The Magic Factory

Just then, Lucas stood. “I’m taking a break. Keep going.”

“Sure,” Oliver said absentmindedly. His whole focus was on the machine now.

He started reworking it, following the diagram he was holding in his mind. He pushed several of the smaller cogs to the side, instead choosing the ones that would provide the largest, most powerful force once cranked. All the smaller cogs were just diminishing the power, using up the energy for no good reason whatsoever. He worked out at least fifty of the cogs were detrimental to the operation of the machine, and at least another hundred were completely pointless. What he was left with was far more manageable, and he worked quickly to connect them into position.

Once he was done, he secured a lever in order to test the mechanism. He cranked it and the cogs began to turn, each moving the next along. Sure enough, his design was perfectly adequate to complete the necessary desired action.

Oliver clapped his hands, satisfied with a job well done. Then he looked about him. He’d finished his task but Lucas wasn’t around to give him a new one.

Then he remembered the invisibility coat. Armando had said not to waste time on it but Oliver was wasting time just sitting here doing nothing and he’d prefer to persevere even if he didn’t get anywhere. No one achieved anything without trying, after all.

He went over to the workbench, looking at all the amassed fabrics and wires. As he began sorting through them, he heard Lucas’s footsteps returning.

“What are you doing?” Lucas exclaimed. “I told you to work on the cogs.”

He looked furious. Oliver couldn’t help but cower under his fury.

“I finished it,” he stammered, taken aback by Lucas’s sheer anger.

“There’s no way,” Lucas contested. “You can’t have finished that work yet.”

“I have,” Oliver insisted. He went back to the workbench and showed Lucas what he’d done. He turned the crank to prove that the mechanism worked accurately. “I took a shortcut,” he explained. He pointed at all the leftover cogs. “None of these were needed to make it work.”

Lucas was completely silent. He seemed stunned by what Oliver had achieved. But instead of congratulating Oliver on a doing such a good job so quickly, he looked even more angry.

Oliver wasn’t about to apologize for doing what had been asked of him, or for improving on it. He folded his arms and calmly asked, “What would you like me to work on next?”

Lucas shrugged. “Carry on with the coat if you want. See if I care. You’re wasting your time anyway.”

It occurred to Oliver then that the cogs assignment was supposed to last him all day, that Armando hadn’t left any other work for him to do because this was all he’d expected him to achieve. He felt triumphant. He was clearly better than anyone was expecting. He couldn’t wait for Armando to get back so he could show him his achievements.

“Okay,” Oliver said, holding his chin up high. “If I’m not needed on the floor, I’d like to work on this in my room.” At least there he’d be able to work on the coat without the scrutiny of Lucas.

“Whatever,” Lucas said, shrugging. He didn’t even bother looking at Oliver when he spoke.

Oliver grabbed the trunk of materials and headed away from the workbench. As he walked away, Lucas laughed a horrible cackle.

“Good luck, boy. No one’s ever solved that. Not even Armando.”

Oliver felt his cheeks burn, but he didn’t let Lucas’s words dissuade him. If he could survive the torment of Chris, he could survive mocking from Lucas!

He stalked away with the box, went to his new room, and put the box upon the desk. Carefully, he looked through each material contained inside. The black matte fabric had not worked, and yet out of all of them it certainly looked like the one that would be most successful. Black, after all, was what happened when something absorbed no light at all.

Suddenly, Oliver was struck by a moment of inspiration. Black absorbed no light, but white was what happened when all light was absorbed. Perhaps if he used white instead, it would offer him the least reflection because it was absorbing everything instead!

He rummaged in the box and found some white material. Then he began the painstaking task of sewing a crisscross of wires into one corner of the fabric. As soon as he had a large enough sample area, he turned on the table lamp beside him and held the fabric under it.

With bitter disappointment, Oliver saw that he hadn’t cracked it.

He sat back in the chair and huffed. What was he missing? The wire seemed thin enough, and he was certain the white fabric was the best choice out of everything there.

He searched in the box, pulling out the wire this time and inspecting it under the light. Perhaps there was something not quite right about it after all. The thinness was supposed to be almost imperceptible to the human eye and yet Oliver could more or less see it. Did it need to be thinner? But how? And even if it was, how was he supposed to work with something thinner than his eyes could see?

He wondered then if Armando had any kind of microscopic device or eyeglass he might be able to use. If he wanted to make the wires even thinner, he’d need a microscope to do it. Surely the old inventor had some around. In fact, he could vaguely recall having seen one or two during the tour.

