by Mark Dunn
Rodney and Wayne knew the police officer well. Officer Wall used to work in the Pitcherville Police Department’s Loud Noises Unit but was now detailed to a brand new police unit that had been created to handle an outbreak of toddler crime.
“So did they really go on a rampage and knock over all the baby carriages in the park?” asked Wayne, with interest.
Officer Wall nodded. “It was a real war zone for a while—all these carriages toppled over and all the babies yelling and cursing and shaking their fists. I think this was the intent of the masked troublemakers—to stir up a bunch of trouble, and that’s exactly what happened next. All these infants and toddlers and preschoolers started running around having tantrums and kicking and biting and lobbing pine cones at one another from behind their overturned strollers. The problem is—it’s been four days now and there are a lot of you kids who used to be teenagers who aren’t having a good time being reverted in your ages, and it’s all getting out of hand. Then you have troublemakers like Jackie Stovall and Lonnie Rowe who agitate. They agitate, that’s what they do.”
“You said it was like a war zone?” asked Wayne, who was trying to picture what all the chaos and destruction must have looked like.
Officer Wall nodded glumly. “Do you know where the word ‘infantry’ comes from?”
Four heads shook “no” together.
“From ‘infants.’ Makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m not kidding you, kids. I can’t wait for this thing to be over. I want to go back to my old job in the worse way.”
“That’s all you’ve been doing lately—stopping fights between children?” asked Rodney.
“Yes. Although I couldn’t help issuing a few loud noise citations for some of those bawling babies. They’re little human foghorns, that’s what they are. Oh, I’ve also been investigating a robbery over at the Gun and Knife store. Somebody took several revolvers from a display case. And ammunition. It had to be one of you little people, because there was no sign of forced entry. We think it was somebody small enough to crawl through the ceiling ductwork. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, now would you, kids?”
“No sir,” said Rodney respectfully. “Although I have a good idea who it might be.” Rodney darted his eyes in the direction that Jackie Stovall and Lonnie Rowe had run, to give the officer a good hint.
“Don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind. Jackie has been a thorn in the side of the Pitcherville Police Department since he was old enough to start running over people’s feet with his tricycle. I don’t know why Mayor Stovall hasn’t done a better job of reining in his son. Now you kids be good and don’t you go and get yourselves mixed up in any of the craziness that’s going on out there.”
“We won’t,” said Grover. “Besides, we can hardly even walk.”
Officer Wall tipped his hat and went off to find his partner. Rodney and Wayne agreed with Becky when she said that it was turning out to be a very interesting day.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In which a fateful decision must be made and Rodney and Wayne are asked to help make it
That afternoon, Rodney and Wayne and Becky and Grover, inspired by Becky’s suggestion, all agreed to set up their business, which they namedCalamity Solutions, Wayne built a receptionist’s desk for Becky out of a large cardboard box. He also found a nursery room chair that she could sit in. Wayne and Grover had just started to put together another desk for use when there were interviews to be conducted, when the front door opened and into the parlor walked a man in his thirties accompanied by a teenage girl. The man was familiar to the foursome but the teenage girl was not.
“Hello, children,” said the man, shaking hands with each of the employees of Calamity Solutions, Inc. “Do you know me? Do I need to tell you who I am?”
“You’re Mayor Stovall,” said Rodney, who had been busy writing interview questions like “What is your level of urgency on a scale of one to forty-five?”
“If you are looking for your son Jackie, Mr. Mayor, we don’t know where he is.”
“Well, to be honest, I have been looking for him, ever since the first hours of this latest change to our town. But what else is new? My son is like a dusty sun beam that cannot be swept beneath the rug. And now I hear that he is in trouble again. But there is something more important that I have come to talk about. May we see the Professor?”
“But I don’t know who your companion is,” said Rodney, indicating the teenage girl with a nod of his head.
The girl grinned and then winked. “You don’t know?”
Rodney shook his head. Becky and Grover shook their heads. Wayne said, “But I feel like I’ve heard that voice before.”
“What if I were to say: ‘And now Wayne McCall will lead us all in the Pledge of Allegiance.’?”
Wayne had been trying to cut out a place for legs in the cardboard box desk, using a pair of blunt children’s scissors. He was having trouble holding the scissors the way they should be held, but he was determined not to give up. Now the scissors dropped from his hands. His jaw dropped too. “Is that you, Miss Lyttle?”
“It is me! Look at me! I look just the way I did when I was sixteen. Sweet sixteen. And my eyesight is so good I don’t have to wear my glasses anymore. Isn’t it wonderful, children? Do you know what I did yesterday? I helped two of the other teachers from our school lead a milk cow all the way up to the school roof. It was hilarious!”
Wayne didn’t know what to say to this. Neither did his companions.
The Mayor’s face now took on a serious, all-business look. “We have a petition we would like to present to Professor Johnson, if you would so kind as to—”
“A petition?” interrupted Rodney.
“Yes,” said Miss Lyttle.
“Well, I will have to interview you first. No one sees the Professor until an interview is given. Now, as you can see, I don’t have an interview desk yet, so if you will follow me over to the Professor’s sofa, we will proceed.”
