Gertie Milk and the Keeper of Lost Things

by Simon Van Booy

  “You’re rich!” Gertie squealed at the sight of glittering buckets of money and jewels.

  “There’s enough cash here to buy anything, though after centuries of shopping I’ve learned that the only thing worth purchasing is a fresh doughnut. I’m not joking, it really is the only thing.”

  Gertie watched as Kolt fished around in a bucket of gold and silver pieces for money they would need on their excursion.

  Gertie pinched her nose. “Wow, this stuff really smells!”

  “The secret is getting the right money for the right era, Gertie. If you don’t, people get suspicious, which is extremely dangerous before 1920, when most folk weren’t used to seeing strangers much. Though the era called ‘prehistory’ is when you really have to watch out of course, as even just showing up unannounced with fairly good teeth was a good enough reason to be burned alive or thrown into the cooking pot with a potato or two.”

  Gertie hoped he was joking. “Who would hurt a child?”

  “The Carthaginians, for one.” Kolt shrugged. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you look the part. Now we really must hurry. . . .”

  With their pockets jangling, Gertie and Kolt rushed out into the raging storm toward the time machine.

  14

  The Time Cat

  AS GERTIE STOOD in the pouring rain, watching Kolt fiddle with the lock of an old green car, she discovered quickly that her North African linen cloak was not waterproof.

  “Blast this thing!” Kolt muttered. “Of all the times it has to jam!”

  “So where’s the time machine?” Gertie asked, trying not to shiver as rain lashed her bare legs. Kolt looked up from his jiggling of the door handle.

  “You’re looking at it,” he said, extending his arms. “This is the amazing one and only Time Cat.”

  As if the old green automobile heard the compliment—the door suddenly swung open. Gertie and Kolt clambered inside, completely soaked.

  “Despite the tricky handle,” Kolt said, water dripping off the end of his nose, “the Time Cat is quite brilliant and has only let me down 397 times.”

  “That seems like a lot.”

  Kolt chuckled. “Not for a British car, Gertie—it might even be a record.”

  “So now we just drive back to Earth?”

  “Er, not exactly, but the fact that you know what a car and driving both are is a great clue because if you were from the 1800s, you might see this as some kind of horseless carriage, or if you’d come from the thirty-fifth century, you’d have no idea what it was—except for maybe one of those mobile, automated dental surgeries that crawl through cities searching for people with bad teeth. The fact you know this is a car tells me you’re from the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, which narrows it down to about two hundred years!”

  “Why do you call it the Time Cat?”

  “Because it’s a feline of sorts, as this particular motor vehicle is from England, where it was known as a Jaguar—which is a rather ferocious sort of cat. The actual time machine is nothing more than a small plain wooden box created from inside the B.D.B.U. with a space for your key. It’s in the glove compartment if you want to take a look.”

  Gertie pushed the button, then opened the varnished wooden door. Inside she found a small wooden box, barely large enough for a keyhole.

  “Take out the time machine,” Kolt said. “Do you have your key?”

  Gertie checked her pockets, but she had left it in her denim overalls, which were hanging up in the Sock Drawer.

  “Well, never mind,” Kolt said. “We’ll use mine as we’re in a hurry, but in the future you must never forget to bring your own key.”

  “I promise,” Gertie said.

  Kolt hesitated for a moment.

  “It hurts me to say it, but a few decades ago, an inexperienced and nervous Keeper made the grave mistake of getting snatched without his key and time machine, which is why the Losers can now travel to any point in history that Vispoth decides is where they can cause most trouble.”

  “Vispoth is the Losers’ totally insane supercomputer?”

  “Well remembered, though for a long time my lost time machine and key wouldn’t work for them. The B.D.B.U. must have simply shut them down—but then the Losers fed them into Vispoth and it found a way to link the multiverse compass with the graviton bridge, thus overriding the B.D.B.U. Still, the Losers can only go where Vispoth sends them.”

