Nick and Tesla's Secret Agent Gadget Battle

by Bob Pflugfelder

  “Obviously.”

  The old ladies began spinning their mops again.

  “All right, off to the basement. All of you,” Gladys said.

  “And the first one to give us any guff gets their nostrils scrubbed,” said Ethel.

  Nobody gave them any guff. They just trooped down to the basement and let the maids slam the door behind them.

  “Reverse psychology wouldn’t work on them,” said Tesla. “But reverse reverse psychology would. Nice one, Nick.”

  She and her brother bumped fists.

  “Thanks, Tez,” Nick said.

  “What are you two so chipper about?” snapped Not-Skip. “Those little maniacs have us trapped in your basement.”

  “Wrong!” Uncle Newt grinned and spread his arms out wide. “They have trapped us in our lab!”

  Silas raised his arm as if he were anxious to call out an answer in class.

  “Ooo! We’re gonna build something, right? I’ve got an idea!” He slowly lowered his arm, disappointment spreading across his face. “Only I don’t know how the eagle’s going to see us down here.”

  DeMarco gave his big friend a pat on the back.

  “You just keep thinking, buddy. Quietly.” He looked over at Nick and Tesla. “Do you have any ideas?”

  Nick and Tesla scanned the laboratory for inspiration. Both of their gazes stopped on the same spot: the work table Oli had piled high with bags of freshly stomped compost.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Tesla. “We’ve got an idea, all right.”

  Nick just giggled.

  NICK AND TESLA’S

  Booby-Trap Balloon Drop

  THE STUFF

  • 2 small 5-ml plastic syringes (available at pharmacies)

  • 1 balloon (small, water-balloon-sized ones work best)

  • 1 length of fish aquarium tubing

  • 1 clothespin

  • Duct tape

  • 1 plastic spool (from the inside of a roll of gift ribbon) with an inside diameter of about 2½ inches (6.5 cm)

  • Hot-glue gun

  THE SETUP

  1. Remove the plungers from the syringes.

  2. Attach one end of the tubing to the pointed end of each syringe.

  3. Hold one syringe under a faucet, turn on the water, and slowly fill the tubing completely. Do this slowly to avoid adding air bubbles.

  4. Replace the plungers, and add or remove water until pushing in one syringe pushes out the other—you’re using hydraulic power!

  5. Remove the ribbon from the spool. Ask an adult to drill a hole in the spool about the same diameter as the syringe.

  6. Place the syringe through the hole in the spool with the plunger on the inside. Hot-glue it in place from both sides.

  7. Hot-glue the clothespin securely to the inside of the spool so the back of the clothespin is directly under the plunger, as shown. Adjust the plungers so that pushing on one end opens the clothespin.

  THE FINAL STEPS

  1. Time to set the trap! Fill the balloon with water and pinch the knot onto the clothespin.

  2. Balance the balloon on the edge of an elevated shelf so that it hangs off halfway.

  3. Duct tape the spool in place.

  4. Hold onto the other plunger (the one that’s not pushing on the clothespin).

  5. When your target is standing under the drop zone, push in the plunger.

  6. Get ready to see someone look really surprised.

  There was some debate over whether they should use the plastic bags the compost was already in or balloons left over from an air-powered rocket car Nick had been tinkering with.

  DeMarco and Oli voted for the bags because they knew who was going to have to fill the balloons with fruit sludge—them.

  Nick, Tesla, and Uncle Newt voted for the balloons because they were worried the bags wouldn’t burst on impact.

  And Silas voted for the balloons because “Balloons, right? Ya gotta say yes!”

  Not-Skip didn’t get a vote.

  The balloons won.

  DeMarco and Oli were right about who’d fill the balloons, and Silas didn’t seem to mind helping them no matter how messy and frustrating the work was at first. Once Oli hit on the idea of using a makeshift siphon—“Like for filling jelly doughnut with nourishing, sugar-free raspberry jam, yes?”—transferring the soppy, smelly glop from bag to balloon was a lot easier.

