The Book That Proves Time Travel Happens

by Henry Clark

  I grudgingly sat back down. Tom pressed the quarter into my hand.

  “We’ll both concentrate on the same question,” he said.

  “What?”

  “‘What’s going to happen to us next?’”

  “Didn’t we ask something like that already?”

  “I want a second opinion!”

  I flipped the coin six times, and Tom drew a broken line for each tail and an unbroken line for each head.

  “All right, now we look it up—” Tom turned to the book’s index and quickly found a match. “Hexagram fifty-six, page one seventy-seven… here it is! The hexagram is called—Travel!” He showed me the page, as if I wouldn’t have believed him otherwise.

  HEXAGRAM 56

  TRAVEL.

  STRANGE LANDS AND CUSTOMS. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. THE ROAD WILL RISE TO MEET YOU, AND HIT YOU IN THE FACE. IT IS BETTER TO TRAVEL HOPEFULLY THAN IT IS TO ARRIVE: YOUR LUGGAGE PROBABLY WENT TO THE WRONG PLACE ANYWAY.

  “This can’t be a good translation,” I decided.

  “Now we see if there’s a hidden Morse code message!”

  Tom began looking back and forth between his printed Morse alphabet and the hexagram, as if he no longer trusted his memory. “The unbroken line at the top is a dash—that could be a T, then two dots is an I—”

  I stabbed my finger at the middle of the code key and said, “Two unbroken lines could be two dashes—two dashes is Morse for M! Maybe we’re going to travel with some guy named Tim!”

  “We’re not finished yet!” Tom snapped, waving his hand at the remaining lines. “There’s a broken line—”

  The parking lot lights went out, plunging us into darkness. We could no longer see what was printed in the book, and Tom’s hexagram vanished in the gloom.

  “Filibuster!” Tom muttered, using one of his most powerful swear words.

  I was carrying our flashlight, but before I could get it out of my pocket, the hum of a motor came from our left, and then the shadowy form of a golf cart slid to a halt in front of us. The silhouette driving it leaned toward us.

  “Is your name Tim?” Tom asked.

  “Do I look like a Tim?” Frankie Camlo hopped out of the cart and put her fists defiantly on her hips. She had changed into a sweatshirt and added a charm bracelet to her left wrist. A small zippered backpack hung from one shoulder.

  “Uh, no!” Tom was flustered. “Definitely not!”

  “My name is Frank!”

  Tom became even more flustered.

  “You don’t look like a Frank, either!”

  “Well, I am! Frankie, if you must.” She glared at me. Even in dim lighting, it was obvious. “I should have known you wouldn’t show up by yourself,” she said. “What is it with boys that they always have to travel in packs?”

  “There’s only the two of us,” I said defensively. “This is my best friend, Tom Xui. Tom, this is Frankie Camlo.”

  Tom held out his hand. Frankie looked at it warily. Then she took it, shook it twice, and snapped her hand back. “I’m possibly pleased to meet you. We’ll see. Now, both of you, in the cart!” She slid into the driver’s seat. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

  I hopped aboard. If it would get me a meeting with Madam Janus, I was willing to drive off with Frankie Camlo, no questions asked. Tom wasn’t so willing. He stood in front of the cart, his arms folded, and said, “Where are we going? What are we looking for?”

  Now Frankie glared at him.

  “WE are going to run you over,” she growled, “and WE are looking forward to seeing you in the rearview mirror, except this thing doesn’t have a rearview mirror. Dr. Lao said I might run into someone like you, but I didn’t think he meant literally.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Your I-Ching thing said Travel.”

  Tom blinked. “It did, didn’t it?”

  He squeezed in beside me. Frankie stomped on the gas, and the cart shot out of the lot and into the middle of Hartnell Road, then veered onto the shoulder and churned gravel.

  “You’re too young to have a license!” I said.

  “You don’t need a license for a golf cart,” she said. “They’re toys. They can’t go over fifteen miles per hour, have no headlights, windshields, or, as I said, rearview mirrors”—she twisted around in her seat and looked behind her—“which makes it hard to see if you’re being followed.”

  Tom and I swiveled to the rear and peered into the receding darkness.

