CHAPTER 3

The intercom that Julian’s father had installed in Julian’s room buzzed, though “shrieked like a cat whose tail had gotten stepped on repeatedly” would be a more apt description. It was his dad, trying to get his attention.

Mission accomplished.

“Julian, could you please come out to the workshop? I want to show you something.”

Julian put on his football helmet and the Kevlar fireplace gloves, then went out the back door.

“Yes, Dad?” he said, sticking a cautious head into the barn, now his dad’s workshop, in the back yard. Way in the back yard. Way at the back of their property, and safely away from their house. Though dangerously close to the high-voltage electrical wires overhead, Julian often thought.

“Check out—what the more casual folks call ‘take a gander at’—this,” Mr. Newcomber said, holding up a black piece of paper.

“What is it?”

“What does it look like?”

“A piece of blank black paper.”

“You’ve got it, son. Ta-da! I’ve invented blank black paper!”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you Dad?”

“I like to think so. Sometimes, it’s even the right answer.”

Mrs. Newcomber often said her husband’s sense of humor was somewhat of an acquired taste. Fortunately (or not), Julian had been fed a steady diet of it for twelve years, and by now, was pretty much immune to it.

“No, really, Dad. What is it?”

“Take it,” Mr. Newcomber said, rolling it into a tube and floating it over to his son, despite the fact that it looked like it had no business flying, let alone alighting perfectly in Julian’s receptive palms.

Weighing it in his hands, it seemed heavier than an ordinary piece of paper. Much heavier.

Julian unrolled it and examined it closely. He couldn’t see how the thin (though heavy) paper could be anything else.

“What does it do?” he asked.

“Turn it on,” Mr. Newcomber said.

“Turn it on? How?”

“Run a finger across it.”

Julian still had on the football helmet. But he wished he had been wearing his swim goggles as well, just to be safe. He took off one glove, closed one eye, and swept a finger across the page. A previously unseen screen lit up, and a small army of icons marched out of the corners and circled the surface before taking their places in neat—what the smart folks call “precise” or “orderly”—rows and columns.

“What do you think?”

“I’ve never seen a piece of blank black paper do that before.”

“That’s because it’s really not a piece of blank black paper.”

“And I’ll just bet you’ve given it a name.”

“I will not accept such a wager, because I would lose. I call it the eTab.”

“The eTab?”

“Yes!” Mr. Newcomber proclaimed as he assumed a heroic superhero, hands-on-his-hips pose and stuck his chin in the air. “Ready for this? It stands for Experimental Talking Analog...Bagpipe.”

“Bagpipe?”

“I’m still working on the last word.”

“Oh. I thought it stood for Electronic Tablet.”

“Oooh! That’s good, too. I need to remember that. Let me get a pen.”

As Mr. Newcomber scribbled, Julian looked at the eTab from every angle, in order. Acute. Right. Obtuse.

“Cool! What apps does it have?”

“Everything.”

“Really, Dad? Everything?”

“OK, not everything. There’s no refrigerator. But email, the internet, a word processor, a camera, the weather, not the weather itself, but the weather report. Not to mention four hundred fifty-three thousand songs, television stations from eighteen countries—I’m working on the rights for some others—as well as every textbook you will need through high school and, depending on where you go to college—”

“Great,” Julian said, less than excited about the latter. “I’m sure this will help a lot with—Wait! Did you say talking?”

“I think I did!” said Mr. Newcomber, clearly excited about that feature. “Ask it something. Anything.”

“OK. What is the temperature today in Antarctica?”

“Was sagen Sie? Ich verstehe nicht.”

“What?” asked Julian.

“Hmmm,” said Mr. Newcomber. “I did get a lot of the parts from this mail order place in Berlin. Maybe you should just forget about talking to it for now. Or, study German.”

“What does this do?” Julian asked, pointing to the large, brightly glowing clock icon in the lower right-hand corner. A clock with a lot of numbers. Julian stopped counting at fifty. He could have counted higher. He just didn’t want to.

“That? It’s a clock.”

Julian said nothing. He’d come to understand that his dad had a habit of pausing for dramatic effect.

“And it’s something you’re going to love! I call it the Dad Five-Minute Warning app. Did I mention you’ll love it? You know how you’re always asking me for something, and I’m always saying, ‘Give me five more minutes,’ which more often than not manages to stretch out to five days?” Mr. Newcomber asked, too excited to wait for an answer, or breathe. “Well, if you tap that icon, my cell phone will ring, and the eTab will start a five-minute timer. After five minutes, my phone will ring again. If, after one more minute, I haven’t tapped the icon on your eTab myself—it recognizes my fingerprint—then my cell phone will shock me with one hundred milliamps. Don’t worry. It’s not enough to kill me or anything. It will just get my attention. Wait...or should that be volts? I never could keep those two potentially lethal units of measurement straight. I’d better test it on something. Something living. But not living like a plant. Living and breathing. Well, plants do breathe, but—”

“How about Dylan?”

“Yes, Dylan breathes as well.”

“No. I mean, how about testing it on Dylan?”

Julian, like all big brothers, enjoyed torturing his younger brother whenever possible. If he could trick his dad into testing the jolt on Dylan, that would be a major score—what the smart folks call a “coup” (with a silent p).

“Yeah, no,” Mr. Newcomber said, scratching his head with enough distracted energy to send a tempest of ripples through his hair, which people often mistook for a mop or topiary. “Hmmm, a squirrel. I wonder if I can catch a squirrel. How does one catch a squirrel? Oh, I know, I can—”

“Does it work anywhere?” Julian asked, his voice rising with excitement.

“What?” Mr. Newcomber said, lifting up the welding mask he already had put on—what the smart folks call “donned”—and turning off the blowtorch he already had lit—what the smart folks call “ignited.”

“That shocking thing. Will it work anywhere?”

“As in, anywhere on the planet? I think so. Off the planet? That would require some testing. Not to mention a propulsion system that rocks. But it sure would be a fun challenge—”

“Earth to Dad. So, anywhere?”

“What? Yes, anywhere.”

“Yes! You are so—”

“But its range is limited. You have to be within about one hundred feet of me. Silly Man! Your dad’s not stupid, you know.”

“I know. One hundred feet, huh? So, what happens if I run the app when I’m farther away?”

“Nothing, I suppose. Or who knows? Maybe it’ll send you to another place. Another time. Another dimension,” he said, waving his fingers like a mystic. “A place, a time, a dimension where little boys pick up their rooms and eat their broccoli.”

“That place doesn’t exist, Dad.”

“Probably not. But I can hope. Or, I can invent it...”

Julian would have laughed. But when his dad did that staring-off-into-the-distance thing, Julian knew he was performing mathematical computations, drawing diagrams in his head, and planning a trip to Home Depot.

“Thanks, Dad. I mean it. I do. This is really great. I’m going to go try it out. Can I test the—”

“Of course. And you can bet your bippy I’ll be there within five minutes. Just don’t run and hide. That’s dishonest and evil—what the smart folks call ‘conniving.’ And be sure to try out the other features as well. Now, where was I?” Mr. Newcomber said, his mind already disengaged from the conversation with Julian. “Oh yeah, catching a squirrel. I’ll need some sort of bait. And an electro-magnetic generator to stun him. Or her. Just a little. I imagine a fried squirrel would smell to high...”

Julian took the eTab and went back to the house, assuming it would be at least five minutes before his dad noticed he’d left. He decided not to test the clock right away. He knew his dad would be busily focused on his obsession du jour, building a better squirrel trap. What he didn’t know, but soon would learn, was that his dad had a weird talent—what the smart folks call an “uncanny knack”—for saying something as a joke but having it come true.