by Jon Scieszka
“Zai jian,” says Janegoodall, and hangs up the Mercury phone.
Frank smiles. “Thanks for that save, Janegoodall. Now we really have to find Grampa Al, and soon.” Frank taps his teeth. “And I think that giant Chinese radio telescope has given me an idea how we start . . .”
ChimpEdison Laboratories.
Test Room X.
Mr. Chimp straps on the scuffed yellow safety helmet with a distinctive blue label.
He settles himself into his custom built—to exactly match his grandfather’s—Space-Time pod.
He checks his levels. Adjusts his temp level.
The third lever lights up with a blue glow.
Mr. Chimp, just like his grandfather Ham more than fifty years ago, flicks the third lever down.
Something rumbles.
Something roars.
The clock on Mr. Chimp’s desk picks up speed. Spins fast, faster, faster still.
The clock on Mr. Chimp’s control fan ticks steady.
A rip, a tear.
Blackness.
The pod wobbles, jolts, groans. Something is wrong.
Mr. Chimp flicks levers madly . . . exactly according to plan and history.
Columns of light bend.
The rumble and roaring sounds squeal high, then low.
Then quiet.
Mr. Chimp releases the levers in his pod.
He pops off the top. And steps out.
He is back in Test Room X.
Mr. Chimp takes off his grandfather’s helmet. He staggers a bit, catches himself, takes a banana out of his desk drawer, and devours it.
He checks his watch against his office clock.
His watch reads that he has been gone for nine minutes.
His office clock reads that he has been gone for nine hours.
Mr. Chimp smiles. It worked. Just like his Grampa Ham had secretly written. Almost. It just needs to be a little better.
The pod needs work. Needs some thoughtful improvement.
Mr. Chimp falls back on his chair.
Nothing has changed.
But everything has.
T. Edison paces around the worktable in Test Room No. 3. He stops, crosses his arms, and stares at the two titanium boxes.
He thinks. He thinks.
He thinks some more.
“Aha!” he says out loud. Accidentally. To no one.
T. Edison unplugs the power pack of both T. Edison FasterThanTheSpeedOfLight Transport Devices.
He waits thirty seconds.
He plugs the power cords back into both T. Edison Faster-ThanTheSpeedOfLight Transport Devices.
The small windows in the corners of the boxes display faintly lit letters spelling:
REBOOT
T. Edison paces around the table. The letters blink:
REBOOT
T. Edison sits down on the lab stool. The letters blink:
REBOOT
T. Edison crosses his legs, taps his fingers on the table, pulls his ear.
The letters blink:
REBOOT
REBOOT
REBOOT
REBOOT
REBOOT
REBOOT
REBOOT
REBOOT
T. Edison holds his head in his hands.
The letters disappear and change to display the time:
12:48
“Finally!”
T. Edison jumps up, and powers ON both T. Edison Faster-ThanTheSpeedOfLight Transport Devices.
He takes an apple and places it, through the door flap, inside Box 1.
He turns the Box 2 dial to INPUT.
He presses Box 1’s SEND.
The deep subsonic hum fills the lab.
Spiraling work icon.
It stops.
T. Edison reaches inside Box 2. And pulls out . . .
. . . a thin, shriveled, blackened sliver of apple skin.
“Ooooookayyyyy,” says T. Edison. “Better . . .”
T. Edison ups the Gravity dial, loads a test tube in Box 1, presses SEND.
He pulls out of Box 2 . . . a small glass marble.
“Arrrrrrrgh!”
Reset Box 1 to SLOW ROAST.
Load pencil.
SEND. Hummmmmmm . . .
Tiny eraser.
“Noooo!”
Reset to PULSAR.
Safety goggles.
SEND. Hummmmmmm . . .
Strap.
“Grrrrrrrrrr!”
Water Bottle . . . hummmmmmm . . . Water bottle cap.
Shoe . . . hummmmmmm . . . shoelace.
