THE TIME WARP TRIO
2095
by Jon Scieszka
PUFFIN BOOKS
ONE
Hey buddy, what’s your number?” said a metal voice with a Brooklyn accent.
“I think that vacuum cleaner is talking to you,”said Fred.
I looked around the small room. There was an old-fashioned phone on the desk, big round glass lamps, and one of those record players with a hand crank that you see in history books. It looked like a room from a hundred years ago.
The only piece that seemed out of place was the metal thing floating in midair right in front of us. And Fred was right. It did look kind of like an overgrown vacuum cleaner.
The robot-vacuum thing floated closer. A beam of light shot out of its head and swept over us from head to toe.
“Hey buddy, what’s your number?”
“It was the vacuum talking,” said Fred.
“I don’t think that’s a vacuum,” Sam whispered. “I’ll bet it’s a police robot, And now it’s going to blast us with its death laser if we don’t give it our numbers.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “We tapped the magic square to go one hundred years into the future. But except for the robot, it looks like we’ve gone one hundred years into the past.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “What a surprise. We’ve never had any trouble with The Book before.”
The droid floated closer. Its metal voice sounded meaner now.
“Let’s run for it,” said Sam.
We moved left. The robot moved left.
We moved right. The robot moved right.
“Joe, you’re the magician,” said Fred. “Talk to it. Show it a trick. Give it some dust balls to suck up.”
I didn’t know exactly what to say to a robot, but I figured a trick might impress it.
“Hello Mr. Vacuum—or Robot-Guy. Have ‘you ever seen a human bend metal?” I took a quarter out of my pocket and tapped it on the table. “Solid, right?” I held it out in front of me, at opposite edges, between the tips of my thumbs and forefingers. “Observe.”
A little red light on the robot’s head blinked.
I wiggled the quarter back and forth until it looked like it was bending. “Now I’ll straighten it out.” I stopped and pretended to press the quarter fiat. “Pretty amazing, huh?”
The red light on the robot’s head blinked twice. It raised one arm and pointed something at us that looked an awful lot like a laser gun.
“Don’t shoot. We surrender. Take us to your leader,” said Sam, holding up both hands.
“Hey buddy, what’s your number?” Another robot arm extended a number pad at us.
“Give it a number,” said Sam. “Quick!”
I punched in my phone number.
The red light blinked three times. “Wrong number.”
Fred kicked the back of the robot. “Maybe we can knock out its power.”
The red light blinked three times. “You got five seconds, buddy.”
Sam covered his head with both arms. “I can’t believe I’m going to be zapped by a vacuum cleaner. Good-bye, cruel world.”
“Three, two, one,” said the robot. It jetted back a bit to get us all in its sights, then pointed its weapon directly at us.
TWO
But before the Time Warp Trio meets its end by vacuum cleaner, let me freeze time, then go back in time to explain how we got to this time.
It was all our teacher’s fault. It was Mr. Chester’s brainstorm to take our class on a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History “To learn about how to live in the future from how people used to live in the past.” That’s what he said. Honest. We had to write it down on our Museum Worksheet.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love the Museum. It’s one of the best places in New York City. They’ve got a prehistoric alligator skull that’s bigger than you, a herd of charging stuffed elephants, and a car with a hole in it from where it got bashed by a meteorite. If you sit close enough to the animal exhibits, it feels like you’re right in the jungle or the mountain or the desert. And on hot summer days I like to go sit under the blue whale hanging from the ceiling in the ocean life room. It’s blue, and quiet, and cool. And it has an excellent pack of killer whales.
But going to the museum on a class trip is a whole different story. You can’t go look at the war clubs in the Iroquois longhouse. You can’t hang around the stuffed gorillas, And you can never check out the rubber ants in the gift shop. You always have to stay together and answer the questions on the dreaded Museum Worksheet.
So there we were—standing under the huge Barosaurus skeleton in the museum lobby with our whole class, listening to Mr. Chester.
“. . . which some people didn’t even believe existed. Does anyone know its name? It says Barosaurus on the plaque. Right. Now we’ll go in and look at the exhibits that show how people lived from 1890 up to 1990. Take a look and think about what things have changed in a hundred years. Stay together. You can either take notes for your worksheet or write out the complete answers as we go. Questions? No, you cannot check out the rubber ants in the gift shop.”
The whole mob of us trailed behind Mr. Chester. We stopped at the 1890s room, There was an old-fashioned phone on the desk, big round glass lamps, and one of those record players with a hand crank that you see in history books. A lady mannequin dressed in a long dress stood by the table. A boy and a girl model were posed on the floor surrounded by marbles, checkers, and jacks.
“Oh boy,” whispered Fred. “Just what I was hoping to see. Dummies dressed in old clothes.”
“How did those poor kids live?” said Sam. “No TV, no Walkman, no computer, no fun.”
