Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab

by Bob Pflugfelder

  A name popped into Nick’s head, and he said it out loud.

  “Mr. Snugg. The mastermind.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Mr. Sunshine,” Tesla said. “(A) We don’t know it’s Mr. Snugg. (B) We don’t know that Mr. Snugg is the mastermind behind anything. And (C) ‘mastermind’ is a really silly word.”

  “Well, (D) I’ve still got a bad feeling about this,” said Nick.

  “(E) Me, too,” said DeMarco.

  “(G) I’m freaking out here,” said Silas.

  Nick was about to point out that he’d skipped F, but he stopped himself. There were bigger things to worry about just then.

  He looked back again. The other kids were all looking back, too.

  The black SUV was still behind them.

  Another car pulled out around it and cruised off down the road. Yet still the SUV didn’t speed up.

  “It’s like he’s waiting till there’s no one else around,” Nick said. “When it’ll just be him and us out here in the dark.”

  “Okay,” said Tesla. “Now you’re freaking me out.”

  “Let’s get out of here!” Silas said.

  He shot past on Nick’s right, pedaling furiously. A second later, DeMarco and Tesla zipped by, too.

  “Come on!” Tesla called over her shoulder.

  “I’m going as fast as I can!” Nick shouted back.

  It was true. The harder he pumped his legs, the more his feet just slipped off the little pedals of Elesha’s bike.

  The road went quiet and dark as Silas, DeMarco, and Tesla drew farther away. There were no cars passing them, and none coming in the opposite direction, either. The road was deserted.

  Almost.

  Everything around Nick suddenly lit up. Headlights were drawing up close behind him.

  He looked back again.

  The SUV was still there—and it was speeding up.

  “Shortcut!” DeMarco yelled, and he cut his bike right and disappeared into the blackness beside the road.

  Silas and Tesla followed him.

  The light around Nick grew brighter. The headlights were getting closer.

  He had a choice: The danger he knew or the danger he didn’t.

  He chose the latter and veered off into the void.

  He found himself careening down a steep slope. It must have been rocky, because every few seconds he ran over something big and hard that sent the bike’s banana seat slamming up into him like a fist hitting way below the belt.

  “Woo hooooo!” he heard DeMarco hoot.

  “Ow ow OW ow ow OW OW ow ow ow OW,” said Nick.

  Eventually, the ground leveled out and Nick was whizzing over nice soft grass and weeds. Up ahead he could see three silhouettes as they whooshed through the brush, headed toward what looked like another road. There were no cars in sight.

  Then lights appeared.

  The SUV was turning onto the street ahead.

  “Go, go, go, go, go!” DeMarco yelled.

  He zipped over the road and whooshed into the brush on the other side. A moment later, Silas and Tesla did the same.

  Nick was thirty feet behind them, and the SUV was getting closer.

  Nick tried to focus on pedaling firmly, not frantically. Breathing deeply, not panting. Muttering “Come on, come on, come on,” not screaming his head off as he popped out onto the road.

  And it worked. He reached the other side before the SUV could shoot ahead and flatten him.

  The ground Nick found himself riding over was even rougher than before, and it looked like DeMarco was leading the kids straight into some trees. Yet Nick just kept pedaling as hard as he could. Better to smack face-first into a giant redwood than stop and see what the driver of that SUV was up to now.

  “Single file!” DeMarco called out as he reached the trees, and DeMarco, Tesla, and Nick fell into line behind him.

  A second later, they were all bumping along a rough trail cutting through the forest. It was narrower than Nick would have liked—he could feel branches and cobwebs and who-knew-what brushing over him in the gloom—but there was no way a sport utility vehicle could fit on it, and that counted for a lot.

  The trail emptied out onto a grassy hill. DeMarco and Silas whooped triumphantly as they rode out onto it.

  They’d made it! They were safe at last!

  “Wooo—” Nick said.

  He never got to “hooo!” Instead, he let loose with an “Ahhh!” as his front tire rammed into something in the dark and the bike stopped cold. Nick’s momentum sent him flying over the handlebars and crashing face-first into what felt like moist, sticky sand.

