A whole week had gone by, and with every passing day the science fair was getting closer, and the machine was getting bigger and better—but there was a long way to go yet. So even though we’d been putting it off for a while and that Friday was supposed to be the day Penny and I finally broke the tie in our backyard croquet match with Grandpa, I just couldn’t fit it in.
Plus, Grandpa seemed so out of it that I was sure he’d forgotten all about our tournament anyway. The day before, when Dominic and I had arrived, we’d found him sitting in his armchair, staring at an old picture of him and Tomato on the beach. He’d looked a million miles away, and he hadn’t even remembered to get up to offer us a snack.
“I’m really sorry,” I told Penny as Dominic and I said good-bye to her outside the school. We were so close to perfecting the newspaper dump part of the Tomato-Matic 2000, and then we could move on to the slippers lift. I knew Penny would understand. “We’ll finish the tournament soon, okay?” The science fair was just days away. It made my heart race to think about it.
“Sure,” she said. “No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, though, right?”
“Definitely!” I answered, not wanting to hurt her feelings, even though I wasn’t 100 percent sure I’d have time to hang out. I hadn’t spent an afternoon with Penny in more than a week, and I wanted to see her, but it would kind of depend on how well the machine was working by then.
On our way to Grandpa’s house, Dominic and I stopped by the hardware store again for a few supplies. Then we hit the fruit and veggie stand on the corner for one more thing. “You sure you want to use my idea?” Dominic said as we loaded ripe tomatoes into a bag. It was true that Dominic’s suggestion for triggering the helicopter might get messy, but it was also pretty funny. Plus, there was the fact that Grandpa grew huge tomatoes every summer, and made his own sauce. Tomato had loved to eat grandpa’s tomatoes too. It was how he’d gotten his name as a puppy. Really, Dominic’s idea was meant to be.
“I’m sure,” I said.
It took us most of that afternoon to rig up the catch at the top of the clothesline that released when the newspaper basket hit it, then dumped the newspaper onto the coffee table and started a tomato rolling down a ramp.
On Saturday morning we both got to Grandpa’s early and moved on to setting up the mannequin arm, which we’d found in the garbage outside a store. When the tomato reached the halfway mark on the ramp, it hit a lever that released a band we’d tied around the arm, dropping it just in time so that the mannequin hand smacked the tomato, turning it to juice that oozed into a bucket we’d set up underneath. The bucket was already filled with other smushed tomatoes, and the weight of the extra juice had to make it just heavy enough that it would fall off the ropes that were holding it and land on top of the helicopter liftoff button we’d placed underneath.
Dominic was programming the helicopter so that when the bucket hit the button, the helicopter would lift off the launchpad with the slippers attached and deliver them to the coffee table, where Grandpa would be waiting! TA-DA!
Of course, there were a few glitches to work out . . . including the fact that, when the bucket of juice fell onto the helicopter button, it kept tipping sideways and pouring squashed tomatoes all over the floor of the shed. Dominic and I had to work all afternoon to get it to stay steady.
“You ready?” Dominic asked finally as he tightened one last screw on the motor. We’d made a brace kind of thing with bent coat hangers, and it seemed to be holding the tomato bucket upright. There were still a bunch of other problems left to fix—the newspaper didn’t always land in the basket when it flew off the catapult, and sometimes the motor stalled—but we’d come a long way, and it was time for a real test run. Of course I was ready! I couldn’t wait to show the Tomato-Matic to Grandpa and see the grateful expression on his face when he realized that soon he wouldn’t have to worry about bringing in the paper or finding his slippers anymore.
“Definitely.” I smiled.
Minutes later Dominic and I were each tugging on one of Grandpa’s hands, pulling him across the backyard. “Close your eyes, Grandpa,” I said when we reached the shed door. We helped him across the threshold. “Okay. Open!” Grandpa grinned as he looked around the shed.
