“How high will she go, Jim?” I asked.
“Gee, I don’t know, Dad. But I think she’ll just keep right on going, clear up out of the air.” Jim had a hard time keeping a sob out of his voice too.
“What’ll happen to her, son?”
“Well, you see, between the cold and the lack of oxygen, she’ll just go to sleep…. I remember reading about fliers at high altitude.”
“Thank Heaven,” Mary breathed. And I added a silent “Amen.”
About 3:30 Professor Jordan arrived and Jim brought him in and introduced us. The professor was probably 40, but looked hardly older than Jim, and was built along the same tall and gangly lines. A very business-like man though, thank heaven, and he got right to the point. After the first shock of seeing me on the ceiling, he turned to Jim, “Now, tell me. Exactly what happened, and what is this rig you have here?”
Jim told him the whole story of how Duchess and I got caught, then went into great detail about the plastic plate, the kinds of metal he had used, and the different settings on the transformer. He finished by telling how Duchess had sailed off into space.
At this, Professor Jordan looked more closely at the transformer hookup. “You say the settings are still the same?”
“Yes, sir, it’s still the same. I haven’t changed a thing except to pull the plate out in the hall.”
“Have you tried it since your father was caught?”
“No, sir… in all the excitement I haven’t gotten around to fooling with it again.”
The professor walked out in the hall, reached in his pocket for a handkerchief, tossed it over the plate. It rose! Straight up, and stuck to the ceiling!
“My gosh!” Jim blurted. “Somebody must have plugged that thing in again!”
Mary and Johnny, who were watching in silence, both spoke up to say that neither of them had. Jim reached down and picked up the AC line. Sure enough, it wasn’t plugged in!
“Well, this is going to take some studying,” Professor Jordan muttered, looking rather awed at Jim’s gadget. “Jim, let’s start at the beginning again, and be sure you tell me everything you did, every move you made, what kind of metal you used, how finely divided it was, what concentration you used and what voltages and frequencies you used.”
“I’ll try, Professor,” Jim said, “But it’s going to be sort of a hit or miss proposition because I fiddled with this thing for an hour or so before accidentally dropping my cigarettes on the plate. When they went up, I was surprised, to say the least, so I tried other things.”
“What we’ve got to figure put first of all, is whether it was caused by a combination of changes, or whether it was the last setting you used,” Professor Jordan said. “If it was a combination of voltage and frequency changes, then we’ve certainly got a problem on our hands.”
All this time of course, Mary and Johnny had been standing more or less open-mouthed, listening, and I, from my vantage point high on the ceiling, had been taking it all in too.
“Can you think of any way to run the experiment over?” The professor asked. “Do you think you can remember the formula for the plastic plate?”
Jim thought a moment, snapped his fingers and said, “By golly, I believe I’ve got another piece of that plastic around here somewhere. I made it up at school and had to cut a little piece off so I could get it in my suitcase. I’ll see if I can find it.” And stepping gingerly around the plate in the hall he came back into the room and started rummaging around in his luggage.
The professor looked at me. “Mr. Wilson, what sort of sensation did you have when you stepped on the plate?”
“Well, as near as I can remember, I don’t remember,” I said. “I started to reach up and pull Duchess down, and the next thing I knew my head hit the ceiling. Still got a bump big as an Easter egg.”
“Did you have a giddy, light sensation?”
“No, as I say, I don’t remember anything but the whack on the head.”
About that time, Jim hollered, “Hey! I found it! Now maybe we can find out what goes on here.”
Jim and the professor very carefully disconnected the transformer from the plate in the hall, made sure the dial settings were the same, then hooked up the new plate. It was a lot smaller than the first one, being only about six inches wide and two feet long.
“I wonder if shape has anything to do with it?” the professor mused.
“We’ll find out in a minute,” said Jim. “Everybody stand back now, and I’ll plug in the transformer.”
He plugged it in and in a few seconds the plate began to glow the same as the other one. “We’ll give it a few more seconds,” Jim said, “then we’ll see if it works.”
The professor fumbled around in his pockets, started to toss his pipe onto the plate, thought better of it and put it back in his pocket. Johnny, who had been watching the whole proceedings, pulled out his Boy Scout knife. “You can use this, Professor.”
Professor Jordan took the knife, got up close to the plate, gave it a toss, and plunk! It flew over the plate and went straight to the ceiling! And stuck!
“Well, thank goodness, we know it’s the present combination of voltage and frequency, and not a series of changes,” Jim said, relieved.
“Yes, and size and shape apparently have little to do with it too,” the professor answered. “Now all we have to do is find out why. That’s our problem.”
“And how long it lasts too,” said Jim, glancing up at me. Then turning to the professor; “Sir, I’ve been wondering what you think of the idea that maybe these plates change the electrical charge of whatever object is placed on them, or over them.”
“I had that thought too, Jim, when I found out we couldn’t turn that plate off. Any ideas how we might go about grounding or dissipating the charge?”
“Or getting me down from here? I don’t know if you or Jim realize it, but old Mother Nature is going to make things rather uncomfortable for me pretty soon. I’ve been up here for almost eight hours already, and I’m getting a bit uneasy, to say the least.”
For the first time the professor’s eyes crinkled a bit at the corners, and looking up at me, he chuckled, “Mr. Wilson, you’ve brought up a rather touchy subject, and we’ll hurry as fast as we can.”
Mary came in then with some more sandwiches and coffee, and I went through the same routine with the straw, only this time I got choked. Thank Heaven I did! That sounds funny, but while I was coughing and sputtering, spewing coffee all over the place, Jim had walked over so that he was right under me. He stood for a moment watching me sputter, then let out a whoop and hollered.
“Hey! Dad! Professor! Mom! I’ve got it! I’ve got it.” He paused a second, then, “I hope….”
I was still sputtering, but Mary and Professor Jordan both grabbed him and started asking questions…. “What are you talking about? What’s your idea?”
“Professor, did you see what happened to the coffee?”
“Your father got choked, why?”
“When he sputtered, did you see what happened? The coffee went up!”
“Well, yes, it did. But I don’t see…. By jove! Wait a minute! I see what you’re driving at!” And turning to Mary, the professor added, “Mrs. Wilson, do you have a garden hose long enough to reach into this room?”
Mary was shocked. I was still listening between sputters.
“Why, yes, we have. What are you going to do?”
“I hate to tell you this, Mother,” Jim said, “But if Professor Jordan is going to do what I think he’s going to do, you’re not going to be very happy about it. Neither is Dad.”
“But we hope to get Mr. Wilson down,” the professor said, “Even though it may get a little damp in here.”