Basia, Filip and Olgierd start a club for wild inventions at school, but their first creations bring strange, funny trouble and something even stranger into Room 23.
Basia Wróbel had two reliable facts in life: her pencil case contained the best collection of funny erasers in the class, and her imagination never, ever sat still. Filip Grzelak could fix almost anything, including the school projector remote, though after one heroic repair it only skipped through snail cartoons. Olgierd Witek drew technical diagrams in the margins of every notebook, even biology, as if mitochondria might one day need blueprints.
So, by the time Monday afternoon rolled around, it seemed perfectly natural that the three of them should turn Room 23 into the headquarters of the School's Unusual Inventions Club, or SKNW for short. The room was supposed to be boring. That lasted about ten minutes.
Basia unpacked a bright shoebox full of odds and ends. Filip arrived with a pocketful of screws, springs, and one suspiciously large button. Olgierd slid a neat sketch across the desk: the Automatic Homework Maker. It had tiny sticker arms, warning lights, and, because Basia insisted every invention needed a dramatic touch, a lever labelled: FAILURE? KICK HERE.
"That is an excellent idea," Basia said, which meant she was already laughing.
Their first project was a turbo-monocle made from a crisp packet and two bent wires. Unfortunately, it only worked when pointed at sandwiches. Filip tested it and announced that Jerzyk from 4B was, at that exact moment, eating something with serious dedication. Next came Olgierd's Automatic Parallelogram Solver, which should have been useful and impressive. Instead, after one crossed wire and one unfortunate wobble, it began glowing pink whenever anyone walked near the board.
By then, the room looked less like a club and more like a workshop that had sneezed.
That was when Ms Jola, the janitor who could spot a dropped jelly bean from three corridors away, appeared in the doorway. She had been lured by a strange clattering sound and now stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the mess.
"What exploded this time?" she asked.
Basia opened her mouth to answer, but a low buzzing came from behind the wardrobe.
The cupboard door creaked open by itself.
Out zipped a tiny yellow helicopter made of ice lolly sticks, spinning so fast it was almost a blur. On top of it sat a stuffed frog wearing a helmet made from a milk cap. The frog looked unnervingly serious for something made of plush.
Filip stared. "Oh no. I think that's our prototype self-flying sandwich feeder."
The helicopter dipped over their heads, nearly clipping Basia's hair ribbon. Ms Jola shut her eyes for a second, as if counting to five in her head.
"Just don't let it fly into the staff room," she said quietly.
Too late.
The little machine suddenly banked toward the half-open door to the corridor.
Basia lunged. Filip grabbed a screwdriver. Olgierd stared at the frog, then at the blinking red button on the side of the helicopter.
"Did anyone," he whispered, "press Start Mission?"
The helicopter shot through the doorway, and from the corridor came a sound like a tray of spoons hitting the floor.