  “Nick!” he heard Tesla shout.

  Almost instantly, she was by his side. DeMarco, too.

  “Are you all right?” Tesla said.

  “I think so,” Nick said as he pushed himself up and brushed himself off.

  He could see now what he’d hit: a sandbox he’d noticed earlier that day.

  They were in DeMarco’s backyard.

  DeMarco was looking down at the little bike Nick had just been catapulted from. The front wheel had been bent into an oval by the impact.

  “Oh, man,” DeMarco said, shaking his head. “Elesha’s gonna kill you.”

  Nick looked back at the trail. Through the trees, he could see the distant twinkle of headlights moving away, then fading into the night.

  “Well, she’ll have to move fast,” Nick said. “It looks like she’s got competition.”

  The kids had less than a minute to discuss what to do next. “Should we tell any grown-ups?” was barely out of Silas’s mouth when the patio light came on and a sharp voice called out, “DeMarco Martin Davison, where have you been? Why can you never remember to tell me where you’re going? Are you trying to get yourself in trouble? Is that Silas with you? Did he remember to tell his parents where he’d be? Have either of you ever stopped to ask yourselves why you’re getting grounded all the time? Is it some big mystery to you? Do you even know what time it is? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Do you? Well? Do you?”

  And on and on DeMarco’s mother went. She didn’t really seem to expect any answers. She just kept pelting her son with questions as he trudged toward the house and went inside.

  The patio light went off.

  “I’d better get home, too,” said Silas. “Mrs. Davison’s probably calling my mom right now. If I’m not back within five minutes, you won’t see me outside till August.”

  He started to get on his bike, then stopped and squinted at Nick’s face.

  “You might want to take a shower,” he said. “Every cat in the neighborhood visits that sandbox.”

  Nick brought up a hand and felt a clump of soggy sand still stuck to his right cheek.

  “Ew!” he said.

  “See ya!” Silas said as he rode away. “Don’t get into any more car chases until DeMarco and I find you tomorrow!”

  “We won’t!” Tesla said. She gave him a good-night wave and then turned to her brother. “You know, you were right about those guys. They’re all right.”

  Nick barely heard her. He’d just noticed all the damp sand in his hair.

  “Ew!”

  Nick and Tesla skulked and slinked and sneaked their way toward Uncle Newt’s house, just to be safe. But they never spotted the black SUV … even though Nick realized when they were halfway home that the driver might know exactly where they were going.

  “He saw us in front of the Landrigan place, so he knows we live nearby,” he said, still rubbing obsessively at his hair. “In fact, now that I think of it, he might know exactly where we live.”

  “How would he know that?”

  “The name we gave our air rocket.”

  “Why would that …? Oh.”

  Tesla had painted The Albert and Martha Holt right on the side of the bottle.

  Uncle Newt’s last name was Holt, too.

  “Yeah. Oh,” Nick said. “If Mr. Snugg got hold of that rocket, two minutes on the Internet would be all
he’d need to find us.”

  “Like I said before, we don’t know it was Snugg in the SUV,” Tesla said. “But if it was and he’d been able to look up Uncle Newt’s address, why would he try to get us on the road just now? He could just wait at the house for us.”

  Nick pondered that a moment.

  “Maybe that’s the back-up plan,” he said.

  He and Tesla stopped and looked at each other.

  After that, they started skulking and slinking and sneaking even slower, with lots of glances over their shoulders.

  When Nick and Tesla finally slipped safely inside their uncle’s house, they found it even more cluttered than before. The dining room was packed with boxes and bags and stacks of cans and cartons. There were soups, cereals, peanut butter, and ramen noodles by the case and a stack of video games and DVDs that reached almost to the ceiling.

  “I didn’t know what you guys like,” Uncle Newt said. “So I just got one of everything.”

  “Oh, my gosh, Uncle Newt,” said Tesla, looking around in wonderment. “This must have cost you a fortune.”

  Uncle Newt shrugged dismissively. “Oh, I don’t care. You know those new bacon straws everyone’s gone nuts for? That was me. Prechewed food, too.”

