Time Castaways #1

by Liesl Shurtliff

  “That’d be cool. I can help.” Corey crouched down, hurrying to pick up the stacks. “No way, this is, like, a vintage Batman! And Dr. Strange!”

  “Let’s let him have some time,” whispered Ruby.

  Matt nodded in agreement. Watching Corey be enthusiastic in a library was like watching a tiger cuddle with a bunny rabbit. Do not disturb.

  Matt wandered around with Ruby, browsing all the different towers, reading their spines. Some of the books looked quite modern, while others looked ancient. There were old medical and science books, philosophy books, and stacks of books in various languages. There were leather-bound books with no titles on the spines and a wagon stacked with stone tablets.

  “Those look like they could come from the days of Moses,” said Ruby. Matt agreed.

  From the rafters hung fishing nets bulging with more books, and a brass birdcage hung right above his head, filled with scrolls. Curious, Matt reached up and opened the birdcage and took out a scroll. He unraveled it carefully.

  “Careful, those are real old,” said Wiley. He’d snuck up behind Matt.

  “This is Greek,” said Matt. He couldn’t read it, but he recognized the different alphabet.

  “Ain’t it fancy?” said Wiley. “They’re from the great library of Alexandria.”

  Matt froze. Real old? These scrolls were ancient and supposedly completely destroyed.

  “Dad would kill for some of those,” said Ruby.

  Matt suddenly wasn’t sure what to do. He shouldn’t be touching these. At the very least he should be wearing gloves.

  “Have you read them?” Matt asked.

  “Don’t I wish I could!” said Wiley. “Learning to read in English was a big enough feat for me. I didn’t learn until I was about your age, just after I boarded the Vermillion.”

  “You didn’t go to school before then?” said Ruby.

  “No, ma’am. I was born in the days of Jim Crow.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Matt wanted to tell Ruby to hush, but Wiley didn’t skip a beat.

  “Jim Crow Laws,” he said. “Laws that tell black people they can’t go certain places or do certain things, like use a certain toilet or go to school with the white kids. Weren’t no school for me within ten miles.”

  “Oh,” said Ruby. Wiley hadn’t spoken with any kind of bitterness, just matter-of-fact, but still, Matt felt a bit awkward. He could tell Ruby did, too, and neither of them was sure what to say. Matt had learned about Jim Crow in social studies and read some books from that era in language arts, like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, but just like the Twin Towers, it had almost felt like a myth, or some prehistoric animal, distant and extinct. Now, talking with Wiley, a person who had lived it, it all seemed so close and real and terrible, and Matt felt a sudden and intense shame that he’d thought of it so casually, never stopping to consider how it had really affected people and still did. Matt had always considered himself pretty smart, but he decided there was nothing like being around a bunch of people not only from different places, but also from different centuries and decades to make you feel like a complete ignoramus.

  Matt rolled up the scroll and carefully placed it back into the birdcage.

  “And what kind of books do you two like to read?” said Wiley. “Adventure? Mystery? I’ve got the full collection of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew!”

  “Actually, we’re interested in some Latin books,” said Matt, remembering why he was here. “Or history books of Latin-speaking countries?”

  “Huh,” said Wiley. He put his pipe in his mouth. “I would not have guessed that.”

  “I like studying different languages and cultures,” said Matt. “Ruby does too.”

  “But I’ll take some Nancy Drew books,” said Ruby.

  Wiley helped them search for some Latin books. They found quite a few tucked into the columns of the Colosseum, including a language and phrase book, books on the Roman Empire, and one Matt thought looked particularly promising, called Decoding Latin: The Living Messages Inside the Dead Language.

  Corey came around a tower with a stack of comics. “Can I take all these, Wiley?”

  “Sure thing, my friend,” said Wiley. “You take as many as you like as often as you like. There are no reading limits here.”

  Wiley brought the stack of Latin books around the towers and set them on the lobster crate next to the book he’d been reading. Matt glanced at it casually, curious to know the kinds of books Wiley read. It was spread open and Matt saw that it wasn’t any kind of novel or manual, but a record book, with columns and rows all filled in with neat, precise ink.

