Finally, after what seemed forever, the door opened a crack and a very bright cheek Sally was sticking her hand out and waving for them to come in.  One by one, they climbed the stairs, looking cautiously around, and crept into the Pickle Factory.  Jr was the last one in, and as he closed the door behind him, the smell of vinegar assaulted his nose.  The others had similar expressions of distaste on their faces.
     "Oh, forget the smell." Sally said excitedly, "Wait til you see what I found!.  Come on, follow me."  She pulled hold of George's jacket and drew him into the darkened hall.  The others followed.
     Sally hurried, while the others took in the sight of the place they had never been allowed inside before.
     "Come on, look later."  She urged, and they quickly caught up with her.
     "Where are we going?"  George asked.  "What did you find?"
      "I have to show you." She kept moving. " When I came down the stairs, I went too far and ended up in the basement.  That's what took me so long.  You know how the stairs at school keep going around and around, well, it's like that.  I just went down too many."
     Realizing they were all headed to the basement, Jr paused a moment, "Hey, that's where the deliveries come in.  You know all the cucumbers and stuff from the farm. What could be so exciting down there."  Truth be known, he was a little frightened of basements.  They were always so dark and smelly.  And you could never tell what was what.
     "Just follow me."  She had reached the stairwell. Without pausing, she started down the metal steps making a lot of noise as she went.  The others followed, forgetting now the need to be quiet.  When Sally got to the bottom step she came to an abrupt stop.  There were two metal doors, with small square window too high for them to see through.
     Sally, a little more reserved now, said, "Now don't freak out." as she slowly opened the door.  It was even darker in here then the hallway had been.  And it smelled bad.  Really bad.  Like rotten vegetables.  And stinky mold or something.  But as Sally slowly opened the door wider, over to the right was something rather odd.  There was a strange green glow coming from something that looked like a human sized light bulb.
     They all stopped in the doorway and stared.  What was it?  No one moved.  No one spoke.  It certainly didn't look a machine or anything.
      After a long silence, Sally moved a bit forward, "What do you think it is?" She asked almost reverently.
      "I wouldn't get too close." Fred said.  "Let George look closer."
     Sally stepped back, "Okay, George, you go see.  Be careful though.  It looks like it might be hot."
     George looked at the others, took a gulp and inched closer to the globe.  He nudged further, slowly, until he was standing about four feet in front of it.  He bent over and looked at the bottom.  He walked around it.  He even stood up as high as he could, to see if he could see over the top of it.  He couldn't.
     " I don't know what it is.  It doesn't look like it's plugged in anywhere.  And I can't see where the light is coming from.  It doesn't look like there's anything inside it."
    "Is it hot?" Henry asked.
     "I don't think so.  It doesn't feel warm from here.  Should I get closer?"
    Henry thought a moment and then said, "No, you come back over here, you better let me get closer, I'm the biggest."
     So George stepped backwards and lined up with the others, as Henry moved closer.  He got to with two feet of it.  Tentatively he put his hand out.  Should he touch it?  It didn't seem warm.  Taking the plunge he took a finger and touched it.  He jumped back as it zapped him.
     "Geez, I coulda been electrified!" His voice squealed.  The others took in breathes of horror at what they almost did.  Henry, holding his finger, stepped back for the others to inspect his hand.
     Sally, being the girl, took Henry's hand and held up his finger.  "It's not even red.  You didn't get electrocuted!"  she pushed his hand back at him.
     " I didn't say I did, I said I ALMOST did."  Henry cradled his hand and the imagined injury.  "I think we should just leave it alone."
      Jr, who had been watching terrified, now stepped forward, a sudden need to be brave.  He was the youngest, and the smallest, and he was new to all this adventure business, but he wanted to touch that thing in the worst way.  What was the worst thing that could happen?  So he got a shock.  Big deal.
     He pushed past George and Henry and walked right up to the glowing bulb.  He lifted both his hands, and while the others yelled "NO", he firmly placed both hands on the thing.

     There was smoke.  Green smelly smoke.  The others choked and gagged.  Their eyes watered.  They couldn't see.  "Jr?"  "Jr are you okay?"  "Jr where the heck are you?" They coughed.  After several minutes and no word from Jr, the smoke had begun to clear.  They all looked around at each other.  Where was Jr?  They all collectively looked at the globe.  It had resumed its greenish glow, but now had smoke coming from the inside. 
     "What the heck?"  Sam choked out. "Where'd he go?"  He took a step closer to the globe, but not too close, he didn't want to disappear too.
     They started to panic.  They called out, "JR." and wandered around the basement looking for him. When no Jr appeared, they were in full blown panic. 
     "What do we do?" Sally, who was normally not a typical whining girl, actually almost cried.
     " Now wait." George said, "Let's think about this for a second.  He can't have really gone anywhere.  He's probably just hiding.  Besides, where would he go? " But they were all thinking the same thing. Inside the glowing monster.  "Lets look for him.  Someone find the lights."  He took charge for the moment.  Lights having been found and turned on, did nothing to make them feel any better.  This was a odd room.  On the wall across from the globe, were shelves lined with lots of canning jars.  Lots and lots of them.  But they weren't empty.  And they weren't filled with pickles.
     Sam moved closer to inspect what was inside the rows and rows of jars.
     He screamed.