“Come on!” Henry said, grabbing the handle of the dolly. I pushed from behind. We headed for the door. We had almost reached it when Henry turned back. “The agreements!” he screamed.
I rushed back to the table, my entire body ringing with panic. I carefully picked up the six forms, not wanting to tear them. Crutchley was beginning to reach out with one hand. Whelpley’s eyes were right on me. Korngold’s redlipsticked mouth was opening. In a minute they’d be able to chase us. I dashed for the door.
Henry had rushed back into the room, too. Now he was exiting through the double doors with a long metal ruler from one of the drafting tables. I started through myself, about to ask him what he was doing.
At the same time my mind was racing ahead, thinking about exactly what we were going to do with the forms. “Keep going, Henry!” I said, and ran back into the room, over to the secretary’s desk. She was beginning to move her chair back toward the desk. I looked through various piles and cubbyholes. “Whaaaaaa?” I heard Whelpley saying behind me.
At last I found what I wanted. I grabbed some envelopes and raced back to the door and paused only a second to look back and see Whelpley’s eyes on me now. He took a step in my direction; he was coming out of it faster than the others.
I pushed through the door. Henry was standing there with the ruler. “Hurry! They’re moving faster!” I told him.
“You’re the one who said we had to bring the clock!” Henry said, so frantic his voice was high-pitched. “And then you ran back again. We’ve got to slow them down.” He smashed the security panel with the ruler. “That’ll jam the lock,” he said. “And just to make extra sure ...” He stuck the heavy metal ruler through the two U-shaped handles on the double doors. “Now they’re stuck in there,” he said, and pulled the dolly through the next door.
The people in the big silver-and-purple office were shifting within their cubicles; lights fluttered slowly on monitors. We trundled the dolly past them, past the receptionist, to the elevators. Henry pushed the button. Eventually the elevator call light blinked on.
“If we don’t get an elevator right away, we’re leaving this here!” he said furiously.
“Why are you so mad at me?” I shouted at him, gripping the purchase and sale agreements.
“Because you had it all worked out perfectly and you’re going to ruin it by trying to bring this stupid thing. Come on, please, let’s just take the stairs!”
“Another minute. Thirty seconds!” I pleaded.
Sounds were awakening now, rustlings, breathings, slow footsteps. Henry and I were both madly pacing past the elevators.
I bent over the clock. Slow it down, can’t you? We’re taking this big risk for your sake! I pleaded with it. But the propeller’s speed continued to slacken.
“What ... are ... you ... doing ... here?” a deep voice asked.
We turned. The receptionist was thawing fast. She blinked a couple of times. When we didn’t answer, she said, “Where ... did ... you ... come ... from?”
“Forget this thing and take the stairs!” Henry hissed. “They’ll be here in a second.”
But I wouldn’t forget the clock. I had never been so stubborn.
At that moment a sound like a low-pitched xylophone reverberated through the elevator bank. Green light poured into the Down arrow across from us. We rushed over. As the doors opened very, very slowly, we heard the footsteps.
“Don’t look! Just get in!”
We dragged the dolly into the elevator and Henry pushed 1 and then CLOSE. We waited.
I peeked outside. The driver in the dark suit was approaching, speeding up.
The doors began to close. Henry was bent over, his fists clenched. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” he was praying under his breath.
The driver lumbered toward us at almost a normal pace, though from his red face and the way he was leaping between strides I could tell he was trying to run. He reached out to push the elevator button and stop us.
The doors closed. A moment later the elevator was sinking.
“Oh, we made it!” I sighed, sliding back against one wall.
Then I panicked again. The elevator fell faster and faster.
Henry and I gripped each other and I dropped the forms. “It’s falling!” I screamed.
“I don’t think so,” Henry said, but he didn’t sound too sure. “It might just be picking up speed because the slowdown’s stopping.”
