Nick and Tesla's Secret Agent Gadget Battle

by Bob Pflugfelder

  Tesla picked out the poster she hated most—it showed a little girl with eyes the size of dinner plates saying “BUT I’M TOO CUTE TO DO HOMEWORK!”—and tore it down.

  “Heh heh … I’ve been wanting to do this for weeks,” she said as she started cutting the poster with a pair of scissors.

  “Don’t hack it up too much,” Nick said. “Just enough to get it in the frame.”

  “I’ll try to control myself.”

  When the poster was cut down to size, Nick and Tesla fitted it in the frame they’d sneaked off the wall downstairs. (Uncle Newt’s patent for “Edible Cheese Jeans” was safely tucked away behind Tesla’s bed so it could be returned to the frame later.) Once the picture was in place, the kids could see where the hole for the camera lens needed to be: right through the forehead of the puppy sitting at the lazy girl’s feet.

  “This just gets better and better,” Tesla said with an evil grin.

  “Cute” wasn’t her thing.

  Twenty minutes later, she and her brother were testing the fishing line they’d strung along the wall to the doorknob. When the door was opened, the pin was pulled from the PVC pipe duct-taped to the back of the picture frame.

  The invisicam was going to work.

  “Now we just need an excuse to leave your pendant lying around again,” Tesla said.

  “It’ll have to be good,” said Nick. “It’d be a pretty huge coincidence if I just happened to get dirty all over again some completely different way.”

  “Yeah … unless …”

  Tesla got the same look in her eye that she’d had while cutting a hole in the poster-puppy’s head.

  Nick’s blood ran cold.

  “What?” he said.

  “What if it’s not a coincidence at all,” Tesla said, “because you went back for a second try at the thing you failed at before?”

  “You mean … ? Oh, no! Again?”

  Tesla nodded.

  “Again.”

  “My mind’s made up!” Nick boomed as he stomped down the stairs. “I know I can do it!”

  Tesla rushed after him.

  “But, Nick—you might end up more than muddy this time! You could get hurt!”

  Nick caught a glimpse of Ethel and Gladys peeping out of the kitchen as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He pretended not to notice.

  “Not gonna happen, Tez!” he said. “If DeMarco can jump a bike over that mud pit, so can I!”

  He marched to the front door, Tesla still at his heels, begging him to stop.

  As soon as they were outside with the door closed behind them, Nick’s forceful march turned into a reluctant trudge.

  “I’m gonna get you for this,” Nick grumbled.

  “Fine,” said Tesla. “So long as we get the spy first.”

  She hooked her arm around his and tugged him toward DeMarco’s backyard.

  Ten minutes later, Nick was back, looking like a giant Hershey bar that had been left out in the sun. He brought half the mud puddle with him. The only parts of him that weren’t dripping brown muck were his eyes. They were throwing off sparks instead.

  “Tesla lets her pendant get stolen, but I’m the one who pays for it,” he muttered. “Next time, she can be the one to dive face-first into a mud puddle. Better yet, I’ll throw her in.”

  He stopped on the porch, took a deep breath, then opened the door and stamped inside as loudly as he could.

  “Sorry about the floor … again!” he shouted. “I’ll clean it up when I’m out of the shower … again!”

  He clomped through the hall and up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, though, his movements turned slow and smooth as he slipped into his room. He had to be careful not to open the door too wide and activate the invisicam.

  The trap was set. All it needed now was bait.

  Nick reached under his glop-soaked shirt and pulled out his pendant. It was the last gift his parents had given him. His only possible lifeline to Agent McIntyre. And, for the second time that day, he was about to leave it out to be stolen.

  “See ya later,” Nick whispered to it.

  He dropped it on the floor.

  “Or not.”

  Silas’s backyard was more boring than DeMarco’s. No sandbox, no swings, no slide, no mud pit. But there would be no Elesha and Monique skulking around, either. And no Mr. and Mrs. Davison (DeMarco’s mom and dad) to call DeMarco inside because he and Silas were hanging around with one of those bad influences from up the street.

