Nick and Tesla's Secret Agent Gadget Battle

by Bob Pflugfelder

  Nick shook his head forlornly.

  Tesla put a hand on his shoulder.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Because I have.”

  “Time for lemonade!” Tesla said with a smile.

  She stepped into the living room balancing two glasses on a silver serving tray.

  The maids peered up at her. They were in the middle of the room fighting to pull a wad of dust and hair as big as a basketball from their clogged-up vacuum cleaner. Other than a single strip along the floor that seemed slightly less filthy than the floor around it, the room didn’t look any different than it had when the maids showed up that morning. Dust-covered books and cables and beakers and rotting bananas were still piled everywhere.

  At the maids’ rate of progress, they might have the house clean in time for Christmas. Maybe.

  “No, thanks,” said the maid with a mole on her nose.

  “Maybe later,” said the maid with a mole on her chin.

  They were both teeny, wrinkled women with white, poofy permed hair and black-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses. The moles were the only way Tesla could tell them apart.

  “Are you sure?” Tesla said, giving the tray a little shake so the ice in the lemonade tinkled enticingly. “Homemade.”

  This was kind of true. Tesla had poured the powdered drink mix into the pitcher and added water right there in the kitchen of Uncle Newt’s home.

  “That’s awful nice of you, but we have a lot to do right now,” said Chin Mole.

  “We’ll let you know when we’re ready for a break,” said Nose Mole.

  They went back to tugging on the dust bunny, which was, unlike other dust bunnies, the size of an actual (and extremely well-fed) rabbit.

  “How could there be so much hair in there already?” Nose Mole grumbled. “The darned cat’s bald.”

  The maids glanced back over their shoulders.

  Tesla was still standing there with the tray in her hands.

  “I’m Tesla, by the way,” she said.

  “I’m Ethel,” said Chin Mole.

  “I’m Gladys,” said Nose Mole.

  “We’re busy,” said Chin Mole.

  Tesla widened her smile and gave her eyes a glassy, oblivious glaze she’d learned from Uncle Newt.

  “Oh, I bet!” she said. “I’m sorry we’ve made so much work for you around here.”

  “No need to apologize,” said Ethel (not adding, but plainly thinking, “No need for you to talk at all.”).

  “It’s what we get paid for,” said Gladys.

  She didn’t look happy about it.

  “Of course. I understand,” said Tesla. “Could you do me a favor while you’re doing your thing?”

  Gladys and Ethel put on identical dubious expressions.

  “Maybe,” Gladys said warily.

  “Could you keep your eyes out for a silver necklace with a star-shaped pendant?” Tesla said. “I lost it, and it means a lot to me. I’d do anything to get it back.”

  “When did you lose it?” Ethel asked.

  “Today.”

  Ethel and Gladys pinched their lips and narrowed their eyes.

  “Oh, I’m not accusing anyone!” Tesla said. “I’m sure it was my fault. I was in such a hurry to get in the shower. You saw how dirty I was when I came in a little while ago.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Ethel.

  “We sure did,” said Gladys.

  Their steely gazes flicked, for just a second, to the trail of dirt clods that ran along the hall and up the stairs.

  “I’m so mad at myself I could just scream,” Tesla said. “That necklace was a gift from my parents, you see, and my brother and I haven’t seen them in weeks. They went off to Uzbekistan for some kind of work thing, and now we don’t know when—or if—we’ll see them again.”

  Tesla did her best to work up a tear.

  When she thought about her mom and dad, it wasn’t all that hard.

  “Anyway,” she said, sniffling and putting on what she hoped would look like a brave but tremulous smile. “You’re sure you won’t have some lemonade? I juiced two dozen lemons to make it.”

  “Well …” Ethel said.

  “Oh, go on,” said Tesla. “I absolutely refuse to leave till you’ve tried it.”

  That did the trick.

  Ethel walked over, took a glass, and chugged down every drop.

  Gladys stepped up beside her, grabbed the other glass, and took a single sip.

  “Yum,” she grunted.

  She slammed the glass down and went back to the vacuum cleaner.

