"Yes! Jimmy is out for the night! We have enough time to get ourselves out of here before he gets back!" Spongebob said when he was sure Jimmy was gone.
"I wonder who Suzanna is…" Patrick asked.
"Does it matter? Jimmy will be out for another hour at least, so that should give us enough time to figure out how to get out!" Sandy replied. "Okay, let's start thinkin'!"
The all thought and thought, tried and tried, thought and tried some more, but still, no one could think of anything.
"I can't think of anything," Stanley remarked, after hours of thinking and trying.
"Me either," Sandy answered.
"I'm blank," Squidward said.
"Too… much… use… of brain…" Patrick said, and fell over.
"I got nothing," Spongebob said.
"Well what do we do?" Sandy asked.
"Wait- I just got an idea!" Spongebob said.
"What is it?" everyone exclaimed at once.
"Okay, here's how it goes…"
At Town Pizza, Jimmy and Suzanna talked and laughed and ate and drank, and after they had paid for the meal, Jimmy said, "So Suzanna… Wanna come over to my house and see my new pet sponge? He's really cool. I found him at the beach today."
"Sure!"
They left a tip and got on their bikes.
Back at the house in the fish tank, Spongebob and the gang were working out their plan, or at least, trying to make it work.
"Okay, so if you could just get onto Sandy's shoulders…" Spongebob said, directing Stanley to climb on the huge tower of creatures. In Spongebob's mind, Sandy, who is the strongest, would be at the bottom of the tower, followed by Patrick, and then Stanley, and then Squidward, and finally Spongebob, who is the lightest, so he could just hop out of the top of the tank. The hard part was getting everyone in the pile.
"Sp-Spongebob, is-is this okay?" Stanley answered shakily, trying to keep his balance at the top of the pile.
"Yeah, that's good." Spongebob answered. "Okay, now Squidward, you get on top of Stanley, and from there, I'll climb on top of him, so that I can undo the latch and climb out."
Squidward climbed up on top of Stanley, and made it up, and was now close enough to reach the latch if he stood on his tippy-toes, which he was not going to do. That's where Spongebob comes in.
"Okay, come on Spongebob, quickly now!" Sandy encouraged him, staggering under the weight of everyone, particularly Patrick.
"Okay, here I come!" Spongebob said, stepping back to give himself a running start.
He ran up and climbed Sandy, Patrick, Stanley, and then Squidward. He nearly fell off Squidward's slippery head, but managed to grab onto the latch and climb out.
"It's good!" Spongebob called from outside, and let down a hand through the hatch for Squidward to grab.
He climbed out successfully, and Spongebob held on to his feet as he reached out for Stanley, but missed. There was a gust of air as the door swung open and revealed Jimmy and Suzanna.
"Oh no! Jimmy's back! Just stand still, and hopefully he won't notice." Spongebob said, looking up and nearly letting go of Squidward.
The all stood frozen as Jimmy walked through the door.
"Okay so here's my sponge. He's awesome." Jimmy said, and pulled the shirt off of the fish tank revealing his sponge holding a squid by the legs, and a leaning tower of creatures.
"Oh my god!" Jimmy exclaimed. "What the heck are a squirrel, a fish, a squid and a starfish doing in my fish tank?? Only the sponge is mine!"
"Um… is something wrong Jimmy?" Suzanna asked, backing away from the fish tank. "Cause if there is, I'm gonna go. Bye."
"Wait, Suzanna! Look, see, the sponge is cool, right? Right?" Jimmy said, pointing at Spongebob.
"Yeah, but I'll come back another day, when you have this all sorted out, okay? See you later." Suzanna walked out of the room and left the house.
"What's going on, Jimmy?" his mom called after speaking to Suzanna about what was going on in Jimmy's room.
"Yeah, there's like a squirrel and a starfish in his fish tank… He said only the sponge was his," Suzanna said to Jimmy's mom as she was leaving. "Just thought I'd let you know."
"Nothing mom!" Jimmy said and threw the shirt back on top of the tank, and found a few more shirts and threw them on.
Jimmy's mom came through the door.
"What's that big pile?" she said, pointing accusingly at the big fish tank covered in shirts.
"Oh that? That's a, uh, a… pile of books! And I accidentally threw some dirty laundry on it. I was just about to clean it up." Jimmy said, making up his story as he went along.
"Okay, but just go to bed really soon, alright? It's 9:45 already and I want to you to get a good night's sleep, okay?" his mom answered, walking out the door.
"'Kay mom! I'm getting ready for bed now!" Jimmy shouted.
"Good!" she called back.
Jimmy took off all the shirts from on top of the fish tank and tried to figure out was going on.
"Okay. I'm tired, so I'm gonna deal with you guys in the morning, okay?" Jimmy said, putting on his pajamas.
About ten minutes later, Jimmy had turned out the lights and was almost asleep in his bed.
When Spongebob was sure that Jimmy was sound asleep, they continued their procedure.
Squidward grabbed Stanley and pulled him up, and Squidward held onto Stanley's legs, who then grabbed for Sandy. She was strong enough to pull Patrick out of the tank, and get down from the bookshelf. They made it to the front door… but the problem is getting out of the house.
