Chapter Forty
The Lever and the Fulcrum
Lefty turned to the Beans and told them, “I can’t let Ebenezer get away. With SunTech in his hands, and the reformation of the Black Hats, there’s no telling what dastardly deeds that doorknob will get up to. I’ve got to go after him!”
He began to check the pockets of his lab coat, taking an inventory of what he still had in possession. Removing his tablet, Lefty nodded in satisfaction at its intact condition. However, when his eyes fell upon his van, he was abruptly reminded that the Mecha-Machine had thoroughly destroyed his vehicle.
“Hmm… clearly, my van won’t be capable of transportation. Time for some improvisation,” Lefty said. “Noodles, would you mind carrying me? You can cover ground a lot more quickly than I can.”
“Beep boop beep!” Noodles answered in the affirmative. The robot scooped up Lefty, and proceeded to give him a piggyback ride. “Beep!”
“Hah!” Lefty laughed. He had his arms draped over Noodles’ shoulders, so that he wouldn’t fall off. “Perfect!”
Seeing that they were planning on departing, Murphy gave a squeak, and clambered to the top of Nibbler’s head. From there, he leaped onto Jack’s arm, and scrambled up to his shoulder. Once having reached that height, Murphy launched himself onto Noodles, and then scampered up onto Lefty’s lab coat, where he disappeared into one of the voluminous pockets. Apparently, the King of the Squirrel Folk did not want to be left behind!
“Aw, we just formed this awesome fellowship! Now you’re taking Noodles and Murphy away?” Neil asked in dismay.
“Not to worry, Beans!” Lefty assured them. “Though we must part ways for now, our fellowship is not broken. After all, I’m depending on you to keep an eye on Jasper for me.”
“Couldn’t we go with you?” asked Jack.
Lefty looked at the Beans speculatively, raising his bushy eyebrows. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“Well… yes, I suppose we do,” Jack reluctantly admitted. “But still…”
“I very much appreciate the offer of assistance! But I’m sorry, Jack, I simply can’t take you with me. I have no idea how long I’ll be gone for. I need to stop Ebenezer, and more importantly, I need to find out what the rest of the Black Hats are up to.
“As for you, your role here will be very important. In addition to your schoolwork and helping your baseball team, you must keep an eye on Jasper. After tonight, you’ve gotten a good idea of what he’s truly capable of. I know it’s asking a lot, but I have confidence in you. All of you! Jack… Neil… Sara… Maria… yes, you too, Nibbler! Jasper threw everything he had at you, and you emerged victorious. You’ve stood up to him more than once, and I know you have the courage to do so in the future. You are a truly extraordinary group of friends!”
Nibbler wagged his tail in recognition, and woofed his enthusiasm for the task he had been charged with. The Beans nodded at Lefty’s words, and as they felt the evening breeze against their faces, they suddenly felt the fallout of the exhaustive efforts that they had put forth tonight.
But rather than feeling overwhelmed, they felt a blanket of calm descend over them. They had been presented with an enormous challenge by a powerful adversary, and by sticking together and helping one another, they had pulled through. This realization filled them with a great sense of peace and satisfaction, and a warm appreciation for the friendship that they shared.
Murphy sat upon Lefty’s shoulder, snacking on a Snickerdoodle that he had managed to pilfer from Lefty’s pocket. How many of those things did he have in that lab coat, the Beans wondered? The flying squirrel waved down at them, as he happily munched away on the cookie.
“When I was trapped in my laboratory, do you remember what I told you about the lever and the fulcrum?” Lefty asked the Beans.
“Of course,” Jack answered.
“That applies not only to the physical world, but to that of the mind, as well,” Lefty said.
“Um… what’s that, Mr. O’Houlihan?” Neil asked, in a tone that conveyed that he still suspected that Lefty might have bonked his noggin a bit too hard, in all the commotion.
“What you can achieve is limited only by what you decide to limit yourselves to,” Lefty explained. “When it comes to human beings, the ‘lever’ is your potential. The ‘fulcrum’ is your mindset… the way you currently perceive the obstacles that are facing you. You can increase your potential by simply moving your ‘fulcrum’ to a positive mindset… the more positive you perceive your situation to be, the greater your leverage will become, thus increasing what is possible for you to achieve.
“If I had listened to all the negative people who doubted me, I would have never invented anything! If I had allowed myself to believe them, I would have given up, and not tried to achieve what I wished to do with my life. But I chose to perceive the challenges that faced me with a positive mindset, and I persevered. Each time I was met with failure, I learned and moved on. Let me ask you something… If you let fear of striking out prevent you from swinging the bat, how many base hits would you achieve?”
