The Age Altertron (8 page)

“That’s so nice!” said Mrs. Ragsdale as she poured the coffee. “Would you like
some coffee, Becky?”
“No, I don’t drink coffee,” said Becky curtly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but
I’m still thirteen years old. Thirteen-year-olds don’t usually drink coffee.
Thirteen-year-olds are hardly even teenagers. Oh, I just hate this! I absolutely
hate it!”
Becky ran out of the room. The room was quiet for a moment except for the sound
of Mrs. Ragsdale pouring coffee. Then Becky returned, wiping her eyes. “I’m
sorry. I’m better. This is very hard. If the Professor isn’t able to fix this,
then we will lose a huge chunk out of our lives. I won’t get to be a pediatrician
who makes children laugh with her hand-puppets.”
“You wanted to be a pediatrician! With hand-puppets! Oh how nice!” said Mrs.
Ragsdale.
“You can still be a puppet-performing pediatrician, pumpkin,” said Mr. Craft
to his daughter.
“No I can’t, Daddy. It’s too late. It’s too late to be anything now but old.
I hate this. Why do things like this have to happen?”
“We don’t know, Becky, but all is not lost.” Mr. Craft looked at Rodney and
Wayne when he said this. “Is it, boys?”
Wayne shook his head. “We were just going over to see the Professor.”
“And ask him what needs to be done to fix things,” said Rodney. “Would you like
to come with us, Becky?”
Becky wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and nodded. “Maybe the walk will do
me some good.”

W
alking in the bright moonlight, Rodney and Wayne and
Becky and Petey (who had decided that he would like to come too, to thank the
Professor personally for rescuing him from the cloud place, even though he was
now prone to arthritis) kept to their own quiet thoughts for a while. It was
nice to be able to walk again, even though the no-longer-youthful muscles in
their legs felt tired and tight.

It was a strange thing to be strolling along so late at night, bathed in the
light of a moon that looked no different from every other full moon they had
known since they were first told by their parents what that giant, bright orb
was doing so high in the sky. It was strange to be moving down a sidewalk whose
every crack they had counted and tried to avoid (lest they break their mothers’
backs), past all the trees they had climbed and from whose branches they had
hung down like monkeys, past familiar green lawns, now browning in the change
of season, past the same cars and hedges and mailboxes and stop signs, and past
the same Halloween decorations—scarecrows and Jack-o-lanterns that came out
too early every year. It was as if nothing had changed, although a great deal
had
changed. And a great deal had been lost. Each child wondered as Becky
had wondered: would they ever get it back again?

Wayne said to Becky.
“Who works with puppets,” noted Petey.
Becky shrugged. “I thought you would make fun of me, the way

