Meanwhile, Back at the Lab . . .
When I got home that afternoon, I headed straight to my lab and . . . Wait, have I told you I have a secret lab? I mean, it’s not a huge secret, like Wendell Mullins having a crush on Missi Kilpatrick (don’t tell anyone), but I wouldn’t want the wrong people knowing about it.
And by the wrong people, I mean my family.
My family has been science-a-phobic ever since they found out that when you mix me with ordinary household products, stuff explodes. I’m not saying they don’t trust me, I’m just saying there’s a reason they padlock the coffee creamer.
Fortunately, my lab is in a super-secret location: our garage. Or, as I like to call it, the island of misfit junk. Now that’s not the same thing as the island of actual junk — actual junk can be thrown away. But misfits are those things that are too good to get rid of but not good enough to actually use. Things like ugly ties; bad school pictures; a canoe that leaks, but only when you put it in the water . . . stuff like that. Our garage is literally jam-packed with misfits — at least that’s what my family thinks. The truth is, in the very center of the room, surrounded by stacks of cardboard boxes and broken patio furniture, there is an open area suitable for human habitation.
It’s my scientific hideaway.
I lifted the garage door, crawled through the abandoned picnic cooler, made a left turn, slithered through the empty filing cabinet, and popped out the door of an old clothes dryer.
When you have a secret entrance, getting there is half the fun.
I flipped on the light. There it was — my laboratory. It’s not fancy or anything, but the place has a certain charm. In front of me was my work table and my countertop filled with test tubes and beakers. The hook with my lab coat was in the corner, and up in the rafters was one of those V-shaped metal things that buzzes and makes a spooky electrical arc. It doesn’t do anything else, but that’s OK. When you look that cool, you don’t have to.
But my favorite part of the lab was hanging on the back wall — a picture my dad took of me and Franklin Stine. He’s my best friend.
Yep, my little laboratory had everything I needed . . . and one thing I didn’t.
“Reynolds!” I yelled. “What are you doing in here?”
“Sitting,” he said.
“I know that, Reynolds. I can see that you’re sitting.”
He blinked.
“Then why did you ask?”
I sighed. To be honest, I wasn’t all that surprised to find Reynolds Pipkin lurking there in the dark. He has this nocturnal quality. I mean, have you seen Reynolds? He’s short and plump, with a pointy nose and thick, round glasses. It’s like a wizard granted an owl’s wish to become a real boy.
Reynolds has been showing up in my lab uninvited ever since he found the secret entrance. That didn’t surprise me either. Reynolds is a snoop, the kind who goes through people’s garbage cans, which makes it almost impossible to keep things from him. Anyway, since he already knew about the place, I made him my lab assistant. Then I fired him. Then I hired him again.
Good minions are hard to find.
“I heard there was a fight at your school today,” Reynolds said.
“It wasn’t a fight,” I told him.
“That’s not what I heard. I heard Trevor Duke drop-kicked a kid through the cafeteria window.”
“No, he didn’t!” I said. “Wet Willie Wilkins was coming at him with his spit finger, so Trevor grabbed his arm and flipped him. It wasn’t really even a flip, he just sort of rolled him onto the floor. I mean, it was a pretty sweet move, but it wasn’t a fight.”
“Oh,” Reynolds said, sounding disappointed. I’d just ruined some perfectly good gossip about the mysterious Trevor Duke.
“What do you know about him, anyway?” I asked.
“Trevor? Nothing. Why would I?”
“Because you’re the biggest snoop in town. You spy on people.”
His owl eyes made two quick blinks.
“I prefer to think of it as data collection,” he said.
I shrugged.
“What time is it?”
“Four twenty-eight. Why?”
“I’m expecting a call,” I said.
Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out my tablet and punched the power button. A minute later, it beeped at me. A message appeared on the screen. Are you available for a video chat?
I connected.
The screen went black and, when it returned, it had a face — a friendly, furry, big-eyed, fang-flashing face.
“Hey, Franklin,” I said.
“Hello, Howard,” Franklin said. “Are you alone?”
“I wish,” I muttered.
Reynolds moved in front of me and pushed his pudgy face frighteningly close to the tablet’s camera.
“Hi, Franklin! It’s me! Reynolds! Reynolds Pipkin, Howard’s neighbor!”
I shoved him out of the way.
“He knows who you are, Reynolds! Get back!”
Franklin smiled. It felt a little like old times. Reynolds was actually with me the day I created Franklin in the lab. His ball of Wonder Putty turned out to be the secret ingredient in my monster goo.
“Reynolds, don’t you have something else to do? Like straightening this place up?”
Reynolds frowned, but he took the hint and walked to the other side of the lab.
“I got your email, Howard,” Franklin said. “How is your training with Nathaniel going?”
Oh, I probably should have mentioned that Stick’s real name is Nathaniel. I’m the only one who calls him Stick, which is short for Ugly-on-a-Stick, but that’s just because other people don’t know him as well as I do.
