Lost in Cyberspace

by Richard Peck

  It went on like that. Finally Camilla signed off.

  “But you are seventh graders,” I said.

  “In our case it doesn’t count,” Camilla said. “Heather’s emotionally fourteen, and I’m a Van Allen. That was Junior Saltonstall. He’s having a party at his place Friday night, late. His parents are in the Caribbean. It’ll be wall-to-wall upper-school boys. Junior goes to boarding school.”

  “Then what’s he doing home?”

  “He was expelled. Isn’t it thrilling?”

  But then Camilla realized she was talking to somebody’s little brother. She stood up, straightened her Pence plaid pleats, propped her hair behind her ears, and headed for my door.

  “Heather’s in her room on her phone. We have high-profile plans to make about Friday night.” Camilla gave me a hard look from the door. “Forget everything you’ve heard here. If Heather misses this party, I’ll hold you responsible.” She sucked in her cheeks. “I have influence, Jake.”

  “Josh,” I said.

  “You say,” she said, and left.

  I get hardly any privacy.

  I dreamed that night, big time and nonstop. I was falling, of course, plastered to my mattress and falling through time and space. Then I was walking along a street with antique cobblestones. Aaron was there in a Huckley tie. At least this time we had clothes on. It was an eerie street. Everybody was in black—black horses with black feathers on their heads pulling black buggies, funeral wreaths on doors. It was this city of death.

  Next to me the dream Aaron said, “Every time I get there, somebody’s upset about something. Turning up just in time for trouble could be a problem.”

  We went around a dark corner. In the distance was the half-finished dome of the U.S. Capitol against a black sky. So this must be Washington, D.C. “I make it the mid-1860’s,” Aaron said.

  “Right,” said a man in a beard and a big hat, brushing past us. I think it was Mr. Thaw, our old history teacher.

  A large, tear-stained lady in a black bonnet and hoop skirt ran up to us. “Where have you two been?” she shrieked, reaching out and giving Aaron and me a couple of shakes. “You could have saved him!”

  “Oh, great,” Aaron said hopelessly. “It’s Mrs. Lincoln.”

  I woke up in a sweat, tireder than when I went to bed, and still jet-lagged. But it was a school day.

  13

  Possible Breakthrough

  Aaron was signed out of his morning classes. He was nowhere around at lunch and late for History. You don’t sign out of History because the teacher is Mr. L. T. Thaw.

  When Aaron came in, I almost didn’t know him. His eyes were all baggy, and his red hair was standing up in uncombed clumps. He looked a lot worse than usual.

  “Late, Zimmer,” Mr. Thaw said. “In this class, that’s a—”

  “I know.” Aaron stood slumped in the doorway. “A misdemeanor.” He was fighting a yawn.

  “And what progress have you to report on your historical presentation for Parents’ Night? Next Tuesday is practically upon us.”

  “A certain amount,” Aaron mumbled. “For one thing, there was a fire in the Vanderwhitney House part of school. Quite a while back.”

  Mr. Thaw stared hard at Aaron over the heads of the class. He pulled on his beard. For once everybody was listening.

  “Not a major conflagration, I take it?” Mr. Thaw said carefully. He bored holes in Aaron through rimless glasses.

  “Not too major,” Aaron said.

  “Then I don’t suppose that event will be of ... consuming interest to the parents, do you?”

  Aaron shrugged. He trudged past my desk on the way to his. Class went on as usual. But his mind sure wasn’t on the administration of U. S. Grant.

  When the bell finally rang, he veered past me and said, “Meet me at the Black Hole right after school. We’re talking possible breakthrough.”

  I strolled past Mrs. Newbery’s desk after school. When I got to the Black Hole door, there was a sign on it:BOTH COMPUTERS DOWN

  The door was open a crack. Aaron’s baggy eye peered through at me. He opened the door, yanked me inside, and closed it.

  He was really excited and worn out. Not a good combination. “Possible breakthrough. I’ve got some figures together that might send me where I want to go when I want—”

  “Aaron, I don’t want to hear about it. I’m trying to block everything that happened yesterday. For one thing, it gave me a really bad dream.”

