Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab

by Bob Pflugfelder

  “Salt,” said Nick.

  Tesla nodded. “Instead of sugar.”

  She spat on her plate again.

  Nick tossed his plate on the table and hurried toward the kitchen. “Ugh! I need something to drink!”

  “Me, too,” Tesla said, following her brother. “We’d better make it something from a can.”

  “Right.”

  Nick had tasted Uncle Newt’s idea of cake. He had no desire to see what the man’s homemade lemonade might be like.

  “Hey! Chocolate milk!” Tesla said when they opened the refrigerator.

  She started to take the plastic jug out of the fridge.

  “Wait,” Nick said.

  He pointed at the expiration date stamped on the side. “February 22,” it said.

  “Whew,” Tesla said as she put back the chocolate milk. “Close call.”

  Everything else in the refrigerator was just as old, with the mold to prove it. The only other liquid (other than some puddles of brown goo from rotten fruit) was a bottle of diet soda with MINE!!! written on the side and a specimen jar marked BYPRODUCT … ACID???

  They found some glasses and got water from the tap.

  “Tez, what would you call Uncle Newt?” Nick said. “A fruitcake or a flake?”

  “Dad always called him ‘eccentric’ when he talked about him.”

  “And Mom would just roll her eyes.”

  “Well, Uncle Newt’s not a fruitcake or a flake. He’s … family.”

  “Yeah. Flakey, fruitcake family. Why do you think Mom and Dad sent us to stay with him instead of Grandma or Aunt Mary or the Harringtons? It’s like they chose the least responsible, most checked-out, distant relative they could think of.”

  “Maybe they did.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Change of pace?” Tesla said. She put her glass in the sink. “Come on. Let’s go test our rocket.”

  The kids stepped out the back door onto Uncle Newt’s tiny cracked-concrete patio. Nick carried the launcher and the pump. Tesla carried the rocket and a plastic jug filled with water. (The jug used to contain chunky chocolate milk sludge. It had been cleaned very, very thoroughly, but it still smelled like the bottom of a compost heap. Unfortunately, it was the only jug they could find that didn’t have POISON or a skull and crossbones on it, so they were stuck with it.)

  “Maybe not the best place for a launchpad,” Nick said, looking out at the yard.

  The grass was two feet high. Sprouting from it here and there were weeds as tall as Tesla.

  “Front yard?” Nick said.

  “Front yard,” said Tesla.

  They walked around the house and started setting up the launcher near the pole that the runaway lawn mower had been tethered to.

  “Stop!” someone shrieked when they were almost done.

  Nick and Tesla turned to find a woman standing at the edge of the neighboring yard. It was easy to see where the edge was. The grass on the woman’s side was so immaculately manicured, it looked like a smooth green sheet.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the woman snarled.

  She was the woman Nick had seen earlier, the one who’d come back from the gym right after Uncle Newt’s lawn mower chewed through her begonias.

  She’d cleaned herself up and put on fresh clothes. But she was still scowling.

  “We’re—” Tesla began.

  “No you are not!” the woman declared.

  “We’re just—” Tesla said.

  “No, no, no!”

  “We’re just testing—”

  “NO!”

  Nick decided to see if he could get further than his sister.

  “Excuse me,” he said. He raised the rocket and tapped the tip. “This is just plastic and cardboard. It wouldn’t hurt anything even if—”

  “Oh, sure,” the woman broke in. She crossed her arms over her chest and somehow managed to smirk without losing her scowl. “Your little missile is harmless.”

  “It’s not a missile,” Tesla said. “It’s a rocket.”

  The woman didn’t hear her. She never stopped talking long enough to try.

  “Like the self-emptying garbage can that dumped twenty pounds of compost in my pool was harmless. Like the automatic car washer that scraped the paint off my Prius was harmless. Like the skunk trap that stunk up the neighborhood like a burning outhouse was harmless. That’s a strange definition of harmless you people have!”

