The Top Secret Toys Read online

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE:

  This book is a work of fiction and intended solely for reading entertainment. It is not intended to be a guidebook for any of the experiments or activities described in this book. The experiments and activities described in this book can be extremely dangerous and the reader should not attempt to recreate them. Before doing any kind of science experiment, readers are advised to ask a responsible adult about the dangers that may be involved and, with the help of that adult, take the necessary precautions. The author and publisher disclaim any liability that is incurred from the application of the contents of this book.

  New York, New York

  All parents keep a secret list of mistakes—a top-secret list of regrets that they share only with other parents. And while some of those lists may include the purchase of bunk beds, Nancy Zimmerman is, perhaps, the only parent to put the purchase of her son’s bunk bed at the very top of the list.

  Timmy Zimmerman, better known as Danger Boy to his friends and family, discovered his love of stunts shortly after his mother purchased his bunk bed. The bed had played a major role in many of his death-defying stunts over the years. But today Timmy was preparing to take danger to a new level.

  Timmy carefully removed the plastic motorcycle models from his bookcase and leaned the empty bookcase against his bunk bed. Then he positioned his bike jump at the base of the bookcase. Now the back of the bookcase formed a solid ramp to the bike jump.

  Timmy duct-taped a pillow to his old skateboard and climbed to the top bunk. He looked down the ramp and figured he would be traveling thirty or fifty miles per hour by the time he reached the jump. Professional stuntmen always take safety precautions and Timmy believed he was nothing if not professional. So he strapped on his foam bike helmet and mounted the skateboard.

  Timmy was lying headfirst on the skateboard. A simple push would propel him down the ramp, over the jump and, if his calculations were correct, out into the hall and down the stairs before he landed in the couch cushions he had placed at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately for Timmy, he wasn’t very good at math and his calculations were rarely correct. As he pushed off the top bunk, Timmy was on a crash course for his bedroom closet.

  Timmy wasn’t going fifty miles an hour when he hit the bike jump. But he was going fast enough to send him sailing four feet into the air, through his closet doors, and headfirst right through the back wall of his closet.

  “What the…” he said.

  Timmy didn’t move. His head was completely embedded in the wall. After several seconds he let out a little cough and shook the dust from his hair. One minute he was traveling headfirst down the ramp, well on his way to becoming the world’s greatest stuntman, and the next—the next minute he was launched headfirst into the wall—or a secret room behind it.

  Timmy had set out to discover what it must have felt like to be Evel Knievel, flying high over the Snake River Canyon, but instead he had discovered Vincent Shadow’s secret attic invention laboratory.

  Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Vincent Shadow used two rolls of duct tape to connect nine garden hoses that he had borrowed from his neighbors. The garden hoses stretched from the kitchen through the living room, up the stairs, in and out of his stepsisters’ bedrooms, into the bathroom (where it ran in and out of a bathtub full of ice), and all the way back downstairs to the kitchen. A two-hundred-foot journey in all. A journey made possible by the generosity of Vincent Shadow’s new neighbors.

  As much as Vincent hated all the attention he had received for winning the annual Whizzer Toys invention contest, it had definitely made building his inventions easier. When he went door-to-door asking to borrow his neighbors’ garden hoses, they were all eager to help the now-famous young inventor.

  “Whatcha working on now, Vincent? A water hose that plays music? I betcha got a lot of ideas in that head of yours, don’t cha,” Mr. Johnston said.

  “Ah, yeah. I guess so,” Vincent replied.

  But the truth was that Vincent had nothing. He hadn’t had an idea hit him since he and his family moved to Minnesota five months ago. And to make matters worse, summer vacation was just two weeks away, which meant that his summer internship at Whizzer Toys was just two weeks away. Vincent would be spending his summer with the great toy inventor Howard G. Whiz himself. Howard was sure to expect inventions like Vincent’s windless kite or his winning Pop Tunz sound bubbles. But, in a fit of frustration with all of his mishaps, Vincent had left all his inventions and notebooks in his secret attic lab back in New York. Now he had nothing. No notebooks. No new toys. No blinding inspiration. Nothing.

