by Jon Scieszka
The once-rolling grassy field now torn by a jagged ditch.
A tangle of trucks and drill rigs crumpled and tossed like a ball of aluminum foil.
Two small figures walk through the destruction. One stomping along in oversize black rubber boots, leaving wet oversize footprints in the fresh earth.
The other, barefoot, hop-walking carefully over the trashed land, leaving barely a trace of having stepped there.
“How did this happen?!” screeches the kid in the large boots and bad haircut.
The barefoot chimpanzee in the dirty vest and crooked tie looks at the clueless kid. He thinks about trying to explain his thoughts on nature, fate, and karma. But he decides it isn’t worth the time or trouble, and signs:
T. Edison has no idea what Mr. Chimp is telling him. And he doesn’t really care. He walks over to the pile of twisted construction parts. He kicks a bent drill-rig support. And continues his rant.
“This is terrible! Terrible for business. I want more, more, more! Cutting, drilling, mining. I want up, up, up on my charts! Not this stupid storm down, down, down.”
Mr. Chimp hops up on the trunk of a smashed tree. He doesn’t hear a word of T. Edison’s jabber. He scans the forest ahead, looking for his tree, hoping his tree is safe.
T. Edison stomps, and Mr. Chimp hops deeper into the woods.
Earth, as always, spins, making the sun appear to rise higher in the sky.
Frank Einstein and pal Watson heave up the wood-plank barn latch, push open the big double doors.
“Klink! Klank!” calls Frank. “Rise and shine!” He lifts a canvas-wrapped package. “We have the answer—the most fantastic, powerful, amazing, and instantly effective BIO-ACTION GIZMO!”
Watson chimes in. “And we know exactly where to use it. And whose butt we are going to—Ohhhh.”
Watson is the first to spot Klank. Sprawled awkwardly on his side. Motionless.
Watson runs over to Klank. Kneels down. Lifts his dented vegetable-strainer head. Holds him.
“Klank?”
Nothing.
No response.
Klink rolls around the corner of the horse stall. He is not the same Klink. Something is different about him.
Frank rests a hand on Klink’s power-vac shoulder. “What happened?”
Klink shakes his glass-dome head. “I had to do it. His heart was too big. His head too . . .” Klink’s voice trails off.
Watson looks from Klink to the dead-still Klank. “Whaaaaaat?”
He is suddenly horrified.
Frank gives Klink a pat. “You had to do it. His heart was too big.”
Watson jumps up, runs over, and grabs Frank. “Wait, wait, wait. What are you saying? Klank was too big-hearted? That’s crazy! He was the nicest person that ever lived!”
Frank gives Watson a weird look.
“I mean—even if he was a robot.”
“AWWWWWWWW.”
Watson, thinking about Klank lost forever, tears up.
“He did everything for us. He sacrificed himself. He saved our lives. He let you mess him up for all your inventions. . .”
Klank sits up. “And he even touched cow poop for you.”
“Yeah,” says sad Watson. “And he even touched—Hey! What?!”
Watson turns around and sees Klank sitting up. And perfectly fine. Though maybe looking a bit different, too.
Watson jumps like he is seeing a ghost. Then runs to wrap Klank in one of his own HugMeMonkey! heart hugs.
“Klank! You’re alive!”
“Of course he is,” says Frank. “What did you think? He was dead? Klink and I have been searching for stronger heart-drive pieces for Klank for months.”
“I turned Klank off,” says Klink. “Then Installed tractor pistons. As we discussed. And a few extras.”
“Oh yeah,” says Watson. “I totally knew that.”
Klank stands up and thumps his patched metal trashcan chest “Strong like tractor! And look at this!”
Klank pulls back his thumb, and with a deafening roar starts his new chain-saw arm.
“WOW!” Watson yells over the din.
Klank flips his thumb and shuts off his chain-saw arm.
“And Klink, have you been working out?”
It must be a trick of sunlight. Because Klink is a robot. But for a second, it looks like he is blushing.
