Synopsis:
12-year-old Ledger Demain and his younger sister, Savvy, come from a long line of would-be inventors, and want to become inventors themselves. Their parents run a failing bookstore that’s bankrupting the family, so they’re delighted when Uncle Dexter arrives at their house to announce that he’s developed a plant that grows batteries.
Unfortunately, some bad guys seem bent on preventing his completion of the project, so he’s decided to hide out at an Inventor’s Camp for Kids for the summer—and he offers to take the kids with him.
They travel in a Scamper—a camper that soars, sails and submerges its way to the Inventor’s camp until it gets stuck at the bottom of a lake and they have to escape using Uncle Dex’s awesome umbrella that multi-tasks as a diving bell, a tent, a zip line cradle, and a hot air balloon.
Trudging through the woods, they come across a village of “little people” and meet Stretch, a boy who’s grown much taller than his parents and desperately wants to go with them to the Inventor’s camp. They agree.
At the camp, Ledger excels in all of the camp courses, which makes other kids jealous. Then Uncle Dex mysteriously disappears and Ledger, Savvy and Stretch have to use their inventive powers to solve the mystery. They finally discover that the Camp Director works for the bad guys, rescue Uncle Dex, and help him to finish his battery plant—just in time to save their parents from bankruptcy
Chapter 1: The Umbrella Arrives
Ledger Demain rarely chose the conventional way of doing things.
When he walked to school with his friends, he liked to walk in reverse, claiming he’d rather review where he’d been than spoil the surprise of where he was going.
When he ran laps around the basketball court in gym class, he’d often do it with his eyes closed, just to see how long he could stand the suspense of not knowing if he was about to run into something.
When he took notes in class, he sometimes wrote backwards, or with his left hand, or in a made-up language (that he always had trouble deciphering later). Anything to keep from being bored.
And at home, he usually spent time on his computer writing science fiction stories, or composing strange music on his electronic keyboard, or inventing things.
But not today. Today he was stretched out on his bed with his head at the wrong end, listening to the rhythm of the raindrops pelting the roof above him. He slid his body down until his head draped over the foot of the bed and beamed a red laser light from his smartwatch to the hall ceiling outside his upside-down bedroom. He tried to imagine himself walking into this inverted view, following the red dot towards his bedroom, stepping over the ledge of the bedroom door, walking across the ceiling past the up-hanging light fixture, looking at the upside-down 3-D posters of his favorite inventors (Tesla, Marconi, Bell and Edison), and peering into his closet where clothes strained upwards from their hangers like underwater seaweed.
Ledger hated wet afternoons, especially on a Sunday. It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t go outside and enjoy the sunshine, though that was true enough. It was because rainy days made him feel even guiltier about not doing his homework. Any reasonable, mature, logical mind on a day like this would automatically turn to homework, he thought—or better yet, to studying for finals. After all, final exams were only a week away.
He shook his head to rid it of unwanted thoughts. Okay, which is worse, hating schoolwork or feeling guilty about not doing it? Drudgery or Misery? Of course, if he went through the drudgery of studying, that would wipe out the misery. On the other hand, if he just hung out in guilt without attacking his schoolwork, he wouldn’t get rid of either one. He sighed. Looks like studying wins—again. Boring.
Just when he was about to do something noble to improve his grades, his younger sister, Savvy, came barging into the room. Her sandy, pony-tailed hair bounced as she rushed to the window wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt with yellow letters that read, “Hashtag: #YoureIt!”
“Did you see what’s outside? It stopped in front of the house, and then drove away—but then it turned around.”
“Excuse me, did you knock?”
“Come, look!” She pulled him off the bed and towards the window.
The front wheel splashed a frothy puddle of rainwater over the curb as a white limousine pulled up at 116 Innovation Drive. As the driver’s door opened on the street side, a huge black umbrella popped out and bounced its way to the back trunk. The trunk lid floated up with handless control as the dripping umbrella, dangling its owner’s legs and shoes, poked its way into the trunk and brought out a large red backpack.
At the same time, the limousine’s passenger door swung out to make way for the opening of a different, multi-colored umbrella that hid its own owner from the two sets of eyes viewing all this from Ledger’s bedroom window.
As Ledger and Savvy watched through the rain-streaked glass, the black umbrella closed the trunk, bounced towards the rainbow umbrella, transferred the backpack, and then quickly shuffled around the back of the car and into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and drove away.
Meanwhile, the umbrella-of-many-colors floated towards the front door and out of sight under the front portico.
“I wonder who it is?” Ledger lazily slid from the window seat and flopped to the floor.
“Beats me.” Savvy’s face was still pressed against the glass.
Ledger pressed a button on his smartwatch and gave the command, “OK, Home-Drone, bring me the tablet.”
He listened for the sound of Home-Drone’s humming chopper blades and watched while, as expected, his dad’s invention came careening from the hallway into the bedroom, clumsily knocking against the door jamb, the ceiling, the light fixture and the poster of Marconi before landing at his feet as if completely exhausted.
Ledger rolled his eyes. “Nice job, Hum-Drum.” He turned on the tablet the drone had brought to him. “OK, Nosy-Face, show me the front door.” Nosy-Face was the name of his dad’s security software.
