Max Einstein Saves the Future Read online

  Sir Richards ended his lecture by declaring that the 193 member states of the United Nations had agreed to an amazingly big goal: ending poverty and hunger by the year 2030.

  That wasn’t too far away.

  Max and her team, plus people all over the world, would definitely need to help the UN if it was ever going to achieve its goal.

  After hearing Sir Richards speak, Max and her friends were stoked. They started batting around ideas as they strolled back to the dormitory.

  “I like what he said about eliminating meat from our global diet,” said Hana.

  “Because you’re a vegan,” said Klaus. “You ever eat vegan sausage?”

  “Yes,” said Keeto. “It’s not bad.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “More women farmers,” said Siobhan. “Works for me.”

  “Did you know,” said Annika, who liked to gather random facts to use in her logical arguments, “that if women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry people in the world could be reduced by one hundred and fifty million?”

  “Says who?” asked Klaus.

  “The FAO.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”

  “What do you think, Max?” asked Tisa.

  “That you’re all right,” she answered. “For a problem this large, we may need to try a little of everything!”

  “We’ll talk about it more when we land in America,” said Charl.

  “Whoa,” said Keeto. “We’re heading back to the United States?”

  Isabl nodded. “Ben just texted us our new marching orders. We’re to fly to America. He wants us to work with the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University in New Jersey.”

  “Hey, Max,” said Klaus, “isn’t that where your buddy Albert Einstein did a lot of his research?”

  “Yes,” said Max. “He was at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1933 until his death in 1955.”

  “Princeton will be amazing,” said Toma.

  “Pack your things, guys. Ben’s private jet is standing by. We’ll be flying to Princeton ASAP.”

  Max smiled.

  Because, if what Leo told her was true, she wasn’t just flying to Princeton.

  She was flying home.

  20

  The eight members of the Change Makers team, plus Charl, Isabl, Ms. Kaplan, and Leo, would all be driving in one large van to Kidlington, a privately owned airport about six miles north of Oxford.

  Some of the kids, like Klaus and Tisa, had several enormous suitcases. Ms. Kaplan had half a dozen. Max figured most of hers probably had test booklets stashed inside them.

  “There’s barely enough room inside the van for all twelve of us,” said Charl. “We’ll need to stow the bags and gear up top.”

  “I can be of assistance in that regard,” said Leo. “I have industrial-strength hydraulic arms, capable of hoisting several hundred pounds.” Then he giggled.

  Once all the suitcases, duffel bags, and Leo’s travel box were bungee-corded to the roof, the van looked like a great white whale of a pack mule with too much cargo on its back.

  Isabl studied the mountain of luggage perched on top of the van and sighed. “This is going to limit my ability to drive the way I like to drive.”

  Max grinned. She knew how Isabl liked to drive. Fast. And furiously.

  Everyone piled into the van. Max, Klaus, and Leo took seats on the rear bench.

  “Everybody in?” asked Charl, doing a quick head count. “Good. Let’s roll.”

  Groaning under its heavy load, the van lurched away from the stately castle of a dormitory.

  “I want to remind everyone about our competition for the best new ideas,” said Ms. Kaplan once the trip to the airport was underway.

  “Competition?” moaned Tisa. “Why can’t we all just collaborate?”

  “Because,” said Ms. Kaplan, “competition fires up one’s adrenaline and leads to more and better ideas. Think about your solution to world hunger on the flight. Whoever has the best idea will be the new team leader. The new chosen one.” She looked at Max when she said that. “What? Did you somehow think your position was permanent?”

  Max’s face remained emotionless. She wouldn’t rise to Ms. Kaplan’s bait. She didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize her chances of going to Princeton, the place where Dr. Einstein spent his final years. The place where Max might’ve been born!

  “Warning,” Leo suddenly chirped. “Threat level adjustment. Significant. Imminent.”

  “What?” said Klaus.

