by Jay Williams
“Me?” Joe sat up straight. “Why me?”
“Well, if I touch it, as Irene says, there’s likely to be trouble because I won’t be able to stop. But look—the nozzles are pointing toward that electric light near the wall. If you close the switch on the back of the machine, we’ll see whether the light goes on or not.”
“Suppose the thing bites me?” Joe grumbled. “Anyway, it’s day. Who needs a light?”
“Don’t be silly, Joe. Go ahead. Aren’t you interested in a new and exciting invention?”
“I don’t think so,” Joe said doubtfully. “Am I?”
“All you have to do is close the switch and see if anything happens. Then we’ll open it again.”
Joe advanced cautiously on the machine. Stretching out one hand, very gingerly, he pushed the knife switch shut.
“Did anything happen?” he asked. He had his eyes tight closed.
“Nope,” said Danny in a disappointed voice. “The light didn’t go on. Nothing happened at all, as far as I can see.”
“It’s just as well,” said Irene. She went into the alcove. “Let’s get back to the weather station. If the machine had worked, heaven knows what you’d have wanted to do next.”
“She’s right,” Joe said. “We really shouldn’t fool with it, Dan. Something might go wrong.”
“Don’t talk like a goon,” said Danny, kicking his heels sulkily against the rungs of his stool. “How could anything go wrong by just turning it on? And we’re not fooling with it, we’re experimenting. Gosh, the Professor lets me experiment with all his materials, and use any of his apparatus or his inventions as long as I’m careful. He knows I’m a scientist, too. Why, if he were here—”
He broke off, and jumped to his feet. From the other room came Irene’s voice, shrill with excitement.
“Danny!” she called. “Come here, quick!” He rushed to the alcove with Joe at his heels.
Irene pointed to the thermometer that hung on the inside wall.
“Look,” she said. “What is it registering?”
He bent over and peered at it. Then he stood up, openmouthed. “It says ten below zero,” he stammered.
“That’s right,” she said. “Ten below zero— but the air feels just as warm to me as ever.”
“The thermometer is crazy,” said Danny.
“Somebody’s crazy,” Joe said. “Hm.... Maybe it’s us.”
CHAPTER SIX
Trouble in the Kitchen
After a moment, Danny reached out and touched the wall.
“It’s cold,” he said in astonishment.
Joe nodded. “Then there’s nothing wrong with the thermometer,” he said. “So it must be us.”
Danny was feeling all over the surface of the plaster wall. “Water pipes?” he muttered. “No, too cold for that. It seems to be concentrated in a kind of circle right around the thermometer.”
“Maybe it’s something on the other side of the wall,” Irene said. She darted into the laboratory.
Danny and Joe followed her. Irene stopped so abruptly that they bumped into her. “Look at that,” she said in a whisper.
On the wall of the laboratory there was a circular patch of something that gleamed like silvery glass.
“Ice!” Danny cried.
“Great jingle bells!” said Joe. “Something tells me our forecast was cockeyed. The weather is changing.”
“It’s not the weather, Joe,” Danny said. He walked close to the ice patch, put his hands on his knees, and carefully sighted back from it at the Professor’s machine. “Pointing right at it,” he said with satisfaction.
“You mean it’s that machine that’s doing it?” said Joe.
“Yes. We never turned it off.”
“But I thought it wasn’t working,” said Irene.
“It is, though. See here,” Danny said, beckoning to her. “Stand where I am, and bend over, and you can see that there are two faint rays of light coming from the nozzles. They meet right here, at this place where the ice has formed. They were too faint for us to spot before, from where we were sitting.”
Irene and Joe stared at the rays, and then at the icy circle on the wall. “Gosh!” Joe breathed. “A cold ray!”
“Right,” said Danny. “Somehow, the ray is making that patch of wall cold. Moisture is condensing out of the air and freezing. Look here—” He pointed to a basin against the wall, with a water faucet for rinsing out chemical apparatus. “The faucet’s leaking a little, and that, plus the warmth in here, is making the air damp enough at this spot for the ray to condense moisture out on the wall.”
