Two Girls, a Clock, and a Crooked House

by Michael Poore

  But, said Moo, she hasn’t even touched the ball since we got here.

  “I can see it from here,” said the witch. “And I may as well tell you, I can’t discern much. In fact, I can discern only two things, neither of which makes much sense at all.”

  She rose from her chair, collected all the red bowls, and stacked them in the sink.

  “What did you see?” asked Amy.

  “Oliver,” she said, “you’ll have dishwashing duty this evening. Girls, when he’s finished, you may dry.”

  She stepped aside and stood looking thoughtfully out the window, much like Mrs. Barch had done earlier.

  “What did you see?” Amy repeated politely.

  “A gigantic, awful machine,” said the witch (who, considering the crystal ball, must have been 70 percent witch at least). “And cows. Lots and lots of cows.”

  A brief but very busy silence.

  “I like cows,” said Ms. Goolagong. “Tell me about the cows.”

  “IT MAKES SENSE,” AMY told Ms. Goolagong, “if you know the rest of the story.”

  “I also see a most peculiar rocking chair, and some people camping in the middle of a field, atop a giant red X.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Amy, suspicious. “You saw all that in the crystal ball?”

  “Certainly,” answered Ms. Goolagong, looking amused.

  “I don’t think you did.”

  “Well!” said Ms. Goolagong. “Is that polite? After I have fed you and saved you from the school people and—”

  I think, said Amy to Moo, she has been in our heads all along. I think she’s just like us. I think she saw that we were witchy, too, the very first time we met. And it’s why she was able to see the green stuff, and—

  I think so, too, said Moo.

  It took you long enough, said the witch, to work that out.

  “Something is going on,” said Oliver, still scrubbing. “I don’t know what, but I want you to know that I’m aware of it.”

  Ms. Goolagong cleared her throat and said, “The girls were about to tell us a very strange story. Weren’t you, girls? About rocking chairs and cowbells and lightning and things?”

  Moo and Amy looked at each other.

  “I am experiencing an overload of confusion,” said Oliver.

  “Confusion,” repeated Tuba. Sure enough, his emoji looked confused.

  “Fine,” said Amy. And she told the story of all the things that had happened to them, past and future. She even included some history: the story of the wild, free cows, and the famous truck wreck that had made them wild and free. Also, she finally got around to telling about the legendary, kid-eating witch.

  “You told me about that already,” Ms. Goolagong gently informed her, “quite without meaning to. At least it doesn’t appear that I was ever captured, as far as you know?”

  Amy said she didn’t think so. Her parents would have remembered and mentioned it.

  “Of course,” said Amy, “you are very much blamed for the eating of three entire children.”

  Ms. Goolagong’s expression was difficult to read. She seemed offended but also philosophical and very much amused.

  “Say on,” she told Amy, and Amy continued her story.

  Oliver’s eyes widened when she described the Big Duke. When she told about how her parents meant to block the machine with their own bodies, he made a whistling noise and mumbled something about bravery.

  It is brave, isn’t it? Amy thought. It dawned on her that she hadn’t really appreciated just how dangerous it was, what her parents were doing. She knew that standing up to the Big Duke and the mining people was honorable, smart, and bold. But it could get them hurt really badly, and the thought of that sent a stabbing feeling through her belly.

  I have to be there, she thought. It’s important. She didn’t know how she knew this, but she knew it meant that she would have to be brave, too.

  You are brave, said Moo. Remember, in the woods, when Henry was being mean to that Heather girl?

  I suppose that’s true, Amy replied. But was she brave enough?

  “Amy Wood?” said Ms. Goolagong. “You were in the middle of a story, dear.”

  Amy shook her head clear and picked up where she’d left off.

