Spin the Golden Light Bulb

by Jackie Yeager

  My hair blows all over my face. I tuck it behind my ear but it just falls back out again. Seraphina and Ander are talking about something but the wind has muffled their words. We pass over a pond that looks like the one we jog around each morning during break time. I don’t want to stop at this one though. My brain feels free riding through the air like this.

  Soon we pull into a parking lot in front of a warehouse. It’s made of metal or aluminum and doesn’t have any windows. “Is this it?” I ask as she lands the cart.

  “It sure is!” Seraphina replies. She turns the key and the motor slows to a quiet hum and then to nothing at all.

  “It looks scary,” I say.

  “It looks like a hockey rink,” says Ander, walking towards it like he’s been there hundreds of times.

  She laughs. “I promise you both—this is neither a hockey rink nor scary. You’ll love it. It’s my favorite place on campus.”

  “What is it?”

  Her smile widens to a grin. “Come inside. You’ll see.”

  We walk to the entrance with the rest of our team, and one by one we file in. The building is several stories high, but all I see is one giant room with short dividers—separating it into about fifty tiny areas. It reminds me of a farmer’s market, where people sell stuff like fruits and vegetables and crafts.

  “What is this place?” Jillian asks.

  “This is the Piedmont Pantry. This is where you’ll gather items to use for your solution. You’ll find materials for your sets and costumes and anything else you need. Think of it as your team’s personal shopping mall.”

  “Really?” Jillian’s face lights up.

  I scan the room. It’s like craft supply heaven with teams walking around gathering up their items. My brain jumbles. I wonder what they’re picking.

  “This is awesome!” Ander yells. “We can pick whatever we want?”

  “It’s yours for the taking.”

  “But how do we pay for all this stuff?” asks Mare.

  Gregor clears his throat. “The materials don’t cost you anything. They are provided by the Piedmont Organization for your use in the competition. You’ll find everything you need here to fuel your creativity. There are some rules, though. You must only take items your team agrees are needed to solve your task, and you have only today to shop for your supplies. Each team is only allowed one trip to the Piedmont Pantry.

  “How do we get all of it back to our chambers?” I ask.

  Gregor takes a clipboard from a nearby table and hands it to Ander. “You will keep track of the items with these. Anything that’s too big to carry back on the carts will be delivered later today.”

  Ander bounces up and down, like he’s ready to play in a championship game or something. “Where do we start?”

  “That’s for your team to decide,” says Seraphina.

  “Let’s walk around the booths first and break into small groups later if we need to,” Ander replies.

  “Okay,” says Mare. “Let’s go.”

  We come to a booth of mechanical parts and Jax stops to look at every table. Most are filled with metal boxes, each containing tiny pieces. They look like a big mystery to me. Next we pass several computer booths filled with circuit boards and wires. Jax examines each of those too. I want to put a motor on his feet. There are so many more booths, and we don’t need any of this stuff for our solution. Jax doesn’t seem to notice we’re all watching him.

  Finally, Ander says, “Jax, do we need this stuff to make the object rotate?”

  “I’m not sure. It depends whether we use wood or metal to build it.”

  “Let’s keep looking. We can come back to this area later.”

  Way in the back corner of the warehouse, we come to a booth that contains tables covered with clothes. Two women are taking shirts, pants, and dresses out of boxes and folding them on their laps. Racks along the side are filled with fabric, needles, and thread.

  Ander picks up some blue fabric. “Should we all pick a color for our costumes?”

  Mare grabs it from him. “I don’t think this is what we’re looking for, unless maybe we cut up all the pieces.”

  “That seems like a waste,” says Jillian. “It’s such nice fabric. What we really need are scraps.”

  “Oh,” Ander replies. “To make us look more ghost-like. Right?”

  A man and woman stand nearby organizing the spools. The woman smiles at us.

  “It’s nice to see you kids. We never get any visitors way back in this corner. If you look behind those tables, I have some boxes filled with scraps of fabric. They may be of use for you depending on what you’re doing with it.”

  Jillian skips to the back. We follow her and see a ton of boxes. At least twenty are filled to the brim. We search for anything we might be able to use to look spooky and ghost-like. Soon we leave with arms full of fabric and race to the next booth.

  Seraphina gathers our scraps into a garbage bag so we can explore the wood booth. We find rows and rows of two-by-fours, one-by-sixes, and other sizes that Jax thinks we might be able to build with. He and Ander and Gregor walk towards the back to place the order.

  “Wait up, guys!” calls Mare. “Do you even know what kind of wood to get?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” says Ander.

  “Well, make sure you don’t pick hard maple. It’s really tough to work with. Soft maple would be fine, but pine would be better if they have it.”

  “How do you know that?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “My dad works in construction. On weekends I help him pick up materials. Sometimes I help him remodel houses too.”

  Ander’s eyes grow big. “You do?”

  “Yeah, so . . .”

  “Nothing. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”

  Wow. Mare with a hammer. That’s scary. But kind of cool that she helped the boys like that.

  Mare helps them pick out the pieces, and soon our team has ordered enough wood to get our structure built.

