by Sue Lange
Just as she stormed out, however, she noted something: the smell of coffee.
She had one last idea, one last chance. Quickly she stowed number 3 in the trunk, closed the lid and rushed back into the house.
“Mom!” she called.
“Mm,” her mother answered as she lazily looked over the top of the paper she was reading.
“Can we get some . . . ” she stopped as she saw the pile of eggs and stack of poptarts in the middle of the table. Five empty cups waited for five hungry fans of perpetual motion.
Elsa turned and called downstairs. “Come and get it, in the kitchen! Let’s go.”
The gang dragged itself upstairs and the members settled into the empty seats. Elsa urged them on during the five minute repast until they were finally done.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, sliding out of her chair and picking everyone’s plates up regardless of where they were at in the breakfast. “How’d you know?”
“Well, there are four guests sleeping in the basement. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”
Elsa stopped to take in the fact that her mother was sort of nice. Sort of on her side maybe? Nah, this was just payback for saving her client from the chair. An even trade. She didn’t waste too much time thinking about it though.
“We’re really behind so we gotta go. But thanks, really.” She stepped up to quickly kiss her mother on the cheek and for half a second she considered swallowing her pride and asking to borrow her mother’s Roadrunner.
“Do you need any help?” Her father’s voice rescued her as he stepped into the kitchen. He was wearing jeans and a Penn State sweatshirt, exactly like the one Elsa wore. She almost didn’t recognize him; she’d never seen him so casual. She hesitated a moment to ponder her mother so nice, her father so at home, but only momentarily. She ran to him for a quick hug.
“Yes, yes, yes, we need your car!” she cried.
“Oh, just my car?”
“And you if you can come. We need all the hands we can get.”
“I’m all yours. But I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t believe in perpet—”
“Great, let’s go.”
She dispatched the team to jWad’s car to get down to the school and begin installing the first three models. She remained behind with her father to load up the remaining four.
Once the caddy’s trunk was stuffed with the plywood, tubing, and electrical cords making up the final installation pieces, they raced down to the school and quickly unloaded the contents in the parking lot. She then sent her father off with the booklet file for Geneve’s.
“And you didn’t get these done yesterday, why?” he father wanted to know before restarting the car.
“I guess it slipped my mind,” she said, wondering herself why she hadn’t done it yesterday. Truth be told, it hadn’t even hit her until last night that the installation was going to be completed after all.
By eight-thirty, the final pieces were at the school gymnasium door. Coach Budzynski showed her to the spot jWad and May had been given. It was a far corner where the light was dim.
“This isn’t enough room,” she said to the coach. We have four more pieces.”
“Well, you came so late, this was the only space left.”
“But the other exhibits don’t need even the room they were given. They’re just terminals and chairs. We have a huge display. People won’t be able to see everything.”
“You’ll just have to crowd into the corner,” Coach said and then spun on his heel to leave.
Elsa argued with his back. “No one will be able to . . . ”
“How about extending it into the center?” Jimmy suggested. “Instead of having a panorama, make it a tunnel-like thing.”
“That’s so s . . . ” Elsa started and then finished. “ . . . sane. Perfect, in fact. Jimmy you’re brilliant.” She turned and gave Jimmy a quick, hard hug. As she stepped back to go, he held her back. She looked up into his face, a question in her own. He said nothing but his eyes told her the whole story. She shook her head slightly, frightened.
“Why not?” he said.
“I . . . don’t . . . know.” She said nothing more, but continued to shake her head, her brain repeatedly misfiring as new ideas entered and left without proper processing.
And then he released her. She stood back to watch him for several seconds. She moved forward slowly to kiss him on the cheek, and then rushed off to organize the installation.
