No Other Story (8 page)

“Why, yes,” said Sullivan. “He was one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. The reason I became a physicist myself.”

Chip smiled, beaming with pride. “Would you like to meet him?” he asked. “He's sitting right over there.”

Sullivan looked at Ethan scribbling away and muttering to himself in Italian while Gurda and Stig sat across from him, battering roots into a fine paste. “That's Ethan Cheeseman?” Sullivan's mouth dropped open in amazement.

“Best student I ever had,” said Professor Boxley.

“So this means you were right,” said Sullivan. “You and your family
did
discover Some Times.”

“That's exactly what it means,” said Chip.

“Yes,” said Penny. “It also means that our little brother is your grandfather.” Penny threw her arm across her little brother's shoulders, but the news did not sit well with eight-year-old Simon Cheeseman.

“What?” he gasped. “No, no, no. I'm not a grandpa. No way.”

The man they initially knew as Jones and now knew as Sullivan Moss looked at Teddy, previously and once again known as Simon, and a broad smile stretched out across his bearded face. He knelt next to the youngest Cheeseman and hugged him, gingerly, as if he were handling a fragile antique lamp. “Grandpa Cheeseman. I don't believe it.”

“I don't believe it either,” said Simon.

Then Sullivan took Steve and placed him back on Simon's right hand.

“As much as he means to me,” said Sullivan, “I'd like for you to have him, Grandpa.”

“No, no,” said Simon with a sense of panic. He pulled away from Sullivan's clutches. He was much too young to be someone's grandfather, particularly someone who was a good fifty years older than him. “This isn't happening. This is horrible.”

“Didn't you hear what he said, Simon?” asked Penny. “He said you're a famous author.”

Suddenly, the situation didn't seem so awful, even though Simon had never entertained the idea of becoming a professional writer. His dream job had always been official product tester at a factory that makes inflatable bouncy castles, or to be the guy who rides on the back of the garbage truck. But famous author didn't sound half-bad either. Simon said the words out loud to see how they sounded all strung together. He even added a few extras for effect. “World famous, award-winning author Simon Bartholomew Cheeseman.”

“It's got a nice ring to it,” said Gravy-Face Roy.

“Who asked you?” said Steve. It seemed the two sock puppets had gotten off on the wrong foot, so to speak.

As the rival socks continued to bicker, it seemed that Pinky was no fonder of this Steve than she had been of the original, and she displayed her lack of affection for the puppet by snarling each time he spoke in his trademark squeaky voice, which sounded not unlike a squealing hamster running on a wheel that was in desperate need of oil.

Sullivan interrupted all the quarreling, snarling, and squeaking by launching into a series of stories about his grandfather. It was as if he'd been waiting years to tell them and could barely speak fast enough to get them out. He told the one about the time they went to the fair together and got cotton candy. Then there was the time Simon took him to the carnival and they got cotton candy. In fact, most of the stories involved cotton candy in one way or another.

“How about me?” asked Chip, both excited and apprehensive at the thought of knowing what his future held in store. “What happens to me?”

“If you're my grandpa Cheeseman's older brother, you must be my great-uncle, Jason,” said Sullivan.

Hearing his real name for the first time since this whole ordeal began had a liberating effect on fourteen-year-old Jason Cheeseman. Though changing names every few weeks had made being on the run slightly more bearable, it felt nice now just to be himself again. “That's my name,” he said with a smile. “So, what happens to me? Go ahead, I can take it.”

“I can't tell you,” said Sullivan.

“You can't tell me?” Suddenly Jason was awash with dread. Why couldn't his great-nephew tell him about his future? What had happened that was so horrible that he refused to share it?

“Well, I suppose I could tell you,” said Sullivan with a wink. “But I'd rather show you. Come on.”

Sullivan led the way, and the others followed him down the long, stone hallway to the tiny room at the very back. He walked to the lonely box sitting in the middle of the room, then bent over and reached inside. “This is my box of keepsakes and good luck charms and stuff,” he said.

