Nick and Tesla's Secret Agent Gadget Battle

by Bob Pflugfelder

“What kind of logic is that?”

  “The we-know-somebody’s-after-us-but-we-don’t-know-who-so-we-shouldn’t-be-too-trusting kind.”

  “Paranoia, in other words.”

  Nick mulled that over.

  “I prefer to think of it as justifiable suspicion,” he said. “Of everyone.”

  Tesla sighed.

  “I know what you need,” she said.

  “Bodyguards?”

  “No. A distraction.”

  If there was one thing Nick liked to do more than worry, it was build stuff. Cool stuff that would do cool things. Tesla felt the same way, which was why their uncle’s basement laboratory wasn’t packed with just his experiments. The kids were always trying out new ideas, too.

  The hoop glider was pretty simple, by their standards, but that was why it was perfect. Tesla wanted something they could build fast, before Nick could start obsessing about spies again, and it might help to get him outside, too. It was a gorgeous northern California day, sunny yet cool thanks to the steady breeze coming off the ocean half a mile away.

  “Beautiful,” Tesla said, smiling up at the cloudless blue sky.

  “Is that a drone?” said Nick, frowning up at a distant black dot that was probably just a crow.

  Tesla scowled at him.

  “Come on,” she said, leading her brother out into the yard. A minute later, after their not-so-neighborly chat with Julie Casserly, Tesla was launching the glider, which promptly swooped out of Uncle Newt’s yard and bopped Mr. Jones on the nose.

  “I’m telling you,” Nick said as they walked back to Uncle Newt’s house. “Mr. Jones is the spy. I can feel it in my gut.”

  “You know, I wish you and your dumb gut would shut up!” Tesla snapped. “Is there anyone you don’t think is a spy?”

  A squirrel scampered across the lawn.

  Tesla pointed at it.

  “Watch out! A spy!”

  “Come on, Tez. I’m not being that bad.”

  A car honked in the distance. Tesla cupped a hand to her ear.

  “Hark! A spy!”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. I’m going overboard.”

  Tesla pointed at herself. “Oh, my gosh! Right next to you! Spy!”

  “Geez, Tez—I said I get it.”

  Tesla smiled.

  “Good. I know that message was scary, but there’s nothing to freak out about. I’m sure things aren’t nearly as bad as they sounded. I mean, what kind of spy’s going to waste his time on a couple eleven-year-olds?”

  Nick nodded glumly, looking unconvinced.

  Tesla wasn’t convinced either, but she’d decided not to show it.

  “Now let’s get a new straw for the glider and try it again,” she said. “And no more obsessing about spies. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Nick mumbled.

  He and Tesla crossed the patio and went through the back door into Uncle Newt’s kitchen.

  A huge man in a trench coat and fedora was waiting for them. In his right hand he was holding something long and shiny and sharp.

  “So we meet at last,” the man said in a deep voice with a heavy accent. “I have questions for you two. For your sake, I hope you have the right answers.”

  “Tez?” Nick said under his breath. “Deal’s off.”

  The long, shiny, sharp thing the man was holding was a knife.

  With a big glob of peanut butter on it.

  “Where is jelly?” the man said.

  “Jelly?” said Nick.

  “Yes! And milk.”

  “Milk?” said Tesla.

  The man nodded so vigorously his hat almost fell off.

  “Yes! I am finding loaf of the bread and butter of the peanut, but not jelly or milk. Sticks of the carrot I am also not finding.”

  “Sticks of the carrot?” said Nick.

  The man nodded again. He had a round, stubble-covered face and big eyes that bulged as he spoke.

  “Yes! Or stalks of the celery. How am I to make nutritious lunch for youngsters without these things? All I am seeing in your kitchen is can of this, box of that. Bah! You must eat hearty, fresh food if you are to grow up big and healthy and strong like Oli.”

  “Oli?” said Tesla.

  The man slapped his broad chest with his free hand.

  “Yes! Oli! From M.A.D.S.!”

  “M.A.D.S.?” Nick said.

  Tesla decided that simply repeating things the man said with a question mark was getting them nowhere.

  “Hold on,” she broke in. “Who the heck are you?”

  The man looked puzzled and a little hurt. Before he could answer Tesla’s question, Uncle Newt came up the stairs from his basement laboratory. Wisps of smoke came with him, and one side of his lab coat was singed and smoldering.

