“Oh my stars, 1872,” Old Mick sighed. “My favorite vintage.”
Old Mick let go of the time machine and ran over to stuff his face with chocolate. The children didn’t let up, however, and kept on grappling for the time machine.
“Mick Jr., May sixteenth, 2012, six p.m., warp!” Mick shouted.
They were warped onto Mick’s dimly lit spaceship, full of Mick Cracken–signed graffiti art. Soft lounge music was playing and Jacob could almost feel the Mick Cracken-ness of the place oozing through his skin.
“Mick Jr.!” Mick shouted. “Freeze them out. Hit them with the targeted temperature settings.”
“With pleasure,” Mick Jr. said.
Jacob felt a blast of cold air that chilled him to the bone. He was pretty sure his hair was starting to freeze into icicles. He wouldn’t be able to hold on long.
“My wedding day, warp!” Catalina shouted.
Jacob closed his eyes when he heard those words. He had a momentary flash of panic that maybe someday Catalina would have succeeded in convincing him to marry her and he would see himself standing dumbly at the front of a procession waiting for Catalina to come down the aisle. But he forced himself to open his eyes and instead just saw an older Catalina sitting in front of a mirror. She looked beautiful and happy and was wearing a white dress studded with brilliant lights.
“Look at my dress!” Catalina shrieked. “Gorgeous!”
Older Catalina turned around and winked. “Hi, darling,” she said. “Stay fabulous.”
“I will,” Catalina whispered.
The children kept grappling with the time machine and no one was willing to let go. Jacob knew exactly where he wanted to warp.
“My house, April fifth, 2010, warp!” Jacob shouted.
“That’s . . .” Dexter said before the air was sucked out of his lungs.
They came to in front of Jacob’s house, and Jacob used all his might to pull the group behind a bush. The street was still a jungle, but other than the ivy growing up the walls of Jacob’s house, the front yard still looked the same.
“What are we doing here?” Mick asked.
Sarah flicked her eyes at Jacob before giving Mick a stern stare that warned him not to push it. “It’s Jake’s birthday,” she said.
Jacob signaled for everyone to be quiet, and even though no one let go of the time machine, everyone stopped struggling for control and watched to see what would happen. The door burst open and Jacob saw his dad emerge with a younger version of himself trailing behind. Young Jacob had a huge smile on his face and he was skipping around, so excited to see what was going to happen.
It was Jacob’s last birthday before his dad moved away from home, and he remembered every moment. Jacob’s dad had always made his birthdays special, but this one had been especially spectacular.
Jacob’s heart raced when he watched his dad. It was the first time he had seen him in years, and his memory hadn’t faded a bit. He had messy hair and a slightly receding hairline, wore a buttoned shirt with a wrinkled collar, and his feet were always moving.
Young Jacob was clutching a map that had been drawn on an old piece of paper. His dad had told him that he had discovered a long-lost pirate map, and only Jacob could find where the treasure was buried. Jacob suspected that his dad had drawn the map, but when he marked off seven paces from the mulberry tree out in front, he stared down at fresh green grass. If his dad had decided shortly before Jacob’s birthday to hide something there, how could he have gotten the grass to grow back? Jacob never remembered a hole in that spot in the entire time they lived there.
“I can dig up the lawn?” Young Jacob asked.
Jacob’s dad smiled and went and grabbed a shovel and they both started digging. They worked together, tearing a hole through the lawn and working their way through the dark brown dirt underneath. About a foot down under the grass, Jacob hit wood.
They pried an old wooden chest out of the ground. It was heavy and had a rusted iron latch.
Young Jacob took a deep breath before he opened it, and inside were the two things he most wanted for his birthday. A brand-new basketball and a gaming system.
Jacob watched his younger self nearly explode with happiness. He remembered how magical it was pulling two new shiny objects out of an old chest buried in the dirt. He could never figure out how his dad had managed to pull it off.
But now he knew. His dad had a time machine. He was the Timekeeper.