Cheese sandwich . . . hummmmmmm . . . crust.
T. Edison beats and pounds and smacks on the top of the T. Edison FasterThanTheSpeedOfLight Transport Device Box 1, shouting “No! No! No!”
The power light blinks OFF.
“Oh great,” says T. Edison. “Now what, genius?”
T. Edison fumes.
T. Edison thinks . . . “Genius?
Hmmm, I think I should pay a visit to some ‘friends.’ ”
14 a
“So, to start from the beginning,” says Frank Einstein, “our planet Earth is—”
“The third planet from our sun,” says Janegoodall. “Earth is one of eight planets we currently count as our solar system:
“Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
“They can be easily remembered in order with the sentence: My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles.”
Frank nods.
“Scientists think there may be a ninth planet, Planet X. But it has not yet been discovered.
“Our solar system also contains 5 dwarf planets, over 140 moons, more than 3,000 comets, and at least 700,000 asteroids.”
“Uhhhhhm . . . yes,” says Frank, turning back to the posters on the Wall of Science. “And our sun—”
Janegoodall takes over again. “Is actually just a medium-size star. A ball of mostly hydrogen, and some helium gas. The nuclear reaction in the sun’s core, of small hydrogen atoms fusing to make bigger helium atoms, produces all of the heat and light energy that the sun emits.
“With a surface temperature over 5,000 degrees Celsius, it’s a good thing the sun is ninety-three million miles from Earth.”
“Right . . .” Frank begins.
Janegoodall continues, “And the electrical currents in the sun generate a crazy magnetic field we can’t see. But most amazing is that the sun is such a massive body—over 99 percent of everything in the solar system is our sun—that its gravitational pull holds our whole solar system together.”
Watson laughs. “ ‘Most amazing’ is right.”
Frank sits down, looking a bit stunned. “Uhhhh yeah. ‘Amazing’ is right. But how do you know all this?”
Janegoodall gives Frank a look. “You nutter. You do remember, don’t you, that my mom works for NASA? And that I have been doing my school science reading.”
“Yeah,” adds Watson, still laughing at Frank. “You nutter.”
14 B
“Soooo . . . traveling out beyond our solar system, the sun is . . .” Frank pauses, and looks to Janegoodall.
Janegoodall quickly continues, “. . . just one of at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
“All of the stars orbit a gigantically massive black hole—about four million times as massive as our sun—in the center of the galaxy, in a spiral shape with four main arms.
“Our solar system is located in one of the four spiral arms of the galaxy.” Janegoodall points to the spot on Grampa Al’s Milky Way poster.
“And it takes about 230 million years for our solar system to orbit all the way around the center.”
Frank sits down at the lab table.
“Whaaaaaa haaaa?” marvels Watson, shaking his head.
“Yes,” says Janegoodall. “And the Milky Way is only one of more than ten trillion galaxies . . . that we can observe.”
Frank jumps in. “So there are at least 100 billion stars in each of maybe
100 trillion galaxies, making . . .”
Watson calculates, “. . . a whooooole lot of stars, solar systems, and planets.”
“That we know of right now,” adds Janegoodall. “The more we explore, the odds are we will discover more stars and solar systems and planets. Or maybe something even crazier. Who knows what is out there.”
14 C
Watson whistles. “Something even more crazy than a trillion billion stars in the universe?”
Frank doesn’t even pretend to start to explain.
He nods at Janegoodall, and she explains, “Like everything else in the universe, stars change during their life cycle.”
“We don’t see much change because stars change over billions of years,” adds Frank.
“My head is swelling again,” moans Watson.
“All stars start out as clouds of gas and dust.”
Frank and Janegoodall take turns explaining the Life Cycle of a Star chart.
Frank starts. “The smaller star burns its hydrogen slowly. Over time it eventually blows up to be a red giant star. Then explodes into a planetary nebula. And then it collapses into a white dwarf.”