“Well… if you never swung the bat, you would never get a hit,” Sara said.
“Precisely!” Lefty confirmed, from his place atop Noodles’ back. “You cannot hit the ball, if you let fear of failure prevent you from swinging. Likewise, you can never achieve anything in life, if you are afraid to fail. Failure is the mechanism by which we learn, the device by which we improve, and each failure is but a rung on the ladder that ultimately leads to our success.
“Over these past eight years, when I was attempting to perfect SunTech, I failed thousands of times before I achieved the results that I was seeking… and I’m proud of every one of those failures! I fail, again and again… and that, young Beans, is precisely why I succeed. I learned from my setbacks and my mistakes, but I did not dwell on them. I used them only to advance to the next step of my research. It’s like Coach is always telling you: focus on the next play.”
Lefty paused, as the noise of a screen door swinging shut was heard. Everybody looked toward the farmhouse, and there, they saw a most curious sight. Illuminated by an overhead light bulb, Jebediah and Cletus stood on the front porch. They stared, dumbfounded, wearing nothing but their pajamas and nightcaps.
It came as a surprise to the Beans to see that Jebediah’s pajamas had pictures of ducklings on them, while those of Cletus featured baby rabbits. Equally surprising was that Jebediah clutched a teddy bear to his chest, and Cletus held what appeared to be a stuffed hippo. Bleary eyed, they gaped at the strange sight before them, which included the defeated, smoking Mecha-Machine, and Lefty riding piggyback on a robot.
“Wow, these guys must be really heavy sleepers,” Maria whispered to her friends with a giggle. “They’re just waking up now?”
“Good evening, Jeb!” Neil called out jovially, waving his hand in greeting. “Good evening, Cletus! Fine weather we’re having tonight, isn’t it?”
The Cragglemeister Brothers could only stare, in silence and astonishment, as their sleep-befuddled minds tried to comprehend the scene that lay before them. It occurred to the Beans that it certainly was not a bad thing to have the sons of Jasper regard them with a bit more respect than they had previously shown.
“Oh, never mind those two, they’re harmless,” Lefty told the Beans, indicating Jasper’s sons. “I need to get going! I wish I could stay to help you all, but I can’t afford to let Ebenezer get away, or even to let him gain too great of a lead over me. If he gets SunTech into the hands of the Black Hats… Egads! I can’t even bear to consider what he might have in store for that technology. Come on, Noodles, let’s go… Murphy, take care to hang on!”
Noodles turned toward the woods, in the direction that Ebenezer was last seen hovering away into the night sky. Lefty pulled his tablet from his pocket in order to consult his navigation app, while maintaining his hold on Noodles’ shoulders. With his impressive dexterity, Murphy remained perched atop Lefty’s shoulder
, happily snacking upon his Snickerdoodle.
Before he took the first, lanky step of what would surely be a strange and magnificent journey, Noodles hesitated. The robot swiveled back toward the Beans, his blue eyes shining brightly. He waved a long fingered hand to them in farewell, and said, “Beep boop beep!”
The Beans waved in return, offering their own well wishes and goodbyes. They sighed, thinking of all the great adventures they would surely miss out on, in this pursuit of Ebenezer Widget-Bocker and the Black Hats. But they were comforted by the presence of one another, and what seemed like certain knowledge that different adventures were surely awaiting them.
“Take care of each other, Beans!” Lefty called out, as he rode piggyback on the galloping Noodles, who was covering ground at a remarkable pace, given the impressive strides of his slinky-like legs. “And remember the lever and the fulcrum!”
As the strange trio of Lefty, Noodles, and Murphy departed, the Beans did indeed think about what they had been told. They had been through extraordinary challenges during the past couple of weeks, and together, they had pulled through those difficult times.
Now, thanks to their trials and Lefty’s perspective, they were coming to realize that what they could achieve would be limited only by their own mindset. Their friendship was stronger than ever, and their hearts swelled with excitement for the adventures that they would share, and the marvels that they would witness together.
And when you are likewise faced with obstacles that appear insurmountable, and the weight of the world seems unbearable… remember the lever and the fulcrum, my astute reader. With a positive mindset, one’s potential is unlimited.
Think of the Green Beans, and fear not failure… but focus on the next play.
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Thank you for reading The Green Beans, Volume Two: The Strange Genius of Lefty O’Houlihan. For more adventures with the Beans, please visit the author at GabrielGadget.com.
The Green Beans, Volume 2: The Strange Genius of Lefty O'Houlihan Page 40