“I see,” said Irene. “It’s like when you pour ice-cold water into a glass. The outside of the glass gets steamy, and that’s the moisture being condensed out of the air by the chill of the ice water.”
Danny nodded absent-mindedly. “Ice water?” he mumbled.
“Oh-oh,” said Joe, backing away. “I feel trouble coming. Look at his face, Irene. He’s got that glazed look.”
“This isn’t trouble.” Danny grinned. “It’s refreshment.”
“It is? Well, go on, then.”
“Suppose we had a pitcher of lemonade, and we beamed the ray at it?”
“Lemon ice!” Irene said.
“Sure. It would be a quick freeze.” Danny looked from one to the other. “What do you say? Shall we try it?”
“Well,” Joe said slowly, “it doesn’t really sound as though anything can go wrong with that. Okay. I’m game.”
“What about your resolution not to touch the machine?” Irene asked, with her hands on her hips.
“Hmmm,” Danny said. “Well, I won’t touch it. You and Joe pick it up and carry it.”
She sighed. “Danny Dunn,” she began.
Danny interrupted. “Don’t you see? That way I won’t be tempted to go any further with wild ideas.”
“Mmhmm,” said Irene.
“You two bring it along into the kitchen,” Danny said. “I’ll start making lemonade.”
Mrs. Dunn was not in the kitchen when Danny entered. She had gone next door to ask Mrs. Miller, Irene’s mother, if Irene could stay for dinner. A pot of soup was simmering on the stove, and Danny sniffed appreciatively at it. Then he got lemons out of the refrigerator, filled a pitcher with lemon juice and water, and stirred in several spoonfuls of sugar.
Irene and Joe came in with the machine. It was small, and not too heavy for them to carry. They set it on a stool, under Danny’s direction, and aimed the nozzles at the pitcher of lemonade which stood on the kitchen table.
“Okay,” Danny said. “Throw the switch, Irene.”
Rather nervously, she did so. In the steamy air of the kitchen, the pale-bluish twin rays could be seen more clearly. They just missed the lemonade pitcher, going over it and focusing on a spot above the soup pot on the stove.
“Hold on,” Danny said. “Don’t try shifting the machine. I’ll just put a couple of cookbooks under the pitcher.”
He went to the shelf and got down two books of recipes. He was just about to bring them to the table when from both Irene and Joe there burst simultaneous wild cries:
“Hey!”
“Yipes!”
Danny froze as if the cold ray were hitting him. Over the soup kettle a cloud was forming, no larger than a sofa cushion but unmistakably a cloud. Its top was piled into anvil-shaped thunderheads; below, it was dark gray.
“What—?” Danny choked.
The cloud boiled up, grew thicker and darker. From it there came a tiny rumble of thunder, like the growl of a small dog, but genuine thunder nevertheless. A little bolt of lightning lanced down from the cloud and struck the soup kettle with a hiss. Then, suddenly, it began to rain furiously over the stove.
The three friends stood staring, unable to move a muscle. The rain filled the soup pot and
overflowed its edge. The gas flame went out, and water poured down onto the floor.
Then Danny came to his senses. He sprang to the stove and turned off the gas. “Joe!” he yelled. “Stop the machine! Open the switch! Quick, before we’re flooded out!”
“But-but-but,” Joe stuttered.
Irene jumped forward and pulled the switch open. The rays vanished. A moment later, the cloud was gone.
“How—?” Irene began.
She got no further. Mrs. Dunn opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen. She stared at the three young people, then at the stove and the great puddle of water on the floor.
“Danny!” she exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing?”
Danny’s face was bright crimson. “Gee, Mom,” he said, and gulped. “Gee. I’m sorry. We couldn’t help it. It—it—it rained in the soup!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Good Old IT
Mrs. Dunn’s eyebrows slowly rose. Then she felt Danny’s forehead.
“You don’t seem to have a fever,” she murmured.
