Tesla's Attic

by Neal Shusterman

  Their dad came home a few minutes later with take-out food and a few sketchy job leads. “When it comes to retired ballplayers,” he told them, “people balk worse than a bush league pitcher.” Back in Tampa he had been exceptional at “odd jobs,” but apparently no jobs were odd enough here.

  As they all headed toward the house, Nick saw a small white rectangle on the doorstep. After his dad and brother went inside, he bent down to pick it up. It was the business card of one Dr. Alan Jorgenson. And Nick could tell by the smoothed-out crinkles that it was the same business card he had thrown away at the garage sale.

  The problem with having too many variables in any equation is that the number of possible solutions begins to seem endless. Although supercomputers can calculate things to the gazillionth decimal, it takes a leap of human intuition to boil pages of calculations down to something as simple as E = mc2. The simpler the solution, the harder it is to arrive at.

  Nick’s garage sale had generated more variables than there were letters to define them, creating a smoke screen that hid the truth: that an elegant solution had already been worked out by a great scientific mind.

  One such variable—a rather persistent one—showed up at Nick’s house later that evening.

  Mitch arrived at Nick’s front door after dinner, carrying the clunky See ’n Say thing under his arm.

  “Dude, you’re my hero,” he told Nick, breathing hard. Apparently he had pedaled here at full speed. “That thing with Heisenberg will live on in legend long after we mere mortals are dead.”

  “Thanks,” Nick said, and he couldn’t help but smile. All things considered, Mitch might not be such a bad friend, once you got past the nuisance factor. And so far, he’d been the only one to make an effort. That had to count for something.

  “Hey,” Nick said, “I was just about to—”

  “Get something to drink? Can I have something, too?”

  And although that wasn’t what Nick was going to say, it worked. “Sure. Come on.”

  As they headed into the kitchen, Nick silently counted how many seconds Mitch could stay quiet. He maxed out at seven.

  “So, this thing,” Mitch said, giving the See ’n Say a little shake. “I’m telling you, Nick, it’s not to be believed. I mean, what it told you at school was useful, right?”

  Nick shrugged. “I guess it could have been.” He thought about his cell phone ringing, and wondered if he still had to serve detention if he didn’t exist.

  “I mean, it knows things.” Mitch held it out to him. “Just pull the string.”

  Nick opened the refrigerator, where a bottle of apple juice sat on the rack. He took it out and unscrewed the top.

  “C’mon, Nick, just pull the string.”

  With a sigh, Nick reached out, pulled the string, and let it go. “Fine, but I really think—”

  And the machine said, “—you shouldn’t drink that.”

  Now Nick looked at Mitch curiously, then looked at the juice he was about to swig.

  He thought it was just unfiltered apple, but now that he looked at it, the color seemed a little off. He took a sniff and a rancid vinegary odor burned his nostrils. Dizzy, he set the bottle on the counter.

  “Danny!” he called. “Did Dad buy this juice today?”

  Danny poked his head into the kitchen and eyed the jar. “That? Nah, it’s probably been sitting there for years. Dad thinks it’s one of Great-aunt Greta’s urine samples.”

  Nick nodded. “Thanks. That is all.”

  Feeling sick to his stomach for more reasons than one, Nick took the See ’n Say-ish device from Mitch, who smiled the smile of absolute vindication.

  “See? I told you,” Mitch said. “This thing isn’t a See ’n Say; it’s more like a Shut Up ’n Listen.”

  Nick set the thing down on the table, held it in place with one hand while he pulled the string with the other, and said, “My father…”

  And the machine said, “…should play baseball again.”

  “Your dad was a baseball player?” Mitch asked.

  Nick nodded. “A long time ago.” He looked at the device. “How does it do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Mitch said. “It was in your attic.”

  Then Nick thought about the toaster and how, without any direct electrical connection, it had blown out all the bulbs in the kitchen. Not to mention incinerating the toast.

  What if these weren’t the only two things that were beyond ordinary?

