The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald

by Clifford B. Hicks

  Shoie handed him the bow. From the paper sack Alvin took his dad’s fishing reel, some short pieces of wire, and a pair of pliers. He showed Shoie how to hold the reel tight against the handle of the bow, and he wrapped the wire around the projections on the reel. With the pliers he twisted the wire tight so the reel was held firmly in place.

  From the paper sack Alvin took a pencil and a pad of paper. On the top sheet he wrote the following message:

  Dear Mrs. Huntley,

  If you are in the tower, and if you need help, please let me know by pulling twice on the fishing line. Then tie the line to something near the window. Another message will follow.

  A Bird Lover

  “There,” he said. “That ought to do the job.” He took one of the arrows from the quiver on Shoie’s back. He wrapped the message carefully around it near the feathers, fastening it in place with some tape from the paper sack. Then he took his knife from his pocket.

  “Sorry, old bean,” he said, looking up at Shoie, “but I’ve got to do this.” With the knife he cut a ring just behind the arrowhead. Pulling a little fishing line out of the reel, he wrapped the end of it around the notch and tied it tightly.

  “There,” he said, admiring the neatness of his work. “Okay, Robin Hood. It’s up to you. Do you think you can shoot the arrow through that window in the tower?”

  Shoie gazed up at the window. He closed one eye as though he were aiming. “Maybe I can,” he said. “I’ll give it a try.”

  The Mighty Athlete crawled to his feet and sighted this way and that through the bush. Finally, he said, “I think this is the best place.”

  Alvin handed him the bow. “Don’t miss. If we make much of a racket, those two men are liable to come running out here. Pest, you stay down behind the bush. If anything happens, you run just as fast as you can. Don’t wait for us. Just run on home.”

  Shoie dropped to one knee and put the arrow in place on the bow. He pulled back the bow as far as he could. For a long moment he sighted, holding his breath, then released the arrow.

  Whaaaaannnng!

  “Ohmigosh,” whispered Alvin, “I forgot to take the clicker off the fishing reel.”

  The reel made an awful racket as the line went out. And the clicker pulled back on the line so much that the arrow didn’t even reach the house, let alone the high tower. The three crouched low behind the bush.

  Finally Shoie whispered, “I guess they didn’t hear anything inside. What do we do now?”

  Alvin began pulling on the fishing line to retrieve the arrow. “Start reeling in the line,” he directed. The arrow came snaking back through the weeds toward them. Finally they could reach it. Shoie put it in the bow once more, and they were ready to give it another try. This time Alvin remembered to take the clicker off the reel.

  It was a strong bow, and Shoie pulled it back just as far as he could. He took careful aim, then released the arrow. He held his breath as it soared through the air, the line zipping out of the reel. It looked as if the arrow would go straight through the window. Then, at the last instant, it began wobbling as though caught in a sudden breeze. It hit just beside the window with a thud, and fell to the ground.

  With a sigh Alvin reached for the reel and started winding in the line again.

  “Look!” said the Pest. “Look! There’s somebody at the window.”

  Sure enough, a face had appeared at the open window, the wrinkled face of an old woman.

  “It’s her,” whispered Alvin. “It’s Mrs. Huntley.”

  “At least we know she’s safe,” whispered Shoie.

  Alvin wound in the line as fast as he dared. The kindly old face peered down, looking all around the yard, but they knew from her expression that she hadn’t spotted them.

  At last they were ready to try once more. Shoie pulled back on the bow and sighted carefully along the arrow. Suddenly he eased off the pressure and pointed the arrow at the ground.

  “Gosh,” he said, “what if I hit her?”

  Alvin thought for a minute. “I guess we’ll just have to take a chance those two men aren’t watching. I’m going out there where she’ll see me. Maybe I can get her to move away from the window.” He crawled around the bush until he was kneeling in front of it. Looking up at the window, he waved his arm.

  Mrs. Huntley, peering down at the ground, suddenly saw him. She waved back. Then she did a strange thing. She put a finger to her lips and motioned with her other hand for him to go away.

