The Tremendous Baron Time Machine

by Eric Bower

  Though she tried to keep a smile on her face, M didn’t sound particularly excited about any of that. She turned to my father, who was seated at the kitchen table, and reading The Hilarious Mis-Adventures of the Ridiculous Baron Family. He’d been reading it quite a lot lately, though he no longer appeared to find it particularly funny. In fact, the expression on his face was as serious an expression as I’d ever seen my father wear. It reminded me of how he looked when he had completed roughly seventy-five percent of a brilliant thought or idea, usually pertaining to an invention that made absolutely no sense to yours truly. In fact, he was so distracted by the book, he hadn’t even bothered to sew his horse a new winter hat.

  P has a strange thing about hats. For some reason, it’s very important to him that our animals have appropriate new hats for each and every season. Yes, you read that correctly. Our animals.

  I’ve been forced to wear the same winter hat for four years now. It’s as thin and holey as an abandoned cobweb, and provides my head with all the warmth and protection of a used handkerchief. P has been promising to buy or sew me a new hat for about three years now, but that promise always seems to fly out the window whenever he decides that our horse’s head looks a bit chilly or it doesn’t look stylish enough.

  Though I must admit, it could be worse. He’s been promising my mother that he’ll repair the scraggly head of our old kitchen mop for about six years now. And he’s yet to even start on that.

  So, that’s where I rank in the Baron house. Just below the family horse, and just above the mop.

  “McLaron?” my mother said. “What do you think we should do?”

  “Hmmm, wow, yes, of course, right, that sounds good to me, my little muffin,” P muttered absently, clearly not listening to a word that M was saying. “Or bad. Or neither. Or both. Whatever you like, dear. You know best.”

  “McLaron!”

  P dropped his book and looked up at my mother in shock, like he’d just been shaken awake from an intense dream.

  “Yes, my little muffin?” he said. “Wait, where did Mr. Pyles go? I have his new mechanical hairbrush in the work garage. And unlike the last one, this one won’t burrow into his hair like a frightened gopher.”

  “He’s not interested in buying the mechanical hairbrush from us,” Rose told him. “He’s not interested in buying anything from us ever again. It’s because of those stupid books! No one wants an invention made by the Barons because they’re afraid that something will be wrong with them. The books have completely ruined our reputation. W. B. was right.”

  “What was that?” I said, pointing to my ear. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. Who was right? Some clever young fellow with initials for a name? Why, he must be the smartest kid in the whole world.”

  “Be quiet, W. B., this is serious.”

  “She’s right,” said M, as she picked up the latest copy of the local newspaper, The Pitchfork Pitchfork (I know it’s not a very good name, but there aren’t a lot of creative people living in Pitchfork). “Look at the cover story. Our books are not only the bestselling books in Arizona Territory, they’re also the bestselling books on the West Coast. Soon, the entire country will be reading them.”

  “And then no one in America will trust our inventions,” Rose sighed, “which will be quite a big problem for me. My wedding is only a week away, and I could really use the money to help pay for it. It turns out that weddings are really expensive.”

  “Maybe Buddy could pay for the wedding?” I suggested.

  Rose shook her head.

  “First of all, it’s tradition for the family of the bride to pay for the wedding. My parents are rich bank robbers who could afford to throw me a huge wedding, but they still haven’t forgiven me for helping to send my brother Benedict to jail twice. Not to mention the fact that they’d be terribly disappointed that I’m marrying an honest deputy instead of a dastardly bank robber or odious horse thief. Secondly, Buddy doesn’t have two dimes to rub together. He’s broke. His father doesn’t pay him very much to work as a deputy, and most of the money he’s made recently has gone toward repairing the clock tower in the center of town.”

  “Why?” M asked. “What happened to the clock?”

  “Buddy accidentally shot the hands off it when he fell off his horse while sneezing. The mayor is forcing him to pay for it.”

