Bringing Down the Mouse by Ben Mezrich Page A

finding the soft meat beneath. Slowly, painfully slowly, the thing was trying to get off the log and into the safety of the pond, but with every second, the rain of stones became heavier, the moment more dire.
    Charlie and Jeremy had watched in silence, unable to do anything. Charlie had never felt so helpless. Eventually,he’d just turned and made his way back along the creek to Jeremy’s yard. He liked to imagine that the turtle had made it off the log, injured but alive, and disappeared beneath the surface. But he knew, realistically, that the turtle had probably never gotten off that log.
    Greta, safe in her terrarium, made Charlie feel secure in a world that seemed every day less in his control. After a day like this, even a moment with Greta seemed unlikely to put it all in perspective.
    â€œOkay, Charlie, I’m ready for another try.”
    Charlie turned away from the terrarium to see Jeremy grinning at him from behind their shared lab table, most of his face obscured by a pair of oversize safety goggles. He was wearing rubber gloves and had in his right hand, held delicately between two eel-like fingers, a shiny red marble.
    â€œYou don’t need the goggles, Jeremy. Or the gloves.”
    Charlie tried to keep his voice soft, although there was little danger of Mrs. Hennigan turning around any time soon. Once she started scrawling against the blackboard, she was in for the duration.
    â€œSafety first,” Jeremy responded. “Wouldn’t want a marble popping up and taking out my eye.”
    â€œIt’s a bowl and a ball. Nobody’s going to lose any eyes.”
    Charlie crossed over to where Jeremy was standing and glanced down at their shared science project. Really, on the surface that’s all it was, a bowl and a ball. The marble was from Charlie’s collection, one he’d been adding to since early childhood—he’d always been fascinated by the mathematically perfect little spheres, and the many ways you could use them to turn boring textbook physics and math concepts into fun, illustrative paradigms. Toss one in the air, hello gravity. Roll one down a ramp, potential energy meets friction. Smash two together, kinetic energy and the second law of thermodynamics. Roll one down a bowl, and you got all three paradigms for the price of one.
    The bowl was pretty good for the job, ceramic and smooth, although Charlie could have done without the brightly colored petunias that covered most of its inner and outer surface. Charlie had borrowed the bowl from his kitchen cabinet at home; once upon a time, it had been the family salad bowl, in use at least twice a week for many years.
    Though it still carried the vague, pungently vinegar smell of salad dressing, the smooth inner surface of the petunia bowl was exactly what Charlie had needed for his and Jeremy’s shared science project. He watched as Jeremy dramatically placed the marble at the top edgeof the bowl, right beneath a little black line Charlie had etched to mark the theoretical entrance point. Jeremy gave the marble a little push with his finger, and the marble rolled around the lip of the bowl, then began its descent, rolling in tighter and tighter circles as it traveled down, inch by inch, toward the bottom.
    â€œHouston, we have entry into the upper atmosphere,” Jeremy exclaimed. “T-minus twenty seconds until impact!”
    Charlie glanced at the digital timer attached to the top of the bowl a few inches from where Jeremy had started the marble. The device was his own construction; it was actually just a Casio watch with a simple timer application. Charlie had removed the watch’s strap and had superglued the remaining square section of the device to the ceramic bowl. Jeremy had engaged the timer with his left hand just at the exact moment he’d pushed the marble off on its spiraling descent. He had presumably also made a mental note of the time on the watch as the marble passed the