Chapter Two: The Time Traveler
We relaxed on our laurels for a couple of weeks after we finished cleaning up the remnants of the “Game of Living.” Then on a Tuesday afternoon I marched into the greenhouse expecting to start a game of rubber band guns but instead I found James and Earl hunched over a computer screen searching for something.
“Try ‘time travel proof,’” suggested Earl.
“I already did,” answered James. “I’m not finding anything like it at all.”
“So it’s a good idea then?” Earl asked.
“I think it could be done,” James said. “Let’s at least bring it up to the others and get a vote on it.”
“On what?” I asked.
“Earl has our next millionaire idea,” James said. “But, we should probably bring it up at a formal meeting before we discuss it anymore.”
“Great.” I said. “I can wait 10 minutes.”
Shortly after that the others drifted in and we were soon all there. We assembled in the workroom and formally started the meeting. Cora had informally assumed the role as club president and Amie was acting as a recording secretary. I could kind of fill the role of treasurer since I had opened the accounts which held the club’s money.
“Let’s hear from Earl,” Cora said after kind of calling the meeting to order.
Earl stood up and for the next 10 minutes he went through his idea which slowly got everyone in the room to breathe heavy with excitement as we started to share in the enthusiasm that he brought into his presentation. From his first sentence asking us how we would like to be featured on national television in front of millions of people, he had us.
“But how?” Amie asked.
“Simple,” Earl answered, on a roll. “We need to stage an event so tremendously exciting that media from all around the world will come here to cover it. We’ll find a huge field that will be similar to Woodstock in the 60’s. People will come from hundreds of miles around and everyone who can’t come will be watching it on television.”
“What event?” I asked for the second time, but Earl was on a roll and didn’t want to be rushed.
“We’ll have sponsors and sell concessions. We’ll have t-shirts and wristbands. Everyone in the country will be talking about what’s going to happen in Miles City, and everyone in the country will be watching us when it does!”
“What event!” we all yelled this time.
“What event?” Earl asked, savoring the suspense. “It’s the ATOAFAAPTTTIR all-time once and for all absolute proof that time travel is real!”
“What?” Peter asked.
“I think we might need to work on that name, though,” James offered.
“It’s so simple,” Earl explained. “We stage an event and promote it like crazy that will absolutely prove once and for all whether or not time travel will ever work.”
“I don’t really get it,” said Amie. “How can we do that?”
“It’s really simple,” Earl said again. “We pick a time and a date, we promote it like crazy so it will go down in history as THE time for a time traveler to appear, then we make it a huge media circus and when the clock ticks down to zero, POOF! We see if anyone shows up!”
We all chewed on that for a bit and then as we slowly thought it through, we each started to get into the spirit and began to offer additional things we could sell or ways we could promote it.
“You see?” Earl asked. “It’s perfect!”
It sure seemed to be, but then again, most of what we started seemed to be perfect, at first. When we look back, it’s clear that it never quite comes off as planned. That was especially true in this case. Amie was a great recorder, she took meticulous notes and she always kept her notebook safe. It was either in her hands or in her locker at school. That’s where we figure Bob Maguns and Tracy Bartels somehow got their hands on it. The school we attend always tells us that the locker combinations are changed every year, but most of us realized that wasn’t true. If you could remember where your locker was the year before and tried your old combination you could open it easily. Bob or Tracy must have known who had Amie’s locker the last year.
We didn’t find out right away. We kept planning things and adding to our list of how to maximize our profits and build the audience. Luckily, I had a separate list of some of the marketing plans we intended to use so these never fell into the hands of our enemies.
We never were sure just when they started reading our plans but they obviously were following them closely since by the time we found out it was very clear that our ideas had now become theirs.
We spent a few days picking the perfect spot for the “Spectacle in Time,” as we called it. We picked a spot locally known as “Spotted Eagle” for the perfect location. Spotted Eagle was a city owned recreation area consisting of several campgrounds, picnic spots, a skeet shooting facility, archery, a playground, and, best of all, a small man-made lake with a small island in the middle. This was the spot that we decided would be a great focal point for our time traveler to arrive. There was plenty of room for cars and people to watch from all around the lake.
