Free The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow by Tim Kehoe Page A

trapped inside the glass bowl.
    “Awesome,” Danger Boy said as the microwave beeped and went black. “Do it again!”
    “Did you like that?” Vincent asked.
    “Yeah!” the kids yelled.
    Even Stella was amazed. “How did you do that?”
    “That’s nothing,” Vincent said. He pointed to Danger Boy’s Harley-Davidson T-shirt. “I see you like motorcycles.”
    “Yeah,” Danger Boy answered.
    “You should see his room. It’s covered with motorcycle posters,” the boy sitting next to Danger Boy said.
    “I’d love to see the posters in your room. Can you show me?” Vincent asked.
    “Yeah, that would be cool,” Stella quickly added.
    “Later. Come on. More fireworks,” Danger Boy said.
    “I bet you have more cool motorcycle T-shirts in your closet. I would love to see them.” Vincent was desperate to get upstairs.
     Time was running out.
    “Shadow, on with the show,” Danger Boy insisted.
    “Right. Right. Ah, who wants to see a—a hydrogen- powered rocket? I mean, who wants to see a crazy, high-powered, dangerously
     fast rocket?”
    “We do! We do!” Danger Boy and his friends were now surrounding Vincent.
    “Do you have any hydrogen peroxide in the house, Mrs. Zimmerman?” Vincent asked.
    “I don’t know. There might be some up in the closet.”
    “Great.” Vincent let out a sigh of relief. “Danger Boy, you take us upstairs and we’ll build you the most powerful, most dangerous
     birthday rocket you’ve ever seen.”
    Danger Boy was halfway up the stairs before Vincent could finish his sentence. Vincent grabbed the bag with the kite remains
     and Groove Tubes, and he and Stella followed Danger Boy up the stairs.
    “Okay, here’s the closet. Now what?”
    “You go downstairs and we’ll be down in ten minutes with the craziest, fastest rocket you’ve ever—” Vincent hadn’t even finished
     his sentence and Danger Boy was gone.
    “What are you going to do with the hydrogen peroxide?” Stella asked.
    “Nothing,” Vincent said as he put it back in the closet. “But we’re upstairs…. ”

LAB PARTNERS
29
    Vincent reached into the dark and pulled on the rope.
    “Welcome to my lab.”
    “Oh my gosh, Vincent.” Stella looked around the room at all the equipment and prototypes. “This is incredible!”
    She touched a sketch. “What is all this?”
    “This is the Batcave. I’ll have to give you the details some other time, but you know those headaches I get?”
    Stella nodded as she read the labels on various jars of experiments.
    “Well, they aren’t really headaches. They’re more like inspiration. Intense ideas.” Vincent realized he hadn’t talked about
     this with anyone but his mother.
    “Intense ideas?” Stella asked.
    “Yeah. I see toys. Toys that don’t exist. My mom and I built this lab so I could try and build them. But no one can know about
     this, Stella.”
    “Come on, Batman. You know your secret is safe with me. But what if Danger Boy and his mom come looking for us?” Stella asked.
    “As long as we’re quiet, they’ll never find us in here. They’ll probably assume we couldn’t build the rocket and left.”
    “Yeah, well, we may have an easier time building the rocket than fixing this kite.” Stella pulled the broken, balled-up mess
     from the bag.
    “We’re not going to fix it,” Vincent said. “We’re going to build something even better. My mom and I spent years working on
     bubbles that release sound when they pop. But I’ve never been able to get them to work. They need high voltage. But the high
     voltage makes the bubble solution uncontrollable.” Vincent pointed to the scorched remains from his last night in the lab.
    “So, maybe we’d be better off getting one of these to work,” Stella said as she picked up a basketball with a built-in targeting
     system. “This is cool,” she said as she aimed the ball.
    “Thanks. That’s the Bullz-I Basketball. Look—” Vincent pointed to a sketch in his notebook. “All this time