The elevator slowed gradually just as we reached the lobby. I quickly gathered up the forms from the floor. The chime sounded perfectly normal as the doors opened. We pulled the dolly into the lobby, full of people on their way home from work. I tucked the purchase and sale agreements and envelopes carefully under my coat. Henry dragged the dolly out of the building into the swiftly falling snow and over to the curb and waved for a taxi.
“If we don’t get one in one minute, we’re leaving this thing here and taking the train,” Henry threatened. We kept looking back desperately toward the building. Several empty taxis passed us by.
“It’s because we’re teenagers,” Henry said bitterly. “If we were adults, one of them would have stopped already.”
I rushed out as the next taxi passed and waved frantically. And it stopped. The Crutchley team wasn’t coming out of the building as we maneuvered the clock inside—they must still be trapped in that room. Henry started to give the driver my address.
“No,” I said. “We’ll be making a lot of stops in that neighborhood.” I looked through the purchase and sale agreements. “Better go to One Thirty-nine Brookdale Avenue first.”.
One by one I carefully folded the forms and put them into the printed Crutchley Development envelopes. “You got a pen, Henry?” I asked him when we were on the highway.
He handed it over to me. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure they sign right away.” The moving car would make my hand unsteady, but I didn’t think it mattered. I wasn’t going to try to imitate anybody’s handwriting—once the sellers saw what was inside, they wouldn’t notice. “Congrats, sweetie!” I wrote on the envelope. “Please sign right away. Danielle.”
When we got to our neighborhood, the driver stopped at the first house and I ran out and slipped the envelope through the mail slot on their door. Back inside the taxi, I said, “Okay. Now go to—”
“Wait a minute,” the driver said doubtfully. “How many houses we stopping at?”
I looked at the meter, which was on twenty-five dollars now. “Just do what we say and you’ll get a minimum of fifty,” I told the driver.
I dropped off six agreements, including Henry’s—he stayed in the taxi so he could help me carry the clock into my house. “Okay, we can go home now,” I said and gave the driver my address.
The meter was on forty dollars when we got there. Henry and I looked at each other. Neither of us had the money. But I wasn’t worried; I was exhilarated. “Wait here. I’ll be right out with the money,” I said.
Aunt Ruth was still in front of the TV. Again, she turned with automatic anger at the sound of the door. “Home so soon? You’ll be happy to know that man is back again. The deadbeat wasn’t even gone a week. I can’t wait for you to tell him I’m going to kill his annuity and—”
I’d already reached her chair. “May I have fifty dollars, please?” I said.
She shrank back. “Fifty dollars? Are you out of your mind?”
“Look at this, Aunt Ruth, and you might reconsider,” I said, handing her the purchase and sale agreement for our house. “This was what I was doing at Crutchley—renegotiating the price.”
Aunt Ruth moved her lips slightly as she read. I could see when she reached the purchase price of 200 million dollars. She looked puzzled for a moment. Then she read it again. Then she pulled at her lip and looked suspiciously up at me. “Is this a joke or what?” she said.
I bent over her shoulder and pointed at the paper. “See? Crutchley signed it already. All you have to do is sign it. Aren’t you going to tha
nk me for getting the price up there? And now can I have fifty dollars for the taxi, please?”
“Two hundred million dollars?” Aunt Ruth whispered.
“Wait a minute!” I pulled it away from her. “You can’t sign it until you sign a promise to let Uncle Marco control his own annuity—and give me fifty for the taxi.”
She was out of her chair in a flash. I’d never seen her move so fast. She waddled for her purse and pawed through it and came up with a pen and two twenties and a ten. I smiled sweetly at her as I took the money. “Thank you. And his annuity?”
She waved the pen at me. “He can have it. I couldn’t care less now. I’ll sign anything you want about it.” She peered more closely at me. “How on earth did you do this, Anne?”
“You’ll see in a minute. It’s in the taxi.” I raced to the telephone table, grabbed a piece of notepaper and a pen, and wrote: “From this date onward, Marco Levi will be in control of his annuity, and I have no legal power over it whatsoever.” I dated it and thrust it at her. “Sign right here, please,” I said.