That’s how we found out we were sabotaged. Peter, Amie and I were there spotting out the best places to put concessions, television cameras, and other requirements when a big Lincoln Town Car rolled up. Out came Mayor Springer, Dave Rivers, the owner of KMCM-TV, and Scoop Waters. We then noticed that Bob Maguns and Tracy Bartels got out of the other side. When they saw us, they thumbed their noses at us and slapped each other on the back. We could tell that something big was happening.
We casually strolled over in time to hear Tracy and Bob explaining our ideas about the ‘Spectacle in Time’ to the Mayor and the media. Of course, they were convincing them that it was their idea and they had all of the plans about running it.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They are stealing our idea.” Amie answered.
“Let’s get to the greenhouse.” Peter said. “We need to hold an emergency meeting.”
I volunteered to stay and keep an eye on what was happening at Spotted Eagle while they headed off to inform the others. I followed the group around from a distance as the two walked the Mayor and the two reporters through almost all of our plans and sold them on the idea.
From the beginning the Mayor obviously wanted to take the event over as much as he could. Bob and Tracy weren’t very good at holding on to the controls.
By the time I arrived at the greenhouse everyone was there and for the most part the upset over losing our second million dollar idea was ending. What they were working on now was revenge.
“What can you report to us?” Cora asked me.
I filled them in and they all nodded their heads. Cora said “I knew that the Mayor would try to take ownership of this if they weren’t able to have a firm hand on it. That’s why we weren’t ready to publicly launch it yet. First we would have wanted to secure that it was hosted and planned by us. By the time this thing rolls around, I bet Bob and Tracy will hardly have a say in it at all.”
“But what can we do about it?” Earl asked sadly. It was his creation, after all.
Cora just looked at him sadly.
“I don’t think we can really do anything Earl,” Amie said sympathetically.
“Maybe that’s not entirely true,” James quietly suggested.
“What do you mean James?” Earl asked. “Can we get it back?”
“No. That’s not what I mean.” James answered. “We might not be able to get control of this again, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an awful lot of fun anyway.”
And that’s how the great “Make a Spectacle of Time Operation” was born.
Luckily the plans that the Mayor and the town proceeded to follow were almost exactly the ones that we had prepared. That gave us an incredible advantage as to what was supposed to happen and more importantly, when it was supposed to happen. We had to spend a few nights hanging out on the island at Spotted
Eagle after rowing out in James’s uncle’s rowboat. Luckily, it was pretty big and we could transport a lot of stuff we needed in it. And we needed a lot of stuff. Whether or not a real time traveler showed up, this promised to be a very entertaining evening, at least for us.
By the time the local paper announced the big event we were pretty much all set. We spent most of our time watching the preparations at the lake and trying to raise some money by pursuing some of our concession ideas. We had kept John Fulton at the Collectibles store pretty busy printing up some of our better t-shirt ideas and we starting selling them at the lake. My favorite slogan was “Do you have the time?” with a picture of a grandfather clock changing into a digital watch alongside the front of the shirt. John insisted on adding ‘Miles City Montana’ to all of our designs saying that this would add to the collector appeal of the shirt.
At night we synchronized our preplanned scheme with the actual design the city was building. So far the plans that we had initially laid out were being followed pretty consistently, which made things a lot easier for us since we had already adapted the island to our new specifications.
The whole town was buzzing over the event which was still a little upsetting for Earl. Because of this, we decided to blow almost our whole club savings into the night to make it really special for us. Earl and James had taken tons of electronics out of the club room and James’s basement which was a treasure trove of cool gadgetry and stuff. We followed the plans that we designed and were really looking forward to the night.
The days ticked down and the excitement in the town was growing. On the day of the event every hotel in town was jammed, many people were renting out extra rooms in their homes, the restaurants were constantly full and downtown was crazy. The local merchants were making a fortune and everyone’s spirits were high. We kept reassuring Earl that he had done a fantastic thing by bringing this to the town and he was doing great except when he would catch sight of Bob and Tracy, who were hanging out with the Mayor and kept looking at us with smug, gotcha eyes.
