Nellie Nova Takes Flight

by Stephenie Peterson

  By: Stephenie Peterson

  Illustrations by: Elie Dagher

  Copyright © 2016 Stephenie Peterson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 069217701

  ISBN-13: 978-0692617700

  DEDICATION

  For my Grandma Ann, who showed me what it means to be a strong woman.

  For Keagan, Eden, and Aviel. May innovation run through your veins, confidence beat in your heart, and may joy envelop your soul.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I couldn't have done this alone. I am unbelievably blessed to have some amazing people in my life.

  Elie, you helped me bring Nellie to life. I will never be able to thank you enough for creating the art that completes my story. Thank you.

  Liz Byer, thank you for your editing genius. You helped my story shine.

  Thank you to all of my beta readers, your input helped more than you know.

  Katie, thank you for countless phone calls and brainstorming sessions, for talking me through anxiety attacks when I didn't think I could do it. For just being you. You are such a wonderful friend. I am so glad that we haven't let a little thing like 2,887 miles get in the way of our friendship.

  Mom and Dad, for better or for worse, you taught me to believe that I can do anything- even fly off the front porch.

  My wonderful husband, Nick- you have supported me from day one. We've been through a lot in ten years. Three states (two of them twice!) many, many homes, late nights, 43,942 doctor's appointments. Joy, pain, tears and laughter. I would not trade it all for anything. I love you forever, even if you stink at Scrabble.

  PROLOGUE

  Nellie could not believe that all the events of the past few weeks had led to this. She'd been kidnapped! After all her hard work, all her time, dedication, and innovation, there she was, stuffed in the backseat of a car, handcuffed, and gagged.

  Fear filled her small frame and a thought crept into her mind.

  If she had the chance, somehow, to undo everything she'd done, never to have traveled in time, but to be safe at home without fear of something like this happening again, would she do it?

  She looked around, taking it all in—the large, scary men who'd taken her hostage, the feel of the metal handcuffs digging into her wrists. The sense of dread as she wondered how on earth she would ever make it back home. It was the most terrifying experience of her life, and she had no clue how to get out of it.

  She took a deep breath, thinking about the spiraling, beautiful maze that is eternity, about the people she'd met and the places she'd seen. She wistfully contemplated all that she could see again if she could just find a safe way to get to her family.

  Would she give up all that she’d discovered to avoid this moment?

  Not a chance in the world.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nellie Nova appeared to be a normal girl. She typically wore blue jeans and T-shirts, most often purple ones because purple was her favorite color. She was thin and a tad bit short for a nine-year-old. Her hair was quite often an unruly sea of tangled blond curls, because she was too busy playing to stop and primp. Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks as if someone had sprinkled a jar of cinnamon over her face and the bits of spice had made a home upon her skin. She wore plastic, rectangular-framed glasses, which were, of course, purple.

  Yes, Nellie Nova appeared to be a normal girl. But Nellie was not normal.

  Nellie was extraordinary, and that's why she's the hero of our book. Nellie was absolutely brilliant.

  She was a girl who knew she could do anything if she just tried hard enough. Above all else, she was strong. Would you ever imagine that a young girl could have more strength than grown men? I’m not saying she could lift a car over her blond curls. Physically, she wasn't especially impressive. It's her inner strength that will shock you. You see, Nellie Nova was . . . Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Why don't I start at the beginning? I've been told that it's a good place to start.

  Nellie lived in a smallish old house on a quiet street in a quiet town that wasn't too far from a big city, where her mother, Annie, worked as a botanist in a research lab. (A botanist is a scientist who studies plants.) The house was painted sky blue with bright green trim and a sign that read "Casa Nova" hung crookedly over the front door. (If you didn't know, “casa” means “house” in Spanish.) Bejeweled stepping-stones made a twisted path through the numerous plants in the front yard. Several garden gnomes stood guard in the yard, popping up between ferns and hiding among flower beds. There were so many plants, visitors often got the feeling they were walking through a well-planned jungle. Tendrils crawled in every direction, creating a tangled maze of beauty and wonder. An ivy-covered archway separated the front yard from the back. It was made of recycled machine parts: gears, an old exhaust pipe from a car, bike chains, and a variety of other oddities, welded together. Beyond it, the backyard was every bit as eccentric as the front. The backyard teemed with the vibrant colors of every variety of plant imaginable. A tall oak tree dominated the center of the yard. At the top of the tree sat a tree house painted all the colors of the rainbow. A tangled bed of ferns and tall grasses sat below the tree, showcasing more of Nellie's mother's gardening handiwork.

  Inside, the Nova home glowed with joy and life. There was not a single white wall in Casa Nova. Each room danced with vibrant hues. Houseplants blossomed from every nook and cranny. But that's not what people usually noticed when they visited. What stood out to most people when they entered Casa Nova was that it was filled with books. Books about science, nature, art, history, and just about anything else you might ever need to know about. Shelves lined the halls, loaded from top to bottom with books, and each wall in Nellie’s parents' bedroom was loaded with more shelves with more books. This wasn't just part of the Nova family's taste in decorating. All the books got a lot of use. Everyone in Nellie's house was basically a genius.