  “Are those all the places the Vermillion has traveled?” Matt asked.

  “Indeed it is,” said Wiley. “I was just entering our last mission when you came in.”

  “Can I look at it?”

  “Sure, sure! Go ahead!”

  Matt skimmed down the open page, mesmerized at all the times and places the Vermillion had traveled. On just one page he saw Russia, Italy, China, Madagascar, Australia, Switzerland, Spain, Angola, Scotland, Brazil, and, in at least a dozen rows fairly close together, New York City, NY. That must have been the time the captain had been looking, or waiting, for them. The last entry was for the Mets game.

  Matt flipped the pages farther back, skimming the dates and places.

  “Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England, 1558!” said Ruby, pointing. “That’s when Queen Elizabeth I became queen! And look—there’s Westminster Abbey, Greenwich, London, the Tower of London, all of them during her reign!”

  “Yes,” said Wiley. “Those would have been old missions, before my time on the Vermillion. I believe the previous captain was friends with that queen.”

  “Captain Vincent would have been, too, then, wouldn’t he?”

  “Don’t think the captain was quite as friendly with the queen. Anyhow, we’ve never traveled there.”

  “But maybe we could travel there, do you think?” said Ruby. “I’m doing a report on Queen Elizabeth at school!”

  Corey groaned. “Ruby, are you honestly going to do homework while we’re on this ship?”

  “Why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to see her?” said Ruby. “What better source for a report than the source itself! Do you think the captain would take us there?” Ruby asked Wiley again.

  Wiley stuck his pipe in his mouth. “You could ask the captain,” said Wiley, “but I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high if I was you. Captain Vincent has never sailed to England any time since I’ve been on board the Vermillion. I don’t think he likes it, particularly. Probably bad memories from childhood.”

  “What years is the captain from?” Matt asked.

  “Oh, somewhere around 1750. He was the son of some rich lord in Cornwall, and as I understand it he was treated quite unfairly by his older brother after his parents died. He ran away from home when he wasn’t more than sixteen or seventeen. That’s when he met up with Captain Bonnaire and the Vermillion.”

  “That’s sad,” said Ruby. “But Queen Elizabeth is so long before he was born, over a century, so maybe he’d be willing to go there.”

  “You can surely ask,” said Wiley. “But if all else fails, I have some fine books on that queen, ones you won’t find in any other library.”

  They searched the Latin books all afternoon. It was slow work, since some of the books were completely in Latin and the print was not always easy to read. Matt also didn’t totally trust Ruby and Corey to not miss something of significance, so he ended up reading everything they read as well, which Corey and Ruby found as a reason to stop searching with him and do their own thing.

  At dinner, Captain Vincent tapped his glass for silence and offered his haiku.

  Birds and plants of earth

  You are rich and beautiful

  On our plates and tongues.

  Tonight the food was more traditionally Chinese—roasted duck, rice, noodles, and egg soup—but there was also macaroni and cheese that Matt was sure came from a box,
Cup Noodles, granola bars, cheese puffs, and bottles of soda. Corey was about to reach for the cheese puffs when Santiago came scurrying over, snatched one right out of the bag, and started munching on it like corn on the cob. He then opened a bottle of root beer, guzzled half the bottle in ten seconds, and let out a hearty belch. Matt couldn’t decide if he was impressed or disgusted. Corey didn’t eat the cheese puffs.

  “Any luck today, Mateo?” the captain asked Matt quietly.

  “Not yet,” said Matt, “but I haven’t searched all that much. I think we’ll find something.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said the captain, and Matt felt an added weight resting on his shoulders. He knew the captain was counting on him, but what if he failed? What if they never discovered what the Mona Lisa key opened or learned how to fix the compass?

  14

  Within the Walls

  Matt searched for days for anything having to do with the Mona Lisa key or the phrase video et taceo, but he found nothing even remotely helpful. He practically turned Wiley’s library upside down, nearly dismantling the entire Colosseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in search of the information. He looked in Latin history and language books, French history books, art history books, books and articles about the Mona Lisa, articles about famous keys, but nothing surfaced.

