The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

a little fun, Howard nailed several of the electromagnetic coffee cans to a large board. He tilted the
     board and would roll a golf ball up the board and watch it bounce and shoot from one can to the next as it rolled down. He
     did this for hours at a time until his father took the board away and told him to focus on his work.
    Soon however, Howard’s father became fascinated with the board too. Howard’s father was sure others would also find the board
     fascinating, and he sold it to the Bally Manufacturing Corporation a month later. Bally built tens of thousands of the boards
     over the next fifty years. They called it pinball.
    On his eighteenth birthday Howard G. Whiz moved out of his parents’ house and never spoke to his father again. Robbed of his
     youth and weary of the greed that had surrounded him, Howard started the Whizzer Toy Company and vowed never to invent an
     adult product again. And he never did.
    Howard was famous for giving young inventors the support he never received. He held an annual toy contest and always encouraged
     young inventors to follow their dreams and invent their futures.
    “Going once, going twice—sold to the lightning bolt gentleman for a cool ten million dollars. Enjoy your new inventions, sir,”
     the auctioneer said.
    “I shall,” Howard G. Whiz replied.

FOUR MONTHS LATER
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    Maybe it was because Vincent was the only boy. Or maybe it was because his bird, Nikola, made too much noise. Or maybe it was simply because Vibs was evil. Whatever
     the reason, when the Shadow family moved into their new house in Minnesota, Vibs decided Vincent should sleep in the basement
     “bedroom,” which actually wasn’t a bedroom at all. It was more of a closet. A small closet with no door. A small closet with
     no door, a concrete floor, and the world’s oldest and loudest washer and dryer located just a few feet away.

    And maybe it was the cold Midwestern climate or perhaps the noise from the washer and dryer, or just the simple fact that
     Vibs was evil, but whatever the reason, Vincent hadn’t had a single toy idea since they arrived in Minnesota four months earlier.
     No flashes of light. No blindness. Not a single idea. And that was okay with Vincent.
    He was leaving his failed attempts at inventing behind. He had decided that the move to Minnesota was a chance to start over.
     No more silly dreams of becoming a great inventor. He left his notebooks, tools, and inventions hidden away in his secret
     lab forever. He had failed as a toy inventor, but at least no one would ever know.
    Vincent, Gwen, Stella, and Anna all attended the Minneapolis School of Art and Design now. MSAD was a small K–12 school connected
     to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The students took a few traditional classes, but most of the focus was on art. A typical
     day might start with Oil Painting, followed by Ceramics, Metal Sculpture, lunch, Math, Art Ideas, and then a Graphic Design
     class at the end of the day. In fact, that was Vincent’s schedule. And he liked all of his classes. All of them except Math.
     He loved Art Ideas the most. Mr. Dennis taught Art Ideas and Mr. Dennis was crazy.

FOOBEEZOOBEE
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    “Come on, come on, find a seat, everybody. We have a lot to talk about today,” Mr. Dennis said, standing on top of his desk.
    No one seemed surprised to see Mr. Dennis standing on his desk. No one would have been surprised to walk into the room and
     see Mr. Dennis hanging upside down from the ceiling wearing a space suit. Mr. Dennis was crazy and Vincent liked it that way.
    “Mike, Gary, John, let’s go. Find a seat.”
    “What are we doin’ today, Mr. D? Painting our faces? Acting out art? Throwing things off the roof again?” Gary asked.
    “Ooh! Ooh! Can I throw Gary off the roof, Mr. Dennis?” Lori asked.
    “No. No. No. We aren’t throwing anything off the roof. The folks in the office weren’t too happy about that. They failed to
     see the art. But not to worry, today is far