  I felt bad for Buddy. That’s the sort of thing that would usually happen to me. In fact, it happened to me last month. Except instead of falling off a horse, I fell off a sheep. And instead of a sneeze, it was a loud hiccup. And instead of a gun, it was a squishy banana. And instead of a clock tower, it was someone’s grandmother. But other than that, it was pretty much the same thing.

  “You aren’t the only one who needs money, Rose,” M said quietly. “We’re pretty low on funds as well. Last week, we had to buy a large batch of coal to power one of our new inventions. Coal is getting more expensive, which means we had to use a lot of our savings to pay for it. And yesterday, McLaron had to spend quite a bit of money on new shoes and pants for W. B., who appears to be hitting a major growth spurt at a very unfortunate time.”

  She was right. Last January, I was looking up at everyone as though they were giants. Now, I was almost the same height as Rose and my mother, and I was only a few inches shorter than P. Actually. I was still about a foot or two shorter than P, if you counted his tall and spiky hair. But the point was, I was really starting to grow. I felt rather guilty about growing so much, forcing my parents to spend all that money on new boots and pants while we were having terrible money problems. I quietly told myself to stop growing as I took another bite of my third sausage, cheese, onion, and hot pepper sandwich.

  We all sat there silently, wondering if we would have to do what M had said—travel across the country selling my parents’ inventions door to door. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, I supposed. In fact, it might be fun. It would allow us to see some more of the country, and meet new people, and have new adventures, and taste new sandwiches. But it would also mean that we’d never be home. We’d be living out of suitcases, spending our nights in dirty hotels and loud saloons, always feeling dirty and grimy, never feeling comfortable. There might be nights when we’d have to sleep in the horseless carriage.

  And then there was another unpleasant thought that kept passing through my mind: if we were running out of money, did that mean we’d have to sell the Baron Estate?

  It seemed as though we had been hit by a terrible string of bad luck, and we couldn’t understand why. After all, we were nice people. We treated everyone kindly. We didn’t lie or cheat or steal. We didn’t litter or cuss or make fun of people with bad haircuts (which is more than I can say for most people here in Pitchfork . . .). What had we done to deserve this? And more importantly, when would our string of bad luck finally come to an end?

  As we sat and wondered, there was a knock at the front door.

  Since Rose and my mother were still staring sadly at the newspaper article about the popular Baron books, and my father was still studying his copy of The Hilarious Mis-Adventures of the Ridiculous Baron Family as though there was some secret to be unlocked within the pages, I answered the door.

  It was Deputy Buddy Graham. Buddy was a tall and gangly man with a wild and curly mop of red hair. He was a bit of a goon, but he was also a very kind person. And since Rose was fond of him, the rest of us were fond of him too. He was a better peace officer than his father, though that wasn’t saying much. A sturdy coat rack was probably a better peace officer than Sheriff Hoyt Graham.

  Buddy slowly removed his deputy cap as he said hello to me in a somber voice then asked if Rose was home. I couldn’t recall ever seeing Buddy look so sad and serious before. Normally he was as happy-go-lucky as a dog in a sausage factory. But at that moment he looked so upset that I began to feel a bit depressed just from looking at him, which of course meant that I started feeling a bit snackish (and for some reason I was
suddenly craving another sausage). I invited Buddy inside, but he lingered in the doorway, like he was too sad to set foot inside the Baron Estate.

  “Buddy?” Rose called from behind me, her frown quickly twitching into a relieved smile as she walked into the living room. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. This has been a horrible day.”

  Buddy started to speak, but then he bit his lip and quickly turned around. He peered into a cluster of dwarf apple trees in our fruit garden, which appeared to be concealing someone who was trying his best to remain hidden. I could hear that hidden person whispering furiously to Buddy, though I couldn’t see who it was or hear what they were saying. Whoever the person was, they appeared to be upsetting Buddy, since the lanky deputy was furiously whispering right back at them. When they had finished furiously whispering to one another, Deputy Buddy turned back to Rose.

  “Rose,” he said in a voice that cracked, “you look . . . you look absolutely beautiful today.”

