Astrid Maxxim and Her Amazing Hoverbike Read online

  Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike

  By Wesley Allison

  Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike

  Copyright©2011 by Wesley M. Allison

  Kindle Edition

  Revision6-25-14

  All Rights Reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazonand purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are usedfictitiously.

  Cover art by: Shaed Studios, shaedstudios.com

  For my wonderful students.

  It has been a great pleasure being your teacher at

  B. Mahlon Brown Junior High School over the past eighteen years.

  Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike

  By Wesley Allison

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One: The Hoverdisk Failure

  Chapter Two: The New Kid at School

  Chapter Three: Project RG-7

  Chapter Four: Robot Valerie

  Chapter Five: The Battery Presentation

  Chapter Six: Genius at Work

  Chapter Seven: The Trouble with Valerie

  Chapter Eight: Kidnapped!

  Chapter Nine: The Return

  Chapter Ten: The Field Trip

  Chapter Eleven: Austin Comes to Visit

  Chapter Twelve: An Afternoon at the Maxxim’s

  Chapter Thirteen: Mr. Charles Edward Toulson

  Chapter Fourteen: The Great Escape

  Chapter Fifteen: Astridium

  Chapter Sixteen: Hoverbike to the Rescue

  Chapter Seventeen: The Night of the Spring Fling

  Chapter Eighteen: The Kidnappers’Trail

  Chapter Nineteen: The Escape

  Chapter Twenty: All’s Well that Ends Well

  Watch for Astrid Maxxim’s return in…

  About the Author

  Books by Wesley Allison

  Chapter One: The Hoverdisk Failure

  “Help! Help! We’re all going to die!”

  “Stop it, Dad,”said Astrid Maxxim as she steered her father’s car.

  “Somebody save me! For the love of Mergatroid, save me!”

  “Stop it, Dad.”

  “Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!”

  “I’ve already stopped, Dad. The car is parked. It’s right between the yellow lines.”

  “It’s really over?”asked Dr. Roger Maxxim, peering out the car windshield at the massive Research and Development Department building in front of them. “I’m still alive?”

  “You are so very funny,”said Astrid. “You should have been a comedian instead of a mad scientist.”

  “I’m an inventor,”said her father, as they both climbed out of the car. “I am an inventor just like your grandfather and your great-grandfather and your great-great-grandfather. And you will be too.”

  “I already am.”

  “Yes you are.”

  They were parked in Dr. Maxxim’s personal parking space next to the R&D building, a half-mile wide, fourteen story structure that dominated the northwest corner of the Maxxim Industries campus. The campus, sprawling across 180,000 acres of the American southwest, featured machine shops, office buildings, factories, power plants, and its own airport. It was here, where for the past forty-two years, thousands of Maxxim products had been developed and produced, making the Maxxim family very wealthy and making the world a better place in which to live.

  Dr. Roger Maxxim was a tall man whose brown hair was only just beginning to show a touch of grey at his temples. He wore a pair of sturdy glasses, behind which were creases that could more honestly be called laugh lines than wrinkles.

  Dr. Maxxim’s daughter Astrid was startlingly cute, with shoulder length strawberry blonde hair and very large blue eyes. At five foot five, she was exactly in the middle of her class when they arranged themselves by height for their class picture, which still made her four inches shorter than her mother. Like her father, she wore a white lab coat over her street clothes.

  “You see,”said Astrid. “Look at that parking job. That’s just about as good as a person could get.”

  “It’s pretty good,”her father agreed.

  “It’s good enough that I should be able to drive all the time.”

  “I let you drive as much as possible, Astrid.”

  “I could drive a lot more, if I had my own car.”

  “Astrid, the minimum driving age in this state is eighteen,”replied her father. “You know this. You also know that you have only just turned fourteen.”

  “But Dad, I could just drive here at Maxxim Industries. It takes forever to get around here. I wouldn’t drive anywhere else. Honest.”

  “No,”her father said. “In the first place, Astrid, it’s against the rules. In the second place, what would I say to all the other people who work here and are parents of fourteen year-olds? And in the third place, your mother would kill me, so that’s really all the places that I need.”

  The two Maxxims stepped through the revolving door and into the steel and glass lobby of the building, stopped at the security desk to have their ID badges scanned, and then took the glass elevator up to the fourteenth floor. Directly across from the elevator was the desk of office manager Flora Purcell. As Astrid and her father walked by, she jumped to her feet.

  “Before you go into your lab, Dr. Maxxim, there’s something you need to know,”she said.

  “Yes, Flora?”

  “The boss is in there and she doesn’t seem like she’s in a good mood.”

  “Well, we can’t put it off, can we?”he replied. “We might just as well face the music now as later.”

  Astrid followed her father through the door into his private lab. The 20,000 square foot workspace was divided into chemical, biological, robotics, and engineering work areas. Just inside the door, in a small lounge that had been created by forming several plush chairs and couches into a semicircle waited a tall blond woman in a sharp black business suit. She held a clipboard to her chest and tapped her foot impatiently.

