Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp

by Nathan Bransford

  As Jacob neared the ship, night fell and a chill swept over the planet. He could see the barest glint of the spaceship Swift and held on to Sarah, Catalina, and Mick as they walked toward it. When the sun rose, they were face-to-face with Moonman McGillicutty, who for some reason was digging a hole with a large shovel.

  “Jacob Wonderbar! Sarah Daisy! I knew you’d come back, I just knew it!” Moonman shouted, giving them a big hug. Then he saw Mick Cracken and Catalina, and his face grew serious. He sniffed and said, “Mr. President. Madame Vice President.” He tried to say it politely, but his distaste was palpable. He hadn’t forgiven Mick for beating Jacob in the presidential election.

  “We’re in trouble!” Jacob shouted. “Those soldiers are trying to get us. Can you help us stop them?”

  Moonman clutched his shovel and clapped Jacob on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  Moonman set off running in the direction of the soldiers.

  “Wait!” Jacob shouted. When he had asked for help he was not remotely envisioning that Moonman would try to take on four soldiers with nothing but a shovel. But Moonman bounded toward them, cocking the shovel behind him like a baseball bat.

  The soldiers stopped in alarm. Just when Moonman was about to reach them, night came and Moonman fell fast asleep.

  In the soft light Jacob could see Moonman immobile on the horizon, holding the shovel over his shoulder. The soldiers stepped over to him and waved in his face, not quite sure what was happening. Then they left him alone and started running toward the children again.

  “Grab on,” Mick whispered, and Jacob, Sarah, Catalina, and Mick made sure they were grasping one another’s shoulders, just as the sun was rising. “Planet Royale Courtyard, now, warp,” he said as quietly as he possibly could.

  They arrived in the Planet Royale Courtyard, filled with festive topiaries cut in the shape of animals and spaceships, and they braced themselves to see if they had been quiet enough to escape Luger’s pursuit. If he didn’t hear where they had warped, they could regroup and come up with a new plan.

  But sure enough, it was only seconds before Luger Smythe and his soldiers warped into the courtyard. Jacob felt his shoulders slump in defeat.

  “How did they know?” Jacob asked Mick.

  Mick’s expression was grim. “They have all the time in the world to find us. How many places did you check before this one?” he asked Luger.

  “This was the third,” Luger said, his accent crisp and precise. “I didn’t ever expect you to be quite this foolish.”

  The soldiers circled around and the kids were too exhausted to make a run for it.

  “We have to warp!” Sarah muttered.“Now.”

  “No,” Mick said, pulling away from Jacob, Sarah, and Catalina. “This ends here.”

  Jacob’s heart sank. This wasn’t the time for Mick to play the hero. They had to keep running to stay out of Luger’s grasp. They had to save Dexter. He thought about pulling out his own time machine and warping, but Catalina caught his eye and shook her head quickly. Jacob knew she was right. It was too risky to reveal he had it.

  “Astrals are peaceful,” Mick said, walking confidently up to Luger and staring him right in the eye. “We are good people. We have our crazies just like any other group of people, but we mean Earth no harm.”

  “Not likely,” Luger spat.

  Mick pressed on. Jacob had the feeling Mick had rehearsed this speech before, but like everything else with his quest to defeat the Strangers, Jacob suspected it hadn’t been entirely thought through. “My ancestors set out into the stars so that we could have a better life, so we could live in peace and do what we love. And that’s exactly what we did. It’s called joie de vivre. It’s beautiful. The greatest moment in my entire life was when I became the leader of this incredible civilization.”

  Luger paused for a moment, considering what Mick was saying. He nodded at his guards, who stepped forward and grabbed Sarah and Catalina by the shoulders. Jacob was quick enough to back away from the guard who gave him pursuit. He feinted and kept the soldier off balance, knowing everything would be lost if he was captured. He hoped Mick could talk his way out of this one.

