by Jay Williams
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1959, renewed 1977 by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidepress.com
DEDICATION
This book is for Michele, Michael, Timmy and Brett
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are deeply grateful to Nathan Barrey, meteorologist at Bridgeport Airport (Conn.); Patrick Walsh, meteorologist in the New York City Weather Bureau; Julius Schwartz, Consultant in Science, Bureau of Curriculum Research, New York City Schools; Stanley Koencko, president of the Danbury (Conn.) School of Aeronautics; and Louis Huyber, all of whom assisted greatly in the preparation of this book, with technical advice and information.
We are also grateful to Herman Schneider for permission to describe materials from his book Everyday Weather and How It Works (McGraw-Hill, 1951).
CHAPTER ONE
Something from the Sky
Two boys and a pretty girl, wearing swimming suits and with towels around their necks, stood in the shade of the woods. The blazing August sunlight was filtered and broken by the leaves which hung limp and dusty overhead.
“Gee, it’s dry,” said Irene Miller, shaking her glossy, brown pony-tail out of the way. “If we don’t get some rain pretty soon, there’ll be nothing left of the whole countryside.”
The taller of the two boys, Joe Pearson, thin and dark, with a perpetually gloomy expression, glanced past her. “Oh-oh,” he said. “Danny’s got that look on his face again. Whenever he looks like that, it means trouble.”
Red-haired Danny Dunn was staring into space. His blue eyes were glazed, and there was a strange smile on his freckled face.
Joe went up close to him. “Danny!” he said. “Snap out of it. The last time you got that look on your face, you tried to make a jet plane out of a fire extinguisher.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Danny replied, in a faraway voice.
“Yes, it worked,” said Irene. “And it went right through Mr. Winkle’s living-room window and wrecked his television set.”
Danny shook himself. “This idea is nothing like that one,” he said, grinning at his friends. “I was just thinking of a way to prevent forest fires in dry weather. We could pipe water into hollow trees and rig up an automatic sprinkling system that would go into action as soon as a fire started.”
Joe grunted. “Where would you get the water from? We’ve been having a drought—remember?”
“Don’t bother him with details,” said Irene. “He just makes up theories.”
Danny ran his fingers through his hair. “Trees store water in their roots,” he said. “We could get it from there, maybe.”
“Well, okay,” mumbled Joe, beginning to walk on. “Just as long as you don’t take it from the swimming hole. In this heat, that’s all I’ve got to comfort me. And we haven’t had a swim in days.”
Danny and Irene followed him along the path. Irene said, “Gee, Danny, maybe your idea would work. Why don’t you talk it over with Professor Bullfinch?”
Danny’s mother, whose husband had died when the boy was very young, was housekeeper for Professor Euclid Bullfinch, a noted physicist and inventor. A great affection had grown up between the boy and the kindly, quiet scientist, almost like that of father and son, and Professor Bullfinch had taught Danny a great deal about science.
“Well, I don’t know,” Danny replied. “I hate to bother him these days. He’s been working on a new type of power transmitter, and he’s been in the laboratory fifteen hours a day.”
The trees ended at the edge of a clearing. In its center was a small, round pond, on the banks of which the young people had built a bench and a rough diving board.
Joe dropped his towel. “Wow!” he yelled. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”
He dashed forward. He ran out on the diving board and leaped into the pond.
“That’s funny,” said Danny. “Did you hear that?”
“You mean that plopping sound?” Irene said.
“Exactly.”
“What about it?”
“No splash,” said Danny.
He and Irene stared at each other. Then they ran to the edge of the pond. As they reached it, Joe stood up. There was no water in the pond at all, only soft, sticky mud which covered all the front of him. He wiped his face and glared up at Dan.
“You did it!” he howled. “You and your water pipes in trees.”
He stumbled to the side, and Danny and Irene helped him climb out.
“Don’t be silly, Joe,” said Irene. “The water has just evaporated. It’s the heat, and the lack of rain.”
Joe looked ruefully down at himself. “Oh, gosh,” he said. “Mom will be wild.”
“Why? You couldn’t help it,” Danny said. “And maybe she can plant things on you.”
“It’s no joke. You know about the water rationing—everybody’s supposed to save water. So I promised I wouldn’t get dirty.”
The other two looked serious. Then Danny said, “I’ve got it! We’re not far from the reservoir. We can go home that way.”
“But swimming’s not allowed in the reservoir,” Joe protested.
“Who said anything about swimming?” Danny said. “We can dip up a handful of water and wash you off.”
“It’ll take more than a handful,” said Joe, wiping feebly at his chest.
“Well, say half a dozen, then.”
“But, Danny,” Irene protested, “would that be right—taking water from the public reservoir?”
“Why not? The reservoir belongs to the whole town, and we’re part of the town, aren’t we? And I’ll tell you what,” Danny added. “Just to make it fair—when I get home, I won’t wash before dinner. That’ll save whatever water we use for Joe. There’s no sacrifice I wouldn’t make for my friend.”
“Yeah,” said Joe gloomily. “Thanks.”
