one by one It took nearly a half hour of unwrapping before she uncovered a present for Gerdie Gerdie opened it It was a dog collar Linda and Luanne laughed the loudest in a chorus of giggles Gerdie wanted to throw the collar into the crowd along with a few well-aimed punches But her mom quickly handed her another present Don’t be mad The girls are just teasing Gerdie opened the small box and suddenly her scowl was replaced by a toothy smile It’s an Inimation 410A A what her mother asked It’s a state-of-the-art scientific calculator with over four hundred mathematical functions It has a two-line display with thirty-two levels of parenthesis It does formula notation variable statistics fraction and decimal conversions Boolean operations probability searches degree radian and grad conversions sine cosine and tangent calculations as well as exponent and trigonometric functions It also has a hundred and fifty megabytes of memory storage plus it runs off a solar cell Gerdie stopped talking She knew everyone was staring at her even the party clown It’s very advanced she finished quietly What a nerd Luanne said as she Linda and her mother left Gerdie to go to the patio which they were using as a dance floor Their mom was entirely too old to dance with the girls and their friends but it didn’t stop her from teaching them a goofy dance she called the Electric Slide She was giggling like a twelve-year-old Gerdie looked around Who would have bought her such an amazing present She shook her head Oh who cared She
couldn’t wait to test it She turned to run back to her room but standing behind her was a man built like a tree with thick arms and legs He had jet black hair with a white stripe down the middle just like a skunk and it hung down in his eyes He had a long shaggy beard and an eye as white as snow At the end of one of his arms was a silver hook where his hand should have been Here’s one more the strange man said handing Gerdie a thin envelope with his good hand Just like the envelope upstairs it was addressed to her My employer hopes you have a happy birthday Huh Who is your employer Gerdie asked but the man turned and hurried away Are you with the caterers But he was gone Gerdie shrugged off the odd encounter and opened the envelope Inside was a piece of plain white paper that read X 41 6443 3 What is it Gerdie You look like you don’t feel well her mother said stepping off the dance floor for a breath of fresh air Gerdie didn’t answer Instead she darted into the house up the stairs and back into her bedroom slamming the door behind her She snatched her notebook off the bed then fumbled to open her new calculator with nervous hands Once it was powered on she typed in her equation Then she punched in the mystery number for the value of x and pressed the Equals button Suddenly the calculator buzzed and blinked and bounced around in her hand Its plastic case got so hot that
Gerdie dropped it on the floor There was a POP and a CRACKLE And then the screen went black No she cried scooping it back up ignoring the burns to her hands She punched the buttons but there was no life left in it She tossed it aside and buried her face in her pillow Tears streamed out of her eyes soaking her cheeks and lips She needed the answer to her equation It would change everything And then she heard the Inimation 410A hum to life once more She sat up wiped her eyes and looked down at the calculator lying on the floor On the screen was flashing a number 17 17 17 Gerdie couldn’t believe what she was seeing The math problem she had labored over for more than a year and a half was solved The dark ocean had calmed and the numbers had found dry land in the form of the beautiful number 17 Gerdie raced to her closet and threw open the door Inside was a tube of blue-and-gray drafting paper She unrolled it on her desk and smoothed it out to reveal the plans for a bizarre looking machine It had buttons and knobs and two glass tubes rising out of the top She studied it like it was a masterpiece hanging in an art museum Then she glanced down at the mysterious letter still crumpled in her hand Attached to the paper with the equation was another letter this one on stationery from a place called the Arlington Hospital for the Criminally Insane It was signed Happy birthday from your pal Heathcliff Gerdie smiled
Thank you Heathcliff This is the best birthday present ever THREE DAYS LATER Gerdie tightened the final screws on her creation She stepped back to admire her beautiful invention Two glass tubes rose from the top like bunny ears straps hung down like limp arms and its faceplate had a dozen different dials and parts from old video game consoles In truth it was an ungainly misfit but then again so was its creator No matter The government would pay her a fortune for the machine once they saw what it could do She tapped the power button and heard the motors turning A fuzzy map formed on one of the tiny monitors and after peering at it for a long moment she punched some coordinates into the keyboard on its side It weighed a ton but she hefted the device onto her back and reached over to push the record button on a mounted video camera A good scientist always documented her successes and her failures
