Nick and Tesla's Special Effects Spectacular

by Bob Pflugfelder

  Copyright © 2015 by Quirk Productions, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2014944416

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-59474-780-9

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-59474-760-1

  Designed by Andie Reid, based on a design by Doogie Horner

  Illustrations by Scott Garrett

  Production management by John J. McGurk

  Quirk Books

  215 Church Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19106

  quirkbooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Authors

  DANGER! DANGER!

  The how-to projects in this book involve hot water, projectiles, hot glue, and other potentially dangerous elements. Before you build any of the projects, ASK AN ADULT TO REVIEW THE INSTRUCTIONS. You’ll probably need their help with one or two of the steps, anyway.

  Although we believe these projects to be safe and family-friendly, accidents can happen in any situation; we cannot guarantee your safety. THE AUTHORS AND PUBLISHER DISCLAIM ANY LIABILITY FROM ANY HARM OR INJURY THAT MAY RESULT FROM THE USE, PROPER OR IMPROPER, OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK. Remember, the instructions in this book are not meant to be a substitute for your good judgment and common sense.

  There was a muffled boom, and then the whole house seemed to rise about half an inch before slamming down again. The lights flickered but stayed on.

  Nick and Tesla Holt listened intently. After a moment, they could hear faint coughing coming from downstairs.

  “I’m all right!” their uncle said from the basement. “You don’t have to call the fire department this time!” Uncle Newt was an inventor and a scientist, and he’d recently set aside his favorite project—a compost-powered vacuum cleaner—to begin work on something that he wouldn’t tell his niece and nephew about. “It’s a surprise!” Uncle Newt shouted, coughing a bit more. That was all he ever said about his new endeavor, no matter how many times Nick and Tesla asked him about it.

  “It would really be a surprise,” Nick said to his sister, “if his ‘whatever-it-is’ didn’t blow up all the time.”

  “He could be tinkering with a new flavor of ice cream, and there’d be a 99 percent chance it would go up in flames,” Tesla said to her twin brother. They’d known their uncle only since the beginning of the summer, when they’d been sent to stay with him in Half Moon Bay while their parents traveled abroad. But they’d soon realized that anything their inventor uncle happened to be working on was prone to exploding.

  Nick was sitting on the floor of the bedroom he and Tesla shared, hunched over a battered but functional laptop (which they also shared). He shrugged at Tesla and then looked down again at the computer. When he clicked the mouse, a black-and-white image of a man with dark hair and a thick mustache, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, appeared on the screen. Tesla recognized the man instantly.

  It was Tesla. Nikola Tesla, that is. The brilliant, eccentric inventor after whom she and Nick (“Nikola,” according to his birth certificate) had been named by their parents. (Who were also scientists but, unlike Uncle Newt, had never blown anything up. At least as far as Nick and Tesla knew.)

  Nick scrolled down and another image slid into place: a long, single-story brick building with, looming over it, a tower topped by a huge, bulbous dome.

  Tesla recognized this picture, too. It showed Wardenclyffe Tower, which was sometimes called Tesla Tower. Nikola Tesla had built it over a century ago. It was supposed to transmit electric power through the air like radio signals … except it had never worked properly.

  Nick had been obsessively researching wireless power transmission for days. He was convinced it had something to do with their mom and dad’s disappearance. Supposedly their parents had left the twins with Uncle Newt so that they could fly to Uzbekistan to research soybean irrigation. Yet they had been out of touch ever since, and Nick and Tesla eventually found themselves being shadowed by spies and government agents. It was one of those agents who’d suggested that wireless energy transfer, the kind that Nikola Tesla tried to invent, had something to do with their parents’ vanishing.

  “You know,” Nick said, without looking up from the laptop, “someone with a real, working Tesla Tower could put every oil and gas company out of business overnight. Maybe that’s why it has to be such a big secret.”

