The boys had the inside of their cheeks swabbed by a bored-looking security guard.
“Now, we just wait a few minutes for a computer match and then we can go get your cookies,” said a secret service agent while the security guard punched in numbers and waited.
A moment later something popped up on the screen that made him frown.
“This isn’t possible,” he said. “It simply isn’t possible.”
“What isn’t?” asked one of the agents. “Isn’t there a match?”
“Well, this boy’s match says he is one Rupert Brown, American citizen. But this boy…”
He read the results again as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “This boy is Turgid Rivers.”
“That’s right,” affirmed Turgid.
“Oh,” said an agent. “So he’s related to the president, after all?”
“No, according to his DNA, he is the president,” said the security guard.
“I told you so,” said the personal assistant, clutching the box.
There was a moment of silence, and then instead of being whisked away to the kitchen the boys were whisked away to some other room in the basement of the White House. Calls were made and then a whole other group of people converged.
“All right, boys,” said a very important-looking man. “I hear that one of you has the same DNA as the president of the United States, and what I want to know is: who are you and how did you steal the president’s DNA?”
“I didn’t steal anything!” protested Turgid.
“Are you a clone?” said the very important man, banging his fist down on the table.
“Impossible,” said a woman in a lab coat. “Can’t be done. If this boy has the president’s DNA, then this boy is the president.”
At this all the people in the room turned to Turgid and studied him as if he were a petri dish that had grown something incomprehensible.
“We can’t have the United States being governed by a ten-year-old.”
“I’m twelve,” said Turgid. “He”—he pointed to Rupert—“just turned eleven today.”
“Yes, that’s very nice, Mr. President, but the question we have is are you the clone or the original in altered state? Do you remember vetoing the anti-Zadeski garbage bill this morning?”
“Not really,” admitted Turgid.
“I don’t believe you’re the president in any form,” said another agent.
“Please, this must be the president you’re talking to,” said the personal assistant. “Sir, can I get you one of your Nutella doughnuts? That always makes you feel better.”
“Yes, please,” said Rupert.
“No, thank you,” said Turgid, throwing Rupert a look. “Listen, there has to be a mistake. I can’t be the president. It just wouldn’t happen. I have never wanted to be president.”
“The other possibility,” said a woman who had just entered, having been called down to the meeting room to help as soon as the DNA results showed up, “is that someone has found a way to turn back time for the president’s DNA so that he is getting younger and will no doubt soon shrink to embryo size. What I like to call the Dorian Gray effect.”
“He doesn’t seem to have gotten any younger since we got here, Doctor,” said an agent. “He looks the same.”
“Now, listen, here’s the thing troubling me,” said another agent. “I accept that the leader of the free world has somehow been youthened to the age of twelve. But the question I have is who is this sidekick, this Rupert Brown, and what was he doing in a box with our president?”
“I’m just me,” said Rupert stupidly. He couldn’t think how else to explain it. He was starving and wished they’d just bring on the Nutella doughnuts and stop all the speculation.
“Enough. Give me the box,” said the doctor. “I will take it away to be tested immediately.”
She snapped her fingers and the personal assistant clutched it all the tighter saying, “This box belongs to the leader of the free world!”
“That’s right!” shouted Turgid.
“All right, Mr. President, perhaps you would like to explain the box,” said the very important man.
“Um, um, um,” stalled Turgid. “I’ll tell you what, I will be happy to explain it, but we have to show you how it works. Rupert, will you get into the box with me, please?”
Everyone looked at the very important man and he nodded his permission.
The personal assistant put the box down and two Secret Service agents headed to Turgid and Rupert to lift them into the box. Once inside, the boys waited hopefully for the familiar whirring and whizzing and for the box to carry them to any time but this one, but nothing happened. Rupert’s heart did a nosedive. If the time machine stopped working, they were stuck here, in some future time in Washington, D.C. What would become of them?
“I see,” said the very important man. “I see that this box does nothing. Men, take it away.”
“WAIT!” shouted Turgid. “We have to be in the sunshine. I promise you that I will show you how the box works once we are outside. You must believe me. After all, you voted for me.”
“I didn’t,” said one of the agents, and everyone turned to glare at him.
“We can’t be shut up in a room and feel comfortable and, uh, talkative,” Turgid continued, “and, uh, able to do effective demonstrations.”
“Take them outside,” said the very important man. “After all, what can they do in the sunshine they can’t do here? They can’t get away with all of us surrounding them.”
“Besides,” said the personal assistant, “I’ve never known the president to want to get away. His life has been devoted to duty. His values are family, country—”
“For pity’s sake, Helen, the election is over,” said the very important man rudely.
Two of the agents picked up the box with Rupert and Turgid in it, and they all trooped down the hall again to the entrance of the White House and then down the front steps, which the security men had cleared for them. The agents put the box down and stepped back respectfully.
Rupert couldn’t imagine why Turgid was so insistent upon going outside. Even if they could get out of the carton, surrounded as they were, they would never make it off the lawn of the White House.
