Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab

by Bob Pflugfelder

  Nick, meanwhile, was carrying RoboCat II, a.k.a. RoboSquirrel. It was pretty much identical to the original RoboCat except it had a bushier tail (a feather duster Nick had found inexplicably mixed in with a box of duck decoys and what looked like dynamite). Nick had wanted to build two RoboSquirrels and coat them with smooshed slices of Uncle Newt’s welcome cake. (One plain RoboThing hadn’t distracted Jaws and Claws long enough, in his educated opinion.) But they could find only one more soda bottle for power, and even voracious attack dogs would probably turn up their noses at Uncle Newt’s cake, especially when mint-flavored Diet Coke was spraying everywhere already. And anyway, Tesla said she’d be in and out in half the time her brother had taken.

  “Wait,” Nick said. “How are you going to do that and talk to the girl? And why should you be the one taking the risk this time?”

  “I’ll explain when we get there.”

  After they’d crossed the field and crept through the trees and watched for the dogs a while, Nick said, “All right, the coast is clear. Now tell me why you should go in with those dogs and not me?”

  “It’s like this,” Tesla said, and she darted to the fence and started climbing as quickly (yet quietly) as she could.

  “Hey!” Nick said.

  Tesla slowed down just long enough to glance back and shush him. A few seconds later, she was dropping down to the ground on the other side of the fence.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” she whispered to her brother. “Get down to the gate and give those guard dogs something to chase.”

  “Fine. I’m going,” Nick said sullenly. He started to leave but then suddenly stopped. “Just … don’t get eaten, all right?”

  “Deal,” said Tesla.

  Nick hurried off toward the road.

  Tesla turned and headed in the opposite direction, toward the backyard. She stuck close to the fence, where she’d be shrouded (she hoped) in the shadows of the trees. She scanned the yard for their rocket, though a part of her—the pessimistic side that she (unlike her brother) rarely listened to—said she wouldn’t see it. The grass was tall and thick, almost reaching her knees. It looked like it hadn’t been mowed in … well, ever. Whoever had brought in the construction guys to fix up the house would need a whole other crew just to de-jungle the lawn.

  Eventually, Tesla could see around the house to the backyard. It sloped down past the big freestanding garage her brother had mentioned. The construction guys’ van was parked nearby.

  Tesla watched the van for a moment, just in case one of the Siringo borthers was in back getting a power saw or a hammer or a ham sandwich.

  Oooooo—ham sandwich, Tesla’s stomach growled.

  “Shut up,” she told it.

  She started moving closer to the house, listening intently for the sound of barking or panting or giant paws pounding the ground. When she was underneath the window Nick had told her about—second floor, farthest over on the right—she dug a hand into her pants pocket and pulled out her first batch of Clandestine Communications Facilitators. The ones she’d collected on the way over.

  Pebbles.

  She started tossing them, one by one, at the window. Her first few attempts bounced off the house’s grungy peeling siding. Soon, though, she got the range right, and she was getting a satisfying little plink with every throw.

  Of course, Tesla knew that the girl might not be in the room again. Or she might be painting a wall while wearing earbuds with her iPod cranked up. Or she might be running down the hall screaming, “Release the hounds!” Or—

  A girl appeared in the window. She was just as Nick had described her. Pale, slight, dark haired, sad. And surprised.

  Tesla smiled and held up a finger. Then she whipped off her backpack and pulled out her second Clandestine Communications Facilitators: a legal pad and a black marker. The first message was already written on the top page.

  “HI! I’M TESLA! WHO ARE YOU?”

  The girl furrowed her brow and then stepped away from the window. Tesla assumed she knew where she’d gone and took the opportunity to steal a quick look around. No dogs, no irate construction dudes, no cops.

  When she looked back up, Tesla saw what she’d expected: the girl holding up her own message.

  “GO AWAY!!!”

  No frowny face this time, but three exclamation marks. She meant it.

  Tesla just held up her pad again and pointed at three words in quick succession.

  WHO

  ARE

  YOU?

