Never Say Genius (19 page)

“Woo-hoo!” Coke hollered. “This is better than the roller coasters at Cedar Point!”

When they were halfway down, Pep finally opened her eyes. Looking below, she could see her parents sitting on the bench where they had agreed to meet at five thirty. The twins were heading directly toward them.

Down on the bench, Mrs. McDonald looked at her watch.

“The kids are late,” she said.

“We specifically told them to be here at five thirty,” said Dr. McDonald.

“Kids,” they both muttered.

Toward the bottom of the pyramid, Pep closed her eyes again.

“We’re going to land on Mom and Dad!” she screamed.

Luckily, they didn’t. They landed in some thick bushes right
behind
their parents. The bushes served to cushion the impact.

“Ooooooooooof!”

After hearing two thuds in the bushes behind them, Dr. and Mrs. McDonald turned around. Coke and Pep stood up and brushed themselves off.

“When did you kids get here?” Dr. McDonald said. “We didn’t even see you come out the door.”

“We didn’t,” Coke said honestly. “We slid down the outside.”

“Very funny,” Mrs. McDonald said. “Why do you have duct tape wrapped around your heads?”

“Huh?” Coke said. “Can’t hear you, Mom. I have duct tape wrapped around my head.”

Mrs. McDonald carefully removed the duct tape from Coke, trying her best not to rip out his hair.

“I asked you why you have duct tape wrapped around your head,” she said.

“Oh, this,” Coke replied. “Remember Mrs. Higgins, the health teacher at school? Well, she locked us in a recording studio at the top of the Hall of Fame and played Megadeth at full blast. So we wrapped duct tape around our ears to reduce the noise level so our heads wouldn’t explode.”

Dr. McDonald chuckled appreciatively.

“Hahaha!” he said. “That’s a good one.”

Behind their parents’ backs, Coke and Pep shook their heads. The McDonalds walked back to the RV in the parking lot. Coke checked his arms and legs to see if he had any scratches or bruises.

“Tell me the truth,” Dr. McDonald said as they put their seat belts on. “What’s the deal with the duct tape?”

“The truth?” Coke asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s the latest thing, Dad,” Coke explained. “Didn’t you read about it in the paper? You wrap duct tape around your head. It’s a fashion statement. All the kids are doing it.”

“At least they didn’t get tattoos, dear,” said Mrs. McDonald.

“Can we get out of here?” Pep asked. “I’ve had enough of duct tape and rock and roll for the day.”

D
r. McDonald pulled out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame parking lot and drove past the stadium where the Cleveland Indians play their home games.

“I’m
so
disappointed,” Mrs. McDonald said as she thumbed through her Ohio guidebook.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“The Goodyear World of Rubber Museum is closed,” she said sadly. “It would have been perfect for
Amazing but True
.”

“What a shame,” Dr. McDonald said, rolling his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

On the inside, he was cheering. The
last
thing he wanted to do was visit a museum devoted to rubber. This would be one less ridiculous tourist attraction that he would have to endure.

“But I was thinking that we could visit the Goodyear Airdock,” Mrs. McDonald said. “It’s in Akron, less than an hour south of here.”

“Airdock? What’s that?” Dr. McDonald asked, suspiciously.

“It’s a place where they used to build Goodyear blimps,” she told him. “It’s twenty-two stories high, and four football fields could fit inside at the same time. It says here it’s the largest building in the world that doesn’t have interior supports. It’s so big that sometimes it even
rains
inside!”

“Wow,” Dr. McDonald said.

He turned around to see the twins’ reaction. They just stared back, expressionless.

“What do you think, kids?” he asked. “Would it be fun to visit the largest building in the world?”

“Whatever.”

The twins weren’t listening. Pep was feeling guilty about breaking the window at the top of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If anybody found out who did it, they could get into serious trouble. And Coke was thinking about Mrs. Higgins. She had tried to kill them three, four, maybe
five
times now. Each time, they escaped. She must be
really
mad, and determined. What would she try next? When he tried not to think about it, the image of Archie Clone popped into his head.
That
lunatic was running around free somewhere, too.

Cleveland is only about 370 miles from Washington. If they drove straight through the night, it would be possible to get there in seven hours. But everyone was tired and hungry.

The closer they got to their final destination, the more nervous Coke and Pep became. Something evil was waiting for them there. They knew that much. They didn’t know what it was, or what it would do. But they knew it was out there, tracking their every move.

Dr. McDonald pulled onto Interstate 71 heading south and got off at exit 226. It wasn’t long until they had reached Willow Lake Park, a campground in Brunswick, Ohio. It was a nice place, with horseshoe pits, miniature golf, and a basketball court. The family worked together to make a quick dinner, did a dump of the RV’s septic tank, threw a few horseshoes, and called it a day.

“I have an announcement to make,” Dr. McDonald said over breakfast the next morning. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I’ve decided on the subject for my next book.”

“What is it, dear?” asked Mrs. McDonald as she leafed through her Ohio guidebook.

“I’m going to write a biography,” Dr. McDonald replied, “of Herbert Hoover.”

“You should write about one of the more famous presidents, Dad,” Coke said. “Like Washington, or Lincoln, or Kennedy. That would sell lots more books.”

