Chapter 6

6 THE TWO-TON BALL OF BLACK FORGED STEEL ON THE END OF A chain swings away from the tall, striped, concrete smokestack next to the river. Inside the crane, a long, hairy ape hand pushes the swing control lever left. The thirty-meter boom of the crawler crane pivots left. The wrecking ball stops at the top of its arc... then swings back, following the boom, and

smashes into the last Midville Coal Plant smokestack with an earth-shaking thump! The smokestack wobbles, tilts, and —BOOM CRASH—collapses in a heap of brick and concrete and old coal dust.

The entire Midville Coal Plant, which used to: burn coal to heat water into steam to spin turbines to run generators to produce electricity to send to transformers to transmit electricity to half of the houses in Midville...

...is now a pile of rubble. Mr. Chimp pushes his bright yellow hard hat back onto his head. He slaps the dashboard of the crane's control cab and hoots a pleased "Hoo-hoo-hoo." T. Edison pulls a new notebook from the pocket of his orange safety vest and makes a very careful big black check mark.

"Midville Coal, done! Two more power plants left to smash. Then the only one working is my hydroelectric plant!" Mr. Chimp backs up the crawler crane and puts it into PARK. He drops the two-ton wrecking ball to its cradle on the ground. He then shuts off the engine and signs: Edison climbs down from the crane. "Our? What are you yapping about? Our what?"

Edison waves his hand at Mr. Chimp. Mr. Chimp does not like humans waving hands at him. He bark-screams a very loud "Ooo-ooo-AAAAHHHH-AHHH!" and slaps an open hand against his chest. "Oh, fine. I know, I know. Half the power plant is yours." Edison takes a rolled-up sign over to the fence surrounding the plant. "But this stroke of genius is all mine." Edison unrolls the sign and ties it to the fence. "We'll call it 'building,' but these idiots won't even understand that we are destroying everything except our power plant."