“I will nonetheless try,” said the Professor gloomily. “I owe it to the lost children to at least do that much. Good day to you both.” Grover tried to open the door for the Mayor and for Miss Lyttle but he couldn’t reach the knob. So he stood beside the door with his arm in the air as if he were giving them permission to depart.
As Miss Lyttle passed, she said, “I hope in eleven or twelve years after we have grown back to our former ages, I’ll see you all in my class again.”
“And I hope it’s even sooner than that. Like maybe Friday!” shouted Wayne, who then added under his breath, “you cow hater.”
Then they were gone. Professor Johnson dropped into a chair and began to massage his temples. “I’m so tired,” he said in a soft, sad voice.
“I wish there was some way we could help you,” said Rodney.
“You’ve all been most helpful by keeping people from interrupting my work. But I had to come out here to see what was important enough to bring the Mayor to my home. I’m sorry now that I ever left my laboratory. However, it is good to know where things stand.”
“You are doing the right thing,” said Becky. She toddled over to the Professor’s chair so that she could pat his hand to soothe him. Professor Johnson’s hand was long and bony just like Abraham Lincoln’s. The Professor gave her a smile, then patted her tiny hand in return. He gave his own knees a strong slap and rose with a groan from the chair. “There is much work to do.”
Without saying another word, the weary Professor shuffled slowly and heavily back to his lab.
ate the next night, Aunt Mildred came into the boys’ bedroom. A ringing telephone had awakened them, but in their groggy state they believed they had dreamed the sound. Just as they began to drift back off to sleep, their aunt spoke.
“Boys, it’s Professor Johnson on the line. He wishes to speak to you. I will hold the phone up so you can both hear him.”
“Hello, Rodney. Hello, Wayne.” A dark, melancholy tone infused the Professor’s voice. “I’m afraid that I have some sad news to report.”
“Yes, what is it?” asked Wayne, speaking for both of the boys.
“I won’t be able to finish the machine before the vote is taken tomorrow. I have already heard how the vote is leaning and it looks quite bad.”
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” said Aunt Mildred, who was listening in.
“I have always said that my machines should not be engaged without proper and thorough testing.”
“That’s right,” said Rodney.
“Yet I haven’t enough time left to test this one in order to guarantee its success. Therefore, I must make a fateful decision: do I go ahead and flip the switch tonight and cross my fingers and hope that something good will come of it, or do I throw in the towel and walk away?”
“What is the bad that might come from it?” asked Rodney.
“Who knows? Perhaps the machine will just sit there and do nothing. Or perhaps something will happen that we can’t predict. That is the risk. Now here is the question: is it worth the risk — the chance for us to bring Petey and the other children back? To restore this town to the way it was?”
“You are asking us?” said Wayne.
“Yes. I am seeking the opinion of my worthy and trusted apprentices in the field of cataclysmic science. Should I flip the switch and pray for a positive outcome?”
Rodney and Wayne considered the question while their aunt did a little praying herself, right then and there.
to us. Just you watch. And you won’t be able to help us. And Wayne and I are still too young to do anything on our own. So there is the other reason why you should flip the switch tonight. Because if you don’t, then things could get much, much worse.”
“And what do you have to say, Wayne?”
“Ditto to everything that Rodney just said.”
“You have nothing more to add?”
“Just one more thing, Professor. I would like to say ‘Good luck, Professor Johnson.’”
“Thank you, Wayne.”
CHAPTER EiGHT
In which Petey comes home, Becky makes a confession, and Rodney and Wayne lay claim to the same Hawaiian shirt
That night Wayne dreamed he was in the jungle and had come upon a massive boa constrictor. The snake was friendly at first and did not bite him, but Wayne remembered from a science report he once wrote about the world’s largest snakes that boas do not generally bite. They constrict. After a while the boa grew tired of being friendly and decided to slither up to Wayne and do some constricting. The enormous snake twined itself around Wayne’s arms and chest and thighs. It tightened its vise-like hold upon him, and in no time at all Wayne couldn’t breathe. He’s going to suffocate me! he thought in his dream, as he thrashed back and forth in bed.
At the same time that Wayne was being squeezed by one of the largest snakes in the world, his brother Rodney was having a nightmare of his own. He was also being squeezed. But it wasn’t a snake that was doing the squeezing. In fact, Rodney couldn’t see the agent of his trouble. Invisible hands were pulling invisible sashes to make his clothes tighter and tighter. Rodney wondered, is this a madman’s straitjacket I’m wearing?
Usually, with nightmares that become too frightening, the brain will end the story by waking the dreamer up. Now both boys woke, almost in the same instant. They realized that the boa constrictor and the tight straitjacket-like clothing had been figments of their dreams. But if this were so, why didn’t the squeezing they were feeling go away?
The answer was simple. Rodney and Wayne looked down to see that their toddler’s pajamas, which had a pattern of cowboys and cowgirls on them, were straining with great difficulty to contain their bodies, which were suddenly much too big for them. Rips appeared in the chest and arms, and big tears ripped through fabric in the legs of the pajamas. It was as if both boys had grown up so fast inside their miniature P.J.’s that there wasn’t time even to take them off!
Wayne switched on the lamp that sat on a little table between the two beds. His eyes grew big. “Rodney, look at us! We aren’t babies anymore!” He ripped the left-over pajama-top fabric so that he could breathe better. Then he looked down as his chest.“Rodney! Lookit! I have hair on my chest!”
Rodney tore apart his own pajama top and looked down to see that he had hair upon his chest as well. “And my hair is gray,” Rodney noted.
“So is mine,” said Wayne. “Bring your face to the light, Rodney, so I can see it better.”
Rodney leaned into the dim light of the lamp, which had leather fringe around the bottom to make it look like a cowboy lamp. “Your face, Rodney — it’s kind of old-looking.”
Both of the boys’ heads looked gaunt and narrow in the temples, and furrowed in the forehead. The cheeks and jowls were wider and puffier, as cheeks and jowls often become with age
“How old?”
“Well, look at mine. How old do you think I look?”