The first station, #1, Bhaskara’s Wheel was set up in the center of the room where the viewers couldn’t miss it. It was the brightest of the pieces with its five color coding of cyan, magenta, yellow, rich black, and white denoting the important points. The huge wheel in the center turned, lighting up the various sections of instructions as it went. Jimmy’s perfect mechanical penmanship ensured the viewer would know how to make the thing “work.” The added authenticity would not go unnoticed. The art and intellect dazzled.
The final station at the back, #7, with it’s halogen “sun” powering the solar television which Elsa designed for the purpose of explaining realistic free energy, pulled the viewers down the “tunnel,” turning the entire installation into a metaphor for that weird need of all humans and bugs to head towards the light.
In between #1 and #7 were the five other stations progressing through the history of perpetual motion, each station more advanced and beautiful than the previous one: Fludd’s circulating water wheel, the magnet paradox, Boyle’s capillary contraption, a Brownian Ratchet, and Sanjay’s entropy machine based on Maxwell’s Demon.
Their neighbors to the left and right, realizing their stations would soon be overshadowed by Elsa’s telescoping construct, moved their monitors away, leaving the Perpetual Motion Club further room.
By the time Coach B. had returned to make sure Elsa was not taking more than her fair share of the wall space, they’d pretty much settled in.
“What the . . . ?” he said.
Elsa ran up to meet him. “It’s the only way we can fit this in,” she said.
Coach had no desire to help them find a creative solution beyond the one they had already found, so he turned and left muttering about how kids these days were taking the whole world to hell in a hand basket.
Elsa clapped her hands together for a quick moment over their spatial triumph before turning her attention to the electricity for switching between automatic and manual mode. Each machine would illustrate the theoretical operation as opposed to the actual operation.
Mr. Blaine, Justin’s father, was the first visitor of the day. Justin had had his video game set up on their right since eight a.m.. His father had been perusing the other exhibits in the gym since that time and was now making his way to the Perpetual Motion Club’s station #1. “BHASKARA’S WHEEL” was neatly printed in large block letters at the top. He nodded at the words as if recalling his own perpetual motion studies and then read aloud the physical law that would be broken if the machine did indeed work.
“THE INCREASE IN THE INTERNAL ENERGY OF A THERMODYNAMIC SYSTEM IS EQUAL TO THE AMOUNT OF HEAT ENERGY ADDED TO THE SYSTEM MINUS THE WORK DONE BY THE SYSTEM ON THE SURROUNDINGS.”
Elsa kept her eye on him and when he had finished, she approached him shyly.
“I, ah, have a demonstration that goes with it,” she said, praying he would not find it as boring as his son no doubt would.
“Well, let’s hear it, young lady,” he answered.
“I just need my . . . ” Elsa panicked. Mr. Blaine was shifting his weight from foot to foot. If she left for her notes he wouldn’t be there when she returned. She couldn’t even remember where she had left her laptop.
“Actually, I’ve pretty much got it memorized,” she chuckled nervously. “Um, the forces of torque are here,” she said, pressing the button to light up the arrows illustrating the leftmost torque forces. “When the wheel is at the start. After that the gravitational force takes over as the wheel turns.”
The gravity forces
lit up.
“And the moment of inertia too, in the opposite direction,” she said as the moment of inertia forces lit up. “I have a booklet that explains the history of this machine and how it works and . . . ”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Mr. Blaine said.
“Oh, sure,” Elsa said, her shoulders slumped. Mr. Blaine wasn’t the slightest bit interested in how the rules for perpetual motion were perpetually breaking the rules of thermodynamics.
“I can see everything quite well right here on the board. This is all ingenious. I need to get my son over here,” Mr. Blaine was saying.
Elsa scratched at the side of her head, the only thing she could do to keep herself from jumping up and hugging Mr. Blaine.
And so the exhibit opened, not completely finished, but enough to amaze the visitors.
Just as jWad and May were carrying the last pitchers full of water to push the wheel in station #2, the judges came around. The booklets hadn’t arrived yet, but the exhibit had come together just in time and quite beautifully. After the triumph with Mr. Blaine, Elsa felt no need for the missing pamphlets.
