- Short Story by Ishan Chatterjee, Grade 6

I'm Tom Bernstein. I'm twelve years old and live in Goresville. I have one sister. Her name is Mary. She's seventeen, and really crazy. My dad is a retired inventor and has constructed the first time machine in his company, Timeworks.

My mom died in a car accident when I was seven. She used to be an actress. She always went berserk when dad said his time traveler would be done in a year, and asked her if she would go on it with him. But it turned out I went with him instead.

I was eight, and playing in the park with my sister. I checked my silver pocket watch. (At the time it was my most prized possession. It used to belong to my great-great-grandfather, and was handed down the generations. To stop me from losing it, my dad told me that the person who didn't take responsibility for it would be cursed for the rest of his life. Thus I carried it wherever I went.)

"It's 2:13," I told my sister, "Dad's coming in seventeen minutes."

"I wish he'd come sooner," she responded drearily. Some time later dad pulled up, honking the horn.

"You look happy," droned my sister, gloomily observing the frown on his face.

"Be quiet, and help Tom pick up the balls you were playing with."

"What's the problem?" I asked as the car door clicked shut.

"Bad day at work. We were almost done, before someone realized that an internal wire was not hooked up properly. None of us have fingers that are small and nimble enough to connect the wire to the splitter. So we'll have to dissect the machine, and put it together again," Dad explained.

"I'll try to connect the wire and the splitter," I suggested, flexing my fingers.

"You will?"

"Sure." His face brightened, as we swerved in a sharp U-turn to go to Timeworks Headquarters.

TIMEWORKS HEADQUARTERS

At 2:37 we reached the factory. My dad led me to the time machine, and pointed out the wire. I stuck my fingers in the hole between the wire and the splitter, and fumbled hopefully. My sister sat on the ground, rolling the ball between her hands. My dad was whistling and looking through the blueprints of the machine.

"Can we go home now?" asked my sister, leaning against the wall.

"Just a minute...got it!" I exclaimed triumphantly.

"Really?" asked my sister and she spun around, but as she did, her shirt got caught on the control lever.

"WATCH OUT!!!!" exclaimed dad, and he dove to get me out of danger, but it was too late. A large purple wormhole started sucking me in.

I felt my feet being lifted from the ground and my father trying to pull me down. It seemed he was winning this tug-o'-war of machine vs. man, but the next second he too was gliding toward the time traveler with me. "Control panel!" my father shouted, and a large board with various dials, switches, and buttons floated toward him. He turned a dial and pressed a button marked KILL SWITCH. Nothing happened. He jabbed at it a few more times and still there was no response.

As we entered the wormhole, and were engulfed in purple gas, my father looked up from the control panel. His face was white as snow. There was an awkward silence.

Then a wailing voice from the microphone droned: "You are currently traveling at three times the speed of light, TO THE FUTURE!" The dial on the machine kept on increasing. 2010.2020.2030. I was worried.

What was going to happen? I felt sick and dizzy. I turned over and vomited.

My dad's shaking hand moved to an inch-wide, flashing button marked: SELF DESTRUCT. "Brace yourself," mumbled my dad weakly. As he pressed the button, I pulled my legs up to my head. A sudden jolt sent my father and me flying forward. We went right through the purple barrier of the wormhole's tunnel. Everything turned pitch black.

After floating for what seemed like hours in the zero-gravity universe, we saw a minute glowing speck in the distance. As we got closer to the object, we realized it was some sort of planet. My dad tightened the grasp on my hand. As we got closer still, it struck me that if we kept going at this speed and if we crashed. I paused. "No ifs," I told myself. But I couldn't help obsessing about it.

At 500 yards away I was thinking, "I'm going to flush my sister's head down the toilet if I ever get back home."

At 300 yards away, I could make out that we were traveling toward a large pond. No, this wasn't large, it was HUMUNGOUS. At least as big as a football field. But what was really scary was that it was bright green slime that filled this pond.

"I wonder if we can survive," I thought to myself. At 100 yards away I thought it would be a miracle if I did. But if a hand was going to come out from the heavens and grab me by the ankle, it was too late. There were only 50 yards left, 40, 30, 20, 10...

SPLAT!!!

