Frank Einstein and the Electro-Finger Read online

  Mr. Chimp narrows his eyes, stares at Frank, and disappears around the back of the Bigfoot Stomper machine.

  Edison leans against the metal hulk and smiles. “And that’s where you’re completely wrong, genius Einstein. I can do whatever I want with the Midville Solar Array. Because I own it.”

  Edison points to a giant banner hanging over the Midville Solar Array sign.

  Klank slowly reads, “‘Building Our Future.’”

  “Very good reading, DumBot.” Edison turns back to look at the landscape of smashed solar panels. “Now get off my property before I have you arrested. Or worse.”

  Frank looks at Edison. “So that’s what you are up to, you snake in the grass. Destroying all the other sources of energy . . . and making mine look bad. Let’s get out of here, guys.”

  Frank, Klink, and Klank head for the bikes.

  “Watson!” calls Frank. No answer.

  “Watson!” booms Klank. Still no answer.

  Frank, Klink, and Klank search the whole smashed Solar Array. No Watson.

  “Get out of here!” yells Edison. “Now!”

  But Watson has disappeared.

  And, suspiciously enough, so has Mr. Chimp.

  KLINK, KLANK, AND FRANK EINSTEIN SEARCH ALL OF MIDVILLE for Watson.

  Watson is not at the lab. He is not at his house.

  Frank searches north. Klink searches east. Klank searches west.

  Watson is not at the library, the park, the candy store, the diner, the baseball diamond, the oak tree above town. No Watson uptown, downtown, east side, west side. No Watson anywhere.

  Frank, Klink, and Klank meet back at the lab. They sit down at the workbench, and Frank rolls out a map of Midville that they study, puzzling over where Watson could be.

  “If Watson had a GPS signal like I do,” says Klink, “I could track him on my map.”

  “If Watson could sing robot songs like I do,” says Klank, “I could find him with my song locator.”

  “He doesn’t have a GPS, and he can’t sing at all,” says Frank. “But if I know Watson, he’s trying to solve this mystery.”

  “What mystery?” beeps Klank.

  “The mystery of why Edison is buying up energy-supply companies . . . and wrecking them.” Frank scratches his head. “What was the last thing Watson said?”

  Klink checks his robot memory. He replays Watson’s “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  “No,” says Frank. “Before that. The thing he said about tracking something down.”

  Klink searches his records. He plays: “We have to find out who this helps. We have to follow the energy.”

  “That’s it!” says Frank. “That’s our answer to where Watson is. He followed the energy. To the one energy source still working.”

  “The robot monster’s house?” asks Klank.

  Frank Einstein mentally checks off the destroyed power sources:

  —the Midville Coal Plant

  —the Midville Wind Farm

  —the Midville Solar Array

  Grampa Al sticks his head in Frank’s lab to complain about losing all electricity. “That darn Midville Power and Light company!”

  “Exactly,” says Frank.

  “Huh?” says Klank.

  Twenty minutes later, at the shoreline of the lake just above the only power-supply source in Midville still working—the Midville Hydroelectric Dam—Frank Einstein is, once again, proved right.

  “Watson!” booms Klank. He gives Watson, who happens to be tied and taped to the front of an inflatable raft, a giant Klank hug.

  “Watson!” beeps Klink from the bottom of the raft, where Klank has dropped him.

  “Exactly,” says Frank, hopping into the raft to untape him. “Watson.”

  Everyone is so excited that no one notices a long, dark, not-human hand untie the raft, push it gently out into the water flowing toward the dam, and sign:

  ENERGY,” SAYS FRANK EINSTEIN, KID GENIUS AND INVENTOR. “Power that can be converted into motion, light, heat—energy in all its different forms! That’s what this is all about, Watson.”

  “MMMmphh mmm rrrmmm mmm,” answers Watson.

  Frank nods. “Oh yes. Of course—also forces. The way energy is applied. The way energy works in the world. Absolutely right, Watson.”

  Watson wiggles. “Rrrrarr rrrr ruuhhhh ruhhhh!”

