“Here are the essences,” said Gügor. He pointed one fat-knuckled finger at a table beside the invisibility machine.
Obscurity, bedazzlement, and the overwhelming suspicion something big and hungry is hiding under your bed: These were the three essences of invisibility (at least according to Elliot and Leslie).
Patti flipped open a tiny door on the side of the machine, revealing a tube like the place you pour gasoline into a car. “All we have to do is put a drop of all three in here, but as Harry toldja, it’s gotta be y’all who do the honors.”
Leslie and Elliot did as they were instructed. They took one bottle each and added a drop to the tank. The crucial final ingredient—the feeling like something is waiting underneath your bed to eat you up—they poured in together.
“Let’s see if she runs.” Patti stood at the control console and turned on the machine.
Every eyeball mounted in the machine’s interior blinked once and began to glow. A moment later, the eyes darted every which way, searching the laboratory with intense curiosity.
“Definitely super-creepy,” said Leslie. “I like it!”
The invention’s creepiness, however, was entirely lost on Patti. She was still grinning at the thing like a proud mother. “So,” she said, rubbing her hands excitedly. “Which one of y’all wants to be our first guinea pig?”
Every creature took a small step backward. A gap opened in the crowd, and through it, Elliot saw Bildorf and Pib, who were just emerging onto the laboratory floor.
“What about them?” he suggested.
Bildorf and Pib froze.
“Why is everyone staring at us?” asked Bildorf, a little worried.
“Elliot,” said Harrumphrey, “I think that’s a fine suggestion.”
“Suggestion for what, exactly?” asked Pib.
“For playing an important role in the history of creature science,” said Patti. “Gügor?”
The big knucklecrumpler swept up the hobmongrels, both in one hand.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?!” cried Pib.
Gügor dropped them inside the machine, and before they could scamper off, a metal gate rose on either side, trapping them.
Every eyeball in the device swiveled to gaze silently at the two hobmongrels.
“Wait,” said Bildorf. “Is this because of us making fun of Reggie all the time? C’mon, guys! It’s Reggie!”
Pib hastily agreed. “The guy’s a buffoon!” She looked around at the hundreds of glowing eyes ogling her. “Okay, I take it back! He’s not a buffoon! He’s a lovely guy!”
“I agree—100 percent,” said Bildorf. “Now couldja let us out of this thing?”
“Incidentally . . . ” said Pib. “What is this thing? We haven’t really been paying attention.”
Jean-Remy flew down to Bildorf’s level. “Perhaps were you to do a bit more work around ze laboratory, you would know what zis is.”
“To answer your question,” Elliot said to Bildorf. “It’s an invisibility machine.”
“You mean you’re gonna make us . . . disappear?!” asked Pib.
“Don’t worry,” said Patti. “It’s perfectly safe.”
Bildorf grinned in relief. “Oh, sure, of course. You guys’ve probably had this thing tested on, y’know, a grapefruit or beanbag or whatever.”
“Or a sock monkey,” said Pib.
“Actually,” said Patti, “this is the first time we’re using it.”
Instantly, the two hobmongrels pounded the metal gate with their tiny furry feet. They shouted all the obvious things. You can’t do this! Get me out of here! I’m no sock monkey! Somebody tell all these glowing eyeballs to quit staring at us!
“Hush,” Patti told them. “I need to concentrate.” She fiddled with dials, and one by one, shafts of light beamed from the eyeballs. Every single one was like a spotlight, gleaming down on Bildorf and Pib.
“Now for the moment of truth.” Patti pulled a lever on the side of the machine. A slow, tinkling melody, like something from an old music box, leaked from hidden speakers.
Inside the machine, a few pairs of eyes flickered, faded, and closed. They were gently succumbing to the crackling lullaby of an old music box.
“Look!” Leslie pointed.
At the center of the machine, where Bildorf and Pib stood, the light on them was going dark. As it did, the two creatures themselves became more and more indistinct.
“They’re fading away,” said Elliot.