  In an attempt to remedy this situation, Vincent purchased a shiny new black Moleskine notebook shortly after moving to Minnesota. He sat down and tried to fill it with all the inventions he could remember. But he only remembered a dozen or so. And most of them didn’t work. Sky Writerz was one of those inventions. And now he was desperate to make it work.

  Sky Writerz was a toy that would allow people to draw or write in midair with colored fog. Or at least Vincent had hoped it would. He had built several prototypes back in New York, but he was never able to make them work. The fog always drifted upward and the art ended up looking like something his mom would have liked: A Jackson Pollock painting, albeit a floating Jackson Pollock painting. But watching his breath hang in the cold Minnesota air had given him an idea. Maybe if he cooled the fog it would remain dense and hang in the air, like his breath on cold Minnesota mornings.

  He dumped a gallon of water and two bottles of his sister’s hand lotion into the fog machine. He needed glycerin to make fog and the label on his sister’s fancy lotion claimed it was ninety-nine percent pure glycerin. Vincent lowered his safety goggles over his eyes and pushed the on button. The fog machine sat quietly. Then it hissed and a small amount of smoke escaped from the duct-taped hoses. It smelled like lilacs, but Vincent didn’t notice. He was too excited about the possibility of being the first person to create art in midair. Not even Picasso could make that claim.

  Just then the hose began to shake violently. Vincent heard a loud crash upstairs. He set the end of the hose down and ran up the stairs to investigate. He had experienced dozens of mishaps in his old lab: cuts, scrapes, and explosions were just part of the job. In fact, it was the rare experiment that didn’t have some sort of mishap. So Vincent was prepared for the worst when he walked into the bathroom. But he found nothing. The hose was still coiled under several pounds of ice. He checked all three of his stepsisters’ bedrooms. Nothing. Nothing had exploded, imploded, or combusted.

  “I must be getting—”

  “VINCENT SHADOW!”

  Vincent’s self-congratulatory thoughts were interrupted by his stepsister Stella’s scream.

  “VINCENT, WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT’S GOING ON?” Stella yelled.

  Vincent ran out of a bedroom and into a thick blanket of fog. He couldn’t see a thing.

  “I’m upstairs,” he yelled.

  “What’s going on?” Stella demanded.

  “Ah, looks like another failed experiment. Unfortunately,” Vincent said, sounding defeated.

  “You’d better get down here and get rid of this—this colored fog. Mom is gonna be home any minute. And”—Stella waved her hand in front of her face—“what is that? It smells like—VINCENT SHADOW, DID YOU USE MY NEW LOTION?”

  “All in the name of science, Sis. All in the name of science.”

  Vincent sat down and decided to wait for the fog, and his sister, to settle down.

  “Good grief! It’s freezing in here! Why are the windows open? And why are these fans on?” Vincent’s stepmom Vibs demanded.


  Vincent looked at Stella.

  “Ah… well. It’s May, Mom,” Stella said.

  “Yes. May in Minnesota.” Vibs closed the living room windows and turned off the fans. “But I must admit, you can smell spring in the air. It smells like lilacs.”

  “Where’s my dad?” Vincent asked.

  “Oh, will you go help him, Vincent? There’s a huge package on the front step.”

  “Huge package?”

  Vincent opened the front door and was knocked to the floor by a giant box.

  “Oh. Hey, sorry, buddy. I didn’t see you there. This thing weighs a ton!” Vincent’s dad, Norton Shadow, slid the six-foot-long box into the living room.

  “I’m okay. What’s in this thing? Who’s it from?”

  “Looks like it’s from Whizzer Toys.”

  “Come on. Open it, Vincent,” said Stella.

  “It’s huge.” Vincent ripped the flaps off the top of the box and peered inside. “Cool!”

  “What is it?” Stella tried to peek in the box.

  “It’s full of toys!” Vincent pulled out a box of classic Whizzer Windupz.

  “Now that takes me back. I had those when I was your age.” Vincent’s dad took the box from Vincent’s hand. “Man, I loved my Whizzer Windupz. Look at these, honey!”

  “Great. We don’t have room for all this stuff,” Vibs said.

