The Green Futures of Tycho

by William Sleator

  He hid behind some bushes near the fence and put on the fins. He checked and rechecked the dials. He remembered to look at his watch. It was a quarter to eight. Just as he pressed down on the green end, he heard a shout from the house. But there was no time to see who it was or to stop himself now.

  He felt faint.

  And then it was late afternoon, July 4, five years in the past.

  The little buds on the bushes were now thick leaves, and the temperature had gone up about twenty degrees. Tycho pushed the leaves aside and peered out into the yard. They weren’t there yet. He considered moving ahead an hour or so, but then decided against it. The incident had occurred shortly before they had a picnic supper on the lawn. He would not have to wait very long.

  Then the screen door banged and a little girl ran outside. It was ten-year-old Tamara, shorter and plumper, but already with long legs and her hair in a bun. Little eight-year-old Leo tore out of the house behind her, pumping his fat legs furiously but unable to catch up with her. She raced to the big oak tree in the middle of the yard and threw her arms around it. “I touched it first!” she shouted. “I’m the winner.”

  “Not fair! Not fair!” shrieked Leonardo, plodding to a halt beside the tree. “You had a head start.”

  “I did not! I just run faster. I’m the fastest one in ballet class. I deserve to win.” She did one sloppy pirouette and fell down. Her dancing, if nothing else, had improved in five years.

  Then Ludwig sauntered out, whistling, his hands in his pockets. Already his lank black hair was falling into his eyes. He was eleven, but several inches shorter than present-day Tycho. It felt good to be taller than all of them.

  “Come on, quit squabbling, you two,” said Ludwig. “It’s a holiday. Let’s have some fun.”

  “How can we have fun?” pouted Leonardo. “There won’t be any fireworks until it gets dark.”

  “But I have a couple of firecrackers,” said Ludwig. “And look who’s coming now.”

  Six-year-old Tycho wandered out of the house, fumbling with a flimsy plastic yo-yo. He would painstakingly wind it up, let it drop. But then it would not come back up to his hand, and he would have to wind it up all over again. The others gathered together, whispering, making plans.

  Watching the scene was like studying a magical photograph album, with pictures that moved. But unlike most albums, it did not show only what was pretty or polite. It showed all the miserable details. Looking at it was not a very pleasant experience, but it was addictive. Tycho could not tear his eyes away.

  “Come over here, Tycho,” cooed Tamara. “I’ll show you how to work that mean old yo-yo. I’ll help you.”

  Tycho looked up at her, puzzled. Even at six he could tell there was something artificial about her behavior. But he did want to learn how to work the yo-yo. He handed it to her, not noticing Ludwig and Leonardo hurrying away.

  When they returned with an apple, Tycho’s eyes were still glued to the yo-yo. He barely looked up at them, and certainly did not notice that the apple had been cored, and a firecracker pushed into the hole. “Can I try it now?” he asked Tamara, reaching for the yo-yo.

  “No, not yet, Tycho. It’s still my turn. You have to learn how to share things.”

  “But I thought you were just going to show me how to use it,” Tycho protested. “You can play with your own yo-yo whenever you want.”

  “But I like this one,” said Tamara, moving away from him.

  Tycho started after her, but Ludwig stopped him with an upraised hand. “Tycho, did you know that I was magic?” Ludwig asked him.

  “No, I didn’t,” Tycho said without interest. “I just want my yo-yo back.”

  “Wait a minute, Tycho. See this apple?” Ludwig held it up. “I’m going to do magic and make it disappear.”

  “Huh?” Tycho said. He looked up at the apple skeptically. “How can you make it disappear?”

  “I told you. With magic,” Ludwig insisted. The others snickered.

  Tycho sighed. “I just want my yo-yo,” he said.

  “If you don’t stop talking about that stupid yo-yo, Ludwig won’t show you anything,” snapped Leonardo. “Don’t you want to see the apple disappear?”

  “Okay, I’ll watch,” Tycho said. “Then can I have my yo-yo?”

  “We’ll see,” said Tamara, casually swinging the yo-yo back and forth.

