No Other Story (11 page)

Not only had Catherine failed to evict Signor Rossini from her father's injured head, she had also managed to hurt his feelings.

“No,” said Catherine. “It's a beautiful opera. And when it debuts, we'll be the first in line to see it. And you know who else will be there? Olivia. You remember Olivia, don't you?”

For a brief moment, Catherine thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in her father's eyes, but she couldn't be sure. All she knew for certain was that if they could somehow manage to find all the parts necessary to build a time machine from scratch, they would have only two scientists to work on the device and another to write songs about it.

People say that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. This is why unsolicited advice should be left to the professionals, because if life gives you lemons but doesn't also give you a whole lot of sugar, you're going to end up with some pretty awful-tasting lemonade. You might as well advise people that if life gives them a bag of wet sand they should make a stained glass window.

The point is that sometimes life gives you lemons and nothing else, which is exactly what happened to the Cheesemans, who, at that moment, had no use whatsoever for a semisweet beverage—or a stained glass window, for that matter. As resourceful and resilient as they might have been, this time it seemed pointless to even try to make something good out of this horrible situation.

They were years away from finding a means of returning to their own time, and Signor Rossini was still without a piano.

“I can't believe we're going to be stuck here for two
years,” said Jason as the beleaguered bunch trudged back toward Sullivan's cave to regroup.

“That's
if
we can even find the parts we need,” said Catherine. “It could be end up being a lot longer than that.”

“We'll do our best,” said Professor Boxley. “We'll work night and day if we have to.” Of course, in Some Times, working night and day was something that could be done at the same time.

Suddenly, Pinky stopped and dug her nails into the ground, growling and refusing to move another inch.

“Uh-oh,” said Professor Boxley. He was well aware of Pinky's psychic powers and had seen them at work, first-hand. “What's wrong? Why is she growling? What is it this time?”

“I don't know,” said Jason. “But something's got her spooked.”

It has been said that dogs can predict things like earthquakes, tornados, and, in this particular case, enormous, earth-shaking explosions.

The sound was that of a two-megaton bomb, and the ground rocked sufficiently as to knock young Simon and his sock-puppet pals to the ground. The immediate result was that all those who had not fallen over froze in their tracks. They scanned the horizon, all 360 degrees of it, and soon noticed the source of the blast. Directly in front of them, perhaps twenty miles ahead, a thick gray cloud rose from a mountaintop and into the blue/black day/night sky.

“A volcano,” said Professor Boxley.

“Wow,” said Simon, slowly returning to his feet. “Look at all that smoke.”

“That's not smoke,” said the professor. “It's ash. Now, I'm no expert in the field of volcanology, but I would venture to say that, considering the direction of the wind, that ash is coming this way. And it looks as though it's coming fast.”

“What about lava?” asked Simon, again remembering the pea-green house with the orange carpet.

“It's a definite possibility,” said the professor, his lower lip visibly trembling. “Either way, I think we should be going as fast as we can away from it.”

“No way,” said Sullivan. “I've got to get back to the cave and make sure Gurda's okay. She's got a great sense of humor and she's a wonderful cook, but, to be honest, sometimes she's not too bright. She needs me there.”

“Well, if we're going to go directly toward the volcano, we should probably hurry,” said Jason. And so, without further discussion, Sullivan set Rufus at full throttle, and the group raced off toward the rapidly darkening sky.

As the ash rose higher into the air, it blocked out more and more light, which made it much easier to see the red, fiery glow spreading out across the landscape. Simon's question had been answered. Yes, there would be lava.

Pinky was growling nonstop at this point, using not her psychic powers, but her senses of sight and smell, which told her all she needed to know about what was up ahead.

“I don't like this,” said Professor Boxley. “Walking
toward a volcano does not seem like a smart thing to do, speaking strictly from a scientific standpoint.”

“You can stop if you want to,” shouted Sullivan over Pinky's growling and Rufus's mechanical barking. “But I'm going to find my wife.”

