Danny Dunn and Heat Ray Page 6

  Mr. Pippit regarded her shrewdly. Then he waved his cigar at her. “Calm down,” he said. “I remember what Bullfinch said about you and the boy. Interested in science. Thought scientists never flew off the handle.”

  “I’m sorry,” Irene said. “I didn’t mean to fly off the handle, or yell, or get excited. But you keep talking about how practical you are—well, this is a practical idea. I’ll tell you something. We almost had a fire in school today. The three grownups who were there didn’t have sense enough to move, but Danny did—he put the fire out. That’s practical, isn’t it? He may be a boy, but he’s got better ideas than some grownups.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Pippit considered for a moment. Then he said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to come and just look at Danny’s demonstration for using the laser. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “Where?”

  “At Professor Bullfinch’s house.”

  Mr. Pippit snapped his fingers. “I’ll do it. Always act on impulse. That’s how I get ahead. But I warn you—if it’s some kid’s trick, or foolishness, there’ll be trouble. Well?”

  “It’s not foolishness. Do you want to go now?”

  “Right now. No point in wasting time.”

  He snatched up an old tweed jacket and jammed his arms into the sleeves. Irene heaved a deep sigh, and then giggled.

  “What’s the matter?” said Mr. Pippit, raising his eyebrows. “Something wrong with my jacket? It’s my favorite, even if it is an old one.”

  “Oh, no, it has nothing to do with your jacket,” said Irene. “It’s just that—well, I was thinking—I got you to come with me after all, but I—I wasn’t very glamorous, was I?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Mr. Pippit’s Hot Spot

  Long before Mr. Pippit arrived, Danny and Joe had everything ready. They had chosen a bare patch of ground near the edge of the yard, far enough from any of the dry bushes or trees to avoid accidentally setting them on fire. Using a spade, they had scooped off the topsoil with its grass stalks, leaving a square of earth some three feet wide by five feet long, and they had brought water in pails and saturated it until it would hold no more. Its wet, brown, chocolate texture contrasted with the powdery ground all about it. They had two pails full of water ready to give it a final dousing when Mr. Pippit came.

  Danny had brought out the laser, tested it on one corner of the wet patch, and found to his satisfaction that it worked as he had predicted. There was nothing left to do then but wait.

  Joe had no problem in this department: he curled up with his back against a tree, pulled out his notebook, and began murmuring, “laser, razor, glazer, gazer—” But Danny walked up and down biting his nails and wondering what to say to Mr. Pippit that would sound gentle and soothing.

  At last the gleaming automobile rolled into the Professor’s driveway. Irene hopped out, and as Danny hurried to meet her, she said, “No problems?”

  Danny made a circle of his finger and thumb. “Not a one. Hello, Mr. Pippit. I’m glad you could come. Will you just step around to the back with us?”

  “Very well,” said Mr. Pippit. “Want to tell me what your idea is?”

  “Yes, I’ll explain in a minute.”

  “How come Bullfinch isn’t in on this?” Mr. Pippit demanded. “Is he out of town?”

  “Oh, no, he’s busy at the university and I couldn’t reach him. But I got this idea and it seemed like a good one, and I thought there wasn’t any use wasting time—”

  “Smart!” Mr. Pippit looked at Danny with sudden approval. “Boy after my own heart. Like to jump into things myself, make quick decisions, carry ’em out.”

  Joe, who was walking behind them, mumbled, “Oh, Danny has quite a reputation for headstrongery.”

  “Eh? Headstrongery?” said Mr. Pippit. “What kind of a word is that?”

  “Kind of nice, isn’t it?” Joe said, proudly. “I just invented it. I also invented a motto for him: ‘Leap before you look.’ My own motto is, ‘Sleep before you look.’”

  Mr. Pippit uttered a short laugh, as explosive as his way of talking.

  When they came to the muddy patch, Dan emptied the two pails of water over it, and said, “Joe, will you and Irene please go and fill these again. We may need some more.”

  They went off, and he motioned Mr. Pippit to stand beside him at the laser. He aimed the lens of the device at the muddy patch.

