"Eric! What did you do?"
I have said this a lot. Really, it's not wonder, my brother (that would be Eric) is a total genius. It's really hard to compete sometimes.
His room is so cluttered, with all his experiments, chemistry sets, his hamster, his frog, and… Either a dirty sock or mom's old casserole, I couldn't tell which.
"I didn't mean to!" Eric snapped at me, "Look, Lissie, my time machine WILL work, AND in time to help mom finish her book!"
"Okay… You do that… And DON'T call me Lissie, oh, and is that mom's old casserole or your dirty sock?"
"That would be her casserole."
"Mind to tell me why genius?"
"Mom's a writer, not a cook, besides; you can't say you LIKE it."
"I normally feed it to the cat."
"Exactly, I use it as a type of glue, if it's moldy enough."
"I don't even want to know, and they say you're a genius? I find that VERY hard to believe."
"Well, believe it." Eric had been spoiled by the fact that he was a good looking dork. Other wise he would have been beat up, but he never was, because…the girls thought he was cute. And they apparently like the fact that he could help them with their homework. He has brown hair that is always flopping into his face, and blue eyes, and he happens to be tall. I think I hate him. Ever since last week he's been acting all weird…weirder than you know, usual. He's been like, insulting me a lot more! Like, he's a whole lot more irritable, but I haven't really done anything to trigger it…it's almost like…he transferred anger or…sadness to me! I really do think I hate him.
The next day, I walked into Eric's room, seeking math homework help, but… He wasn't there! Knowing he was probably in his lab, I walked into his closet and pressed a button I wasn't supposed to know about, the closet wall opened to reveal Eric's "secret" lab. I'd been leaning against the wall, and fell onto the floor.
I saw Eric trying to slip into a machine not too far from where I was laying on the floor.
"Oh no you don't!" I shouted, "I'm coming too, wherever you are going."
"Why should I let you come?" Eric laughed, "What help could you possibly be?"
"Well… I won't tell mom that you have this secret lab, yet."
"She already DOES know but…fine, you can come, but DON'T get in my way."
I rolled my eyes, "So, where ARE we going?"
"We're going to 1775."
"The Revolutionary War?!"
Eric sighed, "Yes, Alyssa, the revolutionary war."
Eric started up the machine, and in a flash of light, we were dropped from the sky onto a large battlefield. Eric dusted himself off, and then darted off into some trees to our right. I just stood up and looked around, dazed. I could barely believe what I was seeing, something was getting closer, and closer to me, but I couldn't see through the fog well enough to tell what it was.
It got within about five feet of me I could finally tell that it was a boy with a drum and some drum sticks. "Get down!" he shouted to me, "What are you standing around for?"
"What?" I mumbled, still half dazed, "What are you talking about?"
That's when he tackled me quite a few feet away from where I had originally been standing.
"What the HELL did you do THAT for?" I was NOT dazed anymore. The boy simply turned me around and pointed to where I had been standing. Nothing happened, and then suddenly, it blew up, out of nowhere!
"Oh," I mumbled, "Thanks. Thanks a WHOLE lot."
"I take it you're not a very coordinated person. What are you wearing?" I looked down at my jeans, camouflage shirt, and converse, I didn't see any problem with it…but I could see how he might think that.
"Err, um jeans…and camouflage."
"All right then." He bent down over me, and examined my arm, "You're hurt!" I hadn't noticed that my arm was bleeding, I must have scratched it, on a stick or a rock or something when we hit the ground. He pulled off the bottom of one of the legs of his uniform pants, right above the hem. He ripped the stitching that held it in a ring-type circle, and tied it around my arm.
"You look too young to be a soldier."
"Well, that's because I'm not. I'm a drummer. I drum in the war. It's the only position my mother was comfortable with."
Eric ran out from the trees right then, grabbed hold of my hand, and pressed a button on his watch. In a flash of light, we were back inside his lab….
But so was the boy.
"Eric! We've GOT to take him back!"
"No! I'm going to take him to mom, so he can help her with that book."
"Why don't you ask HIM what HE wants to do?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes! It does! So….what's your name?"
"My name is Benjamin Drake," he said with a British accent, "Where am I?" The look on his dirt-smeared face seemed confused. A look crossed Eric's face, one of partial recognition. He didn't look happy, however.
"You're in my bone-head brother's lab Benjamin."
"I prefer to be called Ben. Lab, what's a lab?"
"Uh…. I couldn't really tell you…. But Sir Geek probably can."
"Sir Geek?" Benjamin asked, "Who is Sir Geek? Is he British, because I fight for freedom and justice!"
"And how old are you?" Eric asked Ben.
"I'm fifteen!"
"You're younger than I am!" The look of confusion or disgust (I couldn't tell which) spread across Eric's eighteen year-old face.
"You never did tell me more about Sir Geek."
"Geek is a term we use, like….nerd." I said, not explaining it too well.
"Nerd?"
This is going to be SO hard.
About twelve minutes later (after debating it quite a bit), we took him to mom…
"Eric! How did you DO this?"
"I built a time-machine… I already told you that!"
"No, why did you do it?"
"I wanted to help you with the book."
"This can change the course if history! As a genius, I thought you'd KNOW that!"
"Okay… Let's go take him back!"
We all stepped into the time machine, and Eric started it up, but this time all it did was sputter and pour out smoke.
"I guess it's a one time only type thing." Eric laughed.
"Eric, this is NOT funny! You will FIX this." My mother snapped at him, "And as for you, you'll need to fit in. It's time for you to get a haircut."
A look of horror spread across Ben's face. Apparently, even he could understand what it means when you put "hair" and "cut" together to form "haircut".
"Isn't there ANY other way to fit in?" Benjamin almost begged my mom not to cut his long blonde hair, tied behind his head in a blue ribbon type string, and it curled slightly against at the ends. His hair was also extremely dirty looking.
"Yes. But since you are staying in my house, I have to say that…I am just disgusted with haircuts that make people mistake boys for girls, their hair looks gross. So does your at the moment."
Benjamin looked like he had just swallowed something horrible, but he said nothing and followed us into the car.
As soon as we walked into the salon Benjamin stopped, almost as if he was putting on the brakes or throwing up the red flag…. It required Eric's assistance to PUSH him to the barber's chair.
"No! Not my hair! Not my long blonde hair!!!!" He was crying now, which was pretty funny to see, seriously, when else will you be able to see a fifteen-year-old boy's cries? Most likely it won't be in this lifetime.
"Benjamin, we're not cutting off ALL of it… Just enough to make it look like you're from THIS century." My mother assured him; she grabbed a hairstyle book from the rack and flipped it open to a page showing a boy with feathered hair, "You'll look like this… Only, your hair is blonde."
"But…it's so….short!"
"It could be worse," I whispered to him as I pointed to a kid with a buzz cut sitting with his mom, "You could look like THAT."
Ben looked even more horrified, "I'll take the first option."
About twenty minutes later Benjamin hopped out of the chair and looked down to find all of the hair that had been cut off, on the ground, the poor boy looked like he was about to puke (I've had that feeling… It's whenever Eric comes back from running around the block and is all sweaty. I think I'm getting sick right now just from thinking about it!).
After the salon, we went through Eric's closet, so Ben would have some clothes that DIDN'T have laces. He didn't fit in any of Eric's current pants, so Eric found some that he'd grown out of…Ben was significantly smaller around the waist than Ben. Clothes that I hadn't seen Eric wear in years, but that he somehow still had, fit Ben now.
With his new haircut and clad in quicksilver, Benjamin almost looked normal. Well, okay, he did.
