CHAPTER ELEVEN

My Brilliant Idea

That evening I texted Jaya to find out what had happened with Simon. Dr. Rust had fired him, she told me. When I got to the repository for my next shift, I found the pages clustered around Ms. Callender’s empty desk gossiping about what had happened.

“He went back to London yesterday,” said Abigail. “Good riddance! I never liked him. He was so self-involved.”

“Did he get fired at the Burton too?” I asked.

“No, they’re giving him a second chance,” said Jaya. “His father is the president of their board of directors.”

“I wish I didn’t have to work with him when I get there,” said Francis.

“So you got the summer page job after all?” I asked.

He nodded vigorously.

“Congratulations, Francis! That’s awesome!”

“It’s because of Jaya. I couldn’t believe it! She told Dr. Pemberley-Potts she wouldn’t take the job, and she got Doc to talk her into reconsidering my application. Jaya, you’re an amazing friend!”

“Doc just had to get Pem-Po to ignore the missed deadline—your application speaks for itself,” said Jaya.

“Pem-Po?” asked Francis.

“That’s what Auntie Shanti calls her. Not to her face. I would stick to ‘Dr. Pemberley-Potts’ if I were you.”

“Does your aunt work for the Burton?” I asked. “I thought she invested in start-ups.”

“She does, but she’s also on the Burton’s board of directors,” said Jaya.

Alan Stein—a tall, redheaded page I didn’t know very well—said, “What I don’t get is, why did he do it? Simon, I mean.”

“Because he was in love with Jaya, duh!” said Abigail. “Didn’t you see how he was always staring at her? And how he was always trying to get Ms. Callender to put them both on the same stack? He wanted her to go to London.”

I blushed. I wondered whether I was always staring at Jaya and whether Abigail had noticed.

“But did you hear the funny part?” Abigail went on. “After Doc fired him, Simon tried to borrow the time machine!”

“Abigail! You know you’re not supposed to talk about . . . you know,” said Alan.

“It’s okay, Alan,” said Abigail. “Leo knows all about the Special Collections already. Doc took him downstairs.”

“But what did Simon want with the time machine?” I asked.

“He said he wanted to go back in time and fix things,” said Alan. “Stop himself from sabotaging Francis’s application.”

“Fix things, ha,” said Abigail. “He probably wanted to fix things so he didn’t get caught. Our librarians would have to be crazy to let a creep like that run around in the past, changing the future.”

“Well, they didn’t,” said Jaya. “They revoked his borrowing privileges and took away his keys.”

“But I don’t understand—I thought the time machine didn’t work?” I said.

“It doesn’t. I guess he was desperate,” said Abigail.

“The sad thing is, I kind of liked him before,” said Jaya. “I mean, I wouldn’t have gone out with him or anything, but I thought he was a decent person, just a little shy or something. When I ran out of the Wilkins tawny orange marmalade that my aunt sends me from London, he ran all over town looking for a shop that carried it. I know the rest of you think he’s snobby and self-involved, but he was always nice to me.”

“Of course he was nice to you,” said Abigail. “He had a big, fat, juicy, creepy crush on you. He wanted to touch you all over with his squishy marshmallow fingers.”

“Ick, Abigail! Stop it, that’s disgusting!”

“Well, he did.”

Jaya hit at Abigail with her scarf. Abigail ducked, giggling.

“Everybody here?” asked Ms. Callender, coming up behind us. “Jaya, why don’t you take Leo up to Preservation and show him what to do? Abigail, you and Francis take Stack 5. Alan, I’m putting you on 3 with Mariela . . .” She went down her clipboard checking off pages and stacks until we were all distributed.

• • •

Jaya led me to a long, tall room on the top floor. Daylight poured in through high skylights in the slanted roof. There were cabinets all around the walls and a long table down the middle. I was glad to be alone with Jaya again.

“Welcome to Preservation,” she said. “Ready to work?”

“Of course. What do we do?” I asked.

“We fix things.” Jaya opened a cabinet and took out a toaster and a doll’s chair. “Here, start with something easy,” she said, handing me the chair. “The arm needs regluing.”

“What’s wrong with the toaster?”

