by Luke Sharpe
Maybe I should donate this to Dad’s art gallery. . . .
“I think they sent us the wrong package,” Manny says quietly. At this point we’ve gotten most of the ladybugs out—although a straggler lands on my arm and I flick it off.
“You ordered winged parts, right?” I ask.
Manny nods.
“Well, they certainly sent us a lot of wings,” I say. “Maybe they didn’t get the order wrong after all.”
After swatting another set of ladybugs away from my slice of pizza, I take a bite and sigh. It doesn’t look like we’re getting any flying parts soon, and now I have to make a whole new prototype, since Philo wrecked the old one.
“I think it’s time to try building the hovercraft with materials we already have,” Manny suggests, looking at some of the parts around the office—which include things like an old skateboard, tons of wires, and a random rainbow wig.
There’s a reason why Manny and I are under a lot of pressure for this invention. First of all, Drew Swiped tried to steal the idea when I was at Spy Academy. Second, Sure Things, Inc. hasn’t released anything since the No-Trouble Bubble, and even then, it was a joint partnership with our Next Big Thing contest winner, Greg.
“GREG!”
I accidentally shout his name.
“Greg?” Manny asks.
“Remember? The No-Trouble Bubble was supposed to have a hover feature in it, but when that didn’t work out, we decided to call Greg when we do work on a hovercraft.”
The answer seems so obvious, I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.
Manny smiles. “You’re exactly right! We need to talk to Greg right away!”
With that, Manny turns back to his computer to shoot off an e-mail to Greg. I get back to work, re-creating the “craft” part of the hovercraft that Philo destroyed. Thankfully it doesn’t take too long to re-create—after all, it still doesn’t fly.
When it gets late, I head home. I’m almost out the door when I hear Manny’s voice:
“THE HOVER-MATIC?”
“Good night, Manny,” I say, hopping on my bike.
At home I head upstairs to my room, ready for an evening of homework. I pass Emily’s open door. She’s still wearing the black gloves she had on at breakfast, typing away on her tablet.
“Gotten the hovercraft to fly yet?” she asks, showing the most interest in my work since I came home.
“No, but we’ve decided to ask Greg to come in and help us,” I reply.
Emily stops typing and shoots me a look that can only be described as intense. So intense that I’m suddenly glad my sister isn’t a superhero (or supervillain). If she was, she could probably shoot lasers out of her eyes.
“You’re asking some STRANGER to help you, but you didn’t even think of asking me, your inventor-in-chief?” she yelps.
Then, without waiting for an answer, she gets up and BAM!!! slams the door in my face.
Emily is right. I didn’t even think of asking her. But with as unpleasant as she’s been lately, that’s no shocker. If she hadn’t slammed the door, I would have pointed out that Greg isn’t a stranger, he’s a business partner. After all, we did work on the No-Trouble Bubble together, and we did release it at as a Sure Things, Inc. product.
But I don’t have time to worry about my sister. I have to worry about the hovercraft.
Helping Hands
THE NEXT DAY after school when I arrive at the World Headquarters of Sure Things, Inc., Greg is already there. He and Manny are leaning over the new prototype.
“Hey, Greg, thanks for agreeing to help us out,” I say.
“Wow, Billy! Great to see you again!” Greg says, shaking my hand enthusiastically.
I like Greg, but it’s kind of weird the way he acts as if I’m a CELEBRITY. I’m not really a celebrity. Sure, I’ve been on a few magazine covers and television shows, but if I were really a celebrity, I’d be friends with people like the actress Gemma Weston (or at least, I hope I’d be friends with her).
“So what’s going on with this thing?” Greg asks.
“We’re having trouble figuring out how to make this fly,” I say.
I reach into the cockpit and crank a handle, spinning it around and around. I start to laugh, recalling old silent movies I’ve seen of the very first cars ever made that started with someone spinning a crank . . . like this.
The prototype starts to HUM and SHAKE. Zzzzpt!!! Sparks shoot out of the dashboard.