The reservoir was near the town line, about half a mile through the woods. When they came out on the sloping banks, planted with tall pine trees in regular rows, they could see how low the water was: the rocky island in the center stuck far above the surface, and all around the shore the line of the usual water level was clear and dark, like the ring around a bathtub.
Danny led his friends to a sloping shelf of rock that thrust out into the water. “We can dip up a little from here,” he said.
“Good!” Irene exclaimed. “It’s sunny right here, so the water we’ll use would have evaporated anyhow.” And she winked at Dan.
But Joe took her seriously. “Say, that’s a great idea,” he said. “Now you can wash after all, Danny.”
Danny did not reply. He was staring upward, shading his eyes with one arm.
“Look at that,” he said.
The other two followed his gaze. Something was shining in the sky, something silvery like a half-moon tipped upside down.
“It’s a parachute,” Danny said, after a moment.
“A paratrooper?” Irene suggested. “No, it’s too small.”
“Maybe it’s a paratrooper from a flying saucer,” said Joe. “Let’s go home.”
“Oh, wait a minute,” said Danny. “It could be the nose cone of a missile, or—or something interesting like that.”
“Interesting missiles give me goose pimples,” grumbled Joe. Nevertheless, he waited.
Lower and lower the thing floated. Now they could see clearly that it was, indeed, a small pale-blue parachute with a box of some sort a
ttached to it.
Suddenly Danny said, “Maybe it’s a bomb.” Joe and Irene drew nearer to him. The thing was dropping straight into the reservoir.
“Watch out! ” Danny said nervously. “It may blow up when it hits.”
Before they could move, the box touched the water and the parachute slowly folded about it like a crumpled sail.
CHAPTER TWO
The Weather Forecaster
For a long, breathless moment the three waited. Nothing happened. Then Danny said, “If it is a bomb, it’s wet by now and that will stop it from exploding.”
“Not if it’s an underwater bomb,” Joe said.
“I don’t believe it’s a bomb at all,” Irene said stoutly. “We didn’t hear any plane. And why would anyone drop a bomb that size on a parachute? I’ll bet it only came from a flying saucer, or from outer space.”
At these words, Danny’s eyes widened. “Hey, maybe you’re right,” he said. “We ought to fish it out of the reservoir. It—it might have germs on it from another planet. It might poison the whole town.”
“How can we get to it?” Irene asked, frowning. Joe looked about. His eye fell on a long, dead branch that had blown down from one of the pine trees. He got it, and went out to the edge of the rocks.
“Danny, you hold my hand,” he said. “I’ll reach out and try to catch hold of the parachute.”
Danny took his friend’s hand, and Joe leaned far out with the stick. The parachute was just out of his reach. Further and further he stretched, and suddenly his hand slipped out of Danny’s. With a splash, he went headfirst into the water.
Irene uttered a shriek. Danny fell over backward on the rocks. Gasping and blowing, Joe came to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes.
“Oh, well,” he said. “Now I’m in, I might as well swim out and get the thing.”
A few strokes took him to the parachute. Using his branch, he hooked it up gingerly and brought it to shore. Danny took it from him, and Irene helped him up to the rocks.
“Anyway,” he said, wiping his face, “I’m clean.”
Danny was already examining their catch. They could see now that it was a white cardboard box about the size and shape of a large box of corn flakes, with a tape handle and a ring that held it secured to the parachute.
Joe bent over it. [,,/nrauituqsuisxqx,,] he read. “A secret code!”
“You’re reading it upside down,” Danny said, reversing the box. “Here it is—it’s a radiosonde.”
“Some kind of radio?” Joe wrinkled his brows.
Danny read the square of printing aloud. “‘This weather instrument, known as a radiosonde, was attached to a balloon and sent up by a United States Weather Bureau station. During the observation, while the radiosonde was in the air, it operated as a radio transmitter of the temperature, pressure, and moisture of the air through which it passed. The balloon burst at a height of about sixteen miles and the radiosonde came down on the attached parachute.’ ”
“Look here,” Irene added. “It says it’s to be returned to the Weather Bureau so they can use it again.”
“Yes. Here are the instructions for mailing it,” said Danny thoughtfully. “But listen— we’re not far from the weather station. It’s over on the airfield, beyond Midston University. We could walk it easy from here. Let’s take it back now.”
“Gosh,” Joe protested. “It’s more than a mile.”
“Maybe they’ll give us a reward,” Danny said craftily.
Joe jumped up. “What are we waiting for?” he exclaimed.
Leaving the reservoir behind them, they struck off through the woods, and then across some fields until they came to the campus of Midston University, where Irene’s father, Dr. Miller, headed the astronomy department, and Professor Bullfinch occasionally lectured. Taking short cuts, they soon came to the airfield, which lay to the north of the town. A main road, Washington Avenue, ran past it, and a little way from the road were two small white buildings. One contained the waiting room, office, and control tower of the airport. The other bore the sign: U.S. DEPT. OF COMMERCE, WEATHER BUREAU.
