The Dead Professor
“Professor Einstein? Professor Albert Einstein? Is that you?” Chilli asked in disbelief. Now I’m really losing my guavas, she thought.
“Oh ja, ja mein kinder. It iss indeet I. Ze von, ze only, nefer to be repeated, Professor Albert Einstein. At your zientific service,” the old man chortled.
The famous professor was sitting at a laboratory bench strewn with pipes, test tubes and Bunsen burners. In front of him was a glass jar of bubbling clear liquid.
“Toh doh!” said the professor (his speciality was physics, not English). He wore a white scientist’s lab coat, its ink-stained breast pocket crammed with too many pens. One more pen and the pocket would have split at the seams. The professor patted his trademark wild white hair to try and tame it into some order. He flattened it on one side of his head, only for it to spring up on the other. Exasperated, he gave up.
“Himmel, zis hair shall be ze death of me! But zen I suppose I am too late for zat. I am dead already. Bwahahaha!” Chill and Ty smiled weakly. They were too freaked out to appreciate his joke.
“Zere is no need to shtare. I am not goink to conduct nasty experiments on you. Come, plis to join me at my verkbench.”
Dumbfounded, the friends went and sat at the professor’s table. As she sat down, Chilli finally found her tongue.
“Uhm professor, what... what are you doing here?” She was having a hard time talking to a certified genius. And a dead one at that.
“Yeah” Ty chimed in, “shouldn’t you be resting after all the hard work you did when you were... well... alive?”
“Zuch curiosity!” said the delighted professor, clapping his hands together. “How ab-so-lute-ly vonderful! Your mind it iss expanding vonce again. Did you know zat fear makes shtale your mind and beng! It shuts down ze imagination? But not anymore you. Now you and your freund can dream and do anysing you efer dreamed. People should know zat vot you fear you draw to you, and fear iss just a shtupid sawt in your head.” He tapped his head with a pen he’d pulled from his pocket. “Zooo get rit of ze fear. Just like zat!” He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point.
“Uhm” interrupted Ty the excited man, “why are you here?” Einstein was one of his heroes and he felt rude interrupting the genius.
“Mm? Vot? Oh, zere I go again. I am zo zorry! I’m getting carried avay, aren’t I? I even heff put your baboon to zleep” he apologised. He pointed to Oubaas who was slumped on the bench with his head on the table.
“Now” said the professor, rubbing his hands, “to bissness. You heff managed to destroy the eater of your power, und you are ready now to face your final challenge. Ze Power iss now yourss to use.” As he spoke, he scooped some powder into the glass jar on the Bunsen burner and gave it a stir. The liquid bubbled and spewed off green gas until it thickened and turned yellow.
“Can you help us?” asked Ty, hoping the professor would arm them with a canon or two.
“Nein, nein, nein. You heff already everysing you need right here” he said, patting his chest. “Zat, and ze tools you got from Elementia will put zat Morbidius in hiss plase. It is up to you now to yuze your heart and head to finish him off.”
Ty groaned to himself. Einstein was repeating what Panacea had told them. He and Chilli didn’t need another psychology lesson, they needed heavy artillery!
“But can’t you do something to help us. We don’t even have the Arrowheart anymore” insisted Chilli.
BOOM!
“Ah-ha! Herr Morbidius iss getting a klein bit too big for his bootz. Don’t you sink children?”
“That’s why we need your help” pleaded Chilli, “feelings aren’t going to help if Morbidius gets hold of us. What’re we going to do then? Hug him to death?” She was hoping Morbidius’s heartbeat would kick the professor into action.
“Zere iss one sing I vill give to you. You heff done everysing zat has been asked of you, and I vould say a revard iss in order. Don’t you agree?” agreed Professor Einstein.
“Yes!” exclaimed Ty. This was more like it! “What’re you going to give us? An atomic bomb? A laser gun?” he asked hopefully.
“Now, now, now, young man. Meetink violence with violence iss not ze answer. Brains always beats brawn. If we use our kop” he tapped his head, “we can beat zat infernal abomination. Now, pliz to votch.”
He poured the thickened contents of the bubbling jar into a key-shaped mould. The children watched as the liquid quickly solidified into a bright orange metal. Then, satisfied the metal had cooled enough, the professor lifted it with a pair of tongs and plunged it into a bowl of water. The mould hissed and bubbled as it cooled down.
“What’re you doing, prof?” It didn’t look like a laser gun to Ty.
“Tut tut. Patience my young herr. Zis has cooled enuff. Now...” He tipped the moulded key onto the workbench and wiped it dry.
“Zis is vot shall get you clozer to Morbidius’s heart. It iss ze key of imagination. If you sink hard enough, you vill find a vay to use it.”
The scientist held the key out to Chilli who took it from him and turned it over in her hand, inspecting it. It was a large gold key inscribed with the words ‘Imagination is the key.’
Chilli was not impressed. “A key! All you’re going to give us is a key?”
“But of courz! How do you sink man got to ze moon? How did he create ze computer? Ze telefision? Aeroplanes? He had to dream zem up first. Zat is how. Visout imagination nothink vould heff ever been invented. Knowledge, togezzer vizz ziss key, vill get you furzer zan a rocket to marz or venuz. I vould never heff invented ze sings I did if I had not dreamed zem first. Zey gave me ze belief und ze power to carry on ven uzzers told me I voss mad. Zere are many kinds of keys. Zere are keys zat unlock doors and keys zat unlock minds. If you unlock your own mind, you vill know on which lock to use ziss key. For ze answers to the qvestions we zeek are normally right at our feet.”
Chilli, however, wasn’t about to argue with a genius and shoved the key in her pocket.
But Ty had other ideas. “All this psychobabble talk!” he complained. “We’ve got to destroy something that can wipe out planet earth, and you give us a key!” Ty was so angry he wasn’t listening to the professor.
“Zat kind off anger vill make you cuckoo Tyrone!” said the professor, circling his right ear with his finger. “Sings zat you fight against, you give to zem strength. You must razzer support zat for which you shtand. Zat is ze vay of a hero and not a barbarian. Zo, ignore Herr Ultimatum’s craziness, und focus on your mission. Zat vill ensure your success.”
BOOM!
“Can you at least tell us where to find Morbidius’s heart?” pleaded Chilli.
“You don’t need me for zat Chilli. You already know vere to go. You are standing next to ze pipeline zat vill take you to his source of power. Now, I must say aufwiedersehn. And you heff to be someplace elze. Please to stand away from ze table, bitte.”
Ty and Chilli quickly got up and stepped away from the professor. After all, a scientist, a Bunsen burner and chemicals means that just about anything could happen.
Professor Einstein threw a handful of grey dust at the Bunsen burner. It burst into a cloud of tiny sparks that enveloped him and his workbench. The sparks flickered and died as they drifted to the ground where the professor had sat. He and the workbench was gone. All that was left was a chewed-up pen lying on the ground.
“Well, at least we’ve got a key” remarked Chilli turning to Ty. “Perhaps we can poke Morbidius in the eye with it” she remarked wryly.
BOOM!
The pipe rattled loudly, curving sinuously like a giant snake taking a deep breath.
“There’s no time to moan about it Chills. Things are just the way they are. We’ve got to get moving.”
BOOM!
“Ok Ty! You’re right! Misery over! Key in pocket! Let’s play follow-the-pipe!” announced Chilli, striding ahead of him and Oubaas.
“C’mon! What’re you waiting for Ty?”
Relieved his friend wasn’t about to give up, Ty followed her. But something told him the help they needed had just disappeared in a puff of smoke.