  The rain was now like a river on the windshield of the Time Cat. For a moment, Gertie thought the sea was upon them, and at any second they might be washed off the cliff. Kolt was still fiddling with the controls, pushing buttons and turning knobs.

  “Is a little air conditioning too much to ask?” he shouted at the spinning dials. “Come on!”

  “How are we going to drive in this weather?”

  “We don’t drive on Skuldark,” Kolt explained. “I modified this old but rather striking automobile so that we could drive once we get to the other side of the graviton bridge, which connects our dimension to the dimension on Earth where the object is going.”

  “So will I learn how to drive the Time Cat?”

  “Technically, you don’t need the Time Cat, Gertie, just the time machine. Simply insert your key into the little box, put the box anywhere on your person, then within a few seconds, the B.D.B.U. sends you where you need to be.

  “However . . .” Kolt went on, still pushing buttons on the dashboard of the old car. “Either accidentally or on purpose, that demented old book, every now and then, has sent me to the completely wrong place. I once showed up on the wing of a fighter jet dressed in the donkey costume of a dancing boy from the court of Queen Cassandane Shahbanu. You should have seen the pilot’s face when I waved hello.”

  Then Kolt demonstrated how to check the Time Cat’s power by tapping a round gauge with a white needle.

  “Sometimes it sticks,” he said. “But I’ve adapted the car to run on Skuldarkian seawater. If you ever forget to check the levels and run out of juice somewhere in time, grab the time machine from the glove box, insert your key into the lock, say the Keeper’s motto, It could always be worse, and you’ll be back home in no time at all. The Time Cat has a way of finding its own way home—as without the time machine, it’s technically lost—though I’ve never worked out how it learned to park itself in the garden every time.”

  Just then, sparks exploded from a nest of exposed wires under the steering wheel.

  “Aarggh!” Kolt shouted. “With a classic like this, Gertie, there’s always something in need of fixing. Rome wasn’t built in a day—though I sometimes wish it hadn’t been built at all!”

  As Kolt entered the time coordinates on the dashboard, orange numbers flashed on a screen in the middle of the steering wheel.

  An explosion of thunder ripped the sky in two—but Gertie felt safe inside the Time Cat with the Persea branch in her cloak. There was even carpet, and a glass case on the backseat with EMERGENCY PEACH CAKE AND MOONBERRY JUICE written on the outside.

  When Kolt fed his key into the tiny time machine, the Time Cat began rattling violently. “I’m rather attached to this old thing, which is against Keeper policy, but I’ll explain that later.”

  “What’s happening?” Gertie said. “Why is it shaking so much?”

  “That’ll be the photon relay warming up. I like to think of it more as a purring, actually. . . .”

  Then, with an intense fizzing sensation, an ear-shattering pop, more violent rattling, a scream of excitement from Gertie, and the side mirror falling off—they disappeared.

  15

  The Battle of Trunks and Humps

  AFTER A FEW SECONDS of weightlessness, a burst of white light, the need to sneeze, and a jolt that made Gertie’s head fly back, they were suddenly on the side of a mountainous sand dune.

  “It worked! We’re here!” Gertie crie
d.

  Kolt opened the sunroof. “And what a lovely change in weather from all that rain.”

  Gertie couldn’t believe the sudden heat and rolled down her window. It looked as though they had plonked down in the midst of an approaching sandstorm, as Gertie noticed an enormous rolling cloud of dust in the distance.

  “What’s that?”

  “It looks like we’re in for more bad weather, after all,” Kolt said, surveying the horizon.

  But as the cloud got closer and closer, Gertie realized that it wasn’t a sandstorm at all but hundreds of armor-plated camels in full charge kicking up dust.

  Gertie squinted and cried out. “There are people on the backs of those camels, and they’re holding swords!”

  “Well, technically, they’re scimitars, Gertie,” Kolt said, jerking the steering wheel. “See how the blades are curved? Let’s head in completely the opposite direction, and maybe close your window so that we don’t get sand in our eyes.”

