Chapter Twenty-Four
Soap Suds and Science
“Jasper! It’s about time you showed up. Must I do everything myself?” Ebenezer demanded.
“It wasn’t my fault!” the confounded janitor protested. “They pulled the sneakiest, most underhanded, vilest trick I’ve ever witnessed. It was a fate most foul for ol’ Jasper, and there was nothing that could be done about it! The injustice of it simply beggars my mind, I tell you.”
“Pipe down, Jasper,” Ebenezer scolded, his voice filled with exasperation. “Nobody cares about your absurd excuses! This is my finest hour, and a crucial moment for the Black Hats. Pull yourself together, and come help me out – at once!”
As Jasper began hobbling over, groaning and muttering to himself, Maria raised her hand and declared, “I have a question, Mr. Widget-Bocker!”
Ebenezer made a noise of disgust, but the sisters knew that he was delighted for them to defer to his supposed wisdom. “What is it, you miserable pipsqueak?”
“If Mr. Weatherbee was really you all along, dressed in that fabulous disguise… and you’re here now… and Evelyn’s here, too… then who’s running the field trip?”
“Oh, I left that addle-brained Ms. Waffler in charge,” Ebenezer replied. “But she won’t have to do much – this field trip will be experiencing an abrupt termination shortly!”
Maria and Sara exchanged an uneasy glance. They were both big fans of Ms. Waffler, but they were not sure how the beloved teacher would handle a crisis. She was, after all, quite easily distracted by things that struck her fancy, and she was currently in a museum that was filled with things to engage her whimsy.
Plus, she was eternally optimistic, and the sisters doubted that Ms. Waffler would have any suspicion of evildoings, should the Black Hats continue on with their plan. The implications were clear: Maria and Sara had to prevent Ebenezer and his cronies from commencing their half-baked schemes. They had to protect their classmates from whatever consequences such evildoing might incur. The responsibility fell to them.
Ebenezer chortled with deranged delight, rubbing his palms together as his plan came ever closer to its culmination. He fixed his shifty eyes on Evelyn as he said, “All these years, we had you completely fooled. Did you really think that you had gained my trust so easily?”
Evelyn’s confidence was shaken, and she wearily admitted, “Yes, I suppose you and your band of strange colleagues did get the best of me.”
“Yes! I did get the best of you, didn’t I?” Ebenezer flaunted. “You were presumptuous enough to think that you were going to play me for a fool, but nothing of the sort transpired. It was I who was playing you for a fool, all along, Evelyn! I used you for the valuable information you had access to, and it worked like a charm. I never trust outsiders, those who were not among my inner circle from the very beginning. You were always a bit too eager to prove your worth to the Black Hats, and though you made some notable contributions, you were never truly one of us.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” Maria said in a low voice that was directed at Evelyn.
“It most certainly is not!” Ebenezer retorted, glaring at Maria. “Only the greatest minds on the planet have been recruited to join the Black Hats. It is an immense honor to work in the presence of my genius, you see!”
“Knock it off with your confounded skullduggery, will you? When will you learn to use your science for good, like Lefty?” Sara asked.
“Are you serious?” Ebenezer squawked. “Always carrying on about Lefty… Lefty this, and Lefty that, as if he invented sliced bread itself. It gets old, I tell you, mighty old!”
“Well, he did create the SunTech power cell, after all,” Sara reminded him. “The very piece of technology that’s so important in your constant, diabolical scheming.”
Ebenezer fumed, grinding his teeth together in aggravation. “Enough!” he barked. “We’ll not sit here and debate the scientific merit of my incompetent rival. Not when this moment is all about me. Now that we’re all here, it’s time to begin. I hope you enjoy the show… and the front row seats I’ve provided you with!”
Evelyn had been subjected to the reveal of a tremendous deception, and the scope of it had temporarily knocked her out of sorts. But she had been given enough time to regain her quick wits and her confidence, and she now jumped into action.
“Stop him!” she told the sisters. “Whatever happens, don’t let him engage the master lever!”
“Oh, yes, that’s a splendid idea,” Ebenezer encouraged, laughing madly. “Stop me? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? You’re asking children to stop me! I’ve got graduate degrees from a dozen different prestigious universities, you fool! How could they possibly stop me, with their childish, inadequate intellects?”
Maria glanced at her sister. “How about if we wrestle him to the ground?” she suggested.
Sara shrugged. “Sure.”
