Ruby Goldberg’s Bright Idea by Anna Humphrey & Vanessa Brantley Newton

Author:Anna Humphrey & Vanessa Brantley Newton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S Books for Young Readers

Chapter 7

A whole week had gone by, and with every passing day the science fair was getting closer, and the machine was getting bigger and better—but there was a long way to go yet. So even though we’d been putting it off for a while and that Friday was supposed to be the day Penny and I finally broke the tie in our backyard croquet match with Grandpa, I just couldn’t fit it in.

Plus, Grandpa seemed so out of it that I was sure he’d forgotten all about our tournament anyway. The day before, when Dominic and I had arrived, we’d found him sitting in his armchair, staring at an old picture of him and Tomato on the beach. He’d looked a million miles away, and he hadn’t even remembered to get up to offer us a snack.

“I’m really sorry,” I told Penny as Dominic and I said good-bye to her outside the school. We were so close to perfecting the newspaper dump part of the Tomato-Matic 2000, and then we could move on to the slippers lift. I knew Penny would understand. “We’ll finish the tournament soon, okay?” The science fair was just days away. It made my heart race to think about it.

“Sure,” she said. “No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, though, right?”

“Definitely!” I answered, not wanting to hurt her feelings, even though I wasn’t 100 percent sure I’d have time to hang out. I hadn’t spent an afternoon with Penny in more than a week, and I wanted to see her, but it would kind of depend on how well the machine was working by then.

On our way to Grandpa’s house, Dominic and I stopped by the hardware store again for a few supplies. Then we hit the fruit and veggie stand on the corner for one more thing. “You sure you want to use my idea?” Dominic said as we loaded ripe tomatoes into a bag. It was true that Dominic’s suggestion for triggering the helicopter might get messy, but it was also pretty funny. Plus, there was the fact that Grandpa grew huge tomatoes every summer, and made his own sauce. Tomato had loved to eat grandpa’s tomatoes too. It was how he’d gotten his name as a puppy. Really, Dominic’s idea was meant to be.

“I’m sure,” I said.

It took us most of that afternoon to rig up the catch at the top of the clothesline that released when the newspaper basket hit it, then dumped the newspaper onto the coffee table and started a tomato rolling down a ramp.

On Saturday morning we both got to Grandpa’s early and moved on to setting up the mannequin arm, which we’d found in the garbage outside a store. When the tomato reached the halfway mark on the ramp, it hit a lever that released a band we’d tied around the arm, dropping it just in time so that the mannequin hand smacked the tomato, turning it to juice that oozed into a bucket we’d set up underneath.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.