There was also a fine layer of dust that Oliver began to gently brush away with a rag from his workbench while I dumped out everything from the envelope. No pictures this time, but lots of loose papers and scraps of notes. Hopefully, something in there could tell us what we’d just found. The papers were mostly handwritten, the scribble so small I could barely read it, and the cursive was atrocious. It looked a lot like Oliver’s mad writing when he started a new project. I spread out the papers and waited for Oliver to make sense of them all.
“Any ideas?” I asked after a few minutes of him reading through the notes and watching his brow wrinkle more than I thought possible. “It’s all gibberish to me.”
“These were Grandpa’s notes,” he whispered in awe and glanced back at the box. He held up one of the nicer looking note pages and showed me the signature at the bottom. It was nearly impossible to read, but I could make out the last name: Peterson. Mom signed it the same way. She had kept her original name after Dad disappeared and it was all we ever knew.
“Really?” Too bad we didn’t open this box earlier. I could’ve taken it to school and shown it off, whatever it is. “Does it say what it is?”
“I think so,” he said slowly, running his fingers through his thick brown hair that looked so much like Dad’s.
“I guess we know you take after Grandpa then,” I mused, fiddling with the knobs. But Oliver reached out and stopped me. “What?” I frowned at him. “I’m sure I’m not going to break it.”
“No,” he said shaking with excitement. “No, just hang on a minute.”
“Hang on for what?”
He flipped through the pages of notes then set them in a specific order on the table, pushing me to the side. He mumbled under his breath, words that made no sense to me, numbers and whatnot. I sighed, frustrated we hadn’t found anything related to Dad and even more upset I couldn’t have used this to show up Jade and her old weapons. A crazy invention was definitely more exciting than old civil war stuff that you could find anywhere, any day of the week. Too bad I missed my chance and here I was back to wallowing in misery over her and Zac and my inability to understand why he didn’t like me as much as he did her.
I turned for the stairs, not sure what I was going to do in my room when Oliver grabbed my sweater and dragged me back. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out of the way of you and whatever mad science this is.”
“No, no trust me,” he said, tapping his finger on one of the note pages. “You’re going to want to see this. Just hang on one second.”
I hopped up on a stool and watched as he ran his finger over some chart sketched out on the paper in front of him. He bit his tongue between his front teeth. It was the same thing I did when I was concentrating. He then and fiddled with the knobs and dials, turning each one carefully as if afraid it would break off in his hands. There was something almost comforting about watching him working on our grandpa’s invention. It was as if we were meant to find it so that Oliver could…I don’t know, finish what Grandpa had started? Maybe tinker with it more and see what he could make of it? Part of me almost felt like I was watching Grandpa at work instead of Oliver. We never got to meet our grandpa. He died five years before Oliver was born, and Mom only talked about him every now and again.
Oliver’s hand stretched to the far side of the device to a switch I hadn’t noticed earlier. He sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes and flipped it across.
Sparks shot out of it from all sides, and I leaped back with a yelp of alarm. It sputtered then stopped, tried to start one more time, and stopped again.
“What are you two doing down there?” Mom called from the top of the stairs after the door creaked open.
I opened my mouth to tell her Oliver was about to set the house on fire, but he clapped his hand over my lips and replied, “Nothing! We’re hust tinkering like always. We’re fine.”
“Is something burning?”
“No, nothing. Just some old wires I was messing with. Don’t worry; I have the fire extinguisher!”
“Alright, but if you set this house on fire, you’re grounded for a year, at least!”
Mom’s steps retreated, and the door closed again. I shoved Oliver’s hand aside, and we both stared at the gadget in the box. The sparks had stopped flying, but I was wary of getting any closer to it. “What did you just do?”
He ignored my question and pushed on the wires; I guess making sure they were all connected. He wiggled a few more pieces of it, ran his fingers down the notes, then went to flip the switch again. I backed away, ready to bolt upstairs if the thing decided to blow up. But this time when it whirred to life, it only sparked once then hummed as it stayed on.
“I started it up again,” he said, nodding with pride at his achievement.
Too bad I didn’t share the sentiment. “Yeah, I see that, but what is it?”
“It’s a relocation device,” he whispered, running his fingers over it carefully as it continued to whir with power. A blue sort of glow came off it, almost pulsing like some weird heartbeat, and I took another step back, just in case. Oliver might be willing to risk his fingers, but I wasn’t.
“Speak English, oh great inventor.”
He remained focused on the gadget as he attempted to explain, “I’m pretty sure it’s a time machine. I could be wrong. Some of these codes are hard to make out. I’ll need more time with the notes to study them and see if I’m right or not in my assumptions, but as of this moment—”
“Wait,” I interrupted, once my mind caught up with his words. “Did you say time machine?”
“Yeah, something that relocates objects to the past or the future. You know, like in the movies…except for this one…this one’s real!”
I looked from him to the machine and burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right? That stuff isn’t real! That’s why it’s in the movies. There’s no way our grandpa invented a time machine and then stuffed it into this box to sit up in our attic for years and years and years!”
