by Eric Bower
Traveling back in time one year was much worse than simply traveling back in time to last Thursday. P explained why as we traveled. He said that traveling through space and time can often . . . something, something, something, blah blah science math bloop math blorp bleep gloop.
Alright. He didn’t actually say blorp bleep or any of that other nonsense. That’s just what my stupid brain heard. I tried to listen to his explanation. I really did. But it was so long and boring and complicated that even Rose and M started yawning and losing interest midway through. I had to ask Rose for a summary of the explanation afterward, and though she couldn’t even begin to understand the scientific reasoning behind it, she was able to give me the gist of why we felt so crummy. Basically, the further you travel in time, the greater effect it will have on you. That’s why you couldn’t do it that often. Travel back in time for five seconds? You’ll be fine. But travel back one year? You might need to lie down for a bit. Travel back five years? You probably shouldn’t go swimming for a few hours. Travel back one hundred years? You’d better have a bucket handy. And so on . . .
When we finally arrived in January of 1891, I was so discombobulated and confused that I had almost forgotten what we were doing there in the first place.
“I think I need to lie down,” I told my family as the door to the time machine opened and I stepped outside, recognizing that we were in my parents’ work garage. “Wake me up for supper, please. Actually, wake me in about fifteen minutes for my pre-supper snack. I think I made a pretty good spicy chili back in January, and it should still be in the ice box. Unless of course, me from the future traveled back in time and ate it first. Hmmm . . . I didn’t realize that time travel meant I would be competing with myself for meals. I don’t think I like that very much. I’m not too fond of sharing with me.”
M caught me by the arm and shushed me. I looked at her and raised both of my eyebrows, which is the polite way of yelling at someone when they’ve just shushed you.
She pointed to the other end of the work garage. I followed her pointer finger and then slapped my hand over my mouth, hoping that I hadn’t been heard.
It was M and P from 1891, on the day of the infamous race. M was tied to a table beneath a map of the United States. P was tied to the large steering wheel that was controlling the flying Baron Estate.
An explanation is probably in order.
You see, last year, when my family entered their flying house into an official race around the country, Rose Blackwood snuck into the Baron Estate in Chicago and kidnapped us. She tied up my folks, and she then tried to help us win the contest so that she could use the prize money (and the flying Baron Estate) to break her evil brother Benedict out of jail. I was allowed to go along with her without being tied up as we traveled around the country, collecting items for the race from various little towns with very strange inhabitants. But the only reason she didn’t tie me up like M and P was because Rose didn’t see me as a threat; plus she kept a sharp eye on me at all times, and she always kept her little pistol handy. This was before my family knew that Rose was actually a good person who hated to break the law. We didn’t realize that she was being bullied by her bank-robber parents and literally forced into a life of crime. We had no clue that she was actually a clever and sensitive person with a keen interest in science. In January of 1891, we were genuinely afraid of Rose Blackwood, and our biggest fear was that she might be just as awful and cruel as her legendary brother.
I looked back at the date and time listed on the glass panel inside of the time machine. It was exactly five minutes after noon. We had traveled back in time to the very beginning of the race. The Baron Estate had just left Chicago, and was headed for its first stop on the East Coast.
“Are we still on track for Stone Lake, Massachusetts, my little muffin?” P from 1891 asked M from 1891.
It was very weird standing there with my parents from the present while watching my parents from one year ago. It was sort of like . . . hmmm, that’s not a good comparison. I mean, I guess you could say it was kind of like . . . huh . . . nope, it wasn’t like that either. Never mind. Forget it. It’s not like anything. I tried to think of something to compare it to, but I couldn’t. It was a singularly weird thing that cannot be compared to anything else in the world. If you don’t believe me, just wait until it happens to you.
“It looks like we are, McLaron,” M from 1891 answered P from 1891. “I see no problems in our future. Well, except for the obvious ones. Do you think that evil woman might harm W. B.? I’m worried that our poor son might be terrified right now, trapped in a room with a murderous bandit. She looked just as dangerous as her evil brother.”
Rose from the present looked at my mother from the present with a hurt expression on her face. M from the present shrugged her shoulders.
“I didn’t know very much about you back then,” M from the present whispered to Rose. “All I knew was that you were the sister of Benedict Blackwood and that you had kidnapped us at gunpoint. If you were in my position, you would have been frightened of you as well.”
“It didn’t take us long to see the good in you, though,” P from the present whispered as well, petting Rose reassuringly on the arm. “Sharon and I are excellent judges of character. If I’m remembering correctly, I believe we had total faith in you by the time we landed in Massachusetts. Or maybe it was Missouri. It was definitely one of those ‘M’ states. Or maybe it was Nevada . . . or Idaho? It wasn’t Alabama, was it? Hmm. It was definitely one of those states that starts with a letter.”
“What was that?” P from 1891 called from the steering wheel, unintentionally interrupting himself. “Sharon, did you just whisper something to me?”
“No,” said M from 1891, who was busy using her teeth to guide a giant pointer across the map of the country pasted over her head. She was plotting out the course the flying Baron Estate would take during the race. “You must have heard a noise from the engines or something. Or maybe it was another passing duck.”
