"That man has so much junk in that house it's dangerous," Jimmy's mother said. "He never throws anything away. And whoever heard of a monkey for a pet?"

She was talking about Mr. Liburd who lived on the fourth floor. Sometimes Jimmy would see the old man on the street, his white hair neatly combed, his ivory handled walking stick clicking along at a jaunty pace. The story was that he used to work as a seaman but was now retired.

"He probably brought that monkey back from one of his trips!" Jimmy's mother had said.

When his social studies teacher had asked the class to bring in old calendars Jimmy thought that if there were any in the neighborhood Mr. Liburd would have it.

"I might have just the one for you," Mr. Liburd said. "Come on in."

Mr. Liburd's living room was large, but a little strange. There were lamps everywhere. On the piano, on the end tables, and one on either end of the long table against the wall. At the far end of the wall sat Mr. Liburd's monkey.

"His name is Victor," Mr. Liburd said. "He won't bother you. Have a seat while I go into the bed room and look for that calendar."

Jimmy sat in the big overstuffed chair and looked at the pictures Mr. Liburd had hung on the wall.

"What do you need an old calendar for?"

Jimmy looked around to see who had spoken.

"Well, I know it's none of my business, but…" the monkey rubbed his chin. "I don't see why they change the calendars every year anyway. Do you?" 1

For the first few moments, Jimmy's mouth hung open as he stared at the monkey. "Are you talking to me?" he finally mumbled.

The monkey rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Here we go again," he stated with exasperation.

How can this be happening? Jimmy thought. That's a monkey! Monkeys don't know how to talk! And where did he get his British accent? "Monkeys can't talk!" Jimmy shouted.

"I certainly can talk," said the monkey. "And I'm not a bad violinist, either, if I do say so myself." The monkey jumped down from the desk on which he was perched, and walked toward Jimmy. He extended his hand and said, "Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sir Rutherford Worthington … but my friends call me Bonzo. I've always hated the name Bonzo, but I suppose that's what I get for joining the circus right out of college. I graduated from Oxford, you know." 2

"W-wow, Ox-Oxford," Jimmy stuttered as the old man came back into the room.

"Here it is. Now, this calendar is very special, Johnny," said the old man.

"It… it's Jimmy, sir."

"You need to be very careful with it," Mr. Liburd went on. "It belonged to the greatest magician of all time—Harry Houdini. This is not like the ordinary, mundane calendars that we use every day, Jimbo. No, no, no, sir! This calendar has been bewitched! It is not only a calendar but also a time travel device! Take it with great caution, my boy." Mr. Liburd smiled at him. Bonzo was busy peeling a banana.

"Yes, sir. Thank you," Jimmy said.3

"Hey, wait a second, chap, I'm coming with you!" Bonzo leaped onto Jimmy's shoulder. "If you're going to time travel, I'm not just going to sit here eating bananas all day!"

"Never ignore Victor, as he has a tendency to read people's minds, but he is very intelligent," Mr. Liburd warned.

Confused, Jimmy thanked Mr. Liburd. Once Jimmy and Bonzo were out of the room, Bonzo said, "So, where to next?"4

Jimmy had started to get used to the idea of a talking monkey, and with such weird things going on he was hardly surprised at a time traveling calendar.

He was, however, not the type to believe only in fact. So when Bonzo said "Where to now?" Jimmy did not just say "You're crazy!" but rather, "Well, colonial times have always interested me, maybe we could go to 1777, around the time of the Revolutionary War."

"Wars are dangerous," Bonzo replied.

"Well, I guess you're right," Jimmy decided. "But then where would we go?"

"Well, I've always been interested in the future…perhaps we could pay a visit to 2500?" Bonzo asked hopefully.

The future! Jimmy had never thought about that. "The future it is!"

"Yes!" Bonzo shouted with delight.

"How do you time travel though?" Jimmy asked.

"I've seen Master do it once, he just says the names of whoever is traveling, the place, and date, and then he shouts 'And we are off!' Then he disappears."

"Okay," said Jimmy, "I wish Bonzo and Jimmy were in the year of 2500 in the state of Virginia…and we are off!"5

And just like that, Jimmy and Bonzo were in Virginia in the year 2500, and it was raining. "This looks like normal old Earth," Jimmy said. "It's like we never left." Then he looked up and saw hover cars, floating trees, and a dog walking upside down in the sky. He also noticed that everyone around them was wearing shiny clothes.

"I think that we need to blend in more," said Jimmy.

Jimmy and Bonzo walked up to a man sitting on a floating bench. "Sorry to bother you sir," Jimmy said, "but do you know where we can get some shiny clothes like yours?"

"Gaa Waaa Tongo tutu," said the man.

"In English please?"

The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a knob. He switched it to English. "Sorry about that I must have left it on when I was negotiating with the race of aliens known as the Bio Dingers."

Jimmy politely asked the man again. He told him to go down the street and make a right. "You can't miss it."

Bonzo read the man's mind and was surprised. As they walked away, the monkey told Jimmy what he saw in there. 6

"He was thinking I hope those boys don't get caught by you know who." Bonzo said.

"Who is you know who?" Jimmy wondered. They decided not to worry about it and went to buy some clothes.

At the store, they picked out the shiniest of shiny clothes for themselves and the clerk rang them up. "That will be $1,000,000 dollars," He said.

"What?!" Jimmy yelled.

"Do you have a problem?"

"$1,000,000 is a lot of money!" said Jimmy.

"A lot of money? Ha!" laughed the clerk. "I used to get that as my allowance."

"But all I have is a dollar bill," said Jimmy.

The clerk stopped laughing. "You have a dollar bill?" he asked. "Let me see that."

Jimmy handed him his dollar. "Take the whole store!"