“He is very good at this,” whispered Becky to Wayne.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Wayne, rolling his eyes.
“Now,” said Rodney, struggling to pull himself up onto the sofa.
“Would you like me to give you a boost?” asked the Mayor.
“No. That will not be necessary.” Rodney continued to try very hard to pull himself up, but his little arms were too weak. He finally decided to conduct his interview from the floor.
“Now, what is the nature of your petition, Mr. Mayor?”
“We’d like the Professor to cease work on the machine—what is it called?”
“The Age Altertron.”
“Yes, yes. This Age Altertron he is building. We would like for him to stop.”
“Why would you want to do that?” said Rodney.
“Because there are some people who—how shall I put this?— who are receiving some benefit from the way things now stand. Let us take Miss Lyttle, for instance. She likes being sixteen again. She has more energy and more—more—”
“Verve,” said Miss Lyttle, trying to be helpful. “I have much more verve now. Also, my vision is 20/20 again!”
“Thank you, Miss Lyttle. Now let us take myself, for instance. About the time I turned forty I began to develop a little arthritis in my hands and a little rheumatism in my back. It has only gotten worse with age. With my body clock being reversed, both of my ailments have vanished. So, you see that for some of us, there is great benefit to what has happened to this town. Perhaps it would not be fair to those people to restore things to the way they were before.”
“Tell him the other reason, Mayor,” said Miss Lyttle, who was still smiling. She was, no doubt, still thinking about how hilarious it was to take a milk cow up to a roof.
“Yes, tell Rodney—and me—the other reason,” said the Professor, who had just stepped quietly into the parlor.
“Hello, Professor,” said Mayor Stovall, standing up and extending his hand to shake. “I’m so glad you decided to take a
break from your work.” Professor Johnson took the Mayor’s outstretched hand and shook it formally and without pleasure. “And you know Miss Lyttle, the children’s teacher, I believe.”
“Hello,” said Miss Lyttle, blushing a little.
“So, you have given the first reason why you want me to stop my work on the Altertron. Now give me the second,” said the Professor.
The Mayor took a deep breath. “Well, we have a theory—see, we non-Professor types have theories too.”
“Go on.”
“And our theory is this: whatever unknown party is responsible for all the things that happen to this town, whether it’s for good or bad—”
“Mostly bad, Mayor. But go on.”
“Well, we theorize that perhaps they are merely waiting to deliver a change to this town that we will agree to. And if we agree to that change, for example, this turning back all of our body clocks by eleven-and-a half years—”
“Eleven years, eight months, one week, four days, and thirteen hours to be more precise. However, I cannot be exact to the very minute and second without further calculation.”
‘Yes, yes,” said the Mayor, taking out a handkerchief to blot his perspiring forehead and neck. “Well, our thinking is that the— um—unknown party, whatever it is—might be happy that we’ve found a change we like. And if that is the case, why, they might just go and leave us alone. It is worth a try, don’t you think? Especially since the other way—the constant building of new contraptions to undo new challenges—well, that doesn’t seem to be working all that well, does it? Just think, Russell: no more peach town or lemon town or bubbly town, or talking in numbers or having flippers for hands. No more of any of those things. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to finally be a normal, average American town again? And perhaps they will even remove the force field and then I’ll be able to take my family to Hawaii for a vacation. And who knows? Maybe Jackie will become a Hawaiian and decide not to come back home!”
The Mayor laughed at his own joke, but no one joined him.
“And what happens to all of the limbo children?” asked the Professor. “Will they ever get to go to Hawaii, or will they have to live the remainder of their days in a cloud?”
Miss Lyttle raised her hand as if she were one of her more enthusiastic pupils. “I would like to say something. I would like to suggest that your time might be better spent, Professor, using your scientific abilities to find the missing children, rather than working on this silly machine.”
“It isn’t silly!” exclaimed Becky.
“Not only is it not silly, it’s probably the best way we have to bring our friend Petey and all the other missing children back to Pitcherville,” added Rodney.
“And do you feel that way too, Professor?” asked Mayor Stovall.
Professor Johnson nodded.
“Then I will have no choice but to put it to a town vote. And since the voting age in Pitcherville is twenty-one, I have no doubt that we will win, because it is the older citizens of this town who have the most to gain by leaving things the way they currently are.”
“And when do you intend to have your vote, Mr. Mayor?”
‘Well, today is Tuesday and we must properly notify everyone and get the ballots printed. I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to hold this vote by Thursday.”
“So that gives me two days to finish my machine.”
“You would do best to suspend your efforts now, Professor,” said the Mayor matter-of-factly, “and go and get some rest. Who knows how long it will take you to finish your invention, if ever?”
“I will nonetheless try,” said the Professor gloomily. “I owe it to the lost children to at least do that much. Good day to you both.” Grover tried to open the door for the Mayor and for Miss Lyttle but he couldn’t reach the knob. So he stood beside the door with his arm in the air as if he were giving them permission to depart.
As Miss Lyttle passed, she said, “I hope in eleven or twelve years after we have grown back to our former ages, I’ll see you all in my class again.”
