“It’s like a twin,” I whispered, amazed to have found this in the antique store.
“No, not a twin, an earlier model. Look at it. It’s like he just hadn’t streamlined it yet.”
“Or,” I corrected quietly, “this is not Grandpa’s machine.”
Oliver carefully pulled it from the shelf and blew more of the dust off. “We have to take this home with us,” he said. “We have to. I want to see how similar it is to Grandpa’s.”
“Wait, you have something like this already?” Zac leaned over, eyes wide with curiosity. “What is it, anyway?”
“Not sure yet. We think it might be something our grandpa put together. Or maybe Mr. Banes. I’d like to take it home and check it out properly.” Oliver turned the machine around.
“What are you doing?” I watched as Oliver turned it almost upside down.
“Checking for a price,” he mumbled. “I can’t find a tag on it.”
“Why don’t we take it up to the front and find out what it costs. We might not have enough money with us anyway.”
We’d just used most of our allowances for the movie and the diner. I wasn’t sure how much I had leftover, and Oliver was always spending his money on random tools and things for his inventions.
He nodded and before I could say anything else about us not being able to afford it, he hurried past us up to the register. The white-haired old man was behind the counter, polishing some antique pieces of silverware.
“Well now, what have you dug up on my shelves?” he asked, intrigued.
“Something that doesn’t have a price on it,” Oliver told him, carefully sliding the machine onto the counter.
I watched as the old man’s wrinkled and weathered hands turned it around to study it better. His eyes were hidden behind his glasses, but he seemed familiar as if I’d seen his face before. I tried to squint my own eyes and see him in a different light. Why did he look like someone I’d met? We had never gone into that store before so there was no reason for me to know who he was.
“This is quite an interesting piece,” the old man told Oliver, studying it closely through his glasses at the end of his nose. “I’ve had this in the shop for many, many years. I’ve always wondered what it was.”
“I think I know,” Oliver said, practically shaking with excitement. “But it needs some work.”
“Well, if it needs some work, then I think we can make a deal.”
“A deal?” I asked, suddenly worried. What if this man was Thaddeus Banes? Older, a lot older? And hiding behind that disguise? I tried to motion to Oliver, but he was too engrossed in the idea of getting the machine to realize what I was trying to tell him.
“Yes, a deal. That machine is going to need a lot of work, young man. Are you up for it?”
“I sure am!”
I stomped on Oliver’s foot, but all he did was grunt and move further away from me. He wanted the machine, and I could see that we weren’t leaving the shop without it.
“Tell you what, you take this for free, but you make me a promise. Once you get it working again, you bring it back so I can see it powered up and ready to go,” the old man said with a wink as he leaned on the counter. “What do you say?”
“Do you know what it is?” I asked, red flags shooting up in my head that we should not be talking to this guy.
“I have my suspicions.” He slid the machine back across the counter to a slack-jawed Oliver who was nodding slowly as he picked it back up in his arms. “Now then, you kids run along. I think you have lots of work to do today, yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” Oliver said, beaming at the old man. “Thanks!”
With Oliver carting the machine away in his arms, we left the shop. I was the last to leave, staring back at the old man behind the counter. He gave me a half-hearted wave, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this man knew who we were, one way or another.
“Holly, you coming?” Zac called, and I rushed out the door after him, the bell above the door frame jingling as I left.
Chapter 9
After our visit to the antique shop, Zac told us he was going to take Sammy home and asked if he could then hang out with Kate and me at my house. Oliver said he’d be busy in the basement, so it was fine with him and I texted Mom who also said it was ok. She really liked Zac and sent more smileys back.
We waved Zac and Sammy off then turned and headed towards our street. Oliver hefted the machine up into his arms, and we had to hurry to keep up with him.
“Do you even know what you’re going to do with that thing?” I asked
“Not yet, but once I take it apart, I can see what makes this one up, see if it’s Grandpa’s or if it’s someone else’s.”
“And you’re not worried at all about accidentally setting it off?”
“Oh Holly,” Kate sighed, “stop worrying so much. Oliver’s smart, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”
I watched her stare admiringly at the back of Oliver’s head
I elbowed her side, and then her cheeks reddened. “What?”
“You and Oliver,” I laughed and rolled my eyes at her.
“You should talk,” she grinned back. “What about you and Zac! I can’t believe you guys are now going out together.”
“We’re just good friends!” I laughed, quickening my step so I could catch up with Oliver.
When we reached the house, Oliver headed straight down to the basement and Kate, and I waited for Zac to arrive. I completely forgot I was still wearing his hoodie and I curled up on the couch, wrapping the sleeves around me.
“That was cute, him giving you his hoodie.” Kate plopped down beside me with a grin.
“What about you and Oliver,” I teased. “You guys seemed to be having some fun today, too.”
“Yeah, it was fun.” She tucked her legs under her as we stared out the window at the two-lane road. “You don’t think it’s weird, that I like your brother?”
“Oh, not really,” I told her. “I think it’s good for him. We’ve managed to get him out of the house two weekends in a row now.” Oliver had also been much more talkative, and I was sure that it was all because of Kate.
