Nick and Tesla's Secret Agent Gadget Battle

by Bob Pflugfelder

  There was a thunking noise off to the right, and the kids turned to find Uncle Newt’s neighbor Julie Casserly pounding a stake into the ground next to her new garden gnome. Taped to the stake was a sign:

  PRIVATE PROPERTY TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  When she looked up and noticed Tesla and her friends watching, Julie dropped her hammer and adjusted the sign so that it was pointed straight at them.

  “Why is she so afraid someone’s going to touch her elf?” Silas said.

  “It’s a gnome,” Tesla corrected. “And she’s not worried someone’s gonna touch it. She’s worried someone’s gonna blow it up.”

  “She only moved in, like, a month ago,” DeMarco said. “If she didn’t want to live next to a mad scientist, she should’ve picked a different neighborhood.”

  Tesla was about to say “Good point” when she noticed Silas sticking a finger in his ear, a puzzled look on his face.

  “Something wrong?” she asked him.

  Silas wiggled the finger as if he were trying to scratch the side of his brain.

  “There’s a ringing in my ear,” he said.

  Then Tesla finally heard it, too.

  “The alarm!”

  She bolted toward the back door, with DeMarco right behind her.

  “That’s the alarm?” Silas said as he lumbered after his friends. “I was expecting more of a ‘whoop whoop.’ ”

  Tesla was already sprinting through the kitchen. When she burst through the door into the dining room, she found the maids there still scraping Spaghettios off the ceiling.

  So Gladys and Ethel weren’t the spies. That left Skip the exterminator and Oli the apprentice.

  Tesla dashed up the hall, whipped herself around the banister, and began leaping up the staircase three steps at a time.

  From up ahead, she could still hear the ting-a-ling-a-ling of the bicycle bell. And she heard footsteps, too.

  The spy was coming to the top of the stairs.

  It was confrontation time.

  “Get ready!” Tesla said to DeMarco and Silas behind her.

  Whichever was the spy, Skip or Oli, he’d have to barrel through all three of them to get downstairs to the door. Surely one of them could keep him from escaping—somehow.

  Tesla was nine steps from the second floor now.

  Then six.

  Then three.

  Then—

  Uncle Newt appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “Oh, there you are, Tesla,” he said. “Look what I found!”

  He was holding Nick’s necklace and pendant.

  Tesla stopped in her tracks, and DeMarco and Silas crashed into her back.

  “I don’t get it,” Silas panted when he saw who had the pendant. “So your uncle’s the—?”

  “The sweetest man on Earth for looking for my pendant?” Tesla cut in. “Yes. Yes, he is.”

  A few yards beyond Uncle Newt, a head poked down beside the ladder to the attic.

  Skip was leaning down to look at them.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Tesla could see Ethel and Gladys moving into the hallway below to watch as well. Oli joined them, a phone in his hand.

  “What is making ringing?” he said. “I try answering telephone, but only hear the nothing.”

  “Oh, that’s just the timer on my Easy-Bake oven,” Tesla said. “We’re making a cake. I’d better go take it out before it burns.”

  She started up the last few steps as Oli scratched his head and said, “You make cake upstairs?”

  Tesla squeezed past her uncle and hurried into her room. Once she had disconnected the alarm bell, she came back into the hall.

  “I thought I melted the Easy-Bake oven when I was testing my heat-resistant aerosol cans,” Uncle Newt said. “Which weren’t heat resistant.”

  “Nick and I built a new one,” Tesla said.

  “Funny I didn’t see it when I went into your—”

  “Thanks for this,” Tesla said, yanking the pendant from her uncle’s hands. “I think it’s Nick’s, though.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Tesla ran her fingers over the chain, then held them up and waggled them.

  The tips were brown and moist.

  “Mud’s still wet,” Tesla said. “I lost my pendant hours ago. It’d be dry by now.”

