Time Traveler - Books 1, 2, 3 & 4: Books for Girls aged 9-12

by Katrina Kahler

I saw dust and dirt fall from the ceiling. I held my breath, listening as Oliver tried to tell Kate they had to leave. She was crying, still calling out for her parents, but they weren’t there. No one was there, and it was all our fault. I wasn’t sure what exactly we had done, but I knew it was because of that machine.

  “There’s no sign of them,” Kate whispered as she sank to her knees on the grass outside, tears streaking down her dirty cheeks. “Where are they if they’re not here?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I told her as I knelt beside her. “I swear we will. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Kate…Kate,” I stammered. “I’m so sorry. This shouldn’t have happened! It’s all my fault; I know it is.”

  “All our fault,” Oliver corrected bitterly. “And it was my idea to go back again.”

  “To catch whoever broke into your house,” Kate muttered, wiping her face with her hands. “But we made a pact, remember? To always go back together and we all made that choice.”

  I stared at her, worried that this was too much for her, for all of us.

  But she was stronger than that. “You guys are my friends,” she insisted, climbing to her feet and planting her hands on her hips. “And friends stick together. Period. We’ll go into town and see what we can figure out, right?” With a firm nod of her head, she added, “At least we won’t have school for a while!”

  I attempted a grin, but try as I might to remain positive, my voice shook with fear. “Yeah, no school…”

  At the same time, however, I wondered what we would find instead.

  Chapter 9

  I hoped we’d leave our street behind and walk right into our tiny, bustling town, but unfortunately, that was not the case. The houses gave way to the park, and beyond that, there should have been a lively street lined with shops and people.

  But the town was dead silent.

  “No…no! How is this possible?” I yelled in frustration. “What did we do to cause this?”

  “I don’t know,” Oliver whispered, too shocked to say much else. “The only thing we changed was…oh no.”

  “Oh no, what?” I snapped. “What did you just think of?”

  “Thaddeus, he saw Grandpa’s machine,” he whispered. “He saw how it worked.”

  “Do you think he made one just like it?” Kate gasped.

  “He must have,” Oliver sighed. “He had probably been trying for years, and could never get it completely right. When he saw Grandpa’s, that was all he needed.”

  “But how could he suddenly cause the town to be in ruins?” Kate argued.

  “He must have gone back in time to years ago,” Oliver shook his head in disgust. “And somehow, he caused everything to change.”

  Oliver’s words took a few seconds to register in my head as I tried to process the impact of what we’d done, of what Thaddeus must have done after we left him in our basement.

  “Why would he destroy the town though?” Kate asked the question that I was unable to. “Why would he do that?”

  “We don’t know when this happened. It could have been before we were born, back when Grandpa still lived here,” Oliver said. “Come on, let’s keep going. Maybe we’ll find a phone we can use.”

  “And call who?” I asked.

  Kate had already pulled out her cell phone, but it wasn’t working. I didn’t bother trying mine, knowing I’d probably get the same result. We technically weren’t supposed to be here so whatever phones we had on us were obsolete now.

  As we walked down the center of the main street, doors creaked on hinges, and every window was either broken or boarded up. The ice cream store we went to just a few weekends before was dark and empty. Shadows lurked inside, and I moved closer to Oliver as we passed.

  I noticed how Oliver’s shoulders stiffened and he picked up the pace as more creaking sounded from the surrounding shops. “There’s a payphone on the corner up ahead. Anyone got a quarter?”

  “Who exactly are you going to call?” I asked as I patted down my pockets and came up with nothing. Kate managed to find a quarter in her pocket and handed it over.

  He took the coin and picked up his pace. “Sheriff Biggins. He should know something, right?”

  “You think the police department is still up and running?”

  “Only one way to find out.” He slipped the coin into the phone and held it to his ear. “It’s working. That’s a plus I guess.”

  He dialed the number, but within seconds, I knew he hadn’t got through. He hung his head, pressing the earpiece harder against his ear as if wishing whatever he heard would change. “Nothing.” He slammed the phone back into the receiver making Kate, and I jump. “The number has been disconnected.”

  A bell chimed lightly nearby, and we whipped around, bracing, ready to take off at the first sign of danger. But all we saw was an old man calling to us.

  “Is that the guy from the antique store?” I squinted, trying to make out his face. He looked older than I remembered.

  “Hurry!” the man was yelling and waving his hand more frantically.

  “Let’s find out what he wants,” Oliver said and gave us a gentle nudge. “What could be worse than what we’ve already seen?”

  We took off back down the main street and slipped into the antique store as the old man held the door open for us. The second we were inside, he closed it and flipped the lock closed.

  “Are you three crazy? What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to even be in this part of the country anymore!”

  “You remember us?” I asked, as he removed his glasses and cleaned them hastily on his shirt.

  “Of course I do. You’re the children of Maggie. And you’re…Kate. There is no reason for you to be here. You’ve put yourselves in great danger. Oliver and Holly, I’m certain your mother is in a right state, wondering where you are! And Kate, what will your parents think of you running off like that?”

