WHEELS

by Lorijo Metz

  “It’s okay, Dad.”

  “It’s not okay. Look what it did to us. To you! It must have been horrible for you to carry that burden around all those years.”

  McKenzie looked across the cave at Pietas. The others were hugging and talking and saying their goodbyes, but Pietas was looking at her. It’s going to be okay, she thought, hoping Pietas would understand. Her dad and her were going to make it through this—together.

  “I didn’t have to,” McKenzie said, “carry a burden, that is. Didn’t you notice all those strange things stopped happening after the accident?”

  Her dad looked sheepish. “I guess I was too caught up with missing Georgianna and learning to be a single dad…and all.”

  “I think it was the shock,” said McKenzie. “Like when people can’t remember when horrible things happen to them. I couldn’t remember the accident, any of it. I didn’t particle-weave either. I must have stopped myself.” McKenzie looked at her hands. “It was such a terrible thing I’d done.”

  “McKenzie, don’t. You were too little. We should have been there to help you.”

  “How?” McKenzie looked at her dad and, in spite of everything, smiled. Hesitantly, he smiled back. “I didn’t particle-weave again until we moved to Avondale. Then it was like—like everything came gushing out. The memories, the particle-weaving. I dreamt about the accident. I was remembering. And I started to particle-weave, only I didn’t know what was happening. That was the weirdest part. I thought I was going nuts. And suddenly…well, I guess you know the rest, I ended up here.”

  Her dad looked sad again. “And this is where you want to stay.”

  “No!” McKenzie was shaking her head and smiling. “I don’t want to stay here. I mean, I would really like to visit again, but I don’t belong here. This isn’t my home. I didn’t think…” Now McKenzie was all choked up, “I didn’t think you’d want me.”

  And for the third time that day, her dad’s arms were around her and they were crying together. “I love you. I love you so much. You’re my McKenzie—my Mickey-D.”

  “Stop.” McKenzie was laughing. “I’ll come home as long as you stop calling me that.”

  “Stop calling you what?” said Hayes, handing McKenzie a handkerchief he’d gotten, well, from who knows where.

  “Time to go,” said Pietas, honoring McKenzie with one of her brilliant smiles.

  McKenzie reached out and took her dad’s hand. “Time to go home.”

  Chapter 52

  VALIOS!

  Friday, March 20th

  “I’m so glad I had a chance to meet you.”

  McKenzie’s great-great grandfather leaned over and gave her a kiss. “There’s something I want you to have: a diary. My Julianne’s diary, to be exact. You’ll find it in my suitcase in the white van.” Revolvos reached over and took a strand of McKenzie’s curly red hair between his fingers. He smiled, “I suspect you twirl this when you’re nervous.”

  McKenzie blushed. Her father, Hayes and even Principal Provost began to laugh.

  “You remind me so much of my Julianne,” he said, tucking the curl behind her ear. “She would have wanted you to safeguard her secrets.”

  Overcome with emotion, McKenzie reached forward and gave her Grandfather one more and, quite possibly one last, hug.

  “Don’t forget about me,” he whispered.

  McKenzie took a deep breath and turned. She could hardly look at Pietas. “I won’t,” she said, as tears began to flow.

  “Now, now my dear,” said Pietas, who apparently was experiencing something brand new at the age of three hundred and fifty loonocks, “Oh my! My, my, my!” she said reaching up to wipe away the moisture on her own cheeks. “My emotions are overflowing!”

  And despite her tears, McKenzie began to laugh.

  Pietas turned pink with embarrassment. “You…you mustn’t cry, McKenzie. The Corona-Soter would never cry.”

  McKenzie stopped laughing. “Pietas, you don’t still believe that, do you? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Mistake!” thundered her great-great grandfather, surprising everyone with his intensity. “Pietas showed me the Circolar. I read the parts you translated, Bewfordios. If there were any mistakes, they were mine. Mine and the Tsendi’s.”

  “YOU?” Principal Provost exclaimed. “YOU made a mistake?”