But Turgid clearly did have a plan, for he whispered in Rupert’s ear, “At the count of three, say Up!”
“What?” whispered Rupert back, sure he had heard wrong.
“Say Up. I’ve no time to explain. One, two, three…”
And so Rupert dutifully said Up. He said it with all his heart and soul. He said it with no idea what it meant. And to his surprise, without the usual whirring noises, the carton simply rose. It rose straight up so quickly that before he knew it, the faces of the upturned Secret Service agents and all the White House staff were just dots on the ground.
“Now,” said Turgid, happily turning to Rupert. “It’s your birthday. Where would you like to go?”
SIDEWAYS!” SAID Turgid before Rupert could answer and before they shot up into space. The box stopped its ascent and began traveling at a more leisurely pace, across the D.C. sky. It was slower than a helicopter but faster than a hot air balloon and just as eerily quiet.
“WOW!” said Rupert, looking down over the side of the box, for the boys were getting their first glimpse of the cars of the future. Even without the wonder of these, all of Washington, with its great buildings and monuments, was laid out below. Then Rupert got dizzy and had to sit down.
“Uncle Henry told me that he’d discovered by accident that the box can travel this way as well as through space and time,” said Turgid, leaning casually over the side of box, not bothered at all by the height. “Look at those people going on some kind of thing you stand on and it moves along hovering over the sidewalk. They’re not walking! They’re not on anything wheeled. What’s making them go? Wow.”
Rupert stood up to see this and then sat down again.
“That’s the Lincoln Memorial and that’s the Nationa
l Mall, kind of a big park, and that’s the Wall, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” Turgid continued excitedly, pointing down.
“How do you know all this?” asked Rupert.
“My dad took me and Sippy and Rollin here last year. He had business and he let us come. We saw almost everything, but what I really wanted to see was the National Air and Space Museum. I wanted to see the Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh’s plane. We never did though. We ended up having to leave before we could get to that museum because we took too long at the National Museum of American History. We couldn’t drag Sippy away from Judy Garland’s ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz.”
“So then let’s go see the Spirit of St. Louis now,” said Rupert.
“Really?” said Turgid. “It’s your birthday. You should be the one to pick.”
“No, I don’t even know what’s here, so I have no picks. Besides, if it weren’t for you, for your whole family, I would never have had any of these adventures,” said Rupert expansively, and then he immediately regretted it. Suppose Turgid asked what other adventures? He didn’t want to give away any family secrets.
But Turgid just nodded, looking rather troubled for reasons Rupert couldn’t guess, and said, “Down.”
“Is something bothering you?” Rupert asked.
“I’m just trying to figure something out,” said Turgid, and then they landed in a tree.
This was convenient more than not, for the leafy branches hid the boys as they folded up the box as best they could so they could carry it with them without attracting attention. The boys then slid down the trunk and landed with a plop. This drew some looks, for in Washington, D.C., people were not used to seeing boys sliding out of trees, especially one in a silk suit. But the boys walked on looking as though everything was quite ordinary, and after that no one paid them any mind.
Turgid had five dollars with him, so they went into a convenience store, bought a couple of Cokes, and asked for the largest bag they had. Because Rupert was wearing a silk suit, they got it. Then they sat outside on a bench, drank the Cokes, and put the box in the bag. Because Rupert still carried his bag of clothes, Turgid took charge of the bag with the box.
“Where is the National Air and Space Museum?” asked Rupert when they had finished their Cokes. The Coke was so wonderful it merely whetted his appetite for more. He wanted to ask Turgid if they didn’t have money for something else. A candy bar perhaps. But, of course, he could not.
“I’m not sure,” said Turgid, “but I remember it’s on the Mall, so if we just walk around the Mall we’ll see it. I’m sure we’ve time to look at the Spirit of St. Louis before those agents figure out where we landed. After all, they don’t know where we were headed, and even if they somehow saw the box go down from that distance with some futuristic device we can’t imagine, it will take them some time to catch up to and find us.”
As it turned out, the boys spotted the National Air and Space Museum within minutes of walking the perimeter of the Mall and dashed over. But as they reached it, Rupert stopped. “How do we get in?” he asked. “We only have the change from your five-dollar bill.”
“It’s free,” said Turgid. “All these national museums are free.”
Rupert was suddenly filled with pride to be a citizen of a country that opened its national treasures to everyone free of charge.
“To think,” he said as they walked up the museum steps, “that someday you’ll be president of this great country. I’ve been wondering about your DNA and—”
“Yes, me too,” interrupted Turgid. “And I’ve tried to find any other explanation, but I can’t. The only way I can have the president’s DNA is if we time traveled to the future to a time when I am president. It’s the worst news I’ve ever had in my life. This is terrible, Rupert, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Why do you need to fix it? It’s a great honor! And now you know what you’ll be when you grow up, and that it’s not just something good—it’s something SPECIAL.”
