The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow (3 page)

That was two years ago. Since then, Vincent spent most of his free time in the lab working on his inventions. Just as Tesla
had—and just as his mother would have wanted him to do.

After a short nap, Vincent opened his
eyes and the Biting Beast Ball was gone. He jumped out of bed, looked around his room, and grabbed the
New York Times
Stella had set on his dresser. On the front page, there was a black-and-white photo of a very old Nikola Tesla, with the
following story.

TESLA ARTIFACTS DISCOVERED, NEW YORK—The recent sale of the historic Hotel New Yorker to Ramada Worldwide has unearthed an unusual treasure: Several dozen inventions
from the great inventor and former hotel guest, Nikola Tesla, were discovered shortly after the purchase of the historic hotel.

“It is standard procedure to conduct a complete and comprehensive audit of the books,” said Colleen Stanton, Executive Vice
President of Global Acquisitions for Ramada Worldwide. “But the results of this audit were anything but normal.”

Stanton’s audit revealed that a payment was made to the Manhattan Storage and Warehouse Company every year since 1943. Upon
questioning the staff at the New Yorker, no one could account for the payments. Stanton’s investigations led to the discovery
of a storage room full of Tesla’s notebooks and inventions previously believed to be missing.

“Well, we were all obviously dumbfounded when we opened the door to the storage unit and found the technological remains of
one of the greatest inventors of all time. Tesla meant so much to New York, and Ramada is very proud to play a part in his
legacy,” Stanton added.

In 1935, at the age of 79, Nikola Tesla found himself a resident at the Hotel New Yorker, where he stayed until he died in
his sleep on January 7, 1943. The morning after his death, Tesla’s nephew arrived at his uncle’s room only to discover that
the scientist’s body had been removed and his technical papers and prototypes were missing.

It was later reported that representatives from the Office of Alien Property went to the Hotel New Yorker and seized all of
Tesla’s belongings and transmitted them under seal to the Manhattan Storage and Warehouse Company. In all, two truckloads
of papers, furniture, and artifacts were placed under seal.

“The inventions represent an important part of America’s past and would make a great addition to any museum’s collection,”
Stanton said. Ramada Hotels plans to auction off the Tesla artifacts next month.

Vincent lay in his bed thinking about the Tesla inventions. He wondered which prototypes had been discovered and why the government
would have seized them in the first place. He looked at the clock and realized his sisters would be home from school soon,
and he still needed to clean up his big blue mess.

Vincent went downstairs and grabbed a
bucket and a mop from the basement. He took several towels from the upstairs hall closet, paused for a moment, and then reached
back in and grabbed Gwen’s hair dryer. With his cleaning supplies in hand, Vincent opened the hidden door in the back wall
of his bedroom closet and crawled inside.

The lab was surprisingly large, extending back over thirty feet, but even at four foot six, Vincent was unable to stand up
straight in most of the lab. There were several tables in the middle of the lab that served as workbenches. All the table
legs had been shortened, allowing Vincent to work on his knees.

Hundreds of sketches covered the walls and ceiling. A stack of black Moleskine notebooks was piled just to the left of the
door. Bricks and boards were carefully stacked along the length of the room, creating a long, makeshift bookshelf. The bottom
row was mainly books on chemistry, electricity, gravity, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison. The second shelf was lined with
old mayonnaise and peanut butter jars containing past failed experiments. Hundreds of failed experiments with handwritten
labels: “glow-in-the-dark colored bubbles,” “fuzzy paint,” “self-drawing ink,” “colored fog,” and “no-melt snow.”

The third shelf held working prototypes. Some of his favorites included: Bounce ’N’ Bubblez, GyroSkatez, B.I.G. Ammo, BlabberBackwardz,
RAINbow Rocketz, Soundbreroz, and one of his latest inventions called Mixablez. Mixablez were mixed-up stuffed animals. The
prototype was part elephant and part giraffe.

