The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald

by Clifford B. Hicks

  Later, when Alvin had told his folks about his visit, they had asked him not to go into the yard again. She was so odd, they said, that he had better leave her to herself. Apparently she liked to be alone. She had no living relatives except a nephew named Herbert who lived in Chicago. Herbert came to see her once a year, a young man with a sly pinched-up face and long black hair. Once when he was in town he had had an argument with the police. Alvin’s dad said he was a nasty sort who probably came to see Mrs. Huntley so he could be sure of inheriting her money some day.

  Everyone said Mrs. Huntley had lots of money which she kept in a plain paper sack hidden somewhere in the shabby house. She certainly didn’t spend much. The people of Riverton seldom saw her on the street, and she wouldn’t let anyone on the property to repair the old house or clean it up. She didn’t even have electricity. In the middle of the weed patch out behind the house she had a big garden. She refused to eat meat, so people said. Everyone figured that her garden provided all her vegetables as well as the seeds for Mr. Huntley and the rest of the birds.

  “Yep,” said Alvin to Shoie and the Pest, “I’m going in and get that paper.”

  “Aren’t you scared?” asked the Pest.

  “No,” said Alvin. “Are you, Shoie?”

  “No,” said Shoie.

  But both of them were a little scared.

  Alvin led the way. He had trouble climbing to the top of the high fence, and he tore his pants on one of the big iron spikes. Shoie, the Mighty Athlete, didn’t have nearly as much trouble. He just flipped himself up and landed with his feet on the top rail.

  “Come on, Pest,” said Alvin, reaching down. “Grab hold, and I’ll haul you up.”

  “I’m already in,” she answered.

  And sure enough, there she was inside the fence. She was small enough to slip between the bars.

  The boys dropped to the ground beside her. The grass and weeds came almost to Alvin’s waist.

  “Lead on, Great Inventor,” said Shoie.

  “No, the honor should be yours, oh Mighty Athlete,” replied Alvin.

  But the Pest already was pushing aside the bushes and walking toward the house.

  In front of the porch they paused for a moment. Nobody wanted to walk up the old, crazily tilted wooden steps.

  Finally, Alvin said, “Come on, I’m going to knock on the door and ask Mrs. Huntley for that paper.” He started up the steps.

  The Pest promptly caught her foot between two boards. The boys pulled her out, tearing her sock in the process. Then they climbed onto the sagging porch.

  “There’s the broken window,” said Shoie in a whisper. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to whisper.

  “Yeah,” said Alvin. He tiptoed over to the big window. It was made of little panes of glass, all of them so dusty he could scarcely see into the house.

  “Look,” said Shoie, beside him. “The mice are eating all the upholstery off the furniture.”

  “The mice are eating all the upholstery,” echoed the Pest in a scared whisper.

  Alvin spotted the paper inside the window. He reached through the jagged hole, then drew back his arm.

  “Can’t reach it,” he said.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Daphne.

  Alvin thought for a minute. Finally, he announced, “I’m going to knock on the door. Maybe old Mrs. Huntley will remember me and give me the paper if I promise to fix her window.”

  The porch boards squeaked under his feet. The others followed him to the front door. Alvin paused a minute, then knocked cautiously. There was no answer. He knocked again, rapping his knuckles hard against the weather-beaten wood.

  And as he knocked the swung open with a groan.

  “Gosh,” said Shoie in a voice so low the others could scarcely hear it.

  Alvin glanced back over his shoulder to make sure the others were following. Turning quickly, he walked over to the paper lying on the floor beneath the broken window. Just as he picked it up he jumped as though he had been stung by a hornet.

  “Yikes! Look!”

  There, on the dusty floor, were two sandwich wrappers from Haggarty’s Hamburger Palace. One of them still held part of a sandwich. And nearby were two paper cups, still partially filled with coffee.

  “Somebody’s been here,” whispered Shoie. “Somebody besides old Mrs. Huntley.”

  “Look at all the footprints in the dust,” said Alvin. “Men’s footprints.”

  “Footprints,” gasped the Pest.