  “You think somebody might be following us?” I asked.

  “It’s possible, if my father got wind of this.”

  “He doesn’t like you out late?”

  “He doesn’t like me messing with things he’s forbidden.”

  “Like the golf cart?”

  “Like the family treasure. One of you should watch behind us. Let me know if you see anything that looks like a giant gorilla.”

  “A giant gorilla?” Tom squawked. He twisted around on the seat, staring anxiously in the direction we had come.

  “I said ‘looks like.’ It wouldn’t be an actual gorilla. The Wonder Show isn’t a circus. Did you bring a flashlight?”

  I yanked the one Tom had given me out of my pocket.

  “Aim it ahead,” she said. “If your friend sees anything behind us, turn it off!”

  I did as I was told, giving the cart a pool of light to chase.

  “I’m assuming you two know how to get around your town,” said Frankie. “I need to know how to get to Pertwee Avenue without taking any of the main roads. The police might stop three kids in a golf cart.”

  “There’s a dirt road up ahead,” I said. “Try that.”

  She made the turn. The road was one lane with a grassy ridge running down the middle. Trees closed in above, blocking out the half-moon’s light. I wondered what we were getting into. The I-Ching had said Travel. Possibly with some guy named Tim. Then I remembered we hadn’t finished decoding the Morse.

  “You could have looked at a map,” said Tom. “You didn’t need us for this.”

  “I did look at a map. Maps don’t tell you which streets are busy and which streets you can drive down without being noticed. And this cow path we’re on wasn’t on the map. Only someone from around here would have known about it. So, obviously, I need you. Or, at least, one of you.” She gave Tom a look. He pretended not to notice.

  “What’s this treasure we’re looking for?” I asked.

  “The Camlo Shagbolt. I believe it’s hidden in your town.”

  “The Camlo what?”

  “Shagbolt.”

  “Is that like… some kind of… old-time race car?” It was a lame guess, but it was the best I could do. I didn’t have a clue what a shagbolt might be.

  “It’s the most valuable thing in my family’s possession,” said Frankie, swerving around a rock. “We argue about it constantly. Half of us feel the Shagbolt should be kept with the carnival; the other half feels the Shagbolt is dangerous and should be hidden away where only a special few can get to it.”

  “What’s a shagbolt?” Tom demanded.

  Frankie hesitated. “Do you know what a chatelaine is? Or a diadem? Or a tiara?”

  “Uh, different types of jewelry?” Tom guessed.

  “That’s right!” Frankie sounded delighted. That should have made me suspicious. “There are probably lots of different types of jewelry you’ve never heard of. Let’s just say the Shagbolt is the Camlo family’s crown jewel.”

  “And it’s dangerous,” I said, imagining an ax covered in rubies.

  “In the wrong hands, yes, it could be. But right now, I need the Shagbolt, so I’m on the side that wants to keep it handy.” Low branches whipped across the cart’s front, like bony fingers lunging from the darkness. Frankie didn’t flinch. “My father heads the faction that wants it hidden; my mother is on the side that thinks it shouldn’t be. No one voted when my father decided to hide it; he should have called a meeting. But it doesn’t matter now because I think I’ve figured out
where he’s hidden it.”

  Frankie slammed on the brakes and we all lurched forward. The scariest of all Ohio’s wild animals blocked our path. Its eyes gleamed a devilish red in the beam of my light. The three of us clutched one another in terror.

  “Don’t move,” I whispered. “It can smell our fear!”

  “No,” Frankie corrected me. “We can smell its fear—so don’t spook it!”

  The skunk finished the berries it had been eating, looked up at Frankie, nodded as though some message had passed between them, then ambled off into the bushes.

  I sniffed. The night still smelled of honeysuckle. Far behind us, a tree branch snapped.

  “What the—?” said Tom, and he and I swiveled to look.

  “Hang on!” Frankie shouted, stomping on the gas. The cart sped forward. Behind us, the shadow of something huge and troll-like separated itself from the surrounding darkness and began running after us. “Put it out!” Frankie slapped my hand and I snapped off the light.

