Chapter Three

Jeronicus arrived upstairs, where a pair of bookshelf doors swung open to reveal his workshop.

Flames crackled in the hearth of the brick fireplace, and over a long worktable in the center of the room stood prototypes of his inventions among percolating vials and beakers of vibrant liquids that bubbled and steamed. Jeronicus pulled a lever, and a sled-like contraption lowered from the ceiling and stopped just above his shoulders to dress him in his leather inventor smock. He regarded the cannister in his hands with glee, then reached up and grabbed his inventor goggles as the contraption began to lift. At his worktable, he set down the tube.

“I told you he’d already be here!” came Jessica’s voice. Seconds later, she and Joanne burst into the workshop while Jeronicus crossed the room to his giant book of inventions propped up on a stand. Jessica, now wearing her own inventor apron, set down her little notebook of designs and raced over to her father, who kept flipping pages. Despite his book’s size, the designs drawn within were each more intricate than the last, with tiny notes and labels scribbled in the margins.

Finally, he paused on a spread marked by a blue ribbon, tapping the page with his finger.

It showed a design for a toy matador, or bullfighter. This figurine would be the toy that would change everything. And now, he possessed the final ingredient to make it all possible . . .

He rubbed his hands together to warm up, and Jessica mirrored his movements. It was their father-daughter tradition whenever inventing was afoot. He stopped to blow on each of his flattened palms, sending sparkles flurrying off his fingertips, and Jessica did the same. Then he scribbled formulas in the air with his finger. The mathematical notations floated before him and glowed like streaks of flaming lava. Joanne and Jessica eagerly looked on, though only Jeronicus could see the shimmering symbols. Still, Jessica traced her pointer finger through the air, copying him as he shifted around variables, coefficients, and exponents to his satisfaction.

“If my calculations are correct”—he stopped to scrutinize his formula—“this is it.”

Back at his worktable, with his inventor goggles on and Joanne and Jessica flanking him, Jeronicus carefully took up the ornate cannister and flipped it open. Inside lay a smaller, thinner cannister, which opened to reveal an even tinier one nestled inside, which opened to reveal the final ingredient to create the matador, the toy he’d been dreaming of inventing his whole life. He lifted the pointed pipette with a blue bulb at one end.

Moments later, the Jangles gathered around The Jangleator 2000, a machine with a series of tubing, pipes, and propellers. Jeronicus delicately squeezed the single gleaming blue drop from the pipette into a funneled opening. “Something should happen now,” he said victoriously.

The Jangleator 2000 remained still. Nothing happened.

He looked at Joanne and Jessica, who looked at the machine, waiting.

“Now,” he repeated, waving his hands over it.

Everyone held their breaths.

Suddenly, steam shot out the top of the machine!

“Now!” Jeronicus shouted and ducked down.

The machine howled like a train. Its cogs began to spin as liquids coursed through its loops of coils. The lights in the workshop sputtered. Joanne held Jessica tight as they watched.

“It’s working!” Jeronicus tapped pedals, twisted wheels, cranked valves, and yanked levers. The Jangleator sparked and bucked, and Joanne gasped while Jessica tittered.

“Don’t be alarmed.” Jeronicus popped up from the other side of the machine. “This is how it’s supposed to happen.” He ducked back down, and Joanne broke into laughter. Finally, with one last twist of a wheel, and a pleased shout, the whistling machine quieted. Everyone leaned in close.

A radiant blue liquid filled a tiny glass dropper.

The recipe for the matador was complete.

Jeronicus cranked an arm of the machine, guiding its dropper over the foot-tall toy. The slender figurine wore a fitted baby-blue bolero jacket with intricate details and a corbatín, and had a head of jet-black hair with a mustache and goatee. He was slumped over. A minuscule funnel jutted out from the place where a spine should have been. Jeronicus directed the drop into it.

Then the toy began to straighten and stretch.

Everyone crouched down around the matador, who stood on a little round pedestal. He began to hum. When he realized he had an audience, he cleared his throat and struck a dashing pose with the grace of a flamenco dancer. “¡Olé! It is I, Maestro Don Juan Diego!” he said. “When the bull sees me, he slays himself. It is an honor for you to finally meet me.” He bowed low to the admiring Jangles.

“And I-I’m Jeronicus.” Jeronicus bowed in turn, but not nearly as elegantly as Don Juan. So overcome by his emotions, Jeronicus was nearly at a loss for words. “And this . . . this is my wonderful family.”