  Nellie had a brother, Niles, who was eleven. He was a jokester. He loved to play elaborate pranks on people (usually Nellie). Because Niles was so bright, his pranks tended to be on a much larger scale than typical big-brother mayhem. A budding chemist, Niles once doctored the formula of Nellie's bubble bath, resulting in what Niles called "Operation Bath Bomb." When Nellie squirted some of the liquid from the bottle into her bath, instead of creating a layer of foam on top of the bathwater, the solution caused the tub to quickly overflow with a sea of tiny bubbles. Within seconds, the suds multiplied to the point where the room was encased from the floor to the ceiling. Nellie literally swam in bubbles until she made her way to the door. When she opened it, bubbles spilled into the hallway and flowed all the way to the front of the house. Niles was full of mischief—brilliant, naughty mischief. But don't let his tricks make you think he wasn't a pretty great kid. He may have played a lot of pranks, but he had a kind heart. He adored his family, and he spent his free time volunteering at his local soup kitchen. Niles was full of surprises.

  Yes, all the members of the Nova family were quite smart, none more so than Nellie. She learned to read when she was two years old. She built her first robot at three and a half. She knew her multiplication tables at four and half. She began computer programming at five and three quarters, which she likes to point out is three months earlier than her brother, who started right after his sixth birthday. By nine years old, Nellie was studying quantum physics for fun. She thought calculus was a blast. Sometimes, when she was bored, she'd read some of her father's scientific journals, which she found utterly fascinating.

  Nellie and Niles were homeschooled. They spent countless hours reading countless books. Nellie liked to do her schoolwork in their tree house in the backyard. Up there, alone with her books, the birds
, and fresh air, she often got lost in her reading. Her parents would frequently have to beg her to come down for dinner. Nellie and Niles also often worked on various science and art projects, and they traveled a lot with their parents. They were always learning.

  Nellie's dad, Fox, was a physicist, which means he was a scientist who asked questions about matter and energy, and tried to answer them with really cool experiments. He worked from home for the most part but, three days a week, he taught classes at the local university. Nellie and Niles often went to work with him. They'd sit in on his lectures at the university or hang out in the student union and do schoolwork while they waited for him to finish his classes. Often, they'd attract a decent amount of attention, being so young and hanging out on a college campus. The students would stop to talk to them, and before long, Nellie and Niles would find themselves in a debate about philosophy or quantum physics. The Nova kids loved every minute of it.

  Nellie loved to learn. She also loved soccer, dancing (though she was always very nervous when the time came for her recitals), participating in Girl Scouts, and painting. That is what she was doing the day our story starts. It was a sunny Tuesday in September and Nellie was sitting in her room, painting a picture of a beaver with extremely large teeth and purple glasses, when her brother burst into her purple-walled bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” he asked with a smirk. Niles had an exceptionally memorable smirk. It was easy to tell when he was up to no good. A combination of joy and mischief spread across his thin lips and his freckled face shone with glee under his fiery-red hair.

  Niles, like any respectable big brother, was thoroughly convinced that he ought to tease Nellie as often as possible. Don't get me wrong: He loved his little sister, and woe be it to any child who picked on her at the playground, but at home he liked to try to push her buttons.

  “I'm painting. What's it look like?” Nellie said without looking up from her purple art table.

  “Oooh, silly wittle girl and her wittle girly painting! Girls are so goofy. It's not like this is important. In fact, I don't think any girl has ever really done anything important!” Now, Niles did not believe anything he was saying, but, as I said, he liked to irritate his sister for sport.

  “Niles! Of course they have. Think of Mom. She's a really successful scientist, and she takes care of us. She's totally important.”

  “Yeah, Mom's great and all, but did she change the world? Show me one woman who's changed the world. Einstein changed the world. Martin Luther King Junior changed the world. Abraham Lincoln changed the world. All guys, naturally,” he said with a wink and left her room before she could point out that history is filled with amazing women.

  At that very moment, a spark was set off in Nellie's most exceptional mind. As an actual spark needs fuel to become a fire, so does a spark in one's mind. This spark was fueled by excitement. It was fueled by passion. It was fueled by a love of science and history. The largest bit of fuel came from something within her as old as time itself: sibling rivalry. That spark was set ablaze almost instantaneously and soon the tiny spark of an idea was an unstoppable fire of an idea, and she knew exactly what she was going to do.

  Nellie was going to build a time machine.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It might seem strange to you that Nellie's reaction to her brother's teasing was to turn around and try to create a machine that no scientist had ever been able to build before. I know that's not what I would have done. But when Niles said women had never changed the world, Nellie's mind was filled with the faces of great women who had come before her. The faces of Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Amelia Earhart, Sandra Day O'Connor, Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, and many more amazing women swam through her mind like a school of tuna fish, so numerous that there was no end in sight. As all these world-changing women flashed before her eyes, she knew she had to meet them. She knew with their help she could prove to Niles—and people everywhere—that girls are strong, smart, and able to make a mark on this world.

