No Other Story

by Dr. Cuthbert Soup

  It is important to remember that when undue strain is placed regularly upon a muscle, that muscle will gradually grow bigger and stronger in order to accommodate the additional burden. It is also important to remember that the heart is a muscle. For the past two years since the death of their mother, the Cheeseman children had carried with them an incredible emotional weight. Now, what their arms and legs lacked in strength, their mighty hearts more than made up for.

  After nearly forty minutes of struggling against gravity, without so much as the strength to look over his shoulder, Chip asked Teddy, “Are we getting close?” Teddy lifted his heavy head and managed a tiny smile. The top of the hill was but steps away. Though the smile was weak, it gave Chip and Penny the extra strength they needed to drag their father up and over the edge of the slope.

  But when they were finally able to set Ethan down, it wasn’t on the sun-warmed grass of mid-July. It was on hard, cold snow. To their horror, disappointment, and utter confusion, winter had swept in and taken over the entire plateau that just an hour before had been home to perfect weather. Sometimes, when too much strain is placed upon a muscle, that muscle, including the heart, can break.

  “No,” said Chip, sinking to his knees. “It can’t be.”

  The others just stared out at the endless stretch of snow that covered the ground as far and as wide as the eye could see. Pinky let out a whimper and thought how nice it would be to have a full coat of fur like a normal dog.

  The cold wind swirled around them, carrying off precious body heat. The sun seemed as if it were a gazillion miles away, when it was actually only ninety-three million miles away, which is still a very great distance. To give you an idea as to just how far that is, if you were to take ninety-three million miles and lay them end to end, they would reach all the way to the sun. That’s a long chunk of space, and now the sun seemed farther away than ever.

  “I’m cold,” said Teddy. “I want to go inside.”

  “There is no inside,” said Chip. He was physically and emotionally spent, and for the first time in his life, he felt himself giving up. “There’s just outside right now, Teddy. Lots and lots of outside.”

  “I don’t understand it,” said Penny. Her tears froze halfway down her crimson cheeks. “Why is this happening to us? We broke the curse, so why are all these terrible things still happening to us?”

  Chip had no answer for Penny, because there was no answer. The curse of the White Gold Chalice was a vile hex on par with Montezuma’s Revenge, but without all that dashing off to the bathroom. It was beset upon the family when their great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Gentleman Jibby Lodbrok, stole the Chalice back in the 1600s. But when the Cheesemans traveled back to 1668 and returned the chalice to the Duke of Jutland, the curse should have been broken, and perhaps it had been. It was entirely possible that this latest streak of bad luck had nothing to do with the curse, and everything to do with the fact that time travel is still a highly unpredictable and unreliable business.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Teddy.

  “Who cares?” said Penny. “What’s the point of anything? Even if we survive, we’re stuck here in Some Times. We’ll never get back to save Mom.”

  “Penny, please,” said Chip. “We have to try to stay calm and figure out what to do. How about you, Professor? Do you have any ideas?”

  “No,” the professor murmured. He hung his head, ashamed that a man of science such as he had no clue what to do. “I’m afraid not.”

  Chip closed his eyes and could feel himself losing the battle against pessimism. “Then I guess we wait here and hope that the weather changes again before we all freeze to death.”

  And that’s just what they did. They sat on the frigid ground, hopeless and jacketless, huddled together in a single, shivering cluster, waiting for the return of summer or the departure of all feeling in their frozen limbs, whichever came first.

  Chapter 5

  Experts say that freezing to death is actually one of the more pleasant ways to go, and can result in a feeling of euphoria. Still, given the option, I believe that most people in search of a euphoric sensation would choose a roller coaster over death by exposure.

  But the Cheesemans and Professor Boxley were given no such choice as they sat on the harsh, cold ground, their body temperatures dropping quickly and steadily along with any hope for survival.

  Hallucinations are common in cases of hypothermia, and Penny was the first to slip into the world of the surreal when she imagined she heard a dog barking. The distant sound was accompanied by what sounded like the buzz of a motor.