  Vincent pulled out a lime-green Whizzer Wall Racerz, a box of Balloon-E-Toonz, four bottles of Whizzer Sno-Glowz, and—

  “Whoa, a new Whizzer Board 4000!” The box tipped over as Vincent pulled out the chromed inline skateboard. “Awesome!”

  Vincent’s other stepsisters, Anna and Gwen, walked through the door just as Vincent pushed down on the Whizzer board’s turbo pedal. The wheels spun.

  “No fair! Why does Vincent get new toys?” Anna demanded.

  “They’re from Whizzer Toys,” Norton replied. “It must all be part of winning the contest.”

  “No fair. Vincent gets everything!” Anna shouted.

  Ignoring her, Vincent leaned the Whizzer Board against the wall and climbed back into the box.

  “There’s an Air It Out Golf Tee, My Surprise Garden, a whole bunch of Whizzer Bubble Capz, a Fairy Featherz doll, a—”

  “VINCENT!” Vibs noticed that she was yelling and lowered her voice. “Vincent. Maybe you could at least give the Fairy Featherz doll to Anna? It’s a girl toy, and they’re her favorite.”

  “Sure.” Vincent agreed, handing it to Anna.

  Anna took the doll and ran up the stairs.

  “What else is there?” Stella asked.

  “Just some sort of old wooden crate. And it’s heavy. Can you give me a hand with it?”

  Stella helped Vincent slide the wooden crate from the box onto the floor. It was covered with dirt and scrapes and secured with a large metal lock.

  “Where’s the key?” Stella asked.

  “I don’t know.” Vincent fumbled through the stack of toys. “I didn’t see one.”

  Stella shook the cardboard box. “That’s so weird.”

  “Hey, can you help me get this stuff downstairs before Anna decides she wants all of it?”

  Vincent’s basement bedroom wasn’t really a bedroom at all. It was more like a small closet in the laundry room. But he’d made the best of it. He’d taken over a small workbench in the corner and planned to convert most of the laundry room into his new invention lab. He was thankful that he no longer needed to hide his lab or his inventing. But Stella was still the only one who knew about the source of Vincent’s inventions—his blinding headaches that he dismissed as migraines to the rest of the family.

  “Careful,” Vincent said as he and Stella carried the crate down the basement stairs.

  “Sorry. This thing’s heavy,” Stella said. “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a bunch of old Whizzer toys,” Vincent said.

  “Yeah, the cast-iron kind,” Stella said. “Or maybe it’s research. Maybe it’s full of old Wondrous Whizzer Wishbooks.”

  “Yeah. That’d be cool. Let’s put it up on the workbench next to Nikola’s cage.” Vincent and Stella slowly lifted the crate up onto the workbench and set it next to his pet parrot, Nikola. Vincent slid an anvil under the lock and grabbed a hammer.

  “What’re you doing?” Stella asked as she grabbed his hand.

  “I’m gonna see what’s inside this old thing.”

  “But what if—”

  SMACK! A spark jumped as Vincent struck the lock. “Nothing,” he said.

  SMACK!

  SMACK!

  SMACK!

  Stella shielded her eyes.

  “Not even a scratch,” Vincent said as he examined the lock. “I suppose I could cut the crate open.”

  “What if you wreck whatever is inside? Or what if Mr. Whiz wants the crate back?”

  “We could cut the lock with a blowtorch,” Vincent suggested. He had always wanted to use a blowtorch.

  “Yeah, and burn the house down. No way. Besides, where are you going to get a blowtorch? Let’s go look for a key one more time,” Stella said. “Maybe it fell when you were pulling the toys out of the box. It seems weird for Mr. Whiz not to have included a key.”

  “Or a letter,” Vincent added.

  Stella said, “Well, at least you got a box of cool toys.”

  “Yeah. I can’t wait to tell the guys at school tomorrow that I finally got a Whizzer Board.”

  Vincent, Stella, Gwen, and Anna all attended the Minneapolis School of Art and Design, which was attached to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a world-class museum—and the place where Norton worked. The students at MSAD took classes like math, science, and English. But most of the classes focused on the arts. Vincent loved art. And he particularly loved his Art Ideas class taught by Mr. Dennis.