“And we're going with you,” replied Jason. “We stick together as a family, no matter what. Isn't that right, Signor Rossini?”

It might have been wishful thinking, but Jason was pretty sure he saw a hint of knowing in his father's eyes. But then, just like that, it faded once again.

In a very short time, what one could see in all their eyes were tears and redness caused by the sulfur in the air and the thick ash, which was quickly making its way toward them.

“Cover your faces,” ordered Sullivan. “Trust me, you don't want to breath in this stuff.”

Jason looked at his little brother, whose hair was now covered with a thin layer of white ash. No doubt, it made him look somewhat more grandfatherly than he had before.

Not only was the air becoming thicker with ash, it was also getting warmer as they approached the lava field that was, at the same time, rapidly approaching them.

“Look there,” said Catherine.

It was their bad posture that gave them away as the two Neanderthals slowly emerged from the falling ash and the heat waves that danced and rippled across the ground. Sullivan jumped off the wagon and ran to his wife and brother-in-law. Though none of the outsiders spoke Neanderthal, it
was apparent that Gurda was quite upset. Her eyes were doubly red from crying and from the abrasive particles that filled the air.

Sullivan hurried Gurda and Stig back to the wagon. “Our house,” he explained to the others. “It's been completely destroyed. Gurda and Stig were lucky to get out alive.” He glanced back in the direction of his cave. In just a few short hours, he had lost both his time machine and his home. Still, he was grateful that his wife was alive and well.

Beyond that, there wasn't much time for feeling anything else. The ash and lava were coming their way, which meant that their way would have to change and change quickly if they were to avoid being suffocated, cooked alive, or both.

Sullivan turned the wagon around and they headed back the way they had come, with no clear destination in mind other than away from the ash and lava-spewing volcano.

“My throat hurts,” said Simon.

“Mine too,” Steve concurred.

“Quit your complaining,” said Gravy-Face Roy, bringing his gravy-stained face a little too close to Steve's for the latter sock puppet's liking.

“I'll complain if I want to,” said Steve. “You're not the boss of me.”

Everyone has their breaking point, and Catherine had officially reached hers. To be fair, it had taken a lot. For starters, her mother had been killed by evil villains, which resulted in her family being forced to go on the run for two years. Returning the White Gold Chalice had left them
shipwrecked in 1668, where they were pursued by the evil Mr. 5, a band of ill-mannered pirates, and an overzealous witch hunter. (Just for the record, there is no such thing as an
under
zealous witch hunter.) Rescued by Professor Boxley, the Cheesemans soon found themselves shipwrecked in Some Times, where, so far, they had been forced to deal with a man-eating dinosaur and a brutal avalanche that resulted in the loss of their father to some strange type of amnesia.

Now, after all this, having to put up with a pair of mismatched socks constantly sniping at each other was simply too much.

“All right, you two,” she fumed. “Put a sock in it!” She was too angry and too fed up to recognize the absurdity of telling a sock puppet to put a sock in it. “And you,” she continued, turning her attention to her younger brother. “If you can't keep those two bundles of yarn quiet, I will happily unravel them and scatter them in the breeze. Is that understood?”

Simon had been reprimanded by his sister countless times in his eight years, but this was the first time he ever felt afraid of her. Even the Neanderthals looked a bit uneasy. “Yes, it's understood,” Simon said meekly.

“Good. Now let's move it.”

But when Catherine and the others returned to the business of moving it, one member of the group steadfastly refused to join them. Signor Rossini stood with his arms folded, a look of obstinacy upon his face.

“I have followed you people long enough,” he said. “You
promise me a piano, and instead you bring me to Pompeii so that I might be killed by a volcano? From now on, I will go my own way, thank you very much.”

As Mr. Cheeseman strode away from the group, for a moment everyone simply stood motionless and wordless, communicating with one another by way of befuddled looks. Finally, Jason sprinted after his father and stepped into his path.

“You can't go,” he said, half pleading and half demanding.

“What do you mean I can't go?” said Signor Rossini. “Who's going to stop me?”

