The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable

By Dan Gutman

Hi! Have you ever heard of someone with the name of a food or a drink? Well if you have, great! (But sad for the people who were named that!) And if you haven’t, then you’re about to meet two people who are. This book is about two siblings named Coke and Pepsi McDonald.

It was almost summer vacation. It was the second to last day of school and Coke and Pepsi (boy/girl twins – Pepsi is the girl and Coke is the boy) had decided to walk home instead of riding on the school bus because they thought it was a pretty day and wanted to get some fresh air. They hadn’t walked far when people in bowler hats started chasing them in golf carts. Eventually, they started running. They had gotten to the edge of a cliff. A girl had caught up to them. She said her name was Maya and that the people in the bowler hats were trying to kill them. She stopped them for a little while, but then she got a poisonous dart to the neck that killed her right after she’d given each of the twins a suit that was supposed to make you fly.

Pepsi was reluctant to jump off the cliff. So, her brother Coke had to push her off. They flew off and eventually landed. They had gotten near their house. They had left their backpacks near the cliff when they had put on their flying suits. They changed out of the flying suits and threw them into the garbage.

When they got home with no backpacks, their parents asked them where their backpacks were, and Coke and Pepsi responded that they didn’t have any homework, so they had left their backpacks at school. They were about to go on a huge trip to their aunt’s wedding. They were going to travel across the country and were going to take some interesting stops along the way.

The next day at school, both Pepsi and Coke got detention. Their detention teacher stepped outside because she had gotten a phone call and locked the door behind her. Soon, Pepsi smelled smoke. Then Coke smelled it, too. (Did you know that girls have a better sense of smell than boys? Well, it’s true.) Then, they finally got the door open, but the hallway was full of flames! Someone rescued them just in time through an exit door on the side of the building. He was a janitor. Everyone called him “Mr. Bones” behind his back because he was very fat.

When he got them out, he took off some padding from underneath his shirt. He had been wearing fake stuff to make him look fat. And he pulled off his mustache and beard. He had been acting fake! The man in front of them now was very normal-looking and he told them Mrs. Higgins, the teacher who had been in charge of detention, had started the fire. She worked for the same boss that the guys in those bowler hats had worked for, and someone wanted to kill them. He warned them to stay safe for the rest of the summer.

The next morning, it was summer vacation. They got on the road as early as possible. Coke couldn’t wait to tell Pepsi that he had gotten a secret message under his pillow the night before. Pepsi was better at cracking codes than he was. It took her a little while, but she finally figured out the code. It said, “I will meet you in the house on the rock.”

What’s happening? Will Coke and Pepsi be safe from the mysterious stranger who’s trying to kill them? And what did the message mean? Who will meet them in a house on a rock? As I always say, read the book to find out!

I recommend this book to readers who are into suspense and action. This book will have you on the edge of your seat from the very first sentence to the very last word!

A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:

“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor):
There were a few scary parts in this book, but none were too extreme.

“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor):
Zero. None. Nada.