “No, I’m a private eye—you know, like a super spy.”

  Brendan snapped his fingers. “Cool!” he said, and he headed for the front door.

  Phew! thought Henry. Maybe Brendan will leave me alone.

  But Brendan returned with his backpack. He sat down on the couch beside Henry.

  “Let’s see how good a spy you are,” he said. “Tell me everything you can uncover about me.”

  Brendan wants me to show off my SPY skills! Henry wasn’t excited to hang out with the sitter… but he was excited to prove his spy talents.

  Chapter 6 I SPY

  Henry peeled the tape off his magnifying glasses. Then he collected clues. He noted a red T-shirt, jeans, black sweatshirt, and red socks. And a red backpack.

  “Red is your favorite color,” Henry guessed.

  Brendan nodded. “Yup!”

  Then Henry zo

omed in on Brendan’s black sweatshirt.

  He spied strands of white fur stuck to it.

  “You have a cat!” Henry said.

  Brendan laughed. “I have a dog, but good guess.”

  Henry moved his magnifying glass to the backpack. He stopped and sniffed. Something smelled sweet and fruity.

  “You have a banana in your backpack!” he said.

  Brendan looked surprised as he unzipped his backpack. Then he pulled out a banana. “I forgot all about this banana! Wow, Henry the Spy. You know more about me than I do!”

  Henry beamed. Brendan approved of his spy skills!

  Ding-dong! The doorbell rang.

  Brendan went to open the door. “Get ready for some… pizza!” he said in a booming voice, as if he was a host on a game show.

  PIZZA! Yum! Henry had been so busy spying, he had forgotten all about dinner.

  Chapter 7 SPICING IT UP

  Brendan poured two glasses of lemon-lime soda at the kitchen table. Then the boys helped themselves to pizza. But instead of eating, Henry just stared at his slice.

  Dinner reminded him that his parents had left him. And that made him feel like blah.

  “Hey, do you have curry powder?” Brendan asked.

  Henry snapped to attention and pointed to the spice cabinet. Curry powder? Why does Brendan want curry powder?

  Henry’s dad was a soda scientist. Once, he had tried to make a curry-flavored soda. After taking one sip, Heidi and Henry had begged Mom to hide the curry powder in the back of the cabinet, where Dad would forget about it.

  Brendan found the jar of curry powder. Then he took out the banana from his backpack, sliced it, and put it on his pizza. He sprinkled curry powder on top.

  “Ta-da! Banana-curry pizza!” Brendan announced with a wave of his hand.

  Henry had never heard of banana-curry pizza before.

  “My mother is Swedish,” Brendan told Henry. “In Sweden they sometimes eat banana-curry pizza. Want to try it?”

  Henry nodded. He knew he didn’t like curry soda, but he did like bananas.

  He placed banana slices on his pizza, sprinkled curry powder on top, and took a teeny-tiny bite.

  It was sweet, spicy, and cheesy. “YUM!” Henry shouted.

  He took another slice of pizza. He made a smiley face with two banana slices for eyes and a generous sprinkling of curry powder for the mouth.

  “For today’s special, we have the Brendan Pizza!” Henry said.

  Brendan laughed. “Is that supposed to be me?”

  Henry nodded, and both boys burst into laughter.

  Henry had forgotten all about feeling sad.

  Chapter 8 YOU CAN’T CATCH ME

  After dinner Henry wanted to show Brendan his robot toy, Dr. Bot. They went upstairs to his room.

  “What happened here?” asked Brendan.

  Henry’s suit lay in a heap on the floor. There were pens all over his desk. His piggy bank was upside down, with coins strewn everywhere.

  And his magic book lay open on his desk!

  Uh-oh! thought Henry. I have to get Brendan out of here NOW!

  He raced to his desk, grabbed Dr. Bot, and beelined for the door.

  But Brendan stood in the way. “Not so fast, Henry. Let’s tidy your room before we play.”

  “I can do it after you go home!” Henry protested.

  But Brendan shook his head, sat on the floor, and began to put the coins back into the piggy bank.

  Henry ran to his desk to grab the magic book. But the book was gone. It had floated to the ceiling!

  Thankfully, Brendan was still busy picking up coins from the floor.

  Henry wagged his finger at the book to come down, but the book stayed put.

  “HEY!” cried Brendan.

  Henry froze. Did he see the magic book?

  Brendan held up a coin. “I found a Mexican peso! Have you been to Mexico before?”

  “Nope.” Henry looked at the coin, which he didn’t remember putting into his piggy bank. He might have been more interested, but right now he had a bigger problem on his hands.

  As soon as Brendan went back to picking up coins, Henry climbed onto his bed and nabbed the floating book in midair. Gotcha!

  Brendan looked up and saw Henry standing on the bed. “Henry, please get down!” he said in a loud voice.

  Henry jumped down and fell onto his knees. The book thumped on the floor… right in front of Brendan.

  Brendan picked up the magic book. “Well, well,” he said, “what do we have here?”

  Chapter 9 BOO!

  Oh no! thought Henry. If Brendan opens my book, he’ll find out I’m a WIZARD!

  Henry didn’t know what to do. So he screamed at the top of his lungs. “AAAAAAAAAHHH!”

  It worked. Brendan dropped the book and jumped to his feet. “What is it?!”

  Henry saw the book scuttle under the bed.

  “There’s… uh… a BEAR on the lawn!” Henry lied, pointing to the window.

  Brendan ran to see. Henry lay on his stomach and pulled the magic book out from under the bed.

  “I don’t see a bear,” Brendan said, still looking out the window.

  The magic book opened, and the medallion popped off the cover. GAH!

  Henry switched off the bedroom lights to buy time.

  In the darkness, Henry shut the magic book and pushed the medallion back into the cover. “Bad book!” he whispered.

  Brendan laughed. “Are you trying to scare me, Henry?”

  Henry shoved the magic book under his bedsheets. Then he switched the lights back on. “Boo!” he said, as if that had been his plan all along.

  “I’ve been a sitter for years, but I’ve never had a kid try to scare me. Way to go, Henry!” Brendan raised both hands. “Now, do you want to hear a story about a real bear?”

  Henry headed for the door. “Sure, but can we go downstairs?”

  Brendan followed him into the hall.

  Phew! thought Henry, looking over his shoulder at the lump in his bed. That was a close call!

  Chapter 10 COSMIC BEAR

  Brendan told Henry about a time he had seen a bear while hiking in the mountains with his family.

  Henry’s eyes grew wide. “Were you scared?” he asked.

  Brendan nodded. “Definitely. But it was cool, too. It was the biggest creature I’d ever seen!”

  Then Henry showed off Dr. Bot. “Dr. Bot can take down anything,” he said.

  “Oh yeah? Can Dr. Bot take down… the evil, terrifying COSMIC BEAR?!” Brendan jumped up from the couch, made his hands into claws, and growled.

  “I. Am. Dr. Bot,” Henry said, holding Dr. Bot above his head. “Prepare for your defeat!”

  Cosmic Bear was a tough enemy. He cleverly used the couch cushions to protect himself from Dr. Bot’s laser beams.

  Just as Henry and Dr. Bot had cornered Cosmic Bear in the living room, Mom and Dad walked in. Henry had been so busy playing, he didn’t even hear the garage door open!

  “Aww, we were just getting to the good part!” Henry cried.

  “I see that you had a good time with Brendan,” Dad said, smiling.

 

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