Mad Scientists' Club (11 page)

"There remains one matter to be cleared up," Mr. Willis interrupted, clearing his throat. "Miss Daphne Muldoon has reminded me that at the time of the robbery the bank had advertised a reward of five thousand dollars in the Mammoth Falls
Gazette
. I believe the directors of the bank will sustain me in the opinion that the offer still stands."

When Mr. Willis said this, all the spectators started to clap their hands and shout, "Hear! Hear!" Mr. Willis held up his hand for silence.

"I just want to announce," he said, "that the members of the Mad Scientists' Club and Miss Daphne Muldoon are the logical recipients of this reward. I have discussed it with them, and they have asked that half the reward money be given to the university's medical school, and the other half to Elmer Pridgin. I don't know what the medical school had to do with this matter, but I am sure the directors of the bank will have no objection."

It was several days later that we all hiked out to Elmer Pridgin's cabin, where Mr. Willis and Mayor Scragg presented him with his share of the reward money. Henry wanted Elmer to have the infrared photograph our camera had made of him the night we bugged the cannon with detectors. Elmer looked at the photo and scratched his head.

"I don't never go out there after dark, because it's too sceery," he said. "But that sure is a durned good likeness of my daddy, and I do thank ya' fur it!"

Not so many people have picnics at Memorial Point any more.

The Unidentified Flying Man of Mammoth Falls

(c) 1961 by Bertrand R. Brinley
Illustrations by Charles Geer

DINKY POORE AND FREDDY MULDOON found the mannequin in the city dump. Some department store had thrown it away because its face was chipped in one little place. But it was handsome, like all window dummies. Little Dinky and pudgy Fred dragged it all the way to Jeff Crocker's barn and set it up in a corner of our laboratory.

Henry Mulligan didn't like this at all. He said we shouldn't be cluttering up the clubhouse with a lot of junk. But when we put the matter to a vote, Henry lost out. Homer Snodgrass, who is almost as brilliant as Henry and Jeff, pointed out that we could make good use of the mannequin for anatomy lessons and recommended we add this subject to our training program.

Freddy Muldoon and Mortimer Dalrymple were appointed a committee of two to paint the human circulatory system on the dummy's front; but they never got around to it. The thing just stood there in the corner for months until everybody got sick of looking at it. Finally Mortimer pulled an old nylon stocking over its head and dubbed it the Invisible Man. The name seemed like a good one, and that's what we always called it -- until Henry got his brilliant idea.

We all arrived at the clubhouse one day to find Henry sitting in a chair in the middle of the floor, staring at the mannequin as if he had never seen it before. He stared at it for a long time. Then he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up onto his forehead and stared up at the ceiling of the lab.

There was the usual reverent silence. Henry always claimed that when he tilted his head back it made the blood flow to the back of his brain, which was where he kept his best ideas. Then he'd tilt his head forward again and a good idea would pop out.

It worked this time, all right. What came out of Henry, when he finally brought his eyes down from the ceiling, was probably the zaniest idea he has ever had.

"I think we could make this thing fly," said Henry.

"Holy smokes!" said Dinky Poore. "Are you some kind of a nut or something? Don't answer that."

"It's perfectly simple," said Henry wiping his glasses. "I think we can make the Invisible Man fly, and create a real sensation if we do it right."

"We won't be able to call him the Invisible Man any more," chirped Mortimer. "Maybe we could call him the Flying Sorcerer!"

"Maybe the Air Force would give him an Air Medal. Then he'd have something to wear!" said Freddy.

"That's enough jokes!" Jeff Crocker interrupted.

"Next week is Founders Day," Henry continued. "There's going to be a lot of speeches in the Town Square, and a pageant, and all that stuff. I think we can put on a demonstration with our friend the dummy that'll steal the show.... Now, you know where the monument to Hannah Kimball is?"

Hannah Kimball is the heroine of Mammoth Falls. Some people say she founded the town. Anyway, she was an early settler who defended her cabin against a whole tribe of Indians with just a blunderbuss and a scarecrow. She stuck the scarecrow up through the chimney with a pole. It kept waving its arms even after it had been shot full of Indian arrows, and the attackers got scared and ran away.

After Henry finished outlining his plan, we started to work. During the next few days, we cut a hole in the back of the dummy and mounted two radio receivers inside him. We put a small speaker in his throat, and dressed him in overalls. When we got finished, he looked like any ordinary citizen of Mammoth Falls.

The night before Founders Day we were all ready. We met at the clubhouse late at night to carry the mannequin down to the Town Square.

Dinky Poore's little face screwed itself up into a doubting frown. "How we gonna get the dummy up on the monument? I'm not climbin' up there!"

"That's simple, stupid," said Freddy Muldoon, with a very superior air.

"Oh yeah?" Dinky puckered. "How would you do it, Mr. Great Brain?"

"That's easy," Freddy grunted. "I'd leave it to Henry, the Gentle Genius."

And that's just what he did.

Henry came up with a good plan, too -- as he always does.

