Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants Read online

  OTHER BOOKS BY

  ANDREA BEATY AND

  DAVID ROBERTS

  Iggy Peck, Architect

  Rosie Revere, Engineer

  Ada Twist, Scientist

  Rosie Revere’s Big Project Book for Bold Engineers

  Iggy Peck’s Big Project Book for Amazing Architects

  Ada Twist’s Big Project Book for Stellar Scientists

  Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-3422-9

  eISBN 978-1-68335-476-5

  Text copyright © 2019 Andrea Beaty

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 David Roberts

  Book design by Chad W. Beckerman

  Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by a ny means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books® and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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  CHAPTER 1

  Ada Twist woke to the smell of breakfast. She jumped out of bed and followed her nose to the kitchen where her father was cooking eggs with onions. He was also boiling two dozen eggs for egg salad.

  “There you are!” he said. “Hugs in a second. Eggs first!”

  “Everyone knows that chickens come first!” said Ada.

  Her dad laughed. It was the same joke Ada made every time her dad cooked eggs for breakfast. They were being goofy, but the age-old question still made her wonder: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

  Someday, thought Ada, I’ll do an experiment to find out!

  “Hugs come first over here!” said Ada’s mom, who was sitting at the table by two coffee mugs.

  Ada hugged her mother. The smell of her mom’s sweet perfume mingled with the bitter scent of steaming-hot coffee. The mix was one of the best smells in the world to Ada. She smiled.

  “My turn,” said Mr. Twist, setting the bowl of eggs and onions on the table.

  Ada took a step toward him but stopped suddenly. The strong, bitter aroma of coffee above her mom’s mug filled her nostrils. But her dad’s mug of coffee had no smell at all. Ada leaned closer and sniffed again.

  Nothing.

  Ada pulled out her notebook and jotted a question: Why does Mom’s coffee have a smell but not Dad’s?

  Ada’s dad smiled and hugged her.

  “Did you already find a mystery before breakfast?” he asked.

  Ada grinned. Questions filled her mind as she looked at the coffee mugs. The day had just begun, and she already had a mystery to solve. As a scientist, nothing made her happier.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ada pulled the tape measure out of her pocket. She always kept one handy. She measured the distance from her nose to the top of her mother’s coffee mug. She bent closer and closer to the mug, sniffing, measuring, and taking notes. She could smell the coffee from her mom’s mug from twelve centimeters away. She repeated the steps with her dad’s coffee mug. But she could not smell anything from his mug until her nose was only four centimeters away. Even then, the scent was faint.

  “Your coffee is broken, Dad!” said Ada. “It doesn’t smell!”

  “Keep investigating,” said Mrs. Twist. “You’ll figure it out.”

  Ada knew that using all her senses was a great way to gather data.

  Ada looked carefully at the mugs. Steam rose over her mom’s mug like wispy smoke. Ada placed her right hand over the steam and her palm became damp. She placed her left hand over her dad’s mug. Her left hand stayed dry.

  Finally, Ada touched her mom’s mug. It was hot. Her dad’s mug was icy cold and a little damp.

  “Zowie!” said Ada.

  Her dad laughed and picked up his mug and took a drink.

  “It’s iced coffee,” he said. “But the ice melted so it looks like the hot stuff.”

  “And speaking of hot,” said Mrs. Twist, “can we eat while our eggs are still hot stuff?”

  While Ada ate, more questions swirled around in her mind. What makes hot coffee hot? What makes steam? Why does it go up? Why was Dad’s mug damp on the outside? Why does hot coffee smell more than cold coffee? Do other things smell stronger when they are hot than when they are cold?

  Every question gave her two more questions.

  And each of those questions led her to four!

  Just then, Ada’s brother, Arthur, came into the kitchen carrying his tennis racket and his tennis shoes. As he passed Ada, a toe-curling stink whacked her right in the nose.

  Zowie! thought Ada.

  An idea popped into her brain. She could do an experiment!

  “I wonder …” she said, and she tapped her chin.

  A look of panic crossed Arthur’s face. A similar look crossed her cat, Bunsen Burner’s, face. Bunsen darted out of the room. Arthur pointed at Ada.

  “Ada’s doing that tapping thing!” said Arthur, who had seen that look on her face before.

  It usually led to something messy happening.

  Or worse.

  “Hey, Arthur!” Ada said eagerly. “Do you want to help me do some science?”

  “No!” said Arthur. “And don’t use my stuff! Remember what Mom and Dad said?”

  Arthur loved his sister and he loved science experiments, too. But he didn’t love Ada’s experiments when they used his stuff. He was still getting pudding out of his Lego blocks from the time Ada tested what made things sticky. After that, his parents made rules about how Ada could conduct her experiments, but sometimes she forgot. Rule No. 1 was: Don’t take Arthur’s things without his permission.