Danny knocked at the door. After a moment it opened, and a tall man peered out. He had a round, ruddy face and small, sleepy-looking blue eyes, and his lips were curved in a lopsided but pleasant smile.
“Yes?” he said, blinking at them.
“We’ve come to return your radiosonde,” Danny explained.
“That’s very kind of you. Won’t you come in?” said the man. He held the door wide, and the three friends filed inside.
The little room was crammed with equipment. A teletype machine clattered away in one corner. A long table was piled with diagrams and papers, and the walls were covered with charts of clouds, weather maps, and a large relief map of the United States. Two windows looked out on the airfield, and a door in one wall stood open, revealing another office, a tiny one in which were a desk and a couple of lockers. Cabinets and instruments were ranged all about the main room, and on a corner of the table a teakettle steamed on an electric hot-plate.
“My name is Mr. Elswing,” said their host. “I’m the meteorologist in charge here.”
Danny introduced himself and his friends, and they all shook hands.
“So this is where you make the weather?” Joe said, looking about. “When are you going to give us some rain?”
Mr. Elswing laughed, a jolly, booming laugh. “My goodness,” he said. “That’s what comes of people thinking of us as weathermen, instead of weather forecasters.”
“Is this machine used for forecasting?” Irene asked, pointing to a tall cabinet with three dials set in its front.
“Yes. That tells the wind direction and wind speed. The top two dials are connected with instruments on the roof of the building. The third dial is a barometer, and gives the air pressure.”
Joe was leaning over a long counter on which were a map labeled “Aviation Weather Reporting Stations” and a sheaf of long yellow papers. “Look at this,” he said. “This is really code!”
“Joe, you’ve got codes on the brain,” Danny grinned.
“Oh, yeah? Well, listen to this,” said Joe. “PIREPS VCNTY BDG 1740 R NO TURBC. And I’m not reading upside down, either.”
Mr. Elswing nodded. “In a way you’re right, Joe. Those are the reports all the stations send in, once every hour. That one is an aviation report.” He picked up the paper and read, “Pireps—pilot reports; vicinity of BDG—that’s the code signal of one of the stations; at 1740— that’s five-forty in the afternoon; R—rain; No Turbc—no turbulence, that is, no high swirling winds.”
Joe looked triumphant. “Too bad it wasn’t something secret.”
“You see,” Mr. Elswing explained, “each weather station observes as much as it can about the conditions nearby: the atmospheric pressure, temperature, moisture in the air, wind direction and speed. All these observations are put together to make a large picture of what the weather is like all day long, all over the country. This picture is called a weather map. You can see it in the daily newspapers. Then the meteorologists—that’s a better word than weatherman—can make a pretty good guess at what it will be like tomorrow.”
“What will it be like tomorrow?” Danny asked.
“Dry again, I’m afraid,” Mr. Elswing said ruefully.
“Why?” asked Irene. “What’s happened to all the rain?”
Mr. Elswing shook his head. “All I can tell you is that we just don’t know for certain. The great mass of air that is giving us our weather is staying just about the same. Its pressure is constant, and until, for example, some cold air comes along from the northwest to push it on its way, there isn’t much chance of a change.”
He sighed, and took some cups from a shelf. “I just wish people wouldn’t think it’s my fault,” he said. “How about a nice cup of tea? I always keep the kettle on. Hot
tea seems to cool me off in this kind of weather.”
The three young people sat down around the table, and Mr. Elswing, pushing aside the papers, put tea bags in the cups and got down a sugar bowl and a can of milk.
“Why should hot tea cool you off?” Irene demanded.
“Simple,” said Danny. “It makes you feel so much hotter that the hot air outside seems cooler.”
Mr. Elswing laughed. “Maybe you’ve got something there, Dan,” he said. “Another reason is that the tea makes you perspire. The moisture on your skin evaporates. When moisture evaporates, it takes heat from surrounding areas, so your skin feels cool.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to cool me much,” grumbled Joe, who was sitting with his back to the open window. “I’m hot. Even the wind feels hot on my neck.”
“Oh, Joe, you’re always complaining,” said Irene. “Mr. Elswing, tell us some more about what you do in the weather station.”
But before the meteorologist could speak, Joe said in a trembling voice, “Danny.”
“What?”
“Did you see that horror movie on TV—Wolf Man of London?”
Danny looked at his friend in astonishment.
“Do you remember that guy in the picture who turned into a werewolf?” Joe went on.
“Sure. Why?”
“Because that hot wind I feel—is him, breathing down my neck!”
CHAPTER THREE
Mr. Elswing Changes
The others sprang up from the table in alarm. A huge, hairy head was peering in through the open window behind Joe. It was tan-and-white, and had mournful brown eyes.
“Why, Joe,” Irene cried, “how can you call it a werewolf? It’s a cute little puppy!”
They could now see that it was a Saint Bernard dog, standing outside with its chin resting on the window sill. At Irene’s words, it seemed to smile, and an immense tail began wagging back and forth so that a real breeze came into the room.
“That’s Vanderbilt,” Mr. Elswing said. “He’s not exactly a puppy, though.”