“That's where I found Steve,” said Simon.

Sullivan pulled something from the box, turned, and threw it to Jason, who snatched it out of the air with one hand. Jason looked at the baseball and, when he turned it over in his palm, smiled at what he saw. It wasn't just a baseball; it was an
autographed
baseball, and it had been autographed by none other than Jason Cheeseman.

“So, does this mean …?”

“It totally does,” said Sullivan. “It means you're one of only two players to have ever thrown a no-hitter in the World Series.”

“Wow.” Chip could scarcely contain his excitement. Just knowing he was destined to fulfill his lifelong ambition made him feel as if he could fly.

“You can keep that,” said Sullivan. “It'll inspire you during tough times.”

Jason rolled the ball over and over in his right hand,
practicing the special grip for each of the pitches his father had taught him to throw using scientific principles.

“What about me?” asked Penny. “What about my future?”

Sullivan smiled warmly at Penny. “My great-aunt Catherine,” he said. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and his face adopted a look of immense pride and respect. “And when I say
great
, I mean that in more ways than one. After all, how else would you describe the first woman president of the United States of America?”

From the box, Sullivan retrieved a small, circular pin, bearing the words
Cheeseman for President
. He pinned the campaign button to Catherine's shirt.

“Seriously? Me? The first woman president?” Young Catherine Cheeseman's mind raced with visuals of her meeting with world leaders, delivering inspirational speeches, and making decisions that would affect hundreds of millions of people. She imagined what it might be like to have her image on the new thousand-dollar bill or on a commemorative stamp.

“Yup,” said Sullivan. “First and last.” Sullivan's demeanor had suddenly darkened.

“What do you mean,
last
?” said Catherine.

“I mean,” said Sullivan, “that there will never be another president of the United States of America, man or woman, because it's now the United States of Plexiwave.”

Jason gripped the ball tightly and grit his teeth. “We've got to try to stop them from taking over. But without the LVR-ZX, we're stuck here. How do we get back?”

“I don't know,” said Catherine. “But we will get back. It has to be that way, don't you see? The fact that you're now holding that baseball means that we made it back. And, more importantly, the fact that Steve exists means that Mom lived to knit it for Simon. It means that we must have found a way to save her life. Somehow we were able to get back!”

A light, quiet snow fell upon the rooftop of a small house, sitting in a small town, located in a big world, situated somewhere along the ever-expanding Time Arc.

Inside, Christmas music played through the dozens of speakers Ethan had rigged up around the cozy home. Also heard was the voice of Olivia Cheeseman, speaking in a tone she reserved for those rare occasions when one of her children had done something to displease her.

“Simon Cheeseman,” she said.

Simon was in his bedroom, busy organizing his collection of dirt clods shaped like celebrities, when he heard the call for front and center. He decided it best to leave the clumps of dirt for now and hurry off to the living room to avoid making whatever trouble he was in any worse.

He found his mother standing in front of the mantel, her lips pursed and her hands upon her hips.

“Listen, mister,” said Olivia, with no idea that she was speaking to a future famous novelist. “How many times have I told you the nativity scene is not a toy?”

Sure enough, his six-year-old brain had failed to remind him to remove the evidence, which consisted of a half-dozen green plastic army men standing atop the stable and a toy dinosaur positioned next to the three wise men. Wedged between the dinosaur's mighty teeth was a sheep.

“Sorry,” said Simon.

“Don't be sorry,” said Olivia. “Just don't do it, okay?”

She snatched the dinosaur and the other nativity interlopers and handed them to Simon. “Now go get your boots and your coat. We're going to get the tree.”

As Simon hurried off to the closet, his mother assured him that he had not ruined Christmas after all. She did this by reaching out and giving his spiky blond hair a good scruffing up.

While Simon fetched his coat and boots, Jason and Catherine were busy in the kitchen, stringing popcorn and cranberries, which was a good way to decorate a tree inexpensively. It was also a good way to start an argument.

“No, no,” said ten-year-old Catherine. “You're doing it wrong.”