  “Come on,” Tesla muttered, picking up the launcher and the pump. “We’ll find somewhere else to test the rocket.”

  She and Nick left Uncle Newt’s yard and started up the street, although they had no idea where they were going. They were just heading in what was obviously the best direction: away from the woman.

  “And tell your friend Dr. Frankenstein he owes me a garden gnome!” she shouted after them.

  “He’s our uncle!” Tesla called back over her shoulder.

  The last thing they heard the woman say was, “My condolences!”

  “At least he has a cool house,” Nick said out of the blue.

  He and Tesla had been wandering around the neighborhood for fifteen minutes looking for a park where they could test their rocket.

  “Who? Uncle Newt?” said Tesla.

  Nick nodded. “I’m counting silver linings. Like, I bet he won’t make us pick up our rooms.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I bet he won’t make us eat broccoli or brush our teeth.”

  “I bet not.”

  “I bet he won’t give us chores. I bet he won’t yell at us if we accidentally let the water in the bathtub overflow. I bet he won’t ground us if one of our experiments blows up.”

  “I think you might be right.”

  Nick and Tesla walked a while in silence.

  “I miss Mom and Dad,” Nick said.

  “Me, too,” said Tesla.

  They never did find a park. But they did find an empty field. It was at the northern edge of the neighborhood, where the road curved and became a private drive blocked by a black iron gate.

  “Looks like Wayne Manor,” Nick said, staring at the huge, run-down house the driveway led to.

  “Or a haunted mansion,” said Tesla. “I betcha a million bucks the local kids call it ‘The Old Jones Place’ or ‘The Old Smith Place’ or something like that.”

  “Deal,” said Nick.

  He and his sister made such bets all the time.

  As Tesla figured it, Nick owed her fourteen million dollars.

  “Come on,” Tesla said.

  She headed out into the field. It was lined on one side by a slim strip of trees. Just beyond, in the shade of their branches, was the tall fence that surrounded the Old Whoever Place. The field was big enough for a house and a yard, and not small ones, either. Yet, it was empty, a no-man’s-land obviously meant to separate the estate from the rest of the neighborhood.

  Whoever the Whoevers were, they sure liked their privacy.

  The field was full of brittle yellow grass and reedy weeds. The soil felt loose and sandy. When Nick and Tesla were in the middle of the field, they could see why. The far end of the field sloped down to the bank of a narrow stream.

  “We’re pretty close to the ocean,” Tesla said. “I bet that water flows right into it.”

  “Whoa!” Nick said.

  The most interesting thing in their old neighborhood, he’d always thought, was their own house (and, more specifically, the projects and experiments he and Tesla were always tinkering with). The runner-up was a 7-Eleven. So, though Nick wasn’t the most adventurous person in the world, having an ocean in the backyard sounded pretty cool.

  “Maybe we could learn how to kayak,” he said. “Or even surf!” He paused to ponder that idea, and his enthusiasm dimmed. “They have sharks around here, don’t they?”

  Tesla nodded. “Great whites.”

  Nick turned his back to the creek.

  “That looks like a good spot to launch from,” he s
aid.

  He walked to an especially smooth weed-free patch of ground nearby. Tesla followed, and soon they had their launcher ready. They both wanted to do the pumping, and neither wanted to pour the smelly water from the jug into the rocket. So they had to make a deal: Tesla would do the pouring, Nick would do the pumping. And Tesla would add another two million dollars to her brother’s debt.

  Tesla managed not to gag as she filled the rocket. When it was half full, Nick tipped over the launcher and screwed on the rocket. Then he straightened the launcher again, connected the pump to the pipes, and started forcing in air.

  Tesla took a big step back. When the rocket launched, that nasty sour-milk water was going to spray everywhere.

  “Is anything happening?” Nick asked.

  Tesla took a cautious step forward. “I think I see some bubbles, but it’s hard to tell.”

  “Oh, great. Good thing someone insisted on painting the bottle. Now we can’t see what’s going on inside.”

  “Shut up,” Tesla said.

