The Wells Bequest

by Polly Shulman

  “That’s the Fitz part of FitzHenry,” explained Francis. “It means Simon’s really-great-grandmother wasn’t the queen, just one of King Henry’s girlfriends. Maybe she was one of the serving wenches with the turkey legs.”

  Simon had gone pale. “My family is descended from the Tudors,” he said. “Who is your family descended from?” He sounded furious.

  “Sorry, Simon, no offense meant,” said Francis.

  Simon didn’t answer.

  I tried to change the subject. “Tell me more about the remote-controlled robot,” I said.

  “I’m afraid I’d better be getting back,” said Simon. He got up and walked quickly out of the park.

  “Francis, you shouldn’t tease him,” said Jaya. “You know how sensitive he is.”

  “Sensitive isn’t how I would put it. He’s a royal psycho,” said Francis. “He thinks he’s such a hotshot because his family are big patrons at the Burton Repository in London. But your family’s just as important here, and you’re not stuck-up.”

  “Well, he’s a long way from home. And you did give him a hard time about his ancestors.”

  “You’re right. Maybe that was mean. But he does look exactly like that painting of Henry VIII,” said Francis, starting to laugh again.

  • • •

  I’d heard of Nikola Tesla, but I didn’t know much about him. I checked out his autobiography and a few histories of early electrical technology.

  Tesla’s remote-controlled robot was actually a robotic submarine that he controlled with a radio device. It was the first time anybody had done that. Tesla invented lots of amazing things. He had a pretty sad life, though. He worked for Thomas Edison when he was young, but after Edison refused to pay Tesla some money he’d promised, they ended up becoming bitter rivals. They had a long fight—called the War of the Currents—over whose kind of electricity would control the world’s standards: Edison’s direct current or Tesla’s alternating current. Tesla’s AC won, but he didn’t get the money or credit for it. His boss, George Westinghouse, did.

  Some people say Tesla was a way better inventor than Edison, but he was never anywhere near as successful. People like Edison and Westinghouse kept taking credit for his work. Then there were the crazy things he claimed to have invented but could never get to actually work, like a death ray that he thought would end war.

  He died poor and alone instead of rich and famous. He went nuts at the end, too. His best friend was a pigeon.

  What amazed me most, though, were Tesla’s visions.

  In his autobiography, Tesla described how, as a kid, he sometimes had such vivid memories that he didn’t know if he was remembering something or actually seeing it. Later on, the same thing happened with his inventions. While he was thinking about an idea for a new machine, he would see it in front of him. He described seeing his first great invention that way, a new kind of electric motor. “The images were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal,” he wrote.

  When I read that, my jaw dropped. That’s exactly what happens to me. Did that mean I was a genius—or crazy?

  CHAPTER SIX

  I Build a Very Strange Radio

  I had been coming to the repository for a few weeks. Simon hadn’t gotten any friendlier, but Francis and Abigail always waved and smiled when they saw me in the Main Exam Room. The reference librarian, Mr. Reyes, knew my name. I’d gotten used to the library’s weird ways: the changing pictures in the stained-glass windows, the beams of sunlight on rainy days, the big rooms that shouldn’t fit inside that small building. I’d even gotten used to seeing Jaya, though my heart still beat faster when I did.

  But what about the time machine? Shouldn’t it have appeared by now? Every time I went to the repository, some part of me expected to see it. But I never did.

  Then one Wednesday, I had an idea. What if the time machine was somewhere in the stacks? They had wild things here like Leonardo da Vinci’s knight and Tesla’s remote-controlled submarine. If a time machine existed anywhere, wouldn’t the repository be the perfect place for it? Maybe it even had a call number!

  I looked around the Catalog Room, daunted. Where should I look for time machines?

  Might as well start with the obvious, I thought. I pulled out the drawer marked Tel–Tin and started flipping through cards. Tiger beetle, tilbury, timber hitch . . . It couldn’t really be that simple, could it? Would they actually file their time machines under time machine?

