Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables (32 page)

“Muttonchops?” I said, raising myself up to look.

“Yeah, he’s okay. Talks gruff but he’ll treat you right. Go to him if you hurt yourself or anything. He’s like the professor’s partner or something. Professor makes the drawings, Algert builds it.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Russell nodded again as he took another bite. “We get fed pretty good here,” he said with his mouth full. “Thirty minutes for lunch, unless the professor gets crazy about something.” Russell stopped suddenly and looked around. “And, uh, Donny?” he whispered.

“Yeah?” I said, leaning in.

“Don’t let the professor fool you. He talks all cultured and proper, but he can be as mean as Corbin when he wants to.” He looked over his shoulder again and then said in a more normal tone, “You probably should eat up—he’ll want to talk to you before we start back.”

I chewed another bite of my sandwich. It was ham and cheese with leaf lettuce, and it was really good, but all the stuff Russell had told me about took the taste right out of my mouth. And now I was going to have a private meeting with the professor. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry.

I swallowed my last bite of my sandwich and asked, “What’s he want to talk to me about?”

“Oh, probably just basic stuff about keeping shop secrets—he’s real particular about keeping secrets; we can’t talk about nothing to nobody. He’s got something special planned for you, I think. He’s been waiting for someone your size for weeks.”

My size?
I thought.
Why would he need someone as small as me? What kind of special job would he need me for?

Russell finished his sandwich, stood up, dusted his hands on his pants, and said, “I’d take you to see the professor, but, uh”—he gave me a worried look—“it’s Corbin’s job and he might not like it.” He stuck out his hand and smiled weakly as we shook. “Guess I’ll see you after work. I’ll help you get settled in.”

He wandered off just as Corbin headed over to me, a scowl on his face. “Come on,
Dummy
,” he said. “Professor wants you.”

Corbin led me back into the workshop to a separate room off to the side. It, too, had windows all around so that the professor could keep an eye on the workshop, though many of them were covered by drawings and diagrams. Corbin knocked on the door
and waited until he heard the professor yell, “Come in,” in a cheery voice.

“Professor?” Corbin said as we stepped inside. His relaxed, casual manner changed and he stood straighter with his chest out. But he seemed to be a little nervous, too. “This is Dumm—uh, Donny. Just started this morning. I put him on flaring copper pipes.”

A stout fellow with a full gray beard sat at a wide desk cluttered with papers. He took off his glasses and gave me a hard look, then asked, “How did he do?”

“Not too bad, I guess.” Corbin looked at me sideways, daring me to contradict him. “But I’ll learn him right.”

“
Teach
, Corbin. Teach, not
learn
,” the professor said, speaking each word in a clear, precise manner. Corbin mumbled something and the professor said, “Yes, yes, thank you. You may leave.”

Corbin nodded, then gave me a final, dangerous look as he closed the door.

“Well, Donny,” the professor said with a warm smile, “you seem to have impressed Corbin, and he is not easily impressed, I can tell you. He’s my foreman for all the boys here at the shop, second only to Algert as my most trusted employee.”

The professor sounded just like some of the teachers I’d had, the way his voice boomed out so clear. It made me feel as if I were in school again. I didn’t know if I should say anything or sit down or keep standing or what. Da always told me that the best thing a man could do on any new job was to work hard and keep his mouth shut until asked, so that’s what I did.

“Tell me,” the professor said finally, “how is it that you know how to flair the end of a copper pipe?”

“M-my da taught me.”

“And is your da a handy fellow?”

“Ye-yes, sir. He can fix almost anything when he’s got the tools.”

“Hmm, good. And you’ve been helping him since you were a wee tyke, I take it?” I nodded. “Have you worked on boilers and steam engines, clockwork gears, and such?”

“Some,” I said, my mind racing ahead, trying to figure out where he was going, “but nothing like what’s out in the shop. I never—” I struggled to find the words to describe the wonderful things I had only glimpsed. “I’ve never seen such beautiful machines,” I said, and instantly became embarrassed.