She scribbled her signature.
I grabbed the paper, folded it, and put it carefully into my coat pocket. “Thank you. Be right back. Leave the door open for us, please.” I gave her back the purchase and sale agreement.
I whistled on my way to the taxi. Of course, Aunt Ruth didn’t realize that Crutchley would never come up with the money; he’d go bankrupt for sure. Legally committing himself to pay 800 million dollars for seven houses, most of them worth less than a hundred thousand, would be the end of him. Aunt Ruth right now thought we were the only ones with a purchase and sale agreement like this. Until she found out, she’d do anything I wanted.
Henry and I struggled up the walk with the clock and through the open door. We set it down on one of the window seats in the front hall to rest for a minute, just as Uncle Marco came down the stairs, his eyes on me, then Henry.
“Uncle Marco!” I cried, pretending for Aunt Ruth that I hadn’t just seen him. We hugged each other. “Good news, Uncle Marco,” I said, pulling away. “Aunt Ruth signed the control of the annuity over to you.” I turned to her. “Right, Aunt Ruth?”
“I sure did,” Aunt Ruth said, looking curiously at the clock, still holding the agreement, not bothering to say hello to Henry. “I’ll even increase it if the man wants.”
Uncle Marco glanced at me, but he knew Aunt Ruth well enough not to ask any questions in front of her. He looked back at Henry. Henry was watching Uncle Marco, too.
“What is this thing, Anne?” Aunt Ruth said. “Where did it come from? What does it have to do with the two hundred million for the house?”
Uncle Marco looked at me. He managed to keep his face blank.
“It’s something Crutchley really wanted,” I told her. “We let him use it for a while. He thought it could make him the richest developer in the world. That’s why it was worth so much to him.”
“What are you talking about?” Aunt Ruth nervously lit a cigarette. “Where did you get this thing, anyway? You still haven’t told me what it is.” Smoke poured out of her mouth as she talked.
“It’s a special clock, Aunt Ruth. I’ll tell you what I can later. Right now we’ve got to get it down to the basement.” I looked at Henry, then back to her. “I think you better sign that purchase and sale agreement right away, before Crutchley and Company get here. Be sure to point out to him that it’s a legal document and he signed it already.”
“Well, I’m not going down to the basement,” Aunt Ruth said uncomfortably. “Yes. Have to sign this.” She hurried toward the dining room table with the agreement and her pen.
“Will you help us carry this down, Uncle Marco?”
“Let’s go,” he said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“What did they build in the root cellar?” Uncle Marco asked on the way down.
“It’s like ... a palace,” I said. “Uncle Marco, I’m really sorry I—”
He didn’t even wait to hear my apology. “Let’s leave the clock in the main room for a few minutes before we bring it in to them,” he said.
“Why? They really want it.”
“Because we have to talk first before ... before we let them get together.”
What would happen when we put the clock together with the creatures? I didn’t want to lose it again. We set the clock down on the floor in the main basement room. Then the three of us stood up and looked around at each other.
“Uncle Marco, this is Henry. He’s my best friend and I wouldn’t have gotten through a minute of this without him. Henry, Uncle Marco. You’ve heard about him already.”
They shook hands, grinning at each other.
“Of course I know who Henry is,” Uncle Marco said. “I’ve spent a great deal of real time sitting on his roof—though it wasn’t much time to me.”
“But why, Uncle Marco?” I asked him. “Can you tell us now?”
“Yeah. I’m really curious,” Henry said.
“First you tell me what’s going on with this developer—and how you got Ruth under your thumb in less than a week.”
I explained. Uncle Marco was laughing before I finished. He hugged me again. “Wonderful, Annie! And you went to all the trouble to bring the clock back, too. That’s important. You’ve proved yourself now. This time you’re coming with me.”
“Wait a minute, Uncle Marco,” I said. Normally there was no point in asking him direct questions because he was so secretive. But now, with the creatures and the clock depending on me, I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. I would get an answer no matter what. “Did you leave the boxes here on purpose? Did you want me to open them?”
