4. The Invention

CHAPTER 4 THE INVENTION Early that evening, George and Harold sneaked back to school with their supplies. They crept into the gymnasium and peeked around. "I think somebody's still in here," whispered Harold. "Oh, it's just Melvin Sneedly," said George. Melvin was the school brainiac. He was busy putting some last-minute touches on his new invention for the contest.

"We should wait here until he leaves," whispered Harold. "No way," said George. "He could be here all night! Let's just go over and talk to him." When Melvin saw George and Harold approaching, he was not happy. "Oh, no!" he said. "I'll bet you guys are here to mess with everybody's inventions." "Nice guess," said George. "Listen, we promise not to mess with your invention, if you promise not to tell anybody that you saw us here tonight." Melvin looked lovingly at his invention, and reluctantly agreed. "I promise," he said.

"Great," said George. "Say, what is that invention of yours, anyway? It just looks like a photocopy machine." "Well, it used to be a photocopy machine," said Melvin, "but I've made some major adjustments to it. Now it is an invention that will revolutionize the world. I call it the PATSY 2000." "It'll revolutionize the world, and you named it PATSY???" asked Harold. "Yes," said Melvin. "PATSY is an acronym for Photo-Atomic Trans- Somgobulating Yectofantriplutonic- zanziptomiser." "I'm sorry I asked," said Harold.

"Allow me to demonstrate," said Melvin. "The PATSY 2000 can take any two-dimensional image and create a living, breathing, three-dimensional copy of that image. For example, take this ordinary photograph of a mouse." Melvin placed the photo of the mouse onto the glass screen of the PATSY 2000 and pressed "Start." The lights in the gymnasium dimmed as all the power in the entire school seemed to get sucked into the PATSY 2000. Soon the machine began to vibrate and hum loudly, and tiny bolts of static electricity snapped out from underneath.

"I hope that thing doesn't explode," said Harold. "Oh, this is nothing," said Melvin. "You should have seen how the PATSY 2000 reacted when I copied a poodle!" Finally, after a series of flashes and loud zaps, everything stopped. A small ding was heard, then a tiny mouse crawled out the side door of the PATSY 2000 and onto the floor. "Isn't it wonderful?!!?" exclaimed Melvin.

George inspected the mouse closely. "That's a great trick," George laughed. "You really had me goin' for a while!" "It's not a trick," cried Melvin. "The PATSY 2000 really does bring photos to life! I've even created living creatures from paintings and drawings!" "Yeah, right!" laughed Harold. "And I thought we were con artists!" George and Harold walked away chuckling. It was time to move on to bigger and better things.