  Ethel wiped her mouth with the back of her wrinkled hand, returned her own glass to the tray, then joined her partner.

  “Just let me know if you want more!” Tesla said.

  “We’ll do that,” Gladys said.

  She and Ethel turned their little, hunched backs to Tesla and began yanking on the hair ball again.

  A moment later, Tesla was sliding the serving tray onto the counter in the kitchen. A marker was waiting for her there, and she picked it up and wrote a single, small letter on each glass.

  G for Gladys.

  E for Ethel.

  She didn’t need powder to see that both glasses were covered with fingerprints.

  “Time for lemonade!” Nick said with a smile.

  He was coming down the stairs to the basement laboratory holding two glasses perched precariously on a plate. (Tesla had bought the right to use the serving tray for one million dollars.)

  Uncle Newt and Oli looked up from their work. Uncle Newt was on one side of the lab trying to set an apricot on fire with a Bunsen burner. Oli was on the other side of the lab scrubbing black banana goo out of a scorched engine block. Neither looked very pleased with his progress.

  “Lemonade!” said Uncle Newt.

  “Le Monade?” said Oli.

  Uncle Newt hopped to his feet and began winding his way past the clutter-covered worktables and discarded experiments and humming, clanking, sometimes sizzling and smoking machines that filled the lab.

  Oli just stared dubiously at the glasses on Nick’s plate. He wasn’t wearing his fedora and trench coat any longer, but he didn’t look much more comfortable: now he was in a tight black suit with a thin black tie. He was wearing sunglasses, too, even though the lab was lit by only a few flickering fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

  “Don’t you have lemonade in Australia?” Nick asked him.

  “Oh, of course,” Oli said. “But … uhh … I did not recognize it. In Australia, it is … you know …”

  Oli grimaced and rolled his hands in the air.

  Nick waited patiently for him to finish his thought.

  “Different,” Oli finally said.

  “Well, come try some American-style,” Nick said.

  “Yes,” Oli said, still grimacing. “I am most excited to.”

  He started toward Nick with all the speed and eagerness of a man walking the plank. He’d barely taken three steps in the time it took Uncle Newt to reach Nick.

  “Thanks,” Uncle Newt said, snatching one of the glasses. “This’ll really hit the spot. Who knew burning fruit could make a man so thirsty?”

  He gulped down half of his lemonade, then smacked his lips.

  “Delightful!” he declared. “Hmm … I wonder if lemons are flammable.”

  “See?” Nick said to a still doubtful-looking Oli. “It’s good. And good for you. Fresh-squeezed juice, full of vitamin C. You know. Kind of like jelly.”

  Oli stepped up, took a deep breath, and then reached toward the plate.

  Got ya, Nick thought as the man’s big, thick fingers wrapped around the remaining glass.

  Oli lifted it, sniffed the contents, and took a tiny sip.

  His lips puckered, then slowly spread into a smile.

  “Oh. Lemonate. Yes!” He took another sip. “Is good! Just like back in Australia. I will enjoy more as I work.”

  He turned and headed back to the engine he’d been cleaning—taking the glass with him.
>
  “Where’d you get the lemons?” Uncle Newt said.

  Nick had to tear his gaze away from the glass—and the fingerprints—that were moving away from him.

  “Huh?”

  “The lemons. For the lemonade,” Uncle Newt said. “Where are they from? I sure didn’t buy ’em. You know how I feel about fruit. If I’m not gonna let it rot and use it for fuel, I don’t want anything to do with it!”

  “Oh. Well. Umm. Tez and I got the lemons from … Mr. Jones’s lemon tree.”

  Nick was too busy worrying about getting Oli’s glass back to come up with a good lie.

  Mr. Jones didn’t have a lemon tree.

  Fortunately, Uncle Newt probably wouldn’t have noticed a giant beanstalk growing in his neighbor’s yard.

  “Oh, sure, of course,” he said. He took another big gulp. “Funny … all that extra effort, and it still tastes like the powdered stuff.”

  There was a sudden clatter and crash from the other side of the lab, and Oli cried out a word Nick didn’t recognize (though he got the distinct impression it wasn’t English and it was extremely impolite).

