I put my glasses on as I led the way through the door, then scanned the shelves until I spotted a cartoon bunch of bananas. “There,” I told Lori as I pointed to them.
She aimed the camera toward the shelf and adjusted the lens. “I see something,” she said. “A big, blurry, yellow something.”
“Keep your eye on it,” I said as I reached toward the camera. “I have to adjust the focus.”
My special filter was a square piece of glass mounted on four rods, which were attached to a circular ring that went around the lens. Since I didn’t know the exact size of the lens on each camera, I made the ring adjustable, and I’d attached it with zip ties. The key to my filter, however, was the small video screen mounted between the top two rods. The square glass was slightly angled away from the lens, and whatever came up on the tiny screen would be reflected on the glass. Even so, the distance between the screen and the glass had to be manually adjusted to bring the image into focus.
“Let me know when the image is sharp,” I said as I carefully spun a tiny thumbscrew on the video mount.
“There,” Lori said, and I pulled my hand away. She laughed. “That is so cool.”
Just then, Maggie Ortiz poked her head in through the open doorway. She slowly raised her phone. She was getting ready to collect the loot.
“Maggie, wait a second,” I said. “We’re testing my new filter.”
She lowered her phone and stepped inside. Meanwhile, Lori had her camera trained on the shelf as she recorded it from different angles. “Amazing,” she said. “It’s a little transparent, but it’s like it’s really there.”
“The items won’t look completely solid since they’re projected onto the glass,” I explained. “Just like with my glasses.”
Lori lowered the camera and glanced back at Maggie. “Can I get a shot of you collecting the loot?”
Maggie beamed. “Sure!”
Lori directed Maggie where to stand so both she and the cartoon bananas would be in the shot. When Lori was ready, Maggie raised her phone to view the animated item herself. I watched through my glasses, so I could see the bananas fly off the shelf and zip over to Maggie’s phone. The bunch of bananas shrunk at the last minute, making it appear to enter the phone itself. Maggie gave me a quick wave before exiting the storeroom.
“Very nice,” Lori said as she lowered the camera from her shoulder. “Great job on this filter.”
“Thanks.”
“Now I just need to find more loot.” Lori grinned.
“You can ask Noah,” I suggested. “He knows where everything is hidden.”
“Oh, sure,” Lori said as she headed out. “He’s been a big help all around.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure he has.”
I followed Lori out of the rapidly filling lab and hustled to my locker. The bell rang just as I got there; I was already late for my next class. Lori had given me a hall pass, so I was okay on that front. I just needed to unload the tools I’d used for the filter from my backpack. It would be a lot lighter for the rest of the day. I’d noticed it felt especially light without my notebook.
I hadn’t realized how much I would miss my constant companion. Most of my friends felt naked without their phones, but since Ms. Jensen had taken my notebook, everything had felt a little off. And sure, I had other notebooks at home filled with invention ideas, but my current one was like a part of me. I’d had to jot down the ideas and thoughts I had the night before on scraps of paper.
I’d head over to the editing suite at lunch. Ms. Jensen should’ve had enough time to make sure all my designs had been scanned in by then.
When the bell for lunch rang, I hustled out of class to be the first in line. After grabbing my tray, I made my way to the editing suite. Dan was at the controls, cutting together segments for the show. On the main screen, I saw Jessica Mercer in a heated discussion with Mia Trevino. I didn’t catch what they were going on about because my attention was grabbed by a new, smaller workstation off to the side. Amy sat in front of a computer, her lunch bag open beside her.
“Hey,” I said as I pulled up a chair next to her. “You working through lunch too?”
Amy nodded as she swallowed and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. She reached across her desk and picked up my spiral notebook. “Looking for this?”
“Oh yeah,” I replied as I reached out, trying to act casual and not at all like how I felt—a toddler reaching for his favorite toy.
Once my notebook was back in my hands, I let out a small sigh of relief. “You’ve scanned in everyone’s invention plans?”
“Most everyone’s,” Amy replied. She reached over and patted a small portable hard drive. “The entire wisdom of Swift Academy is right here.”
I wondered how much something like that would be worth. Sure, not every student came up with a million-dollar idea, but I bet there were plenty of cool innovations crammed onto that drive. Again, it was a good thing the academy didn’t have a black market.
“What are you doing with the scans, exactly?” I asked.
Amy beamed with excitement. “Let me show you.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she pulled up a list of file folders on her screen. Different students’ names were printed beside each one. Amy scrolled through the list before selecting one labeled MILLS, JIM.
She opened the folder and then another file. Suddenly her screen was filled with a crude drawing of a two-seated vehicle that looked like a go-kart without wheels. Instead, enclosed fans were mounted to all four corners of the machine. A tubular roll cage was mounted over the seats.
“This is Jim’s hovercraft,” Amy explained.
I nodded and took a bite from an apple. “So that’s what his roll cage was for.”
A few weeks ago, a bunch of the students had participated in a lock-in at my father’s company next door. I remember that Jim had spent his time in the machine shop a building a roll cage. He just didn’t say what it was for. Of course, after working on my project, burning circuit boards, babysitting a junior reporter, and stopping some high-level corporate espionage, I had forgotten all about Jim’s project.