“I haven’t, Mom. It was just that—”
Mrs. Dunn shook her head. “Danny, surely you must realize that experiments belong in the laboratory, not in the kitchen.”
“I do, Mom. But we—”
“And look at my soup! Good heavens, surely you’re old enough not to play with food? Adding water to soup only thins it. I could have told you that.”
“I know, Mom. But I—”
“It’s ruined!” Mrs. Dunn began to look angry. “Irene, I’m surprised at you, letting these boys spoil good soup.”
“But I didn’t—” Irene began.
“And my nice, clean floor, covered with water. Haven’t you children any sense? Wasting water in this dry weather!”
“But, Mom!” Danny said. “Honestly, we—”
“Don’t you ‘honestly’ me, young man. And what’s this box? A radio? No, don’t tell me. Whatever it is, get it out of my kitchen. And you get the mop, Dan, and clean up this mess.”
In moments, she had whirled them about, thrust a mop into Danny’s hands, a sponge into Irene’s, a pail into Joe’s. The three friends looked sadly at one another, and began the job of drying the floor and the stove, while Mrs. Dunn, still grumbling crossly, did what she could to salvage the watery soup. When they were all done, and the kitchen was more or less restored to order, Joe and Irene lugged the machine back to the laboratory, with Danny behind them, hugging something to his breast.
“I got away with the pitcher of lemonade,” he said, once they were safely in the lab. “It’s not cold, but it’s comforting.”
“I need comfort,” Joe groaned. “Oh, my aching back. I knew there’d be trouble. I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Oh, don’t be so goopy, Joe,” said Irene. “Danny, what did happen? How could that cloud form? Where did all that water come from?”
“Wait a minute,” Danny protested. “One question at a time. I think I know how it happened.”
Deliberately, he poured some of the warm lemonade into a clean test tube, and drank it down. Joe took another test tube and did the same, saying under his breath, “This is just like that horror movie, ‘Grandson of the Werewolf,’ where the guy drinks from a test tube and turns into a monster.”
“Go on, Dan,” said Irene. “Speak up.”
“Well,” said Danny, “you remember the Professor said his engine projected beams of charged particles? When I was studying up on weather, one of the theories I read about was that clouds form because water droplets condense around chilled particles.”
“Slow down,” Joe interrupted. “What kind of particles? I don’t get it.”
“Oh, for instance, little bits of salt, scooped up from sea spray by the wind and carried high in the air. Or dust, or soot from chimneys, or pollen from plants—all kinds of very tiny specks. These are called nuclei. High up in the air, where it’s cold, they chill. Then moisture condenses around them out of the air and forms lots of little drops. Millions of ’em all together make a cloud.”
He paused, frowning. “I couldn’t seem to find a clear statement about what makes a cloud turn into rain,” he went on. “In some cases, it seems that the top of a cloud gets very cold. The drops turn to ice and start falling, because they’re heavy, and as they fall they gather other drops around them and pretty soon they’re all falling. When they get to the warmer air below, they melt, and they’re rain. Maybe that’s what happened in the kitchen. Maybe not.”
“What else could have happened?” Irene demanded.
“You know, the tiny particles projected by the machine were very cold. And the air in the kitchen was full of moisture. Steam was rising from the pot. The cold particles acted like nuclei. Water droplets formed around them and made a cloud. As it rose, and as the cold ray chilled it some more, it began to condense; it couldn’t hold all that water, and the water fell out. So it rained in the soup.”
Irene, her elbows on the lab bench and her chin on her palms, stared intently at him. Then she sat up straight. “Why—why—this means we can end the drought!” she cried.
“No,” said Danny. “I thought of that. But it’s obvious that the machine will only make rain when the air is supersaturated—when it’s so full of moisture that it can’t hold any more. And the weather now is pretty dry, too dry for us to make a cloud outside. Anyway, I think the machine can only make little clouds, and miniature rainstorms.”
Joe had been listening, wide-eyed. He jumped up so suddenly that he almost sent a rack of test tubes crashing to the floor. “Wow!” he yelled. “We’re rich!”