“Oh?” said P from 1891. “You think that was a duck?”
“Yes,” I answered, and then when I saw M and P from the present furiously press their index fingers up to their lips in a gesture that meant be quiet! I quickly said, “I mean, quack?”
“You’re right,” said P from 1891, sounding quite satisfied. “It was just an uncertain duck.”
Present M, P, Rose, and I all breathed a silent sigh of relief, as we started to tiptoe across the work garage, edging toward the door leading to the kitchen so we could begin our search of the house.
I know I’ve mentioned that I’m clumsy. But if you’ve never heard about my other adventures (the true stories, I mean, not the ones written in those stupid books by Werbert Hermabermamerm-whatever his name is), then I don’t think you fully understand how terribly clumsy I can really be.
The last time I was in the flying Baron Estate, I ended up hanging from Aunt Dorcas’s bedroom window by my fingertips, not once, but twice, because of my own clumsiness. I also fell down a rocky hill, slipped in a mud pit, was hit in the head by several cans and bottles, and was almost trampled by a pack of wild pigs. And that’s only one small fraction of my short lifetime’s worth of clumsy misfortunes. You see, I’ve tripped and fallen so many times that my knees and shins are now a permanent shade of black and blue. I’ve stubbed my toes so often that they’re now all the exact same stubby shape and size. I’ve been knocked on the head so many times that my skull feels a bit like a wet bag stuffed full of pebbles.
I just have really bad luck. The worst luck. The sort of luck you usually end up with if you cross an evil sorcerer or do something foul to a sacred burial ground or relic. If someone hides a banana peel in a fifty thousand square foot building, I guarantee you that I will slip on that banana peel within two minutes of entering that building. In fact, I’ll probably slip on it, fall out of the fifth-floor window, land in a rose bush, and then, when I jump up and scream from the painful thorn pr
icks, I’ll wake an angry guard dog that chases me across the yard, chomping on my backside until I stumble and fall down a well that’s gone dry.
That actually happened to me last month. My father had to use one of his inventions to rescue me from the well—an invention he’d invented long ago specifically for the purpose of rescuing me from wells. In fact, he uses that invention so often that the darned thing is starting to wear out.
I’m telling you about how clumsy and klutzy and uncoordinated I am so you won’t be surprised when I tell you what happened next.
As my family from the present tried to sneak out of the work garage without my parents from the past noticing them, I suddenly had a terrible sneezing fit—which is a side effect of time travel that you don’t often hear about. As I plugged up my nose with one hand and covered my mouth with the other, the force of my suppressed sneeze shot me backward into the wall of the work garage. The force of my body hitting the wall caused one of the shelves over my head to shake, and the giant metal bell sitting on that shelf rolled off and landed on my head, hitting my skull with a loud CLANG! The CLANG of the bell startled me and temporarily made me lose my sense of hearing. It also made me very confused, so instead of reaching up to take the bell off my head, I panicked, and allowed myself to fall forward like a chopped oak tree. I could hear the frantic skitters of my present parents and Rose rushing toward my falling body so they could catch me before I disturbed M and P from 1891 any further. But just before they could catch me, the heel of my boot got stuck in a knothole in the floor, which spun me around and made me fall in the other direction.
I somersaulted forward and landed inside the large, spare barrel where my father kept his loose nails and screws. The barrel toppled over and landed on its side, with me inside of it, and then, because the flying house was quickly changing directions, the barrel started to roll.
The barrel rolled all the way across the work garage (while I was stabbed repeatedly with a multitude of sharp little nails and screws), until it crashed into the large picture window, creating an explosion of tiny bits of metal, and also causing a large crack to form at the bottom of the glass.
“McLaron!” M from 1891 cried, unable to see because of the way she was tied up. “What was that? Did you hear that awful din? It sounds like the picture window is cracking!”
“A barrel full of nails and screws mysteriously fell over and rolled into the window!” P from 1891 called back to her in his usually cheery tone. “I can’t tell you why it happened, my little muffin, but I can tell you it’s created a very large crack, and we’re going to have to do something about that crack immediately. If we don’t, then the pressure of the winds will likely cause the glass to shatter! We’ll need to get W. B. or Rose in here to help. Hopefully they can hear us. W. B.!?!?”
I fell out of the barrel with a mouthful (and noseful) of nails and screws. I lifted the ringing bell off my head, spat out a spray of hardware, and turned around, suddenly seeing two sets of parents staring at me intensely.
P and M from 1891 looked at me in surprise, while P and M from the present (who were standing out of sight in the shadows of the far corner of the work garage), held their fingers up to their lips with their eyebrows furrowed, letting me know that I shouldn’t tell their past versions the truth about what was happening.
“Yes?” I said to my parents from 1891, shaking the last of the nails from my trousers (and desperately hoping that I got all of them). “What can I do for you, M and P?”
“You can go to my workbench and reach into the top drawer,” P from 1891 told me. “That’s where you’ll find my homemade glass glue. All you need to do is squeeze a little of that glue onto the crack on the window, and in a few hours, it’ll be as good as new.”