  “D-d-do you hear th-th-that?” asked Teddy. His teeth chattered so badly he was now chewing his gum involuntarily. “It s-s-sounds like a d-d-d-dog b-b-b-barking.”

  Though she had no training in psychology, Penny knew one thing. If two people are experiencing the same hallucination at once, it’s most likely not a hallucination at all.

  The barking and the humming grew louder, and soon, out from the gloom came one of the strangest sights any of them had ever seen. It was a dog pulling some kind of a sled. On that sled was a man dressed head to toe in animal skins. A wiry yellow beard covered the lower half of his face. He could easily have been mistaken for some type of prehistoric human, but for a couple of key factors.

  First of all, he was wearing sunglasses, and scientists are generally in agreement that even the hippest of cavemen did not wear sunglasses, because they had not yet been invented. Secondly, the man’s dog appeared to have no legs, and instead made its way across the snowy ground on tracks similar to those you’d find on a bulldozer. And though the dog barked incessantly, its mouth failed to include the appropriate opening and closing that one generally expects to accompany such noises.

  “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” asked Professor Boxley with what little strength he had left.

  “If you’re seeing a robot dog pulling a sled with a caveman wearing sunglasses, then yes,” said Penny.

  They watched as the sled approached, and hoped its rider and his mechanical dog were friendly. One thing that gave them a certain measure of comfort was that Pinky did not growl, but that might have been because she lacked the strength for it, or because, by now, those muscles she used for growling had completely frozen up. Still, it mattered little. If the man on the sled proved hostile, there wasn’t much they could do about it now in their badly weakened condition.

  The sled glided up next to the shivering group and came to a stop as the dog continued to emit electronic barking noises through its closed mouth. The well-bundled man stepped off the sled and, from the pocket of his patched-together fur coat, pulled at a small device, about the size of a cell phone. He pointed the gadget at the dog and pushed a button. Immediately the barking noises ceased, and the man returned the remote control to his pocket.

  “Please, you’ve got to help us,” Penny pleaded, hoping the man spoke English. “Our father is badly hurt.” The man took a moment to survey the situation. Penny could see, in the reflection of his sunglasses, a small, pathetic image of her tightly bunched group. How could the stranger not take pity on such a woeful lot?

  The man bent down and took Penny by the left hand and, a little too roughly, pushed her sleeve back, then turned her arm and inspected the underside of her wrist. One by one, he did the same with the rest of them, carefully scrutinizing their left wrists. Once he had finished, he turned and walked back to the sled. Penny and the others sat and hoped he would not abandon them. They watched as he lifted a stack of animal pelts from the back of the sled, then returned to where they sat and dropped the skins in a heap. He peeled off the top one and draped it across Teddy’s shoulders, then knelt down and lifted the shivering boy from the icy ground.

  While the man carried Teddy back to the sled, Chip took a skin from the pile and covered his father. He passed the next two to Penny and Professor Boxley, then wrapped the remaining one around himself.

  The pelts were cold and stiff f
rom exposure to the elements and their effectiveness was not immediately felt, though no one was complaining at this point. It was just nice to have something between the icy wind and their bare, goose-bumped arms. Penny picked up Pinky and wedged the hairless pink dog beneath her arm.

  The sled driver returned and helped the others to their feet. Silently, he looked the group up and down, then nodded to Chip, apparently deciding he looked the fittest and ablest of the ravaged bunch. Chip took his father by the feet while the modern-day caveman took him beneath the arms. Together they carried Ethan past the motionless robot dog to the back of the sled.

  Next, he climbed aboard the sled, removed the remote control from his pocket, and took aim. The mechanical half dog–half tractor began barking once more as it lurched forward, grinding and yipping its way across the frozen landscape.

  The sled was just large enough to accommodate one driver and two passengers, and it seemed to have been unofficially decided that those two passengers would be Teddy and his unconscious father. The others would have to walk. But where were they walking? Penny, for one, wanted to know.

