Time Villains Series, Book 1

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Time Villains Series, Book 1 Page 9

by Victor Piñeiro


  He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time all day. “Brady. Oh, hi. This? This is a collection of books on temporal physics, quantum mechanics, and wormholes.”

  “I’m even more confused now, Brainiac.”

  Wiki looked over at us both. “I’m trying to piece together how Andy facilitates time travel. There has to be a mechanism. Then once I’ve solved that, we can move on to my aunt’s strange behavior and her ominous statement about our principal.”

  “You’re trying to solve time travel?” I asked, scratching my head. “I might not be a professional chef yet, but I’m pretty sure you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Way more. Here’s an idea: How about you park the time-travel thing, and we figure out what your aunt meant about Principal Gale.”

  “Everything,” he repeated. “She has everything to do with Andy.”

  “Yeah, you’ve been saying ‘everything’ on loop since we got here. We heard her too.” Brady sighed.

  Mr. Bottom came walking over with a fat book. “Mr. Green, this massive tome is the most recent book on theoretical physics I could find.” This was probably the twentieth book Mr. B had hunted down for Wiki in the last hour. “However, I don’t recommend it—it’s overly long and tedious. And brevity is the soul of wit.”

  “Hmmm, I think we’re going to change the parameters of our search,” Wiki said as he practically fell over from the weight of the book.

  “Sorry,” I said to Mr. B. “When he gets excited about something…”

  “Ah, there’s no need to apologize, Mr. Santiago. It is my greatest pleasure to help Mr. Green. He’s the only student who makes full use of this library. Most students only request books in their curricula. Or on…Boi Squad.” We all shuddered.

  “Mr. Bottom, are there any books on the history of our school?” Wiki asked.

  For a split second, Mr. B’s eyes looked scared—or threatened. I doubt the others even noticed. He coughed awkwardly. “I don’t believe so, no. There are articles about the school that would take me some time to find, but no book devoted to the school itself.”

  “How about books on the history of New Brittany?” he asked. “Probably in the local history section, 977.1, I would imagine?”

  “We may have one or two, Mr. Green. This being a small town, they won’t be very impressive, I’m afraid. Probably written by the local historical society. I will see what we have.” Mr. B shuffled off into the depths of the library.

  “That should at least be a good starting point,” Wiki said, half to himself. “We’ll see if there’s anything in it that might lead us down a path to some answers.”

  “So Principal Gale has everything to do with Andy,” I said as I tried to spin a book on my finger. “Maybe what Aunt Nancy means is that our principal used to be the Chosen One.”

  “Your point being?” Wiki asked.

  “Well, it’s like I said before: What if we weren’t the only ones to use Andy? What if Principal Gale used him before?”

  Brady started nodding, but Wiki shook his head.

  “So what if Principal Gale had some really fancy dinner parties with historical figures?” he said. “I mean, it’s fascinating, but it doesn’t change anything. Like I said, if historical figures were running around in the modern world, we would absolutely know about it. And Andy would be locked up in some government laboratory getting studied by army scientists.”

  Mr. B showed up again holding a couple of books that looked stapled together. “Well, Mr. Green, it appears that we have one shoddy book hardly bigger than a pamphlet and another that looks like somebody’s stapled-together homework,” he said. “Hardly worth studying, but here they are.” He handed them to Wiki, who looked pretty disappointed. “Pipe up if your curiosity sets you down a different path,” Mr. B added as he walked back to the front desk.

  Wiki sat down to look at the books, and I kept thinking about my theory as I walked aimlessly down the rows of bookshelves.

  It did make some sense. If Gale was Andy’s Chosen One for a while, she probably invited some awesome people to dinner over the years. I bet she became friends with some of them and invited them over many times. Kind of like Kid Mozart. If we got the bell back I was definitely going to invite him over again. But I wonder if Gale ever invited them to live in our world permanently? That seemed kind of irresponsible, and she’s anything but that. Still… maybe she could disguise them really well.