  The girl pointed emphatically at the paper in her hand, stabbing at certain words just as Tesla had.

  GO

  AWAY!!!

  Tesla was ready for that, too. She flipped to the next page, and her next message.

  WHY?

  The girl took down her notebook, wrote in it frantically, then pressed it against the glass again.

  “MR. SNUGG,” she’d written on it.

  Tesla was jotting down her reply—“WHO?”—when she heard barking behind her. It was muffled, though, and she couldn’t see any dogs.

  What she did see was a burly man in jeans and a plaid shirt and blue windbreaker coming out the back door of the house and walking toward the van. It was sheer luck he hadn’t noticed her—and there was no way that luck would last.

  Tesla darted around the corner and ran for the fence, thinking she’d hide a while and then go back to continue her conversation with the girl. But as she crossed the driveway, she heard more barking off to her left—the deep, growly yapping of Jaws and Claws—and then a man shouted, “Hey!”

  Time to go.

  Tesla jammed the legal pad and marker into the world’s most embarrassing backpack, strapped it on again, and scrambled up and over the fence. Once she’d dropped safely to the ground on the other side, she breathed a sigh of relief and started toward the road. She thought she’d meet her brother by the front gate and the two of them could figure out their next move.

  Instead, Nick met her after she’d barely taken a step. He came charging through the trees, a look of panic on his face.

  “Tesla!” he said.

  That was all he got out before the man behind him—the man who’d been chasing him—snagged him by the back of the shirt and dragged him to a halt.

  “Perfect,” the man sneered when he saw Tesla. “Now I’ve got both of you!”

  Nick struggled to free himself from the man’s grasp.

  The man gave him a shove that sent him slamming into the ground.

  “Hey!” Tesla said, rushing to bend down beside her brother.

  The man crossed his arms over his chest and scowled down at them. His head was shaved completely bald, and he was wearing a tight black T-shirt and black jeans. He wasn’t especially tall or brawny, but there was something unsettlingly imposing about the way he just stood there. He seemed immovable, impassable, like a human version of the fence that pinned them in on one side.

  “You all right?” Tesla asked Nick.

  He nodded, but he looked shaken.

  Tesla helped him up and then turned on the man.

  “What’s your problem?” she demanded. “Why are you running around terrorizing a helpless little kid?”

  “ ‘Helpless little kid’?” Nick said. He was scared, yet he managed to look offended, too.

  “Why have you been sneaking around spying?” the man snapped at Tesla. His voice sounded familiar.

  “Spying?” Tesla said. “We weren’t spying. We were looking for a rocket we built. It landed in the Landrigans’ yard yesterday, and when we came to ask for help getting it back, you just yelled at us.”

  The man cocked his head ever so slightly but didn’t contradict her.

  Obviously, she’d guessed right: This was the jerk they’d spoken to over the intercom the day before.

  “You were trying to get your toy back,” he said skeptically, “by feeding my dogs fake squirrels and soda?”

  “Your dogs?” Tesla was about to shoot back. “Why do you need those
monsters when you’re doing home renovations?”

  Hey, she thought. That’s actually a really good question.

  Nick spoke before she could.

  “The fake squirrel was just a distraction,” he said. “So the dogs wouldn’t be howling at us while we looked for the rocket.”

  As if on cue, Jaws and Claws came trotting up on the other side of the fence. They sat at attention as close as they could get, their noses practically pressed up against the wires. They stared unblinkingly at the man, waiting for orders from the alpha of the pack.

  Another man walked up behind them with the same sort of look on his face. It was the big muscular guy Tesla had seen walking out to the van. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week.

  “Need any help, Vince?” he said.

  The bald man squinted at the kids while he mulled it over.

  “Yeah,” he finally said, glancing this way and that. “Maybe you should come around here and …”

  Something he saw off toward the road froze him for a second.

  “On second thought, Frank, I’m gonna be nice.” He turned back to Nick and Tesla. “I’ll let you two off with another warning. Your last, you understand? This is private property. Trespassers will be dealt with. Harshly. So stay away, for your own good.”

