Whacked in the Backside by Our Garage

Magnus is our horse. It turns out that when my father decided to float the Baron Estate, he brought his horse inside and then forgot that he had left him in the kitchen. Magnus was just as confused as I was about our home finding a new address up in the clouds. Magnus was a very sensible horse. In fact, he was probably the most sensible creature in the Baron Estate. Often, when my father would try to use Magnus in his experiments (like when he placed electric horseshoes on his hooves to make him run faster, or the time he tried to attach a propeller to Magnus’s backside to turn him into what he called a horse-e-copter), our horse would give him a look that seemed to say, “Are you utterly insane? I am a horse. A horse! Just let me be a horse, for goodness’ sake.”

After helping Aunt Dorcas with her aching knee and sweeping up all the broken glass and china, M and I joined P in the garage.

P had slipped on a pair of dark goggles and leather gloves. He was steering our home with a large wooden wheel that looked like it belonged on a pirate ship.

It had been a long time since I had set foot in the garage. I typically wasn’t allowed in there, and, to be honest, I didn’t really care enough about my parents’ inventions and experiments to sneak a look inside when they weren’t around. My Sheriff Hoyt Graham books were much more interesting to me than a bunch of smoking and buzzing doo-dads or copper and leather gizmos. But the garage had undergone a complete transformation that took my breath away.

In addition to the steering wheel, the entire garage had been redone to resemble the inside of a ship, with a giant compass located beside the wheel, a map of the world pasted onto the ceiling, and the largest spyglass (an interesting invention used by sailors at sea to see things from a great distance) that I had ever seen. The end of the spyglass had been stuck through a hole cut into the wall, and, when I looked through it, I was able to see what was happening on the ground. My parents had added a large picture window to the front of the garage to give them a better view of what was in the sky ahead.

There were also random turning gears and smoking machine parts everywhere and a giant, coal-burning furnace that had been installed in the corner. I thought about the kid who had described our home as the inside of a crazy windup clock. I wondered what he would think about the Baron Estate now . . .

“Welcome to the magnificent flying Baron Estate!” P called to me. “Your mother and I are co-captains of this ship, which means that you are the first mate.”

I looked out the window and saw a team of flying ducks gaping at us.

One of them quacked loudly at me. It looked pretty angry. I guess I would be sort of angry too if I came home one day and found a bunch of ducks sitting in my bedroom where they didn’t belong.

I shrugged at the duck and mouthed an apology. The duck rolled its eyes at me before leading the rest of the ducks as far away from the Baron Estate as possible.

“Is this thing safe?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were doing this to our home? Do you really think you can navigate a house around the country? How long do you think it’ll take?”

“You’re supposed to say ‘aye aye, Captain,’ when the captain speaks to you,” P replied, completely ignoring my questions.

My mother leaned in and kissed me on top of the head.

“You always have so many silly questions,” she said. “Why don’t you go and get dressed? We have lots of planning ahead of us, and we’ll need our first mate’s help.”

“But I don’t want to be a first mate,” I protested.

“Fine, you can be the second mate,” M said. “Aunt Dorcas will be the first mate. It’s your loss, though, since the first mate gets to wear a nifty hat. Now go get dressed. I don’t want you walking around without shoes on. More glass might break, and we don’t have time to take you to a doctor if you cut yourself.”

I grumbled to myself as I walked out of the garage, down the hallway, and up the stairs back to my bedroom. It was a long walk that required a lot of grumbling. By the time I was dressed and had walked back to the garage, my throat was a bit sore from all my grumbling. But I couldn’t help it. I was annoyed at being uprooted from my life and dragged into one of my parents’ strange, little projects. I know I should have been amazed that they were able to transform our home into a flying machine, but I was just upset. Why did they have to do this on today of all days?

While P was steering the Baron Estate, M was planning our route on the map on the ceiling. To do that, she had taken a long stick and stuck a charcoal pencil to the end of it. She held up her arm and traced the route she thought would be the quickest way for us to get to Chicago.

“We have enough coal to get us there,” she was saying, “but we’ll need to buy more in Chicago. I’ve calculated precisely how much coal we’ll need to get us around the country. Perhaps we should store the coal in Aunt Dorcas’s room. It is the largest room in the house. She won’t be happy, but, then again, she’s never happy.”

“Yes,” P agreed. “She’s usually unhappy. In fact, she seems to enjoy being unhappy. The only time I’ve ever seen her happy is when she’s unhappy. We should try our best to make her as unhappy as possible.”

“That’s very sweet of you, McLaron.”

“Thank you, Sharon.”

“Why didn’t you just build a hot air balloon?” I interrupted.

They both jumped. When they were having one of their discussions they rarely noticed anyone else existed.

“Pardon me?” M said.

I felt my face begin to turn red with anger.

“A hot air balloon. Or some other flying device. Why did you do this to our home?” I asked. “And more importantly, why didn’t you ask me if I wanted to come along?”

P and M both looked confused.

“But . . .” my father began, removing his goggles and cleaning them with his handkerchief, “why wouldn’t you want to come with us?”

“We thought you’d be thrilled,” said M with a frown. “You’re always reading about terrific adventures in your books. This is the chance for a real life adventure.”

“This is the chance to see things that have yet to be written about in novels,” my father told me. “This is your chance to be the one who writes the stories and experiences the excitement instead of just reading about it.”

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” M continued, “and with the prize money for winning the race, we can finally afford the assistant that we need to take our inventions to the next level. With three inventors working together, we can be so much more successful. We can finally make our dreams come true.”

“This is our chance to be a part of history,” said P. “And we can do it as a family.”

“What do you have to say to that?” M asked.

“Duck,” I said.

Both my mother and father ducked their heads.

“No, duck!” I said, pointing out the window. “Straight ahead!”

A lone duck that had become separated from its group turned around just in time to get whacked in the backside by our garage.