  “Of course, I remember,” said Ada. “I wrote it down. See?”

  Ada flipped open her notebook and held it up for him.

  “I always write down important things so I won’t forget,” Ada said.

  Arthur frowned and plopped into a chair. As he ate his breakfast, he watched Ada warily. But Ada was too busy working to notice. She scribbled notes and grinned. She loved having a question to explore. It was a mystery! A riddle! A puzzle! A quest! This was the moment that Ada loved best.

  It was science time!

  CHAPTER 3

  Ada spent the next two hours reading her science books. She needed to know more about air and gases and about heat and smells. Research helped her understand what scientists had already figured out. It gave her some answers to her questions and then led to other questions to explore.

  AIR! What’s Up with That?

  by Dr. Penelope H. Dee, PhD

  What is air?

  Air is the clear gas that surrounds the Earth. It is a mix of many other gases, dust particles, and water molecules. Most of air is nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and other trace gases, including carbon dioxide and helium, which make up less than a tenth of 1%.

  We call the air around Earth the atmosphere. Gravity pulls
the atmosphere toward the center of the Earth. (That’s why it doesn’t just fly off into space.) Atmospheric pressure is the force of the air pushing against objects. Atmospheric pressure is highest at the Earth’s surface, because gravity is pulling all the air above it toward the center of the planet. (That’s a lot of air!) There is less and less air as you travel from the planet’s surface toward space. So, there is less pressure!

  It’s like being in an ocean. When you float near the top of the ocean, there is only a small amount of water pushing down on you. When you swim at the bottom of the ocean, all the weight of the water between you and the ocean’s surface is pushing down on you. That is much heavier!

  What are gases?

  Gases expand to fill the space that is available. Gases expand when they are heated, and gases shrink and become denser when they are cooled.

  Gas molecules move faster when they are hot than when they are cold. Gas molecules travel until they bounce off other molecules. Then they change directions and keep traveling. Diffusion is when gas molecules continue to spread out as far as they can from the other molecules.

  What are smells?

  Smells are just molecules that reach the special cells in your nose. These cells are called olfactory receptor neurons. When a chemical molecule hits them, they send a message to your brain. Your brain figures out if the smell is familiar, pleasant, nasty, or has other traits.

  Ada loved reading about air, molecules, and smells. But she wanted to do something.

  I know, she thought. I’ll try to answer one question: Does a thing smell more when it is hot than cold?

  From her observations and from her research, Ada had a strong idea that she wanted to test. She had a hypothesis.

  Ada’s hypothesis: If Arthur has two identical shoes but one is hot and one is cold, the hot one will stink more.

  Perfect, thought Ada. Let the science experiment begin. Status: Project Underway. P.U.!

  CHAPTER 4

  It was very hot in Ada’s yard. Ada had been working for an hour and had already tested her hypothesis seven times. Each time, she took notes. She wanted to try the experiment ten or even twenty times to get lots of information to study.

  Time for test number eight. Ada Twist put her notebook and pencil in her pocket. She pulled the bandana down over her eyes. She twirled around three times and stopped.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  A faint stink reached her left nostril. She took a step to the left.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  The smell was stronger. She took another step.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Pow! A horrible stench whacked her right in the nose.

  “Zowie!” said Ada. “I’m on the right track!”

  She took another step. A pungent aroma curled up her toes.

  “Double zowie!”

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Ada took a step. Then another. Then—

  BAM!

  Ada ran right into something. What could it be?

  CHAPTER 5

  Ada poked the thing with her finger. It was softer than a tree.

  Poke. Poke.

  Poke. Poke.

  “Cut it out!”

  It was noisier than a tree!

  Ada peeked under the bandana. She saw a pair of feet in striped socks. She knew those socks!

  It was Arthur. He stood there tapping his foot and pointing at his shoe.

  “Hi, Arthur!” said Ada, taking off the bandana. “Did you come to help?”

  “No,” he said in a cranky voice. “I want my tennis shoes back! Stop using my stuff!”

  “But you have the stinkiest feet!” said Ada.

  She meant it as a compliment. Arthur did not take it as a compliment.

  He frowned and tapped his foot faster.

  “Look!” said Ada, holding up the notebook.

  “The hot shoe is stinkier than the cold one! I thought it would be!”

  She smiled hopefully at Arthur, who frowned harder and crammed his right foot into the cold shoe.

  “ICK!” yelled Arthur and he pulled his foot out.

  A glob of frozen purple popsicle stuck to his sock.

  “Why is there a purple popsicle in my shoe?” he asked.

  “Because we didn’t have any red ones,” said Ada. “Do you think a red popsicle would make the shoe colder than a purple one? I could do an experiment to find out!”

  Ada jotted a note. Arthur rolled his eyes.

  He picked up the left shoe and three hard-boiled eggs tumbled out.