  So Silas’s yard was the logical rendezvous point. It had only that one downside.

  “I’m bored,” Silas said.

  He was stretched out in the patchy grass gazing up at the sky. There were no clouds to look at, though. Above them was a big, solid ceiling of blue.

  “Me, too,” said DeMarco.

  DeMarco wasn’t the type to just lie down and stare up at nothing, so he was riding around the yard on his bike. The front wheel had developed a bad wobble after his third jump off the slide, and he was so bored he kept hoping it would fall off. He’d wipe out, sure, but at least that would be interesting.

  “Just wait,” Tesla told the boys. “You’ll get some excitement soon enough.”

  Five minutes later, Nick showed up. He was wearing clean clothes (his third set of the day) and a dour expression.

  “What’s wrong?” DeMarco asked him. “Didn’t your picture-trap-thing work?”

  “The first part of it worked. Which is what’s wrong,” Nick said. “My pendant is gone. Someone stole it. As for the second part of the trap—”

  He held up his right hand.

  He was holding the disposable camera.

  “I don’t know if it worked or not … but this took a picture of something.”

  “Woo-hoo! We got him!” Silas exalted. “Now all we gotta do is plug the camera into a computer, and pow. There’s the bad guy!”

  He hustled across the sloping, weed-choked yard to give Nick a swat on the back.

  “Cheer up, dude! You’ll have your jewelry back by dinnertime!”

  To Silas’s surprise, Nick didn’t look reassured.

  “Plug the camera into a computer?” DeMarco said.

  “Sure! Or just look on the little view-screen thingie on the back.” Silas turned to Nick again and pointed at the camera in his hand. “Why haven’t you checked it already?”

  “Because it doesn’t have a little view-screen thingie,” Tesla said. “It’s not a digital camera. It uses film.”

  “Oh, right. Old-school.” Silas scratched his head. “So what do we plug it into?”

  “You don’t plug it into anything, Silas,” Nick said. “You take the film to be developed.”

  Silas nodded.

  “Got it!”

  The nodding slowed.

  “I think.”

  The nodding stopped.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Come on,” Tesla said, striding toward the street. “We’ll show you.”

  Usually when the four friends rode their bicycles together, DeMarco would take the lead. He didn’t want anyone in the way if there were potholes ahead, he always said. He didn’t like to miss any.

  This day, though, Nick ended up in front on the rusty old ten-speed his uncle had bought him at a garage sale. He knew where they had to go even if Tesla hadn’t said it yet. DeMarco wasn’t far behind him, but he had to work furiously just to keep up. His bike was still caked with mud from his jumps that morning, and the front wheel was wobbling and weaving wildly.

  “Hey, DeMarco! I think you hurt your bike!” Tesla called out as they rode up the street toward the Pacific Coast Highway, the busy road that separated their neighborhood from downtown Half Moon Bay.

  “Nah!” DeMarco shouted back to her. “The D-Rocket can take anything!”

  “The D-Rocket” was DeMarco’s bike.

  The second it was on the other side of the highway, the front tire blew, the handlebar broke off, and the chain came loose, all in the span of half a sec
ond.

  DeMarco let out a startled yip as the D-Rocket simultaneously swerved to the right and fell apart.

  He made a much louder sound—a full-on “AHHHHHH!”—as Tesla, unable to steer away in time, slammed into him from behind.

  Bicycles and riders hit the pavement in a tangled heap.

  Nick and Silas skidded to a stop and hopped off their bikes.

  “Are you guys all right?” Nick said as he ran to Tesla and DeMarco.

  “I’m okay,” Tesla said. She looked down at DeMarco, who was pinned between her and the wreckage of the D-Rocket. “How about you?”

  “I’ll be better … when you’re not … lying on me,” DeMarco wheezed. “I think there’s … a pedal … poking me somewhere … really sensitive.”

  “Oh! Sorry!”

  Nick helped his sister get up.

  Silas pulled DeMarco to his feet.