  Alvin kept right on waving furiously, trying to get her to move away from the window. The more he waved, the more she waved. He didn’t dare take a chance on calling to her. Finally he crawled back.

  “Shoie,” he said, “you’ve got to crawl out there and aim at her. Really pretend you’re going to shoot. Maybe then she’ll get away from the window. But don’t shoot that arrow if you can see her. We don’t want to take a chance on hurting her.”

  Shoie looked doubtful. “What if they’re watching from the house? What if they have a gun?”

  “I was out there, wasn’t I? Nobody hurt me, did they? Just do as I say, then get back here behind the bush as fast as you can.”

  Shoie took a long look at the window, then crawled out into the open. He put the arrow in the bow, drew back and aimed directly at the face in the window.

  Old Mrs. Huntley looked scared. She stared down at Shoie, then disappeared.

  “Fire!” hissed Alvin. “Fire!”

  The arrow left the bow cleanly, trailing the fine fishing line. It arched through the air, climbing higher and higher. With a flash it disappeared into the room.

  Shoie dived back behind the bush.

  They waited. Nothing happened. They waited what seemed to be an hour. Finally Shoie, still holding the bow, felt two jerks on the line. Alvin reached out and pulled cautiously on the line until it was taut.

  “Good!” he said. “She read the message and tied the line inside.” He handed the line to the Pest. “Hold this tight,” he said. “Now it’s time for step number two — the Jet-Powered Message Carrier.”

  From the paper sack he took a strange little rig. The main part was a piece of light wood. Taped to the bottom of it was a little aluminum cylinder. And screwed into the top were two tiny hooks.

  “What’s that?” whispered Shoie.

  “Don’t you recognize it? This little aluminum thing is the jet engine off my model plane. I rigged it up as a message carrier. Give me the paper and pencil.”

  On a slip of paper Alvin wrote the second message:

  Dear Mrs. Huntley,

  Attached is a piece of a pencil. Use it to write a message on the back of this paper. We want to know whether you are in any danger. If you are, we will call the police. My dad is the best policeman in town. When you have written your message, use the tape to fasten it to this jet engine. Hook the engine back on the fishing line and give it a little shove. It will coast back down to us.

  Another Bird Lover

  Alvin broke the tip off the pencil and carefully folded it inside the paper. “Got to save weight,” he whispered. “I can’t send the whole pencil.” He taped the message to the jet engine and placed the two hooks over the line so the Jet-Powered Message Carrier hung below.

  On his model plane the jet engine worked fine. He hoped it would work as well on this invention. Protruding from the back of the engine was a tiny fuse. From the sack he took some wooden matches. He tried lighting one of the matches on the seat of his pants, the way Dad struck a match sometimes. He broke six matches before he finally gave up, reached over, and struck another on Shoie’s belt buckle. He touched the flame to the fuse.

  The fuse sputtered as the flame burned up into the engine. Then,

  Whoooooooooosh!

  The Jet-Powered Message Carrier hung there motionless for a moment, as though gathering its energy. Then it started moving slowly up the fishing line. The farther it went, the faster it went, and by the time it disappeared into the window it was moving so fast it was nothing but
a silver flash.

  “Worked!” said Alvin excitedly. “My Jet-Powered Message Carrier worked.”

  “What’s next?” asked Shoie.

  “We wait for an answer.”

  “What if those men see the fishing line?”

  “That’s the chance we’ll have to take. But that’s mighty light line. It would take a sharp eye to see it.”

  Lying on their stomachs behind the bush, they waited. The Pest was holding the fishing line tight. At last it began to tremble. They looked up and saw the Message Carrier coasting down toward them.

  Alvin caught the Carrier and ripped off the message. He unfolded it, his hands shaking a little. He hoped it would solve the mystery of the old house. The message was scrawled in a trembling hand, and some of the letters were difficult to make out. It said:

  Please Please don’t call the police. I am in danger, but I do not want the police. There are two men inside the house. If you can figure out any way to do it, please get the men away from the house, but do not put yourselves in any danger. And Don’t Call The Police.

