Alien in My Pocket (5 page)

12

Spider Attack!

S
till holding the doorknob, it took me a moment to understand what I was looking at.

Spider robots were crawling all over my bedroom floor. Each had a tiny video camera mounted on top of its body. They were scampering this way and that. One was under my bed. Its camera had become stuck on the edge of a blanket that hung down.

“Don't just stand there, Zack!” Amp squeaked. “HELP ME!”

I closed the door quickly, silently. “Where are you?”

“On the spider by the hamper!” he screeched in his squeaky voice.

Then I saw him clinging to the back of a frantic yellow spider.

The spider robot was rotating crazily around and around in circles, then suddenly reversing direction, like it was trying to buck Amp. Amp was holding on for dear life. He had his hands on the wire leading to the back of the camera. With one great pull, he yanked out the wire and the camera's red light instantly went off. “These floofy things came out of nowhere! They have cameras.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“I can't be invisible to cameras,” he growled, holding on to the tiny camera to keep from getting thrown. “I can only be invisible to a human being!”

“I thought you were kidding about the invisibility thing,” I said.

“I'm getting captured on video right now. Look at these antennas. The video is being transmitted somewhere.”

That shook me out of my frozen state.

I ran to my window, threw it open, flicked out the screen, and let it drop down into the bushes below in the backyard. Then I spun and, grabbing two robots at a time, flung them out my second-floor window. There were at least a dozen of them in different shapes and sizes. One was so small and so fast it took me half a minute just to catch it.

Soon they were all gone and the room was quiet. I peered down at them from my second-story window, trying to catch my breath. Some of the robots had exploded into pieces when they hit the patio. A few were upside down, moving their legs madly in the air. But half of them were still crawling, limping with their cameras across our backyard.

“What are you waiting for?” Amp cried.

I turned from the window and saw Amp at the door. “What now?” I cried.

“We have to erase whatever your brother's robots recorded!”

“Oh, right,” I said. I scooped up Amp, emerged silently from my room, and crept quickly down the hall to my brother's room, being careful to avoid the hallway's squeaky spots. Everyone was still at the breakfast table, chatting away. I opened Taylor's door and stepped into what looked more like a robot factory than a kid's room.

“He must have been sending the signals back to a recording device in his room,” Amp said, leaping into action.

After some frenzied searching, we found a small antenna connected to a metal box near Taylor's laptop computer.

“This must be it,” Amp instructed as I put him down on the computer. He popped opened the CD drive and somehow managed to crawl inside. I heard some banging and some strange sounding Erdian curse words. A few minutes later, he reemerged, dusty but no worse for wear. “That should take care of it,” he said, smiling.

“You didn't just wreck his computer, did you?”

“Wreck it? No,” Amp said. “But I wouldn't do any of your homework on it ever again.”

13

Down to Business

A
s I came back downstairs, Taylor was blubbering like a baby. He had spotted his precious robots in pieces in the backyard. “Robot bully,” he cried, pointing at me.

“Spy,” I yelped right back.

Dad wasn't having any of it. He sent us both to our rooms. Olivia followed me upstairs. Amp was in his usual hiding place. We sat quietly until Olivia remembered the magnet wire we'd bought yesterday. That shook Amp from his glum mood. “This is perfect,” he said, crawling out from the bookshelves to examine the wire. Olivia and I wrapped the wire around the giant bolt. “Leave no space between the wire, no overlapping,” Amp pestered us. He made us start over again three times because he said it looked sloppy and uneven. The fourth time, we finally satisfied him. “The more wraps around the bolt, the more grabbing power the electromagnet will have.”

“It's a monster,” Olivia exclaimed, admiring our handiwork.

I noticed about ten inches of wire hanging off each side of the bolt. “Should we cut this part off?”

“Heavens, no!” Amp cried. “That's where we attach it to the power source.”

We used a bit of sandpaper to rub the coating off at both ends of the wire and attached them to a battery I took out of my flashlight. We were amazed at how easily the electromagnet picked up paper clips and tacks off my desk.

“Whoa!” Olivia and I exclaimed, amazed by its strength.

The instant a wire stopped making contact with the battery, the paper clips dropped to the desk.

“I thought it would make a noise,” I said. “Like crackling electricity.”

Amp shook his head at me. “Magnetism is generally silent,” he said with a sigh.

“Pretty cool, Amp, but how do we make it super-duper?” Olivia asked.

