by Eric Bower
Little baby Rosemary Sharon then gurgled like little babies often do. Grownup W. B. laughed as he tickled her little chin, before leaning down and giving Shorty a kiss on top of the head.
“I’m glad she’s excited. I hope our baby that’s on the way is excited about our new life too.”
“I’m certain that he or she will be,” grownup Shorty assured grownup W. B. “I know we don’t know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl yet, but have you given any more thought to a name? I still like the suggestion of naming the baby after your father, regardless of the gender. What do you think?”
Grownup W. B. thought about that for a moment.
“I think it would be nice to name the baby McLaron,” he finally said, “but would you mind if I gave it a nickname too?”
Grownup Shorty grinned as she shook her head.
“Of course not. What were you thinking? Wide Butt Junior?”
Grownup me laughed, and so did regular me. Then I realized that I probably shouldn’t be caught spying on my future self, so I quickly dove behind a horseless carriage.
“No,” the older version of me said to the older version of Shorty as he brought her in for another hug. “I was thinking . . . Smudge. I’ve always been really fond of the name Smudge Baron.”
Since I now knew that there was no shortage of adventure and excitement in my future, I wrote the time and destination of Rose’s wedding on my arm, and prepared to travel back in time. I closed my eyes as I was lifted by the winds of time and propelled toward the present, speeding through wars and celebrations and catastrophes and miracles and hurricanes and earthquakes and triumphant victories and devastating losses, experiencing every wonderful and horrible thing that the world has to offer, and feeling genuinely appreciative for the impossibly unique opportunity.
Now, it wouldn’t be a W. B. story if I didn’t make a stupid mistake.
You might be telling yourself that I’ve already made several stupid mistakes throughout the course of this story—in fact, I’ve probably made more stupid mistakes than you can count. But this was a particularly stupid mistake, because I made it not while I was being chased by a villain, or while hanging by my fingertips from a flying house. It was a stupid mistake I made by simply having clumsy hands. While using the time eraser invention, I accidentally wrote down the wrong place, and the wrong year, and I might have accidentally spelled my name wrong too (I can’t be the only one who’s done that though, right? . . . Right?). I found myself being pulled too far into the past by the winds of time, skipping over my intended destination by miles.
I shot back over two hundred years, finally landing in a big, open yard, right behind a sturdily built house that looked like something out of one of my history books. There was a small boy playing halfheartedly in the yard; he was dressed in funny-looking clothes, with shoes that had large buckles on them. After a moment of staring sadly at a little tree on the border of the yard, he sat down in the grass and started to cry. He looked like a nice kid, and while I knew I should have focused on getting back to Rose’s wedding party, I couldn’t help but speak to him.
“Hey there,” I said to the boy. “Don’t cry. What’s your name, kid?”
“George,” the kid said with a sniff. “George Washington.”
“Hi George. I’m W. B. What’s wrong?”
George explained to me that he was quite hungry, and he desperately wanted some of the cherries from his father’s prized cherry tree. But he wasn’t tall enough to reach any of the juicy cherries at the top. I frowned as I looked up at the tree. I could tell right away that it would be too awkward to climb, especially for someone as clumsy as me. And like George, I was also too short to reach the higher branches that held all the cherries.
Then I happened to spot a hatchet leaning up against the side of the house.
“Wait here, George,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
Less than a minute later, the two of us were sitting beside the cherry tree that I’d chopped down with three swift whacks, and were feasting on all the delicious cherries we could fit into our mouths. I tried to tell George about some of the great uses people in the future had found for cherries, like cherry soda and cherry ice cream, and even cherry-habanero dipping sauce for chicken crispers. But the kid wasn’t particularly interested in any of that. I noticed that George often chewed his cherries whole, pits and all, and I shook my head as I thought about all the damage it must be doing to his poor teeth.
Suddenly, the back door to the house burst open, and a tall man dressed in a wig and breeches stormed out.
“Who did this?” the man demanded, shaking his walking stick at us. “Who chopped down my cherry tree?”
