“Mr. Escala!” she cried, rushing across the street. “Mr. Escala!”
Surprised, the man took a step back. His face was full of fear. “How do you know me?”
“Oh, I don’t know you, Mr. Escala, but I’ve been having a big problem with one of your relatives. Thinking about moving to the United States?”
“My son talks about it,” Mr. Escala said. “Who are you? Are you responsible for this accident?”
“Allow us to roll out the welcome wagon,” Miss Information said.
Thor picked up a taxicab and threw it down the street. It bounced around like a bowling ball, slamming into a fire hydrant. A geyser of water shot into the air, drenching the crowd.
Mr. Escala’s eyes were full of terror.
“The United States is no place for your family,” Miss Information said. “This is a lawless country filled with maniacs. You should go to the airport now and get on the first plane home.”
Petrified, Mr. Escala ran away.
Ms. Holiday watched him go. “Do you think that will work, Benjy?” she said.
The little orb spun around and clicked. “There is a ninety percent statistical chance that it succeeded. However, the only way to test for accuracy is to go back to our present and see for ourselves.”
“No time, Benjy. Who’s next?”
“There’s a Mr. Dewey working as a mechanic in the year 1995,” Benjy said. “Records indicate he’s the future father of Duncan Dewey. According to his Facebook page, it appears September first is the day he met Duncan’s mother, Aiah.”
“Very good,” Miss Information said. “Let’s go say hello to the happy couple and make sure they become very unhappy.”
She set the little box on the ground and it regained its form as the time machine. Moments later, she and the children were spinning their way toward 1995.
Ruby slept on a Skee-Ball ramp and woke with a laundry list of aching muscles. Unfortunately, her stiff neck and back were nothing compared to the pain in her face, which had swollen to the size of a party balloon. She was clearly having an allergic reaction, one of her most severe, but for the life of her she could not figure out what kind.
She took two allergy tablets, then searched the pizza parlor for her teammates. She found them with the principal in one of the booths, peering at a large pepperoni pizza. It appeared to be ice-cold.
“There’s nothing to eat but pizza, in case you were wondering,” Matilda said.
“Cold, ugly, disgusting pizza,” Duncan said.
“I’m glad you’re awake. We have news,” the principal said. “Heathcliff, you’re on.”
Heathcliff beamed. “Last night, at around eleven P.M., a NASA satellite detected a massive energy spike on our local power grid. Oddly enough, it happened at a school, the Margreet Zelle Detention Center for the Incorrigible. But there’s something that makes this even more interesting. The National Weather Service satellite helped me track down the exhaust fumes of Miss Information’s flying bus. Guess where the trail ends?”
“The Margreet Zelle Detention Center for the Incorrigible,” Ruby guessed.
“And there’s more!” Heathcliff said, sinking a token into a nearby arcade game. A moment later, images of Loudmouth, Thor, Funk, and Snot Rocket appeared on-screen. “Guess where these four freaks go to school.”
“You found her!” Jackson cried.
“We found her,” Heathcliff said. “Miss Information’s secret hideout is less than six miles away.”
“Suit up, kids. You too, Heathcliff. You’re going with them,” the principal said.
The boy’s grin was as wide as Texas.
Ruby couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” the principal growled. “Suit up, kids.”
Margreet Zelle Detention Center for the Incorrigible looked like Alcatraz prison’s baby brother. It had an electrified fence lined with barbed wire, four guard towers, and bars on all the windows.
“Well, it’s not Sugarland Academy,” Ruby said as she eyed a door with a sign that read SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.
Duncan had his nose buried so deep in the screen of his handheld tracking device that he nearly walked into the wall. “I’m using sonar. There’s definitely something deep beneath us. A cave.”
“How do we get to it?” Heathcliff asked.
Flinch reached into his pocket and took out a couple of candy bars, which he ate without unwrapping. “I’ll just smash through the floor. Give me a second.”
“Or we could use this.” Duncan opened a locker door.
