The Wells Bequest (7 page)

Jaya Hits Me

I
was getting impatient to find the time machine. The next day at lunchtime I went to talk to Ms. Kang. She was in the school library. “So, you used to be a librarian. Can you give me some advice?” I asked.

“Once a librarian, always a librarian,” said Ms. Kang, tugging on her sleeves. “What do you need to know?”

“Well, there's some stuff that I think should be in the repository, but I can't find it in the card catalog. Is there someplace else I could look?”

“There might be. Sometimes separate divisions have their own catalogs. The other thing you could try is looking for a special-subject thesaurus.”

“What's that?”

“It's a book of synonyms that tells you how the librarians decided to catalog their holdings. Say you're looking for books about cooking. Should you look under
food preparation
or
cookbooks
or
cooking
or
culinary arts
? Most libraries use the Library of Congress Subject Headings, but sometimes they have their own way of categorizing things.”

“Thanks, Ms. Kang. That's really helpful.”

• • •

“Hey, Jaya,” I said next time I saw her. “Is everything in the repository here in the stacks, or are there other storage areas? And do they have separate card catalogs?”

“Well, some of the collections have special storage requirements, like the living material, so we keep them in special areas. But there's only one card catalog.”

“Wow, you have living things here? Where?”

“Most of them are downstairs in . . . I guess you could call it sort of an interior garden.”

“I would love to see that!”

She looked uncomfortable. “It's one of the Special Collections. They're restricted access.”

“Is that where they keep the stuff I'm not allowed to borrow yet, like that Czech robot from Rossum's?”

Jaya nodded. “That's in one of the Special Collections.”

“Are the Special Collections in this building?”

“Yes, down in the basement on Stack 1.”

“I see.” If there really was a time machine in the repository, I bet that's where they kept it. I would have to figure out some way to get down there.

• • •

The problem, it turned out, wasn't getting down to Stack 1—I just took the elevator on my next break. The problem was getting into the Special Collections once I was there.

Abigail was on Stack 1 with Francis. It was a long room like the other stacks, with the same buzzing fluorescent lights, but for some reason it felt different. It felt dangerous.

“Hi, Leo. Do you need something?” asked Abigail. She didn't sound like her usual friendly self.

“No, I was just getting familiar with the stacks. I've only really been on Stack 5 and Stack 6. What's down here?”

“These are the Special Collections.”

“What's in them? Can I take a look?” I asked.

“They're locked,” said Francis.

“They're restricted access,” said Abigail.

“But what's in them? Is it, like, a big secret?” I asked.

Abigail and Francis looked at each other. “You have to ask Dr. Rust,” said Abigail at last.

“Okay.” I turned to go.

“Sorry! I didn't mean to be rude, Leo, it's just, we're not supposed to—it's one of those things where you need permission,” she said.

“Talk to Dr. Rust,” said Francis.

“It's okay, I understand.”

But Dr. Rust wouldn't tell me either. “There's no point in getting ahead of yourself. Your exam was quite impressive, but let's give you a chance to settle in first before you go messing with the Special Collections.”

• • •

I wasn't going to give up that easily. I headed upstairs to the Catalog Room. Mr. Reyes was sitting at his desk under his beam of sunlight.

“Mr. Reyes, does the repository have its own subject thesaurus?” I asked.

“We mostly use a modified version of the LCSH—the Library of Congress Subject Headings—over there at the end,” he said, pointing.

That wasn't exactly an answer.

“So there aren't any specialized thesauruses here?” I asked.

“Not for any of the collections you'll be using.” That sounded evasive too. Did it mean I was on to something?

The LCSH was a big book in several volumes. I looked under
Time.
No time machines. That was a disappointment, but not a surprise.

I put the volume back and scanned the nearby shelves. There were dictionaries of this and that—music, biography, medicine, slang—and some volumes in languages I couldn't read, but I didn't see anything that looked like a subject thesaurus.

Then the clouds shifted in the skylight and a beam of sun hit a shelf above my head. I saw bright motes of dust doing their Brownian-motion dance in the sunbeam. The light was illuminating one of the books I'd thought I couldn't read. Had the words on the spine changed? Before, they'd looked like some kind of snaky foreign alphabet, but now I saw they were written in ordinary English characters.

They said
Special Collections Thesaurus.

My hands shook as I pulled the book down. It had little round cutouts along the edge of the pages, with alphabet tabs, like a dictionary. I flipped quickly to the
T'
s.
Taxi, telescope, timbal.

There:
Time machine: use anachronizing apparatus.

I stared at it. It was really there.

I blinked hard. It was still there.

Mr. Reyes was staring at me and the sunbeam. I shut the book and put it back on the shelf. The sunbeam faded.

I hurried over to the card catalog and pulled out the
A–Ap
drawer.
Afterburner, aglet, ambergris.

And there it was:
Anachronizing apparatus.
I * WB 530.11 Z8485.

With trembling fingers I copied the call number onto a call slip and hid it in my pocket.

• • •

On my next shift, Ms. Callender put me on Stack 5 again with Jaya.

“Hey, Jaya.” I took out the time machine call slip, then hesitated.

“What?”

“I have to ask you something.” I hesitated again. She would think I was crazy.

“What? Come on, Leo, spit it out.”

I handed her the slip.

“What's this?” she asked. She read the call slip, frowning. She turned it over, then turned it back again, looking worried. “Well?” she said.

