“Yes, William, you do. And if you were paying attention, then you also know they were in a town called Southampton.”
“Well, let’s just Google it,” the kid said, patting his pockets for his cell phone. Then he remembered that all cell phones had to be left in your locker until the end of the day.
“No phone, William? Here use my iPad,” Mr. Martin said, reaching out to his desk and handing it over to the kid.
William grabbed the iPad from his teacher, powered it on, and pressed the Safari icon. The homepage came up as Google and William typed in the date and town just like he said he would.
ACCESS DENIED
He tried again.
ACCESS DENIED
He changed to Yahoo and tried the same date and town name.
ACCESS DENIED
He tried a simple search and typed in “Syracuse,” his favorite college basketball team. The results came back showing 79,700,000 results.
“What’s going on?” William asked Mr. Martin.
“Google, Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, I always liked that one, will not be accessible this semester for anything related to this class. You kids have it too easy. In my day, we actually had to go to the library to research papers, study for tests, do book reports. You kids have the answers with a push of a button. Sorry, you are all blocked. Home computers, libraries, cell phones, all of them are blocked from accessing any type of information about this semester’s subject.”
“How in the world did you do that?” said a rather skinny freckled girl sitting in the back.
Mr. Martin let out a hearty chuckle. “That was easy. Remember? I did build a time machine.”
A boy near the front started to say something and Mr. Martin interjected. “No, I’m not going to tell you how I did that, either. Let’s just say it took many years and no one knows about it, except this school, of course. And let’s keep it that way. So,” he looked over at Ally and Brett, “let’s talk about your little trip, shall we?”
They both stared in silence not sure of what to say.
“Class? Questions?”
About ten hands shot straight into the air and Mr. Martin called on a pretty girl with blonde hair in the back. “Ms. Stephenson?”
“What did it feel like? I mean like, did it hurt?”
Ally chuckled and replied, “No, it didn’t hurt at all. It was weird. It all happened so fast. It was like waking up after a nap in the middle of the day. You don’t know what time it is or where you are.”
Brett smiled and simply said, “Yeah, it was pretty cool.”
“Mr. Jackson?”
“How about the end when you came back. It looked like you were dizzy or in shock or something.”
This time Brett replied, “Yeah, I was watching Ally, and all of the sudden her face was like, changing. I started seeing stars and then it all went black. You know that feeling you get when you stand up too quick? You almost have to steady yourself from falling over? It was like that. Didn’t hurt or anything though.”
“Ms. Cartwright?”
“What’s with the clothes you were wearing?” she laughed and the class joined her.
“Hey,” Ally said defensively, “they weren’t our choice. Mr. Martin made us dress like that.”
The professor came to their rescue. “Yes, class, it was my decision, and a good one at that. They cannot travel back in time and wear the clothes from today’s period. They have to fit the part. The hats were my addition, though,” he snickered. “Plus, it’s the best way to place the hidden cameras.”
The bell rang and the students started to murmur and gather their belongings. Mr. Martin clapped his hands twice and the class hushed in silence. “Don’t forget class...don’t bother researching on your phone, your laptop, your iPad, the library, whatever; it’s all blocked. And also,” he paused for dramatic effect, “don’t forget that little piece of paper you signed a few short weeks ago.”
He smiled, allowing these words to sink in. “Now enjoy the rest of your day.” He turned towards Brett and Ally and asked them to stay a minute. “Follow me,” he said to them. They followed the teacher out of the classroom, down the hallway and out the front door. “Excuse me Mr. Martin, but we’re not supposed to leave the school,” Ally said.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Davidson, I’ve cleared it with the principal.” Mr. Martin continued along the stone walkway that surrounded the school grounds. In the distance, students were playing on the soccer field for gym class. After about a hundred yards, they came to an iron gate that separated the school grounds from someone’s backyard. Mr. Martin, unlatched the gate and proceeded into the yard, Brett and Ally reluctantly following. They followed him up the stairs of a wooden deck and he opened the back door of a house with a key.