  My jaw dropped, and I didn’t have to look at my brother and best friend to know they were most likely mirroring my expression. How did this man know us? How did he know our parents? And he called our mom, Maggie, not Margaret like everyone else did. I watched him rush to the front window and carefully lift a dusty curtain aside and peer out.

  “You’re lucky I found you as quickly as I did. Why did you leave your homes to come here?”

  I shook my head hard. “No, just wait for a second! This is our home. What happened? And who are you? Why are you here if the entire town is a ghost town!” My gaze shifted around his shop and although it was dustier than before, all the junk remained, filling the large space.

  He dropped the curtain and backed away from the window, his face paling beneath the few dim lights overhead. “You…you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” I yelled, Oliver and Kate both turning to me in surprise.

  I never yelled. I was usually the quiet one. The girl who put her head down and tried to get through the day. But this? This was too much for any kid to handle. We thought we knew what we were doing, thought we had everything under control, and now…now everything was just gone as if it had never existed.

  “You three, you came from the past, didn’t you,” the old man stated.

  “Not sure what you’re talking about,” Oliver replied, but the man obviously didn’t believe him.

  “There is no need to hide the truth from me. I know you bought that old machine from my shop, young man.”

  “That isn’t the machine that got us here, we used a different one,” I said, and immediately clapped my hand over my mouth, cringing as Oliver rolled his eyes at me. “What? Maybe he can help us. Maybe he knows all about what’s going on. Mom found that key here, remember?”

  “Indeed she did and for a good reason,” the man frowned at us.

  We faced him at the same time. “Who are you?” I asked again, quieter this time and in a state of disbelief that this man could know who we were.

  He sighed heavily and sat down on a tall, metal stool that he appeared to keep by the wind
ow. “That is a very long story and one I’m not sure you’re ready to hear. How about we start with what happened to the town and save my identity for later, hmm?”

  I wasn’t sure that was good enough, but then my stomach growled loudly. I guess it had been a while since we’d eaten anything, or just stopped moving. The old man smiled softly, and I had the weirdest feeling that somehow, I knew who he was.

  “How about some dinner and I’ll tell you all about it while you eat?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but weaved his way around the various shelves, his heavy steps sounding on a set of wooden stairs somewhere near the back of the store.

  “Can we trust him?” I whispered.

  “Do we have much choice?” Kate offered. “He might have some answers! I say we at least hear him out, try to find out what happened to our parents.” She was wringing her hands again, and I reached out to stop her before she hurt herself.

  “We’ll find your parents, Kate, I promise.”

  “Kate’s right,” Oliver said. “I have a feeling whoever this guy is that he’s wrapped up in this mess just like we are.”

  Oliver headed down the aisle and around the shelves, Kate hurrying behind him to catch up. I smiled when I saw him reach back and hold her hand to guide her. I waited a few seconds before I followed, glancing around the shop for any more clues as to who this man was. It would take hours to go through every item on the shelves, and we didn’t have that kind of time. Making my way towards the back, I followed the sounds of the man’s voice as well as my brother’s. When a picture caught my eye though, I hesitated, not sure if it was even real.

  The picture hung on the wall in a frame; it was quite small, but it was there all the same. I reached out and removed it from the nail that it hung on, wiping my fingers over the glass to stare down at an image that my brain screamed could not be possible.

  There, smiling as we stood shoulder to shoulder, was a picture of Oliver and me.

  But we were older, much older, and both holding diplomas from some college. Clutching the picture in my hand, I ran up the stairs to confront the old man and figure out what game he was playing at.

  Chapter 10

  When I reached the second floor of the store, I was surprised to see what was essentially a tiny apartment. The man had his back to us, standing at the counter and stove as he made us something to eat. Kate and Oliver were talking quietly together, the time machine in the bag sitting on the floor at Oliver’s feet.

  “What’s wrong?” Kate asked when she saw me appear in the doorway. “Holly, are you ok?”

  Gripping the framed picture in my hand, I moved past her and stood beside the old man as he cut up vegetables to put into a large pot. Without a word, I moved the picture in front of him. His hand stilled. Forgetting about the uncut vegetables, he turned to stare at me.

  “Where did you get this?” I demanded, my voice shaking.

  “Holly? What is that?” Oliver asked, but I refused to move it away from the old man’s sight.

  “Who are you? I want a name. Otherwise, the three of us are leaving.”

  “Leaving would not be wise,” the man told me quietly, wiping his hands on a towel before he reached for the framed picture. “May I?”

  Reluctantly, I let him take it and watched as he ran his fingers over the faces I knew belonged to Oliver and me. He sighed and moved to sit down at the table, plopping down hard and hanging his head.

  “I was so proud of you both that day,” he whispered. “Mags was, too. Our kids were all grown up and graduated. It was amazing to see.”

  “Wait, what?” Oliver asked, his words strained as he peered over to see the framed photo.

  I gulped and realized why the old man seemed so familiar when we’d first met him. It took a few seconds before the word finally escaped my lips, and when it did, it was barely audible. “Dad? No, but you…you’re old. You can’t be...”