“It's all about the power source,” he said. “Take my ship out of Zack's stinky hamper and I'll remove the battery from my ship. It's quite powerful.”

“What if you win the whole enchilada?” Olivia asked me dreamily. “The winner gets to be on TV and their school gets five thousand bucks.”

“Ah, who cares about that?” I said. “I just need to get my A and get on with my life.”

After I removed Amp's ship from my laundry hamper, he went to work somewhere inside of it. “Don't just stand there, start the paperwork,” he shouted from inside the ship. “I plan on winning all the bananas on this one!”

Olivia and I looked at each other and laughed silently at Amp's bossiness. “What does ‘winning all the bananas' even mean?” Olivia giggled.

I opened up my laptop to start on the paperwork that Miss Martin loved so much. Olivia was at my side the whole time. We even made a label for my project and spelled everything correctly.

By the time I had to go to baseball tryouts, everything seemed to have worked out perfectly. And my new science project was looking pretty spiffy.

“Should we test it more?” I asked.

“Go, go,” Olivia said, pushing me in the back. “Amp and I will finish up and you'll be ready for your demonstration tomorrow.”

I smiled. “This science stuff isn't so bad after all.”

14

Magnetized

A
t dinner Monday night, I was puffed up with pride.

My in-class science project demonstration went off without a hitch. And even better, the three projects presented before mine were big duds. Davey Swope's volcano didn't erupt with spaghetti sauce, it just made a bad, burning-meatball smell. Max Myers head-butted his experiment so hard he disconnected the glowing display board and wound up in the nurse's office. And all of Nino Sasso's flies had died in their jars. He had to settle for explaining what should have happened if they had lived.

Then it was my turn.

As I stood nervously at the front of the class, everyone in front of me had seemed bored by my electromagnet. I hit the first button and a couple of paper clips jumped up and skittered across Miss Martin's desk. Cool, but not enough to open anyone's eyes. Then I hit the second button.

Miss Martin's coffee cup of paper clips tipped over and about a hundred paper clips flew to the magnet like an angry swarm of bees to a jelly sandwich at a picnic lunch. A lizard-shaped metal paperweight shot across the room. An antique globe on a metal stand nearly broke my wrist as it careened across Miss Martin's desk.

All three objects seemed as if they were glued to my experiment.
CRACK! SLAP! SLAP!

The entire class gasped.

It had all happened in the blink of an eye.

I slapped the power button off before it could do any serious damage. The metal objects fell to the desk with an audible
clunk
.

My classmates were utterly silent for a split second before exploding into applause. Even Max Myers gave me a standing hoot and fist-pump.

Whoa. A new science star was born.

After I told my family all the glorious details over beans and weenies—my mom's embarrassing name for pinto beans and hot dogs—Taylor said he had something to talk about, too.

“Look at these photos one of my robots took in Zack's room,” he said, pretending to sound concerned. “I was able to save them off my hard drive.”

“What?” I croaked.

“Not again, Taylor,” Mom said.

As Taylor handed two photos to Dad, I snatched the other two from his other hand.

The photos weren't very clear, like those blurry pictures of Bigfoot running through the forest. But this Bigfoot was blue. One photo showed a fuzzy picture of Amp's tiny blue butt. The other was a close up of Amp's watery eye.

I did a big, fake, cackling laugh. “Oh, Taylor,” I guffawed, “that's just one of Olivia's toys. It's a little elf doll she calls Amp.” I handed the two photos to my mom, like I wasn't interested in them anymore.

I could feel Taylor staring at me.

“See, Taylor,” Mom said with a
tsk-tsk
, “it's one of Olivia's toys. I think I've seen this toy in your room before, Zack.”

“Oh, I'm sure you have,” I said as steadily as I could.

“Looks almost real,” Dad mumbled. He took the two photos from Mom and stared at the close-up of Amp's eye. “Kind of creepy,” he said.

“Oh, you have no idea how creepy and annoying that toy is,” I said.

Taylor stood up slowly, his chair making a loud screeching noise on the tile floor. He stared at me, lips trembling, eyes blinking with anger.

He walked slowly out of the kitchen.

“What a weirdo,” I said to Mom with an uneasy smile.

She sighed. “He's just upset,” she said.

“He's not used to sharing the limelight,” Dad agreed, shoveling in a spoonful of beans while staring at the photo of Amp's rear end.