Janegoodall takes over. “A more massive star uses up its hydrogen sooner. It blows up to become a red supergiant. Then explodes in a supernova. And collapses into either a neutron star . . . or a black hole.”
Watson tries to nod. “I’m pretty sure my head has now expanded into a red supergiant.”
“But this is where it gets interesting.”
Janegoodall and Frank Einstein exchange sentences like a tennis match. Watson’s head swivels back and forth trying to keep up.
“It’s just a theory at this time, but what if there are multiple universes?”
“With different rules?”
“With a different number of dimensions?”
“And what if they sometimes bumped into each other?”
“Or what if they were connected by wormholes?”
“That’s it,” says Watson. “My brain just exploded. The size of the universe is just too much.”
“Exactly,” says Frank. “Which is why I was working on a faster transport method. And that’s how I accidentally lost Grampa Al.
“Maybe in a wormhole . . . Maybe in a black hole . . .”
The sun rises at the western end of Elm Street, perfectly centered over the road . . . as if the street grid of Midville were some kind of modern-day Stonehenge—marking the movement of the sun and moon in the heavens, tracking the change of seasons and the passage of time. A 3-D observatory.
The rays of the sun first light up the very tops of the trees, the tallest buildings next, and then—a figure swinging in graceful arcs from telephone pole to telephone pole in the alley behind Main Street.
The acrobatic figure glides hand over hand along a wire. It hops to a tree branch. It leaps off, spins a full somersault, and lands with a THUMP right in front of the two robots in Grampa Al’s Fix It! repair shop junkyard.
Klank jumps back in surprise.
Klink lifts his new laser-shooter arm.
“Mr. Chimp!” says Klank.
And it is.
Mr. Chimp bows.
“What are you doing here?” asks Klink. “And what do you want?”
Mr. Chimp notices the stalled hot rod model on the track. He picks it up and opens the engine compartment.
“It does not work,” says Klank.
“An old gasoline engine,” adds Klink. “Not worth fixing.”
Mr. Chimp nods. He picks up a small wrench, adjusts a gear, resets the sparkplug.
Mr. Chimp closes the engine compartment. He sets the car on the track, rolls the rear wheels, and starts the engine with a high-pitched whine.
Mr. Chimp releases the car. It zips around the track at top speed. Then runs out of fuel and glides to a stop.
“Wow!” says Klank.
Klink swivels his one eye. “What did you say you wanted?”
Mr. Chimp signs:
Klank looks to Klink.
Klink nods to Klank.
They follow Mr. Chimp.
The entire world stretches out endlessly, a never-ending collection of bits and pieces and parts and machines.
Grampa Al bends down and picks up an old wind-up alarm clock.
Hmmmm. It just needs a little fix on the gear, recoil of the spring.
Grampa Al pulls a key out of his vest pocket. He winds the clock. Sets the alarm. Brrrrrrrriiiinnnnnnngggggg! The little brass hammer wiggles back and forth, ringing the two brass bells with a high brrrrrrrriiiinnnnnnngggggg!
Grampa Al smiles, turns off the alarm.
Now, where did Frank get off to? He was here just a second ago . . .
Oh, look at that. A 1930s mechanical chimp.
Grampa Al picks it up, wondering what this little fella might need to be fixed and work again . . .
The entire world stretches out endlessly, one enormous soft cushion.
Warm sunlight slants down.
Igor rests his head on his front paws and purrs. No one calls, “Come here, kitty.”
No one shoos him off the table.
No one steps on his tail.
Igor stretches.
He arches his back.
He moves to a new spot, even better, even more comfortable than the last.
Igor curls into a contented ball.
And purrs. And purrs. . . .
A very small man in coveralls, a white helmet labeled INSPECTOR, and a very large moustache strolls down Pine Street with his hands deep in his coverall pockets.
A stylish woman with long blond hair, walking her little dog, approaches. She tugs on the leash, “Come on, Edith.”