The problem was, Oliver didn’t much want to go back onto the factory floor while Lucas was working. He didn’t want the gruff old man to notice him taking more items for his futile task. He didn’t want to hear, yet again, that he was going to fail.

Then he remembered his class with Ms. Belfry. She’s encouraged him to step into the spotlight even though he was afraid of his classmates bullying him. This was no different really. If he could endure their taunts and cruel whispers, he could handle Lucas.

He took a deep breath and left his room. Out in the corridor, Horatio the bloodhound looked up at him with his sad eyes. Oliver knelt down and patted his head. The dog sighed before falling back to sleep.

Oliver headed out into the factory. Lucas was busy at his workbench. Perhaps Oliver could sneak past him unnoticed.

In the shadows, Oliver scanned the factory floor to see whether there was a microscope anywhere nearby, or whether he could locate the place where Armando stored the tools.

Just then, he noticed a cupboard mounted onto one wall. It was just like the kind found in shop class at school, the ones where they stored all the drills and screwdrivers. That must be it, Oliver thought.

He made a beeline for it. But no sooner had Oliver stepped out of the shadows and begun to walk toward the tool cupboard, than Lucas turned sharply and glared at him. It was like he’d sensed him coming with some kind of sixth sense. Even from this distance, Oliver could see the coldness in his penetrating blue-eyed stare.

“How’s it going?” Lucas barked nastily across the factory floor. “Still not solved it? What a surprise. I bet you go mad trying.”

Oliver sucked his cheeks in. He was too determined to stop now, no matter how much Lucas attempted to undermine and discourage him. He went right up to the cupboard and opened it.

To his delight, it was indeed a tool store. Inside there was a myriad of cutting tools; knives, pliers, screwdrivers, scissors, pretty much anything else someone might need. He selected several different scalpels of varying blade width, considering each one in turn. Then he discovered one was so thin, the blade was like a hair. As he pulled it from the cupboard, the blade glittered in the light. Oliver realized it must be made of diamond. Diamond was known to be the best cutting tool in the world. This was definitely the knife for his task!

Overjoyed by his first success, Oliver closed the cupboard doors carefully and began to search for a microscope. He’d definitely seen one during Armando’s tour but he couldn’t quite recall where it had been. The tour had been scant at best. And he definitely wasn’t going to ask Lucas. The bitter old man would probably send him in the wrong direction just for his own amusement.

Oliver retraced his steps through the factory, heading for the place he knew Armando had begun, then following the most logical route he could. There were several rooms that Armando had poked his head into before deciding there was nothing of importance inside, so Oliver ignored those, because he hadn’t even looked in them. Then there was the room with the Bird’s Eye View invention and another room full of half-finished automatons, but neither contained the microscope.

Oliver stood in the corridor, baffled. The factory had so many strange corridors and side rooms it was impossible to orient himself.

He began to wander a little aimlessly. Soon, he found himself standing outside the black-and-yellow-striped steel door. He looked at it curiously, and wondered again what might be inside. Probably the most incredible invention ever, Oliver reasoned, letting his imagination go wild. Whatever it was, it was something that only Armando had ever seen. Even Lucas had not been trusted to look inside. Oliver wondered if one day he might be allowed inside. Perhaps if he cracked the invisibility coat, Armando would reward him with a peek inside the secret room.

Oliver needed to get back to the task at hand. He turned. To his surprise, Horatio the bloodhound was standing behind him.

“What are you doing here?” Oliver asked, bending down to rub the old dog behind the ears.

Horatio let out a whine. He turned and trotted, in an arthritic kind of way, to the end of the corridor and stopped there. He looked back expectantly, as if waiting for Oliver. Shrugging, Oliver followed the old dog. But before he reached him, Horatio took off in a trot again, disappearing around the corner. Curiously, and with the distinct impression he was being led somewhere, Oliver turned the corner also. And sure enough, Horatio was waiting for him, looking back at him with droopy, sad eyes.

The moment Oliver came into view, Horatio disappeared through an open door. Oliver followed again. When he walked in the room after Horatio, he was stunned to see that he was in a room filled with microscopes. The dog had led him right where he needed to be!

“Thanks, Horatio!” he cried, wondering both how the dog had known what he was seeking and why it had decided to help him.

In response, the dog let out one of his sad sighs. Then he turned and hobbled away, his claws clacking against the floorboards as he went.

Oliver wasted no time. He inspected each of the microscopes in turn. Some were very large and very powerful; others were smaller and more portable. He chose one that wasn’t too heavy, somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, and hurried out, excited to get to work.

Horatio was snoring soundly in his basket as he passed. The poor thing must have tired itself out helping him, for which Oliver was very grateful.