The Secret Life of Owen Skye by Alan Cumyn

she would just mix chemicals by herself and invent new compounds to rid the world of disease. She had a Junior Scientists’ test tube kit that included many different-colored powders and complicated instructions and a hundred-power microscope to view the wonders of the biological world. She and Sadie opened up the kit on the floor of the garage and started doing experiments while the boys sat up in their fort pretending to ignore them. It was tough, though, because the experiments produced a lot of smoke that made the boys cough and wonder what those girls were going to do next. The Junior Scientists seemed to understand that smoke rises while fresh air remains at the bottom of any room.
    Pretty soon Leonard said he thought maybe it would be better to be a Junior Scientist for awhile.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Andy said. “And leave the fort?”
    â€œI think she’s trying to burn us out!” Leonard said, and then he disappeared down the rusty cable they used for climbing to and from the fort. The cable was stretched around a pulley, and at the bottom was an old iron box full of rocks. The weight of the box helped keep the door open. Not that you had to worry about the door closing, because it had been stuck open forever.
    Eleanor mixed more and more chemicals together. The smoke turned yellow and blue and red and brown, and it smelled like maybe the Bog Man was coming after you, gurgling and fuming.
    Pretty soon Owen said he’d had enough of the fort too.
    â€œWhy are you being a weejee?” Andy asked.
    â€œI’m not being a weejee. Maybe I’ll be a spy and discover what’s going on with these Junior Scientists!” Then he shinnied down the rusty cable and joined Leonard and Sadie, who were squatting beside Eleanor and her smoking test tube. The clouds were coming out white now and smelled like somebody dying.
    â€œThe power of science,” said Eleanor, “is that you can solve any problem that comes before you. This mixture I’m making now improves respiratory ailments and promotes egg production in chickens.”
    â€œI don’t see any chickens!” Leonard said.
    â€œIf there were chickens,” Eleanor said, “they’d be laying eggs like crazy.”
    Andy called out from up top, “I’m going to lay eggs on you guys if you don’t stop smoking out my fort right now!”
    There was a lot of screaming back and forth, and Margaret came out to tell them to be quiet and play nicely. She was alone with the kids because Lorraine had gone into town on an errand, and Horace and Uncle Lorne were working.
    When Margaret came out Eleanor became polite and soft and said that Andy wasn’t letting them into the fort. So Margaret ordered Andy to let them all go up. When Margaret ordered something there was an extra wood in her voice. It was as if the words became a baseball bat that she just tapped gently a couple of times, and you knew you didn’t want to argue with her.
    So Andy agreed that the girls could go up in the fort if they stopped being Junior Scientists and put out the smoke, which they did. The only problem was that they didn’t know how to shinny up the rusty cable. Owen showed them how to wrap their feet around it and pull themselves up until they got to the top. Eleanor tried and slipped off and said that she thought her dress was going to get rusty.
    â€œWhat? So now you don’t want to come up?” Andy said. “Our fort isn’t good enough for a Junior Scientist?” Eleanor got so mad she grabbed the cable with both hands and kicked her feet wildly, clutched and pulled and clutched and kicked until she got to the top somehow, spitting and saying wild things all the way.
    â€œThis is it?” she said when she got to the top.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Andy asked.
    â€œYou haven’t even got anything to sit on!”
    â€œYou sit on your behind!” Andy said. There were