  We couldn’t see anything. Frankie was only able to keep the cart on the road because the wheel ruts on either side acted as a track; if there was anything in the road’s middle, like a log or a stray cow, we were going to hit it.

  The thing chasing us was hard to see, but occasional breaks in the overhead branches dappled it with moonlight. It looked twice the size of a man, with gangly arms and a head like a prizewinning pumpkin. It seemed to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt and plaid shorts. We weren’t losing it. In fact, it was gaining.

  “What is that thing?” I asked, clutching one of the metal pipes that supported the cart’s plastic roof.

  “It’s not a thing,” Frankie informed me. “It’s Mr. Ganto. He works for my father.”

  “Is he part of the freak show?”

  “He’s not a freak, and I’ll thank you not to call him one! We don’t have a freak show. We Camlos hate the idea of freak shows. There are no freaks. Mr. Ganto is a roustabout. He helps set up and take down the carnival. He stays out of sight during the day.”

  There was a loud klonk! as a rock hit the underside of the cart. The wheels on the right tangled in a vine, the cart lurched, then the vine tore free and we continued on.

  “He’s gaining!” Tom reported.

  I turned to look. Mr. Ganto was maybe a hundred yards behind us, and coming up fast.

  “What’s that ahead of us?” Frankie demanded.

  Through the trees, lights were visible in the distance.

  “That’s Baker Lane, at the edge of the industrial park,” I said. It had been my idea to get to Pertwee Avenue through the factory district along the river. I figured the streets there would be deserted and nobody would notice three kids in a golf cart.

  “If we can get to a place with streetlights,” said Frankie, “that will slow Mr. Ganto down. He prefers to hide in shadows.”

  “Still gaining!” hissed Tom, a panicky edge to his voice.

  The cart hit something again, this time big enough to stop us. The three of us tumbled forward into the branches of a tree limb that lay in the road, blocking our path. I switched on my light. The limb was big, but if we lifted together, I was pretty sure we could move it.

  It took only seconds for us to wrestle it off the path, but they were seconds we didn’t have. As we turned back to the cart, Mr. Ganto was standing ten feet behind it. Two of his strides would put him on top of us.

  “Shofranka,” he said, in the deepest voice I had ever heard. He sounded sad.

  I shined my light at him. He threw hands the size of catcher’s mitts in front of his eyes, but not before we all saw his hairy bearded face with its shelf-like brow and bulbous nose.

  “Bigfoot!” exclaimed Tom.

  “Gigantopithecus,” Frankie corrected him.

  “No way!” said Tom, as though Gigantopithecus was part of his everyday vocabulary. It had too many syllables to be one of his swear words.

  “Give this up,” Mr. Ganto rumbled. “It can only make trouble.” He stepped forward.

  His foot came down on a skunk.

  Musk exploded upward into Mr. Ganto’s face. He reeled back, as though he had stepped on a land mine. He clutched his eyes and began a series of tree-shaking snorts and sneezes. We got only a whiff, but it was enough.

  Whether it was the same skunk that had blocked our path a few minutes earlier or its farther-down-the-road cousin, it was impossible to tell. The critter skedaddled, and so did we. Frankie, Tom, and I threw ourselves into the cart, Frankie floored the gas, and we spun off down the road. I kept my flashlight switched on and aimed ahead of us.

  “He’s doubled up, like he’s in pain,” said Tom, staring over his shoulder.

  “He has a very sensitive sense of smell,” Frankie explained as the trees thinned out and Baker Lane became increasingly visible at the top of the approaching hill. I was never so grateful to see the Dingleman Hole-Punch factory in my life. “He can track people by their smell; that’s probably how he found me. For him, that skunk must have been like a bomb going off. I hope he’s all right!”

  “All right?” I said. “That monster almost had us!”

  “That ‘monster’ helped raise me,” Frankie said indignantly. “Sometimes my mother isn’t around; sometimes my father isn’t around; but Gantsy is always there for me. He’s like my nanny.”

  The golf cart topped the rise, fishtailed on pebbles, and took off down the cracked pavement of Baker’s desolate, factory-lined street.

  “Gigantopithecus,” said Tom.