  The captain didn’t seem too worried, though, however much it worried Matt, and he continued to use the compass as though no danger were imminent. Ruby asked if they could go see Queen Elizabeth, but Captain Vincent said it was best that they travel back in time a little more gradually, in order to help Matt adjust to travel and combat time sickness. Ruby was sorely disappointed but didn’t argue. She had grown to respect the captain a great deal, perhaps the most out of any of them. She continued to practice the sword every day and had gotten so good that Matt had to admit he was starting to become a little bit intimidated by her.

  And so the Vermillion traveled, mostly within the United States and the twentieth century, moving back a decade or two at a time. Sometimes their time travels involved a mission, like disrupting a train or bank robbery or rescuing passengers off a sinking ship. They even intercepted a store robbery in a small town in Texas by the famous Bonnie and Clyde! The manager was so grateful he gave them all free sarsaparilla, which Matt learned was a drink that tasted a lot like root beer.

  The Vermillion’s transformations were always a surprise and always trapped or tricked Ruby in one way or another. When the Vermillion transformed into a little red roadster, she ended up on the windshield, clinging for dear life as Wiley swerved and slammed on the brakes, and when it turned into a tugboat, she somehow ended up on top of the mast.

  “I don’t think the Vermillion likes me all that much,” said Ruby after she’d ended up in the coal bunker of a steam engine and came out completely covered in soot.

  “Oh, she’s just teasing you, Miss Ruby,” said the captain. “She has a sense of humor, you know.”

  “Does she?” said Ruby. “Well, she needs to work on her comedic timing, in my opinion.”

  The captain laughed. “I’m sure she’ll make a note and try to improve herself next time.”

  Matt sort of appreciated the Vermillion’s antics and almost believed it was for his benefit, not to entertain him necessarily, though it certainly did, but to hide his time sickness. He still struggled with dizzy spells and nausea, usually right after travel, though it could hit at any time, and he didn’t want the others to notice. He didn’t want the captain to think he couldn’t handle the missions.

  Sometimes they had no mission and just went places—many of which were as foreign as Paris or any other country for three city kids who had barely traveled beyond their own state lines. They explored the Grand Canyon, hiking through the majestic red rock ravines, climbing the rocks, and even jumping off some waterfalls. They went to Yellowstone National Park, where they saw hot springs and geysers like Old Faithful, and plenty of wildlife—bears, wolves, buffalo, and elk. Matt read in one of Wiley’s books that the entire park was a volcano that could destroy half of North America if it were to explode in full force.

  “Now that’s one big firecracker,” said Brocco. “Maybe we should learn how to create our own volcano, eh, Li’l Bullet?”

  “Yes!” said Corey.

  “Maybe Li’l Professor here can teach us the right way to do it.”

  “Li’l Professor” was Brocco’s chosen nickname for Matt. He’d finally settled on it after Matt continually spouted facts and corrected others’ misinformation, like when Albert suggested that Matt needed to be bled to cure him of his time sickness and Matt told him how that wasn’t actually a remedy for anything and doctors from his era actually knew very little about safe or effective medical procedures.

  “It’s part of the reason why so many people in your era died before the age of forty,” said Matt.

  Albert paled at this. “The other reason is they were murdered by filthy traitors,” he said, his voice shaking, and he turned away and left.

  “His father was a physician,” said Jia quietly. “He attended to his mother before she died, and Albert said he always blamed himself for her death, that he didn’t know how to save her.”

  Matt could have kicked himself. How could he have been so insensitive? He’d forgotten about Albert’s parents, how his mother died when he was a baby and his father died in the Revolutionary War, fighting for the British.

  Matt tried to apologize to Albert later, but he wouldn’t even hear him out. “I don’t need your pity,” he said, sneering. “At least my parents wanted me. They didn’t abandon me like some stray dog.”

