Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp

by Nathan Bransford

  Napoleon burped. He was sitting in the corner in a big red chair wearing a full military uniform with hundreds of medals. He said “Je vous prie de m’excuser” without looking up from his huge book on flowers.

  Jacob looked around the rest of the basement, which was full of ancient wood cabinets, magnificent rows of books, and strange exotic plants that Dexter was protecting from the chilly weather outside. They were arranged carefully near a huge fireplace where a large log burned, radiating warmth throughout the room. Hanging in the center of the ceiling was an ornate chandelier with dozens of candles that dripped wax into a sticky pool on the floor.

  “Think about it,” Dexter said. “Astrals were always so worried about Earth and how we were going to war with them, accusing us of being spies and all that stuff about Earth being a menace. What if they weren’t wrong? What if there was something to it and people from Earth really do want to destroy Astrals?”

  “But it’s just a tapestry.” Sarah waved her hand at it dismissively. “Sure, now we know humans know about Astrals a long time ago, but how do you know that Earth is a danger to them?”

  “Because I did more research,” Dexter said. He walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a massive leather-bound tome that was nearly three feet long and thousands of pages thick. He placed it on a rough wooden table. Jacob was impressed by Dexter’s feat of strength. There was no way he would have been able to lift something that big before.

  Jacob stepped over to the book and opened it to its title page. He was surprised to see that it was written in English and not French. Its title was On the Origin and Danger of Human Species Not Originating on Our Planet.

  He thumbed through the pages and saw intricate prints of spaceship encounters, diagrams of planets, extensive theories about the possible source of space humans, detailed accounts of Astral pranks, and what appeared to be a lengthy manifesto about the moral duty of exterminating them. Whoever had made the book had seemingly spent their entire life trying to compile every known fact about every possible encounter with people from outer space. And they certainly did not seem very nice about it.

  Jacob supposed that it was natural that humans would have been scared of Astrals. After all, he remembered the exhibit he had seen on Planet Archimedes that showed a video of Astrals tipping over a woolly mammoth and terrifying some early humans. Astrals loved pranks, and how could they have resisted messing with Earthers? And people were often hostile toward things they were scared of.

  But there was a big difference between being suspicious and actually trying to destroy Astrals. Even as he thumbed through the strange book, Jacob was still skeptical that there was such a thing as a secret society on Earth that wanted to wipe out space humans.

  “There’s more,” Dexter said. The light from the candles and fire danced across his face and made him seem even more serious than he sounded.

  “When I first arrived in France, everyone was scared of me because I was wearing modern clothes and didn’t speak French, so they took me to this weird group that wore black robes and necklaces with gold triangles. I didn’t know what everyone was saying, but I think they thought I was an Astral. I thought they were going to kill me! They took me straight to Napoleon and there was a lot of arguing. Bonnie let me stay in the palace, which made all those scary people really mad. We hit it off right away, didn’t we Bonnie?”

  Napoleon looked confused. “Je ne comprends pas ce que vous dites.”

  “Je leur raconte comment nous nous sommes rencontrés,” Dexter said.

  “Ce fut un plaisir! Quelle histoire amusante!” Napoleon collapsed into fits of laughter. Dexter joined in and they high-fived.

  “See?” Dexter said to Jacob. “It was hilarious.”

  “Um, right. Who were the scary people?” Jacob asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Bonnie would never say, even after I learned French. But I think they were a secret anti-Astral society.”

  “Wait a second,” Sarah said. “Dex, isn’t it strange that you just happened to find all of this Astral stuff out from meeting Napoleon Bonaparte? What happened to you after we met Eedot? Who could have sent you back in time into France?”

  “Who do you think?” a very satisfied voice said from behind a bookshelf.

  “Sacrebleu!” Napoleon shouted. “Qui êtes-vous?”

  Mick Cracken, the twelve-year-old Mick Cracken, former prince and current president of the universe, stepped into the center of the room and greeted them with an insufferable gloating grin. He clapped his hands together in silent self-congratulation.

