Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

The Invention Convention

When he finished locking up the glider, Jake set off for the Exhibit Hall to find Archie and the others. Walking through the green, leafy grounds of the campus, he wondered if he’d ever go to a university like this. He supposed the place was usually much busier than it was now, in June.

All the students had gone home for the summer. The dormitories and large academic buildings were standing empty, which was why the scientists had decided to hold the conference
there.

The campus had plenty of lecture halls like the one where Archie was scheduled to give his spee
ch on aerodynamics later in the week. Plenty of space for the scientists to set up their inventions, so they could show their colleagues what they had been working on.

Archie said this casual exchange of information each year always sent him home with tons of new ideas for things to build and new experiments to play with.

When Jake walked in, the huge Exhibit Hall buzzed with conversation and the noise of the countless strange and wonderful inventions on display.

Everywhere
, odd machines were chugging, whirring, beeping, hovering, clicking and revolving, burping steam and whooshing out fumes: brass and steel, rivets and engines, pumping pistons, beeps and whistles.

Tables and booths were set up with various displays where the inventors could tell visitors about their gadgets. Jake walked down
the aisles between them, gawking at everything that the day’s wizards of science from all around the world had dreamed up or discovered.

A woman riding on a dirigible chair floated past
, offering a tray of sweetmeats. Jake accepted one and thanked her, marveling at the miniature blimp that kept her chair suspended several feet off the ground.

He wandered on, approaching a cluster of people who were all speaking different languages and laughing at themselves and each other. He furrowed his brow as he read the
placard in front of the table.

Professor Stokes’ Rosetta Stone Babblegum.

“Free samples! You, young man! Would you like to try a slice of Babblegum?” the inventor offered him, gesturing to various colorful flavors. “Just choose your language—and chew!”

“Do you have Norwegian?”

“Sorry, all out. Would you like to try Swahili?”

He shrugged. “Why not. Thanks!” H
e accepted a slice of the Swahili-language Babblegum, though he didn’t even know where in the world people spoke it.

Moving on, he stepped
into an aisle marked Medical Advancements, where he saw an enormous, clumsy fellow with a terrible, ash-gray complexion staring dully into space.

A crazy-haired scientist in a white laboratory coat stood beside the large oaf, speaking to those who had gathered around. “Allow me to demonstrate!” he was saying to his awed-looking audience, then he picked up a violin and began playing a mournful tune.

The melody drew the big, dark-clad oaf out of his reverie. He let out a low, animal moan and began swaying back and forth.

The watchers gasped in amazement and backed away a bit, then applauded as the big oaf began stomping back and forth like he was dancing.

“It’s just astonishing, Doctor Frankenstein! What do you call the process?”

“Reanimation!” he replied with a dramatic chord on his violin. “Through the wonders of electricity, we shall
unlock the secrets of immortality!”

The people gasped and then applauded, and t
he scientist put aside his violin to take a modest bow. “I’ll be happy to answer all your questions at my lecture tomorrow afternoon…”

A reanimated corpse!
Jake shuddered and moved on.

Turning down the next aisle, he spotted Miss
Langesund standing in a booth beside an older gent, who was smoking a pipe as he answered questions from the curious. When Jake saw a sign that said
Archeology Row,
he realized that must be her father.

But it was not just the
Langesunds’ Viking artifacts on display in this amazing aisle. The top archeologists from all over Europe had brought their latest finds.

There was a terrifying dinosaur skull with huge teeth and a collection of bones; early tools from cavemen; spooky Egyptia
n mummies in grave wrappings lay in their opened sarcophagi. But the biggest crowd of all flocked around the booth of a German fellow called Professor Schliemann, who—according to the placard—had just discovered the ancient city of Troy. Security guards stood watch over the solid gold “Mask of Agamemnon.”

Whoever that was, Jake thought.

The line to see the ancient Greek mask was too long to bother with for an impatient lad who was more interested in a heaping plate of food at the Welcome Dinner than seeing all this stuff.

Drifting on, hands in pockets, Jake
wandered into the
Aisle of Industry
, passing a complicated, noisy heap of metal labeled “Combustion Engine.” He did not know what it did or why anyone would want one, so he hurried on, past another massive bulk called a “Freight Elevator,” with huge pulleys and powerful hydraulics.

A little farther on, he came to
a display of miniature trains where a twangy-voiced American detailed the railways being built across the Wild West, with the help of some new explosive called “Dynamite.” It just looked like red sticks to Jake.

Soon, he
arrived at the aisle for
Communications
. Here he came face to face with the newest wonder from Archie’s hero, Mr. Alexander Graham Bell. Proudly displayed on a pedestal sat some weird new contraption called a “Telephone.”

Jake wasn’t sure how it worked, but rumor had it
that it would soon replace the telegraph altogether. He was skeptical.
We’ll see.

Strolling through
the
Improvements For the Home
aisle, he heard a man demonstrating a brand-new gadget called a “Carpet Sweeper.”

“Your chamber maids will no longer need a broom to sweep the floors!”
the man promised.

“Amazing!” people raved, staring at the
newfangled thing.

That’ll put a lot of maids out of work,
Jake thought. Next he strolled into a fun row:
Photography & Entertainment
.

A man in a top hat was dem
onstrating something called a “Cylinder Phonograph” that made music come out of a large horn attached to a rotatey silver thing—and then there was something even stranger.

