by Maggie Allen
She stumbled to the town, her ears – nay, her head – ringing like the inside of a bell. A group of men resolutely wasted water on a crackling building. She grabbed the nearest soot-covered firefighter.
“Don’t argue with me. Find an ax and break down these houses before the rest catch fire. Stop using water. We need sand. We need to go to the mine and get the oto-gajahs –”
“Ah Suan?” said the man. He dropped the bucket he was holding. “Ah Suan, you’re alive.”
“Pa?”
Suan’s father embraced her.
The ninth oto-gajah was rebuilt with help from a strange source, for the pawang knew a recipe for dragon-fire. The fire burned from an oily substance and grew when water was added to it. This type of burning gave more motive power and was more beneficial than gunpowder for the engine. Soon, oto-gajahs took over the work of the mine. Former miners became mahouts and begged for nothing.
Pa’s second wife and sons were lost to the fire. Suan missed them as much as she missed her own mother and brothers.
A lady came to visit and offered a balm. “She’s been to the Golden Hills, Pa. She’s been to places so hot the ground is sunburned. She’s been to places where the water is frozen, even from the sky. She’s spoken to everyone and seen everything. She’s so brave for a woman.”
“Brave for a man, too. Ah Suan, you will make her a good companion.”
“Oh. I never thought of leaving.”
The lady left, and in her wake Suan bubbled with ideas too large for the town she had grown up in and saved.
One dewy morning, Suan climbed the dragon-fire-fueled oto-gajah and took leave of her father.
“I’ll be back, Pa,” she said.
“Go slowly,” said her father, with an easy smile and a wave. In his heart, he knew that Suan would never come home. His daughter would grow, in body, mind and soul, away from his eyes. She would be replaced by a stranger. In his heart, Suan’s father cursed the luckless tin elephant.
The Sugimori Sisters and the Time Machine Conflict
Brigid Collins
Brigid Collins is a fantasy and science fiction writer living in Michigan. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction River, The 2015 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, and The MCB Quarterly. Books one and two of her fantasy series, Songbird River Chronicles, are available in print and electronic versions on Amazon and Kobo. You can sign up for her newsletter at tinyletter.com/HarmonicStories.
Bright sunlight came through the large square windows to the left of the student desks. It glinted off the bookshelf under the window, bounced from the blue and green globe in the corner by the teacher’s desk, slid past the poster of the Declaration of Independence tacked to the white wall, and fell in a big splotch on the chalkboard at the front of the classroom, turning the middle of the board lime green and highlighting the neatly written words: “History paper final draft due Friday”.
Despite the fact history was not Ellen Sugimori’s favorite class, excitement ran through her. The teacher would hand back their rough drafts at the end of class today, with her comments attached. Ellen couldn’t wait to see how much Ms. Haley loved her paper on the Japanese tea ceremony.
While Ellen’s classmates shared nervous glances, all worried about the extra work they would clearly have to do to polish their papers to a perfect final draft, Ellen smiled at her own genius.
Being of Japanese descent, Ellen went to Japanese school every Saturday. After an exciting adventure with Little Sister last summer, Ellen had done a project about the Japanese tea ceremony. Everyone at Japanese school had loved it, and the teacher called it the best project of the lesson.
When Ms. Haley announced the History paper two weeks ago, Ellen only had to tweak her project a little and write the presentation into a paper. It was the easiest paper Ellen had written all year, and she never even needed to step foot in the school’s creepy, haunted library. She was dying to read Ms. Haley’s praise.
“All right, class,” Ms. Haley said, scooping up the pile of papers. “Once you’ve got your rough draft, you’re free to go. Please read the comments carefully and work hard on your final drafts.”
Ellen held her breath as Ms. Haley moved up and down the rows. Finally, the teacher reached her desk. Ellen grinned and reached for her paper. Ms. Haley smiled back, but in a funny way, with her lips very thin.
Ellen looked at her rough draft.
