The Fourteenth Goldfish Read Online Free PDF Page A

Greece.”
    “Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant physicist. He ran the Manhattan Project, which developed theatomic bomb. Oppenheimer tested the atomic bomb in the middle of a desert in New Mexico.”
    “Wow,” I say.
    He looks around. “Well, no time like the present. Let’s get this place organized.”
    My grandfather wants to set up the lab around the main electricity outlets, and that means shifting all the prop boxes out of the way. It takes us the better part of two hours to move everything. There’s a box of clip lights, and he arranges them around the workbench.
    The garage door suddenly rolls open and my mother’s car is there. But she can’t pull into the garage because of all the boxes. She kills the engine and walks into the garage.
    “What are you doing?” she demands.
    “We’re setting up a lab,” I tell her.
    “Here? In the garage?”
    “So I can continue my research,” my grandfather explains.
    “Where am I supposed to park my car?” she asks.
    “Outside?” I suggest.
    “I don’t think so,” she says.
    My grandfather stares at her. “You’re standing in the way of scientific discovery.”
    “I’m standing in the way of birds pooping on my car.”
    It takes the rest of the afternoon to put everything back.

I’m supposed to do a report on a famous historical figure. But instead of choosing from the likely suspects—William Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Tubman—I use my computer to look up the names my grandfather’s been batting around. Galileo. Jonas Salk. Robert Oppenheimer.
    Galileo’s picture is an old oil painting, like something that should be hanging in the de Young Museum in San Francisco. He’s dressed like he’sin a Shakespeare play and doesn’t seem like a real person.
    But Salk and Oppenheimer are interesting. Salk looks exactly the way you’d imagine a scientist: glasses, white lab coat, holding test tubes. Nerdy in general.
    Oppenheimer is more unexpected: he’s handsome, with piercing eyes. He stares broodingly into the camera like an old Hollywood actor. In one shot, he’s wearing a hat and has a cigarette dangling from his mouth. I can almost imagine my dad playing his part in a movie. Also, Oppenheimer has a local connection to the Bay Area: he taught at the University of California at Berkeley. My mom is always raving about the theater program there.
    I can’t help but notice the similarity between the two men: they were both involved in wars where science played a big part in the outcome. Jonas Salk and the War on Polio. Robert Oppenheimer and World War II. Salk found a vaccine that prevented polio, and Oppenheimer helped create the bombs that were dropped on Japan and ended the war.
    Oppenheimer’s story especially seems like a Hollywood movie. The race against the Germans to create the bomb first. And then there’s the photo of one of the bombs exploding with a big mushroom cloud. There’s a quote from Oppenheimer, his reaction to the successful testing of the atomic bomb:
    “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed. A few people cried. Most people were silent.”
    I understand how he felt. Like when my grandfather walked through the front door looking like a teenager. Science fiction becoming reality. My mom talks about how she couldn’t even have imagined cell phones when she was a kid and now everyone has them. Except me, of course. My parents say I’m too young.
    My grandfather comes into my bedroom without knocking. He freezes when he sees the handprints.
    “Good grief. What happened to your walls?”
    “They’re supposed to look that way,” I explain.
    “That’s a style? Whatever happened to a nice wallpaper?”
    He points to his face. He’s totally breaking out. He’s got zits on his forehead and a big red one on his chin.
    “Do you have any acne cream?”
    “There’s some in the bathroom,” I tell him, and he follows me in.
    “I can’t believe I’m seventy-six years old and dealing with pimples