On the Dog (2 page)

“Wowzers!” Andrew shouted. “This is the best thing I’ve ever invented!”

Ten-year-old Andrew Dubble parked his new machine under a tree. The machine was as big as a doghouse. It looked like a porcupine. Skinny copper tubes poked out all over it. A fat iron pipe stuck out from the front.

The machine squatted on four big springs. A thick electrical cord hung from the back like a tail.

On the fat iron pipe, Andrew had painted the words THE ATOM SUCKER. In smaller
letters he had written
THE MOST POWERFUL SHRINKER IN THE UNIVERSE!

Andrew dragged the plug to the back porch of an old white house. Andrew’s thirteen-year-old cousin Judy Dubble lived here with her parents. But nobody was home on this sunny summer day. Andrew had the field behind the house all to himself.

Andrew plugged in the Atom Sucker. Then he walked back to the machine to set the controls.

On the back of the Atom Sucker were a black power dial and a big red switch. The dial set the shrinking power from 0 to 100. Moving the dial past 0 turned the Atom Sucker on. The red switch could be pushed up or down. Up was marked
SHRINK.
Down was marked
UN-SHRINK.

Andrew pushed the big red switch up to
SHRINK.
Then he turned the power dial up to 5—low shrinking power.

The Atom Sucker began to wobble. The skinny tubes began to twirl. Soon they were whistling like a hundred teakettles.

“Super-duper pooper-scooper!” Andrew shouted. “What should I shrink first?”

He looked around the fenced-in field. Judy’s parents kept equipment for their adventure-travel business here.

At the far end of the field was an airplane with just four seats. A silver speedboat leaned against the fence. A helicopter was parked in front of the tree where the Atom Sucker sat.

“The helicopter!” Andrew smiled.
“Yes!”

meep …
“Drewd! Noop!” came a squeaky little voice from Andrew’s pants pocket.

Andrew looked down. “What’s the matter, Thudd?” he asked.

Sticking out of Andrew’s front pocket was a little silver robot. Andrew’s Uncle Al, a top-secret scientist, had invented him. The robot’s official name was
T
he
H
andy
U
ltra-
D
igital
D
etective. But Andrew called him Thudd for short.

Thudd’s face was a video screen. His ears were two antennas. On Thudd’s chest were three rows of buttons. All the buttons glowed green except for one. The big button in the center glowed purple.

Thudd had three fingers on each hand. Thudd was using all his fingers to hang on to the top of Andrew’s pocket. Thudd’s rubbery little feet were like jelly beans with flat bottoms. They were kicking the keys in Andrew’s pocket.

meep …
“Copter too big!” said Thudd. “Atom Sucker choke maybe! Explode maybe! Small thing first, please!”

Thudd made the keys jangle in Andrew’s pocket.

“Okay, okay,” Andrew said. “Calm down. Let’s go see if there’s something good in the garbage.”

Leaning against the porch were a garbage can and a lumpy black bag. It smelled stinky. Andrew lifted the lid of the garbage can. Inside were empty paint cans, sticky brushes, and an old radio. Andrew pulled the radio out.

“How about this?” Andrew asked.

meep …
“Good! Good! Good!” said Thudd.

Andrew fiddled with the radio as he walked back to the Atom Sucker.

meep …
“Drewd! Stay way from big pipe!” said Thudd.

“Whoops!” said Andrew. “Thanks, Thudd.”

The fat iron pipe at the front of the Atom Sucker was where the shrinking was supposed to happen. The pipe was snorting and wagging from side to side. It was looking for something to shrink!

meep …
“No shrink us, please!” Thudd squeaked.

“Don’t worry,” said Andrew.
“I’m
not worried.”

meep …
“Worried!” said Thudd.

Andrew crouched behind the Atom Sucker. He double-checked the controls.

“Ready.”

He raised the radio over his head.

“Set.”

He tossed it toward the front of the machine.

“Go!”

A cloud of orange smoke whooshed out of the twirling copper tubes.

SHNOOOOORP!
snorted the Atom Sucker.

Andrew couldn’t see the radio through the orange smoke. He couldn’t see anything at all. But he could hear a scream.

“Cheese Louise!” It was Andrew’s cousin Judy.

meep …
“Oody here!” Thudd squeaked. “Hiya, Oody!”

