Chapter 3

3 AT 8:34 A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME, FRANK'S ALARM CLOCK goes off. And because this is inventor Frank Einstein's alarm clock, of course it doesn't go off by simply ringing. It goes off by way of a hammer on top of an old alarm clock smacking a nail... that knocks a peg... that frees a ten-speed bicycle gear

...that drops a little barbell on the end of a chain... that turns another gear... and a wheel... and another and another and another in a maze of interlocking gears and wheels covering the entire wall until the last wheel turns a worm gear... that spins a metal rod... that opens the vertical floor-to-ceiling blinds... filling the room with bright morning sun.

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Frank sits up and scratches his head with both hands. He loves staying with Grampa Al in this cool old factory he has turned into his house, Fix It! repair shop, and now also a laboratory of Frank's very own. The Fix It! shop might not be the most successful business in Midville. People seem to throw stuff away instead of fixing it. And Grampa Al is always more interested in the fixing than the moneymaking. But Grampa Al's shop is the greatest place in the world to make and test any invention you might dream of. Frank throws on jeans, a T-shirt, and his rumpled, soft, washed-a-thousand-times lab coat. He slides on shoes. No socks. Because that's how he does his best thinking. In comfort. Frank scientifically observes the model-train tracks at his feet. He concludes that he's glad he disconnected his Model-Train Shoe

Delivery System last night. That invention isn't quite working yet. Too many early- morning shoe-train wrecks. Frank grabs the book on his oversized wooden cable-spool bedside table. The smell of pancakes and coffee from the kitchen downstairs hurries him along the wide-wooden-plank-floor hallway, under the old MIDVILLE ZIPPER CO. sign stamped in concrete letters over the doorway arch. Frank hustles past the walls covered with his Grampa Al's charts and diagrams of The Phases of the Moon and The Constellations. He takes a left down the hall of Tectonic Plates and The Geological Timescale. He takes

a right past The Human Skeletal System and The Circulatory System. He hops onto the Double Helix DNA slide, spirals down two floors, and pops through the Plant-Cell/Animal-Cell swinging doors right into the kitchen. "Good morning, Einstein," says Grampa Al, scooping pancakes out of a frying pan. "Good morning, Einstein," answers Frank, repeating their classic joke that's not really a joke. Grampa Al serves Frank and himself each a steaming stack of pancakes. He turns on the carbon-atom light fixture above the table. It glows with a funny mix of six blue proton and six red neutron lights in the center nucleus, surrounded by six occasionally blinking white electron lights. Frank swallows a delicious mouthful of warm pancake, melted butter, and maple