“Which top drawer do you mean?” I asked, trotting over to the work bench, trying to look as unsuspicious as possible. “You have three of them. Did you mean the one on the right, where you keep the Open Wide, Stephen, Device, which you once used on your secret sworn enemy, Werbert Terma . . .Terma-meragermummle . . . maberhm? Or something? Him? Or did you mean one of the other two drawers?”
Present M, present P, and present Rose rolled their eyes and buried their faces in their hands. It took me a moment to understand why. It usually takes me a moment to understand things. Sometimes it takes me several moments. I don’t understand you people who understand things right away, though maybe I eventually will, several moments from now.
“How did you know about Werbert?” P from 1891 asked suspiciously. “I never told you about my sworn enemy, W. B. Or about my Open Wide, Stephen, Device.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me about your Open Wide, Stephen, Device either, McLaron,” M from 1891 said to my father, before twisting her upside-down head around so she could get a better look at me. “W. B., why do you look and sound so different? In fact, if I’m not mistaken, you suddenly seem to be at least five or six inches taller than you were the last time I saw you.”
“Ummmm,” I stalled nervously, looking over at my parents from the present and hoping they could provide me with an excuse. “That’s just from the, uh, the altitude! Yeah! The altitude! That’s why I seem bigger!”
Altitude. I was proud of myself for coming up with that. I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but it sounded like a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation for why I would suddenly look a year older. I looked over at my present family and shot them my winningest grin. They once again buried their faces in their hands and shook their heads, clearly too proud of me to speak.
“The altitude?” M from 1891 repeated with a quizzical frown. “By altitude, you mean our height in relation to the ground below? How would the altitude make you significantly taller and make your voice sound deeper? Also, I’ve never seen you wear those clothes before. And I’ve definitely never seen you wear those boots. And I’ve certainly never seen you wear that badge on your vest, which, for some reason, states that you’re the world’s greatest grandmother! Everything about you is different! What’s going on here, W. B.? Are you even our son? You aren’t, are you? You’re an impostor!!”
Her voice was starting to sound angrier and angrier, and her face had already turned cross in that special way it always did when M realized someone was lying to her. It was a face that I had learned to fear and for good reason. Nothing good ever comes from seeing that cross face, which was why only a fool would try to lie to my mother again after seeing it, like I was about to do.
“Ummm,” I ummmed, slowly turning redder than a sunburned fire ant as I fumbled for an excuse for my already fumbled excuse. “Did I say altitude? I meant . . . not the altitude. I misspoke. My apologies. Sometimes I forget what words mean and then I say them anyway. But, you see, there’s, there’s a perfectly good explanation for why I look and sound different. Scientific, even. A perfectly reasonable and scientific explanation for why I’m not an impostor. You see, it’s just . . . uh, your memory playing tricks on you!” M’s cross look turned crosser, so I changed my explanation again. “I mean, you’re going a little crazy, that’s all. Wait, I mean, it’s because you’re upside down, which as we all know, makes people appear taller and older.” Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed, which frightened me, and made me change my explanation yet again. “Or, actually, the truth is . . . it must be the fumes you’ve been inhaling while tied up here in the garage. Those fumes are making your eyes see things that aren’t really there. You’re just hallucinating. I’m actually not here right now. I’m upstairs, taking a bath. That sounds like a scientific explanation, right? Right? Bloop bleep bloop?”
“McLaron,” M from 1891 said to P from 1891, “I think we should call for help. There’s another stranger onboard the Baron Estate, one who looks a lot like our son, but who is clearly not. I don’t trust him. He looks dangerous, and he’s clearly deranged. He probably spied on our son to learn some of his silly mannerisms and speech patterns, and then snuck onto the Baron Estate back in Chicago. Call for Ros
e Blackwood. We need to make sure that our real son is still onboard, and that this jittery little crook didn’t do something to him.”
“No,” I begged, “wait, please just let me explain, M from 1891!”
“M from 1891?” P from 1891 repeated with a frown.
“Uh, did I say M from 1891? I meant just regular M. From the present. Where I’m from too. The present. Present W. B. is me. Not from the future or anything. Please just give me another moment to explain, and I—”
“I think we’ve heard enough of your explanations,” M from 1891 interrupted, her eyebrows narrowing beneath her spectacles, and her expression turning colder than I’d ever seen it turn before. I knew from personal experience that one of the only things M hated more than being lied to, was when a phony impersonated her child (it’d happened once before, believe it or not). “And don’t call me M. That’s what my son calls me. McLaron, call for Rose Blackwood right this second. If you don’t, then I will. I doubt Rose will be happy to learn that we have a little stowaway here, so there’s a chance she won’t even want to land the floating Baron Estate before we get rid of him, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s actually not floating,” I explained to M from 1891. “It’s flying. There’s a big difference between a floating house and a flying house, right P from 1891? I mean, right, regular P?”
M and Rose from the present exchanged panicked looks, while P from the present began to search through his pockets. He found a pickle, and paused to quietly eat it, before resuming his pocket-search.