  Wait, where was I? I snapped out of my daydream because it had gotten so dark. I was definitely deep in the maze of shelves, but I’d ended up somewhere where there was almost zero light. I could barely read the book titles right in front of my face. Then I looked up and realized I couldn’t see to the top of the shelves. For some reason that spooked me out enough that I shivered. I kept looking up, squinting my eyes to see if maybe I could make out the top of the shelves, but they seemed to go into infinity. Then I caught a glint of something high up. Way high up. Too high up, I thought. But it glinted again. Something was up there.

  I could have ignored it. I could have asked Mr. B what it was. I could have tried sneaking his ladder over here. I could have even called out to Wiki or Brady for some help. But nope, in that moment, I thought the smartest thing to do was climb up the infinite-looking shelves to see what was up there. If you could get graded on decisions, I would’ve gotten an F+.

  So I started climbing. It wasn’t hard at first. I used to climb up a couple of shelves at the middle school library to reach cookbooks when no librarians were looking. That was easy peasy. But after I got to the sixth or seventh shelf here, I noticed that I couldn’t see the ground. And it felt like I was looking down into a bottomless pit. I gripped the shelf so tightly my knuckles turned white, and I tried to stop my heart from beating so hard and fast that my chest felt like a punching bag. No dice. Keep moving, Javi. I started the climb again, forcing myself to look up, not down.

  At this point I felt like I was floating in space. I couldn’t see the floor below or the end of the shelves above. There was nothing to do but climb. Shelf. Shelf. Shelf. Shelf. At some point I’d lost count. Was I on the twentieth shelf? Twenty-fifth? The only thing I knew for sure was that if I slipped, that was it for me—game over, adios, life. Why did I decide to do this again?

  The thing glinting above me was finally getting closer. Ten shelves away. Five. Two. One. Finally this thing was within reach. I’d risked my life for whatever it was. A sword? A jet pack? A robot butler to do my every bidding? I reached over and felt for it. Metallic. Smooth. Small. It was a…lock? I wiggled it and it opened. Hmmm, a locked shelf in a mysterious library. It was no Excalibur, but it was still kind of cool.

  I held on for dear life with one hand and slid open the wooden door to the shelf. Then I peered inside. It was…books. Of course it was. I could barely make out any of their titles, but none of the ones I could read seemed all that interesting. They seemed like biographies, mostly. They were also packed in extra tight. I tried pulling out a tall, thin book, but it was harder than it looked. I had to stabilize myself with one hand, plant my feet firmly on the lower shelf, and pull with my whole body. The book slid out slowly, an inch at a time. Come on…come on…

  Then, all at once, the book practically flew off the shelf and out of my hands. It dropped into the bottomless pit below me for what seemed like a full minute. And then I heard a thunderous SLAM! Oh no. I bet people in New York heard that sound.

  “Is everything all right?” I heard Mr. B say from far away. This was not cool at all. Could kids go to jail? If so, I was definitely heading straight there. Do not pass Go, Javi. Do not collect $200.

  I was so scared of Mr. B catching me that I skittered down the shelves like a spider, not once thinking that I was one slip away from death. Hurry, Javi, hurry. I climbed down so fast I didn’t even count the shelves by ones, I counted by fives until I lost track. Just as I started to wonder if the shelves were ma
gical and never ending, my feet hit floor. Oh floor, blessed floor! I was about to kiss it with joy.

  Then I looked down at the book that had fallen. It was titled Frida Kahlo: Mexico’s Greatest Painter. And the woman on the cover was Ms. Calderon.

  22

  “You are absolutely, 100 percent, completely out of your mind if you don’t see it.”

  “For the nine-hundredth time, Javi, she does look similar, but there are plenty of normal folks who look like famous artists.”

  “For being a genius, you can be pretty dumb sometimes,” I shot back. “And as bullheaded as…well, as a bull.”

  I wasn’t super happy with Wiki. It was Saturday, and I couldn’t believe we were still having this conversation a day later. When I showed him my big discovery in the library—the one I risked my life for—he just shrugged and said it was a funny coincidence. Brady freaked out, as she should have, but Wiki spent the next three hours arguing that there was no way our art teacher was an Andy-summoned famous artist from almost a hundred years ago. So I swallowed my anger and told him to come over the next day.