  “You . . .” is all Jacob managed to say.

  “I think you mean ‘Hello, Mr. President,’” Mick said.

  Jacob and Sarah and Dexter looked around at one another and shook their heads. Of course it was Mick Cracken.

  Mick reached into his pocket and held up a golden key. “What? Did you really think I’d let you have my only time machine?”

  What are you doing here?” Jacob asked, glaring at Mick.

  Mick smiled. “All in due time, all in due time . . . First I have to memorize the expression on your faces right now so I can savor it for the rest of my life.”

  “Ugh. Forget it. Let’s get out of here,” Jacob said, taking the time machine out of his pocket. “Before he can send one of us back to the Dark Ages.”

  Jacob was furious that Mick was interfering yet again. He had marooned Jacob and Dexter on Numonia, he had sent kidnappers after Jacob when he had tried to run for president of the universe, and now he’d stranded Dexter in revolutionary France. Whatever peace Jacob had made with Mick after the election completely evaporated.

  “Before you go . . .” Mick said. He looked completely relaxed, as if there were no reason at all that Jacob, Sarah, and Dexter would be mad at him. He looked as if he may as well have been hosting a tea party on Planet Royale. “Don’t you want to talk about how we should work together?”

  “Why would we work with you?” Sarah asked. “Dexter could have been killed.”

  Mick shook his head as if he were extremely disappointed by the collective intelligence on display.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Mick said, arching an eyebrow. “If I had told you that Astrals were in danger because of an Earther secret society, would you have believed me?”

  Jacob and Dexter and Sarah looked around at one another. They all knew the answer was no, but none of them were willing to give Mick the satisfaction of admitting it. If Dexter hadn’t seen the strange anti-Astral group and if Jacob hadn’t leafed through the scary book, they wouldn’t have believed that very many people on Earth had even heard of Astrals.

  “That’s what I thought,” Mick said, rubbing his fingernails on his jacket. “Besides, I’m told Paris is a lovely city to visit in the fall.”

  “Not in 1804,” Dexter said. “They don’t have toilets. Thanks a lot, Cracken.”

  They heard a crash upstairs followed by some shouting.

  “What was that?” Jacob asked.

  Dexter’s bodyguard charged into the room.

  “Monsieur Goldstein! Vous êtes en danger. Ce sont les gens bizarres.” He grasped his musket tightly and ran back upstairs.

  “Les gens bizarres?!” Napoleon exclaimed. “Ici? C’est scandaleux!”

  Sarah gasped. Dexter’s face was white as he rushed over to lock the door. Jacob and Mick glanced at each other, uncomprehending.

  “What did they say?” Jacob asked.

  “It’s the strange people,” Dexter said. “They’re back.”

  “And we’re all in danger,” Sarah added.

  Jacob took out the time machine. “Let’s go,” he said. Dexter and Sarah rushed over to him and grabbed his shoulder.

  He held up the key. “Present time, my house—”

  “Before you go . . .” Mick said, his voice still calm
despite the threat of imminent danger. He held up his golden key and examined the way it reflected the candles and the fire. “Wonderbar, I think you should come with me.”

  Jacob would have laughed if the situation didn’t seem so urgent. “And why would I do that?”

  Mick’s eyes glinted. “I can help you find your father.”

  Sarah and Dexter whipped their heads around to see what Jacob thought. Jacob’s heart raced and he stared straight back at Mick, unsure whether he was about to be trapped. Mick was a master of tricks, and Jacob knew he needed to tread carefully.

  “How do you know where he is?” Jacob said, trying to keep his voice even.

  Mick smiled. “Because I’m the one who sent him back in time.”

  A gunshot rang out in the hallway outside and the shouting became nearer and more desperate. There was urgent pounding on the door that soon turned into cracking. Someone was trying to batter the door open.

