by Jon Scieszka
Fred, Sam, and I spilled out of the Squishy Soft wrapping. We were right in the middle of a small stage. And the entire crowd was staring at us, pointing, laughing, and clapping.
“Presto chango alakazam,” boomed a voice behind us. And the minute I heard that voice, I knew who it was.
“Uncle Joe!”
“We’re saved,” said Sam.
Uncle Joe looked at me, the crowd, then back at me. “Joe? You’re not a rabbit.”
“No,” I said. “At least I don’t think I am.”
Uncle Joe looked over at Sam and Fred. “And they’re not doves.”
Sam and Fred shook their heads no.
Uncle Joe looked in his top hat. “I can never get that trick to work quite right.”
Someone yelled, “On with the show.”
“You’ve got to hide us, quick,” I said. “The time police are chasing us.”
Uncle Joe twirled his moustache. Then he wrapped the three of us in Squishy Soft.
“Ladies and gentleman, believers and friends. For my final feat of prestidigitation, I will need your undivided attention. With your help, I will send these three wrapped lads into the warp of Time and Space, never to be seen again.”
Sam wiggled next to me. “Is he serious?”
“No,” I said. “He can’t do that. He’ll probably drop us through a trapdoor in the stage.”
“I’ll need three volunteers,” said Uncle Joe. “Ah yes. You three young ladies in the back.”
I had a slight sinking feeling. I peeked through a hole in our Squishy Soft wrapping.
“Oh no,” I said. “Guess who he picked?”
“The killer girls,” said Fred.
“What do we do?” squeaked Sam.
“Stay calm,” I said. “Maybe Uncle Joe’s trick will work and they won’t spot us.”
“And maybe an elephant with wings will fly out of my nose,” said Sam.
“The human mind is a powerful instrument,” boomed Uncle Joe. “Imagine how powerful a group of minds could be. With the help of these three young ladies, we will join minds and disintegrate this ... toilet paper!”
“I don’t feel so good,” whispered Sam.
“Our first volunteer will chant ‘Ee-Nee.’ The second will chant ‘Me-Nee.’ The third will chant ‘My Nee.’ Then everyone join in to chant ‘Mo.’ As soon as we have merged our thoughts, I will flush the toilet paper into Time and Space.”
Someone in the crowd yelled, “Why don’t you use a toilet transporter?”
“I work by brain power alone,” said Uncle Joe. Then he pointed to the first girl.
She said, “Ee-Nee.”
He pointed to the second girl.
She said, “Me-Nee.”
The third girl.
She said, “My-Nee.”
The crowd shouted, “Mo!”
“EeNee.”
“MeNee.”
“MyNee.”
“Mo!”
“Ee-Nee-Me-Nee-My-Nee-Mo!”
“EeNeeMeNeeMyNeeMo!”
Uncle Joe raised both arms. There was a flash of light, a crash, and a huge white puff of smoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, where there once were three boys, I give you—”
A blast of wind from a passing bus pod blew the smoke away and revealed ... Fred, Sam, and me. The only thing that had disappeared was our Squishy Soft disguise.
One of the girls called, “There they are.”
A metal voice behind us said, “Hey buddy, what’s your number?”
Uncle Joe said, “Ooops.”
EIGHT
“Hey buddy, what’s your number?” said the SellBot.
“This is getting monotonous,” said Sam.
But before we could even worry about getting out of this latest trap, the three girls took charge. The one with the baseball cap picked up the Squishy Soft roll and stuffed it over the SellBot.
“Hey buddy, what’s your number?” said the muffled voice of the blinded SellBot.
“Squishy Soft is oh, so smooth,” said the roll.
“Come on,” said the girl who looked like my sister. “Follow us.”
Sam looked at Fred. Fred looked at me. I looked at Uncle Joe.
“Do we have any choice?” I asked.
We took off and followed the girls around buildings, over crowds of crazily colored people, past streamlined pods and more talking, blinking, singing 3-D ads, until I had no idea where we were. We finally stopped in front of a building too tall to believe.