  Uncle Newt applauded. “Very nicely reasoned! And I guess it wouldn’t make sense if yours was so easy to find. I was going to my room for a fresh T-shirt—this one’s starting to smell like burned apricots, bleah—when I happened to glance over and notice that pendant lying there practically screaming, ‘I’m right here! Come get me!’ ”

  Tesla forced out an unconvincing chuckle as she stole glances over at the ladder to the attic and down at the hallway below.

  She and her uncle weren’t being watched anymore, except by Silas and DeMarco. Skip, Ethel, Gladys, and Oli had all gone back to whatever they were doing before.

  Which, in one case, was plotting against Tesla and Nick.

  The spy trap had failed.

  Nick walked out of the bathroom drying his hair with a towel. He froze when he noticed Tesla and Uncle Newt and Silas and DeMarco.

  “What’d I miss?” he said.

  The kids went to a spy-free zone—DeMarco’s backyard—to plot their next move.

  “We need a new trap,” Nick said as everyone gathered around their temporary HQ—the sandbox. “Something more subtle. If it had been Oli or that exterminator guy or one of the maids with the pendant, they could have said the same thing as Uncle Newt: ‘Oh, look what I found for you.’ ”

  Tesla nodded in agreement. “We have to let them think they got away with it. At least for a while, so they can’t lie their way out of it when we confront them.”

  “Them?” DeMarco said. “You think there’s more than one spy?”

  “No,” said Tesla. “I just get tired of saying stuff like, ‘I hope he or she messes up so we can catch him or her before he or she puts his or her real plan into action.’ ”

  “Hey! I know how to catch him-her!” Silas announced.

  He snatched a twig off the ground and began drawing in the sandbox.

  This is what he was trying to sketch out:

  “You wanted subtle,” Silas said as he worked. “Well, how’s this for subtle?”

  Unfortunately, it’s really, really hard to draw in sand, and Silas’s blueprint ended up looking like this:

  “Yeah, that’s subtle, all right,” DeMarco said. “So subtle I don’t understand it at all.”

  Nick pointed at the blob in the upper left-hand corner.

  “Is that a flying piano?”

  “No!” Silas said. “It’s the eagle that’ll swoop down to catch the mouse after the he-she thief takes the pendant and pulls the string that lifts the box. We’ll see the eagle and come catch her-him before she-he can escape.”

  “Huh?” said Nick.

  “I still don’t understand it,” said DeMarco.

  “Oh, come on, guys! Mouse, box, string, eagle! It’s not that complicated!”

  Silas began retracing everything in his diagram, trying to dig deeper with the stick. But the sand kept shifting, and everything looked like squiggles.

  “What’s that?” said Tesla.

  DeMarco squinted at Silas’s sand drawings.

  “What’s any of it?” he said.

  “Not down there,” Tesla said, her voice dropping low. “Behind us. In the woods. I heard something.”

  Silas started to turn around.

  Tesla stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered. “Just listen.”

  For a long moment, the kids stood there by the sandbox, frozen. The only thing they heard were birds chirping and the occasional car driving by on the street and, after a while, the pop-pop-pop of Silas cracking his knuckles. (There was also a single “Oof” when DeMarco elbowed him to make him stop.)

  But finally there it was: a rustling in the woods just beyond
DeMarco’s yard. Then a soft murmuring and a clear, distinct click.

  “All right,” Tesla whispered. “On the count of three we’re gonna turn around and get ’em.”

  “Don’t you mean, ‘On the count of three we’re gonna run for it’?” Nick said.

  The only answer he got from his sister was “One … two … three!”

  The kids spun and rushed toward the bushes and trees and brush.

  “We know you’re in there!” yelled Tesla.

  “We’ve got you!” yelled DeMarco.

  “You might as well give up!” yelled Silas.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!” yelled Nick.

  Two figures emerged from the shadows of the forest as the kids grew closer. They both struck defiant poses—feet spread wide, hands on hips, heads cocked.

  “If you touch us, you’re dead,” said one.

  “Yeah,” said the other.

  The kids stopped their charge.

  “You!” DeMarco cried in horror.

  The spies in the forest were his bitter, implacable foes.

  His little sisters.