The professor smiled. “Yes, they are quite beautiful, aren’t they? You would be surprised to find that some people think that they are ugly, noisome contraptions.” He walked around his desk, his face practically beaming. “Ah, but each to his own.” He reached out to me and said, “Let me see your hands.”

I thought he was looking to see if I had washed up before lunch. I hadn’t, and once again I got embarrassed. Ma would whack me a good one if it ever got back to her. But the dirt and copper didn’t seem to bother him. “Yes, yes, fine delicate fingers, but strong, too, I’ll wager.”

He pointed at me with the first two fingers of each hand and said, “Here, squeeze them as hard as you can.” His request made me feel strange, and I hesitated.

“Go on, squeeze.”

Finally I reached out and took his fingers and was surprised to find that they were not at all soft and flabby as I had thought a professor’s hands would be. I had thought that he spent his days writing and drawing all his machines, but his hands were rough and calloused and strong just like my da’s.

“Squeeze hard, Donny, and twist. See if you can rip them off!”

I had always heard that the professor was a little crazy, but my da told me to do what I was told, so I started twisting and squeezing as hard as I could. After just a moment the professor yelled, “Ow!” He grabbed his own fingers and rubbed. “You nearly broke them!”

I stepped back, horrified, afraid that I had done something wrong, but the professor was chuckling with glee. He walked around his desk to his chair and sat down. “I told Jarvis to find me a strong little lad and he did. Yes, I think you will do perfectly on the inside.”

“Inside?” I asked.

“Something special we’ve been working on. But first, we’ll need to get you accustomed to our routine, get you settled in, learn more about your abilities. I’ll get Corbin to assign you progressively more challenging tasks each day, and then perhaps after a week, you’ll be ready. But for now, I’m afraid, you’ll just be flaring pipe.”

He looked down at the drawing on his desk and began to trace his finger along a line. “If you have any questions or concerns,” he said without looking up, “don’t hesitate to express them to Corbin. I know he can be tough at times, but I need someone tough to keep you rambunctious boys in line.”

I nodded, a little worried about having Corbin looking over my shoulder, but excited at the possibilities of working on some of the shining machines.

“Just one more thing, Donny.” The professor looked up and leaned toward me. “Can you keep a secret?”

I nodded. I had kept secrets all my life.

“Good. You see,” he said in a loud whisper, “we have several competitors in our business. Unscrupulous men who will stop at nothing to find out our secrets. I suspect they have tried to infiltrate our little workshop with their spies. It is of utmost importance that you talk to no one, not even your own family, about our projects here. Everything—and I mean everything—that goes on in this shop is to remain our little secret, do you understand?”

I nodded, my mouth open and my eyes wide.

“If you dare”—his voice took on a dark, angry edge— “to speak about anything that we do or say here…well, I’m afraid things would go very bad for you. Do you understand my meaning?”

From the look in his eye, I could only imagine that a beating from Corbin would be mild compared to what the professor would do.

“If anyone asks you about your job, tell them that you…that you just flair pipes.” He gave a small laugh and was suddenly all smiles again.

I nodded, my imagination running in every direction at once.

“Good,” the professor said, holding out his hand. “Then welcome aboard, Donny.”

In a daze, I managed to make it back to my workstation and finished out the day much as I had begun, flaring enough pipe to supply dozens of small engines. My mind, though, kept jumping from one thought to the next, trying to imagine what special project the professor needed someone small like me for.

When the steam whistle blew later that afternoon, I was both surprised and thankful. My hands were smudged dark with copper residue and felt swollen and bruised from all the twisting and turning I had done. A slap on my back made me jump and I turned to find Russell grinning at me, his tired face looking bright for once. “Well, you made it through your first day. How do you feel?”

“Tired and hungry,” I said.

He pinched his nose. “Whew! And stinky, too.” He laughed and jerked his head toward the house. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up. I’ll show you where we bunk.”