"Whatever this goo is, it's bouncy like Jello, don't you think?" I said to my dad, but he didn't answer. I turned around, but he wasn't there. Worried, I started swimming to the edge of the pond. I got out of the pond and looked around.

It was a normal scene except that everything was an odd color. The sky was pink with green clouds, and I was standing under a blue tree with turquoise berries. But weird colors didn't matter now. Where was my dad?

I looked up and saw him zooming through the pink sky heading for the pond.

SPLAT!!!

My dad swam toward me and pulled himself out. He held a bulging brown sack large enough for me to fit into. "What's in there?" I asked. He turned the bag over and poured out the contents. There was a tent, blankets, a first aid kit, and parts of the time machine.

"Where did you get it all?" I asked.

"The safety kit and the parts came flying towards me," he stated. "We better set up camp," he added, looking at the green sunset.

So we pitched a tent and was about to load it with our possessions when we saw a bright orange figure in the distance. It lumbered toward us at a slow, lazy pace. On seeing it more closely, we found that it was an alien. He had large, googly eyes and resembled a teddy bear, except he was a ten-foot tall giant, bright orange, and had antennae in place of ears.

Though you might think teddy bears are cute, we backed away from this one. (How many ten-foot live teddy bears have you come across?)

"Hi, I'm Jim the Slim," boomed the teddy bear. (At this, I looked at his stomach. He was as wide as he was tall. I thought I might have a problem trusting this beast.) "What is your name?"

"I'm George Bernstein and this is my son Tom," introduced my dad. "What is this flimsy shack?" asked Jim. "That is our tent," answered my father. "Oh," bellowed Jim and he patted the tent, bending the metal frame. "Oops! Sorry. ... I'll take you to my house," suggested Jim. We had no choice, so we followed in step. "How did you get here?" he asked. My dad told him our story from the beginning.

Jim suddenly burst into tears, rolling on the ground, flailing his arms and legs. My dad and I exchanged looks, for we were definitely not prepared for this. "We'll find a way to get back, don't worry," soothed my dad, helping Jim back up on his feet. (Dad wasn't really much of a help because Jim was very heavy.)

"That's so sad," sobbed Jim. "I'm the last in my family."

We had a good sleep in Jim's oversized bed. And we had red pancakes for breakfast. Jim had driven away for he had an appointment he had to keep, and he wouldn't be backed till after lunch. "We'd better get started making a time machine to get home in," advised my dad. So we turned Jim's basement into a temporary workshop.

We labored feverishly until we needed only three things: a super-strong metal bar bent a tiny bit, a tenacious adhesive, and a silver knob. When Jim got home, we asked him if he had any of these. "No, but I'll try bending the bar," Jim said, wiping earwax on the living room sofa.

He flexed, pushed, pulled, and yanked until his face looked like a beet. "It's no use," he grumbled, throwing the bar on the sofa.

"Do you know another way to bend it?" asked my dad.

"No," he said, sitting on the bar. Suddenly his face brightened.

"Got a great idea?" I asked. He answered by throwing the perfectly bent bar to me.

"One down, two more to go!" exclaimed my dad. "Now for the adhesive."

Jim, dad, and I looked for an hour. Jim sat on the sofa and sighed, "It's no use!"

"Come on, let's look for five more minutes," I pleaded.

Jim got up and started rummaging through a box. My dad, who was sitting in an arm chair, saw Jim and exclaimed, "I've found it!" He picked a grey lump that was stuck on Jim's back.

"Oooo... you don't have to use Jim's earwax," I whimpered.

"Now all we need is a silver knob," my father noted. "Let's try to find it in less than two hours.

We searched and searched but to no avail.

"How much time do we have left?" asked my father. I whipped out my pocket watch.

"Five minutes." Just then I realized I was holding the last integral part to the time traveler. I would have to sacrifice my most prized possession to get home.

"Found the last piece!" I hollered.

* * *

I couldn't believe it. Our time machine was fixed and it was time to say bye to Jim the Slim. The emotional alien wept a tearful goodbye. Then he jumped, fell flat on his face, and cried some more.

After the farewell, we dived into the wormhole and found ourselves in Timeworks. My sister was sitting in the corner and weeping. I jumped on her and started leading her toward the restroom. "This is a simple process, it won't take much time, and just involves flushing your head down the toilet," I explained.