  “Now watch, Tycho,” Ludwig said. He bent over and set the apple down on the grass. “See? It’s just a regular apple, right?”

  “I guess so,” said Tycho.

  “Now look at my hands,” ordered Ludwig. “Watch them carefully. Don’t look at anything else. These are the magic passes that will make the apple disappear.”

  In the bushes, Tycho watched his younger self dutifully study Ludwig’s hand movements. He also watched Leonardo quickly bend over with a match and light the firecracker inside the apple. He wanted to interrupt now, but forced himself to wait until the right moment.

  “Okay, now watch the apple!” Ludwig cried out, stepping back and moving his hands faster. “Abracadabra, Kabam!”

  The apple exploded with a sharp crack, its tiny fragments flying to the edges of the yard, so that it almost did seem to disappear.

  “Oh, what wonderful magic!” Tamara cried shrilly.

  “Now can I have my yo-yo?” Tycho said.

  “Is that stupid yo-yo all you can think about?” Ludwig demanded, angry now. “Didn’t you see what just happened?”

  “You blew up the apple with a firecracker,” Tycho said blandly, obviously unimpressed. “After all, it is the Fourth of July.”

  Now Ludwig was furious that Tycho had seen through his little trick. “So it doesn’t interest you to see an apple disappear, huh, Tycho?” he said. “Well, then, let’s just try something else. Give me that yo-yo, Tamara.”

  “Wait a minute, what are you going to do?” Tycho said quickly, reaching out.

  “Grab him, Leo,” Ludwig ordered.

  Leonardo grabbed Tycho’s arms and pinioned them behind his back. Tycho struggled, but could not get away.

  “Watch this, Tycho. This should impress you,” Ludwig said, as he stuffed two firecrackers into the crack in the yo-yo. He set it down on the grass and brought out a match.

  “No, Ludwig, please,” Tycho begged him, writhing furiously in Leonardo’s grip. “Not my new yo-yo.”

  The moment had come. Expertly Tycho spun the dials, traveled back one hour, hurried across the empty yard. He reset the dials and moved one hour ahead, returning to the moment he had left.

  What the others saw was a tall figure in black suddenly materializing out of nowhere.

  Tamara screamed. It was one of the loveliest sounds Tycho had ever heard. “I have come!” Tycho cried out. He lifted his hands above his head and turned to stare at each of them in turn, his strange, squashed face inside the stocking wrinkling into a kind of smile. “You called me, and I have come.”

  “Who … who are you? Where did you come from?” asked Ludwig, failing to sound tough. “Go away. This is our yard.”

  “But you called me, and now I cannot go away.” He lurched around on the fins. Ludwig, Tamara and Leonardo backed away slightly. “I cannot go away unless I take one of you with me,” he growled.

  “Take him! Take him!” squealed Leonardo, terrified, pointing at little Tycho.

  “No!” Tycho bellowed, raising his arms again and stretching himself up on his toes. “Never that one. He is the special one, he is to be protected.” Little Tycho watched him numbly, his mouth open, while the others exchanged worried glances. Tycho hunched over inside the black robe and twisted his hands together. “The rest of you can be toyed with. You have no destiny.” He approached Ludwig and leaned over him. “How about you? Would you like to come with me?”

  “No!” said Ludwig, then added quickly, “I’m not afraid of you. You’re just somebody dressed up, trying to scare us.”

  “Oh I am, am I?” Tycho said softly. He was prepared for this. He pressed
the green end and traveled ten seconds into the future. To them, he vanished for ten seconds and then reappeared. If they had not fully appreciated his first appearance, this disappearing and returning act would make up for it.

  It did. They were nearly in shock now, on the verge of running away. There was not much time left. He turned to his former self, who was trembling, as frightened as the others. “But you need not be afraid,” he said, as gently as possible. “Especially not of them.” He gestured contemptuously, then bent over and handed Tycho the yo-yo. “There is nothing they can do to you. You are special, set apart. Your destiny is dazzling, marvelous! Wait and see.”