  Nick and Tesla, meanwhile, worked on the hydraulic controls for the dropper as Uncle Newt quickly pieced together a radio jammer from spare electronics parts.

  “Annnnnd … activate!” he said as he flipped on the makeshift gadget (which looked like an old transistor radio turned inside out). “If those cleaning ladies were able to sneak any bugs down here, they’re worthless to them now. They won’t know what’s coming.”

  “Let’s just make sure something is coming,” Tesla said. “Julie could be here any second, and there’s still a lot to do.”

  Everyone started working twice as fast. Even Not-Skip pitched in when it was time to rig the hydraulic tubes, taping them up the wall to the tilted shelf that the balloons would be positioned on, hidden behind strategically placed bric-a-brac.

  “I’ve got a date with a pepperoni pizza,” he said when Nick asked why he was helping them.

  Five minutes later, Julie returned. There was no doubt it was her entering through the back door, for after a few seconds of muffled conversation she shrieked, “YOU PUT THEM WHERE?”

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Tesla said.

  There was a burst of frantic activity as the last tubes were connected and two bulging balloons were secured on the shelf while a dozen others were tucked out of sight around the lab.

  Just as the work was finished and everyone managed to strike a nonchalant pose, the door at the top of the stairs swung open.

  “Didn’t you read the file on these people?” Julie railed. “You don’t leave them alone with technology! You don’t leave them alone with a rubber band if you can help it!”

  “Control doesn’t let us see the files,” Gladys said petulantly. “I guess we’re not important enough.”

  “Well, now you know,” Julie snapped back. “You can’t let those Holt kids or their uncle out of your sight for a second.”

  She came stomping down the steps but stopped as soon as she could see all her prisoners.

  The booby trap was at the bottom of the stairs—still another seven steps away.

  Everyone tried to appear innocent as Julie scanned the room for anything out of its proper place. But given how cluttered the lab was with miscellaneous machines, parts, experiments, and half-finished gizmos, it was impossible to tell if anything had a proper place.

  “Listen—it’s not too late to let me go,” Not-Skip said as Julie’s gaze swept over him. “I could be useful to you.”

  “You’re a thief so pathetic he let himself get caught by a couple eleven-year-olds and their dingbat uncle,” Julie replied coldly, not bothering to look at him again. “What use could you possibly be?”

  Not-Skip licked his lips, sweat glistening on his forehead. His eyes flicked for just a second to the floor at Tesla’s feet—and the trigger for the booby trap that lay there, carefully concealed behind a work table.

  Nick and Tesla shot each other a panicked glance.

  Was Not-Skip about to warn Julie? Had he “helped” them just so he could tell her exactly where the booby trap was and how it worked?

  Even Not-Skip didn’t look sure.

  “Have it your way, lady,” he finally said.

  Nick and Tesla let out sighs of relief they hoped Julie didn’t notice.

  “It’s almost time for you to deliver the message to your parents,” she said to them. “Come upstairs, and we’ll get you ready.” She turned a contemptuous glare on Uncle Newt. “You, too.”

  “No,” said Uncle Newt.

  Julie narrowed her eyes.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No,” Uncle Newt said again.

  “No,�
� said Nick.

  “No,” said Tesla. “None of us are going. You can’t make us.”

  Julie narrowed her eyes even more. By now it looked like she was squinting into the sun.

  “Maybe I can’t. But I know who can,” she sneered. “Ethel! Gladys! Get down here!”

  The maids started down the steps, mops in hand.

  “The Holts are being stubborn,” Julie said to them. “Show them why that’s a mistake.”

  Ethel and Gladys squeezed past her on the stairs. As they approached the bottom, they began spinning their mops like majorettes twirling oversized batons.

  Ethel reached the last step first but then pivoted to the left and hopped off the staircase early.

  She didn’t take the last step down to the floor. The balloons would miss her.

  As Ethel started toward Nick and Tesla, Gladys copied her turn to the left. She wasn’t going to step into the drop zone either.

  Before she could step off, however, Oli moved swiftly toward her.

