Trolley to Yesterday (16 page)

Mr. Townsend stood watching the professor with his arms folded and a smug smile on his face. "Let me enlighten you. Come on—right this way," he said.

The professor and the boys followed Mr. Townsend up a short flight of cement steps to the subway platform. They watched in amazement as the old inventor reached into the ticket booth and spun the ticket roll three times, counterclockwise. From deep down under the platform came a slow grinding of gears and a clatter of chains. Slowly the ticket booth began to swing off center, revealing a manhole-sized opening. Cleated iron steps wound down into darkness.

"A secret passage!" breathed the professor joyfully. He could hardly contain his delight. "I've
always
wanted to have one in my house, and now... But tell me— where does it go?"

Mr. Townsend smirked. "Follow me, folks, and you'll find out. But be careful—there isn't any handrail."

Mr. Townsend carefully picked his way down the spiraling stairs, and the others followed. At the bottom a level passage stretched away into pitchy blackness. The professor quickly fetched his Nimrod lighter out of the valise, and a spear of yellow flame leaped up, lighting the tunnel. Once again Mr. Townsend took the lead. After about fifty yards, they came to a flight of wooden steps that led up inside the walls of the professor's house, and they started climbing. Finally Mr. Townsend slid back a wooden door, and they all stepped into a tiny room that the professor knew well. It was his fuss closet. It was a private place in the professor's study where he went to rant and pound on the walls when he was in a foul mood. For this reason the little room was padded with gym mats, and on the inside of the closet door hung a sign that read, TO FUSS IS HUMAN: TO RANT, DIVINE!

"What on earth
is
all this?" asked Mr. Townsend wonderingly as he looked at the padded walls.

The professor was embarrassed. He could feel his face growing red. "Oh... uh, well, it's, er, sort of a practical joke. I'll explain it to you sometime. Come on downstairs to the kitchen, and we'll have something to drink. It's
great
to be home!"

The others agreed, and they followed the professor through the study and down the front staircase to the kitchen. Johnny and Fergie got a couple of Cokes from the refrigerator, and the two men had small glasses of Irish whiskey. After rummaging around in his kitchen cupboard, the professor dug out a box of black-and-gold Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. With a courteous bow he offered one to Mr. Townsend.

"I've been trying to give up smoking," said the professor as he lit both cigarettes and blew clouds of smoke into the air. "However... ah well, we all have our weaknesses. Aaah, it is so
wonderful
to be home!" He leaned back in his chair, sighed, and then let out a loud exclamation. He had just noticed the kitchen clock.

"Good gravy!" he exclaimed. "Is it really only a few minutes after the time when we took off on this trip? The clock says nine thirty, and the windows are dark, so ...

"It's no coincidence," said Mr. Townsend with a strange smile. "If you set the dials for the time you left, that's when you get back. The laws of time are suspended for time travelers: Hasn't it occurred to you that I ought to be a lot older than I am? I disappeared thirty-one years ago, and I was in my fifties then. Do I look like an eighty-year-old man? Do I
act
like one?"

The professor was stunned. A lot of things had been happening, so he had never really spent much time thinking about Mr. Townsend's age. But now that the subject was brought up ...

The professor squinted owlishly at Mr. Townsend. "Heavenly days, McGee!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that you haven't grown old
at all
while you were bumming around outside of Constantinople?"

"Bumming around, indeed!" Mr. Townsend said, laughing. "I aged a
little.
Not thirty-one years, but a bit." He paused and frowned sadly. "But I'm sure I was declared legally dead long ago, and what money I had must have gone to my sister, who lives in Maine. I wonder if she's still living. If she is, I'll go up and stay with her. If it turns out she's dead, perhaps you can take me on another trolley ride and drop me off somewhere in America in the not-too-distant past. I might be able to earn a living predicting things that I know are going to happen."

"Well, all you need to do for the time being is rest," said the professor as he refilled Mr. Townsend's glass. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you like—this was your house, after all." He paused and puffed at his cigarette. Then suddenly he threw a sharp glance at Mr. Townsend. "If you don't mind my asking," he said, tapping his friend on the chest with his finger, "how did you get inside the city in the middle of the siege? That must have taken some doing!"