  “It’s them!” Dexter said.

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

  Jacob felt anger stirring within him. Mick acted as if sending Jacob’s father back in time was the least interesting thing he had done that day. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Jacob might be upset about it. Instead, Mick simply held up his golden key and waited for Jacob to join him, as if it were a foregone conclusion that Jacob would believe him and follow him on whatever harebrained scheme Mick had concocted.

  There was a smash at the door and the end of a long wooden log barreled through. The men outside pulled it back, and Jacob caught a glimpse of a man wearing a black hood, his faced scarred and twisted in anger. He wore a gold necklace with a triangle. Jacob had to make a decision.

  He tossed his time machine to Sarah and Dexter. “I’ll meet you back in the present,” he said.

  He grabbed on to Mick’s time machine and braced himself for wherever Mick was going to take him.

  “Wait!” Sarah shouted. She started running over to Jacob and he extended his hand.

  She never reached him. Mick had already warped.

  Sarah sat down on the dirt path in front of her house on May 16, 2012, and slammed her hand down on a tuft of moss. An alarmed jackrabbit emerged from the bushes and ran away. Sarah tried to stop the angry tears that were welling in her eyes. Yet again, Jacob Wonderbar had gone charging off without her. He should have waited. He should have asked her what she thought he should do. They should have been a team.

  They had been through so much in the past few weeks. It was almost as if they didn’t have to talk anymore because they always knew what the other was thinking. Only now he had never felt so far away.

  She stared at the stream trickling down the middle of the street where cars used to drive. Dexter sat down beside her. He patted her on the back.

  “Hey,” he said quietly. “Yeah.”

  She knew Dexter had no idea whatsoever what to say to make her feel better and that made her smile. He had clearly not become more eloquent after a year in France.

  She thought about going on the scary living computer to see if she could locate Jacob, but somehow she figured Mick was too smart to leave a trail if he didn’t want them to be discovered. She just hoped Jacob would return to them soon.

  She took a steadying breath. “What do we do now, Dex?” Sarah asked.

  “Um. How about first we figure out why our street looks like we landed in The Lord of the Rings?”

  Sarah laughed. “Oh, right, I forgot you haven’t seen it. We think it’s because you taught Napoleon how to recycle.”

  Dexter looked around the neighborhood forest. “Hooray for me?”

  Sarah heard a rustling behind her and she turned in time to see Nelly take a bite out of a pink flower. Nelly chewed quickly, paused, and stared at Sarah and Dexter with beady green eyes, and then took off running down the path.

  Sarah buried her face in her hands. They really needed to get Nelly back to the Jurassic era. Of course, as she looked around at her overgrown jungle of a neighborhood, she figured Nelly was feeling quite at home.

  Sarah thought that she should go inside and see her parents and at least practice the piano or study for her Mandarin lesson, but she couldn’t bear to go back home so soon after being ditched by Jacob. Being around her parents would just remind her of the fact that they didn’t approve of him. They questioned whether he was a positive influence in her life, and it was only after intervention by Jacob’s mother that Sarah was even allowed to see him after school.

  They certainly wouldn’t approve of her being upset over anything to do with Jacob Wonderbar. They might even sign her up for another extracurricular just so she had less time to spend with him.

  Or even worse, they’d transfer her to another school. Sarah felt her anger returning. She didn’t break rules and she loved her parents, but she didn’t know why they couldn’t see the real Jacob the way she could.

  The door to Sarah’s house flew open.

  “Dexy!” she heard Chloe shout. “Dexy!” She started running toward the dirt path.

  Dexter smiled, but Sarah knew Chloe better than he did. Chloe didn’t sound excited, she sounded panicked.

  “Happy . . . I mean . . . greetings,” Dexter said as she approached.

  Chloe reached them and looked down at Dexter. Her forehead was creased with worry.

  “Dexy, it’s your mom,” Chloe said. “She’s in the hospital.”

