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are going to get it!” said Professor Fritz.
    “You have to catch me first!” said the broom.
    Professor Fritz didn’t notice that, when he had put down the jar of blue powder, he’d put it down right over his Bunsen burner.
    Willy didn’t notice it either because he was trying to do two things at once. He was trying to get Manfred the cat out of his back pocket and he was trying to keep the hammer from hitting the screwdriver.
    All of a sudden, the jar of blue powder exploded with a terrific BOOM!
    Everything that could shake shook. Everything that could break broke. And everything that could fly flew away in all directions.
    When the blue smoke cleared away, Professor Fritz found himself hanging from the chandelier by his yellow suspenders. Manfred the cat was sitting on his shoulder.
    Willy was leaning upside down against the wall with his head inside a wastepaper basket.
    “Oh, wow, it’s dark in here!” he said.
    Professor Fritz dropped down from the chandelier and pulled the wastepaper basket off Willy’s head.
    “What happened?” asked Willy.
    “I think my blue powder went boom,” said Professor Fritz.
    “Well, then, I guess that’s the end of that,” said Willy with a sigh of relief.
    “The end, my crazy eye,” said Professor Fritz. “Look.”
    Over on the inventing table, the microscope was hopping up and down. The Bunsen burner was turning somersaults. The rubber tubes were crawling all over like snakes. The scraps of broken glass were jumping around like popcorn. Even the inventing table was shaking.
    “Now you did it,” Willy said.
    “Don’t get so crazy bothered,” said Professor Fritz. “I’ll see to it.”
    He started toward the inventing table, then jumped back in surprise as the drawers popped out of it and all his pencils leaped to the floor. All his papers flew out like flocks of white birds.
    “Hey you, stop!” yelled Professor Fritz.
    He grabbed his butterfly net and he and Manfred started to chase the flapping papers. They could only catch two of them. The rest flew out the window and disappeared into the sky. Professor Fritz stamped his foot.
    “All my inventing notes,” he said.
    Just then Willy cried out: “Professor Fritz!”
    Professor Fritz turned around and saw Willy standing across the room. Willy had the door ajar and was peeking into the living room.
    “Oh, wow,” he said.
    Professor Fritz hurried over to him. “What’s the matter?” he demanded.
    Willy threw open the door. “Look!” he said.
    Everything in the living room had come to life. The sofa was waddling around. The armchairs and the tables were marching up and down. The television set was running in circles. The piano was stamping its feet like an impatient horse and all the window curtains were flapping.
    “Now you did it!” Willy cried.
    “Don’t upset yourself,” said Professor Fritz. “They will all calm down in a minute.”
    Instead of that, the furniture began to leave the room. The only one that couldn’t get out was the sofa. No matter how hard it tried it just couldn’t squeeze through the doorway.
    All of a sudden, the books in the bookcase started jumping from the shelves and flopping across the rug. Little Women bumped into Tom Sawyer. Black Beauty trampled The Wizard of Oz. Hans Brinker skated over Pinocchio. The rug was covered with books pushing and shoving at each other. “Look out!” they cried and “Let me by!” and “One side, Buster!”
    Now the records started falling off their shelves. They slipped from their holders and rolled across the room like black wheels. Manfred started after them, then changed his mind and jumped inside Willy’s pocket again.
    Next, the pictures fell down from the walls and hobbled out of the room, giggling to themselves. The telephone jumped off its table and started crawling away. It pulled at its wire so hard that the receiver fell off.
    “Operator,” said the voice.
    “Don’t bother me,” growled the telephone.
    At that moment,