Following Baxter

by Barbara Kerley

  “All right,” Professor Reese said. “Come take a look.”

  She walked over and lifted the top of what used to be a tanning bed. “I invented the teleporter by studying, of all things, a microwave oven repair manual.” She smiled. “I replaced the tanning lightbulbs so that when I bring the lid down, whatever is inside the teleporter is surrounded by metal rods.

  “Electricity travels from the wall socket to this high-voltage transformer.” She pointed to a little metal box at one end of the teleporter. “It increases the house voltage to over twenty times its normal strength.”

  “Wow!” TJ said.

  “This powerful voltage activates the magnetron tube.” She pointed to a different metal box. “It converts the high voltage into electromagnetic T-wave energy. The T-waves bounce around inside the teleporter as they hit up against the metal rods—”

  “So whatever’s inside the teleporter—” TJ broke in.

  “Gets surrounded by T-waves and teleported,” Professor Reese concluded.

  “Huh.” I peered in to get a better look. “Those two little boxes do all that?”

  “Easy as pie. Though I do expect to get a whopping electric bill this month . . .” She shrugged. “Oh well.” She turned on power to the teleporter, the console, and all three computers. “Want to see it in action?”

  I started feeling nervous, because, even though I hadn’t known what I was looking at at the time, I’d already seen it in action: vibrating, popping, and screaming. I said yes anyway. TJ just nodded, because he didn’t know any better.

  Professor Reese pulled up a map of latitude-longitude lines for Portland on one of her “auxiliary” computers. “Where should we send the hat?”

  I pointed to a spot a few blocks from her house.

  “All right. First we need to see what the GPS coordinates are for that spot.” She moved her mouse and double-clicked. The coordinates appeared in a small box at the bottom of the screen.

  She walked over to her main computer (the head of the octopus) and pulled up a new screen. “Let me just log in—” She typed in a secret password (that just looked like a row of asterisks to me). Another screen appeared that said Destination Coordinates over a little box that already had numbers in it.

  “Those are the old coordinates from last time,” Professor Reese said. She hit the delete key, and the box went blank. “All right. Read me the new numbers, TJ.”

  TJ leaned toward the auxiliary computer screen and read out, “45.534101, –122.697802,” and Professor Reese typed them in and pressed enter.

  The numbers almost matched the little slips of paper already on the map, I noticed. “Do they always start with 45 and –122?”

  “For Portland, Oregon—yes.” Professor Reese explained that there were 90 degrees latitude above the equator and 90 degrees below. For longitude, there were 180 degrees east or west of an imaginary line called the prime meridian, which ran from the North Pole to the South through Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. For locations west of the prime meridian, the number was expressed as a negative.

  “That’s why you need so many numbers after the decimal point,” she explained, “to pinpoint exact locations.”

  She nodded to TJ. “Let’s get this party started.” She walked over to the console and pushed the big red button.

  All three computers and the electronic equipment and the teleporter started quietly buzzing, like we were standing under a tree that had a beehive way up in its branches. “Would you like to put the hat in the teleporter, TJ?” she asked.

  “Yeah!” He picked up the hat from the bookcase, placed it on the metal rods, and then closed the lid with a loud click.

  The teleporter lit up, the light glowing red through the red plastic cover. TJ jumped back.

  Suddenly, the buzzing got louder, like now we’d climbed up the tree and were standing in the middle of the beehive.

  “Right now, the teleporter is scanning the hat to identify its molecular pattern.” Professor Reese raised her voice above the buzz.

  “Once the scan is complete,” she continued, “it sends this information to the auxiliary computer.”

  At that moment, one of the smaller computers started blinking and whirring. And maybe the half of Baxter that belonged to Professor Reese the physicist wasn’t scared, but my half was, so he tucked his tail between his legs and went to hide on his bed under the desk.

  “The auxiliary computer stores the information,” Professor Reese said. “This will be the instructions for putting the object back together.”

  “Back together?” TJ said.

