— Chapter 7 —

Oscar’s mind raced as he stared at the bottle. He knew he had just made a very important discovery. Insect repellent keeps bugs from biting me, he thought, and the tent we sleep in when we’re camping is water-repellent. If the tent keeps water away, then gravity repellent must…

His heart beat faster as he realized what the contents of the little bottle might be able to do. He felt like that boy Charlie in the book about the chocolate factory when he found a golden ticket. Unfortunately, Oscar’s golden ticket was in a locked glass case. And as far as he could tell, there was no way in. He didn’t want to break the glass, because he feared damaging the potentially precious bottle.

Asha, Oscar thought. She’ll know what to do. He rushed out of the train car, closed the door carefully behind him, and hopped down to the ground.

As he started up through the tangle of bushes, Oscar stopped and looked back at Dr. Oopsie’s old caboose. Now that he had pulled away so many of the vines, the train car looked terribly exposed in the light of day. Its red paint seemed brighter, and he worried it would be seen by someone through the trees. He was especially nervous that Zach and his friends might find it. He’d seen them do dumb things like break windows in old buildings. If they found Oscar’s treasure, there was no telling what they might do to it.

He needed to cover the caboose up again. Oscar started pulling vines up from the floor of the clearing and tossing them as high as he could so they would drape over its side. It was no easy task. Most of them slipped right back off, because he couldn’t throw them high enough to catch on anything.

He stood puzzling for a few minutes about how to get the vines to stay in place. Then he remembered the ladder he’d seen at the rear of the caboose. It led up to the roof of the car. Oscar decided to climb it. He knew it was a spectacularly bad idea for a klutzy person like him to get on top of a rickety old thing like the caboose. But he was so afraid that the bullies would find his treasure that he was willing to take a risk to protect it.

Oscar’s concentration was fierce as he climbed the ladder to the top of the caboose. He crawled slowly around on the roof, pushing vines over the edge so they draped down the side.

Suddenly, his sneaker slipped on some wet leaves, and his leg shot out over the side. He clutched a tree branch that stuck through the roof and took a deep breath. If he fell and broke his leg, it could be days, maybe weeks, before anyone would find him. He would never get to unlock the glass case inside.

Slowly and carefully, Oscar crawled back to the ladder and climbed down. The vines he had already pushed over the side would have to be enough. The camouflage wasn’t perfect, but the caboose was much less visible than it had been before.

Satisfied that his treasure was protected, Oscar raced out of the clearing and headed toward Asha’s house. He was so preoccupied thinking about the gravity repellent that he paid little attention to where he put his feet. In fact, he was so happy that he started to skip. Oscar knew skipping was another spectacularly bad idea. It isn’t wise for a klutzy person to skip, even in the best and most alert of moods.

As Oscar walked down the sidewalk, the toe of his sneaker caught a crack in the cement and then…

“Gurf.”

Stupid gravity.

The universe was rubbing it in his face after his discovery.

Asha sat on the front steps of her house reading a book. She looked up when she heard his grunt. “Oscar?”

“Over here,” Oscar groaned, reaching one hand over the fence.

Asha hurried over and helped him up. She noticed his dirt-smeared sweatshirt and his dusty hair and laughed. “What have you been doing? You’re an even bigger mess now than you were at school.”

Oscar didn’t mind when Asha laughed at his klutziness. He knew she didn’t do it to be mean — not like some of the other kids.

“Remember the thing I told you about earlier?” Oscar asked.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to see it?”

“What is it?” Asha’s eyes widened.

“It’s hard to describe. You should just come see it.” Oscar thought about the glass case, and a great idea occurred to him. “Hey,” he added excitedly, “do you still have tools to pick a lock?”

“Shhh!” Asha whispered, putting her finger to her lips. She looked over her shoulder toward her house. “What do you think I am? I don’t do that kind of thing.”

Oscar crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow.

“Okay, once,” Asha admitted. “But that was for a genealogy project.”

The previous summer Asha had been convinced that her parents were hiding a twin sister from her. She and Oscar had figured the proof had to be in her parents’ filing cabinet, so she’d picked the lock on it. They’d been very disappointed to find nothing but old tax forms and passports inside.

“Whatever,” Oscar said, rolling his eyes. Asha liked to use big words to make the things that she did sound more important. “I need you to pick another lock.”

Asha grinned and ran inside to get her tools. Then she followed Oscar around the corner, and they headed to the clearing.