  “Excuse me. Where are we going?” She couldn’t be sure if the complete lack of response was due to the man being unable to hear over the howling wind and the barking dog, because he didn’t speak English, or because he had simply chosen to ignore the question.

  Either way, she didn’t ask again, and she and the others hunched their shoulders and bowed their heads against the biting wind and trudged along behind the sled. So utterly exhausted were they that none of them noticed the strange dull light streaking across the heavens, barely visible among the dark, winter clouds. Then again, perhaps they had seen it, but thought nothing of it in a place where the moon, the stars, and the sun all hung in the sky at once.

  They slogged along for what seemed like an hour (but in reality was only fifty-seven minutes) before they finally arrived at the opening to a cave. The man shut down the electronic dog and stepped off the sled.

  The man motioned to Chip, and the two of them lugged Ethan into the cave with the others following close behind, still not quite certain whether their host was friendly or perhaps desirous of putting them into some kind of homemade caveman stew.

  Once inside, the first thing they noticed was just how gloriously warm the cave was, though not so warm that they considered shedding their furry blankets. What they next observed was just how little this cave resembled a prehistoric home. Hanging across the length of the far wall was a string of lights, the kind you might expect to find on a Christmas tree or a backyard patio.

  In the middle of the dirt floor was a fire pit, and spaced evenly around the pit were four leather chairs that looked as though they had been pulled from an automobile. Adorning the walls were cave drawings, the type often seen in a history book, except that these paintings were not dull and faded. They appeared freshly made, the colors strikingly brilliant. Among them were a scene depicting a herd of antelope; another of a group of people gathered in a circle, presumably dancing; and one crudely drawn image of a man on a sled being pulled by a mechanical dog.

  Chip and the stranger gently lowered Ethan to the floor next to the pit, where a fire was in its last stages but still gave off plenty of heat from the glowing embers that remained. The man motioned to the chairs and said, “Grab a seat.”

  “You can talk,” said Chip.

  The man seemed amused by this. “Of course I can talk,” he said.

  Penny sunk into one of the bucket seats and tucked her knees up to her chin. Chip, Teddy, and the professor took the three remaining chairs. Teddy leaned forward and held his hands above the fire pit. He found the sensation surprisingly unpleasant; the warming of his hands was accompanied by a dull ache as the flesh slowly came back to life.

  “Well,” said Chip, “it’s just that you hadn’t said anything up until now.”

  The man removed his sunglasses. Beneath them his eyes were dark, and held a look of mischief, malice, or both. Chip could not decide. “I like to think before I speak,” he said.

  “You mean, like, for a whole hour?” Teddy asked.

  The man said nothing, but did appear to be thinking as he shed his hat and coat, revealing a slim frame tucked into modern clothes: well-worn jeans and a dark blue polo shirt. His hair was a wild mess of blond curls. “If that’s what it takes to get it right, dude,” he said.

  “Dude?” said Chip, more to himself than anyone else.

  “Thank you for saving us,” said Penny. “But as you can see, our father’s been badly injured. Is there a hospital nearby?”

  “And try not to think about it too long,” chirped Gravy-Face Roy. The snide remark earned him a flick on the head from Penny, who was growing ever more weary of having to apologize for her little brother and his ill-mannered sock puppet.

  “Sorry about that. My brother has a habit of never thinking before he speaks. Unlike yourself, Mister …”

  “Jones,” the man said. “Name’s … John Jones.”

  John Jones? Is that the best he could do? thought Chip. Whoever this guy was, he could use some lessons in coming up with fake names.

  Using their own phony names, Penny and the others introduced themselves to the so-called Mr. Jones, and did so quickly, as they were anxious to get back to more important things. “The hospital,” Penny said. “Is there one close by?”

  “Nearest one’s in London,” said Jones. “Usually about ten miles from here.”

  “Usually?” said the professor. Such a statement only made sense in the context of Some Times, where things seemed to change at a moment’s notice.