  Where are you taking me?” Jacob asked.

  Mick ignored Jacob and kept walking through the forest, glancing at his Telly and trampling through the bushes and branches that were in his way.

  Jacob trailed behind Mick, keeping as close to him as possible just in case Mick tried to whip out his time machine and maroon Jacob in time, just as he had apparently done to Jacob’s dad.

  The forest was completely familiar—Jacob knew every root and shrub and stick in the scrubby little forest down the street from his house, the place where they had found the spaceship Lucy and where he had run from raccoons with Sarah and Dexter and where he spent many summer nights chasing fireflies and just being by himself.

  But Jacob didn’t know where they were in time.

  “What year is it?” Jacob asked. Mick had whispered the destination when they warped and Jacob couldn’t hear where they were going amid all the chaos at the Palace des Tuileries.

  Mick didn’t answer, didn’t flinch, and didn’t even turn around to acknowledge the question. Jacob stared at Mick’s back, wondering for the hundredth time if he could really trust him. He had suspected from the beginning that Mick was somehow involved in his father’s disappearance, as it had all the hallmarks of a Mick Cracken plot: nefarious actions, foul play, kidnapping, and making Jacob’s life exceedingly difficult.

  Mick was a master of deception and wouldn’t think twice about using Jacob’s father’s predicament against Jacob.

  But what was Mick trying to do? Why was he on Earth? And why would he try to help Jacob after he had previously marooned him on Numonia, sent crazed SEERs to try to kidnap him during the Astral presidential election, and generally treated Jacob as if he were his arch-nemesis?

  Mick stopped and turned to face Jacob, giving him a wry smile. “You don’t trust me,” he said.

  Jacob stared back at Mick and kept his face neutral. He would neither confirm nor deny.

  Mick held up his hands. “I know we have a history. You have been my cleverest foe. But we’re on the same side this time.”

  Jacob shook his head. “You’re only on your own side.”

  Mick smiled happily. “You know me too well. But in this case my side happens to be your side.”

  “Then why did you ditch my dad in the past?”

  Mick tapped a fist on his lips for a few moments in thought, then turned to walk away. “You’ll
see,” he said over his shoulder.

  Mick’s nonchalance made Jacob’s blood boil. Mick was messing with his father and acting as if it were the most natural thing in the universe. Jacob possessed so little trust in Mick, it was like the complete and total opposite of trust. Mick could spend the rest of his life telling nothing but the truth and being a perfect model citizen, and Jacob would still wonder if Mick was setting him up in some sort of long con game.

  Jacob realized he needed to get control of the situation. He would steal Mick’s time machine, warp back to the present, and leave Mick in the past until Jacob knew what to do with him. He would turn the tables.

  He crept up behind Mick, who seemed lost in thought. Jacob crouched, ready to tackle Mick and wrest the key out of Mick’s pocket.

  Just as Jacob was ready to leap, Mick pointed at the ground and then craned his neck, looking around the forest, appearing very concerned.

  Jacob stood up quickly and tried to read the expression on Mick’s face. “What is it?”

  “This is where and when I left your dad,” Mick said. He gave Jacob a grim smile. “Only he’s not here.”

  “But—” Before he could deal with Mick, Jacob’s voice caught and he ducked down behind a bush.

  Jacob saw a ten-year-old version of himself walk into the clearing.

  Dexter, Sarah, and Chloe huddled next to the door of Dexter’s mom’s hospital room. Doctors and patients streamed by. A tall nurse stopped and was about to speak to the children, most likely to ask them to move along, but one stern look from Sarah sent her on her way without a word.

  Although the outside of the hospital was obscured by trees, the inside looked exactly like the hospital Dexter had long known and feared. Its shiny floors and white walls seemed designed solely to cause strange squeaky noises that inspired feelings of terror. He rubbed his hands over his face and avoided thinking about all of the fearsome medical devices in the general vicinity. He tried to breathe.