  Apparently, Uncle Newt still hadn’t perfected his compost engine.

  “Oh, hi, kids!” he said cheerfully as he walked to the refrigerator. “I see you’ve met Oli. When he’s done fixing you lunch, send him down to the lab. I have some errands for him to run.”

  He pulled a can of Coke out of the fridge, popped it open, and took a long slurp as he headed back toward the stairwell.

  “Uncle Newt,” Tesla said, “who is Oli?”

  “Me!” the man said.

  “Yeah,” said Uncle Newt. “Him.”

  He was about to go down the stairs and leave Nick and Tesla alone with the man again.

  “Stop!” Nick cried out.

  Uncle Newt turned to stare at him.

  “Maybe you should introduce Oli to us properly,” Nick said. “You know … tell us why he’s here?”

  “Oh. Okay,” Uncle Newt said. “Oli Whatever-yourlastnameis, meet Nick and Tesla Holt. My nephew and niece. Nick and Tesla Holt, meet Oli Whateverhislastnameis. My apprentice.”

  “Apprentice?” Nick said.

  Tesla was really sick of the repeating-words-with-a-question-mark thing, but she just couldn’t help herself.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Apprentice?”

  “Yes. Apprentice,” Uncle Newt said. “From the Multinational Alliance of Developmental Scientists. My union. Apparently, I agreed to have an apprentice for a few months. Oli’s going to be living here while I show him how we M.A.D. Scientists get things done.”

  “Uhhh, Uncle Newt?” said Nick. “Why do you say apparently you agreed to have an apprentice?”

  Uncle Newt grinned. “Well, you know me! I forgot the whole thing. I didn’t remember till Oli knocked on the door a few minutes ago.” His grin sagged slightly. “Actually, I didn’t even remember about it then. I still don’t remember. But hey—I must have signed up for the program, right? Why would anyone show up on my doorstep pretending to be my apprentice? That’d be crazy, right?”

  Uncle Newt was chuckling as he continued down the stairs to the basement.

  Nick and Tesla weren’t.

  Why would anyone show up pretending to be Uncle Newt’s apprentice? Easy.

  To get close to them.

  “So … where were we?” Oli said. “Oh, yes!”

  He swiveled toward the kids with the knife still clutched in his hand. The wide brim of his fedora cast a shadow over his eyes, and his expression darkened, turning determined and grim.

  “Where is jelly?” he said.

  There was no jelly, much to Oli’s dismay. There wasn’t even any fruit he could mash into jelly other than the bunches of withered brown bananas abandoned here and there around the house and a bag of apricots with FOR EXPERIMENTS ONLY—DON’T EAT!!! scrawled across the label.

  “Cocoa Pebbles? Crunch Berries?” Oli muttered indignantly as he rummaged through the shelves. “How can Dr. Newt create the science with food of this kind? A great mind requires great fuel. This is not fuel fit for mind of slug!”

  “Maybe that’s why Uncle Newt forgot you were coming,” Tesla said.

  “Yes. Perhaps,” Oli said, oblivious to Tesla’s sarcasm. “The Beefaroni and the Beanee Weenees—they have taken their toll. Aha!”

  Oli pulled out a b
ag of jelly beans and shook them triumphantly.

  “These are filled with jelly, yes?” he said. “I will squeeze the beans for to make your sandwiches.”

  “Uhh … those don’t really have jelly in them,” Nick said.

  “What?” Oli stabbed a finger at the word JELLY on the package. “You are saying this is lie?”

  “ ‘Jelly beans’ is just what they’re called,” Tesla said. “It’s like ‘hot dogs.’ No one thinks they’re made out of dogs.”

  Oli gaped at her.

  “Hot dogs are not made out of—?”

  He cut himself off and tossed the jelly beans back in the cabinet.

  “The food here is unsane!” he declared. Then he stomped to the counter and finished making the kids plain “butter of the peanut” sandwiches, which he hacked into quarters with entirely too much relish.

  “Here,” he said, heaping the sandwich wedges onto plates and thrusting them at the kids. “Nourish yourselves as you can. Later, Oli will make you real meal.”

  Nick and Tesla reluctantly accepted the plates, but neither one touched the food.