“No way!” Matilda said.
“Yes way,” Duncan said. “Just like ours.”
Matilda and Jackson fought to be the first to take the entrance. Ruby followed them, and in a flash she was whisked down a mile-long tunnel and abruptly deposited into the remains of a secret bunker that looked oddly familiar.
“She copied the Playground,” Heathcliff said when he landed next to her.
“It’s identical,” Ruby said.
The walls, columns—even the ceramic tiles—were the same. There was a command center and a desk where Benjamin would hover.
“Ms. Holiday has really taken a leap off the high dive,” Jackson said. “She’s got her own team of superpowered kids, her own Playground—it’s like she’s trying to re-create what she once had.”
“Could this be a result of the villain virus?” Matilda asked. “Could some of the evil nanobytes have survived and adapted inside her?”
Ruby wasn’t sure what to tell Matilda. The information Agent Brand had shared with her and the principal felt private. At the same time, the others deserved to know that their Ms. Holiday was an invention. She decided to tell.
The news seemed to break their hearts as much as it had broken hers.
“Maybe the virus made her crazy,” Flinch said.
“Huh?” Ruby replied.
“When you guys were infected with the evil nanobytes, all of you took on new personalities. You also got really smart and invented things you couldn’t possibly have created before. Ms. Holiday already had two personalities: her real identity as a Russian spy, then as our librarian. Actually, if you think about it, she had to pretend to be an American spy, too—”
“This is getting confusing,” Matilda said.
“No, I think I understand,” Duncan said. “Ms. Holiday was juggling three unique personalities. When she was infected, she took on the fourth—Miss Information. Maybe she couldn’t handle another one and something broke.”
“So she really is sick?” Jackson asked.
“Maybe,” Duncan said. “But it would explain why she didn’t go back to normal when Flinch destroyed the virus.”
A flicker of hope sparked in Ruby’s chest. If their former friend was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, perhaps she could be treated.
“What’s this?” Jackson said. On the blackened floor there was a large pristine circle.
Duncan removed a device from his backpack. He flipped it on and a needle on its screen bounced around erratically. “The radiation here is off the charts.”
“Probably one of her doomsday devices. Think we got lucky and it blew up in her face?” Matilda asked.
Duncan shook his head. “Only if it vaporized her. This circle is completely free of dust or ash. No, it’s like something was here … and then it wasn’t.”
“Maybe it’s a teleportation device,” Heathcliff suggested.
Duncan shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll have to turn these readings over to the big brains. They might be able to make something of it.”
“Tell them to make us some pizza, too,” Flinch said.
“I say we split up and search this place,” Heathcliff said. “Miss Information and her goons might have left something behind we can use.”
Ruby bristled at Heathcliff’s overstep, but it was a good idea.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Just stay on the com-links.”
The children went their separate ways through the expansive facility. Every room seemed so familiar. It was both creepy and sad for Ruby, since she knew they’d never be able to return to their own headquarters.
She came to what appeared to be an upgrade room. She knew that Miss Information’s BULLIES had upgrades, and it made her sick to her stomach that the very thing that made her special could be twisted into something so ugly and dangerous.
“Find anything?”
Ruby jumped. Heathcliff was right behind her.
“Geez …”
“Didn’t mean to scare you, boss,” he said.
Ruby searched her allergies for signs of duplicity. Even though she didn’t find any, she was still suspicious. Nanobytes had turned Heathcliff into a terrible monster. Brainstorm, as he once called himself, could literally change reality with a single thought. She didn’t like seeing him so close to an upgrade chair.
Ruby sneezed and heard Duncan’s voice in her head.
“Hey, guys, I found something!”
“C’mon,” she said to Heathcliff, and breathed a sigh of relief when the boy followed her.
They found Duncan hovering over one of the science stations.
“What’s that?” Jackson asked, pointing at a huge drawing tacked to a corkboard. It looked like a Frisbee with a wheel in the center. There was also one of the most complicated math equations Ruby had ever seen written alongside it.