Sarah rested her hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to go talk to him?” she whispered.
Jacob watched his younger self give his dad a big hug and they rushed inside together to go start playing games. He turned to Sarah and shook his head.
“Not now,” he said. “I don’t want to change anything about that moment.”
Sarah nodded and said, “Forest, May sixteenth, 2012, two p.m., warp.”
Sarah barely had time to adjust to being back in the forest in their neighborhood before her parents arrived. They stared silently at Sarah with their arms crossed.
The kids all froze and let go of the time machine and Mick slipped it into his pocket. Sarah glanced at her parents. Had they seen the time machine? It didn’t look as if they had.
“Tell me about your feelings,” Sarah’s dad said to the children in greeting.
She felt an elbow from Dexter. Another one of Phil’s expressions.
Sarah’s dad cleared his throat. “Sarah, come with us, please. Now.”
It gave her a chill when she realized he wasn’t looking at her when he said it. He was looking at Mick Cracken.
Even more troublesome, Mick Cracken was meeting his gaze with a fiery stare of his own. He didn’t appear to be intimidated in the slightest by the appearance of angry grown-ups.
Sarah slumped over toward her parents. “Stand up straight, young lady,” her mom said with a cool voice.
Sarah righted her spine. She had to wait for a moment while her parents gave one last stare at Jacob, Mick, Catalina, and Dexter before they turned and walked toward home. Sarah followed, wishing with all her might that she didn’t have to obey.
A swirl of emotions stirred within Sarah as she walked behind her parents. The indignity of having to leave Jacob behind just because her parents said so. The fact that she knew her parents didn’t approve of Jacob. There was something about the strange stare her mom had given Catalina and that her dad had given Mick that set her on edge. She wondered what they knew, about space and about Catalina and Mick.
She briefly thought of the Strangers, but she pushed the thought from her mind.
There’s no way her parents could be Strangers.
Could they?
When they arrived home, Sarah went and grabbed a banana from the fruit basket and started to walk upstairs when she caught her dad staring at a message on his phone. He showed it to Sarah’s mom and her eyes widened.
They were startled when they noticed that Sarah had seen them, but they quickly regained their composure.
“Darling, we have to leave for a few hours,” Sarah’s dad said.
“And you are not to step foot outside the premises,” her mom said.
“Not one foot,” her dad said.
“When we return, I expect you to have practiced the piano for at least an hour,” her mom said.
“And do not try to skimp on the time,” her dad said. “You know we are able to tell the difference.”
Sarah’s throat felt dry and scratchy and she just nodded. She didn’t want to practice the piano. She wanted to escape and go back out and find Jacob Wonderbar. But she was too scared of her parents to risk that.
When her parents closed the door behind them, Sarah trudged upstairs for a brief nap. She passed the door to her parents’ room, and her nagging doubts returned. Could they really be mixed up wit
h the Strangers?
As if pulled by an invisible force, she turned and walked toward her parents’ bedroom. She paused at the door. She was strictly forbidden from entering her parents’ room without their permission, but she slowly turned the doorknob and walked inside. Her heart raced as she padded across their thick carpet, walking slowly toward the closet. She knew from previous surreptitious snooping sessions that her parents had a locked compartment inside.
She had also seen her mom hiding the key in the corner of the room one time when she didn’t know Sarah was home. Sarah had never had the courage to see what was behind that door, but now she had to know why her parents knew about Mick and Catalina. Some part of her thought the answer was behind the locked door.
She walked to the corner of the room, carefully peeled back the carpet in the corner, and sure enough, the key was there. She grabbed it quickly.
She thought she heard a noise and whipped her head around. She pressed her ear to the floor to see if she could hear if her mom had returned. No one was there.
Heart pounding, she climbed slowly into the closet, which was dark and smelled like her parents. Their clothes hovered around her. She took a deep breath, slipped the key into the lock, and opened the door.
She saw black robes. Trembling, she grabbed one of the hangers and pulled on it. A necklace with a gold triangle tumbled onto the floor of the closet. Sarah burst into tears.