  “And yet, here I am.” He set the picture on the table and took hold of my hand, squeezing it gently. “I wasn’t kidding when I said it was a long story. And now that you’re here…I’m not even sure where to begin.”

  “The beginning?” I suggested as tears burned in my eyes. “Dad? Why…why didn’t you say it was you when we were here in your store the last time?”

  He laughed warmly. Despite him being so old, I knew that it was him.

  “Would you have believed me?” he asked. “And besides that, I couldn’t risk telling you too much, too soon. I’ve been watching over you three, the best I could. You, your brother, and your mom.”

  “But she came into this store. She bought things from you. She didn’t know it was you?” Oliver asked, surprised.

  “She did joke about me looking familiar, but she didn’t say she thought I was her long-lost husband, no.” His eyes took on a faraway look of longing. “Oh, how I’ve missed her, and you two, all these years. Trapped, being able to see you, but not being able to see you, all at the same time. That was what he wanted…to make me suffer for the rest of my days.”

  “What who wanted?”

  The old man, who I now knew was my dad, pushed out of the chair and nodded to another picture on the far wall. “Who do you think? That rotten old man just couldn’t leave me alone. Oh no, he had to make life as bad as possible for my family, all because I refused to help him finish what he and William had started.”

  On the wall hung a photograph. It was of Grandpa and Thaddeus, smiling brightly. Alongside them was our dad when he was young. They all looked so happy in that picture, as though they were best friends.

  “You knew about the time machine,” Oliver stated. “You helped them work on it?”

  “Well, I only worked on it with your grandfather. By the time I came along and married your mother, he’d stopped working with Thaddeus.”

  I opened my mouth to start asking him more questions, but he held up his hand to stop me.

  “I’m going to finish making you something to eat and then we can sit down and talk about everything that’s happened since your grandfather’s death, and why the town is very different from how you remember it.”

  Not having any other choice, the three of us took our seats at the table and watched the old man, who was actually our dad, make us dinner for the first time.

  ***

  Soon afterward, the fork clattered into my empty bowl, and I leaned back, anxiously waiting for Dad to start the story. I’d never eaten so quickly before, but all I could think of was how we were finally going to find out what happened to him all those years ago. He finished eating and pushed his bowl aside. A smile lit his face as he looked at us, his kids, and leaned back in his chair.

  “Just before your grandpa died,” he started, as we leaned closer to catch every word, “he gave me the notes as well as the machine itself to keep safe. I kept them up in the attic where I knew no one would get to them by accident.”

  “Until we came along, of course,” I replied.

  His smile widened. “Yes, but you two were meant to find them.”

  “We were?”

  He nodded in answer to my question and opened his mouth to continue, then changed his mind and held up his hand. Getting up from his chair, he began rummaging around in a nearby drawer. He pulled out a large notepad and a pen and returned to the table. “This might help since this story gets a little…complicated.”

  He marked one end of the page with an X and wrote down a date. “This is when your grandpa decided to stop his work, at least with Thaddeus. He packed everything away and told everyone he was finished with that line of work, as he wanted to dedicate the rest of his days to teaching,” Dad explained. “That was until your mother met me. I had a huge interest in science and technology, just like your grandpa. And we became good friends.”

  “Then you two started doing research together?” Oliver asked, his eyes never leaving our dad’s.

  “We did,” Dad replied. “Your grandpa showed me all of his notes, and we set to work on the machine onc
e again, quietly of course. Your grandpa didn’t want anyone else to know. Within a few years, we managed to get it working, and then together, we took our first steps into the future.” He marked another X. “Sadly, it was soon after that, your grandpa passed away.” Dad marked one more X on the sheet of paper, two years later.

  “But on that first trip, what did you see? Where did you go?” I had so many questions that I wanted to be answered.

  “You mean when,” he said with a wink. “I went far enough into the future to see you kids. And your grandfather and I didn’t go just once. He was fascinated to see what you and Oliver would end up doing.”

  A look of pure pride came over his face as he stared past us at the far wall as if seeing us all grown up again. “But then things changed. Thaddeus found out what we were up to and he started coming by. We thought nothing of it until he tried to break into the house to steal one of the machines that we’d built.”

  “One of the machines?” Oliver cut in. “How many did you guys make?”

  Dad tilted his head back and forth. “Enough to ensure we had one that worked properly. The one you have with you, of course.” We all glanced at the backpack as if to make sure it was still there.

  “It was on one of our trips to the future that we realized something.” Dad continued. “After Thaddeus attacked your grandpa at the university, we went to the future and found that Grandpa was no longer there. And what was worse…I had disappeared, too.”

  “How is that possible?” Oliver shook his head, scrunching his face in thought. “What changed?”

  “That was precisely what we needed to figure out. By the time we came back, we had found your grandpa’s lab had been broken into, and several key parts had been stolen.” He marked another spot on the paper. “We couldn’t prove it was Thaddeus and for a few months all was quiet…until your grandpa was found dead in his home. The doctor said it was natural causes, but…” He trailed off, and a shiver ran down my spine.

  “You think it was Thaddeus?” I whispered, and Dad nodded. “But why?”