“Think that’s what caused the explosion?” Flinch asked.
“I have no idea,” Duncan said, gesturing to Heathcliff. “But I know someone who might understand it.”
Heathcliff studied the drawing.
“What is it?” Jackson said. “Some kind of death ray? An atom smasher? A dinosaur-cloning device?”
Heathcliff scratched his head, then said, “These are the schematics for a time machine.”
“A time machine!” Jackson cried. “Evil or not, that’s cool!”
“Flinch, pull that down and we’ll take it back to the base,” Ruby said.
“Who?”
Ruby turned to Jackson. “Flinch.”
“Who’s Flinch?”
“Jackson, he’s standing right—”
Ruby turned to where Flinch had been standing, but he was gone.
She turned her head back and forth, searching the room for her missing teammate. All the while the pressure in her head grew. The ache was intense. What was causing the swelling?
“Where did he go? You can’t just get up and leave during a mission. Flinch! Flinch! ”
“Ruby, are you feeling OK?” Matilda asked.
“Where’s Flinch?” she said.
Everyone looked at her as if she were smacking herself in the face with a flyswatter while singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
“Ruby, there’s no one on the team named Flinch,” Duncan said.
Ruby wondered if she was in the middle of a prank but quickly ruled it out. She was allergic to pranks, and besides her fat, agonizing head, she wasn’t experiencing any other allergic reactions.
“None of you remember Julio ‘Flinch’ Escala?” Ruby asked. “Strong kid, eats a lot of candy?”
The other agents looked back at her with mystified expressions.
“Duncan, he’s your best friend!” Ruby said.
What was happening? Did her friends really not remember their hyper teammate? No, that wasn’t possible, unless …
“She’s built a time machine!” Ruby shouted, suddenly realizing what her swollen head was trying to tell her.
“I know where Ms. Holiday and the BULLIES have gone,” she said. Her teammates looked at her, and she took a deep breath. “August 16, 1987.”
TOP SECRET DOSSIER
CODE NAME: RAGS THE WONDERMUTT
REAL NAME: RAGS
YEARS ACTIVE: 1983–84
CURRENT OCCUPATION: UNKNOWN
HISTORY: RAGS WAS NOT THE
ONLY ANIMAL TO BE ON
THE NERDS ROSTER, BUT HE WAS
THE FIRST. FOUND OUTSIDE NATHAN
HALE ELEMENTARY, THIS STRAY
POOCH STOLE THE HEART OF THE
ENTIRE TEAM AND SOON SPENT HIS
NIGHTS EATING PUPPY CHOW AND
SLEEPING IN THE PLAYGROUND.
ONE NIGHT, WHILE THE TEAM WAS
ON A MISSION, RAGS WANDERED
INTO THE UPGRADE ROOM. HE
EMERGED JUST AS STINKY BUT
WAS FASTER AND STRONGER AND
HAD A MONSTROUS BITE.
UPGRADE: WITH THE UPGRADES,
RAGS NOT ONLY CHASED CARS BUT
NOW COULD CATCH THEM. WITH
HIS SUPER-ENHANCED TEETH AND
JAWS, HE ONCE STOPPED A TANK
THAT WAS BARRELING TOWARD
THOMAS KNOWLTON MIDDLE SCHOOL.
UNFORTUNATELY, RAGS SANK HIS
TEETH INTO THE WING OF A SPACE
SHUTTLE AS IT WAS TAKING OFF
AND WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN.
Heathcliff watched Ruby’s face fill with desperation. She looked frantic and overexcited. Yes, she was uptight, controlling, and bossy, but she was usually the calmest person on the team. Seeing her so freaked out made him nervous.
“Flinch doesn’t exist anymore!” she cried.
“Maybe you should sit down,” the principal said.
“NO!” she shouted. “I checked all the computers. Julio Escala was never a member of this team. In fact, he was never even born.”
