Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp

by Nathan Bransford

  Chloe nodded and seemed satisfied.

  “But Chlo, those are really bad people. You don’t know what you’re mixed up in. They want to kill Jacob. And all kinds of other people. They’re scary and dangerous and mean.”

  Chloe winced and nodded. “I know that now. I do. Luger is really, really weird. But why would Mom and Dad want to help people who are scary and dangerous?”

  Sarah wasn’t sure she could answer that question and it gnawed at her. She didn’t know. She loved her parents and it was terrifying to find out that they could be involved in something so strange. She was so used to doing what her parents said and going along with their orders, she hadn’t ever stopped to consider they might be wrong about something. That maybe they had dark sides that Sarah had never before seen clearly.

  “I think our parents are mixed up with bad people,” Sarah said.

  Chloe started crying again, and Sarah cried too and grabbed her sister and hugged her.

  “But that doesn’t mean we’re bad people,” Sarah whispered.

  Catalina grabbed Jacob’s hand when they were safely aboard the spaceship Mick Jr.

  “Darling, I’m so glad we’re finally together,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “Why don’t we go somewhere and talk?”

  Jacob let go of her hand and grabbed Mick by the shirt instead. “We have to go back for Dexter.”

  Mick looked down at Jacob’s clenched hand.

  “Mick Jr.?” Mick said, still looking at Jacob’s hand. “A cup of tea, please.”

  “With pleasure,” Mick Jr. answered.

  A tray emerged from the wall holding a small black saucer with steaming tea. Mick grabbed it and slurped a sip, grimacing at the bitterness.

  “Ah,” Mick said. “That’s nice.”

  Jacob released Mick’s shirt but kept staring daggers at him. He was prepared for all of Mick’s traps this time. He wouldn’t be distracted. He wouldn’t let Mick warp without him. He wouldn’t fall for any of Mick’s lies. He would be in charge.

  “We have to go back,” Jacob said, his voice firm and even.

  Mick shook his head. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m disappointed in you,” Mick said, taking another sip of tea.

  “Darling,” Catalina said, grabbing Jacob’s hand again. “Wouldn’t you like to spend some time catching up? I have so much to tell you.”

  “No. We’re going back,” Jacob said.

  Mick set the saucer of tea back on the tray and it disappeared with a faint hiss. “It’s a trap. A hostage situation. We’ll never win.”

  Jacob realized how little he knew about Luger’s power. He had only seen Luger and Chloe in the forest, but for all he knew, Luger could have warped an entire medieval army into the forest, just waiting to trap them and steal the time machine. Luger may have known not to tip his hand ahead of time. If Jacob and Mick warped straight back to the forest, they might fall right into Luger’s trap.

  “There,” Mick said. “You understand. Care for a cup of tea? Mick Jr. makes a mean Earl Grey.”

  “The best in the universe,” Mick Jr. said.

  Jacob turned around and walked away without answering. He needed time to think.

  “Jakey, darling,” Catalina said as she caught him on the way.

  “Not now!” Jacob shouted. He winced at her pained expression and felt a wave of guilt. He always found himself being rude to her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Yeah, you can come with me. Just not him.” He jerked his finger back at Mick.

  Catalina clapped happily.

  “And hey, Mick Jr.?” Jacob said. “If you listen in on Catalina and me, I’m going to paint you purple from nose to fin.”

  Mick Jr. was silent for a moment. “I’m still smarter than you,” he said.

  “And please make me a chocolate milk,” Jacob said.

  Jacob thought he felt the ship shudder. “With extreme . . . displeasure. Sir.”

  A tray emerged from the wall and Jacob took a sip of the chocolate milk. It was actually pretty good.

  Jacob and Catalina walked into one of the staterooms and Jacob shut the door. The sheets on the bed were orange and Jacob wondered if Mick Jr. had changed them for him knowing it was his favorite color. Or maybe it was a trap and he would be captured if he went near the bed. He sat down in one of the chairs in the room to be on the safe side. Catalina took a seat opposite of him.

