“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where you are?”
“No, I don’t, Mom.”
“What does it look like?” asked the Professor, speaking on the upstairs telephone extension.
“It doesn’t look like anything. Is that you, Professor?”
“Yes, it’s me, Petey. Now try very hard to give us some kind of idea as to where you are.”
“Okay. It’s very foggy. And there are clouds.”
“And vapor. Is there vapor?” asked the Professor, jotting the facts down in his pocket notepad.
“Yes sir. Vapor and clouds. Oh, and fog. And also some steam.”
Mrs. Carter could not help herself. She cried out, “Is my girl Lucinda with him? Ask him if Lucinda is there!”
Mr. Ragsdale nodded. “Petey, Mrs. Carter would like to know if her daughter Lucinda is there with you.”
“Well, it’s not easy to see everyone. There is too much vapor and clouds and fog and steam. I think she’s here, though. Let me ask. LUCINDA? LUCINDA CARTER, ARE YOU HERE?”
A tiny voice replied, “I’m over here!”
“Yes, Dad. Tell Mrs. Carter that she’s here.”
“What about Armstrong’s kids, Darvin and Daisy?” asked Mr. Craft. “Ask about them.”
“Did you hear that, Petey?” said Mr. Ragsdale into the phone. “Are Darvin and Daisy Armstrong there with you?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Dad. I’ll find out. DARVIN? DAISY? ARE YOU HERE?
“They’re right here!” replied Lucinda. “I’ve got them with me.”
“They’re here too, Dad,” said Petey. “Say, Professor, what’s going on? What are we doing here? When do we get to go home?”
“We’re just starting to put all the pieces together, Petey. I’m afraid it will take a little time to get everything figured out. Now, do you have the sense that you are in a room, son? Or out-of-doors somewhere?”
“There are no walls that I can see, Professor,” answered Petey. “Not even a ceiling or floor. It’s like we’re all sort of floating inspace.”
“Most curious,” said the Professor, making notes. “And how old are you, Petey? How old are the other children?”
“The same age we were yesterday, I guess. I can’t see much of a difference in the way we look except that you can kind of see through us like we’re ghosts or something.”
“Ghosts!” Mrs. Ragsdale shrieked. “That can only mean one thing!”
“Corporeal transparency could have many possible causes,” said the Professor in a calming voice. “Now, Petey, how did you find the telephone?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Professor. It just sort of appeared. Hey, are Rodney and Wayne there? They’re not here with me.”
“Yes, Petey. They’re here,” answered Mr. Ragsdale. “But they’ve been turned into infants and I don’t think they know how to talk on the phone.”
“Yes we do!” said Wayne, offended by the put-down.
Mr. Ragsdale made a shh sign with his finger and his lips, and then spoke into the phone. “Thank goodness there are telephones wherever you are, son. Now you take good care of yourself until the Professor can put everything back the way it was.”
“I will, Dad. In fact, I’m doing more than just taking care of myself. It looks like I’m the oldest one here. And the tallest. I’ve never been in a place where I was the oldest and the tallest. I guess it’s up to me to look after all these children until we get to go home.”
“That’s a fine thing, Petey. You make your mother and me very proud.”
Mrs. Ragsdale pulled the phone receiver over to her mouth so she could say something else to her son: “Is there a number there where we can reach you?”
“I didn’t understand the first part of what you said, Mom.”
“A number, Petey. A phone number.”
“Yes, there’s a phone here. I’m talking on it.”
“No, you don’t understand, honey.” Mrs. Ragsdale began to cry. “Oh Drew — I can’t think of another way to say ‘phone number.’ Is there another way to say it so that it doesn’t have a ‘b’ in it?”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” said Mr. Ragsdale.
“I can hardly hear you, Mom.”
“You’re fading too, sweetie. But don’t go yet! Don’t go!”
“I love you, Mom! I love you, Dad!”
“We love you too, honey.”
“So long!”
“So long, son.”
Mr. Ragsdale handed the phone receiver back to Aunt Mildred and wiped a tear from his cheek.
A moment or so later, the Professor returned to the kitchen. A somber quiet had fallen over the room, with the exception of the scratchy sound Aunt Mildred made sweeping sugar into her hand from the messy table.
“There is a name for the place where Petey and all the other little children of the town are being kept,” he said softly. “But Petey wouldn’t have understood. The place is called ‘limbo.’”
CHAPTER SIX
In which Rodney and Wayne and Becky and Grover have an encounter with two preschool fugitives from the law
The next three days were very busy ones for Professor Johnson and for Rodney and Wayne. Although they were not able to help the Professor with the construction of the invention — dubbed the Age Altertron — whose job it would be to end this latest calamity, the boys nonetheless spent as much time as possible with their friend in his home laboratory. They even helped him to give a name to the new calamity. It would forever be called The Age-Changer-Deranger-Estranger.
Aunt Mildred didn’t mind rolling the twins back and forth between the two houses in their big double stroller because it gave her more opportunities to bring fudge and pie and all the other special foods that Mrs. Ferrell had told her the Professor liked. Aunt Mildred would sometimes sit and watch Professor Johnson bolt down a slice of cinnamon-rhubarb pie (so that he could quickly return to his work) and she would let out a little wistful sigh and wonder what life would be like if she could bake for him everyday as his wife. When it was time to go, Professor Johnson would steal a glance at Aunt Mildred through his window and think about what a good cook she was, and how much he liked to see the cheerful lift in her step when she walked.
Rodney and Wayne were busy in large part because the Professor’s house and laboratory at 1272 Old Hickory Road had become a very busy place. All day long Mr. and Mrs. Ragsdale and Mrs. Carter and all of the other parents of the missing children (except for Mr. Armstrong who could not be coaxed from his bathtub) would drop by to find out if they would soon be able to hold their little ones in their arms again.
The Professor’s students from the college, who had once been eighteen- and nineteen- and twenty-year-olds, and who were now seven- and eight- and nine-year-olds, came to visit with the Professor as well. Now that they had the bodies of young children, they could no longer while away their free hours doing the goofy, prankish things college kids generally did, like leading a milk cow up four flights of stairs to the roof of the science building. Now that they were incapable of doing anything more prankish than covering a very short tree with toilet paper, they could spend more time assisting the Professor in those areas of his work that did not require a steady adult hand.