ET- Communicator Components

On the following day it rained. Mary went to the umbrella stand for her umbrella. It wasn’t there, and she didn’t find it anywhere else, because it was in the closet upstairs being used as a parabolic reflector.

  “Wow,” said Elliott, “that’s neat . . .”

  The umbrella was lined with reflective foil. To its handle a coffee can was attached, with the UHF tuner, from which the coaxial cable ran back to Gertie’s walkie-talkie mike; the mike was connected to the Speak and Spell, and gleeple doople zwak-zwak was now being multiplied into the microwave frequency. The ancient radio operator explained that he now needed something he’d spied under the dash of Mary’s car.

  “The Fuzz Buster? You want Mom’s Fuzz Buster?” Michael shook his head, and Elliott agreed.

  “That’s the only thing of Dad’s that Mom has left. She’s very attached to it.”

  The elderly voyager made diagrams and showed the boys how the Fuzz Buster must be mounted in the coffee can so the microwave frequency could be transmitted outward.

  And that evening, as Mary was speeding home, her warning system failed to show police radar in use, and she was given a twenty-five-dollar fine.

  But the communicator was nearly complete.

- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in His Adventure on Earth, chapter 8