Leon and the Champion Chip

by Allen Kurzweil

  “No, we can’t,” said Thomas Warchowski. “That clock’s busted.”

  “In that case, share your watches,” said Mr. Sparks. “The point is, analyze both the data you gather today and the data collected last class.

  “And one last thing. Keep good records. Lab notebooks often hide secrets that only reveal themselves later!”

  Within minutes the groups were announcing their results.

  “Orange chips burn better than yellow chips!” said Flossy Parmigiano.

  “Sour creams burn better than plains,” said Antoinette Brede.

  “Crinkle cuts light up more than non-crinkle cuts,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Anyone want a barbequed barbeque chip?” Thomas Warchowski called out.

  Thirty minutes and a box of safety matches later, the groups all came to the same conclusion: Kale chips were the only ones that were flameproof.

  “So, let’s address Flossy’s question one more time,” said Mr. Sparks, holding up a kale chip. “Why is this chip different from all other chips?”

  “How are we supposed to figure that out?” Lumpkin grumbled.

  “By thinking scientifically,” said Mr. Sparks. “By analyzing the collected data.”

  Thomas Warchowski ventured a guess. “Is it because they’re salt-free?”

  “You tell me,” said Mr. Sparks. “Justify your reasoning.”

  “Well, I checked my notes from last week—only one chip is salt-free.”

  “That’s not true,” said Leon. He knew the ingredients of all the chips by heart. “You must be reading the chart wrong.” He ran over and grabbed the Wall Street Blue Chips. “See, Antoinette’s chips are salt-free, too, and they burn like paper.”

  “Let me see,” said Thomas Warchowski. He read the label. “You’re right,” he said glumly. “No salt.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Thomas,” said Mr. Sparks. “I keep telling you guys, mistakes are often the scientist’s greatest ally. Take space travel. Every time NASA sends up a rocket and something goes wrong, they convene an FRB—that stands for Failure Review Board. Many of the greatest developments in the history of modern aeronautics have emerged from FRB meetings focused on errors. Check through your notebooks and see if you can find the key variable affecting flammability.”

  For a few minutes, the only sound in the lab was the rustle of turning pages.

  “I’ve got it!” yelled Flossy Parmigiano. “I know why my chips don’t burn. It’s because they’re low-fat!”

  “Justify the hypothesis,” Mr. Sparks said formally.

  “Well, I double-checked my notebook and all the bags. Kale chips are the only ones that are low-fat.”

  “Hey, that makes sense,” said P.W. “In fourth grade we learned about tallow candles—and tallow’s a kind of fat.”

  “Well done,” said Mr. Sparks. “You have very ably found the key variable that explains why low-fat chips are flameproof. Fat is indeed an excellent source of energy.”

  Leon leaned over and whispered to Lily-Matisse, “Maybe that explains Lumpkin’s bully power.”

  “The flame,” Mr. Sparks continued, “indicates that fuel is present. That’s what generates an exothermic reaction, which is a jazzy way of saying that heat has been freed.”

  The bell rang.

  “And that’s the school’s way of saying it’s time for us to be freed!” P.W. wisecracked.

  “Not so fast,” said Mr. Sparks. “Let’s wrap things up. What have we learned?”

  “That Flossy’s chips burn as bad as they taste?” said Thomas Warchowski.

  “I suppose that’s true,” Mr. Sparks acknowledged. “But I’m searching for a broader conclusion.”

  Foot tapping, knuckle cracking, and stool swiveling spread through the lab.

  “I’ll put you out of your misery,” said Mr. Sparks. “We’ve learned that scientific knowledge is cumulative. Flossy combined classification and experimentation to solve the stubborn mystery of the flameproof chip. By doing so, she showed us that breakthroughs often piggyback on past discovery. Now scram!”

  As the fifth graders were filing out of the lab, Mr. Sparks stopped them in their tracks. “Hold on!” he said. “I almost forgot. A good scientist always puts things away.”

  The news prompted widespread groans until Mr. Sparks reached into a bag of chips and said, “Anyone want to help me get rid of this extra research material?”

