Excerpt: 'Science Fair'

Oct. 17, 2008 — -- In the new book "Science Fair," authors Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson tell the tale of the president of Kprshtskan, who plots to take over the American government. His master plan includes infiltrating a middle school science fair and selling students government-corrupting software.

Read an excerpt of the book below and click here to check out more book excerpts from our library.

Five large, hairy men were gathered for a top-secret meeting in a bunker under the presidential palace in the city of Krpsht. Krpsht (pronounced "Krpsht") was the capital of the Republic of Krpshtskan, a poor, mountainous nation with few vowels and a population of four million, including goats.

The five were very powerful men, at least for Krpshtskan. The oldest and largest and hairiest man, known as Grdankl the Strong, was the president, a position he had won in a national election contest against nobody. His campaign slogan had been "Vote for Grdankl, or Die." The other four men were Krpshtskan's first, second, third, and fourth vice presidents, who also happened to be the president's brothers. Their job was to agree with the president at all times.

These five men were looking over the shoulder of a very thin and very nervous young man seated at a computer. The young man's name was Vrsk, and he held the lofty title of Krpshtskan minister of technology. Vrsk had been appointed to this post because he was the only person in Krpshtskan who could work the official government computer, which was the only working computer in Krpshtskan.At the moment the screen was dark.

"Why is it taking so long?" barked Grdankl the Strong, speaking in the Krpsht language, which has been compared to the sound of a duck burping. The first, second, third, and fourth vice presidents nodded vigorously and frowned to indicate that they, too, thought it was taking too long.

"It's booting up," said Vrsk. "It takes a while. It's Windows 98. I tried to upgrade to Vista, but the processor—"

"No more talking!" said Grdankl the Strong, who did not like to hear people say things that he did not understand. "Turn it on!"

Vrsk turned back to the computer screen, relieved to see that it was now flickering to life. His relief turned to horror when he saw that he had failed to disable his usual screen saver, which was a picture of Halle Berry in her Cat Woman suit.