  Frank Einstein scratches his head with an oversized metal finger. “Oh yeah! This is the perfect chance to test my HYPOTHESIS . . . and the ultimate challenge for my Electro-Finger invention.”

  Watson, lashed to the front of a rubber raft drifting ever faster toward a roaring sound at the base of the dam in the river, would like to say, “Einstein, this is it! I’m done! You’re crazy. This is not the perfect chance to test anything! And: HELLLLLLLP!”

  But Watson can’t say any of that.

  Because Watson is not only taped to the raft.

  His mouth is also duct-taped completely shut.

  So all he can do is wiggle, bug his eyes out, and make noises.

  “We are presently moving quickly toward a column of water being sucked under the dam,” says Klink.

  “Uh-oh,” says Klank.

  “Good OBSERVATION,” says Frank.

  The sucking sound of the dark, whirlpooling water ahead grows suddenly louder and scarier.

  Watson shakes his head and “MMMrrr rrrr rrrrrs” some more.

  “I’ve seen a diagram of this plant,” says Frank. “That whirlpool is caused by the intake under the dam. The water spins a monster-size turbine . . . which runs the generator . . . which spins metal wire inside a magnetic field . . . which then produces electricity.”

  “Quite right,” confirms Klink.

  “I do not want to get sucked underwater and chopped into little bits by a monster turbine!”

  “RRRRaaa reeeee reee!” adds Watson.

  Frank crouches in the front of the raft, resting the Electro-Finger on Watson’s stomach to aim it. “So! My hypothesis is—if I can hit the generator with a charge of electricity from the Electro-Finger . . . it will shock-stop the generator. The stopped generator will freeze the turbine. The water intake will stop. And we will be free.”

  The raft draws closer to the whirlpool.

  Now the deep, powerful hum of the spinning turbine rumbles scary-loud.

  “Hmmm,” says Klink.

  “Oooooooooh,” says Klank, hugging the sides of the raft.

  “Eeeeeeee,” moans Watson, thrashing and bugging his eyes out.

  “Great!” says Frank. “I knew you guys would approve. Begin EXPERIMENT!”

  Frank points the Electro-Finger down into the whirlpool, where the base of the dam should be.

  “This burst of electrons should hit the generator, reverse its north and south magnetic poles, and stop the generator . . .”

  Watson nods.

  “ . . . which should stop the turbine from spinning . . .”

  Watson nods nods nods.

  “ . . . which should keep us from getting sucked underwater and chopped to bits.”

  The raft spins around the outer ring of the whirlpool.

  “Quite possibly,” says Klink.

  “I do not like water,” says Klank.

  “RRR-rrreeee!” urges Watson.

  Frank aims into the whirlpool where he guesses the generator is located. He pulls the Electro-Finger’s trigger.

  The lights on the dam pop on . . . and off . . . and on again.

  The raft spins farther into the circling whirlpool, picking up speed, drifting deeper into the sucking hole in the lake.

  Frank lowers his aim and fires again.

  The lights on the dam strobe more quickly.

  Then pop.

  The whirlpool swirls, unchanged.

  “Hmmm,” says Frank, examining the end of the Electro-Finger.

  Now Watson and Frank can clearly hear the deep thrum of the turbine blades chopping through the dark, cold water far below them. The raft slips into the funnel and below the f
lat surface of the lake.

  “That doesn’t seem to have worked the way I thought it would . . .”

  “Hrrrrrrrr!” says Watson.

  “What?” asks Frank.

  “HRRRRRRR!!!”

  Frank leans forward and pulls the tape off Watson’s mouth.

  “What?”

  “HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

  LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!”

  EXACTLY TWELVE KILOMETERS AWAY FROM LAKE MIDVILLE, thirty-two meters above ground level, on a tall hill, in the operator’s cab of a tower crane, through the lenses of black, compact, folding, day- and night-vision binoculars, T. Edison watches a small raft spin around a whirlpool next to the Midville Hydroelectric Dam.

  T. Edison watches the raft drop into the swirling funnel and disappear from view.

  “Success! What a fantastic plan!”

  Mr. Chimp, still wearing his yellow hard hat, gives a thumbs-up and turns back to the crane controls.