  Nick looked at Mitch, who was still too pleased with himself and the device to see the larger implications. He lifted his baseball cap and scratched his head, as if it might stimulate his memory. Who had bought the various items at this garage sale? Besides Mitch, there were only two names he remembered. “Mitch, do you know where Vince and Caitlin live?”

  Even though it was long after dark by the time they got to Vince’s place, the house in its own way beamed perpetual daylight. It was overlit with way too many garden floodlights, all designed to make the house “pop.” The home was blue with pink trim. Brightly colored flowers lined the path to the front door, and there were hummingbird feeders everywhere.

  “This is Vince’s house?” Nick asked. He couldn’t even fit that dark, brooding kid in the same brain hemisphere as this house.

  “I’m sure living here makes him feel miserable,” Mitch said.

  Which, Nick realized, was what Vince would want.

  A doormat with a daisy pattern announced, WE’RE SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE. However, there were scorch marks on the edges, as though someone had tried to set it on fire.

  Nick knocked, and the door was answered by a woman who was all sweetness and manic energy.

  “Hi! How can I help you boys?”

  “Uh, we’re here to see Vince?” said Nick.

  The woman couldn’t be more overjoyed. No, really, she couldn’t be.

  “Well, isn’t that wonderful? You know, Vince doesn’t have many visitors. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Yes,” said Nick, “the doormat already told us.”

  Vince’s mother led them into the house and opened a door to stairs leading down to the basement. “Vince!” she called down. “Two of your little friends are here to see you.”

  And from down below came a voice sopping with discontent.

  “Go away. You’re trying to trick me again.”

  “No, not this time.” Then she turned to Nick and Mitch. “Go on down. I know he’ll be happy to see you.”

  Nick and Mitch descended the stairs into the basement. To call it “unfinished” would be a wistful hope. Two walls had been covered with wood paneling, now painted black. The other walls were the original, rough-hewn rock from which the lair (because what else could it be called, really?) had been carved. In the middle of the room sat a desk, a number of disorganized bookshelves, and an army cot. The only window, near the ceiling, was covered with a sheet. On news reports, when astonished neighbors said things like, “He was always so quiet and kept to himself,” the next image would be this basement.

  “Oh,” said Vince, with supreme disappointment. “It’s you.”

  “Cool place you got,” Mitch told him, looking around. “What imaginative things you’ve done with dirt.”

  “Color gives me a headache. So what do you want? I’ve got stuff to do.”

  “We wanted to talk to you about what you bought at the garage sale,” Nick said.

  Now Vince became suspicious. “I bought it fair and square. You can’t have it back.”

  Nick didn’t argue the point. Not yet, anyway. “I just want to know if you’ve used it yet.”

  “Yes,” said Vince.

  “And when you used it, what did it do?”

  Vince’s suspicious look intensified. “How do you know it did anything?”

  Nick gave Mitch a nod, and he took out the Shut Up ’n Listen and pulled the string. Mitch said, “If I were you, I’d—”

  “—avoid an untimely death,” the machine voice whirred.
/>   And while Nick and Mitch were a little troubled by that, Vince only said, “It couldn’t be avoided. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  On his desk, next to a pile of dust-covered schoolbooks, was a murky fishbowl. A single goldfish floated lifelessly on the surface of the water. Its death was most certainly untimely.

  Then Vince lifted a rag to reveal the old wet cell, looking just as crusty and toxic as when he bought it. He hesitated. “You’re sure you want to see this?”

  Nick nodded. He could see that whatever it did, Vince had been itching to talk about it—but other than his mother waltzing around upstairs with a feather duster, he had no one to talk to.

  “Sashimi died a couple days ago.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said Mitch.

  “No you’re not. Don’t lie about things like that. It’s annoying.” Vince stared morosely down at the bowl. “I was going to give him the traditional swirling blue funeral, but I didn’t get around to it. Then yesterday I was messing around with the wet cell, right? And I dipped both electrodes into the bowl—”

  Nick interrupted him. “Why would you dip two electrodes from a battery into a dead goldfish’s bowl?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” Vince asked, blinking, like it was a trick question. Then, rather than say any more, he went to the wet cell, grabbed both wires, and dipped them into the water.