“Yeah, why him, Dad?” asked Pep. “Wasn’t Hoover the president who got us into the Depression?”

“You see? That’s all anyone knows about Hoover,” Dr. McDonald said. “But he was a fascinating man. Did you know that he never took any money for being president of the United States? He donated his salary to charity.”

“Is that so?” asked Mrs. McDonald, looking up from her book.

“I’ll bet you didn’t know that President Hoover spoke Chinese,” Dr. McDonald continued, “and his vice president, Charles Curtis, was part Native American.”

“I actually knew that,” Coke said.

“But did you know that Hoover was the first president to have a telephone on his desk? Did you know that his son had a pet alligator? I’ll bet you didn’t know that President Hoover wouldn’t let his wife see the White House servants. It’s true. Whenever she walked into a room, they had to go hide in a closet.”

“President Hoover sounds like a weirdo, Dad,” Coke remarked.

“Exactly!” Dr. McDonald said. “People
love
weirdos. They’ll want to know more about him.”

“I think it’s a great idea, Dad,” Pep said enthusiastically. “I say go for it.”

At that point, Mrs. McDonald let out a gasp.

“I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed.

“What?”

“This is an amazing coincidence,” she said. “It says here that the Hoover Historical Center is in North Canton, Ohio. That’s less than an hour from here! And it’s even in the right direction.”

“Let’s go!” Dr. McDonald shouted. Even the kids felt good about going to the Hoover Historical Center. Dr. McDonald had sacrificed so much on the trip for the rest of the family. They knew their father didn’t enjoy going to silly museums and tacky tourist sites. But he went along with the rest of the family and was always a good sport. The family hadn’t gone anywhere just for
him
since their short trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats, way back in Utah.

Dr. McDonald drove back on Route 71 South and went seven miles. Then he cut across to Route 77 South to North Canton.

Coke knew that the Pro Football Hall of Fame was right nearby, in Canton, Ohio. It would be much more fun for him to go there. But he was the only football fan in the family, and it would be so much more important for his dad to gather some information for his book on President Hoover. Besides,
everybody
goes to the Football Hall of Fame. How many people can say they’ve been to the Hoover Historical Center?

“I’m thinking of calling my book
Hoover: The Forgotten President
,” Dr. McDonald said as he drove. “What do you think?”

“I like that,” Mrs. McDonald said as she plugged the address of the Hoover Historical Center into the GPS. It led them to the campus of Walsh University.

“
You have reached your destination
,” the voice on the GPS announced.

The RV stopped in front of an old white farmhouse with red, white, and blue bunting over the porch and an American flag on the front lawn. A white picket fence surrounded the house. It looked very “American.”

“I wonder if this was President Hoover’s boyhood home,” Mrs. McDonald said.

“Hmmm, I thought he grew up in Iowa,” said Dr. McDonald.

He pulled out a pen and paper so he could take notes. Mrs. McDonald volunteered to take photos that could be used in the book. Coke and Pep prepared themselves mentally for a few hours of boredom. Even if President Hoover
did
get his son a pet alligator, this place was probably going to be—as Coke put it—“Snoozeville.”

They opened the gate and went inside the Hoover Historical Center. An older woman was sitting behind a desk. A sign behind her said PRESERVING THE HOOVER LEGACY. The admission was five dollars.

“Excuse me,” Dr. McDonald said. “I’m a professor at San Francisco State University, and I’m going to be writing a book about President Hoover. Would I be able to look at his personal papers?”

The woman stared at him for a moment, then asked him to repeat his request. He did.

“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she said. “We don’t have anything about President Hoover here.”

“I beg your pardon?” Dr. McDonald said. “This is the Hoover Historical Center. Certainly you must have a
lot
of information about Herbert Hoover.”

“There must be some mistake, sir,” she replied. “This is a
vacuum cleaner museum
.”

“What?!”

“The Hoover Historical Center is about the history of the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company,” she informed him. “It’s not about Herbert Hoover.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Dr. McDonald said, his voice rising slightly. He looked around to see if there might be a camera crew hiding somewhere to film his reaction for one of those TV shows where they pull pranks on people.

“The Hoover Historical Center is the boyhood home of William H. Hoover,” she informed him. “It’s about vacuum cleaners. Would you like a guided tour?”

Dr. McDonald’s eyes were bulging out of his head.

“The vacuum is between your ears!” Dr. McDonald thundered at the woman. “I didn’t drive two thousand miles to go to a museum about vacuum cleaners!”

“Calm down, honey,” Mrs. McDonald said.

“I’m really sorry,” said the receptionist. “But I think you’ll find our exhibits to be quite interesting.”

In fact, the Hoover Historical Center
was
quite interesting, after the rest of the family managed to calm Dr. McDonald down and agree to take the tour.

It turns out that in 1907 a janitor named Murray Spangler invented a primitive vacuum cleaner because his asthma flared up whenever he swept the floor with a broom. He rigged up a simple machine using a soap box, a fan, a pillowcase, and a broom handle and called the device a “suction sweeper.” William H. “Boss” Hoover was a wealthy businessman who bought Spangler out and started the company.