2 A Little Mistake

A LITTLE MISTAKE "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!"