“And here’s what I did,” Amy said as she tapped a key on the keyboard.
Suddenly, Jim’s crude drawing sprang to life. The four fans began to spin, and animated wind lines blew through the blades. The craft lifted off the ground and hovered there, slowly bouncing up and down.
“Wow, great job,” I said. It seemed as if Amy’s animation skills were getting better and better.
Amy grinned. “Thanks.”
“She’s quite the little animator,” Dan added without looking up from his work.
Amy blushed and stared at her lap.
“So what are you going to animate with my stuff?” I quickly asked, hoping to get Amy to refocus.
She pulled up the list of folders again and scrolled down to the one labeled SWIFT, TOM.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said as she opened the folder and began to toggle through the scanned pages.
With all of my private sketches and designs displayed there for the world to see, my lunch suddenly didn’t taste very good.
“Do you have an invention in mind?” Amy asked. “Something you’re going to show off during the Olympics, maybe?”
“What?” I asked. “I mean…” I pointed to the glasses on my forehead. “My AR glasses, I guess.”
Amy cocked her head. “I’m not sure what to animate there. What else do you have?”
“Oh, how about my robot?” I suggested. I explained how I could control it with my glasses and the controllers from my console. I told her about my cooking attempt. “It should be fine as long as I don’t try to make pancakes for everyone.”
Amy laughed. “That might work.” She began clicking through the pages in my file.
“There,” I said as she opened the page showing my rough sketch of my robot.
“Tom!” said a voice behind me. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
I tur
ned around as Joey entered the editing suite. “Oh, hi.”
He clamped a hand on my shoulder. “We don’t have enough confessional footage of you,” he said. “You have time for another go?”
I glanced at my unfinished lunch tray. “Uh, sure… I guess so.”
“Good, good,” he said, ushering me toward the curtain separating that section of the editing suite.
“I’ll see you later, Tom,” Amy called as she gathered her lunch bag and headed out of the room.
Joey pulled back the curtain and I took a seat in front of the camera. The setup was the same as before: the camera pointing at me, the microphone hovering over my head. But one thing was different. A small video monitor was now mounted on a stand next to the camera.
Joey took a seat facing me and turned the camera on. He adjusted the angle and pressed the Record button. “So, Lori tells me the new lens filter works great. How did you create it?”
I took a deep breath and tried to act as casual as possible. “It uses the same principle as my glasses.” I went on to explain how the tiny video monitor projected the image onto the glass.
“That sounds very exciting,” Joey said. “Are you going to show off your glasses in the Inventors’ Olympics?”
“Well, kind of,” I replied. “I can also use them to control this robot I made. I think I’ll showcase that somehow.” I hoped Joey wouldn’t ask me how, since I hadn’t quite figured that part out yet.
He thoughtfully stroked his bushy beard. “So the glasses do more than just let you see the objects in Noah’s app?”
“Oh yeah,” I agreed with a small laugh. “Much more.”
“What do you think about Noah getting so much attention for Feed the Beast?” Joey asked.
That was kind of a weird question. “It’s fine, I guess.” I shrugged.
Joey raised an eyebrow. “Really? Because I hear that you two aren’t getting along lately.”
I didn’t understand why he wasn’t asking me more about our inventions, but he was spot-on about the friction between Noah and me. Maybe Joey had seen the footage from our argument and was just curious.
“It’s no big deal, really,” I said, trying to play the situation off. “We just had a disagreement, that’s all.”
“You’re not worried he’s stealing the spotlight from you?”
“What spotlight?” I asked, annoyed. “I don’t want any kind of spotlight.”
“Hmm…” Joey nodded thoughtfully before pulling back the curtain and leaning out of the confessional. “Dan? Play us that clip we cued up.” He pulled out a tiny notebook and flipped through the pages. “File: Newton eleven.”
“Coming right up,” came Dan’s voice from the other side of the room.
Suddenly, the tiny video screen behind the confessional camera came to life. It showed an image of Noah sitting where I was now. He was staring at the camera with his mouth open, as if frozen in midsentence. After a few seconds, the video began to play.
“Get over yourself, Tom Swift. Just because your name’s on the school doesn’t mean that you’re a big deal. You probably wouldn’t be here if your dad hadn’t built the school. You’re not even that good of an inventor.”
My jaw dropped, and what little I’d eaten of lunch felt like a boulder in my stomach.
How could my best friend say those things about me?
8 The Companion Confrontation
“SO, AFTER SEEING THAT CLIP, how do you feel?” Joey asked me.
“Uh…” I slowly shook my head, my mouth still wide open. “Stunned.”
Noah was supposed to be my best friend. Is that what he really thought about me? He had to have been showing off for the show. But why would he say those things when he knew I felt the exact opposite? Maybe he didn’t really believe me?
“Care to elaborate on that?” Joey asked, interrupting my runaway train of thought.
“I don’t know,” I said with a big sigh. “I thought he was my best friend.”
Joey winced. “That doesn’t sound like something a friend would say, let alone a best friend.”