“I barely recognize the place!” He laughed. It was true. All of the paint cans and old boxes had been pushed to one side to make room for the Rube Goldberg machine. With the clothesline pulley system and tomato ramp stretched out, our machine went from wall to wall. It looked pretty impressive. We’d even borrowed some old Christmas lights and strung them up around the sign we’d painted in ruby-red one-foot-high letters. INTRODUCING THE TOMATO-MATIC 2000!
“Here.” I handed Grandpa a rolled up newspaper. “I think you should do the honors. Toss that onto the left side of the teeter-totter, okay?” He did, and the Tomato-Matic went to work.
“It’s for you,” I explained as the teeter-totter tipped, pulling the string that released the bowling ball. It thudded onto the other side of the plank of wood and launched the paper directly into the wicker basket. Then Dominic’s motor whirred to life, thankfully, without a hitch.
“When the science fair is over, I’m going to set it up in your house,” I told Grandpa. “Then every morning when the paperboy comes, he’ll throw the paper onto the plank, which we’ll set up at the front door, and this is what will happen.” By now the newspaper basket had reached the end of the pulley system. It hit the bumper pad, which released the catch and tapped the waiting tomato, which started its descent down the ramp. At the same time, the basket tipped and the newspaper fell squarely onto the coffee table that waited below.
“Would you look at that!” Grandpa said, obviously impressed.
The tomato reached the middle of the ramp and hit the lever that released the mannequin arm. WAP! The disembodied hand smacked the tomato to oblivion, sending seeds and juice flying everywhere. “That part is a bit messy,” I explained.
Grandpa watched with fascination as the juice dripped down the ramp, filling the bucket and stretching the ropes to their breaking point. BAM! The bucket landed on top of the sensor that turned on the helicopter. But without warning the brace we’d built with bent coat hangers gave out, sending the bucket tipping sideways and releasing a sea of mashed tomato across the floor.
“Oh, no!” Dominic said. We’d been almost positive that we’d finally worked that bug out. “That’s not supposed to happen,” he said apologetically.
Still, the helicopter rose off its launchpad into the air, circling in a perfect arc, before setting the slippers down gently beside the coffee table.
Grandpa laughed and shook his head. “Now, that’s one way of making tomato juice I’ve never seen before,” he said. And that was when I realized he’d kind of missed the point. I mean, yes, the machine made tomato juice, but that wasn’t its real job.
“See the slippers and newspaper,” I pointed out. “It does the things Tomato used to do for you. That’s why it’s called the Tomato-Matic. It’s like your new best friend! The tomato squishing part was just extra. That was Dominic’s idea.”
All of a sudden Grandpa seemed to stiffen. He cleared his throat. Then he got kind of quiet.
“Do you like it?” I asked, almost jumping up and down. Except for the tomatoes spilling, it had been one of the best runs the machine had ever had, and I was so proud Grandpa had been there to see it.
Instead of answering, Grandpa walked over to the machine, picked up the newspaper, and stared at the front page.
“Obviously that’s an old paper. We just used it for the test. When we set it up for real, it’ll be the one from that morning.”
“I see. So this is my new dog, is it?” Grandpa said finally. He put down the paper, walked over to the tomato bucket, and set it upright. “Messier than the old one.”
I thought he was making a joke, so I laughed. “Don’t worry, Grandpa. We’ll fix that part somehow.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said, looking up at me now. His mouth was a tight, straight line. It wasn’t an expression I saw often on Grandpa’s face. “It’s the rest of it that worries me.” He took a step back to look at the entire machine. “Ruby, how would you feel if someone tried to replace Penny with cables and ramps?” Grandpa asked.
It was a crazy question. Of course a machine could never replace Penny!
“Penny isn’t a dog,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
“Tomato wasn’t just a dog either. He was my best friend for thirteen long years. He was a lot more to me than a newspaper and slippers fetcher.”
“I know that, Grandpa. I didn’t mean that it’s like a real dog, but the machine can help you. Doesn’t it make you feel a little bit better?”