Ebenezer’s face fell, as he considered this. Apparently, he had never even pondered such a rudimentary approach. “Oh. That might work, actually.”
Maria and Sara had stealthily been sneaking ever closer to Ebenezer as he boasted of his plans, and they were now a mere fifty feet from him. It became clear to them that they could reach him quickly, should they sprint at full speed, just as if they were running the base paths and attempting to beat a throw – something at which they both had ample practice.
They also had an abundance of practice when it came to tackling their coach to the ground. Oftentimes, they would do just that, and the entire team would engage in a colossal pig-pile upon their outnumbered leader. As such, they were confident they could take down Ebenezer, who was drastically smaller than their coach.
“Go!” Sara shouted, as she began sprinting beside her sister.
As one, they began running forward, determined to reach Ebenezer before he could throw the lever and engage his terrible, ludicrous plan.
Ebenezer’s eyes grew wide with alarm, bulging behind the round lenses of his thick glasses. He hurriedly cried out for his colleague to come to his aid. “Get in there, Jasper, and slow them down! Egads, they’re quick little rascals!”
The janitor was still swaying a bit unsteadily on his feet, recuperating from his journey through the colossal air ducts and his subsequent, unceremonious plummet to the hard floor. Pulling his lips into a snarl of determination, he gave his bandaged head a final shake for clarity, and summoned his wits as best he could.
With two long strides, he came to stand before Ebenezer, his mahogany broom held forward, ready to do battle. Even with only one arm in service, he would be a most formidable obstacle.
“I’ll take care of Jasper!” Evelyn shouted.
While Maria and Sara had sprinted forward, Evelyn had instead been moving to the side. She had been running for the neatly stacked shelves of cleaning supplies that Jasper used to keep the chamber spotless.
Wrapping her fingers around the handle of one of the big buckets of soapy water, she lifted it from the floor. She moved her arm in an underhand motion, keeping the bucket low to the floor as she gathered momentum, as if preparing to launch a bowling ball.
With a whoop of glee, she let the thing fly. Evelyn’s aim proved to be accurate, and the bucket skittered across the floor until it collided with one of Jasper’s boots. There was a terrific explosion of soapy suds, and the bubbly water went flying from the bucket.
Jasper was in mid-step, for he had been preparing to intercept Maria and Sara. As the bucket struck his foot, its kinetic energy took him completely by surprise. The combination of the bucket’s momentum and the explosion of soapy water resulted in a quick, sudsy takedown.
He landed flat on his back, his breath rushing from him in a whoosh. Stunned, he stared at the ceiling in amazement, groaning as he attempted to gather his bearings. He simply could not believe the ill fortune he was experiencing today – it was a lot for him to take.
“Ooh, done in by your own cleaning supplies. That’s what we call
irony, Jasper,” Maria informed him, as she victoriously sprinted past him.
However, she was not impervious to the same fate. The expanding pool of soapy water proved to be too slippery for the sisters, and they soon tumbled to the floor, sliding into a pile of ensnared arms and legs.
Evelyn arrived on the scene with a mop she had retrieved from the collection of cleaning supplies. Within moments, she too had fallen to the soapy floor. She and Jasper struggled to their knees, and they engaged in a bizarre type of fencing duel, one of them armed with a broom, and the other with a mop.
Ebenezer was watching this bizarre spectacle with an expression of disbelief pasted upon his face. “You clowns are making a mockery of my finest hour! This is not the time for such tomfoolery!”
“Go on!” Evelyn cried, as the shaft of her mop went whap, clap, bap against her enemy’s mahogany broom. “I’ll keep Jasper occupied. Stop Ebenezer!”
Seizing the opportunity, Maria and Sara did as they were told, scrambling for the scientist in his swiveling chair. But the going was slow, for the floor was so soaped up and slippery, they could not secure their footing.
No longer could they sprint at full speed, for they had to cautiously approach, hanging on to one another for balance. Their sneakers squeaked as they made their way forward, anxiously attempting to reach Ebenezer before he managed to engage the vaunted master lever.
The mad scientist’s eyes bugged out as he realized just how close the sisters had come to him. He spun the chair about as fast as he could possibly manipulate it, steering it with the armrest joystick.
Side by side, Maria and Sara made a final leap for Ebenezer’s chair, but he swiveled away from them, evading their grasp by mere inches.
He wrapped his fingers around the giant lever… and with a hoot of pure jubilation, he pulled down.