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Authors: Matthew McElligott

Benjamin Franklinstein Meets the Fright Brothers (17 page)

BOOK: Benjamin Franklinstein Meets the Fright Brothers
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OTHER SCULPTURES AT THE ARTHUR PARKER ART PARK
THOUGHTFUL PAJAMAS
GEORGE WASHINGTON WITH PORCUPINE
NORMAN ROCKWELL'S LAST POTLUCK SUPPER
FOOD DESCENDING A STAIRCASE
SIR BISCUIT WHISKERS SIPS SOUP
JIGGLING DONKEY
“We'll help you find them,” Scott said. “Right, guys?”
“You know it,” Victor said.
“It will be my honor,” said Franklin. “The Great Emergency is the very reason I am here.”
“As are we,” added Wilbur. “Although my brother and I will be quite busy over the next few months. It seems we need to reconstruct several hundred bicycles or face some very angry customers.”
“In any case, you can count on us,” Orville said. “We owe you all a debt of gratitude.”
“Agreed,” said Wilbur. “The Emperor's voice has been banished from our thoughts. May it never return!”
“The Emperor's voice!” Orville exclaimed. “I suddenly realize where I've heard it before.” He staggered to a chair and sat down. “Wilbur, the man who is destroying the Order today is the same man who gave us a second chance at life, so long ago!”
 
EPILOGUE
“Custodian!”
the man screamed. “Come here at once!”
“Yes, Monsier Enbée?” The Custodian raced to the man resting in the large glass and metal casket.
“Why have I lost all contact with the Wright brothers?”
The Custodian trembled. “It appears, sir, that a small network of Custodians—somehow not yet under your control—sabotaged your efforts. We believe that the Modern Order of Prometheus is trying to—”
“I AM THE MODERN ORDER OF PROMETHEUS!” He pounded the top of his Leyden casket. “Curse this box! Once it gave me immortality. Now it confines me like a prison cell.”
The Custodian recoiled. Although the little man had been confined to his Leyden casket for decades, he could still command fear in the bravest of souls. His power seemed boundless.
“Perhaps, sir, we could send a spy to learn what happened to the brothers?”
“It no longer matters,” Monsieur Enbée said. “They are lost to me. But thanks to Franklin's inventions, there are other scientists I have already resurrected for my purposes.” He picked up a light bulb from a nearby shelf and idly rolled it between his fingers. “Although I still cannot fathom how Franklin himself escaped my grasp. It had to be the boy.”
“They must be stopped, Monsieur Enbée.”
“Do not concern yourself with them. I have another plan in the works.” He gazed into the lightbulb. “A greater plan.”
“Your genius is infinite, Monsieur Enbée!”
“Enough!” the little man shouted from his casket. “I am through hiding behind that false name. From now on, you shall refer to me by my proper title—Napoléon Bonaparte, Emperor of the World!”
CUSTODIANS NEEDED!
Have you ever wondered,
“Gee, do I have what it takes to be a Custodian in the Modern Order of Prometheus?” The Order is always on the lookout for promising new recruits. Answer these five simple questions and find out if this job is for you!
 
1. One of Benjamin Franklin's biggest problems is that when he is overcharged, he becomes a raging monster bent on total destruction. With this in mind, if you were a raging monster bent on total destruction, what would you destroy first?
2. In the eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a thunderstorm as an experiment to determine whether lightning was actually electricity. How nuts was that? Discuss.
 
3. Benjamin Franklin created the Modern Order of Prometheus in order to preserve the world's greatest inventors, with the idea of reawakening them one day to solve the Great Emergency. If you could put one person into a harmonically induced suspended animation, who would it be? (We will not accept the answer “My annoying brother/sister.”)
 
4. When Victor, Scott, and Benjamin Franklin needed to create a lightning storm in order to save Philadelphia, they asked weatherman Skip Weaver for advice. If you had to create a tornado to save a major metropolitan city, how would you go about doing it? What if you had to create an earthquake? A citywide blanket of soupy fog?
 
5. If the people running the Modern Order of Prometheus created a secret training program for new Custodians disguised as a fake online business, what do you think they would call their Web site?
Also by
MATTHEW McELLIGOTT & LARRY TUXBURY
BENJAMIN FRANKLINSTEIN LIVES!
Wherein is contained
an Accounting of the Preparation,
Suspension, and eventual Reawakening of the Subject in Modern Day,
and his Quest to discover the Great Emergency.
BOOK: Benjamin Franklinstein Meets the Fright Brothers
12.95Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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