  I remember one of you boys. You helped me feed my birds. If you can’t do anything else, please feed my birds just as soon as possible. By now Mr. Huntley will be very hungry.

  “She doesn’t make sense,” said Shoie. “She’s crazy, all right. First she says she’s in danger, then she says not to call the police.”

  “I think we ought to tell Daddy,” said the Pest.

  Alvin was lost in thought. Finally, he took the cover off the jet engine and put in some more of the pellets that made it go. He inserted a new piece of fuse and snapped the cover back in place. With the Jet-Powered Message Carrier ready, he wrote:

  Dear Mrs. Huntley,

  Don’t worry about your birds. We will see that they are fed. And we won’t call the police. I plan to capture the two men myself. I am an inventor. I will figure out an invention to capture them. All of my inventions work. So don’t worry about a thing. We will see you soon. Untie the fish line.

  Alvin Fernald,

  Great Inventor and

  Bird Lover.

  Once more the Jet-Powered Message Carrier zoomed up the fish line and disappeared in the window. A couple of minutes later the line went slack in the Pest’s hand, and came fluttering to the ground.

  “You see?” said Alvin. “She has more faith in me than you two. She knows I’ll help her out.” He reeled up the fishing line and handed Shoie the bow. Picking up the paper sack, he handed it to the Pest. “Let’s get out of here before we’re discovered.”

  “Rowf!” said the Pest softly, a grin on her face.

  Chapter 9

  THE AUTOMATIC MAN TRAP

  Alvin was so excited he could scarcely eat his lunch. When Alvin couldn’t eat, it meant one of two things. Either he was inventing or, as his mother would say, he was “coming down with something.” This noon, Mom and Dad kept telling him to eat, but it was difficult for him to bring his thoughts back to the plate in front of him. Mom didn’t notice the glassy look in his eye or she would have known he was inventing. She made him promise not to run and get hot that afternoon. Dad told him to lie down after lunch, which was exactly what Alvin wanted to do.

  For half an hour Alvin lay on his bed, thinking furiously. Sometimes when he was inventing he thought so hard it scared him. This was one of those times. Finally, he got up and rummaged through his bench until he found a pencil and paper. For another thirty minutes he sat there, carefully drawing a map of the high fence, the yard, and the old Huntley house. When he had finished the map he started writing notes on it, drawing arrows pointing to certain spots.

  The more he worked, the more excited he became. This, he decided, would be the greatest invention of his life. Why, it would probably make him famous.

  On another sheet of paper he made a long list of things he would need for his invention. He tucked the list into the pocket of his shirt. After studying the map once more, he tore it into tiny bits and hid it in the bottom of the wastebasket. Once on television he’d seen a spy swallow a piece of paper with a secret code on it. Somehow Alvin wasn’t very hungry for a paper map, but he didn’t want to leave any evidence around.

  At last he hollered down the stairway for his sister. She came bouncing up, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “Go call Shoie,” he said, “and have him meet us behind the garage in five minutes.”

  “What are you going to do, Alvin?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Just get Shoie. Tell him we’re going to have a supersecret council meeting.”

  “Can I come, too?”

  “’Course you can — if you don’t tell anybody else about it.”

  They met in the warm sun behind the garage. First Alvin took from his pocket the note that old Mrs. Huntley had written.

  “Now read this again,” he said, “and see what you make of it.”

  Shoie read it over. “I think she’s crazy, like everybody says.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, first she says not to call the police. Then she says she’s in danger. Just doesn’t make sense.”

  “But couldn’t it be true?” asked Alvin. “Couldn’t she be in danger and still not want the police? I can think of at least three reasons why she might act this way.”

  “I can’t even think of one,” said the Pest.

  “In the first place,” explained Alvin, “she might be doing something herself in that old house that she doesn’t want the police to find out about. She might be breaking the law some way herself.”

