The Long Voyage From Friend To Family

They landed in a hallway, alone at sunset. "You okay?" Phineas Bogg asked his young partner.

"Yeah, what's another bruise or two, nothing's broken," Jeffrey answered as he got to his feet. Traveling through the cosmos during the past year had toughened him up. Though they'd had many hard landings, he had never been actually hurt, though Bogg often asked him if he was okay. "Where are we Bogg?" he asked pulling down his red and white striped shirt.

Phineas unhooked the Omni from his belt and opened it. "England, July 31st, 1928, red light. Ring any bells?"

"Nope," Jeff answered looking around, "hey, I know that name," he continued.

Phineas looked at the name on the door Jeff was pointing to, it read, "Dr. Alexander Fleming".

"Okay, so who is he?"

Jeff shook his head, concentrating hard, "it's real familiar, but I can't remember."

Phineas motioned to his partner to follow as he opened the door to the office, however he quickly realized it was a laboratory instead. It was also very cluttered. "A bit messy for a doctor, don't you think?"

"He must be a scientist," Jeff said walking around the room and studying the test tubes, petrie dishes and culture plates.

"A bit messy for a scientist, don't you think?" Phineas repeated. Jeff looked at him and rolled his eyes.

Suddenly a man entered from an office across the room. Like naughty children, the boys froze, hoping they didn't get into trouble.

"Who are you?" the man asked, then, "what are you doing in my lab?"

"Uh," Phineas stuttered, but Jeff took up the conversation.

"We heard about your work, Dr. Fleming, and I asked my friend to bring me to see your lab," then he pointed to Phineas, "this is my friend, Phineas Bogg, I'm Jeffrey." Jeff said all this very fast and paused to catch his breath, hoping the doctor would say something about his work that would jog his memory.

Bogg raised his hand and smiled, "hi," he felt stupid, as he often did on assignments until they got their bearings.

"Did you have a question, young man?" Dr. Fleming asked.

Jeff stalled for time, "can you explain what you're doing?" he asked.

"Well, I'm working on several things at the moment, and I'm on my way out for a month long vacation, so I don't really have time to go into it."

Jeff's eyes scanned the area and his gaze fell on a stack of plates on the edge of a countertop. They were labeled "Staphylococci".

"Staphylococci," he whispered to himself. Then louder, he asked, "are you studying germs, I mean how to kill them?" then more excitedly, "I mean how to treat infections?" His tone told Phineas what he wanted to know, that Jeffrey had figured out what they had to do.

"Why yes," Fleming answered in surprise. "I can't believe someone so young would know anything about infections."

"Jeffrey's pretty special," Phineas joined in, not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

"Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck. I'm hoping that this vacation will clear my head and I can get a fresh start come September." He turned back to his office and Jeff and Phineas moved closer together.

"Bogg, he's gonna discover Penicillin!" Jeff told his friend excitedly.

"What are we here to do?" Bogg asked, trying to get back on task.

"How he discovered it was an accident. He left some plates of staph germs open and some mold got on one and stopped the staph from growing. That mold produced penicillin. It killed the germs on his plate, that's how he knew it would work."

They looked around and Jeff saw what he was looking for. He took the top plate off the stack and removed the cover. "Light still red?" he asked.

Bogg opened the omni, "yeah, are you sure about this? All you're doing is taking the cover off that.." the omni turned green as he spoke and he stopped in mid-sentence.

Jeff smiled as he removed a cover from a second plate and heard Bogg stop talking suddenly. "How's the light now?" he asked innocently.

Phineas stared at him in disbelief and shook his head, "green light," he whispered, turning the device toward Jeff so he could see. He again felt humbled by his partner's quick mind and great memory. Jeffrey was brilliant, a real asset and a true partner on these voyages and he felt very lucky to have him.

He must have looked embarrassed, or hurt, because Jeff's next words could've been gloating, but were kind instead. "It was just luck that I knew it. You know, I'm beginning to think the omni puts us in places I know about. Is that possible?"

"I don't know kid, there are times I've thought the omni sent me to a green zone especially when I needed a rest. I suppose there could be something to that theory."

They walked out of the room and waited behind some boxes to watch Dr. Fleming leave. Jeff wanted to be sure he didn't straighten up the lab again. After he left, they checked that the omni was still green, then Jeff took hold of Phineas' arm and they disappeared.

They landed in a soft haystack, in Massachusetts, in a green zone.

"Hey, this is great," Jeff said as he lay back and relaxed.

Phineas hesitated, then took a deep breath, "it's funny how we were just saying about how the omni might send us where we need to be," he paused and looked at Jeff.

"What?" Jeff asked, noticing that his partner was eyeing him.

"Well, there's something that I wanted to say and maybe now is a good time," Phineas said seriously.

"I hate it when you're serious, Bogg," Jeff responded, "so just say it." He felt strange and wondered what Bogg could want to discuss.

Bogg cleared his throat, "well, it's about your parents."