  Ms. Goolagong looked concerned when Amy told about the lightning, and briefly examined the Lichtenberg figures on her hands. There was a second moment, when she told about the clock and the glowing wisps of pure time, when Oliver dropped a spoon on the floor and turned around, eyes narrowed, and said he suspected them of making things up. To which Amy replied, “Not this time,” and Ms. Goolagong said, “No, love, it’s all quite real and true. I can tell.” But for the most part, the story made its journey from beginning to end without interruption, and left them all with a lot to think about.

  There was a lengthy silence, punctuated by the ticking clock.

  Then Amy said quietly, “I can’t be stuck here. I have to get back. The strange man with the sports car who came to visit me and Mom and Dad said I have to be there. For whatever reason, I think if I’m not there, they’ll get hurt.”

  She let herself cry a single hot tear. Ms. Goolagong reached over and took her hand.

  Okay, said Moo, obviously, we have to go back where we came from, if we can. We live there. My mom’s there. It’s where we belong. But what about you?

  She looked at Ms. Goolagong.

  “You can’t stay here now,” said Amy. “They’re going to come looking for you.”

  “We’re not staying here,” said Oliver. “Ms. Goolagong says we’re going to the dreamtime.”

  Amy blinked. She asked if that was north of town.

  “It’s a concept from Karora’s people,” she explained. “It’s like saying ‘the beginning place.’ Like starting over.”

  Where? asked Moo.

  “We don’t know where yet,” answered the witch.

  “Well, you’re going soon,” said Amy. “Right? I mean, they’re not just going to come looking for you, they’re looking for us now, too. Right now.”

  Moo said, I hope the dreamtime or whatever is a place where people are nice to each other. All people.

  “What a fine world that would be,” said Ms. Goolagong. “But speaking of worlds, I daresay we might have used this particular world up, what with lies planted like seeds all around us, and me already suspected of eating poor Oliver.”

  “I wonder what I’d taste like,” Oliver wondered aloud. “Mushrooms, I imagine.”

  There was a particular kind of silence then. Not a long silence, necessarily, but important-feeling and full of the sound of people thinking thoughts and trying on ideas. Like all silences of this kind, it came to an end when someone spoke, and that someone was Ms. Goolagong.

  “We will go across time in this contraption the girls have made,” said Ms. Goolagong, “and take them home. Perhaps with all of us steering the ship, we will be able to get you back to the right time and the right place in the right pieces. And Oliver and I will be part of that world. It will be our starting-over place.”

  “Our dreamtime,” said Oliver wistfully.

  Amy loved this idea. They could be friends with Ms. Goolagong their whole entire lives!

  Moo sensed her excitement and said she was excited, too. Ninety percent excited, anyhow, and 10 percent suspicious of the whole thing. Still, she was eager to make her way home. She made a happy noise and said, The first thing I’m going to do is kiss all my cows right on their noses.

  “They can take their parking ticket,” sang Tuba, “and shove it where the sun—”

  “Well and good!” said Ms. Goolagong, snapping her fingers. “That’s as close to a plan as we are likely to get, in our limited time. Are there any concerns or objections?”

  It was better than anything she’d thought of herself
, Amy thought.

  “It’s perfect,” she said.

  It’s very smart, said Moo.

  Tuba threw back his head, opened his great beak extra wide, and crowed like a rooster until they all covered their ears in self-defense.

  Not everyone was happy and optimistic, though, Amy saw. Oliver had an odd look on his face, as if he didn’t know whether he was going to laugh or throw up. The eye above his head spun like a panicking disco ball.

  “I can’t quite make out,” he said, “whether this is all real, or a dream, or maybe a cartoon of some kind.”

  Ms. Goolagong stepped across the cabin in one great stride and pulled Oliver to her.

  “The universe,” she said, “is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose. A very smart person named John said something like that. What do you make of it?”

  “What I make of it,” answered Oliver, “is that the dreamtime is about to become much more than a metaphor. It is a real thing that is going to happen.”

  The spinning eye above his head lost its balance, fell over, and passed out.