  “Look at me,” Mick said, spreading his arms wide and smiling. “I’m unarmed. I’m not calling the guards. I’m here in peace. Let’s end this once and for all.”

  Luger smiled. Then, before Jacob could react, Luger whipped out his rapier, swung it in a blinding arc, and brought it down with a crack on Mick’s wrist. Mick’s time machine clattered away on the stone steps of the courtyard. He yelped in pain and crumpled to the ground. Sarah and Catalina screamed.

  “No!” Jacob shouted.

  Jacob saw a thin line of blood seeping through Mick’s sleeve as he rolled around on the ground, groaning in pain. It wasn’t a mortal wound and Jacob realized Luger must have hit him with the flat edge of the blade.

  Luger stepped over and picked up Mick’s time machine. He tossed it to the guard who held Sarah, who touched gloves with the guard grasping Catalina. “Tower of London prison, July sixteenth, one p.m., 1525, warp!”

  They were gone. Jacob had lost Sarah again.

  Luger stood over Mick, savoring his victory. He gave one last glare at Jacob. “We’re not finished, alien.” He touched a boot to Mick’s stomach and said, “Tower of London dungeon, July sixteenth, one p.m., 1525. Warp.”

  Jacob was alone.

  Jacob walked to the edge of the lagoon in the courtyard of Planet Royale, marveling at the silence all around him. Mortimer, the talkative small pink dolphin, swooped into the air and said “Hi!” The most Jacob could do was wave. Mortimer seemed satisfied.

  He didn’t know why Luger had taken everyone but him. He wondered if Luger somehow didn’t consider him a threat or if there was one last, dangerous trap still awaiting him. The Strangers hadn’t succeeded in stopping the Astrals from blasting off yet, otherwise Jacob wouldn’t even be alive, but he wondered how much time he had left before Luger won. There wasn’t much Jacob could do to protect the Astrals now.

  He didn’t know where to turn.

  Suddenly the king of the universe, or rather the former king of the universe, was standing beside him. Jacob had been so distracted staring off on the horizon, he hadn’t noticed the king approach.

  “These are dark times,” the king said.

  It was an understatement. Jacob couldn’t imagine how the times could have been any darker. Sarah and Dexter and Catalina were captured. Mick was hurt. An entire magical civilization was in danger of being wiped from history. It was life and death on a massive scale, and Jacob felt the weight of it all resting on his shoulders. He was second-guessing every decision that had led him to this grave predicament. He should have gotten help earlier, he should have talked to the king, he should have tried harder to find his dad. He had tried to do everything himself and he had made a mess of everything. He should have realized Mick’s plan to take on the Strangers himself would never work.

  He turned to the king. “What do I do?”

  He needed some answers. He needed direction. He didn’t want to have to figure things out for himself anymore.

  The king clapped him on the shoulder. “Jacob, what you need to know about dark times is that they end. It may feel as if hope is lost, that there’s nothing left to fight for. But it is precisely at the moment when all hope seems lost that you must remember to hope again.”

  Jacob took in the words, but he still felt deflated. The king wasn’t going to give him the answers. He wanted Jacob to solve things on his own.

  Jacob wanted to go back and fix everything. He didn’t just want to stop his friends from being captured by Strangers, he wanted more than that. He had spent so much time in space looking for his dad and hoping that he would see him, but for every bit he had hoped, he had experienced even greater heartbreak.
Getting his hopes up had left him feeling worse than if he had never hoped at all.

  What he really wanted was for his dad to have never left in the first place.

  If his dad had just never left, none of it would have ever happened. Jacob wouldn’t be alone and grasping for any idea how to save his friends. His dad would have known what to do. Everything wouldn’t have all been resting on Jacob’s shoulders.

  The king patted Jacob on the back. “Your hope will make you strong.”

  Jacob clenched his jaw. He knew what he had to do. It was time to set things right. From the very beginning.

  “Why did you make my dad the Timekeeper?” Jacob asked. “He can’t even change a car tire.”