  “And someone with a real, working magic wand could turn the Great Lakes into chocolate syrup and put Hershey’s out of business, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” Tesla answered.

  “Yeah, well, we’re a lot closer to having wireless power transmission than we are to magic wands.” Now that he was getting excited, Nick looked up at his sister to continue the debate. “That solar power company Solanow has a prototype energy emitter, right?1 And the Japanese government wants to build a network of space-based solar power transmitters.2 And—”

  “I’m just glad Uncle Newt’s not working on wireless power transmission,” Tesla said, interrupting her brother. “If he were, every electrical appliance on the West Coast would’ve exploded already.”

  “Ha,” Nick said mirthlessly, and then he went back to staring at the computer screen.

  “Hey,” Tesla said, trying not to sound like she’d been planning to ask this question the whole time, “why don’t you take a break and come help me? I need to build a stabilizer for Silas’s video camera. Something that’ll help him get cool, smooth shots. He’s at DeMarco’s house right now filming his superhero movie. You know, Bald Eagle: The Legend Takes Flight. You should see DeMarco’s little sister Elesha in that green alien makeup we made for them.”

  Tesla was talking about Silas Kuskie and DeMarco Davison, the only friends she and her brother had made (so far) during their stay in Half Moon Bay. Nick believed that no normal kids would want the kind of trouble that he and his sister tended to get into. But DeMarco was an adrenaline junkie, always up for something exciting and a little dangerous. And Silas … well, let’s just say that thinking ahead about the kind of trouble he might get into—or thinking ahead about anything, for that matter—just wasn’t his style.

  Nick didn’t even look up as his sister continued her pitch.

  “Silas shot some footage of their stunt dummy dressed as the Bald Eagle, and the video was so jumpy and jerky that just watching it made Monique”—Monique was DeMarco’s even littler sister—“puke all over the yard.”

  Nick kept typing. Tesla frowned. She was sure Nick would enjoy the idea of one of DeMarco’s nasty little sisters getting so sick that she vomited. The two girls had been tormenting DeMarco ever since they were old enough to throw things at his head.

  “So, Silas needs something like a Steadicam,” Tesla continued. “You’ve seen those, right?”

  Nick still didn’t respond.

  “It’s a frame that spreads out a movie camera’s center of gravity via a counterbalance, making it easy to smoothly manipulate the camera with a special kind of joint called a gimbal.” Tesla kept talking even though Nick continued to ignore her. “Like the ones gyr
oscopes have. So, your video camera stays level instead of bouncing and jerking around and you get nice, even shots.”

  “I know what a Steadicam is,” Nick answered.

  “Well, we can’t make the real thing, of course. But I have some ideas for a simpler version that would work with that little video camera Silas uses.” Then Tesla had an idea. “We’ll call it a Silascam,” she said. “No, a Teslacam. No, wait—a Nickandteslacam. It could probably work with a phone camera, too.”

  “Great. Go make it without me.”

  “I can, of course. But it’d be a lot easier with you.” Usually, Nick and Tesla built all kinds of things together: vinegar and liquid-soap “volcanoes,” homemade rock candy, robots, super-cyborg gadget gloves. Last week, they’d created an animatronic arm, mostly out of ice-pop sticks, which Silas used in his movie along with the alien makeup. They’d also helped Silas and DeMarco put together a stunt dummy for the action scenes (even stuntmanwannabe DeMarco had no interest in falling down a flight of stairs, jumping from an attic window, or doing any of the other crazy tricks Silas came up with). Tesla tried to distract herself from all the weirdness and worries about their parents by keeping busy with one project after another. Lately, however, Nick hadn’t been trying to distract himself from those concerns. On the contrary: he’d been wallowing in them, trying to find an answer by scouring the Internet for clues.

  And now Tesla wanted to build something, anything, with her brother.

  Nick clicked on a link, and a new webpage opened on-screen. The title was “The SHOCKING Truth behind Tesla’s Death Ray.”

