by Ellis Weiner
You may be wondering why the twins didn’t consult with their father about this invention. The reason is that the twins wanted to do it themselves. They didn’t want to tell anyone about it until it was complete and Manny had accepted it with expressions of happiness and thanks and delight. We have all had this feeling. When we think we can do something, we don’t want to ask our parents for help unless we feel we have no choice.
Of course, when I say “we,” I really mean you. You don’t ask for help unless you absolutely have to, because you are a child. I am different. I am a grown-up. So I have no problem asking my parents for help, even when it comes to doing things I know I am perfectly capable of doing myself.
Just last week I called up my mother and said, “Can you please pick me up a quart of milk at the Googly Woogly?” (The Googly Woogly is our local supermarket.)
“I’m busy,” she said. “Why can’t you do it yourself?”
“Oh, I assure you I can do it myself,” I said confidently. “I just don’t feel like it.”
Then she said something like, “Tough. You do it or it won’t get done,” and hung up.
Of course, in the end I did it myself. But that is not the point. The point is, the twins wanted to do it themselves.
“You know,” Abigail said, studying the eyeglass holder. “What if it did other things, too? Like, what if it had a cup holder?”
“And a reading light!” John said.
“And a pen holder for taking notes!”
“And a tissue holder, for when you sneeze!”
The twins thought these were excellent ideas, and set about adding various clips and clamps and holders to the frame. By the time they were done—which was, alas, somewhat past their bedtime—they had transformed the eyeglass holder into a many-functioned “reading module.” It not only held the reader’s eyeglasses in position, but it included a special mount for a plastic cup (and a long flexible straw), a small lamp to be aimed at the material being read, a pen attached by a cord for taking notes, and a holder for a pocket-sized pack of tissues mounted at exactly where the reader’s nose would end up in the course of a moderately vigorous sneeze.
They tested it on John’s head, and were delighted with how well it worked. And so, as the twins went to bed that night, each of them enjoyed that wonderful sense of accomplishment one feels upon completing a challenging but worthwhile task. It is a feeling with which I myself am quite familiar, as I know you know.
When Nanny Manny arrived the next day after school, he was back to wearing his usual clothes—in this case, a green T-shirt with a picture of a giant monster with the caption, I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL, plus black jeans and black sneakers. He carried a little knapsack, out of which he pulled a piece of paper.
“I have a million new serious ideas,” he said excitedly.
“Before we get to those,” Abigail said, “we have a fun idea we want to try.”
“Cool!”
They led Manny into the kitchen, where they had put a chair in the middle of the floor. Abigail took his knapsack and John had him sit. Abigail said, “You have to close your eyes until we say open them.”
Manny shut his eyes and asked, “How does this game work?”
Now, in order to understand what Manny experienced next, it might be helpful if you closed your eyes. So, if you would be so kind, do that. Close your eyes.
WAIT! DO NOT CLOSE YOUR EYES. It occurs to me that, if you close your eyes, and you are reading this book to yourself, you won’t be able to read when I tell you to open them. This could be a disaster. You would sit wherever you are right now, with your eyes closed, waiting for me to tell you to open them but unable to receive that very message. You would therefore just sit there, forever, eyes closed, until someone else—your brother, sister, financial adviser, or personal trainer—came into the room and asked what you were doing.
“I’m waiting for the Narrator to tell me to open my eyes,” you would say. “I don’t know what’s taking him so long.”
So, whatever you do while reading this, keep your eyes open!
Now, where were we? Ah, yes: Manny, on a chair in the kitchen, his eyes closed, asking, “How does this game work?”
“We’re going to put something on your head,” John said. “And then you’ll see what happens next.”
“Like a hat?”
“Sort of.”
“You’re not going to crack an egg on my head, are you?”
Abigail laughed. “No. Although that would be fun.”
While Manny sat there, John went into the laundry room and came back with the eyeglass apparatus and a small hand mirror. The twins gently lowered the device over and around the nanny’s head. It fit pretty well.
Abigail dug around in Manny’s knapsack until she found his glasses. She gave them to John, who clipped them onto the apparatus and adjusted the whole assembly so the glass lenses were properly positioned in front of Manny’s eyes.
Abigail said, “Okay, Manny. Here we go.” As John knelt in front of the nanny and held up the hand mirror in front of him, Abigail said, “Open your eyes.”
How did Nanny Manny Mann react? That is an excellent question. I think I can best answer it by asking you a different, equally excellent question: How would you react if a friend came up to you and, without saying “Hello” or “How are you” or “Hey, watch this,” just suddenly slapped you across the face with a dead fish?
I think we can all agree that you would react with absolute shock and confusion. And that is how Nanny Manny Mann reacted when he saw, in the little mirror, the image of himself wearing the eyeglass module that the Templeton twins had so cleverly and tirelessly worked to create for him.
“Whoa,” he said. “What IS this thing?”
“It’s a frame for holding your glasses!” John said with enthusiasm and excitement and other upbeat, happy words starting with the letter “e” (such as exuberance and effusiveness).
