Another Whole Nother Story Read online

  For E, for everything

  THIS BOOK IS PART OF A COMPLETE BREAKFAST

  AND STAYS CRUNCHY EVEN IN MILK.*

  *Warning: Do not immerse in milk.

  “You can lead a horse to water,

  but you can’t make him participate

  in synchronized diving.”

  Dr. Cuthbert Soup, advisor to the ill-advised

  A Little Advice

  Greetings, everyone. I’m Dr. Cuthbert Soup with a startling announcement. Time travel is now a reality. I repeat: I’m Dr. Cuthbert Soup, founder, president, and vice president of the National Center for Unsolicited Advice.

  The question I’m asked most frequently—besides “Who are you and what are you doing here?”—is “Why on earth would you, the multimillionaire owner of a huge corporation, take time out from your busy schedule to write a book?”

  Well, for one thing I have always enjoyed telling stories. Living in Vienna at the height of the Great Sausage Famine, my family had very little money for books. But every Friday night we would all sit around the fire and tell stories, which was very exciting because we did not have a fireplace. So, as you might imagine, most of the stories were about how to escape from a burning building.

  But my real inspiration for writing a book came to me not long ago while strolling through my friendly neighborhood bookstore, where I spied, high upon one of the many shelves, a very conspicuous empty slot. Needless to say, I was appalled. It occurred to me rather immediately that someone needed to write something in order to fill that awful black hole of booklessness right between War and Peace and Wig Making for Dummies.

  I now had the motivation to write a book but still lacked a good story to tell. That would change sooner than I expected. I returned home to my luxurious mansion and opened my equally luxurious mailbox (it has its own bowling alley) to find a postcard from my good friend and former classmate from Southwestern North Dakota State University, Ethan Cheeseman.

  The news, as it turns out, was not good. I was shocked to learn that Ethan’s lovely wife, Olivia, had been poisoned by evil villains (for my money, the worst kind of villains), forcing Ethan and his three smart, witty, attractive, polite, and relatively odor-free children to go on the run. In case something happened to Ethan or the children, he wanted to make sure that his story was told—and he had chosen me to be the one to tell it.

  I started receiving postcards on a regular basis, sometimes as many as four or five per week, each one relaying Ethan’s desperate attempt to stay one step ahead of an ever-growing number of pursuers while he worked to perfect his greatest invention: a time machine, which he hoped could be used to save the life of the woman he and his children loved so dearly.

  I began the task of turning these postcards into the story of Ethan’s desperate plight, though my progress was slow. You see, unlike most writers today, I do not use a computer. I write the old-fashioned way: on the walls of caves. (Unlike computers, they rarely crash.) With a blend of seven different berries smooshed together, the end result is perhaps the only book you will ever read that is made with ten percent real fruit juice. But please don’t eat it. Instead, I strongly advise you to read it because, in addition to being rich in vitamins A and C, it is also chock-full of excitement, intrigue, adventure, misadventure, pirates, castles, consonants, vowels (including the controversial “sometimes Y” vowel), and scads of unsolicited advice.

  And, if all that weren’t enough, it also includes documentation of mankind’s first attempt to travel through time, as Ethan and his children embark upon this historic journey in an effort to save the life of Olivia, their beloved wife and mother, and to break the curse of the White Gold Chalice.

  Chapter 1

  Everyone knows that time flies when you’re having fun. What many don’t realize is that time also flies when you’re having: breakfast, lunch, a bad hair day, people over for dinner, difficulty with math, your cake and eating it too, second thoughts, a nervous breakdown, trouble breathing, a baby, or a cow.

  In other words, no matter what you may be having at any given moment, time is always flying. Thus, in order to travel into the past, one must fly even faster than time itself. This can make for a very bumpy and a very long ride.

