Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp

by Nathan Bransford

  “Who sent you?” Jacob asked.

  “You did!” Chloe said.

  “But—”

  They heard a deafening hiss behind them in the forest. Jacob froze. Whatever made that noise did not sound friendly.

  He slowly looked over his shoulder and saw a massive dinosaur peering down at them. It was as tall as a house and was only twenty yards away. It had a giant head, tiny clawed arms, and stood on gigantic hind legs. It hissed again, revealing a set of jagged, incredibly sharp teeth. Teeth that were surely present in order to aid the dinosaur in its consumption of meat. Teeth that were perfectly designed for the tearing and ripping of flesh. Jacob imagined one of those teeth sinking effortlessly into his arm. He shuddered.

  “Dexter,” Jacob whispered, trying not to move his mouth. “Is that an allosaurus?”

  “No,” Dexter whispered. “It’s a torvosaurus. It’s bigger than an allosaurus.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sarah whispered.

  Jacob took out the time machine and nodded. Sarah and Dexter reached out and grabbed his hand.

  “May second, 2012, clearing in the forest, seven p.m. One, two . . .”

  “Wait!” Sarah whispered furiously. “Where’s Chloe?”

  Jacob whipped his head around. Chloe was nowhere to be seen.

  Just as his mind registered her disappearance, the torvosaurus charged out of the forest.

  “We have to get out of here!” Jacob shouted.

  “Not without Chloe!” Sarah hissed frantically. “Where is she?!”

  The torvosaurus was bounding toward them. Jacob was about to say “Warp” as a simple matter of survival when the small, very uninteresting othnielia started running toward the giant carnivore. Jacob couldn’t imagine what its tiny reptilian brain was thinking. It was only three feet tall, maybe, and it was heading straight toward a thirty-five-foot killing machine.

  Jacob thought he saw the torvosaurus’s eyes glint as it saw the othnielia approach. It opened its jaws and lowered its massive head down for a chomp, but the othnielia darted to the side and ran straight through the torvosaurus’s legs. The torvosaurus made one last lunge through its hind legs to catch the little reptile, tripped over its own head, and collapsed in an earth-shaking heap.

  “Whoa,” Dexter said. “Go, othnielia.”

  The torvosaurus regained its composure and went bounding off into the forest after the othnielia.

  They were safe. For the moment.

  You people are crazy,” Chloe said when she emerged from the bushes a few moments later. “I can’t believe you were going to just stand there and get eaten.”

  Jacob reached for Sarah. “No, don’t—”

  He was too late.

  Sarah Daisy lunged at her sister and tackled her into the dirt. She pinned Chloe’s shoulders to the ground with her knees and pointed a finger in her face.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” Sarah yelled.

  Chloe laughed, which Jacob knew would make Sarah only angrier. He ran over and pulled Sarah off her sister and held her back, surprised as always at how powerful she was when she had a full head of steam. After a few moments he finally felt her relax a bit and he released her.

  She stomped away to regain her composure.

  Jacob turned back to Chloe, trying to keep a calm voice. “Chloe, if we’re ever in danger again, you really need to come over to the time machine and—”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Chloe said. “You’re not the king of the jungle, Jacob Wonderbar.”

  Jacob wondered if the torvosaurus might still be hungry.

  He turned his back on her, marveling that she had managed to top the time she dumped a bucket of water on Sarah and Jacob from the upstairs window when they were about to hug good night. Or kiss good night, Jacob briefly thought before pushing the idea out of his mind.

  Sarah rejoined the circle with her hands stuffed in her pockets, though Jacob noticed she was still so angry, she was unable to look at Chloe. “Let’s get her back to the present.” She jutted out her jaw. “Whether she wants to go or not.”

  “But wait,” Jacob said. “If Chloe came from the future, we should take her back to her present time. Chloe, what day is it for you?”

  Jacob knew he had to get her back to whatever day she had traveled back in time. If they brought her back to the present and she hadn’t gone back in time yet, there would be two Chloes at the same time, and Jacob was quite sure he could not handle that.

