Take a peek at Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters!

Rosie Revere put on her safety goggles.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Ready!” said Ada Twist.

“Ready!” said Iggy Peck.

They signaled the thumbs-up from behind the kitchen counter.

“Here goes!” said Rosie.

She hit the big red button on the Count-o-meter. A scratchy computer voice blared from its speaker.

COUNTDOWN!

FIVE . . .

Rosie ducked into her safety booth.

FOUR . . .

She flipped open her notebook.

THREE . . .

She pulled her pencil from behind her ear.

TWO . . .

Suddenly, Gizmo flew into the kitchen and landed on the contraption.

“DUCK!” yelled Rosie.

Gizmo chirped angrily.

“I know you’re not a duck!” yelled Rosie.

ONE . . .

The three kids dived for Gizmo just as—

BOOM!

The contraption exploded.

SPLAT! SPLOP! SPLURP!

Sticky, red glops of ketchup flew everywhere! But Gizmo zoomed ahead of the storm. She soared up, up, and out of the way. She looped the loop and gently landed on the refrigerator.

“Zowie!” said Ada, wiping ketchup from her goggles.

“Yikes!” said Iggy, wiping ketchup from his sweater.

“Hmm,” said Rosie, tapping her pencil on her notebook.

Rosie looked at the mess and wrote a quick note:

Ada and Iggy had been helping Rosie all morning. She was trying to invent something for her uncle, Zookeeper Fred. Uncle Fred had a big-snake problem . . . and a little-snake problem . . . and a green-snake problem . . . and a . . .

Uncle Fred had an EVERY-kind-of-snake problem. Every kind of snake in the zoo loved him.

They slithered out of the cages and into his office. They hid in his desk. In his pockets. Even in his lunch! One day, a smooth green snake named Vern hid in his sandwich. Uncle Fred thought that Vern was a wiggly pickle and almost took a bite!

After that, Uncle Fred called Rosie. She invented a contraption to scare away snakes. She called it the SnakeAway. It failed. She tried again. And again. And again. Rosie invented five models. They all failed, but she did not give up. Uncle Fred needed her help.

Rosie had hoped that the SnakeAway Model 5 would do the job. She looked at the mess. The fake snake on the table was covered in ketchup. It looked like a gigantic striped french fry with fangs. Uncle Fred would not like an invention that left ketchup all over his desk. He was a mustard kind of guy. And besides, it might attract ants. And possibly french fries.

Rosie added some notes about her testing:

The three friends cleaned up the mess. Then they shared peanut butter and honey sandwiches and talked about why the test failed.

After lunch, Ada and Iggy went home, and Rosie kept working. She looked at the contraption. A tube had exploded because a kink in the line blocked the ketchup. The pressure of the ketchup built up until—BOOM!

“Aha!” said Rosie.

She jotted down ideas to fix the problem. SnakeAway Model 6 would work better. She was sure of it. Well . . . she was almost sure. There was only one way to find out. She would make changes to the machine and test again.

Rosie was about to start when she heard a familiar whirring, purring, clanging, banging sound and looked out the window. It was Great-Great-Aunt Rose! Rosie stuck her pencil behind her ear, crammed her notebook into her pocket, and ran outside as Aunt Rose landed the heli-o-cheese-copter in the yard.

“Hey-hey!” called Aunt Rose. “How’s my favorite engineer?”

Aunt Rose hopped out of the aircraft and twirled Rosie around in a giant hug.

“My new invention is a disaster!” said Rosie.

“Brilliant!” said Aunt Rose. “Tell me about it on the way!”

“Are we going somewhere?” asked Rosie.

“You bet we are,” said Aunt Rose, “and there’s no time to lose. This is an emergency!”

Take a peek at Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants!

Ada grabbed her binoculars and came back to the tree. The Great Backyard Bird Count was only a few weeks away. Every year on the same day, Ada joined people around the world who counted birds in their own yards. Then, they all shared the data they collected. That data told scientists how many birds there were and where they lived and where they traveled.

Ada practiced identifying birds every day. She studied pictures and knew many birds by sight. But she wanted to know birdcalls, too. Ada listened to the birds in the tree.

CAW-CAW-CAW.

“Crow!” she said.

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

“Woodpecker!”

TAP-TAP-TAP.

“Northern Flicker.”

OOOOOOOOOOPS!

“Oops?” said Ada. “I don’t know that one!”

She listened again.

OH NOOOOOOOOO!

“‘Oh no’?” said Ada. “What kind of bird sounds like that?”

She looked through her binoculars.

“Zowie!” said Ada. “That’s not a bird! That’s not a plane! That’s … a bahonkus!”

Ada was right. It was a bahonkus. A very big bahonkus and it belonged to a very skinny man with a very big mustache and a very, very big pair of pants.

They were the biggest pants Ada had ever seen. They were fluffy and puffy and they were floating above the tree!

And that wasn’t just any man. That was—

“UNCLE NED!”

Ada turned to see her friends Rosie Revere and Iggy Peck running toward her. They were shouting and waving their arms.

“Stop that uncle!” yelled Rosie.

Ada looked up. A long rope dangled from Uncle Ned’s waist. It was snagged on a branch at the top of the tree. Rosie and Iggy skidded to a halt next to Ada. They were out of breath and their faces were bright red.

“Hi!” said Ada.

“Thanks for catching Uncle Ned!” said Rosie.

“We’ve been chasing him all over Blue River Creek!”

“Why is he flying around?” asked Ada. “Is it an experiment? I love experiments! Is it an experiment about flying? Wind? Birds? Leaves? Clouds? Is it about weather? Is it—”

“It’s about getting me down!” yelled Uncle Ned.

“We’re trying!” said Rosie.

“Why are his pants floating?” asked Ada. “Are they filled with gas?”

“I heard that,” called Uncle Ned.

“They’re filled with helium gas, which is lighter than air,” said Rosie. “I made them for him when I was younger.”

“Sometimes, he wears them on a walk,” said Iggy. “Though I guess it’s a float, because someone else is doing the walking. They hold the rope so Uncle Ned doesn’t fly off.”

Flying around in helium pants was dangerous. It was hazardous. It was perilous. It was also really cool.

“Uncle Fred was holding the rope today,” said Rosie. “And then he saw a—”

“Let me guess,” said Ada. “Did Uncle Fred see a snake?”

Rosie nodded. Everyone knew her Uncle Fred. He was the zookeeper in Blue River Creek. Everyone also knew that Uncle Fred loved snakes. And they loved him. He found them everywhere he went. It always led to trouble.

“He picked up the snake,” Rosie said, “and—”

“And he let go of the rope!” said Ada. “What kind of snake was it?”

“An annoying one!” yelled Uncle Ned. “Get me down from here!”