My face ached from laughing so hard. Oliver looked hurt, but I couldn’t help my reaction. “I’m sorry, bro, but maybe Grandpa was just messing around with wiring and stuff. I don’t think it actually works.”
These past few days had been weird, and I was suddenly impatient to leave the basement and go upstairs to my bedroom. Kate would be messaging me soon for our usual Friday night chat about the past week at school.
I patted Oliver on the back sympathetically. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I promise. But you have to admit…a time machine? Come on.”
“What if I could prove it works?” he said.
“How? You’re going to take us back in time?” I joked.
“No, not without testing it. Moving us through time would be stupid,” he replied in a serious tone. “We should start with something small, something that’s not alive, just in case things get hairy.” He glanced around, muttering about what he could use.
“Oliver, you can’t be serious,” I said, my laughter gone. Now I was a bit worried about my brother’s sanity. “Oliver, did you hear me? It won’t work!”
“I bet you it will. Ah, here we go.” He pointed to a book that had caught his eye.
It was my history book, the one I’d misplaced earlier in the week. Oliver picked it up and set it beside the box. Then, he unhinged the side panel of the box near where the device sat and lined it up with the book.
“What are you doing with my history book?”
“Just hold on a second.” He twisted the knobs and dials, checking his watch, as I stepped closer to see what he was doing. “We’ll set it for ten minutes earlier, that should be enough.”
“You’re not making any sense.” I tried to grab my book, but he blocked my way. “Seriously?” I scoffed at him. “I need that!”
If Mrs. Clarke were to ask where my book was again on Monday and I had to tell her my brother sent it back in time, I’d be in more trouble than ever.
“You don�
�t need it now; it’s Friday,” he muttered, nudging me away.
He made a few more adjustments and flipped the switch. Then he took my hand and dragged me away from the table. I wanted to grab my book back, but the blue glow that had been dull just seconds before burned brighter as the whirring grew louder and louder. Sparks flew from the gadget, and I jumped. The lights around us flickered on and off as the device shook in its box. The tools on the workbench shook and vibrated with the force of the device’s movements. My heart began to pound in my chest as I stared intently at my book. Then, without warning, a beam of light shot out and engulfed it. All around my book, loose items suddenly lifted into the air, hovering as if held by some invisible force.
“Oliver,” I said alarmed, but he was grinning like a madman.
“Just wait!”
The items floating in the air shook. The light from the box burned so brightly, we had to cover our faces with our hands. I still wanted to see what was going on though, and I peeked through my fingers, squinting against the light. My book lifted off the table, just a few inches, and then with a loud popping noise, it disappeared. The light faded and the device stopped glowing as the whirring slowed to where it had been before. My book was gone; completely and utterly gone.
“What…what just happened?” I whispered, on the border of confused and panicked. “Oliver, what just happened!”
“Your book is now ten minutes in the past.” He bowed, flourishing his hand as he added, “You’re welcome, and I believe you owe me an apology.”
“You…you sent it back?”
“Yes, to 7:50 pm precisely. Pretty neat, huh?”
I picked up his arm and stared at his watch. It was eight o’clock. “Oliver, I need my book. Bring it back! Now!”
“It’s not coming back, ever.”
I frowned, shaking my head. “No, no it has to come back.”
“It can’t. It’s gone from this timeline forever, well at least I’m pretty sure it has. I’ll have to read through the notes more thoroughly, so I fully understand what Grandpa intended with this machine. But for the moment, your book will not return to this timeline, at least not easily.”
I stared at him blankly. Nothing coming out of his mouth made sense anymore, and I wanted to pull at his hair until he made my book reappear. That stupid machine. Of course, he just had to start it up and see what it would do. Now I had no textbook! Mrs. Clarke would use that as an excuse to give me lunch detention for a month. And Jade…she would go on and on if she caught wind that my crazy brother was messing around with a time machine. She’d spread rumors so fast; everyone would start calling me loony Holly before the week was over!
Oliver was still rambling on and on about how he had sent the book back in time. According to him, this meant if we wanted to get it back, someone from the past would have to send it to the future. But even that wouldn’t work because of some condition or other about a time loop. My head ached so much I stopped listening and waited for him to stop talking.
He finally had to take a breath, and I grabbed his shoulders. “Oliver, I need my textbook!”
“Will you forget about the book!” he exclaimed. “Do you have any idea what our grandpa discovered? All those years where he concentrated on theories and ideas, and they all paid off! He invented a real-life working time machine!”
“I think I hate you right now,” I muttered with a grunt of annoyance. “I really think I do.”
“Whatever. Forget about your stupid book and try to understand what we just did. We sent something back in time! That’s incredible!” Wildly, he looked around as he whispered, “Now we should try something else.”
“Yeah, how about we send you back in time.”
The look he gave me was so serious, I flinched. “That’s not funny, Holly. You can’t just send someone back like that. Do you have any idea what could happen?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but then Mom began to call down to us again.
“What are you two doing down there? I thought I heard some weird noises and then the lights flickered. Oliver, if you blow fuses out again, there will have to be a limit to the amount of tinkering you’re allowed to do!”