  “Once the information is stored, the auxiliary computer sends a signal to the other auxiliary computer”—and here the other little computer began to blink and whir—“which activates the equipment to commence T-wave generation . . . which should be . . .” She looked at her watch. “Right . . . about . . . now.”

  The teleporter shuddered. TJ backed away even more.

  “Once sufficient T-waves have been generated, the object inside the teleporter begins to break down to the molecular level.”

  “Break down?” TJ said.

  The teleporter began to vibrate, and pretty soon it was rattling, and the reddish light grew stronger, the buzzing grew louder, like we were still standing in the beehive, only now the bees were mad about it.

  I turned to TJ. “Don’t worry—it only looks like it’s going to explode!”

  The red light got brighter and brighter. The buzzing got so loud, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Professor Reese raised her voice to a shout. “When the T-wave energy reaches capacity level, the object is teleported—”

  And at that moment was the huge POP! (But this time I was expecting it, so only TJ screamed.)

  Then everything got quiet, except for one cheerful beep-beep-boop that the first auxiliary computer made as it powered down, which made Baxter make a little cheerful booping noise of his own.

  “It just sent the reconfiguration instructions via radio waves,” Professor Reese said, pushing off the big red button. “And now that they’ve received the instructions, the hat molecules are reconfiguring back into a hat.”

  I ran over to the teleporter as TJ lifted the lid. “Wow!” he said.

  Professor Reese wasn’t crazy. It was like the teleporter had picked up the hat and put it down somewhere else.

  That hat was gone.

  We took the stairs two at a time. I grabbed the leash, and then we followed Baxter, his ears flapping as he galloped down the sidewalk.

  When we got to the spot on Raleigh Street where the hat was supposed to land, Professor Reese barely had time to say, “This is the landing site . . .” before Baxter pulled me forward.

  TJ raced beside us. At the corner, Baxter veered onto Twenty-Second, toward something red lying on top of a bush.

  TJ yelled, “There it is! I see it!” and ran faster, but Baxter still beat him by a nose (which, considering how big Baxter’s is, didn’t surprise me). He’d found the hat again. Like magic.

  “It works! It works!” TJ screamed. “The tele—”

  I clamped my hand over his mouth and kept it there until Professor Reese caught up to us, huffing.

  When I pulled my hand away, TJ was grinning. He strutted around like a football player doing a touchdown dance. He plucked the hat off the bush. Then he pulled it down on his head and whispered, “The teleporter works!”

  11

  The Secret Layer of Science

  The next morning, Professor Reese opened her door wearing a pink leotard and pink footless tights. She looked like a cupcake or maybe a piece of bubble gum. “I need a ten-letter word for ‘strange and unconventional.’”

  I thought, She probably knows a lot of those.

  “It starts with out . . .” she continued, “but outlandish didn’t work.”

  “Out of this world?” I said.

  “Out of your mind?” TJ said.

  “Out . . . of course!” she cried, writing outrageous
in 16-across.

  “Are we doing any teleporting this morning?” TJ asked.

  Professor Reese shook her head. “I need to return the spectrometer to the science museum before they open. Want to come along?”

  Me and TJ ran home to check with Mom, who said yes. Then we ran over to Dad’s.

  “How about instead of waffles we connect when you get back?” he suggested. “I’ll wait to take my lunch break at work until you call.”

  “Deal!” I said.

  Me and TJ ran back to Professor Reese’s. I gave Baxter a big kiss between his crazy eyebrows, and his kiss back landed on my chin. “We’ll be home soon,” I told him.

  Then me and TJ and Professor Reese rode the streetcar to the museum, the spectrometer, in a little black case, sitting on her lap.

  The science museum was on the banks of the Willamette River, tucked up beneath a huge bridge. But in spite of the roar of traffic above us, being by the river was nice. People biked and jogged down the riverfront path. Geese paddled around in the water.

  We walked up to the front doors, but no one was there yet to let us in. “Let’s go around to the employee entrance,” Professor Reese said.

  She led us around to a side door that had a keypad instead of a lock.

  “Cool!” TJ crowded in. “Can I do it?”

