The Forgetting Machine (17 page)

Dottie was free, but my situation had not improved. Rausch was furious. Holding me with one arm wrapped painfully around my waist, he grabbed the chair Dottie had been sitting in and dragged it over by the metal shelves, where it wasn't visible from the street. He slammed me into the chair.

“Do. Not. Move,” he said. He backed away, keeping me in sight, and picked up the REMEMBER machine and the Rauschinator.

“Dottie will bring the police,” I said hopefully.

Rausch laughed. “I think not. My niece is a good girl. She wouldn't want to get her parents in trouble.”

“She just stole your ATV and crashed it through a closed garage door,” I pointed out.

“True.” A shadow of worry crossed his face, but he shrugged it off. “In any case, very soon now you will have nothing to tell. Hold still.” He lowered the Rauschinator onto my head. I tried to kick him you-know-where, but he turned his hip and deflected my foot. Then he slapped me, hard, right across the face.

I don't know if you have ever been slapped hard in the face by a grown man, but if you ever are, you will find that it's not like the movies when people slap each other all the time and they're just, like,
ouch
. A real slap is much worse. My head snapped back, my ears were ringing, and everything went dim for a second. But what happened next was kind of cool.

My eyes regained focus, and I saw that Rausch's head had been replaced by a large fur ball. Furthermore, a large, puffed-up tail seemed to be jutting from the place where he usually kept his goatee, and the air was vibrating with a horrific high-pitched howling.

The howling wasn't me. It was the normally sedate Mr. Peebles, who had attached himself to Rausch's face. Rausch was howling too. I don't know which of them was louder. I'm sure it would have been Rausch if he hadn't been trying to scream through Mr. Peebles's furry body.

Mr. Peebles was hard at work, attempting to detach Rausch's ears with his unsheathed claws while biting the top of his head. I don't know how long it went on. Maybe only a few seconds, but to me—and probably to Mr. Rausch—it felt much longer. Mr. Peebles finally decided his job was done. He sprang from Rausch's face and landed next to me. Rausch was staggering around, disoriented and in obvious pain.

Mr. Peebles looked up at me and said, “Merp?”

“Merp,” I replied.

“Aargh!” cried Mr. Rausch.

“Let's get out of here!” I said to Mr. Peebles.

We took off through the shattered garage door.

Mr. Peebles refused to join me on the WheelBot. I felt bad about leaving him behind, but I had to get to a phone quick. Myke Duchakis lived just a few blocks away, so I headed over there. Guess what I saw parked in his driveway.

Yup, a red ATV.

I hit the doorbell about six times. Myke answered the door with his chinchilla perched on his shoulder.

“Did you call the police?” I said.

Myke and his chinchilla both looked surprised. I guess I was kind of frantic.

“Um . . . no? Why?”

“Gimme your cell.”

Myke reached into his pocket and handed me his phone. As I punched in 911, I saw Dottie peeking around the corner.

“What's going on?” Myke asked.

“Ask your girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” He looked back at Dottie, who ducked out of sight.

“Thanks a lot, Dottie,” I yelled.

“Hello?” said the 911 operator. “Can I help you?”

“Yes!” I told her I'd been assaulted. She had a million questions. I tried to answer them, and finally she said she'd send a car over to the Tisks' house.

I disconnected and called my dad. He answered on the third ring.

“Ginger?” he said.

“Are you still at the lab?”

“Yes. We're making progress.”

“I found Rausch.” I quickly told him what had happened, and how Mr. Peebles had saved me. “I called the police, but Rausch might be gone by now.” I heard a siren approaching.

“We'll get there as soon as possible,” my dad said. “Stay where you are.”

  •  •  •  

Stay where I was?

No way! I tossed the phone back to a very confused-looking Myke Duchakis and ran outside to the WheelBot. I arrived at the Tisks' moments after the police. The two cops were peering through the broken garage door with their guns drawn. I hopped off the unicycle and came up behind them.

“He's not moving,” said one of the officers. He raised his voice. “Sir! Are you all right?”

“I'm going in.” The cop ducked his head and entered the garage. A moment later he said, “Call an ambulance.”

Right then my dad and two of his security guys pulled up in an ACPOD van. My dad jumped out, gave me the Look, and followed the cops into the garage. A minute later he came out, looking grim.

“Is he dead?” I asked. “Did Mr. Peebles kill him?”

He shook his head. “Didn't I tell you to stay at Myke's?”

“Sorry.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and looked at my face. “Are you okay?” He touched my cheek where Rausch had slapped me.

“I think so. He hit me really hard, but it feels okay now.”

“You're going to have a bruise.”

“What happened to him?”

