Nick went to school and tried to concentrate. At recess time, Kate found Nick leaning against the jungle gym. He was all alone, and he looked sad. “Nick, what’s wrong?” Nick thought a minute before he answered her because he wasn’t really sure he wanted to tell Kate what was going on. His best friend already thought he was crazy. “We think we’ve found Chewy.” “That’s great!” Kate said excitedly and then, “Wait, who’s ‘we’?” Nick looked around before whispering, “You know, the superheroes and me.” Nick said. “Nick! Stop it! They aren’t real and you know it!” “They are real, Kate, that’s what I keep trying to tell you, but you won’t listen!” “If they’re real, how come I’ve never seen them?” “I told you, because they’re, well they’re…. shy!” “If they are superheroes, they wouldn’t be shy!” Kate yelled. “Shhhhh! I don’t want everyone to hear.” Kate stared at Nick for a minute. She wanted to believe him, but superheroes just didn’t exist and she didn’t know why he kept pretending they did. Kate left to be with her other friends.
Nick kicked at the dirt in frustration. “I believe you!” Nick jumped, startled by the voice of another boy. He looked all around and didn’t see anyone. “Up here,” said the boy with a sigh and Nick looked up and saw Ian McGovern. If there was one kid in school who was even more unpopular than Nick was, Ian was it. In fact, Nick didn’t think he had ever seen Ian hanging out with anyone, except the school’s janitor, Mr. Nelson. The mean kids called Ian, “the garbage kid” behind his back. It wasn’t that Ian wasn’t nice, it was just that he was so quiet that most of the time you forgot he was there. “I didn’t see you up there.” Nick said, looking at the top of the jungle gym. “No one ever sees me,” Ian said jumping down. Ian was small and skinny. Because he was so short, his clothes always looked too big for him. He had black hair that stuck up at odd angles and thick, black glasses. He was really smart and funny, but no one knew because he usually preferred to remain in the background and watch the world go by. He had always wanted to be friends with Nick and Kate. As far as he could tell, they were about the nicest people in the school, and he really liked the friendship they had. When he knew that Nick and Kate were fighting, he figured that it was time for him to get to know them and maybe help them fix their problems.
Nick looked at Ian. “Did you say you believe me?” “Of course, I believe you. It is quite conceivable that a genetic mutation could occur in the composition of the deoxyribonucleic acid of homo-sapiens…” Nick held up his hands, “Whoa, Ian, are you speaking English?” “What? Oh, sorry. Yes, I believe in superheroes, but I didn’t know there were any in Middleton.” Nick was amazed. Had he finally made a new friend and had he found the friend that would help him? “They are here, and they are superheroes, well, kind of. You see, they have ah…unusual, powers.” “Unusual powers?” Ian asked. “Yeah, well, they’re not your everyday superheroes.” Nick told Ian all about his ten friends and their unique abilities. He told him how they had each tried to get into the building where they had heard the dogs but that each of them had failed. Ian thought for a minute. He smiled so big that his entire face lit up. “RUBE GOLDBERG!” He yelled, snapping his fingers. Nick looked around, making sure that Ian had not attracted any attention but the only one that looked over was Kate and when she saw him looking at her, she turned back to her other friends. “Who or what is Rube Goldberg?” “It’s a who and a what.” Ian looked at the clock on the school wall. They still had twenty minutes left of recess. “Come with me!” he said, and he grabbed Nick’s hand and dragged him toward the back of the school building. Ian had never taken anyone to his special place, but he knew he had to now.
They went through the back door and down the flight of stairs to the basement of the school. Nick was trying not to be scared. No one ever went into the basement. It was common knowledge that in the basement resided the monster of Middleton School. Nick thought that he personally knew a few students who went down to the basement and never came back or maybe they just moved but you could never be sure. When Ian opened the heavy metal door that led into the dark room, Nick hesitated. Ian flipped on the light and Nick quickly looked around. The room was ordinary. There was no other word for it. There were folding tables stacked in one corner next to stacks of folding chairs. The furnace, which Nick highly suspected was the “monster,” was sitting quietly. There were bins of deflated balls for gym and cleaning equipment hung from neat racks on the walls.
Ian was already in the middle of the room. “Come on,” he cried excitedly. Nick ran to catch up. He followed Ian back behind the furnace to the very back of the room. On a few uneven tables sat a contraption unlike anything Nick had ever seen. It was, from what Nick could see, made of discarded junk. Ian looked at him. Nick knew he was waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t even know what he was looking at. “What is it?” Nick asked. Ian looked deflated for a moment and then perked up. “This is a Rube Goldberg Machine!” “Who is Rube Goldberg?” “He’s just about the greatest man of all time. He’s my hero! He was a cartoonist, a sculptor, an artist, and an inventor and he was good at all of it. He even won a Pulitzer Prize – that’s one of the highest awards you can win for newspaper people – for cartoons!” “That’s really cool! But I still don’t understand what this thing is.” “Like I said, it’s a Rube Goldberg Machine, but what’s cool is what it does. Just watch!”
Ian dropped a marble into an old paper towel tube that was taped to the wall. The marble went from one tube to another all the way down until it reached the highest table. The marble then slipped onto an old ruler. It rolled down the ruler and bumped into a matchbox car which was sitting on a box shaped like a wedge of cheese. The car rolled down the box and into a few zigzagging rows of dominoes. The last domino fell onto a block of wood that looked like a seesaw. When the seesaw went down, it lifted the other side where a pencil held a marble in place. When the pencil went up, the marble went rolling down a spiral that Ian had made from an old oatmeal tube and some construction paper. At the end of the tube, the marble bumped into a golf ball which fell onto another seesaw. The seesaw went down and the pin on the other side rose up into the air and popped a balloon. It was amazing!
Ian smiled. “Well? What do you think?” He asked. “It’s awesome!” Nick yelled. “I build these all the time. Mr. Nelson helps me with things he finds lying around.” Nick thought about it for a minute. “Ian, wouldn’t it be easier to pop the balloon yourself?” Ian laughed. “Sure, but that’s what Rube Goldberg was all about. He made these really complex machines to do the simplest things. It is so much fun. I bet you have built one yourself and you never even knew it.”, “I think I would remember something like that don’t you?” “Ever play the game Mouse Trap?” “You’re right! I have built one of those, but Ian what does this have to do with finding my puppy?” “Usually, Rube Goldberg machines take a lot of steps that you don’t need to do something easy but, in your case, you need to take all the steps or else the simple job will never get done. Your friends have to work together, using all their powers to get inside the building and then they have to work together to get the puppy out. They can’t do it alone, none of their powers are strong enough, but together, they make one terrific superhero!” “You’re right! That’s a great idea. Thanks Ian! Hey do you want to come over after school and help me figure out a plan to show the team?” Ian nodded his head in agreement. He was speechless. He had never been asked over anyone’s house before. Just like that, a friendship was born, a friendship so strong that they would stay together through countless adventures for the rest of their lives.
Shannon McCauley - Author 
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