UPGRADE: THIRD DEGREE’S BURNS
WERE ENHANCED SO THAT THEY
GENERATED HEAT, ALLOWING HIM
TO START RAGING BONFIRES
WHENEVER NEEDED.
The NERDS and the principal dragged Agent Brand into Marty Mozzarella’s, which was mercifully deserted for the night. Brand still wore the big mouse head and was groaning indignantly.
The principal waved the children a safe distance away. “He’s angry. I’m going to take the head off and then the gag, so be careful of his teeth.”
Brand blinked hard against the restaurant’s harsh fluorescent lighting. As soon as the gag came out, so did a tirade of potty language not appropriate for print. Ruby waited patiently for him to stop, but there seemed to be no end in sight. When he didn’t calm down, she took the gag from the principal and stuffed it back into Brand’s mouth.
“Sorry, boss, but we have to act fast. Here’s what’s happening. Ms. Holiday has built a playground just like ours.”
“Identical,” Matilda said.
“She’s assembled a team of kids just like us,” Ruby said.
“They even have upgrades,” Jackson said.
“They call themselves the BULLIES,” Duncan said.
“Her science team created a time machine,” Ruby said. “She’s already erased one of our members, a kid named Flinch, who you won’t remember because he never existed, and now she’s probably going after the four of us.”
“You mean three,” the principal said.
“Huh?”
“There’s only three of you on the team, unless you’re counting Heathcliff, but he’s just helping.”
Ruby looked around at her friends. “Where’s Duncan?”
“Who?” Matilda asked.
“Duncan Dewey! Agent Gluestick!”
The others gave her the increasingly familiar You’re going crazy look.
“Aaargh!” Ruby shouted, then turned her attention back to Brand. “Your girlfriend just erased Duncan Dewey! I know you don’t remember him, but he was a really nice guy.”
Brand moaned something unintelligible through his gag.
“Shush!” Ruby snapped. “I know you want to sit up at your stupid cabin and scare away the wildlife with your oboe, but you might be able to reach whatever is left of Ms. Holiday, so you’re helping whether you want to or not.”
Ruby looked to the principal.
He nodded. “Yeah, what she said.”
Ruby removed the handkerchief from Brand’s mouth. The former spy took a long, frustrated breath. “Well, I guess that’s settled.”
Ruby smiled.
“Heathcliff, you’re on!” the principal shouted.
Heathcliff raced into the room, arms filled with papers and a calculator. He came to a screeching halt in front of Mr. Brand. He peered into the former spy’s shaggy face.
“What happened to him?”
Brand growled and Heathcliff jumped back.
“Where are we with our time machine?” the principal asked as he untied Brand’s hands.
“Well, first of all, whoever designed Ms. Holiday’s time machine was a real knucklehead. I mean, it’s genius, but every time she turns it on, it threatens to destroy the universe. It’s obvious that it’s based on the Decoyer Loop Universe theory, which is like so last year, but—”
“Can you turn the science down to one and the English up to ten?” Jackson asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” Heathcliff said. “Basically, her time machine rips a huge hole in space-time, which could have some nasty side effects. Black holes. Supernovas. Plus, it’s a dirty technology and bad for the environment. I threw out her entire design and started over with a pet theory of mine. I have always believed there are tiny tears in the space-time continuum—little dimples, if you can imagine. Turns out I’m right. They’re all over the place, and we can stretch one so it’s big enough to travel through. It’s much safer, and we don’t need a huge machine.”
“So how do we find one of these holes?” Matilda asked.
“Already done,” Heathcliff said. “There’s one right here in this restaurant.”
He gestured to the multicolored ball pit at the center of the room. A tangle of tubes connected a huge pulsating engine to the pit. “I’ve attached it to a low-grade nuclear power source. I’m charging the battery cells now. It should be ready soon.”
“OK, I know I’m the C-minus member of this team, but even with a time machine, how are we going to find her?” Jackson asked. “Miss Information and her toad squad could have gone anywhere. Or ‘anywhen.’”
“She allowed herself to be photographed during her trip to August 16, 1987. Something she and her team did there erased … what was his name again?”
“Flinch,” Ruby said.
“Yes, Flinch. All we have to do is go back to that day and stop her plan and we get Flinch and Gluestick back in one shot,” Heathcliff explained.
“I can’t do this,” Brand said.
Ruby turned to him, fully prepared to unleash every ounce of her anger and frustration. His broken heart was not going to get in the way of her being born. She’d put him back in the mouse suit if he wouldn’t cooperate.
“… unless you let me shave,” Brand continued. “If I’m going to stop my ex from ruining the world, I want to look hot.”
While the remnants of her team waited for the time machine to boot up, Ruby sat at an arcade game and searched police records for news of her disappearance from home. What she found was worse than she’d imagined. Her mother and father had appeared on the nightly news, Grandpa Saul had done an interview with the Washington Post, and her cousins had built a Find Ruby Peet website. Her disappearance had gone viral, and hundreds of people were searching all over Arlington for her. She couldn’t stand knowing the suffering she was putting her family through. She felt like crying, remembering the last conversation she had with her mom and dad.
But then she found a newspaper article with a photograph of her house. Parked on the street was a familiar black car and behind the steering wheel was the same Secret Service agent who had taken her to see the president. The principal was right. They were watching her house, probably tapping the phones, and waiting to pounce if they got so much as a hint that Ruby was reaching out.
At that moment, she would’ve been happy to open up any drawer her nieces and nephews wanted to explore. She would let them tear apart her socks and ignore her TV remote instructions and build forts in her bedroom with filthy bricks. She wanted nothing more than to watch her big, loud, obnoxious family turn the house into a complete and total mess. Especially now, when there was a good chance she could be wiped out of existence at any moment. Then they wouldn’t be searching far and wide for her—they’d forget her completely. Somehow that was even worse.
“We’re ready,” Heathcliff said, approaching her cautiously.
“Brand?”
“He just finished. I wonder if I had forty minutes with a barber, manicurist, and a tailor if I would look that handsome.”
“It’s really hard for you. Isn’t it?” she asked him.
“What?”
“Not having a family,” she said.
Heathcliff’s shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “Sometimes I feel like I’m a boat on the ocean and I can’t find land no matter which direction I sail.”
Ruby looked back at an image of her family’s worried faces on the news. She didn’t know what kind of life she might have in the future, but if she could fix all her problems, she’d never complain about a crowded house again.
The team gathered at the ball pit. Ruby’s glands ached, and she looked around warily. “Where’s Matilda?” Ruby asked.