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  “Well,” said Gravy-Face Roy. “Maybe it’s Viking Independence Day too.”

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” said Mr. Cheeseman, who, like Professor Boxley, was beginning to suspect the worst.

  “Tell me about it,” said Cheeks. “Looks like they got us outnumbered, two to one. It ain’t gonna be pretty, that’s for sure.”

  Of the two lines of soldiers, the line in front dropped to one knee on command from one of the horsemen, who drew his sword from its scabbard and thrust it skyward. The soldiers in the second line remained standing.

  “Ready!” shouted the horseman, his sword gleaming in the sun- and moonlight. The soldiers in both lines placed the butts of their rifles against their shoulders.

  “Aim!” In unison, they closed one eye and brought the other close to their gun sights. Though Ethan and his children had never before found themselves in the middle of a battle, they had all seen enough movies to know what came next. There was no such thing as “Ready! Aim! Dance!” or “Ready! Aim! Knit a sweater!” In battle there was only one thing that came next, and it definitely did seem as though a battle was about to break out. If it was merely a historical reenactment, it was not a very historically accurate one.

  The Vikings let out a collective yell that raised the hair on the back of Teddy’s neck and the cotton on the back of Gravy-Face Roy’s. They took off running toward the soldiers, maniacally and without fear or reason. Teddy clung to his father’s leg. Penny found Chip’s hand and clenched it tightly. Pinky growled again and wedged herself between Ethan’s ankles.

  Then, just as the commanding officer was about to yell “Dance!”—wait, sorry. Just as he was about to yell “Fire!” a savage roar split the air. The once-fearless Vikings stopped in their tracks. The horses flared their nostrils and reared up, nearly throwing their riders to the ground. Pinky growled and barked.

  “Retreat!” yelled the commander of the minutemen.

  The Viking leader must have yelled something similar, because, just as quickly as they had appeared, the smelly-looking warriors turned and ran back the way they had come, while the soldiers took off in the opposite direction.

  “Better run too,” said Cheeks. “Unless you wanna be lunch. Trust me. Those things are awfully nasty creatures.”

  The Cheesemans and the professor wanted to run, but they were awestruck to the point of paralysis by what they saw next. With another deafening roar, an enormous prehistoric beast, its teeth glistening with saliva in the sun-moon-starlight, emerged from behind the tree line.

  “I don’t believe it,” said the professor.

  “It’s a dinosaur,” said Chip.

  “It’s an ignoramus,” said Teddy.

  The dinosaur, with a brain the size of a grapefruit, may very well have been an ignoramus, but it was also a Tyrannosaurus rex. Ethan and the others watched helplessly as the enormous beast lumbered over to the LVR-ZX and gave it a good sniff.

  The humongous animal was apparently in need of a meal and, upon a second look, some serious dental work. It goes without saying this was the first T. rex that Mr. Cheeseman and the others had ever encountered in person. However, they had seen plenty of pictures in books and reconstructed specimens in museums, and this was the only one they’d seen with such a severe overbite. That’s right—this particular T. rex had buckteeth. And not just buckteeth—gnarled, snarled, misaligned, nasty-looking buckteeth that shot out in all directions. Imagine, if you will, a picket fence after a hurricane.

  Its unfortunate dental work made the dinosaur look like a dimwit, or, if you prefer, an ignoramus. But was it as stupid as it looked? The creature answered the question by kicking at the LVR-ZX, then, perhaps mistaking the egg-shaped vessel for an egg-shaped egg, opened its snaggletoothed mouth and clamped its massive jaws around the time machine’s metallic outer shell.

  “Oh no,” whispered Penny. “Should we try to stop him?”

  “How?” asked Chip. “Look at the size of him. He’s like a gas station with teeth.”

  “He’s like a gas station with really bad teeth,” said Teddy.