  He braced himself for what she was going to say. He knew she had a crush on him no matter how much he resisted her, and he found it rather exasperating. The word no was not in Catalina’s vocabulary. It never occurred to her that anything she had her mind set on was not completely possible and within her grasp. It was one of the things Jacob admired about her, but it meant he always had to keep his distance. He looked away so as not to give her any ideas.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Jacob mumbled.

  “Us!” Catalina said.

  Jacob sighed. It was worse than he feared. She wasn’t usually so direct. “Catalina . . .”

  “Do you know why I like you, Jakey?” Catalina asked.

  Jacob averted his eyes and stared at the floor. “Why?”

  Catalina held out her hand. He didn’t reach for hers, so she scooted closer and took his hand anyway.

  “It’s not because you’re handsome, even though you’re very handsome. It’s not because you’re fun, even though you’re very, very fun. It’s not because you’re tough, even though you are.”

  Jacob’s face felt warm and he hoped he wasn’t blushing.

  “It’s because you’re confident, Jakey. You can do anything and you know it.”

  Jacob blinked. He had never thought about himself that way. In fact, he had always thought Catalina was the confident one. She seemed like she knew she could do anything. Was he the same way? Was that how other people saw him? Maybe he and Catalina had more in common than he had thought.

  “Thanks,” he said, and this time he looked her in the eye when he said it.

  Catalina smiled. “And I have something for you.”

  Jacob couldn’t imagine what she wanted to give him, and he tried to tease out the meaning of her facial expression.

  She took out a key. It looked like . . .

  “It’s the third time machine,” she said. “I’ve been trying to give it to you this whole time.”

  She handed it over to him and he ran his fingers over its rough outlines. It almost felt rusted and yet it possessed unlimited power. He didn’t have to steal Mick’s time machine. He didn’t have to try and outsmart Luger to get the one Chloe had lost. He could go anywhere and do anything, thanks to Catalina.

  “Thanks,” Jacob said, though he couldn’t help but hesitate. “Are you sure you want to give it to me?”

  Catalina squeezed his hand. “Go find your dad,” she said.

  Jacob knew where he wanted to warp. He finally had a plan. He wasn’t sure it would solve everything, but for the first time since he had heard his dad was missing, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

  But he couldn’t go there yet. He turned the time machine over in his hand.

  “Thank you, Catalina. I will find my dad,” he said. He slipped the time machine into his pocket. “But first I have to save Dexter.”

  Sarah squeezed Chloe’s shoulder in terror when she heard the front door open.

  “Ow!” Chloe yelped.

  “Shh,” Sarah whispered.

  There were footsteps downstairs. Their parents were home.

  “Tell me about your feelings?” Sarah’s dad called out.

  “Sarah? Chloe?” Sarah’s mom said. “Please come downstairs.”

  “This instant,” Sarah’s dad said.

  Sarah and Chloe locked eyes and didn�
��t move.

  “What do we do?” Chloe asked.

  Sarah didn’t know. Her life had been upended. Before, the sound of her parents coming home would have seemed comfortable, familiar, even exciting. Now she was scared of them and didn’t know if she could trust them. Sarah knew deep down that they loved her, but she felt torn. They most definitely did not want what was best for Jacob Wonderbar and Mick and all the Astrals she had grown to care about. They were still her parents, but she knew in her heart of hearts that they were wrong.

  “We have to find Jacob,” Sarah whispered. “He’ll know what to do.”

  Chloe nodded. There was fear in her eyes, but Sarah also saw appreciation. They were a team now, and instead of feeling like Chloe was a little flea on her back, always biting and making her life miserable, she felt protective of her instead. Chloe was her little sister, and two Daisys working together were a powerful force indeed.

  Sarah heard the footsteps on the stairs.

  “Sarah?” her mom said.