“And I hope it’s even sooner than that. Like maybe Friday!” shouted Wayne, who then added under his breath, “you cow hater.”
Then they were gone. Professor Johnson dropped into a chair and began to massage his temples. “I’m so tired,” he said in a soft, sad voice.
“I wish there was some way we could help you,” said Rodney.
“You’ve all been most helpful by keeping people from interrupting my work. But I had to come out here to see what was important enough to bring the Mayor to my home. I’m sorry now that I ever left my laboratory. However, it is good to know where things stand.”
“You are doing the right thing,” said Becky. She toddled over to the Professor’s chair so that she could pat his hand to soothe him. Professor Johnson’s hand was long and bony just like Abraham Lincoln’s. The Professor gave her a smile, then patted her tiny hand in return. He gave his own knees a strong slap and rose with a groan from the chair. “There is much work to do.”
Without saying another word, the weary Professor shuffled slowly and heavily back to his lab.
ate the next night, Aunt Mildred came into the boys’ bedroom. A ringing telephone had awakened them, but in their groggy state they believed they had dreamed the sound. Just as they began to drift back off to sleep, their aunt spoke.
“Boys, it’s Professor Johnson on the line. He wishes to speak to you. I will hold the phone up so you can both hear him.”
“Hello, Rodney. Hello, Wayne.” A dark, melancholy tone infused the Professor’s voice. “I’m afraid that I have some sad news to report.”
“Yes, what is it?” asked Wayne, speaking for both of the boys.
“I won’t be able to finish the machine before the vote is taken tomorrow. I have already heard how the vote is leaning and it looks quite bad.”
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” said Aunt Mildred, who was listening in.
“I have always said that my machines should not be engaged without proper and thorough testing.”
“That’s right,” said Rodney.
“Yet I haven’t enough time left to test this one in order to guarantee its success. Therefore, I must make a fateful decision: do I go ahead and flip the switch tonight and cross my fingers and hope that something good will come of it, or do I throw in the towel and walk away?”
“What is the bad that might come from it?” asked Rodney.
“Who knows? Perhaps the machine will just sit there and do nothing. Or perhaps something will happen that we can’t predict. That is the risk. Now here is the question: is it worth the risk—the chance for us to bring Petey and the other children back? To restore this town to the way it was?”
“You are asking us?” said Wayne.
“Yes. I am seeking the opinion of my worthy and trusted apprentices in the field of cataclysmic science. Should I flip the switch and pray for a positive outcome?”
Rodney and Wayne considered the question while their aunt did a little praying herself, right then and there.
to us. Just you watch. And you won’t be able to help us. And Wayne and I are still too young to do anything on our own. So there is the other reason why you should flip the switch tonight. Because if you don’t, then things could get much, much worse.”
“And what do you have to say, Wayne?”
“Ditto to everything that Rodney just said.”
“You have nothing more to add?”
“Just one more thing, Professor. I would like to say ‘Good luck, Professor Johnson.’”
“Thank you, Wayne.”
CHAPTER EiGHT
In which Petey comes home, Becky makes a confession, and Rodney and Wayne lay claim to the same Hawaiian shirt
That night Wayne dreamed he was in the jungle and had come upon a massive boa constrictor. The snake was friendly at first and did not bite him, but Wayne remembered from a science report he once wrote about the world’s largest snakes that boas do not generally bite. They
constrict. After a while the boa grew tired of being friendly and decided to slither up to Wayne and do some constricting. The enormous snake twined itself around Wayne’s arms and chest and thighs. It tightened its vise-like hold upon him, and in no time at all Wayne couldn’t breathe. He’s going to suffocate me! he thought in his dream, as he thrashed back and forth in bed.
At the same time that Wayne was being squeezed by one of the largest snakes in the world, his brother Rodney was having a nightmare of his own. He was also being squeezed. But it wasn’t a snake that was doing the squeezing. In fact, Rodney couldn’t see the agent of his trouble. Invisible hands were pulling invisible sashes to make his clothes tighter and tighter. Rodney wondered, is this a madman’s straitjacket I’m wearing?
Usually, with nightmares that become too frightening, the brain will end the story by waking the dreamer up. Now both boys woke, almost in the same instant. They realized that the boa constrictor and the tight straitjacket-like clothing had been figments of their dreams. But if this were so, why didn’t the squeezing they were feeling go away?
The answer was simple. Rodney and Wayne looked down to see that their toddler’s pajamas, which had a pattern of cowboys and cowgirls on them, were straining with great difficulty to contain their bodies, which were suddenly much too big for them. Rips appeared in the chest and arms, and big tears ripped through fabric in the legs of the pajamas. It was as if both boys had grown up so fast inside their miniature P.J.’s that there wasn’t time even to take them off!
Wayne switched on the lamp that sat on a little table between the two beds. His eyes grew big. “Rodney, look at us! We aren’t babies anymore!” He ripped the left-over pajama-top fabric so that he could breathe better. Then he looked down as his chest.
“Rodney! Lookit! I have hair on my chest!” Rodney tore apart his own pajama top and looked down to see that he had hair upon his chest as well. “And my hair is gray,” Rodney noted.