“Hey, take it easy,” Danny cautioned, grabbing the rack.
“What are you talking about, Joe?” asked Irene.
“Why, don’t you see? This thing has a thousand uses around the house!” Joe waved his arms in the air. “A portable, pipeless shower bath—an easy way to wash dishes—a million uses!”
“Maybe he’s right, for once,” said Danny. “If the air was damp enough, you could use it to sprinkle the lawn.”
“That’s right. And it could be used for washing your car,” said Irene. “Or to sprinkle clothes for ironing. Or to fill up wading pools.”
“I wonder if the Professor realizes what the machine can do?” said Danny.
“If he doesn’t, he soon will,” Joe said. “Just call me Joseph Pearson, Boy Financial Wizard. As soon as he gets back, we’ll tell him about it. I can see it now—Pearson, Dunn, and Miller: Home Rainstorms. Oh—and Bullfinch, I guess.”
Danny laughed. He raised his hand, then held it motionless in the air.
“Oh, Joe,” he said. “Do me a favor.”
“Sure. What?”
“Pat the machine for me, will you? I want to keep my resolution not to touch it.”
“Okay,” said Joe. “By the way, what did the Professor call this thing?”
“An ionic transmitter.”
“That’s too long. Let’s shorten it to I.T.” And Joe leaned over and solemnly patted the metal case. “Good old IT,” he chuckled.
CHAPTER EIGHT
An Eye for an Eye
Hopkins’ Drugstore was a favorite meeting place of the three friends—when they had any money. On the afternoon following the rainstorm in the kitchen, Irene and Danny sat at the soda fountain waiting for Joe, who had a dollar, a windfall from a visiting uncle. Danny had just changed his mind for the third time and decided to have a triple mint fudge marshmallow banana bonanza, when he became aware of a warm breath on his cheek.
“Cut it out, Joe,” he began and, turning, saw a pair of large, sad, brown eyes peering into his own.
“Vanderbilt!” he exclaimed.
At the same time, a deep voice said, “Well, well, this is a surprise. Danny Dunn, isn’t it? And Irene Miller?”
The two cringed away, uncertain whether t
o run for the door or wait it out. Mr. Elswing, however, looking perfectly friendly and jolly, seemed to notice nothing wrong.
He sat down on one of the stools, and Vanderbilt padded heavily round to Irene and put his chin on her arm.
“Sweet little pup,” she murmured, patting him. The big dog smiled foolishly, rolled up his eyes, and sank down to the floor where he lay panting.
“Why haven’t you come to the weather station to visit me?” Mr. Elswing asked. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Danny relaxed a little. He had been quietly unscrewing the top of the pepper shaker, planning, if Mr. Elswing made any sudden moves, to dip a soda straw in the shaker and, using it as a blowgun, pepper the weatherman with pepper. But Mr. Elswing seemed so normal that Danny put down his weapon and began to breathe again.
“We—we’ve got our own weather station now,” Dan said.
“That’s fine,” Mr. Elswing beamed. “Maybe you can give people better forecasts than I can. Nobody seems to like me these days, just because I have to keep telling them that the weather will be dry and hot.”
“We know,” Irene said. “Our own forecast this morning was for fair weather.”
“Yes? I hope people don’t start blaming you the way they blame me. You’d think I was responsible.” Mr. Elswing rubbed his chin. “I’m in the same boat with everyone else. I’ve had to save water, and use it carefully.”
He bent forward confidingly. “Maybe you notice how bristly my chin is? I’ve been shaving only twice a week, and using the water I save that way for my tea.”
“Tea?” Danny snorted, and shrugged. “We’ve solved that problem. You can drink all the tea you like.”
“What? How’s that?”
“Why, with our new rainstorm ray you can condense the steam from your teakettle and use it over again for the next cup of tea.”
There was a long moment of stunned silence. Then Irene burst out, “Oh, Danny! How could you?”
Mr. Elswing had a most peculiar look on his face. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and shut it again.