  “Well, it seems I had no choice in the matter, as my mistake was predestined; which would, technically, preclude it from being called a mistake. If only I believed in predestination, but that’s beside the point. The Tsendi were the ones that made the biggest booboo.”

  “Booboo?” said Pietas.

  “Mistake, my dear. H.G. Wells isn’t the Advitor—McKenzie is. Corona-Soter, as you know, is simply another word for Advitor.”

  Wells “Harrumphed,” and muttered something under his breath.

  “Abacis was right,” said Hayes.

  “But I didn’t save anyone.” McKenzie had been mulling this over for some time. Her dad was right, she’d helped them…but helping was not saving.

  “You’re wrong,” said Principal Provost. “And what’s more, you should try listening to your elders once in a while.”

  McKenzie had to look around to make sure they were still in the cave. It felt as if she were back in Principal Provost’s office being yelled at.

  “McKenzie!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you hadn’t interfered,” Principal Provost said, “Abacis, his supporters and the Circanthians would not be working together right now. It was a brilliant idea to raid the warehouse.”

  “Got right to the source of the problem,” her great-great grandfather chimed in. “The Tsendi needed help long before H.G. Wells arrived, only they didn’t know what the problem was. What’s more, the Circanthians didn’t know either.”

  “It may not be a perfect world,” said Pietas, “but at least now we know what we’re up against.”

  “You not only saved two civilizations,” said her father, “You saved an entire planet.”

  “DAD!”

  “No, listen to me. If you hadn’t interfered—”

  “DAD!”

  “Okay, intervened—How’s that?

  “Geezits-Louizits!”

  “He’s right. Without the Circanthians…” Provost paused to glare at H.G. Wells, “who Mr. Wells did his best to eliminate, Circanthos would soon be torn apart by the tremos. Perhaps none of you noticed, but as our numbers diminished, the frequency and strength of the tremos increased.”

  It took everyone a few seconds to process what Principal Provost had said.

  H.G. Wells sat by the pedestal muttering words like “nonsense” and “poppycock”. Everyone else began whispering things like “Ohhh” and “That’s why…” and several words McKenzie didn’t understand, but which Hayes was probably already noting in detail.

  Pietas began to chuckle. “Dear me, remember what I said when you first arrived?”

  “Welcome to Circanthos?” said McKenzie.

  “After that, my dear. You said something along the lines of, ‘I’m not a powerful weapon,’ and I told you that the power you’re referring to may not be the power needed to save us.”

  “But without particle-weaving we would never have been able to create a portal to the warehouse.”

  “Yes,” said Hayes, brandishing his arm in the air. “However, it was your ability to pull everyone together as a team that saved the day!”

  McKenzie glared at him, sensitive or not, Hayes could be so—

  “Hayes is correct,” said Principal Provost.

  McKenzie sighed. It all felt so jumbled. When Pietas told her to, “save the Circanthians,” she’d envisioned something very different. Something more definite like, blast all the bad guys and rescue the prisoners. “Okay,” she said finally, wanting very much to change the subject. “I’ll accept that I helped, if everyone else will agree that it was a team effort—especially Hayes. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

&nbs
p; “Valid point, my dear,” said her great-great grandfather.

  Hayes shrugged and continued playing with Charlie, but McKenzie could see him smiling.

  Wouldn’t Coach Nickels be surprised! She was now officially a team player. And I bet I can get old Principal Provost to convince Coach not to kick me off the team. After all, I believe he owes me!

  “You must promise to come back and visit us,” said Pietas, giving McKenzie a hug. “I believe I heard Bewfordios say something about another cortext back on Earth.”

  “Pietas!”

  “Don’t let him stop you,” she whispered. “I expect you to return in exactly one loonocks or—I shall never speak to you again!” Pietas gave McKenzie one last hug and moved over to Hayes. “Take care of my girl,” she said, hugging him. “And remember, you’re not Just Hayes…you’re so, so much more.”

  Principal Provost placed the cortext on the pedestal, then ordered everyone to gather round.

  “My prism,” muttered Wells.

