Frank Einstein and the Electro-Finger Read online

  Mr. Chimp laughs a panting little “Heh-heh-heh.”

  “See?” whines Edison.

  “Well, never mind. I just wanted to tell you that the funny new red light on your desk has been blinking, and some kind of horn has been honking.”

  Edison’s eyes open wide. “My Hydroelectric Turbine warning?”

  “If that’s what you call it . . .”

  “That only triggers when the turbine stops!”

  Mr. Chimp signs:

  KLANK STANDS UP.

  The raft picks up speed, drifts more quickly back toward certain hydroelectric-turbine-chopping disaster.

  Klink makes thousands, millions, of almost-instant calculations and concludes, “Not good.”

  Frank and Watson desperately, unsuccessfully, try to paddle with their hands.

  Klank fires up all 8K of his digital memory to connect exactly two thoughts. “Must protect my humans. Every action has equal and opposite reaction. Yes, Frank Einstein?”

  Frank looks up. “Yes.”

  Klank nods.

  Klank uses his monkey wrench to crank his Robot Boogie song up to LOUD. BADANG BADANG BADANG. He stands on the edge of the raft and yells, “Action!”

  Klink starts to say, “I believe we have established that sound energy does not—”

  And Klank suddenly dives off the front of the raft, straight into the whirlpool. The 214-pound force of his dive pushes the raft in an equal reaction—away from the whirlpool, all the way to shore.

  Frank, Watson, and Klink jump to dry land. They look back just in time to see Klank’s rocket-footed legs flip up and disappear, spinning down, down, down into the whirlpool.

  The sound-wave beats of Klank’s Robot Boogie echo through the water like a crazy whale song. Then, suddenly, inevitably, a horrible metal grinding-wrenching-screeching-chopping sound drowns out the Robot Boogie.

  The deep bass hum of the turbine stops.

  The whirlpool slows and disappears.

  The surface of the lake falls into a quiet, perfectly level calm.

  Frank, Watson, and Klink stand looking at the spot where Klank disappeared. They are safe. But they are stunned. Because they know, without looking, what they will find on the other side of the dam.

  Nothing but crushed-up Klank parts.

  NO! NO! NO!”

  Edison pounds his desk with one small fist, yelling at the blinking red light above the label HYDROELECTRIC TURBINE.

  “Do not tell me that dim-bulb Einstein and his idiot friends somehow wrecked my dam!”

  Mr. Chimp examines the images on his computer monitor. He opens three new windows, scrolls through a stack of files and menus, and calls up security-cam video of the turbine.

  He rewinds. He plays.

  A grainy black-and-white video shows the monster turbine spinning freely.

  Edison looks over Mr. Chimp’s shoulder. “It’s fine.”

  Mr. Chimp points to the time code in the upper left corner. One hour earlier.

  Mr. Chimp fast-forwards.

  The video image shows nothing but the turbine spinning.

  “Fine, fine, fine,” says Edison, suddenly more hopeful.

  Then a shape, from the penstock feed, fills the right side of the screen.

  Mr. Chimp punches PLAY.

  “What?” says Edison.

  A blurry figure, one blinking light on its head-shaped piece, hose arms snaking, legs kicking, dives headfirst into the turbine blades.

  “I know, I know,” says Edison. “I can see as well as you.”

  Mr. Chimp shakes his head.

  “But what is he doing? Robots shouldn’t work underwater!”

  On-screen, the grainy black-and-white Klank spreads his arms and legs and smashes the turbine as much as it smashes him. There is no sound, but the picture jumps with the force of metal on metal—pounding, bending, ripping, spinning, exploding into useless pieces.

  Both turbine and robot fall to bits and wash out of the picture into the downstream outlet.

  The turbine security-cam picture clears and shows—where there used to be a half-ton, steel-bladed turbine—nothing.

  Edison stares at the empty screen.

  “B-b-but what about my new lab? What about my money? What about my one and only power company? I mean, our company.”

  Mr. Chimp signs the obvious:

  “OK, honey,” Mrs. Edison calls from downstairs. “Dinner is ready. It’s your favorite—fish!”

  “Moooommmm,” whines Edison. “I hate fish.”

  “We don’t say ‘hate.’ Now come down for dinner.”

  Mr. Chimp stands up. He looks back at the video screen. He shakes his head.

  Mr. Chimp is sad that he will not get a new tire swing. Or his freedom.

  But Mr. Chimp is a practical chimp. He has plenty more ideas.

  “And, sweetie . . . ?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t forget to scoop out the litter box.”

  Mr. Chimp rolls his eyes and hops up on the windowsill. He signs:

  and jumps out the open window to the branch of the nearest tree.

  FLOOOP, FLOOOP, FLOOOP.