  “I am picking up Corp communications,” Leo said with a nervous giggle. “They have us, and I quote, in their sights. Triangulating the radio transmission, I suspect they might be currently located… right behind us.”

  “You’re just now telling us this?” cried Klaus, tugging at his hair. “You’re supposed to give us an early warning alert! This, Leo, is not early!”

  Max whipped around.

  Their groaning passenger van was being pursued by a sleek black SUV with a tinted windshield.

  “It is Professor Von Hinkle,” Leo reported. “He has a strike team. Seven members. Four male. Three female. All should be considered heavily armed and extremely dangerous. Suggest initiating evasive maneuvers.”

  “In this hulking box?” shouted Isabl. “Wish me luck!” She jammed her foot down on the gas pedal. The speedometer budged forward maybe one mile per hour. She yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, to swerve around a slow-moving truck. The van felt like it might tip over on its side.

  “They’re gaining on us!” shouted Toma, who never did all that well in tense situations. “We’re all gonna die!”

  “Correct,” remarked Leo. “If conditions remain stable, I would put the probability of death or imminent capture at ninety percent.”

  “We’re not gonna die or be captured,” said Max, who’d been assessing the situation and coming up with a solution.

  “Yes, we are!” whined Toma. “There’s nothing we can do to escape.”

  “Yes, there is. Leo? Can you and your hydraulic arms pop out that window?”

  “Of course,” replied Leo. “However, since this is a rental vehicle, Charl and Isabl will be liable for any damage, such as a broken window.”

  “We’ll pay!” shouted Charl from the front seat. “What’s our play, Max?”

  “The same as always,” replied Max. “Physics! Pure and simple.”

  21

  “Slow down, Isabl,” said Max, calmly.

  “Are you bonkers?” asked Siobhan.

  “If we slow,” said Leo, “the Corp vehicle will be on our bumper in approximately one minute.”

  “Slow down!” Max repeated. “I have an idea!”

  Isabl eased off the accelerator.

  “Leo? Punch out the window.”

  “Again, I must remind you of the liability issues associated—”

  “Punch it out!” shouted Klaus.

  Leo did.

  Air whooshed through the hole, creating a swift shift in air pressure. Everything that wasn’t strapped down inside the van was sucked through the empty window frame as if it were a vacuum cleaner.

  “Okay, Leo,” coached Max. “Now I need you to crawl out and use those hydraulic muscles of yours to unsnap the nearest bungee cord.”

  “If I do that—” Leo began.

  “The outside force of the wind will cause the bodies at rest, in this case, the luggage, to no longer be at rest. All the stuff will go flying. Backward!” Max said triumphantly.

  “Bombarding the bad guys behind us!” said Klaus. “Awesome!”

  “But those are our suitcases,” said Hana. “All my clothes, my…”

  “My suitcase has all my memories in it,” said Max. “And I’m willing to lose it if it means we all get to the airport alive.”

  “Do it, Leo!” said Charl. “Initiate the baggage bombardment.”

&
nbsp; Leo pivoted his torso and, powering up through his hips, stuck his head and arms out the empty window frame. “Standing by to release cords,” he chirped, his words and giggles whipped away by the wind.

  “Isabl?” said Max. “Reaccelerate. Let’s give that wind even more velocity!”

  “Roger that, Max!”

  “Leo? Let it rip!”

  One of Ms. Kaplan’s suitcases slammed into the SUV’s windshield.

  “My shoes!” she screamed.

  “Good,” said Max. “They have a lot of mass, which means, after accelerating, they smashed into the SUV with a ton of force.”

  Other suitcases pummeled the car tailing the CMI van as Leo kept popping more bungee cords free. His travel box shattered into splinters when it slammed into the SUV. Max saw her prized, antique suitcase fly into the hulking black vehicle’s shiny chrome grille. It must’ve hit the sweet spot because the hood popped open, blocking the driver’s view.

  The SUV swerved too hard to the right. It went up on two tires, flipped, and rolled over and over into a ditch, landing upside down.