  “Yes,” confirmed Frankie.

  “The Chinese Gigantopithecus?” Tom continued. “From the Sichuan province?”

  “Most of the fossil record for Gigantopithecus comes from Sichuan, if that’s what you mean. And Mr. Ganto is very fond of hot, spicy food. So I guess, yes, the Chinese Gigantopithecus, although in their heyday they could be found as far south as the Malay Peninsula, where many of them had vacation homes.”

  “Gigantopithecus has been extinct for over a hundred thousand years,” said Tom.

  “Tell that to Mr. Ganto.”

  We passed a parked green convertible with a pink stuffed poodle impaled on its antenna. Four boys sitting in the car gaped at us through a cloud of cigarette smoke. I heard Lenny Killbreath shout, “Hey!”

  “Well, that’s unfortunate,” said Tom.

  The convertible’s engine gunned to life.

  “They’re going to chase us,” I informed Frankie, feeling even more panic than I had when Mr. Ganto was after us.

  “Why?”

  “It’s what they do.”

  They didn’t have to chase us. We could only go fifteen miles per hour. They rolled up next to us and Lenny leaned out the window.

  “Hey, jerks!” he shouted. “The golf course is back that way!”

  Then he caught a glimpse of me, scowled, and in a much less friendly voice added, “It’s that stinking wacko’s kid! What are you doing out past your bedtime? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

  The car cut in front of us and Frankie slammed on the brakes. Lenny leaned over us from the car door and demanded, “What are you three hemorrhoids doing here?”

  “These are not the hemorrhoids you’re looking for,” Tom said in his best Obi-Wan voice.

  Frankie hit reverse, and we sped backward away from them.

  “GET ’EM!” Lenny hollered at his driver.

  The convertible made a U-turn and headed straight for us.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Field Trip Every Day of Your Life

  Frankie backed the cart over the curb and onto the sidewalk, flipping it out of reverse and driving away from our pursuers, who started to pass us to cut off our escape. But the cart blocked the driver’s view of a fire hydrant. Frankie veered unexpectedly and scooted around it, but the convertible hit it with a loud kabang! The car lurched to a halt, and water fountained up around it.

  I leaned out the back of our cart and did a victory dance with my hands. A moment later something heavy hit the roof, an
d the soaking-wet, semi-severed head of a pink poodle dangled down in front of Frankie. She batted it away.

  “If you stay on this,” I said, “there’ll be an entrance to Gustimuck Park. We cut across the park and come out on Pertwee.”

  Frankie took my directions, and in a few minutes we were in the park, following one of the bike trails.

  “Paramecium!” Tom announced. “That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

  “You have an odd definition of fun,” said Frankie.

  “I mean it,” said Tom. “Usually, Puma Ma has me studying all the time.”

  “Poo Mama?” asked Frankie.

  “Puma Ma,” Tom corrected her.

  “I don’t hear the difference.”

  “Then you could never speak Chinese. The Chinese languages all depend a lot on the tone of voice. Puma Ma—my mom—wants me to go to Harvard. She expects me to become a surgeon. Or a concert pianist. Or maybe both.”

  “Are those things you want to be?” Frankie asked as we passed Nellie’s Erratic, the huge graffiti-covered boulder that marked the entrance to the park’s best picnic area.

  “No,” Tom admitted. “I’d rather be an archaeologist. I love finding out things about the past. I went to archaeology camp last summer—you had to dig to find your bunk! So cool. I’m so glad math camp was full.”

  “Gypsy parents can be difficult, too,” said Frankie.

  “Cut through the picnic tables there,” I told her. “Then past the snack bar and that’s Pertwee. You’re a Gypsy?”

  “I shouldn’t have used that word,” said Frankie, maneuvering the cart between a row of barbecue grills. “Gypsy is a name outsiders have for us. Some of my relatives find it offensive, but I don’t. More correctly, we’re Romani. We’re travelers; we never stay in one place too long.”

  “So you’re homeschooled,” I decided. She came across as pretty smart.

  “No, Rose,” she said, ignoring my wince. “I’m carnival-schooled. That’s so much better.”

  “Really?” said Tom. “What’s it like?”