  Chloe pouted for a moment, then smiled. “It’s the eleventy-fifth of Octember,” she said with a sarcastic flip of her hair.

  Jacob could feel the blood pounding in his temples. “Forget it,” he said. “We’ll just take her back to our time.”

  “But then there will be two of her running around!” Sarah shouted. “Think about it, Jacob, what are we going to do with this The Brat and past The Brat? It’s bad enough dealing with one of her.”

  “I can hear you!” Chloe said.

  Jacob sighed and turned back to Chloe. “Listen,” Jacob said, trying to keep his voice as even as possible. “We really need to get you back to the correct time. Would you, pretty please, tell us what day we need to take you back to?”

  Chloe crossed her arms and squinted at Jacob. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

  Jacob waited as patiently as he could manage.

  “It’s the thirty-twelfth of Marchuary.” She leaned her head back and cackled.

  Jacob grabbed her hand. “That’s it. We’re leaving.”

  Dexter grabbed Chloe’s hand as well. She beamed at him, but he was looking off into the forest, his face bright red. Sarah stood in place for a moment before reluctantly taking Jacob’s hand.

  “Okay, here we go,” Jacob said. “My house, noon, May sixteenth, 2012. Warp!”

  Jacob felt a prick on his leg when he said “warp,” and the air rushed out of his chest. When he opened his eyes, he enjoyed the thoroughly surprised look on Chloe’s face. He had tricked her. He just had a hunch that two weeks into the future was the correct time.

  “Lucky guess?” Jacob smirked.

  Then he saw the real reason Chloe looked so surprised.

  The othnielia took off running down the street.

  Nelly!” Dexter shouted. “Nelllyyyyyyy!!!”

  Jacob Wonderbar sat on the curb near the forest with his arms crossed, trying to clear his frustrated brain. He didn’t know where to find his dad. He didn’t know why he had run into Sarah Daisy’s kid sister in the Jurassic era. And he had just unleashed a several-hundred-million-year-old dinosaur on his unsuspecting neighborhood.

  The only consolation was that at least it was the othnielia and not the torvosaurus.

  Sarah stared at the forest and shook her head. “Jake, even if we see that thing, how are we going to catch it?”

  Chloe cackled. “You guys are so busted.”

  Sarah whipped her head around at her sister and jabbed a finger past Chloe’s ear in the direction of their house.

  “Go home.”

  Chloe smiled and said, “I don’t think Dexter—”

  “Go. Home,” Sarah said.

  Chloe kept on smiling at Sarah before she suddenly twirled around twice and started walking very slowly in the direction of her house. Then she stopped and turned around, staring with a venom that caught Jacob by surprise. He wondered if they should be keeping an eye on her after all.

  “You’ll regret this,” she said icily.

  “I don’t think we will,” Sarah shot back. “Go home.”

  “Nelly! Nelllllyyyyyyy!” Dexter shouted, before noticing Chloe walking away. “Oh. Bye, Chloe.”

  She turned her head up and smiled at Dexter as she walked away.

  Jacob muttered, “Now what?”


  It was time to think of a plan. They had squandered enough time looking for dinosaurs and dealing with Chloe. But Jacob felt so confused.

  His dad was in Milwaukee or in outer space or lost in time or who knew where. He didn’t know where to find him, he didn’t even know if his dad wanted to be found, and Jacob was tired just thinking about how long he had worried about his dad and what he was doing.

  He was tired of being the one doing the looking.

  “Maybe I should just go back and talk to my dad when he used to live at home. To see if he knows anything,” Jacob said.

  “Do you think that will work?” Sarah asked. “I mean, if someone is lost, does it work to ask them beforehand where they’re going to lose themselves?”

  “So how do you find someone who’s lost?” Jacob asked.