  “Yeah; once in a while it’s a little farther. But certainly no more than fifteen miles. Twenty-five tops. If it’s more than thirty, I’d be surprised.”

  It was quickly becoming apparent that accuracy was not one of Mr. Jones’s strong suits.

  “But it’s, like, early 1500s London,” he continued. “Sometimes mid-1500s, so that’s probably not your best bet. Could end up with, like, a face full of leeches. Next closest hospital’s in Baltimore in the 1970s, so the prices are pretty good. Either way, I wouldn’t recommend taking him back into the cold right away.”

  “Do you expect it to clear up soon?” asked Chip.

  “Yes,” said Penny. “What does the weather report say?”

  This made Jones laugh. “Weather report? So my assumption was right. You’re outsiders.” No sooner had he said the words than Jones appeared to second-guess the wisdom of having done so.

  “Outsiders?” Chip repeated. “What makes you think that?”

  For a moment, Jones said nothing, apparently deciding whether to answer or ignore the question. Finally, he said, “I can tell you’re outsiders because when I found you, you were, like, totally lost and confused. To the locals, everything here in Some Times makes perfect sense. But to the outsider, it’s an absolute mess.”

  Things were getting stranger by the minute, Chip thought. If he and his family were the first to discover Some Times, how did Jones know its proper name? It would be like Columbus showing up in the New World and having the natives greet him with a hearty, “Hey, Chris, welcome to the West Indies.”

  “You’re an outsider too. Aren’t you?” said Chip. Jones bit the inside of his lip and narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Tired of waiting for a response, Chip persisted. “Where are you from?”

  “Well,” said Jones, “you certainly are a curious bunch, LOL.”

  Penny looked at Chip and Chip looked at Penny. No question, this Jones fellow was a bit of a strange bird, but did he really just say what they thought he said?

  “Excuse me,” said Penny. “But did you say LOL?”

  “Yeah, you know, LOL,” said Jones. “As in, ha ha ha.”

  “Or laugh out loud,” said Chip.

  “Oh yeah,” said Jones. “I suppose it could mean that too. It’s just a way of, like, saving time where I come from.”

  “How much time are you really saving by saying LOL instead
of laugh out loud?” asked Penny. “Or, if something really is funny, why don’t you just laugh out loud and not say anything?”

  Jones shrugged and said, “IDK.”

  “You mean I don’t know?” asked Chip.

  “Exactly. Just another time saver.”

  “We have them where we come from too,” said Penny. “But we only use them when typing or texting, not when speaking.”

  Jones crinkled his forehead and looked thoughtful once again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But what’s typing again?”

  Chip wasn’t quite sure whether a man with a mechanical dog could seriously not know what typing was. He pantomimed the act for Jones’s benefit. “You know, it’s what you do on a laptop computer.”

  “Oh,” said Jones, as if suddenly remembering some obscure fact from a history exam taken long ago. “We don’t have laptop computers where I come from. We have eye-tops.”

  “You replaced computers with basketball shoes?” said Teddy.

  “He said eyetop, I believe,” said Penny. “Not high-top.”

  “What the heck is an eyetop?” asked Gravy-Face Roy.

  As Jones went on to explain to Professor Boxley, the three Cheeseman children, and a sock, an eyetop was a computer about the size of a contact lens that fit right over the cornea of the eye and was operated not by typing, but simply by thinking. If his story was true, it meant one thing for certain: wherever Jones came from, it was a world far more advanced than their own.

  “Are you from the future or something?” Teddy asked.

  “I guess you could say that,” said Jones.

  “I knew it,” said Teddy, who was over the moon at having been right twice in one day.

  “But I’m also from the past,” Jones continued, taking a little wind out of Teddy’s sails. “With time, everything is relative. We’re all from the past and we’re all from the future, depending on the point of reference.” Before Jones could expound upon the topic, two dark creatures scurried into the cave. Teddy sprang to his feet.