  The king smiled faintly and said, “You underestimate your father. We all have different talents. Your father’s talent is that he cannot be corrupted by the temptations of time travel.”

  Jacob wasn’t sure he understood what that meant, but he took out the time machine and held it up.

  “Be strong,” the king said.

  Jacob stared at the time machine and steeled his nerves. “May fifth, 2010, eight p.m., lawn outside my house. Warp.”

  The air rushed out of Jacob’s lungs and he found himself staring at his house. The air was warm, the evening was peaceful, and the setting sun turned the sky pink above the forest down the street.

  It was the night Jacob’s dad left for good. It was the night when Jacob Wonderbar’s life had changed forever.

  Jacob took a deep breath and started walking toward the door. He had never had a chance to stop his dad from leaving that night. But this time he would convince him not to leave. He would stop his dad from walking out the door. He would make him turn around, go back inside, and be a dad. Jacob’s entire life would be different. Better. He would continue to have exciting birthdays and dangerous camping trips, and he wouldn’t spend the next two years wondering when he would ever see his dad again.

  He would stop his dad on their front porch. And Jacob would have the life he wanted.

  “Jacob,” he heard a voice behind him say. “Wait.”

  His breath caught and he turned around.

  It was his dad. Not his dad from the night he left home, but his current dad, a few years older, a little grayer, with the same friendly eyes and fidgety feet. The dad he had thought about every day. The dad he had traveled billions of miles through space and thousands of years through time trying to find.

  The dad he had been waiting to see for the last two years.

  Dad . . .”

  “Hello, son.”

  Jacob blinked up at his dad. Over the years he had rehearsed so many different variations of what he would say the moment he found him. There was the version where he pushed his dad in his chest and told him how mad he was and berated him for leaving. There was the version where he tried to be patient and waited for his dad to explain what had happened, because there had to be a good explanation for everything. There was the version where he hugged him and immediately forgave him and was just happy that they were reunited. There was the version where he stormed off without saying a single word.

  But now that he was seeing the real thing, face-to-face with his dad, he felt completely frozen. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to push, hug, yell, cry, and run away all at once.

  His dad acted first and pulled Jacob into a hug. Jacob accepted the hug but kept his eyes open, staring off into the twilight.

  “What are you doing here?” Jacob asked.

  Jacob’s dad let him go but kept his hands on Jacob’s shoulders. He gave Jacob a chagrined half smile. “Mick Cracken stranded me here,” he said.

  Jacob frowned. “But Mick said he . . .” He didn’t have to finish. Mick had lied about where he had stranded his dad. He wanted to throw Jacob off the chase.

  “That boy has a truth problem,” his dad said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

  “What happened between you two?”

  Jacob’s dad tapped his foot. “When Mick became president, he and I had different ideas about how to deal with the Strangers. He thought he could take on Luger Smythe himself. He knew it was my job to stop people from interfering with the past, and if they did interfere with the past, it was my duty to go back and fix what they changed. So he stranded me in time to keep me from stopping him. He probably told you I was somewhere else in time to throw you off the scent. I’ve been stuck here a week.”

  Jacob felt a fresh wave of anger at Mick. Another lie from the universe’s ultimate liar. But he didn’t want to be talking about Mick and his beef with his dad and what to do with the Strangers.

  “Where have you been?!” Jacob asked, anger creeping into his voice. “Why didn’t you show up when you said you would?”

  Jacob’s heart raced and he realized how mad he was. He thought about the humiliation of waiting for his dad for hours when he received the postcard and feeling stupid for thinking he would show. He thought about all those times his dad could have called or written or just shown up.

  “I have a really difficult job, Jacob,” his dad said. “Astrals are always making homemade time machines and messing with the past, and I have to go back and confiscate them and set things right again. I mean, look at our street,” he said, waving at the jungle outside of Jacob’s house. “This isn’t the way this neighborhood is supposed to look. I can only imagine what else Mick has done. It could take a very long time to fix everything.”

