Valentine’s Day fell on a Tuesday and Max had made sure to have that day off from Hurley’s Market. It was 6:00 p.m., and he sat at the Red Lobster in Fort Wayne, Indiana with Julie, Rollo, and a girl named Rita. This was the first double-date he had ever been on. In fact, it was the first real date period.

  Julie had begun to attend church with Max every Sunday, which always led them to find a place to be alone afterward. It was a great time for Max, as his feelings for Julie were very strong. But he still wasn’t sure if they were boyfriend/girlfriend or even how that distinction was determined. As was typical, he hoped that she would clarify it for him one day. In the meantime, he was very happy.

  Rita seemed to Max to be very nice. Like most of the girls who gravitated to Rollo, she giggled at everything he said. She was physically very pretty, and he was still surprised that someone Rollo’s size could date such pretty girls. But all he had to do was spend a little time with Rollo to understand, because it was never a dull moment around him. He usually made Max’s sides hurt from laughing so hard.

  “A toast,” Rollo said as he raised his glass of soda.

  Max and the two girls lifted their glasses of soda as well.

  “To the coolest friend anyone could have,” Rollo continued looking straight at Max, “the Mormon pyromaniac.”

  Julie laughed. Rita laughed too, but wasn’t sure why, so Rollo explained what had happened with Max’s experiment.

  “How’s that going by the way?” Rollo asked.

  “Yes?” Julie chimed in, realizing that she didn’t even know. “How is that going?”

  “I think I’m there,” Max replied. Seeing the good-for-you expressions and nods from the group, he added, “I think I have officially reached the point where I know for sure that this is impossible.”

  They all laughed.

  “Are you serious, dude?” Rollo asked.

  Max nodded. “Maybe not impossible, but at least beyond my ability.”

  Rollo offered his condolences. “That’s okay, man. Welcome to the loser club. You still have a lot of redeeming qualities.” Rollo paused and stared into the air for a few seconds. “I’m not sure what they are, but I’m sure you have some.”

  The atmosphere was great, and Max enjoyed the company of his friends. He had never had really close friends throughout high school. He knew everyone, but because he didn’t play sports or wasn’t in the band or didn’t take part in any extracurricular activities at all, he never had that kind of bond with his classmates. Being a devout Christian might not have helped with the “in” crowd either. But he felt lucky to have these guys at this point in his life.

  After dinner, Julie drove back to Max’s house with Rollo and Rita in the backseat, usually making out, which embarrassed Max and disgusted Julie. She looked over at Max and asked, “Why haven’t you told me about the experiments and how they’re going?”

  “I don’t know,” Max replied.

  “But you were serious; you don’t think you can do it?”

  Max nodded. “Yeah, I was serious.”

  “You still have a lot of time left in the semester,” Julie pointed out. “So, keep trying.”

  “I’m going to keep working on it,” Max said. That was an accurate statement. In fact, in a rare move, he had taken a full Saturday off from work to devote to it. Julie had decided to go home to visit her parents this coming weekend, so Max had decided he would spend the entire day seeing how heavy he could make a simple ball of lead.

  ***

  Max looked over his odd contraption. It was set up and ready to test. He had replaced the nail with a longer steel rod. All the coated wiring had been replaced. Years ago, his dad had installed a 220-volt outlet for a welder, so Max now had a 220-volt industrial heater instead of a 110-volt lamp to pull the electricity through the rod. The two emitters were positioned as before, but now the entire thing was set upon a one-inch iron plate, which was about eight square inches in size and set directly on the ground.

  Max took a deep breath, which the cold air turned into mist as he released it. He began to turn the dial clockwise on the amplifier and the coils in the heater began to illuminate. He slowly turned it more. As he neared the halfway point, the iron plate seemed to sink a little into the ground or maybe that was just his imagination. He turned it more. The heater brightened and the iron plate seemed to strain under the pressure. Max turned the dial even more, now a little past the halfway point. The iron plate seemed to cry out from the stress. It was not really audible, but more a sense of unimaginable pressure. It gave Max the feeling of turning a stuck bolt with a large wrench and knowing that any minute the bolt would break. Max noticed that the ball was starting to indent the iron plate. Was that even possible? Maybe the ball itself was flattening. His nerves were on edge knowing that something bad could happen any minute, but he couldn’t resist turning the dial more.

