Ruby Goldberg’s Bright Idea

by Anna Humphrey

  Dominic was programming the helicopter so that when the bucket hit the button, the helicopter would lift off the launchpad with the slippers attached and deliver them to the coffee table, where Grandpa would be waiting! TA-DA!

  Of course, there were a few glitches to work out . . . including the fact that, when the bucket of juice fell onto the helicopter button, it kept tipping sideways and pouring squashed tomatoes all over the floor of the shed. Dominic and I had to work all afternoon to get it to stay steady.

  “You ready?” Dominic asked finally as he tightened one last screw on the motor. We’d made a brace kind of thing with bent coat hangers, and it seemed to be holding the tomato bucket upright. There were still a bunch of other problems left to fix—the newspaper didn’t always land in the basket when it flew off the catapult, and sometimes the motor stalled—but we’d come a long way, and it was time for a real test run. Of course I was ready! I couldn’t wait to show the Tomato-Matic to Grandpa and see the grateful expression on his face when he realized that soon he wouldn’t have to worry about bringing in the paper or finding his slippers anymore.

  “Definitely.” I smiled.

  Minutes later Dominic and I were each tugging on one of Grandpa’s hands, pulling him across the backyard. “Close your eyes, Grandpa,” I said when we reached the shed door. We helped him across the threshold. “Okay. Open!” Grandpa grinned as he looked around the shed.

  “I barely recognize the place!” He laughed. It was true. All of the paint cans and old boxes had been pushed to one side to make room for the Rube Goldberg machine. With the clothesline pulley system and tomato ramp stretched out, our machine went from wall to wall. It looked pretty impressive. We’d even borrowed some old Christmas lights and strung them up around the sign we’d painted in ruby-red one-foot-high letters. INTRODUCING THE TOMATO-MATIC 2000!

  “Here.” I handed Grandpa a rolled up newspaper. “I think you should do the honors. Toss that onto the left side of the teeter-totter, okay?” He did, and the Tomato-Matic went to work.

  “It’s for you,” I explained as the teeter-totter tipped, pulling the string that released the bowling ball. It thudded onto the other side of the plank of wood and launched the paper directly into the wicker basket. Then Dominic’s motor whirred to life, thankfully, without a hitch.

  “When the science fair is over, I’m going to set it up in your house,” I told Grandpa. “Then every morning when the paperboy comes, he’ll throw the paper onto the plank, which we’ll set up at the front door, and this is what will happen.” By now the newspaper basket had reached the end of the pulley system. It hit the bumper pad, which released the catch and tapped the waiting tomato, which started its descent down the ramp. At the same time, the basket tipped and the newspaper fell squarely onto the coffee table that waited below.

  “Would you look at that!” Grandpa said, obviously impressed.

  The tomato reached the middle of the ramp and hit the lever that released the mannequin arm. WAP! The disembodied hand smacked the tomato to oblivion, sending seeds and juice flying everywhere. “That part is a bit messy,” I explained.

  Grandpa watched with fascination as the juice dripped down the ramp, filling the bucket and stretching the ropes to their breaking point. BAM! The bucket landed on top of the sensor that turned on the helicopter. But without warning the brace we’d built with bent coat hangers gave out, sending the bucket tipping sideways and releasing a sea of mashed tomato across the floor.

  “Oh, no!” Dominic said. We’d been almost positive that we’d finally worked that bug out. “That’s not supposed to happen,” he said apologetically.

  Still, the helicopter rose off its launchpad into the air, circling in a perfect arc, before setting the slippers down gently beside the coffee table.

  Grandpa laughed and shook his head. “Now, that’s one way of making tomato juice I’ve never seen before,” he said. And that was when I realized he’d kind of missed the point. I mean, yes, the machine made tomato juice, but that wasn’t its real job.

  “See the slippers and newspaper,” I pointed out. “It does the things Tomato used to do for you. That’s why it’s called the Tomato-Matic. It’s like your new best friend! The tomato squishing part was just extra. That was Dominic’s idea.”

