Phineas and Ferb meets the Despicable Me series in this “fanciful, humorous, and original” ( Kirkus Reviews ) middle grade debut from acclaimed author Adi Alsaid about a wannabe hero who lives in a goofily evil kingdom where nefarious schemes abound. Welcome to Nefaria, where nearly every day the kingdom faces another evil scheme. Most are harmless, though, so the citizens of Nefaria simply learn to live with the latest hijinks and go on with their lives. This includes Bobert Bougainvillea, who is much more concerned with the fact that he seems to be invisible. From the teachers in his school to his classmates, almost no one notices Bobert, no matter how visible he tries to be. Then everything changes when Bobert follows his classmates to a cursed gumball machine. Before he knows it, Bobert is sucked into one of Nefaria’s most villainous evil schemes, a plot that has been a long time in the making—too long, in the evil wizard Matt’s opinion. And retreating into invisibility this time won’t do, not when Bobert is the only one with the drive, knowledge, and—if his newfound courage doesn’t fail him—bravery to foil Matt’s plan. "Delightfully wacky, hilariously absurd, and perfectly relatable. It's just plain fun!"--Chris Rylander, author of The Legend of Greg Born and raised in Mexico City, Adi Alsaid is the author of several young adult novels including Let’s Get Lost , We Didn’t Ask for This , and North of Happy , a Kirkus Reviews Best Book nominee. He also wrote the middle grade books The Bravest Warrior in Nefaria and The Greatest Heist in Joviala and edited Come on In: 15 Stories about Immigration and Finding Home . He currently lives in Chicago with his wife and two cats, where he occasionally spills hot sauce on things (and cats). Chapter 1 1 THE KINGDOM OF NEFARIA was beautiful, but prone to evil schemes. There was, for instance, the Great Cheese Fraud of the Fourteenth Century (the perpetrators made quite a bit of cheddar before the villagers caught on and tore them to shreds). Then there was Lord Maximilian’s ill-fated attempt to control the land with highly trained spider monkeys (that the spider monkeys ended up being quite peaceful did not make the scheme any less evil). And who could forget the Anti-Beanbag Society’s plan to slightly empty every beanbag in the land until none of them were comfortable? The residents of Nefaria had grown used to schemes popping up, and though they tried to remain vigilant and refused to let their land go full-on evil, it was exhausting to always keep an eye out for these things. And hard, too. Sometimes the evilest of schemes don’t seem all that evil at first glance. They seem normal, harmless—pleasant, even. They can take on the appearance of something commonplace, with no hint at the evil lurking beneath. Even the kingdom’s dedicated evil sniffer-outers missed a lot of them. Some Nefarians left, of course, fleeing to the nearby kingdoms of Jovialla and Los Angsteles. Even if a place is home, there’s only so much people are willing to deal with. Other Nefarians tried to find a reason why their land was particularly prone to evil schemes. They tested the water, and the soil, and even some birds. But there wasn’t anything demonstrably evil in any of them, and so a lot of people went on with their lives and hoped all the hubbub about evil schemes would fade away eventually. Bobert Bougainvillea—a young and smallish resident of the upper hills of Nefaria—never really thought about evil schemes. Maybe because eleven-year-olds are usually not the ones called upon to fight them. Young Nefarians learned about evil schemes in school, and in the course of their daily lives (sometimes it seemed like it was all adults wanted to talk about), but Bobert himself thought of them as a part of the world that he didn’t understand much but also didn’t have to yet, kind of like taxes, or how to tell if fruit at the market was any good. Bobert also didn’t think about evil schemes much because he was too busy dealing with other things that were borderline evil—or at least they felt that way to him. Like waking up at sunrise to walk uphill, then downhill, then back uphill to school. A beautiful hike, sure, as Nefaria was full of canyons, majestic in the morning light, or as majestic as anything could be at that time of day. But all the while Bobert had to avoid the flying goats (part of another failed evil scheme), which brayed way too loudly, and whose droppings splatted to the ground like the grossest bombs ever. And after an hour of huffing and puffing and ducking and diving, he had a whole day of classes to sit through with his clothes sweaty and his legs sore. Then there were the other kids. They never seemed to see him. If that was evil or not, Bobert couldn’t tell. He didn’t care much what it was called. He didn’t like it. When they worked on group projects, other students all rushed to find one another. Even the kids who were picked on