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  Suddenly, the experiment was halted as both emitters fell over onto the ball. Max didn’t know what had caused it, but assumed the stress of the iron must have caused them to fall over due to the vibration. It took Max an hour to figure a way to mount the emitters to the plate. Finally, it was ready, and he tried again.

  He passed the halfway mark with the same effect as before. When he reached the three-quarter mark on the dial, the ball shot off the plate. It happened so fast that Max didn’t even notice which way it went. But now he could see that the iron plate had indeed been dented from the weight of the lead ball. This meant that not only was the ball getting heavier, it was becoming more solid.

  Max killed the power to the amplifier and walked around looking for the ball. He couldn’t find it. He noticed no trails in the dirt to show where the ball had rolled, which meant it must have gone airborne. But surely Max would have heard it hit the walls or any of the other stuff in the barn. He started to get frustrated as he considered the possibility that the experiments were over, at least for today, and he would have to ask Professor Stoner for another ball. Desperate, he tried to retrace possible ways the ball could have gone. As he looked back at the place of origin to see which way the wire had unraveled, there sat the ball on the iron plate as if it had never moved, the wires still in place.

  He shook his head. Between going to college, driving back and forth, working, going to church, doing homework, spending time with Julie, and this experiment, he had begun to seriously cut into his sleep time. But had sleep deprivation caused him to hallucinate? Had the ball been there all the time? It couldn’t have been. After all, he could even see the indention before.

  Max slowly walked back over to the amplifier, keeping his eye on the ball as if it might jump up and run away just to taunt him. He turned the amplifier back on and began at the far-left position again. He passed the midway mark and kept his full attention on the ball. If he felt he needed to blink, he waited to resume. As he neared the three-quarter mark, he watched intensely as he sensed the iron straining once again. One more little turn and it happened again. But this time he knew the ball did not leave the plate; it simply disappeared.

  Several seconds passed before Max realized that his mouth was wide open. Could this be real? He could see the wires, and this time he even noticed that the steel rod was still visible, but its color had blended in with the iron plate, so he hadn’t noticed it before. Everything was still there in its place except for the lead ball itself. It was without a doubt invisible.

  Max slowly turned the dial backwards and it reappeared. As he turned it back more, the less stress it seemed to put on the iron plate.

  Then he had an idea. With the power switch off to the amplifier, he set the dial to the three-quarter mark, the farthest point he had turned it so far. Then he flipped the power switch to the “on” position and the ball disappeared again. No straining of the iron. Just poof, it was gone.

  He walked around the barn trying to get a grip on what was happening. Just then he heard his mom calling out to him. He noticed that it was already 5:00 p.m., and he had been out here most of the day. He decided to call it quits and walked into the house.

  His mom and dad were just sitting down to dinner, so he went into the bathroom and washed his hands. He came back, took his seat, and after his mom asked the blessing, he began to eat in complete silence. His mom and dad didn’t notice how deep in thought he was, or if they did, they didn’t mention it.

  After dinner, Max talked to Julie on the phone for a long time then sat and watched TV with his parents for a short while. At nine o’clock, he decided to go to bed.

  As he lay there in bed, he knew he wouldn’t soon fall sleep. What had he done? What should he do now? Although this seemed like a great discovery, what possible applications could come from it? Max closed his eyes and tried to imagine, but the only visuals he could come up with were military uses. He pictured the government building new planes that could become invisible, making it easier to bomb other countries. He cringed at the very thought.

  He wasn’t sure what time he had fallen asleep, but he knew it was very late. The sun was shining bright through his bedroom window, and he knew right away he had overslept. He jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. His mom and dad were already gone. He looked at the clock. It was almost 11:00 a.m. He had missed church. That had never happened. He was frantic. Then he saw the note on the bathroom door.

  We thought you needed the sleep, so we didn’t want to wake you. We are picking up Mrs. Johnson and Dad said Ryan could teach your Sunday School class today. Please get some rest and we’ll see you when we get back home. Love, Mom.

  Max was relieved, but he still felt bad for missing church. However, it gave him time to address the source of his sleepless night. After a glass of orange juice, he went back out to the barn.

  He decided to get it over with and go for broke. He set the amplifier to the full farthest-right setting. He stood back behind a support beam then took a garden rake and reached over to flip the switch to the “on” position.

  Flip.

  The heater came on and the ball disappeared again, same as before. There didn’t seem to be any difference. Max walked over and turned the amplifier off, and the ball reappeared.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked out loud.