  Sarah tapped her fingers together softly. “Maybe we need to make him come to us. You know how when people are missing in the forest they make a huge fire so the rescuers can find them? What about something like that, only with time? Something really big.”

  “Nellyyyy!” Dexter shouted.

  Nelly shot out of the brush and ran in front of a passing car. Dexter shrieked, but the car swerved at the last second, nearly hit a fire hydrant, and honked angrily as it passed.

  Nelly stopped, perched on the curb, and stared at Jacob, Dexter, and Sarah for a moment. Then he took off running down the street again.

  Dexter smacked his face. “That thing is a menace.”

  “What do you think?” Sarah asked. She reached out and gently pushed Jacob’s head to the side and it made him smile.

  “You’re right. We need to make history,” he said. “Major history. So my dad will know where we are in time and have to come find us.”

  Sarah’s eyes glinted. “You have an appointment with Phil this afternoon, right?”

  Jacob did some quick calculations. “Yeah, I guess it’s Wednesday.”

  “I have an idea,” she said.

  Tell me about your feelings,” Phil the therapist said.

  Jacob Wonderbar was sitting on what had to be the most comfortable couch on the Planet Earth. He sunk into the plush, cool cushions, slowly rested his head back, and felt his eyelids lower in pleasure. He knew those cushions were really a secret weapon to make him feel calm enough to spill his guts, but they were so cozy, he wasn’t sure he cared. Every Wednesday afternoon he settled into this couch for a chat with Phil and tried not to fall asleep.

  Dexter was busy thumbing through a thick book on Carl Jung.

  “I’m pleased you brought your friends today,” Phil said. “Perhaps we can all learn together.”

  Jacob badly wanted Sarah’s plan to work. It was so simple and logical. They had no idea what year Jacob’s dad had been lost in time, so it made sense to go far back in history and make something big happen. If someone had just gone back to teach cavemen the principles of conflict resolution, and if early humans had learned to solve their differences in a calm and rational fashion, then maybe there would never have been such a thing as war. What could possibly be bigger than that? And if war had never been invented, not only would the world be a wildly better place, but the Timekeeper, the person responsible for tracking unauthorized time travel, would notice the massive difference in history no matter what year he was stranded in.

  He’d have to trace it back to the source: Phil. Since Jacob’s dad had been friends with Phil before he moved away, it wouldn’t take much to realize Jacob had a time machine and needed to be found.

  They would change the entire course of history. With a very polite therapist.

  “Do you believe in nonviolence?” Sarah asked.

  Phil cocked his head and gently tapped his fingertips together in front of his face. He had short gray hair and long gray nose hairs.

  “Do you believe in nonviolence?” Phil asked reasonably.

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “Well . . . I try.”

  Phil nodded as if he expected her to say that, then he settled back in his chair and stared at Sarah. She stared back in confusion.

  “And?” she asked. “What about you?”

  Phil was silent.

  Jacob raised his eyelids long enough to say to Sarah, “This is the part where he waits for you to say something. It’s his favorite trick. He’ll stay like that for an hour until you talk about your parents.”

  “Say something,” Sarah said.

  Phil stretched his shoulder slightly but stayed silent.

  “Say something!” Sarah yelled.

  Phil sniffed and scratched a note on his pad.

  “What are you writing?” Sarah asked. “What are you saying about me?”

  Phil smiled, clicked his pen closed, and folded his hands with a benevolent smile.

  “Boogaloo!” Sarah waved her hands.

  Phil’s expression didn’t change.

  “Did you know that not talking is a sign of insanity?” Sarah asked. She crossed her arms and squinted at him and waited for a full minute. Phil still refused to speak.

  Sarah nodded to Jacob. “He’s perfect,” she said.

  Jacob peeled himself off of the couch and waved to Dexter, who gave him a thumbs-up. They all ran and grabbed Phil, who nearly fell backward in his chair in surprise.

  “The Great Rift Valley, two hundred thousand years ago, one p.m., warp!” Jacob shouted.