  MS. GOOLAGONG GRABBED HER hat and her odd, tapering walking stick and said, “No time like the present, as they say. Your chair is nearby, I take it?”

  Near enough, said Moo. And it’s really your chair, you know.

  “Indeed,” said the witch. “Very good.”

  Outside, the wind breathed softly, like horses half asleep.

  Someone should point out, said Moo, that we are forgetting one little problem? It’s broken! The clock chair. It’s like the engine that drives the whole thing.

  “Aw, mrrzzl,” said Amy. “Double mrrzzl!”

  Ms. Goolagong stroked her elegant chin and said, “Hmmmmmmm.”

  In the corner, by the bed, Ms. Goolagong’s clock ticked and tocked. Close by, her rocking chair sat as if waiting for someone to set it in motion.

  Amy’s heart raced. Her mouth fell open. She looked startled.

  “We have a chair and a clock!” she gasped, pointing. “We have, in fact, the same exact actual chair and same actual clock! We can just take, with Ms. Goolagong’s permission, I mean…”

  Then her brain did some science, without even trying or meaning to, and her face clouded over. Disappointment rained in her head.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not that easy.”

  Why not? asked Moo breathlessly. We wouldn’t have to fix anything. We could just—

  “Because,” said Amy, “if we take the chair and clock, they won’t be there in the future, when we need them.”

  Ms. Goolagong nodded. “Amy Wood,” she said, “you’re beginning to think like an expert time traveler.”

  Amy looked troubled and remarked that time travel was beginning to make her extremely nervous.

  “Well,” said Ms. Goolagong, her jaw set in a most determined sort of way, “we will just have to be very good at fixing things, at least for a while, won’t we?”

  Before anyone could argue, she was out the door.

  So off they went, in an uneasy little parade, trying to feel confident and not succeeding very well, and getting a C minus in faking it.

  * * *

  —

  THE POND WASN’T FAR, but the night was darker than before.

  Ah! Some light! Ms. Goolagong’s flashlight. Plus the moon, which still shone but was setting.

  “I changed my mind,” said Oliver. “I believe I would taste like pork.”

  Why pork? asked Moo.

  “Why?” asked Amy.

  “Pigs are the animals most like human beings. I read it somewhere.”

  “Wouldn’t it be chimps or something?” asked Amy.

  Ew, said Moo. Who would eat a chimp?

  I didn’t say you’d EAT one, Amy replied. I said I thought they were closer to humans than pigs.

  “People in Jamestown ate other people,” Ms. Goolagong interjected. “Remember your history? The English colony that had such a terrible time. They had what they called the Starving Time, and it got so bad, they dug up the dead.”

  (Well, wasn’t THAT just exactly the kind of thing you’d expect a witch to throw into a conversation?)

  Their feet crunched in the dry leaves.

  An owl hooted.

  “Okay,” said Amy, “but they only did it because they absolutely had to, right? They didn’t enjoy it, or eat more than absolutely necessary to stay alive?”

  “Yes and no,” Ms. Goolagong answered. “Yes, mostly, that’s just what they did. But one fellow dug up his wife and prepared her like a holiday roast. He lit candles and dressed in his best.”

  I would taste like a cow, Moo announced.

  “I’d taste like chicken,” said Amy. “Fried chicken.”

  “What about you, Ms. G.?” asked Oliver.

  “I don’t have to guess,” said Ms. Goolagong, guiding them up over a hilltop. “I know for certain. I would taste like cane sugar and lemon drops.”

  The pond came into view. Wind ruffled its waters, scattering moonlight.

  “What do you mean,” asked Oliver a little darkly, “you know for sure?”

  “When I was very young,” said the witch, “I was lost in the woods for two entire weeks and was forced to eat my foot.”

  “Your FOOT?” cried the children.

  “Your FOOT?” cried Tuba.

  “And then my other foot, and both legs, plus my torso, arms, and head. When I was rescued, there was nothing left but my nose.”

  “Your NOSE?” they cried.

