by Jon Scieszka
Mr. Chimp slides his white rook the whole length of the board to check the black king.
“You are so right it’s a big deal,” says Edison. “Because I can also use the Edison Brain Swirler to control”—Edison looks around to make sure he is not being overheard—“brain waves from other brains.”
Mr. Chimp sits up.
Control brain waves from other brains?
This actually could be a Big Deal.
Mr. Chimp picks up the hopping hamster and signs:
“Well, I haven’t had a chance to test it on a real brain yet.” Edison gives Mr. Chimp a funny look. “But I think the first live test subject should be . . . you!”
Mr. Chimp is a chimpanzee. But he is not stupid. He signs:
“Excellent idea!” Edison picks up Igor and puts the cat on the lab table. Igor licks one paw. “I will start with something simple.” Edison flips the Swirler handle to on. “I will brain-wave command Igor to stand up and meow.”
Mr. Chimp gives Edison a thumbs-up . . . and imagines all he might be able to do with brain waves.
Edison adjusts one of the Swirler dials, squints, and thinks, STAND UP.
Igor stands up.
Edison thinks, MEOW.
Igor lifts his head and meows.
Both Edison and Mr. Chimp lean forward.
Edison thinks, TWITCH TAIL.
Igor slowly twitches his tail . . . and then suddenly jumps and spins and jumps and spins and jumps and spins in crazy circles.
Edison cuts off the Swirler.
But Igor keeps jumping and spinning. He jump-spins right off the lab table, out of the test room, and headfirst into a T. Edison Laboratories metal trash can.
Bonnnnng!
Edison staggers backward. The weight of the Brain Swirler tips him back, back, and then completely upside down in one big Brain Swirler smash.
Mr. Chimp’s dreams of superpowering his brain waves disappear in the shattered pieces of the Brain Swirler. He drops the motionless hamster and backhands the black king off the chessboard with one short, disappointed, angry “Oooo!”
HERE IT IS. OUR NEXT INVENTION,” SAYS FRANK EINSTEIN IN HIS garage lab.
“Very cool,” says Watson.
Frank holds a seriously refitted Midville Mud Hens hat and runs through his invention blueprint one more time.
“OBSERVATION: All human-body systems report to the brain. All five senses report to the brain.”
Klink instantly checks the research and confirms. “True.”
“The brain controls everything.”
“True.”
“HYPOTHESIS: So we might be able to boost human-body performance by boosting the brain.”
“Possibly.”
Frank continues. “EXPERIMENT: We use the design from the electronics collected by Klank—”
“Oh yeah! oh yeah!” boops Klank, with no research but plenty of enthusiasm.
“—the systems of the remotes collected by Watson—”
“Exactly,” agrees Watson.
“—and the trick of the turbocharger from Grampa Al’s engine work—”
“Va-voom!” cheers Klank.
“—to turbocharge brain waves so the brain can boost whatever part of the body you choose!”
“And Janegoodall can boost her muscular system,” says Watson.
“Exactly,” says Frank. “And there could be a million other ways to use this. Like controlling the FrankenDrone with only brain waves. Making music with no instruments. Moving bionic arms and legs. Helping people like Grampa Al boost their memories.”
“And boost people’s taste buds?” asks Watson. “So they can taste more candy?”
“Absolutely,” answers Frank.
“And boost Janegoodall’s muscle strength,” says Klink. “So she can pitch faster.”
“Exactly,” says Frank.
“And boost chickens?” asks Klank. “So they can cross the road?”
Frank thinks about this for a second. “No. That’s just weird.”
Frank Einstein pulls the new Mud Hens cap firmly on his head.
“Robots and Watson, I give you—the BrainTurbo!”
“Ooooh! Ooooh! Let me test it! Let me test it!” says Klank. “I want to turbocharge my brain and be human!”
Frank laughs. “Sorry, Klank, but the BrainTurbo is built to work on human brains. No telling what it might do to an electronic brain.”
Watson thumps Klank’s metal body. “And you are not exactly human.”
“Awww. That makes my circuits sad.”
“That is not possible,” says Klink.