  Gertie rolled up the window with the Time Cat’s old leather-topped handle.

  Kolt laughed. “You were right! We should have brought that dagger thing after all!”

  They were soon rolling quickly over the scorching sand ahead of the furious pack, which would have been excellent, were Gertie and Kolt not now faced with another dust cloud—this time an impenetrable line of bronze-plated elephants, whose riders, Kolt observed, seemed about to engage with the camel army behind them in a battle of trunks and humps.

  “The key is not to panic,” Kolt said. “It looks as though we’ve accidentally landed on an ancient battlefield. I feel like some music might calm us down, don’t you, Gertie?”

  “Er, maybe not right now,” Gertie said, as battle cries and animal noises filled the air.

  “Just a little something to take our minds off it,” Kolt said cheerfully.

  As they neared the line of battle-hardened elephants and their crazed riders, Kolt turned a knob, and the sound of violins filled the car.

  “Isn’t this nice?” he said, as a barbed spear whistled toward the windshield. “I believe this piece is called ‘Night Music.’ It really is quite relaxing,” he went on, steering sharply to the right.

  But Gertie was distracted by several elephant riders who had dismounted and were running toward the Time Cat with curved swords aloft.

  “Kolt, look!”

  “Wow!” Kolt exclaimed, “They’re not wearing any shirts? Seems like a terrible idea to go into battle topless. Maybe all that chest hair makes them feel brave.”

  “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  The riders were so close now, Gertie could see their snarling faces and crooked teeth.

  Kolt couldn’t believe it. “Aren’t they afraid of those long beards getting caught in chariot wheels? I would be!”

  “Kolt!” Gertie yelled, pinning herself back in the seat.

  “There’s really no cause for alarm,” he reassured her, pushing firmly down on the horn with only a second to spare.

  Gertie clapped her hands over her ears as an almighty roar emitted from under the hood of the Time Cat. The sound echoed through the desert. The terrified men dropped their swords and ran off screaming.

  “I never get bored of that,” Kolt laughed. “Every time I do it feels just like the first time.”

  He pressed the horn again, and several panicked elephants bucked their riders and bolted.

  “I usually hate driving in crowds,” Kolt said, leaning into the horn for several seconds. “But you find ways to make it fun don’t you?”

  “What is that terrible sound?” Gertie asked, keeping her ears covered.

  “As I told you, bedroom 634 under the cottage is filled with voice boxes from people and animals who have lost their voices. I installed several different kinds of voice boxes under the hood of the Time Cat—this particular one is quite effective and belonged to a Tyrannosaurus rex with some tooth decay. But I have to admit, the wail of the Fern Valley banshee is my absolute favorite. That one scatters people like a ripped bag of marbles. Oh my goodness, it’s wonderful!”

  They were now dodging camels and elephants left and right.

  As Kolt swerved around another pack of fighters, the sleeve of Gertie’s loose gown caught on the door latch. Before she could cry out, Gertie went flying from the Time Cat onto the sand.

  The softness of the desert broke her fall, but Gertie’s face stung from grazing the hard grains. She jumped to her feet as the battle raged around her.

  “Kolt!” she cried, dodging a spear.

  “Hold on!” he shouted, trying to reverse around a camel. But then Gertie notcied a riderless elephant thundering toward her. The animal reached out its trunk and pulled Gertie onto its back. In order not to bounce off, Gertie wrapped her arms around the creature’s neck as they charged to freedom.

  « • • • »

  Soon the battle was just a dust cloud on the horizon. The elephant slowed and Gertie slid down off its back.

  “Thanks for rescuing me!” she said, patting the elephant’s rough hide. The animal raised its trunk, then kept walking.

  Gertie watched it disappear over a dune, remembering the white bird that had tried to help her on Skuldark. She wondered if she possessed some deep connection to animals. Perhaps it was another clue to who she was.