  Nick started pumping up and down faster.

  The rocket didn’t move.

  “Why isn’t it working?” Nick said.

  “I don’t know.”

  Tesla started toward the rocket.

  Nick stopped pumping.

  “I don’t think you want to do that,” he said.

  “I just want to check the seal. Maybe it’s not tight enough and air’s leaking out.”

  Tesla bent down beside the launchpad.

  “I really don’t think you want to do that,” Nick said.

  Tesla ignored him.

  As she leaned in to check the rocket, her pendant and chain draped over the nose cone. She didn’t seem to notice. Nick did.

  “Tesla!” he cried.

  He reached toward his sister and accidentally knocked the pump handle down, providing the last puff of air the rocket needed. It shot upward with a high-pitched whiiiish, taking the pendant, the chain, and a small clump of Tesla’s hair with it.

  “Ow!” said Tesla. Then “Ew!” as the spray of foul-smelling water shooting out of the rocket drenched her head.

  “No!” said Nick. “No, no, no!”

  Despite the bungled launch, the rocket was flying faster and higher than they ever could have hoped. Which was the problem. Instead of going straight up and coming straight down, the bottle, weighted down by its unintended cargo, was arcing to the right. As it plummeted to earth again, it was headed for the trees on the edge of the field.

  Nick started running after it. “If it lands in the top branches we’ll never get it down!”

  “Don’t freak out,” Tesla grumbled. She took a quick test-sniff of her hair and grimaced. “It’s not going fast enough to go as far as … oh.”

  The rocket zipped over the trees and landed with a little hollow thud on the wrong side of the tall fence surrounding the Old Whoever Place.

  “Oh, no,” Nick moaned as he trotted up to the fence. He put his hands on the crisscrossing wires and stared forlornly at the Albert and Martha Holt. “Should I climb over and get it?”

  “Go for it,” Tesla said. “And for the next launch, you get to pour the stink-water into the … Nick, look out!”

  Two large dark shapes appeared on the other side of the fence and hurled themselves at Nick.

  Nick yelped and yanked his hands away from the fence just in time. He jumped back, tripped over the nearest tree roots, and fell over backward.

  “Are you all right?” Tesla said as she came running toward her brother.

  Nick sat up and glared first at her and then at the two huge Rottweilers that stood between them and their rocket. The big black dogs were snarling and snapping and generally looking extremely disappointed that neither had managed to chomp off Nick’s fingers.

  “Now can I freak out?” Nick said.

  As Nick and Tesla walked along the fence toward the road, the dogs trotted along beside them, growling.

  “It’s not going to be a big deal,” Tesla said in a way that told Nick she wasn’t just trying to convince him; she was trying to convince herself, too. “I saw an intercom by the gate. We can just call the people in the house and ask them to get the rocket for us.”

  “Sure,” Nick said. “It’s not like the kind of people who’d live in a creepy old mansion with a fence around it and guard dogs the size of horses would mind if a couple strange kids decided to wander around their property. I’m sure they’ll invite us in for milk and cookies.”

  Tesla rolled her eyes.

  “Little Mr. Sunshine,” she said.

  Nick glared at her.

  That was their mother’s nickname for him.

  When they got to the gate, Nick let his sister puzzle over the small rusty speaker and numbered keypad mounted on a low black pole.

  “There should be a number here for calling the house,” Tesla said. She tapped a narrow rectangular area along the bottom of the keypad, beneath all the buttons. It was slightly less faded and dusty than the rest of the intercom. “It looks like one used to be here, but someone took it off.”

  “Great,” said Nick.

  The dogs were pacing on the other side of the gate, still growling.

  Nick growled back at them.

  Tesla tried pushing random numbers. She tried pushing the star button. She tried pushing the pound button. She tried pushing both buttons at the same time. She tried pushing all the buttons at once.

  “Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?” she said.

  Nothing happened.

  “It’s star one-nine-five,” someone said.