We decided to head out to the lake around 5:00 and take our positions. We couldn’t believe how crowded it already was. We saw camera crews from all around the country. We noticed Scoop Waters hanging around a really pretty reporter from a station in Cincinnati. There were video cameras everywhere. We saw several reporters from tabloid magazines there. We had fun trying to make up silly headlines we might be seeing soon on their magazines at the grocery store.
There was a big stage built on the island where some invited dignitaries would be sitting. I was certain that whoever would be sitting there, Bob and Tracy would be amongst them. We had staked out positions in several key areas. James and Earl were in charge of the electronics we had installed. Amie was located in the branches of a huge oak tree where she would be able to see everything that was happening and be able to communicate with us all. Peter was behind the controls of his family’s small motorboat which was drifting along slowly in the Tongue River, which was where the water in the lake came from when the town needed to add any. Cora and I were assigned positions alongside the beach where we were supposed to observe and record our version of the event for later viewing and sharing on the net.
Promptly at 6:00 the town band started to play. The town band consisted of the high school music, his wife and family, plus some local merchants who enjoyed spending several evenings a year performing for local events, like the fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Everybody knew that they weren’t very good, including most of the members themselves, but since the town had a band for over the past hundred years they were always a sentimental favorite.
Lucky for us I had gotten my hands on one of the schedules yesterday so we all knew the planned order of events and the speakers. The evening would start out with the town band playing for 30 minutes and then the Mayor would speak. He was scheduled to introduce Chairman Brown, of course. You can’t expect to have one and not the other. He was also planning on introducing Bob Maguns and Tracy Bartels who were scheduled to say a few words before the Mayor finished speaking. We knew we couldn’t just sit by and watch that without doing something.
After the speakers finished, there would be a short intermission while the stage was cleared in anticipation for the arrival of the time traveler, if one was to show up. Then there would be a few fireworks, mostly noise and smoke bomb types since it wouldn’t be dark yet. The drum corps would then line up and start playing a long, low drum roll as the clock and the crowd counted down to exactly 8:00PM. Then the planned schedule ended since no one knew if anything was going to happen at 8:00, however, at least 6 people knew – us.
Cora and I moved into a tree across from the stage where we could see what was happening with a couple pairs of binoculars. We had already outfitted the tree with a microphone and transmitter we would use to broadcast over the speakers the city had placed on the island. To make sure no one else climbed the tree we had placed signs at the base warning of a toxic itching disease that was on the leaves.
The band started playing right on time and with the amplified sound coming through the huge speakers we were wishing we also had some earplugs to sell to those in the crowd who couldn’t stand the racket. We had a couple of hotdogs we had carried into the tree and responded when James called us to confirm we were in place and ready.
“Yes.” I answered. “Eagle two is in place and ready.”
“Good.” James answered. “Remember, when Bob and Tracy are up, that’s your cue.”
“We’ll be ready,” I assured him.
The Mayor finally started his speech. He went through a long introduction acknowledging and thanking anyone and everyone who was here in our fine town of Miles City. We knew that the downtown merchants and hotel operators were ecstatic with all of the out of town business that had assembled for our event. He also wanted to be ready to quell any possible disappointment when he added “It’s also likely that when the moment arrives, nothing might happen. Does this mean that a future including time travel doesn’t exist? No. It means that that future will still remain hidden to us for a number of possible reasons.” But to keep the excitement brewing, and the cameras rolling, he then said “But this night might be the one that all of us here will constantly look back on when the story is relayed and state proudly, ‘I was there’. Spotted Eagle, the Woodstock for a new generation.”
When the Mayor finally finished, he reluctantly handed the microphone to Chairman Brown who was speaking in his role as chairman of the downtown merchants association. He also wanted to thank everyone for coming and wanted to remind them of the incredible shopping opportunities that Miles City offers. “Make sure you visit our fine stores and bring a piece of Miles City home with you.”
Both the Mayor and Chairman Brown had thanked Bob and Tracy several times for coming up with this “wonderfully innovative idea” that would put Miles City on the scientific map for all time, no pun intended.
We had decided to not interfere with these speeches in any way for a couple of reasons. One, we really didn’t want to make the Mayor and the Chairman mad at us, and two we wanted to save the fun for Bob and Tracy, and of course what comes after.
Finally, Chairman Brown finished and handed the microphone back to the Mayor. My phone beeped with a message from James prompting me to ‘get ready’. I was.