Dad shook his head. “He's sitting in there with that device on his head, looking very confused. He doesn't seem to know who he is, or where he is, or what is going on. He's quite agitated, talking a blue streak but not making any sense. He's talking about banana slug mating rituals and obscure baseball statistics and the history of sailing vessels and who wrote which Beatles songs and all sorts of other random trivia. It's as if somebody ripped the encyclopedia into a million pieces and shoved it into his brain.”

“He rauschinated himself?”

“So it would seem.”

They took Mr. Rausch to the hospital and put a guard outside his room, just in case he tried to escape. My dad took the REMEMBER machine to ACPOD, and maybe you think that's the end of the story, but you would be wrong.

A whole bunch of people—including Billy and my dad—were still missing huge chunks of their memories. And with Rausch in a coma, nobody knew how to get them back.

The Tisks returned home to find their house festooned in yellow police tape. They managed to convince the cops that they had had no idea that Mrs. Tisk's brother Ernest had been wanted by the police, and they said they were shocked—
shocked
—that he would subject their dear daughter Dottie to an experimental procedure. I was sure they were lying, but nobody was listening to me.

Dottie was still hiding out at Myke's, so far as I knew. Would
she
blow the whistle on her parents? I went back to Myke's house to ask her, but both Myke and Dottie had left.

“I don't know where they went,” Mrs. Duchakis told me. “But they took a basket of kittens with them.”

Where would Myke go with a basket of kittens?

I went over to Addy Gumm's. She answered her door holding two squirming kittens.

“Yes, dear, they were just here. I was only able to take these two—I already have eighteen cats, you see, and I promised the mayor to keep it down to twenty. Myke took the others to find them another home.”

“Where?”

“I really don't know.”

I texted Billy.

Rausch has been rauschinated.

Trying to find Dottie. Where are you?

I got a text back immediately.

I'm at home. Dottie and Myke are here. Do you need another cat?

Dottie was at Billy's? I jumped on the WheelBot.

A few minutes later Alfred let me in. I noticed that the holes in the walls had been repaired, and there were no new ones. Presumably, Alfred's wall-punching tendencies had been curtailed. I ran down to Billy's room, where he was waiting with Myke, Dottie, and six rambunctious kittens. Dottie was sitting on the floor crying, and Myke was attempting to corral the kittens while Billy sat at his computer looking extremely uncomfortable.

“What's up?” I said eloquently.

“Myke wants me to take one of his cats,” Billy said. “I said no, and Dottie started crying.”

Dottie wiped her eyes with her sleeve and looked up at me. “I'm sorry I left you alone with my uncle,” she said. “I was scared.”

I couldn't blame her.

“That was really cool, you blasting through the garage door,” I said.

Dottie almost smiled, then reverted to looking miserable. “He already made me forget
Charlotte's Web
once. I didn't want to forget it again, and I was afraid he'd make me forget Myke, too.”

“Did your parents ask him to do it?”

She nodded and started bawling again.

Billy said, “I was just looking up some info about kids divorcing their parents.”

“Seriously? You can do that?”

“It's complicated. She'd need an adult willing to adopt her, and a lawyer. I mean, it hardly ever happens.”

“Even if her parents are abusing her?”

Billy shook his head. “I don't know.”

“Dottie, do you have any relatives you could stay with?”

She snuffled, then said, “My grandparents on my father's side. Only they don't speak anymore.”

“They can't talk?” Myke said.

“No! They can talk, but my parents won't speak to them. My dad says they're heathens because they won't go to his church. I miss them. My grandma is really nice.”

I exchanged a look with Billy. “That could be good,” I said.

“Only I don't know if they'd want me,” she said miserably.

Bing!

“That's Alfred,” Billy said, looking at his computer display. “Dottie's parents are here. They want Dottie back.”

“I told my mom where we were going,” Myke said, looking at Dottie. “She must have told your parents.”

“That's okay,” Dottie said. “They would've found me sooner or later.” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “I guess I've got to go.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “Let me and Billy handle this.”

Billy and I trooped upstairs, leaving Myke and Dottie in charge of the kittens. We heard Mr. and Mrs. Tisk in the foyer, arguing with Alfred.

“Master Billy does not accept unannounced visitors to his room,” Alfred was explaining. “I am sure he will be with you shortly.”

“I'm right here,” Billy said as we entered the foyer.

“Where is my daughter?”

“Why do you ask?” I asked.

Both Tisks stabbed at me with their eyes.

“You!” said Mrs. Tisk.

“Why, yes,” I agreed. “Me.”

“Where is Dottie? We know she's here.” He thrust a thumb at Alfred. “This clinking, clattering collection of junk has admitted as much.”

“I do not clatter,” Alfred said.

“Dottie is here,” I admitted, “but she doesn't want to go home with you.”