  Now he still wasn’t buying it, and that was after:

  • We flipped through the book’s pages and looked at dozens of paintings and photos that were clearly one hundred percent Ms. C—same big, long eyebrows, same intense look—even the faces she made and the way she smiled were pure Ms. C.

  • I did some research and noticed that Frida Kahlo’s birth name was Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón. Duh, her alias was her birth name!

  • In one painting she was hanging out with her dog—the same dog she brought to class on Bring Your Pet to School Day.

  Then I’d pulled out our yearbook to cross-reference Ms. C’s photos with Frida Kahlo’s. They were absolutely the same person, but Wiki just kept shaking his head. If it wasn’t plainly obvious before, Wiki is as stubborn as a hundred mules, and it’s by far the most annoying thing about him.

  “Look, just because you didn’t figure this out first, doesn’t mean it’s not true. What proof do you need to believe me? Do you need her to tell you herself?”

  “Okay, Javi, let’s pretend I agreed with you. So what if she’s Frida Kahlo? So Principal Gale made a dinner party friend and let her teach here for a while. Big deal. Nobody else would ever believe us if we told them, anyway.”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you?” I asked him, fully exasperated. “Look, I didn’t just pull out this yearbook to show you Ms. Kahlo. I pulled it out because I bet there are other teachers that Andy summoned and are teaching at Finistere. That locked cabinet in the library had a bunch of books in it, and I doubt they were all about Frida Kahlo.”

  Wiki gave me a dubious look. I ignored him.

  “But I need your help,” I continued. “I don’t recognize any of these last names, but I don’t know nearly as many historic people as you do. Can you just look through the yearbook and tell me if any of these could be from history?”

  “You honestly think there are more people from history teaching here? Well, first of all, you’re wrong. But secondly, on the very slim chance that there’s another one, they would also use an alias like Ms. C, so we wouldn’t know.”

  I glared at him and shoved the yearbook in his face. He groaned and flipped through it quietly, studying every teacher’s name and picture. Now that it was a puzzle that would prove his smarts, he was a little more into it.

  “Nope, nope, nope.” He repeated that word about a hundred times, then handed the yearbook back to me. “Andy didn’t summon any teachers from history.”

  “Or, like you said, Gale’s just good at giving them an alias so parents don’t suspect.”

  “Or you’re just letting your imagination run wild. And Ms. Calderon just happens to look like a famous artist.”

  “Javi,” Brady called from downstairs. “It’s dinnertime. Wiki, are you still being a stubborn jerk?”

  Wiki rolled his eyes. “Let’s eat.” We walked downstairs and into the kitchen, where Brady was waiting for us.

  “Did he convince you that he’s right?” she asked Wiki as she put plates on the table. “Just because Javi’s never right doesn’t mean he can’t be right now.”

  “Um…thanks?” I said. Was that even a compliment?

  “You know what, Wiki?” she said. “Just ask Aunt Nancy and be done with it. She knew all about Andy, I bet she’d know about the teachers.”

  Wiki shook his head. “Aunt Nancy’s not saying a word about anything Andy-related. You know how she can be.” Then he pointed at us. “Now, let’s focus on the actual danger we’re in. There’s still a murderous pirate who wants the four of us dead. And I’m still at a loss about how to stop him.”

  “I don’t know…” Brady said. “Did you see the way Blackbeard looked at us when Aunt Nancy told him he couldn’t use the bell? He believed her. Plus, now he knows we don’t have it, and he’s not going to mess with Principal Gale. He’s probably coming up with a new plan. I think we’re safe. At least for now.”

  “We’re not safe until Blackbeard’s gone,” Wiki replied flatly.

  “Hold on. Rewind,” I said, my finger firmly planted in Wiki’s chest. “Did you just say he wants four of us dead? I count three of us. I’ve always counted three. Wait…do you still count Betty the Yeti?” Brady glared at me for bringing up her old imaginary friend.

