4 The demonstration

Chapter 4 The demonstration Tesla banged around his room, gathering his belongings. Words like "unappreciated" and "genius" drifted among the feathers. Luke gazed at all the boxes they had only just brought up the stairs. Now they were going to have to take them all away again.

"How can we help him, Bessie?" asked Sarah as Nikola Tesla moved around the room, petting each pigeon and whispering loving words of farewell. Bessie rubbed her forehead. "If only we could show the world what Mr. Tesla can do!" she said. "I sometimes think that he has magical powers." "Shame we can't put on a magic show," Luke joked. Sarah looked thoughtful. "Not a magic show," she said. "An exhibition!" "Cuckoo," said Tempo. Luke guessed she was remembering the bright flash of the X-ray machine. Bessie looked interested. "If people could see his genius, maybe they would put up with him," she said.

"Mr. Tesla?" said Sarah. Tesla stopped scratching the head of a copper-colored pigeon and looked inquiringly at them. "We have an idea for an exhibition," Luke said. "Somewhere you can demonstrate your inventions. People would love that!" Tesla clapped his hands so loudly that his pigeons all flew into the air in a panic. "A demonstration!" he said. "Yes! I will show the world today!" "Don't we need to arrange a venue first?" Sarah said. "I have a lunch party to attend," Tesla said, sifting through his equipment. "We can do the demonstration there. We will take my see-through machine.

Help me!" "Life with Mr. Tesla is never boring, is it?" said Luke as, once again, they staggered through the narrow hall of the hotel to the street with boxes of X-ray equipment in their arms. Bessie put her fingers to her mouth and gave a piercing whistle to attract the attention of two hansom cabs—the horse-drawn taxis that were clattering

up and down the street. "219 Madison Avenue," Tesla instructed the first cabbie. Bessie and Mr. Tesla led the way in the first cab, and Luke and Sarah took the second. Tempo sat on top of the second cabbie's bowler hat. They clattered through New York City, weaving their way among the trolley cars on their slim silver rails, messenger boys in neat pillbox hats bouncing along on bicycles, and delivery wagons of every shape and size. The air was loud with the shouts and whoops of drivers, the ringing of bicycle bells and the clatter of hooves on cobblestones.

New York didn't look much like the city Luke knew from the movies. There were no skyscrapers touching the clouds. No Empire State Building, which wouldn't be built for another forty years. No Chrysler Building either, with its elegant silver spire. But through the tall brownstone houses, he glimpsed scaffolding and the sight of the Brooklyn Bridge rising on the banks of the East River. The cabs drew up outside a large brownstone mansion on the corner of the street. Tall stone pillars held up a stone portico above the wood door, which gleamed with intricate glass and shiny metalwork.