“We could invent television,” the professor chimed in. “And the waffle iron.”
“But we’d never see Mom again,” said Chip.
“Yes,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “That’s right. We would never see your mother again.”
“Then the decision is easy,” said Penny. “We go.”
“Yes,” agreed Chip. “We have to go.”
“Let’s do it,” said Teddy.
“Vámonos,” said Gravy-Face Roy.
And so it was decided. Ethan Cheeseman, along with his three smart, polite, attractive, and relatively odor-free children, their hairless psychic dog Pinky, a sock puppet named Gravy-Face Roy, and a scientist from the future named Professor Acorn Boxley would attempt to do what no one ever had before. They would sail backward through time until they found themselves in the future once again. Or at least they would try.
But before they could do that, there was some business to take care of. You might think with the number of times they’d had to say good-bye to Jibby and his crew that it would get easier, but this was the toughest one yet, especially for Jibby and Juanita, who secretly feared their direct descendants may be on their way to an untimely death.
“Don’t you worry,” said Jibby to Mr. Cheeseman. “If my great-great-great-great-granddaughter Olivia said it’s so, I believe it.”
Mr. Cheeseman nodded, not entirely sure. Aristotle stepped forward, a new clarity in his eyes. “The end of the curse has restored my psychic abilities,” he said. “I see good things for you, Ethan. Very good things.”
“Thanks, Aristotle.”
Though he had the strength of two and a half men, Sammy hugged Penny with the strength of only one. Three-Eyed Jake knelt down and scruffed up Teddy’s hair and Teddy scruffed up Jake’s in return. Big and Digs took turns chasing each other around the LVR-ZX. Chip turned to Big, who had said nothing for a very long time.
“So,” he began. And that’s as far as he got.
“I’ve decided,” said Big. “I’ve decided that I would like to go with you. I would like to see the future.”
Chip sighed heavily. “I would love for you to come with us,” he said. “But I can’t let you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Big.
“I’m sorry, but it’s just too dangerous. You heard what my dad said. There’s a very good chance we won’t make it, that we’ll fall off the edge of time and be burned to a crisp. But we have to try, because it’s the only way to save our mother’s life.”
Big wasn’t quite sure whether she felt hurt or angry. She decided that what she felt was a combination of both. “I see,” she said.
“But listen,” said Chip. “If we do make it … if everything works out, I’ll come back for you, I promise.”
Big shook her head, flinging tears from her eyes. “No.”
“No?”
“No. Because if you don’t come back, I’ll know that something horrible happened to you. So tell me right now that you’ll never come back. That way I can imagine the best for you, as I’ve been able to with my father these past three years. Tell me, Chip. Tell me you’ll never come back.”
Chip looked at the ground, then back at Big.
“Tell me.”
“I’ll never …” Chip’s throat constricted and choked off the flow of words. He took a deep breath and tried again. A whisper was all he could manage. “I’ll never come back,” he lied.
Big pulled the baseball cap from her head and handed it to Chip. “Here. You’ll need this when you pitch in the World Serious.”
Chip took the hat, inscribed with a white letter P for Pals, and placed it back on Big’s head. “I’ll get a new one. Besides, it looks a lot better on you.”
Big threw her arms around Chip and squeezed tightly. Chip squeezed back. He knew this could very well be the last time he would ever see Big. Slowly, he moved his face closer to hers and kissed her lightly on the lips. She pulled away and, for a brief moment, Chip’s fiercely beating heart sank like a stone. But the moment was brief indeed as Big set her own fears aside and kissed Chip back.
Mr. Cheeseman watched and smiled and remembered the first time he had kissed Olivia. He felt both happy and sad for his eldest child. Teddy and Gravy-Face Roy pushed their way between Chip and Big and hugged her around the waist. After all, she wasn’t just Chip’s pal, she was theirs too. Penny hugged Big from the side and Mr. Cheeseman wrapped his arms around the whole group.
“Okay,” he said finally. “If we’re going to do this, we should probably do it now. Before we change our minds.”
Chip took a deep breath and, with one final kiss, separated himself from Big, which, if you can imagine, felt a bit like separating himself from his right arm.
Pinky gave Digs one last affectionate nudge and Mr. Cheeseman reminded Big and the others to make sure they kept their backs to the LVR-ZX once the engines kicked in. Then he guided Pinky and his children toward the time machine, allowing them each one last wave, or, in Chip’s case, one last sad smile. “I’ll never forget you, Big.”