  There was a stampede back to the teacher’s bench. The fifth graders devoured the chips that hadn’t been set on fire. One student, however, chose not to assist with cleanup, despite a deep-felt love for deep-fried tubers. Leon resisted the feeding frenzy because he was too busy chewing over Mr. Sparks’s comments about experimentation, about reviewing failure, and about the methods best suited to unlocking a stubborn mystery.

  FIFTEEN

  Fathead

  Leon convened a Failure Review Board of his own as soon as lab let out. “We’ve got to go over all the problems with the final R one more time,” he told his two best friends.

  “Agreed,” said P.W. “If it’s good enough for NASA, it’s good enough for me.”

  “I don’t know,” said Lily-Matisse. “I’m kind of tired of all this.”

  “But we need you,” said Leon. “I mean, you keep the best notes of anyone in the whole class.”

  The compliment did the trick. “Oh, okay,” said Lily-Matisse. “But I’m not handling any spit, and that’s final.”

  “Fine,” said Leon. “Besides, I don’t think spit’s the problem. Something else is causing the malfunction.”

  “You know what we need,” said P.W. “We need the original spitting image of the Hag. If we had that, we could compare it scientifically with Pumpkinhead two-point-three.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” said Leon. “How are we supposed to get the Hag to give back her doll?”

  “Sweet-talk her, Leon,” said Lily-Matisse. “After all, you’re the very best sweet talker in the class.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” said P.W. “Without the original, we’ll never produce a Pumpkinhead that works.”

  Despite grave reservations, Leon returned to his fourth-grade classroom. As soon as he peered inside, his palms turned clammy. Nothing had changed. The room still had the sinister sewing posters, the padlocked supply cabinet, the yarn-and-spool chart logging student productivity.

  Leon spotted Miss Hagmeyer at the far end of the room. She had her back to him. Dressed all in black from head to toe, she cut a grim figure.

  Before entering, Leon clucked and blinked for good luck.

  “Mr. Zeisel?” a voice called out. “Still have that nasty clucking habit, do you?”

  Leon stood flabbergasted at the entrance until Miss Hagmeyer reminded him of her unusual powers by lifting the fringe of her unnaturally black hair just enough to expose a large and gnarled ear. “My hearing never fails me.”

  Leon took a deep breath, entered the room, and approached his former teacher. “Good afternoon, Miss Hagmeyer. How are you today?”

  “Suspicious—that’s how I am, Mr. Zeisel.” She brandished a dagger-sized sewing needle. “What brings you back to my little lair—and on a Friday afternoon, no less?”

  Leon kept to his script. “I was hoping to borrow that sewing assignment I made for you at the end of last year.”

  “You mean the Hag doll? Yes, I know that’s what you and your partners in crime called it. Why, Mr. Zeisel, should I lend her to you?”

  “I need the doll for a project, Miss Hagmeyer. I don’t know if you remember, but I told you at the end of last year that I wanted to make another animile.”

  “That does ring a bell,” Miss Hagmeyer admitted. “And I am pleasantly surprised you remember the word ‘animile.’”

  “I wish I remembered more,” said Leon. “I’ve hit a snag and was hoping to study the old doll to see what I’m doing wrong.”

  Miss Hagmeyer inspected her former student closely. “This new animile,
are you making it for a worthy cause?”

  What cause could be worthier than taming Henry Lumpkin? “A very worthy cause,” Leon answered.

  Miss Hagmeyer let her former student stew for a long minute before she said, “Come with me.”

  Leon followed Miss Hagmeyer to the supply cabinet at the back of the room and watched her fish a key from the pocket of her black cape. She undid the padlock and hooked it onto the cabinet latch.

  “A place for everything and everything in its place,” Miss Hagmeyer intoned as she flung open the doors to reveal a treasure house of sewing supplies. Below an array of scissors and racks of thread, the cabinet gave way to dozens of drawers, most of which contained (according to their meticulous cursive labels) the body parts of various creatures. There were noses and ears, flippers and fins, snouts, trunks, tails, and a particularly rich assortment of eyeballs.