  All of a sudden Grandpa seemed to stiffen. He cleared his throat. Then he got kind of quiet.

  “Do you like it?” I asked, almost jumping up and down. Except for the tomatoes spilling, it had been one of the best runs the machine had ever had, and I was so proud Grandpa had been there to see it.

  Instead of answering, Grandpa walked over to the machine, picked up the newspaper, and stared at the front page.

  “Obviously that’s an old paper. We just used it for the test. When we set it up for real, it’ll be the one from that morning.”

  “I see. So this is my new dog, is it?” Grandpa said finally. He put down the paper, walked over to the tomato bucket, and set it upright. “Messier than the old one.”

  I thought he was making a joke, so I laughed. “Don’t worry, Grandpa. We’ll fix that part somehow.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said, looking up at me now. His mouth was a tight, straight line. It wasn’t an expression I saw often on Grandpa’s face. “It’s the rest of it that worries me.” He took a step back to look at the entire machine. “Ruby, how would you feel if someone tried to replace Penny with cables and ramps?” Grandpa asked.

  It was a crazy question. Of course a machine could never replace Penny!

  “Penny isn’t a dog,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

  “Tomato wasn’t just a dog either. He was my best friend for thirteen long years. He was a lot more to me than a newspaper and slippers fetcher.”

  “I know that, Grandpa. I didn’t mean that it’s like a real dog, but the machine can help you. Doesn’t it make you feel a little bit better?”

  “No, Ruby,” he snapped. “It doesn’t. It makes me feel worse, if you want to know the truth. You know I adore you, but every now and then I wish you knew when to call it quits.”

  Grandpa’s words hit me harder than a newspaper-filled basket to the head. When everyone else was telling me to stop showing off, stop taking their stuff for science experiments, stop making everything a contest, he’d always been the one encouraging me to explore new things and try a little bit harder to reach my goals. But now I knew the truth. He thought I took things too far too, just like my parents, and the kids at school, and everyone else except Penny.

  “The Tomato-Matic,” Grandpa said, and sighed, looking at our lit-up sign. “I’ll tell you one thing. This might be an impressive piece of machinery, but I liked my old dog better.”

  I felt my eyes start to sting, and I knew the tears wouldn’t be far behind. I picked up my backpack and ran out the shed door.

  “Wait, Ruby!” It was Dominic, coming down the driveway toward me. “Are you okay?” I wiped furiously at my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to blot the tears that were trickling down my face now.

  “Sure.” I said, swinging one leg over my bike. “I’m fine. I just have to go home now, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” Dominic said, putting his backpack on. “Okay. Yeah. Me too.” He took a few steps toward the street, but then stopped and turned around. “Are you sad because your grandpa didn’t like it?” he asked, blinking from underneath his bangs.

  “It’s fine,” I said, not wanting him to see how upset I was. Everyone already thought I was too competitive and too much of a show-off. The last thing I needed to hear was that I was too sensitive as well.

  “Okay,” Dominic said. “But if you were—sad, I mean—I’d understand. I still think it’s a great machine. And I bet your grandpa does too. He probably didn’t mean what he said.”

  I kind of doubted that. Grandpa was such a careful, thoughtful, kind person. He wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true. That was what made it hurt most of all. Still, it was nice of Dominic to try to ma
ke me feel better.

  “Sure.” I said, even though I didn’t believe it. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  I took the long way home, circling through the park and then using the trail that ran along the river, but I was careful to leave myself enough daylight to get home safely.

  The streetlights were just coming on as I reached my house, which was probably why I didn’t notice Penny until I was partway up our front path—even though she should have been extremely noticeable. After all, it’s not every day you come home to find a peacock sitting on your steps. Her skirt was bright yellow with green and blue eye shapes painted on it. Rows of colorful sequins ran around the bottom. She was also wearing a feathered headband and had thick green lines painted around her eyes. I could see that she was twirling her hair around one finger, that way she always does when she’s nervous or upset.