She took the judges—Coach Budzynski, Mr. Brown, Ms. Curmson, and Charlie the janitor—on a tour. Using her remote control, she lit up the various instructions, moments, forces, laws, and incongruencies at the pertinent moments in the presentation.
There was so much movement and noise in her display that soon others who had wandered into the gym to see the competition were following the judges around the PM telescope. Mothers and fathers of the various genius code warriors joined in. The installation was soon full to capacity. Elsa had no time to notice her own mother joining the eager onlookers.
Urged on by the crowd’s enthusiasm, Elsa ran through the last installation (her own invention) with rising emotion. Like a carnival barker, she invited everyone to touch the “only true PM possibility,” explaining why it could be considered a PMM and at the same time wasn’t.
“True believers in PMM should start with this type of machine and look for new ways to harness the sun—a free source of energy which promises to be available for millennia to come.” She ended her tour with the humanitarian save-the-world speech that would be a requirement for any winning entrant in the competition.
As she finished her speech and the crowd stood breathlessly watching her, she looked out and smiled. The crowd smiled back and Mr. Blaine started applauding. The rest of the audience joined in.
After the applause died down, Mr. Brown stated, “Hm.” He then turned and said, “Well, what’s next?”
The group of judges moved on to Justin Blaine’s computer just to the right of Elsa’s station #7. Justin had created a game called “Carnage,” which involved 45 caged Rottweilers. The last dog standing at the end of the game won.
In Mr. Brown’s “what’s next?” and swift movement to Justin’s installation, Elsa realized she hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell. Half an hour later, as Mr. Brown continued to play Carnage, she accepted her fate.
Even though depression came with that resigned acceptance, the rush of new audience prevented her from dwelling on it. Her display had roughly 50 people reading the plaques and asking questions at any one time throughout the morning. They seemed to love the spinning wheels, the pumping pumps, the ubiquitous humming, all failing and faking at Elsa’s command.
She enthusiastically answered what felt like hundreds of questions from parents and others on the subject of why PMMs don’t work. Everyone thanked her for her informative talk. One old guy, the local wise aleck, stated he’d waited all his life to understand the secrets of PM and now he could die in peace. Everyone laughed. (Elsa learned later that he did in fact die the following week.)
The highlight of the day came when Jason Bridges stopped by with his entourage. They silently went through the exhibit admiring the colors and pointing out the parts that they themselves had contributed. They laughed and joked and misunderstood the whole thing, but Elsa didn’t care. As the group was leaving, Jason turned to her and gave her a thumbs up and wink, sort of surreptitiously as if they had a secret between them. For several seconds she stood stunned. He didn’t exactly blow her a kiss, but he probably would have if Wendy Drayson didn’t have her arm around his waist.
She smiled to herself thinking that a few months ago that would have made her scrap the whole day and go running out to the Route 73 overpass to shout to the world: “Jason Bridges has noticed me.” For some reason, today it did little to impress her. She barely even noticed it and then moved on.
The press of the crowd and its constant need for her attention, in fact, kept her from dwelling on it. They also obscured three realities from Elsa. The first was Mr. Brown. She forgot how Mr. Brown had dismissed her project. For the first time in a long time, she stopped worrying about him. She easily dismissed him and his effect on her life.
The second reality she missed was that her mother had not only come to see the competition, but had stayed most of the day and although she did not hover in her daughter’s area, she kept her eye on the progress the entire time.
The third reality, was that there were recruiters in the audience. From Penn State. And Purdue. And Princeton. And they hung around her solar collector much of the day. And they spoke with her mother. And they watched Elsa’s passionate lectures on the history of PMMs. They grasped her grasp of the subject.
At two the decision was announced.
