by Mark Young
The girl sighed and walked back into the hallway.
“Doorway homework scanners,” Flubitus said. “They can also detect if you’re wearing clean socks or not.”
As they passed the next classroom door, Newton skidded to a stop. A boy made of green goo sat at one of the lab tables inside the room.
“Higgy?” Newton asked Flubitus. “But I thought we were in the future. Why is he still a student?”
“That’s not Higgy. That’s his son,” Flubitus replied. He pointed into the room. “That’s Higgy.”
Newton peered farther into the room. A larger, and older, Higgy than the one he knew stood in front of the class, wearing glasses and using a pointer to indicate calculations on a holographic screen.
“Your roommate now teaches Subversive Subatomic Physics,” Flubitus informed him. “Odifin is a teacher too. Would you like to see? His class is on the way to Headmistress Mumtaz’s office.”
“Yes!” Newton replied, although he hesitated at the doorway for a few seconds. It was strange seeing grown-up Higgy with his son, but it made Newton happy, too.
He pulled himself away and joined Flubitus as he peered into a classroom up ahead. There was Odifin at the front of the classroom, lecturing.
“Now, students, I know that most of you know me as the fun professor, but brain chemistry is a serious topic,” he was saying.
Seated at a desk near Odifin, working on papers, was a tall man with short, dark hair. He was wearing a spiffy suit and tie.
“That is certainly true, students,” the man echoed. “A serious topic, indeed!”
“Is that…,” Newton began.
“It’s Rotwang,” Flubitus answered. “The first assistant ever to become part of the faculty here at the school. Although he is an assistant professor. Odifin’s assistant.”
“Good for him!” Newton said. “And Odifin sounds happy too.”
Suddenly he heard a familiar voice in his brain.
“Attention, students, faculty, and staff!” Ms. Mumtaz began. “We’ve got a Code Vermillion alert! Due to circumstances beyond our control, we must evacuate the school. Please gather any essential possessions and proceed calmly to the gym for portal transport. We have only ninety minutes to evacuate. I repeat, proceed calmly!”
Students and professors began to stream into the hallways, scrambling, talking, and shrieking. Flubitus grabbed Newton by the arm.
“Quick! We must find Mumtaz!”
They ran through the crowd and then burst into the headmistress’s office. Future Mumtaz looked the same as the Mumtaz that Newton knew—just like she had in the holographic projection.
“Flubitus!” she cried. “The threat from Shelly—it’s happened. She’s giving us ninety minutes to clear out, and she demanded that all the monsters be released onto the island. Then she will give up our secret to the world.”
Then Mumtaz looked at Newton. “And who’s this? Did you clone yourself or something?”
Newton took a breath and released the mimicry he was using. Ms. Mumtaz raised an eyebrow.
“Past Newton?” she asked. “Oh right! Flubitus thought you could team up with the Newton in our time line, who would be future Newton to you, and stop Shelly. I suppose you need a portal pass to the castle?”
She reached into her desk, took one out, and quickly folded it. The wind whipped up as the portal popped into existence.
“Good luck, Newton,” she said. “If you fail, the school will be lost. And you’ll be stuck here in the future, because the time portal will be lost too. I think we forgot to tell you that twenty-five years ago.”
The realization hit Newton. “Yeah, you didn’t mention that,” he said. If he got stuck in the future, he’d never see Shelly, Higgy, or Theremin again. At least not the way he knew them. “I won’t fail.”
“Don’t,” Mumtaz said. “Do whatever it takes to stop Shelly.”
Newton paused. “I’m not going to hurt Shelly,” he said. “I don’t care what she’s become—she’s my friend. I know she’s not evil.”
“She may have become evil by accident, but what she’s doing is wrong,” Mumtaz said. “Stop her, Newton.”
Professor Flubitus handed him a school brochure. “Use this to return when your mission is over,” he said. “And I’ve already transmitted a schematic of Shelly’s castle to your tablet. Study it when you get there, and then try to figure out where Shelly is keeping future Newton. You two will have to work together. Use your noodle noggin if you have to.”
