32 years later.
The dinner at Robinsons went as usual. Nobody, least of all Wilbur Robinson, would have thought that after this dinner everything would change.
After a extensive tortilla battle Wilbur was placed in a headlock by his Uncle Art.
"This is how I got the leader of the rebels on Proteus 1 to pay his bill!"
A phone rang somewhere.
"That'll be for me!" cried Thallula.
"No! For me!" cried Aunt Petunia.
"I'll answer," said Wilbur's mother, Franny, as she stood up.
She went to the phone and, shortly after, called over her husband, Cornelius.
"It's the company," she said and handed him the phone.
"What do they want at this time?" he asked puzzled.
"They say it's important ..."
Franny returned to the big dining table and the other family members, who continued their activities undetered.
Only when Cornelius returned with a hounded expression in his face and said good bye, did the family realise that this probably wouldn't be a normal evening.
"I have to go to the office again..." he said as he hastily put on his jacket.
"Has something happened?" asked Aunt Benny.
Cornelius stopped and looked into the round. His attitude was tense.
"We'll see..." he said, and left the room.
"I call if I'm gonna be late!" he called back.
"Well, okay ..." said Franny, puzzled.
The others looked at each other. They all had seen his worried face - a rare sight, making the situation even more strange.
Wilbur, still in his uncle's headlock, remained oblivious to this whole spectacle.
"What happened after that?" he asked his uncle, breaking the silence.
"What? Oh the… well, that was so - "
"It's bedtime Wilbur..." he heard the toneless voice of his mother. Art released him.
His mother was pale and looked somehow lost in thought, her gaze on the door that Cornelius had just left through.
"But Mom ..!"
She turned her head and fixed him with a stern gaze. The gaze that didn't tolerate any protest. Wilbur rolled his eyes.
"Okay ... night, everyone ..." he said wearily and shuffled out of the room.
Wilbur was still awake under his blanket well after midnight, armed with a flashlight, reading comics. He thought that if his mother found out, he would certainly get punished. What he didn't know was that his mother had found out long ago about his nocturnal excursions into the comic world; coming across him in the morning, snuggling his flashlight and sleeping on the comics.
However, as he became slowly overwhelmed by the tiredness and he shut off the flashlight, he heard the front door outside.
His father was back.
Wilbur would ask him tomorrow what he had to go to so late... maybe a new invention? While he mulled over ideas about what his father had invented next (sweets that you could eat as much as you wanted and not get bad teeth; or maybe a knowledge-radiator, which directly implanted knowledge into the brain and you would never ever go to school again), he drifted off into a deep sleep.
But the next day, Wilbur couldn't see his father. All throughout the next few days, he spent all of his time in his lab. Apparently this new invention was very important ...
Wilbur stood a little crestfallen in front of the door to the laboratory. At this hung a yellow sign that strictly read "Do not disturb". From inside he heard the electrical sizzle and the hum of a welding torch.
Wilbur was proud of his father, but when he worked for days on one of his inventions and didn't speak to anyone, he sometimes wished for a normal father.
But this time, something was different. Normally Wilbur was allowed to assist him (if he wanted, which wasn't often the case) and Cornelius couldn't stop talking about his next project and the opportunities that it could open the mankind - but this time ...
this time he didn't even leave his lab for meals.
Furthermore, even his mother was behaving oddly. She was pale, especially in the morning; she looked terrible, as though she were sick. But she repeatedly assured everyone that there was nothing wrong and that she was just fine...
Was it because she cared so much about Cornelius? She was the only one who had seen him these past few days, when she brought his food up to him.
All this kept bothering Wilbur.
Five days after the eventful evening, he found his mother in her music room, where she sat on her piano and was highly concentrated on writing a new song.
Wilbur opened the door and strolled self-righteously into the room.
"What is it that dad's inventing?" he asked casually, as if he hadn't spent the last five days wondering that very question.
"I don't know, Wilbur," replied Franny briefly. She played a short melody, and then corrected a few notes.
"He's been up there for days," Wilbur noted offhandedly.
"Yes."
Wilbur slumped against the piano.
"So what's he building?" he asked, as politely as he could.
"I have no idea," replied his mother tensely.
"It's definitely a machine, but what's it for?"
"Wilbur, I don't know!" answered Franny, irritated, throwing an annoyed look at him.
"It's gotta be something that'll improve lives!" said Laszlo through the open door as he flew by. Shortly after him came Carl, who was hoovering the floor.
"Tze! And who improves my life? "He complained.
The sudden rush and noise of the hoover were the last straw.
Franny gave her son a look that was almost sinister. He had rarely, no; he had never seen his mother like this.
"Close the door when you go out!"
That sounded almost like a threat.
Wilbur abided and left the music room.
"Someone's had a bad day..." he muttered when he was out.
The other family members' attempts to gain information about Cornelius' project were just as fruitless.
None of them knew what Cornelius worked out, but each of them had their own ideas. Aunt Petunia though that it was an eggbeater with integrated television, but as his uncle Fritz wanted to point out that such a beater already existed, she acted insulted and drove away. Thallula was convinced that it had something to do with fashion, such as a device that automatically recognized the mental mood and put out the matching outfit. Lazlo disagreed with everything his sister said, and gave her a new paint coating.
Aunt Billie hoped that it was a shrink machine, so that she could take all her trains with her.
But, at the end, there were more questions than answers ...
However, when Wilbur told them that his mother was in an extraordinarily bad mood, they grinned and exchanged knowing glances.
"What? Do you know what's happened that's made her so grumpy?"
"Well, none of us can not definitely say," grinned Uncle Gaston.
"You'll find out soon enough," said Uncle Art, patting him on the shoulder.
"Find out what?" asked Wilbur confused.
The others laughed, as though it were a joke that everybody understood except him.
Adults were strange ...
Wilbur couldn't stand this.
He wanted to find out what was going on.
Something big was happening.