“Well, he'll probably win tomorrow's science fair anyway,” I said, trying to sound like the concerned older brother. “He'll get over it soon, I'm sure.”

15

Showtime

W
ednesday's science fair arrived without any further drama.

My experiment was bolted to a table next to Davey Swope's volcano and across from Max Myers's head-butting meter. At the time, I wasn't sure why Amp insisted on securing it to something heavy, but at that point I was more interested in watching Davey and Max scramble to fix their projects, neither of which were working properly still. Max Myers was literally turning red with frustration. I avoided making eye contact.

Olivia's experiment was two rows over. It was her attempt to prove the “three-second rule” was just a myth and not real science.

The three-second rule applies to those times when you drop something you're about to eat on the floor. If you can pick it up within three seconds, it's supposed to be safe to eat. Olivia's display showed different types of mold growing on slices of whole wheat bread. It was gross. I think even Olivia would admit her experiment was a bit of a downer.

The school gym was crowded. Parents, students, and other adults I couldn't identify wandered up and down the aisles examining the different science experiments. It was thunderously loud and the atmosphere was surprisingly festive. My parents came by and took my picture, but I hadn't seen them since.

The judges—Principal Luntz; Mrs. Bird, our school nurse; and a guy named Edward G. Prentiss—were stopping at each display for a quick demonstration. Edward G. Prentiss had once been a student at Reed School and was now a big shot in business and science. Every year he volunteered to help pick our school's winner.

While the three judges strolled the aisles, I showed curious kids and parents how my electromagnet could pick up paper clips. I answered all their questions and was surprised at how easily I could discuss magnetism. I even explained to people how Earth was like a big magnet.

I was always careful to press only the first of my experiment's three buttons. I'd wait for the judges before I kicked it up a notch and hit the second button. Amp had told me to hit the third button only if I really needed it.

I did not plan on hitting the third button under any circumstances.

I was making sure my zipper was zipped when I was tapped on the shoulder. Judging time!

Mr. Prentiss looked first. He read all the paperwork I had mounted on the trifold cardboard standing up behind my electromagnet. He seemed to get more curious as he read. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nod a few times.

I waited and smiled uncomfortably as Mrs. Bird urgently scribbled notes on a clipboard. Principal Luntz seemed amazed the whole thing hadn't collapsed yet.

“Any relation to Taylor McGee?” Mr. Prentiss asked me.

“He's my little brother,” I said. Mr. Prentiss nodded, as if he already knew this and was just confirming it.

“Why choose iron for the core of your electromagnet?” Mr. Prentiss asked, turning suddenly to me, looking intently into my eyes. “Why not copper or steel or tin?”

“Well, all metals react differently to magnetic fields,” I said. “Iron happens to be ideal, because it multiplies the magnetic field more than almost anything else. It can be hundreds or even thousands of times more powerful than most other metals. Iron was a no-brainer.”

Mrs. Bird stared at me. Principal Luntz gasped. Mr. Prentiss chuckled, but in a good way. Nobody was more astonished than I was. How did I know this stuff?

“Let's see this beauty in action,” Mr. Prentiss said, stepping aside to let me demonstrate.

With the first button, the paper clips skittered over to the electromagnet just as they had in the classroom.

I cleared my throat. “If I increase the current, it increases the power of the magnet.” Finger trembling, I pushed the second button.

In the blink of an eye, my magnet ripped off Mr. Prentiss's fancy metal tie clip, Principal Luntz's glasses, and Mrs. Bird's clipboard. Even the metal box with the control switch for Davey Swope's spaghetti volcano was pulled from the next table and now stuck to the magnet, the cord to the volcano pulled tight.

Before I could turn it off, all the tacks holding my report on my trifold cardboard display ripped out of the wall and stuck to the magnet, making it look like a cactus. Papers were still fluttering every which way when I cut the magnet's power and everything was released.

“Wow,” Mr. Prentiss said, plucking his tie clip out of the small pile of metal objects pulled to the magnet. He handed Principal Luntz's glasses back and returned Mrs. Bird's clipboard to her now-shaking hands. He looked me in the eyes and smiled. “You, young man, are certainly the one to beat.”

I stared after them as they moved down to Davey Swope's smoldering volcano. I handed Davey's volcano controller back to him with a helpless shrug, as if I wasn't sure why what just happened had just happened. But I hoped it was enough to get me an A.