  Grampa Al’s windmill, beautifully reconstructed from a car’s radiator fan, aluminum tent poles, a bicycle frame and chain, a rubber belt, pulleys, and plastic pipes, turns steadily in the brisk breeze on the roof of the old factory building.

  “Smoother than a baby’s butt,” says Grampa Al.

  Klink holds his windmill attachment up in the breeze and tops off his battery charge to full.

  “Smoother than ‘a flock of sheep that leisurely pass by one after one,’” says Klink.

  Grampa Al stares, then laughs. “William Wordsworth? Did you just look that up?”

  Klink nods his glass-domed head.

  “You are turning into a real poet.”

  “And my feet show it!” says Klink. “They are Longfellows.”

  Grampa Al laughs even louder. “You have no idea why that’s funny, do you?”

  “Well,” says Klink, “because long feet are . . . funny?”

  “I didn’t think so,” says Grampa Al.

  Watson loads a perfectly dimpled plastic pellet into his Perfect Peashooter. He takes aim at the empty soda can on the ledge. Puffs. Fires.

  Plink!

  “Perfect,” says Watson, without much enthusiasm.

  Frank carefully places the Electro-Finger in its saxophone case.

  Frank makes a last note in his Energy notebook and then closes it.

  “Entry twenty-one,” says Frank. “Tesla would have liked that. Seven times his favorite number, three.”

  Frank, Watson, and Grampa Al look out over the rooftops of downtown Midville. The sun sinks slowly below the western horizon. Streetlights and house lights wink on in the darkening dusk.

  “I’m glad we could at least use the Electro-Finger to replace all the power generators Edison destroyed,” says Frank.

  “He would have controlled every bit of energy in Midville if it wasn’t for Klank,” says Watson. “I will remember Klank every time I see a light go on.”

  Klink, trying to think of something nice, and true, to say, is at least half successful. “I will remember Klank every time I think of electrons.”

  Frank shakes his head. “I thought I could put him back together. But there were just too many pieces. Too much was broken.”

  Frank flicks the trigger of the Electro-Finger back and forth.

  Flooop flooop flooop goes Grampa Al’s windmill, somehow sounding as sad as everyone feels.

  Flooop flooop flooop. Badang, badang, badang.

  The windmill sound turns into half Robot Boogie.

  Flooop badang flooop badang flooop badang badang badang.

  The guys turn away from the sunset to see what is going on with the windmill.

  And there, shining in the last red rays of the setting sun, in all his repatched, reconstructed, crazy-new-added-parts, Robot Boogie–singing glory, is . . .

  “Klank!”
beeps truth-telling Klink.

  “Klank?” says Watson.

  “Klank . . . how?” asks Frank.

  Grampa Al smiles. “I don’t call this the Fix It! shop for nothing. Self-assembled . . . with a little Fix It! know-how.”

  Klank spreads his new arms. “Hug!”

  Everyone piles into Klank for a scrum of human/robot hugs.

  “Amazing,” says Frank Einstein. “Klank is just like energy—he cannot be destroyed. Only changed to a different form!”

  “Badang badang badang. Badang a-lang a-ding dong. Boogie bing bong,” electro-sound-wave–Robot-Boogies Klank.

  Frank raises his Electro-Finger in the air and fires one beautiful, jagged, bright yellow bolt of pure electrical joy into the purpling clouds.

  “We are happier than . . .”

  “A pig in mud?” says Watson.

  “A chicken already across the road?” adds Klank.

  “Happier than a scientist, his best pal, his amazing grampa, and the two greatest robots ever,” says Frank. “And we’ll need all of us for our next challenge.”

  Frank holds up a new notebook: HUMANS.

  “The next category on our Wall of Science.”

  Watson nods. “Now, this should be more fun than—”

  “—a cylinder-shaped wooden container with bulging sides full of small- to medium-sized primates that typically have tails and live in trees in tropical countries.”

  Everyone looks at Klink.

  And laughs.

  “Yes,” says Frank Einstein. “Exactly.”

  FRANK EINSTEIN’S ENERGY NOTES

  ENERGY

  Makes everything happen.

  Without it, nothing can live or move.

  FORCES (USING ENERGY)

  Start things moving.

  Change the way things move.

  Stop things moving.

  Hold everything together.

  Break things apart.

  DIFFERENT KINDS OF ENERGY

  Light. Sound. Heat. Electric/magnetic. Mechanical. Chemical. Nuclear.

  THE LAW OF ENERGY CONSERVATION

  Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

  For example: sunlight –> grows tree –> burns wood –> boils water –> steam turns turbine –> motion produces electricity –> electricity heats coils –> coils toast bread –> eaten toast gives muscles energy –> muscles move –> movement makes action . . .

