“I must say, I’m in complete awe of you, young lady,” said Professor Boxley. “What you did took a great deal of both brains and courage.”
“And that was some awfully nice shooting as well,” said Catherine, who knew a thing or two about archery, having taken lessons for several years.
“Thanks, Penny,” said Big, unaware that since she had last seen them, the Cheeseman children had begun using their real names. It had to be explained to her why the boy named Chip, of whom she had grown so fond, was now going by the name of Jason.
“It is my hope,” said Big, “that once you save your mother’s life, you can stop running and that you’ll never have to change your names again.”
“That’s our hope too,” said Gravy-Face Roy, formerly known by such names as No-Face Roy and Rat-Face Roy.
Jason introduced his brave young girlfriend to Sullivan. “This is Big,” he said. “Or did you already know that?”
Sullivan smiled at Big. “I already knew that. My great-aunt Big,” he said, and gave her a hug. “It’s great to see you again.” If this were not confusing enough for Big, Stig and Gurda approached her and offered their thanks in the form of a series of grunts. Gurda took a moment to admire Big’s beaded braids. The girl seemed wary but tolerant of the intrusion, which lasted only until another blast from the faraway volcano reminded them of the urgency of the situation.
“Okay, we’d better move out,” said Jason, not quite ready to relinquish the role of leader that he had assumed while his father was unconscious and in an amnesiac state. “Big says the LVR is close by.”
With the ground covered in ash, nothing looked at all familiar. Without an experienced tracker like Big, finding the LVR would have been like finding a noodle in a haystack, which is almost as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack, particularly if you’re talking about linguini.
“I don’t understand it,” said Big. “This concept of Some Times. The idea of being able to travel through time is strange enough. But traveling to several times at once is more baffling to me yet.”
“I know,” said Jason. “And believe me, I can’t wait to get the heck out of here.”
Jason’s sentiments were shared by all but Sullivan, who had no intention of leaving a chaotic world that seemed well suited to his quirky sensibilities. He agreed to accompany them on their quest to find the LVR, but he had no interest in joining them beyond that.
“It’s right over this hill,” said Big after they’d walked for about thirty minutes. As they neared the top of the hill, the Cheesemans held their collective breath, half expecting to see the LVR smashed like a grape or torn apart by wild animals. But when they finally laid eyes on it, the LVR was perfectly formed, without the slightest trace of wildlife or construction workers needing to go to the bathroom. With a thin white ash coating, it resembled a giant goose egg—the most beautiful giant goose egg in the history of eggs. Or of geese, for that matter. For once, things seemed to be going their way.
Chapter 12
“Awesome,” said Sullivan, with no shortage of wonderment and reverence. “So this is the original LVR.” He walked a slow circle around the machine. He wanted to touch it but refrained from doing so, as if it were some ancient, holy relic. Meanwhile, Ethan carefully inspected the repair work done to the ceiling panel.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “That Mr. Lumley is an awfully good blacksmith.”
“And an awfully good friend,” said Big.
“Do you mind if I have a look at the interior?” asked Sullivan.
“Not at all,” said Ethan, and he began keying in the password needed to open the pod door from the outside. But when he finished, he found the door remained locked.
“Oh, sorry,” said Big. “I forgot. I had to change the sequence.”
“You figured out how to change the password?” Ethan marveled.
“Took me three days,” she said, punching in the new numbers. “I changed it to C-H-I-P so I would always remember.” She pulled open the hatch, and Sullivan peered inside.
“Go ahead,” said Ethan.
Sullivan ducked his head, stepped into the prototype time machine, and let out a chuckle. “So it’s true,” he said when he saw the seats and the control panel. “You used parts from an old motor home, LOL.”
“You work with what you have,” said Ethan.
“I know all about that,” said Sullivan. “I used parts from an old 2087 model hover-van for my LVR-TS714 version 8.0.” As he inspected the rest of the LVR, his eyes widened and a broad smile pushed that scruffy blond beard aside. “I’d love to take just one ride in it. Maybe someday, if you’re ever back this way.”
