Tesla's Attic

The asteroid pulled toward Earth by Danny’s glove was named a year earlier. The name was purchased for $10 by a teenager visiting a radio astronomy observatory. The huge space rock’s name is “Celestial Object Felicity Bonk” (166). It will arrive in a week and end the world. Its estimated impact point is a sports complex in Colorado Springs.

For Petula, using her Tesla camera to take pictures of the future is largely disappointing: Nothing much happens most of the time. She learns to scout out small details that might suggest something interesting soon to happen. When she finds and photographs them, sometimes they give her valuable information that she can trade for favors.

Petula develops her photos in Ms. Planck’s darkroom. Most shots show simple hallways and tables; Planck admires these efforts.

Petula tells Principal Watt that the teacher he wants to get rid of, Mr. Brown, can be caught drinking during his prep period. When Cindy Hawthorne suffers a big nosebleed at lunch, Petula’s there with napkins. Sometimes the predictions don’t seem to come true, at which point Petula intervenes, and they do happen as pictured: “[…] although it was clear she had no power to change the future, if she knew what that future was, she had every power in the world to create it” (170).