Free In the Ice Age : In the Ice Age (9780307532497) by Jan (ILT) J. C.; Gerardi Greenburg

  ARE WE THERE YET?
    Why are we still stuck in dinosaur time?
thought ten-year-old Andrew Dubble. He was strapped inside his uncle’s time-travel vehicle, the Time-A-Tron.
Why aren’t we heading for the Ice Age?
    The display on the Time-A-Tron’s control panel kept blinking 65 MILLION YEARS AGO.
    Sitting next to Andrew was his thirteen-year-old cousin, Judy. She was pounding the Fast-Forward button on the silvery control panel.
    Outside a forest fire was roaring. Towers of flames were creeping closer.
    An asteroid the size of a city had just slammed into the Earth and set off an enormous explosion. It had heated the Earth’s surface to a thousand degrees and set fires all over the world.
    bong …
“The Time-A-Tron is on its side,” said the Time-A-Tron in its deep, echoey voice. “One of the Fast-Fins seems to be stuck. It is not spinning.”
    “Hoo boy!” came a voice from the backseat. It was Beeper Jones, the boy they had rescued 300 million years ago.
    Beeper was wearing just a T-shirt, underpants with pictures of penguins, and a black tube tied around his waist.
    “I lost my camera,” said Beeper. “I think it fell off my belt when I was getting into the Time-A-Tron. I gotta go get it. It’s got the only photos of dinos in the whole world!”
    “Oh no, you don’t,” said Professor Winka Wilde. She grabbed Beeper by the neck of hisT-shirt. They had found Professor Wilde stranded near a herd of triceratops.

    “The fire will be here in seconds and the air may be too hot to breathe,” said Winka.
    Beeper yanked himself away. In an instant he had pulled up the door in the floor and crawled into the lower compartment.
    “Beeper!” yelled Winka Wilde. “Get back here!”
    “What a bozo!” yelled Judy.
    “I’ll get him,” said Andrew, unbuckling his seat belt.
    “Noop! Noop! Noop!” squeaked a voice from Andrew’s pocket. It was Thudd, Andrew’s little silver robot and best friend. “Big, big danger!”
    bong …
“Do not go after him, Master Andrew,” said the Time-A-Tron. “I will seal the doors.”
    bzerk … bzerk … bzerk …
    “The emergency escape!” said Andrew.
    sssssss …
    One of the Time-A-Tron’s doors was sliding open!
    bong …
“Too late!” it groaned.
    Andrew scrambled out of his chair. But just then Beeper yelled, “Found it.”
    bunk …
came a sound from the bottom compartment.
    “Get back here,” said Winka sternly.
    “Just a minute,” said Beeper. “I, uh, dropped something.”
    bong …
“What if we had taken off while you were outside, Master Beeper?” asked the Time-A-Tron.
    “No
way,
” said Beeper, crawling into the upper compartment. “Old Judy-Patootie can’t even get us moving.”
    “Eat worms!” said Judy. “We’re leaving in a second!”
    “Not a chance,” said Beeper. “Judy Dubble’s in big, big trouble!”
    “Now stop it, you two,” said Winka. She was leaning over the control panel, examining the buttons. “We need to focus on getting out of here.”
    meep …
“Gotta rock!” squeaked Thudd.
    Judy frowned at him. “Thudd, this is
no
time for music!”
    “Noop! Noop! Noop!” said Thudd. “Gotta rock Time-A-Tron. Rock side to side. Get Fast-Fin unstuck!”
    “Oh!” said Judy.
    “Good thinking, Thudd,” said Winka.
    “Let’s do it!” said Beeper.
    “On the count of three, rock left,” said Andrew. “One
…
two
… three!”
    They all leaned left, then right, then back again. The Time-A-Tron rocked back and forth.
    bong …
“Good work!” said the Time-A-Tron. “Keep going!”
    FLUMP!
    The Fast-Fin yanked free.
    WOOHOOOOOO!
    Balls of green flame shot from both of the Fast-Fins. They wrapped the Time-A-Tron in a web of light.
    BLAFOOOOOOOOOM!

  UH-OM …
    The numbers on the control panel were changing!
    64 MILLION YEARS AGO
    63 MILLION YEARS AGO
    62 MILLION YEARS AGO
    bong …
“Congratulations!” said the Time-A-Tron. “Your excellent teamwork has gotten us moving again!”
    “Finally!” said Judy,