Jake stopp
ed and stared in shock at the “Moving Pictures.” He couldn’t believe his eyes as the pictures flashed in continuous motion on the screen.

Blimey, what would they think of next?

Rather overwhelmed by all this Progress, he shook off a disoriented feeling and went looking for his cousin. When he finally spotted Archie with Henry in the aisle labeled
Physics & Astronomy
, they were surrounded by other geniuses, deep in conversation.

Jake hesitated, not at all sure he wanted to go blunderin
g into the middle of that egghead conversation.

The truth was, he had been feeling self-conscious
and defensive about his lack of education ever since they had arrived.

H
e had plenty of street-smarts after his pickpocket years, but he had only attended the orphanage school long enough to learn the rudiments of math and reading, and he didn’t much care for either. He preferred to think of himself a young man of action—more of a doer than a thinker.

Archie, on the other hand, had started solving algebra equations at age four.
He took up chemistry by six, and by nine could fix anything mechanical. His favorite hobby was designing amazing bits of gadgetry, and if he could not find the tools he needed to build some new invention, he made the tools, too.

As the tutor for both students, Henry
had privately told Jake not to feel bad about his inability to keep up with Archie in their studies. With his world-class intellect, few people on earth could. At age eleven, Archie already held two degrees from Oxford.

And with all the geniuses here, he was right at home.

Jake, on the other hand, felt as dumb in their eyes as Doctor Frankenstein’s big, dancing oaf had seemed to the crowd. With that thought, he decided not to join them, but to wait until Archie was through.

Fortunately, he was not left alone for long.

A familiar, high-pitched voice suddenly called his name. “Jake! Jake, look! I almost got everyone on my list! You’ll want to see this.” Dani O’Dell came striding toward him, all business.

The little redhead had followed him out of the rough-and-tumble rookery neighborhood, where she had been his one true
friend through thick and thin.

When
his aristocratic relatives had found him, to Jake’s relief, Great-Great Aunt Ramona had hired Dani to serve as lady’s companion to Cousin Isabelle, Archie’s elder sister.

He was thankful because now h
e didn’t have to worry about Dani. She loved her new life as Isabelle’s hired companion.

The two girls balanced each other well. Though Dani was only ten, she was rookery-tough, while the fourteen-year-old
empath, Isabelle, was a soft and delicate soul.

As Dani marched toward
him, her pen and book in hand, Jake decided to play a trick on her and popped the Babblegum into his mouth. “There you are!” she said.

“
Jambo!” he answered in greeting.

“What?”

“Nafurahi kukuona. Jina langu ni Jake.”

She stared at him, brow furrowed.

He took the gum out of his mouth, laughing. “My name is Jake,” he informed her, holding up the chewed gum. “Babblegum. Want to try it?”

She
grimaced at his chewed gum, shook her head at him, and muttered “daftling,” just as her tiny brown Norwich terrier stuck his head out of the satchel on her shoulder and growled at the “Moving Pictures.”

“
Calm down, Teddy, they’re not real. If you’re done speaking whatever language that was—”

“Swahili. Kind of spicy. Cayenne pepper maybe?”

“—I wanted to show you something,” she continued, ignoring him. “Have a look at this!” Dani opened the Norway tour book she had bought with her earnings in the shop aboard the massive luxury steam-liner on which they had sailed over from England.

Proudly, she
showed him all the famous names scribbled on the overleaf.

Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Jules Verne…

“I’m collecting all their autographs in one book! This is going to be worth a lot o’ money someday, wait and see.”

“Brilliant,” Jake murmured, glancing at her in surprise.

She lifted her chin, her green eyes glowing with satisfaction. “It is rather brilliant of me, ain’t it?”

Clearly
, one month in their new, easy life among the aristocrats was not enough to erase from her memory how they had struggled to survive in the rough rookery neighborhood.

Dani had sold
apples in Covent Garden Market before both their situations had so drastically improved, and it seemed she still thought like a wee businesswoman. Jake couldn’t help but admire her for it, even though Great-Great Aunt Ramona would have sniffed in disdain. Trade, after all, wasn’t considered very aristocratic. Nevertheless, the rookery lass was a survivor.

Like him.

“Did you finish unpacking your trunk?” he asked, sparing her the Swahili. A traveling trunk, in itself, was still a novelty to them both, considering this was their first-ever holiday anywhere.

Dani
nodded eagerly, tucking her book away. “Miss Helena’s still in the dormitory arranging our rooms and pressing our gowns for the Welcome Dinner. She said me and Isabelle could come and have a look at the inventions.”

“Where is Isabelle, anyway
?” Jake glanced around curiously for his elder cousin.

“Oh, she felt sorry for young Mr. Tesla.” Dani gave him an arch look. “Poor thing! He’s so shy, he can barely speak to people. You know
how Isabelle likes to put others at ease. Well, she got him talkin’ about electricity, then nothing could shut ’im up. I couldn’t take it anymore, but she couldn’t get away. You know our Isabelle. She didn’t want to be rude.”

Jake laughed
heartily, glad he never had that problem.

“
Last I saw her, she was letting him rig her up to some contraption that measures the electrical waves comin’ out of your head.”

“Isabelle’s got electricity coming out of her
head? Well, that explains a lot,” he drawled.

“We all do, you glock-wit.” Dani glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “You should let Mr. Tesla measure your brain waves, too, Jake. You really should, considering the
talents
that run in your family—”