The moustachioed man turns and pretends to be studying the window display of Big Joey’s Plumbing & Heating Supply.
The woman and her dog walk past, turn the corner, and disappear.
The man resumes his slow stroll. He saunters past the Fix It! repair shop . . . then suddenly ducks into the door-way next door and listens. He hears a muddle of voices. He pulls a long, thin snake camera/microphone out of his pocket, attaches it to his phone, then threads the camera/mic through a gap in the old door.
The “Inspector” hides in the shadow of the doorway, listening through his earbud headphones. On his phone screen he sees three kids around a lab/worktable. One kid wearing a lab coat. A girl in a Midville Mudhens hat. The third kid digging through a backpack.
The Inspector presses RECORD and listens.
LabCoatKid: “. . . so what I haven’t been able to figure out is how to open and close that wormhole.”
MudhenKid: “Maybe there is an invention already out there that you can improve. In the same way the telescope started with simple magnifying lenses . . . that led to Galileo’s first telescope . . . that led to Newton’s improved reflecting telescope . . . that led to giant telescopes . . . that led to outer space telescopes like the Hubble . . . and that humongous Chinese radio telescope your mom and dad were checking out.”
BackpackKid: “You really have been doing your homework.”
LabCoatKid: “But space-time travel is different. No one has ever done it. Most people don’t even believe it’s possible.”
BackpackKid: “Ha! That is the story of almost every invention. No one has ever done it. But when you make changes, additions, improvements—it’s suddenly obvious.”
BackpackKid pulls a stack of papers out of his backpack.
“Like check this out. 1851. A guy named Elias Howe figures out a way to ‘Fasten Garments’ without using buttons like everyone does.
“But not much happens with it . . . until forty-two years later. 1893. Another guy—Whitcomb Judson—looking for a way faster than buttons to close shoes, improves the idea with his ‘Zip Fastener.’
“The fasteners turn out to be too expensive, and they come undone too easily. So not much happens until eighteen years later, 1911, when a Swiss woman—Catharina Kuhn-Moos—makes a better slider for the fastener. And a Swedish
engineer named Gideon Sundback makes better fastener teeth.
“But still, nobody wanted to buy it.”
LabCoatKid: “Watson, this is the longest invention story ever. Where are you going with this?”
BackpackKid: “But Sundback kept working on the invention. In 1918, a clothing company made flying suits for the U.S. Navy using these fasteners. In 1923, the B.F. Goodrich company started using the fasteners for their rubber galoshes and decided that a good nickname for this invention, imitating the sound it made when you used it, would be . . . the zipper.”
LabCoatKid and MudhenKid stare at BackpackKid.
For a moment, no one says anything.
LabCoatKid writes something down on his papers.
LabCoatKid: “Watson and Janegoodall, you are both completely crazy . . .”
MudhenKid: “But—”
BackpackKid: “But—”
LabCoatKid: “But you are both completely brilliant. I think this just might be our genius idea.”
BackpackKid: “Really?”
LabCoatKid: “Really. We just need a little improvement. A little adjustment. A new addition . . . Come on! Follow me!”
The three kids grab their jackets, run out the door to Pine Street, and don’t even notice the little man in the coveralls tucking a long, thin camera device back into his pocket.
”AHHHHHHHHHHH!” screams Klank.
“Oooooooooooooo!” beeps Klink.
Mr. Chimp stands off to one side and smiles. He pushes the long red lever forward . . . to FULL POWER.
Klink and Klank jump and twitch. They thrash and moan. They hop and yell. They can’t take it anymore. They both blast one more giant BEEP, and collapse.
Mr. Chimp pulls the lever back to PAUSE. He stands over the two fallen robots.
Klank raises up on one elbow. He can barely speak. “Wow.”
Klink pulls himself to sit upright, his one eye still spinning.
“I did not . . . could not . . . know . . .”