  I continued to flip cards. Time bomb (they had one of those?), time clock, time lock, timepiece (see clock), time sheet, timetable, timpani, tintype . . .

  That’s where it should have been: between time lock and timepiece. It wasn’t there.

  Of course it wasn’t. I felt like an idiot.

  Could they be keeping the time machine in one of those mysterious Special Collections, then—the ones I still wasn’t allowed to borrow stuff from? Or was it just not here at all?

  Wherever it was, I knew I was going to find it soon, before I was too much older. I would have to look harder.

  • • •

  I wished I could get into the stacks to look for the time machine. But only staff were allowed in there.

  I had a sudden thought: What if I worked at the repository?

  As soon as it occurred to me, I knew how much I wanted it. Not just for the time machine, but for the repository itself. I wanted to understand how the library worked. I wanted to explore its corners and its strange geometry. I wanted to learn its secrets.

  Jaya’s shift was due to start in a few minutes, so I went downstairs to catch her arriving. I had gotten very good at running into Jaya.

  She came around the corner with Abigail. “Hi, you guys,” I said, hurrying up to them as if I were just arriving too. “Hey, I’ve been wondering. How do you get a job at the repository?”

  “You want to work here? That’s a great idea, Leo!” said Jaya.

  “So are there openings? How do you get a job?”

  “My social studies teacher recommended me,” said Abigail.

  “Me too, my sewing teacher,” said Jaya.

  “Really? You take sewing?” asked Abigail.

  Jaya nodded. She was wearing her funny hat, and the pom-pom bounced around. “Everybody does at Miss Wharton’s School. It’s an old school tradition. Miss Bender is the best. I made this hat.”

  “Wow, that’s impressive!” said Abigail.

  I said, “So I would need to get a recommendation from a teacher?” I could ask Ms. Kang. “Anything else? Do I fill out an application or something?”

  “I don’t know,” said Abigail. “There’s a test we all had to take, but I’ve never heard of anybody asking for a job. Everybody I know got recommended by someone connected to the repository. Like my teacher—he was a page when he was our age.”

  “There’s always a first time,” said Jaya. “Come on.” She opened the repository door and pushed me through. “Let’s go talk to Dr. Rust.”

  • • •

  I followed Jaya upstairs. I felt a surge of excitement when we walked through the Staff Only door into the repository’s forbidden depths.

  The back areas were plainer than the public rooms. We went down white-painted corridors with lamps hanging from the ceilings. At last we came to a door with a brass nameplate that said Lee Rust, Head Repositorian.

  Jaya knocked. “Dr. Rust? Are you busy?”

  “Always. But come in,” said someone inside.

  “This is Leo Novikov. He wants to ask you something,” said Jaya, pushing me into the room.

  There were massive bookcases overflowing with leather-bound books, file cabinets with drawers of all sizes, and a big oak desk with faces carved at the corners and paws at the bottoms of the legs.

  One of the faces was grinning. The other had a very, very serious expression, like my sister when she’s trying not to laugh.

  “Nice to meet you, Leo,” said Dr. Rust, a medium-size person with reddish-brown hair and a zillion freck
les. “You’re the young man who’s studying robots, aren’t you? Rick Reyes mentioned you. He says you’re very perceptive. What can I do for you?”

  As we shook hands, I thought I saw a slight movement at the corner of the desk. It looked almost like the serious carved face had winked at me. Stop imagining things, I told myself.

  “Jaya says—that is, I was wondering . . . would it be possible for me to work here?” I said.

  “Possible? Perhaps. Customary? Definitely not.” Dr. Rust waved at the chair nearest the face that couldn’t possibly have winked (could it?). “Have a seat. What school do you go to?”

  “Poly—the Manhattan Polytechnic Academy.” I sat down and waited for the usual look of disapproval.

  It didn’t come. “Poly,” said Dr. Rust thoughtfully. “I don’t think I know anyone there. Did a teacher recommend you?”

  “No,” I said. “But I’m sure my science teacher would, if I asked her. She’s the one who told me about the repository.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Ms. Kang.”