  With his thumb, middle finger and pinky on top of the corresponding vibrational points, Principal Provost said, “James, make certain Wells enters the Portal. Hayes, hand me the…” And there he paused. Keeping his hand on the cortext, he turned. “You have the pinicolis?” he said, looking very seriously at Hayes.

  Hayes reached into his pocket. “Right here.”

  “Good. Then I trust you to keep track of it.”

  Hayes face turned slightly pink. He drew his hand out of his pocket slowly, even as the corners of his mouth inched up a bit. It seemed to McKenzie he stood straighter.

  “Right,” said Principal Provost. “Everyone hold on! Pietas, Revolvos—I shall return before the next loon. Good luck with the Tsendi.” Seconds later, a portal appeared.

  McKenzie braved one last look at Pietas, then rolled in.

  “Good job, my boy,” she heard her great-great grandfather say.

  “Valios,” called Pietas.

  McKenzie blinked back a tear before she realized she no longer had any eyes to blink.

  As the portal closed behind them, she felt something strange. It wasn’t a feeling, but a thought. McKenzie reached out, searching. It was a memory—a memory of Hayes’ leg. Not only his leg, but someone licking it. Someone in the particle stream had a memory that involved licking Hayes’ leg.

  Huh? Oh no!

  Charlie the poonchi had jumped into the portal!

  Chapter 53

  THE MAN IN BLACK

  Friday, March 20th

  Earth: Outside town limits of Avondale

  “STOP—RIGHT—THERE!”

  “Mac, there’s a guy in a black suit pointing a gun at us.”

  “Master Hayes,” said H.G. Wells, “you continue to amaze me with your brilliant observations.”

  McKenzie glared at Wells. They would have been better off to leave him in the portal. Then she turned to look at the man who’d jumped out of her great-great grandfather’s van. He was walking towards them, gun in one hand, phone in the other.

  Minutes ago, they’d arrived on Earth at the location, according to McKenzie’s dad, where he, Principal Provost and Revolvos had departed. Sure enough, the cortext was still there. Principal Provost had surveyed the area and declared that, aside from one helicopter flying over and a truck that had apparently driven into the time field, everything appeared to be the same. The disruption field was in place, Roony, McKenzie’s great-great grandfather’s assistant, was still frozen; and the van had not been moved.

  Needing to retrieve his wheelchair disguise before releasing the time field, Principal Provost had taken McKenzie’s father and, weaving a bubble of present time around them both, disappeared into Avondale. He’d decided it was best to return James, along with the cortext, to the laboratory for safekeeping. Now that her particle-weaving ability was—more or less—reliable, McKenzie could easily keep an eye on H.G. Wells. Not that there was anywhere for him to go, displaced as he was over a hundred years from his own time. McKenzie, Hayes, Wells and Charlie the poonchi, would hide out in the van until Principal Provost returned.

  The plan had seemed perfect—until now.

  Seconds after her father and Principal Provost disappeared a man in a black suit had jumped out of the van.

  “What now?” whispered Hayes, holding a wiggly, impatient poonchi against his chest.

  “Yes, what now my great-great-great niece? Turn him into a poonchi; send him spiraling across the universe!”

  “PLEASE!” McKenzie was going to send Wells spiraling across the universe if he didn’t cool it with the snide comments.

  “In my day, a lady—”

  “The Lady said ‘please,’” said Hayes, “and I don’t think you want to mess with The Lady.”

  McKenzie stifled a laugh.

  “Stop right there,” said the man in the black suit, brandishing a gun and fiddling with his cell phone. It appeared to McKenzie as if he was having trouble getting reception—a common problem in Avondale.

  Wells put up his hands. “Help! I’m under duress. I’ve been kidnapped.”

  The man in black was having a difficult time pointing a gun and operating a cell phone at the same time. Either he had not heard Wells, or didn’t care.

  “Any ideas,” whispered McKenzie.

  “How about an orange?” said Hayes.

  McKenzie laughed. “I believe I can do one better.” She closed her eyes and began to weave. All they needed was time. Just a little time until Principal Provost returned. McKenzie had never woven a bubble of present time so that wasn’t an option. However, she had woven a giant fist.