At the very top of the page, in red ink, read the words “Please do more research. This paper does not properly discuss the history involved.”
Ellen’s jaw dropped. She flipped through the pages to find them covered in more red notes.
By now, her classmates had filtered out into the hallway, and Ellen was alone with Ms. Haley.
“Did you have any questions for me, Ellen?” Ms. Haley asked. She smiled that thin-lipped smile again.
Ellen swallowed and turned back to the first page of her paper. “I don’t understand. Everyone at Japanese school liked this project.”
“It’s a very good project, Ellen, and I know you’re excited about the tea ceremony,” Ms. Haley said, “but you didn’t include any of the history. Why don’t you go down to the library and do some research? I bet you’d find that period of Japan’s history fascinating.”
Ellen gulped and tried to ignore how her hands trembled at the mention of the library.
Unable to speak around the burn of misery in her throat, Ellen nodded and shuffled out of the classroom, her rough draft crumpled in her hand.
Laughter echoed in the halls as Ellen trudged through the crowd of students. It was the sixth graders’ lunch period, but Ellen couldn’t join in with her classmates’ jokes. She wasn’t even hungry anymore, though at the beginning of class she’d been dreaming of the bento box her mom had packed her.
Ellen grimaced. Even thinking of the onigiri, usually her favorite Japanese food, made her stomach do flip-flops.
The route to the cafeteria carried the students past the school library, and Ellen glanced at the heavy-looking doors as she came up to them. A shiver went down her spine at the sight of their dark wood. They didn’t even have the little windows all the classroom doors had.
Casting one look down to the cafeteria, Ellen sighed and squeezed her rough draft. Her lunch was ruined anyway.
The cool metal handle of the left-hand door tingled against her palm, but the door itself was not as heavy as it looked, and it swung open easily when Ellen pulled. When she stepped inside, the door closed again with a soft click. Silence descended as if the library door were some magical barrier against the noise of the sixth graders beyond it.
The air was so still and musty inside the library that Ellen thought she must be the only person here. The librarian’s desk stood abandoned when she turned to look. Still, Ellen found herself tiptoeing past the desk and to the shelves.
Just because the librarian wasn’t there to yell at her didn’t mean she wanted anyone, or anything, else to hear her. Was it her imagination, or were the dim lights flickering?
Ellen shivered and crept into the history section to search for books on Japan. She’d find her books and get out of here before the ghosts could catch her.
She was reaching for a book, her fingers about to brush the stiff spine, when she heard a sound.
A soft thump and the hiss of paper sliding on paper slithered from the shelves behind Ellen.
Ellen gasped and snatched her hand back. She turned towards the sound, keeping her back pressed against the bookshelf. If a library ghost was coming for her, she wouldn’t let it jump on her from behind.
She held her breath and strained her ears, listening into the silence.
The papery sound came again. It was closer this time.
Ellen’s heart pounded, and when she heard footsteps coming nearer, she couldn’t stop the tiny whimper that escaped her.
The footsteps picked up at her sound. Ellen tensed to run, ready to abandon her research to save herself. What was a bad grade on a paper com
pared to being caught by a ghost?
But just as she leapt out from the Japanese History section, someone else came from around the other side of the shelf. The two of them collided painfully, and Ellen fell to the floor, her rough draft fluttering out of her hands.
“Owwww! Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” said the other person.
Ellen gasped. “Little Sister? What are you doing here?”
Sprawled beside her on the stiff, floral-patterned carpet was Risako, a scowl on her face and papers scattered around her.
“I’m doing research, what does it look like?” Risako said. She gathered her papers into a neat bundle, tapping them on the floor to straighten them out.
Ellen glanced around for the ghost she’d heard, but she soon determined that there had been no ghost. This time.
“You scared me, Little Sister,” she said finally, pushing herself to her feet. “I thought you were one of the library ghosts.”
Little Sister snorted. “There’s no scientific evidence to say that ghosts exist. You can be scared of them if you want, but I prefer to stick to scientific fact.”
