A Whole Nother Story (7 page)

CHAPTER 7

O
livia returned from the clinic feeling worse than she had before she went in. She told her husband about the substitute doctor with the strange tattoo who had given her the injection.

Mr. Cheeseman was immediately suspicious, and when Olivia drifted off to sleep, he called the police, who launched a full investigation but were never able to find the man who called himself Dr. Fiverson or anyone who had ever heard of him. When Ethan went in to see the officer assigned to the case, a tall, tired-looking man with a calico mustache, the man assured him that they were doing everything they could to locate the suspect.

The man was friendly and offered Mr. Cheeseman a cup of coffee, which he served to him in a white mug adorned with a letter
P
made up of wavy blue lines. This is precisely when Ethan realized he was on his own.

Over the next couple of months, various specialists prescribed various medications but Olivia’s condition failed to improve. At one point, she became bedridden. She passed the time by knitting things for her children when she could muster up the strength. In addition to being a fabulous cook, a wonderful mother, and a brilliant scientist, Olivia could knit just about anything. Give her enough yarn and it was quite possible she could knit a go-cart or a grand piano. But she was too weak for projects of such enormity and so she kept it simple. For Jough, she made a stocking cap, for Maggie, a lovely scarf, and for little Gerard, a sock puppet, which he immediately named Steve, placed on his left hand, and vowed never to remove.

In time, Olivia’s energy diminished to the point that even holding her knitting needles was too difficult, and the many medications she was taking turned something as simple as knitting into a frustrating and confusing endeavor.

Powerless to help her, Ethan could only sit and watch as his beautiful wife, the love of his life, slowly slipped into unconsciousness, never to waken again.

ADVICE ON BEING A GOOD MOTHER

K
nit stocking caps, scarves, and sock puppets named Steve.

CHAPTER 8

U
ntil Mr. Cheeseman is able to complete work on the LVR, the only way to travel through time is with a handy literary device known as the flashback or, in this case, the flash-forward, for here we are nearly two years after the death of the lovely Olivia, two years since Ethan and his children first went underground, and they are still on the run from people like Mr. 5, Ms. 4, international superspy Pavel Dushenko, and a top secret government agency. More important, the LVR, the only means of ever seeing their mother alive again, is still not working.

“What do you think the problem is?” asked Jough as the station wagon made its way down the rural highway and Gerard periodically stuck his head out the window and mooed at herds of unsuspecting cows.

“The problem, scientifically speaking, is the code,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Wisely, your mother encrypted it to keep it safe. She wrote it out on a piece of paper and recently I’ve been able to decipher it. The problem is, it’s only half there.”

With that, Mr. Cheeseman removed a mint green piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Jough, whose forehead immediately wrinkled. The paper had obviously been torn down the middle.

“It does seem to be only half there,” he said. “What do you think happened to the other half?”

“I don’t know. Lost, I suppose.”

“May I see it?” said Maggie from the backseat. “I’m pretty good at solving puzzles and things.”

Jough handed the paper back over his shoulder to his sister. Unlike Jough, her forehead did not wrinkle up when she read it. Instead, her eyes darted back and forth across the paper, seemingly searching for something in the code, which took the form of a sentence or, rather, an incomplete sentence. It read
When danger lurks and your heart is
racing . . .

“Well,” said Maggie. “It seems that this is the first line of a piece of advice. Advice on what to do when danger lurks. To figure out the rest, all we need to do is complete the sentence.”

“Very interesting,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “I think you may be on to something. Why don’t you read the first part again and we’ll each take a crack at completing the sentence.”

“I’ll go first,” said Jough, eager to show that he was every bit as smart as his younger sister.

“Me second,” said Gerard, loudly working the bubble gum.

“Me third,” said Steve.

“Grrrr,” said Pinky to the one-eyed sock puppet.

Maggie cleared her throat, not because it needed clearing but because she wanted to make sure she had the undivided attention of everyone in the car.

“When danger lurks and your heart is racing . . . ,” she read.

Jough thought for a moment before blurting out, “Run!”

“Run?” said Maggie. “Seriously, does that sound like the kind of advice Mom would’ve given us? In the face of danger we should run?”

“Well, isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Maggie. “I guess that’s true.”

“Still,” said Mr. Cheeseman, “it’s too short. The completed code should contain at least fifty figures.”

“How about run and hide?” Gerard offered.

“Still too short,” said Mr. Cheeseman.

“How about run and hide in the basement?” said Steve. “Behind some boxes . . . under the stairs . . . at night . . . with a fake wig and dark glasses?”