“I'm going to stop you,” said Jason. Never before had he defied or challenged his father in such a way. In doing so now, he felt both shame and an odd sense of exhilaration. “You have to stay with us.”

“You people are obviously lost, and I am through traipsing all about the countryside with no idea of where we are going.”

“I'm not asking you to stay with us,” said Jason. A knot was slowly forming in his stomach. “I'm telling you.”

Mr. Cheeseman said nothing. He simply brushed Jason aside and continued on his way. Standing up to his father was something new and frightening for young Jason, but it's not as though he had a lot of other options. If he let his father wander off into the crazy world of Some Times, in all likelihood they would never see him again.

When Ethan kept walking, Jason realized there was only one thing to do. He lowered his head and charged.
Unlike another well-known composer (I'm talking to you, Beethoven), Gioachino Rossini had no trouble at all with his hearing and spun around to find a fourteen-year-old boy chugging toward him like a color-blind bull charging a bright red cloth. He did not, however, see this in time to do anything about it, and soon he found himself flat on his back with the ash-heavy air suddenly and completely absent from his lungs.

His eyes bulged from their sockets as he struggled for breath. He looked at the fourteen-year-old boy sitting on his chest and seemed to be asking why he had just thrown him to the ground.

“I'm sorry, Signor Rossini,” said Jason. “I'm sorry I tackled you, but I had no choice.”

The others gathered around as the ash continued to filter in, slowly working to blot out the sun, the moon, and the stars.

“Signor Rossini,” Catherine said, kneeling next to her father. “Are you okay?”

Finally, Ethan sat up and gave his eyes a couple of good blinks before saying, “What's going on? Where am I? And who the heck is Signor Rossini?”

Jason, Catherine, and Simon looked at one another and smiled the biggest smiles they had in quite some time. As for Ethan, he soon found himself tackled anew as his three overjoyed children piled on and welcomed him back with hugs and, in the case of Pinky, licks to the face. All of this sudden attention left the man both thoroughly delighted and utterly confused.

“What?” he asked. “What's going on?”

“You're back,” said Catherine. “You're finally back.”

“I'm back? Back from where?”

“From crazy land,” said Steve, which earned a predictably stern look from Catherine.

“Hey,” said Ethan. “It's Steve. But that's impossible. Steve's dead.”

“Not this Steve,” said Simon. “This is the new Steve that Mom made for me after we went back and saved her life. I got him from Sullivan.”

“Who's Sullivan?” Ethan asked.

Simon nodded in Sullivan's direction. “He's my grandson.”

“Your grandson?” said Ethan. “You mean … he's from the future?”

“Yes and no,” said Simon. “We're all from the past and we're all from the future, depending on the point of reference.”

“Wow,” said Ethan, impressed with his son's level of reasoning. Then he caught sight of Stig and Gurda. “Excuse me,” he whispered, “but are those Neanderthals?”

“That's Stig and Gurda,” said Jason. “Gurda is Sullivan's wife. She's very nice, and apparently has a great sense of humor.”

Now that Ethan had returned to a state of normalcy, Sullivan was anxious to meet the man who had been so influential in his life.

“Great-Grandpa Cheeseman,” he said, offering his hand. “It's an honor to meet you, sir.”

Ethan rose to his feet and wiped the ash from his right hand onto his jeans. “Thank you,” he said.

“No, thank
you
,” Sullivan insisted. “It's because of you that I went into the field of time travel. And it's because of you that I ended up here in Some Times. Everything I have, I owe to you.”

“You don't have much now that your house has been destroyed,” quipped Gravy-Face Roy.

“Are you kidding?” said Sullivan. “I've got my health, a beautiful wife, and a baby on the way.”

Upon closer inspection, Gurda did look to be sporting a small bump in the midsection. She appeared at Sullivan's side, wearing a shy, Neanderthal smile. Sullivan draped his arm gently across her shoulders.

“Did you hear that, Simon?” Jason chided. “You're going to be a great-grandfather.”