  “Let’s say that’s a big marsh,” he said. “If you could build a great big laser—and there’s no reason why you couldn’t if you could get a power source, big enough lights, and a big crystal—you could just dry up the marsh so that people could use the ground for planting or building. Like this.”

  He threw the switch. The laser began to hiss and its red beam shot out and touched the edge of the wet dirt. Its sound was drowned by a much louder hissing and sputtering. A cloud of steam arose. Danny moved the ray from side to side, and then shut it off.

  “There!” he said. “Look at that.”

  The earth where the beam had played was nearly dry. Little curls of smoke lifted from its surface.

  “Very ingenious,” said Mr. Pippit. “Got to admit, you’re pretty sharp. Only one trouble. Generally, a bog or marsh is formed by water seeping in from springs under the ground. Can’t get at them to dry them up, not even with a laser, in most cases.”

  Danny’s face fell. “Gosh, I never thought of that,” he said.

  “Mmm. Don’t be too discouraged. Gives me another idea,” snapped Mr. Pippit. “As long as Bullfinch isn’t here—that thing heats up the ground, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Danny.

  “Turn it on again. Aim it at another wet patch.”

  Danny did so.

  Mr. Pippit walked forward. He pointed to the spot where the beam was now striking. Steam was sizzling up once more. When the steam was gone, the ground began to glow.

  “Aha! Thought so!” said Mr. Pippit. “Turns the stones red hot.”

  “But I don’t see—” Danny began. He joined Mr. Pippit at the edge of the muddy patch, and watched the beam of the laser boring into the earth.

  “Imagine this is enemy territory,” said Mr. Pippit. “We’ve got the laser mounted in a plane. Let’s say that’s a fuel dump. First, burn holes in the gasoline supply drums.”

  “But, listen—” Danny protested.

  Mr. Pippit paid no attention. He was seeing a battle before his eyes, and he began to get excited. “The gas goes up!” he cried. “Or suppose it’s an airfield. We not only fry their planes, we melt the ground itself so that they can’t take off or land!”

  “But the Professor doesn’t—” said Danny.

  “We cook their roads. No transportation. Can’t move!” Mr. Pippit exclaimed. He began to dance about, pointing first to one spot, then another. “A railroad station here. Melt the trains! A harbor over here. Focus on the water and boil the—ow!”

  “What?” Danny said. “Boil the ow?”

  Mr. Pippit was still dancing around. But he no longer looked cheerful and absorbed. His face was distorted and his mouth wide open. “Ow!” he yelled. “Yow! Help!”

  “He’s on fire!” Irene shrieked.

  In his excitement, Mr. Pippit had moved directly in front of the laser’s beam. Only for an instant—but that was enough to start his jacket charring. When he swung round, the smoldering patch burst into a blaze.

  Danny ran to switch off the laser. It was to Joe’s credit that this time he was alert and ready. He had been standing by with an extra pail of water. Almost before the words were out of Irene’s mouth, he dashed the water over Mr. Pippit. Then he grabbed the second pail from Irene and threw that. In his eagerness, he made one slight mistake. He let go of the pail. It hit Mr. Pippit between the shoulders and knocked him flat in the center of the muddy patch.

  “Oops,” said Joe automatically. “Sorry.”

  Irene darted from one side and Danny from the other. But before they could reach him, Mr. Pip
pit had pushed himself up and bounced back to his feet.

  The three young people stared at him in horror. He was drenched from head to foot and stained with mud. There was a large burned spot on the back of his jacket, and a strong smell of charred tweed hung about him. His bulging eyes fairly snapped with fury.

  He looked down at himself.

  Then he said, “Another suit gone!”

  He spun on his heel and strode away from them. He got into his car and slammed the door and drove away with a whirl of gravel under the wheels, leaving them still standing, petrified, like three statues with their mouths open.

  CHAPTER 11

  Trouble with Fire

  The Professor came home at about five o’clock. He parked his battered but stout-hearted old sedan in the driveway and went directly to his laboratory. He was feeling a little out of sorts; the faculty members at the meeting he had attended had reported very little success with Mr. Pippit. Mr. Pippit had a way of making even the mildest of them angry, and even though he had seemed impressed by most of the work being done in research, every meeting with him had ended in sharp words and raised voices. So far, he had not announced a decision either way about his grant to the university.