“Noodle noggin” was a code phrase that triggered superintelligence in Newton for a short period of time. Immediately Newton felt like a door was opening in his brain.
He tucked the portal pass into his pocket. “Why are you giving me this? Aren’t you coming with me?”
Flubitus shook his head. “I’m no match for Shelly’s monsters. You must do this alone, my boy.”
Newton nodded. “I understand,” he said. Then he turned and faced the portal. On the other side of that darkness was a creepy castle, an accidentally evil woman, and an army of monsters.
What am I afraid of? Newton asked himself. After all, I’m a monster too.
He jumped into the portal.
CHAPTER 12 Infiltrating Frankenstein Castle
He stepped out of the portal onto a cobblestone walkway. The Frankenstein castle loomed in front of him, looking very much like the castle in the miniature golf game. The walkway led to a bridge across a murky moat. Storm clouds hovered directly over the gray stone towers, shooting out jagged streaks of lightning.
Newton shivered in the damp, cold air. He needed a plan. He found the castle schematics that Flubitus had downloaded onto his tablet, a complicated blueprint with secret tunnels and entrances. But thanks to the “noodle noggin” trigger that the professor had given him, the diagram made perfect sense.
Flubitus had marked an X where he believed future Newton was being held. If Newton climbed up to the third window on the main tower, he might be able to reach the room through a hidden passageway without Shelly seeing him. First, though, he had to cross the moat. The blueprint didn’t show any hidden traps, so he started to walk across.
He looked left and right at the dark, still water, and then he remembered something. The castle moat in the golf course had contained those tentacles.…
He heard a splash to the right of him and stopped. He turned to see a green, slimy head with one enormous eye slowly rising out of the water, staring at him.
Newton’s instincts kicked in, and he instantly camouflaged with the cobblestones without having to think about it. The creature blinked. Newton stood perfectly still, trying to breathe quietly.
The head began to sink beneath the water again. Newton let out a sigh, and slowly moved forward.
Splash! A large tentacle lashed out of the water and slapped the walkway right behind him. Newton, still camouflaged, broke into a run.
Splash! Splash! Another tentacle lashed out, and then another.
Splash! Another came out, and this one made contact. It knocked Newton to the ground. Startled, Newton lost his camouflage. The tentacle quickly wrapped around him.
Newton could barely breathe. He struggled to free himself, kicking his legs.
What other abilities do I have that could get me out of this? he asked himself, but he had no answer.
The monster brought Newton right in front of its eye.
“Uh, hello!” Newton called out. “I’m a friend of Shelly’s. So maybe you could just, let me go?”
The monster blinked. Then the tentacle quickly moved, smacking Newton against the surface of the water and bringing him back up.
Well, that didn’t work, Newton thought.
He gazed into the giant eye again, and he had an idea. He closed his eyes for a second, concentrating, and when he opened them again, he was mimicking the monster.
The monster’s eye narrowed as it studied what appeared to be a baby monster in her grasp. Confused, it let go of Newton.
&n
bsp; He plummeted into the moat with a splash. Gills instantly sprouted on either side of his neck, and he could feel the air fill his lungs. The water was dark and murky, but his eyes adjusted, and he swam to toward the castle.
Newton climbed out and shook off the water. His reptilian DNA craved sunlight at that moment, but there was none to be found. He had to keep going and find future Newton.
According to the blueprints, he needed to get to the main tower. He pushed his way through weeds and bushes with sharp thorns to get there.
Skree!
He looked up to see a pink monster with yellow wings and sharp claws swoop down from the sky. Newton quickly camouflaged again.
The pink monster landed in front of Newton, and this time Newton held his breath. The monster moved closer and closer to Newton, sniffing him with its furry snout. Newton knew he couldn’t hold his breath much longer.