When I spotted Zac climbing the steps to our front door a short while later, I hopped up from my seat to let him inside. Just as I pulled the front door open, a loud crack sounded from deep inside the house.
The three of us jumped at the sound, and I whipped around to look behind me.
“What was that?” Zac asked worriedly.
“I think it came from the basement,” I said. Then in a moment of recognition, my heart sank. “Oliver!”
Bright blue flashes of light issued out of the open basement door. I rushed towards it, Kate and Zac right behind me. All the items in the living room were vibrating and shaking violently. Zac staggered to a stop, his mouth dropping open at what was happening around us. The house trembled, and a mixture of blinding blue light and smoke flashed from the basement doorway.
“Oliver!” I yelled and sprinted downstairs, shielding my eyes from the light. “Oliver!”
“I’m here!” I heard him reply, but couldn’t see him.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know! It’s from the other machine…ours!”
I stumbled around and finally ran into him, Kate and Zac right behind me. I held onto his arm and squinting, saw the machine sitting on the workbench. It was whirring louder than before, and a crackling sound shot out from it in random bursts. Zac found my hand, and I saw Kate hold onto his shoulder, all of us trying not to lose the other as the light grew brighter and brighter.
The same floating sensation came over me, and I felt my feet leave the floor. I yelled in panic, trying to reach for the machine to shut it down. I flipped the switch, but nothing happened.
“Hold on!” Oliver shouted, and then we were spinning around and around until I thought I was going to throw up.
With the same loud pop that we’d heard each time before, we crashed to the floor in the
basement again. I groaned in pain and holding my stomach, waited for the sickening sensation inside me to stop.
“What just happened?” Zac whispered, confused.
“Good question,” I muttered and looked at Oliver, blinking. The machine sat next to us on the floor, and he scurried to it, staring at the dials. “Oliver?”
But he said nothing. His face paled. “Oh no.”
“Oh no? What do you mean, oh no?” I asked sharply. “Where did you send us?”
“Send us?” Zac repeated. “Guys, can someone please tell me what just happened?”
I opened my mouth to do just that when I heard Mom call out from somewhere inside the house. Another voice replied, but it wasn’t one of us. Steps moved overhead, and we stared up at the ceiling, watching as we heard the steps move from the kitchen towards the basement stairs.
The door opened and a man’s voice, a voice I’d never heard before, or at least couldn’t remember, said loudly, “I think it’s in the basement!”
Each of us was too frozen with shock to move, and all we could do was sit there on the floor, as step by step, the man made his way down towards us.
But when he reached the bottom step, he paused, as if trying to process the sight in front of him. Then his mouth suddenly dropped open, and he stared at the four kids on the floor in disbelief.
I knew exactly who he was. Those blue eyes…those features and that thick brown hair.
I swallowed hard and whispered without thinking, “Dad?”
I didn’t feel the world turn upside down until he replied, “Holly? Oliver? What are you two doing here?”
Book 3
Shocked!
Prologue
The basement door opened and a man’s voice, a voice I’d never heard before, or at least couldn’t remember, said loudly, “I think it’s in the basement!”
Each of us was too frozen with shock to move, and all we could do was sit there on the floor, as step by step, the man made his way down towards us.
But when he reached the bottom step, he paused, as if trying to process the sight in front of him. Then his mouth suddenly dropped open, and he stared at the four kids on the floor in disbelief.
I knew exactly who he was. Those blue eyes…those features and that thick brown hair.
Swallowing hard, I whispered, “Dad?”
I didn’t feel the world turn upside down until he replied, “Holly? Oliver? What are you two doing here?”
Chapter 1
The basement was dead silent for at least thirty seconds as the man who I knew was my father, changed his expression from worried to confused to finally excited.
I was certain we were dreaming somehow and that this couldn’t be real, but eventually, I managed to speak, and the only words I could get out were not very helpful at all.
“What did you say?” I asked, staring and thinking that I couldn’t have heard him correctly.
“How are you here?” he asked quickly, throwing a look over his shoulder, obviously worried that Mom was going to come charging down the steps and see us. “When did you come from?”
Why wasn’t he more freaked out at seeing his grown kids? How did he even know what we looked like at this age? He hadn’t been around…had he?
“We’ve come from the year 2017,” Oliver replied, as Dad reached out a hand to pull him to his feet.
They hesitated only for a moment and then threw their arms around each other in a tight hug. Oliver clung to Dad and tears burned in my eyes to see them together. Dad’s gaze fell to me. Oliver stepped aside so I could hug him too. Suddenly, it didn’t matter how this was possible. All I wanted to do was hug my dad. I ran into his arms, and the second they closed around me, I knew this was real.
He kissed the top of my head and lifted me off my feet, clutching an even tighter hold before he finally released his grip. He kept an arm around me and rested a hand on Oliver’s shoulder, as though he was afraid we would disappear. “I don’t understand,” he replied, “…and who are your friends?”
I’d completely forgotten about Kate and Zac and abruptly turned to introduce them. “Guys, this is our Dad…Robert.” I couldn’t believe I was saying that name, my Dad’s name, and that he was actually standing beside me. “Dad, this is Zac and this Kate.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dad said in greeting, a warm smile wide on his face.