  “Good afternoon, Boss”said Dr. Maxxim. “Astrid and I just went out for lunch.”

  “Your hover disc was a huge waste of time and resources,”the woman said without preamble.

  “Nonsense. It’s twice as efficient as my father’s original design from 1956.”

  “It only lifts seventy pounds and it uses up a J46 lithium battery in less than five minutes.”

  “Exactly,”replied Dr. Maxxim with a satisfied smile. “And the original could only lift thirty pounds and had to use all thirty pounds for wet cell car batteries.”

  “I was hoping that six or eight of them could be harnessed to lift an army tank, or at least a Hum-vee,”she said.

  “Oh my. I never promised anything like that, Boss.”

  “What am I supposed to do with a hoverdisk that only lifts seventy pounds and only flies for five minutes?”

  “Perhaps we could sell it as a toy?”suggested Dr. Maxxim.

  “The Maxxim Toy Division brought in $764 million last quarter.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Your research and development costs for the same period were $822 million,”she said.

  “My new battery might make Dad’s hoverdisk more valuable,”said Astrid. “It’s going to be ten times as efficient as any batter
y currently available.”

  “And you,”said the woman, turning to look at the girl. “I knew it was a mistake to let your father build you your own lab next to his. Your playing with batteries has already cost us $357,000 and now I have almost $200,000 in invoices for something called…”she looked at her clipboard. “Project RG-7?”

  “I can’t tell you anything about that yet,”said Astrid. “It’s still top secret.”

  “Top Secret! I’m the Chairman and CEO of Maxxim Industries!”

  “Sorry,”said Astrid, with a shrug.

  “There you go, Boss,”said Dr. Maxxim. “Now, run along. We have to get back to work. We only have one day in the lab this weekend.”

  “Fine, I’m going, but you haven’t heard the last of this.” She stepped very close to Dr. Maxxim and looked him in the eyes. “And if you don’t stop calling me‘Boss,’you’ll be sleeping on the couch.”

  “Yes Boss.”

  “Astrid, see that both you and your father are on time for dinner. I’m tired of eating by myself.”

  “Okay, Mom. We’ll be on time.”

  “Wait till she sees my next project,”Dr. Maxxim told his daughter when his wife had left. “It’s going to be amazing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Can’t tell you. It’s top secret.”

  “Very funny,”said Astrid. “Seriously.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously what?”

  “Seriously, it’s top secret,”said her father. “It’s a little something I’m whipping up for DARPA.”

  “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration? Well, she’ll be happy about that,”said Astrid. “The government always pays its R&D costs up front.”

  Astrid left her father and walked down the corridor to her own lab. It was exactly half the size of her father’s but was set up in the same configuration with most of the same equipment. She went right over to the battery test, where her new invention was powering a small motor beneath a series of heat lamps. She pressed her face against the safety class and read the gauges. Two hundred degrees Celsius, far hotter than any place a battery would be used, at least on Earth, and her little power cell was still going strong.

  “Hey, mad scientist!”called a voice behind her.

  Four kids her age, two boys and two girls, had just entered the lab. Valerie Diaz and Denise Brown were Astrid’s best friends. Denise had long blond hair and green eyes, and was a little on the skinny side, while Valerie was a few inches shorter with beautiful dark hair and brown eyes. Toby Bundersmith had lived next door to Astrid since she was born and was, at least in Astrid’s opinion, everything that could be good about a boy, with a tall muscular body, brown bangs just above his hazel eyes, and a broad smile. Christopher Harris was Toby’s best friend. He was tall, with chocolate brown skin and black hair. He was quiet but had the highest grades of anyone at school, with the exception of Astrid. All four kids had a parent who worked for Maxxim Industries—in Christopher’s case, two parents.

  “Why are you wasting your time watching that test?”asked Denise. “I thought you said it was going to keep going until at least Tuesday.”

  “I hope it does. I was just checking.”

  “We’re going over to my house to go swimming,”said Toby. “Are you coming?”

  “I’m supposed to remind Dad to be on time for dinner…”

  “Mrs. Purcell can remind him,”said Denise. “And you can call him just to make sure. Come on.”

  “Alright,”said Astrid, and followed her friends out the lab door.

  Just before she passed through the portal, she cast a single quick glance at the crate in the far corner—the crate labeled“Top Secret. Project RG-7.”

  Chapter Two: The New Kid at School

  Despite Astrid’s assertion, it wasn’t really all that hard to get around at Maxxim Industries. It was a ten minute walk from the R&D building to the monorail station. The five teens boarded the sleek elevated train which ran all over the campus as well as to the neighboring town of Maxxim City, where they all lived. Once they stepped off the train it was a twenty minute walk home to Acacia Avenue, where both the Maxxim and Bundersmith homes were located.

  They spent the afternoon swimming under the watchful eye of Mrs. Gerta Bundersmith, Toby’s great aunt, who had come to live with him and his father two years before, when they had lost his mother to cancer. Astrid arrived home in plenty of time for dinner, and thanks to three phone calls and Mrs. Purcell, her father made it too, only five minutes late.