“Sorry, Mom, it was nothing. Just a little power surge. Won’t happen again,” Oliver yelled back before I could say anything.
We held our breaths, waiting to see if she’d come downstairs to check on us, but the door closed again, and we relaxed. I stared at my brother as he started messing with the knobs once more, twisting this one then that one and tugging on the wires.
“You aren’t going to use it again tonight, are you?” I asked.
“No, I want to read through more of these notes. Want to help?”
“Sure, why not,” I said sarcastically and hopped back up on my stool. “Let’s read about Grandpa’s time machine.”
He scoffed as he slid some of the pages towards me. “I can’t understand why you don’t think it’s real. You saw your book disappear. How else would you explain it?”
I wished I had a better explanation, but logically there wasn’t one. My textbook was gone. Sighing with frustration, I picked up the notes and tried to read through them, but Grandpa’s handwriting was horrible and after a while, my eyes started to hurt from squinting in the dim light of the single light bulb.
“I don’t even understand what I’m reading,” I said through a yawn a little while later. “But it does sound like some of the same stuff from my presentation.”
“It should. Those theories were our grandfather’s basis for making this,” Oliver said as he flipped over another page. “It sounds like he only had a chance to test it a few times before he had to lock it away.” He frowned and shook his head as he sat back. “Seems like Grandpa might have been worried about someone taking it away from him.”
I took the page that he passed to me. It was dated March 18th, 1990. “Huh, who would’ve tried to take it? Didn’t Mom say he worked for a university?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like it was his employer. Sounded like he had a partner. He keeps referring to someone with only the initial T. It’s weird.” Oliver rubbed his eyes and looked ready to keep digging through the notes for more answers, but the door creaked open again, and he rushed to cover the machine.
“Ok, you two, I know it’s a Friday night, but enough tinkering for now. Head on up to bed, alright? It’s nearly ten o’clock already.”
I picked up Oliver’s wrist to check the time. I was very late for messaging Kate, but at least I had a good reason.
“We’ll be up in a few minutes, Mom,” I called out to her before returning my attention to the machine.
“Swear you won’t say anything to Mom,” Oliver whispered as he powered down the device and closed up the box. “Holly, please. Mom won’t understand what this is. She’ll take it away; she’ll probably even throw it out. She won’t understand, and I’ll be in so much trouble for mucking around with it.”
I crossed my arms, tapping my socked foot on the floor. I knew we should tell our mother. My conscious told me it was the right thing to do, especially after what I just saw. It was obvious how dangerous this thing could be. But if I did tell her about it, then I’d have to admit I was in the attic. Oliver and I would both wind up in trouble, and I didn’t want to spend my first few weeks of summer grounded over this. And getting Oliver in trouble would only make my life miserable somewhere along the way. As well, this new mystery surrounding Grandpa and the machine was the most fascinating thing we’d ever discovered in our entire lives.
I wanted to know more about it and figure out this T person Grandpa knew. A partner maybe? And who was responsible for trying to take away Grandpa’s work?
“I won’t tell her,” I finally said. My curiosity was too strong to let Mom know what we were up to. “But you can’t mess with it unless I’m around. Deal?”
He took my hand. “Deal. And you can’t mess with it either, alright? That’s all I need is to have you send yourself back in time,
and me being grounded for life over it.”
I had no intention of messing around with that machine, especially since I didn’t even understand what it all meant. As I trudged upstairs and brushed my teeth before heading into my room for the night, I wondered about my textbook and where it had gone. Oliver said it would never come back because it was no longer in this timeline. So then what timeline was it in? I tried to make sense of it all, but it only made my headache worse than it already was. On the bright side, I now had something to occupy my thoughts all weekend instead of thinking about Zac and Jade.
I stood in front of my bedroom mirror for a few minutes, tugging at my long hair and wondering what I could do differently to make myself stand out. But that was stupid. I liked how I looked. I had my own unique style. I puffed out my cheeks, annoyed, and fell into bed.
After I pulled my laptop open to check if Kate was still on messenger, I saw the five messages she’d left asking why I’d missed our usual Friday night chat time. She was still online, and I replied that I’d been busy with some crazy thing my brother was working on. As I typed, the events of the last couple of hours played over in my mind, and I realized my brother was right. This find was incredible.
He had sent my textbook back in time.
I found myself giggling with disbelief. Oliver had done something totally amazing, and it had happened right before my eyes. I guess I’d previously denied it, but now that I’d accepted it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and wondering what we were going to do next with this incredible machine.
I messaged Kate and told her she had to come over the following morning as early as she could.
My brother has discovered the most insane thing! You have to see it for yourself!
She asked me what it was, but I couldn’t even begin to explain it through messenger, and just begged her to come over instead. For once, Oliver had done something cool, and I hadn’t even given him credit for figuring it all out. Realizing he was online right then as well, I sent him a quick smiley face. I was annoyed about my textbook, but he had made it time-travel. I would never be capable of that!
Time Traveler - Books 1, 2, 3 & 4: Books for Girls aged 9-12 Page 4