  “Wow,” said Nick. “Your bike is totaled, DeMarco.”

  “It’s been worse,” DeMarco said dismissively.

  Nick didn’t see how that could be true unless it had once been run over by a steamroller.

  “How about your bike, Tez?” DeMarco said. “I hope it didn’t get banged up too bad. It might not be as tough as the D-Rocket.”

  Tesla shot DeMarco a dubious look, then began separating the remnants of his bike from hers. The boys bent down to help. Soon, both bikes were on the sidewalk, one in pieces, one intact.

  Tesla had appropriated her uncle’s mountain bike for the summer, and the only part that had come loose was a small, black metal square attached to the underside of the seat. It was hanging by a single corner now, and when Tesla started to push it back into place, she discovered that it was held in position with putty.

  Tesla pulled instead of pushed on the black square, and it came free easily.

  “What’s that?” DeMarco asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Tesla held out the black square so everyone could get a look. It was about two inches across and half an inch thick, with a series of small holes on one side.

  “Doesn’t look like it would do anything,” Nick said. “Unless there’s something inside.”

  He and Tesla exchanged a somber look.

  “What could be inside it?” Silas said. “That thing’s barely big enough to hold a couple Cheerios.”

  “First things first,” said Tesla, slipping the metal square into her pocket. “We need to get that picture developed. DeMarco, what do you want to do about your bike?”

  DeMarco looked around. They were on the edge of Half Moon Bay’s downtown, just a couple blocks from Main Street, and not far away was a Dumpster-lined alley.

  “I can leave the D-Rocket there for now,” DeMarco said, nodding at the alleyway. He picked up the dented handlebar lying at his feet. “It’s not like someone’s going to ride off on it. And I’m guessing where we’re going is right around the corner anyway.”

  “You’re guessing right,” Tesla said.

  “How come everybody knows where we’re going but me?” Silas said.

  His friends chose not to answer.

  The door chime rang, and Lon Beetner looked up from the old Nikon Super Zoom 8 camera spread out in pieces on the counter in front of him. Four children were walking into his store.

  Beetner sighed, then went back to his work, carefully wiping mildew out of the camera’s film chamber.

  “Welcome to Beetner’s Cameratown and Stuff- Yourself Teddy Bear Workshop,” he droned. “You can get stuffed over there.”

  He flapped a hand at the far corner of the store. Two spinner racks were covered with assorted furs, all with limp arms and flaccid legs and round, staring eyes. Between the racks was a contraption that looked like an oversized gum ball machine, except that a black plastic hose hung from the side and the clear globe on top was filled with tufts of puffy white cotton instead of small multicolored balls.

  Written in blocky letters along the base of the machine were the words STUFFIN’ STATION.

  “We’re not here for stuffed animals,” said one of the kids—a girl who looked to be eleven or twelve. She had blue eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair and an air of unshakable confidence people twice her age often lacked.

  “Oh?” Beetner said.

  Another kid—a boy who looked strikingly like the girl, though his hair was slightly darker and his face a little rounder and his expression not nearly so self-assured—stepped forward to show Beetner a disposable camera.

  “There’s a picture on here we need. Fast,” he said. “Like, super fast. Like, right now, really. It’s an emergency. Can you help us?”

  “Can I help you?” Beetner hopped off the stool he’d been perched on and straightened up to his full six feet six inches. “Can I help you?”

  The boy nodded—and took a cringing step back.

  “Kid,” Beetner said, “there is nothing I’d rather do today than help you!”

  And he came around the counter with a huge grin on his face.

  “Gimme, gimme,” he said, holding out a big hand for the camera.

  The boy looked profoundly relieved as he handed it over.

  “I see a bunch of kids come in, I think, ‘Great. I’m gonna sell a teddy bear today. Yippee,’ ” Beetner said with a roll of the eyes. He hooked a thumb at the Stuffin’ Station. “I only put that dumb thing in ’cuz my wife says, ‘Film is dead, Lon. Everything’s digital now, Lon. You need to diversify, Lon.’ But mark my words—film’s gonna make a comeback. And when it does, Beetner’s Cameratown is going to be ready!”

