The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow (7 page)

Vincent sat up and stared at the poster of Nikola Tesla hanging on his bedroom wall. Tesla was standing in a large room with
a huge two-story Tesla coil that was throwing bolts of lightning all around the room. Tesla was surrounded by the lightning.
Vincent could see from Tesla’s hair that the electric discharge from the large coil was creating a lot of wind. Vincent thought
about the wind he felt when Stella had cranked the Tesla device in the basement of the Met. If that small device had given
off that much wind, Vincent imagined that standing next to the large coil in the picture must have been like standing in a
wind tunnel. Tesla could have flown a kite in the room. An indoor kite.

“Yeah, an indoor kite,” Vincent said out loud.

That was it! Vincent had his toy idea. A windless, indoor kite. It was Idea No. 50 and he had come up with the idea by himself.
No flashes of light. No darkness. But unfortunately, unlike his other ideas, this one had not come to him whole and complete.
He would now need to figure out how it would work and how he would build it.

Vincent stayed up late researching Tesla coils and corona wind and sketching his ideas. The entire kite would act like a giant
Tesla coil. He would build a small handheld device that would produce high voltage. He would run the high voltage up a wire
toward the kite. The wire would become very thin and stop just before reaching the kite. The electricity would charge the
air around the tip of the wire and build until it had enough power to jump from the wire to the kite, just like the sparks
from the Tesla coil in the picture.

With a little luck and a lot of science, the resulting wind would send the kite soaring into the air.

Vincent submitted his windless kite idea
and Mr. Dennis loved it. So Vincent went to work collecting the parts he would need for a prototype just in case he was selected
to go to the Toy Fair.

He needed a wire no thicker than a human hair and he knew just where to find it. But first he would have to get past Anna.

Vincent got down on his knees and peeked around the corner. Anna was watching TV in the living room. He crawled on his belly
behind the couch, but he needed to get to the stairs and there was a five-foot gap between the end of the couch and the stairway.
Anna would see him if she turned around. They both knew he had no business upstairs. His “bedroom” was in the basement. In
the laundry room.

Vincent moved slowly. He held his breath as he inched along. He made it to the stairs without Anna noticing him. She was engrossed
in some annoying little six-year-old-girl show.

Vincent slid the guitar case out from under his dad’s bed. He needed a thin wire for his invention and the top E string on
his dad’s electric guitar fit the bill perfectly. Vincent removed the wire, put it in his pocket, and slid the guitar back
under the bed.

“What are you doing?” Anna asked.

“Nothing. I dropped something and was just looking for it.”

“You shouldn’t be in my mom’s room. I know you’re up to something, Vincent. And I’m going to tell my mom when she gets home.”

Vincent put his hand in his pocket to protect the guitar string.

“Why don’t you tell her how annoying you are?” Vincent walked downstairs to his room.

Anna followed.

“Go away, Anna. Leave me alone.”

Anna hopped on top of the dryer and just stared at him. He hated having a little sister.

Vincent’s kite started to take shape over the next few weeks. He found a diamond-shaped canvas at school and decided to use
it as the frame for his kite. He removed the canvas and replaced it with aluminum foil. The shiny metal kite looked like a
toy from the future, even if it didn’t fly yet.

Vincent borrowed speaker wire from the Shadow family stereo. He tied a three-foot piece of string to the end of the speaker
wire and tied the other end of the string to the kite. He wrapped the electric guitar string around the kite string and attached
one end to the speaker wire.

He would send high voltage up the speaker wire to the electric guitar string. When enough electricity built up in the guitar
string, it would leap the six-inch gap to the metal kite. The leaping ions would cause an ionic breeze, and the kite would
soar into the air. Now all Vincent needed was a way to produce the required high voltage.

Vincent looked into the brown paper bag.
Great
, he thought,
a tuna sandwich again
. He hated tuna sandwiches. Particularly the crispy brown tuna sandwiches Vibs put in his lunch every day.

He dumped his lunch onto the cafeteria table. One soft brown banana, a baggie full of corn nuts, and one brown tuna sandwich.
Great. Just great.

Vincent looked over at Stella’s lunch. One Thermos of piping hot chicken noodle soup. Four saltine crackers. A shiny red apple.
One king-size bag of nacho-flavored Doritos. A homemade double-fudge brownie that had been wrapped tightly in tin foil and
two scoops of Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream packed in a second Thermos to go with the brownie.