  He spun around to the others, who were huddled in a pale little group. “And as for you, my fine little fiends! Your charming games have prepared you well for your unfortunate destiny. But I am kind. I will let you off this time, and not take one of you away with me. Next time, I will not be so lenient. Till we meet again!” With one arm he made a gesture of farewell, then traveled eight hours into the future.

  The sun blinked out. It was the middle of the night. Tycho was out of breath, his heart pumping heavily. He sank back against the tree, exhausted.

  As he calmed down a bit and the adrenaline rush was gone, he did not feel particularly satisfied. He pushed himself away from the tree and walked slowly to his hiding place in the bushes. What had been the result of the little spectacle he had just pulled off? And what were the long-term effects of his interference with the past? He had prevented the yo-yo from being destroyed. Could it have made any changes in the present?

  The questions were far more complicated than he had imagined, and bewildering. He did not want to think about them now. He only wanted to go back to the humdrum present, to solid, comfortable reality where he could dig his garden. The enigmas of past and future could be solved later on.

  Fortunately the moon was bright enough for him to see the dials. He set them carefully. Then he pressed down on the green end, felt faint, and returned one minute after he had left, fourteen minutes to eight on Sunday morning.

  Then he remembered the shout he had heard as he left. Squinting in the sudden bright sunlight, he crouched down behind the thinly budding branches and looked up at the house. Ludwig was peering curiously out of an upstairs window. In a moment he disappeared.

  Tycho. tore the goggles off his head and ripped at the stocking, which split in half. He struggled to pull the pieces away from his face, then dropped the robe to the ground and kicked off the fins. As he hurried toward the garden plot, he shoved the egg into his pocket. Oddly, he had trouble squeezing it in, as though it were the wrong shape. These were the same pants he had worn yesterday, and the pocket had swallowed it up then. But he had no time to wonder about it now. When Ludwig ran out of the house, Tycho was down on his knees, crumbling the earth between his fingers.

  Ludwig’s long, early morning shadow fell across the patch of turned-over soil. He kicked some dirt over onto Tycho’s arm and said, “Where were you a minute ago?”

  Tycho looked up at him, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean, where was I?” he said. “I was right here. What about it?”

  Ludwig shrugged and cracked his knuckles. “Oh, I don’t know. I just thought I saw something funny out here, that’s all.” His eyes wandered toward the bushes.

  Ludwig had seen him in the bushes. There was no way Tycho could pretend he hadn’t been there. If he lied, Ludwig might go and look and see the costume, and that had to be prevented. Tycho sat back on his heels. “Well, I did go back and poke around in the bushes to see if the earth was any richer there. I thought I might bring some over if it was. But it looked the same. Since when are you so interested in gardening?”

  “I couldn’t care less about gardening,” said Ludwig, looking down at him steadily as he cracked his knuckles again. “But I do care about the weird things that have been happening. You’re hiding something; don’t think I haven’t noticed. I’m going to find out what it is.”

  “You’re nuts,” Tycho said casually, turning back to the earth. He waited. Was Ludwig going to go away, or was he going to check the bushes? Hurry up, Tycho urged him silently. But Ludwig just stood there, cracking his knuckles, whistling an irritating, high-pitched tune.

  “How come you keep cracking your knuckles like that?” Tycho asked him.

  “Why shouldn’t I? I’ve always done it.”

  “You have?” Tycho said, feeling an odd twinge. “Funny, I never … Oh, well.” He stood up and brushed off his hands. He hated to leave the bushes unguarded, but it was the only way to kill Ludwig’s suspicions and get rid of him. “Time to start planting,” he went on. “I’m going to go get my seeds. Do you want to help?”

  “No thanks,” said Ludwig. He ran a hand through his bristly crew-cut hair. “I have to practice, and I don’t think mud on the keys would help.” And he went back into the house at last.