The next day Corbin moved me over to where they were building some kind of transaxle unit for a heavy cranelike apparatus. The axle itself probably weighed more than a ton, and I could only guess at how much the completed crane would weigh. I had to pack grease into the bearings and joints and then make sure everything was sealed up tight.

As usual, Corbin took every opportunity to push me or smack me in the head and call me Dummy. I began to get the feeling that he not only liked beating on me and the other boys, but actually wanted one of us to get angry and try to hit him so he could really wallop us good. He seemed to be always on edge, and was quick to blame us for anything the professor didn’t like.

Each day I was moved to another section where I would learn about different parts and tools and assembly techniques until I became proficient. Finally, after two weeks, I started working at the steam station. I learned how to stoke the boiler and watch the gauges climb up toward the red as the pressure rose. I learned that each valve and lever controlled and channeled the live steam to
different tools and machines around the shop. All the boys had to work the boiler on a rotating basis, but I was the youngest and the smallest, and it made me very nervous.

Corbin showed me how each valve and lever had to be set for the various configurations required for different machines, always with his customary look of annoyance.

“And this gauge is the most important,” he yelled over the noise. “If it moves into the red, you gotta turn this valve real quicklike. The steam’ll vent out the side there. Anybody standing in the way will get boiled alive. You got it?”

I knew better than to ask Corbin, but I just had to know. “What happens if I don’t open the valve?”

He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and got in my face so close I could smell his bad breath. “We all die, Dummy.”

I swallowed hard. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I didn’t want to blow up the shop, so I nodded and looked scared. Corbin gave me a satisfied, confident smile, then smirked and walked away.

I didn’t like working the steam station, and neither did anyone else. I had to wear goggles and heavy leather gloves and a leather coat that was ten sizes too big for me. The shop was already hot enough without all the extra leather, but standing so close to the boiler with waves of heat melting off it made things almost unbearable.

Every so often Algert would holler or send a boy over to tell me to open or close a valve for a particular workstation. I would adjust the valve and watch the gauges, keeping an extra-sharp eye on the main pressure. As the professor told me, “Steam is a living thing, capricious and unforgiving. If you make even a small mistake, she will burn you…or kill you.”

The next day, instead of shifting me to another workstation, Corbin hit me in the head and told me to go in to see the professor. I knocked and opened the door, not knowing what to expect.

“There you are,” he said, looking up from the drawings on his desk. “Come in and close the door.

“I’ve been getting good reports on you from Corbin and
Algert. You seem to learn things quickly and pay close attention to detail. That’s exactly the kind of lad I need for my special project.”

He stood up and walked around to a corkboard filled with all kinds of diagrams, plans, and technical drawings. “How much do you know about steam engines and machines?”

“I used to help my da when he worked on the engine at the mine. He taught me as much as he could about the repairs.”

“Good, good. That’s a start, a very practical, hands-on education. As for myself, I was a professor for many years at university until I…um…left because of small-minded thinking from the dean. There I learned about steam from more of a theoretical standpoint. I had very little practical knowledge until I started this workshop.

“You see these charts here?” He pointed to several charts hanging on the board and along the walls, and seemed to swell with pride. “I created these at university. This one”—he walked over and smoothed his hand down the front—“is an enthalpy-entropy chart that I developed…along with Richard Mollier, one of my most promising students. It plots the total heat against entropy of a thermodynamic system. Invaluable in any research involving steam.

“But I must tell you, I have learned far more about steam since my retirement than in all my years at university, thanks to my shop. Here I can put theory to practice, and invite knowledgeable persons who have developed their own mechanized inventions.

“Such luminaries as Richard Trevithick, the leading expert on high-pressure steam engines, visited with us for almost a week. We had many interesting conversations, I must say. And Oliver Evans, who was kind enough to explain in detail his Oruktor Amphibolos, a marvelous digging machine, also was our guest. I only wish I could have gotten James Watt here before he died; even though his work is a bit old-fashioned now, I’m sure he would have had some fascinating insights.”

The professor clapped me on the back in a friendly manner. “And now you, my boy…you are about to embark on
an amazing journey…a journey into the very Future of Steam Power!”