Tesla's Attic

One of the most popular students at Rocky Point Middle School, cheerleader, inventor, and artist Caitlin stumbles upon the Tesla artifacts; using them, she discovers that her superficial social goals pale compared to the deeper, more important challenges she must face. She and Nick partner to solve the mystery of the Tesla devices. Like Nick, she shows intuitive genius and calm resolve; her character models behavior to which readers can aspire.

Mitch has a motor mouth: “Mitch only needed himself to carry on a conversation” (22). He meets Nick at the garage sale, where he buys one of the strange devices there, then ruins Nick’s first day at school by loudly introducing him as the new kid. Mitch’s device can advise on what’s soon to happen; using it intelligently, Mitch realizes that his father is in prison because the Accelerati used him to make illegal money and then framed him for the crime. Mitch and Nick slowly become friends, with Mitch taking on a role as a younger brother of sorts.

A girl with severely perfect pigtails, Petula insists that her name be pronounced “PETula like spatula, not PeTOOLa like petunia” (38). This matches her personality, which can be petulant. Her last name includes Grabowski, which also fits her tendency to grab after things she likes, including Nick. Petula buys an old box camera at Nick’s garage sale that takes pictures that show the scene as it will look in the future. Petula uses the information she gleans from the camera to bribe or extort students and teachers at school. She also tries to use it to engineer a dating relationship with Nick, but her efforts instead propel her into the arms of Mitch.

Petula’s participation in Nick’s group is motivated by her infatuation with Nick; otherwise, she’s unreliable. Ms. Planck invites Petula to become a candidate for membership in the Accelerati; not realizing—or perhaps not caring—that the group is bent on evil, the girl readily agrees. Petula is the sort of acquaintance who can be helpful or a pain in the neck, depending on her agenda at the moment. She’s a contrast to the more level-headed and decent Caitlin, Nick, and Mitch.

An Eeyore-like pessimist, Vince hates bright colors and lives in the dark basement of his family’s overly gaudy house. He buys the wet-cell battery and uses it to revivify dead pets. This comes in handy when the kids interview Mr. Svedberg after Dr Jorgenson murders him. Vince dies, almost by accident, at Nick’s hands when the TV remote, programmed only to obey Nick, shuts off Vince’s heart.

Vince’s doomsday attitude is a harbinger of troubles that lie in wait for Nick and the rest of the team; his death proves those problems are real and lethal, but the reanimating battery shows that there’s always hope. Vince is loyal to Nick, Mitch, and Caitlin because they overlook his oddities and treat him with respect. His gloomy morbidity and love of zombie stories make him the perfect murder victim, especially as he can be brought back to life with his own Tesla device.

Tall, smooth-talking, and always dressed in iridescent spider-silk suits, Dr Alan Jorgenson is the leader of the Accelerati, a secretive group dedicated to taking over all the world’s major electric power sources. He wants the Tesla devices and will stop at nothing, including bribery, extortion, and murder, to do so. Jorgenson is the chief antagonist of the story.

The lunch lady, Ms. Planck takes pity on Nick on his first day at Rocky Point Middle School and explains where the different social groups sit. She promises him that if he dumps his lunch on Heisenberg, the big boy who pushed Nick aside earlier in the day, he’ll make himself an instant hero to the student body, and her advice works to perfection. She always has words of wisdom for Nick: “Ms. Planck was somewhat like a bartender in the movies, seeing people from all walks of life and having a unique perspective that she was happy to share with those who would listen” (80). She offers a wise, if jaded, adult perspective on Nick’s problems.

Ms. Slate belongs to the Accelerati, and her interest in students is part of her job of recruiting new members. She’s the brilliant adult mentor who uses her guidance of smart and eccentric students—plus the wisdom and knowledge she possesses that lonely, nerdy people crave—to spy on them and recruit at least one of them, Petula, to her side. Her role in the story is complex: She’s at once part of an evil organization and a helpful mentor.

Genius inventor Nikola Tesla hovers in the background of the story. His inventions power the plot, though he never appears as a living character. He was a Serbian-American inventor whom Petula calls “the greatest scientist of all time” (83). Active in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Tesla developed the alternating current version of electric power that nearly all countries use today. He also made strides toward wireless power delivery, did early work on TV transmission, and may have been the actual inventor of the radio. He developed many devices that were far ahead of their time. (A type of magnetic-field measurement is named the tesla in his honor.)

In the story, Tesla’s famous contemporary and competitor, Thomas Edison, forms a secret society, the Accelerati, bent on conquering the world’s energy sources; to complete this task, the group must acquire all of Tesla’s inventions. Thus, the inventor’s devices become the cause of the conflict between Nick’s group and the Accelerati.

The Accelerati is a secret society founded by famous inventor Thomas Edison and dedicated to controlling the world’s energy supplies. Edison’s competitor, Nikola Tesla, sought to make energy cheap and easy; Edison wanted to acquire and control Tesla’s inventions. Brilliant but dedicated to worldwide domination, the Accelerati lie, steal, and kill to acquire what they want: “They were the dark side of genius, the secret shadow of invention” (163). Nick stumbles on a treasure trove of Tesla devices, putting him on the Accelerati’s radar. He’s the chief informant and chief obstacle to the Accelerati’s ultimate conquest of world energy. Thus, the Accelerati and Nick must fight, and this energizes the plot.

Eight-year-old Danny uses cynical humor to hide his anguish over the loss of his mother. When he discovers that the glove stored in the attic can catch meteors, he wishes on these “falling stars” to get his mom back. Instead, the glove pulls a gigantic asteroid toward Earth. In middle-grade novels, Danny’s character is a common type, an older or younger sibling who’s not in on his brother or sister’s plans but manages, often by accident, to interfere with them anyway.

Ex-Tampa Bay Rays baseball pitcher Wayne Slate, known during his pro career as “Whiffin’ Wayne” for his poor hitting, is Nick and Danny’s father. Their mother, a dentist, died when their house burned down, and Wayne must find a new job in their new town of Colorado Springs. The Accelerati give him a lucrative job as a copy-machine repair technician to compromise him. Wayne is the well-meaning but somewhat clueless parent who’s common in middle-grade novels.

A middle-aged jeweler with a crush on Caitlin Westfield’s mom, Alfred Svedberg examines the ring Caitlin finds and declares it the property of the mysterious Accelerati. The next day, he’s dead, but Nick’s group uses the reviving battery to interview him and learn more about the murderous secret society that killed him.

A very large middle-grade student and jock whom nobody likes, Heisenberg has anger issues and shoves Nick aside when he meets him. Nick later dumps his lunch on Heisenberg’s head and wins wild applause from the student body, while Heisenberg steams but does nothing. He later thanks Nick for helping him resist violence and thereby pass a major test in anger-management class.

Heisenberg’s name resembles that of famous physicist Werner Heisenberg, whose uncertainty principle changed particle physics. Indeed, for Nick to perform his food stunt on Heisenberg, he must approach the jock under conditions of great uncertainty. Young Heisenberg sums up all the embarrassing challenges Nick must face on his first day at his new school, and he passes that test with flying colors.