CHAPTER 13
Julian inhaled his lunch. (A risky choice, as his mom often had to remind Dylan, the Human Vacuum Cleaner.) Wanting to keep the pickles safe and playground-dirt-free, he drank the last of his milk, carefully opened the empty carton fully, and placed the paper cup containing the pickles inside. He closed the carton back up and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, Mr. Warden, the lunchroom monitor and Dungeon Detention Master (a direct quote from the name tag that he alone among the teachers wore), announced they were free to go outside. Julian casually headed over to the door. He didn’t want to be the first to go out, nor the last, and assumed an anonymous position somewhere within the middle of the pack. He walked out and hung around the playground, mingling with his classmates for a few minutes, before working his way to far end. He sat down on a swing and began swinging back...and forth...and back...and forth...
When Mr. Warden’s back was turned, Julian executed a perfect slide-out maneuver at the top—what the smart folks call the “apex”—of his arc. He landed cleanly and dashed down the hill.
Grown-up Julian stood waiting for him.
“Hi. How’s your day going?”
“Fine,” Young Julian said. “Just the usual. Math. English. Biff trying to kill me.”
“Typical, in other words.”
“I suppose. Now about this thing with Lisa...”
“Forget it! I’m not saying a word. Other than, Julian and Lisa, up in a tree. K-I—OK, enough said. Did you get one?”
“I got a bunch,” Young Julian said, opening the carton and removing—what the smart folks call “extracting”—the green fuel.
“Bananas grow in bunches. Pickles grow in barrels. Never mind,” Grown-up Julian said, waving his hand as one does when shooing away an annoying gnat. “That joke was doomed from the start. All right, Young Me. Let’s do this,” said Grown-up Julian. He pushed a button on the eTab. A small panel raised out of the flatness of the face.
“Whoa!” said Young Julian. “Where did that come from?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s like magic.”
“Dad,” they said in unison.
A small silver disk slipped out. Grown-up Julian took it and studied it.
“Hmmm,” he said as a worried look crossed his face.
“What?”
“I need something sharp to open it,” Grown-up Julian said.
“You didn’t bring anything?”
“No.”
“You didn’t think to open it up, look at it, and see if you’d need a tool?”
“You know how I told you we’re going to be clumsy? Well, we’re going to be absent-minded, too.”
“Great. Now what are we going to do?”
“Let me have the Swiss Army knife you always carry,” Grown-up Julian said.
“How did you know I—Oh, yeah,” he said, handing it over. “I’ll never get used to that.”
“In theory, after about two minutes you should never need to again. By the way...your blue tennis shoe.”
“What?” asked Young Julian.
“You’re going to lose that pocketknife for about six months. Look in your blue tennis shoe.”
“You’re not supposed to—”
“I don’t think telling you where to find your own missing pocketknife is going to change the course of human history.”
“You’re probably right. This time.”
“Got it,” Grown-up Julian said as the silver lid popped off.
Sure enough, there was a dried—what the smart folks call “desiccated”—pickle in there. Grown-up Julian tossed it aside. His younger self handed him a fresh one. He placed it in the center before replacing the lid.
“Well, here goes nothing,” he said as he slid it back into the compartment, which disappeared into whatever invisible and inexplicable space it had come from.
He swiped. The eTab glowed. Brightly. Brilliantly. And the little power level icon—which both Julians could now clearly tell was a pickle—zipped up from 0.001% to 100%.
“Yes!”
“We did it!”
“We did, Young Me. High-five! A job well done. I could not have done this without you. Uh-oh!”
“What?”
“I lost my stylus!”
“Your what?
“Stylus. It’s a small, pencil-like—”
“I know what a stylus is. The eTab doesn’t have one.”
“Mine does.”
“Why? Why do you need one?”
“Why? Do you see how many numbers there are on my Dad Five-Minute Warning app? I needed something precise, so I hit the right date. The last thing I wanted do is fat-finger it and land in Pearl Harbor.”
“You and your stupid enhancements. What do we do now?”
“I need something thin. Really thin. As thin as a human hair. But it’s got to be hard. Really hard. Stiff.”
Young Julian thought.
Quickly.
“I know just the thing. Give me my knife back. Wait here. And be ready. We’re not going to have much time.”
Clinging to the wall of the building, spy-like, Young Julian scooted around to the opposite side. Checking both ways, he sped across the parking lot, abandoning the school property, his second risky choice of the lunch hour. He eased along the chain-link fence that marked the border—what the smart folks call the “perimeter”—of the playground. His target loomed (and doomed) fifty feet ahead.