  “Yeah,” said Shoie, looking at Alvin. Then, slowly and softly, “Where’s Mrs. Huntley? And where are the men who made the footprints? Are they here right now?”

  “Right now!” shrieked the Pest so loud that both boys jumped. “I’m getting out of here!”

  The boys didn’t catch up with her until she was almost to the fence. The Mighty Athlete cleared the bars with one bound, but Alvin got snagged on top.

  Already Daphne was through the bars and halfway home, her football clutched under her arm.

  Chapter 3

  THE ELECTRIC PERISCOPE

  Alvin made a point of leaving home right after lunch, before Shoie had time to come over. He was on his way to the firehouse to ask the firemen about a patent on the Paper Slinger, and he didn’t want Shoie to find out that he didn’t know a thing about it.

  There was another thought in the back of his mind as he walked down the street toward the firehouse. Who had been prowling around the old Huntley place? And why?

  He’d caught up with his sister, just before she ran into the house, and made her promise not to tell about going into the old Huntley place. If she told, she’d be in trouble, too, for Mom and Dad had warned them not to go inside the iron fence. She finally promised, but Alvin noticed that she’d hung around Mom most of the morning as though she had something on her mind. If she tells, it will just serve her right, thought Alvin.

  He walked through the big open door of the fire station. Because his father was a sergeant on the police force, everybody around the police station and the firehouse knew Alvin. He ambled toward the back room, patting the big red fire engine on the fender as he walked by.

  “Hi, Mr. McReynolds,” he said to the Chief, who was playing cards with some of the other firemen.

  “Well, hello there, Alvin,” said the Chief. “What brings out the great inventor on a day like this?” Alvin’s father always told everyone at the police and fire stations about Alvin’s inventions.

  “Not much,” said Alvin, trying to look as though he’d just happened to stop in. He plopped down on a chair and watched them play cards for a few minutes.

  Finally he said, “Mr. McReynolds, I know another kid that likes to invent things, too. He made a pretty good invention yesterday and he asked me how to get a patent on it. I told him a lot of stuff about getting a patent, but I thought you might know something I forgot to tell him.”

  The Chief’s eyes twinkled. “So he wants to get a patent, does he? I don’t suppose he’d want to tell what his invention is?”

  “No. Not yet. Not until he gets a patent. Somebody might steal his invention.”

  “He must be a pretty smart lad.” The Chief looked around the table. “Any of you men know anything about getting a patent.”

  “A little,” said Mr. Sweeney, one of the firemen. “A friend of mine invented a gadget for a car a few years ago. He told me about all the rigamarole he went through to get a patent. He wrote the Patent Office and they sent him some papers to fill out. Later he found out that he had to hire a lawyer to get a patent for him. He finally got it, though, but it cost him quite a lot of money.”

  Alvin immediately thought of the $2.26 he earned on his paper route each week. “How much?” he asked.

  “Seems to me it was close to five hundred dollars.”

  “Five hundred dollars!” exclaimed Alvin, jumping out of his chair.

  “Yep. Just about. He made a few thousand dollars on the invention, though, after it was patented.”r />
  Alvin stood there a minute, still dazed by the amount of money he’d need. “Oh,” he said. “Five hundred dollars.” He started walking toward the door. With his hand on the knob he paused and said, “Thanks. Thanks a lot. I’ll tell the other kid. See you later.”

  “So long, Alvin,” said the Chief.

  “Good-by,” said Mr. Sweeney. “I hope you get your patent, Alvin.” He picked up his cards from the table.

  Shoie was waiting on the front steps. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.

  “Oh, just downtown.”

  “I’ve been thinking about your Paper Slinger,” Shoie said. “Maybe we could use it to throw snowballs at some of those guys over on Hickory Street next winter.”

  “Maybe.”

  “When are you going to get your patent?”

  “Don’t know. Soon.” Five hundred dollars! Where could he earn that much money?

  “That Slinger sure does work fine,” said Shoie with admiration. He picked up a rake that was leaning against the house, held it straight up in the air, and balanced it on one finger. “It sure did sling that paper through the window of the old Huntley place.”