“But look,” said Fred. “That ad out the window says BEER 5 cents. I’ll bet pizza was a penny.”
“. . . and changed the way people lived,” Mr. Chester droned on. “Question Two on your sheet says, ‘List five inventions we use today that people didn’t use one hundred years ago.’ Can anyone tell me one?”
Sam’s hand shot up.
“Yes, Sam?”
“The zipper, invented by W. L. Judson in 1893. Or the electric vacuum cleaner, invented by Hubert Cecil Booth in 1901. Or the airplane the Wright brothers flew for the first time in 1903. Or frozen peas—”
“Thank you, Sam—”
“—invented by Clarence Birdseye in 1924. Scotch Tape, invented in 1929. And—”
“Thank you, Sam,” said Mr. Chester.
Mr. Chester led our class to the next room. Fred, Sam, and I slowly worked our way to the back of the class, then sat down on a ledge in the 1920s room. Three gangsters were loading boxes. One held his machine gun ready.
“You’ve been reading the almanac again, haven’t you?” asked Fred.
“How could you tell?” said Sam.
“Do you have a book of world records too?” asked Fred. “I love that stuff like the biggest pizza ever.”
“122 feet, 8 inches in diameter,” I said, flipping a quarter up in the air.
“Wow,” said Fred. “Now that’s the kind of question I wouldn’t mind answering.”
I held up the quarter. “Would you like to see me bend metal with a little magic?”
Fred took out his Museum Worksheet. “No, But I would like to see you fill out this worksheet with a little magic. Why do we have to answer this stuff anyway? We should tell Mr. Chester if he really wants to find out this junk, he should travel back a hundred years with The Book.”
“I’m sure that would go over big,” said Sam. “Just like Joe’s excuse that we couldn’t do our math homework because we almost got run over by a woolly mammoth.”
“Or your history paper on Blackbeard’s awful singing,” I said. “That was a real winner.”
“What we really need,” said Sam, “is someone who can show us how to use The Book the right way. Then we can travel around in time without worrying about getting killed while we look for The Book to get us home.”
“Yeah,” said Fred. “Whatever happened to your Uncle Joe? He gave you The Book. He should know how to use it.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “My mom says he comes and goes . . . whatever that means. “
“Then what about your mom?” said Sam. “She gave The Book to your uncle Joe. Let’s ask her how to work it.”
“Well, she did show me this one page.” I reached into my backpack and took out a dark blue book with twisting silver designs.
Sam jumped behind the corner of the gangster exhibit. “Oh no you don’t. Put that thing down. It might be loaded.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “This is foolproof.” I flipped open The Book. “It’s called a magic square.” I showed them this page.
Sam peeked around the corner. “What’s so magic about that?”
“It has all nine numbers, one through nine. Add any three in a line and they always equal fifteen.”
“So?”
“So all we have to do is tap the numbers of the year we want to travel to.”
“What’s with the zero?” said Fred.
“Magic squares don’t usually have zeros, but it’s here for time travel to years with a zero.”
“Cool,” said Fred. “Let’s go.”
“We could watch them build the pyramids in Egypt,” I said.
Sam unfolded his Museum Worksheet. “We could go back a hundred years and find out what life was really like then.”
Fred took off his Yankees hat and whacked us both on the head with it. “You dweebs. Forget studying! Let’s just go goof around someplace. Someplace like . . . the future.”
“I don’t know,” said Sam, adjusting his glasses. “In every time-travel book I ever read, people get in trouble when they go into the future. They either get caught by Time Police Robots, or they run into themselves and blow up.”
“So we’ll go a hundred years into the future,” said Fred. “Then we can’t run into ourselves. We’ll be dead. Plus it will be great to see what New York looks like in a hundred years.”
“1995 plus 100 equals 2095,” I said and tapped out 2 . . .0.. .9. . . 5.
The magic square seemed to spin on the page. The People through Time exhibit began to fade behind a pale green mist. Mr. Chester and the rest of our class vanished. And we were gone.
When we opened our eyes, we were standing in a small room. We saw an old-fashioned phone on the desk, big round glass lamps, one of those record players with a hand crank that you see in history books, and something that looked like an over-grown vacuum cleaner looking at us.
THREE
The Vacuum Cleaner Death Droid began to blink and hum.
I closed my eyes and waited for the sound of the Death Ray blasting us into dust balls. But instead, I heard the sound of a human voice.
“Oh, there you are!”
A tall woman with dark green hair and a gown that lit up like a Christmas tree pushed aside the killer robot and grabbed Sam by the shoulders.
“Those old-fashioned sight mods are perfect.”
“You like my glasses?” said Sam.
“Hey lady, what’s your number?” said the nagging metal voice.
The green-haired lady let out a gasp. “Oh no. This SellBot was going to spec you?”
Fred nodded. “He had us dead in his sights.”