  “We’re not supposed to share the code with anyone.” But when she punched it in, TJ said, “Blast off!” which meant he’d seen it anyway. So Professor Reese let TJ try it.

  “6-5-4-3-2-1 blast off!” he said as he punched in the numbers.

  The door opened into the Turbine Hall, which was so tall, there was an airplane hanging from the ceiling. We walked past displays on solar technology and bridge building, and TJ ran his hands across everything, saying, “Cool!”

  “My office is on the second floor, but the spectrometer belongs in here,” Professor Reese said as we walked into the Physics Lab. “Could you get the lights, Jordie?”

  I found the light switch and turned the lights on.

  TJ ran over to where a sign said Van de Graaff Generator. It was a huge metal ball with a little handwheel attached. When you cranked it, Professor Reese explained, it rotated a belt that rubbed against a brush inside the ball. “Turning the crank charges the ball with static electricity, like when you shuffle across a rug in your stocking feet.”

  “Zap me!” TJ said.

  So I cranked the handwheel, and TJ touched the huge ball and got zapped. He had me zap him (twice), and he yelled (both times).

  “Do it again!” TJ said.

  But I wanted to look at the displays. So while Professor Reese electrocuted TJ, I wandered around the lab.

  There were all kinds of technology, some of it really old: a microscope from 1929, a steam engine from 1890, and even some lightbulbs Thomas Edison designed in 1879. “They had lightbulbs back in 1879?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” Professor Reese answered.

  “Huh,” I said. I walked back over to the light switch and turned the lights off and then back on. Professor Reese looked over and smiled at me. I smiled back.

  Before a week ago, I’d barely ever been in a science lab, and now I was in them all the time. But it was more than that. There was this secret layer of science that had always been there, when I made hot chocolate in Dad’s microwave or turned on the lights. The secret layer of science was everywhere. I’d just never noticed it before.

  Before Professor Reese.

  I didn’t always understand what she was talking about, but I liked it. Even the parts I didn’t understand.

  “I need to pick up something in the Life Science Hall,” Professor Reese said. “Someone, actually.” She turned to TJ. “And I think this will interest you in particular.” She led us into the lobby and up the main stairs.

  The Life Science Hall had a model of an ear so big you could crawl down the canal. There were displays on how muscles moved and how your brain worked. But Professor Reese walked straight back to where the animals were: two kinds of slithery snakes, a red-kneed tarantula creeping across its tank, slimy bullfrogs squirming on rocks, and stick insects wobble walking along a branch.

  TJ hurried ahead, saying, “I love this place!”

  But I didn’t, and that was because everything in the glass aquariums was creeping or squirming or slithering. I hung out by the tortoises because they barely moved.

  I thought, Me and Megan’s vet/beauty parlor/day care should only be for animals with fur. Anyone with a sick boa constrictor will just have to take it somewhere else.

  “You said you had to pick up something?” I asked Professor Reese because, by then, all the creeping and squirming and slithering was making my skin crawl so much, they could have put me in one of the aquariums.

  “Indeed.” She walked into a back office and came out holding a clear plastic tank. “Come look,” she called to TJ as she carried it over to me.

  There wasn’t any water in the tank. Instead, there was a layer of wood shavings, a curved-over piece of bark the size of a slice of bread, and a fat branch with twigs poking up. Three tiny white dishes held dry dog food, an orange slice, and a soggy sponge. On top of the whole tank was a clear plastic lid with air holes in it. “So, what do you think?” Professor Reese asked.

  Me and TJ leaned in to look closer.

  All of a sudden, two long skinny brown antennas waved out from underneath the curved bark . . . followed by a hard, shiny brown bug head . . . and then six spiky bug legs sticking out from a bug body . . . and then an abdomen that just kept coming and coming, sliding out in segment after segment of hard, shiny brown bug body.

  “This is my Madagascar hissing cockroach,” Professor Reese said. “I asked the museum to order an extra one for me.”

  “You paid money for that?” I asked.