  “We are nowhere near Lake Midville. That lamebrain Einstein and his dorky friend and idiot robots have just had a terrible hydroelectric-turbine accident. It’s clear I had nothing to do with it, because I am miles away. And everyone will forget about Einstein’s stupid ‘free wireless energy’ invention.”

  Mr. Chimp pulls the cab control joystick toward himself with one big toe. The cab glides down the tower back toward the ground.

  “Now all of Midville must buy its power from me!”

  Mr. Chimp’s big toe twitches forward.

  The cab jerks to a stop, still twenty meters above the ground.

  Edison lurches up, then falls back into his seat. “I wish you would learn how to operate your heavy machinery just a bit more smoothly.”

  Mr. Chimp stares at Edison.

  “What?”

  Mr. Chimp stares.

  A red-tailed hawk flies by at cab-window level.

  “What?”

  Mr. Chimp signs:

  Edison frowns. “Listen, you tree-swinging reject. Edison Energy is my company, and people will be buying energy from me, not us. Edison Energy. Not Chimp Energy. You will get your share. Now stop monkeying around . . . and get us down on the ground so I can get to the real work.”

  Mr. Chimp takes his feet off the controls.

  He leans forward until his chimp nose is almost touching Edison’s human nose. Mr. Chimp tenses the muscles in his face, pulling his lips up and slightly apart.

  It looks like a smile. But it is not a smile.

  Mr. Chimp leans back in his seat. He pulls his operator’s seat belt tight, pauses for two seconds, then jams the control joystick UP, DOWN, TILT LEFT, TILT RIGHT . . .

  Edison slides-flips-flops out of his seat, smacks against the cab’s glass side, and sees the ground twenty long meters below.

  Mr. Chimp toggles DOWN, TILT, DROP, TILT, UP, FREE FALL.

  “I was just kidding!” yells Edison. He bounces off the ceiling, then the floor.

  “Stop!”

  Smack, bang, boom.

  Mr. Chimp pauses.

  “OK, OK. It’s our company—EdisonChimp.”

  Mr. Chimp reaches for the control joystick again.

  “OK! ChimpEdison!”

  Mr. Chimp leans back again. He nods. He folds his arms behind his head, grips the joystick with his left toe, and eases the cab smoothly to the ground.

  Edison crawls back into his seat, now with a lump on his forehead. He turns to look out the glass wall and mumbles something that sounds an awful lot like “Dumb monkey.”

  Mr. Chimp hears. He doesn’t care about insults. But he does care about accuracy. He signs:

  Then he twitches two muscles in his face.

  And this time he smiles a real smile.

  FRANK PUTS THE TAPE BACK OVER WATSON’S MOUTH.

  Frank quickly slides the lever up on the Electro-Finger. “Maybe just a bit more power.” Frank aims the Electro-Finger down into the whirlpool and pulls the trigger.

  Klink’s webcam eye twirls in circles. “Beeeeeeeeeeep.”

  “Oops. Sorry, Klink.” Frank adjusts the frequency knob and pulls the Electro-Finger trigger again.

  Klank’s antenna blinks off and on. His keyboard starts playing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  The raft spirals deeper into the whirlpool.

  Frank looks up, analyzing the situation. “Well, so much for that hypothesis.”

  Watson wriggles out of his ropes and rips the tape off his mouth. “Hypothesis? I’ve got a hypothesis! We are goners!”

  Franks powers down the Electro-Finger.

  Klink’s eye stops spinning. Klank’s antenna stops flashing. “Old MacDonald” grinds to a stop.

  “That’s not really a hypothesis,” says Frank. “It’s more an observation. Maybe even an opinion.”

  “Aieeeeee!” says Watson. “What if we jump? Maybe we can swim out of this.”

  The raft spins crazily around the inside of the whirlpool.

  “OK!” says Frank. “Now that’s a hypothesis. But not a very good one. We can’t overpower the water.”

  “We have to do something!” says Watson.

  “Electrical energy didn’t work,” says Frank, thinking out loud. “Maybe some other form of energy would.”