  After plodding to the top of a sand dune, Gertie scanned the horizon in all directions, but there was no sign of Kolt, and she was beginning to feel dizzy from the blistering heat. She sat down, but the desert ground was scorching. It was best to stand, where she imagined the sun burning the birthmark on her face into a deeper, darker crimson.

  Before long, Gertie had breathed in so much dry, desert air that it hurt even to swallow. She closed her eyes and tried to comfort herself by imagining the faces of her family. But instead she heard a voice in her head that she recognized as her own.

  “Camel,” it said.

  Gertie listened again, trying to connect an actual memory with the sound of the word. She wondered if she was going mad from the sun. She was sure it was her own voice, but one from the past, before she was a Keeper.

  Soon, she was so exhausted that her body fell to the sand. She curled into a ball and felt herself beginning to melt. In the moment before she lost consciousness, Gertie found herself wondering why the sun does not recognize human pain and is not capable of pity.

  16

  Incense and Elephant-Snout Fish

  GERTIE WOKE TO THE FEELING of ice-cold emergency moonberry juice boxes being held against her head.

  “That was a close one!” Kolt said. “I almost lost you on your first mission as a Keeper!”

  “I . . . need . . . some . . .” Gertie croaked.

  Kolt popped the foil opening with a straw and gave her one of the ice-cold boxes.

  After several seconds of pulling up fizzy, freezing juice through the straw, Gertie felt herself flooding back.

  “Are the soldiers trying to find us?” she said between sips.

  “Those bare-chested maniacs are much too busy battling for their lives, or for treasure,” Kolt scoffed. “Or for some queen who’s convinced them that dying for her sake means some amazing reward in the afterlife—typical history really—but what an amazing spontaneous animal rescue you pulled off! That’s exactly the sort of thing I want to teach Johnny the Guard Worm to do.”

  “Yes, but I was carried into the middle of the desert.”

  “Out of harm’s way . . .”

  “Except that I was almost cooked when you found me!”

  “Gertie jerky!” Kolt laughed, then quickly cleared his throat. “Sorry, Gertie, it’s not funny at all. There’s nothing hilarious whatsoever about you turning into a snack for passing vultures.”

  “Something strange did happen,” Gertie said, taking another drink of the ice-cold berry juice. “I heard the wor
d ‘camel’ in my head, but it was a memory of my voice saying it in my old life.”

  Kolt thought for a moment. “It’s another good clue, as there aren’t too many places in the world where camels and humans live together.”

  When they were safely off the dunes and bouncing along a rough camel track, Gertie pointed out a shimmer in the distance.

  “It’s far,” Kolt said, “but that’s it . . . the ancient city of Alexandria, home to that rather unremarkable stick the B.D.B.U. seems to think is important—and the destination for your very first trip through time!”

  “Apart from the one that brought me to Skuldark from my home,” Gertie insisted.

  “Of course,” replied Kolt in a kind tone. “Apart from that one.”

  After a couple of hours, the desert track evened out, and there were palm trees and low green bushes. Kolt said the temperature outside was now so high they could have cooked lunch on the roof of the car, but that it would have ruined the Time Cat’s British racing green finish.

  “Thank goodness for air conditioning,” he said, playing with the vent. “And when we get outside, these itchy robes will keep us quite cool.”

  They were now rolling in and out of sandy craters, with brown stone houses and tents rising up in the distance.

  “We’d better leave the Time Cat here and walk the rest, otherwise people will be clambering all over it, trying to figure out what sort of chariot it is, and then we’ll be summoned to see a king or some terribly important official and, after eating a lot of tiger nut cake, be made to wash our hands, braid our hair, then wave to thousands of people in a parade.”

  “But where can we leave the Time Cat where it won’t be seen?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Kolt said, pointing to a button with a question mark printed on it. “This makes the car look invisible for as long as we want. It’s not really invisible of course, just more of that Narcissus paint I told you about, the same stuff used on the tower where the B.D.B.U. lives. There are also two Narcissus bodysuits in the trunk if you ever fancy appearing invisible, excuse the oxymoron.”