Part 2: Red Rover
Chapter 15
Elizabeth, exasperated, came around the corner and saw Buzz Hackett sitting stricken in the drawing room, Roger standing over him, looking guilty.
"What on earth are these loud noises, Roger?" she demanded.
"I don't believe it," Buzz wailed, clutching a small, thin book to his chest.
"We've just been glancing over the TV Guide for this week," Roger explained, his eyes wide, "and Mr. Hackett has realized that he is, indeed, here with us in 1971, rather than in 1967, as he had at first understood."
Elizabeth blinked, nonplussed.
"What? Of course it is 1971. I don't know what the two of you are getting up to around here," Elizabeth tossed fiery eyes at Roger, "but if you are quite finished consulting the afternoon programming of Star Trek reruns, I'd like to talk with you about your son."
"Reruns!" cried Buzz, violently twisting around to stare at Elizabeth. "Oh, no! You don't get reruns unless you've been cancelled! You're kidding me, Star Trek? Oh, what kind of world am I in?"
Roger told his sister indignantly, "I'm trying to find out about my son right this minute, but we could hardly proceed without knowing where we are—I mean, what year we are in." Roger quickly sat near Buzz and looked him in the face.
"Buzz, think. Did you see my son on the other side, where you come from? His name is David, and he went missing, supposedly after playing with that damnable dumbwaiter. He's a little boy. That is—well, he's thirteen now. Can you go back there and get him? Can I?"
Buzz looked at Roger tiredly. "I'm really sorry, man, but I don't know any David Collins. I didn't see anybody. I wish I'd never gone near that frigging dumbwaiter."
"Buzz," Roger blurted suddenly, "what month is this?"
"Month?" Buzz asked. "It's March. It's March—fourteenth, I think. Yeah, that's right, because this is Tuesday and Elly's birthday is Thursday. That's my niece. So, today's the fourteenth." He looked up at his interlocutor with some urgency. "Right?"
"Roger," Elizabeth muttered worriedly. Roger looked from Elizabeth to Buzz.
"Well, now, Buzz," Roger told him heartily, "It's summer over here on our side. Today is the twenty-third, I think—of June. It's Wednesday, June twenty-third, nineteen seventy-one."
"It is? Christ! Who's president? No, don't tell me, I don't wanna know! We still in Vietnam?"
"Ah, we are," Roger affirmed unhappily. "Look. Would you be willing to go into the dumbwaiter and see if you can find my son? Perhaps he is lost over there in your time, or—caught. Stuck." Roger's eyes began to fill. "He's been gone at least a day and a half now, and nobody knows what's going on. I am praying that perhaps if you venture back over there, he can return to us. … I don't know how all of this otherworldly mischief is supposed to work." Roger stood, and stepped away from Buzz. He closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. His sister came to him and put a gentle hand on his back.
"I suppose I'd better find Barnabas," Roger whispered, trying to swallow his tears. "He had mentioned that he was going to get into the dumbwaiter and see what came of it—"
"Don't you go into that room," Elizabeth warned.
"No, no. We haven't heard anything from upstairs, so I gather that David's not been located. Oh, Liz. Liz! I don't know what to do."
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