No Other Story (22 page)

With Pavel and Leon sitting up to their necks in slimy pond water and lamenting their failure to get the LVR, Big dropped back into the station wagon and placed her knife into its scabbard.

“Great job,” said Jason, bursting with pride.

“Now that was fun,” said Big, who had never smiled quite so broadly.

She had single-handedly gotten rid of three of the four cars, but one persistent pest remained, and the Cheesemans' four-wheeled submarine was all out of torpedoes.

“There's still one car following us,” said Jason.

“Who is it?” asked Simon.

The mysterious blue sedan kept its distance, which, along with its tinted windshield, made it impossible to get a good look at the driver. “I don't know,” said Jason.

“We've got to lose it somehow,” said Ethan. “We're almost out of gas.” He took another look at the fuel gauge. There was a service station up ahead on the right, but he didn't dare pull over now. He increased his speed, pushing the
rattly old station wagon to its very limits, but the blue car stayed right with them. He passed another gas station. The needle on the fuel gauge had long ago stopped moving, having dropped as far as it could go.

Ethan knew he had one shot at losing the mysterious blue car and one shot only. He looked ahead and saw they were about to enter a long, dark tunnel. A sign at the entrance advised motorists to make sure their headlights were on. Ethan ignored the sign. He sped up to widen his lead on the blue car before entering the tunnel.

He took a deep breath, gripped the wheel tightly, and hoped what he was about to attempt would not be the last thing he would ever do. Pinky sensed something was up and let out her patented portent of doom, a low, steady growl.

The station wagon was halfway through the tunnel before Ethan got up the nerve to make his move. “Hold on,” he said. Then he hit the brakes and spun the wheel hard to the left, sending the car into a violent spin. The children's screams perfectly complemented the screeching tires. When the station wagon finally came to a rest, it was facing in the exact opposite direction.

Seconds later, the blue car flew by, and Ethan gunned the engine, driving through the tunnel directly toward oncoming traffic.

“Dad, look out!” shouted Catherine.

Horns blared as Ethan swerved right, then left, then right again, narrowly avoiding several head-on collisions.
The moment he cleared the tunnel he swerved off the road, across the center divider, and back onto the highway, where he continued to drive back the way they had come.

“Sorry about that, everybody,” said Ethan.

His passengers were far too traumatized to speak as he pulled off the road and into a gas station just as the car's engine sputtered and died. He coasted the final thirty feet to the pump, then slumped forward, resting his forehead on the steering wheel. “We made it,” he said.

“We sure did, Dad,” said Jason. “Great driving.”

“Thanks,” said Ethan. “Now all we have to do is travel twelve hundred miles and hope that the LVR is still there, and that Catherine's theory is more than just a theory.”

Driving a car can be a very dangerous business. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about, because I was once involved in a hit-and-run accident, and let me just say, it's a good thing I got the heck out of there.

One way to help avoid mishaps on the road is to be sure to keep your car's equipment in proper working order. Just last week I found myself driving behind a very inconsiderate motorist whose car had no brake lights, if you can believe such a thing. This angered me to the point that I considered honking at him, until I recalled that my horn has been broken for years. And, as I would discover, honking at someone without the use of a horn will get you some very strange looks indeed, particularly from any nearby geese.

Another perilous aspect to the driving experience is road rage, of which I have been a victim on several occasions. One such incident began when someone thought it would be humorous to sneak over to my house and write the words
Wash me
with his finger on my car's dust-caked surface.

Thanks to this incompetent criminal leaving both his fingerprints and a handwriting sample at the scene, I was able to determine that it was my cousin, Gilbert Soup, and I did not find his little joke the least bit funny, though I did think it quite hysterical when I sneaked over to his house and wrote on his car. With a nail.
Paint me
.

This harmless little prank resulted in a serious case of road rage as I ran down the road, just steps ahead of my raging cousin, then got into my dusty car and sped away.

And though I would always advise you to drive your car with the utmost caution, sometimes it is absolutely necessary to go as fast as you can, throwing caution to the wind and furniture off the roof.

Twelve hours into their journey back to where they had left the LVR, the children, the animals, and Gravy-Face Roy slept while Ethan fought the urge to join them. After all they'd been through, to have it all end by falling asleep at the wheel and driving off the road would be tragic beyond belief. Ethan shook his head and slapped himself in the face. He cracked the window, hoping some cold air might help snap him out of his stupor.

The sound of the night air rushing in caused Jason to stir. “Dad?” he said. “You want me to drive for a while?”

Long ago, when Ethan and his children first went on the run, he made the decision to teach Jason how to operate a motor vehicle so that if anything were to happen to him, there would be someone who could drive the rest of the family to safety.

“I think I'll be okay,” said Ethan. “I could use someone to talk to, though.”

“Sure,” said Jason. He sat up and leaned forward, resting
his arms across the back of the front passenger seat. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Oh, nothing in particular,” said Ethan unconvincingly. “Just a little small talk to help me stay awake.”

“Oh, okay. Who do you think's gonna win the Super Bowl this year?”

“I'm very worried,” said Ethan.

“You shouldn't be,” said Jason. “This is the past, remember? We already know who won the Super Bowl.”

“Too bad we don't have any money to bet.” Ethan smiled and chuckled, but the smile quickly disappeared. “No, I'm worried about us. About what's going to happen when we get back to the LVR. It's all been one disaster after another. Why should this time be any different?”

“Because it will be,” said Jason. “Because it has to be.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I'm not. I was just trying to make you feel better. But the truth is, I'm worried too.”