  We stand in the aisle, planning where to go next. The team from Alaska—three boys and two girls, all wearing brown shirts—walks up to the booth and rummages through the rows of wood. One of the boys asks, “Is this stuff any good?”

  “Yeah,” says Ander. “But most of the good pieces are in the back.”

  Mare grins at the boy.

  “Really? Okay. I’ll check it out.”

  “You guys are from Alaska?” Ander asks.

  “Yup.”

  “Cool. Is it really freezing there like every second?”

  “Not every second, but yeah, it gets pretty cold.”

  “Do you ride on dog sleds?”

  He laughs. “Yeah, almost every day.”

  “We ride on aero-scooters,” I say.

  “We do too, but riding on dogs sleds is way more fun. You’re from New York?”

  “Yeah,” says Ander.

  “Oh no. Gotta go! My team left me. See ya.”

  “See ya, Alaska boy!” Mare giggles.

  Jillian and I try not to laugh, but Mare doesn’t even care that he probably heard her! The boys take off to find paint. The girls and I decide to look for things that might make us look like ghosts. We run back with Seraphina to the booth with the old clothes. There has to be something cool in those piles. We try on hats, vests, gloves, shoes, jackets, and scarves.

  “Look at me!” says Jillian, wearing a curly gray wig. “I’m an old lady ghost. Where did I put my dentures?”

  I pull a cane out of the box and hobble over to her. “My dear old friend, your teeth are still in your mouth!” I see the West Virginia team staring at us and I drop the cane. I don’t want to give them any ideas!

  We keep digging through the boxes. I can’t get through them fast enough. Images of ghosts wearing farmer’s clothes and party clothes clog up my bra
in. By the time we’ve finished, we’ve picked a furry vest for Ander, a top hat for Jax, long gloves and a feather boa for Jillian, a light blue mini skirt and leg warmers for Mare, and yellow overall shorts for me.

  On the way back to find the boys, we pass a table filled with beads and jewelry. Grandma Kitty would devour this! Jillian finds a strand of long pearls, and Mare picks a sparkly choker necklace. I choose eight rings for my fingers and try them on. Perfect!

  By the time we’re finished, we’ve filled our bags with fabric scraps, old clothes, jewelry, scissors, duct tape, glue, needles, thread, pins, measuring tape, sketch paper, markers, paint, tools, and some mechanical stuff too. We load them into the storage containers under the carts and get ready to fly back to Piedmont Chamber.

  Ander jumps onto the back of the cart. “Here KK, you can sit in the front this time.”

  I’m startled when he calls me that. I get in the front seat like he suggests and think about it for a second. He just called me KK. Not 718 and not even Kia. Wow. I think Ander just gave me a nickname!

  GHOST STORIES

  The girls and I lug the bags into our bedchamber and drop them next to our work table. Jillian immediately pours out every scrap. “This is better than Christmas!” She picks up the pieces of fabric and holds them up to the light. “They’re so pretty. Look at them all.” She rearranges pieces on the carpet and crawls over to a green feathery strip. “I bet we could turn this fluffy stuff into arm bands to wrap around my gloves.”

  “Don’t forget the pearls,” I sing.

  “Hmm. Where are those?”

  We search through the items on the floor. There’s so much it’s hard to tell there’s even a carpet under it all.

  “Wait a second,” says Mare, picking up spools of thread. “We need to organize. I can’t work with this stuff thrown everywhere. We’ll need a fabric pile, and a jewelry pile, and a sewing pile, and an accessory pile.”

  Jillian doesn’t seem to notice what Mare is doing. She’s already cut up the pieces of silver fabric, sprinkled them over the pink fabric, and set the green fluffy stuff, the white gloves, the pearls, and the feather boa next to it. She stands up to get a better look. “Would this transform me into a glamorous ghost?”

  I jump up from the floor. “Yes, Dah-ling, but only if you speak with an accent and walk like this.” I sashay across the floor with my hand on my hip.

  Mare is too busy admiring her piles to watch us. “There,” she says. “Now we can get to work. Just make sure you put the tops on the glue and glitter when you’re done with them and don’t leave the sewing needles in the carpet. I don’t want to step on those with my bare feet.” She has sorted the fabric by color, the thread by shade, the glue by bottle size, and the accessories by character. Yikes.

  “Can you guys help me make my dress?” Jillian asks.

  I bite my ring nail. “I don’t know how to make a dress.”

  “You don’t have to,” she replies. “I just need you to hold it up while I cut a hole for my head. Then I can drape it over you and sew up the sides.”

  “That would look like a Grandma dress,” says Mare.

  “But only if I left it like that. I’m going to add a belt.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “I’ll use some of that silver fabric if we have any left.”

  “There’s some right there.” I point to a wadded up piece under the table.

  Mare lays it out. “We could cut this into a rectangular shape.”

  “Then how does it become a belt?” I ask.

  “We twist it up, wrap it around her waist, tie it, and tuck the end under. Simple.”

  “That’s genius,” I say.

  Jillian giggles. “It’s just a belt.”

  I pick up my overall shorts. “Just wait until our families see us in these costumes.”