“Does it do this every time?” Greg asks.
“So far.”
“Hmm,” Greg says thoughtfully. “Let me see what I can do.”
I always appreciate a fresh set of eyes on a project. Greg flips open the toolbox he brought and pulls out a few tools. Leaning into the cockpit, he takes off the lower panel and starts to tinker around with the wires and connections.
After a few minutes Greg slides back out.
“I think I may have figured something out,” he says. “Why don’t you fire it up again?”
I climb back into the cockpit and crank the starting handle. The hovercraft is pretty small—it’s about the size of a bike, but we can work on making it bigger later. This time even more sparks shoot out. Smoke billows, filling the room.
And then, to my surprise—the prototype lifts off the ground!!!
“It’s working!” I shout.
Then the whole hovercraft flips upside down, dumping me onto the floor.
I look up to see to the lopsided hovercraft spinning in a circle, spewing sparks and smoke. Uh-oh.
“DUCK!” yells Manny, somehow anticipating what comes next.
KA-POW!
The prototype explodes, spewing its pieces all around the office.
Philo dashes from his doggy bed and hides under my workbench.
Manny hits the floor as an electric fan flies past his head.
Greg dives out the back door to avoid a spinning snow tire.
I look up as the smoking ruins of our hard work—yet again—is destroyed.
“I hate to say it, but I think we might need a new design for the main body of the prototype,” Greg says.
I think he wins the prize for UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR. And I thought Manny was good at that.
“I agree,” I say, standing. The three of us clean the place up and then get back to work.
This time I decide to use different materials entirely, and end up welding a metal trash can and some other special items together. When it’s done, I can’t help but think how DIFFERENT this prototype looks from the previous ones.
“Time to test it,” says Greg.
“I’ll take the first test ride,” I say, feeling brave, but still putting on my helmet and elbow and knee pads. The first rule of inventing? Safety first.
I slip into the garbage-can cockpit.
“Here goes,” I say, then I pull back on the bowling pin lever inside.
The hovercraft clangs! and bangs! until it starts to lift off the floor!
“It’s working!” I cry.
Philo slowly ventures out from under my workbench, curious about the contraption.
When I’m about a foot off the ground, I push the bowling pin forward. It’s kind of like the joystick on a video game. The hovercraft starts to fly forward, but then when I go left—zip!—it veers off sharply to the right.
Thankfully I’m only a foot off the ground, but when the hovercraft swings around I realize that I’m headed straight for Manny and Greg.
“I CAN’T STEER IT!” I shout.
Manny and Greg dive for cover as I make another circle around the office. I switch off the machine in a panic, and the hovercraft finally plops! down onto the floor, shutting off with a dull thud and a hiss of steam.
“Well, this prototype hovers,” says Manny, ever the optimist.
My arm is a little sore from the fall, but other than that I feel okay. I climb out of the cockpit and stand beside Manny and Greg, wondering what to do next. Then it hits me.
“Why do
n’t I bring this problem to the Fillmore Middle School inventors club?” I suggest. The first meeting since I’ve been back from Spy Academy is actually tomorrow afternoon. “Let’s see if anyone there might be able to help us.”
“They’ve been helpful in the past,” Manny points out. “Why not?”
• • •
The next afternoon Manny’s dad helps me take the hovercraft to school in his SUV. Once I’m there, I drag the hovercraft up the front stairs and push it down the hall to the lab where the inventors club is meeting.
I stumble backward through the door, dragging the prototype into the lab.
As I catch my breath and turn around, the entire club bursts into applause.
“IT’S BILLY!” shouts Clayton. He is standing at the front of the lab holding a bubbling concoction in a large beaker. White foam pours over the top of it as the liquid inside changes color from purple to green to orange.
“Welcome home, Billy!” yells out a boy in the front row. “How was Barbados?”
This again.
“Um, fun. Wet. Sandy,” I say, immediately thinking how dumb that sounds. I quickly change the subject. “So, what are you working on, Clayton?”