  “What are you doing with them?” said the older of the two, seven-year-old Elesha. She pointed at Nick and Tesla. “Mom and Dad told you they’re troublemakers.”

  “Yeah,” said little five-year-old Monique.

  “This is none of your business,” Silas told the girls.

  Elesha scowled at him.

  “Butt out, tubby,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Monique.

  Silas opened his mouth to reply.

  “No! Don’t provoke them!” DeMarco said. A shiver shook his body. “You know what they’re capable of.”

  Silas closed his mouth and took a big step back.

  “Smart move, blubber-butt,” said Elesha.

  “Yeah,” said Monique.

  Silas’s face reddened, but he didn’t attempt a comeback.

  “Why are you watching us?” DeMarco asked his sisters.

  “Why do you think?” Elesha said. She held up a little yellow box in her right hand. “You’re going down.”

  This time, Monique just smirked.

  “What is that?” Silas asked.

  “A disposable camera,” Nick told him.

  “The cheap, old-fashioned kind,” said Tesla. “With film.”

  DeMarco sighed. “My mom and dad bought it for them when we were at Lake Tahoe for spring break. I knew they’d use it against me one day.”

  Elesha gave the disposable camera a little shake.

  “We’ve got you playing with kids you’re not supposed to, launching bottle rockets off the roof, and teepeeing Julie Casserly’s trees,” she said.

  Silas turned to DeMarco.

  “Teepeeing Julie Casserly’s trees? That was you?” he said. “Without me?”

  DeMarco gave him a sheepish shrug.

  “All right,” Tesla said to the girls. “What do you want for the camera?”

  “What do you mean?” Elesha said.

  “You wouldn’t be standing here talking to us if you were going to go get DeMarco in trouble anyway. There’s something you want.”

  Elesha whispered something to Monique.

  “No deals!” Monique said.

  Elesha whispered something else to Monique.

  “No deals!” Monique said.

  Elesha whispered to Monique again.

  “No deals! No deals!” Monique said.

  Elesha whispered to Monique one more time.

  “Oh, okay,” Monique muttered bitterly. “Deal.”

  They turned toward DeMarco.

  “Your DS and all your games and five dollars and your allowance for the rest of the summer,” said Elesha. “Or you’re toast.”

  “Ouch,” said Silas.

  “Whoa,” said Nick.

  “Brutal,” said Tesla.

  “Deal,” said DeMarco. He held out his hand. “Now give it to me.”

  “Sure,” said Elesha.

  She whipped the camera at him with all her might.

  He managed to grab it out of the air two inches from his face.

  “Don’t worry about giving us the five dollars,” Elesha said. “We already know where you hide your money.” She gave the older kids a smile as sweet as sugar—mixed with rat poison. “Come on, Monique. Let’s go play our new games.”

  “Yeah.”

  Elesha and Monique linked arms and skipped off singing “La la la la-la-laaaaaa.”

  “If only we could sic them on the spies,” Nick said as the little girls pranced up the hill toward their house, still la-la-laaaaa-ing.

  DeMarco shook his head. “We couldn’t trust them to stay on our side.”

  He looked down at the boxy camera in his hands, then lifted it and pointed it at Silas.

  “There’s one shot left,” he said, “so you may as well say, ‘Cheese!’ ”

  Silas opened his mouth but only got so far as “Ch—.”

  “Wait!” Tesla cried out, jumping in front of DeMarco.

  “You want a group shot?” Silas said.

  “No,” Tesla said. “I want that camera.”

  DeMarco handed it to her.

  “What for?” he asked.

  But Nick already had it figured out.

  “Ahhhh,” he said. “Looks like we found our something more subtle.”

  NICK AND TESLA’S

  SPY-BUSTING INVISICAM

  THE STUFF

  • A disposable camera

  • 1 paper clip

  • 1 12-inch (30-cm) piece of PVC pipe labeled “1 inch”

  • 1 AA battery (can be a dead one)

  • Fishing line

  • An old picture frame at least 8 by 10 inches (20 by 25 cm)

  • Pushpins

  • Drill

  • Hot-glue gun

  • Clear tape

  • Duct tape

  • A picture you don’t want from an old calendar or magazine

  THE SETUP

  1. Remove any backing from the picture frame. If the glass in the frame is loose, secure it with hot glue.

  2. Place the camera at the bottom of the frame.

  3. Measure from the shutter button on top of the camera to just below the top of the frame. Cut the PVC pipe to this length.

