Ben the Inventor Read online

  BEN THE

  INVENTOR

  ROBIN STEVENSON

  Illustrated by DAVID PARKINS

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  To Kai, whose creativity and energy inspire me

  Text copyright © 2011 Robin Stevenson

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 David Parkins

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

  recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be

  invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Stevenson, Robin, 1968

  Ben the inventor [electronic resource] / Robin Stevenson.

  (Orca echoes)

  Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in PDF format.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-803-5

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca echoes (Online)

  PS8637.T487B44 2011A JC813’.6 C2011-903474-3

  First published in the United States, 2011

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929244

  Summary: Ben and his friend Jack try to use their inventions to stop the sale of Jack’s house.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs

  provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book

  Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia

  through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book

  on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®.

  Cover artwork and interior illustrations by David Parkins

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, Stn. B PO BOX 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  14 13 12 11 • 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter One

  Right in front of Ben’s house was a speed bump. It led from Ben’s front gate across the road to his friend Jack’s front gate. Ben and Jack were best friends. It was summer holidays, so every day after breakfast, Jack walked along the top of the speed bump to Ben’s house.

  Today, something was different. Ben knew it as soon as he saw Jack’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Without a word, Jack turned and pointed back across the street. Ben looked, but he didn’t see anything at first. Just Jack’s wooden fence, the front gate and Jack’s cat, Lulu, sitting in a patch of sunlight and licking her hind leg.

  And then he saw the sign. A big, square, red and white sign with two words on it: FOR SALE.

  “I don’t get it,” Ben said. An awful, cold feeling crept into his tummy. “You can’t sell your house. Where would you live?”

  “My mom got a new job,” Jack said. “In Vancouver.” “Vancouver!” Ben stared at him.

  “So we have to move.”

  “Move!”

  Jack shrugged. “That’s what she says.”

  “Tell her you won’t go,” Ben said.

  “I already tried that,” Jack said. “Last night.”

  “And?”

  Jack shook his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. “She said it was one of those things I didn’t have a choice about.”

  Ben’s mother said he didn’t have a choice about a lot of things, such as brushing his teeth twice a day and sharing toys with his little sister, Stella. She also said it about going to school, instead of homeschooling like Jack did, and turning off the computer after twenty minutes of Alien Armada. Still, moving to Vancouver was a very big thing not to have a choice about.

  “That stinks,” Ben said loudly. “It takes half a day to get to Vancouver. You have to go on the ferry and everything.”

  “I know.”

  “We won’t be able to do stuff together anymore.” Ben felt like he might cry. He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the sidewalk. “It’s not fair.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s what I said.”

  They stared at the sign. Neither of them spoke. Finally Ben said, “Well, I guess we’d better get to work.”

  Jack nodded. “We have inventions to invent.”

  “Because we’re inventors. And inventors invent inventions,” Ben said. He and Jack liked to say this because they liked using the word invent three times in one sentence. Inventors invent inventions, inventors invent inventions. Sometimes they said it over and over again until they laughed so hard they fell down in the grass.

  But today, as they walked to their workshop in Ben’s backyard, neither of them felt much like laughing.

  Chapter Two

  Ben’s workshop was in the back corner of his yard. It used to be a garden shed, but now it was all his. It was filled with his stuff—a mountain of treasures he and Jack had collected. There were tin cans and pieces of pipe. There were hubcaps and old license plates. There were empty milk cartons, bits of wire, rusty hinges, broken TV remote controls, pieces of wood, glass jars and a hundred other things.

  It is amazing, Ben thought, how much good stuff people throw out. He knew something most grownups didn’t know: Junk plus Imagination equaled Great Inventions. The Great Invention he and Jack were working on at the moment was a catapult. Ben dragged an old shovel out of the shed.

  “Yeah!” Jack said. He grabbed a brick. “Let’s use this.”

  Ben laid the shovel on the ground. Jack slid the brick under the middle of the shovel’s handle.

  Ben pushed the blade down with his foot. The other end went up, like a teeter-totter. “Cool. Let’s try it.”

  “We need something to launch,” Jack said.

  Ben looked around. “How about this?” He lifted up a large stone they had painted red and black like a ladybug.

  “Fire-bellied toads!” Jack grinned. “That’s perfect.”

  Ben dropped the stone into the shovel’s blade. The blade slammed into the ground, and the other end of the shovel bounced up. “Okay. Try it.”

  Jack stepped on the raised end of the shovel. The blade shot up, sending the stone flying in a graceful arc. It sailed over his head and across the lawn.

  “Cool.” Ben thought for a moment. “If we put a bigger brick under the middle, the catapult would have more power.”

  “Yeah!” Jack dashed into the shed. When he came back, he was struggling with a large concrete block. “Oof! That’s heavy.”