“Wait, guys,” Bildorf whined. “I don’t wanna fade away.”
“Me neither,” said Pib. She held up a tiny paw in front of her face, staring in wonder as it went all hazy, an image viewed through the ripples of a pond.
“Unbelievable,” said Harrumphrey. “It’s actually working!”
Gügor came and stood behind Leslie and Elliot, placing his huge, warm hands on their shoulders. “I just wish the professor was here to see this.”
Everyone, even the two hobmongrels, stood in silence. The interior of the machine became dimmer and dimmer and dimmer until every last pair of eyes were shut.
“Wait a second,” said Leslie. “I can still see them.”
“You can?” Patti pressed a button and the metal gates retreated into the machine. Leslie was right. While the bizarre process had certainly had an effect on the two hobmongrels, they hadn’t been turned invisible. Instead, they had merely become . . .
Kind of blurry.
“What have you done to us?!”
“We’re all foggy!”
Instead of a pair of calico-rat-like creatures, all anyone could see of the hobmongrels were two orangey-brown smudges.
“Oh, Pib!”
“Oh, Bildorf!”
The two smudges embraced, merging into a single, indistinct blob, crying like babies.
“Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!”
“Don’t worry,” Patti told them. “It ain’t permanent. The effects oughta wear off in a matter of hours. Maybe days. Hard to say, to be honest.”
“Days?!” cried the two smudges at once. “WAAAAAH!”
“Maybe we oughta try the next invention,” said Harrumphrey.
They moved to the second device, the tallest of the three. Gügor tugged the sheet away to reveal a plush leather recliner mounted atop a great mountain of machinery: dials, switches, gauges, cogs, gears, chains, wires, and flashing circuit boards. Unlike Patti’s invisibility machine, with its elegant shape and smooth surfaces, this machine looked more like a junk heap.
“Teleportation is difficult,” Gügor announced, with his usual calmness. “But Gügor is certain it will work this time. The trick, we found, is to be relaxed. Teleportation only works just before you fall asleep. You must be relaxed but still just a little bit awake.” He slowly tapped his temple with one thick finger. “At least, that is Gügor’s theory.”
“Sounds doable,” said Harrumphrey.
Gügor pointed to the cushy recliner atop the mountain of machinery and electronics. “That chair is the second-most- comfortable chair in the universe.”
“The second-most?” asked Leslie.
The knucklecrumpler nodded. “Gügor had it tested.”
“But why the second-most comfortable?”
“The most comfortable chair in the universe puts you to sleep right away. Gügor’s team needed something slower.”
There were grunts of agreement from the larger creatures in the group.
Gügor moved his languid eyes across the room. “So . . . who wants to be teleported?”
As if acting on group instinct, every creature there looked at the two calico smudges on the edge of the crowd.
“Oh, no,” said Pib. “Not us again.”
However (again), Gügor was too quick for them. Even though they were all blurry, he easily scooped them both up and held them
close to his face. “Being teleported will help you,” he told them. “When Gügor’s machine reconstitutes you, it will put you back together exactly the way you were before.”
“Are you sure?” asked the Bildorf smudge.
“Wait,” said the Pib smudge. “Who said we wanted to be reconstituted in the first place?”
Gügor didn’t answer these questions. Instead, he climbed up a ladder to the top of the machine and strapped the blurry smudges formerly known as Bildorf and Pib into the second-most-comfortable chair in the universe.
Elliot and Leslie poured the essences they had chosen—hope, wanderlust, and the thrill of your first ride on the back of an arachnimammoth—into the machine. Its gauges, readouts, and video screens blinked to life. On the main screen was an image of the blurrified Bildorf and Pib, struggling in the plush leather recliner.
Instead of wailing, as they had been only moments ago, the two hobmongrels now settled into a murmuring whimper that sounded like the cooing of babies.
“Just relax,” Gügor told them calmly. “You’re going to dematerialize and instantly rematerialize down here, right beside Gügor.” He pointed to a spot adjacent to his feet, where a red X had been taped to the floor.