“That’s just the problem!” wailed Turgid suddenly. Several people turned and looked at them. “That’s just the problem,” he whispered this time. “I don’t want to be president. And now I know I have to be. All the other things that I think I might want to be, all the other possibilities, are gone. My life now totally lacks imagination. But as bad as that is, now with the time machine not working, I’m worried I’ll be stuck here and have to lead the free world as I am. And I’m not ready. My teacher says I am very advanced for twelve, but I’m not advanced enough for that.”
Rupert thought back to traveling with Uncle Henry and how they had speculated that only one version of yourself could exist at any one time. Now he thought this might be the case, for it sounded as if the president had disappeared when the younger Turgid showed up in the Oval Office. But he couldn’t tell Turgid this without revealing his adventure with Uncle Henry and he wasn’t sure Uncle Henry would want him to do this. Also, he thought, what difference did any of it make? The thing was to see the Spirit of St. Louis and get back to their own time.
“So let’s try to get out of here. Let’s take the time machine someplace private and get into it again,” said Rupert. “Maybe it was just a blip, like when you’re on a computer at school and the Internet doesn’t work for a minute and then it does.”
“Maybe,” said Turgid, but he still looked troubled.
The boys stopped speaking at that moment, all thoughts of time machines driven from their heads, for as they chatted they had entered the museum and before them hung the Spirit of St. Louis.
“He went across the ocean in that?” said Turgid breathlessly.
“Wow,” said Rupert. “Wow.”
“And that’s another thing I now can’t be,” said Turgid. “A pilot. I don’t want some stupid old desk job governing the United States. I want to fly!”
“Well, maybe you’ll become a pilot and the president.”
“Shall we ask someone? Do you think the average citizen would know if his president was also a pilot?”
“I think first we should find a bathroom and try the time machine before those secret service agents who are probably hot on our trail find us. Who knows what they will do to us after seeing our box fly away like that? Maybe this time they will throw us in some prison and we’ll never get out.”
“Good point,” said Turgid, and the boys fled to the nearest men’s room. There they went into the largest stall, opened the box up, and, with a great deal of difficult maneuvering, got into it. They stood hopefully while the minutes ticked by, but the box didn’t whir or vibrate.
“This box is dead,” said Turgid mournfully. “At least in terms of time travel. Oh, now what? Mother will have kittens if I’m not home by supper. And Uncle Henry will never be able to explain it. Mother is a very practical person. She’d never believe stories of a time machine.”
Rupert thought he knew a few things about Turgid’s mother that Turgid didn’t, but of course he couldn’t give away Mrs. Rivers’s secret.
“The time machine can’t be dead,” Turgid said desperately. “It can’t be. We must be able to find a way to fix it.”
“Well, I’ve had a sort of idea,” said Rupert shyly, for ever since Turgid had mentioned the ruby red slippers something had been stirring in his brain.
“What?” asked Turgid. “Hurry. I feel sure we’re going to be found and captured any second and it’s making me very nervous.”
“I don’t know…it seems sort of stupid,” said Rupert.
“For heaven’s sake. Anything is better than nothing, and I have no ideas,” said Turgid.
“Well, suppose we take the time machine to the National Museum of American History and put it next to the ruby red slippers. Maybe some of the magic from the slippers will seep into the time machine.”
“You’re right,” said Turgid. “That is stupid.”
Rupert’s face fell.
“In the first place,” said Turgid, “the ruby red slippers were a movie prop. They
weren’t real magic.”
“Well, on the other hand, some people might say this is just a box,” said Rupert, rallying.
“True,” said Turgid.
“And you said that something is better than nothing.”
“True,” said Turgid.
“And I hear the sound of people running around,” said Rupert. “They could be looking for us.”
“Fold up the box, quick!” said Turgid. “And let’s get out of here.”
The boys left the stall, folded the box and put it back in the bag, opened the men’s room door a crack, and peered out. They could see two men in dark suits with earpieces striding briskly about the entrance of the museum.
“They could be the museum’s own security,” said Rupert.
“They’re pacing back and forth like something important has happened. Like they’ve just been told to be on the lookout for two boys and a box,” said Turgid.
“We need a disguise,” said Rupert.
As he said that, a school group began departing one of the museum exhibits and heading toward them for a bathroom break before leaving.
“We’ll mix in with them,” said Turgid. “They’re roughly our age. We’ll try to get into the center of the group and go out that way.”
Rupert and Turgid had an agonizing wait while the boys in the group used the men’s bathroom, washed their hands, threw wads of paper towels into the wastebasket as if they were playing basketball, and, as far as Rupert and Turgid were concerned, generally wasted time! But finally the group gathered together again and Rupert and Turgid made sure they muscled their way in among the boys exiting the bathroom. Then, because the school group was raucous and chattering and the teacher was more than a little done with them, Rupert and Turgid managed to get out of the museum surrounded by the clustering children without anyone paying attention to them. Once outside, they broke away from the group and walked quickly to the National Museum of American History.
“What if they have guards on the lookout for us there too?” asked Rupert as they approached it.
“We need another school group,” said Turgid, looking frantically around, but unfortunately there was none readily available. What they did spy was a nice-looking older couple about to go in.
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