  The block thudded to the ground. Ben moved his foot just in time. He placed the catapult on top of the block.

  “My turn,” he said.

  Jack put the ladybug stone back on the blade. “This is definitely a Stupendous Contraption,” he said.

  Stupendous Contraption was another one of the things they liked to say. They also said fire-bellied toads, which meant absolutely perfect. Ben couldn’t even remember how most of their sayings had started, but they made him laugh.

  Only not today, because all of it was going to end. The laughing, the inventing, the long summer days stuffed full of fun games. It just isn’t right that Jack’s house is for sale, Ben thought. It isn’t fair. With all his might, he jumpe
d two-footed onto the shovel’s handle. The ladybug stone rocketed into the air, higher and higher. It zoomed across the yard and crashed through the kitchen window of Ben’s house.

  Chapter Three

  “What were you thinking?” Ben’s mom asked him after she sent Jack home.

  Ben hated it when people asked that question. He never knew how to answer it. Plus his mom had yelled at them, and she almost never did that. “I didn’t know this would happen,” he said. He was trying hard not to cry.

  “Well, you aimed a large stone at a window. What did you think would happen?” She pointed at the broken glass scattered across the kitchen floor. Behind her, two-year-old Stella clung to her leg. “It’s lucky no one was standing there, Ben. What if Stella had been in the kitchen?”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Ben shouted. Then he burst into tears. He hated everything about today.

  His mom put her hand on his head. “I know you didn’t mean to break the window. But try to think before you do things, okay?”

  Now that he had started crying, he couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Oh, Ben. I’m sorry I yelled at you and Jack. I was scared. Someone could have been hurt.” She dropped to her knees, trying to look him in the eyes. “Ben?”

  “Jack’s moving,” Ben said. “His house is for sale.”

  His mother looked startled. “Really? Are you sure?”

  Ben grabbed his mom’s arm and tugged her toward the living-room window. She picked Stella up and followed him. Ben pointed at the sign in front of Jack’s house. “See? FOR SALE.”

  “Oh no.” His mom sat down on the couch and pulled Stella onto her lap. She patted the cushion beside her. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Ben. Do you know where they’re moving to?”

  “His mom got a job in Vancouver.” Ben rubbed his fists on his eyes, hard, until he saw little red stars.

  “I hate his mom.”

  “Ben!”

  “Well, it isn’t fair! How come kids don’t get to choose anything?”

  “You’re angry and upset right now,” his mom said.

  “I’m sorry Jack’s moving. But sometimes people have to do things they don’t want to do.”

  “He’s my best friend,” Ben said.

  “What about Jessy?”

  “She goes to camp all summer.”

  Ben’s mom sighed. “Well, hopefully Jack’s house won’t sell too quickly.”

  “If it doesn’t sell, does that mean they won’t be able to move?” Ben asked.

  “They probably can’t buy a house in Vancouver until they sell this one,” she said.

  “I hope it never sells.”

  “I’m sure it will,” she said. “It would be nice if they were here for the rest of the summer though. Until Jessy gets back from camp.”

  His mom didn’t understand. Jessy was great, but she didn’t know about inventors invent inventions or any of the other secret games he and Jack played. “Jessy can’t take Jack’s place,” Ben said. “She’s my school friend, and he’s my holiday friend. Two different things.” He frowned, trying to think of a way to make her understand. “Like you have Stella now, but you still want me.”

  She laughed. “You are right. Jack’s special. But Vancouver isn’t that far away. We can visit. It will be okay.”

  Maybe it will, Ben thought. Because his mom had given him an idea.

  Ben was going to invent a Stupendous Plan.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Ben followed the speed bump to Jack’s house. He knocked on the door. Jack’s mom opened it. “Hi, Ben. Looking for Jack?”

  Ben didn’t answer. He didn’t even say hello. “What if no one buys your house?” he asked instead.

  “Someone had better buy it,” she said, laughing. “We need the money to buy a new one.”

  So it was just as his mom had said. That was good. “Can Jack come out and play?” he asked.

  “Sure.” She turned and called up the stairs. “Jack! Ben’s here.”

  Thump, thump, thump. Jack came down two steps at a time, still in his pajamas. “Hey! Let’s go.”

  “Clothes,” said his mom.

  Jack looked down at his T. rex shirt and shorts. “Do I have to?”

  “Yes, hurry up.” She shooed him back upstairs. “Ben, I’ll send him over as soon as he’s had breakfast, okay?”

  Ben nodded. Jack’s mom sure would be surprised if she knew what he was planning.

  By the time Jack arrived, Ben had already begun work.

  “What are you building?” Jack asked.

  “Another catapult,” Ben said. “Sort of.”

  Jack looked worried. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “It’s a great idea,” Ben said. “Listen. You don’t want to move, right?”