  “Really?” I said, looking at Rose, who was dressed in paint stained clothing. We’d been painting the barn earlier that morning, and some of the paint had gotten onto her hands and arms, as well as in her hair, and in one of her ears too. There was even a blotch of paint at the tip of her nose, which made her look like a clown. “You think so, Buddy? She looks pretty awful to me. All paint-spattered. And she smells a bit ripe, too, from working so hard. But that’s Rose. Always sweating. She’s definitely a sweater. You can tell she’s a sweater by the big sweat stains under the armpits of her work shirt. See the stains? Do you see them? Buddy? The stains?”

  “W. B., go away!” Deputy Buddy and Rose both snapped at me at the same time.

  Wow. Some people can be rather rude.

  I returned to the kitchen where my mother was flipping carefully through the newspaper, just in case there was an ad placed by someone in town looking for new and fantastic inventions that she had missed during her last search of the paper. P still had his nose buried in the Baron book. I couldn’t understand why. My father was a genius, and the Baron books were all so poorly written. In my opinion, they weren’t funny or clever or creative or even that interesting. Plus, they were just plain embarrassing. Why would he bother reading those stories over and over again? What was the point? My curiosity finally got the best of me, and I asked him about it, knowing very well that his answer would likely be confusing and weird.

  “Why are you still looking at that book, P?” I asked. “It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever read. It’s even worse than that book about the female squirrel with the boy’s name who stole and hid an antique necklace. What was it called again? Earl the Girl Squirrel’s Squirreled Pearl? Wait . . . is that an actual book, or is that just from a weird dream I had?”

  “Shush, W. B.,” P said as he turned another page. “I’ve found something quite interesting here.”

  “Nothing,” M sighed, setting down the newspaper. “Absolutely nothing. There aren’t any new people looking for inventions or devices or even doodads. It looks like we’ll have to move. We might even need to start a new line of business and get different jobs. Maybe we could become professors at a college? No, that would never work. Our silly reputation as bumbling fools has probably ruined that for us as well. No one wants to be taught by clowns.”

  “They would at a Clown College,” I said, my brain beginning to dance with the beginnings of a brilliant idea. “You and P could open up the first Clown College in the country! You’d make a ton of money! Plus, it would be a lot of fun. I know I’d rather go to Clown College than to the Pitchfork School. You could teach classes on the best way to juggle fire, do cartwheels, swallow swords, and dance with baby bears dressed in pink skirts! This is a great idea!”

  “W. B.,” my mother groaned. “You’re not helping. Please be quiet.”

  “Yes, be quiet, W. B.,” my father muttered.

  Everyone was apparently in very a rude mood.

  It was their loss, though. My Clown College idea would make someone very rich one day. Very rich. Stinkin’ rich. Stinkin’ clown rich, even.

  Suddenly we heard shouting from the living room, followed by the sound of our front door slamming closed. A pair of familiar footsteps raced across the living room and into Rose’s bedroom, and then another door slammed shut. We could hear the faint sound of Rose weeping.

  Aunt Dorcas waddled into the kitchen, slowly shaking her head.

  “Well,” she said, “I guess we won’t have to worry about a wedding now. It’s probably for the best. Most of the people who’d already agreed to attend the wedding have recently canceled, including my EX best friend, Madge Tweetie. Hmmph. Madge. I curse that horrible woman. May all her pies be sour, and may her ankles grow as wide as the Mississippi!”

  “Oh no,” said M. “Did Buddy and Rose really end their engagement?”

  “Naturally,” Aunt Dorcas replied as she reached into the ice box and pulled out a hardboiled egg. “His father wouldn’t approve of his only son marrying a foolish villain. And those silly Baron books make Rose look like the world’s most foolish villain. Sheriff Graham felt he had no choice but to force his son to call off the wedding. He told Buddy that he’d be fired, disinherited, and disowned if he married Rose, plus he’d be forced to give back his deputy hat, which is the only thing that keeps Buddy Graham from looking like a first-class fool. Under that hat, his head is so pointy that neighborhood kids often mistake it for a ring-toss game.”

