Flip the Silver Switch

by Jackie Yeager

  Ander looks at me like that was the dumbest thing I could have said. “Of course they’ll try.”

  “Oh really? If you’re playing hockey and you don’t want to win the game, why would you even play?”

  Ander shakes his head. “First of all, I always want to win, but even if I didn’t, I would play because I like playing.”

  “You think I’m not going to try?” Mare asks. “Our chances of winning stink, but I’m still going to try. Don’t you know me at all? I wouldn’t do that to all of you.”

  Jax shakes his head. “I wouldn’t do that either.”

  Now I feel awful, but I don’t think they understand. “I’m afraid to go on the tour too, you know. It’s just that the Ancestor App is really important. I want to give it a fair chance to win.”

  We sit there in silence for a long time. Finally, Jax says, “I want to go on the tour, but I really want to be programmed into New Technology too.”

  “You don’t want to go to PIPS anymore?” asks Mare.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I sit there on the pool ledge, stunned. I guess I thought that after Québec, we’d all be going to PIPS together.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “Why?” asks Ander. “No one should tell you what to do.”

  “That’s funny,” I say. “Everyone gets told what to do. That’s what getting programmed is. If the school thinks you’re good at math, you’re forced to study only math.”

  “Except us,” says Jillian.

  “That’s why I wanted to win the Piedmont Challenge so much. They know that the kids who win are good at a lot of categories. That’s why we’re allowed to enroll at PIPS if we want to and focus on different things. It stinks that most kids don’t get that choice.”

  Ander looks at Jax. “Are you sure you’d be happy studying just New Technology?”

  “Sure. Because New Technology includes so many things I like.”

  I think about that for a second. He’s right. It has some things I like too. But so do all the other categories.

  Jillian wrings out her dripping hair. “You could be programmed into New Technology and go on the tour. You know, enroll the year after.”

  “Yeah, I guess I could do that.”

  “That means we have to win,” I say. “If we don’t, Jax will be separated from us in a few weeks.”

  “From me too, maybe,” says Jillian.

  “What do you mean, you too?”

  “I’ve been thinking that I might want to enroll in Art Forms—if I can.”

  “What is happening?”

  “Kia, you’re all about thinking up inventions and stuff. All of you guys are. But this whole time I’ve been wishing I could sneak into the Work Room and design costumes. And the best part of this competition for me is acting out our skit. If we didn’t have that, I’m not sure I would be very into it. But I’m going to try as hard as I can to win because I don’t know if I’d get programmed into Art Forms anyway, and I do want to go on the tour with all of you.”

  Ander nods. “I will too.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  “I will too,” says Jax. “I didn’t realize I’d be separated from you guys so soon.”

  “I’ll try hard too,” says Mare. “My mom has always wanted to go to England. This might be her chance to get there. And I bet the rest of my family and her friends would keep her company while I’m gone.”

  I smile at Mare.

  Ander leaps up. “Okay then, it looks like we have a competition to win, right?”

  “But a task to solve first!” I reply, looking at my wristband.

  Be Curious. Be Creative. Be Collaborative. Be Colorful. Be Courageous.

  Maybe that’s what we were forgetting earlier today during brainstorming when not all of us were committed to winning. But now we are, so we better get going. The Global Championships are in just nine days!

  THE REINVENTORS

  The next day we gather in our clubhouse, calling out ideas for our skit. Since our first one made us memorable in the National Finals, hopefully this one will make us memorable at Globals too. But we get stuck trying to figure out what it could be about. “Maybe we should read through the task again,” I say, and I walk over to the tree where the task is still pinned to the bark. My teammates gather around me to listen. “The world is full of life-changing inventions. Your task is to take an invention commonly used by people today and re-imagine it. It must continue its current function but also yield a new, life-changing function. Your task solution must be created using skills from all six categories, take no more than twelve minutes to present, and include lyrics to a song.”

  Ander shakes his head. “This is so frustrating. We don’t even have time to think up new characters or write a new story.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to,” I say. “What if we make our skit a sequel to the one that goes with the Ancestor App?”

  Ander nods. “That’s good. I like that. I can be Freddie Dinkleweed again.”

  “Me too,” says Jillian. “Madam Sparkles will once again make an appearance in Crimson Catropolis!”

  “I’m fine with that,” says Jax.

  Mare shrugs as if she doesn’t care one bit about this whole thing. “Me too.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Really. Do you still think I’m going to be a pain about every decision we make?”

  “Sorry, it’s a habit.” I pace in the grass and my brain starts swirling, like I can feel an idea coming on. “Okay, so the task states that we have to re-imagine an invention, right?”

  “Right,” says Jax.

  “Well, you know how in our first skit, the little girl wonders what she’ll be like when she grows up, and she goes to Crimson Catropolis to figure it out? What if in this skit, she’s called back to Crimson Catroplis to help the residents who live there make sense of a random box they’ve found? Inside the box is an old-fashioned object. She has to help them figure out a way to turn it into something better.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” says Jillian. “I like that idea.”

