In Uncle Al : In Uncle Al (9780307532572) Read online

  If you look at your wrists, you will probably see veins where your blood looks blue. Inside your veins, this blood is really deep red or purple. But it looks blue because you’re seeing it through your skin.

  Are you allergic to cats or pollen or bee stings? Poison ivy or peanuts? None of these things are dangerous all by themselves. Many people are not bothered by them at all.

  An allergy means that your immune system is confused about its enemies. It mistakes harmless stuff for dangerous stuff—and attacks. The problem is that the weapons of the immune system can cause lots of damage to your body, too—resulting in sneezing, itching, swelling, fevers, and worse.

  When your body is attacked by bacteria or viruses, the temperature of your body may get hotter. You have a fever.

  Fevers are one of the ways your body fights infections. For example, higher temperatures help to kill some bacteria. When you have a fever, your body hides some of the food that bacteria need to survive. Your immune system also makes more of the cells needed to attack the invaders.

  So making a fever is one of the ways your immune system helps you to get well. Fevers aren’t dangerous unless they get too high.

  Aspirin and aspirin-like medicines are often used to lower fevers. But if you’re under nineteen years old, you should never take aspirin or aspirin-like medicines to lower a fever unless a doctor tells you to. Aspirin-like medicines could cause you to develop Reye’s syndrome, a problem worse than a fever or a cold.

  Our immune system can turn against our own cells and attack them. When this happens, we actually become allergic to ourselves. Such attacks by our immune system can lead to diseases like asthma and intestinal problems.

  Most people think that parasites, such as hookworms, are disgusting and unhealthy. However, scientists have discovered that people who have hookworms aren’t attacked by their own immune systems. These parasites make stuff that controls the immune system and keeps it from attacking.

  For some serious diseases, doctors are actually giving people parasites to eat!

  When you get a cold or the flu, it takes a while for your immune system to make the special army needed to defeat the “bad guys.” That’s why it takes about ten days for you to get better. However, once your immune-system army has met and defeated the bad guys, it will be instantly ready to wipe them out if the two forces meet again—before you get sick.

  That’s how vaccines (vack-SEENZ) work. For example, a shot of flu vaccine prepares your body to recognize and destroy the enemy as soon as they meet. And you don’t get sick!

  It’s easy to think of bones as solid and rocky and not really alive. But bones are changing all the time.

  If bones didn’t change, you couldn’t grow taller and bigger. And your bones couldn’t heal if they broke. As you get older, the shape of your face will change as the bones in your skull change.

  Bones change because they’re made up of two kinds of cells that have opposite jobs. Osteoclasts [AHS-tee-uh-klasts] are constantly breaking down old bone. Osteoblasts [AHS-tee-uh-blasts] are always busy making new bone, mainly from the calcium in your milk and other food.

  WHERE TO FIND MORE TRUE STUFF

  Would you like to find out more about the weird and wonderful stuff that goes on in your body? Here are some books for you:

  Body Warriors: The Immune System by Lisa Trumbauer (Chicago: Heinemann-Raintree, 2007). When bad stuff attacks, your body goes into amazing action. See what happens!

  The Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie: A Book About Germs by Joanna Cole (New York: Scholastic, 1995). It gets pretty crazy inside Ralphie when germs invade.

  Uncover the Human Body by Luann Colombo (San Diego: Silver Dolphin Press, 2003). Want to see what you look like on the inside? You’ll have fun putting yourself together—and taking yourself apart.

  The Brain: Our Nervous System by Seymour Simon (New York: Collins, 2006). Learn all about your squishy brain. And with all the great pictures, you’ll feel like you’re crawling into it!

  Turn the page

  for a sneak peek at

  Andrew, Judy, and Thudd’s

  next exciting adventure—

  ANDREW LOST

  IN THE DESERT

  Available January 2008

  Excerpt copyright © 2008 by J. C. Greenburg.

  Published by Random House Children’s Books, a division of

  Random House, Inc., New York.

  HOT! HOT! HOT!

  “Erf!” said ant-sized Andrew Dubble. He was inside an empty bottle cap, bouncing into his cousin Judy.

  Their uncle Al had glued the bottle cap to the dashboard of his jeep. It made a safe perch for Andrew and Judy to see the Australian desert as Uncle Al drove through it.

  “Get off of me, Bug-Brain,” said Judy, shoving Andrew away. “It’s soooo hot in here!”

  “It’s a rough trip through the desert, guys,” said Uncle Al. “The air conditioner isn’t working, so you’d better settle in for a long, hot, bumpy ride.”

  meep … “Desert air hot, hot, hot!” came a squeaky voice from Andrew’s shirt pocket. “Desert sand even hotter. Can fry egg on desert sand.”

  It was Andrew’s little silver robot friend, Thudd. Uncle Al had invented him.

  The afternoon sun burned through the windshield. The yellow sand stretched on forever. Here and there, patches of tall, prickly grass looked like resting herds of spiny porcupines. Now and then, a scraggly tree poked up like a skeleton.

  “The desert is like an empty planet,” said Andrew.

  Uncle Al shook his head. “It looks that way now,” he said. “But lots of strange creatures are sleeping or hiding underground during the hottest hours. They’ll come out to hunt when the sun goes down.”

  Oinga! Oinga! Oinga! came a sound from the front of the jeep. The jeep was slowing down.

  Plunk … plunk … erk …

  The jeep rolled to a stop. A ribbon of steam curled out from under the hood.

  Uncle Al shook his head. “I’ll find out what’s wrong,” he said. “And while I’m doing that, I want you guys to stay put. The desert is a dangerous place. Some of the most dangerous animals in the world live here. And not all of them sleep during the day.”

  “Okey-dokey, Unkie!” squeaked Thudd.

  Uncle Al got out of the jeep and opened the hood. A cloud of steam puffed out.

  “We’ve got a leak,” yelled Uncle Al from the front of the car. “I need to check underneath the jeep. This may take a while.”

  The heat was making Andrew sleepy. He rested his head against the edge of the bottle cap.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew caught a glimpse of something moving. He turned to see a dark cloud whirling near the ground. It was spinning like a top and whipping up the sand. It was heading straight toward the jeep!

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2007 by J. C. Greenburg

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Jan Gerardi

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks and A STEPPING STONE BOOK and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  ANDREW LOST is a trademark of J. C. Greenburg.

  www.randomhouse.com/kids/AndrewLost

  www.AndrewLost.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Greenburg, J. C. (Judith C.)

  In Uncle Al / by J. C. Greenburg ; illustrated by Jan Gerardi. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (Andrew Lost ; 16) “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  SUMMARY: When an electric fish shrinks Andrew, Judy, and Thudd to the size of bacter
ia, they end up being injected by a mosquito bite into Uncle Al’s bloodstream, where they must battle germs, parasites, and white blood cells.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-53257-2

  [1. Size—Fiction. 2. Blood—Fiction. 3. Cousins—Fiction.] I. Gerardi, Jan, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.G82785Iu 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006036838

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