He looked absolutely furious, madder than a tickled hen, and I could sense George quivering in fear beside me. I knew right away what I had to do. I stood up and faced the angry man, looking directly into his eyes with all the calm and maturity I could muster.
“I cannot tell a lie,” I said. “George chopped down your cherry tree.”
I barely had enough time to activate the time eraser before George smacked me on the head with a cherry branch.
I quickly jotted down a random date and location in order to escape the fury of the cherry-less Washingtons, and after a quick trip along the winds of time, I soon found myself standing in a wide field in the middle of nowhere. I looked around and spotted a barefooted man walking merrily through the dirt, while dropping seeds from a large burlap sack strapped to his shoulder.
“Hi there,” I said. “Are you littering?”
The man laughed as he raised his arms over his head and stretched his back. His face was deeply sunburned, and he looked like he’d been walking for weeks.
“I’m spreading a gift all across this great land of ours. It’s important for people to have food wherever they go, no matter where their travels might take them. Which is why I’ve taken all the seeds from my family’s farm, and now I’m planting them throughout our lovely country, walking all the way across the continent with nothing but my knapsack on my back.”
“That’s pretty nice of you,” I said, while not mentioning that it also seemed like an incredibly boring waste of time. “What are you planting? Oranges? Strawberries? Pears?”
“Nope,” the man told me, and then he pulled a little green bulb from his pocket. “Brussels sprouts! That’s right, brussels sprouts. Every bite is like a mini head of cabbage, only bitterer and smellier, and it gets pretty darned slimy when you try to cook it. By the time I’m finished, this entire country will be absolutely covered in brussels sprouts. Johnny Brussels Sprouts they’ll call me, savior of the United States. I’ll be in all the history books, just me and my sprouts!”
I stared at the bafflingly proud man with one of my eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, about that, Johnny . . . have you ever given any thought to planting something a bit less gross?”
“What do you mean?” Johnny Brussels Sprouts asked, as he popped a raw brussels sprout into his mouth, wincing as he slowly chewed it. It sounded very hard and unpleasant between his teeth, and speaking of unpleasantness, I would be lying to you if I told you that Johnny’s unusual diet hadn’t given him a very . . . unique smell. If you really want to know what that smell was, I suggest you eat nothing but raw brussels sprouts while walking barefoot across America without ever changing your clothes or bathing. Do that, and then give yourself a sniff when you’re somewhere in Idaho.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out an apple that I’d been carrying since breakfast. I looked down at it, and then up at Johnny, who gagged as he forced himself to swallow a particularly unripe sprout.
“Never mind. Great work, Johnny,” I told him as I took a large bite of my apple. “I’m sure that history will appreciate what you’re doing.”
When I’d finished my apple, I turned around and tossed the core over my shoulder, accidentally hitting Johnny in the face with it. Johnny Brussels Sprouts dropped his bag
full of seeds as he raised his fist and began to yell at me, but by that point I was already well on my way to another time and another place. I was finally ready to celebrate with my family and friends at Rose’s wedding. If I wasn’t there by the time they started serving cake, I knew they’d be worried about me. They know that I never miss cake.
I wish I could end the story on that lovely note, but unfortunately, I made another little clumsy mistake. Let’s face it. It’s what I do. If you haven’t figured that out by this point, well, then you’re even more W. B.ish than I am. When I wrote down the time and location of Rose’s wedding from the present, I accidentally smudged some of the ink, changing the date, so I overshot my intended time in the past by almost twelve years.
I found myself in the grassy area behind the Baron Estate, but there were no chairs, or tables, or food, or streamers set up, so I knew right away that I wasn’t at the wedding. I blinked twice, trying to get a sense of what year it was, when suddenly I spotted little baby W. B., dressed in a diaper and a bonnet, crawling through the grass.
“Awww,” I said as I quickly ducked behind a tree to watch. “Baby me. How cute.”
Little baby W. B. was chasing after a monarch butterfly, reaching out with his pudgy little arms to grab it. Each time the baby was about to catch the butterfly, it spread its wings and flittered away.