  The bald man—Vince, apparently—spun on his heel and strode away. When he wasn’t looming over Tesla, she could see what had changed his mind about having his friend come around the fence.

  The cul-de-sac circle by the Landrigans’ gate wasn’t empty. A black SUV was parked there, with the engine running. DeMarco and Silas, the neighborhood kids Nick and Tesla had met the day before, were riding their bikes in slow circles nearby.

  Witnesses. That’s what had made the difference.

  What would Vince and his friend Frank have done, Tesla had to wonder, if no one had been there to see it?

  Tesla started toward the street, and Nick reluctantly followed her. They were going the same way Vince had just gone, and Nick’s impulse was to run in the opposite direction.

  As Nick and Tesla got closer to the road, the SUV parked there began cruising slowly away. The windows were tinted, so Nick couldn’t see who was behind the wheel. The SUV was just a big box of black on wheels.

  Silas and DeMarco followed it for a few seconds, then circled back toward Nick and Tesla.

  “Was that the yell-y guy from the intercom?” Silas asked.

  He nodded at Vince, who’d gone in through the front gate and was walking up the driveway toward the Landrigans’ house. The Rottweilers trotted along on either side of him.

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “His name’s Vince.”

  Silas and DeMarco looked impressed.

  “We never got him mad enough to come out after us,” DeMarco said. “He’s almost as scary looking as his dogs.”

  “Jaws and Claws,” Nick said.

  Silas and DeMarco looked even more impressed.

  “Whoa,” said Silas.

  “You still trying to get your stuff back?” said DeMarco.

  Nick nodded. “It’s not going very well.”

  “You ever hear of someone named Mr. Snugg?” Tesla asked.

  The question was so out of the blue that DeMarco and Silas laughed.

  “Mr. Snugg?” DeMarco said. He threw a dubious look at Tesla’s electric pink backpack. “Sounds like the name of a cartoon cat.”

  “Ha, ha,” Tesla said stiffly. “So you don’t know him?”

  Silas and DeMarco shook their heads.

  “Who is he?” Silas asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tesla said. “But I get the feeling he’s not very nice.”

  “Oh?” said Silas.

  “Yeah?” said DeMarco.

  To them, “not very nice” was obviously very interesting.

  “You guys notice a girl over there this week?” Tesla asked them. “About our age? Kind of skinny and pale?”

  The boys shook their heads again, their eyes going wide. This was getting better and better.

  “Did you see her?” DeMarco asked.

  “Did you see through her?” asked Silas.

  Tesla groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “It’s not a ghost, guys. She’s real,” Nick said. “Did you see her, Tez?”

  Tesla nodded. “And you were right, Nick. Something’s wrong. You can tell just by looking at her.” She turned to DeMarco and Silas. “Have you ever noticed what time those renovator guys usually leave for the day?”

  “Wait,” Nick said. “You’re not thinking of sneaking in there at night, are you?”

  Tesla just threw her brother a cool noncommittal stare and said nothing.

  “They never leave for the day,” DeMarco said. “Not that we’ve ever seen.”

  “And Jaws and Claws are definitely there all the time,” Silas added. “You can hear them barking at raccoons or skunks or whatever, way after dark.”

  “Is it normal for construction dudes to live in a house they’re renovating?” Nick asked.

  Everyone gave him a “How should I know?” look.

  “As far as we can tell, they only leave the house once a day,” Silas said.

  “The van goes out every night around seven and comes back about half an hour later,” said DeMarco.

  Nick gave the boys a dubious smile. “Oh, come on. Like you guys have been spending your summer vacation keeping track of local traffic.”

  DeMarco shrugged. “There’s not much to do around here.”

  “Well, there is now,” Tesla announced. “See ya later.”

  She turned and hurried off toward Uncle Newt’s house.

  All three boys just stood there for a moment watching her go. Nick recovered from his surprise first.

  “Hey! Wait up!” he said.