The tablet turned itself on, flickered once, and presented the security camera’s front stoop view of two feet poking out from under a closing umbrella. Too late. Just as Nosy-Face was about to reveal its owner, the front door opened. “Rats,” muttered Ledger as both the umbrella and owner came inside, out of sight.
“Why’d you use Home-Drone?” asked Savvy, exasperated. “You should have known it would waste too much time.”
“I promised Dad I’d test it out every chance I got. He thinks it’s his best invention yet.” He shook his head. “I give it a C-minus.”
Ledger and Savvy came from a long line of almost would-be inventors. Their great-grandfather, Colonel Mortimer “Mort” Demain, a World War II fighter pilot, had almost killed himself in 1945 trying to invent a precursor to the first really successful way to pump fuel in mid-air to a jet fighter. After then-Captain Demain’s several unsuccessful attempts to guide the makeshift funnel on his jet’s nose to a huge hose trailing from a B59 bomber flown by his best Air Force buddy, his jet ran out of gas and Ledger’s great grandfather crash-landed somewhere north of Sussex, England. In addition to the blow to his pride, the enterprising airman was called up before the base commander for disciplinary action.
Thirty years later, their grandfather, Professor Leonard “Len” Demain, was among the many young people who joined the exercise-and-running craze of the 1970s, and he almost invented the first jogging stroller. He even ran a race with a prototype, proudly wheeling his two baby boys through a 26-mile marathon before limping, exhausted, through the finish line to amused applause. Unfortunately, he invented it backwards, more like a rickshaw than a stroller, with his young passengers riding behind him instead of in front. This horse-before-the-cart version never caught on.
Their dad, Dudley “Duds” Demain, was the most prolific almost-inventor of all. A bookstore co-owner and co-manager with their mom by day, but unstoppable tinkerer by night, he had discovered the vaguely-named “Internet of Things” (the idea that you could make any object computer-smart and internet-connected) and went a little crazy with the seemingly unlimited possibilities.
At least once a week he would announce the invention of some weird and crazy home device. He had built a kitchen sink that emitted an annoying moan if people left it full of dishes for too long, a self-initiating shower radio that had a bad habit of blaring loud music whenever the toilet flushed, and automatic window blinds that had a tendency to open and close whenever they felt like it.
His latest innovation was a voice-activated bread box/toaster that would store, separate, toast and spread jelly over slices of bread on command. Unfortunately, the prototype seemed to like lathering jelly on both sides of the toast, which made for very messy eating.
These were only some of the dozens of their dad’s inventions that nearly made sense.
Ledger was determined to reverse his family’s losing streak by becoming the first successful inventor in a long line of almost-rans. He had already, at the age of twelve, invented a self-pasting toothbrush that eliminated the need to squeeze toothpaste from a tube. It was still a work in progress though; it kept squirting toothpaste onto the bathroom mirror or into his mouth when he least expected it.
More recently, he’d been working on shortening his list of weekend chores by inventing a toilet-cleaning apparatus that he called The Flusher Brusher. Unfortunately, he hadn’t worked out all the bugs on that invention either. So far, he was spending a lot more time cleaning his self-dirtying invention than he had ever spent scrubbing the actual toilet before.
Savvy, two years younger than Ledger, was just as inventive. Although she couldn’t code yet, she came up with a smartphone app that she called Savvy’s Revenge, that offered dozens of ways to simulate impressive acts of retribution against mean girls, insensitive teachers and power-mad school administrators. You just imported pictures of your victims and invoked either the “Silly Dress” module, the “Halloween Weirdo Wear” the “Colorful Clown Costume,” or the “Dorky Porky Look” to change otherwise intimidating foes into hapless objects of ridicule.
Not that Savvy was a mean kid, mind you. She was actually very kind-natured and unusually generous, and in reality would never hurt a fruit fly. That’s probably why she never got Ledger’s help to actually build the app, deciding it would probably be bad karma.
Her better invention, that she named Dress-Me-Up, was more wholesome. She imagined a virtual reality app that would dress a smartphone selfie with any clothes you could describe, simply using voice commands.
Their dad, feeling proud of these early signs of innovation, had put a banner up in both their bedrooms that read:
Necessity is the mother of invention
Ledger disagreed, and had modified his banner by writing a replacement word on a big yellow sticky that he’d slapped on top of the word, “Necessity.” Now it read:
Boredom is the mother of invention
Today, though, boredom was suddenly no problem. With the arrival of the colorful umbrella with feet, they were both intrigued. They listened for some clues to this new arrival. They could hear muffled voices that seemed surprised and happy, some questions, some answers, and then the familiar sing-song, “Ledger, Savvy…”
“Is it my imagination, or does Mom sound pleased?” asked Ledger.
“Kids, come downstairs, wait’ll you see!” added their dad.
“Come on, maybe it’s good news.” Savvy jumped up and headed for the door in one motion.
Ledger was right behind her. At the top of the stairs, they stopped short. Next to their parents in the foyer stood a tall, sophisticated-looking man in a khaki overcoat, closing a snap on his bright umbrella and smiling up at them. His tanned face was complimented by a scholarly beard, so he looked like some wise professor or an elder statesman from an earlier era. He slid his umbrella into the top flap of the large red backpack that lay at his feet.
[to be continued…]
For more information, please contact E. Michael Lunsford.