Kate smiled back, but Zac was staring blankly ahead. “I’m sorry, what’s going on?” he finally murmured.
“Poor Zac hasn’t done this before,” I said with a grimace.
“Wait, how do you know who we are?” Oliver asked quickly. “I don’t get it. You disappeared years ago. I was only small, and Holly wasn’t even born yet. You haven’t been around since…have you? What’s going on?”
Dad sighed heavily and opened his mouth to explain. But there were more footsteps overhead, and he placed a finger on his lips.
“Robert? Did you find it?” Mom’s voice echoed down to the basement. I froze in my spot, not daring to move.
“Not yet! I’ll be up in a minute!” he called back.
I heard a baby’s loud laughter and realized with amazement that it must be baby Oliver up there. I shook my head in awe at the thought of Oliver as a real live baby on the floor above us.
When Mom’s steps told us she had walked in the other direction, Dad sagged and ushered us further into the basement. “It isn’t safe for you to be here.”
“Why not?” I demanded more earnestly than I meant. “We wanted to meet you.”
“You will meet me. Well, …you’ve just met me…but you’ll meet me again. It’s all very complicated. You have to understand though…you’re not the only ones with a time machine.”
Oliver and I exchanged a glance. “Thaddeus,” Oliver whispered.
Dad straightened, his brow furrowing in worry. “Yes, how did you know?”
“We found all of Grandpa William’s stuff in the attic,” I explained. “And then we found another time machine at the antique store in town…with a key and a note from Grandpa. He wrote about someone called T, and we figured it had to be Mr. Thaddeus Banes.”
My head suddenly pounded as I tried to make sense of everything going on around us. “What’s going on, Dad? What happened to you? Why did you disappear and where did you go?”
My mind was spinning. I had so many questions that I wanted answers to. But Dad simply shook his head. “I can’t tell you,” he muttered hurriedly. “You have to figure it out on your own, but you have to be careful, do you understand? Time travel is a very complicated process, and if you mess with it in the wrong way, things can change and sometimes they can go terribly wrong.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Oliver asked.
Dad didn’t answer right away, and that was enough of an explanation for me. “I wish I could spend more time with you kids right now, but you have to get back to your own time span. And you need to get going now!”
His tone had become a little frantic, and I could see that he was on edge. For some reason, he wanted us to return to our own time zone as quickly as possible.
“Who are you talking to down there?” Mom suddenly called from the top of the stairs.
“Just talking to myself, Mags!” Dad replied, and despite the strange situation we’d found ourselves in, it warmed me to hear Dad call our mom that. Mags. Everyone else called her Maggie or Margaret, but not Dad. She let it slip one time that he always called her Mags.
“Talking to yourself, Dad?” I smiled. “I guess craziness runs in the family.”
He grinned back before quickly hurrying to the bottom of the stairs and peering up. The four of us scrunched further back into the shadows. I reached for Zac’s hand to squeeze it encouragingly, but his expression was still one of total shock.
“Why don’t you start the movie? I’ll be up in a minute!” Dad called out to Mom.
“Okay,” Mom replied as she walked away again.
On his way back towards us, Dad stopped and
stared at the machine on the floor. Fear crept onto his face as he bent down to pick it up.
“Get yourselves back to your time zone,” he instructed as he handed Oliver the machine. “And whatever you do, stay away from Thaddeus. That man is dangerous, and he’ll do anything to get what he thinks is his.”
“Is there any way we can see you again? In our time zone?” I wanted him to say yes, but he shook his head.
“I don’t know, kids, I really don’t.” He rested a hand on both our shoulders then dragged us into another embrace. “I love you both very much. I want you to know that. No matter what happens, I love you both more than anything else on this earth.”
Instantly, I felt it…. the love of a dad I’d never had the chance to know. I also knew he would never have left us if he’d had a choice.
Quickly kissing the top of my head, then Oliver’s, he stepped back. “Now go, before you’re here too long and you mess something up.”
I wondered what exactly we could mess up, all we had done was talk to him. But I had no time to ask that question. Oliver was already pushing buttons and levers on the machine, and I huddled close to him as Dad moved to the stairs. I held tightly to Oliver with one hand and Zac with the other. Kate wrapped her hand around Oliver’s arm. The familiar blue light grew and surrounded us. I heard Mom call in a panic from upstairs, but Dad ignored her voice and stood there the entire time, watching as we vanished from sight.
When we landed back in the present, we crashed to the floor. My head spun with thoughts of what had just happened, and I was unable to move from my spot.
“We met our dad,” Oliver whispered in awe. “We actually met him.”
“And he knew who we were!” I stared back at my brother, the realization of what we had just done, finally sinking in. I wished we could have stayed longer and asked more questions, but deep down, I knew that remaining in the past wasn’t a good idea.
Oliver pulled himself to his feet and carefully set the machine back on his workbench beside the one we’d picked up at the antique store.
Time Traveler - Books 1, 2, 3 & 4: Books for Girls aged 9-12 Page 15