“Isn’t it great?” Abigail said. “You can have a drink and read a book and sneeze and take notes all at the same time!”
Manny squinted, and moved his head around, and looked to the left and to the right. The glasses moved with him, but not completely. The more he tried to position himself to see through them, the more they shifted away from him. The device wobbled around on his shoulders, and his face took on a pained grimace of dismay.
Abigail, sensing that the user of the twins’ device was not as delighted as he might be, said, “Wait. You have to see everything it can do.” She took the cup to the sink and filled it with water, then came back and inserted it into the cup holder. She inserted the flexible straw into the cup and positioned the other end near Manny’s mouth. He took a sip and nodded and said, “Hmm.” Then he turned to say something to John.
This sudden movement caused the water to slosh around in the cup, making it tip over, out of the cup holder, and onto the floor while, of course, first dumping all the water onto Manny’s pants.
John lifted the device from Manny’s head. “It might need some work,” he said.
“Forget it!” the nanny said. “Can I just have my glasses, please?”
John removed the glasses from the device and handed them over. “I’ll just wear them like this,” Manny said. He put them on. He stood up. They fell off. He said, “Argh!” and picked them up and walked out of the kitchen.
That night Abigail and John did what they had not wanted to do: They explained to their father Manny’s problems with his glasses, and then revealed the eyeglass invention to him while admitting that its intended user had been less than thrilled with it.
The Professor listened carefully and examined the reading module. Then he thought for a minute and said, “You created this to avoid the problem with the straps?” The twins nodded. The Professor said, “Mmm . . .” Then he said, “What you two have done is very resourceful and clever. But I think you’ve misinterpreted the problem. I do it all the time. You think the problem is one thing, and you solve it, but it turns o
ut that that wasn’t really the problem. In this case, you worked so hard to avoid straps that you came up with this very elaborate device. But the problem really isn’t the straps. It’s the kind of straps.”
“So what’s the solution?” the Templeton twins asked at exactly the same time.
“Oh, I’m not going to tell you,” their father said. “That would take all the fun out of it. Just ask yourselves, ‘What is a strap?’ ”
And so, after they had eaten dinner and finished their homework, the twins had another design meeting. For a fresh perspective on things, they held it in John’s room. Abigail sat on his bed and John sat at his desk. His deep-red drums and the gleaming, brassy cymbals stood in the middle of the floor like an interesting sculpture.
“Okay,” Abigail said. “What is a strap?”
Her brother shrugged. “It’s a strip of some material that holds stuff together.”
Abigail was about to nod when suddenly she stopped and said, “No, it isn’t. I mean yes, it’s a strip that holds something. But it doesn’t have to hold stuff together. It can just hold something in place.”
And in about thirty seconds they had figured it out. All they needed was a length of ribbon. At the last minute Abigail had another idea, so they added one more element to the design.
The next day, after a snack of big salty pretzels and horrible iced tea that any nonchild would think was too sweet, the twins announced to Manny that they had solved his eyeglass problem. Promising they were not going to put any big metal contraption on his head (nor were they going to crack an egg on him), they had him sit on the chair in the middle of the kitchen one more time.
Abigail found Manny’s glasses and handed them to John. John performed a little manipulation with the glasses and the ribbon. Once again, Abigail asked Manny to shut his eyes. He did so. She lowered the eyeglass arrangement onto his head while John positioned himself in front of Manny and held up, not a mirror, but an open book.
“Okay,” Abigail said. “Here we go. Open your eyes.”
He did. He stared. “Cool!” he said. “What’s that?”
“A book,” Abigail said.
“Obviously. Which one?”
“Alice in Wonderland,” John said.
“I can see it great!” the nanny said happily. “What did you do?”
Abigail stepped in front of him and held out the mirror. “Look.” As Manny examined himself in the mirror, she said, “We attached a ribbon to the two earpieces of your glasses, and laid it down across the top of your head, instead of the back.”
Manny jerked his head forward experimentally. The glasses stayed on. “Hey,” he said. “It works.” Then he added, “Although it looks kind of stupid, with that ribbon across my head.”
“No problem,” Abigail said, and she held up the final piece of the invention: a baseball cap. She placed it on Manny’s head.
“This is fantastic!” the nanny said. He reached out and John handed him the book. “You know, I’ve never actually read this . . .”
Suddenly there was a brief clattering sound at the front of the house. The twins and their nanny hurried to the door and opened it. No one was there. The three of them stepped out onto the little front porch and looked up and down the street, but all they saw was a car driving off a bit faster than necessary.
“What’s this?” John said, pulling an envelope out of the mailbox. On the front was written “Prof. Elton Templeton” and nothing else. “That’s strange. It’s not mail. It doesn’t have a stamp or even our address. Someone just left it here.”
“Maybe we should open it,” Abigail said. “If it’s something important, we should call Papa at the Academy and tell him.”