“Ah …
choof!”
Judy sneezed. “What
is
all this stinky smoke?”

“It’s just my science project,” Andrew said. He turned the Atom Sucker’s power dial down to 0. “You said I could come over and work on it.”

“I said you could come over and use my
printer!”
Judy said. She stomped toward Andrew. Her long, frizzy hair bounced with
every step. “I
didn’t
say you could explode stuff in my backyard!”

Woof!

Harley the basset hound trotted over to them. Harley belonged to Judy’s neighbor Mrs. Scuttle. But Harley followed Judy everywhere.

“Nothing exploded … probably,” Andrew said.

Judy bent down to scratch Harley behind one of his long brown ears.

“Ah … ah … ah …
choof!”
Judy sneezed again. “This smoke is awful for my allergies, and so is Harley.”

Harley snuffled in the grass, then trotted away.

“Listen, Andrew,” said Judy. “Mom and Dad are teaching a skydiving class today. If I let you wreck things while they’re gone, they’ll never let me help with the tour to Hawaii. I’m supposed to teach people how to swim with dolphins!”

“All I did was shrink a broken radio,” Andrew said. “At least I
think
I shrunk it.”

Judy folded her arms across her chest. Judy was only an inch taller than Andrew. But sometimes she seemed a lot taller.

“Mrs. Carmody assigned us a science
report on ants,” Andrew explained. “I figured if I could get
inside
an anthill, I could
really
understand them. So Thudd helped me build the Atom Sucker. It can shrink us down to any size.”

“Oh,
please,
Andrew!” said Judy. “Not another crazy invention!”

“But this one is
amazing!”
said Andrew.

“Yeah, right,” said Judy. “That’s what you said about the Aroma-Rama. Our house smelled like stinky feet for weeks!”

Judy walked over to the Atom Sucker. The smoke was clearing away.

“So how does this stupid thing work?” she asked.

“Well,” said Andrew, “atoms are almost all empty space. The Atom Sucker sucks the empty space out of atoms. When your
atoms
shrink,
you
shrink!”

Woof!

Harley ran over to Judy. He had a Frisbee
in his mouth. Judy patted Harley and tossed the Frisbee toward the far end of the field. Harley bounded after it.

“Help me find the radio,” said Andrew. “It should be somewhere in front of the big pipe.”

meep …
“Stay way from big pipe!” warned Thudd.

“It’s okay Thudd,” Andrew said. “I turned the power off.”

Andrew got down on his hands and knees and started looking around in the grass. Judy did, too.

meep …
“There, Drewd!” Thudd said. He pointed toward a tree root.

Andrew picked up the radio. It was the size of a matchbook.

“Yes!” he shouted.

“Let me see that,” said Judy. She took the little radio from Andrew’s hand.

“Wow! It’s perfect!” she said. “But how
are you going to get it
un
-shrunk?”

“I’ll just set the Atom Sucker to
UN-SHRINK,
” said Andrew. “It’ll blow the radio right back up again.”

Judy frowned. “I’m allergic to sentences with the words ‘blow up’ in them.”

“Just watch this,” said Andrew.

He hurried to the Atom Sucker’s controls and turned the power dial up to 5.

The skinny copper tubes twirled and whistled. The fat iron pipe started wagging.

Andrew was about to push the red switch to
UN-SHRINK
when Thudd screamed.

“Oody!”

Andrew looked up. Judy was near the front of the Atom Sucker. She was in the middle of a sneeze.

“Ah … ah …
choof!”

Andrew jumped. His hand hit the power dial. It spun all the way up to 100!

The Atom Sucker started hopping like a crazed kangaroo.

Judy looked up. Her eyes were as round as golf balls.

SHLOOOOORP!
the Atom Sucker bellowed.

There was a cloud of orange smoke where Judy used to be.

“Noop! Noop! Noop!” squeaked Thudd.

The Atom Sucker hopped toward the helicopter.

SKLUUUUURP!

The helicopter was gone!

“Oh, no!” Andrew cried.

He tried to pull the plug. He jerked on the cord. The Atom Sucker spun toward
him!

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew saw Harley running across the yard.

“Go back, Harley!” Andrew yelled.

Suddenly Andrew felt as if he were being tickled by monkeys and squashed into a suitcase.

The last thing he heard was a booming
SHLOOOOORP!