  Astrid would gladly have spent her Sunday at the lab, and she usually did, but this Sunday the R&D was completely shut down for a seminar two miles away at the Advanced Research Institute. So, she spent most of the day in her room on her computer. She had a paper on Quantum Theory for her physics class due in two weeks anyway, and she didn’t want to wait until the last minute to finish it. Every so often the computer would chime and she would read a message from Denise, answer it, and return to her work. Most of Denise’s messages were questions about which of the most popular boy singers would look best on her arm at the Spring Fling. Astrid in turn, pointed out that it was no more likely that any famous singer would be visiting Rachel Carson High School on the day of the Spring Fling than it had been on the day of the Freshman Mixer, Sadie Hawkins Day, or the Winter Festival.

  Astrid woke up the next morning to the sound of the alarm clock. She showered and did her hair, pulled on her skirt, shirt, and tie; socks and shoes; and blue uniform blazer, and would have bounded right out the door with her backpack, if only her mother hadn’t insisted she stop and eat breakfast. French toast was not the breakfast for someone who was excited to be on their way, but she had to sit. Her father read the news from his digital tablet as he absentmindedly dunked his French toast in his coffee instead of his syrup. Her mother watched her like a hawk from the other side of the table to make sure that she ate.

  “Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad!”called Astrid, as she shot toward the door after the required minimum seven bites.

  “Learn stuff!”called Dr. Maxxim.

  “Stay out of trouble!”called her mom.

  As always, Toby was waiting for her at the sidewalk, right where the massive row of poplar trees divided the Maxxim property from the Bundersmith property. His uniform was neatly pressed and his hair was slicked back. He carried his backpack slung over one shoulder.

  “You look nice,”said Astrid.

  “Really? You don’t think I look stupid?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Great aunt Gerta put this stuff in my hair.”

  “Is it like gel?”

  “No, it’s like axel grease,”he replied.

  “Well, you look fine.”

  They walked the carefully cultivated sidewalk, shaded by overhanging trees, until they reached the corner of Fourth Street, where they found Denise waiting in front of her house. Christopher lived two blocks further down, and was waiting for them at the corner of Cyprus Avenue. From there it was a short block south to Fifth, where Valerie lived. Valerie, who all agreed spent an inordinate amount of time on her hair, was always late and today was no exception. But ten minutes later, they arrived at Main Street and climbed aboard the monorail train that took them to school.

  Rachel Carson High School was not actually in the city at all, but sat just inside the border of the Maxxim Industries campus. It was a large, three-story, modern structure with its own internal monorail station on the top floor. As they stepped out of the train, the five teens gave each other a quick wave and hurried toward their classes.

  Astrid and Christopher were both on program one, so they had the same classes, except third period when she had Physics and he had Chemistry, and fifth period when she had Biology and he had Geology. Denise and Valerie were both on program five, so they spent their day together. Astrid got to see Denise in first period because she was in English Composition with her and Christopher, but she didn’t have a single class with Valerie. The only class s
he shared with Toby, who was on program seven, was seventh period when they were together in Fencing.

  Even though they spent a great deal of time away from each other during the day, the whole gang always got together in the Quad at 12:00 for lunch. Astrid had been looking forward to lunch since she read the menu that morning just after the Pledge of Allegiance—Sicilian broccoli and cauliflower pasta with pine nuts, whole grain garlic bread, tossed salad, and yogurt parfait. Toby, Denise, and Valerie were already sitting at their usual table when she and Christopher sat down.

  “So, how’s it going?”asked Toby.

  “Fine,”said Christopher and everyone agreed.

  “I heard Mr. Kramer is sick,”said Valerie. “I guess we’ll have a substitute today.”

  “I don’t like substitutes,”said Denise. “We always end up behind. Then we have to work all that much harder the rest of the week.”

  “You won’t get behind today,”said Toby. “My dad is your sub today, so count on extra homework.” He laughed. “I’m glad I don’t have Geometry.”

  “You just wait,”said Valerie. “When my dad subs, he’ll have you swimming extra laps.”

  At Rachel Carson High School, all parents were required to serve six days a year as faculty or staff members. For Toby’s father, who was a structural engineer, that usually meant teaching Math. Valerie’s father, head of security for Maxxim Industries, usually either taught a Physical Education class or served as a school safety officer.

  “Hey, what’s going on over there?”wondered Denise, indicating a table across the Quad from where they sat.

  “It looks like Mark McGovern is picking on that kid,”said Christopher. “He picked on me last year because I have dark skin.”

  “He picked on me because my mother is from Mexico,”said Valerie.

  “He picked on me because I have two dads,”said Denise.

  “He calls me a nerd all the time,”said Astrid.

  “Well, he never picked on me, because I’d sock him in the teeth,”said Toby. “Do any of you know that kid? He was in my Swimming class last hour.”