Bubble in the Bathtub Read Online Free Page A

long auburn hair. His girlfriend and the love of his life. They were smiling and looked so happy that it filled Lisa’s heart with warmth. In the
last
postcard he’d sent, he had written that he was on her trail. In the only other card he’d sent from Paris, in June, he’d also written that he was on her trail. Maybe by now he’d found her?
    Lisa continued scanning the room again and stopped when she spotted an almost empty mason jar with something strawberry-red in the bottom. It wasn’t the strawberry-red that caught her attention, but the label.
    Because it looked like this:

    Lisa took the jar down from the shelf and walked over to a big, rusty filing cabinet. She pulled out the drawer labeled “Unpatented Inventions,” flipped through the files until she got to
F
, and—sure enough—there was a manila folder marked “French Nose Clips.”
    She opened the folder, turned it upside down, and two blue and seemingly completely normal clips fell out. But no instructions. They looked like you would use them for swimming. She tucked them into her jacket pocket and announced, “I found them! Let’s get out of here.”
    She turned around and discovered that Nilly was standing on the workbench with his whole arm down inside another mason jar.
    â€œWhat do you think you’re doing?”
    â€œTaking a little fartonaut powder, what does it look like?”
    â€œNilly! That stuff is dangerous and totally illegal!”
    â€œSo sue me,” Nilly said. “Besides, a normal amount of farting is healthy.”
    â€œA normal amount? The last time you took a spoonful of that stuff, you farted so hard you blasted off into outer space!”
    â€œLeave the exaggerating to me, please,” Nilly said,pouring a fistful of the light blue fartonaut powder into a little plastic bag that he tied shut and stuffed in his jacket pocket. “I flew maybe fifty yards up into the air, and that’s not that high if you compare it to … well, like the Eiffel Tower, for example. You’re a girl, which is why you don’t have any talent for farting. You girls can hardly even manage to make little mouse farts.” Nilly farted an average fart to make his point.
    â€œDid you hear that?” he asked. “Your turn.”
    â€œPff,” Lisa said. “I fart too, but only when absolutely necessary.”
    â€œMy dear Miss Fancy Fart,” Nilly said, screwing the lid back on tight and jumping down. “I officially bet you a ton of sticky caramels that you will
never
fart loud enough that it can be detected by human ears. Better leave the power-farting to us boys.”
    â€œJust you wait and see,” Lisa said.
    â€œWait and
hear
, you mean,” Nilly said, putting one hand behind his ear. “And what do I hear? …
Nothing!
”
    They turned off the light, locked the door, stuck the key back under the mat, strolled through the yard, and stopped under the pear tree to look up at the moon.
    â€œSo I guess we’re going to Paris,” Lisa said. “Alone.”
    â€œAlone together,” Nilly corrected. “And Paris isn’t that far.”
    â€œIt’s farther than Sarpsborg,” Lisa said. That’s where her best friend had moved to.
    â€œJust barely,” Nilly said.
    â€œI have to ask my parents for permission first,” Lisa said.
    â€œForget that,” Nilly said. “They’ll never let you. They’ll just tell you to file a missing person report for Doctor Proctor with the Paris police. And then we both know exactly what’ll happen.”
    â€œWe do?” Lisa asked, a little unsure. “What will happen?”
    â€œNothing,” Nilly said. “No grown-up will believe the stuff Doctor Proctor comes up with. ‘He’s disappearedin time using soap?’ they’ll say. ‘Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?’ That’s why the professor sent that