  Only one compartment remained unlabeled, and it was into that one Miss Hagmeyer reached.

  “I keep your handiwork in my stuffing drawer, Mr. Zeisel. Why, you may ask?”

  Leon remained silent.

  “I shall tell you,” said Miss Hagmeyer as she plunged her hands deep into a mass of shredded panty hose. “Stuffing is a perfect pillow.” She pulled out the spitting image Leon had made at the end of the previous year.

  “Here you are, Mr. Zeisel. But understand this. I want her back in my hands before class begins on Monday. And she had better be neat and tidy, safe and sound.”

  “But—”

  “No ifs, ands, or buts, Mr. Zeisel. You either accept my conditions or return my animile at once.”

  Lily-Matisse and P.W. were waiting in the street.

  “Mission accomplished?” P.W. asked.

  “Yup,” said Leon. “But the Hag expects the doll back first thing Monday morning.”

  “So?” said P.W.

  “So,” said Leon, “there’s a big poultry convention booked into the hotel. I won’t have time to do much this weekend.”

  “I’m busy, too,” said Lily-Matisse. “Gym meet upstate.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” said P.W. “I’ll work up an analysis on my own.”

  “You sure?” said Leon.

  “Positive,” said P.W.

  With some reluctance, Leon handed P.W. the Hag doll and Pumpkinhead 2.3. “Be super-careful,” he said. “And don’t forget, get here early on Monday.”

  Leon was antsy on Friday, nervous on Saturday, and a wreck by Sunday night. He called P.W. to make sure the doll was safe.

  “Relax,” said P.W. “Go tend to your chickens. Everything’s A-OK at my end. The comparative analysis is coming along great.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Chill, Leon. I didn’t light the Hag doll on fire, and I didn’t stick firecrackers under Pumpkinhead’s army jacket. You’ll have the results and the spitting images tomorrow morning. Now let me get back to work.”

  Leon hung up the phone and tried to distract himself by working on his chip collection. He went to bed early that night but found it impossible to sleep. (The clucking in the hallway didn’t help matters.) Well past midnight, he took the elevator to the lobby and asked his mom if he could bunk down in the back office.

  “Sure thing, sweetie,” said Emma Zeisel. And as she often did, she whipped together a makeshift bed out of two beat-up leather armchairs and some hotel linen. Bundled up near his mom, Leon managed to nod off, but his slumber was brief and troubled. A long, drawn-out nightmare put the Hag doll in jeopardy, sending her first down the hotel’s garbage chute and then into the hands of Henry Lumpkin, who squeezed her until all her seams burst, releasing a cloud of panty hose.

  Leon awoke in a cold sweat. He felt his whole body shaking. And it wasn’t just his body that shook. The walls shook, too. And the chairs. And even the keys in the little cubbyholes behind the reception desk.

  Leon let out a yelp, which brought his mother running.

  “It’s only the trash masher, sweetie,” she said, brushing the hair off her son’s moist brow. “Creates quite a racket, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Leon said groggily, relieved to learn the source of the rumbling.

  The next day P.W., Leon, and Lily-Matisse all arrived early at school and immediately got down to business behind the playground maple.

  “Did you uncover something?” Leon asked.

  “That’s a roger.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “No, Miss Minus Sign, I’m not kidding.” P.W. removed a large roll of paper from his pack and unfurled it. The paper was covered with charts and numbers, as well as front and side views of the Hag doll and Pumpkinhead 2.3.

  Lily-Matisse’s eyes widened. “What is all that?”

  “The results of my failure review,” said P.W. “I spent the weekend comparing weights, heights, leg lengths, arm lengths, waist size, and head diameter.”

  “And you took all those measurements why?” Lily-Matisse asked skeptically.

  “To check for biometric inconsistencies,” P.W. said.

  “And did you find any?” Leon asked.

  P.W. nodded. “One. But it’s a biggie. I’m pretty sure Pumpkinhead two-point-three has a serious problem with his head.”

  “So does Lumpkin,” said Leon.