"Um, no thanks. I think I'll just take the clothes." Jimmy and Bonzo left the store.

Outside, they saw that a hover car was coming right toward them. "Run!" yelled Bonzo … but it was too late. Before they could get away, they were lifted off the ground and thrown into the car. 7

Bonzo and Jimmy stared at the back of the driver's head. All they could see was a figure that appeared to be clothed in a metallic, silver coat.

"Purr… Hello, young boys," whispered the enigmatic driver. "I am here to take you to the Village of Les Chats. Your coming has been prophesized."

The two boys shrank down in amazement when the driver turned around. He was a human-sized cat.

"I KNEW IT!" shouted Bonzo. "I knew that cats would take over the world!"

"Ahaha," said the cat. "We have not taken over. We have grown alongside humans in complete harmony."

Jimmy noticed that the hover car was slowing down on a dark, musty plain that resembled that of Ancient Rome.

"Here we arrrre," The catperson purred.

The door of the car opened slowly and just as Jimmy and Bonzo were about to get out, a quiet, spine-tingling voice emitted from an unknown area of the plain.

"Good job, Alexander."

The driver, smiled and responded, "Just doing my duty, sir."

"It looks like we will be having a rather hearty meal today."

Bonzo and Jimmy cringed and slowly turned to each
other. "M-mm-meal?" 8

Alexander turned around and pulled blindfolds over Jimmy and Bonzo's eyes. Jimmy clawed at the piece of cloth, but it was useless.

Two hairy hands dragged Jimmy and Bonzo by the collars. A horrible stench suddenly arose to meet them.

"Ooh, tasty! I haven't had monkey in such a long time!" A gravelly voice spoke near Jimmy's ears. Struggling, Jimmy tried to attack his captor, but it was in vain. The hairy hands shoved them forward and, with a cloud of dust, Jimmy and Bonzo landed on the dirt.

Desperately, Jimmy clawed at the cloth and ripped it off his head. Looking around, he saw that the mysterious being that brought him here was nowhere to be seen. However, the source of the god-awful smell was now apparent. Giant litter boxes lined the roads of this vast, empty plain.

Standing up, Jimmy looked around. The sky was a deep, dark, forbidding red, almost smog-like. The ground was dirty and hard. All around them was dirt and sky, stretching for who-knows-how-far.

Bonzo pointed off into the distance and said grimly, "Look! They're waiting for us." An enormous bonfire had been lit about 2 miles to the west. Bonzo and Jimmy looked at each other. "Our coming has been prophesied. Should we go?"

The time for a decision had come. 9

Thinking very, very hard, Jimmy came up with a plan. He and Bonzo walked over to the blazing bonfire. Alexander was there, and so was the head cat.

"Well, I see we didn't have to bring you over ourselves," said Alexander with a wimpy yet somewhat sinister laugh. Some cats were poking at the fire, and others were setting a rather large table.

"Wait," said Jimmy. "I have some words of wisdom for you." All the cats looked up and stared at him.

"Well ... um ..." stuttered Jimmy. "Why cook us when you could be cooking … um … the mayor of the world?"

Alexander grabbed Jimmy and was just about to toss him into the fire when a voice rang out: "Let them go!" 10

Jimmy turned his head and was surprised to see none other than Mr. Liburd! Alexander let go of Jimmy and turned around.

"What are you doing here?" Alexander asked in a frightened tone.

"I have come to take Jimmy and Bonzo!" Mr. Liburd announced in a booming voice.

"Bonzo? The monkey's name is Bonzo? HAHAHAHA!" Bonzo stared hard at Alexander.

"Don't ever make fun of my name!" Bonzo screeched. He jumped onto Alexander's shoulder and started clawing at his head screaming, "Don't ever make fun of my name!"

While Alexander was trying desperately to pull the monkey off of his head, a giant burst of swirling, purple light erupted out of Mr. Liburd's walking stick.

In a flash, Bonzo, Jimmy, and Mr. Liburd were gone.11

When Jimmy opened his eyes, he was looking at a large stone castle. Before he had a chance to ask Mr. Liburd where they were, the castle doors burst open and out stepped a knight.

"Mr. Liburd, the king is expecting you." The knight led them inside, told them to wait, and then walked further into the castle.

"Why are we here?" Jimmy finally asked.

"Because of this," Liburd answered, pulling out a silver cup. 12

Jimmy took the cup, which was not very large, from Mr. Liburd. Engraved on the outside of the cup was a scene of a castle high on a hill. At the bottom of the hill was a lake surrounded by trees. Jimmy looked up at the castle before them. It was exactly like the one on the cup!

"Now look inside the cup, Jimmy," Mr. Liburd said.

Jimmy looked into the cup and, much to his amazement, saw the image of a monkey looking back at him. The monkey was wearing a crown!

"Years ago, when I learned to time travel," Mr. Liburd said, "I came to this kingdom by chance."

"And I was so fascinated by his adventures that I begged him to let me go with him," Bonzo said. "Being a prince is fine for some, but I wanted more adventure. I guess I'll have to return now, though."

"And they've been trying to get us back here all the time," Mr. Liburd said as two more knights arrived and stood behind them.

Jimmy thought quickly, remembering the magical calendar he had tucked in his shirt. "Oh, I think Mr. Liburd and Jimmy would be better off in New York City in 2007," he shouted. "And we are off!"

In a swoosh, they were gone. Jimmy blinked twice and almost lost his balance, but when he opened his eyes, he and Mr. Liburd were back in the old man's apartment.

"Great thinking, Jimmy," Mr. Liburd said. "You might have saved us from some serious trouble."

"No problem," Jimmy said, smiling broadly. "A monkey could have done it!"13