Junior Achievement Read online

other things occurred that day, two of which I knew aboutimmediately. Mary brought a portable typewriter from home and spent partof the afternoon banging away at what seemed to me, since I use twofingers only, a very creditable speed.

  And Hilary brought in a bottle of his new detergent. It was a syrupyyellow liquid with a nice collar of suds. He'd been busy in his homelaboratory after all, it seemed.

  "What is it?" I asked. "You never told us."

  Hilary grinned. "Lauryl benzyl phosphonic acid, dipotassium salt, in 20%solution."

  "Goodness." I protested, "it's been twenty-five years since my lastcourse in chemistry. Perhaps if I saw the formula--."

  He gave me a singularly adult smile and jotted down a scrawl of symbolsand lines. It meant little to me.

  "Is it good?"

  For answer he seized the ice bucket, now empty of its soda bottles,trickled in a few drops from the bottle and swished the contents. Foammounted to the rim and spilled over. "And that's our best grade ofRidgeville water," he pointed out. "Hardest in the country."

  The third event of Wednesday came to my ears on Thursday morning.

  I was a little late arriving at the barn, and was taken a bit aback tofind the roadway leading to it rather full of parked automobiles, andthe barn itself rather full of people, including two policemen. OurRidgeville police are quite young men, but in uniform they still lookominous and I was relieved to see that they were laughing and evidentlyenjoying themselves.

  "Well, now," I demanded, in my best classroom voice. "What is all this?"

  "Are you Henderson?" the larger policeman asked.

  "I am indeed," I said, and a flash bulb went off. A young lady graspedmy arm.

  "Oh, please, Mr. Henderson, come outside where it's quieter and tell meall about it."

  "Perhaps," I countered, "somebody should tell me."

  "You mean you don't know, honestly? Oh, it's fabulous. Best story I'vehad for ages. It'll make the city papers." She led me around the cornerof the barn to a spot of comparative quiet.

  "You didn't know that one of your junior whatsisnames poured detergentin the Memorial Fountain basin last night?"

  I shook my head numbly.

  "It was priceless. Just before rush hour. Suds built up in the basinand overflowed, and down the library steps and covered the whole street.And the funniest part was they kept right on coming. You couldn'timagine so much suds coming from that little pool of water. There was athree-block traffic jam and Harry got us some marvelous pictures--menrolling up their trousers to wade across the street. And this morning,"she chortled, "somebody phoned in an anonymous tip to the police--ofcourse it was the same boy that did it--Tommy--Miller?--and so here weare. And we just saw a demonstration of that fabulous kite and saw allthose simply captivating mice."

  "Mice?"

  "Yes, of course. Who would ever have thought you could breed mice withthose cute furry tails?"

  * * *

  Well, after a while things quieted down. They had to. The police leftafter sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning againstletting such a thing happen again. Mr. Miller, who had come home to seewhat all the excitement was, went back to work and Mrs. Miller went backto the house and the reporter and photographer drifted off to file theirstory, or whatever it is they do. Tommy was jubilant.

  "Did you hear what she said? It'll make the city papers. I wish we had athousand kites. Ten thousand. Oh boy, selling is fun. Hilary, when canyou make some more of that stuff? And Doris, how many mice do youhave?"

  Those mice! I have always kept my enthusiasm for rodents within bounds,but I must admit they were charming little beasts, with tails as bushyas miniature squirrels.

  "How many generations?" I asked Doris.

  "Seventeen. No, eighteen, now. Want to see the genetic charts?"

  I won't try to explain it as she did to me, but it was quite evidentthat the new mice were breeding true. Presently we asked Betty Miller tocome back down to the barn for a conference. She listened and askedquestions. At last she said, "Well, all right, if you promise me theycan't get out of their cages. But heaven knows what you'll do when fallcomes. They won't live in an unheated barn and you can't bring them intothe house."