With neither of them wanting to think about all the things that might go horribly wrong in their upcoming trip around the Time Arc, the conversation once again turned to football and other things of little importance. Ethan and his similarly worried son continued to talk until the sun came up, which caused the rest of his passengers to stir.

“Are we there yet?” groaned Simon, just before realizing his bubble gum had fallen from his mouth and was now stuck to Gravy-Face Roy, who was stuck to the backseat.

“A few hours yet,” said Ethan. “There's a town coming up. We'll stop and stretch our legs and get some breakfast.”

Simon had managed to separate his sock puppet from the backseat by the time the station wagon pulled off the highway and cruised into the parking lot of a roadside diner called Ruth's Country Kitchen. He parked around back, keeping the car out of view from the road. They let the animals out to do their business, and by that I do not mean that the animals engaged in the buying and selling of dog biscuits. Once their transactions were completed, the animals were returned to the car and the humans entered the restaurant, where the menu featured a “Bottomless Cup of Coffee,” “All-You-Can-Eat Pancakes,” and an “Endless Salad Bar,” which included a warning to patrons to be careful not to fall off the edge of the earth.

The hostess, a stout woman in a brown polyester uniform, escorted them to a booth by the window looking onto the highway. They ate as though they hadn't eaten in days, and Ethan drank coffee as if he hadn't slept in weeks.

They ordered a side of bacon and sausage for Pinky and Digs, and when it arrived, Ethan paid the bill and they headed for the exit. No sooner had they stepped out of the restaurant and into the parking lot than Ethan yelled, “Get down!”

He ducked behind a parked car, and the children did likewise.

“What? What is it?” asked Catherine.

Ethan rose up slowly to see the blue sports car racing down the highway. “I thought we lost them,” he said.

“Are you sure that's the same car?” asked Jason, who was pretty sure it was the same car.

“I don't know,” said Ethan. “It sure looked like it. Then again, maybe I'm just being paranoid.”

They climbed back into the car. With four hours of driving still ahead of them, Ethan was, nevertheless, reluctant to leave the parking lot. He drove slowly out from behind the restaurant, his eyes darting back and forth with a paranoia fueled by too much coffee, too little sleep, and too many people chasing him.

He eased out onto the highway and saw no sign of the blue sports car; nor did it appear at any time over the next two hundred and twenty miles.

“It looks like we're getting close,” said Catherine, when they drove past the airport they had recently broken into with the help of yours truly.

“We are,” said Ethan. “We just have one more stop to make.” He guided the station wagon off the highway, past a hay field and a rutabaga farm, then down a rural road, past a familiar-looking mailbox, and up a long drive to a luxurious mansion rising majestically above its impeccably landscaped grounds.

“Wait here. I'll be right back.” The children watched as Ethan hurried from the car to the mansion's oversized front door. He rang the bell and waited. And waited. Finally, the door swung open to reveal a small, elderly woman wearing a housecoat, her tiny face encumbered with large, thick glasses. Encircling the back of her right ear was a hearing aid the size of a croissant. The woman was Roberta Soup, or, as she was known to some of us, Mom.

“Hello, you must be Mrs. Soup,” Ethan began. “I'm looking for Professor Acorn Boxley.”

The woman turned and hollered back into the house. “Filbert! There's a fella here selling boxes of acorns!”

“We'll take two!” came the voice of the woman's husband from somewhere deep inside the mansion.

“No, no, I'm not selling acorns,” said Ethan.

“He's not selling acorns!” yelled Roberta.

“Then forget it!” hollered Filbert.

“I'm Ethan Cheeseman,” said Ethan. “I went to school with your son, Cuthbert.”

“Oh.” Once again the woman turned and yelled down the hallway. “Cuthbert! One of your little school friends is here!”

An awkward sixty seconds of silence passed before Professor Boxley showed up at the door. “Cuthbert. There you are,” said Roberta. “Put on a jacket if you're going to be playing outside.”

“I'm not Cuthbert, Mrs. Soup,” said the professor, his patience obviously at its breaking point. “I thank you kindly for your hospitality, but, as I told you before, my name is Acorn Boxley.”

“Filbert! There's a fella here selling boxes of acorns!”

“We'll take two!”

As Ethan bid Mrs. Soup good day and rushed the professor back to the awaiting car, the old man was full of gratitude for being rescued and of Roberta's patented Spam
^®
chowder, having eaten two and a half bowls for lunch.

“Well?” he asked with a small, chowdery burp. “How did it go? With Olivia?”

Ethan opened the driver's-side door and looked at the professor over the roof of the car. “She's alive,” he said. “She's alive and well.”

The professor smiled and nodded. “Well done, Ethan. Well done.”

Simon made room for the professor by climbing over the backseat and into the area of a station wagon officially known as the
way back
, so dubbed because it is the area at the very back of the car. Professor Boxley squeezed into the regular backseat, buckled up, and off they went. It was only a couple of minutes by car. Ethan got as close as he could to the site before the road came to an end.

“It's right over that hill,” he said.

Everyone scrambled out of the car, just happy not to be sitting for a change, even though they were gearing up for a very long ride around the Time Arc. Though their destination was but two years into the future, Ethan had discovered that the Time Arc was a one-way street, and the only way to get two years into the future was to travel all the way back, several billion years, to the beginning of time, then over the Great Sync to the end of time, and then continue backward. It would be a bit like going from North Dakota to South Dakota by flying over the North Pole and all the way around the earth. Not practical, but it's not as though they had another option.