  “Yeah,” said Alvin. “I wonder where Mrs. Huntley is, and who else has been in that old house?”

  “Maybe some relatives,” said Shoie, putting the handle of the rake on his chin. He removed his hands and went staggering across the lawn, balancing the rake.

  “Nope. She has only one relative, a nephew who lives in Chicago. There was something funny there, Shoie. Just as I ran out of the room I noticed a flashlight on one of the tables.”

  “Honest?” asked Shoie, catching the rake.

  “Yeah. Let’s analyze this problem like an inventor would. Those hamburger wrappers weren’t Mrs. Huntley’s because everybody says she doesn’t eat meat. And that flashlight isn’t hers, either. She’d have to buy batteries for it once in a while, and no one ever sees her downtown. So it must be someone else’s flashlight. Shoie, old bean, that flashlight is there for one of two reasons. Either somebody forgot it, or somebody has been around there at night and is still there or intends to come back again.”

  “Gosh!” said Shoie, trying to balance the rake on his ear this time. “What do you suppose he’s doing around that old house?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s probably more than one of them, whoever they are.”

  “How do you know?” Shoie gave a flip of his hand. The rake flew into the air and he caught it in one hand. He sat down beside Alvin.

  “There were two coffee cups.”

  Shoie looked at him in admiration. “You sure are good at thinking.”

  “There’s something funny going on,” repeated Alvin. “If there was no one there, where was Mrs. Huntley? And if she and a couple of men were there, why didn’t they answer the door?”

  “Why?” asked Shoie.

  “Because they’re doing something they shouldn’t.”

  “You’re right. I’ll bet they’re crooks.”

  Alvin said, “I’m going to find out.”

  “You are? How?”

  “I’m going to take a look after dark tonight.”

  Shoie gulped. “Honest?”

  “Are you coming along?”

  “Well,” said Shoie. “Well sure, I guess so.”

  Just then Alvin’s mother came to the front door. “Alvin,” she asked, “do you know where the broom is?”

  “In the front closet,” he replied. Suddenly he had a sinking feeling as he heard her rustling through the closet.

  She shrieked. “Alvin! What have you done to this broom?”

  “I guess I sawed off the handle.”

  “What in the world for?”

  “An invention.”

  “Alvin,” she said. “Alvin, you can’t go on this way. Why, the idea of sawing up a perfectly good broom! Young man, I’ll speak to your father about this. Furthermore, you’ll pay for a new one.”

  “Yes, Mom,” he said.

  “Now you just go up to your room and stay there until I say you can come down.”

  “Yes, Mom.” He saw her turn away from the door and walk toward the back of the house. “Come on, Shoie. You come up with me.”

  As usual, when Alvin got to his room he was thinking so hard about something else that he forgot to turn off the Foolproof Burglar Alarm. The instant he opened the door a bell began to clang, all the lights in the room flashed on and off, and a boxing glove on the end of a long wooden arm came whistling across the doorway. Alvin ducked just in time, but the glove caught Shoie squarely on the ear.

  “Doggone it!” yelled Shoie, rubbing the side of his head. “Can’t you remember to turn that blame thing off before you open the door?”

  “Sorry, old man,” said Alvin. He closed the door. The bell stopped clanging and the lights went off. Carefully, he cocked the spring that held the glove.

  “Come on, Shoie,” he said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “We have work to do.”

  “What work?” Shoie was still holding his ear.

  “We’re going to invent an Electric Periscope.”

  “A what?”

  “An Electric Periscope.”

  “What for?”

  “So we can spy on them tonight. Naturally.”

  “Oh.”

  Alvin walked over to the table that served as his inventing bench. He searched through several cigar boxes that were jammed with everything from a pair of his mother’s eyebrow tweezers to an old hornet’s nest. At last he found a little pocket mirror. But one was all he could find.

  “I need two of these,” he explained. “Come here.” He walked over to the doorway and pointed to a pushbutton. “Hold down on that until I come back. It disconnects the Burglar Alarm.”

