My mom grabbed the poker with Oliver's shoe and pulled it out of the fire.
The shoe was no longer in flames, but it was still smoking. My mom hurried to the kitchen sink and ran water over the shoe.
Now Oliver's shoe was burned and wet.
Oliver started yelling. "Iggy ruined my shoe!"
"Wow, Iggy," Tate murmured. "You really messed up."
"I was only trying to invent a shoe warmer," I said. "Inventors are always thinking of new ideas."
"Well, you're going to have to think in your room for a while," Mom said, frowning. "And I want you to apologize to Oliver."
"Sorry," I mumbled.
Oliver just stared down at his ruined shoe.
In my room I thought about what a bad attitude everyone had. Well, not everyone. But Tate had a bad attitude. He didn't have to say I messed up.
And Oliver. He had a terrible attitude about visiting us.
I sighed. "Wouldn't it be great," I thought, "if there was something that could change people's attitudes?"
That's when I got an idea for a new invention—an Amazing Attitude Adjuster! What a great idea!
With inventions, you have to figure out how they will actually work. That's the hard part. That was what had gone wrong with my shoe-warmer invention. I hadn't thought about it enough. But this time I was going to think a lot. I would invent the perfect attitude adjuster!
By the time Mom said I could come out of my room, I felt happy again. For me, an idea for a new invention is the best attitude adjuster ever.
Josh, Jenny, and Molly had gone home. Tate was doing his homework on the computer. Oliver was walking around the apartment with his burned shoe half on. It had shrunk in the fire, and now it didn't fit on his foot.
"My foot hurts in this shoe!" he complained, stomping around.
"Well, why don't you take it off?" I asked.
"I can't take it off," said Oliver. "I might get a splinter in my foot from these wood floors."
I let out a loud sigh. Now Oliver was complaining about things that hadn't even happened yet!
Tate looked up. "Why did the boy bury his flashlight?" he asked Oliver, winking at me.
"I don't know," said Oliver. "Why?"
"Because," said Tate, "the batteries were dead."
I started laughing.
"Ha-ha! Get it? Oliver?" I said. "The flashlight's batteries were dead so the boy buried the flashlight!"
Oliver stopped stomping. "That's funny!" he said, grinning. "Tell me another joke."
Tate told Oliver another joke, and Oliver burst out laughing. When I went into the kitchen, Mom greeted me with a smile. "Tate's joke seemed to cheer up Oliver."
I remembered something my grandfather told me once. He said when he was growing up, there was a service called Dial-a-Joke. You could call a special number on the telephone. A recording would come on and tell you a joke. My grandfather said that calling Dial-a-Joke always put him in a great mood.
"Hmm . . . ," I thought. I was pretty sure that Molly had an old toy telephone. It had an old-fashioned wheel for dialing. If I could use it to tell jokes, I could change people's attitudes. I could make them laugh and feel happy!
"Wow, Iggy!" I told myself. "That is a fantastic idea!" It was more than that—it was an award-winning idea. A "get into the Inventor's Hall of Fame" idea!
And cranky Oliver had helped me think of it!