Science Fair Read Online Free PDF Page A

Wookiee. Seeing nobody, he walked quickly to his front door and let himself in.
    “Hi, honey,” said his mother, Fawn Harbinger, who was sitting on the sofa. She actual y did somewhat resemble Princess Leia, if Princess Leia had let her hair go gray and gained a little weight from pretty much never doing anything except Sudoku. “You’re late.”
    “Yeah,” said Toby. “I was busy working on my science fair project.”
    “I saved you some dinner,” said his mom. “Tofu pork chops.”
    “Yum,” said Toby.
    “After you eat,” she said, “your father needs some help packing shipments.”
    “Okay,” said Toby. His parents operated a home-based business sel ing health products. His mom sat in the living room, taking orders and playing Sudoku; his dad worked in a corner of the basement, packing and shipping the orders. Their big sel er was a product cal ed HydroxyPulse 3000, which, according to the label, cured basical y every human ailment.
    As far as Toby could tel , it was water.
    He started toward the kitchen.
    “Also, Mrs. Breetle cal ed, from the school office.”
    Toby stopped.
    “About what?”
    “She said some man came by the school, wanting your home address. Something about winning some kind of Internet contest. She didn’t give out your address, of course, but she got his name and number. He’d like you to get in touch with him. His name is…wait, I wrote it down…here it is: D. Arthur Vaderian.” Toby’s stomach clenched. He started toward the kitchen again, though he was no longer hungry.
    “Hey!” said his mom. “I just noticed something!”
    “What?” said Toby.
    “Wel , D. Arthur Vaderian! If you take out some letters, it spel s Darth Vader! Isn’t that funny?”
    “Yeah,” said Toby. “Hilarious.”

    T HE ME KIDS GATHERED every morning at a certain reserved spot in the hal near the front entrance to Hubble Middle School. It was a prime location because everybody had to walk past it, which meant (a) everybody saw the ME kids, and (b) the ME kids could observe al the other students and make note of their numerous flaws.
    This morning, however, the ME students were formed into a close little clot, examining the contents of the envelopes they’d found in their lockers.
    “Wow,” said Harmonee Prescott, frowning at a piece of paper. “Mine has a lot of seriously big words.”
    “Mine, too,” said Jason Niles. “Like, what’s an alg…algri…What’s this word?”
    The Ferret glanced at Jason’s paper. “Al igator,” he said.
    “Whoa,” said Jason. “I need an al igator.”
    “Let me see that,” said Haley Hess, snatching the paper from Jason. “You morons,” she said. “It says algorithm.”
    “What’s an algorithm?” said Jason.
    “I have no idea,” said Haley, handing the paper back. “But it’s not an al igator.”
    “These are, like, way more complicated than last year,” said Harmonee.
    “Yeah,” said Haley. “But it doesn’t matter to us, does it?”
    The others smiled.
    “Whoa,” said Jason. “Look at that.”
    They turned to watch a girl come through the front door carrying a tray, on which sat what looked like a big silver bal , nearly two feet across. As the girl drew near they realized that the bal was actual y thousands of paper clips. From the look of it there was nothing holding the paper clips together—no glue, no tape. The girl clearly enjoyed the looks of astonishment from the other students.
    “What is that ?” said The Ferret.
    “That,” said Jason, “is the competition.”
    “It’s a magnet bal ,” said Haley. “I read about one on the Internet. You charge al the paper clips until they’re magnetized. Then they stick together and you make them into al sorts of stuff. It looks impressive, but it’s pretty lame. No way that wins.”
    “She’s already done with hers?” Harmonee said. “It was only announced yesterday!”
    “I’m not worried,” said Haley, tapping her piece of paper.
    “So when do we go see our