“Here’s my house,” said the lead girl.
Fred, Sam, and I looked up and up and up at the building that disappeared in the clouds.
The girl led us through a triangle door that opened at her voice. She put her hand over a blinking red handprint on the wall. And in five seconds we were all transported to a room that must have been five miles above New York City.
The girls flopped down on cushions. “This is my room,” said the girl who looked like my sister.
We stood nervously in one corner.
“So you’re not killer time cops?” I said.
The three girls looked at me like I was crazy.
“Of course not,” said one.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” said another.
Then we all started asking questions.
“Who are you guys?”
“Why did you save us?”
“How did you know we’d be at the museum?”
“Do you have anything to eat?”
The girls laughed. The one who led us there pushed a green dot on a small table. A bowl of something looking like dried green dog food appeared with a pile of liquid filled plastic balls.
“Here’s some Vitagorp and Unicola,” said the girl who looked like my sister. “Now let me try to explain things from the beginning.”
We copied the girls and sucked on the plastic ball things the same way they did. Fred ate a handful of the green dog food.
“I’m Joanie. This is Samantha. That’s Frieda.” ‘But everybody calls me Freddi,” said the girl with the baseball hat. ”And we have these names,” Joanie continued, ”because we
were named after our great-grandfathers—Joe, Sam, and Fred.”
“Or in other words—you,” said Samantha.
Everything suddenly made sense. That’s why they looked so much like us.
“Of course,” said Uncle Joe, dusting off his top hat. “Your great-grandkids have to make sure you get back to 1995. Otherwise you won’t have kids. Then your kids won’t have kids. Then your kids’ kids won’t have—”
“Us,” said Samantha. “Your great-grandkids. And we knew you would be at the museum because you wrote us a note.” Samantha handed me a yellowed sheet of paper that had been sealed in plastic. It was our Museum Worksheet from 1995. On the back was a note in my handwriting that said:
“How did you get our worksheet from 1995?” asked Sam.
“I got it from my mom,” said Joanie. “And she got it from her mom.”
“But we didn’t write that,” I said.
“You will,” said Samantha, “if we can get you back to 1995.”
“Saved by our own great-grandkids with a note we haven’t written yet?” said Sam. “I told you something like this was going to happen. Now we’re probably going to blow up.”
“Wow,” said Fred, eating more Vitagorp. “Our own great-grandkids. So what team is that on your hat? I’ve never seen that logo.”
“That’s the Yankees,” said Freddi. “They changed it when Grandma was pitching.”
“Your grandma? Fred’s daughter?” I said. “A pitcher for the Yankees?”
“Not just a pitcher. She was a great pitcher,” said Freddi. “2.79 lifetime ERA, 275 wins, 3 no-hitters, and the Cy Young award in ‘37.”
“Forget your granny’s stats,” said Sam. “We could be genius inventors back in 1995 if we could reconstruct these levitation devices.”
“What did he just say?” asked Freddi.
“
He wants to know how the anti-gravity disks work,” said Samantha. “A truly amazing discovery. More surprising than Charles Goodyear’s accidental discovery of vulcanized rubber. More revolutionary than Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone. But all I can tell you is that the anti-gravity power comes from the chemical BHT. And it was discovered in a breakfast accident.”
“What’s a breakfast accident?” said Sam. “A head-on collision with a bowl of cornflakes? And who found out BHT could make things fly?”
“You did,” said Samantha. “That’s why we can’t tell you more. You know the Time Warp Info-Speed Limit posted in The Book. Anyone traveling through time with too much information from another time blows up.”
Sam’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “I knew it. Don’t tell me another word.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Where did you say that info-speed limit was?”
Samantha looked at me like I was an insect.
“In The Book, of course.”
“How do you know about The Book?”
“I got it for my birthday last year,” said Joanie.
“And since then we’ve been all over time,” said Freddi. “We’ve met cavewomen, Ann the Pirate, Calamity Jane...”
“And don’t forget Cleopatra and the underground cities of Venus,” said Samantha.