  There was a faint electrical hum, and in that instant Sashimi, who had been floating on his back, righted himself and began to swim around the murky bowl like he had nothing better to do.

  “No way!” said Mitch, taking a step back.

  “It’s alive! ALIVE!” Vince said, contorting his hands like a mad scientist. Then he dropped his arms to his sides. “Sorry; I always wanted to say that.”

  Nick could only stare.

  “Cool, huh?” Vince said, and folded his arms, proud of himself. “Bet no one else in town has an undead goldfish.”

  “I bet you’re probably right,” said Nick.

  Nick reached over and carefully pulled the wires from the water. As soon as he did, Sashimi was a floater once more.

  Nick stared at the wet cell, not wanting to believe what he had just seen. “Do you even get how not normal this is?”

  “Yeah,” said Vince, as though that were obvious. “But isn’t it great? I knew there was something about that thing when I bought it. I could feel it. I just didn’t know what it was.”

  “Like the way you felt drawn to the garage sale?” Nick suggested.

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Vince with a shrug, but then as he thought about it, the shrug became a nod of recognition. “Yeah—exactly like that!”

  Nick had noticed how, at the garage sale, people seemed drawn to specific items. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He didn’t quite know what to make of it now.

  Mitch picked up the wet cell and carried it over to the wall, where a shadow box contained a variety of dead bugs, including a large tarantula. He placed the twin electrodes on the spider’s back, and the dead creature reared up on its hind legs and spat at him.

  Vince yawned. “Knock yourself out, I already tried all those.”

  “So does it work on bigger things?” asked Nick.

  “Hmm,” said Vince, “hold that thought.” And he trotted up the stairs. He came back a minute later with a raw chicken fresh out of the refrigerator, marinating in a glass bowl.

  The three looked at each other, and Nick nodded. Vince touched the electrodes to the pink flesh.

  The dead chicken’s drumsticks began to pump up and down, and the featherless, naked wings began to flap frantically back and forth, spattering lemon-soy marinade all over them.

  Nick and Mitch screamed, and Vince heaved a very satisfied sigh. “I’ve waited my whole life for that,” he said. And then Vince did something he very rarely did: he smiled. “I was thinking of making it my science-fair project,” he said. “I think I have a chance of winning, even if Heather North does ‘Chemistry of the Cupcake’ again.”

  “You can’t bring this to the science fair. You can’t let other people see it.” Then Nick took a deep breath, knowing what he had to say, and how it would be received. “I’m sorry, Vince, but you can’t keep it.” He turned to Mitch. “And you can’t keep yours either.”

  Both Vince and Mitch clutched their objects closer to them.

  “These things—whatever they are—need to be in the hands of…the hands of…”

  “The hands of who?” asked Vince. “The government? Some corporation? Our parents? Can you imagine my mother with this thing?”

  Nick sighed. “I don’t even want to try.”

  And then Mitch sheepishly said, “My dad would be able to figure out what to do.”

  Vince laughed at that. “Your dad? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t give a penny for your father’s thoughts.”

  Mitch seemed to fold at Vince’s words.

  “All I’m saying,” said Nick, “is that we aren’t meant to use these things.”

  And Mitch said, “What if we are?”

  They both turned to him. Mitch clutched the Shut Up ’n Listen a little bit tighter. “I don’t know about you—but I feel like this thing was mine even before I ever saw it.”

  “Me, too,” said Vince.

  Nick pursed his lips, a bit irritated. “Why does everyone feel that but me?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Maybe because you gave all the stuff away.”

  The two of them held their objects in white-knuckled grips that suggested Nick would get them back only when he pried them from their cold, dead fingers. Nick thought back to the garage sale. All those faces he didn’t know, all those people desperately grabbing things and hauling them away. How many people had been drawn to his garage, and filled with a feeding frenzy? All that stuff, that “junk,” was scattered now throughout the neighborhood.

