Ben the Inventor
BEN THE
INVENTOR
ROBIN STEVENSON
Illustrated by DAVID PARKINS
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
To Kai, whose creativity and energy inspire me
Text copyright © 2011 Robin Stevenson
Illustrations copyright © 2011 David Parkins
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be
invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Stevenson, Robin, 1968
Ben the inventor [electronic resource] / Robin Stevenson.
(Orca echoes)
Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in PDF format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-55469-803-5
I. Title. II. Series: Orca echoes (Online)
PS
8637.
T
487B44 2011
A
       Â
JC
813'.6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
C
2011-903474-3
First published in the United States, 2011
Library of Congress Control Number
: 2011929244
Summary
: Ben and his friend Jack try to use their inventions to stop the sale of Jack's house.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs
provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book
Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia
through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book
on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
®
.
Cover artwork and interior illustrations by David Parkins
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www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
14 13 12 11 ⢠4 3 2 1
Contents
Right in front of Ben's house was a speed bump. It led from Ben's front gate across the road to his friend Jack's front gate. Ben and Jack were best friends. It was summer holidays, so every day after breakfast, Jack walked along the top of the speed bump to Ben's house.
Today, something was different. Ben knew it as soon as he saw Jack's face. “What's wrong?” he asked.
Without a word, Jack turned and pointed back across the street. Ben looked, but he didn't see anything at first. Just Jack's wooden fence, the front gate and Jack's cat, Lulu, sitting in a patch of sunlight and licking her hind leg.
And then he saw the sign. A big, square, red and white sign with two words on it:
FOR SALE
.
“I don't get it,” Ben said. An awful, cold feeling crept into his tummy. “You can't sell your house. Where would you live?”
“My mom got a new job,” Jack said. “In Vancouver.” “Vancouver!” Ben stared at him.
“So we have to move.”
“Move!”
Jack shrugged. “That's what she says.”
“Tell her you won't go,” Ben said.
“I already tried that,” Jack said. “Last night.”
“And?”
Jack shook his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. “She said it was one of those things I didn't have a choice about.”
Ben's mother said he didn't have a choice about a lot of things, such as brushing his teeth twice a day and sharing toys with his little sister, Stella. She also said it about going to school, instead of homeschooling like Jack did, and turning off the computer after twenty minutes of
Alien Armada
. Still, moving to Vancouver was a very big thing not to have a choice about.
“That stinks,” Ben said loudly. “It takes half a day to get to Vancouver. You have to go on the ferry and everything.”
“I know.”
“We won't be able to do stuff together anymore.” Ben felt like he might cry. He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the sidewalk. “It's not fair.”
Jack nodded. “That's what I said.”
They stared at the sign. Neither of them spoke. Finally Ben said, “Well, I guess we'd better get to work.”
Jack nodded. “We have inventions to invent.”
“Because we're inventors. And inventors invent inventions,” Ben said. He and Jack liked to say this because they liked using the word
invent
three times in one sentence.
Inventors invent inventions, inventors
invent inventions.
Sometimes they said it over and over again until they laughed so hard they fell down in the grass.
But today, as they walked to their workshop in Ben's backyard, neither of them felt much like laughing.
Ben's workshop was in the back corner of his yard. It used to be a garden shed, but now it was all his. It was filled with his stuffâa mountain of treasures he and Jack had collected. There were tin cans and pieces of pipe. There were hubcaps and old license plates. There were empty milk cartons, bits of wire, rusty hinges, broken
TV
remote controls, pieces of wood, glass jars and a hundred other things.
It is amazing
, Ben thought,
how much good stuff
people throw out
. He knew something most grownups didn't know: Junk plus Imagination equaled Great Inventions. The Great Invention he and Jack were working on at the moment was a catapult. Ben dragged an old shovel out of the shed.
“Yeah!” Jack said. He grabbed a brick. “Let's use this.”
Ben laid the shovel on the ground. Jack slid the brick under the middle of the shovel's handle.
Ben pushed the blade down with his foot. The other end went up, like a teeter-totter. “Cool. Let's try it.”
“We need something to launch,” Jack said.
Ben looked around. “How about this?” He lifted up a large stone they had painted red and black like a ladybug.
“Fire-bellied toads!” Jack grinned. “That's perfect.”
Ben dropped the stone into the shovel's blade. The blade slammed into the ground, and the other end of the shovel bounced up. “Okay. Try it.”
Jack stepped on the raised end of the shovel. The blade shot up, sending the stone flying in a graceful arc. It sailed over his head and across the lawn.