  “It wasn’t about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Mine was,” he said, “though I didn’t get that much sleep. I was up all night, did—”

  “Aaron, spare me. Anyway, the computers are down. It says so on the sign.”

  “No, they aren’t. I put up that sign. A fifth grader came in here at lunch to play Civilization or something. We don’t want to be interrupted.”

  He was really beginning to treat the Black Hole like his own personal property.

  “I’ve done serious editing on my formula,” he said, taking me by the arm. “Now I need you to—”

  “Wrong, Aaron,” I said. “I’m staying away from those terminals. They could be hazardous to my health. How much reorganization do you think my cells are going to put up with?”

  “I’m probably not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m only fine-tuning. I want you here just as backup. I don’t want you in my force field.”

  “Just how big is your force field anyway, Aaron?” I said. “You don’t know.”

  “Just stand here by the door. If I happen to be gone for a while, and Mrs. Newbery—”

  “I know, I know.” I decided I’d better stay and let him play Mad Computer Nerd one more time. “But this is it for me, Aaron. I’m not coming in here anymore. I’m going to do something else with my life. I’m going to ... join the chess club or something.”

  But he was already over between the two glowing screens. His hands were splaying out over the keyboards. I positioned myself against the door with one hand behind me on the knob.

  He entered five or six digits. Then it happened. Both screens lit up like Las Vegas. Full-color supergraphics surged. All the air in the Black Hole was charged. I smelled everything—smoke, flowers, furniture polish. My hand gripped the doorknob. I blinked.

  When I looked again, Aaron was still there. But somebody else was in the room, standing between us. One second she wasn’t there. The next she was.

  It was a girl, older than we were, almost a grown-up. I wasn’t sure. Whatever she was wearing, a costume or a uniform, made her look older. She had something in her hand: a feather duster. She seemed to be trying to dust the back of Aaron’s head. Then she dropped the feather duster, clutched her head, and screamed.

  “Don’t!” I said, plastering myself against the door. “This is a boys’ school!”

  14

  The Past People

  Aaron whirled around. He was almost standing on her feet. She wore high-heeled lace-up shoes with toes that came to points. Her dress was as black as last night’s dream. Both her hands clutched her cheeks. She was really quivering.

  “Back to the drawing board,” Aaron said quietly.

  “Who do you think you are?” she said to us, finding her voice.

  “Aaron, who do you think she is?” I said.

  He knew. He pointed a small finger at her. “You’d be the girl kissing that guy. You’d been crying,” he said in a spooky voice. “You wear a ring on a little chain around your neck inside your dress.”

  Her hands drew down her face. She was pretty. “Attend to your own business,” she said very strict. “And what have you done with the library? What Mrs. Vanderwhitney will say about this, I shouldn’t like to think, I’m sure.”

  She was English. You could hear it in her voice. And really upset. Talk about Emotional Component.

  “I was running a feather duster over the library table. It isn’t my responsibility. But the other servants are American, so
you don’t get a full day’s work out of them.”

  “Were you like upset about something at the time?” Aaron asked carefully. “Like emotional?”

  There were tears in her lashes. But then her cells had just been reorganized, and that hurts.

  She shot him a look. “Servants are not expected to have emotions,” she said. “I was merely going about my business, dusting the library table. Then suddenly it was replaced by these objects.”

  She pointed to the glowing computer screens. She looked down. “And what have you done with the floors?” She turned to the blank wall. “The window! Where is it? And we had just replaced the curtains with best Brussels lace.”

  She wrung her hands. She really was pretty, and very neat. Her dark hair was smoothed back and parted in the center. “And who are you two?”

  “I’m Josh,” I said. “This is Aaron. Everything’s his fault.”

  “Am I being held for ransom?” Her chin went up. “You might better have abducted Cuthbert. Indeed, you’re welcome to him.”

  Aaron put up a hand. “Let me explain,” he said, though there was something hopeless in his voice. He kicked off by telling her what year it is.

