Free The Mechanical Mind of John Coggin by Elinor Teele Page B

camp. Tiger Lil’s bear came with her.
    â€œIs it for the Autopsy? I wanna come!” She tugged at John’s trousers with her free hand.
    â€œWe’re busy, Page,” John replied roughly, shaking his leg.
    â€œPlease, Johnny, please let me come.”
    â€œMy dear girl,” said Boz—he was doing an arabesqueon one of the fence poles—“whither we flither is no fit place for a lady.”
    â€œGo play with your bear,” John sniped. “Maybe you two can have a tea party with your horsies.”
    Page’s cheeks mottled with fury. She slapped John hard on the ankle and sprinted back toward the caravans.
    Boz shrugged and backflipped into the adjoining corn field.
    â€œThin epidermi you Coggins have.”
    John refused to respond. There was no law that said he had to do everything with his sister.
    A bare ten minutes later, a small hillock appeared in front of them. Unlike the feathery tops of unharvested corn that surrounded it, the area had been mown. This, John assumed, was to accommodate the shed that stood on the top. A set of double doors, bound tight with a padlock, marked the entrance.
    And in front of that entrance stood a decidedly disgruntled Alligator Dan.
    â€œWhat’s he guarding?” John whispered.
    â€œAn adventure.”
    â€œHow do we get in?”
    â€œElementary, my dear flotsam. I took the liberty of loosening a few boards yesterday. We need only slip our svelte selves between them.”
    â€œBut what about Alligator Dan?”
    Boz held the sack up against his ear.
    â€œDo you happen to know the one paradoxical point about our reptilian friend?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe’s ophidiophobic.”
    â€œHe’s what?” John asked.
    â€œHe’s afraid of snakes,” Boz said, untying the top of the sack and letting a ginormous garter snake slither out over his shoulder.
    For a moment, the snake looked bored. Then, suddenly, it raised its head and flicked its tongue in the air. With a quick shimmering spiral, it wound itself down Boz’s arm and into the grass. Faster than you can say jackrabbit, it headed straight for Alligator Dan.
    â€œIt’s almost as if it knows exactly where to go,” John marveled, watching the snake slither closer and closer.
    â€œNaturally,” Boz said. “I tell you . . .” He sighed. “It’s not easy hiding six bird eggs and a live newt in a man’s pockets.”
    By this time, the snake was at Alligator Dan’s feet. And Alligator Dan was just beginning to get a vague inkling that something wasn’t quite right. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t discover what that something was until the snake had made it halfway up the inside of his trousers.
    With an almighty screech, Dan launched himself farther than Boz from Betsy. When he finally descended, he came down sprinting. Through the grass he bounded, hislegs and arms whirling like windmills and his chest scales flapping in the breeze.
    John was finding it difficult to breathe from laughing, but Boz was all business.
    â€œNo time to waste, dear boy, no time to waste.”
    Slithering in his predecessor’s path, Boz crossed the field and inserted himself between the boards. John quickly followed.
    After squeezing through this six-inch space, it would have been smart to exhale. But on seeing what was within, John’s breath got lodged somewhere around his larynx.
    â€œIsn’t she a beauty?” said Boz. “The mayor of Hayseed’s brand-new bundle of joy. Alligator Dan has been hired to see that she’s not disturbed before the town celebrations tomorrow. But I thought you might be interested in examining her parts.”
    John couldn’t speak for joy. He had heard rumors of automobiles when they’d lived in Pludgett, but this was the first time he had seen one in the flesh.
    From stem to stern, it was a vehicle built for speed. It had two large wheels at the back and