  “That’s the hot shoe,” said Ada. “The boiled eggs heated it really fast!”

  Ada could see that Arthur was not happy. Maybe he didn’t understand what she was trying to do. She tried to explain.

  “The hot molecules go really fast and bounce around,” said Ada, “then the smells go like this—”

  Ada pointed wildly this way and that and added a high-pitched ZOOP! ZOOP! noise for special effect.

  “And the cold molecules are slow,” said Ada.

  She pointed slowly this way and that and added a low-pitched FSHOO! FSHOO! sound.

  “But they’re all silent,” said Ada, repeating the gestures silently. “And they’re all way faster than my fingers. And they are really tiny. There’s no way you could see them! And …”

  Arthur made an UGH! kind of sound and rolled his eyes. He grabbed his sneakers by the laces and trudged back toward the house.

  “There were lots of smell molecules in there,” said Ada. “They hit my nose and … then the receptor cells and … and then my brain goes … ZOWIE! And—here! I’ll draw you a picture!”

  Arthur kept walking.

  “Your stinky feet were made for science!” Ada yelled as Arthur reached the house.

  The door slammed behind him.

  “Hmm,” said Ada.

  Arthur didn’t get it. Ada knew what she wanted him to understand, but when she tried to explain, all her ideas seemed to burst out at the same time and then everything got jumbled. Why did that always happen to Ada?

  Ada sat beneath the tree and thought. Why did all her ideas want to get out at the same time? Did other people’s ideas do that? Could she do an experiment to find out? Could her friends Rosie Revere and Iggy Peck help her?

  Ada smiled. She loved working with her friends and they always had great ideas. That would be a fun project to work on one day. The thought of it made her feel better.

  Ada went back to her notes. She was happy with the results of her stink experiment. She had hoped for more data, but even with only eight tries instead of dozens, she could see a pattern. The data seemed to confirm her hypothesis that the hot shoe was the stinkiest. But she needed more data to be sure.

  Ada was about to design a new hot-stink experiment when a bird chirped in the tree above her.

  “Uh-oh!” Ada said. “I almost forgot! It’s birding time.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Ada grabbed her binoculars and came back to the tree. The Great Backyard Bird Count was only a few weeks away. Every year on the same day, Ada joined people around the world who counted birds in their own yards. Then, they all shared the data they collected. That data told scientists how many birds there were and where they lived and where they traveled.

  Ada practiced identifying birds every day. She studied pictures and knew many birds by sight.

  But she wanted to know bird calls, too. Ada listened to the birds in the tree.

  CAW-CAW-CAW.

  “Crow!” she said.

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

  “Woodpecker!”

  TAP-TAP-TAP.

  “Northern Flicker.”

  OOOOOOOOOOPS!

  “Oops?” said Ada. “I don’t know that one!”

  She listened again.

  OH NOOOOOOOOO!

  “‘Oh no’?” said Ada. “What kind of bird sounds like that?”

  She looked through her binoculars.

  “Zowie!” said Ada. �
��That’s not a bird! That’s not a plane! That’s … a bahonkus!”

  Ada was right. It was a bahonkus. A very big bahonkus and it belonged to a very skinny man with a very big mustache and a very, very big pair of pants.

  They were the biggest pants Ada had ever seen. They were fluffy and puffy and they were floating above the tree!

  And that wasn’t just any man. That was—

  “UNCLE NED!”

  Ada turned to see her friends Rosie Revere and Iggy Peck running toward her. They were shouting and waving their arms.

  “Stop that uncle!” yelled Rosie.

  Ada looked up. A long rope dangled from Uncle Ned’s waist. It was snagged on a branch at the top of the tree. Rosie and Iggy skidded to a halt next to Ada. They were out of breath and their faces were bright red.

  “Hi!” said Ada.

  “Thanks for catching Uncle Ned!” said Rosie.

  “We’ve been chasing him all over Blue River Creek!”

  “Why is he flying around?” asked Ada. “Is it an experiment? I love experiments! Is it an experiment about flying? Wind? Birds? Leaves? Clouds? Is it about weather? Is it—”

  “It’s about getting me down!” yelled Uncle Ned.

  “We’re trying!” said Rosie.

  “Why are his pants floating?” asked Ada. “Are they filled with gas?”

  “I heard that,” called Uncle Ned.

  “They’re filled with helium gas, which is lighter than air,” said Rosie. “I made them for him when I was younger.”

  “Sometimes, he wears them on a walk,” said Iggy. “Though I guess it’s a float, because someone else is doing the walking. They hold the rope so Uncle Ned doesn’t fly off.”

  Flying around in helium pants was dangerous. It was hazardous. It was perilous. It was also really cool.

  “Uncle Fred was holding the rope today,” said Rosie. “And then he saw a—”

  “Let me guess,” said Ada. “Did Uncle Fred see a snake?”