  With a heart-sinking, hope-dashing crunch, the LVR-ZX collapsed under the pressure of the dopey-looking animal’s massive jaws. When this failed to bring the desired result (a dinosaur-egg omelet, one can only assume), the T. rex dropped the machine to the ground and began stomping it with its gigantic feet, until the LVR-ZX was as flat as a garbage-can lid. The battered time machine was now about as useful as a tennis racket at a banjo recital. (If you’ve ever been to a banjo recital, you know exactly what I mean; if you’ve never been to a banjo recital, consider yourself lucky.)

  Ethan stood with his mouth agape. His face had lost all color. “I was afraid of this,” he said. “It looks as though we’re in Some Times.”

  “Yes,” agreed the professor. “And it looks as though we’re here permanently.”

  Some Timely Advice

  In late June of 1776, Thomas Jefferson completed his first draft of the Declaration of Independence. He was then ordered to write a second draft when the Continental Congress found the first one to be “just plain not funny.” The much punchier second draft was adopted by Congress on July 4th, which just so happened to coincide perfectly with the young nation’s annual fireworks display. And so, for the next seven years, England would wage war with the American colonists, a group of patriots lured to combat by the promise of freedom and triangular hats.

  They engaged in many fierce battles, including the one at Bunker Hill, where Colonel William Prescott is said to have ordered, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” The crafty redcoats handed the patriots a sound defeat by coming in squinting.

  Eventually, as we all know, the Americans would emerge victorious, in part because they did not have to worry about Romans, Huns, Vikings, dinosaurs, Vikings riding on dinosaurs, or dinosaurs riding on Vikings. They did not have to worry because, at that time, none of those things existed. It is a scientific fact that humans did not live in the time of dinosaurs, and it’s a good thing, because dinosaur names are so long that, by the time one human warned another that one of these creatures was sneaking up behind him, that person would be what dinosaurs commonly referred to as a tasty snack treat.

  “Look out, Stig [very common caveman name]! There’s a Pachycephalosaurus right behind … uh, never mind.”

  Therefore, if you ever find yourself face-to-face with a dinosaur while at the same time hanging out with American colonial soldiers and Vikings, there’s a very good chance that you might have been bumped off the Time Arc, landing in a place known to the scientific community as Some Times, where day and night, January and August, the Dark Ages and the Age of Enlightenment can all be happening at once.

  If you suspect that this may be the case, I advise you to return to your time machine immediately and get the heck out of there. Otherwise you may find yourself watching Fourth of July fireworks on Christmas morning, which, if you ask me, would be just plain not funny.

  Chapter 2

  The great Albert Einstein once said, “I’ll give ten dollars to anyone who refers to me as great.” Cha-ching! He also said some other stuff, such as, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

  In that awful, mysterious, and awfully mysterious place known as Some Times, that’s exactly what’s happening. Everything. At once.

  “My LVR-ZX,” muttered Professor Boxley with despair, his mustache quivering. “It’s been completely destroyed.”

  For a person willing to take the risk of traveling along the highly unpredictable Time Arc, the professor was, to put it politely, a bit of a timid sort, and to put it impolitely, a coward. His knees buckled slightly, and he latched on to Teddy’s shoulder to steady himself.

  “Are you okay, Professor?” asked Chip.

  “I think I peed my pants a little,” said the professor sheepishly, although it should be noted that sheep rarely wet their pants, because they are generally not great believers in th
e wearing of trousers. Teddy said nothing, but casually stepped away from the professor, leaving the old man with his dampened pants to stand on his own.

  “I don’t understand,” said Penny. “What’s going on?”

  “Some Times,” said Mr. Cheeseman, with a dispassionate stare. “Up until now it was regarded as only a theory. But I’d say we now have definite proof of its existence.”

  “So then …” Penny began to say what everyone was thinking but none of them wanted to hear. “We didn’t make it back after all.”

  Ethan’s neck bowed under the weight of his head, heavy with sadness and with the guilt of knowing he had failed his children once again. “No,” he concurred. “We didn’t make it back. But we will. Somehow.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight,” said Chip. “Are you saying we discovered Some Times?”