  The practical fact of the matter was that many of these wonderful women were, well . . . dead. Since she couldn't simply email them, Nellie decided that she wouldn't let a little thing like time get in her way. She'd recently read a scientific journal her father had left in the kitchen that stated that some scientists had said time travel is not outside the realm of possibility. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now, with a sense of determination filling her small frame, it all came back to her with a rush of excitement.

  Now, I cannot fully describe the inner workings of Nellie's brain, but I can tell you this: The inside of Nellie's mind was a magnificent place. Mathematical equations swirled around in purple puffy

  clouds; ideas were spoken audibly in three languages; schematics for inventions seemed to draw themselves in midair with an invisible pencil, which left a trail of shining purple glitter as it moved. Pages of giant books flipped constantly, filling the air with a whooshing sound. A large wall of colorful gears, chains, and other machinery moved melodically to the music of Mozart, which played on in the background all the while. And that's just on a normal day.

  The day Nellie got her big idea, her mind was working at one thousand times its normal pace. This would have overwhelmed you or me, but to Nellie it was invigorating. Inside her body, her blood seemed to rush through her veins. Her heart beat ever so slightly quicker than normal. Her skin tingled. She knew that she was onto something bigger, bolder, and more significant than ever before. The idea that there might be complications occurred to her, but she was too excited to be scared.

  Nellie locked herself in her room for days, coming out only to eat, drink, use the restroom, and gather supplies. She started with a large refrigerator box she found in the garage, which she promptly painted purple. Then, she raided her father's office for books, articles, and a variety of mechanical pieces she stole from his old projects. She covered her wall from floor to ceiling with blueprints, notes, and articles ripped from scientific journals that she thought might be of use to her. After a few days, she ran out of wall space and started taping notes and schematics over windows and on her furniture. Occasionally, on her infrequent trips out of her room, she'd mumble something about time travel to one of her parents, but she never stopped long enough to truly converse.

  One by one, the members of Nellie's family began to worry about her well-being, starting with her mother, naturally, as worrying is what mothers do best. Annie Nova peered into Nellie's room one afternoon when Nellie had not emerged for hours, offering her some kale chips and fresh-squeezed green juice. Annie was a warm, kind person, and that warmth shined through in her appearance. Her honey-blond hair was always glossy and her gray eyes were sweet and inviting. Annie held out the snack to Nellie, who accepted but barely looked up from her sketch. Annie's round eyes filled with concern. She bit her lip and watched as Nellie drew furiously, but she didn't say anything. It wasn't the first time Nellie had lost herself in a project. Annie thought back to the time Nellie had built a model of Victorian London in painstaking detail. Nellie had barely come out of her room for a full week. Or the time she’d decided she wanted to modify their robotic vacuum to also polish the hardwood floors. That was another week gone. Nellie was known for her determination. But Annie couldn't help but think that this time-machine business seemed a bit different. She reluctantly left Nellie to her work.

  As soon as the door closed, Nellie pushed aside the glass and plate, freeing up more space for her plans. "I know I'm missing something," she thought. "I bet Niles would have a design drawn out by now." It isn't always easy living in a family full of geniuses. As brilliant as Nellie was, brilliance was expected in the Nova family.

  The next person who was struck with a bit of worry was her father, Fox. Now, don't get me wrong, his first reaction as a physicist was sheer pride that his nine-year-old daughter would take on an attempt at time travel with such passion. After five days of Nellie's absence at the dinner table, however, Fox was worried th
at she'd taken on more than she could handle. As exceptional as she was, she was still a nine-year-old child, and Fox thought that maybe she should go play outside.

  "Hey kiddo," he said as he opened the door to her bedroom, his green eyes darting behind his glasses to the walls and windows, which were now completely covered with her plans and inspirational articles. Though he was overwhelmed by Nellie's work, he attempted not to show it. He failed, however, and the look of wonderment on his face made him look almost childlike. He and Niles always looked alike, but in this moment, he looked just like his son. He took a breath and composed himself.

  "What do you say we go outside for a bit, kick a soccer ball around, and then head to Fork Chops for a milk shake?"

  Nellie didn't look up. She simply murmured, "No, thanks," and went back to tinkering with some fuses.

  Fox's shoulders tensed. His forehead wrinkled under his mop of red locks. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He couldn't explain why, but he felt a great sense of worry for his little girl.

  On day six, Nellie gave her parents a reason to be worried. She was attempting a test run of the time machine. Her plan was simply to go forward in time three minutes. Unfortunately, her machine didn't work. I hate to say it, but the mechanics were not quite in place, and,well . . . it caught on fire. It was a just a little fire but, as fires tend to do, it caused quite a commotion.

  Nellie was standing in the time-machine box, hoping to visit the near future, when she smelled smoke. Soon a small poof of smoke shot from the top of the box. When Nellie got out, she saw that it was on fire. As Nellie ran for the fire extinguisher, the smoke alarm went off, and Fox and Annie ran into the room to check on their daughter. They got to the room just in time to see Nellie putting out the flames.