“Well, I can certainly give that a try, Steve. As soon as we get to where we’re going. In the meantime, keep thinking about it. Maybe one of you will figure it out.”

“I bet it’ll be me,” said Gerard. “I just have one question. What does
lurks
mean?”

Gerard did not receive an answer to his question. He did not receive an answer because anyone in the car who could have answered it was looking up ahead at the strange bus parked on the side of the road next to an open field. It looked like an old school bus in all ways but the color. This school bus was black with the words
Captain
Jibby’s Traveling Circus Sideshow
painted across its side in large white letters.

Not in the best of shape, the bus had bald tires and the radio antenna had been replaced with a wire coat hanger. The gas cap was also missing and in its place was an old rag stuffed into the opening, giving the bus the look of a four-thousand-pound black-and-white Molotov cocktail on wheels. The hood was open and a man was standing on a wooden apple box next to the bus, leaning over the engine. He looked a little like a lion tamer with his head in the mouth of a large black lion with white lettering across its side.

“Looks like somebody’s having engine trouble,” said Mr. Cheeseman as he slowed the car.

“But Dad,” said Jough. “You’re not going to stop, are you? I mean, who knows how far behind us they are.”

“We must never allow our own circumstances to become an excuse for not helping others in need,” said Mr. Cheeseman. “Besides, I’m sure we could all use the opportunity to stretch our legs a bit.”

“You can say that again,” said Steve.

“And furthermore,” added Mr. Cheeseman, “if danger lurks, I’m sure Pinky will let us know.”

“What does
lurks
mean?” Gerard repeated his question.

“It means that it’s hiding, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice,” said Maggie with an intentionally creepy look on her face. “In fact, it could be right behind you and you’d never even know it. Look out!”

Gerard screamed and spun around to look where Maggie was pointing, but there was nothing there. Maggie laughed at her little brother.

“That wasn’t funny,” said Gerard. “Dad, tell Maggie it’s not funny to scare people.”

“Please don’t scare your brother,” said Mr. Cheeseman as he pulled the station wagon in behind the bus.

“Okay, Dad,” Maggie agreed, reluctantly, for it was hard to commit to giving up something that could be so much fun.

Pinky and the children climbed out of the car and followed Mr. Cheeseman to the front of the bus, where the man under the hood was grunting and mumbling a string of words that, if used by a child, would certainly result in that child having his or her mouth washed out with soap.

Mr. Cheeseman cleared his throat loudly in an attempt to alert the man to their presence and perhaps put a stop to all the cursing.

The man rose up quickly, smacking the back of his head on the engine’s hood. Just as he was about to launch into a veritable greatest hits of swearing, he turned to see Mr. Cheeseman and his three young children.

“Oh. Ahoy there,” said the large man, his thick Scottish accent pushing its way through his bushy orange beard. “What can I do for you fine folks?”

“Actually, it appears that you might be the one who could use some help,” said Mr. Cheeseman.

“Huh? Oh, yes. That I am,” said the man with a hearty laugh as he stepped off the wooden box. Even without the help of the box, the man stood more than a half-foot taller than Mr. Cheeseman. He wore a tattered blue jacket with tarnished brass buttons down the front and on the sleeves, which were stained with no small amount of engine grease. In his right hand, he appeared to be holding a Swiss Army knife with the screwdriver extended.

“Pardon my manners,” the large man said. “My name is Jibby.”

“As in Captain Jibby?” Maggie asked.

“Aye,” the man said. “That be me all right.”

“I’m Ethan,” Mr. Cheeseman offered. “And this is Jough, Maggie, and Gerard.”

Each of Mr. Cheeseman’s three attractive, polite, and relatively odor-free children smiled and nodded as he or she was introduced.

Steve cleared his throat loudly.

“Oh yes,” continued Mr. Cheeseman. “This is Steve. And that is Pinky.”

Pinky did not smile and nod politely. She was busy sniffing Jibby’s shoes.

“Well, I must say it’s a pleasure to meet you all,” said Jibby, offering his new friends a crisp salute. As his right hand snapped to his forehead, it became apparent that he was not holding a Swiss Army knife but rather that the knife had been somehow attached to his wrist where one’s hand might normally be. The children couldn’t help but stare.

“Would you like me to take a look at it?” said Mr. Cheese-man, nodding toward the bus. “I’m quite handy with most kinds of machines.”

“If you don’t mind,” said Jibby. “I’ve been messin’ around with it for two hours now with not so much as a snifter full of luck.”

“Our dad can fix anything,” Gerard said proudly. “He’s an inventor.”