Big said nothing. She bit her lower lip and watched through watery eyes as the boy she knew as Chip Krypton walked out of her life and into the LVR-ZX.
Inside the time machine, Mr. Cheeseman made sure that Chip, Penny, Teddy, and Pinky were firmly buckled. Then he told his children he loved them, hoping it would not be the last time. He took the pilot’s chair and Professor Boxley took the copilot’s. He plugged some numbers into the machine’s computer, setting their destination for two days before Olivia had been murdered. He took a deep breath and then another.
Penny took hold of her little brother’s hand and squeezed. “Are we going to die?” he asked.
“Round and round, it never ends,” said Penny with a soft smile. “No, Teddy. We’re not going to die.”
“I believe you,” said Teddy.
“Me too,” said Chip.
Gravy-Face Roy said nothing.
“Hold tight, everyone,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Here we go.” He placed his hands on the controls and hit the ignition switch. The engines fired, coating the trees outside in a blue-green glow.
Captain Jibby and his crew turned and covered their eyes. Big did not turn. She just stood, staring at the device that was about to take Chip away from her forever. Juanita draped a friendly arm across her shoulders and turned her away from the hypnotic glow of the time machine.
A second later, with a whoosh and a flash of brilliant white light, the LVR-ZX was gone.
Chapter 21
If you can imagine traveling at several times the speed of light in a train with no windows, never knowing if, at any moment, you might plow into the side of a mountain and burst into flames, then you have some idea as to how Mr. Cheeseman and his passengers felt as they raced along, farther and farther into the past, closer and closer to the beginning of time and, perhaps, to the end of their lives.
The numbers of the chronometer changed so rapidly, it was nearly impossible for Professor Boxley to make out any specific dates as the speedy LVR-ZX covered thousands of years in mere seconds and millions in minutes. “Six hundred thousand BCE,” he announced. Then a few moments later, “Eighty million.”
As quickly as they moved along the Time Arc, Mr. Cheeseman knew it could be hours before they reached the Great Sync, if such a thing even existed. After all, the Earth was generally thought to be over four billion years old, so they would have to travel at least that far.
Of course, if Olivia’s theory proved to be wrong, they might find themselves tumbling off the edge of time into a fiery abyss, or simply gliding along indefinitely until their oxygen supply ran out. The whole thing reminded Chip of a story he had once read about a mountain climber who fell into a crevasse a hundred feet below, breaking his leg in the process. With no chance of climbing up and out of the icy chasm, the man decided his only chance of survival was to climb down, farther and farther into the pitch black, in hopes that he might find another way out. That the man survived to tell his
story gave Chip hope that they, too, would end up where they wanted to be by defying logic and traveling in the completely opposite direction.
Nearly an hour had passed since takeoff and nearly all the blood had been squeezed from Penny’s hand by Teddy’s forceful grip when the professor shouted, “Three-point-five billion BCE.”
In the next few moments, the smooth, quiet ride became both less smooth and less quiet. The walls began to rattle, lightly at first, then increasing in intensity, growing more and more violent with the passing of each minute and with every millennium.
“Four billion BCE.”
The noise reached a thunderous volume and sounded as though a hundred cave cops were outside, pounding on the LVR-ZX with billy clubs.
“Four-point-five billion.”
With the sudden screeching of a freight train locking up its brakes, the time machine rotated sharply to the left, then back to the right, then to the left once more. Finally, Mr. Cheeseman could control its movements no longer and the LVR-ZX went into a barrel roll, spinning at a dizzying rate.
The professor was the first to lose consciousness and the others soon joined him in passing out from the centrifugal force that threatened to scramble the very brains in their skulls. None of them would see what happened next. Up to that point, the numbers on the chronometer had come in logical succession. But suddenly, they made no sense whatsoever. Four-point-five billion was followed by 1779, which was followed by 164 million BCE. From there the date jumped to 1207, then to 3518, then back to 4207 BCE, and so on. Date after date popped up in random order until finally the readout went completely blank as the LVR-ZX came to an abrupt and silent halt.
Mr. Cheeseman had been the last to black out and was now the first to come to. Slowly, the others’ brains began settling back into place, and they opened their eyes to find the LVR-ZX motionless, leaning slightly to one side.