“Yes. I calculated that more power might be necessary.”
Frank smiles. “As Grampa Al would say—Abso-toot-ly Fan. Tas. Tic.” Frank picks up his package. “Now, let’s roll! Time to hit the bad guys trashing our Earth. And unleash the best world-changing invention ever. The BIO-ACTION GIZMO!”
“Whoop whoop. Bomp bomp,” beeps Klank, waving his chain-saw arm.
“Most certainly,” beeps Klink, swinging his sledge-hammers.
And the two guys and two robots charge out of the barn.
The red-winged blackbird perches silently on the stem of a broken cattail.
The single white cloud has disappeared.
The two guys and two robots pick their way carefully through the scene of destruction.
Klank chainsaws a downed tree blocking the path.
Frank continues his explanation. “. . . by adding up all those ways you use energy and add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, that gives you what is called your carbon footprint.”
Watson pushes through a pile of brush. “So stuff like turning on lights, and riding in cars, and buying food?”
“Exactly,” says Frank.
“The average American produces twenty tons of carbon every year!”
The Einstein team winds through the trashed fields and shattered forests.
Klink clears the way, sledgehammer pounding a granite boulder to gravel.
“And so your plastic footprint is the same kind of measurement,” explains Frank.
“All the plastic stuff a person throws out into the world in one year?”
“Yep. Plastic bottles, caps, cups, forks, shoes, straws. Plastic bags especially! Every person throws away three hundred plastic bags a year. They use it for an average of twelve minutes. And it takes 500 years to disintegrate!”
“No!”
“Yes. And every year, eight million more tons of plastic goes into the ocean.”
“That is just stupid,” says Watson, hiking up a ridge.
“As I have noted many times,” adds Klink. “You humans are not the quickest learners.”
Watson jumps over a small ravine.
“But how does all this footprint stuff and the Bio-Action Gizmo and the Gaia idea of Earth connect?”
Frank ducks under another broken tree branch. “‘Connect’ is exactly the right word. Everything is connected. Every action taken by every person on this planet has an effect.”
Klank, listening, and trying to understand, looks suddenly uncomfortable. He stops. “Watson, pull my finger”
Watson, without thinking, pulls Klank’s finger.
Klank releases a blurt of gas.
“Ohhhhhh peeeeyouuuu!” yells Watson.
“Thanks,” says Klank. “And—sorry.”
“We’ll have to fix your methane tank when we get back home,” says Frank.
The guys reach the top of the hill and look down. They see a white aluminum work-site trailer perched on the edge of a now huge ravine gouged out by the storm.
The trailer sports a familiar logo on its door.
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR” Klink, remembering the mining bucket that smashed him, actually growls.
“This is it,” says Frank. “The guys responsible for messing up the preserve, messing up Klink and Klank, and messing up the planet.”
“Should we knock?” asks Watson.
“Oh, I will knock” says Klink.
He charges the trailer at top speed while twirling his sledge-hammers. He hits the door with a BAAAAAM! and smashes it wide open.
“Oh, I will help, too,” says Klank.
He revs his chain saws to Screaming High and slashes an even bigg
er opening in the side of the trailer.
Frank and Watson jump inside.
“Stop right there!” shouts Frank.
“We know you are the ones wrecking the planet!” yells Watson.
Two figures, standing behind the desk, freeze, papers in hand.
But they are not exactly who Watson thought they were going to be.
Fred and Betty—the EARTH/HEART crew bosses—just as surprised as Watson, stop gathering their papers. They look up at what seems to be two very crazy kids and two very angry robots.
Watson yells again. “And we have just the invention to stop you!”
Fred and Betty don’t say a word. They just stare.
But from behind Watson and Frank Einstein, a familiar, and annoying, voice asks, “Oh really?”
And another very familiar voice adds, “Ooooooh ooook.”
“You!” says Watson.
“You!” says T. Edison.
“Oooook!” says Mr. Chimp.
“What the heck is going on here?” says crew boss Betty.