“¡Hola, maravillosa familia!” Don Juan greeted.

Jeronicus picked up the pedestal on which Don Juan stood.

The matador swayed sideways, but steadied himself. “¡Cuidado! ¡Cuidado!” he urged.

“Gotcha,” Jeronicus said, carrying him across the room.

“I am fragile,” Don Juan reminded him. “You can throw roses at my feet.”

Taking great care, Jeronicus rushed toward his worktable, with Joanne and Jessica in tow. “Look at that! Look at that!” He set the pedestal down, and he and Jessica leaned over it. “Everything we ever dreamed of,” Jeronicus breathed, unable to take his eyes off the toy.

Don Juan turned to Jessica. “I like when people stare at me! I give them something to stare at! In the form of a dance!” He struck a limber stance.

Jessica mirrored his lithe movements, clearly entertained.

Jeronicus took Joanne’s hands in his. “Everything I ever promised you will be ours now.” They could afford to keep the shop for years to come, to purchase a house high on the bluffs!

“I believe in you, Jeronicus,” Joanne said.

“Hello!” Don Juan chimed in. “Magical toy just come to life! Focus. Focus!”

Jessica rested a hand on Jeronicus’s arm. “I believe in you the most.”

“Aww, I cry,” Don Juan butted in.

Jeronicus stooped down so that he and Jessica were eye level. “And I believe in you.” He pinched her chin. “That’s why”—he jubilantly stepped to a cluttered desk, where he opened a simple wooden box and pulled out a pair of shiny gold inventor goggles—“I got you an early Christmas gift.” He presented the goggles to her, with a purple band, just like she’d wanted.

She cradled them in her hands as if they were baby birds. “My own inventor goggles! They’re perfect!” She enveloped her father in the biggest hug.

“Now you’re an inventor,” he whispered.

She beamed. “Just like you.”

“Aww,” Don Juan said. “Okay! Back to me!”

From the doorway, Gustafson had heard the heartfelt exchange. He yearned for that sort of recognition and approval as an inventor, and something else—the love of his own family. He glanced down at his shoddy prototype in hand. Then his sights landed on Don Juan, his eyes widening in amazement. “Professor . . . professor, you did it!” he said, rushing over and crouching down at the table to admire the breathing, living matador toy. “B-but . . . how?”

“¡Ay! ¡Dios mío!” Don Juan regarded Gustafson. “You are very stinky!”

Jeronicus, Joanne, and Jessica started at his arrival. Then again, the workshop doubled as his room, with a loft bed against a far wall, so his showing up was a very common occurrence.

But never had Gustafson seen such an uncommon toy, not in all his many years of living there, in that very room. He still couldn’t believe his eyes at the miraculous feat. “He’s perfect!”

Don Juan brushed off Gustafson’s praise. “Por favor—admire me from a distance.”

Jessica giggled.

“And soon, there’ll be a million of him,” Jeronicus shared in a dreamy voice.

Don Juan’s green eyes bugged. “A million of me?” He gulped.

“One for every child in the world.”

Don Juan shook his head. “But I . . . am one of a kind,” he retorted.

“Jeronicus, we have to celebrate!” Joanne said. “Let me get dinner ready.”

“Yes, indeed,” Jeronicus replied. Before he knew it, Joanne was rushing out of the workshop to prepare dinner, with Jessica skipping behind her.

“Excuse me! Wonderful family!” Don Juan was still stuck on the idea of being replicated.

Jeronicus untied his smock and placed it over his apprentice. “Gustafson, straighten up everything for me. And take good care of our new friend.” He wore a look of utmost wonder.

The toy gave him an upbeat thumbs-up in turn. “¡Señor!”

“Whose very existence has changed everything,” Jeronicus concluded.

Don Juan dipped his head. “I would like to discuss this million thing.”

“Jeronicus!” Jessica called. The smell of cinnamon and mulling spices wafted up the stairs.

“I’ll be right there, my love!” Jeronicus hurried out the doors.

“Oh, professor! Yoo-hoo!” Don Juan yelled, vying for his attention.

Gustafson held up his prototype. “Oh! Wait! But would you look at my invention—”

“It’s gonna be a merry Christmas!” Jeronicus shouted to the rafters. “Wait till Delacroix sees this! We’ll finally be able to pay back the bank! A merry Christmas indeed!” He began his descent down the spiral staircase until his footfalls faded away to nothing.

But it wouldn’t be a merry Christmas.

Not if Gustafson could help it . . .