Читать книгу Children of the Moon - Evadeen Brickwood - Страница 11

“Are you kidding? How far are you then, seriously?”

Chryséis had just been told about the project and the possibility of a trip through space and time. She was intrigued by the idea. “Time travel with a vacuum battery - come on, really?”

“I honestly think it’s possible. I haven’t tested it properly, but the device has been in the works for a while now,” Trevor said as if he had never talked about anything else. Chryséis was still not convinced.

“A time-portal-finder?”

“Yes. It detects irregular electromagnetic fields like time warps. They indicate a weakness in the space-time continuum, like a time portal, you know…”

“Right, of course.”

“Seriously. We could even generate a vortex with the vacuum battery. The batteries I’ve used before were far too weak for that,” Trevor said, keeping his cool. “I can test it after dark. Then we’ll know more.”

Faint croaking came from the far end of the pond. They sat under the birch trees by the pond with their feet in the water. The water was still too cold and they soon went back to sit on the bench in the rose garden. It gave Chryséis time to think.

“Wow. That’s some project. You really think it can work – this vortex?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then let’s get going. I’m in.” Chryséis’s mind was already abuzz with all the possibilities. Maybe she would shake the hand of Socrates one fine day or meet Napoleon. Okay maybe not Napoleon. Not such a nice guy.

“What about your assignment on black holes?” Katherine asked. “Aren’t you terribly busy with that?”

“What, and let you have all the fun? I’m nearly done with it anyway. The planetarium in town agreed to lend me a video for the presentation,” Chryséis explained. ”I’m just waiting for some info from Texas on the musical note that black holes emit. The typing is easy.”

She thought for a moment. “So yes, count me in. I can’t pass up time travel for black holes.”

After dark, Trevor slipped out into the school garden. That wasn’t allowed, but he couldn’t waste time with unimportant details. The trials weren’t successful at first. Closer to the buildings, there was absolutely nothing. Maybe it was the interference that went along with electrical appliances and power lines.

Then closer to the golf course, he finally detected a modest shimmer. Just like before. But Trevor was not afraid this time. If this was a warp in the space-time continuum - a real time portal - then he had to know for sure. He moved even closer to the golf course and tried again.

Trevor pointed the device here and there and then at a random spot between a bench and an azalea bush. This time, the weak flicker turned into a respectable vortex. That was it! Without a second thought, Trevor jumped into the whirlpool.

But what was that? Trevor’s eyes became wide with horror.

It couldn’t have taken a minute and he landed again on his backside in front of the bench. The impact was cushioned by the thick lawn, but Trevor was stunned. He had seen something awful on the other side.

Big and covered in shiny green and golden scales... or maybe feathers... there had been steam. Had he seen long teeth? Then the thing had moved. Just a shiver that went through the scales. Just a slight wave.

Trevor didn’t wait to find out what the ‘thing’ was. He had pressed the reverse button and the vortex had swallowed him up again. Then he sat on the soft lawn. He was safe!

Alas, he didn’t hear Natasha Manning open her window on the first floor.

“Mr. Huxley, I expected more of you. Wandering about the school grounds at this hour. What were you thinking?” Matron waved her arms in exasperation.

“I’m sorry ma’am. I needed some fresh air to think.”

The white lie rolled easily off his tongue.

Like Walt, the janitor, Matron had a big heart for children. They often didn’t know how to handle their own cleverness. Too clever for their own good. But rules were rules. If she made exceptions, there’d be chaos in no time.

“You know the rules, Mr. Huxley,” the matron sighed and Trevor nodded.

For the next three days he had to sweep the back veranda and the path to the golf course after dinner and before dark. Much to Holly’s and Natasha’s delight: oh yes, the scholarship-boy had been put in his place.

“Hey, Huxley! Were you sleepwalking or did you meet someone special on the golf course?” Natasha guffawed and winked at Chryséis.

A few fifth-graders skulked close by, grinning broadly. A rare scandal!

Natasha was a carbon copy of Holly Benson. Although her hair was lighter than Holly’s, it was permed into identical ringlets. She shook her curls and even talked like Holly.

Chryséis was fuming. Well, you just wait she thought hotly and shot furious looks at the girl. You just wait.

General attention shifted away from Trevor’s misdeed when two other boys threw a baseball through one of the kitchen windows that afternoon. They were sentenced to cleaning the swimming pool for a week. It was Matron’s favorite punishment for rowdy kids.

At last, they could discuss Trevor’s adventure. Everything had ground to a halt after Natasha had ratted him out to Matron. They had to be careful, though. Holly was capable of sabotaging everything, if she found out about the nightly experiment.