  “Bacon straws?” said Nick.

  “Prechewed food?” said Tesla.

  Their uncle looked puzzled.

  “Those aren’t popular?”

  Nick and Tesla shook their heads.

  “Well, I sold the patents, anyway,” Uncle Newt said. “And dozens of others. I guess not all of it has made it to the public yet, but I’m doing okay. Say, wanna try some prechewed food? It’s all the flavor with none of the work!”

  “No, thanks,” Nick and Tesla said at the same time.

  “Try it. You’ll like it. Comes in a tube, just like astronaut food. You can even eat it with a bacon straw!”

  Eureka the bald cat sauntered into the room and began sniffing Nick in a way that seemed to make him very, very nervous.

  “I’ve got to take a shower,” said Nick, hurrying toward the staircase. “But after that, I’d love some Cocoa Puffs!”

  Uncle Newt looked disappointed.

  “Sure. If that’s what you really want,” he said. “We’ve got fresh milk, too.”

  “Great! I’ll be back in a minute. I’m starving!”

  Nick went bounding up the stairs.

  Tesla was hungry, too. But she had something on her mind other than cereal.

  “Uncle Newt,” she said, “what would you say if I told you something weird was going on around here?”

  “I’d say, ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ When Julie from next door saw me unloading all this stuff, she came over to ask where her new garden gnome was. And when I told her I didn’t have one, she got mad! The woman’s certifiable.”

  “I’m not thinking of Julie. It’s … it’s … oh, never mind.”

  “Come on, Tesla. Lay it on me. I’m a good listener.”

  Tesla didn’t mean to look skeptical, but she must have, all the same.

  “Really!” Uncle Newt said. “I know I can seem a little checked-out sometimes, but I want to be here for you.” He stood a little straighter and squared his shoulders, like a soldier reporting for duty. “Please. Tell me whatever you’d tell your mom and dad if they were here.”

  Of course, the first thing Tesla would say to her mom and dad would be, Why did you send us here and can’t we go home now, please, please, please?

  Tesla took in a deep breath and told Uncle Newt what she would have said to her parents after all that.

  And he was a good listener. He didn’t even get distracted when Nick came downstairs wrapped in a towel and began listening in over a bowl overflowing with Cocoa Puffs and Golden Grahams and Frosted Flakes.

  When Tesla was done telling Uncle Newt about the rocket and the pendant and the girl and Vince and Frank and their dogs and Mr. Snugg and the black SUV, he sat quietly at the dining room table for a moment, hands steepled, brow furrowed.

  “It is weird,” he finally said. “But…‘We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.’ ”

  “Sou li Uh-huh raoh,” Nick said through a mouthful of soggy cereal.

  “Excuse me?”

  Nick swallowed and tried again.

  “Sounds like Occam’s razor.”

  “Exactly,” Uncle Newt said with an approving nod. “I was quoting Isaac Newton’s version of it.”

  “Mom and Dad used to talk about Occam’s razor all the time,” Tesla said. “ ‘Simple explanations are usually better than complicated ones.’ It’s a good rule, I guess … but what does it have to do with us?”

  Uncle Newt shrugged. “Maybe Vince or Frank is Mr. Snugg. Maybe they’re just trying to protect all the expensive new fixtures they’re putting in the house. Maybe the girl’s just an unfriendly Landrigan or Vince or Frank’s unfriendly daughter.”

  “And the black SUV?” Tesla said.

  Uncle Newt stood up and headed for the kitchen. “That’s what I’m going to call the police about.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Newt,” Tesla said.

  At least he was taking something she’d said seriously.

  While Uncle Newt talked on the phone in the kitchen, Tesla looked over the booty in the dining room. Watching her brother shovel down gloopy brown sludge turned her off cereal, so she looked through the soups instead.

  It was a good thing she liked chicken noodle. Her uncle had bought two hundred cans. It was as if he wasn’t stocking up for a summer visit: He was preparing for a siege.

  Tesla was about to go hunting for a can opener when Uncle Newt returned.