  “Dad, are we there yet?” groaned Gerard, his skinny, eight-year-old legs fidgeting in perfect rhythm with his reckless gum chewing. The gum was Gerard’s last piece and, since he and his family were racing along the Time Arc to a year long before bubble gum had been invented, he knew the flavorless wad of pink goo might have to last him quite a long time.

  “I told you to go to the bathroom before we left the twenty-first century,” said Gerard’s father, who was perhaps the greatest scientist and inventor of all time. Mr. Cheeseman kept his eyes on the control panel, expertly working the many knobs and dials, fighting to keep the time machine, known simply as the LVR, on course for the year 1668. I should mention, by the way, that LVR stands for Luminal Velocity Regulator. I suppose it could also stand for Large Venezuelan Rats, but in this case it does not.

  “Sorry, Gerard, you’ll have to wait a few minutes yet,” Mr. Cheeseman continued.

  In the rush to stay one step ahead of the many government agents, international superspies, and corporate villains all trying to get their hands on the LVR, he did not have time to hook up the plumbing system on his mirrored, egg-shaped, disco ball–like time machine before he and his three children—along with Captain Jibby and his band of misfit circus performers—piled in, buckled up, and slipped into the past.

  “But I really have to go,” Gerard insisted.

  “We should be there soon,” assured Mr. Cheeseman. “Unless we run into some unexpected disturbulence.”

  Disturbulence is the term used to describe any small fissures or static along the Time Arc that can result in a time traveler being bounced off course and ending up in the wrong time, the wrong place, or, in the most unfortunate of cases, several times and places at once, a phenomenon known in the scientific community as Some Times, which is not at all where Mr. Cheeseman and his passengers wanted to end up.

  He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, then turned to Jough, his fourteen-year-old son and copilot, sitting at the controls next to him. “It’s awfully hot in here. What’s the reading on that refractometer, Jough?”

  “Forty-two hundred and climbing,” said Jough, his voice alternating between man and boy.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. Why?”

  “The refractor shields … they’re only good to forty-five hundred.” Mr. Cheeseman looked worried, and this worried Jough. It didn’t help matters that Pinky, the family’s hairless fox terrier, was sitting at Mr. Cheeseman’s feet, growling steadily. You see, Pinky had psychic abilities and almost never growled unless she sensed danger.

  “So what happens if it hits forty-five hundred?” Jough asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. After all, there was a reason the LVR had no windows. The light along the Time Arc was so intense and produced such extreme heat that, if the refractor shields failed to hold, the LVR and everyone in it would be instantly reduced to cinders.

  “It’ll be okay,” said Mr. Cheeseman, not entirely convinced of this but not wanting to alarm the children.

  “Forty-three hundred,” announced Jough from the side of his mouth, his eyes refusing to leave the refractometer as the needle continued to inch into the red zone. Pinky’s growling grew louder.

  “Dad?” said Maggie, Mr. Cheeseman’s twelve-year-old daughter and the spitting image of his auburn-haired wife, Olivia. “What’s going on? Why is Pinky growling?”

  “It’s nothing. Everything’s fine.” Mr. Cheeseman threw the words quickly over his shoulder,
then returned his focus to the control panel. “We’ll be there soon. Why don’t you make the announcement?”

  A veritable genius, Maggie was smart enough to realize that her father was only attempting to take her mind off the danger growing with every upward tick of that temperature gauge. Still, she did as he wished. Without hesitation, she unbuckled her seat belt, stood up, and turned to face her audience. In addition to her little brother, there were the six members of Captain Jibby’s Traveling Circus Sideshow, all sitting in the cramped confines of the LVR’s interior, constructed mainly of parts from a used motor home.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please,” began Maggie. “We are approaching the year 1668. At this time, make sure your seat belts are securely fastened and your seat backs have been returned to their full upright and locked position. In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device.”

  “My seat doesn’t have a cushion,” said Gerard. He demonstrated by slapping the hard wooden surface of the chair with his open palm.

  “Then you’ll have to swim. And please put your seat back forward.”