Becky’s three companions smiled as they remembered Principal Kelsey’s equally
absent-minded brother who was a pediatrician.
“But then, Wayne, I remembered that you once said you wanted to be a space cadet
like ‘Tom Corbett, Space Cadet,’ on TV, so I thought it was okay to tell you
something that
I
didn’t have much of a chance at either.”
“Why did you think that I couldn’t grow up to be a space cadet?”
“Because there isn’t such a thing as a space cadet,” said Becky. “Being a space
cadet is a made-up job. Just like Tom Corbett is a made-up character.”
“You don’t think some day there will be astronauts, Becky?” posed Rodney. “Astronauts
who will pilot their spaceships all the way to the moon and back?” Rodney glanced
at the moon as he said this.
“Or to distant planets?” asked Petey, also looking at the moon but with a starry-eyed
gaze.
“I suppose,” said Becky. “But by then, we’ll probably all be too old to go.”
The children walked on for a moment thinking quietly to themselves. Then Wayne
broke the silence. “I wish that some day Professor Johnson would make a freezing
machine that could put a person into a big ice cube and keep him there until
after all the calamities are over and the force field is down, and then thaw
him out when things are much better than they are now.”
“How do you know that things will be better in the future?” asked Becky.
“Well, don’t things
usually
get better? We don’t live in caves any more,
do we?”
Becky could not hold back a smile. She was thinking of Wayne wearing a wooly
mammoth fur, with a bone through his nose. “I guess you’re right about that.”
The four turned a corner and stopped. There was the Ferrell house with all of
its lights turned on. And there, sitting on the porch swing, was a large middle-aged
man. The man was mostly bald. You could tell this because his head was bowed
and the top was all that you could see. It was moving up and down a little as
if he were crying.
“What should we do?” whispered Becky to the others.
“Well, I guess we should first find out who he is,” said Rodney. “He might need
our help.”
“I hope no one has died,” said Becky.
“Excuse me,” said Wayne, approaching the house. The man looked up. Wayne and
the others could tell immediately who the man was. It was their friend Grover,
many years older.
“Who is it?” asked the middle-aged Grover. He was squinting at the moonlit lawn
and wiping his eyes with his knuckles. “I can’t see very well. I think I need
glasses.”
“It’s Wayne. And here is Rodney and Becky and Petey.”
“Hi Petey. Welcome home,” Grover said, taking a handkerchief from this pocket
to blow his nose with. “I—uh—guess I’m getting a cold.”
“I’m not feeling all that well myself,” said Petey. “I woke up with arthritis.”
“Come up here. I am just sitting here thinking about things.”
“What are you thinking about?” asked Becky.
“Mama mostly. Suddenly she’s very old. Is this a new calamity?”
Rodney shook his head. “No. I think it was the Professor’s machine—the Age Altertron—that
did it.”
“Well, whoever or whatever did it, Mama now has to take very tiny steps when
she walks. It took her three-and-a-half minutes just to get from her bed to
the bathroom. How will she be able to clean and cook for the Professor? She’ll
lose her job and then we’ll both have to go to the poor house.”
“Grover, the same thing is happening to half the citizens of Pitcherville,”
said Rodney. “My Aunt Mildred can’t even get out of bed. Something will have
to be done to help
all
of the old people until Professor Johnson can
fix this problem.”
“How do you know that the Professor can fix it?” asked Grover. “How old is he
now? He must be at least one hundred!”
“Well, I think he’s actually older than that,” said Rodney. “But if he is like
Aunt Mildred, his mind will still be sharp. Maybe he’ll have to work slower,
but I don’t think things are hopeless. We’re going to his house now. We need
your mother’s key.”
“I’ll get it.”
Grover got up from the porch swing. He had been a large boy. Now he was a very
large man. The floorboards of the porch creaked loudly as he walked across them.

At the same time that Rodney and Wayne and Becky and Petey and Grover were
mounting the stairs in Professor Johnson’s house to gently wake the Professor,
a robbery was taking place at Toland’s Supermarket. The two perpetrators, each
of whom wore black eye masks to conceal their identities, and each of whom held
shiny new revolvers in their hands, had surprised the store’s night watchman,
Mr. Roessler. He had been dozing in a chair in the produce section and woke
to the sound of something large being hurled through one of the front glass
doors of the store.

As he tried to wake up and get his bearings, Mr. Roessler was approached by
the two bandits. It was at this moment that something disturbing came to his
attention—something even more disturbing to sleepy Mr. Roessler the night watchman,
than the fact that his employer’s store was being robbed. He was
old
.
Very old. And very tired.

Even if he hadn’t become suddenly very old and very tired, there was little
that Mr. Roessler could have done to protect the store, since Mr. Toland, Sr.,
the owner of Toland’s Supermarket, didn’t believe his night watchmen should
be armed. As a result of this policy, all that Mr. Roessler could do now was
stand with his trembling hands up in the air, and hope that the intruders wouldn’t
shoot him.

Each of the two masked men carried a large duffel bag over his shoulder. Mr.
Roessler wondered from the size of the duffel bags how much money the masked
men were hoping to steal from the store that night.

“This is a stick up,” said the taller of the two men. “I can see that,” said
the night watchman. “But I should tell you: I don’t have the combination to
the office safe. I don’t even have a key to the office. I’m just here to chase
away all the mice who come out at night to nibble on Mr. Toland’s fruits and
vegetables.”
“We don’t want
money
, Gramps,” said the tall man. “Do you think we would
have brought these duffel bags if we had wanted
money
?”
Mr. Roessler shrugged. “I just figured you were being optimistic.”
“Why don’t you just be quiet, you stupid old man?”
“I
do
look old, don’t I? It’s the strangest thing. I
feel
old
too, but I’m only thirty-three. So what
have
you come for? Why are you
pointing those guns at me?”
“Direct us to the cereal aisle, Gramps. My partner and I will be taking all
the oatmeal, Cream-of-Wheat and other soft cereals you have.”
“But I don’t understand,” said the night watchman. “There are fresh T-bone steaks
and rib-eyes in the meat section. If I were robbing a supermarket that’s what
I’d
take.”
“And that would make you stupid-times-ten, old man. Now show us to the cereal
aisle, and when we’re done there, take us to where you keep the Jell-O and soft
custard. And you’d better be quick about it, if you know what’s good for you.”
Mr. Roessler did as he was told, and stood by as the two masked men filled their
duffel bags with all manner of soft food, and then disappeared into the night.