  Tycho felt uncomfortable at breakfast, tongue-tied and a bit dazed. It had to be because of the strange adventure he had had so early in the day. He was ravenous, and devoured three helpings of sausage and mushrooms on toast, and two large pieces of coffee cake. He spent the rest of the morning planting seeds. He made a point of yawning several times at lunch, and mentioned that gardening in the sun had made him sleepy. When he had finished his peanut butter and salami sandwich, he went up to his room, closed the door, and lay down on his bed. He pulled the egg out of his pocket.

  And then he was sitting up, feeling his stomach contract and his pulse pounding in his ears as he stared down at the thing in his hand. He blinked and shook his head, but his eyes were not playing tricks.

  The egg had changed.

  8

  THE GREEN END HAD BECOME SHARPLY FACETED, like a jewel, and the color was more intense than it had been. The dials were clearer now. They no longer looked etched into the metal, but had dimension and relief. And wrapped around the middle of the egg was a thin glittering filament.

  Tycho pored over it carefully for several minutes, not even trying to think. Then he forced it into his pocket and stretched out on the bed. He couldn’t begin to imagine what this sudden metamorphosis might mean. Sophisticated though it was, the egg must be some kind of machine, and machines do not spontaneously change.

  Did that mean it was more than a machine? Could it be alive? But it didn’t eat or breathe or try to communicate, as a living thing would do. There was more to the thing than he might ever be able to comprehend. This thought only added to the confusion he felt about the possible effects of interfering with the past. And what about that horrible future he had visited in the bathroom, with the green bulbous shapes and the ruined house and the awful stench? What was that all about, and how distant was it? What was he getting himself into?

  The gardening really did seem to have made him sleepy. He closed his eyes and soon drifted off. The voices in his dream were like music, the stories they told weaving an endless silvery tune. The dim vistas and the figures moving through them were only half-seen, drifting colors and shapes. What was so beautiful and so seductive was that it did not matter that he could not understand what they were telling him. It did not matter at all.

  -A brutal thumping sound and an unpleasant ordinary voice dragged him away from the dream. He opened his eyes to find Tamara standing in the doorway. “Come on, Tycho, get up,” she told him. “Judy says you can’t sleep all day. You still have your chores and studying and projects to work on.” She glared at him, then pushed her head forward aggressively. “Come on, Tycho, you can’t just lie there all day. Get up!”

  Tycho rubbed his eyes and peered at her from the pillow. Something was wrong. He felt more dazed than ever as he sat up slowly. “Tamara,” he said huskily. “Since when … since when did you have braces?”

  “Huh?” she said, wrinkling her forehead at him. “What’s the matter with you? I’ve had the stupid things since I was thirteen.”

  “Have you?” he said. Now that he was beginning to be wide awake, the braces did no
t seem strange after all. “Oh, that’s right. Funny, that I would forget something so obvious.”

  “Obvious?” Tamara lifted her carefully drawn eyebrows. “Thanks a lot, Tycho. That makes me feel great.”

  “But I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Yes you did.” She was almost crying, which was not like her. “Why do you always make fun of me? You know how self-conscious I am about my braces. I’m telling Judy.” She turned and flounced away.

  He spent the rest of the day in the basement, cleaning and polishing and adjusting his telescope. It was an activity he knew would mollify Bobby and Judy, and he wanted the dust to settle. He had allowed too many odd things to happen. He had to be very careful now not to give anything else away. After dinner he even remembered to steal out into the yard, get the bathrobe, and smuggle it back into Bobby’s closet without being noticed—and without using the egg.

  From now on, he decided, he would only use it late at night, after everyone had gone to bed. That way, sudden comings and goings would be less noticeable. And he would also have something to look forward to every day. And tonight he would do something purely for fun, that could not possibly have any serious repercussions.

  He lay awake in bed for an hour that night, then got out his flashlight and burrowed under the covers. The dials were easier to work now, and he set them with great care. Then he forced himself to wait there, restless in the darkness, for a while longer. This jump could not be made from inside the house, and he had to be sure no one heard him go outside.

  As he waited, he went over his plan again and again, until he had convinced himself he was not making another mistake. The past had already gone by; it was probably just as well not to mess with it. His past in particular had been miserable. He knew what had happened. Why dwell on it?