  “Sound energy!” bleeps Klank. “Badang badang badang.”

  Klank blasts his Robot Boogie. “Badang badang badang.”

  The raft circles faster. The turbine hum vibrates louder.

  Frank shakes his head. “No.”

  Klink holds up his magnet attachment and corkscrew.

  “No, and no,” mutters Frank.

  Watson desperately searches his pockets. “My peashooter!”

  “Hmmm . . .” Frank scratches his head. “Yes, Watson. That’s it!”

  The nose of the raft tilts down, headed for the humming, thrashing bottom.

  Watson loads his peashooter, trusting that Frank Einstein has a genius idea. “Who do I shoot? What? Where?”

  “No shooting!” Frank yells over the growing roar of the sloshing water and the churning turbine. “But let’s use the same principle! Newton’s Third Law!”

  “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Klink quotes calmly.

  “Yes!” says Frank. “Klank! Set your rockets on FULL THRUST and stick your feet out the back of the raft!”

  The raft twists and shudders. Watson grabs the front of it to keep from falling over.

  Klank uses his monkey-wrench hand to turn his rockets to FULL THRUST. “I knew my new hand would come in handy!” Klank obeys Frank’s command and sticks his feet out the back of the raft.

  “Everyone hang on tight! Klank, fire your rockets!”

  Klank pushes the green button on his side, and his mini Saturn V F-1 foot rockets ignite with a small ffwump.

  The raft circles the inside of the whirlpool more quickly. But now it rises, slowly spiraling up the tunnel of water. Frank Einstein yells, “More power!”

  Klank increases his foot rockets to OVER THRUST.

  The raft surges. Frank turns Klank to steer.

  Klink observes the wall of water rushing by. “Too late.”

  “More power!” calls Frank.

  With his monkey wrench, Klank twists his rockets to CRAZY THRUST. The jet blasts push the raft faster, faster, around, around, around . . . and suddenly back up to the lake’s surface. The raft speeds toward shore.

  “Hooray for Newton!” cheers Frank.

  “Hooray for Klank!” cheers Watson.


  “Very interesting application of force,” muses Klink.

  The guys laugh and smile . . . and then hear a terrible sound.

  The sound of no sound coming from Klank’s jets.

  “Uh-oh,” says Klank. “Ran out of rocket fuel.”

  The raft slows, stops, and begins to drift, spinning and powerless, back toward the turbine whirlpool.

  GENIUS!” SAYS EDISON, PEDALING HIS TEN-SPEED MOUNTAIN BIKE hard to keep up with Mr. Chimp.

  Mr. Chimp raises one eyebrow.

  “Today the town of Midville is ours. Tomorrow . . . the world.”

  Mr. Chimp powerfully and effortlessly pedals his custom chimp-size racing bike.

  “We are about to be richer than anyone can imagine. I will build the biggest, best, most amazing laboratory in the world,” says Edison. “How about you, Mr. Chimp? What will you do with your share of the money?”

  Mr. Chimp glides downhill and thinks about that.

  He rides no-handed and signs:

  “What?” says Edison. “That’s it?”

  Mr. Chimp stares at Edison.

  He adds:

  T. Edison doesn’t know what to think of that. It doesn’t make any sense to him. So he just ignores it.

  T. Edison and Mr. Chimp wheel into the Edison estate, under the stone entrance arch, down the driveway lined with sugar maple trees, and up to the grand Edison mansion.

  They drop their bikes on the perfectly trimmed front lawn and walk through the massive oak double doors.

  “Oh, there you are, sweetie,” says Edison’s mother.

  “Please don’t call me that in front of my workers, Mom.”

  “Call you what?”

  “That thing you said.”

  “What did I say, sweetie?”

  “That,” says Edison out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t call me ‘sweetie.’ My workers won’t respect me.”

  “Oh, no one cares that I call you ‘sweetie,’” says Mrs. Edison. “And this is not your worker. This is your Mr. Chimpy Wimpy.”

  “And do not call him that!”

  “You named him.”

  “When I was two years old!”

  “Oh, stop with all your fussing, sweetie.”