  “Aha! Would that be Emma Kang?” asked Dr. Rust. “She was one of our best pages.”

  “No—Lisa.”

  “Oh, too bad. I don’t know her. The recommendation really needs to come from someone connected to the repository.”

  That didn’t sound good. “I don’t think I know anyone connected with here.”

  “Well, we’ll come back to that,” said Dr. Rust. “What sort of toaster do you use?”

  “What sort of what?”

  “Toaster. For making toast.”

  “A classic Sunbeam. The automatic kind. Only—my sister likes her toast pale and limp, and Dad likes it almost burnt, so I rewired it with a voice-recognition sensor so it knows who it’s toasting for.”

  “I see.” Dr. Rust looked pleased. “And what’s your email security password?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to ruin my chances for the job, but my password was private. “I don’t feel comfortable saying,” I said at last.

  Dr. Rust nodded. “Quite right. What do you like about the repository?”

  “Well, obviously, the amazing objects you have here. I mean, Leonardo da Vinci’s robot! But the whole place is awesome. I like the pneumatic tubes and the stained-glass windows in the Main Exam Room, and everybody here is so cool, especially—” I was going to say “especially Jaya,” but I stopped myself before I could embarrass myself like that. I finished lamely, “Especially everybody,” and blushed.

  “I see. Describe the windows in the Main Exam Room, please.”

  “They’re made of stained glass,” I said. “They’re stained-glass pictures.”

  “Pictures of what?”

  “Well, there’s the jungle with the dinosaurs, and the frozen tundra with the mammoths, and the forest with the ancient horses—they have toes—and the Mars landscape.”

  “You see dinosaurs in the summer window?” said Jaya. “I know everybody sees the windows differently, but I’ve never heard of dinosaurs!”

  “What do you mean, sees them differently?”

  Dr. Rust frowned at Jaya and said, “The repository operates on principles of subjective anomaly.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “That’s okay—don’t worry about it.”

  I didn’t pursue it. If this was a job interview, I didn’t want to blow it by annoying the head repositorian with too many questions.

  “You saw Mars, did you say?” continued Dr. Rust.

  “Well, it could be Mars. Definitely not Earth because there are two moons. Mars has Phobos and Deimos. They might be too small, though. Maybe it’s some other planet.”

  Dr. Rust nodded. “So this Lisa Kang told you to come here. Why?”

  “To research my science project. She said you have a great collection of robots. Which you do.”

  Jaya jumped in. “Leo would be awesome on Stack 5—he has a real feel for scientific instruments. We’re going to need a new page when Simon goes back to London. I was hoping maybe you could waive the recommendation thing this time.”

  “No, I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Dr. Rust.

  The disappointment stung. It’s not like I wasn’t used to being turned down for stuff, but I wanted this way more than I ever wanted to go to Cooper Tech or play in some stupid orchestra. “Is there anything I can do? Can I ask someone else for a recommendation?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry. The recommendation really needs to be the person’s own idea.”

  “Please, Doc!” said Jaya. I was flattered at how she was sticking up for me—it made my disappointment feel both better and far worse. “Leo would be perfect. Can’t you make an exception this one time?”

  “No, I can’t,” said Dr. Rust. “Fortunately, it seems I don’t need to. He has a perfectly valid recommendation.”

  “From who? He just said he doesn’t know anyone!”

  “From you, of course. Don’t you think the recommendation of our head page counts for anything? Really, Jaya, it’s not like you to be so modest. Run along now—your shift is about to start, and I have a task for this young man.” Dr. Rust walked over to one of the file cabinets and opened a medium-size drawer.

  “Thank you! Thank you so much!” I said.

  Jaya made no move to go. “Oh, right, the button test. Don’t worry, Leo, you’ll do great.”

  “What’s the button test?”

  “Dr. Rust asks all the pages to sort buttons when they’re applying for the job. It’s like an entrance exam. Which ones are you going to give him, Doc?”