Inside the unsealed envelope was a single sheet of notepaper. John read it and said, “Huh.” He handed it to his sister. “ ‘Professor,’ ” she read. “ ‘I’m getting a catalogue of lenses from Claire Light and I’ll leave it in your office. Steve Stevenson.’ ”
The twins decided that the message wasn’t urgent enough to bother their father while he was at work, so they told Manny they were going to do their homework. Manny announced that he was going to get started on his own homework—as soon as he had read a few chapters of Alice in Wonderland.
As the twins headed upstairs to their rooms, Abigail said to her brother, “That Steve Stevenson is really strange. He didn’t leave a phone number or anything.”
It would have been nice if, at that moment, the twins had exchanged a look charged with tension and excitement and a hidden orchestra had played a dramatic “sting,” a short, exciting burst of music along the lines of DUN-dun-DUNNNNNNNNNNNN . . . But all that happened was that John said, “Yeah,” and Cassie squirmed past both of them to run into Abigail’s room and jump onto her bed.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
If you closed your eyes when I originally told you to, how is it that you are able to read this question? I don’t know.
Someone else told me to open them.
I disobeyed the Narrator and opened my eyes, and now I feel just terrible about the whole thing.
Circle one answer: I have revealed that “the Googly Woogly” is the name of our local supermarket. Will you use this new knowledge for Good, or for Evil? For GoodFor Evil
What kind of musical group would you want to accompany you everywhere you go, to play dramatic musical “stings” whenever something important happened? A 72-piece symphony orchestra.
A bossa nova quartet with a saxophone player who can double on flute.
A ten-piece power ensemble playing the greatest hits of the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s, and today.
All of the above.
16. This, as certain people who have read a certain book already know, was John’s favorite catchphrase. It so happens that I have my own catchphrase. My catch-phrase is, “Oh, really? Well, isn’t it interesting that you think that? Although as a matter of fact, I happen to know that you are wrong and I am right.” I say this all the time. People have told me that, as a catchphrase, it is not as short and punchy as it might be. In response, I merely repeat my catchphrase to them.
Over the next week the Professor had his hands full with finishing the close-up device. He spent much of his time in his workshop at the Academy refining his design, or onstage at the main auditorium trying out one version of the device after another. (When he received Steve Stevenson’s latest note, he threw it away and muttered something about Steve Stevenson introducing himself in person “like a normal human being.”)
At last the Professor assembled a prototype of the close-up device. (If you do not know what a prototype is, I suggest you look it up in a dictionary—or, read [or re-read], in its entirety, TTTHAI.) On the day that the prototype was to be installed at the Academy’s main theater, the twins prevailed on Manny Mann to drive them to pay a surprise visit to their father. They brought along a thermos of tea and a vanilla-coconut cupcake (the Professor’s favorite). They entered through the main audience entrance at the rear of the hall. Manny said, “Let me know when you’re ready to go,” then fell into a seat, put on his glasses (and his cap), pulled a book from his back pocket, and started to read.
John and Abigail looked down the aisle toward the stage. The curtain was open and the chilly white fluorescent work lights were on. Amid a swarming bustle of young men and women, the twins could see their father. The sleeves on his blousy white shirt were rolled back, and he was holding a big diagram and pointing something out to a tall, younger man beside him.
Behind the two men, and the center of everyone’s attention, was a long bar that seemed to hover about ten feet above the stage and extended across its entire width. It was, the twins saw, held up by several cables distributed across its length and rising up toward the ceiling and out of sight. Designed to roll along the top of it was a wheel about a foot in diameter from which hung what looked like a gigantic, upside-down lollipop.
This, the twins knew, was the Live Performance Horizontal-Tracking Individual Close-Up Lens—a
name that, I think you’ll agree, is second-to-none in terribleness. So let us therefore refer to it as the LPHTICUL, which (for those of you reading out loud, either to yourself or others) we will pronounce “LIFF-tih-cool” which, in my opinion, is actually not a bad name for such a device. The lens “lifts” the actor’s face in a close-up, and “-icul” reminds us of the words “monocle” and “binoculars” and other references to lenses.
The Professor was happy to see the twins, and was extremely pleased by the cupcake and the tea. He introduced the twins to the young men and women working all around the stage. Some were students studying set design or theatrical lighting; some were on the staff of TAPAS as instructors or technicians. All of them were delighted to meet the Templeton twins, as you would be, too, if you were to meet them. Indeed, by reading this book (and any other books that feature them—hint hint), you have in a sense met them yourself, and you are delighted to have done so.
The Professor and his colleagues were chatting amiably with the twins about this and that when suddenly they heard a voice coming from the rear of the auditorium cry out in a singsongy tone
PRO-FESS-OR! YOU HAVE A VIZZ-I-TOR!
Everyone looked up and beheld Gwendolyn Splendide marching dramatically down the aisle.
She was wearing bright-pink trousers and a matching bright-pink jacket over a deep-purple blouse, and she clattered and tinkled with an array of bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. Behind her, strolling smoothly along in an elegant suit of light, light gray, was a man. He was very handsome and he walked with the bouncy, confident air of a person who hadn’t a care in the world.