I took a breath. “Remember how I was thinking about doing my science project on time machines? So I thought—I know this sounds crazy, but I thought if time machines really did exist, maybe they'd have one here in the repository. So I did some research in the Catalog Room. And I found it.”

“How did you know what search term to use?”

“I looked in the Special Collections thesaurus.”

“Who gave you that?”

“Nobody. I found it myself.”

“You
found
the Special Collections thesaurus? All by yourself, without any help?”

“Yes, it was right there in the Catalog Room. It was weird—I couldn't read it at first, until this strange sunbeam shone on it. So is it true? Is there really a time machine here?”

Jaya looked at me for a long time, like she was trying to make up her mind. At last she said, “Yes.”

Yes.
She'd said yes.

Not “I can't believe you fell for that ancient gag.” Not “Get away from me, you dangerous lunatic.”
Yes.

“Have you seen it? Have you used it? Where did you go to—
when
did you go to? How does it work? Where is it? Can I borrow it?” I was gabbling. A time machine! My time machine! I wasn't crazy—I really
had
seen myself riding a time machine!

“Calm down, Leo. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.”

“How do you know? You've tried it?”

She nodded. “We all have.”

It couldn't not work! “Then we'll fix it,” I said. “I'm good at fixing things. I know I can get it to work—I know for a fact.”

“It's never worked,” said Jaya. “It's been in the repository since the 1930s, and nobody's ever been able to get it going. What makes you think
you
can?”

“Because I saw myself,” I said. “I saw myself riding it—my future self. And you were with me.”

Jaya hit me—hard. It wasn't as much fun as it looked when she did it to Francis.

“What?” she yelled. “You saw me riding a time machine and you
didn't tell me
?! Where did you see us? How old were we? What were we
doing
?” She hit me again on the word
doing.

“Hey!” I rubbed my shoulder. “I'm sorry. I didn't want you to think I was crazy. I wasn't completely sure I wasn't.”

“I'm not completely sure either,” said Jaya. “But not because you saw us riding a time machine. That's not crazy. If you saw it, clearly it's going to happen.”

She believed me! I would never believe me myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. She must know the time machine actually existed!

“Let's go, then,” I said. “Let's get it. Let me see that slip. Where's I * WB 530.11 Z8485? Come on, let's find it!”

Jaya caught me by the sleeve. “Settle down, Leo. We can't. We're working, remember? We have to run call slips.”

“But there's a time machine! A
time machine
!”

“A nonworking time machine. It'll still be there when we finish our shift. Still nonworking, too.”

“How can you be so calm about this?”

“You newbies are so cute,” said Jaya, smiling patronizingly. I wanted to hit her myself. “Now, tell me about this time machine you saw us riding. Where did you see it?”

“In my bedroom. I don't know what we were doing—we didn't tell me.”

“We came back from the future on a time machine and we didn't tell you
anything
? Not even the winning lottery numbers? What was the matter with us?”

“The time machine only stayed for a few seconds. You wanted to say things, but I stopped you—Future Me stopped you. Future Me said it was dangerous to change the past. I'm sure he's right. I'm sure
I'm
right.”

“When were we coming from?”

“Like I just said, I don't know—we didn't tell me anything.”

“Well, how old were we?”

“We looked like the same age we are now. Which means we're obviously supposed to find it soon. Let's go!”

“All right. We'll talk to Dr. Rust after our shift's over.”

“Okay, but at least tell me what other crazy stuff they have here in the repository. Do they have beam transporters? What about interstellar rockets? Force fields? Invisibility shields?”

“I can't talk about any of that.”

“Come on! I could find out myself, easily, just by looking in the Catalog Room.”

“Then look in the Catalog Room. After our shift is over. Meanwhile, run this slip.” She handed me a pneum that had just thudded into the basket.

• • •

I don't know how I made it through the rest of the shift. When it was over at last, we went upstairs and Jaya knocked on Dr. Rust's open door. “Got a minute?”

“Sure, come in. What's up?”

Mr. Reyes was sitting with Dr. Rust.

“Leo has—well, I'll let him tell you himself.” Jaya elbowed me.

I wasn't sure exactly what part she wanted me to tell. “I was looking in the card catalog and I found a time machine and I asked Jaya about it and she said I should ask you.” I held up the call slip where I'd written the time machine call number.

“Is that what you were looking up in the Special Collections thesaurus?” asked Mr. Reyes.

“Rick was just telling me you'd found the thesaurus,” said Dr. Rust.

“Yes, but that's not the important part,” said Jaya. “Go on, Leo, explain about how you saw us,” she told me.

“Oh, okay. That was why I was looking up time machines in the first place. Before I knew about the repository, when I was first working on my science project, a time machine showed up in my bedroom. We were riding on it—me and Jaya. So I thought, since time machines really exist, maybe you would have one here. Maybe that's where we got it. The one we were riding.”

“How did you know it was a time machine?” Dr. Rust asked. “Did your future self tell you?”

“No, not exactly. There wasn't much time before it disappeared. But what else could it be? If it wasn't a time machine, why would there be two of me? And Future Me told Then Me to read
The Time Machine,
by H. G. Wells,” I said.

Dr. Rust and Jaya exchanged significant looks.

“Well, there are plenty of possible explanations for multiple yous,” said Dr. Rust. “You might be visiting from a parallel dimension, for example. Or it could be a shape-shifter.”