No Other Story (6 page)

“You can talk,” said Chip.

The man seemed amused by this. “Of course I can talk,” he said.

Penny sunk into one of the bucket seats and tucked her knees up to her chin. Chip, Teddy, and the professor took the three remaining chairs. Teddy leaned forward and held his hands above the fire pit. He found the sensation surprisingly unpleasant; the warming of his hands was accompanied by a dull ache as the flesh slowly came back to life.

“Well,” said Chip, “it's just that you hadn't said anything up until now.”

The man removed his sunglasses. Beneath them his eyes were dark, and held a look of mischief, malice, or both. Chip could not decide. “I like to think before I speak,” he said.

“You mean, like, for a whole hour?” Teddy asked.

The man said nothing, but did appear to be thinking as he shed his hat and coat, revealing a slim frame tucked into modern clothes: well-worn jeans and a dark blue polo shirt. His hair was a wild mess of blond curls. “If that's what it takes to get it right, dude,” he said.

“Dude?” said Chip, more to himself than anyone else.

“Thank you for saving us,” said Penny. “But as you can see, our father's been badly injured. Is there a hospital nearby?”

“And try not to think about it too long,” chirped Gravy-Face Roy. The snide remark earned him a flick on the head from Penny, who was growing ever more weary of having to apologize for her little brother and his ill-mannered sock puppet.

“Sorry about that. My brother has a habit of never thinking before he speaks. Unlike yourself, Mister …”

“Jones,” the man said. “Name's … John Jones.”

John Jones? Is that the best he could do? thought Chip. Whoever this guy was, he could use some lessons in coming up with fake names.

Using their own phony names, Penny and the others introduced themselves to the so-called Mr. Jones, and did so quickly, as they were anxious to get back to more important things. “The hospital,” Penny said. “Is there one close by?”

“Nearest one's in London,” said Jones. “Usually about ten miles from here.”

“Usually?” said the professor. Such a statement only
made sense in the context of Some Times, where things seemed to change at a moment's notice.

“Yeah; once in a while it's a little farther. But certainly no more than fifteen miles. Twenty-five tops. If it's more than thirty, I'd be surprised.”

It was quickly becoming apparent that accuracy was not one of Mr. Jones's strong suits.

“But it's, like, early 1500s London,” he continued. “Sometimes mid-1500s, so that's probably not your best bet. Could end up with, like, a face full of leeches. Next closest hospital's in Baltimore in the 1970s, so the prices are pretty good. Either way, I wouldn't recommend taking him back into the cold right away.”

“Do you expect it to clear up soon?” asked Chip.

“Yes,” said Penny. “What does the weather report say?”

This made Jones laugh. “Weather report? So my assumption was right. You're outsiders.” No sooner had he said the words than Jones appeared to second-guess the wisdom of having done so.

“Outsiders?” Chip repeated. “What makes you think that?”

For a moment, Jones said nothing, apparently deciding whether to answer or ignore the question. Finally, he said, “I can tell you're outsiders because when I found you, you were, like, totally lost and confused. To the locals, everything here in Some Times makes perfect sense. But to the outsider, it's an absolute mess.”

Things were getting stranger by the minute, Chip
thought. If he and his family were the first to discover Some Times, how did Jones know its proper name? It would be like Columbus showing up in the New World and having the natives greet him with a hearty, “Hey, Chris, welcome to the West Indies.”

“You're an outsider too. Aren't you?” said Chip. Jones bit the inside of his lip and narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Tired of waiting for a response, Chip persisted. “Where are you from?”

“Well,” said Jones, “you certainly are a curious bunch, LOL.”

Penny looked at Chip and Chip looked at Penny. No question, this Jones fellow was a bit of a strange bird, but did he really just say what they thought he said?

“Excuse me,” said Penny. “But did you say LOL?”

“Yeah, you know, LOL,” said Jones. “As in,
ha ha ha.
”

“Or
laugh out loud
,” said Chip.

“Oh yeah,” said Jones. “I suppose it could mean that too. It's just a way of, like, saving time where I come from.”