“Your mom hates me,” Vincent said.

“Do you want my soup?” Stella asked.

“I’ll take the brownie.”

Stella slid the brownie and ice cream across the table. It was so warm that some of the fudge chunks had melted and formed
a pool of molten chocolaty goodness on the tinfoil. Vincent was trying to figure out the best way to eat it when he heard
a commotion out in the hall.

“Vincent! Vincent! Vincent Shadow!”

Now the students at MSAD had come to expect the unexpected from Mr. Dennis, and it wasn’t unusual for Mr. Dennis to get so
excited that he would shake uncontrollably or be unable to catch his breath. But today, Mr. Dennis had taken his excitability
to a whole new level.

“Vincent! Has anyone seen Vincent Shadow?”

“IN HERE, MR. D!” Vincent shouted.

Paul Bard dove out of the way, narrowly avoiding a high-speed crash as Mr. Dennis came flying into the lunchroom on his Whizzer
Board 4000.

“Vincent! Vincent! Vincent Shadow!” Mr. Dennis yelled.

Vincent stood up, waved his hands in the air and yelled, “OVER HERE, MR. D!”

Now, the Whizzer Board 4000 was a fine machine, representing the latest technology in electric in-line skateboards, but Howard
G. Whiz did not have his 220-pound cousin in mind when he designed the brakes for it. But Mr. Dennis did have his cousin in
mind as he crashed and slid down twelve feet of table, coming to a stop right atop Vincent’s hot fudge brownie. (Unfortunately
for Vincent, his crispy brown tuna sandwich was unharmed in the accident.)

“Are you okay, Mr. D?” Vincent asked as a crowd gathered around.

“I’m great, Vincent! Just great. You did it! By golly, you did it!” Mr. Dennis said as he climbed off the table, licking the
hot fudge from his face.

“Did what Mr. D?” Vincent asked.

“You did it, Vincent! You did it! You have been selected to demonstrate your windless kite in New York City!”

“Really?”

“Yes, Vincent. Really!” Mr. Dennis reached into his pocket and pulled out fragments of Wonder Bread and part of a Fruit Roll-Up
he had collected while sliding down the cafeteria table. He reached back into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Here it is, Vincent. You’ve been invited to demonstrate your windless kite at the Toy Fair next week in New York City. ‘One
lucky inventor will be selected to work at the Whizzer Toy Company this summer,’” he read, “‘turning his or her toy invention
into a real Whizzer Toy product.’ You’re going to New York, Mr. Shadow,” Mr. Dennis said as he started to jump up and down.
“You’re going to New York!”

“What’s wrong, Vincent?” Stella asked. “You don’t look excited.”

“It’s the kite. I don’t have it working yet.”

“I’ll help you, Vincent. Don’t worry, we’ll get it done in time,” Stella said.

“Vincent, Vincent, Vincent. There are lots of right answers and we have a week to find one of them,” Mr. Dennis said.

“I have the answer. High voltage. That’s the answer. I have the kite built, I just need high voltage.”

“HIGH VOLTAGE. HIGH VOLTAGE. Well, it’s easy to find high voltage. The world is full of high voltage: lightning bolts, power
lines, hot tubs, and neon signs. It’s easy to find high voltage. They label it for you, Vincent, they label it for you,” Mr.
Dennis said.

“What do you mean, ‘they label it for you’?” Vincent asked.

“Look.” Mr. Dennis pulled a TV off the wall. “See this symbol, the lightning bolt in the middle of the triangle?” Mr. Dennis
asked.

“Yeah,” Vincent said.

“High voltage. They label it for you. Televisions, computer monitors, all have transformers inside them that make—high voltage.”

“I’m sorry, Vincent, but there’s no way
we’re letting you go to New York City alone,” Vibs said.

Vincent looked to his father. “Please, Dad. Can’t you just take a few days off of work and come with me?”

“No, buddy. I’m proud of you, but I’m afraid I agree with Vibs. I’m launching a new Native American exhibit next weekend.
I have to be here. I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have to sit this one out.”

“Please, Dad! This is a really, really big deal. Only six kids from all over the world were selected to go. I really want
to go, Dad.”

“Maybe next time,” Vibs said.

Vincent needed his mother. She would understand how much this meant to him.

“I have worked too hard for too many years to get this close to my dream and just let it go.”

“Vincent, you’ve only been working on that kite for two weeks,” Vibs said. “There will be other contests and other trips to
New York.”