And suddenly I realized what the boxes had given me. Not just a way of saving the neighborhood. Something more important—they made me part of the three-in-one.
Uncle Marco looked at me silently.
I crossed my arms, meeting his eyes. “I’m not moving or saying another word until you give me a complete answer,” I said.
“Wow. You have changed,” he said softly.
“Please, Uncle Marco. I’m waiting.”
He sighed and shifted from one foot to another. He pushed his hair back and looked away from me. “You never know exactly why you do something, Annie,” he said slowly. “And you never know exactly what the result will be. Your opening the boxes was one possibility. I couldn’t know what would happen after that. Leaving them here was a chance I took. If you didn’t open them, nothing would happen—and maybe the neighborhood would be destroyed. If you did open them and couldn’t handle it, then a whole lot of other things could have gone really, really wrong.” He looked back at me and shrugged, lifting his arms. “And it turned out—you opened them and did everything exactly right! You saved the neighborhood and you grew up. My gamble—my trust in you—paid off.” He waited. “Is that enough of an answer? Are you going to come with me this time?”
“Where? To sit frozen on Henry’s roof?” I asked him, still pondering what he had just told me. I was beginning to think I ought to feel proud of myself.
“That’s not where I go all the time I’m away—only about a quarter of the time.”
“But why do you do that at all?”
“It’s very peaceful, sitting there and watching the blur of night and day.” He smiled at us. “It’s my way of meditating. It’s especially interesting when the seasons change. It also makes life more exciting.”
“Exciting?” I said skeptically.
“Yes!” he cried, radiating enthusiasm now. “You’re not waiting around in real time for things to gradually happen. You’re jumping into the future. Fifteen minutes there and fifteen weeks have gone by. Not to mention, it keeps you young. Every time I spend fifteen weeks there, I age only fifteen minutes because that’s all the time that goes by for me. It’s the opposite when you make a general slowdown of the world. Then you’re aging faster than everybody else. That’s why you have to watch how many slowdowns you make.”
�
��Oh, wow,” Henry breathed. “Because more time goes by for you than for the people in the slowdown.”
“You got it,” Uncle Marco said.
I was beginning to understand it, too. And I was still feeling really good about myself.
I looked at Henry and back to Uncle Marco. “Maybe you can explain something we can’t figure out. I know why I didn’t get stuck in the slowdowns—I’m the nervous system between the creatures and the clock. The clock needs the creatures and the creatures need the clock. They make each other complete, right?”
“That’s called a symbiotic relationship,” Henry said. Uncle Marco looked impressed.
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m part of them, and that keeps me out of the slowdowns. And you have your own clock, Uncle Marco, so you’re in control of yourself. But what about Henry? How come he didn’t slow down like the rest of the world?”
Henry and Uncle Marco weren’t looking at me now; they gazed at each other. “Henry. Think about that vine you’ve always had in your room,” Uncle Marco said.
“Yeah?” Henry said, knitting his brow. “It’s just always been there. Nobody ever thought of getting rid of it. It’s like ... part of the house.”
“Right. Does it remind you of anything now?” Uncle Marco asked him.
“Maybe.” Henry thought about it, frowning. “Something ... painful, now that I think about it.” Absently, he touched the spot on his cheek the clock tendril had made. Then he looked at his finger, his eyes widening. “That’s it!” he said. “It looks like one of those root things inside the clock!”
“It’s the root stem of my clock, which lives on your roof,” Uncle Marco said. “That’s what happens when you leave an active clock in one place for a while—it digs in and becomes a permanent part of it. And vice versa. You grew up spending every night of your life sleeping next to the essence of the clock. Naturally you became part of it.”
“But why did you pick Henry’s house?” I asked.
“Best view—the highest spot around. And I just happen to like that house. Always have.”
I looked at Henry, shaking my head. “It’s kind of hard, taking all this in.”
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