“Welcome to my home,” he said, raising his arm and allowing them in. “Greta, meet Ally and Brett.”
Brett looked at Ally and wondered who Greta was until a yellow Labrador retriever came bounding around the corner, nuzzling them with her nose. Both Brett and Ally reached down and petted the dog.
“Good girl,” Ally said.
They looked around the spacious kitchen and extravagant home of their teacher. Marble countertops adorned every nook and cranny of the kitchen with stainless steel appliances perched on their smooth surfaces. The problem however, was that these appliances were different from what Ally and Brett were used to and the teacher noticed their confusion.
“What, you’ve never seen a salt-infused pretzel maker?” Mr. Martin said, walking over to a small steel contraption resembling a sandwich maker, that was plugged into an outlet. “Ever grab a pretzel with no salt on it? Kind of flavor-less if you ask me. All the salt falls to the bottom of the bag. Well this little guy,” he patted the top of the appliance, “Ensures that the salt never falls off the pretzel.”
“How?” Brett asked.
Mr. Martin ignored him and walked over to another machine, this one stretching at least two feet tall. “This one here is my orange juicer.”
“Oh, we have one of those,” Ally said.
“One that grows its own oranges?” Mr. Martin replied.
Ally and Brett stared motionless.
Mr. Martin walked around the countertop island and over to the sink. “Mind washing your hands, Brett?”
Brett walked over to the sink, pulled the lever up to turn the water on and stopped. “There’s no soap,” he said.
As soon as he said the word soap, the running water turned into a slow foamy discharge of what could only be described as, soap.
“Cool,” was all Brett could manage.
They spent the next few minutes walking around the house with Mr. Martin showing off his latest gadgets and inventions.
“The reason I brought you both here is to show you what I’m capable of. This is no joke. You are time-traveling.”
Brett and Ally listened as the teacher told them how serious their mission was and that it was not to be taken lightly. “What you are experiencing is very real.”
“It just doesn’t seem...,” Ally said, pausing to search for the right word.
“Possible!” Brett said loudly, filling in the blanks.
“Brett, if you don’t believe it’s possible, it never will be. You can’t expect your whole life to be simple and by the book. Both of you challenge your minds. Challenge your hearts.” Mr. Martin chuckled and said, “Trust me, it feels good.”
They left soon thereafter, both wondering what they had gotten themselves into this semester.
CHAPTER NINE
For the rest of the day, Brett felt like he was in a daze. He went to lunch knowing he couldn’t say anything to his friends. A part of him even felt guilty because Frankie was staring at him the whole time with jealous, envious eyes—like he was enraged. But what could he do? He didn’t choose to be in that situation; it wasn’t his fault that he got to go back in time and Frankie didn’t. Brett received his fare share of envious glares from Lance, too. He didn’t care so much about that. He was
very happy and proud that he was going on this journey with the prettiest girl in the class.
“How was school, Brett?” The daily question arrived at exactly 2:45 pm in the afternoon as his dad stepped on the gas and drove toward home.
Well, today I traveled back in time, Dad. What’s for dinner? “It was good,” he said instead.
His dad turned to him with a wide-eyed expression. “Good, he says...wow! What a big step up from ‘okay.’ What happened today that was different than every other day?”
Brett just shrugged and said, “I don’t know, it was just good. What’s for dinner?”
His dad wanted to press the “good” issue but the master chef inside him couldn’t wait to describe tonight’s meal. “Looks like rain so no grilling tonight. But a nice baked pecan encrusted tilapia filet sounds good, eh?” Nick knew his son loved seafood. “I’ve got a nice tomato and black bean salsa going too, with fresh cilantro.”
“Cool,” was all Brett said.
“Need your help in the garden for a bit when we get home.”
Brett sighed and leaned his head against the window.
“Come on, it will take ten minutes. I need at least a hundred hot peppers to make more hot sauce this year. I’ll even take a bite out of a habanero if you help.”