  Jillian squirts glue onto a silver piece. “Are they coming to the rehearsal at the end of the summer?”

  “Yeah, my parents, my brother, my sister, and my Grandma Kitty too.”

  “You’re lucky you have a sister,” she says. “I have two brothers, Dexter and Davis. Dexter is my older brother. We fight all the time. Davis isn’t so bad though.”

  “Are they all coming too?” Mare asks.

  “Yeah. They can’t wait to watch me play a dramatic ghost.”

  Mare rearranges the straight pins.

  “What about yours, Mare?”

  “My mom’s coming. I’m not sure about my brother or sister. They both have jobs now so I don’t know if they can.”

  I look down at my overalls and my brain clogs up. “I don’t know how to make this look like a ghost costume.”

  “Really?” says Jillian. “Yours is the easiest one. Take these black and gray scraps and cut them into strips—all jagged-like. Then attach them to the overalls.”

  “Yeah,” says Mare. “Let’s make it look like you went through a dangerous tunnel or something to get to where the ghosts hang out.”

  “Cool idea. I like that.” I sit down at the table with a mountain of fabric in front of me and snip the pieces, trying not to make the strips too straight. I imagine myself as a little ghost walking toward the structure the boys have built. I know they probably don’t need my help, but I want to build the rotating object too. Maybe if I finish cutting the strips I can work with them after. I tuck my feet under the chair, spread out the pieces of gray fabric, and cut really fast.

  Later, I call Ander and tell him I want to help build the rotating object. If Mare knows how to do that stuff, I know I could learn too.

  “Why?” he replies. “This is man’s work—we’re using saws and nails. Don’t you want to keep sewing?”

  “I’d rather punch you in the face. How about I do that instead?”

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “I’m on my way!”

  “Okay, okay. I’m just kidding. You can help.”

  Soon, Ander and Jax lead me out the back door of Piedmont Chamber to see what they’ve done so far. I practically skip the whole way. Ander stops short at a shed door attached to the back of the building while boys in tie-died shirts from Nevada walk by. “What are you waiting for?” asks Jax.

  When the boys are out of earshot, he replies, “I don’t want anyone to see where we’re keeping our project.”

  “Why not?”

  “So they don’t figure out what we’re building. It’s a competition, remember?” Jax nods and pulls open the heavy door. I shiver as we step inside the cool, dimly-lit shed filled with ancient-looking tools with long handles. Were they used for gardening or something?

  Back home no one has to do that stuff anymore, even with all the oaks and maple trees everywhere. Houses practically do their own yard work with the flip of a switch. Blowers are built into the siding. When too many leaves cover the ground, they blow them into the center of the yard. A small, steel mixer lifts up from under a section of fake grass. It collects the leaves, chops them up and pours them into a container. Then we get to use the leaf pieces to nourish the plants—like compost.

  Jax turns on the light. A huge, rectangular box made of wood sits in the middle of the room. It looks like it could hold a giant!

  “Is that the coffin?” I ask and walk around to see the other side.

  “Well,” says Jax. “We’ll turn this side into a coffin, but when it rotates, it will become an incinerator.”

  “You know,” Ander says, “an oven where body parts are cremated—burned to smithereens!”

  “Yuck. That’s gross.”

  “And,” Jax continues, “when it rotates again, it will become a rocket ship that can catapult bodies into space.”

  “Oh, that’s good!”

  Ander jumps on top of the box. “But, there will also be the side that shows the Ghost Gallery. Remember, that’s the part that shows pictures
of each one—the coffin, the oven, and the spaceship, giving your character a choice of where to spend eternity.”

  Jax glares at Ander. “Do you have to jump on the box every five minutes?”

  Ander steps down. “It’s not every five minutes.”

  Jax raises his eyebrow. “We’re lucky it hasn’t broken.”

  I want to side with Jax, but I know Ander can’t help it. His brain must think best when he jumps all over the place.

  I lift up the corner to see how heavy it is. “So, how do we make it rotate?”

  “We haven’t figured that part out yet,” says Jax. His face is serious with a deep wrinkle between his eyes.

  “I could paint the gallery side,” I say. “I have some good images of ghosts that would look really creepy.”

  “Where did you get those?” asks Ander.

  “In my head.”

  Ander laughs. He seems to understand. “Should we start working on that now?”

  “No. I think we should wait for Jillian and Mare. I want to make sure they like this idea before we start. We all know what will happen if Mare doesn’t like it.”

  Ander rolls his eyes. Jax picks up his computer case. “I want to figure out the mechanical stuff anyway. Do you guys mind if I go back to my bedchamber and do some research?”

  “Sure,” says Ander. “What can we do then, KK? Take the rest of the morning off? Play some street hockey? What do you say? Huh? Huh?” He elbows me in the arm.

  That sounds like fun, actually, but I stand firm. We’ve already been here two weeks. Only three weeks until the rehearsal for our families. “No! I think we should start the script.”

  “Okay, whatever you say, but Jax is going to work in our chamber and the girls are working in yours. I’m not sure we can get into Meeting Room Twelve. Another team may be using it.”

  “Let’s pick up a notebook from my bedchamber and work down by the pond.”