Sullivan stepped out of the LVR and took a few more moments to admire it, then said, “Well, I guess this is goodbye.” He turned to Simon and put his hand upon his shoulder. “It was great seeing you again, Grandpa.”
For once, Simon didn’t mind being called Grandpa. In fact, he found that he rather liked it. It made him feel older and, more importantly, grown-up. Slowly, he pulled Steve from his right hand and offered him to Sullivan. “Here,” he said. “I can’t take your good luck charm.”
“But your mother made him for you,” said Sullivan.
“It’s okay. After we save her life, and after we go for ice cream, I’m going to ask her to make me a brand-new Steve.”
As Sullivan took the tattered sock puppet in his hands, tears formed in his eyes, and Simon hoped it wouldn’t damage his eyetop computer like the time Simon had ruined a perfectly good laptop by accidentally dousing it with hot chocolate.
“This is the second time you’ve given this to me,” he said. “I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life. Thanks, Grandpa Cheeseman.” Sullivan then gave his eight-year-old grandfather one last hug before Jason stepped forward and offered his hand.
“It’s us who should be thanking you, Sullivan,” he said. “Not only did you save our lives, but you gave us all hope for the future.” Jason held up the autographed baseball as proof of this.
Sullivan gave Jason’s hand a squeeze and a shake, then turned to the future President of the United States, Catherine Cheeseman. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll stop them. Once we save our mother’s life, we’ll go after Plexiwave.”
“I know you’ll succeed,” said Sullivan. “You’ve all got what it takes, and I’m proud to call you my ancestors.” He walked to the wagon, lifted the pile of animal skins, and handed them to Ethan.
“Take these,” he said. “Just in case. You never know.”
Ethan wished Sullivan luck and cautioned him to make sure to turn away from the LVR when the engines kicked in. The bright, bluish light was of such intensity that it could be blinding.
As much as the Cheesemans hated good-byes, they were very anxious to say good-bye, adios, auf Wiedersehen, and sayonara to Some Times and hello to something resembling what they considered a normal existence. As they stepped into the Luminal Velocity Regulator, they felt relief being somewhere familiar. With one final wave to Sullivan, Gurda, and Stig, Ethan shut the hatch door. He and Professor Boxley wasted no time setting up at the controls.
“That knob tends to stick, I find,” said Big, the self-taught scientist and time traveler. “Try turning it as you push.”
“Thanks, Big,” said Mr. Cheeseman, both pleased and amused to find Big’s suggestion worked like a charm. “Okay, everyone. Buckle up. It’s bound to be a bit of a bumpy start just trying to get back on the Time Arc.”
The children did as they were instructed, and Ethan hit the ignition switch, quickly bringing the engines up to full power. When Ethan took note of the various readings on the control panel, he suddenly looked worried.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” asked Catherine.
“The battery. It’s pretty low. I just hope it’ll take us as far as we need to go.” As far as they needed to go was the day before Olivia was poisoned. Ethan punched in the necessary coordinates.
“Okay,” he said. “Here we
go.”
But when Ethan flipped the switch, they went exactly nowhere.
“This is a smooth ride,” said Simon. “Doesn’t even feel like we’re moving at all.”
“That’s because we’re not,” said Jason. “Dad, what’s going on?”
“It looks as though getting out of Some Times and back onto the Time Arc is going to be more difficult than I thought,” said Ethan.
“It’s the angle of trajectory,” said Professor Boxley. “It’s got to be changed to account for the Great Sync.”
The Great Sync to which the professor was referring was that mysterious and tenuous connector along the ever-expanding Time Arc where the beginning of time meets the end of time. Hitting it at the wrong angle was what caused them to be bumped off the Time Arc and into Some Times to begin with. Now it was the very same issue that seemed to be preventing their return to the Time Arc.
