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“Now I need to get dressed for school, Benjamin,” said Duncan. “Activate wardrobe mode.”
“Of course,” the orb replied as it spun like a top. Little blue light particles swirled around the room. They danced and twirled, combining into a three-dimensional hologram of a clothing store. Now standing before Duncan was another hologram—this was the human representation of the little blue orb: America’s elder statesman Benjamin Franklin, who, like Duncan, had once been a spy. Benjamin was dressed in white stockings, breeches, and a long coat. He smiled as he pulled out a measuring tape and went about measuring Duncan’s shoulder width, arm length, and inseam.
“How about something in a powdered wig?” Benjamin suggested, holding up a bright white hairpiece.
“Hmmm, maybe a little too eighteenth century?” Duncan replied.
Benjamin put the wig back, then presented a brown pinstripe suit. “Very well. This is pure twenty-first-century class. With a button-down shirt and a gray vest you would look very hip—like a young Frederick Douglass.”
“No, I was thinking about the usual,” the boy said.
Benjamin frowned. “The usual?”
Duncan nodded.
“Green shirt, purple pants, oxfords, all clashing?” Benjamin sighed.
Duncan nodded.
“OK.” Benjamin and the store vanished, leaving just the blue orb floating in the air. It chirped and beeped, then panels on the bedroom walls slid back, revealing banks of red lasers. They sca
Within moments, the hands were finished and the small spy was squeezed into an eye-burning, ill-fitting outfit of clashing colors.
“Just how I like it,” Duncan said as the orb floated onto his palm. He slipped it into his pants pocket and crept into the hallway. The Creature was waiting for him, her hands clenched into fists and her mouth twisted in a snarl.
“I heard what you said,” she growled. “And now you’re going to pay.”
“You have to catch me first,” Duncan said, leaping onto the wall and using his sticky hands and feet to scurry up to the ceiling. Tanisha ran after him, leaping up and swatting at him like he was a bug as he skirted the chandelier in the dining room and raced toward the kitchen. He managed to stay just out of reach, which made her all the angrier.
Luckily, Duncan’s parents were waiting for him in the kitchen. A small but growing cloud of smoke was rising out of the toaster, and his father, Avery, dressed in work boots and overalls, was slapping at it with a dish towel. His mother, Aiah, looked on, urging his dad to calm down.
“Duncan!” said his mother when she spotted the boy. “What have I told you?”
“‘No walking on the ceiling.’ Sorry,” Duncan said, and dropped to the floor. “So, I hear we have another five-alarm inferno in here.”
Avery scowled at his son’s joke.
“OK, no sense of humor this morning,” Duncan said as he grabbed a remote control sitting on the kitchen counter. He punched in a series of numbers and a panel on the kitchen wall slid back. A tiny winged robot buzzed out carrying an even smaller fire extinguisher. It hovered over the toaster and blasted it with fire retardant until the flames were dead. Then the robot zipped back into its hidden compartment.
“Duncan, enough is enough!” Avery cried. “All the gadgets have to go! I feel like I’m trapped in a James Bond movie.”
Aiah pursed her lips. “Avery, keep it down. We don’t want the neighbors to hear. It’s a national security thing!”
Avery frowned but lowered his voice. “When we agreed to let Duncan become a spy, I had no idea my house would be invaded by electronic doohickeys! Everything moves, beeps, and buzzes, and it’s driving me crazy. All a man wants in the morning is an English muffin, but I need a degree in advanced engineering to use the toaster. Well, that’s it. All of it has to go!”
“Dad, you can’t be serious. All this tech makes our lives better. We have things here that no one else in the world will have for decades!” Duncan said.
“And all of it is obnoxious!”
“So is Duncan, but I don’t hear anyone saying we need to toss him out with the trash,” the Creature said.
“Tanisha!” his mother snapped.
Duncan ignored his sister. “Look, it’s easy. Everything in the house can be controlled with this remote. First you push the yellow mounting button to activate the smart house system, then you select the number of the device you want to use, and finally you push the green button to start. If you want to pull the shades down on the windows, it’s yellow, then the number seven, then green.”
Suddenly, the shades on the windows lowered, plunging the room into complete darkness. Duncan pressed the buttons that made the shades rise again.
“If you want ice, you press yellow, four, green.” Ice tumbled out of the ice maker in the refrigerator door. “If you want coffee, you press yellow, nine, green.” Suddenly, the coffee machine came to life, brewing a fresh pot of java. “If you want to change the wallpaper, you press yellow, seventeen, green.” Suddenly, the floral-patterned wallpaper rolled up into the ceiling and was replaced with a jaunty nautical theme.
“All I want is an English muffin!” Avery cried.
“Simple. Yellow, forty-five, green, then you can select how well you want it toasted. You have seventeen options, from very light to very dark. When it’s finished, the remote asks you for either butter or cream cheese and which of nine varieties of jams and jellies you like. I recommend number six: strawberry-peach preserves. It’s crazy delicious.”
“No! No! No! No! No!” Avery grabbed his thermos, lunch box, and coal-black half of an English muffin. He took a bite and grimaced. “We’ll talk about this later. I’ve got to get to the garage. I’ve got three Pontiacs that need brakes and a Chrysler with a bad water pump.”
“You aren’t leaving this house without kissing me good-bye, are you?” Aiah said.
Duncan watched his dad’s anger dissolve as he leaned down and kissed his wife on the cheek. Then he planted a kiss on the top of Duncan’s head and gave Tanisha, standing in the doorway, a kiss on the forehead on his way out.
“Dad!” Tanisha complained. “I’m too old.”
Avery rolled his eyes at his wife and darted out the door.
“If he would just read the manual,” Duncan muttered. “It’s really all self-explanatory.”
“Duncan, honey, the manual is two thousand pages long,” his mother said. “I don’t want you to misunderstand. Your father is very proud of you and what you do for our country, but he didn’t sign up to be a spy himself. Maybe you can leave some of your gadgets at school?”
“How about all of them?” the Creature quipped.
“Leave them at school?” Duncan exclaimed. “That’s like telling me to leave my left leg at school, Mom.”
“I hardly think that’s the case,” Aiah said as she filled two bowls full of cereal and milk. She added spoons, then steered her kids to the table. “We could get along without all the bells and whistles.”
Duncan sat down and shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He thought about what his mother had said as he looked around. The family’s one-story ranch house was too small and had a leaky roof that required the strategic placement of buckets during heavy rains. The living room carpet looked like grass on an overused playground, and most of the furniture was so old, it should have been in a museum. They needed all the bells and whistles they could get.
Aiah gave her son a knowing look. “Duncan, we are doing just fine.” Then she smiled. Duncan’s mom had a smile that seemed to be borrowed from the sun. Duncan thought she was the most beautiful person in the world. If they could just bottle a little of the feeling he got when she gri