Spin the Golden Light Bulb by Jackie Yeager

Author:Jackie Yeager
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Inventions, Inventors, Schools, Fiction, Family, Teamwork, Science fiction, Juvenile fiction, General, School & Education
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: 2018-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

HUMAN PRETZEL

Only seven days left, but my team is on fire. The paint is dry on the box and Mare has made herself in charge of attaching it to the platform. With all the moving parts, she’s going to make sure nothing falls apart. She’s got a checklist and everything. The boys attach a lever, she checks to see if they put it on the right way. She’s bossy, but they don’t mind, and at least she’s not complaining anymore.

Jillian and I walk outside. Tons of teams are spread out on campus. It looks like one big carnival but without any games or rides. I guess they’re working on the last minute parts of their solutions too. We search for a quiet place away from everyone and find a shady spot underneath a tree where I lean up against the crooked trunk. We flip through the script and examine every single line. Are Ander’s funny enough? Are Jax’s serious enough? Does Mare sound like a teenager? Should Jillian act more dramatic? Do I sound like a little kid?

When we’re sure the script is perfect, we work on the language. We add the moves to the script, making them really big. We try to imagine people sitting way back in the auditorium; will they be able to see what we’re acting out? If our motions are big—then no one will miss a thing.

Later on, Mare, Ander, and Jax find us under the tree. Mare collapses on the grass. “I’m so tired and that shed is so creepy. I feel like real ghosts could be watching us.”

Jillian laughs. “Wait until you see how we added the language to the play. We call it Ghost Garble! It’s the way ghosts communicate with each other—a dance move to go with each word. All the new ghosts must learn the garble once they’re welcomed into Ghost Town, and then use it to choose where to go for all of eternity.”

Jillian and I jump up to demonstrate. “See ghosts don’t just talk, they garble.”

Ander jumps in line with us. “Show me! How do you do it? Like this?” He spins on his heel, and says, “Let’s go tango in the grave yard!”

“Sort of,” I say, and show it to him again. Before long, all of us are garbling, even Jax. His moves look like Frankenstein’s monster, but for the serious ghost director, I guess that’s good. Before too long, we’ve invented something else to go with our ghost garble lines—a finale song and dance. We twist, we dance, we jump—making up lines as we go.

“Dancing Ghosts in the Gallery!” Ander exclaims. “We are so going to win this competition.”

Over the next few days, we spend our time under the tree memorizing our lines and putting together the packet for the judges, that includes our team’s question, our original language, our rotating object, and a list telling how we used all six categories in our solution:

Art Forms: Creation of costumes, designs on the movable object, and the original language.

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