Table Of ContentCopyright © 2014 by Quirk Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written
permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2013911823
eBook ISBN: 978-1-59474681-9
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-59474-676-5
Hardcover Designed by Doogie Horner
Illustrations by Scott Garrett
Hardcover Production Management by John J. McGurk Quirk Books
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v3.1
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About the Authors
DANGER! DANGER!
DANGER! DANGER!
The how-to projects in this book involve motors, hydraulic power, hot
glue, booby traps, and other potentially dangerous elements. Before
you build any of the projects, ASK AN ADULT TO REVIEW THE
INSTRUCTIONS. You’ll probably need their help with one or two of
the steps, anyway.
While we believe these projects to be safe and family-friendly,
accidents can happen in any situation, and we cannot guarantee your
safety. THE AUTHORS AND PUBLISHER DISCLAIM ANY
LIABILITY FROM ANY HARM OR INJURY THAT MAY RESULT
FROM THE USE, PROPER OR IMPROPER, OF THE
INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK. Remember, the
instructions in this book are not meant to be a substitute for your
good judgment and common sense.
“It’s her,” Nick said. “She’s the spy.”
“Who is?” said Tesla.
She looked around. She and her brother were in their uncle’s backyard, about to
test-fly the hoop glider they’d been working on that morning. There was only one other
person in sight: a fortyish woman crouched over a bed of begonias about forty feet away.
She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and dirty gardening gloves. A sweat-soaked
bandana was wrapped around her head.
She didn’t look much like a spy to Tesla.
“You mean Julie Casserly?”
Nick nodded, eyeing the woman suspiciously.
“I can feel it in my gut,” he said. “She’s always watching us. Always glaring.”
“Well, of course she is. Wouldn’t you if you lived next door to Uncle Newt?”
Nick and Tesla’s uncle was an inspired, ingenious, innovative inventor.
Unfortunately, he was also a forgetful, dreamy, not-particularly-safety-minded one.
Since the kids had come to stay with him a couple weeks earlier, his out-of-control
creations had chewed up Julie’s flower beds, demolished one of her garden gnomes, set
her lawn on fire, and splattered her car with thirty pounds of putrid bananas flambé.
(Uncle Newt was convinced he could build an engine for a vacuum cleaner that ran on
compost. So far, he’d only succeeded in building several extremely smelly time bombs.)
Maybe Julie would have overcome her dislike for Uncle Newt and warmed up to Nick
and Tesla—maybe—but the kids were wannabe inventors themselves. They could often
be found in their uncle’s backyard testing out homemade hovercrafts and balloon
rockets and robots.
And, this day, a hoop glider.
“What is that?” Julie said when Tesla lifted the glider and prepared to send it on its
first flight. She’d turned from her begonias to shoot Nick and Tesla a wary glare. “A
remote-controlled spear?”
Tesla lowered the glider. It was just a couple hoops of stiff paper, a small one in front
and a larger one behind it, connected by a straw.
“No,” said Tesla.
“A computerized javelin?” said Julie.
“No.”
“A self-shooting arrow?”
“No.”
“Some kind of missile?”
“No.”
“It’s a glider,” said Nick.
Julie narrowed her eyes. “And what’s that supposed to do?”
“Uhh … glide,” said Tesla.
Julie cocked her head, her lips twisting into a tight, sarcastic smile.
“Oh, sure. It just glides,” she said. She pushed herself up from her knees and began
walking away. “Well, let me get inside before you set it loose. I don’t want to be here
when it ‘glides’ someone into the hospital.”
The woman marched around the corner of her house and disappeared.
“Not very brave for a spy,” Tesla said.
“Maybe that’s just her cover,” Nick grumbled. “Anyway, go ahead. I want to see if
this thing works.”
Tesla brought the glider up again, pointed it away from Julie’s yard, and launched it
with a flick of the wrist. It shot away with surprising speed and flew smoothly over Uncle
Newt’s lawn, arcing to the left as it went.
“Whoa! Look at it go!” said Nick.
“And go and go and go,” said Tesla.
She’d expected the glider to fly five yards, tops, yet even after twenty it was still six
feet off the ground and not slowing down. In fact, it was soaring toward some trees on
the other side of Uncle Newt’s property, perhaps about to fly out of the yard altogether.
“Hey, kids!” a cheerful voice called out. “Whatcha up to?”
It was Uncle Newt’s other neighbor, Mr. Jones, stepping out onto his patio. The
paunchy, gray-haired man was wary of Uncle Newt’s inventions—which was wise—yet he
always had a smile and a wave for Nick and Tesla.
Unfortunately, it was a really bad time for a smile and a wave.
“Mr. Jones!” Nick cried out. “Duck!”
“A duck? Where?”
Mr. Jones looked up into the sky.
The glider came swooping through the trees and smacked him in the face.
Nick and Tesla ran to the old man as he staggered back into his house. He managed
to find his footing again just as the kids reached him.
“Where did that crazy duck go?” he started to say.
Then he saw the hoop glider lying in the doorway.
“Oh,” he said.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Jones,” said Nick.
“We had no idea it was going to fly this far,” said Tesla.
Mr. Jones rubbed his bulbous nose—which was now slightly more bulbous and way
redder than usual.
“No harm done,” he said.
He didn’t sound like he meant it, though, and the smile he gave the kids when he
handed them their glider seemed strained.
Mr. Jones closed the door on Nick and Tesla, muttering something about getting an
ice pack.
“Great,” Tesla said as she and her brother trudged away. “The one neighbor who’s
nice, and we go and throw a paper airplane up his nose.”
“It was an accident,” Nick said. “And who’s to say Mr. Jones is such a nice guy
anyway?”
“What?”
Tesla looked over at her brother, thinking he might be joking.
Nick hadn’t been joking much lately, though. And he never joked about this.
“It’s him,” Nick said. “He’s the spy.”
“Mr. Jones? He must be, like, two hundred years old.”
“Spies get old like everyone else.” Nick threw a suspicious squint over his shoulder.
“He’s always watching us. Always smiling.”
“So now being nice makes someone a suspect?”
“Why not? You remember what Mom said.”
Tesla did remember, of course.
She just wished she could forget.
Nick and Tesla were supposed to go to Disneyland. They were supposed to take
tennis lessons. They were supposed to see movies that were 99 percent special effects
and explosions. They were supposed to drink too much Kool-Aid and go swimming at
the local pool and hang out with their friends.
They were supposed to have a normal summer.
Instead, they’d ended up with their uncle and were having the weirdest summer ever.