“No, Ruby,” he snapped. “It doesn’t. It makes me feel worse, if you want to know the truth. You know I adore you, but every now and then I wish you knew when to call it quits.”
Grandpa’s words hit me harder than a newspaper-filled basket to the head. When everyone else was telling me to stop showing off, stop taking their stuff for science experiments, stop making everything a contest, he’d always been the one encouraging me to explore new things and try a little bit harder to reach my goals. But now I knew the truth. He thought I took things too far too, just like my parents, and the kids at school, and everyone else except Penny.
“The Tomato-Matic,” Grandpa said, and sighed, looking at our lit-up sign. “I’ll tell you one thing. This might be an impressive piece of machinery, but I liked my old dog better.”
I felt my eyes start to sting, and I knew the tears wouldn’t be far behind. I picked up my backpack and ran out the shed door.
“Wait, Ruby!” It was Dominic, coming down the driveway toward me. “Are you okay?” I wiped furiously at my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to blot the tears that were trickling down my face now.
“Sure.” I said, swinging one leg over my bike. “I’m fine. I just have to go home now, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Dominic said, putting his backpack on. “Okay. Yeah. Me too.” He took a few steps toward the street, but then stopped and turned around. “Are you sad because your grandpa didn’t like it?” he asked, blinking from underneath his bangs.
“It’s fine,” I said, not wanting him to see how upset I was. Everyone already thought I was too competitive and too much of a show-off. The last thing I needed to hear was that I was too sensitive as well.
“Okay,” Dominic said. “But if you were—sad, I mean—I’d understand. I still think it’s a great machine. And I bet your grandpa does too. He probably didn’t mean what he said.”
I kind of doubted that. Grandpa was such a careful, thoughtful, kind person. He wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true. That was what made it hurt most of all. Still, it was nice of Dominic to try to make me feel better.
“Sure.” I said, even though I didn’t believe it. “Yeah. Maybe.”
I took the long way home, circling through the park and then using the trail that ran along the river, but I was careful to leave myself enough daylight to get home safely.
The streetlights were just coming on as I reached my house, which was probably why I didn’t notice Penny until I was partway up our front path—even though she should have been extremely noticeable. After all, it’s not every day you come home to find a peacock sitting on your steps. Her skirt was bright yellow with green and blue eye shapes painted on it. Rows of colorful sequins ran around the bottom. She was also wearing a feathered headband and had thick green lines painted around her eyes. I could see that she was twirling her hair around one finger, that way she always does when she’s nervous or upset.
“Penny!” I exclaimed, coming to a stop in front of her. “Your costume is so beautiful.”
“Is it?” she said, raising her arms. Her peacock skirt glittered in the streetlights. “I didn’t think you’d notice.” And that was when I saw that the green face paint around her eyes was smudged, like she’d been crying.
I got off my bike, dumped it on the lawn, and went to sit beside her.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She sniffed. “I was wondering the same thing about you when you didn’t show up at my dress rehearsal. That’s why I came straight here after, to see if you were all right . . . but your mom said you were still at your grandpa’s.”
The dress rehearsal! It had been that afternoon, and I’d promised to be right in the front row, where Penny could see me. That’s what she’d meant on Friday when she’d said she’d see me the next day! I couldn’t believe I’d completely forgotten!
“I’m so sorry,” I said. Penny’s face softened. “I should have remembered. It’s just that Dominic and I were so close to finishing the Tomato-Matic 2000. It wasn’t looking so good for a while, but today we finally found a way to steady the bucket of tomato juice when it lands on the helicopter trigger. We realized that if we built a brace out of bent coat hangers—except it didn’t exactly work. Plus, you won’t believe what my Grandpa said to me—”
“AGGHhhh!” Penny got up off the step and put her hands on her hips. Her skirt flared out around her in the breeze as she faced me. “Really?” she said. “You’re talking about coat hangers right now?”
“What?” I answered helplessly. “What’s wrong with coat hangers?”