“I call this RAINBOW FIZZ,” Clayton explains. “The most thirst-quenching beverage ever invented. Take a sip.”
I eye the beaker warily. “Don’t worry,” Clayton assures me. “I’ve tested it. All the ingredients are edible.”
I am actually pretty thirsty, so I take the beaker from Clayton and sip the bubbling concoction.
“Wow,” I say. “I was very thirsty, but just one sip took care of that.”
Behind me I start to hear some giggles, and that’s when I notice that my arms are now covered with RAINBOW-COLORED STRIPES! “Uh, Clayton?”
“Yeah, sorry about that, Billy,” he says. “There are still a few bugs to work out. So, what did you bring us today?”
I quickly fill the class in on the trouble I’ve been having with the hovercraft prototype.
“I have an idea,” says a voice from the back of the room.
It’s SAMANTHA JENKINS, who joined the inventors club back when I started it. She is kind of a fan of mine. When she first joined the club, she wrote a poem about me and wanted me to sign her Billy Sure T-shirt. I never thought she was actually interested in inventing. Needless to say, I’m surprised.
“Please come up the front of the room, Samantha, and share your idea,” Clayton says.
Mom is right. I’m happy to see how well Clayton, a very shy kid without many friends, has taken to his role as club president.
Samantha walks to the front of the room. She stands there, smiling and staring into my eyes.
“Um, what’s your idea, Samantha?” I ask, feeling a little creeped out by her stare.
She peers into the cockpit.
“You have a bunch of engines, I see, but it looks like they are working independently,” Samantha says. “I think you should connect all the engines together.”
“I invented ELECTRIFIED BUNGEE CORDS,” says a boy named Eddie sitting in the front row. “I think they might just do the trick.”
“Come on up, Eddie,” I say. “Sounds like Samantha’s idea is worth a try.”
Eddie, Samantha, and I connect the hovercraft’s engines with the electrified bungee cords. A few minutes later, it’s ready for another test flight!
I climb into the cockpit and start it up. It sounds better already, and there is practically no smoke. I feel optimistic about this working!
Then, whoosh! I’m flying—way higher than the last time. This is great!
I try to ease the hovercraft to the left, and that’s when I realize that the other BIG PROBLEM has not been fixed. No matter how hard I try to steer to the left, the hovercraft continues to fly to the right, circling around and around the room.
And that’s when a metal bolt suddenly flies out of the cockpit. It zooms right toward Eddie’s head!
He ducks, and the metal bolt lands in a bowl full of a green, globby liquid—which is an invention by a girl named Amber, which is supposed to light up a house at night without any electricity.
The crash sends bits of the globby green stuff into the air, splashing it against a tall metal antenna attached to an experiment by a boy named Philippe, which is supposed to pick up your mother’s voice, however far away she may be.
The goopy green globs blaze to life, then explode like fireworks, sending Philippe, Amber, and everyone near them scrambling under their desks.
As for me, the hovercraft starts to tilt, rotating, so that the cockpit opening is now closer to the bottom than the top! I have to hang onto the garbage can section for dear life to keep from falling out.
Slowly, I manage to land the thing—this time in one piece—and climb out.
“Thank you all for your help, but it’s time for me to go. My ride home—not the hovercraft—is here,” I say to the class as Clayton helps me drag the prototype back through the door. “Despite everything, I’m going to call the hovercraft flying higher a SUCCESS. Keep up the good work, Clayton.”
“You too, Billy,” Clayton says smiling.
As I haul the prototype back into Mr. Reyes’s SUV, I notice that my arms are still striped with rainbow colors.
Hovercraft at Home
“HOW’D IT GO?” Greg asks enthusiastically, as I drag the hovercraft back inside the World Headquarters of Sure Things, Inc.
“Better,” I report. “The kids in the inventors club actually had some really good ideas, and I did get the thing up to the ceiling. It can probably go up higher, but I didn’t test that.”
“So we’re good to go?” Manny asks. “Because I think I might have the name—THE HOVERBABY!”
