Gertie Milk and the Keeper of Lost Things

by Simon Van Booy

  “That’s us, right?”

  “So much for slipping through time unnoticed. . . .”

  “But Kolt,” Gertie asked curiously, “how do you know all this?”

  “Mrs. Pumble cornered a Loser years ago during a mission and put truth spice in the moonberry juice he stole. We quickly found out that not only had our ancient order been discovered, but Vispoth was able to calculate when and where objects were most likely to be returned by Keepers of Lost Things.”

  “Is that how your key and time machine got stolen?”

  Kolt nodded. “Vispoth knew which mission would take place in the Losers’ natural lifetimes, and where in the world it would happen. So they flew down to South America, where they ambushed Mrs. Pumble and me in the rain forest as we were trying to return a beautiful set of panpipes.”

  Suddenly there was a loud clonk, as Kolt walked into something hard and metal.

  “Finally!” he said. “I knew the Time Cat was around here somewhere.”

  Kolt uncloaked it and they both got inside.

  “But to finish the story, Gertie—the stolen time machine and key were useless at first without the B.D.B.U. to decide the destination. However, when the Losers connected the key and box to Vispoth, it was somehow able to figure out the mechanics of time travel, create plans for a ship, and send Losers back to the Roman era, where they found their beloved author, Cava Calla Thrax, and whisked him away.”

  “That explains why he went missing suddenly from history.”

  “As if returning objects weren’t dangerous enough—now Keepers were battling Losers for the fate of humankind. That’s why you showing up was the best thing that’s happened in centuries. You tipped the balance, Gertie—you’re the new Keeper hope!”

  Then Gertie had a thought. “But if the Losers started with books and a supercomputer, isn’t that knowledge?”

  “I know,” Kolt chuckled. “But the irony is completely lost on them.”

  “Well, we’re not going to let them win,” Gertie said, her determination like a fire fed by everything she had learned. “And until I find my way home, I promise to help as much as I can.”

  As Kolt punched in the time codes, Gertie imagined human progress as brave people holding hands in a long line, passing ideas to one another—with the Losers trying to break that chain.

  “Do we have to return through that battle?” Gertie asked, noticing a group of camel herders eyeing them with curiosity.

  “Oh, goodness no, that was miles and miles away. Just press this. . . .”

  Kolt showed Gertie a white button with a smiling face drawn on it. “That’s for home! I’ll make one with your face too if you want.”

  When the camel herders decided to investigate the horseless green chariot, Kolt declared they had successfully done their duty, and it was probably time to get going. He took the time machine from the glove box, gave it to Gertie (who had Kolt’s key ready), and pressed the button with the picture of his head on it.

  There was a fizzing sensation, a series of light pops, and within a split second they had left the fabled ancient city of Alexandria and were rocketing over the graviton bridge in their old green car with dodgy locks and rust in the floor panels.

  Unfortunately, on the final curve between the dimension of Earth and the Island of Skuldark, Kolt realized that one of the 101 automatic watches spinning under the hood had stopped working. Probably, he explained to Gertie (trying not to panic), on account of the cannon crown doing something to the balance-cap jewel, which in turn would have jammed the minute wheel and shredded the gluon exchange—resulting in a level 7 boomerang schlepp.

  In other words, they were about to break down.

  19

  The Big Apple

  IT ALL HAPPENED SO QUICKLY. The Time Cat began to sputter, then a weak tapping from the engine rose gradually to a series of bangs, then finally to a small explosion, which caused the old car to spin around, before a blinding flash of green light and a horrible thump, which meant they’d touched down.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh heavens!” Kolt said, yanking off his seat belt. “Are you hurt, Gertie?”

  “I’m fine, I think,” she said, checking to see if all her limbs were where she remembered them. “But where are we?”

  Peering out the windows, Gertie saw they had crash-landed in an enormous tree, with branches wide enough to walk on, and leaves the size of tablecloths.

  “So this is how it feels to be a bug!” Gertie said, surprised at how calm she felt, considering that the Time Cat had almost exploded with her in it.

  “Let’s be very careful,” Kolt warned her as they climbed out of the steaming car to check the damage. “We appear to be miles up from the ground in what I suspect is a dinosaur orchard.”

  “Dinosaurs?” Gertie asked. “I think I remember what they are. So we’ve gone even further back in time from the North African desert?”

  “No, Gertie, forward! Way, way, way forward into the future. Look up!”

  In the sky, Gertie saw thousands upon thousands of tiny dots darting about like dotty insects, zipping in all directions.

  “What are they?”

  “Space traffic,” Kolt said. “Humans eventually left the Earth and moved into space just outside the atmosphere.”

  “But why?”

  “Because six thousand years after Eratosthenes figured out how big the Earth was, it ended up being too small for everyone to live on comfortably. Population growth and the wear and tear of endless combustion, I’m afraid.”

  “Humans lived in space?”

  “They did, Gertie. After a whole century of world conventions, committees, probes, prototypes, and three-course lunches, people moved into space, so Earth could be repaired and cultivated as a food planet with genetically modified semi-organic fruit trees that grow four miles high, blueberry bushes as tall as cliffs, and rice paddies producing rice grains the size of canoes.”