“Is everyone okay back there?” asked Mr. Cheeseman, turning in his seat to check on his children.
“I’m dizzy,” said Teddy.
“What happened?” asked Chip, using a couple of hard blinks to refocus his eyes. “Where are we?”
“And when are we?” asked Gravy-Face Roy.
Professor Boxley leaned forward and checked the chronometer. “I don’t know,” he said. “The entire control panel’s gone out. Not only do I not know where or when we are, I’ve no way to check the atmospheric conditions outside. Opening the pod door could be suicide.”
“It’s not as though we have a choice,” said Mr. Cheeseman. He unbuckled his safety belt, and the children did likewise. He moved to the door and slowly gripped the handle. “Okay.” He took in a deep breath and expelled it forcefully, like a child blowing out birthday candles. “Everybody ready?”
“Like you said,” Penny remarked. “We don’t have much of a choice.”
Mr. Cheeseman looked to Pinky. “Well?” But Pinky did not growl. Just because she sensed no danger, however, didn’t necessarily mean that none existed. Mr. Cheeseman pushed the handle down and took one last pause before pulling the door inward. Light, oxygen, and the smells of dry grass and wildflowers poured in.
Mr. Cheeseman and his passengers stepped out of the LVR-ZX to find that the highly reflective, oblong time machine sat in the middle of a large, empty field, bathed in a soothing, midday sun. They turned and looked in every direction, hoping for some sign of where and when they might be.
“I don’t see anything,” said Teddy. “No buildings. No people. No anything.” Teddy was right. There was nothing they could see to suggest where they might be and there was certainly nothing to indicate they had made it back to the twenty-first century.
“What do you think, Dad?” asked Chip. “Is this the beginning of time?”
“Or the end,” said Professor Boxley.
“Or somewhere in between,” said Penny.
Before Mr. Cheeseman could venture a guess, a faint noise rose up in the distance.
“Wait,” said Teddy. “Listen. Thunder.”
“No,” said Chip, certain it was not thunder and just as certain that it was a sound he had heard before. “It’s not thunder. It’s …”
“Look!” shouted Penny, jabbing her finger toward the sky, sending all eyes upward. “It’s an airplane!”
“It’s a 737,” said Chip. “That can only mean one thing. We made it! We’re back!”
For reasons he could not explain, the sight of the plane made Mr. Cheeseman laugh. He laughed and laughed and could not stop as the tension poured from his body with every giggle and guffaw. His joy and relief were contagious and soon the entire group was laughing hysterically at the sight of that beautiful metal bird rumbling across the sky.
“She was right,” said Penny when the laughter finally tapered off.
“Yes,” said Ethan, fighting to catch his breath. “She was right.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Chip.
“We find her and tell her,” said Mr. Cheeseman with another hearty laugh. Professor Boxley watched with joy and envy as Mr. Cheeseman’s children practically knocked him over with the force of their hugs.
“Which way do we go?” asked Teddy.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “But whichever way we decide, I feel like running.”
“Me too,” said Penny.
“Yeah,” said Chip.
“Let’s do it,” said Teddy.
“Professor?“ asked Mr. Cheeseman.
“Sounds good to me,” said Professor Boxley with a smile.
And with that, Mr. Cheeseman bolted across the field with his children close behind, and his one-time mentor slightly farther behind, on their way to save the life of the brilliant scientist known as Olivia Cheeseman.
But that, my friends, is a whole nother story.
ALSO BY DR. CUTHBERT SOUP
A Whole Nother Story
Text copyright © 2010 by Dr. Cuthbert Soup
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in the United States of America in December 2010
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in December 2010
www.bloomsburykids.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Soup, Cuthbert.
Another whole nother story / Dr. Cuthbert Soup ; [illustrations by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins]. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: A whole nother story.
Summary: Ethan Cheeseman takes his children, ages eight, twelve, and fourteen, and Captain Jibby and crew, to the year 1668 to end an ancient family curse and save the children’s mother, but damage to the time machine and the arrival of Mr. 5 complicate their return.
ISBN 978-1-59990-436-8 (hardcover)
[1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Inventions—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction. 4. North America—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775—Fiction. 5. Denmark—History—17th century—Fiction. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Timmins, Jeffrey Stewart, ill. II. Title. PZ7.S7249Ano 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2010025634
ISBN 978-1-59990-599-0 (e-book)
Another Whole Nother Story Page 21