  “Your new friends seem to have told the same story to their parents,” he said. “Apparently, I was the third person to call about a black SUV following kids. So, don’t you worry. The police are going to be on the lookout for it.”

  “Excellent,” said Nick.

  “Good,” said Tesla.

  Yet, they must not have sounded sincere enough.

  “Believe me, guys,” Uncle Newt said. “There is no skullduggery in Half Moon Bay. We’re boring. Nothing sinister or dangerous ever happens around—”

  There was a muffled boom, and the house shook.

  “Uh-oh,” said Uncle Newt. “That would be the kiln blowing up again. It’s fine up to three hundred degrees Celsius, but after that? Kerblooey!”

  A wisp of smoke swirled into the room.

  “Excuse me.”

  Uncle Newt hurried off to the lab.

  Tesla turned to her brother. “Feeling reassured?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  Tesla sucked in a deep breath. By the time she was blowing it out again, she had a plan.

  “First, I am going to eat two cans of chicken noodle soup,” she said. “Then we’re going to make sure whoever was in that SUV doesn’t come get us before we can go get him.”

  NICK AND TESLA’S

  CHRISTMAS-IS-OVER INTRUDER ALERT SYSTEM

  THE STUFF:

  • 1 string of old Christmas tree lights (or a 12-volt LED bulb from any electronics store)

  • 1 9-volt battery

  • 2 quarters

  • Paper

  • Tape

  • String

  • Scissors

  • 1 thin, flexible, plastic-coated wire available at any electronics store (the length will vary depending on your needs)

  THE SETUP

  1. One end of the alarm system will be near a door. The other end will be in your Intruder Alarm Notification Center (a.k.a., wherever you want the alarm light to be). Determine how much wire you’ll need by measuring from the bottom of the door to the spot you’ve chosen for the light. You might want to give yourself a little extra wire, so you can tuck it away out of sight.

  2. Be sure the old Christmas tree lights are unplugged. Use scissors
to snip off a single light. Leave a little extra wire (about 1 inch [2.5 cm]) hanging from light.

  3. Test the light by touching each end of the wire running from it to the 9-volt battery. The bulb should come on.

  4. Cut two equal lengths of wire based on your measurements from step 1. We will call them Wire A and Wire B.

  5. Use the scissors to remove ½ inch (1.25 cm) of plastic casing from the ends of Wire A, Wire B, and the Christmas light wires. Ask an adult if you have trouble with this step.

  6. Tape one end of Wire A to either metal tab on the battery.

  7. Twist one end of Wire B onto one of the light bulb wires.

  8. Tape the other light bulb wire onto the remaining metal tab on top of the battery.

  9. Tape the remaining ends of Wires A and B to separate quarters. When the quarters touch, the bulb should light up.

  THE FINAL STEPS

  1. Place the battery/bulb assembly in your Intruder Alarm Notification Center.

  2. Put the quarters near the door.

  3. Attach a string to a small piece of paper.

  4. Place the paper between the quarters to keep them from touching.

  5. Tape the other end of the string to the door so that, if the door’s opened, the paper will be pulled away, allowing the quarters to touch and thus turning on the light.

  6. Wait for an intruder.

  Nick and Tesla got the light for their alarm system from the Christmas tree in the hallway.

  “Uncle Newt’s gonna be mad when he finds out we cut this up,” Nick said as they unwound the string of lights from the tree.

  “He’s not going to notice,” said Tesla. “It’s June. We have plenty of time to buy him new lights before he gets in the Christmas spirit again.”

  “I’m not so sure, Tez.…”

  Uncle Newt was singing “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” (or, as he called it, “Boppin’ along the Christmas Thing”) as he cleared the smoke from the kiln explosion out of the basement.

  Nick and Tesla realized they only needed to wire the back door. The front, Nick remembered, already had an alarm of sorts: the pressure-sensitive doorbell ringer under the welcome mat. If Mr. Snugg or Vince or Frank tried to get in that way, Nick and Tesla would know they were there before they even touched the lock, let alone picked it.