Her parents were Strangers.
Jacob didn’t have the heart to keep fighting Mick for the time machine after Sarah left. He let him walk away with it. Dexter and Catalina did the same. The four of them stood staring at one another in the forest.
Jacob trusted Mick less than ever, but with only one time machine, there was only one option. “All right, Mick,” Jacob said. “We need to work together.”
Mick nodded, the edge of his lips curling into a half smile, half sneer. “Glad to see you coming around.”
When Jacob had warped them back to his birthday, he hadn’t really thought it through—he’d just named the first date that came to mind. And when he arrived, he had simply absorbed the whole scene. He didn’t want to ruin that perfect moment by talking to his dad.
But it had given him an idea. Now he knew exactly where and when he wanted to warp. And he needed Mick’s help to do it.
“Listen,” Jacob said. “I want to—”
He didn’t have time to finish. They were suddenly face-to-face with Luger Smythe and Chloe Daisy, who had warped into the clearing.
Luger was wearing a black robe, and a belt that held a long, thin sword with a twirling golden handle. Chloe looked simultaneously worried and satisfied.
“I must apologize,” Luger said, caressing the ornate hilt of his rapier. “I didn’t have time to arrange an elephant.”
Jacob felt a slap on his shoulder. Mick held up his time machine and beckoned Jacob to back up. Catalina ducked behind Mick and looked extremely worried.
Jacob wondered why, if Luger already had a time machine, he hadn’t just gone and stopped the Astral spaceship from taking off and putting an end to everything. But he had a feeling that it had everything to do with the small key in Mick’s hand. As long as there was another time machine in existence, someone could go back and fix things. Nothing was permanent.
If Luger was going to defeat Astrals once and for all, he needed both time machines. And as Jacob backed away, he knew that Mick was thinking the exact same thing.
“Who is this guy?” Dexter asked.
“It’s Luger Smythe,” Mick said. “And he wants to get rid of Astrals.”
“But . . .” Dexter said. “Why?”
Luger grinned and a chilly breeze stirred the forest. He pointed at Mick. “This alien spawn does not want you to know that their scientists predicted that Astrals would someday surpass Earth humans and rule the entire universe. Earth would be destroyed. Their own scientists have foreseen it.”
Dexter turned to Mick. “Is that true?”
Jacob waited for Mick to refute Luger’s allegations, but instead Mick paused and shuffled his feet. “Mick?” Jacob asked.
Mick took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “Um. Technically, yes.”
Jacob turned on Mick. “Wait, what?”
Mick rolled his eyes and mumbled, “Some of our scientists predicted that Astrals would destroy Earth. You heard him. But nothing is certain.”
Jacob remembered his last trip to space, how he had narrowly escaped Patrick Gravy and the SEERs, who had tried to kidnap him and had Earth in their crosshairs. Jacob and Mick had barely stopped them from blowing up Earth. Now he wondered if Mick was playing a longer game. Maybe that was why he was being so secretive and keeping Jacob from finding his father. Maybe Mick wasn’t so opposed to blowing up Earth after all if it meant defeating the Strangers.
“Grab on,” Mick muttered without moving his lips, tilting the time machine ever so slightly. Jacob noticed that Catalina was already discreetly holding on to her brother’s shirt.
Jacob turned back to Luger Smythe. He was certainly creepy-looking, but maybe he wasn’t wrong about everything. Maybe Astrals were dangerous after all. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he might be helping Mick in some nefarious plot that he still didn’t understand.
But even though Mick was conniving and a liar and Jacob knew he would never change, deep down in his gut he trusted him more than Luger. Jacob may have been making a big mistake, but he decided to team up with Mick.
They needed to act quickly. He had to get Dexter’s attention so they could warp.
Dexter was looking in between Luger and Mick and Chloe, pausing uncertainly.