  Her eyes got big. They were a nice shade of blue and now huge.

  “The Vanderwhitneys don’t ... live here anymore,” Aaron told her. “They probably sold their house to the school. The school’s called Huckley.”

  “Huckley?” the girl said. “Poppycock. The Huckleys live two doors along, just before the Havemeyers.”

  “Havemeyer House is where we have lunch,” I said.

  “And what of the Van Aliens next door?” she said, softer. Her hand came up and touched the gold chain inside her collar.

  “Van Allen House is part of the school too. It’s mostly classrooms.”

  She stood quiet, thinking hard. She glanced past Aaron at the terminals. “And those devices?”

  “That’s a little harder to explain,” Aaron said. “We’re into artificial intelligence here and chronological flow charts. We’re—”

  “Are they time machines?” she said.

  We stared.

  “Basically,” Aaron said. “In layman’s terms.”

  “I’ve read Mr. H. G. Wells,” she said. “I am an educated girl, you know. I am not a common servant. I was brought to this country as governess to Cuthbert and Lysander. Of course they aren’t ready for a governess. I was forced to be nursery maid, even to that great lump of an overgrown boy, Cuthbert.”

  Aaron nodded. “You’re overeducated and underemployed in a prefeminist time frame.”

  She gave us both a look as stern as Mr. L. T. Thaw’s. I thought Aaron and I were too old to be governessed, but she was a take-charge type of girl.

  “The pair of you have been in my—time. You were there the day of the fire, weren’t you? I knew someone had been in the room. I caught a glimpse of you. Cuthbert took credit for putting out the flames. But no one would take Cuthbert for a hero.”

  “We were there,” Aaron admitted.

  “Then you may send me straight back, and we’ll say no more about it,” she said. “And look sharp. I haven’t got all day. If I go missing, Mrs. Vanderwhitney will dock my pay. She is a well-known skinflint. And I have ... personal matters to attend to.”

  She was geared up to go. She smoothed down her hair and straightened her uniform skirt. She reached down for her feather duster. “Where do you want me?”

  Aaron looked as worried as I’d ever seen him. He didn’t look like he even knew how he’d gotten her here. He sure didn’t know how to get her back.

  “When Josh and I were in your time,” he said, stalling, “we just came back when our ... time was up.”

  “Well, I shan’t wait for that, if you don’t mind,” she said very brisk.

  “Okay,” he mumbled. “I’ll give it a shot, but it’s a needle in a haystack. You can stand right there. I guess.”

  When he turned to the keyboards, he looked shrunken and unsure. His hands splayed out, but came back. He tried again. I was hanging on the doorknob, afraid to blink. He entered digits. He zeroized and tried some more.

  No power surge. Nothing. The figures glowed dim on the screens. He pushed the Escape button, but nobody did. Time passed. But it was just regular, now-type time. I could read Aaron’s mind through the back of his head. His own personal memory bank was a dead letter box.

  He turned around. “I’ll use my original formula, pre-diddled,” he said, trying to sound certain. “I’ll try to go back and take you with me,” he told the girl. “Stand right behind me and put both your hands on my shoulders.”

  She propped her feather duster under her arm and dropped her hands on his bony shoulders. His hands went out. Digits unfurled. The room lurched. I hung on the knob. But the formula misfired. We were all still there.

  Over Aaron’s shoulders I could read the word pulsing on both screens:ERROR ERROR

  He turned and put up his hands. “This could take some time,” he said without a glimmer of hope. “A few days ... a few nights ...”

  “How very inconvenient,” the girl said.

  “I can’t help it,” said the A-to-Z man. “I’m only eleven.”

  I moaned.

  “Aaron, you better come up with the formula of your life. Maybe she isn’t ever going to go back on her own. Maybe what worked for us doesn’t work for ... the past people. Maybe she isn’t bidirectional.”

  “I’ll get her back,” he said in his mouse voice.

  “You say,” I said. “And what do we do with her in the meantime? Hide her in here, bring her food, and put papers down? She isn’t a puppy.”