  “It would appear so,” said Ethan.

  “This is huge,” he said with enthusiasm, trying to get the rest of the group to look on the bright side. “It’s kind of like finding Atlantis. We’ll be famous.”

  “Only if we live to tell about it,” said Ethan.

  “What does that mean?” asked Teddy. “Are you saying we’re going to die?” He chomped his gum with something close to violence, as he always did when overcome by nervousness.

  “Not if we’re smart,” Ethan said. He placed his hand on the back of Teddy’s neck and gave it a reassuring squeeze that was slightly less reassuring than Teddy would have liked.

  The T. rex, now entirely convinced that the LVR-ZX was not something good to eat, seemed intent on finding something that was. It raised its head and appeared to be sniffing at the air, its twisted choppers dripping copious amounts of thick saliva.

  “There is some debate as to the land speed of a Tyrannosaurus rex,” said Penny. “It is estimated to be anywhere between eleven and forty-five miles per hour.”

  “That’s quite a disparity,” said Professor Boxley.

  “What’s the land speed of people?” asked Teddy.

  “Depends on which people you’re talking about,” said Mr. Cheeseman, surveying the group, which included a frightened elderly man, an eight-year-old boy, and a short-legged dog. “Either way, I suggest we get moving. Before he moves on to plan B. [The B presumably standing for brunch.] Let’s go.” Chip took the lead and the others followed, sprinting through the grassy field.

  Most dinosaurs are classified as reptiles, and, in general, reptiles are not known to have terribly good eyesight. Snakes, for instance, have such poor vision that they must find their way around with their tongues, which I would not recommend unless you live in a house made of bacon. Unfortunately for the Cheesemans, however, the T. rex was an exception to the bad eyesight rule, and, scanning the open field, it noticed something moving. No, it noticed some things moving; some things that, to the T. rex, must have looked like strips of crispy bacon on two legs (or, in the case of Pinky, four legs).

  With another bone-chilling roar, the goofy-looking lizard king took off after the human snack treats, pounding the earth with its massive feet. The situation appeared bleak at best. The grassy plain provided no cover and no chance of escape. It seemed a foregone conclusion that one or all of them would be killed at the hands (tiny though they might be) of the much faster T. rex.

  “Dad,” yelled Chip, “I think I can outrun him. I can lead him away so you guys can escape.” Of course, deep down, Chip knew he had very little chance of outrunning the monster, but the thought of the T. rex wiping out his entire family made him more courageous than he otherwise might have been.

  “No,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “We stay together as a family. No matter what happens.”

  They ran for the hilltop, hoping to find something on the other side that might give them a chance, but what that something might be, they hadn’t a clue.

  A glance over his shoulder let Mr. Cheeseman know that the beast was getting closer with each passing moment. At the same time, Professor Boxley was getting farther away. The old man’s legs appeared rubbery, and his face was the color of a grape; the red kind, not the green. He stumbled and regained his balance, but only for a moment before crashing to the ground.

  Ethan ran back to his friend and tried to pull him to a standing position as the T. rex closed the gap by twenty feet with each enormous stride. “Come on, Professor. Get up!”

  “Please. I’m too young to die,” blubbered the seventy-year-old professor.

  “You’ll be okay,” said Ethan. “Now take my hand!”

  The children heard the commotion over the dinosaur’s relentless pounding of the ground and ran back to help. “No,” said Ethan. “Keep going!”

  “You said we stay together as a family, no matter what,” shouted Penny. With the children’s help, Ethan was able to hoist the professor into an upright position, and together the four of them helped the exhausted and terrified old man to stagger across the last remaining feet to the top of the small hill. By now they could almost feel the hot breath of the cold-blooded killer as it continued to surge closer and closer.

  When they finally reached the top of the hill, they would have been shocked at what lay on the other side if they’d had time to stop and comprehend it. It wasn’t so much what it was that they saw, but when it was. And the when that it was, was winter; freezing, cold, everything-covered-with-snow winter. Moving from summer to winter with one tiny step is something that one can only do in Some Times, or, perhaps, while touring a Popsicle factory.