“Yes, but changed to what?” said Ethan. “The numerical possibilities are endless. We could try guessing, but odds are overwhelming that we’d use up our remaining battery power before we figured it out.” Ethan sighed and hung his head. “I hate to say it, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to face the facts. We may be stuck here for a while longer while we try to figure this out.”
This news was deeply troubling to Simon, terribly frustrating to Jason, and incredibly intriguing to Catherine, who stood up and exclaimed, “Face the facts. That’s it!”
“What’s it?” asked Ethan.
“In the middle of the avalanche”—Catherine scrunched up her forehead and closed her eyes in an attempt to help relive the moment—“I saw Mom, and she spoke to me.”
“What did she say this time?” asked Simon. “Did she ask about me?”
“No,” said Catherine. “Though I’m sure she would have if there’d been time. But it happened so quickly. She just smiled at me and said, ‘Face the music, face the facts, back to front and hurry back.’”
“I’m sorry,” said Ethan, who, despite Catherine’s history of ghostly encounters, was still skeptical of them. “But I don’t see how that helps us.”
“I don’t see either,” said Catherine. She plopped back down into her seat and kicked at the air in frustration. Group morale was plummeting, nearing rock bottom, when Catherine again sprang forth from her chair, this time snapping her fingers and pointing at her father.
“Dad,” she said. “I know the answer.”
“What?” asked Ethan. “What’s the answer?”
“It’s in your back pocket.”
For all Ethan knew, his back pockets were completely empty. But when he inspected them further, he found several pages of paper. “What is this?” he asked as he slowly unfolded the sheets of paper to find them covered in musical notes.
“It’s the William Tell Overture,” said Jason. “You wrote it when you got conked on the head and thought you were that composer guy.”
“Yes, but it’s more than just the William Tell Overture,” said Catherine. “I just know it. It’s what Mom was talking about.”
Ethan gazed at the pages again, then turned his focus back to Catherine. “Are you saying that within these notes lies the formula we need to get back onto the Time Arc?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Sounds a bit far-fetched, don’t you agree?”
“Not to me,” said Big, uncharacteristically inserting herself into the conversation. “When a spirit speaks to you, it would be foolish not to listen.”
“I think so too,” said Catherine. “And, after all, we’ve got nothing to lose, right?”
As ridiculous as the idea may have seemed to Ethan’s orderly, scientific brain, he had to admit that, yes, they had nothing to lose, and so he agreed to give it a shot. “I’ll scan it into the computer’s database and have it convert the notes to numbers,” he said. “Then we’ll see what happens.”
And that’s just what Ethan did. And while he performed the task, the others waited, silently and nervously. Simon began biting the fingernails of his right hand. When Catherine gave his hand a slap and told him to stop, Gravy-Face Roy started biting Simon’s fingernails.
Following the longest fifteen minutes ever, Ethan finally said, “Okay, the information is loaded and ready to go. Keep your fingers crossed, everybody.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in superstition,” said Professor Boxley with a wink.
“I believe in anything that might help get us out of here,” said Ethan. Then he hit the switch and … nothing. The LVR did not move so much as a tiny inch or a split second. Even Ethan, who had been so doubtful of the plan, could not hide his disappointment. “Sorry, Catherine.”
“No,” said Catherine. “It’s me who should be sorry, for getting everyone’s hopes up with such a stupid idea.”
“Pardon me,” said Big. “The words that your mother spoke to you. Could you repeat them please?”
“Why?” asked Catherine. “What’s the point?”
“Please,” said Big.
Catherine relented and again recited the cryptic poem. “Face the music, face the facts, back to front and hurry back.”
Big thought for a moment, then said, “Back to front. Perhaps she meant that the music should be entered backward, in reverse order.”
Catherine remained despondent, though Big’s interpretation of the poem seemed to pique Ethan’s interest. “It’s possible,” he said with a light bob of his head.
“Wouldn’t hurt to give it a try, anyway,” agreed Professor Boxley.