  “Your little sticks and rags do not frighten me!” he declared, taking up position a few feet in front of the stair landing. “Come. Try to sweep me aside.”

  Gladys turned toward him, grinning maliciously.

  “If that’s what you really want, sugar,” she said, “I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

  “Hold it, Gladys,” Julie said, her expression turning worried.

  But she’d caught on too late. Gladys stepped off the last stair.

  Tesla dropped to her knees, snatched up the syringe there, and pushed down the plunger.

  Two balloons swollen to the size of melons dropped from their hiding place on the shelf. One hit Gladys squarely on top of the head. The other hit her right shoulder. Both burst, sending reeking yellow-brown pap splooshing out in every direction.

  Gladys grunted and stumbled, knocked off balance, while Ethel, splatted in the back by a huge glop of compost, screamed, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

  Julie reeled back in shock but managed to keep both her balance and her wits.

  “Fight, you idiots!” she bellowed at the maids. “It’s just bananas!”

  “And some apricots,” DeMarco corrected, and he pulled another stuffed balloon out of a nearby bucket and threw it at her.

  It missed. Yet when it hit the wall behind her, it still exploded in an extremely satisfying way that covered Julie’s backside in goop.

  Nick, Tesla, Silas, Not-Skip, and Uncle Newt were soon hurling banana-apricot balloons, too, while Oli latched on to Gladys’s mop and tried to wrestle it out of her small withered hands. He was finding it harder than he expected.

  “Let go, if you please, madam,” Oli said as they twisted the mop this way and that. “I do not wish to harm you.”

  “Well, ain’t that sweet?” Gladys snarled through the runny muck covering her face. “Too bad I don’t feel the same way about you.”

  Instead of pulling on the end of the mop, she pushed, sending the handle smashing into Oli’s nose.

  “Oh!” Oli cried as he staggered back a step and lost his hold on the mop. “You are not nice!”

  “Now you’re catching on,” Gladys said with a sinister smile.

  She moved toward him, the mop spinning again.

  Nick and Tesla tried to hit Gladys in the back with more balloons, but Ethel protected her partner by batting them out of the air. Anything thrown at Ethel got the same treatment. The floor around her was covered with fruit pulp and scraps of brightly colored rubber, but she wasn’t.

  The only target anyone could hit now was Julie—so that’s whom they all started aiming at.

  “Hey!” Julie yelled, toppling over backward as balloon after balloon splattered on her or nearby. “Ouch! Yuck! Knock it off! This isn’t getting you anywhere, so you might as well stop!”

  It looked like she was right. Ethel and Gladys were blocking the bottom of the stairs, and even if someone managed to get past them, Julie was splayed out on the steps drenched in slime.

  And the goo-balloons were running out. Eventually, only six were left: one each for Tesla, Nick, Silas, DeMarco, Uncle Newt, and Not-Skip. (Every time Oli grabbed one, Gladys whacked it out of his hand. And now that he had no more to reach for, she was busy trying to whack him.)

  “Wait!” Julie called out before the final balloon barrage could sail her way. “Just let me talk, would you?”

  Tesla froze midthrow.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll listen if you call off your goons.”

  She jerked her head at Gladys, who was still trying to clobber Oli.

  “Gladys! He’s had enough!” Julie barked.

  The old lady stopped lunging and thrusting with her mop, her wrinkled lips curled in a smirk. Apparently, she liked being called a goon.

  Tesla and Nick and the others lowered their last balloons.

  “That’s more like it,” Julie said. She paused to wipe some of the glop off her face. “You know this is pointless. Your escape attempt failed. So why don’t you put down those balloons and give in to the inevitable? Things might go easier for you if you do. The people I work for have been known to show mercy … occasionally.”

  “Gee, what a tempting offer,” Tesla drawled sarcastically.

  Beside her, Nick suddenly straightened and cocked his head slightly.

  He glanced at his sister and tapped a finger against one ear.

  Tesla tried to suppress a smile.

  “But what makes you think this was an escape attempt?” she said to Julie.

  “What would you call it?” Julie asked, brow furrowed.