The Mayor then cleared his throat and announced “We are all here because of something the town of Miles City has always been proud of. Our innovative and industrious youth always lead the county in any competition.”
Since Miles City was almost the only town in the county, this wasn’t really saying that much, but it sounded nice.
“Tonight’s event happened because two of our finest enterprising young men had an idea. A great idea. A way to affect the very history and framework of time itself. A way to set the timer on time travel. To countdown to the moment of truth that could once and for all prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that people will surpass the
4th dimension, time. In just a few minutes that moment in time, about time, will be in time.”
The Mayor gave some great speeches. We could tell that he worked on this introduction for a long time.
“Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present to you, one of the innovative creators of tonight’s spectacular extravaganza, Bob Maguns!”
There was a lot of applause as Bob stepped up to the microphone. This was also the time that James cut the line from the microphone on stage to the one that I now held in my hand. I was now live and waiting for Bob to move his lips.
Bob was obviously enjoying all of the attention and it looked like he had prepared a nice speech for the event by the pages of paper he pulled from his pocket. He looked down and started to read, but my voice came over all of the speakers.
“Good evening.” He/I said.
He looked a little confused at hearing what sounded like a slightly different voice coming through the speakers instead of his, but he trooped onward.
“I would like to start off by asking if anyone can tell me where the bathroom is on this island? I’ve been sitting here listening to the Mayor go on and on and on so long that I’ve got to really go and I’m afraid that I will end up wetting my pants if I don’t find a potty soon.”
As the words coming over the speakers were sounding different than the ones Bob was saying you could see his face becoming slightly panicked, but instead of stopping he just spoke faster and more panicked.
“I’d also like publicly announce that this idea wasn’t really mine or Tracy’s. We stole it from the Millionaire’s Club just like every other good idea we’ve ever had in our lives.” Bob was visibly shaking now, but instead of stopping, he foraged on through his prepared remarks but hearing my words instead of his. “This is probably due to the fact that as a baby I didn’t have a nukie to suck on so I was faced with the choice of stealing one from the baby in the next crib or sucking my thumb. I’m proud to announce that last night for the very first time, I managed to fall asleep without sucking my thumb. I have broken that habit. Now if I could just do something about the stealing.”
Bob stopped reading, looked around, listening to the stunned silence from the crowds and slowly turned and slunk away. The Mayor had a shocked look on his face and headed hesitantly to the microphone, picked it up and said “Thank you Bob, for that very overly informative confession. Tracy, do you have anything you’d like to add?”
Tracy was sitting wide-eyed and looked about, panicked, as he tried to decide what to do. Finally he slowly stood and crept to the microphone. As he prepared to speak I handed the microphone to Cora who was ready to speak for him.
“Hello” He/she said. “I would just like to reiterate everything that Bob said with one slight change.”
Tracy looked fearful but decided to continue for some reason. “Bob did suck his thumb last night. He’s not only a thief, but he is also a liar, and so am I. Thank you very much for coming tonight. And, if you’re wondering why I don’t need to use the potty right now, it’s because I still wear diapers and mine isn’t quite full yet, although I could use a change if anyone’s available. Mr. Mayor?”
That was it for Tracy. He practically ran away from the microphone and found somewhere on the island to hide until he could slink away. We were all in hysterics laughing over the way that things had worked perfectly. The Mayor came back to the mike and tried to get things back on track.
“Well” he stated. “Let’s get on with the festivities. After sending thanks to the Millionaire’s Club, whom we all remember from their previous experience with the Living Game, let’s try to forget everything else that those two young whippersnappers just put forth and prepare for the climax of the evening.”
It was 3 minutes to 8:00. Peter had by now launched the remote controlled airplane that we were going to use to work the crowd into a frenzy of expectation before we revealed our masterpiece if there was no real appearance of a traveler from another time. Since it was dusk we knew no one would notice the plane if we flew it high enough. Earl and James had rigged up some fireworks that they attached to the plane, which was silenced so no one on the ground would be aware it was in the air. James could release the fireworks and ignite them by remote control whenever he wanted to. We figured that if someone really shows up from the future, the addition of some unexpected fireworks would only heighten the excitement. Starting at the 2 minute and 30 second time remaining James started slowly releasing some of our stuff. The first fireworks were simple flare types which burst into balls of fire of different colors. When the first one appeared over the island and slowly drifted downward the crowd reacted with a huge gasp of surprise. No one expected this would happen and it was great! About every 15 seconds James released another and they would burst into a differing color and light the island with their ghostly glow as they burned out about 50 feet above the ground.