“Professor? Can you wake up, Professor?” asked Becky. “Tap him again,” said
Wayne. “Tap him harder.”
“Well, I’m not going to
hit
him, Wayne. He’s in a deep sleep.

We’ll just have to wait for him to wake up.”
“We can always wait, of course,” said Rodney, “but then again, Wayne and I are
his apprentices. This is what he called us last night: his trusted and worthy
apprentices in the field of cataclysmic science. And as such—”
“That isn’t what he called us,” interrupted Wayne. “He called us his worthy
and
trusted
apprentices. You got it backwards.” “My point is…”
“You don’t have to tell me your point, Rodney,” said Becky. “I’ll shake him
a little harder.”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Craft,” said a groggy Professor Johnson, opening
his eyes into thin slits. “I am awake now and more than willing to bring you
all up to speed. But first, Rodney, tell me who these other people are, crowded
around my bed. And if you will all take a step back from this bed, I should
be able to
breathe a little better.”
Everyone took a step back to give the Professor more breathing room.
“Well, it’s Wayne and me, and Becky, of course. And that large man over there
is Grover. And that smaller man over there is Petey Ragsdale.”
“Oh, Petey! It’s nice to see that you have come down from the clouds. How were
you transported here? You must make detailed notes that I can put into my log.
Write down everything you can remember about the experience.”
Petey nodded.
“Well, hello to the rest of you children. Of course, you’re no longer children
any more, thanks to me. Someone help me sit up in bed. I haven’t much strength.”
Grover and Wayne helped the Professor prop himself up in his bed. “Thank you,
boys. I could sleep another twenty years. Just like Rip Van Winkle. Of course,
the result would be the same as what has just happened, wouldn’t it?”
“Give or take about thirty years,” said Rodney.
“Yes, I see what you mean. You’re all looking a bit long in the tooth. Well,
blame me for it.
I
did it. I was right there to see the end-product of
my stupidity. My punishment started immediately, for I could hardly get myself
up all those stairs. You see, I have now only a small fraction of the energy
that I used to have. And I must
have a little rest for all the days of work that lie ahead. By my calculation
I am now in possession of the body of a one-hundredand-seventeen-year-old man.”
“Wowee!” said Petey.
“And what would that make
us
?” asked Wayne.
“Let me see,” said the Professor. “You were all born in 1943, is that correct?”
“Our birthdays are all within six months of each other,” said Becky with a nod.
The Professor did a calculation in his head. “Then you would all be around sixty-six-years-old,
give or take a few months.” “I’m
sixty-six
?” asked Becky with a look
of distress. “But you don’t look anywhere near that age, Becky,” said Wayne.
“Thank you, Wayne. That was sweet,” said Becky, who was beginning to resign
herself—at least for the moment—to her present state of “Age Change-Derangement-Estrangement.”
The Professor heaved a heavy sigh of fatigue. “I suspect, though, that none
of you will be able to guess
why
the machine has added so many more years
to our physical ages.”
Rodney and Wayne shook their heads.
“It was my fault—entirely my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I suppose it was because
I was too tired. I had two pieces of paper. On one piece I had written ’eleven
years, eight months, one week, four days, thirteen hours, ten minutes,
and
forty-five seconds.’ That is how much aging would have to occur to restore us
all to the age we were at the moment when the original age reduction occurred.
On the second piece of paper I had jotted down ‘sixty-four years, seven months,
two weeks, one day, three hours, fifteen minutes and fiftyeight seconds.’ That
was my exact age at the pivotal moment of the age reduction. You see, I had
been using my own age as a base variable to calculate the constant that represented
the difference between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ of our ages. I accidentally
inputted this second figure—my age—when I was setting the coordinates for the
machine.”
Rodney looked at Grover and Petey who were both scratching their heads. “In
other words,” explained Rodney, “instead of having eleven-and-a-half years added
to our ages, the machine added sixtyfour-and-a-half years.”
“That’s right. Due solely to human error.