  “Well, there is a name for it,” Tesla said. “Want to explain, Uncle Newt?”

  “I’d love to!”

  He set down his balloon and turned to a table behind him. When he faced Julie again, he had the signal jammer in his hands.

  “This has been cutting off transmissions from the house for the past ten minutes,” he said. “All your bugs have been blocked.”

  “So?” Julie said.

  “So,” said Uncle Newt, “it’s not only the mics and cameras that haven’t been sending a signal.”

  While Uncle Newt let that information sink in, a sound in the distance grew steadily louder. The sound Nick had noticed a moment before.

  The sound of sirens.

  Julie finally heard it, too. The parts of her face that weren’t coated in banana gunk went chalk white.

  “What’s going on?” Ethel asked her.

  “Our pendants—the ones with the tracking devices inside?” Tesla said. “Julie brought them back into the house. So when Uncle Newt turned his signal jammer on, Agent McIntyre lost contact with us. She wouldn’t know what was going on, but she’d know something was wrong, and—”

  “She’d call the cops,” Gladys finished for Tesla, spitting out the words so bitterly it was a wonder her dentures didn’t fly out with them.

  “Exactly,” Tesla said. “So our little ambush was what’s technically known, I believe, as a delaying tactic.”

  “Or a diversion,” Nick said.

  Tesla frowned at him.

  “I think delaying tactic captures it better.”

  “But without a diversion we couldn’t have—”

  “Aw, shut your traps, ya wisenheimers,” Gladys cut in. “Come on, Ethel. Time to blow.”

  Both old ladies spun on their heels and started to stomp up the staircase. Julie tried to get to her feet and beat them to the top, but so much slime coated the steps that she couldn’t get any traction.

  “Seems like a shame to let these go to waste,” DeMarco said, giving his last balloon a little waggle.

  “So let’s not waste ’em!” Tesla said with a grin.

  She and her brother and their friends took aim, and seconds later six sludge-swollen balloons—one red, two green, three blue—flew through the air. Knocked off balance by one crud bomb after another, Julie and her cronies slid down the stairs, ending up in a sodden, putrid pile on the basement floor.

  No
t-Skip walked up to them and gazed down at Julie, shaking his head sorrowfully.

  “Oh, look—a spy who let herself get caught by a couple eleven-year-olds and their dingbat uncle,” he said. “How pathetic.”

  Julie growled and made a half-hearted swipe at his ankles.

  Not-Skip hopped back and clucked his tongue at her.

  “Now, now. Better be on your best behavior,” he said. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

  He nodded at the top of the stairs.

  Sergeant Feiffer of the Half Moon Bay Police Department was gaping down at the strange, messy scene at the bottom of the stairs: a ninja taunting Newton Holt’s neighbor, who was on the floor under two maids covered in rotting fruit pulp and burst balloons. A California state highway patrol officer peered over the sergeant’s shoulder with wide, disbelieving eyes.

  “Why do I get the feeling it’s gonna take me a looooooooong time to write up this report?” Sergeant Feiffer said.

  “Remember when we didn’t know what the inside of a police station looked like?” Nick asked his sister.

  “I think so,” said Tesla. “It seems like a million years ago.”

  In fact, it had been just two weeks.

  Since coming to live with their uncle, Nick and Tesla had been to the Half Moon Bay police station three times.

  Sergeant Feiffer was putting the finishing touches on their statement (also their third in two weeks) as they talked. He was a mild, balding man with a fondness for the kind of short-sleeved work shirts and wide ties that had gone out of fashion twenty years before Nick and Tesla were born.

  “And there we go,” he said, clicking SAVE and looking up with a smile. “You know, I always thought I might try to write spy novels when I retire. You two have been giving me lots of practice.”

  “What comes next this time?” Nick asked.

  Sergeant Feiffer shrugged.

  “You got me. Julie and those maids aren’t talking. I can’t even get their real names out of them. And they aren’t screaming for a lawyer like most of the people who end up in a cell. It’s like they’re just sitting there waiting for something.”