The Age Altertron Read Online Free PDF Page A

experiments?”
“Who else could it be?” asked Wayne, his eyes rolled upward in thought.
“It couldn’t be horses or—or elephants—or Venus Fly Traps doing this to us.”
(Wayne was fascinated with Venus Fly Traps and all other plants that had the
ability to take revenge upon members of the Animal Kingdom, and so he sought
whenever possible to bring a Venus Fly Trap into a conversation no matter how
very much it did not have to do with Venus Fly Traps!)
“Did you ever stop to think that perhaps our experimenters might not be earthly
at all!” posed the Professor.
“You mean that they could be Martians?” asked Wayne.
“Or maybe beings from some planet we’ve never even heard of before!” marveled
Rodney.
“I have no idea who it could be. Perhaps we should start to gather the clues
that will someday give us that answer. What, for example, do we know of our
situation here besides the fact that we are subjected to these periodic calamities?”
Rodney thought for a moment and then said, “That we are cut off from the rest
of the world.”
The Professor nodded.
“And that we cannot send letters or make telephone calls to anyone who lives
outside of Pitcherville,” continued Rodney.
“And nobody calls us ,” sighed Wayne, “or sends us letters. Or
birthday cards. Or Christmas cards or anything .”
Rodney nodded and brought forth a sigh of his own. He was thinking of how much
he missed his father and how the force field kept him from going to look for
him. But it was not just their father whom the twin brothers missed; they also
missed having a mother around—for Mrs. McCall had died when they were born.
They missed all of their relatives who lived outside of Pitcherville whom they
wondered if they would ever see again: Grandpa and Grandma McCall (who was the
sister of their Great Aunt Mildred) and their Uncle Doug, who was a traveling
magician, and even their father’s friend Trixie, who was a dancer and would
sometimes come to town and laugh too loud and get on Aunt Mildred’s nerves.
There were a lot of people whom Rodney and Wayne missed seeing and whom they
would miss even more if they were destined to live the rest of their lives trapped
in Pitcherville.
And there it sat: the Force Field-De-Ionizer all in pieces, because the Professor
had little clue as to how he should put it all together in such a way as to
do the town some good and remove its invisible fence forever.
“So that’s the Professor’s theory, Petey,” said Rodney, summing things up. “And
he could be wrong, but it sounds like as good a theory as any other that I’ve
heard.”
Petey agreed, and said that his mother would be glad to hear it. It would be
good for him to give her a possible reason behind all the Troubles—to give her
some theory that had nothing to do with sunspots (which few people believed
anyway). But Petey said this using only words that did not contain a “b.”
“Of course there is one other thing that Mom wants to know,” said Petey. “She’d
like to know when the next experiment is going to happen. She said she wasn’t
very prepared last time, and doesn’t want that to happen again.”
Rodney shrugged. “Sometimes we have two whole weeks between calamities,” he
said.
“But gee, other times,” Wayne joined in, “there’s hardly even time to take a
good breath.”
“A good what?” asked Petey.
“A good inhalation,” said Rodney, thinking of a “ b ”-less word that means
“breath.”
The school bell rang. This meant that it was now time for all the children who
had been talking and chasing one another upon the front lawn to go inside and
begin their school day. Rodney and Wayne didn’t hurry, for they knew what would
be waiting for them in their classroom, and wanted a little time to prepare
what they would say. And, of course, their guess was right on the money; there
it was: a cake—a big peach-frosted cake