  “Fascinating . . .” my father said quietly, and he turned another page in the book.

  “That’s terrible news,” I said. “Poor Rose.”

  “Yes, poor Rose indeed,” M answered with a sigh. “McLaron, what is so interesting about that book? You haven’t put it down in weeks. You must have already read the silly thing cover to cover at least a dozen times.”

  P put down the book and smiled a strange smile.

  Actually, it was just one of his regular smiles, though it still looked pretty strange. Remember what I said about strange people having strange laughs? It goes double for their smiles. When my father smiled, he looked a bit like a seasick ferret. Or like an owl with a bad taste in its mouth. Or like some other animal with a personal problem.

  “You’re right, my little muffin,” he said to M. “I should have this book memorized by now. But I don’t. Do you know why?”

  “Because you have more important things to do with your time than memorize a stupid book?” I suggested. “Like making certain that your poor, hungry family doesn’t starve to death because they’ve run out of money? Particularly your loving son? Who’s already quite hungry?”

  “Nope!” P declared, opening the book to what appeared to be a random page and holding it up. “I don’t have it memorized because the book keeps changing.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and covered my chuckle with a little cough.

  Every time I think my father had acted as strangely as humanly possible, he’ll suddenly do or say something to assure me that there is no shortage of strangeness living within him. He is like an odd well. What’s an odd well, you ask? Well, I suppose it’s a well that is filled with odd things instead of water. What sort of odd things would be in the odd well, you ask? Well, I don’t know. Maybe some glow-in-the-dark pudding, or a two-headed ostrich, or a giant banana that plays the bugle? I don’t know. I suppose it’s rather odd for me to be devoting so much time toward thinking about what might be in this fictional “odd well,” but keep in mind, I am my father’s son, which means I’m probably a little odd myself.

  Anyway, it appeared as though P was having some sort of mental breakdown. It must have been from the stress of losing all his clients. I tried to be as polite and sympathetic as possible, while also letting him know that he’d gone completely bonkers.

  “Right,” I said to him, nodding my head and patting my father gently on the shoulder. “The book keeps changing. Of course. Hey, on a completely unrelated topic, maybe you should lie dow
n for a bit? You could probably use the rest. I’m sure that when you wake up, the book won’t be changing anymore. What do you say, P? Want to rest your weary head? Hmm? It looks pretty darn weary to me.”

  “Does it?” P asked, feeling the top of his head. “It seems more pointy.”

  “W. B.!” M cried as she grabbed the book. “Look! He’s absolutely right! It’s changing!”

  She pointed to one of the sentences on the page. When I took a closer look, I was shocked to find that some of the letters were growing fuzzy and rearranging themselves, marching like ants around the paragraph until they had formed a completely different sentence!

  !!!

  I rubbed my eyes and then looked again, unable to believe what I’d just witnessed. It was impossible. As a book wolverine, I’d read many, many books in my short life, but I’d never seen one that could edit itself after it’d already been published—not even the ones that could have really used the extra help. I hadn’t been looking at the newly formed story for longer than ten seconds before I noticed that another sentence, at the very top of the page, was also changing! And then another sentence, down at the bottom! And then another, on the other side! And the one after it too! Soon, all the letters were turning fuzzier than a lamb’s backside, transforming from Ds into Ss, from Os into Hs, from Rs into As, from Cs into Rs, from As into Os, and from Ss into Ns. It was as though the letters in the book had all come to life and decided to tell a whole new story that they’d written themselves.

  “Is this magic?” I gasped, feeling my hands begin to tremble with fear. “What’s happening?”

  “Don’t be silly, W. B.; there’s no such thing as magic.” But no sooner had my mother said that, when suddenly there was a flash of light, followed by a very light cracking noise at the other end of the kitchen. My parents and I looked over and saw that a hardboiled egg had been dropped onto the floor.