“Not sure. Doesn’t toast, probably. It should say on the tag.”

“Could I fix that instead?” I asked. “I’m pretty good with toasters.”

“Sure, if you want. Can you hand me the wood glue? It’s right behind you.”

I used my multi-utility tool to unscrew the toaster’s bottom panel. A zillion crumbs fell out. “Why was someone borrowing a toaster?” I asked, pulling out something sticky. It looked like a burnt raisin.

She checked a tag. “They were using it as a theater prop. So tell me, little toaster—how did it feel to be a Broadway star?”

Almost to my surprise, the toaster didn’t answer.

“What do the librarians do when people break things?” I asked. “Do they just have us fix them? What if someone loses something?” I had lost my share of library books when I was little.

Jaya uncapped her glue. “The patrons pay fines. Not that much for a broken toaster—that’s easy to fix. Seriously high fines for something really valuable—or for stuff from the Special Collections.”

“Like how high?”

“Well, one time this guy Aaron—he was a page when my sister worked here—once he lost a cooling cloak—”

“What’s a cooling cloak?”

“Just what it sounds like,” she said, a little impatiently. “A normal cloak keeps you warm. A cooling cloak keeps you cool. There are two of them in the Grimm Collection. They’re very popular in August. Anyway, when Aaron lost the cloak, he had to give up his sense of humor.”

“His what?”

“His sense of humor.”

“But how? Is a sense of humor even . . . I don’t know, detachable?”

“Sure. Sense of humor, sense of proportion, ear for music—all those things. Dr. Rust collects them as deposits and keeps them safe in a special box. When Aaron lost his sense of humor, his girlfriend broke up with him. She said he was pointless without a sense of humor. I knew they’d be miserable without each other, so I had to find it for him. I’m good at finding things.”

“Where was it?” I asked.

“It had fallen behind the radiator.”

“His sense of humor fell behind the radiator?”

“No! Weren’t you listening? Doc was keeping his sense of humor in a special box. The cooling cloak fell behind the radiator. I thought that was hilarious, but Aaron didn’t see what was so funny. Not even after he got his sense of humor back.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked. She didn’t look like she was kidding, though.

“Perfectly serious. How’s that toaster?”

I pulled at a wire. “There’s a loose connection. Should I just tighten it or rewire the whole thing? Maybe add a digital color sensor to check for proper browning.”

“No fancy stuff. Just fix it,” said Jaya, wiggling the loose chair arm into place. “The point is to put everything back as close as possible to how it was before it broke.”

“Too bad,” I said. “I could make it so much better.”

“I’m sure you could. But don’t. The librarians wouldn’t like it.” She clamped the chair arm to hold it tight while the glue hardened.

“What happened to that chair?” I asked, twisting together two wire ends. “Did a really fat doll sit on it?”

She laughed. “Looks that way, doesn’t it? Here’s a broken stove—want to fix that next? It’s a salesman’s sample.”

“A what?”

“A salesman’s sample.” She held it out. It looked like a little kid’s toy stove. “It’s hard to carry around a bunch of full-size stoves, so the salesmen from the furniture company would take miniature samples on their sales calls instead.”

I examined the sample stove. It was like a stove out of an old black-and-white movie, only mint green and a fifth the size. Everything looked functional: all the burner knobs turned, the oven door opened, and the little oven racks slid in and out. But the oven door wouldn’t stay shut. I checked the tag. Broken oven door hinge, it said.

“So this is a working stove?” I asked. “If I hooked it up to a gas line, could I bake a cake?”

“Once you fix it, yes. A cupcake, anyway.”

I opened and shut the oven door. A spring was missing on one side. “Where would I find spare parts? I need a spring.”

“Try the drawers in the cabinet over there,” said Jaya.

I chose a handful of different-size springs and brought them back to the worktable, but they were all either too big or too small. “Oh, this one’s so almost! If only it were a quark smaller,” I said.

“If you really can’t find one that fits, we can use the shrink ray to resize it,” said Jaya.

I jumped up. “We can? Let’s go now!”

Jaya stayed put. “Only if you can’t find one that works. It’s a pain in the neck to shrink parts down to exactly the right size, and we’re not really supposed to do it unless we really need to.”