  “Sorry,” Nick said. “I’m busy.”

  “No,” Tesla said, “you’re obsessed.”

  Nick didn’t respond. So Tesla decided it was time to play dirty.

  “You know, I found something really interesting online last night,” Tesla said. “Here, let me show you.”

  She plopped down next to her brother and shouldered him away from the keyboard.

  “Hey!” he said in protest.

  “This’ll just take a sec. Trust me, you’re going to be amazed.”

  Tesla opened a folder on the desktop, found the icon she was looking for—a tiny traffic signal—and double-clicked it.

  “There,” she said. “Done.”

  Nick squinted at the screen.

  “Nothing’s happening,” he said.

  “Exactly. I just turned on Stoplite.”

  “What’s Stoplite?”

  “A program that automatically freezes your computer for six hours, so you won’t waste your whole day on it.”

  “What?” Nick shoved his sister aside and began jabbing at the keyboard. The screen remained frozen.

  “I’ll just restart it,” he said.

  He held down the power button but … nothing happened.

  “Stoplite’s really good,” Tesla said.

  “Oh, man! This is not funny, Tez!”

  “It’s not supposed to be funny. It’s supposed to get you off your butt so you’ll come downstairs and help me.”

  “Oh, yeah, right. Like I’m going to help you after you did this.”

  Nick folded his arms across his chest and stared at the wall.

  “Suit yourself,” Tesla said. “I’m going down to the lab to get the parts. If Silas never finishes his cinematic masterpiece and doesn’t become the world’s greatest twelve-year-old film director, it won’t be my fault.”

  She got up and headed for the door.

  Nick stayed put.

  “Well, good luck building your little whatever,” he said with a growl. “Because you won’t be getting any help from me.”

  Uncle Newt let Tesla stay in the basement laboratory just long enough to gather the materials and tools she needed.

  “Shoo! Out!” he said, flapping his hands at her when she’d collected an armful of PVC tubing.

  “It smells weird down here. Like … the air after a thunderstorm,” Tesla said.

  “Go! Top secret!” said Uncle Newt, still flapping.

  “And what happened to you?”

  Uncle Newt’s long, unkempt gray-blond hair was standing up so straight that the ends were brushing the rafters overhead.

  “Vamoose! Scram!” he said.

  “Okay, okay, I’m going. Geez.”

  Tesla stomped up the stairs and through the kitchen to the dining room.

  Nick was sitting there waiting for her.

  “All right,” he said with a sigh. “What are we making again?”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of your situation, Bald Eagle!” Lady Evilika said, cackling. The scaly green alien pointed her power scepter at the feather-covered superhero standing stiffly on the tree branch above her. “Mega-mass blast!”

  Bald Eagle toppled over and plummeted to earth, his crimson cape flapping the whole way down. He landed headfirst, yet he didn’t crumple. Instead, his body slammed backward against the tree trunk and remained absolutely rigid, with his helmeted head on the ground and the soles of his white boots facing the sky.

  Bald Eagle was standing on his head.

  “Cut!” yelled the director, a.k.a. Silas Kuskie. Which was completely unnecessary—Silas was also the cameraman, so he was only yelling at himself.

  Silas switched off the camera and stalked toward the fallen hero—which was really just a newspaper-stuffed stunt dummy, still leaning against the tree from which it had fallen.

  “You can’t just push Michael over!” Silas shouted to a small, wiry, twelve-year-old boy perched precariously on a branch. (“Michael” was what Silas called the stunt dummy, by the way. He’d named it after one of his least-favorite film directors.) “You’ve got to throw him,” he added, “really give him some lift! Bald Eagle’s trying to fly away, and you’re making it look like he just fell asleep!”

  “How can I throw the dummy when I need to keep one hand on the tree, so I don’t fall out?” asked the boy in the tree, a.k.a. DeMarco.