  The scene before them was not a welcome sight. No Popsicles, just deep snow that was sure to slow them down even further, allowing the T. rex to catch up in no time and gobble them all up with its multidirectional teeth. Clad in jeans, T-shirts, and light jackets, none of them was prepared for the cold. Still, with no other choice, they staggered down the steep, slippery hill toward the valley below.

  For a moment, Ethan thought that perhaps the T. rex would not follow them. After all, hadn’t some scientists theorized that the Ice Age had killed the dinosaurs? His momentary glimmer of hope faded with the sun as the towering creature’s shadow fell over them. Undeterred by the freezing temperatures, the T. rex stepped from summer to winter and lumbered down the hill after them.

  “Dad!” yelled Penny.

  “Keep running,” Ethan implored. The deep snow was too much for Teddy’s short legs, and Mr. Cheeseman scooped up his spiky-haired son without missing a beat. Likewise, Pinky found herself struggling through the frozen fluff. Chip plucked the hairless terrier up and tucked her beneath his arm like a four-legged football. He fully realized that each awkward step he took could be his last. It would take a miracle to save them now.

  Another roar rose up from behind them. But this roar sounded different. This was not the sound of a hungry T. rex; this was a low, rolling roar that built slowly and spread across the ground like an earthquake. By way of its massive feet repeatedly pounding the frozen earth, the T. rex had started an avalanche. Not exactly the miracle Ethan and the others had been hoping for.

  The tremendous swell of snow suddenly made the T. rex look much smaller than before as it raced down from above. When the snow caught up with the dinosaur, the force of the powdery wall knocked the beast off its feet. It fell like an ancient redwood, its oversized head colliding with the ground a mere ten feet behind Mr. Cheeseman and drenching him with thick, slimy, prehistoric spit. The surge of snow and ice swept over and around the fallen creature and toward the dinosaur’s human prey.

  Their minds raced with the awful possibilities that awaited them. Would it be preferable to be eaten by a humongous lizard or to be buried alive beneath a surging mountain of snow? Not much of a choice, but at least with the avalanche they had a chance for survival; and there was only one way to survive an avalanche. Ethan knew exactly what it was.

  “Swim!” he shouted as the racing mass of white scooped them up and carried them off like a powerful tidal wave. And so they swam. In a furious, desperate crawl stroke for life, they kicked their legs
and spun their arms and hoped for the best.

  Chapter 3

  It’s strange, the things that race through your mind when you’re staring death in the face. Events from your past, things you’ve done, things you forgot to do, things you wish you hadn’t done, and myriad faces, places, and images that piece together your entire life. One of the faces that made an appearance in Chip’s mind was that of his first and only love, the pretty girl named Big, whom he had been forced to leave back in the seventeenth century. He hoped to return to her one day, but that possibility appeared far less likely now that he was stuck in Some Times, plummeting down a steep hill along with two tons of snow and eight tons of dinosaur.

  The images that made their way into Teddy’s brain included the soft, kind face of his mother and the soft, woolly face of Steve, the sock puppet she had knitted for him before she passed away; the same sock puppet Pinky had torn apart with her sharp fox terrier teeth. Gravy-Face Roy had proven adequate as a temporary replacement, but if Teddy was ever so lucky as to see his mother again, he fully intended to ask her to knit him an exact replica of the original Steve.

  Penny saw her mother as well. But this was not just a random image pulled up from her expansive memory bank. You see, Penny had a history of encounters with ghosts and other apparitions, and this, it seemed, was yet another. This time, Olivia appeared to be floating weightlessly in the middle of a snowstorm. And though the weather raged all around her, she seemed completely unaffected by it. Her smile was soft and perfect, her hair sleek and fiery with not a single strand out of place. Her lips parted, and in a reassuring, almost melodic tone, she said, “Face the music, face the facts, back to front and hurry back.”