“Nothing you need to know,” says T. Edison. “You two are still fired. For messing up my profits! Now, get out of here!”
“Gladly” says crew boss Fred.
He and Betty grab the rest of their papers and hustle out of the trailer.
Frank and Watson and T. Edison and Mr. Chimp stand face-to-face. . . to face-to-face.
“You told us you had no connection with this operation messing up the preserve,” says Watson. “But here you are. What is going on?”
T. Edison looks around. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Frank Einstein walks over to the EARTH/HEART logo on the wall of the trailer. ‘You were right from the beginning, Watson.” Frank peels away the EARTH/HEART sign, revealing the logo underneath.
“Oh, big deal,” says T. Edison. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I knew it!” says Watson. “I knew you were the ones wrecking everything! And breaking Klink and Klank to pieces!”
“Yeah!” adds Klank, lifting his chain-saw arm.
“Yes,” says Klink, raising his sledgehammer fist.
“And now Frank Einstein is going to wreck you and your planet-killing business with his new, amazing, simple invention—the BIO-ACTION GIZMO!” Watson brags.
“Ooooooh, I’m so scared,” says T. Edison sarcastically.
But you can tell he is interested.
“So what does this new gizmo of yours do? Suck all the oil and gas out of the earth without hurting your precious planet?”
Frank holds the wrapped-up package in front of him.
“Much better than that. It has the power to save the planet. And it’s another thing Watson was right about—it is incredibly simple.”
Frank starts to unwrap the invention.
“And I am going to give it to you.”
Mr. Chimp grabs T. Edison and dives behind the metal desk for protection.
Klink and Klank roll up on either side of Frank.
Frank Einstein says, “I give you the human-species-saving, whole-Earth-changing, complete-all-connected-life-amazing ..”
Watson, Klink, and Klank lean forward.
T. Edison and Mr. Chimp peek out from behind the safety of the desk.
Frank lifts his glorious invention triumphantly aloft.
“BIO . . . ACTION . . . GIZMO!”
Everyone stares.
There is a deafening silence.
“Oh my,” says T. Edison. “Really? It looks like a bag. Made of rope.”
“Ooook oook,” adds Mr. Chimp.
“Precisely!” says Frank. “A do-it-yourself, recycled, multiuse, never-use-another-plastic-bag-again B.A.G.”
Watson squints. “Wow. Not exactly what I was expecting. . .”
“And it’s simple!” says Frank. “Simple to make. Nothing more than rope and knots. Simple to use. Simple to save Earth from fifteen hundred bits of plastic every person uses every year.”
Klink makes some rapid calculations. “This is true,” he confirms. “Humans are using approximately one trillion plastic bags every year. And throwing all of them away. Polluting their own planet.”
“The BIO-ACTION GIZMO could drop that to nothing,” figures Watson.
“And a trillion less plastic bits would be polluting Gaia.”
T. Edison walks out from behind the desk.
Frank Einstein hands him the B.A.G. “And I am giving it to you.”
T. Edison looks at the simple invention in his hands. He looks up at Frank and Watson. He looks over at Klink and Klank.
T. Edison thinks of snakes and ladders.
He speaks from his heart.
“You idiots.”
T. Edison stomps his giant boot.
“Smart doesn’t win. Being nice doesn’t win. Profits win!”
T. Edison spots a potted plant that has fallen off a desk. He kicks the single red potted flower across the room.
“And you bumbling do-gooders are hurting my profits! I need to get rid of you doofnards once and for all.”
Watson laughs. “Oh right. What are you going to do? Tie us up in this flimsy trailer and then leave and push it over into the ravine so it crashes down into the jagged rocks below and smashes me and Frank and Klink and Klank completely into bits and makes it look like we got caught in here during the storm that knocked the trailer over and no one ever knows you were behind it?”
“You know what?” says T. Edison. “That is a great idea.”
He throws the BIO-ACTION GIZMO to Mr. Chimp.
