Nellie Nova Takes Flight

by Stephenie Peterson

  "Sweetheart, I'm not sure this is a good idea," Annie told her.

  "Maybe you need a break from all of this, kiddo," Fox suggested.

  Nellie was not going to let a small house fire deter her from traveling in time to prove her brother wrong. Oh no. If anything, she was even more determined than ever to get it right. Nellie loved her brother a lot. The Novas had taught their kids the importance of family, and Nellie believed it to her core. This, however, was not the time she was going to let something go. This was the time she was going to prove her brother wrong, fire or no fire.

  "Mom, Dad," Nellie began, "I know it seems scary that it caught on fire. But I put it right out. I am being responsible. And I will get it right. I know I can. It's just not ready yet."

  Fox and Annie wanted to tell her to stop, but they knew it would be of no use. Once Nellie Nova decided she was going to accomplish a goal, there was no getting in her way. Of course, this is really the only way to get anything done. A person who can fully devote him or herself to their goals is someone who will live their dream. And that's exactly the kind of person Nellie was.

  "Promise us that you will be careful, sweetie," Annie said.

  "And ask us for help before you try anything too dangerous," Fox insisted.

  They sighed and left the room, more worried than ever about their daughter but unsure of what they could do about it. Nellie immediately got back to work. The fire caused damage that she would have to repair.

  It took ten days for Niles to start to worry. Niles was not much of a worrier, plus he thought maybe Nellie was avoiding him because of what he'd said, and he figured giving her space was much easier than apologizing. Apologizing is one of those tricky little monsters that is usually totally necessary, but is, more often than not, painful. We humans tend to do all we can to avoid pain, and Niles was no different from the rest of us. He was starting to miss having her around to play with, talk to, and, of course, bicker with.

  On day ten, he meekly knocked on her bedroom door. When she didn't answer, he put his ear to the door and listened. The sound of classical music rose to meet his ear. He knew that meant she was thinking, as Nellie always played classical music when she was thinking, but he also knew that he couldn't put off apologizing any longer. He opened the door and gasped.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nellie was standing in her purple refrigerator box. Inside the box was a large control panel with numerous knobs, buttons, leavers, and a purple keyboard. A computer monitor was attached to this panel, and different dates and locations flashed quickly on the screen. As impressive as the mechanism was, that's not why Niles gasped. Niles gasped because the box was glowing with a bright green light and spinning rapidly.

  "Nellie!" Niles yelled. "What are you doing?!"

  Without thinking, Niles jumped into the box. As he did, he bumped a lever. The box began to spin faster and faster. Niles and Nellie cowered in the corner of the box. After they had been spinning for about two minutes, the Nova children's fear floated away and their curiosity overwhelmed them.

  Most of us don't understand how time truly works. We’re trained to think that it’s linear, but it doesn't move in an orderly path, going from one year to the next. In textbooks they make it seem like it is, with all the neat timelines and chronological chapters. It’s just not that simple. Time, really, is more like a maze, a never-ending labyrinth, twisting and turning and spiraling upward just when you expect it to drop down. It's a beautiful mess of left and right, up and down, north, south, east,and west and today and yesterday and never all in the same breath.

  After spending a few moments waiting in curiosity, Nellie edged toward the opening of the box to peek out. Niles followed. What they saw was truly astounding. Time and space spiraled around them. They saw babies gasp for their first breaths of air. They saw the rings of Saturn. They saw weddings and funerals and war and peace. Beaches and mountains, fire and ice. They watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon and in the same moment saw dinosaurs walking the earth. All of it was moving so fast they could barely comprehend it, but they dared not look away. Pirate ships sailed past them in a sea of stars. A lion chased a gazelle through a heavenly savanna. Nellie grasped her brother's hand and they looked at each other for a mere second, and both noticed that the other had tears in their eyes. They turned back to the spiraling display to see that the box was quickly descending toward the earth. They moved back into the corner of the box and braced themselves. Nellie and Niles knocked heads as the box slammed into the earth with more force than either child expected.