  “So cool. Dude, I wish I had a Whizzer Board,” Vincent’s friend Gary said as they waited for Mr. Dennis.

  “What else did you get, Vincent?” John asked.

  “Ah, there was a big box of Bubble Capz, a Color Doodlez, and an Air It Out Golf Tee.”

  “Aw, dude. You’re so lucky.”

  “Yeah, but most of that stuff is pretty old,” John said. “I mean it’s cool and everything, but I’ve got most of that stuff already.”

  “Ahhh. There he is,” Mr. Dennis said as he dragged two large garbage bags into the classroom, “the winner of this year’s Whizzer Toys contest! Welcome home, Mr. Shadow! Welcome home! Did you have a good week in New York?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Mr. D.”

  “And how is that famous toy-inventing cousin of mine, Mr. Howard G. Whiz, doing?”

  “He’s good.”

  “We saw you on the news, Vincent. Those bubbles were spectacular! Just spectacular. But I must ask, what happened to the windless kite?”

  “There was an accident the night before the contest.”

  “Ah. So you were able to invent a new toy… overnight? Amazing. Just amazing! See, class, there’s always more than one right answer, isn’t there, Mr. Shadow?”

  “I guess so, Mr. D.”

  “Speaking of right answers—class, please stand up.”

  Vincent, Mike, John, Gary, Eleanor, and Lori all stood up.

  “Where’s Ariel?”

  “Well, Mr. D, she, ah, she decided to switch to Mr. Gang’s ceramics class,” said Gary.

  “Right. And then there were six. Well, come on, class, we don’t have all day.”

  “Where are we going, Mr. D?” Gary asked.

  “To find some answers, my dear Gary. To find some answers.”

  Gary looked at the sculpture and laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  “It’s a telephone shaped like a lobster, Mr. D.”

  “Yes, indeed it is, Gary. Salvador Dalí created the Lobster Telephone in 1936. Brilliant, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so, Mr. D. But wouldn’t it, like, pinch your ear off if you tried to use it?”

  “Well, yes. If it were alive, I belie
ve it would.”

  “This is pretty wild,” John said, pointing to Salvador Dalí’s Les Chimeres.

  “What is it?” Eleanor asked.

  “Oh, it looks like this line is a dude holding a flashlight or maybe a hose. And this, this squiggly thing kind of makes the front of a truck,” John said. “Maybe he’s a fireman putting out a fire.”

  “Truck? Where’s the truck? I don’t see a fire truck. I see this guy,” Eleanor said, pointing to a heavy black line. “Fishing in this pond.”

  “Pond? That’s no pond. This here,” Gary said as he pointed to two circles near the bottom of the canvas, “this bull is charging this group of people.”

  “Group of people? Those are just dots,” John said.

  “I got it. It’s like, the running-with-the-bulls thing. Isn’t it, Mr. D?” Gary asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Dennis answered.

  “Ha! See? I knew it. I’m good at this art stuff,” Gary said.

  “Yes, Gary, you are good at this art stuff. It is also a fireman putting out a fire and someone fishing.”

  “What?” Gary said, now sounding defeated.

  “Class, who has heard the expression ‘Art is in the eye of the beholder?’ ”

  Eleanor raised her hand. “It means we all see art differently?”

  “Right, Ms. Eleanor. We all see art differently. Mr. Dalí believed that we all see art—and the world—differently. Mr. Dalí was part of a group of artists who practiced something called ‘surrealism.’ Surrealist artists would often look for connections between things that seem unrelated.”

  “Oh, like how John says he is related to Ben Franklin, but no one believes him?”

  “Well, Lori, more like splattering paint on a canvas and seeing how it starts to form a person or a pond or—”

  “Or a bull,” Gary added.

  “Right. Or a bull.”

  “That seems like a weird way to make art, doesn’t it, Mr. D?” Gary asked.

  “Well, let’s find out. I’d like all of you to try this at home. Take some seemingly unrelated items and connect them in some new way. It can be splashes of paint, items found outside, or things lying around your house. Just put them together in a new and exciting way! This is the last assignment of the year, so let’s make it great.”