  Nick and Tesla turned around. Two boys on bikes were watching them from a few feet away. Nick had been so busy growling and Tesla so busy helloing that they hadn’t even noticed the boys ride up.

  “What?” Tesla said.

  “To call the house,” one of the boys said. He was tall and pudgy and had an unruly mop of thick black hair.

  The other boy pointed at the intercom.

  “They used to have it taped on there, I think, but it must have fallen off, like, a million years ago,” he said. Physically, he was the opposite of his friend: small and wiry, with hair shaved so short he almost looked bald.

  Both boys were wearing T-shirts and jeans. They looked like they were Nick and Tesla’s age.

  “So, how do you know the number?” Tesla asked.

  The boys glanced at each other, grinning.

  “When we saw the construction guys and their dogs, we started trying random numbers until someone came on and yelled at us to stop,” said the big one.

  “Construction guys?” said Nick.

  “Yeah,” said the smaller boy. “They showed up a few days ago. First time we’d seen anyone in the old Landrigan place in years.”

  Tesla shot her brother a smug look.

  “The old Landrigan place, huh?” she said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Nick muttered. “I owe you another million.”

  Tesla turned back to the boys.

  “I’m Tesla, by the way. This is my brother, Nick.”

  “Hi. I’m DeMarco,” said the smaller boy.

  “I’m Silas,” said the other. He took a sniff in Tesla’s general direction. “Did someone dump sour milk on your head?”

  Tesla clenched her jaw and flushed the color of cotton candy.

  “No,” she said. “I got sprayed by a water rocket.”

  “Huh?” said DeMarco.

  “Chuh?” said Silas.

  Tesla started telling them about the rocket and the pendant while Nick threw in the occasional dramatic flourish. (“And then those attack dogs came flying at me and nearly ripped my hands off!”) Nick was usually pretty quiet around new people, but DeMarco and Silas were listening with such rapt attention, he couldn’t resist.

  “Well, good luck getting your rocket back,” DeMarco said when Tesla was finished. His tone seemed to add, “You’ll need it.”

  “Can we watch you call the house?” said Silas.

  Tes
la looked at him quizzically. “Uhh … all right. If you’d find that entertaining. What was the number again?”

  DeMarco told her.

  Tesla turned back to the keypad and punched the star button, then one and nine and five.

  Once again, nothing happened.

  Tesla glanced back at Silas and DeMarco. They were watching expectantly.

  “Just give it a second,” DeMarco said.

  The intercom clicked, then buzzed in a low staticky way, like a bad telephone connection.

  “Get away from that gate,” a gruff voice snapped, “or I’m calling the cops.”

  “Excuse me? What?” Tesla said.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t understood the man. She was just surprised by his words.

  “You heard me. We’re working here. If you aren’t gone in ten seconds, I’m dialing 911.”

  “Wait! We just want to get our rocket!” Tesla blurted out. “It flew over your fence, and there’s something really important in the—”

  “Tell your little fairy tale to the police.”

  There was another click, and the buzzing stopped.

  The man had hung up.

  The boys burst out laughing. It was obvious now why they’d wanted to watch.

  “I’m sorry,” DeMarco said when they were done guffawing. “It’s just … that guy is such a jerk, it’s hilarious!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Silas. “He won’t call the police. That’s just something he likes to say.”

  “Well, I don’t like hearing it,” Tesla said.

  Her chin jutted out in a way Nick knew well. She was gritting her teeth. Redoubling her resolve.

  The universe was trying to tell her she’d never get the rocket—and, more important, the pendant their parents had given her—back again. But Nick had news for the universe. Something it should have already known.

  Never tell Tesla Holt never.

  “Who are these ‘construction guys’?” she said.

  “Oh, you know. Construction guys,” Silas said. “They showed up with a work van and started … I don’t know. Constructing, I guess.”

  “Renovating,” DeMarco said.

  “Right. That’s it. They must be renovating. ’Cuz no one’s lived in the old Landrigan place since, like, the Misozozoic.”

  “Mesozoic,” Nick corrected.