“How much time are you really saving by saying LOL instead of laugh out loud?” asked Penny. “Or, if something really is funny, why don't you just laugh out loud and not say anything?”

Jones shrugged and said, “IDK.”

“You mean
I don't know
?” asked Chip.

“Exactly. Just another time saver.”

“We have them where we come from too,” said Penny. “But we only use them when typing or texting, not when speaking.”

Jones crinkled his forehead and looked thoughtful once again. “I'm sorry,” he said. “But what's typing again?”

Chip wasn't quite sure whether a man with a mechanical dog could seriously not know what typing was. He pantomimed the act for Jones's benefit. “You know, it's what you do on a laptop computer.”

“Oh,” said Jones, as if suddenly remembering some obscure fact from a history exam taken long ago. “We don't have laptop computers where I come from. We have eye-tops.”

“You replaced computers with basketball shoes?” said Teddy.

“He said
eyetop
, I believe,” said Penny. “Not
high-top
.”

“What the heck is an eyetop?” asked Gravy-Face Roy.

As Jones went on to explain to Professor Boxley, the three Cheeseman children, and a sock, an eyetop was a computer about the size of a contact lens that fit right over the cornea of the eye and was operated not by typing, but simply by thinking. If his story was true, it meant one thing for certain: wherever Jones came from, it was a world far more advanced than their own.

“Are you from the future or something?” Teddy asked.

“I guess you could say that,” said Jones.

“I knew it,” said Teddy, who was over the moon at having been right twice in one day.

“But I'm also from the past,” Jones continued, taking a little wind out of Teddy's sails. “With time, everything is relative. We're all from the past and we're all from the future, depending on the point of reference.” Before Jones
could expound upon the topic, two dark creatures scurried into the cave. Teddy sprang to his feet.

“Look out!” he shouted. “Gorillas!”

It was true that the two beings appeared somewhat gorilla-like. Their posture was similar, and their hairlines plunged so low on their sloped foreheads that they threatened to eclipse their eyebrows. Though it was difficult to be certain through all that facial hair, one of the creatures appeared to be male, the other female.

Penny was aghast at what she saw, a scene right out of the museum of natural history. “Those aren't gorillas. They're Neanderthals.”

“That's right,” said Jones, rising to his feet. He nodded toward the more female looking of the two and said, “Allow me to introduce my wife, Gurda. And that dude over there is my brother-in-law, Stig.” Stig emitted a low grunt and a bob of his fuzzy head.

“Stig?” said Teddy, with a sneer that wrinkled his nose.

“Yes,” said Jones. “It's a very common caveman name.”

(See? Told you.)

Jones turned to the furry hominids and spoke to them in a series of staccato grunts and sweeping hand gestures. They responded with a few grunts of their own, and seemed to be talking about the unexpected guests in their cave. Jones answered them by launching into what looked to be a rather elaborate game of charades. He appeared to be reenacting his encounter with the Cheesemans and their subsequent journey back to the cave. As he spoke, the two
Neanderthals wandered over and began inspecting their visitors, sniffing and gently prodding them.

Gurda took a handful of Penny's auburn hair and studied it intently. Penny stiffened, afraid to move.

“Don't worry,” said Jones. “She's just being friendly.”

Gurda grunted out something that sounded to Penny like an angry growl.

“She says she likes your hair,” said Jones.

“Oh,” said Penny. “How do you say
thank you
in Neanderthal?”

Jones said something that sounded like
arg schnerr
, but when Penny tried to repeat the phrase, it didn't come out quite the same and resulted in a look of vast confusion from Gurda.

“You just asked for more minestrone soup,” said Jones.

“There's a Neanderthal word for
minestrone soup
?” said Chip.

“Well, of course,” said Jones, as if that were the most absurd question in the entire history of question asking.

Penny looked up at Gurda and forced a smile. “I don't really want minestrone soup,” she said.

“I do,” said Teddy. “I'm starving.”

“Me too,” said Gravy-Face Roy.

