You are probably wondering about our large family I have three older sisters They are Charlotte Emily and Anne They are named after the Brontë sisters who are three dead authors 6 I used to wonder why I wasn’t named after a famous author too It turns out that when I was born the family plan went wrong After three girls in a row my parents thought for sure they would finally have a boy They had a deal before they got married Mom who is an English professor got to name the girls after famous authors Dad who is a mechanical engineer got to name the boys He wanted to name them after engineers and inventors and stuff like that
When I showed up instead of a boy Dad got a little worried that he might get stuck with all girls So he got to name me He named me Curie after Madame Marie Curie But everyone calls me Curious Fortunately for Dad my three brothers came along My brothers are John Glenn Benjamin and Edison You might be able to figure out who they were named after 7 That is enough about my family Let’s get back to me I am a scientist As a scientist I make observations and do research I knew that lightning had something to do with electricity But how did the storm make the lights go out Did it have something to do with the breaker box I wondered just how light bulbs and
electricity worked As I watched John Glenn drag his feet across the carpet I saw in his eyes that he had some ideas about electricity too Sometimes scientists make hypotheses Hypotheses are basically guesses Here is my latest hypothesis Hypothesis When the power goes out at the McCarthy house someone will get into mischief And by someone I mean John Glenn 1 This is a footnote Some of you already know about footnotes For those who don’t footnotes clarify information Thrifty is a word that means the McCarthys are cheap We do
not have a lot of money so we have to use it wisely That sometimes takes a great deal of imagination Like how to reuse an old toothbrush or Easy-Bake Oven 2 A breaker box is where the electricity comes into a house Or a building or a school I guess 3 It was Frankenstein just in case you are curious 4 Electrons are parts of atoms Atoms make up everything for example rocks trees people socks and little brothers 5 The McCarthys are thrifty but saving an old crusty toothbrush is a little too much 6 You probably have never heard of the Brontë sisters They wrote some books that you won’t want to read until you are at least in high school so don’t worry about that now 7 Just in case you can’t that information is in Chapter Two