  “Just so. I dressed it in this gown and stuck a hat on it and have done my best ever since to make the most of things.”

  Then, “Ah!” she exclaimed as they neared the edge of the pond. “Here’s something like a shipwreck, except consisting of odds and ends and parts of things, and wire.”

  She shone the flashlight around. Here was the chair, largely intact. Here was the ivory cameo, here was the part of the clock that was like a cabinet, and here was the part that was like a little machine. Here was some of this, some of that, scattered around.

  “It doesn’t look like a time machine,” Oliver remarked.

  “Well,” said Amy, “who knows what a time machine is supposed to look like?”

  “Well,” he said, “it does have a clock on it.”

  “Fine,” said Ms. Goolagong. “It’s a clock machine. Whatever. Now, there’s work to do; let’s begin.”

  They began.

  * * *

  —

  THE WORK WENT FASTER than you might think. For one thing, Ms. Goolagong’s hands seemed to operate like miraculous engines, or like great birds from a planet where great birds knew how to wind things and fit things together and make things tight and shipshape.

  How the girls had ever made something like a time-traveling chair without her was something Amy couldn’t fathom. Now and then Ms. Goolagong would say, “Hold this!” or “Use this wire to tie this thing to that thing!” and they would do it, and do it smartly, and the work proceeded.

  Tuba wandered around, probing the ground with his beak, pecking under leaves and things, now and then bringing them a button or a cowbell or a piece of wire.

  “Hot sauce!” he sang out when he discovered the birdcage hidden in the underbrush, and he dragged it over…flutter, flutter, hippity-hop.

  The witch lay on the ground like an auto mechanic, doing something that made the chair creak alarmingly.

  “Hold the flashlight steady,” she told Amy.

  In the middle of all this science and magic and possibly a good deal of guesswork, Moo found time to grab a handful of stones and slip one into everyone’s pocket.

  Really? said Amy.

  Every little bit helps.

  At last Ms. Goolagong stood, shaking dirt and leaves from her clo
thes.

  “Oliver,” she said, “I think you’ll want to sit on my lap, once I get situated, and the girls—”

  “Someone’s coming!” said Oliver suddenly.

  Someone was. They all could hear it as soon as Oliver spoke. Beneath the moan of the wind in the branches, there was a muttering. Like the muttering of a lot of people standing in line or sitting in church. Or like the muttering of people looking for witches and runaway girls in the dark, and running into trees and tripping over things.

  “Someone’s coming indeed,” said Ms. Goolagong.

  Amy didn’t like the way she said it.

  Above the angry voices in the dark, Amy heard the fizz and squawk of Police Spanish.

  “Fzzzzzzz! Adam two six, four sixty-seven, are you ten twenty-five five nine, blah, blah—”

  “They’re quicker than I expected,” said Ms. Goolagong. “We’ll need to move things along. Amy, dear heart, turn the clock hands to twelve. I’m assuming we don’t know precisely what time you left?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  “Twelve it is, then. Hurry.”

  For the first time in a while, Amy thought about what they had seen when the time machine first whooshed them away. In her mind’s eye now, she saw the blurred green vision of their very own selves appearing. Her very own self, with blood in her hair, looking limp and maybe unconscious.

  Nearby she sensed Moo thinking and remembering the same thing.

  Shh, hissed Moo. Not now.

  Amy understood. Just now they needed for the witch to be 100 percent undistracted. She forced herself to concentrate on wire and wood, wondering who was approaching through the trees….

  Above, on the hill, the muttering swelled, like a church with a lot more people in it, all of a sudden.

  “It sounds like an army,” said Amy.

  “It’s not just the police,” said Oliver. “It sounds like…everybody.”

  “Focus, loves,” said Ms. Goolagong.

  Amy reached into the clock and turned hands. Green sparks hovered around her fingers.

  Flashlights appeared on the hill, flickering among the trees. Flashing on the surface of the pond.