Tesla's Attic

When held aloft to catch a ball during a game, Danny’s baseball glove attracts meteors. Size doesn’t matter, and the glove alters the orbit of a giant asteroid—called Felicity Bonk for the teenage girl who paid $10 for the right to name it—that heads directly for Earth. Nick gets his dad to take a swing with a Tesla bat, which sends out a shock wave that diverts the asteroid and saves the world. The asteroid is the main threat during the final third of the book, temporarily eclipsing the dangers posed by the Accelerati. It’s an ultimate challenge, which Nick meets successfully by staying cool-headed and thinking creatively. 

At the top of the old Victorian house where Nick and his family move is an attic filled with old junk. Nick sells the junk and converts the space into his bedroom. The ceiling is pyramid-shaped with tall windows at the top point; the floor’s center is a space of warmth and comfort that draws dirty clothes, furniture, and Nick himself toward it. The sold junk turns out mostly to be a collection of ingenious, oddball inventions by Nikola Tesla. Many of the attic’s attributes remain mysterious throughout the story.