  Tell me about your feelings,” Phil said to the caveman. “What are you feeling right now?”

  “Oo!” the caveman shouted. He scratched his long, tangled beard. He was wearing nothing but some scrappy animal furs that looked like they hadn’t been washed in a while. If ever.

  They had stumbled upon the caveman after spotting a wisp of smoke over the savannah, and apparently they had found themselves an exceedingly calm caveman, because he didn’t even run away when they approached. He just pointed at them, waved happily, and said “Oo!” and didn’t otherwise move an inch. Jacob wondered if he was able to stay calm because he had a massive club resting on the ground next to him and looked strong enough to bash them all to bits.

  Jacob stared at a small beast roasting on a spit for a moment before saying “Oo!” to the caveman, who nodded happily and said “Oo!” back.

  “Tell me everything,” Phil said in his best reassuring voice. “What is your family situation like?”

  Jacob didn’t have the heart to remind Phil that the caveman did not speak English, as it had not been invented yet.

  “The caveman smells,” Dexter said.

  “Shh!” Sarah said.

  “I want you to take a deep breath and just really focus on your physical sensations,” Phil said, undeterred. “Can you do that for me? Let your mind expand into the open space around you. Feel yourself in your own skin, then let your mind move into the space beyond your skin. Just let everything wander and then tell me how you feel.”

  The caveman pointed at Phil’s silver wristwatch. “Eck!”

  “Watch,” Phil said, pointing.

  “Wetch,” the caveman said.

  “Whoa!” Dexter said. “He almost said a word!”

  “He’s not an idiot,” Sarah said.

  “Eedot,” the caveman said, looking at Sarah with wide eyes. “Eedot! Eedot! Eedot!”

  The children were silent for a moment.

  “Eedot!” the caveman grabbed his club, stood up, and pounded the ground several times. Then he turned to the children and smiled happily. “Eedot.”

  “How does that word make you feel?” Phil asked.

  The caveman stared at Phil for a while. “Oo!” he said finally.

  Jacob stood up. He’d seen enough of Phil’s attempt at conflict resolution to know that it was going to take an extremely long time.

  “Sarah, Dexter, could I have a word?” Jacob ask
ed.

  Sarah and Dexter followed him a short way away, and they sat down on a rough log. Jacob batted at some extremely large flies that looked very eager to feast on one of his arteries.

  “We have to ditch Phil,” Jacob said.

  “What?!” Sarah whispered. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  They looked over at the campfire. Phil was placing his watch on Eedot’s wrist. Eedot trembled in excitement.

  Jacob turned back to Sarah and Dexter. “He’ll be fine. We can always come back here and pick him up later. Phil’s job could take an entire lifetime. He’s going to have to start with Eedot and educate a whole bunch more people. He’s probably going to have to learn their language too.”

  Dexter scratched his chin. “I guess there’s not that much harm. If something happens to him, we can come back and reverse it.”

  “Exactly,” Jacob said.

  Sarah raised a finger. “But where are we going to—”

  “EEDOT!” Eedot shouted from right behind them.

  “Ah!!” Dexter shouted as he fell backward over the log.

  “Eedot?” Eedot whispered in concern, bending over to stare at Dexter. He pointed at Phil’s watch and beamed.

  Dexter hopped up and scrambled over to Jacob. “Let’s go,” he said. “Phil can handle this.”

  Jacob had an idea. He’d almost forgotten he still had his Astral Telly, the outer space version of a cell phone. “Hey Phil,” he shouted. “If you see my dad, tell him to go to May sixteenth, 2012, and call me on my Telly.”

  Phil looked confused by what Jacob had just said, but he was quickly distracted when Eedot presented him with a dead animal in return for the watch.

  Jacob took out the key. They wandered into some scrubby bushes so Eedot and Phil wouldn’t see them disappear. When they were safely out of view, Sarah and Dexter grabbed on to the time machine and Jacob said, “May sixteenth, 2012, my house, one p.m. . . .”