  “But I don’t get it,” said Gerard. “Do you want me to put my seat back or forward?”

  Maggie stepped behind Gerard’s chair and shoved it forward, putting an immediate end to any confusion.

  “Forty-four fifty,” said Jough. Sweat now poured from beneath the thick black curls that adorned his head and gathered among the wiry fibers of his patchy teenage mustache.

  There was no question that the interior of the LVR was heating up. Jough removed his navy blue baseball cap, stitched with a white letter P, and ran his forearm across his sweaty brow.

  Suddenly, a very large and very loud bump rocked the LVR. Maggie quickly returned to her seat and buckled up. “Forty-four seventy-five,” said Jough.

  “Come on,” said Mr. Cheeseman, begging the machine to hold together. “Come on!”

  Gerard looked up at his big sister sitting next to him. “Is it okay? Are we going to die?” Maggie said nothing, unwilling to make a promise she might not be able to keep. Instead, she reached out and took Gerard’s hand in hers and squeezed tightly. If this was meant to reassure Gerard, it did not.

  At that moment, he realized just how much he missed Steve, his beloved sock puppet, knitted with love by his late mother just days before she was killed by corporate thugs. For two years Steve had been Gerard’s constant sidekick, providing him with companionship, words of encouragement, and a wicked tan line. But now, like Gerard’s beloved mother, Steve the sock puppet was gone.

  “Twenty seconds to landing,” said Mr. Cheeseman.

  “Four-four eighty-five,” said Jough, biting his lip.

  “It’s going to be close,” said Mr. Cheeseman.

  There was another bump, this one louder and stronger than the last. Maggie looked at the ceiling, which vibrated mightily. It appeared as though it could be torn away at any second, exposing them all to the deadly light just on the other side of the four-inch-thick protective shell of the LVR.

  “Forty-four ninety!” Jough struggled to remain calm but he could feel his sense of reason slipping away.

  “Fifteen seconds!” Mr. Cheeseman had to shout to be heard over the deafening rattle as the LVR fought to remain joined at the seams. He began counting down the seconds. And as he counted down, Jough counted up.

  “Ten! Nine! Eight!”

  “Forty-four ninety-five!”

  “Seven! Six!”

  “Forty-four ninety-seven!”

  “Five! Four!”

  “Forty-four ninety-nine!”

  “Three! Two!”

  “Forty-five hund—”

  Before Jough could push the words from his mouth, a chunk of ceiling the size of a beach towel peeled away with the sickening sound of rent metal. Blinding light poured into the LVR. Gerard screamed. Maggie screamed. Pinky yowled. The chunk peeled back farther yet until it tore off completely from the rest of the LVR, and more light poured in, followed by more screams and a deafening crash.

  And then, just like that, there was nothing.

  Advice for ExpLorers Everywhere

  When one thinks of great explorers, certain names come to mind right away: Cortés, Ponce de León (literally: Leon’s Pants), and Magellan, to list but a few. Perhaps the most famous explorer of all time is Christopher Columbus, who discovered America. And he found it right where it had been sitting all those years.

  Of course some people claim that Leif Eriksson discovered North America in the year 1000. Well, if he did, he forgot to tell anyone, which is why today all the cities, rivers, universities, and savings and loans are named after Columbus. Nothing is named after Leif Eriksson—not even leaves, which are named after someone else.

  Advice to explorers everywhere: if you would like to receive due credit for your discoveries, keep a detailed account of your journeys as Columbus did. On September 28, 1492, after four weeks at sea, he writes: “Dear diary … I mean journal. Yes, dear journal. That’s what I meant to say. Whew. Anyway, we have yet to discover America, and the crew has become increasingly rebellious. I have decided to turn back if we have not spotted it by Columbus Day. Will write again later if not killed by crew. P.S. Last night’s buffet was fabulous, the ice sculptures magnificent.”