Ellen rolled her eyes and kept glancing over her shoulders. She didn’t see any harm in being careful.
“What are you researching?” Ellen asked, finally satisfied that no ghosts were hanging around.
Risako scowled at her notes. “I’m looking for information on Galileo’s findings on the moons of Jupiter for the first-grader science fair, but the school library doesn’t have the sources I need.”
“What do you need to know?” Ellen asked.
“I want his thought process, what observations he made each night, what sort of materials he used to make his telescope. I don’t think I’m using the right brand of paper towel tubes.”
Ellen kept herself from rolling her eyes. Little Sister was smart for a first grader, but sometimes Ellen wondered if she had a firm grasp on reality.
“Sounds like you really just want to talk to him, then,” Ellen said, thinking suddenly of her own research. How cool would it be to discuss the tea ceremony with an ancient Japanese emperor?
Oblivious to Ellen’s daydreaming, Little Sister turned back to the book shelves. “Well, I was hoping to have my time machine out of the prototype stage before testing it, but I might have to risk it if I can’t find what I need for my science project.”
Ellen snapped out of her thoughts of kimono and samurai and whirled to follow Little Sister. “A time machine? I thought you were getting your spaceship ready for another flight?” Ellen knew she had seen Little Sister tinkering around her cardboard monstrosity in the back yard last weekend. Ellen still couldn’t believe it had actually taken them to Mars.
“Oh, I am,” Little Sister said, digging around in her backpack. “The time machine is a side project. I’m trying to keep this machine compact.”
She held out her favorite yellow wristwatch. A bundle of red and blue pipe cleaners was tangled around the band on either side of the face, and a small cardboard circle hung on the end of one pipe cleaner. Ellen saw scribbles in black crayon on the circle, but she couldn’t make out what they might mean.
Ellen looked up to meet Little Sister’s gaze. “That’s a time machine?”
“Like I said, it’s a prototype.”
“But it can take us back in time?”
Little Sister fiddled with the arrangement of the pipe cleaners and twisted the dial on the side of the watch. “It can, but it’s only strong enough right now for one trip and the return.” Little Sister sighed. “I planned to test it out by going back to two days ago and keeping Mom from having natto at dinner, but my science project is more important.”
Ellen and Little Sister shared a grimace at the memory of the sticky, stinky, slimy mess of soy beans they’d had to choke down. Little Sister obviously hadn’t tested her time machine yet if Ellen still remembered their unfortunate dinner.
Little Sister shook her head as if to get rid of the memory and fiddled with the watch dial again. “Do you want to come with me to meet Galileo?”
Ellen chewed her lip, considering. “I really need to fix my history paper. We should go back to the invention of the tea ceremony.”
“What? No, I’m visiting Galileo for my science fair project. We can go see the tea ceremony once I’ve got the machine out of the prototype stage.”
Ellen grabbed at the time machine. “My paper is due next week, I can’t wait for the next version. We’re going to feudal Japan!”
Little Sister squirmed out of Ellen’s reach, clutching the watch against her chest. “My science project is due next week, too! It’s my machine, so you’ll have to wait.”
“I’m older than you,” Ellen countered, reaching out again. “Give me that machine!”
“Make your own!”
With a growl like their neighbor’s dog, Ellen lunged across the aisle to crash into Little Sister, knocking them both against the shelf of Asian history books. She ignored the books tumbling to the floor around her and grabbed at the yellow watch.
As her finger brushed against the cardboard circle, a sickening jolt tugged somewhere behind her belly button. Colors swirled around her, and the bookshelves melted together into a twirling vortex. Wind roared past Ellen’s ears, and the strong scent of copper overwhelmed her. She couldn’t feel the library’s stiff carpet under her knees anymore.
Lying beside her, Little Sister glared up at Ellen. “What are you doing? Did you even set the time destination?”
“No,” Ellen said. “I didn’t do anything! How do you work this thing?”