  “Yeah! Wait up!” said DeMarco.

  “Yeah! Wait up!” said Silas.

  Tesla didn’t slow down, but that was okay. The boys managed to catch up, anyway.

  Nick told Silas and DeMarco about the girl as they went. Despite his shyness, there was something about the boys that put him at ease. Maybe it was the enthusiasm with which they listened.

  “Weird!” Silas said when Nick told them about the GO AWAY message the girl had flashed him.

  “Freaky!” DeMarco said when Nick told them about the way Vince had come chasing after him as his dogs ripped apart RoboSquirrel.

  “Luminous!” Silas said when Tesla jumped in to mention Mr. Snugg.

  “Luminous?” Nick and Tesla said.

  “Doesn’t that mean, like, ‘spooky’?”

  “I think you mean ominous,” DeMarco said.

  “That’s it. Ominous!” said Silas. “There’s creepier stuff going on over at the old Landrigan place than we ever thought!”

  “Creepier than ghosts?” Nick asked.

  “Oh. Well …”

  Silas and DeMarco looked embarrassed.

  “We never really believed that,” DeMarco said.

  “It made a good story,” said Tesla. “But now we’re after the truth.”

  By then they were in Uncle Newt’s house, gathered outside the door to the laboratory.

  “I think maybe you guys should wait here,” Nick said to Silas and DeMarco. “Our uncle’s sharing his lab with us, but I don’t know if he’d want anyone else down there.”

  Silas and DeMarco stared at the signs on the door.

  HAZARDOUS

  FLAMMABLE

  POISON

  HIGH VOLTAGE

  Etc.

  “No problem,” said DeMarco.

  “In fact,” said Silas, “can we wait outside?”

  “Sure,” said Nick. “But I don’t know how long we’ll be.”

  “Don’t worry. We won’t go anywhere,” said Silas.

  “We’ve been waiting for something to happen all summer,” said DeMarco. “We’re not going to miss it now!”

  “It’s nice having somebody on our side,” said Nick as he and his sister went down the stairs to the lab.r />
  “We’ll see how nice it is if we ever really need their help.”

  “They wouldn’t let us down. They seem like good guys.”

  “They’re just bored. They’ll lose interest in us the second something good comes on TV.”

  Nick shook his head. “Geez, Tez. And you always say I’m the negative one.”

  Tesla just started wandering around looking over the piles of equipment and random odds and ends.

  “So,” said Nick, “what are we down here for, anyway?”

  “Proposition: Vince is a big jerk,” she said.

  “Accepted.”

  Tesla picked up a rusty old telescope, blew off some of the dust, sniffed it, then wrinkled her nose and put it back down.

  “Proposition: Something odd is going on with that girl.”

  “Accepted,” Nick said again.

  “Proposition—”

  “Whatever it is, I accept it!” Nick interrupted. “Just tell me why we’re here!”

  Tesla stopped her rummaging and turned to face her brother.

  “Proposition,” she said calmly.

  “Agh!” groaned Nick, throwing up his hands in frustration.

  Tesla plowed ahead anyway.

  “If that girl needs help, we need to know it—and the best way to do that is to follow that van wherever it’s been going.”

  Nick was still annoyed, but now he was intrigued, too.

  “Not accepted,” he said. “Why is following the van such a great idea?”

  “Because it’s something we can do without getting chased by Jaws and Claws.”

  “Ahhh.” Nick nodded. “Accepted.”

  He started looking around the lab, too.

  “So we’re here,” he said, “to figure out how to follow the van.”

  “Exactly. We need a van tracker. Something simple, nonelectronic. Like maybe …”

  Tesla waved a hand at a pyramid of grungy paint cans.

  “Hole in can, secure can to truck, follow dribbles?” Nick said. “Maybe … only we’ve gotta figure whoever’s driving the van is going to walk around to the back sooner or later. Wouldn’t he notice the fresh paint he’s stepping in?”

  Tesla slumped and moved on. “Probably.”

  “What we need is invisible van tracking,” Nick said.