  "What are you doing here?" Nellie asked Niles when they realized they were safe on solid ground.

  "What am I doing here?" Niles asked Nellie.

  "I was going to go meet Amelia Earhart and . . ."

  "And what?" asked Niles.

  "And prove to you that women can change the world .. ." said Nellie sheepishly.

  "You built a time machine to prove me wrong?" Niles asked.

  "Well, yes, it's kind of embarrassing." Nellie blushed, making her freckles stand out more than usual.

  "And kind of awesome!"Niles said, full of pride for his sister.

  Nellie shrugged,and then a shy smile crept onto her face.

  "So where are we? Or should I say when?"

  Nellie pointed to the screen to indicate and yelped. It read 1892.

  "Wait! That's not right. I was supposed to go to 1937."

  "Oh no! Would touching this lever disrupt your trip?" said Niles, pointing at the lever he’d bumped when he hastily jumped into the spinning box.

  "Yes! Did you touch that? That lever adjusts the date!"

  "Not on purpose. But yes."

  Nellie sighed a deep sigh.

  "Well, there's only one thing left to do," she said after a moment, a smile spreading across her face. "We have to see what's outside!"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hand in hand, they stepped out of the refrigerator box and found that they were in an alley on a cobblestone street. Tall buildings loomed on either side of them, and though it was daytime, a thick smog surrounded them and made it feel a bit dark. Farther down the street, horses pulled carriages full of people dressed in fine clothes. In the distance stood a tall clock tower that seemed familiar to Nellie. "Could it be Big Ben?" she thought to herself."I think this is London," Nellie said excitedly. Nellie had always been very interested in London, England.

  She rushed back to the computer and confirmed

  her suspicions. The screen indicated they were in London, in 1892. Nellie squealed with excitement.

  "Niles! It’s London! In 1892!"

  "Wow," he said reverently.

  At that moment, the enormity of what they'd done began to sink in. Nellie had successfully built a time machine. They'd traveled over a hundred and twenty years back in and time and thousands of miles through space to this little alleyway in London. They stood and looked down the alley onto the street and admired the hustle and bustle of the city, wondering about the people who went past them, what their lives were like.

  "I can't believe we're here," Nellie said.

  "Neither can I," Niles agreed.

  "Should we go check it out?" he asked Nellie.

  "I don't know. I wasn't planning for this," Nellie said. She was torn. She didn't know if they should go out into the street looking as they did. Their clothes didn't fit the time at all.

  Just then, two kids dressed in ragged clothes ran through the alley, right past Nellie and Niles, and hid in a doorway. One held his hand up to his lips and said, "Ssshh!"

  Nellie and Niles were puzzled, but they quieted down and held still. A moment later some men ran down the main street yelling, "Come back here, you urchins! I know you stole that bread!"

  They didn’t look down the alley and kept running past. A few moments later, the older child thanked them. He was probably about ten years old. The smaller child looked up at them. She was maybe five or six. She whimpered.

  "James, my l
eg hurts. Take a look at it, will you?" she asked the older boy, who Nellie suspected was her brother, as they both had the same round blue eyes and wild blond curls.

  "Let me see then, Ruby." She pulled up her skirt and showed that she had a very bad cut. There was a lot of blood. "Oh this is a spot of bother!" he exclaimed.

  "You need a doctor!" exclaimed Niles.

  "We can't see a doctor; we have no money," the boy said.

  Ruby began to cry.

  "Well, it's really bad," said Niles.

  James nodded.

  "I . . . I can help you," Nellie said and she went back into the time machine. She came out with her first aid kit.

  "You brought a first aid kit?" asked Niles.

  "I'm a Girl Scout, Niles. Our motto is 'Be Prepared.' I take it seriously," she said with a coy smile.

  "Well, I am glad you do," Niles responded.