Greg and I look at each other. Neither one of us wants to hurt Manny’s feelings, but the Hoverbaby? I don’t know.
“No, it’s not working perfectly yet,” I say, trying not to give my opinion on the name. “It’s still flying a little to the right. Definitely not safe for long flights.”
“So, what do we do now?” Greg asks.
Manny and I look at each other. We’ve been here before, and we both know what needs to be done.
“Sleep-invent,” we say together.
“If all goes well, I should have working blueprints for us tomorrow,” I say. Usually, when I’m REALLY CLOSE to finishing an invention, I go to sleep and my brain creates the finished blueprints for me.
Having decided this, Manny heads over to his computer. “Check this out,” he says.
Greg and I lean over Manny’s shoulder and see a graph charting the rising sales of the No-Trouble Bubble.
“WOW!” cries Greg. “This is amazing! You guys rule!”
I smile, realizing that this is Greg’s first experience with a successful invention. I remember how good I felt when the All Ball first took off.
I stare at the hovercraft prototype.
“I think I’ll take the prototype home tonight,” I say. “It might inspire sleep-me.”
“Sounds good to me. Let me give you hand carrying it home,” says Greg.
• • •
Greg helps me drag the hovercraft through the front door and upstairs into my room. I can’t exactly explain why, but I have the strong feeling that having it there will inspire my SLEEP-INVENTING.
Once I have the prototype in my room and Greg goes home, Emily walks over.
“I heard you dragging something into the house and I had to see what it was,” she says. “Are you into modern sculpture these days? Trying to give Dad a run for his money as an artist? Or have you decided to give up inventing and become a JUNK COLLECTOR?”
“It’s just the hovercraft prototype,” I reply.
Her eyes open wide. “Does it really work?” She moves in for a closer look, reaching into the cockpit and moving the bowling pin around. That’s when I see that she is still wearing her black gloves.
“Yeah, sure,” I reply. I don’t bother telling Emily that I still need to work ou
t some bugs, and she doesn’t pick up on the hesitation in my voice.
“Hmm,” she says, and without another word walks back to her room.
I do homework for a while, taking my mind off of the hovercraft, and then it’s time for dinner.
Dad has made cherry and kiwi lasagna. This meal is definitely going to require some Gross-to-Good Powder.
The mood at the dinner table is quiet and tense. I figure I’ll break the uncomfortable silence.
“How are the paintings for your art gallery show going?” I ask Dad.
“FANTASTIC!” he replies between bites of the reddish-green lasagna. “I had this stroke of creativity last night, and now I’ve got a whole series on cooking ingredients that rhyme. Tomato-potato, zucchini-linguini, beans-greens, you know, like that.”
“Cool,” I say.
Emily doesn’t even look up from her plate. I guess she’s still mad at me for not asking her to help develop the hovercraft, and mad at Dad for not teaching her to drive, and mad at Mom for not taking her on vacation. I wonder if she has an app on her phone to keep track of who she is mad at and why.
“Thanks for dinner, Dad,” I say, bringing my plate to the sink. “I’ve got to finish some homework. Nice talking with you, Em.”
Okay, I couldn’t resist. I thought that little jab might break her out of her silence. No such luck. She doesn’t take the bait. She just glares at me and sticks out her tongue.
Who’s the more mature sibling here?
Back in my room, I continue doing my geometry homework, but I can’t help seeing the prototype out of the corner of my eye. I feel like it’s calling to me, taunting me, saying, “BIIIIIIIIILLY! COME GET ME TO WORK!” I go to the drawer where I keep sheets and blankets and grab a big white sheet, which I toss over the hovercraft.
There, that’s better. Not thinking about an inventing problem in the hours before going to sleep usually helps me sleep-invent.
I finish my homework, shoot off a quick e-mail to Mom, and then get ready for bed. As I slip under my covers, I hear shouting coming from downstairs.
“I studied really hard to get my learner permit!” Emily shouts.