  “Penny!” I exclaimed, coming to a stop in front of her. “Your costume is so beautiful.”

  “Is it?” she said, raising her arms. Her peacock skirt glittered in the streetlights. “I didn’t think you’d notice.” And that was when I saw that the green face paint around her eyes was smudged, like she’d been crying.

  I got off my bike, dumped it on the lawn, and went to sit beside her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She sniffed. “I was wondering the same thing about you when you didn’t show up at my dress rehearsal. That’s why I came straight here after, to see if you were all right . . . but your mom said you were still at your grandpa’s.”

  The dress rehearsal! It had been that afternoon, and I’d promised to be right in the front row, where Penny could see me. That’s what she’d meant on Friday when she’d said she’d see me the next day! I couldn’t believe I’d completely forgotten!

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. Penny’s face softened. “I should have remembered. It’s just that Dominic and I were so close to finishing the Tomato-Matic 2000. It wasn’t looking so good for a while, but today we finally found a way to steady the bucket of tomato juice when it lands on the helicopter trigger. We realized that if we built a brace out of bent coat hangers—except it didn’t exactly work. Plus, you won’t believe what my Grandpa said to me—”

  “AGGHhhh!” Penny got up off the step and put her hands on her hips. Her skirt flared out around her in the breeze as she faced me. “Really?” she said. “You’re talking about coat hangers right now?”

  “What?” I answered helplessly. “What’s wrong with coat hangers?”

  “Nothing! It’s just that lately all you talk about is Tomato-Matic this and Tomato-Matic that.”

  “But,” I said, my voice small, “I thought you wanted to know about it.”

  “Of course I do,” she said. “But it would be nice if you cared about my life sometimes too. You promised you’d be at the dress rehearsal.”

  “I know,” I said meekly. “But I just forgot. I mean, there are so many details to remember for the science fair, and I—”

  “Best friends don’t forget,” Penny said. “No matter what else is going on. I always do my best to help you, and you couldn’t even remember to do this one thing for me!”

  “Penny! I—”

  But she didn’t let me finish. She turned, her feathers swaying in the wind, and strutted up the path with her head held high, not looking back even once.

  • • •

  At first I wasn’t worried. Penny hardly ever got mad at me, and she never stayed that way. Even the time when I threw her favorite fairy doll off the playhouse in first grade to make it fly, she hadn’t held it against me for long. She just got her dad to superglue the head back on and forgave me later that afternoon.

  But when I tried to call her after dinner, I started to see that this was much more serious than a beheaded fairy. She refused to even come to the phone.

  “Maybe she just needs some time to cool down,” Dominic suggested when we met early the next morning at my grandpa’s house.

  “Maybe,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure. Dominic was a genius when it came to electronics (I couldn’t believe how perfectly he’d programmed the helicopter to always land in the right spot with the slippers), but he clearly didn’t know very much about girls. I’d hurt Penny’s feelings badly, and if I wanted to make it up to her, giving her time to cool down wasn’t going to cut it. I was going to have to do something big . . . something to show her how truly, honestly sorry I was. I just wasn’t sure what yet. Then I also had the problem of Grandpa to worry about. When we got to his place, he acted like he was busy cleaning out a closet that was filled with some of Tomato’s old leashes and toys, and he barely said anything to me—so I knew that Dominic had been wrong. Grandpa really had meant what he’d said. Just like Ms. Slate and all the kids at school, he thought I was obsessed with winning and never knew when to stop. And with Penny mad at me, as sad as that was, now the only person I had on my side at all was Dominic.

  “What if we twisted the coat hangers around something really heavy to form a solid base?” Dominic suggested. “Then the bucket wouldn’t be able to tip.” We were standing in the shed, trying to fix the machine’s last and messiest problem. “Like these,” he said, picking up some bricks that were stacked next to the lawn mower.

  It seemed like a decent idea, so we got started, untwisting the ends of the coat hangers with pliers, then re-twisting them through the holes in the bricks. But it was slow, boring, and frustrating work. The coat hangers were stiff, and the pointy ends kept springing loose from the pliers and scratching my arm.

