Gear Up and Get Punky

A humorous, coming-of-age novel on how the best of intentions can sometimes leave the largest of craters.

"This book changed my life."
—The Paper Formerly Known as Tree

Colonel Cantankerous Von Puffingnub the Thirteenth is what Adelaide Wakefield calls her amputated arm nub, but only when it's itchy. Her best friend is the mechanical arm she built for herself, mainly because it tends to flatulate at the fancy dinner parties her parents force her to attend. After all, the loose rubber seal she installed on the exit pipe that makes the exhaust go "phlbbbttthhh" is completely necessary. Or, at least, that's what Adelaide tells all the highfalutin toots that give her the stink eye.

When the Wakefields throw an elaborate housewarming party for themselves upon arriving to Parson's City, Adelaide unmasks a sassy thief who steals her most precious possession: an empty jewelry box with legs. Adelaide chases her through the clockwork city and winds up surrounded by the brigand’s gang, who are really just a runaway band of orphaned misfits. Dubbed the Punks of the Steam Tunnels, they introduce Adelaide to a life of freedom filled with train surfing, spring-loaded bookstores, mechanical foxes, criminally-colorful gangs, and fried rats on sticks.

Determined to make their lives better, Adelaide builds new inventions for them. Some of which even work. Others, not so much. When the up-and-coming engineer creates a new kind of generator, she discovers that it doesn't generate power so much as earthquakes. Whoops.

(May contain unnecessary footnotes and stupendous witticisms.)