The readouts showed the second-most-comfortable chair in the universe was doing its job. Bildorf and Pib’s crying was getting quieter. They grew calmer (and sleepier) by the moment. In no time, they were ready to nod off completely.
Gügor pulled the lever.
There was a thunderous cracking sound as a web of electric-blue lightning flashed and bolted across the great heap of machinery. It all converged on the chair above, and with one final ZZZZAP, the two blurry hobmongrels disappeared. All that remained of them were two thin coils of smoke.
Gügor looked down at the red X beside him. His faint eyebrows only rose a fraction of an inch when he saw there was nothing there.
“Oops,” he said.
He fiddled with the dials, and an image of Bildorf and Pib appeared on the screen. As Gügor had predicted, they were no longer blurry. However, the test had obviously not gone as planned. They appeared to be floating in an empty white void.
“According to Gügor’s readouts,” the knucklecrumpler told them, “everything worked perfectly.” He squinted calmly at the screen. “But I may have sent you to another dimension.”
“Another dimension?!” cried Pib.
“Bring us back, already!” cried Bildorf.
“It will take Gügor a little while to figure out where you are.”
“Try to look on the bright side,” said Harrumphrey. “At least you’re not blurry anymore.”
For the hobmongrels, this was a small consolation. They huddled together, trembling, and said, “WAAAAAAAAH!”
“Well,” Harrumphrey grumbled, “that’s two inventions that don’t work.”
Jean-Remy spun in a loop and flew to land on top of the third and smallest invention, still covered with its sheet.
“Fear not, mes amis,” he announced. “It is I, Jean-Remy Chevalier, who has delivered an invention that would make ze professor proud! I can assure you, beyond any shadow of a doubt, it is absolument parfait!”
Gripping the sheet with his hands, Jean-Remy spread his wings and flapped upward, revealing the telepathy helmet.
It looked just like the diagram in the Preston Brothers’ slide show, an egg-shaped hat with an antenna that looked suspiciously like Paris’s Eiffel Tower on top. On the sides, sticking out like enormous ears, were two miniature radar dishes.
“Because zis is an invention meant to be worn on ze head,” said Jean-Remy, “I think it should be tested by ze one with, well . . . ze most head.”
Harrumphrey sighed. “You mean me, don’t you?”
Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be buckled into the telepathy helmet.
“All right, let’s get this over with,” he said. “How’s this thing work?”
“First,” said Jean-Remy, “ze essences.” He opened a circular hatch in the front of the helmet, just above Harrumphrey’s forehead.
For the third and final time, Elliot and Leslie poured from the Abstractory bottles: intuition, echoing voices, and an insatiable hunger for brains.
When Jean-Remy flicked the on switch at the back of the helmet, it made a sound like the distant echoing of Morse code. The miniature satellite-dish ears began twitching and spinning. The Eiffel Tower–like appendage sparkled in a way that reminded Leslie of the Christmas lights in her grandfather’s restaurant.
“What you must do,” Jean-Remy instructed Harrumphrey, “is focus your attention on whomsoever you choose. When you do this, ze helmet will collect ze thoughts of zat individual.”
Harrumphrey looked around the room at all of his colleagues, but his eyes finally came to rest on Gügor.
“You know something, my big, reticent friend,” he told the knucklecrumpler, “you may’ve used more words just now in explaining your teleportation device than I’ve heard from you in weeks.”
Gügor shrugged.
“I’d like to hear what else is going on in that dopey head of yours.”
Harrumphrey shuffled a bit until he was facing Gügor. All the lights on the mini–Eiffel Tower lined up, flashing in unison, while the mini–satellite dishes stopped twitching and pointed directly at Gügor’s head.
“Are you getting something?” Jean-Remy asked Harrum-phrey.
“Nope. Nothing. Although I don’t think we can rule out the possibility his skull’s simply too thick to penetrate.”
Gügor frowned.
“And you, Gügor,” said Jean-Remy. “How do you feel?”
“Insulted,” said Gügor.