  Columbus’s crew was understandably spooked because in those days it was believed that the Earth was flat, and if you sailed too far, you could fall off the edge. Today we know that the Earth is not flat but rather quite bumpy, particularly if you are driving in the downtown area. The point is that whether you are sailing through uncharted waters or across the mysterious Time Arc, there will always be unforeseen dangers and I advise you to prepare yourself for the absolute worst.

  Chapter 2

  Many who have had near-death experiences have reported leaving their bodies and drifting toward a warm, bright light. These people assume they are on their way to heaven, never stopping to consider that a warm, bright light might also be fire.

  The warm, bright light that Maggie saw when she opened her eyes was neither the welcoming gleam of paradise nor the flaming bonfire of the netherworld. It was, quite simply, sunshine. It punched its way through a canopy of trees above, filtered through a thin screen of smoke, streamed in through the massive gash in the LVR’s ceiling, and came to rest gently upon her furrowed brow.

  “Maggie? Maggie, are you okay?”

  Maggie looked around to see concerned faces peering back at her. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “At least, I think I am.”

  “You must have passed out from the heat,” said Mr. Cheeseman as Pinky trotted over and gave her hand an affectionate lick. When Maggie lifted her head to look down at the dog, a dull pain raced across the back of her neck.

  “Ahhh,” she said, pressing her hand to the afflicted area.

  “Don’t move,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Let’s take a look at that.” He reached into his pocket and removed a black plastic box no larger than a deck of cards. There were several knobs on the box and two long wires extending outward, each with a small suction cup at the end. He flipped on the power switch, which sent a wave of lime-green light flickering across the tiny screen. He then placed one of the suction cups on his right temple and the other on the back of Maggie’s neck.

  “Is that where it hurts?” he asked.

  “A little to the left,” said Maggie. Mr. Cheeseman adjusted the suction cup accordingly, then winced and grabbed the back of his own neck.

  “You’re right. That does hurt.”

  “What in the name of Neptune’s whiskers is that thing?” asked Captain Jibby through his bushy red beard while his crew looked on, always amazed by Mr. Cheeseman’s inventions.

  “It’s a little device I like to call the Empathizer,” said Mr. Cheeseman, peeling the suction cups from his temple and from Maggie’s neck. “I developed it as a means of helping doctors diagnose their patients. Instead of a patient having to describe a pain or se
nsation, a doctor can simply hook up the Empathizer and feel exactly what the patient feels.”

  “It’s a great invention,” said Jough. “Unless you’re trying to get out of taking a math test by pretending to have a stomachache.”

  “Or if you say you have a sore throat just so you can eat more ice cream,” said Gerard.

  “Well, I’m no doctor,” said Mr. Cheeseman to Maggie. “But I’d say you’ve got a mild case of whiplash. Be careful not to move your head any more than you have to.”

  Just then Jibby let out a crisp, hacking cough. By way of height, he was closest to the hazy cloud that hung overhead.

  “I don’t like the looks of that smoke,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “We’d better get out of here and assess the situation.” But when he unlocked the pod door and turned the handle, it would not open. He put his shoulder into it but still the door would not budge.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Jibby. This was his way of suggesting that he might have better luck.

  “Be my guest,” said Mr. Cheeseman, stepping aside for the much larger man. Captain Jibby looked at the door, clenched his teeth, and worked his face into a scowl so fierce you would think the door had insulted his mother—which, for the record, it had not.

  With a two-step approach, he thrust his shoulder against the hatch with far more force than Mr. Cheeseman had but with an equal degree of futility. The only thing that moved was Jibby’s face, which transformed from angry scowl to painful scowl. “It’s stuck,” he said. Never in the history of humankind had the obvious been so clearly stated.

  Gerard smacked his gum and calmly looked overhead. “Well, good thing there’s a hole in the ceiling,” he said. Mr. Cheeseman knew Gerard had a very good point. That terrible unintended opening, the one that nearly resulted in their untimely deaths, now seemed to be their only means of escape.