When Franny Stein, self-styled mad scientist, creates a robot to show her school friends the joys of science, she ends up learning something from them instead.

When her embarrassing middle name is revealed at school, mad scientist Franny K. Stein experiments with time in order to return to the past and give herself a more dignified name.

Franny K. Stein is a mad scientist who prefers all things spooky and creepy, but when she has trouble making friends at her new school she experiments with fitting in--which works until a monster erupts from the trashcan.

Being a mad scientist in the modern world is very hard work. With so much that needs to be done in such a short period of time, multitasking can get way out of hand. Franny needs some additional help. But for Franny there is only one person in the world she trusts to help her with her experiments--herself. So she acquires assistance the mad scientist way, by building a few real, live, steel-plated Franbots.

Jamie is upset because she is now automatic friends with her old enemy Angeline, and so she tries to find something that she and her real friend, Isabella, can do together for the school talent show without Angeline.

"Dear Dumb Diary, just when I was pretty sure we could let the Student Awareness Committee quietly die a dignified death like some majestic old elephant or the Square Dancing Club, Angeline has to be aware of something. Great. And, of course, it couldn't be something interesting like nail polish or why maybe there should be a special class in nail polish and how to get it out of your beagle's ear. (Mom, if you're reading this, I'm not admitting anything....

Franny tries to follow her mother's suggestion to change her appearance, but by turning hair styling into a science experiment she creates some very greedy pigtails that terrorize the town.

Franny K. Stein has had quite enough of her feelings getting in the way. So she physically removes them with the help of one of her machines. But it turns out that not having feelings can make things even worse, especially when you've accidentally released a virus that's turning everybody into toads. Good thing she has the help of her grandma, Granny Fran, and her Sense of Duty to help her shake the apathy.

There's nothing Jake likes more than some good trash-picking, so when his elderly neighbors move out and leave an especially promising-looking pile of household refuse on the curb, he goes right for it. He only has the chance to grab one box before his mom catches him and orders him in for dinner, though. When mysterious goings-on begin to occur in the neighborhood, Jack and his friends investigate the hidden box from Jack's garage. In it, they find...

Jamie Kelly shares with her diary her excitement about the fact that students from Wodehouse Middle School will be going to Mackerel Middle School temporarily.