“We can only test this on a human brain,” says Frank, glancing around the lab and ending up looking directly at Watson. “So . . .”
This makes Watson very nervous. Because he and Frank have tested a lot of inventions. And Watson has lost a lot of shoes and clothes, and some hair and skin and pride, in these tests.
“Wow,” says Watson. “I really wish I could help, but I . . . uhhh . . . have a headache and I’ve got a cough and—”
“Only I can test this,” says Frank.
“—and these are brand-new pants and . . . What?” says Watson. “I mean, absolutely! You want to test it on yourself, not on me? Great idea!”
Frank walks over to the big mirror on the wall. “Let’s start with something simple. Klink and Klank, you observe and measure. Watson, you record.”
“Ready,” says Klink.
“Set,” says Klank.
“Go,” says Watson.
Frank clicks the BrainTurbo on. “I will try this move”—he touches his right index finger to his nose—“and see if I can turbo-boost my muscular system to make it faster. Begin experiment!”
Frank touches his nose.
He dials the Turbo up to 2, then touches his nose again.
“Same speed,” reports Klink. “No change.”
Watson goes to write the results, but his right hand flies up and smacks his nose. “Hey!”
“Increasing Turbo,” says Frank. He twists the dial to 4 and makes the move to his nose again.
Watson’s right hand smacks his face twice as fast, twice as hard. “Owwww!”
“Same speed,” reports Klink.
“No change,” confirms Klank.
“Increasing Turbo to MAX!” says Frank.
“Nooooooo, wait!” says Watson.
Frank sets the dial to 10 and touches his nose three times as fast as he can.
Whack! Whack! Whack! Watson smacks himself three times so fast and so hard that he knocks himself right off his stool.
“Same speed,” reports Klink.
“No change,” confirms Klank.
Frank takes off the BrainTurbo and brings it to the workbench. He checks the connections and circuits. “Take this down, Watson. ANALYSIS: Something appears to be wrong with the wiring. Boosted brain signals not getting to muscular system.”
“Oooooooooh,” says Watson from the floor.
“What are you doing down there, Watson? Stop goofing around and help us with the experiment.”
Watson crawls back up on his stool, a little dizzy from the beating his own right hand has given him. “The boosted brain signals were working fine. They were just working in the wrong direction—on me instead of on you.”
Frank rechecks the BrainTurbo’s wiring. “Aha! Brilliant, Watson. And just like Grampa Al always says—failure is success in progress.”
“Great,” says Watson, wiping his bruised nose.
Frank flips the connections on the BrainTurbo to redirect the boosted brain signals. He pulls on the hat, sets the Turbo dial to 5, and touches his nose in an almost invisible blur.
“Five times faster than base speed!” reports Klink.
“Success!” confirms Klank.
“OK, that really is genius,” marvels Watson, rubbing his smacked nose.
“Now for the real test,” says Frank. “Call Janegoodall. Have her meet us at the ballpark in five minutes.”
T.
EDISON STANDS LOOKING OUT THE GLASS WALL OF THE T. EDISON Laboratories tower. He watches the Midville citizens, small as ants below.
“Such a waste of brainpower. People just don’t know how to use their brains.”
Mr. Chimp picks through the broken pieces of the Edison Brain Swirler. He compares the wiring to a chart of human brain waves he has printed out.
He sees where the Swirler went wrong.
He daydreams again his biggest Mr. Chimp dreams.
“Dunderheads,” mutters Edison. “They would be so much better off if I controlled what they thought.”
“Meoorrrrrrwwww,” says Igor, curled up on Edison’s office chair, his head freshly bandaged.
“If only I could control their brain waves. But how?”
Mr. Chimp gives a shrug. There is no way he wants to help fix any part of a toilet-shaped invention called a Swirler. Mr. Chimp has brain waves, and ideas, and plans of his own.
Edison slaps his hand on the window in frustration. He kicks the base of the super-binoculars, then occupies himself by spotting everyone all over Midville wasting their brainpower again.
“Woman sniffing flowers—ninnyhammer! Man staring at painting—dimwit!”