  “Oli,” Tesla said, “why are you wearing that hat and coat?”

  Oli looked down at his trench coat. There was a big dab of peanut butter stuck to one lapel. He wiped it away with a finger, then proceeded to pop it into his mouth. He grimaced slightly, as if he’d never tasted anything like it before and couldn’t decide if he should swallow.

  “When I learn I am coming to northern California, near San Francisco, I do with the Google.” Oli waggled his fingers in the air, miming typing on an invisible keyboard. “It says it can be cold, even in summer. So I dress for chill. Where I am from is always warm.”

  “Where are you from?” Nick asked.

  “Australia.”

  Nick and Tesla looked at each other. It was obvious what needed to be said next.

  Tesla raised her hands, palms toward her brother, the gesture saying, “Be my guest.”

  They turned back to Oli.

  “Australia?” Nick said.

  “Yes.” As an afterthought, Oli added, “Mate.”

  “That’s funny, Oli,” Tesla said. “Because you sure don’t sound like you’re from—”

  “Do you hear that?” Oli interrupted, cupping a hand to his ear. “Dr. Newt is calling me.”

  Nick and Tesla listened.

  They didn’t hear a thing.

  “Yes, yes. Your uncle needs me,” Oli said. “I must go to him. I am so excited to be learning how to make with the science!”

  The big man hustled from the dining room, and a moment later Nick and Tesla heard him clomping down to the basement.

  “Well, mystery solved,” Nick whispered as soon as he was sure Oli was out of hearing range. “Now the question is, what do we do about it?”

  “What do you mean, mystery solved?” Tesla asked.

  Nick blinked at her in shock. “The spy Mom warned us about.” He jerked a thumb at the doorway Oli had just left through. “I mean … duh.”

  “I don’t know,” Tesla said. “Doesn’t it seem a bit too obvious? The guy might as well have a neon sign around his neck flashing SPY! SPY! SPY!”

  “So you don’t think he’s a spy because he seems too much like a spy?”

  “I’m not saying that. It’s just that if he is a spy, he must be the worst one in the world.”

  “Then we should count ourselves lucky! We have an enemy, and he’s an idiot. Good for us! It’ll be that much easier to stay alive.”

  Tesla shook her head, still unconvinced.

  “Do you really think Mom would have been so worried about someone like Oli?” she said.

  “Oh, that’s just—!” Nick began indignantly.

  His shoulders slumped as what his sister said sunk in.

  “—a really good point,” he said. “But isn’t Oli still the most obvious suspect? It’s not like we’ve had any other mysterious strangers popping up all of a sudden.”

  The doorbell rang.

  Before Nick or Tesla could even get up to go to the door, it was swinging open, and a lean, mustachioed man in a tan jumpsuit came striding into the house. He was holding a long gold nozzle in his hands. A thin hose ran from it to a black pack strapped to his back.

  Nick jumped up from the table.

  “Fl—?” he said. “Fla—? Flam—!”

  The word he was trying to say was flamethrower.

  The man made an adjustment to the nozzle, and it began hissing slightly.

  “I hear there are some little pests around here,” the man said. He grinned malevolently. “I’m here to make sure they never bother anyone ever again.”

  Nick ran out of the room screaming.

  “Come back!” Tesla shouted after him. “He’s an exterminator!”

  “I know! I know!” Nick screeched from the kitchen.

  “Of bugs, Nick!”

  Tesla glanced back at the man in the tan jumpsuit just to make sure he wasn’t about to send a jet of liquid flame her way.

  “That is for killing termites, right?” she said, pointing at the sprayer on his back.

  “Among other things,” the man said. He jerked his chin at the door Nick had just dashed through. “Is that kid all right?”

  “He’s just been a little stressed out lately, that’s all.” Tesla turned toward the kitchen again. “Nick! It’s all right! I’m still alive!”

  Slow, soft footsteps could be heard crossing the kitchen, and then Nick eased his head around the corner.

  “You are?” he said.

  There were more footsteps, quicker but heavier, and Uncle Newt and Oli appeared behind him.

  “What’s all the yelling about?” Uncle Newt said. “I haven’t blown anything up all day.” He looked at the exterminator and grinned. “Ahh! The maid!” His gaze shifted to something behind the man. “And the exterminators, too! What timing!”