  If Max had to lose her beloved suitcase and her lifetime collection of Einstein memorabilia, this was a good way for it to go.

  “They are still alive,” reported Leo, sliding back into the van. “They are also very angry.”

  “You still picking up their radio transmissions?” asked Max.

  “Affirmative. However, I am pleased to report, Professor Von Hinkle and his associates are the only Corp strike team currently operating in the United Kingdom. They had no backup or plan B. Therefore, I estimate we have at least a thirty-minute jump on them. Given current traffic conditions and congestion as reported by Google Maps, it will take at least that long for them to commandeer a new vehicle.”

  “Step on it!” shouted Keeto.

  “No problem,” said Isabl, as the van zoomed forward. “This soccer van moves a lot faster without all that extra baggage and wind drag up top.”

  “We know,” said Toma, who seemed much calmer now that the Corp had been temporarily knocked out of the game. “It’s physics!”

  22

  With no luggage, the team boarded Ben’s private jet in record time.

  They moved even faster after Leo reported the latest radio transmission intercept from the Corp strike team.

  “Those members of the Corp strike team who are still mobile have, at gunpoint, hijacked a van. They will arrive at our location in approximately three minutes.”

  “We need to hustle, people,” said Isabl. “Fasten those seat belts. Fast!”

  “Wait,” said Ms. Kaplan, as Charl closed the main cabin door.

  “What’s wrong?” said Charl.

  “What about the van? Shouldn’t we return it to the rental agency?”

  “We have already alerted them of its location on the tarmac and apprised them of the damage done to the rear window. Ben will pay for it.”

  “But I left something in it,” stammered Ms. Kaplan. “A bottle of Pravastatin. It’s my heart medicine.”

  “When did you last take it?” asked Max.

  “This morning!”

  Max turned to the robot with the incredibly deep artificial intelligence. “Leo?”

  “The Mayo Clinic recommends taking Pravastatin once a day, at the dosage level prescribed by your doctor.”

  “She’ll live,” Max said to Charl. “I’m pretty sure they have drugstores in New Jersey. We’ll find you a refill, right after we land, Ms. Kaplan. Right now, we need to be in the air, flying away from England and Professor Von Hinkle.”

  Ms. Kaplan nodded and returned to her seat.

  “Seat belts, please,” said Leo, whom Klaus had quickly programmed to assume all the duties of a typical flight attendant.

  Charl and Isabl sat up front in the cockpit. They were both licensed pilots but Ben’s private jet didn’t really need their assistance. The thing was fully autonomous and could fly itself, once you told it where you wanted to go.

  “Trenton-Mercer Airport in New Jersey, please,” Isabl said.

  “Calculating route,” said a soothing female voice from the control panel.

  The engines started spinning. A few seconds later, the jet was gliding out to the runway.

  “Um, could you ask this thing to scoot a little faster?” said Keeto. “The bad guys are on their way, remember?”

  “We should be wheels up in two minutes,” reported Charl.

  “We are number one for Runway Five-Niner,” purred the voice inside the console. “Flight attendants, kindly take your seats.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Leo, strapping himself into a jump seat behind the bulkhead.

  As the plane began to roll toward the runway, Max glanced out her window. A red minivan with a bunch of stuffed animals came screeching onto the tarmac and braked right where they had boarded. A huge man emerged and stared after them, but he was too far away for Max to see the expression on his face.

  Seconds later, the sleek jet was airborne.

  Max collapsed back into her seat. She’d wanted excitement, but that was a little too much all at once.

  When they reached a comfortable cruising altitude, Leo came up the aisle to offer everyone an assortment of snacks and beverages.

  “Snack?” he said, holding out a basket filled with chips, fruit, and cookie packets. “Beverage?” He was dragging a cart loaded down with soft drinks, cups, and ice.

  “Is this really a good use of his incredible AI?” asked Keeto.