Mr. Chimp quietly connects a net of wires, circuits, and sensors inside a fancy black top hat. He flips a small switch, spots the headless baby doll in the pile of toy wreckage, and thinks, CRAWL.
“Chowderhead nincompoops in the baseball park,” gripes Edison from the binocular perch. “Wait a minute. Those nincompoops are Einstein and his numskull dumbots.”
The headless baby shuffles on its hands and knees . . . and crawls out of the pile.
“And that girl throwing the baseball . . . They better be working on getting me my money.”
Mr. Chimp adjusts his top hat at a jaunty angle and thinks, DANCE.
“Why are they all jumping around? Holding up her baseball cap . . . Hmmm . . . Well, look at that . . . That is no ordinary baseball cap . . . Very interesting . . .”
The headless baby dances.
“Mr. Chimp!” calls a very excited T. Edison. “I think I have found the answer to our brain-control question! And a way for Einstein to pay me back!”
“Ooook,” says Mr. Chimp, in a completely uninterested way, brushing his fancy black top hat.
“This means a mission for you tonight.”
NIGHT.
The Midville Mud Hens tryouts are tomorrow at noon. So Janegoodall lies at home in her bed, in the first stage of sleep, happily thinking of her sixty-mile-per-hour fastball, pulsing alpha brain waves as she begins to drift off.
Watson lies at home in his bed, dropping into the second and third stages of sleep, heartbeat slowing, temperature dropping, thinking of inventing a candy that has every taste, then thinking absolutely nothing, delta brain waving.
Frank Einstein lies upstairs in his bed at Grampa Al’s, in deep rapid-eye-movement sleep, voluntary muscles all but paralyzed, brain consuming more oxygen now than when completely awake, making connections and solving problems in shifting, throbbing colors and images, patterns and sounds, in gamma-brain-wave dreaming.
Klink sits in the corner of the lab, shut down, plugged into his favorite outlet, filling up on his favorite 120-volt AC power.
Klank, however, is not in his favorite La-Z-Boy recharger recliner.
Klank is pacing back and forth in front of the lab door, guarding the BrainTurbo on the lab workbench.
Klank whispers to himself, “Frank Einstein says, ‘Guard the BrainTurbo.’ I must guard the BrainTurbo.”
Klank walks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He is an alert guard. He is a good guard. The BrainTurbo is an amazing invention.
Klank paces.
Klank thinks he should take a closer look at the BrainTurbo. He paces over to the workbench and stares down at it. A hat that turbocharges brain power. Amazing.
It might be safer if he held it. Klank picks up the BrainTurbo.
“Mmmmm,” rumbles Klank.
Klank feels a spark of an idea. Or at least a spark of part of an idea.
OK—he’s got one word.
Klank whispers the word to himself, like a wish:
“Human.”
Klank swivels his head around in a complete 360 to make sure no one is watching. He carefully places the BrainTurbo on his vegetable-strainer head.
A good guard would make sure the BrainTurbo was still working.
Klank turns on the BrainTurbo with a faint tick.
In the corner, Klink gives a quick electro-beep snort.
A good guard would not disturb Klink’s recharge. A good guard would take the BrainTurbo outside.
Klank turns and sneaks—as quietly as a large metal robot can sneak—out the front laboratory door. He eases the door softly click-shut behind him.
Klank leans against the brick storefront of Grampa Al’s Fix It! shop and turns the BrainTurbo dial to 1.
Electrical impulses surge, and double, and surge again into Klank’s vegetable-strainer head.
“Ooooooooooooh,” hums Klank.
Klank is flooded with turbocharged inputs: the golden lights of downtown Midville in the distance, beautiful sounds, a riot of thrilling flower-earth-life smells in the spring night air.
Almost overcome by these turbocharged new robot senses, Klank staggers toward the night sights and sounds and smells . . . and never notices the shadowy barefoot figure in the fancy black top hat following him.
HUMANS. DEEP IN THE OLDEST JUNGLE. DENSE GREEN. BIRDCALLS echo. Wet earth smell. Mud squishes through toes. Air thick enough to taste. Following a skeleton hiker. That suddenly lights up a network of sparking nerves, feeding into a glowing brain. A clearing ahead. There—a dark figure, from the future, stands on a mound of sand, winds up, and fires a rock . . . fast, faster, fastest . . . dreams Janegoodall.