“But I really need to see the shrink ray,” I said. “Come on, Jaya! You can’t tease me like that! Anyway, none of these work,” I said, trying the last spring to make my point.

To my disappointment, it fit perfectly.

“Good. It’s much better when it’s the right size to begin with. But you’ll go back to the Wells Bequest soon, I promise,” said Jaya.

I fitted the spring in the hinge and tested the door. It snapped shut with a click. As it did, something clicked in my mind too. I could almost hear the ideas clicking into place.

“Hey!” I said.

“What’s the matter? You look like you just swallowed a corn chip without chewing.”

“I think I thought of something.” I put the stove down and started digging through my backpack. “Here—look!” I pulled out the copy of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine that I’d been carrying around with me. “The time machine, our time machine! It’s like the spring—it was the right size to begin with!”

“What are you talking about?”

I flipped to the scene in the beginning of the book where the mad scientist demonstrates his invention for his friends. “Look,” I said. “The Time Traveller invents a time machine. But before he builds the full-size one, he makes a little demo version. Fully functioning, just like the salesman’s samples.”

“And you think—?”

“Yes,” I said. “That must be why I told myself to read The Time Machine! Listen.” I read from the book: “‘The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance.’” I flipped forward a bit. “‘“This little affair,” said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, “is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time.”’”

“Is that what you saw? Could that be our time machine? The little demo model?” asked Jaya.

“I think so,” I said. “And I think I know where it goes.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see in a sec,” I said. I read some more:

“‘ “Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear.” ’”

“Well, does it disappear? I don’t remember this part of the book that well,” said Jaya.

“Yes. Listen,” I said. “‘There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone—vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.’” I shut the book triumphantly. “What do you think of that?”

“Where does it go?”

“Into the future, of course,” I said. “But that was over a century ago. And you know what the future was over a century ago? It was now!”

“But where? Where is it?”

“Right where it was when it went into the future, of course,” I said. “In someplace called Richmond, in England.”

“Oh, Richmond! That’s part of London now,” said Jaya. “My auntie Shanti lives there.”

“That’s perfect!” I said. “Your aunt can help us find it.”

“But I don’t understand—why does the model time machine disappear if it’s still there?”

“It’s still right there on the table. He explains that in the book. The people in the story just can’t see it because it’s moving through time so much faster than they are. It’s going so fast it’s invisible, like a wheel spinning or a bullet flying. So we just have to find the Time Traveller’s house and figure out how to stop time and then grab it.”

Jaya jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around me. “Leo Novikov, you are a genius,” she cried. “And so am I, for finding you!”

I didn’t bother to argue that she hadn’t found me—that I had found her. Instead, I lurched out of my chair and threw my own arms around her. We stood there in a crazy, awkward hug with the model stove getting tangled in her hair, and all I could think was how this had to be the happiest moment of my life.

• • •

Like all moments, happy or not, it had to end. So I decided to end it before the hug made Jaya uncomfortable. I opened my arms and backed away slightly.

“Ow,” said Jaya. “You’re pulling my hair.”

“Sorry! The stove’s caught. Stop wiggling, you’re making it worse.” I freed it and then carefully pulled a few of Jaya’s long hairs out of the hinge.

“Come on,” said Jaya, tugging me by the arm.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“To Richmond.”

“Richmond, England? Just like that? How are we getting there?”

“I don’t know yet, but Doc will,” said Jaya.

Ms. Minnian was sitting in the guest chair by Dr. Rust’s desk. “Jaya! Leo! Aren’t you supposed to be in Preservation?” she asked.

“Yes, but this is important. It’s the time machine,” said Jaya. “Leo figured out how to find it.”

“You mean how to fix it?” asked Ms. Minnian.

“No, how to find it. Tell them, Leo.”

I explained about the demo model.

Doc cocked an eyebrow. “That sounds distinctly plausible. What do you think, Lucy?”

“Very clever. We’ve thought about trying to capture the big time machine on one of its trips through time, when we know it was working. But nobody ever thought of looking for the demo model! Shall I alert our friends at the Burton and see if they can capture it?”