  4. Once you’ve cut the pipe to the correct length, drill a ⅛-inch (0.3-cm) hole through both sides of the pipe 2¼ inches from the end.

  5. Carefully center the other end of the pipe over the shutter button and use a couple dabs of hot glue to hold the pipe in place. (Don’t get glue on the shutter button!) Make sure the holes in the pipe are positioned to the sides of the camera.

  6. Place the picture in the frame and cut a small hole where the camera lens will be.

  7. Unbend the paper clip as shown and tie one end of the fishing line to the still-bent end of the paper clip. Slide the straight end of the clip through the holes in the pipe.

  8. Insert the battery, with the positive (+) side down, into the top of the pipe.

  9. Secure the picture in the frame with clear tape.

  10. Align the camera lens with the hole in the picture and use duct tape to hold the camera and pipe in place.

  THE FINAL STEPS

  1. Be sure you’ve wound the camera so that it’s set to take a new picture.

  2. Hang the camera at the best position and height to get a glimpse of the spy you’re after. (Check with an adult before putting nails in the wall!) A flash will alert a spy that a picture’s been taken, so pick a bright area where you won’t need one.

  3. Run the fishing line so that it will be pulled by an opening door, or string it across a doorway so that it will act as a trip wire. Lead the fishing line around pushpins or small wall hooks if it needs to curve around anything to reach the camera.

  4. Leave the room.

  5. On entering, the spy will pull on the fishing line by either opening the door or walking into the trip wire. The tug on the line will yank the paper clip from the pipe, allowing the battery t
o fall and hit the shutter button. Click.

  6. Retrieve the camera and get the film developed. The last image on the roll will reveal the spy!

  “Still trying to get Barbie to walk?” Uncle Newt asked when Nick and Tesla came to the lab to get supplies for the invisicam.

  “Too easy,” Tesla said. “Now we’re trying to get her to dance.”

  “With G.I. Joe,” said Nick.

  “Who are these ‘Barby’ and ‘Geeijo’ who cannot do with the dancing?” Oli asked.

  He was standing in a metal tub, trouser legs rolled up, feet buried in mounds of mashed brown bananas. (Uncle Newt had decided the bananas didn’t have a high enough “muck factor” and made Oli his designated squasher.)

  “They’re toys, Oli,” Tesla said. “Don’t you have those in Australia?”

  “Only the … the …” Oli made a flicking movement with his hand. “… boomerung. Crikey. G’day!”

  “That guy is not from Australia,” Nick whispered to Tesla as they went up the stairs.

  “I’m not sure he’s from Earth,” said Tesla.

  When she and Nick reached the top of the stairs, they found Ethel and Gladys in the kitchen about to start cleaning the refrigerator.

  “Oh, there’s a black widow in there,” Tesla said to them. “Don’t throw it out, please.”

  The little white-haired maids shared a look.

  “Let’s do the sink instead,” said Ethel.

  “Right,” said Gladys.

  Nick and Tesla continued up to the second floor—where they found Skip the exterminator stepping out of their room.

  “Well, you can rest easy tonight, kids,” he said. “No spiders.”

  “What’s that on your shoulder?” Nick asked.

  Skip barked out a bitter laugh.

  “What do you think I am, an idiot? I’m not falling for that one twice!”

  He turned and started toward Uncle Newt’s room with the long, brown centipede still crawling up his shoulder, headed for his neck.

  Nick and Tesla were in their room starting on the invisicam when they heard the scream.

  Before Nick and Tesla came to stay with him, Uncle Newt had decorated their room with posters he assumed would appeal to kids. Most featured princesses, puppies, rainbows, or some combination of the three. (There was also a picture of Albert Einstein, but it had no princesses, puppies, or rainbows.)