Gurda smiled at Teddy and the others and seemed satisfied that there was nothing to fear from the strangers in her home. With a few final grunts, she and Stig waddled to the far end of the cave, where they promptly began smashing several large roots by placing them on a big, flat rock that
seemed to serve as the kitchen table and striking them repeatedly with smaller rocks.

“Isn't she something?” Jones said with the smile of a man in love. “Great sense of humor too. And the world's best cook, IMO.”

“In your opinion?” said Penny.

“Well, I'll let you judge for yourselves. She makes this casserole that's, like, out of this world. Do you guys like roots and berries?”

“Roots?” said Teddy, who, more and more, was beginning to think that
out of this world
would be a good place to be.

“They're very good for you,” said Jones. “Lots of fiber.”

“So … you married a Neanderthal?” asked Penny.

“Well, we totally fell in love, so, like, why not?” said Jones, a little defensively. “I believe you should be able to marry whomever you choose, don't you?”

“Well, yes,” Penny agreed, though secretly she thought that Jones and Gurda were probably the strangest pairing she'd seen since the time that Pinky, a fox terrier bred for fox hunting, developed a severe crush on Digs, a little brown fox from the seventeenth century.

Chip thought they made a rather bizarre couple too. In fact, there were a lot of strange things about this John Jones character, if that really was his last name, and Chip greatly doubted that it was. Whatever his name, Chip had a million questions for him, but they would have to wait, because the Cheesemans were about to get the first good news they'd had all day. It came when Ethan, for the first time since being buried under a mountain of snow, opened his eyes.

“Look!” Teddy exclaimed. “It's Dad. He's awake!”

Chip and Penny rose quickly from their chairs and knelt at their father's side.

“Dad, are you okay?” Penny asked.

From his position flat on his back, Ethan stared up at his young inquisitor and narrowed his eyes in thought. “What is going on here?” he said.

Chip turned to Penny to find his sister wearing the exact same look as his own. It was a look of confusion, and what caused that look was not what Mr. Cheeseman had said, but how he had said it; in a very distinct and very thick Italian accent.

Ethan sat up and took in his surroundings with an arched eyebrow. If the eyes truly are the windows to the soul, anyone looking at Ethan's eyes would quickly determine that he was not at home and that he now had a houseguest. “Would someone be so kind as to tell me where I am? And while we're at it, who are you people?”

“Why is Dad talking like that guy from the pizza commercial?” Teddy asked his older siblings.

“I don't know,” said Chip. “Dad? What's wrong? Don't you recognize us?”

Ethan looked at Chip with bemusement, then said, in a rather indignant tone, “Young man, you obviously have me confused with someone else. My name is Rossini. Gioachino Rossini.”

“Oh no,” said Penny.

“He thinks he's Rossini.”

“He thinks he's pasta?” exclaimed Gravy-Face Roy.

“What? That's rotini,” said Penny, never stopping to
consider she was using precious oxygen for the purpose of correcting a gravy-stained sock. “Rossini was one of the greatest composers of classical music who ever lived.”

“Was?” shouted Ethan, waving his hands in the air. “I will have you know I am currently working on my most important opera yet. It will be the masterpiece by which all others are measured.”

At first, they wondered if this was their father's idea of a prank, even though he was not one to engage in practical jokes, simply because, as a scientist, he found them to be entirely impractical.

Ethan's head suddenly jerked to one side and his eyes shot up and over as if he were straining to listen to a sound very far away. He began softly humming a tune, slowly increasing its volume, until soon his hands were slicing through the air like an orchestra conductor.

“Hey, I know that song!” Teddy exclaimed. “It's the Lone Ranger.”

“Actually, it's called the
William Tell Overture,
” whispered Professor Boxley, who happened to be a connoisseur of classical music.

“Hmm,” said Gravy-Face Roy. “That sure is a weird name for a song about the Lone Ranger.”

Abruptly as he began, Ethan stopped, then stood up and exclaimed, “Quick! I must have a fountain pen and paper at once!” Though none of them knew just what to make of Ethan's strange new persona, it seemed to be unofficially agreed upon that, for the time being at least, they would go with it.