“Yesterday he made me walk back and forth like a duck in a shooting gallery while he nailed me with fudge bombs,” I said.
Franklin looked puzzled.
“What’s a fudge bomb?”
“It’s a snowball with dog doo in the middle,” I said. “Until Stick started throwing them at me, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”
“He’s a good teacher,” Franklin said.
“I guess.”
“How’s everything else?”
I told him about the robot contest, and about the “fight” in the cafeteria, and about Kyle Stanford and Josh Gutierrez turning me into a snow devil. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that last part. Things like that made Franklin sad.
“I’m sorry, Howard. I wish I was there to help you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
I missed Franklin. I mean, we talked all the time, but it wasn’t the same since he went away. He had to go — a monster just doesn’t belong in the regular world. When we both figured that out, I uploaded him into Facespace, an Internet site where he could be what he was always supposed to be — a friend. The last time I checked, Franklin had over three thousand Facespace friends, and he seemed really happy being there. But it was a big adjustment, especially for me. I couldn’t even bring myself to get rid of the goo that used to be his body. It was just sitting there in a barrel in the . . .
Wait a second — where was the barrel? Where was the big silver barrel that always sat in the corner of the lab? I started to panic, but then I saw that Reynolds had dragged it across the room — and was standing on it!
“Get down from there!” I yelled.
I shouldn’t have shouted. When Reynolds spun around, the barrel under his feet went one way, and he went the other. Before I could do anything, Reynolds fell onto the floor and, a second later, the big steel barrel toppled over on its side.
KLAAAANG!
My heart skipped.
“Don’t move!” I said. “Let me check you out and make sure nothing’s broken.”
“I’m all right,” Reynolds said.
“I was talking to the barrel,” I growled.
OK, I wasn’t really talking to the barrel. But I was definitely talking about the barrel. And please don’t tell me that my first concern should have been for Reynolds, because I already knew Reynolds was fine. He’d landed mostly on his feet and, besides, Reynolds is eleven. Eleven-year-olds bounce.
But barrels don’t. When they hit the ground, they tend to crack and leak. And considering this particular barrel contained a highly experimental, deeply mysterious, extremely unpredictable, mutating, creature-creating substance, that would be a bad thing. I mean, who knew what could happen?
“Haven’t I told you never to touch the barrel?”
“I needed something to stand on,” Reynolds said.
“It’s not a stepladder, Reynolds! It’s monster goo! Do you know why we call it monster goo?”
He looked down at his feet, but I just stood there waiting for an answer. It’s a little move I learned from my mom.
“Because it turns into monsters,” he mumbled.
“Exactly! That’s all I’m saying,” I said.
Reynolds blinked three times, which I assume in Pipkin language is an apology. Anyway, that’s how I took it. I grabbed an end of the barrel and stood it upright. It was lighter than I remembered — unbelievably light. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn the goo wasn’t in there at all. I wondered what it looked like now, what it felt like. It really was an amazing substance.
“Howard?” Reynolds said, bringing me out of my daze. “Do you want to put it back in the corner?”
I nodded, and together we scooted the barrel back to the forbidden zone.
“Was there something you couldn’t reach, Reynolds?” Franklin asked him.
It was a force of habit. Franklin used to be tall, and tall people are always showing off and getting things down from high places. They consider it a superpower.
“I wanted the banana,” Reynolds said, pointing to a bright-yellow object on a high shelf above the counter.
Franklin’s eyes lit up. He might not have a stomach anymore, but he still got excited whenever someone mentioned food.
“There’s a banana?” he said hopefully.
“You can’t eat it. It’s a dancing banana,” I said.
“There’s a dancing banana!” Franklin screamed.
Now he was practically frothing at the mouth.
“You’ve got to see this. It’s cool,” Reynolds said.
In a flash, he climbed up the cabinet like a chimpanzee, which made me wonder why we had to go through the whole thing with the barrel. When he came down, he was holding my boogie banana. He set it on the lab table.
“Do we have to do this?” I said.
“YES!” the two of them yelled as one.
I shook my head. It’s not that I had anything against the boogie banana, it’s just that I’d seen it a million times. The bottom was a black plastic rectangle about four inches wide and, above it, on a springy sort of thing, was this big yellow banana made out of rubber. Glued to the side was a small gold plaque that said “Top Banana,” and just below that, in black marker, were the words “In Science.”
I’d written that last part on there myself. Sometimes I like to pretend I get awards.
Reynolds grabbed the boom box I keep above the sink and hit the power button. Music blasted from the speakers, and, like magic, the banana began to dance. It bent forward and backward, then shimmied side to side. The faster the beat, the faster it moved. Of course, it wasn’t actually dancing, it was just reacting to the sound waves. Still, you had to respect its skills.
When the show was over, I glanced at Franklin’s face. It was frozen in the stunned position.
“Wow,” he whispered.
What a goober! Franklin thought the dancing banana was some kind of amazing, mystical, magical wonder. I laughed.
Of course, that was before I found out he was right.