“And you are sure you saw scales?”

They sat in the common room on the second floor, keeping an eye on the door. Everybody else was still downstairs in the dining room. Chryséis demanded to hear the story for the umpteenth time, although it made her spine feel all chilly in delicious horror.

“I’m not sure. It was so dark. Could have been feathers or something.” Trevor felt tired. The more he thought about it, the less he could remember. Maybe it had all just been a dream. But he still remembered turning round and round inside the vortex. No dream then.

“Sounds like a dinosaur to me.” There, Katherine had said what the others were thinking.

“Maybe.”

“That must have been a long trip then,” Chryséis marvelled.

“I’m not sure. I just pressed the button and jumped in, before the vortex could disappear again.” Trevor yawned. What was the big deal?

“Without choosing the time span?”

“Yes, without choosing the time span.”

“We have to change that.”

“Yes.”

“And you say it was hot and smelled dreadful?”

Katherine couldn’t let it go. If time travel was like that, she would stay behind for sure. Dinosaurs - just imagine!

“Katie, I don’t know for sure. It took only a minute. Just drop it now.” But his fellow scientists weren’t ready to just drop the issue just yet.

“Hey, we missed dessert for this!” Chryséis protested.

“What happens if we travel into prehistory and meet face to face with a dinosaur or… a caveman?”

Better tackle the facts. “Or we land right in the middle of an ocean or in a volcano.”

“What?” Katherine jumped.

She was busy eating a chocolate bar and played with the wrapper. It helped her calm her nerves.

“We don’t have to go that far back. In any case, there are books about prehistory. And a cartful of DVDs.”

Trevor perked up. “If it’s supposed to be a bomb, we must at least go back a few thousand years. Otherwise, it’s too boring. Let’s do some research, guys. Will you stop it with that stupid paper already?!“

Katherine put the wrapper into her pocket.

“We program reference points in time. Not just the starting time.” Trevor looked at the clock on the wall. “Sorry, gotta go. Walt’s waiting with the broom for me.” With that he hurried downstairs.

“We have to be careful. I’m sure that Holly’s already watching us like a hawk.” Chryséis pulled a face as if she had just bitten into a lemon.

“Or she has Natasha already spy on us.”

“What are we supposed to do, sit around?” Katherine asked.

A group of fourth-graders walked into the room with their homework. They paid no attention to the older girls and soon studied their Japanese vocabulary.

“No, of course not. While Trevor sweeps, we’ll visit our good, old library. Let’s start with oceans and volcanoes,” Chryséis whispered. They went to the library and took out a few DVDs to watch them later, then climbed the stairs to their room on the second floor to drop them off.

“Let’s take a walk to the pond,” Chryséis suggested. “At least we can be sure that we won’t see Holly there. She hates water. “

On the water’s edge, the two friends sat down and took their trainers off. “Dinosaurs are creeping me out.” Katherine shook herself.

“I don’t know, never seen a live one,” Chryséis said. “I’m not sure if it makes any sense, but, why not check it out…well, why not…”

“What? Check what out?”

“Well, something to make us invisible.”

“Right, invisible -” Katherine contemplated. “There’s a thought. Wait, I think I read about that somewhere in a magazine.”

“What magazine?”

“I remember... it was in the ‘Science Today’, December issue. Some inventor in Kansas came up with a clever idea. Bending light waves. Nobody takes it seriously, of course, but why not try it out?”

“It’s definitely safer to go invisible when we need to…” Chryséis said. “Just in case some caveman wants to cook us for breakfast. Or some humongous dinosaur thinks we are too close to its nest...”

“Oh yes, don’t wanna end up as caveman cereal. You got some imagination.”

“I’m serious, Chris,” Katherine said and felt gooseflesh on her arms. Chryséis stopped laughing.

“So am I. A virtual invisibility cape it is. I’ll have a look at that issue of ‘Science Today’ magazine. Won’t take me long.”

They wiped their feet dry on the longish grass, picked up their shoes and walked barefoot back to the school building.

During the next few days, the three friends made good progress. They did research, and the idea with the ‘virtual invisibility cape’ had been quickly carried out. Chryséis offered to play the guinea pig. They just had to make sure that everyone else was on the back veranda for the afternoon snack. The ideal time for such an experiment.

“Calm down, you’ll give us away with all that fidgeting,” Chryséis said to Katherine. “Just now, Holly Benson will sniff us out!”

For Chryséis, there was only one thing that helped with nerves. “Come do it like that.”

Chryséis did the bridge on the carpet of their dorm room. One of her favorite yoga positions. Her face looked funny upside down as she spoke.