I watched the scene for close to a minute, smiling as I considered myself as an infant, marveling at how tiny and innocent I used to be. But then I was struck by a rather disturbing thought. Where were my parents? Why was I alone? I was just a baby, for goodness’ sake, crawling around on our property in the middle of the Pitchfork Desert. How could my parents be so irresponsible as to let me crawl throughout nature without a guardian?
I was about to come out of my hiding space and grab poor little baby W. B., lifting him up and assuring him that everything would be okay, when suddenly, a tiny squirrel jumped down from one of M’s fruit trees. The furry-tailed squirrel paused after it landed, before slowly turning its tiny little squirrel head over to baby W. B. The tiny creature took a few hesitant steps towards the wide-eyed baby (which was staring at the squirrel in utter bafflement), and then it took a few steps more.
From my hiding place behind the tree, I watched in horror as baby W. B. reached out with his chubby little baby hand, and then the squirrel reached out with its thin and furry little squirrel hand, two baby mammals attempting to make a connection with each other for the first time, and just as the two little creatures were about to touch, the screen door of the Baron Estate burst open, and a very eggy looking woman came thundering out.
“Squirrels!” she shrieked, rushing over and scooping up poor little frightened baby W. B. “Help! Sharon! Help! Your baby has been attacked by squirrels! Vicious, no good, evil, and filthy squirrels! Oh goodness, someone please save this poor sweet child! Squirrels! SQUIRRELS!”
Aunt Dorcas wrapped up the now wailing baby W. B. and quickly ran inside, leaving both me and the squirrel staring after her in astonishment. I opened my mouth and then snapped my fingers, suddenly remembering something that had been bothering me for quite some time.
I had forgotten why I was angry with Aunt Dorcas, but now I remembered.
It was because of squirrels.
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to everyone at Amberjack Publishing, particularly Cherrita Lee (who toiled over my scrawl and made it sound pretty), Dayna Anderson and Kayla Church (for taking a chance on me), and Gaby Thomason AKA “Gabor” (who is the best unofficial tour guide in Boise).
I’d also like to thank Agnieszka Grochalska, who I’ve never met, but who did all of the lovely illustrations for the series.
Also thank you to Curt and Brigitte Bower, who have always been wonderful and supportive, even when I sullied their good name with my nonsense.
Thank you to Hillary and Ryan Pearson and their delightful spawn, Charlotte and Logan.
Finally, I’d like to thank my late brother, Sebastian, who left behind a brilliant spring of wit and insight that I still fish from when my ideas feel dull and flat.
IF FOUND, CALL FOR REWARD
Eric Bower is the author of the Bizarre Baron Inventions series. His current whereabouts are unknown, but since he’s rarely needed for things, that’s okay.
BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE
Agnieszka Grochalska lives in Warsaw, Poland. She received her MFA in Graphic Arts in 2014. Along the way, she explored traditional painting, printmaking, and sculpting, but eventually dedicated her keen eye and steady hand to drawing precise, detailed art reminiscent of classical storybook illustrations. Her current work is predominantly in digital medium, and has been featured in group exhibitions both in Poland and abroad.
She enjoys travel and cultural exchanges with people from around the world, blending those experiences with the Slavic folklore of her homeland in her works. When she isn’t drawing or traveling, you can find her exploring the worlds of fiction in books and story-driven games.
Agnieszka’s portfolio can be found at agroshka.com.
1. That actually happened in M and P’s bedroom once before. Two years ago, P had been struck by lightning while he was sleeping in bed. But by that point, he was so used to being struck by lightning that he didn’t even notice. He just mumbled to my mother something about turning off her lantern when she was finished reading, rolled over, and fell back asleep. If the tip of his sleeping cap hadn’t caught fire, he probably wouldn’t have believed that it actually happened.
2. I’m often the butt of the joke when it comes to my inexplicable and unbelievable acts of clumsiness, so I’d like to take this opportunity to point out once again that I DID NOT FALL HERE. That’s right. I am not always a giant klutz, believe it or not. Yes, I might have stubbed my toe a bit when Rose and I landed on the submarine, and I might have also bit my lip, fractured my thumbnail, twisted my ankle, got a slight nosebleed, and dropped my wallet into the sea . . . but I did not fall.