  “Maybe I’m from space. I never even thought about that.”

  “I’m not so sure, Gertie. You don’t seem to know what anything is here. But let’s get the Time Cat fixed as soon as possible, it was a lucky escape.”

  Once the engine had stopped smoking, Kolt fiddled with bushels of wires under the hood, as Gertie walked up and down the branch. Above her head dangled apples the size of boulders. Deep crimson with waxy skin that was so thick, she would have needed an ax to break through.

  “I wish I could take a bite!”

  Kolt looked up from what he was doing. “Imagine the pie we could make from just one! Though what I find most amazing is how the juiciness inside each apple is simply water that’s traveled miles up from the ground through the roots.”

  Gertie stared past the giant leaves at all the colorful dots in the sky. Space people zipping about in their ships.

  “Should we try to get help? From the people up there?”

  “I’m afraid they already know we’re here. It’s forbidden to land in trees and go exploring dinosaur orchards without some kind of fruit permit,” Kolt said. “So we really need to get going before we’re arrested.”

  After assessing the damage, Kolt said they were going to need parts from the cottage.

  Gertie volunteered.

  “Go by yourself? You realize that if you don’t come back I’ll be stuck here?”

  “Until you get snatched by the B.D.B.U.”

  “Very true, but in the meantime, anything could happen!”

  “Of course I’ll come back,” Gertie said. “Just tell me how.”

  Kolt took a pocketknife from the Time Cat and cut a small piece of bark from the tree branch he was standing on. “Because we’ve broken down, and this is not a place the B.D.B.U. intended us to visit, the rules may be a little different.”

  Kolt handed Gertie the slice of tree bark.

  “This is your
ticket back,” he said. “Once you arrive on Skuldark, it will be technically lost—and so because it’s part of a living thing, and most living objects need immediate return, just make sure you’re touching it, or it’s in your pocket when you put the key in the time machine.”

  Then Kolt told Gertie the things he needed and where to find them.

  “Oh! And you’d best bring a couple of seals, in case water gets in.”

  “Wow, okay . . . where would I find those? On the beach with Johnny the Guard Worm?”

  Kolt was confused but then suddenly understood. “No, no, Gertie, not those kinds of seals. I need the ones in a drawer under the sink that’s full of rubber rings to prevent leaks. And while you’re at it, pick up a space-timing belt, and from a wooden box under the table marked DO NOT OPEN, I want you to bring a test tube of enriched seaweed powder, which should give the engine a boost, and get the watches spinning again.

  “And don’t hang about, Gertie! Don’t go anywhere near or even touch—or even breathe on—a magnet, and don’t set your key down and walk away, and please don’t get distracted by a Slug Lamp or something interesting on the kitchen table and forget about me.”

  Gertie watched his eyes dart about, scanning the tree branches above her head. “It’s not the fruit police I’m worried about,” he confessed. “It’s the pollination drones.”

  Gertie promised to be extra careful as she retrieved the time machine from the glove box and inserted Kolt’s key.

  “It could always be worse!”

  « • • • »

  Almost instantly, Gertie found herself back in the kitchen of the Keepers’ cottage, surprised by how still and dark it was. The fire had gone out, and the damp air smelled of wood smoke.

  A few moments after her arrival, the nautical lamps flickered to life at the same time.

  “Hello?” Gertie said. “Is someone here?”

  It was strange to be alone again, even though Kolt’s house was a place she felt safe enough to be herself, whoever that was.

  She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Going back over all the things that had happened, she felt her feelings uncoil like an old spring.

  “So you’re Keeper of Lost Things,” she said, and despite the mystery of who she was, and the hardships she had faced, something about those few words made the girl in the mirror smile.

  “A Keeper,” she said again, feeling something she hadn’t felt before. A sort of pride, a confidence in what she now understood was a duty.

  « • • • »

  Halfway back to the kitchen was a tiny door with a sign that read BEDROOM 4.

  As instructed, Gertie crouched and went in. It was more of a storage closet than a room, with almost every inch of space taken up by a huge glass tank, which Kolt had de-scribed as the sort of thing you’d normally see full of dangerous fish eyeballing you through the glass. But this one contained time itself, and was filled to the brim with thousands of wristwatches, pocket watches, calculator watches, water clocks, shadow clocks, maritime clocks (including the Harrison regulator), cosmic star threaders, space-time locators, and an ingenious timepiece, which gave the wearer electric shocks at every mealtime if he or she wasn’t eating enough vegetables.

  Gertie put her ear to the glass and listened to the delicate clicking of wheels and springs. The language of time. A framed letter hung beside the tank of watches.

  Dearest Kolt,

  In answer to your question, I think time exists so that everything doesn’t happen at once. Thanks again for finding my socks, and the bottle of moonberry juice.

  Onward!

  —Albert Einstein

  At one end of the glass tank, there was a bright red button, and directly underneath an opening with a metal bucket to catch whatever came shooting through the hole. When Gertie pushed the button three times (as Kolt had instructed) there was a strange whirring noise, a rush of air, and three watches fell with a clunk into the bucket.