Brett turned, smiled and said, “Deal.” Brett’s dad loved hot peppers, loved growing them, eating them, making hot sauce, drying them and making crushed peppers. Best of all, Brett loved when his dad would take a nice big bite out of a fresh pepper. He loved the look on his face as the painful explosion slowly came about in his mouth.
Nick parked the SUV in the driveway and Brett bounded up the steps like he did everyday. He tossed his backpack on the nearest chair and tore open the pantry. Today he grabbed some pretzel rods and opted for ice water as his beverage choice.
“Do you even eat lunch?” his dad asked dropping his keys in the kitchen drawer.
Crumbs and salt drifted out of his mouth as Brett replied, “Yep.”
Nick reached under the kitchen island, opened the cabinet door and grabbed two clear Rubbermaid bowls and handed one to Brett. “Let’s go,” he said.
Brett stuffed one last pretzel rod into his mouth, half of it sticking out of his mouth like a cigar. They walked through the sliding glass doors, down the steps of the patio and over to the garden. There was a thin green mesh fence about two feet high that Nick had installed to keep the multitude of rabbits from eating his garden. They stepped over the fence and into a ten foot by ten foot garden. The corn bordering the left side had been picked clean and now turned the color of hay. The tomatoes were on their last legs as were the zucchini, cucumbers, and squash, but the twelve hot pepper plants were thriving.
They were clustered in four rows of three. The first row was labeled Red Thai Chile Peppers based on the white plastic ID tag in the ground. The second row was a mix of Inferno, Tabasco and Bell peppers. The third row was actually all sweet peppers, orange, red, and green. But the fourth row was the best. The fourth row had three Habanero peppers, chocolate, original and peach. Outside of the ghost pepper, which was difficult to grow, the habanero was one of the hottest peppers in the United States.
“Which one?” Nick asked his son.
Brett smiled and looked at his father. He had always taken an interest in gardening and enjoyed planting, seeding, watering, fertilizing, and reaping the fruits of his labor with his father. In the spring they planted the seeds inside and nurtured them until they could be transplanted outside. Brett helped water and fertilize them until they were blooming plants with abundant fruit.
“Chocolate Hab,” Brett replied, smiling.
His father cringed and gave him a look that said, Nooooooo!
Brett went over to the dark green plant and picked a pepper that was at his knees. It was dark brown, like chocolate, and smooth to the touch. “Here,” he said.
Nick walked over and held out his hand before saying, “Oh boy.”
Brett laughed and said, “Good luck.”
Nick took the pepper and tossed it in the air a few times and then stared at the pepper in his hand. “This is not going to be fun.” He lifted the pepper high in the air as if trying to look through it, to see if there was any way this pepper was going to be kind to him. He closed his eyes and lowered the pepper to his mouth. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, he took a bite. Not a nibble, but a healthy one-inch bite, taking almost a third of the menacing pepper into his mouth. Still with his eyes closed, he began chewing vigorously, trying to get this over with as fast as possible. Then it hit him. The pain was intense. His whole mouth felt like he’d stuffed a cactus into it as it slowly knifed down his throat.
“Ahh!” Nick screamed. He was pacing back in forth in the garden, eyes now wide open, his hands acting as a fan as they waved in front of his face.
Brett couldn’t control his laughter. “Ha-ha!”
“Oh man,” his dad said, taking deep breaths. He used the back of his hand to wipe the tears that were now coming out of his glossy eyes. “Whew,” he said.
“Hot?” Brett sarcastically asked.
“Wanna try one?” his dad responded.
“No thanks. It’s one thing to put a couple pieces in my chili, but that’s just crazy.”
“Alright, let’s get pickin’,” Nick said. They spent the next twenty minutes grabbing over one hundred hot peppers from the various plants. Seeing that the other vegetables had called it quits, they uprooted them and put them in a trashcan for collection on Monday. Nick was happy to spend this time with his son. It was usually just baseball practice, baseball games, and the occasional family weekend at the beach, but this time was special, just the two of them.
“You like your new school?” he asked.
Brett wanted to tell him all about history class and about Ally, but he didn’t. “Yeah, it’s good. Different from grade school.”
“In what way?”