Mr. Townsend shrugged. "Not really," he said. "I don't remember everything, but I think I got knocked down by a soldier outside the walls of Constantinople. When I woke up, I found that my head was bloody, and I couldn't remember how I had gotten into this field outside the walls!"

"That was the second blow," put in the professor with a grin. "When I met you out in that field earlier in the day, you already had a head wound, and you thought you were an admiral of Venice. You wouldn't let me help you. That second knock must have come when those soldiers went by. We were sure that you had been killed by them."

Mr. Townsend smiled. "Luckily, I wasn't. I just picked myself up and walked into the city, through one of the holes that the cannon had made in the walls. Then I wandered around looking for you and the boys, but that insane monk got his hooks on me. All in all, I think we're very lucky to be alive!"

The professor nodded and sipped thoughtfully from his whiskey glass. Mr. Townsend's attention turned to the black valise, which had been dumped on the floor next to the kitchen table. Reaching down he fumbled about and came up with the flare gun. Its muzzle was blackened, and when Mr. Townsend sniffed, he noticed the acrid odor of freshly exploded gunpowder.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "What on earth have you been doing? I know that you used a flare on that Turkish galley that my ship captured. But that was some time ago. It seems you were shooting flares again. Why?"

The professor coughed in an embarrassed way. "It's a long story," he said. "I'll tell it to you sometime. I was just trying to change the course of history, but it seems that there is some evil genie in the universe that won't allow you to do things like that."

"A good thing too!" said Mr. Townsend emphatically. "I mean, if people started fiddling with the past, maybe they would fix it so you and I didn't exist. Then where would we be?"

The professor thought about this, and then he and Mr. Townsend got into a long boring discussion about time. Meanwhile Fergie and Johnny had finished their Cokes, and they were thinking about going home. On the trip back in the Time Trolley they had been cooking up all sorts of fancy explanations to tell their families to explain their long absence. But now they realized that they hadn't been gone long enough to need explanations. Fergie left first. He mumbled a few polite things and ducked out the back door, slamming it behind him. When Johnny decided to go, the professor followed him to the front door. They paused on the porch to sniff the air of the chilly April evening. As Johnny was starting down the front steps, a thought occurred to him. "Oh my gosh!" he said as his hand flew to his mouth. "I forgot all about Brewster! You don't think we left him behind accidentally, do you?"

The professor shook his head and laughed. "Not a chance!" he said. "Gods of Upper and Lower Egypt know how to take care of themselves. I suspect that he'll be sitting on my desk when I go to bed tonight. For all I know he may be here right now, hovering invisibly. He likes to do things like that." He paused and glanced up at the empty air. "Brewster?" he asked. "Are you there?"

No answer.

"Blasted overrated hunk of stone!" the professor growled good-naturedly. "He's
never
around when you want him!"

 

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

 

When Johnny got back to his grandparents' house that night, they had no idea that he had been on a dangerous journey through time and space. He drank a cup of cocoa in the kitchen, and his gramma told him that he'd better hurry up and get to bed, because there was school m the morning. Fergie called Johnny on the phone later that night, and the two of them had a brief conversation about the wild things that had happened to them. Already the Constantinople adventure had begun to seem like something they had dreamed about, and yet they knew that it was real.

Weeks passed, and it began to look as if Mr. Townsend would be staying at the professor's house for a long time. Mr. Townsend's sister was dead, and there really wasn't anywhere else he could go—unless he took another trip into the past with the Time Trolley. So the professor bought Mr. Townsend some modern clothes, and tried to make him feel at home in the 1950's. This was hard, because Mr. Townsend had never heard of Willie Mays, Marilyn Monroe, or automatic shift cars. He said more than once that he felt like a fish out of water, and it was clear to everyone that he was not very happy.

