“The thing is, we gotta understand our adults are old, so, they don't think fast enough to understand our experiments, but they are still young enough to get some good from them. So, we just gotta go invisible so they're not stressed out until we come with the goods.”
Nine-year-old Milton Trent was explaining on behalf of himself and best friend nine-year-old George Ludlow to their go-to consultants: Milton's nine-year-old first cousin Vertran Stepforth, and six-year-old Grayson Ludlow, who had sighed before going back to pick up his white crayons and blue construction paper.
“I don't care how good the blueprint is,” he said to his and George's grandfather, Capt. R.E. Ludlow, “but good drawing doesn't help dumb idea.”
“Believe I'll just come along and do some quality eavesdropping,” Capt. Ludlow said, “just in case you need rescuing, Grayson.”
“Oh yeah, because Sgt. Trent is already quality eavesdropping on Milton and Vertran,” Grayson said. “The more the merrier.”
“It is always a smart idea to look behind you when getting ready to present a dumb idea,” the captain said with a smile.
“Yeah, but, it is hard to have a smart idea and a dumb idea at the same time,” Grayson said. “They don't really hang out together like that.”
“They don't, which is why people neither look behind them or up as much as they should – but also why you have done well to invite me to have your back,” the captain purred, and smiled a little more as his second-youngest grandson basked in the security of the grandfather's massive bass voice and smiled back before going out to the front porch.
Out of the corner of his eye, the captain saw Sgt. Vincent Trent already in position by the porch, saluting with a smile.
“OK, great, Grayson, you have your stuff for blueprints,” Milton said, “because what we need are full invisibility suits.”
“I don't think this is a good idea,” Vertran said, as Grayson just sat down and started drawing. “There's two problems with this. One, if you need to move something, that something is going to still be visible.”
“Bags – we ned to cover the thing and put it in an invisibility bag,” George said. “We need some bags made out of the same thing as the suits.”
“OK, but, that creates Problem 1.5,” Vertran said. “As long as it is visible, you can see it, but if you bag something and get distracted, how do you find it again if you put it down?”
George and Milton looked at each other.
“OK, that is a problem,” Milton said.
“It's a bigger problem that you think,” Grayson said, “but you'll see in a minute.”
“And that's where Problem 2 comes in,” Vertran said. “You will be invisible to each other, and the only way you would know where the other one is, is by calling to each other.”
“So, what's the problem?” Milton said.
“Uncle Vincent is your father, Milton,” Vertran said, “and he has the ears of an elephant shrunk down so that their power is invisible. Your invisibility is going to meet that invisibility and get busted.”
“Wait – there's invisibilities?” George said.
“Yeah,” Grayson said as he handed George his quick drawing. “Let me help y'all see something.”
George and Milton looked at the picture, and then looked up in shock to see Capt. Ludlow in the doorway and Sgt. Trent by the porch, suddenly visible after Grayson's drawing let the boys know the Trent father and Ludlow grandfather had been there all the time.
“Hey,” Sgt. Trent said with a wave.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!” George and Milton said as they ran for their lives.
“I think that maybe they have to handle the invisibilities there are before adding more,” Vertran said.
“Yeah,” Grayson said, “but I learned something. A good drawing can make a dumb idea obvious so you can run from it.”