Elsa would have started packing up right away if the crowd in her area would have let her. As it was, though, at two p.m. when Jimmy came up to Elsa and tapped her on the shoulder to tell her the results were in, she had a booth full of people asking questions. She had forgotten her misery by easily moving into her role of teacher and prophet and crowd enlightener. She was enjoying herself.
The crowd’s response erased the failure of the PM club’s sanctioning, eight months of Jason Bridges’ brushoffs, her mother’s dismissal, and Mr. Brown’s cruel derision. In that short span of four hours and fifteen minutes an entire year of pain and disappointment was gone. In that short powerful moment of time, Elsa Webb blasted out of her shell.
The tap from Jimmy came as Elsa was explaining to a woman in a mohair coat and matching hat that with modern lubricants and ball bearings, friction was not . . .
“They’re getting ready to announce,” Jimmy whispered into Elsa’s ear.
She looked at the woman and smiled. “Thanks for stopping by, good luck on your son’s dog program. What was it called? Rippage or something?”
But the woman didn’t answer. Instead she turned and wended her way up to the front of the gym.
Elsa turned to Jimmy and shrugged at exactly the moment the man up front said, “ . . . and today’s winner is Justin Blaine for his Carnage program.”
Elsa and Jimmy looked over to Justin who sat slumped in his chair behind the terminal, head resting on his fisted hand, eyes closed, drool no doubt dripping from his chin. He slept through the applause, waking only when the local wise aleck slapped him on the back and said, “I’ve been waiting all my life for educational software and now I can die in peace.”
“That sucks,” jWad said as he and May rushed into the booth.
“Yeah, well, Justin’s a smart guy,” said Elsa, pretending to be magnanimous.
They all turned to where Justin was wiping his mouth with a sheepish grin on his face.
“What’s he get as a prize?” May asked.
“Not much,” Elsa answered. “Mostly the prestige of winning the Northawken FutureWorld competition.”
“That’s it?” jWad said.
“Well, that and a $500,000 scholarship to the university of his choice,” she said, shrugging to show she didn’t care.
“Wow,” Christine said.
“I’m sure he’ll use it to devote his life’s work to the betterment of humanity,” Jimmy said.
Everyone nodded and then returned to their stations and what they were doing before the announcement dashed all their hopes.
Everyone, except Elsa and Jimmy. She tilted her head to the side and with a half smile said, “Thanks for that. I never knew you to have a vindictive nature.”
“Vindictive?” Jimmy asked, eyebrows raised. “That guy’s a tw—”
“Shhh,” Elsa said, holding her finger to his lips.
He grabbed her hand and held it for a few moments before letting go.
Most of the crowd in the gymnasium, consisting of parents of the losers, went home at this point. One parent however, didn’t go home. She stood and watched with moistened eyes as the few final remaining audience members turned their attention to her daughter’s booth.
“I think that young lady over there should have won,” an older woman at Lainie’s side said.
“She did do well, didn’t she?” the parent said. “And they can’t all win.”
“I’d like to speak to the young lady, but I can’t get a word with her. Do you know who her parents are?”
“I think I can arrange an introduction,” Lainie answered. “She held out her hand, Lainie Webb. My husband had to leave but he’ll be here later to help load up the, uh, displays.”
“Green,” the woman answered, taking Lainie’s hand to shake it vigorously. “Marilyn Green from Texas.”
“Texas?” Lainie said. “You don’t have much of an accent.”
“Texas A&M,” the woman said. “Transplant.”
A delightful conversation ensued, covering the interesting topic of a summer internship, and an early-recruitment scholarship for a qualified student, someone creative and intelligent.
By four, Elsa, jWad, May, Jimmy, and Christine found themselves alone in the gym. The other exhibitors had packed up, the crowd had dispersed. Only Lainie remained standing. She held five letters of introduction from various university agents to pass on to Elsa.
“And U of NC wants to sponsor you. They’ve got a couple of t-shirts for you,” Lainie said.
“There’s only a few weeks left in school!” Elsa said. “Where were they back when that would have meant something.”