“You didn’t give it your number did you?”
“Just my phone number,” I said.
“Thank goodness,” said the lady.
“Hey lady—”
The lady punched a quick series of numbers on the SellBot’s keypad. It turned and floated out of the room. Our rescuer turned and looked Fred over. “Where on earth did they find that antique Yankees hat? It’s magnificent.”
Then she spied me. “And those shoes.” I looked at my beat-up, unlaced sneakers. “They look so authentic! But why are you in the 1890s room? I told the agency to have you report to the 1990s room.”
Fred, Sam, and I looked at each other. We couldn’t quite figure out where we were. The lady and the robot looked like something from a hundred years in the future. Everything else looked like a hundred years in the past.
“I’m Director Green,” said the lady. “I’m in charge of the Rooms of the Past exhibits.” She walked over and touched the wall. A panel of tiny pictures, lines, and shapes appeared. “The exhibits open in ten minutes. Let’s transport to the 1990s room and get you boys set up. “
She touched the glowing part of the wall, moved four blue triangles onto the middle of a maze, then punched a blinking red arrow. The thing chirped like a cricket, and we were instantly standing in a completely different room.
“A transporter,” whispered Sam. “So we must be in the future. “
“Then why does it look like my bedroom?” said Fred.
We looked around and saw Fred was right. Now it looked like we were in the 1990s.
Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were blasting each other on the TV. A couch, and a table stacked with board games, baseball cards, papers, a pencil, and string filled the middle of the room.
“Doesn’t it make you feel just like you’re standing in the middle of the twentieth century?” said Director Green.
I wondered how we could be standing in the middle of the twentieth century with robots and transporters. I wondered why Director Green looked so different but sounded so much like Mr. Chester. And that’s when I figured it out.
“What’s the date today?” I asked.
Director Green slid her finger across another panel. The blue numbers 9/28/95 appeared.
“September 28,” she said.
“And that 95 doesn’t stand for 1995 does it?”
Director Green laughed. “Only in this room. Your job is to play the way children from the 1990s might have played. Down the hall it’s 2025. Then we have the 2045 room, the Swinging 2060s, and the 2075 room. For everyone else out there, it’s 2095 all year long.”
Fred, Sam, and I looked at each other.
We were a hundred years in the future, standing in a museum exhibit of a hundred years past.
“So we’re supposed to be dummies from 1995?” said Fred.
“That shouldn’t be too hard for some people I know,” said Sam.
Director Green handed me a book from the shelf.
“Why don’t you pretend you are scanning this. It’s called a book. You’ve probably seen vids of people using these in the old days. Can you imagine? People used to scan the output and project stories on their own.”
I looked at the book. “Green Eggs and Ham! That was my favorite when I was a kid.”
Director Green handed Fred a remote. “And this controls the vid display. This early system was called television. No one had even thought of brain stim. Images could only be beamed to this large box. Children used to sit in front of it and file data via visual interface.”
Fred took the remote and stretched out on the couch. “I’m not sure what you said, but I definitely know how to watch cartoons. This is the one where Bugs and Daffy fight over rabbit season and duck season. Watch this. Daffy’s going to blow his own beak to the top of his head.”
Director Green gave us a funny look. “It’s wonderful that you boys know so much about the 1990s. I’ll be sure to mention it to your agency.” She looked around the room for something for Sam. “This would be perfect for you. It’s called a pencil. You could pretend to be looking through your old-fashioned spectacles and outputting text and picture files by hand.”
“You want me to doodle?” asked Sam.
“Oh, that’s a perfect old slang word, too,” said Director Green. “You could fool anyone into thinking they were watching three boys from the 1990s at play.”
Fred, Sam, and I tried not to laugh.
“All set then,” said Director Green. “The Museum of Natural History People of the Past exhibit is now officially open.” She pressed a wavy red sign on the wall control panel. The wall nearest the hall disappeared, but the pictures on it stayed right where they were. “I’ve turned on the InvisiWall. No one can get in. Use your code numbers to get out.”
She tapped a string of numbers on the control panel. A door appeared in the invisible wall and she turned to leave. But when she opened the door, our real troubles began.
Three guys in funny-looking blue jeans and fakelooking T-shirts walked into the room. “Sorry we’re late. The agency sent us for the 1990s exhibit,” said the kid in front.
“But that can’t be,” said Director Green. “You’re already here.”
The second kid handed a disk to Director Green. She popped it into a slot in the control panel. She looked at us, then the three kids, then us, then the three kids again.
“That is the agency contract. But if you are you, who—” she turned to us—- ”are they?”
FOUR
Who are we?” repeated Sam. “Uh, we are—”
Fred stepped in front of Sam. “I’ll tell you who we are. We are . . . magicians.”
Director Green looked puzzled.
The three guys cheered. “Magic!”
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