Time Snatchers (32 page)

W
e land behind a Dumpster in an alleyway beside a low-rise building. As soon as we’re able to move, we make our way to the front of the building. A red neon sign flashes
PHIL’S DINER.

“How did you do that?” I ask, after the time freeze wears off.

“Do what?” says Abbie.

“Take me with you.” Up until now, I thought the only way someone not wearing a patch could time travel was if they rode in the Time Pod.

“Pretty cool, don’t you think?” says Abbie. “It’s a new app that Uncle developed to make it easier to snatch kids from the past … no more Time Pod parking hassles. All the person with the patch has to do is grab the hand or wrist of the person without the patch, and—abracadabra—you get two time travelers for the price of one.”

I nod. I bet Uncle wouldn’t be too pleased to know that his new app was used to rescue me from the Barrens.

We step inside. The décor is early 1950s: black and white checkerboard floor, a long chrome counter, tall stools capped with red vinyl cushions and even one of those old-fashioned jukeboxes. I inhale and am rewarded with a wonderful aroma of bacon frying and fresh-brewed coffee.

Sliding into a booth near the back, I’m salivating even before I open the menu.

“Take your order?” says the waitress. She looks like she stepped right out of the fifties: pink polka-dot dress, bobby socks and saddle shoes. Even her bored expression seems to fit perfectly.

“Go ahead, Cale. Order whatever you want. My treat.”

“Really?” I say. “In that case, I’ll have an order of pancakes and two eggs over easy. Oh, yes, and a large glass of orange juice.”

“And you, miss?” the waitress asks.

“Uhh. Do you have any waffles?”

“Sure do. Best in New Beijing,” says the waitress.

“Okay. I’ll have the waffles. And an orange juice too.”

“Excuse me?” I say, just as the waitress turns to leave. “Can I also have an order of waffles?”

“You bet,” she says.

“Pancakes and eggs
and waffles
, Cale?” Abbie says.

I shrug and say, “I’m hungry.”

“You smell horrible,” she says, sniffing.

“Thanks.”

But Abbie’s not done yet. “You’re not eating a bite until you change into those clothes you got from Temüjin.”

“All right.” I say, running my fingers over the robe and trying to decide whether I’m supposed to wear underwear underneath. “Back in a minute.”

Luckily the men’s room is empty. Stripping down to the waist, I wet some paper towels with liquid soap and wash myself.

The sight in the mirror shocks me. I’m not much more than skin and bones. Well, at least I’m alive. I lean forward and take a closer look at my face. It looks different. There are some hard edges that I’d never noticed before.

I slip inside the washroom’s only stall and change the rest of the way, throwing my old clothes into the garbage.

The robe feels rough, and I can definitely smell goat on it. For a second I wonder if I’m having an elaborate dream complete with Phil’s Diner and a goat-smelling kaftan and that as soon as I try to return to the table, Abbie won’t be there. Then I’ll wake up back in the desert with a fire that’s about to die out.

If this is a dream, I desperately want to hold on to it. But there’s only one way to know for sure. I leave the washroom and walk back to the table.

My heart skips a beat. It’s empty.

“Did you get lost again?” asks Abbie.

Her voice is coming from the next table over. I look up and see her sitting just where I’d left her. I had stopped at the wrong table, that’s all. Relief floods through me. This is all real.

“Again?” I say. “I never got lost in the first place. Unless you count the time when I got turned around in a sandstorm and couldn’t find the way back to my cave.”

“I’m not counting that time,” she says.

It feels good to be joking with Abbie again. Almost at the same time, we both shut up and look at each other.

She’s waiting for me to say something. I wish I could read her thoughts right now. To know what she’s really thinking and how she really feels about … well, about me. I swallow hard. Here’s my chance to really talk to her. To tell her how I feel without joking or being sarcastic. Because there she is, right across the table, waiting.

“Abbie?” My voice breaks.

“Yes, Cale?”

Suddenly it’s gotten really quiet in the diner. I could use some noise right about now. Clanking pots, clattering dishes. Anything.

“I just want to say, I … thanks for rescuing me,” I finally manage.

She looks at me and says, “You would have done the same for me. We’re a team, remember?”

I nod, but there are a million thoughts swirling around inside of my head, starting with
what about you and Frank?

As if reading my mind, she says, “While you were away, Frank asked me again to be his special assistant. He said you were never coming back from the Barrens.”

“What did you say?” I ask.

“I turned him down,” she answers.

My breath catches in my throat. “You did? Why?”

Abbie glances away for a second, and then looks back at me. “I told him I’d never be happy spending my time keeping track of all the other time snatchers’ missions when I could be on a mission myself.”

“Okay,” I say.

“But that wasn’t the main reason why I turned him down. I turned him down because he was bragging about a collection he did. He said what made it even more enjoyable was that it was a kid you knew.”

A wave of anger is building inside me. I don’t want her to see it, so I stare at my water glass.

“It’s wrong, Cale,” she continues. “What he did. Taking that boy … your friend … was wrong. He wanted to hurt you.”

“I’m not going to let it happen, Abbie,” I say.

“It already has,” she answers.

“Well, I’m going to undo it.”

“No. You’re not.”

I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “What do you mean, I’m not?”

“What I mean, Mr. Smells Like a Goat,” says Abbie, “is that you’re not going to undo it by yourself.
We’re
going to undo it. Together.”

Inside my head, the sun is bursting through the clouds and there’s a rainbow. Abbie is on my side!

“Are you sure you want to?” I say. “I mean, you could get in a lot of trouble.”

“Hey, I’m already in trouble,” she says. “Springing you from the Barrens ten months and twenty-four days early wasn’t exactly kosher, you know.

“Cale,” she continues—and I hear a rare break in her voice—“there’s something else I want to say … about why I came.”