  HOW FORCES WORK

  NEWTON’S THREE LAWS OF MOTION

  1. An object at rest will stay at rest (or straight line/constant speed) unless acted upon by an outside force.

  2. The greater the force, the greater the change of motion of an object.

  3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  FUNDAMENTAL FORCES

  GRAVITY

  The force between bodies.

  Makes objects fall, and holds planets in orbit.

  ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE

  Attracts negatively charged electrons to positively charged nucleus in the atom.

  STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE

  Keeps protons and neutrons together in the atom’s nucleus.

  WEAK NUCLEAR FORCE

  Holds together bits that make up protons and neutrons.

  A WATSON FAVORITE INVENTION

  People used to put sand and ash in cat litter boxes. Then one day in 1947, Ed Lowe’s neighbor ran out of sand. Ed gave her clay because he knew clay would suck up more moisture and not be as messy as sand or ash.

  The neighbor (and her cat) loved the clay.

  So Ed filled bags with five pounds of clay to sell for sixty-five cents. And on the side of each bag, he wrote the name of his new invention: Kitty Litter.

  POEM IN POLICE CHIEF JACOBS’S POCKET

  “POWER”

  BY EMILY DICKINSON

  You cannot put a fire out;

  A thing that can ignite

  Can go, itself, without a fan

  Upon the slowest night.

  You cannot fold a flood

  And put it in a drawer, --

  Because the winds would find it out,

  And tell your cedar floor.

  KLINK AND KLANK MAKE PRESENT HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN ELECTRO-FINGER

  MATERIALS

  Sheets of steel, aluminum, or any metal you can find

  Copper wire

  Buttons

  Small LEDs

  Switches

  1 antenna

  ASSEMBLY

  Bend the metal into the shape of a glove.

  Loop the wire into 357 perfect coils.

  “Why did it take the simple machine an hour to eat breakfast?”

  “Klank, we are explaining how to build an Electro-Finger. Do not interrupt.”

  Draw the magnetism of Earth inside the coils.

  Move back and forth to gather electrons in—

  “It took a veeeeeeery long time.”

  “What took a very long time?”

  “The simple machine’s breakfast.”

  “I told you I did not want to hear this.”

  “OK. But . . . it is very funny.”

  “No! Because we have only two pages to explain how to build an Electro-Finger, and if you insist on talking, we will not be able to fit all the instructions on these pages.”

  “Because the orange-juice carton said concentrate!”

  “What?”

  “Ha-ha-ha!”

  “What?”

  “The orange-juice instructions said concentrate. Ha-ha-ha.”

  “That is not funny.”

  “So it took him a very long time to eat breakfast! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

  “Nooooooooooooo bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  A RECIPE FROM MR. CHIMP

  ANTS ON A LOG

  INGREDIENTS

  2 celery stalks, washed and trimmed

  4 tablespoons peanut butter

  ½ cup ants (red or black)

  DIRECTIONS

  CUT the celery stalks in half.

  SPREAD peanut butter in each stalk.

  SPRINKLE the peanut butter with ants.

  JON SCIESZKA has experimented with wireless electricity since birth, shocking the doctor who delivered him with a jolt of baby-JS static electricity. He is the author of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Battle Bunny, the Time Warp Trio series, and 4,832 other stories. He is the founder of Guys Read (a web-based literacy initiative for boys), and served as the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is still scientifically shocking.

  BRIAN BIGGS has illustrated books by Garth Nix, Cynthia Rylant, and Katherine Applegate, and is the writer and illustrator of the Everything Goes series. He lives in Philadelphia.

  TO MY VERY ELECTRIFYING EDITOR—PROFESSOR CHARLES KOCHMAN

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS ARE EITHER THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY, AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  SCIESZKA, JON.

  FRANK EINSTEIN AND THE ELECTRO-FINGER / JON SCIESZKA ;

  ILLUSTRATED BY BRIAN BIGGS.

  PAGES CM. — (FRANK EINSTEIN ; [2])

  ISBN 978-1-4197-1483-2 (HARDCOVER) — ISBN 978-1-61312-758-2 (EBOOK)

  [1. ROBOTS—FICTION. 2. INVENTORS—FICTION. 3. POWER RESOURCES—FICTION. 4. HUMOROUS STORIES. 5. SCIENCE FICTION.] I. BIGGS, BRIAN, ILLUSTRATOR. II. TITLE.

  PZ7.S41267FS 2015

  [FIC]—DC23

  2014029591

  TEXT COPYRIGHT © 2015 JON SCIESZKA

  ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © 2015 BRIAN BIGGS

  BOOK DESIGN BY CHAD W.
BECKERMAN

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