The top shelf held several strange devices that looked like handheld vacuum cleaners and seventy-six jars containing a black
liquid. Each jar was dated, labeled with the words “Pop Tunz solution,” and identified as a different sound. Sounds like “barking
dog,” “dad’s guitar,” “police siren,” and “Mom’s voice.” These were all failed attempts at creating the world’s first sound
bubbles.

Vincent had successfully created a magnetic bubble solution by adding dishwashing detergent to his self-drawing ink invention.
He hoped to build a bubble-blowing device that would allow him to record sound, and even music, into the bubble solution.
The device would then create bubbles that carried the sound until they popped and then released the recorded sound for everyone
to hear.

Pop Tunz was his mom’s favorite invention. They had spent several months working on it. And they had some success. They had
trapped a variety of sounds in bubble solutions, including his mother’s voice. However, the messages were so faint they were
hard to hear. Vincent needed a way to amplify the sound waves. But he hadn’t worked on Pop Tunz since his mother had died.

Vincent had been working on Mood Paintz this morning when the experiment exploded in a mess of clear paint that quickly turned
blue. He had succeeded in creating a color-changing paint, but instead of changing colors to match the viewer’s mood, it matched
the mood of the artist. Vincent was sure he could get it to change with the viewer’s mood if he could just get the paint solution
hotter. Even though heating the solution had caused the explosion in the first place. The hair dryer in the hall closet had
given him an idea: Maybe if the paint was stirred rapidly
while
it was heating, it wouldn’t explode.

Vincent took a screw-driver from his toolbox and opened the hair dryer. He removed the motor and the fan, which he knew would
make an excellent high-speed stirrer, and then placed Gwen’s now fanless hair dryer back in the closet.

He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to clean up from the explosion.

Vincent didn’t need his lab alarm to tell
him Anna was coming; he could hear her bounding up the stairs. He closed the hidden lab door and was crawling out of his
closet just as she burst into his bedroom.

“Give ’em back, Vincent!”

“What are you talking about, Anna?”

“Elli and Stretch are missing. I know you took them. Now give them back!” Anna stamped her feet.

“I have no idea what an elongated stench is and I hope to never find out. Now get out of my room.”

“What were you doing in the closet?” Anna asked.

Stella walked into Vincent’s room, wondering what all the commotion was about.

“Great. A party in my room. Why don’t we invite the rest of New York?” Vincent said.

“Elli and Stretch are missing and I know he took them,” Anna said as she stomped, this time on Vincent’s foot.

“Ouch!” Vincent yelled, hopping on one foot while holding the other. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Elli and Stretch are two of her stuffed animals. An elephant and a giraffe,” Stella said.

“Oh. Well, I assure you I don’t have an elephant or a giraffe,” Vincent said. And technically, he was right. He had cut them
apart and sewn them together, making one new Mixablez he named Snonkey the Great.

“Why do you blame me for everything?” Vincent asked Anna.

“Because it’s always your fault!” Anna said as she stormed out of Vincent’s room.

“Here’s your homework.” Stella set a stack of books on Vincent’s desk. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. And you don’t
look so blue anymore.”

Vincent followed Stella downstairs to the kitchen. Gwen was standing in front of the open refrigerator, just staring in.

“Hi, Gwen,” Vincent said, more as an experiment than a greeting.

“Hey, Vic,” she said without looking up.

Well, at least she got three letters right. Vincent heard the front door open and ran to see his dad, only to find Vibs. Alone.

“Oh, hi,” Vincent said, unable to hide his disappointment. “I thought you were my dad.”

“Your father had to go right from the airport to the museum. I guess the Met has been asked to catalog some inventor’s artifacts
for an auction next month and your father has to work late. Now get washed up. I bought Chinese.”

Vincent spent the rest of the night looking through his books about Tesla. He couldn’t sleep. He was dying to know what incredible
things might have been discovered in Tesla’s storage room, and he wondered why his father hadn’t called to tell him about
it.

Norton Shadow spread a thick layer of
butter on his toast, covered that with peanut butter, and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. This was his breakfast
most mornings, and this morning was no exception.