  Oli had bumped into one of Uncle Newt’s discarded experiments—a solar-powered pogo stick for dogs that was supposed to “change the face of fetch forever”—and dropped his lemonade.

  “I mean, darn,” Oli said, looking down at the shards of glass at his feet.

  That’s what you get for wearing sunglasses in a basement, Nick could’ve said to him. But he was too grateful for his lucky break to gloat.

  “Don’t worry! I’ll take care of it!” he said, hurrying to get the broom he knew was gathering cobwebs in a corner.

  Soon he had what was left of the drinking glass swept up onto the plate he’d been using as a tray.

  “I am sorry,” Oli said. “I was enjoying the lemon … uh … drink.”

  “I’ll bring you more,” Nick said as he started toward the stairs. “When I have time to squeeze more lemons.”

  He went up a few steps, then stopped.

  “Oh, by the way—have either of you seen a silver necklace? With a star-shaped pendant on it? Tesla lost it this morning.”

  Uncle Newt shook his head.

  “We’ve been down here all morning—right, Oli? Well, except for when I sent you up to get me more banana pulp.”

  Oli nodded grimly at the memory.

  “Yes,” he said. “But I did not see necklace or pendant. Just rotten bananas. And gnats.”

  He pronounced the last word “guh-nats.”

  Nick was pretty sure even people from Australia would say “nats.”

  “All right. I’m sure she just left it somewhere. Thought I’d check, though,” he said. “Later!”

  “What will be later?” Nick heard Oli ask Uncle Newt as he headed up the stairs.

  When he got to the kitchen, he carefully inspected the biggest piece of glass on the plate. It was covered with greasy brown-black smudges. The fingerprints of a man who’d spent his morning working with banana pulp—and perhaps sneaking away to do more.

  “Time for lemonade!” Tesla said with a smile.

  She was climbing the ladder that led to the attic, a single glass in her hand. (Bringing it on the serving tray would have been classier, but Tesla figured she’d have dropped it halfway up.)

  Skip the Verminator exterminator turned to look at her as she popped up into the cramped, cluttered attic. There were cobwebs everywhere—in corners, on rafters, on shelves and trunks and boxes—and he was poking at one with the end of his spray nozzle.

  “Lemonade?” he said. He turned back to the cobweb and spritzed it with pesticide. “Can’t stand the stuff.”

  Tesla finished climbing up into the attic. The air was musty and stiflingly hot.

  “Maybe just a nice, cool glass of water, then?” she said. “You’ve gotta be thirsty.”

  “Nope. I hydrated thoroughly before coming up here.” Skip leaned in close to the web he’d just sprayed and then nodded with brusque satisfaction. “I’m a professional, kid.”

  He turned and walked straight into another spider web.

  “Eww! Ahh! Eee!” Skip squealed, dancing in a circle and slapping frantically at himself. “Is it on me? Is it on me?”

  Before Tesla could answer, he began squirting his jumpsuit with bug spray.

  This did not strike Tesla as standard operating procedure for a professional.

  Something the size and color of a corn flake dropped off the man’s chest and began scurrying away.

  Skip stomped on it so hard Tesla was surprised his heavy work boot didn’t smash through the floorboards and poke out the kitchen ceiling.

  Slowly, warily, the panting exterminator lifted his boot and peeked at what was underneath.

  “Yup. That was a black widow, all right,” he announced, even though the spider he’d stepped on was now little more than a tiny brown stain on the attic floor. “Good thing I’m here.”

  He wiped a dangling wad of stray spider web from his mustache and then turned and moved deeper into the shadows.

  “Thanks for the waitressing, kid,” he said without looking back at Tesla. “But I’ve got serious work to do, and it’ll be better for everyone if I’m not distracted.”

  “Sure. Sorry. I understand,” Tesla said. “But before I go …”

  She scanned the attic, searching for the perfect prop.

  The ray-gun-looking thing on the shelf? Too close.

  The night vision goggles on the plastic Santa? Too far.

  The jet pack in the corner? Too big.

  The boxes labeled BIOHAZARD and PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT and DANGER: IRRADIATED? Too freaky.