  “No, I mean the size of Pumpkinhead two-point-three’s head is totally out of whack,” P.W. clarified. “Even taking into account the Hag’s gigantic ears, you’ve made the new noggin way too small.”

  “It has to be small,” Lily-Matisse said. “After all, Lumpkin is a pea brain.”

  “Maybe,” said P.W. “But his actual skull size is pretty close to normal.”

  “So what are you saying?” Leon asked.

  “Simple,” said P.W. “You’re going to have to give Pumpkinhead two-point-three more wadding upstairs.” He tapped his forehead.

  “How much more wadding?”

  P.W. pointed to a chart marked CRANIAL DIMENSIONS. “According to my calculations, you’ll need to enlarge the head by two inches around the ears.”

  “But I don’t have enough panty hose to do that,” Leon said.

  “Then you’ll just have to get more,” said P.W. “Check my measurements. The numbers don’t lie.”

  Lily-Matisse studied the figures. “P.W.’s right,” she said, none too pleased to confirm the accuracy of his analysis. “You’ve got no choice, Leon. You have to blow up Lumpkin’s head.”

  “Well, I guess when you put it that way …”

  Leon made it back to his old fourth-grade classroom just as the first bell rang.

  “Did you find the loan useful, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “I did, Miss Hagmeyer, thanks so much. I figured out the problem.”

  “And what was it, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “I ran out of panty hose,” said Leon.

  He waited for Miss Hagmeyer to take the bait. “Is that a plea, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “Yup,” said Leon.

  Miss Hagmeyer ran her bony fingers over her spitting image while she considered the request. Leon knew she was inspecting the doll for the tiniest rip or blemish. Finding none, her manner softened. “Go help yourself,” she said. “The cabinet is unlocked.”

  That very same afternoon, Leon fetched the sewing basket from Housekeeping and carried it up to his tiny suite. He chained the door and unrolled P.W.’s blueprints on the living-room floor, weighing down the corners with four plastic shampoo bottles that said, “Try the Trimore! Where we try more every day!”

  He studied the charts and took various supplemental measurements of Pumpkinhead 2.3 to confirm the Small Head Hypothesis.

  This won’t be easy, he said to himself.

  He wasn’t sure where to cut open the skull. In the end he chose a seam that ran along the scalp line. The first few snips were tricky, but after that things fell into place. He removed the thread and implanted some additional stuffing behind the eyes and ears. After he stitched the seam shut, he took a new measurement and matched the results to the n
umbers on P.W.’s chart.

  At first he thought he had made a horrible mistake, but further consideration revealed the problem. He had used Maria’s centimeter tape, whereas P.W. had done his calculations with a ruler marked in inches. Remeasurement confirmed that his repair was right on the money.

  The operation didn’t stop there. It couldn’t. Although the outside dimensions of the head were now perfect, the panty hose implants had disfigured the face. That meant more poking and probing to realign the nose, ears, and eyes. By the time the job was done, it was nearly midnight.

  “You don’t look so hot,” Lily-Matisse told Leon when she saw him at recess the next day.

  “Who cares how he looks?” said P.W. “It’s Pumpkinhead that matters.”

  Leon showed off the results of the surgery. “This is as good as I can do,” he said.

  “It’s terrific, Leon,” Lily-Matisse gushed.

  “Man oh man, is it sweet,” P.W. cooed. He whipped out a pencil and tapped it on the figure’s shoulders. “I hereby do dub thee Pumpkinhead version three-point -oh. Go in peace.”

  “Can we stop with the version stuff? Two-point-three. Three-point-oh. It’s confusing.”

  “Well, what do you want to call him?” P.W. demanded.

  “I was thinking of ‘Fathead,’” said Lily-Matisse.

  “I can live with Fathead,” said Leon. “How about you, P.W.?”

  “I guess—so long as we take him out for a test spin right here, right now.”

  “You read my mind,” said Leon.

  Lily-Matisse reluctantly supplied some spit, which P.W., less reluctantly, worked into Fathead’s stomach.

  “You may fire at will,” P.W. announced once he was done.

  It was easy enough to locate Lumpkin. He was causing trouble on the jungle gym.