Jean-Remy fiddled with some of the helmet’s controls and told Harrumphrey to try again. Again, Harrumphrey didn’t pick up any signals. This time, however, something was happening to Gügor.
His lips trembled. He opened his mouth and let out a deep, baritone wail, like a mournful foghorn. Tears rolled down his broad, salamander-like face and dripped from the corners of his mouth.
The unflappable knucklecrumpler was crying!
Harrumphrey turned to Jean-Remy. “Are you sure this thing works?”
Jean-Remy nodded emphatically. “Mais oui! Of course it works!”
When Harrumphrey turned away from Gügor, Elliot had noticed something. “Hey, look! He stopped crying.”
Gügor, back to his usual impassive self, merely shrugged.
“Interesting,” said Jean-Remy. He asked Harrumphrey to try again, this time with Patti. He did so, and a moment later, Patti inexplicably burst into tears.
“Well, play me twelve bars and color me the bluuues!” she sobbed. “I dunno why, but all of a sudden I feel lower than a river snake’s belly!”
But once again, the moment Harrumphrey turned away from Patti, her despair vanished.
“It is strange,” said Jean-Remy. “Harrumphrey, you must please try ze device on me. I must discover ze problem.”
Harrumphrey focused his attention on the fairy-bat. Jean-Remy experienced the same sadness as Gügor and Patti, but he tried heroically to resist it. His face froze in a grim mask of determination. In the end, however, there was nothing he could do. A single tear dripped from each eye.
“No!” he whimpered. “Please, it is too much! In my heart I feel only ze profound melancholia of ze doomed love!”
Harrumphrey raised his tail to the back of the helmet and switched it off. “No offense, but I think there’s a glitch.”
“What went wrong?” Leslie asked. “All it did was make everyone sad.”
Jean-Remy snapped his tiny fingers. “Of course!” He flew to Leslie’s face and planted two kisses on each of her cheeks (both of which blushed instantly). “Mademoiselle, you are a genius!”
“I am?”
“Of course you are! It
is just as you said—it made everyone sad!” cried Jean-Remy. “Do you not see?”
“No,” said everyone else, all at once, “we don’t!”
“What I have created, it is not a telepathic helmet. It is a tele-pathetic helmet!”
“Huh?” asked Elliot (which summed up precisely how everyone felt).
“Yes! It is wonderful, non?” cried Jean-Remy, completely ignoring the confusion around him. “It works perfectly, and it is clear proof that Elliot and Leslie have ze Knack—just as we suspected!”
“Hold everything,” said Leslie. “What’s a tele-pathetic helmet supposed to be?”
“Do you not know? It is a device for sending sadness directly into ze brain of another. Perhaps it is not ze invention we intended, but it is a great revolution in ze creature science!”
Elliot hung his head. “A tele-pathetic helmet. Who would ever want something like that?”
Jean-Remy’s enthusiasm evaporated. “Ah. Yes. You make a good point.”
“Wonderful,” Harrumphrey harrumphed. “Three inventions, but none of them work—at least not the way they’re supposed to.”
“Wait,” said Elliot. “What about my uncle? He’ll come back with something amazing, just like he said he would!”
Elliot tried to muster some of the same confidence Reggie had shown in the tunnels, but it was no use. None of the creatures were convinced.
CHAPTER 21
In which Reggie finally drifts off
Colonel-Admiral Reginald T. Pusslegut was exhausted. It was deep in the middle of the night, yet he couldn’t sleep. In fact, he had hardly done any proper hibernating in days. It’s all these teeeerible dreams, he thought.
Reggie sighed. He sat up in his enormous bed. The bedclothes tumbled down his vast flanks like a silky white mudslide. There was only one thing to do. He would head down to the laboratory and see if he could muster up some tea and biscuits.
As it was so late, the laboratory floor was deserted. Reggie noted that things looked a bit different. Many of the tables had been cleared away to open a space at the center of the warehouse-like room. In it were three new devices Reggie didn’t recognize.
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