There was another awkward silence as I stared blankly at the camera, focused on the little red recording light just to the left of the lens. Suddenly, I felt embarrassed to be in the makeshift room. I wasn’t about to cry or anything, but I could feel the camera capturing every inch of devastation on my face. I had to get out of there.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing up and moving toward the curtain.
Joey switched off the camera. “We’ll pick this up another time, then?”
I gave a quick nod as I drew back the fabric. “Okay.” Grabbing my lunch tray and notebook, I hurried out of the room, back toward the cafeteria.
I must’ve been in a daze, because I hardly remembered dumping my tray, swinging by my locker, or heading to robotics class. Some classmates might have tried to talk with me in the hallways, but I couldn’t remember who or if I answered them. I felt numb.
And worst of all, I knew I’d have to face Noah in class. I didn’t know what to say to him. Maybe I’d get lucky and he’d be off with one of the camera crews again.
No such luck.
As everyone filed into class, in came Noah followed by Sean and Mike, the other camera crew. As Noah put his stuff down on our worktable, I caught Sean recording us out of the corner of my eye. I tried to ignore them all.
When Noah pulled out his notebook and began writing, I focused on my robot, taking apart one of the arms so I could replace its rubber belts with slightly smaller ones. I hoped the new additions would make the arms more sensitive and able to handle simple tasks with greater ease.
I guess what I was doing was too boring for the show. Sean and Mike moved to another worktable on the other side of the classroom, where Mia Trevino was mixing a powdery substance with water in a bucket. It almost looked like she was making her own pancake batter. Except pancake batter wasn’t supposed to be pink.
Meanwhile, Sam sat on a stool next to her. Sam removed her shoes and socks, rolled up her pants, and positioned two short, stubby cardboard tubes next to Mia’s bucket. Since Mia’s father worked in special effects for movies and TV shows, I could almost guess what they were doing: It looked as if Mia was getting ready to make casts of Sam’s feet. My theory was confirmed when Mia poured the gloppy substance into the tubes and Sam slowly sunk her feet inside.
“Ooh,” Sam said, wincing. “That’s cold.”
“Sorry,” Mia said. “If I warmed the water, the alginate would harden faster.”
Sean and Mike’s attention (along with that of several other students) was focused on Sam and Mia. I didn’t know what Sam’s big project was, or how it related to Amy’s gum recycling program, but it seemed that she needed casts of her feet.
“Hey,” Noah said.
It took me a second to realize that he was talking to me. “Hey,” I replied, going back to work on my robot.
“Thanks for making that lens filter,” he said.
I gave a quick nod and began disassembling my robot’s other arm. “I said I would.”
Noah shifted on his stool. “Well, Joey said it works great.”
“Good,” I replied without looking up.
Noah made a few notes in his notebook, then put his pen down. “Look, I’m sorry I got so worked up about it. I should’ve known you would come through.”
I let out a sigh, but still didn’t look up. “Whatever.”
Noah leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Hey, I’m trying to apologize here.”
Why was he whispering? Was he afraid the camera crew would record him being nice to me?
“Fine,” I said, glancing at him. “You apologized.”
Noah sat straighter again and shook his head. “Man.”
We didn’t speak for the rest of the class. I focused on making adjustments to my robot; he kept scribbling notes.
I did occasionally check in on Sam and Mia’s station. After Sam removed her feet from the tubes, she and Mia mixed what looke
d like plaster and filled the molds. By the end of class, they’d ripped open the cardboard tubes, revealing two white stone-like copies of my friend’s feet and ankles.
* * *
As the rest of day went on, my hurt and disappointment slowly morphed into anger. I didn’t realize it at first, but I started keeping to myself even more as I stewed over what Noah had said. When I did have to interact with other students or teachers, my statements were short, and sometimes even gruff.
I didn’t like feeling that way. My insides were wound up like a spring compressed to three thousand PSI. I wished I hadn’t kept quiet with Noah in class. I wished I’d told him how I felt.
Just before last period, I decided to remedy the situation. I swung by Noah’s locker, but I didn’t see him. I ran up to the third floor, thinking I might catch him in biology. He wasn’t there, either.
With Noah having a pocket full of hall passes and the run of the school thanks to his personal camera crew, there was no telling where he could be.
Then I remembered again what he’d said in the confessional. Maybe he was there, commenting on our last interaction. As I trudged down the stairs, I could just picture what he was saying:
“I tried to apologize to him, but Tom Swift’s too stuck-up to listen. His name’s on the school, so why would he care what any of us peons has to say?”
I grew angrier with each step.
When I got to the computer lab, I saw that Noah wasn’t in the actual editing suite. Instead, he sat in front of one of the school computers. But one of the camera crews was with him, so I wasn’t entirely off.
As I marched closer, I saw that Lori had her camera trained on the screen as Noah scrolled through lines and lines of code.
“Listen,” I said.
Noah held up a finger. “Hang on a minute, man.” He kept one finger on the keyboard, keeping the code slowly scrolling. “I didn’t have many sketches for Amy to animate, so they’re grabbing footage of my app code for one of their transitions.”
I trembled with anger as he put me off. “What? Are you in charge of everyone now? You going after Davenport’s job next?”
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