On the Thursday on which our story begins,
the gym at Sydney Newman Middle School was full of students who, ordinarily,
would have preferred to stay as far away from the gym as possible. Normally,
the gym brought them nothing but pain, misery and torture of both the physical
and psychological variety.
Also know as “P.
E.”
Today, however,
the gym was the site of the Annual Science Fair. Instead of portable soccer
nets, orange plastic cones and large, metal bins full of basketballs, the room
was full of long, folding tables on which the eager young scholars had set up
their projects, waiting for the judges to come by.
The sole remaining
vestige of gym class still looming over the students’ heads was Coach Hartnell
who was, for reasons passing understanding, serving as one of the Fair’s
judges, along with Mrs. Troughton, the science teacher, and Assistant Principal
Pertwee. This intimidated the students a little, but they took solace in the
fact that, in his capacity as judge, Coach Hartnell would not be able to throw
dodgeballs at them or force them to run a lap.
The three judges
walked down the lines of tables, inspecting the projects, asking the students
for demonstrations and making small, discreet notes on their clipboards.
Occasionally they would make vaguely encouraging comments like “very nice” or
“good effort” regardless of whether the project had any chance of winning or
not.
Then they got to
Hugo’s project.
Hugo Wells—the
twelve-year-old hero of our story—was a genius. And I mean that literally. Lots
of people use the word “genius” to describe everyone from professional rappers
to dogs who can stand on their back legs. But Hugo was an honest-to-goodness,
genuine, bona fide, true blue genius of the highest order.
Oddly enough, this
would be the first year Hugo ever took part in a science fair. I know, it sounds
weird. You’d think someone that clever would leap at the chance to enter and
win the Science Fair. But Hugo just wasn’t into it.
Like many people
who are highly intelligent, Hugo found that social situations made him very
uncomfortable. He didn’t want too much attention, hated to think that people
were looking at him, dreaded being called on in class (despite the fact that he
always knew the answer to whatever question the teacher was asking) and had
absolutely no friends, preferring to spend his downtime on his own, reading or
tinkering with some gadget he had invented.
Hugo’s mother
understood her son’s reluctance to enter the Science Fair, but thought it might
help him to get over this social anxiety, which is why she said what she said:
“If you don’t
enter the Science Fair, you can’t go to the midnight launch of the last Beanstalk Chronicles book.”
Hugo loved to read
all kinds of books. But his favorites were The
Beanstalk Chronicles by I. M. Jacques. And the final book in the series was
going on sale soon. Hugo just had to
be the first one to read it!
“It’s no big
deal,” Hugo’s father added. “You’ve got all kinds of inventions and whatnot in
your room. Just pick one, slap a label on it and bring it in.”
So, he did…and it
changed his life forever.
“So, Hugo,” said Mr. Pertwee as he and his
fellow judges approached his project, “what do you have for us?”
“A time machine,” Hugo
said, matter-of-factly.
“Um…what?” said
Ms. Troughton.
“A time machine,”
repeated Hugo. “A machine that allows you to travel through time?”
“Yes,” said Coach
Hartnell, “we’re familiar with the concept. You’re saying you’ve actually built
one?”
“Of course. See?”
The judges looked
at Hugo’s project.
Standing upright
on the table was a sheet of cardboard, folded into thirds and covered with
equations and formulae. These, Hugo hoped, would explain the theory behind the
object directly in front of the cardboard, which looked very much like a
shoebox with a lot of wires and tiny flashing lights attached to it.
Mainly because it was a shoebox with a lot of wires and
tiny flashing lights attached to it.
“This is just a
miniature prototype, of course,” said Hugo, as though the idea of a
twelve-year-old kid inventing a working time machine was not ludicrous on the
face of it. “The interior of the shoebox is lined with steel mesh, which acts
as a Faraday cage for anything traveling inside the box. The controls are…”
“Okay,” said Mr.
Pertwee. He had known that Hugo hadn’t exactly been enthusiastic about taking
part, so he assumed this was some kind of sarcasm or a practical joke. “This is
cute and all, Hugo, but we have real projects
to evaluate. So, if you—”
“I can prove it
works!” Hugo said, much more forcefully than he had meant to. Being so smart
(indeed, smarter than many grownups in his life) was not easy and Hugo was used
to being talked down to by people who didn’t take him seriously because of his
age. But he didn’t like it.
Reaching into his
backpack, Hugo removed two digital wristwatches. He showed them to the judges.
“Both watches show the exact same time, down to the second. Correct?” The
judges nodded. “Now. Watch.”
Hugo put one of
the watches into the shoebox and laid the other on the table, outside the box. Then,
using a pair of tweezers, he set the dials and buttons on the tiny control
panel. Then he stood back.
Before the
startled eyes of all three judges (and pretty much everyone else at the Science
Fair, who had started to gather around as soon as they had heard the words
“time machine”), the shoebox disappeared into thin air!
“Where did it go?”
asked Coach Hartnell.
There was a long,
painful silence.
“Really?” said
Hugo. “No one’s going to say it? I’m going
to have to say it?” He sighed. “Fine: I think you mean…when did it go?”
“Wait,” said Ms.
Troughton, “you’re seriously saying…”
“Yes. I sent the
watch exactly one minute into the future. It will return, in the exact same
spot, precisely forty-three seconds from now.
The entire
gymnasium waited with baited breath as the seconds ticked away. At the exact
instant that Hugo had said it would, the shoebox and the watch returned. Hugo
took the watch out of the shoebox and held it up along with the other.
“See? The one that
went into the time machine is one minute slow. Because it skipped over that
minute. From this watch’s
perspective, that minute never happened.”
Hugo stood
proudly. He had proved, definitively, that his time machine worked.
Or, so he thought.
Mr. Pertwee
laughed. “Yes, very nice, Hugo,” he said in a condescending tone of voice that
Hugo had come to know all too well. “A very cute magic trick.”
“M—magic trick?
But, Mr. Pertwee…”
“Yes, very
creative. Come on.”
The judges moved
along to the next project. Hugo said “but” a few more times, but to no avail.
They were already looking at Susie Johnson’s potato battery.
But that's not the end of Hugo's adventures through time! Find out what happens next when How NOT To Time Travel is released in July 2018!