  “Then we’ll need to re-imagine an invention that fits inside a box,” Ander replies. “How do we do that? Let me think. Let me think.”

  “What if we make a list of things that have already been invented?” suggests Jax.

  Mare leans against a tree. “There’s the pillow. That’s already been invented.”

  I shake my head. Of course Mare would think of a pillow.

  Jillian smiles. “There’s also paint and paintbrushes and sewing machines.”

  “And hockey skates,” says Ander.

  “Well,” says Jax. “There’s also electricity but that’s hard to put inside a box.”

  “There’s also the aero-car,” I say. “Which is already a re-imagined version of the original car, but that definitely won’t fit inside a box.”

  “What about a clothes washer?” asks Jillian. “We could invent something new, like a hyper clothes cleaner, that washes clothes as fast as a person could snap their fingers.”

  “That would be cool,” says Jax. “A washing machine was life-changing when it was first invented. But do any of you know how to make an instant cleaning machine that fits in a box?”

  I shake my head and sigh. “This stinks because I have a list of sixty-seven inventions that I’ve thought up, but those are all my original inventions. None of them are old inventions that I’ve made new. What a waste. We could have used one of those.”

  “None of those sixty-seven inventions were based on something already invented?” asks Mare.

  I think for a second. “Well, maybe the Underwater Bubble Bike.”

  Mare stares at me. “Of course that’s based on an old invention—the bicycle.”

  “Yeah, and that won’t fit easily into a box either.”

&
nbsp; “That would be a life-changing invention,” says Jax.

  “I know,” I say. “I think so too! But I’m not sure how to build it anyway.”

  Ander tosses a rock into the air and then catches it. “Maybe we need to use the Inspiration Room or Work Room for ideas.”

  “I’m on it!” Mare calls, already sprinting to the front of our tree suite. The rest of us follow and spend the rest of the day running in and out of the tree suite, using the books and technology for research, the music to get inspired, and the quiet area to think. We scour the craft area for something that will spark an idea, rummaging through the drawers of fabric, duct tape, and lots of random items. We hang out in our clubhouse too, letting the fresh air fill our lungs while we think, and none of it feels like work or like we’re trying to solve a task. It feels like we’re all hanging out like regular friends. But we still don’t have an invention to build, and I just wish something would pop into my head.

  Later, we’re lying on the pillows in the quiet area of the Inspiration Room. Well, all of us except Ander. He’s sitting up, staring at a blank corner of the room.

  “What are you looking at?” I ask.

  “I’m imagining that I’ve reinvented the eyeball.”

  “Seriously?” ask Mare.

  “I wish I could reinvent the eyeball. Instead of just giving people vision, it could connect with aliens somehow. Each Earth person would have their own alien partner, who acts as their protector. Since aliens have a better vantage point of Earth, they can see everything all around us. And since they can see through their Earth partner’s eyes, they could warn them if they are about to walk into a dangerous cave or about to talk to a dangerous person.”

  “Are you for real?” asks Mare.

  I sit up on my knees. “That would be so cool! And you’d get this warning signal that your aero-scooter is about to fly into a bird because the alien is seeing exactly what you’re seeing—and more.”

  “And if you’re lost,” says Jillian, “the alien could tell people where you are, because they could see everything and know where you are.

  “If an alien was protecting me,” says Mare. “I would want it to do things for me.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like look into my mind and know that I’m in a bad mood. It would tell people not to bother me.”

  I nod. “On second thought, I’d want mine to tell me not to bite my nails.”

  “I would want mine to take pictures of everything I see,” says Jillian. “Like a camera, only better.”

  “Actually,” says Ander. “I would make mine my assistant too. If I wanted a new game for my watch, it would send it to me. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  “I don’t know about the alien part, but the rest of it wouldn’t be impossible,” says Jax.

  We stare at him, and Ander jumps to his feet. “What do you mean?”

  “Using GPS satellites instead of aliens.”

  Mare sits right up. “How?”

  “There are millions of satellites all around the Earth now and they’re really close to the atmosphere. That means they can locate objects more accurately. Like with these watches. Seraphina and Gregor can locate us within a few inches, right?”

  I think about that for a second. “Right.”

  “If we were to connect individual people with satellites, and program some warning signals into them, a person could be alerted when they veered off course with their aero-scooter, or walked into the street when a car was coming, or even if you were about to bump into someone.”

  “What do you mean if we were about to bump into someone?”

  “Well, to keep order on the sidewalks, the program could be set up so that everyone always walks on the right side of the sidewalk and doesn’t walk too close to the person in front of them. If they did, they would be alerted.”

  “But hearing all these beeps go off all the time would be so annoying,” says Jillian.

  “What if they were silent so only the person heard them?”

  “Like your own personal communicator.”

  “Wait!” says Ander. “What if it was programmed using something like virtual reality goggles too?”

