The Age Altertron Read Online Free PDF

baked by their teacher Miss Lyttle “to
thank you boys and the Professor for ending yet another town catastrophe! Have
a piece, boys. We’ll wait to begin class until after you’re done.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    In which Rodney and Wayne wake to discover that they have been sleeping like
babies because they ARE babies!
    N othing new happened for several days. Each morning
Rodney and Wayne woke to a bright and sunny room, with nothing whatsoever out
of place. Down to breakfast they would go to eat their cinnamon biscuits and
their cinnamon-sprinkled grapefruit (which, though it sounded strange, actually
tasted pretty good), and to gather their books for school, and then to jump
upon their bikes. Petey would be waiting, patient as usual. Mr. Craft’s aqua-colored
Buick would pass the boys on its way to the school, and Becky would roll down
her window and wave and sometimes she would shout, “Don’t you love this good,
beautiful, normal day!”
    Some days the three boys were joined on their Schwinn cruisers by Rodney and
Wayne’s friend Grover. Grover was a stocky boy in the twin’s eighth-grade class
whose mother was Professor Johnson’s housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Ferrell. Grover
was always trying hard to lose weight. In fact, the Professor had built an exercise
machine for him that was like no other exercise machine in the world. It was
part rowing machine and part stationary bicycle, but also had a medicine ball
that came out of its own accord and pushed at him here and there, which Grover
had to fend off when he wasn’t looking. He never used the machine without acquiring
a bruise or two, and finally, the Professor was forced to concede that the “Grovercizer”
needed further work. It was Grover’s dream to lose weight and not have to shop
in the husky young men’s section of Lowengold’s Department Store, but he would
prefer to do it without acquiring bruises.
    Grover hoped to grow up to be a champion wrestler like the wrestlers he saw
on television. His favorites were Whipper Billy Watson, Bobo Brazil, Killer
Kowalski, and Gorgeous George who preened and strutted in a silly way and made
Grover laugh. Sometimes Grover would pull one of the twins down to the ground
without warning and pin them and shout, “You’re pinned! I win! I win!” even
when the boys had not been aware that there had been a wrestling match in progress.
But Rodney and Wayne could not help liking Grover who just like Becky and them,
had only one parent, and who, just like the two boys, had never even met one
of his parents. You see, Grover’s father had died in the Battle of Guadalcanal
in World War II. He had died a war hero, and Grover kept all of his medals in
a little box next to his bed.
    Rodney and Wayne spent their normal school days listening to their pretty,
young eighth-grade teacher Miss Lyttle talk about the differences between reptiles
and amphibians, and the differences between acids and bases, and the differences
between Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. And all of these noncalamitous
days were generally good days, except that they were sometimes a little boring.
    And a little bothersome. The bothersome part went by the names Jackie Stovall
and Lonnie Rowe. These were two boys in Rodney and Wayne’s class who had no
friends other than each other. There was a very good reason for this: nobody
liked them. And there was a very good reason why nobody liked them: they tried
their best to make trouble for their classmates whenever possible. Lonnie liked
to put out his leg and trip anyone walking past. (Most of the students in the
class had learned to give him a wide berth.) However, Jackie’s mischief was
more cunning. He would think of things to hurt people that no one had ever thought
of before. And it was not only children who were the victims of his naughty
behavior. Sometimes he would steal the newspapers left by the paperboy