  “Chloe?” her dad said.

  There was a rattle at the door handle and suddenly Sarah’s parents were in the doorway. She had spent the last hour thinking of them as monsters, but when she saw them standing in her doorway, it was easy to think that everything was normal, that it had been a misunderstanding, that those robes in the closet were just Halloween costumes after all.

  But she shook those thoughts out of her head. Sarah knew what she had seen. Her parents really were involved in something bad, and it was up to her and her friends to put a stop to it. She couldn’t imagine her life without Astrals, especially without Jacob.

  Sarah squeezed Chloe’s hand twice.

  “What’s wrong, darlings?” Sarah’s mom asked.

  Sarah steadied herself. She needed to think clearly.

  “It’s time we talked to you girls about something,” Sarah’s dad said.

  “Something . . . dangerous,” Sarah’s mom said.

  “We don’t want to alarm you,” Sarah’s dad said. “But it is extremely important that you stay away from Jacob Wonderbar.”

  “And all of his friends,” her mom said.

  “Girls, you know how some people think there are aliens out there? All those UFO sightings and legends and things?”

  “Those things are true,” her mom said.

  Her dad nodded. “There are aliens, and they are very, very dangerous. They are extremely powerful. And they mean us harm.”

  “Isn’t that terrible?” her mom asked.

  “Nothing is going to happen now, we’re not in immediate danger, but you must listen to us.”

  “You must stay away from Jacob Wonderbar.”

  “You two girls are the most important things in the universe to your mom and me,” her dad said. “You’re the light of our lives.”

  “We want to protect you,” her mom said.

  “And we know how scary this must be to you. Trust your mother and me,” her dad said.

  “Stay away from Jacob Wonderbar.”

  “This will all be over soon,” her dad said.

  “Very soon,” her mom said.

  Sarah knew her parents might have meant well, and they were partly right that Astrals were dangerous to Earth. But her parents and the Strangers were just as bad as the SEERs. They had taken everything too far.

  Sarah shuddered at the idea that it could all be over soon, with the Strangers winning and Astrals never existing in the first place and Jacob Wonderbar never being born.

  Sarah started to cry, and her parents enveloped her in a hug.

  “There, there,” Sarah’s mom said.

  “We’ll take care of this,” Sarah’s dad said.

  “You have to trust us,” Sarah’s mom said.

  Sarah pulled away from her parents and looked them in the eye.

  “We found a time machine,” Sarah said.

  Her parents tried not to show their surprise, and they exchanged a quick glance. “You don’t . . . Where is it?” her dad asked.

  Sarah pointed at her desk. “It’s in the top drawer.”

  Sarah’s dad nodded and went to go investigate. That left only her mom standing in the way of escape.

  Chloe looked out the window and gasped in horror.

  “What is it?” her mom asked, and she leaned over to peer outside.

  Chloe grabbed Sarah’s hand and they ran for the door. Sarah felt her mom grasp the smallest end of her shirt, but she broke away and they rushed through the door and down the stairs.

  “Girls!” her dad shouted. “Come back this instant!”

  His shout had an almost magnetic pull on Sarah and she hesitated. She couldn’t remember ever disobeying her parents, certainly nothing as dramatic as running away from them when they were shouting at her to return. But it was Chloe who was the confident one, and as she pulled insistently on Sarah’s hand, Sarah relented and kept running.

  They threw open the front door and ran down the dirt path in the direction of Jacob’s house. Darkness had fallen on their street and Sarah risked a glance back over her shoulder, but she didn’t see her parents or Dexter or Luger Smythe or any of the Strangers.

  Sarah and Chloe reached Jacob’s house. She hoped that he had somehow escaped Luger, but he wasn’t there and her heart rose into her throat. What if he was in deep trouble? She was just about to pound on Mrs. Wonderbar’s door when Mick, Catalina, and Jacob materialized on the front lawn.