  Behind the man in black, it looked as if the white van was exploding, quietly and slowly, into a billion pieces. A fist, thought McKenzie, I need a fist. She opened her eyes. It wasn’t working. The particles shifted and moved, uncertain about where to go.

  Once again, McKenzie tried to imagine a fist, but a large white hand giving someone the peace sign kept forcing it’s way into her imagination. It’ll have to do, she thought.

  “Look!” said Hayes, laughing.

  “A ‘V’?” asked Wells.

  Hayes laughed harder. “A peace sign, old man.”

  Then McKenzie had a brilliant idea. The middle finger of the giant hand folded down, the thumb went out and the hand, like a kid playing a game of cops and robbers, turned sideways and pointed at the man.

  The man in black screamed, dropped his gun and cell phone, and took off. He never looked back.

  Hayes ran over and picked them up. “It’s only a stun gun,” he said, sounding disappointed.

  “How would you know?”

  “Different sides of the tracks, Mac. I know things you’d never want to know.”

  McKenzie shrugged. “Let’s go look in the van. I want to get my grandfather’s stuff out of there in case that cop, or whatever he is, returns.” She glanced at Wells and found him standing, still staring at the—

  “Oops!” McKenzie closed her eyes and nudged the particles back into the van.

  As Wells refused to step foot in the van, Hayes and Charlie, along with the stun gun, stayed outside to keep an eye on him.

  McKenzie collected her great-great grandmother Julianne’s diary, along with a folder full of important looking documents and a personal logbook that apparently belonged to the man in black. She had just rolled down the ramp from the back of the van, when Principal Provost returned.

  He looked like his old self again, wheelchair and all.

  “Rudy B. Hayes,” he said. “Put that gun down immediately!”

  “We have a small problem,” said McKenzie handing the logbook to Principal Provost.

  “This too,” said Hayes.

  Principal Provost took the book and the cell phone. “And if you don’t mind…”

  Hayes handed him the gun.

  While Principal Provost flipped through the logbook’s pages, McKenzie and Hayes pulled the rest of Revolvos’ belongings out of the van and closed it up.

  “He’ll be
back,” said Wells, sounding almost gleeful. “Mind you, a man like that makes his living spying on people. Now that he knows there are aliens living on our planet, he won’t let you rest. Knowledge is power. I should know. A man like that loves power!”

  “Knowledge is power only if you have proof,” said Principal Provost, “and we’re taking that with us. However, you’re probably right, he may try to cause us trouble. Whatever you do, McKenzie, don’t particle-weave in public. And Hayes, don’t let that poonchi out of your sight. If this man should return—”

  “Oh, he will,” said Wells, “Mark my words, he will!”

  Principal Provost shook his head. “You humans are self-absorbed creatures. It comes from thinking you’re the only sentient species on the planet—closes your mind to the possibility of other intelligences. My advice would be to play along with this man for a while, build up his confidence and then pretend it’s all a lie. Or, better yet—play dumb. It will drive him crazy. Either way…” He looked at McKenzie. “I’ll be gone by summer.” Then he looked at Hayes. “And so will the poonchi.” Principal Provost rolled over, picked up Revolvos’ suitcase and tossed it on his lap. “Time to go,” he said, “I see another helicopter in the distance.”

  “What about him?” said Hayes, pointing to the man frozen inside the field.

  “As soon as I deposit the three of you safely inside the time field, I shall return for Roony. At which point,” Principal Provost smiled, “Time will resume.”

  Wells and Principal Provost began heading toward the time field.

  Hayes walked over and picked up Charlie, who’d rolled over to leave his mark on one of the van’s tires.

  “Wait,” said McKenzie.

  Hayes turned, cradling Charlie in his arms. He gave her a smile that just sort-of…took her breath away.

  “So,” McKenzie said, hoping like crazy he couldn’t tell how nervous she was. “We’re home and I guess everything’s back to normal…except for your poonchi friend.”