My
error. It was a disastrous,
numskull mistake that will now have grievous consequences for us all.”
“What kind of consequences?” asked Grover, who did not like the word “consequences”
even when the word “grievous” wasn’t attached to it.
“Well, you no doubt see them all about you, already. There is no one left in
this town now who is below the age of fifty-two. There are no more children—no
more spry young people to give our town energy and vim and, and…”
“Verve?” asked Grover.
“Yes, verve. There are, conversely, people now living among us— if you call
lying in a bed and sleeping for most of the day
living
— who are as old
as 153—for I know of at least two residents of Shady Acres Nursing Home who
had already passed the century mark.” “But I don’t understand, Professor,” said
Wayne. “It seems like a pretty easy thing to fix. You just go back down to the
lab and enter the correct age coordinates and ‘Wham! Bam! Allakazam! We’re all
back to our right ages again.”
“If only it were that easy, Wayne,” sighed the Professor. “But unfortunately,
as I found myself in the midst of that rapid aging process a little while ago—a
process that was wholly unexpected, and which startled me immensely, well, I
let out a most frightening shout of dismay. Right there in my laboratory I screamed
like a terrified little child. And the intensity of this unexpected eruption
from my vocal cords surprised Gizmo, my cat, who had been sleeping soundly next
to me, and she sprang into the air in that way that cats sometimes do, in which
all their limbs become extended and all of their claws protracted, and she came
down not upon that same spot on the floor in which she had uplifted herself,
but she came down—I am sorry to report—right upon the back of my poor terrier
Tesla, protracted claws and all, and a most terrible row
between those two ensued.
“I reached into the fray to break them up, and in so doing I lost my balance—for
this is the way with people of advanced years: they sometimes lose their equilibrium
and stumble and fall—and I did so in a most inconvenient and destructive way!
For I fell directly into the Age Altertron and jangled loose its circuitry board
and caused a
little unintended arcing between its electrodes, and this produced a little
fire, which grew into a slightly bigger fire, and before I knew it, I was spraying
my arcing, flaming, smoke-belching Altertron with a fire extinguisher. And when
the smoke cleared and all the extinguisher foam had dissolved away, there was
nothing left before
me but a broken, wrecked shell of what that machine had once been—a testament
to fatigue and stupidity and the tendency of dogs when attacked by cats to defend
their canine honor at all costs. “Everyone was counting on me and I let them
down. I let
you
down.” The Professor shook his head and closed his eyes
and became very quiet.
Rodney and Wayne and their friends exchanged looks of concern. “You didn’t let
us down, Professor,” said Wayne. “No,” agreed Becky, “you just made a mistake.
Everyone makes mistakes.”
“We just have to build ourselves a brand new Age Altertron— an Age Altertron
II!” said Rodney with forced cheer.
“How long do you think that will take?” asked Wayne. Professor Johnson opened
his eyes. “You boys will have to be the ones to build it. Under my direction,
of course. Because I am much too weak and frail to do anything but to tell
you
two what to do. Do you think that you can do it?”
Rodney and Wayne nodded. “Excellent. Then all is not lost. But first, let me
sleep, for I am very tired. I must have twenty-four hours of rest to recuperate.
While I am sleeping, boys, go down to my laboratory and take an inventory of
all of the parts of the wrecked machine.” (Yawn.) “Set aside those which you
think we can reuse and throw out those you think we cannot.” (Yawn.) “And feed
Tesla and Gizmo their breakfast.” (Yawn) “And tell your mother, Grover, that
she isn’t to overly tax herself at her now-advanced age, and may come to my
house to cook for me only when she feels she is able.” (Yawn) “For that matter,
I cannot eat much solid food in my present state anyway, but will be nutritionally
satisfied with some oatmeal or Cream-of-Wheat or some other form of soft cereal
or custard. If my cupboard is bare, then please go to Toland’s Market, Grover,
and procure soft foods that I can gum. Goodnight, children. I will speak to
you again in twenty-four hours.”