Maggie gave Gerard a stern look and elbowed him in the ribs.

“What happened, exactly?” Mr. Cheeseman asked Jibby.

“Well, we were cruisin’ down the road nigh about fifty knots, when suddenly—”

“Knots?” said Mr. Cheeseman.

“Sorry. Fifty miles per hour. When suddenly she started to make a racket that would wake the dead. Then the old girl just up and quit on me. We coasted to the side of the road and, like I said, that was over two hours ago.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” said Mr. Cheeseman as he climbed up onto the apple box and stuck his head beneath the hood.

The children stood in silence for a few moments until Gerard could take it no longer.

“You have a Swiss Army knife instead of a hand,” he blurted out. Again, Maggie nudged her little brother sharply in the ribs.

“Really,” she scolded. “That’s rude. I’m sorry, Mr. Jibby. Please excuse my brother. He can be pretty obnoxious sometimes.”

“First of all,” said Jibby, “let’s forget all this Mister nonsense. The name is Jibby, plain and simple. Or Captain if you like. Second of all, there ain’t no reason to apologize for pointin’ out the obvious.”

Jibby looked at his right hand with a certain pride and admiration. With his left hand he snapped the screwdriver back into the knife’s handle.

“It is indeed a knife,” he said. “And she’s served me well over the years. You know, when I first lost my hand, they wanted to replace it with a hook. Can you imagine that? An ordinary, everyday hook? So I got to thinkin’. Why not replace it with something more useful? Now, the first thought I had was a can opener. That’s a handy item to have.”

Maggie and Jough smirked.

“What’s so funny?” asked Jibby.

“You said a can opener would be a
handy
item to have,” said Maggie.

“Yes?” said Jibby. “And what’s so funny about that?”

Maggie and Jough looked at each other, not sure whether Jibby was pulling their legs.

“You see, Jibby,” Jough started. “Well, it’s just that, you lost your hand and you said a can opener would be . . .”

Jough decided in midsentence not to continue, based on the look of utter confusion on Jibby’s bristly face.

“Never mind. Please . . . continue your story.”

“Yes, anyway,” said Jibby. “I then thought that perhaps a pair of scissors might be a more versatile item. I imagined a screwdriver might be good as well. Then I thought, why not all of the above and more. And that’s how I ended up with this.”

“And how did you lose your hand?” asked Gerard, whose mouth seemed to be directly connected to Maggie’s elbow, as it poked him sharply in the ribs once more.

“Hey,” Gerard protested.

“That, my lad, is a good question,” Jibby said, kneeling on one knee in front of Gerard. “Now let me ask you one. Do know the proper way to feed a tiger a slab of raw meat?”

“No,” said Gerard.

“Well, neither do I,” said Jibby with a laugh so forceful it seemed as though it must have hurt. He punctuated the laugh by slapping his left hand on his thigh. This time it was the children’s turn to be left out of the joke. Having your hand eaten by a tiger didn’t seem the least bit funny to them even if the person whose hand was eaten found it so.

“Was your hand really eaten by a tiger?” asked Gerard.

“Was indeed,” said Jibby, rising to his full six and a half feet. “Was a time that the sideshow traveled with a host of exotic animals. Two Bengal tigers, a crocodile, a giant python, and a Tibetan yak that stood six feet at the shoulder. Beautiful creatures they were. And talented too, I might add. The tigers could ride unicycles.”

“Wow,” marveled Gerard.

“What happened to them?” asked Maggie.

“Well,” said Jibby as Mr. Cheeseman continued to fiddle away under the hood of the broken-down bus, “I soon realized that a traveling sideshow is no place for a wild animal. The beasts, I’m afraid, were very unhappy. So I did what any kindhearted person would do. I set them free.”

“You mean, you released them back into the jungle?” asked Jough.

“Jungle?” said Jibby with another painfully hearty laugh. “Why, there’s no jungle anywhere near here.”

The children looked at one another once again, not sure what to make of this latest bit of information.

“You mean you just . . . let them go? Here?” said Jough.

“Well, not here,” said Jibby. “I believe it was Utah.”

“Utah?” said Maggie. “You let two Bengal tigers loose in the middle of Utah?”

“Two Bengal tigers, a crocodile, a giant python, and a Tibetan yak,” said Jibby. “But now that I think about it, it could just as easily have been Vermont. Anyway, now our little traveling show is made up of people only. Strange people, yes, but people nonetheless. We’re on our way to Hollywood, you know, to try and break into the movies. How about you folks? Where you headed?”

“Anywhere but Utah or Vermont,” said Steve.