CHAPTER 2

Perhaps a little history—what the smart folks call “background” and the literary smart folks call “exposition”—would be in order.

Julian Newcomber, twelve years of age and wise beyond those twelve years, was the oldest son of Abigail and Andrew Newcomber. His mom, according to Grandma and Grandpa Newcomber, was a born homemaker. To some people, the word “homemaker” would be another way of saying “stay-at-home mom.” But in the case of Mrs. Newcomber, it meant more than that. A lot more. Julian’s dad was an inventor. And a lot of his inventions didn’t work quite the way he planned. To be more accurate, they failed. Badly. Really badly. So badly, in fact, they often wrecked the Newcomber house. Hence the need for Mrs. Newcomber to be a homemaker, in the literal sense of the word.

To say Mr. Newcomber’s inventions always failed would be a lie.

One invention that did work really well was the Expand-O-House. The Expand-O-House was a plain—what the smart folks call “nondescript”—box, about a foot on each side. Julian wasn’t sure exactly what was inside of it or what made it work. All he knew was that his dad would put one on the ground in the middle of a big empty lot, push a few buttons and then run backward as fast as he could. Within seconds, lights would start lighting, flaps would start flapping, and walls would start...walling. Two minutes later, there would be a brand-new house sitting there, complete with a basketball pole in the driveway, two cars in the garage, and a white picket fence surrounding it all.

Mrs. Newcomber, always the planner, made sure to keep a ready supply of Expand-O-Houses stashed away in a safe, and boom-proof, place. So whenever one house went skyward, all she has to do was retrieve one and let her husband do his thing. Then she would do her homemaker thing. Julian wasn’t exactly sure how she did it. That is, how she managed to fill the new house with new furniture, dishes, clothes, food, and the hamsters, as all of those things cost money. He assumed it had something to do with her other job, which she called “day trading.”

Julian had once asked his dad what day trading was. He’d answered, “Anyone can spot a leopard, but your mother is the only person I know who can spot a leopard without its spots.” Mr. Newcomber often didn’t make sense, especially on the days a lot of brightly colored smoke spewed from his workshop. Leopards aside, Mrs. Newcomber must have been good at it, as many days Julian witnessed the following exchange between his parents.

Mr. Newcomber: “How did we do today?”

Mrs. Newcomber: “Up three thousand.”

Mr. Newcomber: “Happy Dance time!”

And though he could have put the new house where the old one had been, Mr. Newcomber thought someone—the news or the neighbors or the police—might ask a lot of questions along the lines of, “Why are there pieces of a house lying all over the place?” So, the family would usually just move, far away, find a vacant lot in a new city, and start over again.

Which is why Julian was always the new kid in school.

And as if his parents’ foibles and follies weren’t burden enough, Julian also had to contend with two siblings, twins Dylan and Olivia. Mostly, he thought they were nothing more than dorky little kids who hounded him constantly. After all, they were three years younger. Though, as Dylan liked to remind Julian, it actually was two years and eight months. And soon, there would no longer be a three-year difference, since their birthday was coming up. Regardless of the numerical technicalities, Julian felt older. Still, sometimes he wondered whether something more was going on with them, as funny stuff seemed to follow them around, like a dog you’d shared your sandwich with. He’d have to look into that someday.

The point is that Mr. Newcomber’s inventions either:

Exploded.

Worked.

Or sort of worked. Which is to say they did work, only not in the way Mr. Newcomber had planned.

Which brings us to the Extraordinary eTab…