  Strapping them on her arm, Gertie wondered who they belonged to, and how they had come to be lost in the first place.

  After hurrying back to the kitchen, she scanned the wall of books, searching for the volume Kolt had asked for. She wondered if she would see that book written by Mrs. Pumble. According to what Kolt had said, she had found a way back to her family but, for some reason, had chosen to return to Skuldark. Gertie had so many questions she hoped the book might answer, but couldn’t waste time looking for it now. She would ask Kolt where it was when she had completed her first mission as Keeper and they were lounging comfortably by the fire, their mouths fizzing with moonberry juice.

  Many of the books in the tall case were in languages that Gertie couldn’t understand—though some of the titles she could read seemed quite interesting:

  The Explosive Power of Spices

  The Riddle of Teeth

  A Poisoner’s Companion

  The Bovine Divine:

  A History of Supernatural Cows

  As Gertie scanned the shelves, one volume began to glow. Then to her surprise, it began sliding out of its place, and would have fallen to the floor had Gertie not lunged to catch it in midair. She suspected it was the book Kolt had asked her to get, but it turned out to be something completely different, an illustrated manual of some kind:

  Caring for Your Robot Rabbit Boy:

  A Complete Guide to the Series 7

  It had to be the work of the B.D.B.U., Gertie thought, and she tucked it into her cloak. Then she saw the book Kolt had requested:

  The Dangerous History of Attraction:

  Why Magnets Matter

  She grabbed it and went over to the food cupboard to search for the block of chocolate marmalade cake Kolt wanted.

  “Just look for an expiration date in 1834,” he’d said, “and you’ll know you have the right one.”

  Then she fetched the seals, space-timing belt, and vial of super-seaweed powder from the box marked DO NOT OPEN (which she opened).

  Although Kolt had assured Gertie that the time machine would work anywhere, she took it outside along with the books, cake, spare parts, and three timepieces on her arm, to the faded patch of yellow grass where the Time Cat was usually parked. It had stopped raining, but the ground was soggy, and her sandals were soon soaked. It was hard to believe that only hours ago, she’d been dying of heat and thirst in the African desert. She checked to make sure the dinosaur apple tree bark was in her pocket and then fed her key into the box.

  With a pleasant buzzing and a loud pop, Gertie was returned to the branch where they had broken down. Kolt was standing in the same position, with exactly the same look of fear on his face.

  “Brilliant, you were only gone nine minutes!”

  He took from Gertie everything he had asked for, and began to hammer at something in the engine. Gertie sat down with the book she had brought on Robot Rabbit Children.

  After a while, Kolt appeared from under the hood with splashes of oil and green slime on his face.

  “It should work now. I only needed two timepieces in the end; keep the third and toss it back in the time tank when we get home.”

  “Maybe I could return it?” Gertie said hopefully, looking at the small gold watch with plain black numbers. “It could be my next mission as Keeper?”

  Kolt tore some cake from the loaf Gertie had brought.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said, chewing around the words. “We can only return what the B.D.B.U. instructs us to, not the things we wish.”

  “Oh yes, I forgot,” she said, blushing.

  Then suddenly, the watch on her wrist began to glow.

  Gertie jumped to her feet. “Does that mean we can return it?”

  Kolt was surprised. “The B.D.B.U. must think you’re ready for your first solo mission.”

  “Solo mission?” Gertie said. “So I get to drive the Time Cat by myself?
”

  Kolt laughed nervously. “Well, no, not exactly, I’ll come with you, but you can make all the decisions.”

  Gertie put the time machine back in the glove box, and they strapped themselves in. Kolt said he was relieved the orchard police hadn’t shown up—or worse, one of the gigantic insect drones.

  Suddenly, a heavy, teeth-rattling vibration passed through the cabin of the Time Cat.

  “Oh dear,” he said. “Maybe I spoke too soon.”

  “Are we breaking down again?”

  “No,” Kolt replied with an edge in his voice. “I haven’t even turned the engine on yet. That’s something else entirely, something outside.”

  Gertie scanned the skies. “A bee drone?”

  “Let’s not find out!”

  At first, the Time Cat’s motor wouldn’t start and just whirred over and over as though out of breath. Then a dark shadow fell upon them.

  “What was that?” asked Gertie.

  Kolt fiddled with some wires under the steering wheel. Then with a choking sound (as though the motor was simply clearing its throat) the Time Cat began to chug. Kolt pressed the Home button, and the old car fizzed and shuddered, but then a moment before they hit the graviton bridge the dark shadow swooped down, so that it hovered just a few feet over the Time Cat’s hood. Kolt slammed on the brakes. It was not a bee drone or the orchard police but an enormous, thrumming spaceship in the shape of a giant, battered doll head.

  Kolt gasped. “Losers!”

  “What? Who?” Gertie said, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

  “It’s Doll Head! The Losers’ patrol ship.”

  “What should we do?” Gertie said, sensing something dreadful about to happen.

  Kolt frantically pushed buttons and pulled levers, as the dashboard blazed red with warning lights. “They’re trying to hitch a ride to Skuldark across the graviton bridge. We’re going to have to make a run for it!”

  20

  Doll Head