Jason looked down at his handiwork resting on the kitchen table and saw nothing but popcorn-and-cranberry-stringing perfection. “What do you mean?”

“You're putting four popcorn, two cranberries, three popcorn, and two cranberries.”

“Yes,” Jason agreed. “And?”

“You're supposed to be putting four popcorn, two cranberries, three popcorn, and
one
cranberry.”

“What's it matter?” asked Jason, thinking his little sister
must be joking. To Jason it may not have mattered at all, but to the owner of a superorganized, highly scientific brain like Catherine's, it mattered very much.

“Symmetry,” she said. “If we don't use the exact same pattern, the tree will lack symmetry.”

“Ahh,” said Jason. “I finally get it now. The true meaning of Christmas is symmetry.”

“You're mocking me,” said Catherine. “I don't enjoy being mocked.”

The argument could go no further, because Olivia stuck her head in and said, “Get ready, you guys. We're going to get the tree.”

“I hope we get a symmetrical one,” said Jason, happy to get in one last dig.

In the garage, Ethan stood amid a shower of sparks as he welded together two sheets of metal that would form part of the outer shell of his Luminal Velocity Regulator. When he finally lowered his torch and pushed back his welder's mask, he saw Olivia standing in the doorway to the house.

“I'm getting close,” he said with a smile. “A couple more hours and I should have the entire fuselage ready to assemble.”

“Yes,” said Olivia. “Too bad it'll have to wait.”

“Wait?” said Ethan. “For what? This is perhaps the greatest invention in the history of mankind, and it's just about finished. What could be more important than that?”

“We're going to get a Christmas tree, remember?” Being married to a brilliant scientist for the last fifteen years, Olivia had become used to Ethan forgetting important dates
and engagements, including, but not limited to, her birthday, his birthday, their anniversary, soccer games, baseball games, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, the Fourth of July, the Fifth of July, Easter, and Christmas.

“Oh,” said Ethan. “Well, couldn't you guys just go without me?”

“It's not as if we're going to the supermarket to pick up milk and bread,” said Olivia sternly. “We're going to get a Christmas tree. All of us. Together. Now.”

Ethan smiled. He loved his wife for many reasons, one of them being that she always put her family above all else. “Right,” said Ethan. “I'll get my coat.”

It could be fairly stated that, as a whole, the Cheesemans were generally a happy bunch; but around Christmastime, they were all the more joyous, and their holiday cheer was palpable as they piled into the family station wagon and buckled up.

Pinky, looking very festive in her bright red Santa hat, which matched her reddish brown hair very well, climbed up onto Olivia's lap and settled in for her annual ride to the Christmas tree lot.

“Okay, everybody ready?” asked Mr. Cheeseman.

“No,” said Catherine. “We need some music.”

“Right,” Mr. Cheeseman agreed. He flipped on the radio, and the beat-up station wagon, its occupants singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of their lungs with unintentional harmony and some intentionally incorrect lyrics, pulled out of the driveway of the little white house as the snow continued to meander slowly from sky to ground. So full of holiday cheer
were the Cheesemans that they took no notice whatsoever of a long black car parked just down the street, its tinted windows concealing the nastiest of villains with the hollowest of cheeks.

So bony was Mr. 5's sweaty face and so sunken were his eyes that he looked like a skeleton with a coat of paint. “Look at those idiots,” he said to his evil cohorts. Positioned behind the wheel was the enormous Mr. 88, the ringed fingers of his meaty left hand tapping the steering wheel. In the backseat were two men dressed like the others, in black suits and ties. They were Mr. 207 and Mr. 70, who was filling in for Mr. 29, who was out that day with a bad head cold. “All these fools throwing away good money on worthless Christmas trees. The whole thing is a waste of time and money.”

“That reminds me,” said Mr. 88 with a smile. “I'm taking my nephew to the mall to see Santa Claus this weekend.”

“You don't have to say Santa
Claus
, you know,” said Mr. 207. “You could have saved time by just calling him
Santa
. We all know who you mean.”