  “How should I know?” Silas answered. “You’re the stunt coordinator! So coordinate it!”

  Nick and Tesla arrived, carrying their just-completed Silascam—which they secretly called a Nickandteslacam—as Silas was checking the fallen Michael for damage. “You guys overstuffed him,” Silas said when he saw the two siblings approaching. “There’s no give to the limbs. You need to take out some of the newspaper. Loosen him up a bit. Make him more lifelike.” He turned the dummy right side up and leaned it against the tree. “All I want is perfection! Is that so much to ask?”

  “Is he really turning into a perfectionist tyrant,” Nick whispered as Silas went back to yelling instructions up at DeMarco, “or is he just acting that way because he thinks a movie director is supposed to be a perfectionist tyrant?”

  Tesla shrugged. “Maybe both?” She held up the apparatus that she and Nick had created; it was a junction of PVC pipes that balanced on a screwdriver. “Here’s your … uh … Silascam,” she said.

  Silas stared at the camera rig for a moment, blinking quickly.

  “You attach your camera here, to this bolt …” Nick started to explain.

  “It’s … it’s … beautiful,” Silas murmured, taking the contraption from Tesla so carefully that she and Nick (and DeMarco, who had dropped out of the tree) could only watch in stunned silence. Silas never handled anything carefully, with the exception of his prized copy of Metal Man #2. “If this works,” he continued, “I’ll mention you guys in my Oscar acceptance speech.”

  “Umm, okay,” Nick said.

  “Okay, okay. Let’s go, people!” Silas barked suddenly. “We’re gonna set everything up and run it again. Places! Chop-chop!” And just like that, Silas the movie director was back.

  Then Lady Evilika—who was in fact DeMarco’s seven-year-old sister Elesha in green alien makeup and a “spacesuit” made of old footie pajamas and aluminum foil—came stalking toward her brother. “Tell me to ‘chop-chop’ again,” she said with an ominous growl, “and I’ll chop-chop you.”
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br />   “Yeah, she’ll chop-chop you,” chimed in Elesha’s “executive makeup and wardrobe assistant”—in other words, her little sister, Monique. Together, Elesha and Monique weighed nowhere near as much as tall, stocky Silas. But what they lacked in size, they more than made up for in aggression.

  Silas looked at their scowling faces, formed a quivering smile, and then flapped a hand toward Nick, Tesla, and DeMarco.

  “The chop-chop was for them,” he explained. “You go back to your mark in your own time, Elesha.”

  Elesha’s and Monique’s eyes narrowed.

  “Please,” Silas added quickly.

  Without another word, Elesha stalked off toward the spot where she’d started the scene. Her little sister tagged along, touching up Elesha’s green makeup as she went.

  “We warned you not to use my sisters in his movie,” DeMarco said, keeping his voice low.

  “Lady Evilika is an undead alien monster queen,” Silas answered. “It’s a role Elesha was born for!”

  DeMarco and Tesla went to work trying to get Michael the nonhuman hero back up into the tree. The stunt dummy wasn’t so heavy, being made mostly from electrical tape and scrunched-up newsprint. But the bulky bird costume it was wearing—a modified owl mascot suit given to the kids by a local museum—added another twenty pounds to its weight. DeMarco shimmied his way up to his spot on a low branch.

  “Push harder!” DeMarco said, grunting down in Tesla’s direction.

  “Pull harder!” Tesla said, grunting back up at him.

  “If you want something done right …” Silas said and groaned an exasperated groan. He set down his video camera, took the dummy in both hands, and heaved it up into the tree with such force that it nearly knocked DeMarco off his branch.

  “I bet Cash Ashkinos doesn’t have to throw stunt dummies into trees,” Silas groused as he picked up the video camera again and got back into position to shoot the scene. “He’s probably got, like, a dummy wrangler for that.”

  “Really?” Tesla asked, sarcastically. “And how many Cash Ashkinos movies have dummies in trees?”