  The kids looked around the store. The display cases were filled with old cameras and lenses and little boxes of film. Here and there were handmade signs.

  DISCONTINUED ITEM—WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

  LIQUIDATED STOCK—HARD TO FIND!

  BANKRUPT MANUFACTURER—RARE!

  Everything was a little dusty and a little faded and a little sad.

  “The only thing this place looks ready for,” said the biggest of the kids, “is—”

  He might have finished with “a broom,” but it was hard to tell over the other kids’ shushes. The girl elbowed him in the ribs. The littlest kid stomped on his foot.

  “Ow!” the big kid said.

  “Choo!” he added, fake-sneezing unconvincingly.

  Fortunately, Beetner was so busy examining the disposable camera he barely noticed.

  “So,” the girl said to him with a strained smile, “you can open that up and develop the film?”

  “In my sleep,” Beetner said. “But you need it fast, so I’ll do it awake. It should take me about half an hour.”

  “Excellent!” said the girl.

  “That’s great!” said the boy who looked like her.

  “Thanks!” said the short kid.

  The big kid was limping off toward the Stuffin’ Station.

  “Maybe we could stuff a bear while we wait,” he said. “I bet if you pump it up enough you could make it explode!”

  The girl caught up to him, hooked her arm around his, and yanked him toward the door.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’ve got another stop to make while we’re over here.”

  As they left, she turned to throw Beetner another “Thanks!” But he was already headed for the darkroom at the back of the store, thrilled to have a new excuse to get out his chemicals and developing trays.

  The other stop Tesla wanted to make was at the Wonder Hut, the hobby shop run by Uncle Newt’s kinda- sorta maybe-one-day girlfriend, Hiroko Sakurai. When the kids walked in, the usually sunny Hiroko was glowering at a gangly twentysomething man standing by a stack of remote-controlled blimps.

  “So this doesn’t go with the models?” the man said, holding up a box with the words MERCURY 3 REDSTONE ROCKET KIT printed on the side.

  “No, Blaine. It doesn’t,” said Hiroko. “That isn’t just a model of a rocket. It is a rocket. So it goes with … ?”

  Blaine blinked at her a moment.

  “Uhh,” he
said. “The rockets?”

  Hiroko tried to smile. It didn’t go very well.

  “Yes, Blaine. The rockets.”

  “Got it.”

  Blaine started toward the front of the store.

  “Blaine,” Hiroko said. She pointed toward a corner at the back of the store. “The rockets are over there.”

  “Oh. Right. Sure.”

  Blaine changed direction, headed up the aisle for rockets and electronics, and disappeared.

  Hiroko turned to the kids and offered them a smile that was more genuine, if still a little weary.

  “The new assistant manager,” she whispered. “Doesn’t know an ultraspeed digital gyro from a super submicro digital programmable servo.”

  Nick and Tesla shook their heads in sympathetic disbelief.

  Silas and DeMarco looked at each other and shrugged.

  “So,” Hiroko said, “what brings you in today?”

  Tesla stuffed a hand into her pocket and pulled out the little black square they’d found under the seat of her bicycle.

  “This,” she said.

  She walked up to Hiroko and gave it to her.

  “What is it?” Hiroko said.

  “We’re hoping you could tell us,” said Nick.

  Hiroko gave him a quizzical look, then turned the black square over and over, examining it from every angle.

  “Ah,” she said.

  She walked around the store’s lone checkout counter and pulled out something from under the cash register.

  A tiny flat-headed screwdriver.

  She inserted it into the side of the black square and worked it up and down. After a few seconds, the top of the square popped off.

  The kids crowded in to get a look at what it had been covering. They saw a tiny gold circuit board and green wires.

  “I knew it,” Nick said. “A tracking device.”

  Hiroko shook her head and tapped a little sliver of black mesh running alongside the circuit board.

  “That’s a microphone,” she said.