Then Newton burped. To his surprise, a cloud of green mist shot out, spraying the monster in the face. Spooked, the monster flew off.
“Well, that was new,” Newton said, making a face at the taste in his mouth. “Shelly always said I probably had even more abilities than we knew. I guess she was right.”
Still camouflaged, he reached the main tower. He kicked off his shoes and flexed his fingers.
“Grippy time!” he said, and he began to easily scale up the brick as his sticky fingertips and toes stuck to the tower wall.
Two wooden shutters covered the third window, and he pushed them open and peeked inside. The window led to an open hallway, just as he’d seen in the diagram. He was in the right place.
He pulled himself inside and dropped his camouflage. A threadbare red carpet felt soft under his bare feet. He cautiously walked down the hallway and then stopped where he had seen the hidden passageway on the castle plans.
There was no doorway, only a painted portrait of a pale woman with dark hair and a frown. He lifted the picture from the wall, and saw a small door behind it.
Newton rested the portrait on the floor, opened the small door, and pulled himself into what turned out to be a secret passageway. He had to crawl on his hands and knees through the twisting path in order to fit.
Crinkle-snort!
He heard a noise in front of him, and for a second he thought about turning back. But I can’t turn back! he thought. I have to face whatever’s coming toward me!
Crinkle-snort!
The sound grew louder as a small, blue face came into view.
“Peewee!” Newton said in a loud whisper. “Hey there, little guy. How are you? It’s good to see you.”
Peewee stopped and looked at Newton.
“Do you remember me?” he asked.
Peewee squeaked and started tapping his back feet with excitement.
“How about you hang out with me for a little while?” Newton asked. “No need to let Shelly know that I’m here. I want to surprise her.”
Newton had no idea if the blue monster understood him or not, but Peewee hopped up onto his back and nestled there. Newton continued to crawl. The passageway came to a dead end, and Newton pushed at the wall. A small doorway swung out and open.
Newton shimmied out and dropped down. He was in a large room with a huge glass box, almost like a zoo exhibit. He stepped up to the glass and peered inside.
A three-headed, bright blue creature hopped past him on springy legs, and he jumped back. A herd of monsters that looked like yellow puffballs bounced from plant to plant. A green creature with six legs and eyeballs on stalks scuttled across the floor.
“This looks like a monster habitat, all right,” Newton said out loud. “But where’s Newton?”
A skinny tree with feathery leaves suddenly transformed into a thirty-nine-year-old skinny man with black hair marked with a white streak, and green eyes.
Current Newton gasped.
It’s my future self! he thought. This is incredibly weird!
“I’m Newton,” future Newton replied. “Gotta be careful around this time of day. The Vilkrax gets hungry.”
He nodded toward the six-legged creatures. Then future Newton’s eyes widened.
“Hey, you look like me,” he said. “Did they make another clone to come help me? Are you Newton Forty-Three?”
“Um, actually, I’m you—Forty-Two—but younger,” current Newton replied. “Flubitus brought me here from the past.”
Future Newton gasped. “Wow,” he said. “I’ve been studying up on time travel for the last twenty-five years, and I thought that, you know, both of us couldn’t be in the same place and time, or the world would explode or something.”
Both Newtons stared at each other for a moment, waiting.
“I guess that’s not going to happen,” current Newton said. “Anyway, I came to get you out of here.”
Future Newton shrugged. “I don’t know how. If I can’t get out of this glass box, then I don’t think you can get in.”
“Is there an entrance?” current Newton asked. “How did Shelly put you in here?”
“There’s a door,” future Newton said, pointing. “Shelly comes in with food and stuff once a day. She uses a key.”
Current Newton found the door and yanked on it. “Locked!” he reported.
“I could have told you that,” future Newton said.
Current Newton thought. “Maybe I can just sneak into wherever Shelly is and get the key,” he said.
Future Newton shook his head. “That won’t be so easy. Her office is guarded by a gauntlet of monsters, each one tougher than the last. How do you think I ended up in here?”