Hannah Kimball's monument stands in the center of a little park in front of the Town Hall. It's a slick marble column that goes 'way up in the air. Hannah Kimball herself stands at the top of it, holding her trusty blunderbuss at the ready. Somebody else could stand beside her if he could figure a way to get up there. Fortunately for us, there are telephone poles on either side of the park that are just a little taller than the monument is.

We showed up at the park late at night with about three hundred feet of good, stout piano rope. We looped a half-hitch around the dummy's neck and tied a length of clothesline to it for a guide rope. Two of us climbed up the telephone poles, which were right in line with the monument, and slipped the rope over the foot-spikes near the top of them. It was a simple matter to pull the rope taut from the ground; and the dummy was lofted into the air high enough to place him right on top of the monument by jockeying him into position with the guideline. Then we let the rope go at one end and pulled it free.

Early on the morning of Founders Day the Flying Man was standing there with his hands on his hips. Since the monument is surrounded by trees, he wasn't noticed by anyone until the band marched up to the monument at ten o'clock. It was leading the parade that had started at the bridge over Lemon Creek

Mortimer and Henry and I were sitting in the third-story loft over Snodgrass' hardware store -- the one that Homer's father owns. We had our transmitting gear with us, and we had a good view of the monument and the whole Square through the two little windows at the end of the loft. Homer was down in the Square, where he could keep an eye on developments and let us know what was happening. We could pick up most of the conversation over the microphones we had hidden around the monument.

Mayor Scragg and the Founders Day Committee were riding in an open car right behind the band. The Mayor was standing up on the back seat, waving his hat at the crowd and smiling in every direction. Suddenly a voice rang out above the cheers and the music.

"Look out, Mr. Mayor! I'm going to jump!"

The voice came out of the mannequin, but it was Mortimer Dalrymple's voice.

The Mayor's car came to a stop so suddenly that he almost toppled into the front seat. The members of the Founders Day Committee grabbed hold of him to keep him from falling. They looked like the Marines trying to raise the flag on Iwo Jima. When the Mayor was upright again, he looked up and saw the mannequin at the top of the monument.

"How on earth did you get up there, young man?" he called out, shaking his umbrella furiously at the figure.

"I flew up here!" came the reply.

The Mayor looked at the members of the committee, and the members of the committee looked toward the chief of police, and the chief of police looked back at the Mayor. Mayor Scragg cleared his throat and flapped his cheeks in and out a few times, the way he always does when he doesn't know what to say. Then he leaned over and said very quietly to Chief Putney, "I think maybe we've got a nut on our hands."

"I agree," said Chief Putney. "Maybe if we ignore him he'll go away."

"Don't be silly," said the Mayor. "This kind doesn't go away. We've got to get him down from there before he ruins the whole Founders Day ceremony."

"What would you suggest, your Honor?"

"You're a chief of police," said the Mayor. "I'd suggest you start earning your salary." And the Mayor turned and smiled and waved at the crowds again.

"Did you call me a nut?" came the voice from the mannequin.

The Mayor looked up and flapped his cheeks in and out again.

"I'm not a nut. I'm a Mexican jumping bean," said the mannequin. "Wanna see me jump?"

By this time the open area around the monument had become crowded with people, all pushing against each other, trying to get a closer view of what was going on. The Mayor was still standing in the back seat of the open touring car, holding his arms up in the air and trying to get the crowd to be quiet. "Ladies and gentlemen!" he said, trying to sound as loud and important as he could.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" echoed the mannequin.

The Mayor looked up at the mannequin and said, "Shut up!"

"Shut up!" repeated the mannequin to the crowd. There was a great laugh.

"Fellow citizens!" said the Mayor.

"Fellow citizens!" said the mannequin.

"I implore you to pay no attention to the man on top of the monument," said the Mayor. "Your able chief of police, Harold Putney, and the fire department, I am sure, will manage to get him down safely."

"If they come near me I'll jump!" said the mannequin.

The Mayor flapped his cheeks in and out again.

"Pay no attention to that unfortunate man up there,". he said. "He needs all the help and understanding we can give him."

"I don't need help, but you do!" said the mannequin.

By this time Henry and I were laughing so hard Mortimer could hardly keep his face straight. He had to shut off the transmitter until we calmed down. The crowd was milling around Mayor Scragg's car, making suggestions about how to get the nut down off the monument. A bunch of kids were standing on the bleachers at the edge of the crowd yelling for him to jump.

"When'll we let him go?" I asked.

"Pretty quick now. Then we'll turn the show back to his Honor," said Henry.

He switched on the ham outfit. "We'd better see if we can reach Jeff and the others."

Jeff and Dinky and Freddy Muldoon were supposed to be somewhere out west of Strawberry Lake. When Henry reached them, they were sitting on a hilltop where they could see the Town Hall and the Square through binoculars. Henry checked the wind direction from the weather vane on top of Town Hall and suggested to Jeff that they move to another hill a little farther south. This was important to our plan.

We looked out on the Square again, and the crowd was still milling about, pointing up at the dummy and hollering to him. He just stood there with his hands on his hips, the way we had placed him, leaning slightly against the barrel of Hannah Kimball's blunderbuss.