“But if you have The Book, that means we’re saved,” said Sam.
Samantha gave Sam her look. “If you remember the Time Warpers’ Tips, you know nothing can be in two places at once. Of course our Book disappeared as soon as your Book appeared.”
“So now we have to help you get The Book back to the past,” said Freddi, “so we can have it in the future.”
“Of course,” said Sam.
“We knew that,” said Fred.
“Uh, right ... ” I said, trying to talk my way out of this mess. “We knew that would happen, but we uh...” I looked around at Sam, Fred, Samantha, Freddi, and Joanie. Then I spotted Uncle Joe. “We thought we could really learn some tricks about finding The Book from Uncle Joe!”
Uncle Joe looked up from something he was fiddling with in his lap. “The Book? Oh, I never could get it to work the way your mother did. That’s why I gave it to you for your birthday.”
“Oh, great,” said Sam. “We’re doomed.”
“But that’s also why I put this together.” Uncle Joe held up the thing he had been fiddling with in his lap. It was an old-fashioned pocket watch. “My Time Warp Watch.”
“We’re saved!” yelled Sam.
NINE
“I was on my way to 1920 to see if the great Houdini could advise me on a particularly puzzling prestidigitation. A minor miscalculation landed me here in 2095 instead.” Uncle Joe wound the knob on the top of his watch. “But now that I’ve tightened the past spring and loosened the future spring, I am prepared to disembark once again. If you boys would care to accompany me, I would be delighted to deposit you at your destination en route to my aforementioned rendezvous with the master of illusion.”
“What did he say?” asked Fred.
“He said he’d drop us off in 1995 on his way to meet Houdini,” I said.
“We never did get a chance to taste any 2095 pizza,” said Fred. “But I guess we’d better go.”
I turned to Joanie, Freddi, and Samantha. “Well... it was nice to meet you, and uh ... thanks for saving us.”
Uncle Joe flipped open the cover on the watch. “Tempus fugit. Alakazam.” He spun the hands backward, and the four of us started to spin.
“Wait,” said Samantha. “The Book is probably—”
Sam plugged his ears and started talking as loud as he could. “I’m not listening. La la la. I can’t hear you. La la la. No more information.”
Fred, Sam, and I swirled up in time and space behind Uncle Joe. Then we were gone.
TEN
I remember thinking Uncle Joe’s time warping was a little rougher than we were used to. We spun and bumped and finally came to rest.
That’s when we got our first surprise.
We weren’t standing in the middle of New York. We were sitting in the tops of three coconut trees. A parrot flew by. The sun beat down. The ocean waves crashed.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” said Sam.
“This place looks kind of familiar,” I said.
“Oh no,” said Sam.
“Are you going to toss your cookies?” asked Fred.
“Vomit your victuals?” asked Uncle Joe.
Sam pointed to the ocean behind us.
We turned around and saw a huge wooden ship sail out from behind the rocks. This ship had a flag with a familiar-looking white skull.
Fred said the one word that said it all.
“Blackbeard.”
Uncle Joe balanced in the tree with the watch in one hand and his top hat in the other. “Maybe I should loosen the past spring.” He twisted the dial. “Tempus fugit. Alakazam.”
The world swirled. I heard the awful sound I recognized as Blackbeard singing.
Lights, sound, and images twirled past. I felt like I was on one of those nasty carnival rides that twists and spins at the same time. We stopped with a thud. I couldn’t see anything in the cloud of dust.
“Fred? Sam? Uncle Joe? Are you there?”
“I’m going to upchuck,” said Sam’s voice.
“Buick?” said Fred’s voice.
“Regurgitate?” said Uncle Joe’s voice.
We heard a distant moo. We smelled the unmistakable odor that follows a herd of cattle. Then we knew exactly where we were.
“Or maybe I should have tightened the future spring,” said the voice of Uncle Joe.
A bugle sounded. Someone yelled, “Cavalry, charge!” Indians whooped. Cattle mooed. The earth started to rumble in an unnatural way.