  “In that case,” said Shoie, “it’s our duty to call the police.”

  “Right. But I don’t think she’s breaking the law. She’s too nice an old lady. I just mentioned it as a possibility. An inventor analyzes everything, you know. Now here’s another reason she might be acting that way. Maybe she is kind of crazy, but in a harmless sort of a way. She’s been living all alone in that house for a good many years. By now, maybe, she doesn’t trust anybody. Maybe the old story is true. Maybe she has a lot of money hidden in that house, and she doesn’t trust even the police for fear they’ll take it away.”

  “She trusts you,” said the Pest. “She trusts you or she wouldn’t have asked you to help.”

  “That’s because she thinks I’m another bird lover.”

  “Oh.”

  “There’s a third reason she might not want us to call the police. Her note proves that she’s afraid of those two men. But suppose, even though she’s afraid of them, that she wants to protect one or both of them.”

  “Why in the world would she want to do that?” asked Shoie.

  “Well, suppose you had only one relative in the world. And suppose that relative were bad, bad enough to threaten you. Even though he did something bad, you might still want to protect him, mightn’t you?”

  “Maybe,” said the Pest doubtfully.

  “Now you’re beginning to make sense,” said Shoie excitedly. “You think one of those men is her nephew.”

  “Right. At least that’s a possible answer.”

  “Don’t you think we ought to tell your dad?”

  “No,” said Alvin. “No. I don’t. I promised her I wouldn’t call the police. Besides, there’s no need to call them.” He paused for a moment, to emphasize his next words. “There’s no need to call the police because I’m going to capture those two men myself.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” said Shoie. “All that inventing has affected your brain. How could you capture two grown men?”

  “I can capture them. I’ll do it with an invention I’ve worked out.”

  “Fooey,” said Shoie. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Would it be dangerous?” asked the Pest.

  “Maybe. And I’d need your help.”

  “Would it make us famous?” asked Shoie.

  “Sure would.”

  Shoie and the Pest looked at each other. Finally Shoie said, “Let’s hear your plan.”

  Alvin k
new they’d never join him if he told them all he planned to do. “Nope. Either you trust my inventions or you don’t. I’ve invented an Automatic Man Trap. You’ll have to take my word that it will work.”

  “Your inventions always work,” said the Pest.

  “We have only a few hours to rig up this trap, so we’d better get busy. First we’ll need the parts to make the invention. I have a list here.”

  He pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket. The list read:

  Fireplace bellows Pulley

  Popcorn Gunny sacks

  Pepper Hammer

  Long rope Nails

  Several short ropes Shovel

  Strong string Knife

  “Pest,” he said, “you try to sneak out the fireplace bellows — that thing with the long snout that blows air onto the fire. On your way through the house bring out that big bag of unpopped popcorn and the can of pepper.”

  “Fireplace bellows, popcorn, and pepper,” repeated the Pest. “You sure you know what you’re doing, Alvin?”

  “Sure. Now run. Shoie, you go over to your house and bring back three or four of those gunny sacks I’ve seen in your basement. You know, those big cloth bags.”

  “Check, old man,” said Shoie.

  “I’ll go up to the room and take apart my Portable Fire Escape so I can use the long rope and one of the pulleys. And I’ll bring the hammer and nails. We can get the other stuff out of the garage. Okay. Let’s go. We’ll meet back here.”

  A few minutes later, three figures sneaked down the alley to avoid being seen. Once more they went all the way around by Hickory Street so they could approach the house from the rear. They sauntered along the sidewalk beside the iron fence.

  Alvin looked up and down the street. “Now!” he said.

  They poked the stuff for the Automatic Man Trap between the bars and managed to get over the fence without being seen.

  “Come on,” said Alvin. “And keep quiet. If we’re real careful, we can stay hidden in the trees and bushes so nobody can see us from the house or street.”

  They sneaked around the house until they were close to the front, hidden from the porch only by some low branches. Alvin signaled the others to stop.