Chapter 5

5 FRANK POKES THE DIMETRODON'S EYE TO ANSWER THE INCOMING call. A wavy video image of Bob and Mary Einstein, wearing matching red- plaid hunting caps, pops up on the Dimetrodon's dorsal-fin video screen. "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad." "Check it out, son!" Bob waves his hand at the night sky behind him. It is lit with curtains of shimmering green and white light. "The

northern lights!" "Cool," says Frank. "Aurora borealis." "A new friend of yours, sweetie?" asks Mary on the screen. "No, Mom. 'Aurora borealis' is the scientific name for the northern lights."

Watson sits down at the kitchen table, fiddling with different projectiles for his peashooter. "Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Einstein. Where in the world are you guys now?" Watson loads a spitball into his straw and shoots it at his target—an empty soda can— with a puff of air. "Yellowknife!" says Bob. "Just four hundred kilometers from the Arctic Circle! Another great spot for us Travelallovertheplace.com travelers." Watson's spitball misses the soda can completely and splats against Klink's glass- dome head with a wet plop. "Drat," says Watson. "Yuck," says Klink. "Ha!" says Klank. "No—Canada!" Bob yells over a hiss of static.

Mary Einstein waves. "Hello, Klink. Hello, Klank. I hope you're taking good care of my guys." Klank waves back. "Oh yes, we are. We must always protect our humans. And now we must learn everything about energy to be wireless." "Whaaaaat?" says Mary.

Klink wipes Watson's spitball off his dome with his squeegee attachment. "Even if those humans are—" "You guys would love this!" yells Bob. "A fella up here was telling us the northern lights are all caused by solar wind, and how Earth is a magnet and—" Ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! A burst of static blots out both the sound and picture of Bob and Mary on the Dimetrodon screen. Frank hangs up with another eye poke. "More energy. It's everywhere," says Frank. "That static was probably caused by a solar flare's energy cutting off the phone transmission." "Very likely," says Klink. "Because solar-flare energy is what causes the aurora borealis. Charged particles from the sun collide with gas

atoms and molecules in your planet's atmosphere, and emit different-colored light energy." Watson loads a dried pea into his shooter. "But why do you have to go to the North Pole to see it?" Watson blows another quick puff. This dried-pea bullet also misses its target and bounces off Klank with a metallic ping! "The North and South Poles are the two places where the Earth's magnetic field is strongest," says Frank. "So that's where the