“Stampede!” yelled Fred.
“Tempus fugit. Alakazam,” said Uncle Joe. And we twirled up and away once more. We spun around in time and space for what seemed like hours. Strange scenes floated by like bits of dreams. When we finally stopped, our bodies landed five minutes ahead of our brains and stomachs.
“Now I am definitely going to drive the porcelain bus,” said Sam.
“Toss a sidewalk pizza?” said Fred.
“Perform peristaltic pyrotechnics?” said Uncle Joe.
My head stopped spinning. I looked around to see what I already knew. We were definitely not in New York. And we were nowhere near 1995. A forest of strange trees and giant ferns rose behind us. A volcano smoked in front of us.
“I’ve got it,” said Uncle Joe. “I should loosen both the past spring and the future spring.”
The volcano belched. Volcanic ash rained down on our heads.
“Kill me now,” moaned Sam. “Throw me in the volcano. Squash me into woolly mammoth toe jam. But don’t time-warp torture me again.”
Uncle Joe twisted his watch, called “Tempus fugit. Alakazam,” and we were off again.
This time we saw stars. We heard comets sizzle past. We twirled down drains, squeezed through pinholes, and tumbled down the stairs of history. Cavemen, pyramids, wars and kings, cities and jungles, suns and moons zipped by at blender speed. We spun faster and faster. Everything started to blur. I saw a hand and grabbed it.
The next thing I remember is looking up to see a face saying, “Joe. Joe. Are you okay?” Someone was holding my hand, helping me sit up.
My brain slowly cleared, and I saw that it was Joanie. We were back exactly where we had started—Joanie’s room, New York, 2095. Uncle Joe was nowhere to be seen. Freddi was helping Fred sit up. Samantha was holding Sam’s glasses while he leaned over an empty flowerpot.
“Now would you like me to tell you where The Book probably is?” said Samantha.
Sam looked up, squinted, and lost his lunch.
ELEVEN
The six of us stood under Theodore Roosevelt’s statue in front of the museum. We looked like three goofy sets of boy-girl twins. Sam and Samantha. Fred and Freddi.
Joe and Joanie. Crowds of people streamed past.
“Man do I feel stupid in this doofy outfit,” said Fred.
“We’re just lucky my little brother is not so little. Now you blend in,” said Freddi. “Except for that antique Yankees hat. Give me that and I’ll hide it.” Freddi reached for Fred’s hat.
Fred jumped back. “Nobody touches my hat.”
“Okay. Knock it off,” said Joanie. “Let’s go over the plan one more time.”
I picked at my suit. The material was so light it didn’t feel like anything. That, and the fact that it had somehow fixed itself on me without buttons or zippers or anything, made me a little nervous about walking around in public.
Joanie traced the plan on the palm of her hand. “We go in first and set up near the 1990s room. You wait fifteen minutes, then meet us up there. Samantha knocks out the InvisiWall. You three run in, get The Book from one of the bookshelves, then fly out of there.”
“How do you know The Book will be there?” said Sam.
“Simple logic,” said Samantha. “You are looking for The Book. You wrote a note telling us to meet you at the museum. The 1990s room is the only room that has books. Therefore, The Book is in the 1990s room.”
“Girls,” said Sam.
“You’re lucky we came and rescued you,” said Freddi. “Otherwise you’d still be time tumbling.”
“We don’t really need help,” said Fred. “We knew where we were.”
“Boys,” said Freddi.
“Let’s just get The Book so you can get back to the past, and we can get our Book back in the future,” said Joanie.
Joanie, Samantha, and Freddi disappeared into the museum. We looked out over Central Park. The orange ball of the sun was going down behind the dense forest of buildings crowding the sky.
“Try Dr. Lane‘s,” said a pill drifting by.
“Eat Ray’s original pizza now!” said a slice hanging over Roosevelt’s head. “Vitagorp,” said a green bag. “Unicola,” said a tennis ball.
“Can you believe people used to live like that?” said a lady floating out of the museum.