  Nick and Tesla followed their uncle’s gaze and saw a pair of tiny, white-haired women in powder- blue smocks peering into the house through the open front door.

  “Maid? Exterminators?” said Nick.

  “You mean exterminator,” the man in the jumpsuit said indignantly, thumping his chest with a thumb, “and maids.”

  “Right, fine, great, whatever,” said Uncle Newt. He began waving the maids inside. “Come in, come in! You’ve got the right place!”

  The little old ladies looked dubious, but they gathered up the supplies they’d left on the porch behind them—buckets and spray bottles and brooms and mops—and began lugging them inside.

  “Uncle Newt,” Tesla said, “what is going on?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking the place needed a little tidying up. When Hiroko dropped by yesterday, she looked a little put off by the mess. And the gnats. And the brown recluse spider on the dining room table.”

  “Brown recluse spider!” Nick yelped. “Those things are dangerous!”

  “Oh, wait. It wasn’t a brown recluse,” Uncle Newt said, chuckling at his own foolishness. “They’re not native to California.”

  Nick sighed in relief.

  “Silly me,” Uncle Newt said. “It was a black widow.”

  Nick went very, very pale.

  “Don’t worry,” his uncle assured him. “I got it and put it … uhh … somewhere.”

  Nick’s face didn’t regain any color.

  “So let me see if I understand,” Tesla said. “Nick and I come to live with you, and you don’t so much as sweep the floor. But a lady you like maybe notices some dust, and suddenly it’s time to call in the professionals?”

  Uncle Newt nodded, still grinning obliviously.

  “Yup,” he said. “Lucky for me I just happened to hear from Maids-to-Order and Verminator Pest Control yesterday. They were both running specials. First day of service is free!”

  “Yeah, right,” Tesla said, eyeing the exterminator and the maids. “How very lucky.”

  “Where you want us to start, mister?” said one of the maids.
r />   “Doesn’t matter to me,” Uncle Newt told her. “You have the run of the house.”

  “Is that really such a good idea?” Nick said, his gaze sweeping the ceiling for spiders.

  Uncle Newt didn’t hear him because the man from Verminator Pest Control spoke at the same moment.

  “How about me?” he said.

  “Oh, just go wherever they’re not,” Uncle Newt said, waving a hand at the maids. “Now come along, Oli. You’ve got a compost combustion chamber to clean out for me.”

  “And this is science?” Oli asked.

  “Of course!” Uncle Newt assured him as they turned and left. “Sort of.”

  The Verminator guy began wandering around spraying pesticide here and there at random. As he came closer, Tesla noticed a name stitched in curly gold letters over the left breast of his jumpsuit.

  Skip

  The maids just stood staring around the clutter-filled house with dazed “What have we gotten ourselves into?” looks on their faces.

  “Come along, sister,” Nick said stiffly. “Let us go outside and ‘play’ with our ‘toys.’ ”

  He wasn’t the best actor in the world.

  “There you go! There you go!” he exploded once he and Tesla were in the backyard. “Is that enough suspects for you? One of those people has got to be a spy. Or all of them, for all we know!”

  “It is weird how they all showed up the day after we got Mom’s message.”

  “Weird? It’s not weird. It’s terrifying! Our uncle’s house is filled with spies and black widow spiders! Mom and Dad might as well have sent us to live with a family of cobras in a volcano.”

  “Calm down, Nick. It was one spider, and Uncle Newt caught it. And I can think of an easy way to thwart spies.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Don’t give them anything to spy on,” Tesla said. She started walking toward the street. “Come on.”

  “So we just stay away?” Nick said as he hustled after her. “That’s only going to work for so long. We’ll have to go back eventually.”

  “I know,” Tesla said. “But hopefully when we do go back, we’ll have reinforcements.”

  Uncle Newt lived in a quiet neighborhood sandwiched by the Pacific Ocean on one side and little downtown Half Moon Bay, California, on the other. Even in the summertime, the ocean was too cold to swim in without a wetsuit, and there wasn’t much for kids to do downtown except eat frozen yogurt from the It’s-Froze-Yo! (if they had the money for it) and watch tourists pull in off the Pacific Coast Highway in search of antiques, local color, and nonfat cappuccinos.