  Nellie went over to Ruby and took out an antiseptic wipe.

  "I am going to clean your wound. It will sting, but it's going to help you get better faster."

  Ruby nodded. Nellie took the wipe to the cut, which was about three inches long, and wiped away blood and dirt. She needed a second wipe to really get it clean. Poor little Ruby winced the whole time.

  Nellie then pulled out some gauze and tape and bandaged the wound. Then she gave the rest of the gauze to James.

  "Change it every day until it's better," she told him.

  James nodded. "How do you know all of this? And what is all of it?"

  Nellie looked at Niles, who shook his head. She knew she should not tell the truth.

  "Our father is a doctor," she lied. "We've seen him help many people. That's called gauze and that's medical tape," she told him, pointing to each item. "The gauze will soak up the blood and the tape is sticky on one side so it will keep the gauze in place. The little wet cloth is called an antiseptic wipe. It cleans the wound."

  James and Ruby seemed to accept this as true. James helped Ruby to her feet. She seemed much better now that the cut was bandaged and she'd had a moment to breathe and relax.

  "Thank you very much," James said to Nellie and Niles.

  "Yes, thank you," Ruby added.

  "It was my pleasure," Nellie said.

  Ruby and James walked away quickly, heading nervously in the opposite direction of the man who'd been chasing them.

  "Shall we take a walk?" Niles said in his best British accent, which, to be completely honest, was not a very good impression of any Brit I've ever met.

  "We shall," replied Nellie in an equally bad accent. They started down the alley, but Nellie pulled back.

  "Niles, we really should not go out there in our clothes. I want to see London so badly, but this is not safe."

  Niles nodded and scanned their surroundings. He saw a trash can and started digging through it. He found some torn up jackets and a boy's hat. It wasn't perfect, but they'd blend in a bit better this way. They happily made their way to the street.

  They walked through the city and tried not to interact with anyone, to be quiet and unobtrusive. The kids loved seeing all the clothes, the horse-drawn carriages, the different people interacting with one another and a world simpler, in many ways, than their own. No one walked down the street listening to music or chattering away on an iPhone. As a result, they seemed to talk to one another a lot more than Nellie noticed on the streets of her own town.

  There was so much to take in. Nellie especially loved seeing the clothing the women wore. She found all of their hats to be quite beautiful. Niles thought that the women's bustles on their dresses were very funny. The bustles made the women's behinds appear to be much larger than the rest of their frame. It was all the rage in fashion at the time, but it was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Niles really enjoyed the top hats he saw a few men wearing. He wondered if he would look silly wearing one in his own time.

  There was a dark side to all of it, however. There were so many people who seemed to be very poor, much like Ruby and James. London in the 1890s had a huge discrepancy in wealth between the classes, and people seemed to either have a lot or nearly none. It made Nellie sad to think about all those hungry kids.

  They headed back to the purple time machine quietly. When they were almost back, they saw Ruby and James coming around the corner. Ruby waved at them excitedly, and the four children hurried their pace and met up near a butcher's shop.

  "'ello again!" said Ruby excitedly.

  "Hello. You seem to be doing better," replied Nellie with a smile.

  "I am! My knee feels oh so much better now! Plus we nabbed another loaf of bread. We're orphans. I've been so very hungry," Ruby said loudly.

  "Ruby! You need to keep quiet about that kind of thing," said James in a loud, scolding whisper. "You don't know who might hear you."

  "You’re right," a voice said from behind the kids. "You never know who might hear you."

  The four children turned slowly and saw the men who'd been chasing Ruby and James before.

  "Run!" yelled James.

  The kids sprinted down the alley where the time machine sat waiting for Nellie and Niles. Though they had the urge to jump inside, Nellie and Niles

  knew it would not be a good idea with so many people watching. The men were close behind them and screaming at the kids for taking the bread. The Novas, it seemed, were guilty by association.