  “Enough, Jaya. This is Leo’s test, not yours, and it doesn’t involve buttons,” said Dr. Rust, taking a clock and a radio out of the drawer. “Go run some call slips or something.” Dr. Rust waved her out the heavy, carved door and shut it firmly behind her.

  • • •

  “Let’s get you set up, Leo,” said Dr. Rust, putting the clock and the radio on the desk in front of me. “Do you need any tools?”

  I took my multi-utility tool out of my pocket. “I have this. What am I doing with it?”

  “You’re disassembling these machines and using the parts.”

  “Using them for what?” I asked.

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it?”

  I turned the radio over and unscrewed the case. It was an old-fashioned FM radio, the kind with vacuum tubes. I disassembled it carefully, lining all the parts up on the desk.

  The clock was mechanical, not electrical—the kind driven by, well, clockwork. Gears with interlocking teeth. I went at it with my multi-utility tool, unscrewing screws and un-interlocking teeth and lining up the parts under the ones from the radio.

  I tugged at my hair while I thought about what to make. I do that a lot when I’m thinking—it’s one of the things Sofia’s always saying is wrong with me. It might partly explain that stupid curl.

  A plan started to form in my mind. I saw all the parts clicking together. Then I started putting them together in real life. I assembled a radio where the position of the minute hand would control the station and the position of the second hand would control the volume. I reassembled the clockwork, rejiggered the radio, found some extra copper wire at the bottom of my backpack, and assembled my device. I tightened the last screw, wound it up, plugged it in, and turned it on.

  It was horrible. That lady on the weather station began with a whisper that rose over the course of sixty seconds into a screech about clouds GIVING WAY TO SUNSHINE on FRIDAY!!! Then abruptly she turned into that irritating song about rivers, the one with all the cellos. At first it was so quiet it tickled my ears, but then it swelled and swelled until I felt like I was standing at the edge of a waterfall with the backup vocals and the strings screaming because they were being swept away OVER the EDGE! Then came a second of silence that turned into that guy my parents hate, ranting in a rising voice about an evil senator who doesn’t understand the AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!

  Dr. Rust switched it off. “Okay, that’
s very . . . um . . . interesting. Now reassemble it. Make something new.”

  I tugged at my hair. What could I make with vacuum tubes? One time at a science museum I saw old vacuum tubes made into one of those machines that shoot lightning around the room—a Tesla coil. But I didn’t have all the necessary parts, and besides, it might start a fire. Burning down the repository probably wouldn’t get me a job.

  I wished one of my visions would start. Why couldn’t I have them when I needed them?

  Then it came to me: A theremin! I love theremins, not just because of the eerie, whoopy sounds they make but because they’re the only musical instrument you can play without touching. You wave your hands over them and they wail like a ghost.

  It was a little tricky, and I had to ask Dr. Rust for a few spare parts, but I did it. I turned the clock into a metronome and played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the theremin. It sounded like a spirit from beyond the grave recalling better days.

  “Nice! Okay, one more time,” said Dr. Rust, handing me a new object. It had an outlet on one end and a wire on the other. In between was a solid black box the size of a matchbox. “This time, use this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a conceptual coupler.”

  “I’ve never heard of a conceptual coupler. What does it do?”

  “That really depends on you.”

  I poked at the box with my tools, but I couldn’t get it open. Dr. Rust watched me, smiling faintly. What should I do with the thing—what on earth does a coupler do? Connect things?

  I decided to start simple and see what happened. I reassembled the radio and the clock. I plugged the radio into the coupler’s outlet and connected the coupler’s wire to the clock’s hands. Then I wound the clock, plugged in the coupler, and switched the radio on.

  It sounded like a normal radio.

  I fiddled with the radio controls. Nothing unusual, just different stations.

  But the black box must do something—otherwise, why would Dr. Rust tell me to use it? Maybe if I adjusted the clock. I moved the minute hand back an hour.

  Yes! The music changed. It was that hit song from last year, the one about the guy who passes the girl the escalator when he’s going down and she’s going up.