“I know,” current Newton said. “But I’ve got to try. If I don’t, Franken-Sci High will be gone forever. And I’ll be stuck here in the future.”
Current Newton had almost forgotten about Peewee, who was still on Newton’s back. The little monster began to chatter excitedly. Then poof! He vanished.
“Oh great,” future Newton said. “He’s probably gone to tell Shelly you’re here!”
Current Newton sighed. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I—”
Poof! Peewee appeared on current Newton’s back again, and then moved up to Newton’s shoulder to show Newton that he was holding a key in his paws.
“Wow, thanks, Peewee!” Newton said, and he approached the door. “This is all you need to open it? Not a key card, or an eyeball, or DNA?”
Future Newton shrugged. “Everything in this castle in pretty old school. Shelly likes it that way.”
Then he looked behind him. The Vilkrax was trotting toward him, licking his lips.
“Would you mind hurrying up and opening the door?” future Newton asked.
“Oh sure,” current Newton replied, and he scrambled to open it up. Future Newton slipped out and slammed the door behind him. Current Newton locked it again.
“Thanks,” future Newton said. “Okay. Now we should get out of here.” He headed toward the passageway that current Newton had come through.
“Wait!” current Newton cried. “We’ve still got to find Shelly and stop her. We’re running out of time.”
Future Newton shook his head. “It’s no use. I try talking to her every time she brings me food. She won’t listen.”
Current Newton frowned. “But you two are friends. Why won’t she listen? Why did she lock you in here?”
Future Newton anxiously scratched his head. “Well, it might have something to do with the fact that I went to work for Crowninshield Industries.”
“You WHAT?” current Newton asked. “But you know how Shelly feels about Mimi.”
“I thought I was being smart!” future Newton cried. “I knew Shelly was against Crowninshield’s monster experiments. I thought if I worked for them, I could convince Mimi to maybe stop the program. Or use rescued monsters. But Mimi wanted to do it her way, and Shelly got mad.”
“We still have to try,” current Newton said. “Maybe she’ll listen to the two of us.”
Future Newton sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t be
surprised if we both end up in that cage again. At least I’ll have someone to talk to.”
Current Newton looked at the diagram. “Looks like there’s a passageway that goes directly to Shelly’s lab,” he said. “Maybe we can bypass the monster gauntlet if we use it.”
He walked ahead and made a right into another hallway, followed by his future self. There, on the wall, was a portrait of the same sour-faced woman.
Peewee started to chatter excitedly.
“Thanks so much for the key, Peewee,” current Newton said. “I think you gave it to us because you want us to help Shelly. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Peewee chattered even more loudly as current Newton took the picture off the wall. He hoisted himself up, climbed in through the hole…
… and began to plummet downward at rocket speed!
CHAPTER 13 The Lucky Ones
Current Newton plummeted down a chute.
Thump! He landed on a hard stone floor.
“Get out of the wayyyyyyyy!” came a voice from behind him, and Newton rolled to the right as future Newton shot out of the chute.
“Ouch!” future Newton complained. “That’s hard on the old knees.”
“Old knees? Aren’t you only thirty-nine?” current Newton asked.
Then a shadow crossed over them. A shadow with curly hair. Both Newtons looked up to see future Shelly looming over them. She wore a white lab coat, and her eyes glared at them through her goggles.
She looks different from how she did in the projection Flubitus showed, current Newton thought. In that she just looked like a grown-up. Now she looks… like a mad scientist! A really mad scientist!
Peewee climbed off current Newton’s back, and joined Shelly as she sat down on a big, plush chair.
“Well, well, well,” Shelly said, looking at future Newton. “What have we here? Looks like you’ve escaped, Newton! And who is your little friend here?” she said, looking at current Newton. “A clone?”
Current Newton jumped to his feet. “Shelly, it’s me!” he said. “I’m Newton too—the Newton you knew in school. I’ve come from the past to save the future.”