  But TJ was already saying, “Can I hold it?”

  “You may when we get home.” Professor Reese handed him the tank. “And you can carry the tank while we’re on the streetcar.”

  So the whole way home, TJ held the tank on his lap, looking down through the lid at the big brown bug with its shiny bug head and its waving bug antennas and its long, gross bug abdomen (full of bug guts—you could just tell) and its six spiky bug legs. By the time we got off the streetcar, TJ was calling it “Spike.”

  He helped Professor Reese clear a space on the bookcase, while I cuddled Baxter. “You’re not gross like a bug,” I whispered as I shook my head. He shook his head back.

  “TJ, why don’t you go up to the refrigerator and find a snack for Spike,” Professor Reese said. “See what’s in the vegetable drawer.”

  So TJ ran upstairs and came back down with a carrot. “I got a long skinny one so he can eat one end and walk up and down on the rest of it.”

  Professor Reese took the lid off the tank. When she picked up Spike, he started hissing and kicking out with his gross bug legs until she put him on TJ’s hand.

  Spike sat, waving his little bug antennas for a while. TJ just laughed.

  Finally, Professor Reese said, “Let’s give him the carrot and then get to work.”

  So TJ put Spike into the tank, stuck in the carrot, and put the lid back on while Professor Reese studied the map, and I scritched Baxter’s ribs.

  “We need to figure out how Baxter finds the hat when we can’t. He must be using one of his five senses,” Professor Reese said. “He can’t taste or touch the hat until he finds it. And hats don’t make any noise. Sight, perhaps?”

  “But once you teleport the hat, he doesn’t see it again until he finds it,” I said.

  “Good point.” Professor Reese nodded.

  TJ plunked down in the spinny chair. “Maybe the hat smells like us.”

  “Like those movies where a bloodhound follows criminals through the woods,” I added. We talked about what criminals always do, which is to run through a stream to wash the scent off their feet (though that doesn’t work so much with TJ).

  We decided to try that. We washed the hat in
the washing machine (conveniently located in the lab). Then I ran upstairs to get a plastic bag that I could wear like a glove to pick up the hat and stick it in the dryer (also conveniently located in the lab).

  After the hat was dry, I used the plastic bag again to put it in the teleporter (conveniently located near the washer and dryer). Then we teleported the hat and followed Baxter to the destination site, where he barely stopped before galloping on. But even though the hat didn’t smell like us anymore, Baxter found it, like magic.

  Back in the lab, I put the hat on the bookcase. TJ read out the coordinates while I wrote up the little slips of paper and stuck them up—a green pin for the destination coordinates and a red pin for where the hat actually landed.

  Professor Reese groaned as she studied the map. “There’s no pattern. The hat lands too far north. Too far west . . .”

  “Too far southeast,” TJ added helpfully, but I glared at him to shut up.

  “If there’s no pattern, we can’t predict where the hat will land.” She paced the lab. “We can’t draw any conclusions if every result is random.”

  “Maybe Baxter finds the hat because he’s magical.” That was the conclusion I’d drawn, because he could find the hat when we couldn’t. Plus, he understood me perfectly. Plus, if there could be teleportation in the world, then why not a magical dog?

  But Professor Reese just shook her head. “I’m a scientist, Jordie. I don’t believe in magic.” Then she plopped down in her chair and closed her eyes.

  About this time, I thought that maybe Professor Reese might want “five minutes of peace and quiet,” which is what Mom calls it, only she usually wants more than five minutes’ worth. So I said, “Can me and TJ take Baxter to the park?”

  Professor Reese nodded.

  We ran upstairs. I used the phone in the kitchen to call Dad at work and tell him to meet us at the dog park.

  “You want sandwiches?” he asked.

  “Yeah!” I said. “See you there!”

  I hung up the phone and grabbed the superbouncy ball from the kitchen counter. We followed Baxter as he trotted down the sidewalk, and for the first time, TJ held the leash. He was so happy, he made everyone else happy just by walking by (Baxter, certainly not TJ), which is the best kind of dog to have.