Hi again everyone! If you have not read the last chapter, you missed some action. Please go back and read that first; I uploaded two chapters today. If you have read that chapter, then welcome, and enjoy! *I do not own anything related to "Meet the Robinsons"*
Joyce Williams Elementary School, 2007
I got out of the time machine and enabled the invisible cloak. I took a quick look around to see that everything was normal as planned. I almost ran into the door when I found a basketball on the ground.
"Hey kid, can you get that ball?"
"No, sorry!" I regretfully replied to the boy. "I can't interfere or I'll mess up the future!"
"Kaay, thanks."
I walked into the school, through the school hallways, around the cafeteria and to the gym. I stopped in my tracks though, realizing that I was still in my now-covered-in-smoke karate-styled outfit; I think everyone would freak out if they saw a kid who was not a student at the school carrying a katana blade on my back.
"Hey Carl, did you happen to pack some normal clothes for me to wear in my backpack?"
"You're in luck!" Carl replied.
"Thank heavens!" I unzipped my backpack and found...my signature outfit: dark blue shirt with the upside-down lightning bolt, blue jeans, yellow belt, and black Converse shoes. "You're the best Carl!"
I quickly changed in the bathroom nearby, and I then decided to go back outside to put my katana in the time machine so that no one could see it. After I did that, I walked back into the school and to the gym. I crept open the door this time rather than slam it into someone's face like I did last time. When the coast was clear, I walked into the gym. I found a young Stanley and a young Lizzy with their projects unharmed, and I felt as though some respect would help them out.
"Hey, great volcano!" I complimented on Stanley's project, and then I turned to do the same to Lizzy's. "Ooh, nice ants!" I paused, now thinking that that was kind of awkward. "I...gotta go."
I did have to admit, the science fair projects looked so nice that I just had to look around and examine every single one. That is until I found Lewis, my father in this time period. I gasped as he passed by with his project under a purple blanket on a red wagon. I crept up behind the wagon, despite Lewis looking back to see if I was following him.
He approached his table and prepared himself to lift his project. Struggling with all the weight, Lewis slammed the project on the table and blew a sigh of relief. Knowing I had to take action, I jumped under the blanket right behind the project, which looked really complicated, even in the dark. Just as Lewis was about to uncover his project, he jumped back at the sight of me. I looked around to see if the Bowler Hat Guy was around.
"The area's not secure. Get in!" I said as I grabbed Lewis's shirt and dragged him under the blanket with me.
"Have you been approached by a tall man in a bowler hat?" I asked him, going into serious mode.
"What?"
"Hey, hey, I'll ask the questions here." Man, I must sound like some annoying interrogater to him.
"Oookay, good-bye." I had my eyes wide open as Lewis almost got out of the blanket. I managed to drag him back in...I figured I might as well tell him who I am.
"Alright, I didn't want to pull rank on you, but you forced my hand." I reached into my pocket to find the 'badge'...that is, a coupon for a tanning salon that I had grabbed at the last minute, just in case I had to run into Lewis. "Special Agent Wilbur Robinson of the TCTF." I quickly hid the 'badge' back in my pocket.
"The what?" Yeah, he probably thinks I'm weird by now.
"Time Continuum Task Force. I'm here to protect you." Lewis started to speak, but I placed a finger on his lips. "Now, tall man-bowler hat, approached you?"
"No, why?" Lewis asked as I blew out a sigh.
"I could lose my badge for this," I said as I placed a hand on my chin. "He's a suspect in a robbery."
"What did he steal?"
"A time machine."
"A what?" Lewis asked, not believing me.
"I've tracked him to this time," I explained. "And my informants say he's after YOU." Actually, my conscience says he's after Lewis.
"Me?" the blonde-haired kid asked, but not with fear. "Why me?"
"The boys back at HQ haven't figured out a motive yet," I explained. "And by 'HQ,' I mean 'headquarters.'"
"I know what HQ means!" Lewis exclaimed in annoyance.
"Good, you're a smart kid. That might keep you alive...for now. Just worry about your little science gizmo, and leave the perp to me." I almost left the blanket, but I went back in just in case Lewis didn't understand my type of language.
"And by 'perp,' I mean-"
"I know what it means!" Lewis exclaimed annoyingly.
"Okay, Mr. Smartypants."
I left the blanket to see a tall, skinny figure walking away from me.
"Bowler Hat Guy!" I started to run toward the figure and grabbed him by the legs, but the yell I got didn't sound like the guy I was looking for; it sounded like it belonged to a kid. I had no time to look as a blue blanket covered my eyes. I quickly tried to find a way out of the blanket.
"You're not gonna get away with it-!" I exclaimed angrily as a blonde student with what looked like glass planets in box looked at me with a shocked look. "Kid...with science project." Way to go, Wilbur.