With a few clicks on the computer keyboard, Ethan reversed the order of the numbers he had entered moments earlier. He took a deep breath, then hit the switch. In a flash, heads snapped back and eyes widened as the LVR lurched forward, careening wildly along the Time Arc. Jason and the other passengers gripped their armrests tightly as the time machine picked up speed.
“We did it!” shouted Ethan. “We’re on our way!”
And so they were, with only one question remaining. Would the battery hold out until they got to where they needed to go?
The LVR rattled and bumped over the Great Sync, moving from the beginning of time to the end of time, then continuing backward toward that point somewhere in between, when Olivia was poisoned by those dastardly Plexiwave henchmen.
“Are we there yet?” whined Simon after saying nothing for nearly thirty minutes, a personal record for him.
“Don’t worry,” said Ethan. “I’ll let you know.”
Jason looked above, checking on the viability of those all-important welds made to the ceiling panel. For now, Mr. Lumley’s repair work seemed to be holding just fine. The issue of battery power, however, was another matter altogether. When another thirty minutes had passed, the lights in the cabin dimmed, and Professor Boxley checked the readout on the instrument panel.
“Now operating on reserve power,” he said.
Ethan noted the date on the chronometer. “We’ve still got a ways to go. Let’s hope we make it.”
“We’ve got to make it,” said Catherine. “Come on!”
“Getting close now,” said Ethan after several minutes of silence.
The lights in the cabin dimmed further, then blinked twice, then went out altogether. With a slow groan, the LVR ground to a halt, leaving its passengers to sit in the dark and wonder.
“Well, Dad? Did we make it?” asked Jason.
Ethan’s heavy sigh told them everything they needed to know. “We came up short, I’m afraid.”
“How short?” asked Catherine, though it really didn’t matter. Either way, they had arrived sometime after Olivia had been poisoned, and anytime after that was too late.
“According to the last reading I got from the chronometer, almost two years,” said Ethan.
“Two years?” said Jason. He felt like kicking or punching something. He also felt like crying, but he wasn’t about to do that in front of Big. “So then, we’re right back where we started?”
“It looks that way,�
�� said Ethan.
“So she’s still dead,” said Simon.
“Yes,” said Ethan in a hoarse whisper. “She’s … still dead.” He buried his face in his arms, which rested on the control panel.
“So what do we do now?” asked Simon. The question was met only with silence. Big took Simon’s hand and gave it a squeeze, and he leaned his troubled head against her shoulder. For some time, they all sat in silence, giving no thought to what they should do next because nothing seemed to matter anymore.
Finally, Ethan stood up as straight as the weight he carried would allow him. “According to the chronometer it’s January 13th,” he said. “Assuming we’re still in the Northern Hemisphere, with no battery power we could freeze to death if we stay here. We have to find someplace warm for the night. In the morning, we’ll figure out what to do about the battery.”
They each grabbed one of the animal skins that Sullivan had given them, then Ethan opened the pod door and stepped out into the dark, cold winter air, with the others right behind him. Not only did they come up short by a couple of years, it seemed that they were also off on their location. The surrounding land was rocky, dry, and cracked, and looked nothing like the Cheesemans’ old neighborhood, which was dotted with oak and elm trees, the tidy little houses surrounded by lush, green lawns.
“Where are we?” asked Jason.
“I’m not sure,” said Ethan. “Somewhere in the southwestern United States would be my guess.”
“Why is the southwest so cold?” said Simon, wrapping the animal skin around his shoulders.
“Because it’s the desert,” said Catherine. “The air is thinner and loses heat more rapidly.”
“I suppose we should try to make a fire,” said Ethan.
“Or,” said Jason, “we could check out that light over there.” Sure enough, far off in the distance in the direction Jason was pointing was a white light.
“Could be a house,” said Professor Boxley.
“Or a doughnut shop,” said Simon.
“That’s absurd,” said Catherine. “Who in their right mind would put a doughnut shop way out here in the middle of nowhere?”
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