  The Professor sat down and lit his pipe. He pulled a sheaf of notes out of his pocket and began to study them. Suddenly, he raised his head and listened. A gentle tap had sounded at the outer door.

  “Is someone there?” he called. “Come in, whoever you are.”

  To his astonishment, it was Danny who opened the door and came in. It was so unlike the boy to knock—and especially so timidly—that Professor Bullfinch sat up straight and said, “Why, Dan, what on earth is the matter? Are you sick?”

  Danny nodded silently, standing beside the Professor with his eyes lowered.

  The Professor put down his pipe. “Perhaps I’d better call a doctor?”

  “I’m not sick that way,” said Danny.

  “Oh?” Professor Bullfinch lifted his eyebrows thoughtfully, and sat back folding his hands over his stomach. “Care to tell me about it?”

  “I have to tell you about it,” said Danny. “That’s why I’m sick.”

  He took a deep breath and plunged on. He told how he had had the idea of using the laser to dry up swamps, and how Irene had talked Mr. Pippit into coming to see it. And he described the unfortunate end to that promising demonstration. When he had finished, he took a deep breath and looked straight at Professor Bullfinch.

  “I guess I just went ahead and acted without thinking again,” he said. “I’m sorry. I try and try, but it’s just something I can’t help, like—like your smoking a pipe, I guess.”

  “Yes, Dan, I know,” said the Professor soberly. “It’s a fault, a serious fault.” Then he slammed his hand on the papers on his desk so suddenly and loudly that Danny jumped. “But I’d rather you had a good, honest fault like that, than the kind of faults some adults have.”

  “Wh—what?” Danny stammered.

  “Never mind,” the Professor said. “As far as I can make out from your story, it was Pippit’s own doing. He got carried away in his make-believe war, and jumped in front of the laser all by himself, without any help from you.”

  “But Joe—”

  “Joe is a fine young man, a good poet, and an idiot,” said the Professor affectionately. “I’m sure if Mr. Pippit stops to think about it he’ll see that he was better off wet than with a neat little hole burned into him. Now, mind you, this doesn’t mean I think you did well. You should have waited until I got home. You certainly should not have used the laser without consulting me. It is rather dangerous, as you have learned. I hope you will try to curb your impulses in the future.”

  “Oh, I will, Professor,” Danny said, with a sigh of relief.

  Professor Bullfinch swiveled his chair around and reached for the phone. “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Mr. Pippit’s pardon,” he said. “From what I know of him, it may be a rather difficult job. But I don’t see how you can escape it.”

  “No,” Danny said. His shoulders sagged again. “But—but what’ll I say? Gosh, I don’t think he’ll even talk to me.”

  “I’ll see if I can persuade him to,” said the Professor, dialing the number of the hotel. “Hello? Hotel Imperial? This is Professor Bullfinch. I’d like to speak to Mr. Glenway Pippit. What? He’s what?”

  The Professor leaped out of his chair, clutching the telephone. “When? I see. He did? Did he leave any message for me? No? Very well, thank you.”

  He hung up, and passed a hand over his bald head. “That’s done it,” he said.

  “Done what? What happened?” Danny was hopping from one foot to the other, bursting with curiosity.

  “He’s gone,” said the Professor. “Left the hotel about three minutes before I called. Packed up, ordered his car brought round, cleared his things out, paid his bill, and drove off. He didn’t leave any messages.”

  The telephone rang shrilly. The Professor snatched it up. “Yes?” he said. “Who? Oh, yes, Mr. Richards. Eh? Well, well, is that so? He said what? I see—No, I haven’t any idea what he meant. Yes, well, I’ll think it over. Perhaps there’s something I can do. Oh, don’t worry too much, something’s bound to turn up. Good-by.”