  The huge, misshapen, web-covered skull? Waaaaaaay too freaky.

  The equally huge, equally misshapen, equally web-covered plaster outline of a foot? Equally freaky—but it would have to do.

  “Could you bring that to me?” Tesla said.

  When Skip turned to look at her, she pointed at the foot. It was on a shelf near the room’s one dingy, dust-fogged window.

  “What do you need that for?” Skip said with surprise and, it seemed to Tesla, a trace of distrust.

  Perhaps he suspected—correctly—that he was being conned somehow.

  “It’s for a project I’m working on, but I’ve been too scared to come up and get it,” Tesla told him. “You know—because of the black widows. But as long as a professional’s here …”

  Skip eyed the foot uneasily.

  “No problem,” he croaked.

  He cleared his throat, started toward the foot, and then stopped.

  “What’s the project?” he asked.

  “It’s for my cryptozoology club. That’s a casting of a genuine Fakeulus teslapithicus footprint. I’m going to do a side-by-side comparison with the toe splay of your standard Imaginarium bogusapien.”

  “Oh, okay,” Skip said, sounding as though he hadn’t understood a word of Tesla’s answer.

  Which was appropriate, since it wasn’t supposed to make sense anyway. It was supposed to make someone say “Oh, okay” and immediately drop the subject.

  And it worked. Skip didn’t say another word as he crept toward the footprint. When he reached it, he used his spray nozzle to pull off as many cobwebs as he could. Then he gave it a squirt here, a squirt there, even a squirt between each toe.

  When he was satisfied that nothing was going to crawl out and bite him, he pinched one of the toes with the index finger and thumb of his left hand, lifted, and whipped around toward Tesla.

  “Here—take it take it take it take it!” he said as he scuttled toward her.

  He wasn’t touching the foot with his middle finger at all. Tesla wouldn’t be getting the one fingerprint she really needed.

  She officially ran out of patience.

  “Hey,” she snapped at Skip just as he reached her with the foot. “Just hold this, would you?”

  She thrust the glass of lemonade at him.

  Skip handed her the foot and took the
glass, looking confused.

  “Thanks,” Tesla said.

  She lifted the plaster footprint over her head, pretended to inspect the bottom for … well, something, and then nodded in fake satisfaction.

  “Perfect,” Tesla said, tucking the foot under her arm. “Thanks.”

  She reached out and took the glass, careful to cradle it from underneath rather than wrap her hand around it.

  “I’ll leave you to your work now,” she said. But just as she started easing down the steps, she paused. “Oh, one last thing. I lost a necklace this morning. Silver with a star-shaped pendant. Have you seen it?”

  “Oh, that?” Skip said. “Sure. I’ve got it right here.”

  Tesla’s eyes went wide as the exterminator stuffed a hand into a jumpsuit pocket.

  Was getting the pendant back going to be this easy? Was its disappearance just some kind of misunderstanding? Was there really a spy in the house at all?

  Skip pulled his hand out of his pocket, held it out toward Tesla, and opened it wide, revealing … nothing.

  “Oops. My bad. I don’t have your necklace,” Skip said. “Because I’m not a thief.”

  Tesla stifled a groan.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything,” she said. “I probably just dropped it and I was hoping maybe—”

  “Whatever, kid,” Skip cut in. “Do you think you could let me do my job now?”

  “Right. Sorry. I’ll just go and …” Tesla squinted at Skip’s right shoulder. “Whoa. Is that thing moving?”

  “What? Ugh! Bleah!” the exterminator cried, beating himself with a flattened hand. “Did I get it? Did I get it? Did I get it?”

  Tesla peered at Skip’s shoulder again.

  “You know what?” she said. “I think it was just some dandruff. Good luck with the spiders!”

  Tesla went down the ladder as quickly as she could.

  Nick was sitting on the floor hunched over an index card when Tesla came into their bedroom and shut the door behind her.

  “Do you think Oli spells his name O-L-I or O-L-Y?” Nick asked, tapping the end of a pen against his chin.

  He looked up at his sister and dropped the pen.