  "We'll be out of the mouse business by then," Doris predicted. "Everypet shop in the country will have them and they'll be down to nothingapiece."

  Doris was right, of course, in spite of our efforts to protect themarket. Anyhow that ushered in our cage building phase, and for the nextweek--with a few interruptions--we built cages, hundreds of them, a goodmany for breeding, but mostly for shipping.

  It was rather regrettable that, after the _Courier_ gave us most of thethird page, including photographs, we rarely had a day without a fewvisitors. Many of them wanted to buy mice or kites, but Tommy refused tosell any mice at retail and we soon had to disappoint those who wantedkites. The Supermarket took all we had--except a dozen--and at a dollarfifty each. Tommy's ideas of pricing rather frightened me, but he setthe value of the mice at ten dollars a pair and got it without anyarguments.

  Our beautiful stationery arrived, and we had some invoice forms printedup in a hurry--not engraved, for a wonder.

  It was on Tuesday--following the Thursday--that a lanky young mandisentangled himself from his car and strolled into the barn. I lookedup from the floor where I was tacking squares of screening onto woodenframes.

  "Hi," he said. "You're Donald Henderson, right? My name is McCord--JeffMcCord--and I work in the Patent Section at the Commission's downtownoffice. My boss sent me over here, but if he hadn't, I think I'd havecome anyway. What are you doing to get patent protection on RidgeIndustries' new developments?"

  I got my back unkinked and dusted off my knees. "Well, now," I said,"I've been wondering whether something shouldn't be done, but I knowvery little about such matters--."

  "Exactly," he broke in, "we guessed that might be the case, and thereare three patent men in our office who'd like to chip in and contributesome time. Partly for the kicks and partly because we think you may havesome things worth protecting. How about it? You worry about the filingand final fees. That's sixty bucks per brainstorm. We'll worry abouteverything else."

  "What's to lose," Tommy interjected.

  And so we acquired a patent attorney, several of them, in fact.

  The day that our application on the kite design went to Washington, Marywrote a dozen toy manufacturers scattered from New York to Los Angeles,sent a kite to each one and offered to license the design. Result, onelicensee with a thousand dollar advance against next season's royalties.

  * * * * *

  It was a rainy morning about three weeks later that I arrived at thebarn. Jeff McCord was there, and the whole team except Tommy. Jefflowered his feet from the picnic table and said, "Hi."

  "Hi yourself," I told him. "You look pleased."

  "I am," he replied, "in a cautious legal sense, of course. Hilary and Iwere just going over the situation on his phosphonate detergent. I'vespent the last three nights studying the patent literature and a fewstandard texts touching on phosphonates. There are a zillion patents onsynthetic detergents and a good round fifty on phosphonates, but itlooks"--he held up a long admonitory hand--"it just looks as though wehad a clear spot. If we do get protection, you've got a real salableproperty."

  "That's fine, Mr. McCord," Hilary said, "but it's not very important."

  "No?" Jeff tilted an inquiring eyebrow at me, and I handed him a smallbottle. He opened and sniffed at it gingerly. "What gives?"

  "Before-shave lotion," Hilary told him. "You've shaved this morning, buttry some anyway."

  Jeff looked momentarily dubious, then puddled some in his palm andmoistened his jaw line. "Smells good," he noted, "and feels nice andcool. Now what?"

  "Wipe your face." Jeff located a handkerchief and wiped, looked at thecloth, wiped again, and stared.

  "What is it?"

  "A whisker stiffener. It makes each hair brittle enou
gh to break offright at the surface of your skin."

  "So I perceive. What is it?"

  "Oh, just a mixture of stuff. Cookbook chemistry. Cysteine thiolactoneand a fat-soluble magnesium compound."

  "I see. Just a mixture of stuff. And do your whiskers grow back the nextday?"

  "Right on schedule," I said.

  McCord unfolded his length and stood staring out into the rain.Presently he said, "Henderson, Hilary and I are heading for my office.We can work there better than here, and if we're going to