  “But . . .” Jacob sputtered. “You haven’t been lost this whole time?”

  His dad averted his eyes and looked very sad. “Jacob, I wish I could tell you I was lost or that there was some reason why I didn’t come back. I wish there was something I could say to make everything better. But there’s not a simple explanation. I wanted to come back. Something just . . . kept getting in the way. There was always a new problem to fix. Maybe I was scared too. I had been gone for so long . . .”

  “So you’re too busy stopping Astral pranks to come to my basketball games? I thought you had a time machine.”

  His dad turned his eyes to Jacob. “It’s complicated, Jacob. I can’t just go back in time to change my mistakes. I’m the Timekeeper. The past has to stay in the past. Everything depends on it. It’s the reason the king chose me. He knew that no matter how many regrets I had about my life, I wouldn’t try to change the way things happened. I have to live with my own mistakes no matter how difficult that is for me. I have to live by example, or it would mean chaos for everyone.” He waved his hand at the trees. “I mean, look at this mess. It could be far worse than this.”

  Jacob’s eyes welled with tears. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had pictured his dad being stranded by strange Astrals or stuck behind a supernova explosion or trying desperately but unsuccessfully to reach him. But none of it was true. His dad hadn’t been lost at all. Jacob didn’t care about how much of a big shot his dad was in space. He should have been there for Jacob.

  Jacob’s dad sighed. “I know I haven’t been a great dad. I haven’t even been a dad at all these last few years. I don’t even know what I can say except that I’m sorry.”

  Jacob clenched his teeth. He had come up with all those different explanations for why his father had been missing, but he instead was hearing the worst possible explanation. He wasn’t lost in space. He hadn’t been lost in time for the past two years. Instead he hadn’t wanted to come back. Or was too much of a coward.

  Jacob felt a tear drop down his face, and he wiped it away angrily. His dad tried to reach for his shoulders, but Jacob pushed his hands away. He surprised himself with his own fierceness, but tears kept welling in his eyes.

  “Jacob . . .”

  “Why did you leave?!” Jacob cried. “How could you have done that to me?!”

  “I’m sorry,” his dad said quietly. “T
he king asked me to—”

  “Go away,” Jacob said, turning back to face the door and wiping away his tears. “I don’t know who you are. I’m going to fix this.”

  Soon his dad would emerge from the door with a suitcase in hand and Jacob would stop him. This older, cowardly version of his dad would never exist. He would stay at home and never get lost in time and wouldn’t have to face any decisions about how to be a part of Jacob’s life.

  “Jacob . . .” his dad said again. “I can’t tell you what will happen when the old me walks through that door. But think about how things will be different for you if you do stop me. Think about it.”

  Jacob didn’t turn back. He knew how things would be different. His dad would make pancakes in the morning and take him on camping trips and make his birthdays fun. He would be there when Jacob needed advice or support or just another person he could talk to. He would be the dad that Jacob had wanted him to be.

  But then Jacob thought about when he had blasted off into space the first time. Would he have had the courage to do that? He wasn’t sure. He had started acting bravely mostly after his dad had left, when getting in trouble seemed like such a trifle in comparison to the hugeness of losing his dad. Whatever his teachers or the principal could have done to punish him never felt like a big deal after that, and Jacob had experienced a newfound freedom in life. He tried to do the right thing, but it was tempting to not care as much about the consequences of his actions. His perspective had changed.

  Would he have run for president of the universe? So much of his decision to run had been driven by a desire to make himself famous so his dad couldn’t help but find him. If it hadn’t been for his missing dad, Jacob might have declined such a big responsibility and just gone and had fun instead. He was proud of running for president, even if he had come up just short.

  Jacob didn’t know what would have happened if his dad hadn’t left and had stayed home instead. Jacob could have gone his entire life without knowing about spaceships and time travel and places like Numonia and Planet Paisley.