"Dude, you almost busted my solar system!" the blonde kid exclaimed, and I responded with an embarrassed laugh. All of a sudden, I felt my left wrist...the one with the injuries, being grabbed.
"My frogs are getting away!" a girl with black pigtails and a yellow and blue dress exclaimed. I had no choice but to help the girl with her frogs. Oddly enough, she looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn't find a name to fit her description. I was no good at catching frogs as they kept escaping my hands. The girl, on the other hand, was quite the expert when it came to frogs. She continued to grab the frogs, one by one, and place them in my arms, of all body parts. It took us about ten minutes, but we finally caught the last one.
"Annoying little girl, I don't have time for this!" I exclaimed with annoyance. "I'm on a very important miss-"
"Don't sass me, boy!" the girl exclaimed. "I know karate." She started doing random arm moves, which annoyed me even more...no offense to her. Out of the blue, I was reminded of my mother, who taught me karate and had a frog band of her own. If this girl was, in fact, my mother in this time period, why is she so annoying now? Okay, I'll admit it: back home in the future, my mother does annoy me sometimes, though not as much as she does in this time period.
My thoughts were interrupted as the science teacher introduced Lewis and his project. I walked over to where the anxious, but excited crowd was at and put on a smile. I had never seen my dad present a project before, so seeing my dad in the past do it now was very fascinating to me.
"Have you ever forgotten something, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't remember it?" Lewis asked as an introduction. "Well, what happens to these forgotten memories? I propose they're stored somewhere in your brain, and I've built a machine that can retrieve them." Lewis then started to remove the blanket, revealing the project.
"I call it the Memory Scanner!"
"Ooh, it's SHINY!" the female scientist, who served as a judge of the science fair, exclaimed as the crowd was in awe. I nodded my head in approval as I could recall my dad telling me the story of how he had invented the memory scanner which gave him 1st place in the science fair.
"So Lewis, how does the memory scanner work?" the science teacher asked.
"First, you input the desired period of time in this keypad," Lewis explained as he opened up what used to be a lunchbox, now a database of some sort. "Then a laser scanes the cerebral cortex, where memories are stored." Man, I really need to pay attention in my health class. "The retrieved memory is then displayed on this monitor."
"Wrap him up, I'll take two!" the scientist said, though I wasn't sure what she meant.
"Now I'm going back 12 years, 3 months, and 11 days."
"Why that particular day?" the gym coach in the very short shorts asked. Seriously? You're a teacher, shouldn't you be you know, listening in on the information? "You didn't think I was paying attention, did ya?"
"Well, uh, that was the day, umm..."
My smile briefly disappeared as Lewis tried to think of what to say. Say because it changed your life, Lewis!
"Let's just say that was a very important day of my life," Lewis finally answered. That works.
"Fair enough," the coach replied. "Play ball." Lewis then turned on the machine, and it roared to life.
"It'll just take a second to get the turbines going," Lewis shouted over the noise as we all anxiously waited to see what would happen. After a few seconds, we were in awe at the windmill that showed up on the monitor, but it turned off momentarily. My smile once again fainted as I took a look around me...and I spotted a walking bowler hat!
"Lewis, wait!" I exclaimed, accidentally letting go of the frogs that were still in my arms and were now on the girl's head. Both Lewis and I were in shock as the machine continued to malfunction...I immediately concluded that that bowler hat sabotaged the project. The tiny fan that was attacked to the top to create electricity all of a sudden came off and almost injured me. The fan eventually landed inside a light and destroyed it, releasing sparks that landed on Stanley's volcano.
"It's gonna blow!" Stanley exclaimed as his volanco finally came to life, releasing some sort of orange fluid...I was very thankful that it was not real lava. Unfortunately for the coach, he got creamed while the scientist and the science teacher shielded themselves with their clipboards. I watched Stanley then accidentally fall onto a table, which tumbled over and sent Lizzy's fire ant farm flying toward the coach. I winced as the glass shattered and the fire ants started to crawl on the coach.
"Ah, feel the pain, love the-AAAHHH!"
The whole gym was now in chaos as the coach would not stop screaming in pain and all the students started to scream in fear. The smoke from Stanley's volanco activated the smoke alarms, which released water from the ceiling. I had to continue to dodge the tumbling tables while the girl struggled trying to grab her frogs now that everything in the gym was wet. Eventually, everyone started to run out the doors while Lewis tried to apologize to his teacher. I heard Lewis grunt while taking off his 'headset' in anger and ran out the door with his backpack, leaving the memory scanner behind. I had no choice but to find Lewis to try to comfort him as I couldn't find the Bowler Hat Guy anywhere.
"Wait, Lewis!" I yelled as I ran after him. I continued to run until I touched the sidewalk. I looked around to find Lewis nowhere in sight!
"Carl, I lost him!" I paged my robot friend, but turned when I heard some cackling.
"The Bowler Hat Guy!"
