Max Einstein Saves the Future Read online

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First ebook edition: August 2020

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  ISBN 978-0-316-42884-2

  E3-20200626-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Story So Far…

  Prologue

  The Present London, England

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Max Einstein is at it Again!

  Change Makers Institute Business Cards

  I Am…” Poem

  Friendship Factoids

  Thunderclouds of Discovery

  Test Your Knowledge

  About the Authors

  Jimmy Patterson Books for Young Readers

  James Patterson Books for Young Readersawards and Nominations

  Newsletters

  The Story So Far…

  Max Einstein is not your typical twelve-year-old genius.

  She hacked the computer system at NYU so she could attend college classes. She built inventions to help the homeless people she lived with.

  She talks with her hero, Albert Einstein. (Okay, that’s just in her imagination.)

  But everything changed when Max, a homeless orphan who’d never known her parents, was recruited by a mysterious organization known as the Change Makers Institute! Their mission: solve some of the world’s toughest problems using science. She led a diverse group of young geniuses from around the globe as they invented new ways to bring electricity to the farthest reaches of the planet and cleaned up an Indian village’s water supply.

  But they can only continue to do good in the world if the sinister outfit known as the Corp doesn’t get to Max and her new friends first.

  Because they’ll do whatever it takes to stop Max and her team of do-gooders.

  Prologue

  1921

  Princeton, New Jersey, USA

  The young couple placed their baby daughter in a cardboard box lined with a soft, brown flannel blanket.

  “Stay put,” cooed the mother.

  “We’re expecting a very special guest this evening,” added the father.

  The mother nodded. “Our mentor! The one who got all of this started!”

  She swept open her arms to take in the strange collection of electronic contraptions and lab equipment set up in the basement of their modest home on Battle Road, not far from the Princeton University campus, where both husband and wife were distinguished professors.

  As physicists, they were extremely creative and inventive. Which is why the two geniuses created a playpen for their daughter out of a cardboard box.

  The baby loved it. She smiled and gurgled and settled into her fuzzy blanket, watching her parents bustle around the room. They spun dials, tapped buttons, and shoved levers into their upright “on” positions—setting off a colorful array of blinking lights.

  The baby oohed and brought her pudgy hands together. She stared at the blinking lights.

  Soon, the whole basement began to hum.

  “I suspect Professor Einstein will be impressed,” offered the father.

  “I hope so,” said the mother. “After all, he inspired our experiment. This is all because of him.”

  Back when the brilliant father and mother were graduate students at Princeton University (two of the youngest ever because they were both considered child prodigies), they’d heard the distinguished Albert Einstein give a lecture about general relativity. They’d been working on its practical applications ever since.

  The thrum of turbo-charging electricity and spinning magnetos in the basement was now so loud, the couple almost didn’t hear the doorbell ringing upstairs.

  “It’s him!” exclaimed the father. “He’s here. Professor Einstein himself!”

  “Did you remember to pick up the orange cake and strawberries?” asked the mother as they both hurried to the basement’s wooden staircase.

  “Yes, dear. We’ll need to whip the cream…”

  “We can do that after our demonstration!”

  They hurried up the steps to greet their guest, leaving their baby alone in the basement, mesmerized by all the strange sounds and the bright rainbow of blinking lights.

  She crawled out of the cardboard box and made her way across the cold concrete floor, which seemed to be growing even colder as frost appeared on the insides of the basement’s windows.

  The baby
scuttled around stacks of wooden crates and made a beeline toward an open suitcase.

  Taped to its open lid was a glossy photograph of a man with funny, frizzy hair. The shiny portrait reflected the dazzling light show and drew the baby closer. There was some kind of scholarly paper tucked into the suitcase as well. The baby, of course, couldn’t read what was written on it. All she wanted was to reach out and touch all the brilliant lights twinkling and dancing on the friendly face of the white-haired old man.

  The water pipes in the basement ceiling groaned and rattled as they froze.

  The windows were now caked with two inches of ice.

  The baby could see her own foggy breath.

