Mad Scientists' Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

the bucket with a screwdriver and washed it out with a hose. After he went back inside the garage, Dinky couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. He sneaked across the alley and shinnied up a telephone pole so he could peek inside the lighted window on the second floor. We held our breath, hoping nobody would come out and see him there. Suddenly we saw him swing over onto the sloping roof of the garage and lie flat against it. Harmon came to the lighted window and raised the sash so he could look out into the alley. He took a good look around, then pulled his head in and closed the window again. We breathed easier, but Dinky lay motionless on the roof, pressing himself against the shingles. Pretty soon the light went out, and we could hear them clumping down the stairs inside. Harmon and Stony came out the back door, locked it behind them, and disappeared down the alley.
    As soon as they were out of sight, Dinky scrambled down the pole and came running pell-mell toward Blaisdell's barn. We met him halfway down the ladder from the loft.
    "They've got our egg!" he said in a breathless whisper. "I saw it sitting on a table up there."
    We dashed across the alley and Dinky shinnied up the pole again. He jumped onto the roof of the garage and let himself down over the eaves onto the windowsill. The window was unlocked, and it took him only a second to scramble inside. Then he groped his way down the stairs in the dark and unlatched the alley door. I slipped inside and went upstairs with him while Freddy kept watch behind one of the trash cans in the alley. Dinky's flashlight picked out the table against the wall, and sure enough, there was the big egg sitting unprotected in the middle of it. We looked around for something to wrap it in and found a pile of burlap bags in one corner. I pulled a couple of them off the top of the pile and felt something hard under the next bag. Pulling it aside, I shined my flashlight onto what looked like a couple of small wash basins. Dinky stood beside me, breathing hard.
    "What are those, Charlie? They look like big hunks of plaster."
    "I think I know," I said. "And I think they can tell us a lot about what's been going on."
    We got the big egg off the table and fitted it into the depression in one of the chunks of plaster. It fitted perfectly.
    "These are plaster molds," I whispered. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
    "Yeah! That's what Stony was throwing away in the ash can. Old chunks of plaster of Paris."
    "Yes! But don't you see? These are two halves of a plaster mold made from our dinosaur egg. What would they make a mold for?"
    "To make another egg," said Dinky.
    "Exactly! And that's what's out in the swamp right now: a fake egg made out of plaster of Paris and painted up."
    "I wonder why they'd do that?" Dinky hissed.
    "So they could claim they found the egg, instead of us, and get all the credit. That Harmon would do anything; but this time he's gonna get fooled."
    "Whatcha gonna do?"
    "We're going to beat them at their own game," I said. "We're gonna switch eggs on them, and they'll never know the difference."
    We wrapped the egg in a couple of burlap bags and beat it out of there, being careful to leave the door unlocked. It took us about two hours to get out to the right place in the swamps, find the fake egg in the darkness, and put the real egg back in its place. Then it took us another two hours to get back to Egan's Alley. Our hearts were thumping pretty loudly when we tiptoed up the creaky stairs of Stony's garage again; but it was well after midnight, and we figured we were pretty safe as long as we didn't make any noise. Since we found the door still unlocked, we were pretty sure nobody had discovered the egg was missing.
    When we got to the top of the stairs, we groped our way carefully to the table. I reached out for the edge of it and almost screamed out loud when my hand came down on what felt like another human hand.
    "It's about time you got back," said a voice. "What