Ruby paced back and forth. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I’m not crazy. We’re in the middle of a crisis, people. And we need to move fast.”
“Where?” Matilda asked.
“I told you! 1987!”
“Why do you think that?” Duncan said.
Ruby pointed to her swollen noggin. “The allergies don’t lie! I think I’m allergic to something big—something like my friends vanishing from existence. I don’t know. This one’s not part of the 8,765 cataloged reactions my upgrades can detect.”
“Ruby, you need to calm down. Back up and try to help us understand,” Heathcliff said.
Ruby snatched him by the collar. “She erased him!”
“First, you’re choking me to death. Second, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Heathcliff said, trying to pull himself away and failing. For a wiry girl, Ruby Peet was strong.
“Ruby, you’re tired. We were up late last night searching—”
“Yes! That’s it! I can prove it. Remember that news clipping we found? The one from 1987 that had a photo with Miss Information and the BULLIES in it? Follow me!”
Heathcliff followed her through the maze of arcade games. Suddenly, Ruby started pumping tokens into the one they had been using the previous night. She tapped a few buttons and pulled on the joystick and the old newspaper article they had found reappeared. There was the photo of the car accident with Ms. Holiday, Tessa, and the BULLIES.
“The computer glitch,” Heathcliff said.
“No!” Ruby shouted. “I know I told you that you were causing the software to overload, but what if you weren’t? What if this is an actual picture of Ms. Holiday and Tessa Lipton?”
“That’s not possible,” Duncan said.
“Someone from Flinch’s family must have been at this accident!” she cried, pointing at the photo. “She’s changed the past. She’s erased our friend.”
“Listen, I love Doctor Who as much as the next guy, but time travel isn’t possible,” the principal said.
“You still don’t believe me? Then how do you explain this?” she asked, waving the drafting paper they had found in the evil Playground.
“What is it?” the principal said.
Heathcliff took it and smoothed out the wrinkles. His eyes grew big. His heart began to race. He felt like he might pass out. “She built a time machine!” he cried. The more he read, the more he realized that the woman hadn’t tried to build a time machine … she had built a time machine.
“And she’s using it to er
ase us one by one,” Ruby cried out in a panic.
Heathcliff tried to calm his breathing. “I—I think Ruby’s right. I think she might be allergic to changes in the space-time continuum. That might be why she remembers this Flinch kid and we don’t.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! My allergies have been going haywire all day.”
“So what do we do?” Duncan said. Ruby pointed to the designs. “We need our own time machine. We need to go back and stop her. Heathcliff, you get the scientists started on these plans while the rest of us go get him.”
“Who is ‘him’?” Matilda asked.
“The world’s worst oboe player!”
Alexander Brand was trying to write a song about his feelings. He had decided early on that it should be a country-and-western song because all the best songs about broken hearts were country-and-western. The lyrics would have to be about a bad librarian who liked to break a man’s heart before dashing off to do it to someone else. He even decided on a name for the song: “The Screwy Decimal System.” Unfortunately, the song had three strikes against it. First, you can’t play a sad country-and-western song on an oboe. Second, Brand was the furthest thing from a poet. And third, his singing was almost as bad as his oboe playing.
He carried the instrument out to the dock and sat down on the folding chair. He inserted the reed into his mouth, inhaled, and began to play a few jerky notes. Then he stopped and sang.
She fined my heart like an overdue book.
Threw me on the shelving cart without a second look.
I’ve walked a sad road all across this nation,
And I can’t get my heart back into circulation.
“You really are bad at the oboe, boss.”
He didn’t have to see who it was. He recognized Ruby’s stubborn voice.
He turned to face her.
Duncan, Matilda, Jackson, and the principal stood next to her. Duncan had a handkerchief in his hands and the principal was holding a length of rope. Ruby held the costume head of a cartoon mouse in her hands.
“Your girlfriend built a time machine,” Ruby said. “She’s gone back to muck up the past. She’s already erased a member of the team. This is the biggest threat we have ever faced, and we need your help.”