  Suddenly, there was a flash of blindingly bright light. An arc of indoor lightning.

  The noise ceased.

  The cold vanished.

  And the baby girl’s whole world would never be the same.

  The Present London, England

  1

  Max Einstein strode through the fog of London, her open trench coat flapping behind her like a superhero’s cape.

  Her mop of curly red hair was even frizzier than usual because, as she of course knew, the chemistry of human hair made it susceptible to changes in the amount of hydrogen present in the air and that, of course, was directly linked to humidity because all that foggy, airborne water was made up of two hydrogen atoms per molecule.

  Thinking about the chemistry of her hair kept her mind occupied. For about two seconds.

  Then Max was bored again.

  She was in London impatiently awaiting the next Change Makers Institute assignment from the program’s benefactor, Benjamin Franklin Abercrombie, whom Max just called Ben. Hey, even though he was a bajillionaire, he was only two years older than Max. He was also extremely cute. And she especially approved of the way he spent his money—funding a league of kid geniuses to tackle the world’s problems without any interference from governments. How awesome was that?

  Max thought about Ben for maybe a nanosecond then flipped back to being bored and frustrated because Newton’s first law of motion, sometimes called the law of inertia, never seemed to apply to twelve-year-old Max Einstein. Newton stipulated that an object at rest stays at rest while an object in motion stays in motion.

  The problem? Max Einstein didn’t know how to rest. She craved action. Constant forward motion. Staying inert just wasn’t her thing.

  Her mind flitted back to her decision not to wear a knit hat as she traipsed around London—some kind of disguise to keep her frizzy, floppy tangle of red curls out of sight because her hair was something of a homing beacon for any nefarious villains who might be searching for her.

  And they were.

  A shadowy group that called themselves the Corp was very interested in recruiting Max and her extremely high IQ to switch sides and play for their team. Even if it meant kidnapping her. Fortunately, Max’s London roommate, who used to work for the evildoers before he had a major change of heart, advised her that, according to his vast network of undisclosable contacts, “The Corp has no idea that either of us is currently situated in London, England.”

  Leo, her roommate, always called it “London, England,” even though nobody else did. He was just a little odd that way.

  With Leo’s assurance that she’d be safe, Max had decided to make her waiting time in London not feel like a waste of time. She would boldly venture outside of her cramped flat (what Londoners called an apartment) in a youth hostel (Ben’s choice) and visit all the spots in the city that her hero, Albert Einstein, had also visited when he was in London. She would occupy the same space, though not the same time, that the great genius had occupied. Maybe, Max figured, it would somehow bring them closer. Even if it didn’t, the experiences would be fun and educational. And like Dr. Einstein said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”

  Max longed to experience at least one new thing every day.

  That’s why she was marching through the fog, headed for someplace she’d never been before: the Royal Albert Hall. Located in London’s South Kensington district, it was opened by Queen Victoria in 1871 and named in memory of her husband, Prince Albert. It was home to nearly four hundred performances each year, everything from rock and pop concerts to classical music and ballet to award ceremonies. Celebrated names from the hall’s history who were honored with stars and engravings around the outside of the building included Adele, Eric Clapton, Winston Churchill, Muhammad Ali, and, of course, close to door 5, Albert Einstein.

  There was a concert that night, though Max didn’t have a ticket.

  But she didn’t think she’d need one to get in.

  Because she was in possession of something that she was confident would become her secret all-access pass.

  2

  Einstein once said that “reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

  So Max had decided to create her own illusion of reality. That’s why she was carrying an empty violin case, which was also a small tribute to her hero. Albert Einstein started taking violin lessons when he was six years old and continued playing his whole life. He named his violin “Lina” and could play Mozart sonatas beautifully. Music, he said, helped him when he was thinking about his theories or working on a thought experiment.

  Now Max hoped music would help her sneak into the Royal Albert Hall.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the first security guard she saw. “Where’s the musicians’ entrance?”

  She wiggled the violin case to make certain the guard noticed she was carrying one.