“You don’t have to say it, Abbie,” I say and then immediately regret my words. Of course she has to say it. I want to hear it. That is, if what she’s going to say is what I hope she’s going to say.

“Yes, I do have to say it,” she says. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about you. And a lot of thinking about us.”

Did she just say “us” as in me and her? I’ve got my elbows on the table now, and I’m leaning forward.

“Caleb, I want you to know that I … I care about you,” she says.

“I know, Abbie … me too,” I say, interrupting again. “I mean, I care about you, not about me. You know what I mean.” Real smooth.

“More than I care about anyone else,” Abbie continues. “Not just because you’re my snatch partner. And when you care about someone, sometimes it means taking chances and not thinking about yourself all the time. I just didn’t know how much I did care until you … went away.”

“Thank you, Uncle, for sending me to the Barrens!” I shout. A few of the other diners turn to look at us, and we both laugh.

Abbie cares about me. She said it!

The waitress is back. She sets three plates down in front of me. I
pour syrup over my pancakes and waffles. It comes out nice and slow. This is definitely the best day of my life: Abbie cares about me,
and
there’s maple syrup!

I dig into my pancakes. Every bite is sheer ecstasy. I don’t look up until the plate is empty. After a moment’s hesitation, I bend over and lick the rest of the syrup off the plate.

“Here’s the plan,” I say once I’m done. “First, we erase all Timeless Treasures records and files relating to Zach. But only after we find out exactly where and when he was snatched. Then we go back to 1967 and change a bit of history so that Zach was never snatched. Frank will never try to take him again because he won’t know where to find him—Zach won’t exist in the Timeless Treasures files.”

I take a bite of my eggs. Delicious.

Abbie is quiet for a moment and then says, “I think you’re forgetting a couple of things … Did you ever go visit Zach … I mean at his home?”

“Yes.”

“Then Frank and Uncle will be able to find where Zach lives by checking your file for unauthorized timeleaps.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I already thought of that. When we go to purge Zach’s file, we’ll also have to make sure all records of my timeleaps to Zach’s house are erased too.”

I spear a piece of waffle slathered in maple syrup. Simply divine.

“All right,” she says. “But even if we do that, Frank will still know where to find Zach. All he’d need to do is to go back to Expo 67 where he first saw you with Zach.”

I stop chewing. Abbie’s right. That’s a big hole in the plan.

“Good point,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Okay. So here’s the fix. We change history so that Zach and his family never went to Expo 67.”

It’s Abbie’s turn to be silent. After a moment, she looks at me
solemnly and says, “You know that if we do that, it’s like you and Zach never met. He won’t know you. I don’t think you want that.”

She’s right. I don’t. I feel a special connection with Zach that I don’t want to lose. Because, crazy as it seems, I’m afraid that if I lose that connection, I’ll be losing a piece of myself. But if it means saving Zach’s life, I’m prepared to do it.

“I know, but—” I begin to say.

“There’s another way,” she says.

“How?”

“Well, instead of changing history so that Zach and his family never go to Expo 67, we erase Frank’s memory of Expo 67. If he doesn’t remember going there, then he won’t remember targeting Zach at all.”

I think about it for a moment. It could work. But it’s risky. Frank is not your normal unsuspecting person. He’s an expert at not trusting anyone. Getting close enough to Frank to erase his memory is going to be next to impossible. And if he suspects trouble, he’ll be in Uncle’s office in a flash.

“It’s too dangerous,” I say finally. “There’s a big chance that Frank will figure out what we’re trying to do and stop us.”

“You’re right. We won’t do it.”

“Good.”

“I’ll do it,” she adds.

“Abbie—”

“Listen,” she says, cutting me off. “It won’t be any more dangerous than some of the things I’ve done already, like jailbreaking you from the Barrens, for starters.”

“But—”

“No buts, mister. You know it’s a good plan. And I’m the only one who can pull it off. I’ll tell him I changed my mind and that I want to
be his new assistant. We’ll have a drink to celebrate and our drinks will be the same except that his will have a quarter of a memory wipe pill crushed into it.”

“A half a pill,” I say.

“No. A quarter,” says Abbie. “That should be more than enough to destroy his most recent memories including Expo. Besides, any more and Uncle will definitely wonder how it is that Frank has suddenly forgotten his own name. And if he suspects a memory wipe, then he’ll give Frank the antidote and we’ll be right back to where we started.”

“You mean there’s an antidote for a memory wipe?”

“Of course. But it’s not something that Uncle keeps lying around. Phoebe knows the formula for it though.”

“Okay. A quarter of a pill then. But if anything doesn’t seem right, bail, okay?”

“Yessir, Captain, sir,” Abbie says, saluting. “I will abandon ship at the first sign of trouble.”

“I mean it, Abbie.”

“I know you do,” she says, softening her tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

I look past her at the elderly couple drinking tea and chatting away at the next table. For a moment I’m jealous of them. Well not
of them
, exactly. More of their conversation. What I mean is, even though I have no idea what they’re talking about, it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s something more normal than plotting how to neutralize your enemy so that you can rescue a kidnapped child.

“Now, if we can’t stop him from being snatched at Expo, we activate Plan B,” I say.

“Plan B?”

“If we have to, we go straight to the Compound, find Zach and
yank him out of there. That will be tougher, but if we have to do it that way, we will.”

We spend the next few minutes fine-tuning that plan.

“Sounds good,” says Abbie, finally. “So, when do we start?”

“Right after breakfast!”

By the time we leave Phil’s it’s one forty-five in the morning, but the street vendors are still out in full force. As much as I’m in favor of the Great Friendship, I’m still not crazy about scorpion on a skewer and cricket shish kebab appearing on the same menu as Coney Island hot dogs. But who am I to talk? After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I would have killed for some desert squirrel.