The air was filled with the ‘ooohs and aaaahs’ of the crowd as they watched the increasing balls of light cascade from seemingly out of nowhere and float down to the island. At 7:59 we knew that the spotlights the city had placed on the island were to start lighting slowly and increasing until the stage would be shrouded in a blinding hail of white light as the hour struck 8.
The lights started coming on. We had changed the bulbs to color changing strobe lights and those started flashing red, white and blue. James then started our prerecorded audio which started blaring over the speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages!” I got the line from an old circus movie I had watched on TV late one night. “Without further delay, please put your hands together to welcome….”
The town drummers started a drum roll then, adding to the mounting excitement.
“The Traveling Time Trickster of 2024!” The music rolled to a blaring crescendo as the lights flashed on and off rapidly, covering a screen that was being raised from underneath the stage through some swinging trap doors that we had cut into the wood. Earl had designed this to allow us to project an image on all the screens to look almost holographic.
The image was Peter, wearing a long flowing white robe and a huge white beard which fell to his knees. In his right hand he was holding an old alarm clock and in his left he was swinging around an hourglass. It appeared to the assembled crowd like he appeared out of nowhere. Since the act was all prerecorded, he didn’t need to use a live microphone; his voice was being sent on tape right through the speakers at full volume.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Peter/Mr. Time said. “What a wonderful crowd. Give yourselves a hand!” With that he pulled one of the hands off of the alarm clock and tossed it into the air.
I was laughing so hard I almost fell out of the tree. The looks on the faces of the people around us were hysterical. No one had a clue what was happening as they watched this huge ghostly apparition entertain them with corny jokes.
“What should you say to someone carrying a grandfather clock around?” Peter continued. “Why not wear a wristwatch like everyone else?”
Each time Peter finished one of his stupid jokes, a skyrocket was launched into the air to punctuate the humor with a sharp explosion of sound and light.
“I stopped into an hourglass factory to ask if I could use their phone. When I asked the receptionist if she had a second, she gave me a grain of sand.”
“After the man threw the clock out the window to see time fly, why’d he put it in a pan on the stove? He wanted to see time fry!”
“A funny thing happened to me on my way here through time tonight. I was passing 2025 and this other time traveler told me that time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.”
“What did the digital clock say to the grandfather clock? Look gramps, no hands!”
“A friend of mine was wearing 6 watches. I finally convinced him he had too much time on his hands.”
“Well, I’d love to stay longer but I have to catch a plane. It took off 4 years ago. You’ve
been a great crowd. Let’s do it again, shall we, like right now.”
Then James started rewinding the video so it reversed really fast and we all watched Peter do the act backwards. It was great! As soon as he got to the beginning, it started again, just like the first time. As soon as Peter finished the first joke the image started to blink, then fade slightly, then blink on and off faster and then with a thunderous explosion of fireworks and a huge amount of smoke set off by the rest of our hidden firework supply, Peter was gone.
There was almost a minute of silence before the crowd started to quietly applaud and then the applause slowly grew into a huge cacophony of sound. Our time traveler had stolen the show and was a huge hit. James made sure that all traces of our apparatus were again hidden from the stage and we spent the rest of the evening enjoying the people around us discussing what they had seen.
Early the next morning, Peter, Cora and I were on the island retrieving all the hidden equipment we had stashed there before the city crews were set to arrive when I spotted an envelope lying in the middle of the stage. It was addressed to ‘Steve W’, that’s me.
I opened it and read, “Steve, it was great seeing that again. It’s even funnier than I remembered when I was watching from the tree like you did. Even though it would have been fun to say hi to you, I think it’s better to just write this note and tell you that you’ll be back, exactly 33 years from now. Yours truly, You.”
Did I come back from the future and witness the show like the letter said, or did someone else have a great little joke on me? I guess I’ll know for sure in just under 33 years.