During the first week of May the professor decided to throw a party. This was surprising because he didn't entertain very much, and he always did a lousy job of it when he tried to be a genial, fun-loving host. Nevertheless, plans for the party got under way: The professor sent invitations to all his friends, and he went to a local store and bought a big supply of balloons, party favors, and paper plates. Saturday night, the sixth of May, arrived, and so did the guests: Gramma, Grampa, Fergie, Johnny, Mr. Townsend, and Dr. Charles Coote. The professor had ordered plates of cold meat, delicious
hors d
'
oeuvres,
and soft drinks, and he had champagne and cognac for the grown-ups. It was a nice party, but everyone wondered. Why was the professor throwing this big blowout? As they gobbled food and sipped soda pop, Fergie and Johnny tried to question the professor, but he just smiled blandly. It was all pretty strange.

Around nine thirty Gramma and Grampa went home. The rest of the partygoers gathered upstairs in the professor's study, and he uncorked a bottle of fifty-year-old Napoleon brandy. Everybody got some, even the boys, and then the professor proposed a toast:

"To our safe return," he said solemnly. He clinked glasses with everyone, and they drank.

"I think Professor Childermass ought to be congratulated for his quick thinking and his courage," said Mr. Townsend as he refilled his glass. "He really saved the day for all of us, and I'd like to add that—"

"I think you are forgetting someone," said Brewster, who had noiselessly appeared on the corner of the desk. "I had a small part in the victory, as you may recall."

The professor glanced at Brewster over the top of his glasses. "I might have known you'd show up to take credit," he said, smiling wryly. "All right, all right—you deserve ninety percent of the credit, to be fair. We apologize for leaving you out, and we salute you. If you hadn't done your big-bird routine, the boys, Mr. Townsend, and I would be in a slave camp somewhere."

"Thank you," rasped Brewster. "Now that I have been given proper credit for my heroic actions, I shall depart. See you in the funny papers." With a faint
plip!
like a soap bubble popping, Brewster vanished.

"Amazing creature," muttered Dr. Coote as he stared at the place where Brewster had been a second before. "It's hard to believe that he's real!"

"Oh, he's not real at all," said Mr. Townsend placidly. "He's just an illusion whipped up by our wonderful friend the professor. I wish I could do tricks like that!"

The professor gazed at Mr. Townsend in despair. He had tried to convince his friend that Brewster was real, but it was like talking to a stone wall. Finally, reluctantly, he had given up. After a long sip of brandy the professor
harrumphed,
as he always did when he was going to say something important. "Folks," he said loudly, "I have an announcement to make—or rather, my friend Al Townsend has one."

Mr. Townsend coughed nervously and put his glass down on the professor's desk. "I want to tell you, first of all," he said, "that I have enjoyed the professor's hospitality—he is a kind and generous person, and I won't forget what he's done for me. However, I really feel uncomfortable here in the middle of the twentieth century. All my friends and relatives are dead, and I feel... well, useless and out of place. So I'm going to use the trolley to go back to Topsfield, Massachusetts, in 1896. The professor has managed to buy some old-fashioned clothes for me at a costume shop, and I have two suitcases packed and ready to go."

Dr. Coote was astonished. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Topsfield is a lovely little town and all, but... well, what are you going to
do
there in the Gay Nineties?"

Mr. Townsend smiled mischievously. "I'm going to set myself up as a mystic and general all-purpose foreteller of the future. After all, I know about a lot of the things that have happened since 1896. I can predict Queen Victoria's death and President McKinley's assassination. I know about the stock-market crashes and wars and who won the American and National League pennants. Before long I'll be rich and famous. You can read about me—in old books and newspapers, of course."

Johnny and Fergie looked at each other in alarm. They really didn't know what to say. Was it possible that Mr. Townsend knew about their secret midnight expedition to Topsfield? If he didn't know, then how had he happened to choose the year they had? It really was too much of a coincidence to be believed. After giving each other a few more nervous looks, they turned to the professor, who was eyeing them strangely and making little
hem! hem!
noises in his throat.

"I have something to add to what Al has told you," the professor said solemnly. "He wanted me to take him in the Time Trolley, but I'm going to let him take the blasted piece of tin and keep it. If it was sitting in my basement, I'd be tempted to use it, and then God knows what would happen! We just barely made it back from Constantinople by the skin of our teeth, and I just don't want to take any more silly chances."