  “Stage Door. Just around the bend there, past door number one. You can’t miss it. Cheers.”

  “Thanks!” Max didn’t feel guilty about tricking the guard. She never said she was a musician. She just let him create that particular illusion of reality all by himself, and she didn’t even have to be very persistent about it.

  The stage door allowed Max to skip the crowds lining up at the main entrance and, of course, the ticket takers. She acted like she knew what she was doing and, in no time, was standing backstage in the darkness of the wings.

  This is where Einstein stood, she told herself.

  No, I was a little bit to the left, replied Einstein.

  Einstein wasn’t really there. This was just something Max did from time to time. She had wonderful, unspoken conversations with the imaginary Einstein in her head. To her, he wasn’t just a world-renowned genius—he was a funny, grandfatherly figure with a wicked sense of humor.

  But standing right where (or close to where) her idol had stood on October 3, 1933, gave her goose bumps. That night, Professor Einstein spoke to a packed house about his fears for the looming crisis in Europe, where Adolf Hitler and fascism were on the rise. It was six years before World War II, but to Einstein and other Jews living in Germany the horror was already very real.

  Being in the same space where Einstein had been at a different time made Max muse about looking for a wrinkle in the boundaries of space and time. Wouldn’t it be great to step across that wrinkle and go back in time to meet her hero? He’d been here then. She was here now. If only their timelines could somehow overlap and intersect!

  Then, maybe, together they could find another wrinkle in time and leap into the future, so Max could see what it held for her. Or maybe, Dr. Einstein could show her how to travel twelve years backward in time so she could finally figure out who her parents were.

  Max had been an orphan for what seemed like her entire life. She had some vague memories of her parents. But they were fuzzy. The gray and blurry kind you can almost but not quite recall from your crib.

  Even if Dr. Einstein couldn’t do all that, Max could at least warn him about the Nazi bounty hunters shadowing him on his 1933 London visit.

  I read about it, she said to her imaginary Einstein. There was a plot to assassinate you while you were here.

  Ah, replied the Einstein in her head, but it wasn’t a very good plot, was it? I survived until 1955! And
don’t you think it’s nice that they call this the Royal Albert Hall? It was so kind of them to name it after me.

  Max smiled. She loved it when the Einstein in her head made one of his corny jokes. It made him feel even more like a grandfather, something she’d never had.

  Are bad people still following you, Maxine? Einstein asked.

  Yes. The goons from the Corp. But, don’t worry—they’re not here in London.

  And, of course, the instant she said that, two burly men dressed all in black stepped out of the shadows toward her.

  3

  “What are you doing back here, young lady?” asked one of the men. He had a curly communicator wire coming out of his ear. He also had arm muscles the size of most people’s thighs. His pumped-up partner looked exactly like him, except with a blond buzz cut instead of a brown one.

  Max thought about replying, I’m communing with my muse, but she didn’t think the two men, who were wearing black SECURITY T-shirts, would appreciate that answer. So she held up her violin case again.

  “I’m a musician?” Yes, she said it like a question, which is seldom a convincing way to give an answer.

  “Is that so?” said the blond buzz cut. “Violin?”

  Max nodded.

  “Don’t remember a capella groups such as this evening’s performers using violins. Typically, they just use their mouths.”

  Max glanced to her left. A group of six singers had stepped into the wings. None of them were carrying a musical instrument.

  “Let’s go, miss,” said the brown-haired bouncer, gently taking Max by the arm and escorting her toward the exit. “I’d love to let you see the show for free, but then I’d most likely lose my job. Cheers.”

  Two minutes later, Max was back on the street outside the Royal Albert Hall. It was probably a street that Albert Einstein had walked but it just didn’t have the same magical feeling as being backstage.

  Frustrated, Max stepped into one of London’s red phone booths (which didn’t have a phone in it) and pulled an encrypted satellite phone out of her trench coat’s deep side pocket.

  It was time to call Ben. Fortunately, Max had his direct number. (He’d also paid for the very expensive Iridium Extreme satellite phone.)