  “Works for me,” said Klaus, grabbing a fistful of peanut bags and a sack of sugary cookies.

  “You realize,” said Hana, “you now have more calories in your grubby paws than most humans are able to consume all day?”

  “Hey, there wasn’t any rice or dirty water on the cart,” said Klaus. “Give me a break.”

  “We’re supposed to be coming up with solutions to world hunger, Klaus,” said Annika. “Not stuffing our faces.”

  “Well, I can’t think on an empty stomach.”

  “You can’t do anything on an empty stomach,” snapped Keeto. “Because your stomach has never been empty.”

  “It was at that hunger banquet last night. For at least an hour. Longest hour of my life…”

  The others laughed and joked and started tossing around ideas for combating world hunger. (One was to put Klaus on a diet so other people had a chance to eat.)

  Max and Ms. Kaplan both remained surprisingly quiet, lost in their own thoughts.

  Max had no idea what Ms. Kaplan was thinking about. Maybe her missing heart medicine. Maybe her lost shoes.

  Meanwhile, Max was focused on one thing and one thing only.

  And it wasn’t world hunger.

  It was her own, personal past at Princeton.

  23

  The group arrived without incident (or luggage) at Princeton.

  First stop was the Princeton University Store where Ben’s credit card bought everyone new clothes, most of which had tigers (the Princeton mascot), the Princeton shield, or just a simple capital “P.” The clothes—mainly sweatshirts, sweatpants, and T-shirts—were black, orange, and various shades of gray. The University Store also sold underwear, socks, and sneakers.

  “We’re good to go,” said Klaus, who loved his new Princeton hoodie.

  Princeton University was nearly as impressive as Oxford. It was founded in 1746 and had what Max thought was a very interesting motto: Dei Sub Numine Viget. Translated from Latin, that meant “Under God’s Power She Flourishes.”

  I flourished here, said the imaginary Einstein in her head. You should flourish even more. After all, you’re a “she”!

  The campus was filled with stately stone buildings that had webs of ivy crawling up their walls. Many of them, like those at Oxford, reminded Max of churches.

  Max knew that Dr. Einstein loved living in Princeton during his “banishment to paradise.” He had moved to New Jersey to escape the rising threat of the Nazis in Germany. In the run-up to World Wa
r II, he wrote that he felt privileged to live in Princeton, which he likened to a calm island in a sea of conflict. “Into this small university town the chaotic voices of human strife barely penetrate. I am almost ashamed to be living in such a place while all the rest struggle and suffer.”

  Max hoped there would be time in her schedule to visit the Albert Einstein home at 112 Mercer Street.

  “We will start working on our World Hunger Project with the Institute for Advanced Study first thing tomorrow morning,” Ms. Kaplan announced.

  Max was eager to visit the IAS, too. After all, Albert Einstein was one of its first professors.

  “This evening, kindly check into your assigned rooms at Mathey College. Then, finish whatever shopping you need to do as a result of losing your luggage. You are also responsible for your own dinner, as well.”

  “Do we have to eat rice and dirty water again?” asked Keeto.

  “No,” said Ms. Kaplan. “The dining hall offers an extensive selection of first world foods—everything from braised beef brisket to cheese and onion mashed potatoes and coconut pudding cake.”

  “Um, are you trying to make us feel guilty about having food?” asked Tisa. “Because, if you are, it’s totally working!”

  Later, when Max went down to dinner, she saw Toma, the astrophysicist from China, sitting at a table all by himself.

  “Mind if I join you?” she asked.

  “Not at all.”

  Max sat down and started eating her pasta. Baked ziti with shrimp.

  “So, are you as pumped as I am to be here?” said Toma. “I mean, this is Princeton! Einstein was here—doing all sorts of heavy thinking about wormholes, gravity, and time travel.” Toma’s eyes darted back and forth, as if he wanted to make sure nobody was listening to what he said next. “I’ve already made first contact with someone from the Einstein Time Travel Institute.”