  “I don’t know what you mean?” I say.

  “What if each person had a virtual reality assistant that worked by satellite, like you said, Jax. It could do all that stuff and more too, like tell you that you have one hour left to finish your homework, or you have four minutes to leave your house so that you’ll be to school on time.”

  “That would be amazing!” Jillian squeals.

  Jax smiles. “If we programmed it correctly, it could do that. It could probably store games too, ones that you could access by punching numbers like we do on the air screen. But if we did that we’d need to restrict them because it would be fine if people talked on the phone while they are walking but not while they are flying. Or it would be fine to play games while sitting on a park bench but not while you’re walking down the street.

  I bite my thumb nail. “You’re talking about this like we could really do all of it.”

  Jax shrugs. “I think we could. We could probably program it to sense emotions too and maybe even sense the emotion of people you’re approaching. Then, like Mare said, you could get a warning that the person sitting next to you is tired or upset and wants to be left alone.”

  Jillian’s eyes get huge.

  “Seriously, Big Guy?” says Ander.

  “Why not? We have the satellites to pinpoint individual location. We have the technology to use virtual reality. And we also have the ability to write a computer program. All we have to do is mix it all together using a small computer chip.”

  “If we were able to make this for each person, how would we be able to attach it to them?” asks Mare. “We can’t glue it to them.”

  “I’m not sure,” says Jax. “Maybe we make a badge or something.”

  “But in order for the satellite to see what we see, doesn’t it have to see exactly what we see?” I ask.

  Jax nods. “Oh yeah.”

  “I got it!” Jillian says. “We could put it on a really cool pair of glasses!”

  Ander grins. “That could be our re-imagined invention! Glasses improve vision, but if we add a programming chip or something to each one, we’d turn regular glasses into super satellite glasses or something!”

  “Satellite Spectacles!” I say. “That’s an old-fashioned word for glasses.”

  Jillian makes a weird face. “Spectacles?”

  “Of course,” I say. “That’s another name for glasses!” My brain keeps swirling. “Glasses fit inside a box too, so this invention would work in our skit!”

  Jillian squeals. “This is perfect!”

  “Only if we get them to work,” says Mare.

  Ander walks in circle around all of us. “What do you think, guys? Should we try? Do you think we can? Would this be an incredible invention?”

  “It would be incredible,” says Mare. “But I’m not even sure where we would start.”

  I smile. “That didn’t stop us with the Ancestor App.”

  So we scatter around the Work Room, gathering the materials and information we need. We race in and out of the tree suite, some of us working outside and some of us working inside. But while Jillian and I are in the Craft Area, looking for a box and a pair of glasses, Ander, Mare, and Jax barge in.

  “Guess who was just here?” says Mare. “Outside.”

  I close a drawer and turn around. “Who?”

  “Witch Girl. I mean Martina.”

  “What did she want?” asks Jillian.

  “She invited us to hang out at the pool later,” says Mare.

  “Seriously?” I ask. “Did you tell her no?”

  “I was about to, but Ander said yes.”

  “What was I supposed to
say?”

  “How about, ‘We’d rather swim in a sewer full of alligators than swim with you and your team of nasty boys,’” says Mare.

  Ander shrugs. “I think we’re supposed to meet all kinds of people here at Globals. You know, experience all this place has to offer.”

  “Why can’t we experience it with the French team or even the Pennsylvania or Idaho team?” I ask. “We haven’t hung out with them at all.”

  “How bad can it be, KK?”

  “Really bad, besides, we have so much work to do.”

  “It’s fine, Kia,” says Jillian. “We can go for a little while—after we create our Satellite Spectacle box.”

  “Speaking of that,” says Jax. “When we were researching on the air screen, we found something. We found that an invention similar to the Satellite Spectacles was attempted before in 2013. But it must have failed, and I’m not sure why. This sounds like a pretty complicated invention.”

  “Yeah, but once we figure it out, the Satellite Spectacles are going to be way better than those were supposed to be, anyway,” says Mare.

  Ander nods to Jillian and me. “So we’ll meet you guys in a little while before we go to the pool.”

  “Fine,” I say, and Jillian and I continue our search. She shuffles around looking for paint and duct tape so we can decide how to decorate the box if we can find one.

  Later, we walk outside to the clubhouse where Mare and the boys are sitting on the ground huddled around the air screen.

  “Hey guys” says Jillian. “Did you find anything?”

  Ander looks over his shoulder. “This is hard. We’re trying to find a way to connect the glasses with the satellites.”

  “We realized that we’ll need to sync the glasses up with the satellites every day,” says Mare. “So we thought we could use the box as a syncing station. We’ll just need to find a way to turn on the syncing mechanism and make the glasses and the satellites sync together.”

  “Okay, we’ll help you, but first we want to tell you what we did. We found the perfect box that the glasses can go in, but it’s metal. We want to paint it with all our favorite colors—you know, swirl them all together, sort of like colorful clouds.”