Instead of trying to find Lewis, I followed the Bowler Hat Guy toward an alley. For being extremely skinny and carrying a very heavy project, he was really fast. When I approached the alley, I saw the time machine that he stole take off.
"He must be heading to the future," I told Carl. "I'll be right there!"
I ran back to the school, which was a short distance from the alley, and got in the time machine. I took off the invisible cloak and turned it on. I drove into the sky where I activiated the time bubble and before I knew it, I was home.
I landed in the front yard of my house just like last time and looked around; everything looked completely normal! I fist-pumped in happiness and walked inside toward the lab.
"No ants, no volcanos, now all we have to do is catch that Bowler Hat Guy!" I concluded.
"He could be anywhere," Carl said.
"That could be tricky," I replied, placing a hand on my chin.
"He could be anytime."
"Yeah, this is gonna be impossible," I said as I shrugged.
"What we do know is that he's not here right now or...there...right...now," Carl concluded, pointing away from me. I looked toward that direction.
"That is a start," I concluded.
"I'll search the timelines and track him down," Carl said, getting to work on the machine of possibilities. "It will only take a few minutes."
"How many minutes?" I asked, knowing that I had another mission after catching the Bowler Hat Guy.
"Oh, seven and a half." What?!
"That long?!"
"I'm sifting through millions of alternate realities. What do you want here?"
"What am I supposed to do for eight mintues?" I asked in annoyance.
"Look, I've got timelines to scrutinize," Carl said, but then started to annoy me. "Fly away little monkey, fly away."
I grunted as I placed my hands on my hips. I marched out of the laboratory and into my room to try to calm down. Just as I sat down on a cushion chair, I felt my stomach rumble. I glanced at my phone to see that it was 2:00 in the afternoon. I hadn't eaten anything since Jack gave me a free ice cream cone before facing Lizzy, who was the Ant Queen in the future I had accidentally created.
I decided to use the travel tube to head to the dining room, and to my surprise, Grandpa Bud was not in the room. However, I smelled pizza, which smelled super good at the moment. I walked out of the dining room toward the kitchen, and I couldn't believe my eyes at what I saw: Uncle Art was talking to Stanley, who was now in a pizza outfit with a pack around his waist. Uncle Art turned and smiled when he saw me.
"Ah, there's my nephew, Wilbur," Art introduced me, and I waved. "He's a responsible young lad." I couldn't help but blush at the compliment. "Wilbur this is-"
"Stanley, I know," I finished my uncle's introduction.
"You recognize me from my TV commercials, huh?" Stanley asked very kindly. It was amazing how much someone who time travelled could change a time period like that. In the alternate future, Stanley wanted to please people, but he was a little pushy about it. Here, he was a very kind-hearted man who now owned a pizza place named after his volcanic science project.
"Yeah, that's right...commercials," I replied as I took a couple slices of pepperoni pizza from the box. I took a bit out of the first slice, and my eyes widened; this pizza was the best pizza I've ever tasted that wasn't my Grandma Lucille's.
"This is super amazing!" I exclaimed, turning my head toward Stanley. "I should visit your place more often."
"I even have an arcade if you and some friends wanna have some fun," Stanley suggested, and my mind opened up to it.
"That actually sounds great," I said. "I'll definitely do that sometime. I'll see you later!"
"See ya, Wilbur," Uncle Art said as I walked back to the lab to see how Carl was doing. I stopped when I started to wonder about Lizzy. I figured my mom may know something and started to walk to the music room. I opened the door as there was no music and found a tall, pale-skinned, black-haired woman talking to my mother.
"Ah, here he is now," my mother Franny said to her friend. "Wilbur, you never met my friend Lizzy, have you? She owns a pet shop in town." My eyes widened at the sight of Lizzy in the Robinson House, especially after what I had done to cause her alternate future as the Ant Queen.
"Nice to meet you," Lizzy said politely with a smile.
"Nice...to meet you too," I said hastily. "Well, I gotta run. Bye!"
I walked out of the music room and actually walked back to the lab this time while eating my last slice of Stanley's pizza. I felt a lot better now. I glanced at my phone to figure out the time: it was now 2:05.
"I think I found the Bowler Hat Guy!" Carl exclaimed.
"That was NOT seven and a half minutes!" I exclaimed with ice in my voice.
"I was estimating. It looks like he's at the science fair!"
"The science fair, huh?" I asked with a hand on my chin. "Gee, I wonder where that is. To the time machine!...again."
I grabbed the backpack that I had left in the room and walked out the front door. I started to approach the time machine when I felt a huge rumble. It definitely helped me to land on my butt as I looked up to see the sky now green instead of blue and a huge bowler hat instead of my house.
"Carl?" I tried to page my friend and panicked when he didn't answer. "Carl, come in!"
I just LOVE cliffhangers! See ya in the next chapter!