Jacob knew they didn’t have time. He ran over and grabbed Dexter by the collar, but he resisted for just a moment. It cost them dearly. Jacob lost his grip and stumbled back, and in that moment Luger whipped out his rapier and in a dangerous arc brought it down into the air between Jacob and Dexter.
Jacob backed into Mick, who shouted, “Mick Jr., now, warp!”
Dexter was left alone in the clearing with Luger and Chloe. Luger smiled and pointed his rapier directly at Dexter’s heart.
Chloe shrieked. “What are you doing to him?”
Luger ran the rapier slowly over Dexter’s head. Dexter trembled, not sure what to do and very nervous that Luger would stick it straight through him.
“He is friends with the aliens and I intend to take him prisoner,” Luger said, resting his sword on Dexter’s shoulder. “When they come back for him, I shall be ready.”
Sarah collapsed onto her bed and pounded her pillow.
It wasn’t true, she thought to herself. It couldn’t be true. But there was no mistaking what she had found in her parents’ closets. The black robes. The same triangle necklaces that she had seen on the scary Stranger in the Palais des Tuileries.
She wanted to think it was a coincidence or a mistake or even a Halloween costume, but deep down she knew it was real. It explained so much. How her parents always forbade her to spend time with Jacob. How her mom had once been friends with Dexter’s mom but had apparently had a falling out. How they both had seemed to recognize Mick and Catalina. She didn’t know how or why her parents had descended into something so frightening and awful, but some part of their mysterious behavior now made sense. Maybe her parents weren’t as concerned with Jacob’s behavior as they were with the fact that he was half Astral.
“Sarah?” she heard a meek voice say from her doorway.
It was Chloe.
“You!” Sarah shouted. She sat up quickly and was ready to attack her sister, but when she saw Chloe’s face, her rage evaporated.
Tears were streaming down Chloe’s cheeks and her eyes were wide with terror. She didn’t look like an annoying and larger-than-life ten-year-old who somehow made herself seem taller through force of will; she look
ed like a small, scared girl. All of her bravado and brattiness had been replaced with sadness and fear.
“I’m sorry,” Chloe sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I messed everything up and now Dexter . . .” She started crying again.
Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. “What happened to Dexter?”
“Luger Smythe has him!” Chloe said. “He won’t let him go, he’s trying to trap Mick and Jacob. My poor Dexy!”
Chloe walked to Sarah’s bed, tipped over, and slammed her face in the covers. Even under the circumstances, Sarah couldn’t help but chuckle at how dramatic her sister was. She reached over and patted Chloe on the back.
“Why, Chlo, why? Why did you give him the time machine?”
Chloe sat up and narrowed her eyes at Sarah. But then she seemed to remember herself and relented. “I heard Mom and Dad talking. One night, I was sneaking around because I was bored and I heard them talking about space people and a time machine and someone called Luger Smythe and how they had to get him one so he could stop space people from destroying Earth. They seemed so scared and it all sounded really important. So when you guys showed up with time machines, I wanted to do it myself.”
“But Chlo . . . you’re ten! Why didn’t you . . .”
“You always say that!” Chloe shouted, all of her fire suddenly back. “You never let me go anywhere and you always treat me like a stupid little kid.”
Sarah was taken aback, mainly because she was usually the one complaining that people were treating her like a silly little girl. She wanted to dismiss what Chloe was saying and chalk it up to further evidence of brattiness, but when Sarah thought about it for a moment, she realized Chloe did have a point, as much as it pained Sarah to admit it. She wasn’t always nice to Chloe when she wanted to come along with her. She corrected herself: She was rarely nice to Chloe when she wanted to come along with her. Was she ever nice to Chloe when she wanted to come along with her?
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “You’re right. I’m not always nice. It’s just hard being an older sister. Sometimes I want to be with my friends and I need that to be okay. You would want the same thing if you were me. But . . . I’ll try to be nicer.” Sarah closed her eyes and steeled her resolve. “And you can come along with me sometimes. Once in a while. If I approve it in advance.”
Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp Page 10