  “What if all the stuff from the attic has bizarre properties?” Nick said. “And what if some of it is dangerous?”

  “Well,” Vince replied, “part of ‘all sales are final’ means it’s not your problem anymore, right?”

  While Vince had no trouble playing the “somebody else’s problem” card, Nick just couldn’t do it. Especially considering that strange, pearlescent-white SUV, and the man in the gleaming vanilla suit and his cohorts. They must have known about the things from his attic. That’s why they were there, and why they took the dregs of the sale—but the items they really wanted had been sold before they arrived. Nick instinctively knew that they should not be allowed to get their hands on those items. So maybe dispersing them through the town was the best way to hide them.…But if he didn’t track the other objects down, he felt pretty certain the vanilla dude would.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Nick said, realizing Vince and Mitch were the least of his troubles. “I’ll let you keep them—temporarily—on one condition. You tell absolutely no one.”

  Vince quickly agreed. “Secrecy is a key element of my existence. But Mitch here is the emergency broadcast system.”

  Nick looked to Mitch, who was going a little bit red, probably because he knew Vince spoke the truth. “How about it, Mitch?” Nick asked. “Can you promise to keep it secret, and make the promise stick?”

  Mitch’s pained look became intense. His hands folded into fists as he steeled himself for the ordeal, then he said, “Make me swear. Make me swear on a Bible like they do in court. That’s the only thing that will shut me up.”

  Nick wanted to roll his eyes, but he realized that Mitch was being completely sincere.

  “Vince,” Nick said, “do you have a Bible around here?”

  Vince gave him a twisted grin. “Are you kidding? My mother has a whole collection. You want the one with Thomas Kinkade illustrations? Or the Smurf Bible?”

  “How about one that looks intimidating.”

  Vince nodded. “I know just the one.”

  They went upstairs, and from a shelf filled with framed inspirational quotes and fake houseplants with unnatur
ally bright leaves, Vince pulled out a family Bible that must have gone back several generations. It had a worn, black leather cover with a Gothic, inlaid silver cross. The thing was about as intimidating as the Spanish Inquisition.

  “Wow,” said Mitch, a little shaken, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Vince hefted the book. “I call it the Damnation Bible. On the various occasions it’s been suggested I may be going to hell, this is what I imagined the gate would look like.”

  Mitch timidly laid his hand on the volume and solemnly swore to tell absolutely no one about the Shut Up ’n Listen under threat of fire and brimstone. Once the oath was made, he was visibly relieved.

  “There,” he said. “That’ll do it.”

  “One more thing,” said Nick. “I need both of you to help me find the other objects and get them back.”

  “You mean going door-to-door?” asked Mitch. “I’m not good at that. Last year I did this wrapping-paper sale for Boy Scouts, and somehow I ended up with more wrapping paper than I started with.”

  “Leave it to me,” said Vince. “I have ways of finding things hidden in the shadows.”

  And so, with an understanding reached, Nick felt a little bit better about the situation.

  “Do me a favor,” Vince said. “If my mother accosts you between here and the front door, tell her I was friendly and social.”

  “Actually, you were,” Mitch said.

  Vince just glared at him. “Get out.”

  “We don’t want her to freak,” Nick told Mitch as they approached Caitlin’s house. “Or to think this is a big deal—and having both of us at her front door might be overwhelming.”

  “But it is a big deal,” Mitch protested. “And Caitlin Westfield can’t be overwhelmed.”

  “Maybe not,” Nick admitted, “but one person at her door is a visitor. Two people are a conspiracy. That’s why you should wait here and let me talk to her.”

  In the end, Mitch agreed. Of course, Nick’s real reason for leaving Mitch out of this particular equation was that he wanted the chance to talk to Caitlin alone.

  While Mitch lurked in the shadows across the street, Nick rang Caitlin’s doorbell. He paced back and forth on the oversize porch of her oversize house, wondering if she was currently being suffocated by an oversize Adam’s apple. Finally the door opened. It was Caitlin, who was alone, but didn’t look especially thrilled to see him.