“No, don’t,” said Dr. Rust, just as Jaya was yelping, “No! Let us! We thought of it!”

Doc waited until she was done and said, “Dr. Pemberley-Potts has doubts about the legality of the Wells Bequest. If she got her hands on the demo model, she’d be sure to declare it a cultural treasure and claim it for the Burton. The lawyers would squabble over it for years, and there’s no guarantee the council would side with us—after all, it technically wasn’t in Steel’s possession when he died.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Ms. Minnian. “It’s clearly covered in the ‘artifacts to be found’ clause.”

“Yes, and most likely the ruling would come down in our favor eventually. But eventually can take a long time. I think we’d better go to London ourselves—as quietly as possible.”

“All right,” said Ms. Minnian. “I’ll book us plane tickets.”

“But that’s not fair! It was Leo’s idea! We should go,” objected Jaya in a near wail.

Ms. Minnian glanced at her impatiently.

I said, “Won’t it look weird if our head repositorian suddenly shows up in London for no reason? If you need it done quietly, you should send me and Jaya.”

“Nobody’ll notice a couple of kids,” said Jaya. “We can go spend the weekend with my aunt. That wouldn’t draw any attention.”

“I don’t know. It’s an awfully important mission for a couple of pages,” said Ms. Minnian.

“For the head page, you mean! Remember that Grimm Collection thief? The pages were the ones who caught him, not the librarians.”

“You’ll never let us forget it,” said Doc.

“Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?” Jaya went on. “We go to England, we try to find the time machine, we fail, and we have a nice weekend with Auntie Shanti.”

Dr. Rust nodded. “True. Since we’re talking about expropriating an artifact in a foreign jurisdiction without due process, it has to be done very, very quietly. That all argues for the pages doing it. This is a clandestine operation. No commercial plane flights.”

Ms. Minnian frowned. “Well . . . if you think so, Lee.”

“In fact,” said Dr. Rust, “if you two do get hold of the model time machine, don’t bring it here. Keep it somewhere safe at home. I don’t want it in our possession until we’ve been over every inch of the legalities. I’ll get in touch with our attorney.”

“Does that mean you’re letting me and Leo go? Great!” said Jaya. “How are we going? Jet packs? Flying carpet? Dirigible?”

Jet packs! Flying carpets! Would I ever get used to this place?

“Jet packs would be fun,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Or could we take the Nautilus?”

“Too loud and too slow,” said Dr. Rust. “You need something fast, silent, and unnoticeable. We don’t want them shooting you down with fighter jets or blowing you up with depth charges.”

“What about the dissolution transporter?” suggested Ms. Minnian. “Is it still checked out?”

“Let’s see.” Doc went over to a card file and flipped through it. “No, it’s back downstairs in the Chresto. Excellent idea.”

“What’s a dissolution transporter?” I asked.

“Sort of like a fax machine for objects,” said Dr. Rust.

“What’s a fax machine, then?”

“Oh, you young people!” said Ms. Minnian.

“Never mind about the fax,” said Doc. “A dissolution transporter deconstructs an object—in this case, you—taking note of its exact structure and composition. Then it transfers that information to another location, where the object is reassembled from material there.”

“Kind of like the transporter on Star Trek except it only works one way,” said Jaya.

That sounded alarming. “But if we’re deconstructed here and reassembled someplace else, won’t we turn into other people?”

“Technically, yes. But you’ll be other people with the exact same memories. And exact duplicates of your bodies, down to the last quark,” said Ms. Minnian.

“Yes, but I’ll be dead! Just because someone else has my memories, that doesn’t mean it’s me!” I objected.

“It’s okay, Leo,” said Jaya. “I’ve used the diss tran a zillion times and I still feel like myself.”

“Of course you do. You have all of the original Jaya’s memories, so of course you think you’re her. That doesn’t mean you are.”

“What makes you so sure you’re the same Leo who went to bed last night?” said Ms. Minnian. “Dissolution transportation is no more discontinuous than falling asleep and waking up again. But you don’t have to go if you’re afraid.”

“No, I’m not afraid! I want to go.”

“Great,” said Jaya. “Let’s go get beamed.”