  Jack sat down on the grass and crisscrossed his legs. “Right.”

  “And if no one buys your house, you won’t have to.”

  “Someone is coming to look at it tomorrow,” Jack said. “They’ll probably buy it.”

  “Not if we do something to stop them,” Ben said.

  “Like what?” Jack picked a blade of grass and chewed on it.

  “Inventors invent inventions,” Ben said, “and we need to make our most Stupendous Contraption ever.”

  For the rest of the day, under the hot summer sun, the two inventors worked the hardest they had ever worked. They only stopped twice, once for popsicles and once for cookies. They didn’t even go inside to use the washroom. They just peed right in the vegetable garden. They aimed for the Swiss chard, since neither of them liked eating it anyway.

  By the time their parents called them for dinner, the contraption was almost complete.

  “Well?” Ben said. “What do you think?”

  He and Jack stared at their invention. It began with a series of pipes and ended with a catapult. A new and improved catapult. It was twice as large and three times as powerful as the one Ben’s mom had taken away. This one was the Ultimate Catapult. It was made of metal pipes and wood ramps and three different kinds of balls. It had a small solar panel and a race-car launcher with double-A batteries. It even had a toilet seat and some other stuff.

  The solar panel didn’t actually work, but it looked good. Really good.

  “We should trademark this,” Ben said. “So no one can copy it. It could be the Stupendous Contraption, TM.”

  “It really is stupendous,” Jack whispered.

  “I know.” Ben felt like whispering too. He couldn’t believe they had made something so amazing. It looked like a machine from one of his old Dr. Seuss books. “Should we test it?”

  “Probably.”

  “Ben!” His mom was standing on the back deck. “Jack’s mom wants him home, and our dinner’s ready.”

  “Just a minute,” Ben called back. “We have to finish something.”

  “That’s what you said ten minutes ago,” his mom said. “No more minutes, boys. You can play together again tomorrow.”

  Play, Ben thought. Someone was coming to look at Jack’s house tomorrow! As if they had time to play.

  Chapter Five

  “Mom, do we have any balloons?” Ben asked.

  His mom was stirring oatmeal on the stove. “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t we have some left from Stella’s birthday?” Ben looked at Stella, who was stacking cans of beans into a tower. “Stella, do you have balloons?”

  “Balloons,” Stella said happily. She knocked over her tower, and the cans tumbled to the floor with a crash. “Red balloons.”

  “Where are they, Stella?”

  Stella’s lower lip was sticking out like a fat pink worm. That meant she was in a stubborn mood. “Stella’s red balloons,” she said firmly.

  “I know, Stella. It’s important, okay?” Ben knelt down beside her. “I’ll get you more. I promise.” He looked at his mom. “If Stella lets me use her balloons, you can buy her more, right?”

  “She doesn’t have any, Ben.” His mom grabbed
the saucepan as the oatmeal started to boil over.

  “Stella, where are they? The balloons?” Ben looked at Stella. “Tell me, okay?”

  “Balloons go sky,” Stella said. “Up, up.” She shook her head, and her blond hair floated like a fluffy cloud around her chubby face.

  Ben groaned in frustration and rocked back on his heels.

  “Why do you need them, Ben?” his mom asked.

  “I just do.” He looked out the window. The Stupendous Contraption was hidden behind his workshop. He and Jack needed something to launch, but stones were too dangerous. Water balloons would have been perfect.

  There was a knock at the front door. “It’s Jack,” Ben said. “I’ll get it.” He ran and let Jack in. “No balloons,” he said. “What time are the people coming to look at the house?”

  “Ten o’clock,” Jack said. “Plus there’s going to be an open house at twelve. Mom’s going out, but she said I can stay here, if it’s okay with your mom.”

  “That’s fine,” Ben’s mom said from behind him. “Why don’t you two go outside and play. It’s a gorgeous day.”

  “What are we going to launch?” Jack asked.

  They were looking at the small mountain of junk they had hauled out of the workshop. It glittered in the sun. “It’s all metal and stuff,” Ben said. “Too hard. We have to make people not buy your house, but we don’t want to hurt anyone.” He glanced at the kitchen window, which now had thick plastic taped over it.

  Jack clapped his hands together. “I’ve got it.”

  “What?”

  “Weeds,” Jack said.

  Ben looked around his yard. Morning glory vines grew all along the fence, twisted and green. Dandelions spotted the lawn. And behind the compost bin was a huge pile of weeds his mom had pulled from the vegetable garden.

  “Fire-bellied toads! That’s so perfect,” Ben said. “We will make it rain weeds at your house.”

  Chapter Six

  The catapult part of the Stupendous Contraption was made of a long wooden board. A toilet seat was duct-taped near one end. Ben and Jack gathered an armful of weeds and placed the pile inside the toilet seat.