“No, don’t feel like it,” Katherine said. “How is she supposed to find out?”

“You know, when Holly is onto something, she’s like a bull terrier. Where is Trevor?”

Somebody knocked on the door. Two long raps and two short ones. Their secret sign.

“Ah, there he is.” Chryséis uncurled herself quickly.

“Ready you two?” Trevor whispered urgently.

He didn’t feel like being caught in the girls' dorm and sweeping the back veranda or something for the rest of the year. “Let’s get on with it. I don’t want to miss dinner as well.”

“Why do you always have to think about food?” Katherine asked irritated.

“I don’t like chocolate.”

“Stop arguing. Go ahead, Trev, we’ll be there just now.”

They met in a dead-end passage on the top floor, where sports equipment and old kitchen utensils were stored. Nobody would look for them here. At least not for a while, but they had to hurry.

“That’s supposed to be the invisibility device?” Katherine wasn’t exactly convinced.

“Yes, this inventor from Kansas gave an interview with all the details. It’s the most logical design.”

An aliceband with the box stuck on it and a button to switch it on and off. Ready for testing.

“Okay then, here goes.”

Trevor put the prototype on Chryséis’s head and pressed the button. She disappeared almost immediately. Katherine and Trevor caught their breaths. “Unbelievable.”

“Well, get used to it girlfriend,” a ghostly voice said next to Katherine and made her eyes pop.

“You mean, when the dinosaur is ready to gobble us up.” Trevor snapped his hands playfully in the direction of the voice.

“Better safe than sorry is what I say,” the ghost cackled.

“No nonsense, please Chris,” Katherine warned her. “We’ll see you at the lab in ten. Good luck!”

Katherine opened the door to the emergency back staircase. Trevor followed her. It was the quickest way to the ‘Whitby Wing’.

“Nonsense! Would I ever?” Chryséis traipsed down the main stairs, carefully moving along the wall. Somebody might just decide to shoot around the corner and bump into her. The last thing she needed.

It went well. On the ground floor, Chryséis walked slowly along the passage. First past the library, then the school office. A couple of children were on their way to have their snacks before sports practice. Nobody could see her.

Chryséis moved more confidently now toward the teachers’ staff room and slid through the half-open door.

Somebody spoke behind the bookshelves at the back of the long room. She heard soft laughter and whispering. Chryséis crept forward taking care not to make any noise. She peeped out from behind one of the shelves to get a better look. At that moment Mr. Hunter and Miss Gould, two student teachers, started kissing passionately.

Chryséis stepped back in surprise and bumped into one of the desks. The young teachers tore away from each other and Mr. Hunter stood protectively in front of an embarrassed Miss Gould. “Is there somebody?”

He walked a few paces forward and nearly collided with Chryséis. She turned around and fled.

Chryséis ran towards the door, thudding her big toe against the doorframe as she took the corner. It hurt an awful lot, but she bit her lip, trying not to make a noise.

Only when Chryséis had reached the top of the stairs, she checked if it was safe. Nobody followed her. Then she switched off the invisibility device at last. She bit her lip and tried to walk as normally as possible. Her toe throbbed with pain, but she managed to smile a greeting at Mr. Van Straten, who was on his way to the staff room.

Trevor and Katherine were waiting for her outside the lab. By the time she reached the Whitby Wing, Chryséis had recovered enough to tell her friends what had happened. She whispered her story in hushed tones, because other students were standing around. Not the best place to exchange secrets.

To add insult to injury, Katherine and Trevor could barely contain themselves. They kept chuckling and Chryséis threatened not to finish her story if they didn’t keep it down. But then she had to grin as well. Imagine Mr. Hunter and Miss Gould!

Holly Benson shot stern glances at them from her desk inside the laboratory. Of course it was Trevor Huxley and his two girlfriends, she thought annoyed.

“Unbelievable! Can’t you be quiet when we have to work?”

She looked around in search of support, but nobody else seemed to take any notice of them. She wondered what could possibly be so funny. Well, I’ll find out, she thought smugly, and then they’re in trouble.

But the day didn’t end pleasantly for Holly.

In the evening, she found a slippery frog in her bed. Holly screamed blue murder, when her feet touched the moist, squirming animal. The blood-curdling scream could be heard everywhere in the girls dormitory.

She threw the blankets off and the horrified frog jumped up and down trying to escape, and quickly ended up in the flowerbed below, leaping toward the safety of the pond. Holly was furious.

She suspected now this culprit, now another. Two seven-graders high-fived in their room on the second floor and grinned.

There was nothing the startled matron could do, except for shooing giggling girls back into their bedrooms.

And Holly never found out who had played that ghastly prank on her.