  Matt was confused for a moment, and then he realized what Albert was referring to. It shocked him more than it hurt, that Albert would even assume he’d been abandoned when Matt had always believed his biological parents had both died. For a brief moment Matt thought of his own parents back in New York and got another twinge of guilt. He hadn’t thought about them too much lately. He’d been so consumed with their missions and traveling and searching for clues to the Mona Lisa key that his parents and home had been pushed to the recesses of his memory. He almost couldn’t pull up their faces.

  As annoying and inconvenient as it was, it was actually Matt’s time sickness that led him to the information he needed. They had just returned from traveling to someplace in Iowa, in the late 1800s, having intercepted a train robbery by the famous Jesse James. It was the farthest back in time they had traveled yet, and when they returned and the Vermillion transformed back to a ship, a wave of vertigo hit Matt so violently he completely lost his balance and had to grab on to one of the sconces on the wall, which ripped right off and took some of the wall with it. Albert laughed as Matt stood helplessly with the light fixture in hand.

  “Are you okay?” Jia asked.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he stuttered, still feeling the room spin a bit.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jia. “I can fix it.”

  The captain came right away and inspected Matt, checking his forehead and pupils. “I’m sorry, Mateo, I may have pushed you a little farther than I should have.”

  “I’m okay,” said Matt.

  “Better get you some food.”

  “I’ll get it!” said Corey. “Want some Twinkies, Matt? Pudding cups? Oreos?”

  “Whatever,” said Matt.

  “Ooh! Look there!” Wiley called and ran toward the wall that Matt had just destroyed. Matt shook his head to clear it and turned to see what Wiley was so excited about. To his surprise, he had uncovered a small cavern within the ship, full of odd items—a coil of rope, a few dusty books, and a hammer.

  “My book!” Wiley picked up one of the books and held it like it was a sacred treasure. “This is the book that learned me to read! I thought it was lost forever!” Wiley flipped through the pages. There were illustrations throughout of a boy and girl, both blond and blue-eyed, playing with a ball, a dog, a rope. “Listen to this, listen to this!” Wiley started to read one of the pages alou
d. “‘Come, Jane, let’s swing. Do you want to swing?’ ‘Yes, Dick, I want to swing. Will you push me?’ He-he-ha!” Wiley continued to read about Dick and Jane out loud as he walked out of the dining hall.

  “Hey, my hammer!” said Jia. She reached in the wall and pulled out a small hammer with a leather handle. “I’ve been looking for this! Thanks, Matt!” She attacked him with a hug, accidentally knocking his head with the hammer. “Oh, sorry!”

  And that wasn’t all. Pike suddenly jumped up, reached over Matt’s head, and grabbed a rope inside the wall. It was dirty, worn, and frayed at the ends, but Pike hugged it against her chest, like she’d found a beloved stuffed animal.

  “Your rope!” said Jia. “How clever of Matt to find it. Say thank you.”

  Pike gave Matt a rare smile and then immediately began to tie elaborate knots in the rope.

  “She’s been searching for that rope for ages,” said Jia. “I think it might be the only thing she had with her when she came on board, and she almost always carried it with her, but it disappeared during a mission. She was devastated. You saved the day!”

  “Look, there’s something else in here,” said Ruby. She reached in and took out a thick, rectangular piece of paper, or maybe it was a thin piece of wood. It looked very old and brittle, and it had writing on it in a foreign language. Matt’s heart leaped, thinking it might be Latin, but as he looked closer he realized the alphabet was different. He didn’t even recognize it.

  “That’s a palm leaf document,” said Albert knowledgeably. “We have some in the gallery from India. They’re usually bound together. How did that one get in there?” Matt almost felt Albert was accusing him of stealing and hiding it.

  “Same way everything else got in there,” said Ruby.

  “Do you know what language this is?” Matt asked.

  “Sanskrit, most likely,” said Albert. “Here, I’d better take it back to the gallery. It’s probably been damaged already.”

  Matt didn’t readily hand it over. He had a feeling. Was it foremembering? He wasn’t sure. He just felt that he hadn’t found this by chance, that it meant something.