“You know, just different. Older kids are there. More freedom I guess. It’s cool.”
“Just remember, you’re there to learn. Foxworth is not cheap.”
“I know, Dad,” Brett pleaded. They put the last of the dead vegetables into the trashcans, brushed their hands, and headed inside.
Nick put his hand on Brett’s shoulder. “Let’s go wash up for dinner.”
Brett’s sister, Reilly, came home from school after acting lessons and the family had dinner together. Unfortunately, Brett’s mom stayed late at work so it was just the three of them. After cleaning up the dishes and doing their homework, Nick challenged his kids to a game of Wii bowling. The kids complied after some pleading by their father. They played two games before retiring to their separate corners. Brett got beat by his sister in the second game. His focus was not on bowling, however, it was on April 10th, 1912.
CHAPTER TEN
Sleep came quickly for Brett after such a long day, but it didn’t last. He was awake from 2:30 a.m. to almost 4:00 thinking about his journey back in time. How in the world did Mr. Martin build a time machine? He repeated the question in his head over and over. It didn’t make sense. Maybe it was some sort of virtual reality thing. But he didn’t put on those silly goggles like he’d seen people do on TV. He decided he’d have a talk with Ally to see if she believed what they experienced was real. Ally. He couldn’t wait to see Ally again.
The 6:30 alarm blared next to his bed. Brett reached over and slapped the alarm clock, hoping to hit the snooze button. On his third try he finally hit the right button and rolled back over on his side. It seemed like ten seconds had passed, but six minutes later the alarm sounded again, jarring him from sleep.
“Get up,” Reilly said after punching open his bedroom door a foot. She had a bathrobe on and her short, brown hair was wrapped up in a towel. “Shower’s open,” she said.
Brett rubbed his eyes open and sat up in bed, stretching his long arms over his head. He quickly showered, got dressed in jeans and a green and gray short-sleeved T-shirt and ate a quick Engl
ish muffin with turkey bacon. His dad drove him to school and he met his friends in the cafeteria before the first bell rang.
“Hey Brett, what do you think?” Krista asked.
“About what?”
“What movie should we see this weekend?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re going to the movies again?”
Krista looked concerned. “You’re not going?”
Brett was caught off guard and replied, “I just didn’t know that was the plan. I don’t know. I have a baseball tourney in Maryland on Saturday, so I don’t know if I’ll be around.”
“Oh,” said a dejected Krista.
“Cool,” Frankie said. “Good luck. Now, I say we see Alone.”
“Dude,” Liam replied, “that looks freakin’ scary.”
“I know,” Frankie replied.
Krista ignored the rest of the conversation as did Brett. She occasionally glanced over at him and he did the same, but they never locked eyes. Brett was confused. Was she really interested in him? She hadn’t even hinted that she was until that little thing happened at the movie theater. Now she appeared to be visibly upset when he said he wasn’t sure if he could make the movies this weekend.
<><><><><>
All eyes were on Brett as he made his way into Mr. Martin’s history class; even Ally smiled at him as he took his seat. The teacher rolled the large screen TV into the front of the room and powered it on. The anticipation was even greater than before. Yesterday, no one knew what to expect, today they did.
“Now class, just to re-cap,” Mr. Martin said, while pushing play on the remote control. The television replayed the last five minutes of their journey through Southampton, England. It showed them buying the newspaper from the vendor and then walking the short distance to the seaport. The teacher paused the recording when Brett and Ally were about to return home.
A boy in the back raised his hand and said, “So, wait. What we saw on TV before, the Lee Harvey Oswald thing. That was real, wasn’t it?”
The teacher smiled and said, “Yes, Brian, as real as that dirty t-shirt you’re wearing.” The class chuckled and Mr. Martin continued, looking at Brett and Ally as he spoke. “They failed their mission. If there are no further questions, let’s resume,” he said. He gestured to Brett and Ally to follow him and they obliged, following him to the utility closet, where he pulled out his keys to unlock the door and then down the hidden stairs. “Are we ready?”
Foxworth Academy Page 5