Candy. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, hot, cold, glorious. Turbocharged candy. Pulsing, exploding super candy . . . dreams Watson.
The watery crash of ocean waves. Schools of . . . those fish . . . not really fish . . . what do you call those things? Bottlenose mammals leap out of the water in graceful arcs. The blue-green water covering Earth. The solar system of Mercury, Venus, Mars . . . and that next planet. Used to know them like my own name . . . dreams Grampa Al.
Purple storm clouds crashing over volcano lightning-bolt drumming heartbeat explosion. Grab that blue-white crackling electrical charge. Guide it into looping spiral. Multiply it through brain stem, to brain lobes in a beautiful, throbbing, golden network. Janegoodall cheers. Watson laughs. Grampa Al, but somehow ten-year-old Grampa Al, dances a funny little dance . . . dreams Frank Einstein.
01010111 01001000 01011001 00100000 01000011 01001000 01001001 01000011 01001011 01000101 01001110 00100000 01010111 01001000 01011001 00111111 . . . dreams Klink.
NEON LIGHTS! RED AND GREEN AND YELLOW AND PURPLE! Music! Rock and salsa and jazz and blues! Humans strolling in the warm, jasmine-scented spring night air. The smell of popcorn sharp enough to taste.
Klank hops a quick dance step.
Klank opens his arms and sings, “I am going to wang dang doodle. All night long.”
Klank tugs the BrainTurbo tight on his head. A good guard would make sure the BrainTurbo worked at higher power. He twists the dial up to 3.
Klank feels the increased charge from his head to the rest of his body. The colors and sounds and smells of downtown Midville are suddenly, intensely, beautifully sharp and true and right.
Klank feels an urge to share this beauty. He sees a man and woman dancing in a gorgeous hotel lobby. They are so perfectly electric. Klank will go with them!
Or that group of boys, wrestling and joking. Klank knows jokes! The boys climb into a bus and roar off into the night.
Klank hugs a mailbox, leaving it in a whole new shape.
Klank hop-skips down the street, humming to himself, taking in sparkling stars, majestic trees, soaring buildings, and then . . . Oh.
He sees her.
She is in the window of Ace’s Hardware.
Her face glows with a knowing smile. Her blue eyes sparkle. Her shape, her curves, her dials and switches. Her arms exactly like Klank’s arm!
She holds out a flower.
Klank is pretty sure she says, “Do you want to play with me?”
“Uhhhhhhhh,” says Klank, suddenly unable to speak a real sentence.
But Klank does want to play with her, so he pushes a panel of the window. It swings open. She smiles.
“Ahhhhhh,” says Klank, still completely tongue-tied.
A gust of wind blows the flower out of her hand. Klank beeps. “Mmmmmm?”
The intoxicating warm spring wind gusts again.
Her head nods.
Klank steps into the front window and takes her hand. He pulls her to him . . . and pops her hand completely off.
Klank stops, stumbles. He tries to put her hand back on her arm.
The arm drops with a crash and a clatter.
Humans down the street are looking Klank’s way.
Klank puts his arm around her. Her leg falls off! Klank scoops up legs and arms and head and torso. He hears a man yelling now. Klank turns, off balance, and stumbles out the window and into the street.
Arms, legs, and torso fall, leaving Klank holding nothing but her head.
The streetlight flickers.
“EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee!” a woman screams. “That poor woman! It’s a monster!”
Klank looks up. “NO!” he says, or tries to say.
But what comes out is “RRRRRROOOOOOAAARRRRR!”
“A monster!”
Now it’s three humans, four, ten, more.
Klank panics.
He drops her head with a hollow thunk.
“Monster!”
Klank thinks he should stay and explain. Klank thinks he should run away. Klank doesn’t know what to think.
A dark top-hatted figure drops from the shadows above. The figure takes Klank’s hand, gives a soft “ooook,” and pulls Klank toward the alley.