As he did every day, Biff, far too cool for kickball or basketball or football or foosball, was leaning against the other side of the very same fence, surveying his territory. With recess almost over, Julian knew he had to act now. He tiptoed up behind Biff, keeping a steady eye on his target all the while. But when he reached the base of Mount Masterson and strained to see the summit in the hazy distance, he was forced to put his plan on pause until he could find an elevator, or a Sherpa, or something that would fall into the general category of “tall thing.” Spinning around, he scanned the area for anything to buy him a vertical foot or two.
He looked.
And looked.
And finally spied the prize!
Piled up behind the garage of the house that backed up to the school was a stack of logs. The perfect one, a foot wide and eighteen inches high, laid there. The angelic voices started singing once more (though in fairness, the choir was practicing extra in preparation for the fall show). He rolled it carefully and quietly over to the fence, directly behind Biff. Julian worked hard—what the smart folks call “labored”—to stand it on end, then climbed on the top. He took out his knife and opened the little springy scissor tool. With his other hand he pulled out the Swiss Army tweezers and carefully, oh so carefully, reached them through the fence. He grasped the tip of one of Biff’s hair spikes. Julian maneuvered the scissors through a link several inches below and...
SNIP!
“HEY! What do you think you’re doing?” Biff said, swiveling around. Seeing Julian holding one of his laboriously lubed-up locks, he growled, if a rhinoceros could growl. “Pickle! You got away from me this morning. But not this time!”
Now it was off to the races, as Biff and his buddies would be chasing Julian as soon as they could get to his side of the chain-link fence. Luckily, Julian knew that, just like a locomotive engine, Biff took a while to get going. Unfortunately, once Biff started moving, there was no stopping him.
Young Julian zipped back to where Grown-up Julian was hiding, covering the last fifty yards in a time which would have made Mr. Stringbean, the track coach, proud.
“Here,” Young Julian said, handing over the tweezers. “Will this work?”
“I think so.”
“Great. Hurry.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask. Just hurry,” Young Julian said as he listened for the sound of the oncoming stampede.
“OK, June 30, 1863,” Grown-up Julian said, entered the precious digits. “And here we—”
“Wait!” yelled Young Julian.
“What?”
“Didn’t the Battle of Gettysburg begin on July 1st?”
“Yes! You were paying attention. I’m so glad. We’re on our way. Now then...three...two—”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“So why are you going back to June 30?”
The distant rumble began reaching Julian’s ears.
“Because I’ll never be able to find my cell phone on that battlefield. I mean, it was loud, and smoky, and—I did mention bullets were flying, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you really think I’m going to crawl around on all fours looking for it?”
“I suppose that would be pretty stupid.”
“I suppose it would. So, what I’m going to do is go back to the day before and wait for myself to show up. And when I do, I’m going to tell myself to just leave it in my pocket, and not bother with any pictures. That way, I can’t lose it.”
“Won’t it be weird? Going back to the middle of the Civil War and seeing yourself there?” Young Julian asked.
“Any weirder than this?” said Grown-up Julian, pointing first at himself, then his younger self, and once more at each of them for good measure.
“I guess not.”
The leaves on the trees above them began rustling, even though it was a windless afternoon.
“Do you feel something?”
“Something like the ground beneath our feet shaking, as if an earthquake were about to come around the corner behind me and rattle the teeth out of our mouths?”
“Yeah.”
“No. I don’t. Now hurry.”
“OK. Goodbye, Young Me. And good luck.” Grown-up Julian tapped the screen. The vacuum cleaner sound covered the growing storm. “I think it’s going to work!” said Grown-up Julian. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“We sure turned out OK.”
“We did. One last thing. Microwave butter popcorn, and flypaper.”
“What?”
“Microwave butter popcorn and flypaper. Remember them. Sorry.”
“No!”
“And a sling sh—” Grown-up Julian disappeared in a flash of light.
Young Julian breathed a well-deserved sigh of relief. Unfortunately, his relief was brief.
“HEY!” the voice behind him yelled.
He turned.
Biff’s fist, coming at his eye, was the last thing Julian remembered seeing.
That evening, back at home, Julian sat alone in his room, grateful Grown-up Julian had stashed—what the smart folks call “surreptitiously placed”—a small tube of Shiner-B-Gone in his pocket. He would have had a hard time explaining to his mom why he’d gotten a black eye.
He opened the old, dusty footlocker he had found in the attic and dragged down to his room after school. On it, he had taped a sign.
BEWARE!
STRANGE—WHAT THE SMART FOLKS CALL
UNPREDICTABLE—OBJECTS INSIDE.
Julian chose the plural form of the word “object” because he somehow knew—what the smart folks call “suspected”—this would not be the last of his dad’s misbehaving inventions.
He placed the eTab inside, shut the lid, clicked the padlock closed, and put the key on a chain that he then slipped around his neck. Then he went downstairs to what he hoped would be a normal dinner.
If such a thing were possible in the Newcomber house.
END