  Wiki took a step toward Andy and knocked his knuckles on the table. “Number four.” We gasped, and he looked disappointed in us. “Didn’t you hear what my aunt said? Blackbeard’s trapped in the woods right now because of Andy’s magic. Once he invites his crew into our world he has no use for Andy. So adios, table.”

  Brady’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Over my dead body.”

  Wiki nodded his head glumly. “I think that’s his intention, yeah. So tomorrow I’m taking the day to see if I can cobble together a better plan than the last one and save us. All four of us.”

  “If you want to waste the day, go nuts,” Brady said. “We are 100 percent safe while Gale has that bell. Trust me.”

  “Brady’s right,” I said. “It feels like we’ve been holding our breath for days. Why not just exhale for a minute? We still need to get rid of the pirate, but he’s no threat right this second.”

  Dad came into the kitchen and we had dinner. He spent the whole meal cracking jokes at Wiki, but Wiki was too stressed to laugh. Brady kept petting Andy firmly like he was a frightened kitten, whispering the same thing over and over again: “Over my dead body.”

  23

  It was almost midnight when I heard them. There must have been at least twenty people gathering on our doorstep, chanting something that sounded like, “Assault! Assault!” It took me a second to realize I wasn’t dreaming, and when I did, I shot up and looked around frantically. Wiki and I had conked out in the living room while watching old monster movies. The TV was off, it was basically pitch black, and the chanting was getting louder and louder. Blackbeard? Did he somehow summon his pirates? So this was it—our worst nightmare was actually happening! It was all over.

  My dad came rushing down the stairs and when he opened the door, people came flooding into the living room screaming. I froze as twenty shadows surrounded us, every one of them holding something different in their hands that I couldn’t quite make out. For a second it was quiet, until one of them shouted, “Now! Ahora!” and as someone flicked the lights on, they all began to scream.

  No, not exactly scream—more like singing. Really loud singing. With instruments. They were all holding instruments.

  Wiki shot up shrieking, “Blackbeard! Pirates! We’re done for!”

  And then I started laughing.

  See, this is actually a totally normal thing that happens to Puerto Rican houses from time to time. These weren’t pirates—they were Dad’s friends. This was a parranda.

  You know how during the holidays Chr
istmas carolers will ring your doorbell, sing you a song or two, and then leave? Yeah, the Puerto Rican version of Christmas caroling is way more intense.

  It’s called a parranda and also an asalto (assault). A bunch of friends get together with instruments, and once it’s nice and late, and most normal people are sleeping, they head to a friend’s or neighbor’s house, bang on their door, and wake them up with their preposterously loud singing.

  Now here’s where it gets wild. As a Puerto Rican, you aren’t allowed to be mad, or to go back to sleep, or keep your door shut. You have to let them in, feed them all, sing with them, and then join them as they go to the next house to do the exact same thing. As it gets later and later, the group of people in a parranda grows and grows and they raid friends’ pantries and fridges and basically eat all the food at house after house after house, getting louder and louder after every one. Sometimes until four in the morning. Oh, and here in New Brittany the Puerto Ricans love parrandas so much they do them year-round.

  All of this might sound awful, and it might sound completely bonkers, but I actually love it. And hey, it meant that we weren’t about to get sliced and diced in the comfort of our living room, so that was a plus.

  “Javi, feed us!” some of the people shouted at me between songs. “We’re starving!”

  “Do you know these people?” Wiki yelped as he put on his glasses to get a better look at the chaos around us. “Because we should call the cops!”

  “These are Dad’s friends,” I said as I jumped out of my sleeping bag, high-fived some of the folks who were there, and headed to the kitchen. Dad’s crew loves to come parranda at our house because they know I make all the best food.

  I opened the fridge to take stock of what I could feed them. Dad’s amigos were in luck—I’d made a kingly feast a few days ago, and there were plenty of leftovers. When I closed the fridge to pull out some plates, Aunt Nancy was sitting on the kitchen counter recovering from a laugh attack.

  “Did you see his face, Javi? Did you see Wiki’s face? Oh, that was so very worth it.” Aunt Nancy never missed a parranda, because nothing makes her happier than a good prank. Reason #9,629 that she’s the best adult ever.

 

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