Read Online The Mystery of Silas Finklebean by David Baldacci, Rudy Baldacci - Free Book Online Page A

wheel.
    “How exactly do you steer through time?” Howie asked.
    “Very carefully,” replied Theodore.
    Freddy and Theodore examined the blueprints they had drawn up and then compared them with the plans in the logbook.
    “It looks perfect,” said Theodore.
    “Yeah, but we have two problems. First, we don’t have this thing.” He pointed to the drawings where a small object resembling a gyroscope sat on top of the time machine. “According to the plans, that’s the thing that creates the hole in the time-space continuum that will allow us to leave our time and go to another. But Finklebean doesn’t say how to build it. Without that, it won’t work.”
    “Okay, we’ve got the first problem nailed down; what’s the second one, Freddio?” asked Si, cheerfully.
    “The second problem is we still don’t have a way to power the time machine,” Freddy added gloomily. “And without those two things it’s just a big lump of metal. And the science competition is tomorrow. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’m out of answers.”
    Howie snapped his fingers. “Questions and answers? Remember, Freddy? It’s ‘Ask A Librarian Week.’ Maybe that lady at the library can help us. And she
knew
Silas Finklebean.”
    “Well,” said Theodore. “Perhaps she can help.”
    Freddy sighed. “We don’t have anything to lose, I guess.”
    Freddy and Howie rode their bikes down to the library. Inside they found the librarian working at the front desk.
    “Can I help you, boys?” she said pleasantly.
    “Uh, yes, Ms., uh …,” began Freddy.
    “Oh, where are my manners. My name is Mildred Maraschino.”
    “Okay, Ms. Maraschino. We were wondering if you could tell us anything else about Silas Finklebean.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, you said he was a very lucky person. And that he was very generous.”
    “That’s right, he was. And he loved children. They were his best friends actually. All the adults thought he was, well, not exactly right in the head.”
    “That happens to me and my dad all the time,” replied Freddy, knowingly. “Did you know much about his inventions?”
    Mildred hesitated, eyeing the boys closely. “I was very young back then. I do remember that he was a very careful man. He planned for every possibility.”
    “That’s what my dad taught me too,” said Freddy. “Every scientist has to think that way. You have to be responsible, but you still can have fun.”
    “I think you and Silas would’ve gotten on very well,” said Mildred, smiling. She hesitated and then plucked something out of her desk drawer. “Silas gave me this.” She held it up. It was a small mirror. “He said this was a wishing mirror. He told me if you looked into it and concentrated very hard, you could make a wish and it would come true.”
    “Boy, I could use one of those,” said Freddy.
    “I’ve tried to make it work over the years, but I guess I wasn’t doing it right. My wish never came true,” she added sadly. She handed the mirror to Freddy.
    He looked into it, and then concentrated very hard. What he was wishing for was an answer to their dilemma.
I need to find that gyroscope device. I need to find that gyroscope device.
He said this to himself over and over. Nothing happened, though, and he finally handed the mirror back.
    “Silas must’ve really liked you to give you a wishing mirror, even if it didn’t work right,” said Howie.
    “I think of all the children he knew, he liked me the best,” she replied. “I don’t think he gave anyone else anything he’d made.”
    Freddy thought for a moment, and then it struck him. “Did Silas ever give you something else? Maybe something to keep safe for him?”
    Mildred looked taken aback. “Why do you ask that?”
    “Because you said he planned for every possibility. And you said you were the only one he ever gave anything he’d made. I bet he trusted you.”
    Mildred looked a little uncomfortable, but finally, she said, “I live just down