  Alvin sneaked out of the room on tiptoe. He didn’t want his mother to hear him. The Pest was standing at the top of the stairs.

  “Ssssh,” said Alvin, then made a motion with his hand as though he was going to grab her hair. He tiptoed into his mother’s room and pulled out a drawer. Inside were a couple of old purses. He hunted through them until he found another little mirror, then tiptoed back to his room and closed the door. Daphne had slipped inside and was standing by his inventing bench.

  “What are you doing, Alvin?” she asked.

  It was Shoie who replied. “He’s inventing an Electric Periscope so we can spy on those ghosts in the old Huntley place.”

  “Oh,” said Daphne.

  Alvin measured the mirrors, then cut a long piece of cardboard from the box in which his mother kept his best shirts. The shirts he rolled into a ball and placed on the top shelf of his closet. He rummaged through the cigar boxes until he found a roll of electrician’s tape. He folded the piece of cardboard to form a long, square tube, and fastened it with the tape. Then he cut slots, slantwise, in each end of the tube and slipped the mirrors into the slots. In front of each mirror he cut a little window. From the shelf over his bed he took down his small flashlight and taped it to one end of the tube.

  For a moment he looked at his invention admiringly. “Not bad,” he said. “Not bad for a hurry-up job.”

  “How does it work?” asked Shoie.

  “Pull down the window shade and I’ll show you.”

  When the room was dark, Alvin crawled behind the bed. “Can you see me?” he called.

  “Not when you’re behind the bed in this dim light.”

  Alvin stuck one end of the tube over the bed, the end with the flashlight. He turned on the light. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “Perfect.”

  “Let me see,” said Shoie.

  The boys traded places. Shoie, lying on the floor, looked into the window in one end of the tube. He could see Alvin, plain as day, standing on the other side of the room. “Gee,” he said, “that’s a pretty good invention. How does it work?”

  “There’s nothing to it, really,” said Alvin, though he was pleased as punch. “That mirror on top sees a picture of me. It sends it on to the bottom mirror, where
you can see it.”

  “But Alvin,” said the Pest, “if you’re going to spy on somebody, won’t they see the light from your flashlight?”

  Alvin shook his head as though he were disgusted. Actually, he hadn’t even thought of that problem. Finally he said, “Criminently! Do you think I’m that dumb? Of course they’ll have their own lights. That light on the Electric Periscope is only for emergency use.”

  “Oh,” said the Pest.

  “I wonder who they are,” said Shoie, unconsciously lowering his voice.

  “We’ll know tonight,” said Alvin. “I’ll set my Silent Waker Upper for eleven-thirty and sneak over to your place. Leave your window wide open and I’ll toss a rock through it to wake you up.”

  “For gosh sakes, make it a small one,” said Shoie. “You’ve already done enough damage to me with that darn Burglar Alarm.”

  “Can I look through the Periscope now?” asked Daphne.

  “No. You keep your hands off.”

  “I’ll tell Mama what you’re going to do tonight.”

  “You hadn’t better,” threatened Alvin. “Here, take a look.”

  The Pest looked up at her big brother. She thought he was a genius.

  Chapter 4

  A NARROW ESCAPE

  The string jerked Alvin awake. For a moment he wondered if the Silent Waker Upper had gone haywire. It seemed as though he hadn’t been in bed very long. Suddenly he remembered. The old Huntley place! He reached down in the darkness, turned off the alarm, and slipped the string off his toe.

  Dressing quietly in the dark, he put on sneakers so he wouldn’t make much noise during the big adventure. If his folks knew what he was planning, he’d be scalped.

  Alvin tied a string to the Electric Periscope, then looped it around his neck so both hands would be free. He eased a chair over to the closet, climbed up, and took from the top shelf his Portable Fire Escape. It was a long rope that ran over a bunch of pulleys. The rope was snarled into a big ball, and he had trouble untangling it in the dark. Some fire escape, he thought. What if the house were on fire right now? Finally, he managed to untangle it. He tied one end of the rope to the leg of his bed and threw the other end out the open window.