“And use this to tie them up, Mr. Chimp. I think there is about to be a terrible storm-related Bio-Action accident.”
Mr. Chimp grabs Watson and Frank.
“Klink and Klank. . . attack!” yells Watson.
Klink spins his hammers at top speed.
Klank revs his chain-saw hand.
From outside, you can hear wild smashing and crashing, and see the flimsy aluminum trailer rocking back and forth like you have never seen a trailer rock.
Frank and Watson, Klink and Klank sit in the four office chairs in the trailer, firmly tied with the rope from the Bio-Action Gizmo.
Klink stares at Watson.
“Hey, I didn’t think he would really do it!”
Watson struggles against the rope. “And you guys were no help at all.”
“Law One of the Three Laws of Robotics?” Frank reminds Watson. “A robot can not injure a human.”
Watson scoots around in his chair. “Yeah, but it doesn’t say anything about chimpanzees.”
“You are both members of the hominid species,” says Klink.
“Oooooooooo,” fumes Watson. “Frank, you have to think up some genius plan to get us out of here. You always do. Come on!”
Frank Einstein tries to think up a genius plan.
Klink and Klank are disabled.
He and Watson are tied up.
None of them will survive a crash to the bottom of the ravine.
T. Edison and Mr. Chimp have just left the trailer.
The trailer begins to rock back and forth.
Frank Einstein thinks.
But no genius plan comes to mind.
“And hurry,” says Watson. “This can’t be the end of us!”
No plan at all comes to mind.
Klink calculates. “Actually, there is a very good possibility that this is the end of us.”
“Nooooooooooo!” beeps Klank.
“Oooohhhhh yes!” says T. Edison. “Put some muscle into it. We’ve got profits to improve!”
Mr. Chimp re-grips the edge of the flimsy aluminum trailer, and rocks it up. . . down. . . higher up . . . down . . .
T. Edison sits on a nearby rock and reviews the EARTH/HEART drilling, mining, and logging numbers.
The trailer slides. It teeters over the edge of the ravine.
T. Edison talks to himself. “Drilling will take a day or two to get back up and running. Mining tomorrow. Logging on schedule . . .
will finish off all the trees today. . .”
Mr. Chimp stops rocking the trailer.
Mr. Chimp stands over T. Edison.
“Oooook?”
T. Edison squints up into Mr. Chimp’s face and answers, “Yes, oooooook. We took down all the trees. Just this morning.”
Mr. Chimp’s brain hums.
He signs:
T. Edison flips over the EARTH/HEART lumber map.
“Your tree? Which one, the biggest tree? Of course.” T. Edison checks his watch. “It’s probably halfway to the lumberyard now. Huge profit!”
Mr. Chimp’s vision goes narrow. His blood roars in his ears.
His brain hum goes from hum to high whine.
“So come on! Dump that trailer full of problems. And let’s get going. Time is money, you know.”
T. Edison gives Mr. Chimp a playful punch on the shoulder.
Which pushes Mr. Chimp completely over his personal edge.
Mr. Chimp takes a deep breath. . . leans his head back. . . and unleashes a truly primal scream. He rips off his vest and tie, tears them to shreds, and howls and pounds the ground, the trailer, the earth, the sky.
Mr. Chimp bares his teeth.
The trailer slips another bit.
T. Edison laughs a nervous laugh.
And then Mr. Chimp really and totally loses it—exploding into an all-out, unthinking, mad-feeling, pure animal rage.
Dusk in the Midville preserve.
Earth, as always, spins on its axis, revolves around the sun.
The setting sun lights the western sky red, orange, gold.
A fisherman, walking along the bottom of the ravine, finds a white aluminum trailer crumpled and broken against the jagged boulders.
He looks inside, afraid of what he might see.
Windows, desks, files, chairs—all completely smashed.
A single red flower. Dead.
The fisherman looks around the rest of the trailer.
“Must have slid down in that big storm last night,” the fisherman mutters. “Good thing no one was in it when it went down.”