  They exited the alley and ran across a street. Ruby ran slower than the other children, because her legs were shorter. The larger of the two men was a fast runner and caught up to her. He grabbed little Ruby and picked her up.

  "Oi! I got your sister, urchin!" he yelled.

  James stopped dead in his tracks. He paused for a moment, and then ran back to his sister.

  Nellie and Niles just kept running. They turned up a street to get away from the men. Nellie ran as quickly as she could, not looking back at her friends. Though she knew Ruby and James were in danger, she was too scared to try to help. If the men caught them too, they might be found out. Nellie knew they could not give away their secret. No one could know that she and Niles were time travelers. After about a minute, they'd made it back to the box in the alley. They heard one of the men yelling at them from the street to come back.

  "What should we do?" asked Niles.

  "We go. Now. As far as we can from here," Nellie insisted.

  "But, Ruby and James . . ."

  "We can't, Niles. No one here can know where and when we come from. The more time we spend around people, the stranger we’ll seem," Nellie said sadly.

  The shouts from the men grew louder.

  Nellie’s eyes widened; she shouted at her brother. "Get in," she demanded. "Now."

  Niles complied, but he gave Nellie an earful as she frantically moved the levers around and started the machine.

  "It's not right, Nellie! What we did—leaving them. It's not okay."

  "Shut up, Niles. We did what we had to do!" Nellie snapped at her brother and immediately felt guilty.

  She didn't even pay attention to when or where she'd set the machine to travel. All she cared about was that they left quickly.

  The machine lit up. It began to spin. They could still hear the men yelling from somewhere on the street as the machine lifted off the ground and spiraled far, far away. Nellie hoped they hadn't seen the time machine as it took flight and then disappeared into time. They watched the labyrinth of time half-heartedly for a few minutes out the open door of the time machine. They observed screeching monkeys climbing through a beautiful rain forest. They saw people building a skyscraper. They watched in horror as a tornado tore through a cornfield and flattened a barn. They saw so many incredible things, but were not filled with as much wonder as one might think. They were filled with a heavy sadness.

  That sadness distracted them a bit from their task. Nellie stared blankly at the flashing computer monitor, absentmindedly watching times and locations flash on the screen, wishing that she would have done things differently. Niles sat down and lea
ned against the side of the box near the opening and sighed. Suddenly, the time machine made a quick movement and the resulting jolt sent both children flying. Nellie flew forward and knocked her head on the console. She saw black for a second. When she opened her eyes, she turned to ask Niles if he was okay.

  But Niles was nowhere to be found.

  Nellie blinked. "Niles?" she called out meekly.

  "Niles? How could you pick a time like now to trick me? Come out!" said Nellie, thinking he must be hiding. But as she looked around the small box, she realized something.

  There was nowhere to hide.

  Then it hit her. Niles must have been launched from the time machine with the lurch that caused her to bump her head. Niles was lost in all of eternity. As the reality of her situation began to sink in, Nellie knew what she needed to do. She had to find Niles. It didn’t matter where he was—nor when. Nellie needed to search all of time and space until she found him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Screaming, Niles spiraled through eternity. Honestly, to say that he screamed is a bit of an understatement. The sound that Niles made was more of a roar, a vocal explosion of sheer terror. His face contorted as his open mouth stretched farther than you might think possible. Tears streaked down his freckled cheeks and flew off his face into the vast endlessness surrounding him. Niles was sure that this was his end, and he would never see his family again.

  He was just starting to get sentimental thinking of his mother when solid ground appeared beneath him and he realized that he was about to make contact with the earth. Niles had no way to prepare himself for the fall. He tried to curl up into a ball, but was unable to do so as he spiraled quickly. He crashed into the ground with such force that he was knocked unconscious on impact.

  His body was sprawled on the ground somewhere, sometime unknown to both himself and Nellie.

  Back in the time machine, Nellie was trying not to panic. She knew that she had to find Niles and find him quickly. But where—and when—could he be?