  Sarah yelped in surprise when she saw Jacob, and she didn’t know whether to hug him or punch him for scaring her.

  So she did both.

  We can’t go charging into the forest,” Mick said.

  Jacob, Sarah, Chloe, Catalina, and Mick sat huddled in a circle behind a tall bush in a yard a few houses down from Jacob’s house. The night was dark and chilly and every shadow held the specter of a Stranger lurking, ready to snatch the children away and put an end to everything they were fighting for. The breeze ominously stirred the trees, and the children darted their eyes around, each taking responsibility for keeping watch.

  “We go straight into the forest, that’s certain death,” Mick said.

  Jacob nodded. Mick was right. The Strangers were expecting them, and charging in was far too dangerous. Who knew what traps awaited them? Jacob and Mick were unarmed, and even though they could have warped straight to the Planet Valkyrie armory and stolen all of Patrick Gravy’s finest blasters, Jacob knew it was too dangerous to add weapons into the mix. It was bad enough that there were swords involved. Very sharp and pointy swords, Jacob thought with a gulp.

  Mick held out the time machine. “Where should we go?”

  It was quiet for a moment, but Jacob spoke up. “We go back to the 1500s. To stop Chloe from giving Luger the time machine.”

  Jacob shrugged at Chloe. She just stared at the grass.

  “Jake, there’s something you should know,” Sarah said. “The reason Chloe gave the time machine to Luger is because my parents are Strangers.”

  Jacob recoiled. “Your parents?”

  “I know,” Sarah said. “It’s terrible.”

  Jacob thought about all the times he had been over at Sarah’s house and how they had treated him with such suspicion. He had never felt comfortable around them, and he wondered if it was because they knew he was half Astral. He tried to wrap his mind around what it meant.

  “It’s time,” Mick said. He tipped the key in Chloe’s direction. Jacob placed his hand on top of it, then Sarah, then Catalina. Chloe pressed her lips together and placed her hand on top of Catalina’s.

  “We can do this,” Jacob said. “For Dexter.”

  “For Dexter,” the others repeated.

  “Tower of London, Luger Smythe’s office, July sixteenth, 1525, four p.m.,” Chloe said. “Warp!”


  The air was sucked out of Jacob’s lungs and when he opened his eyes, he was back in the Tower of London, which he smelled before he even fully got his bearings. Chloe and Luger were in front of him and she was just about to hand over the key.

  “No!” present-Chloe shouted from Jacob’s right. “Don’t do it!”

  Past Chloe paused, but Luger wrenched away the key. They had mistimed their warp. They needed to go back five minutes earlier.

  Jacob felt something very sharp jab his back. He turned around and royal guards with spears filled the hallway outside the office. Dexter peeked around from behind them.

  “Warp! Warp!” Dexter shouted. “It’s a trap!”

  Jacob was furious. He should have known Luger would guess that they’d try to stop him from getting his hands on the time machine. It wouldn’t do any good to go farther back in time, either. The guards would be waiting. The children touched one another’s shoulders.

  “Where do we go?!” Sarah shouted.

  “Forest by our house, May sixteenth, 2012, eight p.m., warp!” Jacob shouted as fast as he could.

  The air rushed out of his lungs and when he opened his eyes in the forest he saw more guards. Luger had thought of everything. And sure enough, Luger and Dexter warped into the clearing just after Jacob and his friends. One soldier raised a fearsome battle-axe and began swinging it down in the direction of the time machine.

  “Numonia, now, warp!” Jacob shouted.

  When Jacob opened his eyes, he saw nothing but gray and his nose pricked with the familiar smell of burp breath. He saw a glint of silver on the horizon and he began bounding toward the spaceship Swift. Sarah, Catalina, and Mick followed close behind. Jacob heard a shout and saw Luger Smythe and four soldiers warp onto the tiny dustball of a planet. They struggled to bounce along, unused to the planet’s weak gravity, but eventually they used their larger strides to nearly catch up with the children.