  “Aaaargh!” I shouted when I lost my grip on the hanger for about the millionth time. “I hate this!”

  “It is a little tricky,” Dominic said calmly. “You’ll get better control if you hold the pliers closer to the end of the wire.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, giving the Tomato-Matic a dirty look. “I mean I hate this whole machine. I wish we’d never built it!” After all, it had ruined everything. Not only had the Tomato-Matic hurt Grandpa’s feelings and made him mad at me, but it had caused me to have a fight with Penny, too. If the science fair hadn’t been just a day away, I would have kicked the machine.

  “You hate our project?” Dominic said.

  What? Had I not said it loudly enough? “Yes. I do!” Dominic didn’t answer. He just stared at me, looking baffled. Then he blinked in that infuriating way he had. The he blinked again. Then again! Suddenly I couldn’t stand it a second longer.

  “Stop blinking at me!” I yelled.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean exactly what I said,” I answered. “Stop opening and closing your eyes. It’s annoying.” I tried to go back to untwisting my coat hanger, but I lost my grip on it again and it sprung loose, digging into my arm. This time my arm actually started to bleed a little. “Oh, forget it!” I said, throwing down my pliers. “I can’t stand this anymore. You finish it!”

  “Okay,” Dominic said softly. He was holding his eyes wide open in this ridiculous way now. Instantly I felt terrible. Dominic was trying so hard to help me. He was the last person I should have been mad at. Actually, the only person I should have been the least bit angry with was myself. If I’d been a little more considerate of the people who were always on my side, I could have prevented all these problems in the first place.

  “I’m sorry, Dominic,” I said. “I didn’t really mean any of that. You can blink all you want to. It’s probably good for your eyes, I bet. I should do it more myself.” I blinked my eyes about ten times in a row to show him how much I meant it.

  “It’s okay,” he said gently. “I know you’re just frustrated. I’ll finish the coat hangers. Go home and take a break or something. You did the whole first part of the machine on your own anyway, so I owe you.”

  There he was again, saying he owed me when really he didn’t. I could see that now. He was a nice person—and if he’d copied my projects before, it wasn’t to steal the gold medal from me. After all, scientists were always copying one ano
ther, and then building on to one another’s discoveries. It was how they made progress and learned new things.

  “Thanks, Dominic,” I said. “You’re a good friend.” I could hardly believe those words were coming out of my mouth, but they were true. “I probably should go take a break. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  I pedaled my bike home furiously, letting the wind whip through my hair. I rode twice around the block, then took a detour through the park, trying to clear my head. Two girls my age were on the swing set, laughing their heads off as they swung high enough to almost flip over the bar. I knew one of them from summer camp, so I smiled at her, but she was too busy giggling to notice. I kept pedaling past an older couple bent over near the jungle gym, where they were trying (and failing) to keep a baby from eating big handfuls of sand. Then I whizzed past a man who was throwing a ball for his dog. It was a blue one with red stripes, just like the one Grandpa used to throw for Tomato. I pedaled faster, eager to leave the park behind now. All the happy friends, caring grandparents, and ball-chasing dogs there only made me feel sadder about everything that was going on.

  When I got home, I parked my bike around back and went into the kitchen. Getting mad always makes me hungry, and I was craving crackers and cheese. I found my sister in the kitchen, where, as usual, she was doing the same thing I wanted to do—only better. She’d arranged Melba Toasts on a plate and topped them with slices of Swiss cheese and fresh herbs, and was just popping her plate into the microwave.

  “Cheese and crackers show-off,” I muttered under my breath as I went to get the Kraft Singles and soda crackers.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” Sarah said sarcastically, putting a basil leaf into her mouth and chewing it. “What’s wrong? Trouble in science-fair-land?” She plopped down on a chair and hugged her knees to her chest.

  “No,” I said. “We’re almost finished with the machine.”

  “Well, good!” she answered. “So now you’ll finally stop stealing my stuff?”