  He turned away from the phone, shaking his head. “That was Mr. Richards calling from the university. He said he had a phone call from Mr. Pippit just a few minutes ago, and tried to call me about it but my line was busy. What a mix-up! Mr. Pippit announced that he was leaving town. Said he’d had enough of Midston. Said he couldn’t afford to lose any more suits. Mr. Richards wanted to know if I had any idea what that meant. I didn’t see any reason to get into a long discussion with him over the phone about your part in all this. Perhaps it’s all for the best. Mr. Pippit was rather a difficult person to deal with, at best.”

  Danny was almost crying. “Oh, gosh, Professor!” he wailed. “You mean the university has lost that million dollars? And I’m to blame. Oh, golly, I wish I’d never gone for that plane ride. I wish I’d never been born!”

  The Professor put his hands on Danny’s shoulders, and shook him gently. “Now, now, my boy,” he said, “none of that. You’re much too intelligent for that kind of nonsense. It would certainly be very convenient if we could put all the blame on you, and say that the whole thing was the fault of young Dan Dunn. It would make things very easy for me, and for all the other members of the science department of Midston. But the truth is, we’ve all had our run-ins with Mr. Pippit. I’m sure he felt we were too dreamy eyed and impractical for him. He was probably just looking for an excuse to break off the whole thing, and you and your friends furnished him with it.”

  Danny rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “Yes, I see that,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. But you’ll have to tell Mr. Richards and the others sooner or later.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said the Professor. “Bless my soul! You startled me.”

  The last part of his speech was not intended for Danny. Irene had stuck her head in at the open window.

  “Hi,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I—um—just wanted to—”

  “I told him,” Danny said.

  “Oh. Well, the reason I came over,” Irene went on, looking rather nervously at Professor Bullfinch, “was that I was just listening in on my short-wave radio and I heard something that—well, maybe it has something to do with—with what happened. I got a police broadcast telling Car something-or-other to be on the lookout for a blue Rolls Royce convertible which had gone through a police radar check-point at sixty miles an hour. They said it was believed the car had turned off Route 2 into one of the side roads leading north. Mr. Pippit had a—”

  “—blue Rolls Royce convertible,” Danny finished. “And we just heard the news that he’s left town. Yeeks! Now he’ll be arrested for speeding on top of everything else!”

  “Well, that’s what worries me,” Irene said. “That he won’t be arrested.”

&n
bsp; “Huh?” Both Danny and the Professor stared at her.

  “This is no time for joking.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  They both spoke at the same time.

  “Not at all. And I’m perfectly serious. You told me yourself, Danny, that Mr. Pippit is mad for short cuts.”

  “Sure. What of it?”

  “I’m positive he turned north into Cowbridge Road, because that’s the short cut leading from Route 2 northward and over to U.S. 1. You can see it on the map.”

  “So what? Just because a man takes a short cut is no reason to want him arrested,” said Danny. “And we’re already in enough trouble with him.”

  “Nothing like the trouble he’ll be in if he did take Cowbridge Road. You know where Cowbridge Road runs?”

  “Through the hills and along the far slopes of Rose Hill,” Danny said.

  “That’s right. And just before I heard that police broadcast, I was listening to the reports of a new forest fire. Remember when you smelled smoke earlier this afternoon, Dan? Well, it’s burning in the woods to the north, and by now the other end of Cowbridge Road may be cut off!”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Fight Fire with Fire!”

  For a long moment, neither Danny nor the Professor could speak. Then Professor Bullfinch exclaimed, “Great Jumping Jupiter! Are you sure?”

  Irene nodded.

  “But maybe he turned back before he got to the fire,” said Danny.

  “Maybe he did. But you know, when you get about two miles up Cowbridge Road there’s an old logging road that turns off to the left? It looks like a good road, at first.”

  “Yes, it runs through the valley between Sugarloaf and Rose Hill. You mean, he might have turned back when he saw the fire. Then he might have tried that road, hoping it was another short cut?”

  “That’s right,” said Irene. “But it isn’t. It’s a dead end.”

  The Professor started for the door. “I’m going after him,” he said, grimly.

  “No, wait, Professor,” Irene said. “You might be trapped.”