“Let go of it, I’ll fix it!”
“No way,” Ellen said. “You’ll take us to see Galileo. Just tell me how to set it.”
As the colors danced around them and the noise rose to the roar of a freight train, Ellen and Little Sister grappled over the yellow wristwatch. Little Sister tugged on the band, and for a moment, Ellen thought she’d lost control of it. With a sharp jerk, she pulled the watch back.
The machine slid out of Little Sister’s hands, and the vortex of colors stopped. Heavy heat descended on them, and a sticky-sweet scent rose up from the canopy of green, leafy trees below them.
Ellen screamed. The trees rushed up to meet them, and Ellen braced herself for impact.
Branches and broad leaves whipped at her as she tumbled through them. The snap and crack of breaking branches came like a typhoon. If she made it to the ground with any of her bones unbroken, it would be a miracle.
Finally, the wild descent came to a halt. Her head spun, and it took her a moment to realize she had reached the ground. In fact, she was lying in something cool and wet. She felt it seeping into her hair and school clothes. Ooh, Mom was going to throw a fit.
“Ellen!” Little Sister called from somewhere above her.
Ellen struggled to keep from sinking into the sucking mud and sat up. Her whole body ached, and scratches stung on her arms and legs, but she didn’t think any bones were broken. A miracle, after all!
“Ellen, help!” Little Sister cried.
Ellen looked up and found Little Sister dangling from a branch, the back of her school blouse snagged on the end of it. The tree looked odd, with its long, pointy leaves and gray bark, yet Ellen thought she’d seen a picture of something like it before.
Ellen stood and stepped away from the mud puddle. It stank, and the thick heat settling over her made her want to gag. She moved into the huge ferns at the base of Little Sister’s tree and hoped the big fronds would scrape some of the mud from her clothes. Instead, the yellow spores hiding on the curled undersides stuck to her skin. Ellen grimaced. She looked like she had a bad, yellow case of the chicken pox.
“Get me down from here,” Little Sister said, swinging her legs.
Ellen scowled up at her. “Serves you right. Where are we? When are we? This isn’t feudal Japan.”
“I have no idea! You never even let me look at the time machine. Get me down.”
Ellen trudged over t
o the tree trunk and wrinkled her nose at the long, amber trails of sap oozing all over the rough gray bark. “Ugh, get yourself down. I’m not touching that tree. And if you had just worked with me instead of trying to take us to see Galileo, we wouldn’t be in this swamp... jungle... thing.”
“You’re already all messy,” Little Sister pointed out. “You landed in the mud. Look, you got my time machine dirty.”
Ellen glanced back at the mud puddle. The yellow wristband flashed out of the muck, the red and blue pipe cleaners looking like they’d been through a particularly clogged pipe.
Ellen tromped back into the sloppy ground, trying not to breathe, and scooped up the watch.
“Maybe I’ll just go back home myself,” she said, not looking at Little Sister. Risako could always tell when Ellen was lying.
This time was no different. “You can’t work the time machine without me. Besides, Mom will ground you for a million years if you leave me in a tree in... whenever this is. Get me down, and I’ll figure out when we are.”
Ellen sighed. The mud was drying on her skin and clothes, and sweat dripped down her entire body. She was oozing just like that tree, and the unforgiving heat of this place mixed with the stink of the mud puddle made breathing near impossible. She was tired of fighting with Little Sister. They’d both lost their chance at visiting someone in the past. It was time to go home.
“Ellen!” Little Sister screamed.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Ellen said, turning back.
But Little Sister kept screaming, her eyes bugged out and her arms and legs windmilling like she was trying to backstroke.
The leaves behind Ellen rustled, and she whirled just in time to see a huge, rust-orange creature fly out of the canopy, swooping towards the branch where Little Sister dangled.
Leathery bat-wings sent the humid air swirling, and a long, pointed beak full of tiny teeth opened as the pterodactyl stretched its taloned feet towards Little Sister.