  “Kindly don’t speak of me as if I weren’t here,” the girl said. “I am.”

  “The janitor comes in here at night and sort of sweeps around. He’ll find her. He’ll throw her out. She’ll be homeless. It’s winter. She doesn’t have a warm coat.”

  “Josh, do I have to think of everything?” Aaron whined. “It’s your turn. Use your initiative.”

  When my brain goes on overload, I think in every direction. My head throbbed. I am not a common servant, the girl had said. That rang a bell. And I was desperate.

  “I don’t believe I caught your name,” I said, trying for polite.

  “Phoebe,” she said.

  Phoebe? First, Fenella. Next, Feona. Then ...

  “Phoebe,” I said, “are you familiar with the term ‘O Pear’?”

  15

  Cabbages and Kings

  We pulled up three chairs, and I tried to put Phoebe in the picture. I started with what 0 Pears are.

  “They’re English girls from very nice backgrounds,” I said. “They come over here to help out with families and to see American life. They’re here to expand their horizons, and ours.”

  “But don’t they take jobs away from governesses and nannies and nursery maids?” Phoebe looked concerned.

  “We don’t have too many governesses and nannies and nursery maids anymore,” I said. “Now it’s mostly baby-sitters, the occasional Mr. Mom, day care, and Sesame Street.”

  Phoebe had pulled a lace handkerchief out of her sleeve and sat there twisting it in both hands.

  “My dad’s in Chicago, and my mom works,” I said, starting to explain my family and easing up to Heather. “Heather’s going to sneak out to a party Friday night. But don’t worry about her. She comes. She goes.” The explanation took me a while. Finally Aaron tapped his watch. It was quarter till five. It was time to leave if we were going.

  And Phoebe was still with us.

  “You want to give it one more try?” Aaron’s eyes were begging her. “You want to try to—think yourself back? Really put your mind to it.”

  She closed her eyes and gripped her handkerchief. But Emotional Component didn’t seem to do her any good. Maybe in her heart she wasn’t that anxious to get back to Cuthbert and Lysander.

  “Okay,” Aaron said finally. “Let’s take her to your place, Josh. It’ll just be ... tempo
rary. I’ll be doing some heavy-duty collating and really taking a hard look at my formula. You’ll be back to 1923 in no time, Phoebe. One way or another. Until then, you can just O Pear at Josh’s house. It’ll be—cool.”

  Easy for him to say.

  “What choice have I?” Phoebe reached for her feather duster. “I trust I can be a useful servant in any household.”

  “Don’t think of yourself as a servant,” I told her. “Think of yourself as a helpful guest.”

  We cracked the door and peered out at the empty media center. Mrs. Newbery was long gone. Some nights she locks up. Some nights she just gives up. Down the dark hall through Van Allen House we moved like shadows. But I knew Phoebe was real. You could hear the sharp sound of her high heels on the crummy tile.

  The front door of Huckley House was in sight when a figure loomed out of a classroom. We pulled back into a stairwell. It was Mr. Thaw, always the last teacher to leave. He swept out ahead of us with his tweed coat flapping behind him.

  “That’s our old history teacher,” I told Phoebe. “He’s making us do a report for Parents’ Night next Tuesday.” I thought I’d just fill her in as we went along.

  Outside, a sleety wind was blowing. Phoebe didn’t have a coat, so Aaron and I pooled our money to see if we had enough for a cab. We did. Aaron nodded at the drugstore on the Madison Avenue corner. “We better drop in there first, then catch a cab. Phoebe will need a toothbrush.”

  Aaron was okay on details, but he was sure leaving the big picture to me. When we got out of the cab at our building, he handed over three dollars and a dollar tip.

  “Outrageous,” Phoebe said. “Highway robbery. That was a fifty-cent trip and a dime tip. It wasn’t even a proper cab. And certainly not a proper driver. He didn’t even get out to open the door for us. What has the world come to?”

  I had a bad feeling that Phoebe was in for worse shocks than that. Heather, for one.