The Forgetting Machine (6 page)

“You're supposed to read it, not eat it,” I said. I opened the book to the middle. Mr. Peebles plopped down on top of the book and began to purr.

“I can see you're a real book lover,” I said.

I went back to the ransom note. On second reading, it didn't seem like such a good idea. They would probably guess who sent it, and there was probably some sort of law against catnapping and ransom demands, even if it was for a good cause. Even if the cat was not in fact
napped
, but had defected of his own free will. It wasn't fair.

I could almost hear Mom.
Fair? Life is not fair!
She said that often about things I considered unfair. My mother could be quite unreasonable at times.

My thoughts were interrupted by someone repeatedly pressing our doorbell. I peeked out my window and saw Mrs. Tisk standing on the front steps. My mother answered the door. Words were Spoken, most of them by Mrs. Tisk. Then my mom spoke some Words that made Mrs. Tisk's pasty face turn red, and moments later she turned and walked off all stiff-legged and indignant.

I threw Mr. Peebles in my closet, jumped back in bed, and pretended to be reading something on my tab. A minute later I heard my mother's distinctive, sharp-knuckled rap on my door.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Ginger, open the door.”

I opened the door. My mother's laser-beam eyes instantly zeroed in on the bowl on the floor next to my bed.

“Ginger, why does your room smell like tuna fish?”

“Um . . . I got hungry?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Ginger, did you steal the Tisks' cat?”

“No,” I said. It wasn't a lie. Not exactly.

“Do you know where the Tisks' cat is?”

She had me boxed in with that question. I was trying to think what to say when Mr. Peebles started scratching at the closet door.

“It's possible that some strange cat followed me home,” I said.

She crossed the room and opened the closet. Mr. Peebles strolled out, hopped onto my bed, and curled up on my pillow.

“Ginger . . . ”

“You should ask the Tisks why they messed up my copy of
Charlotte's Web
.”

“So that's what this is about. I suppose you think kidnapping is the proper response to a minor computer problem.”

“It's not a
minor
problem; it's a
major
one. I mean, how would you like it if somebody changed all the words in one of your books? And it's not
kid
napping, it's
cat
napping, and anyway, I didn't do anything except give Mr. Peebles some tuna.”

My mother crossed her arms. “Ginger . . . ”

“Nothing can be proved,” I said.

“This is not a court of law. I don't need proof to know when my daughter is guilty. I want you to return that cat to the Tisks immediately, if not sooner.”

“But what about
Charlotte's Web
?”

“That is a separate issue. Your father said he will deal with it on Monday, and so he will. Now
take that cat back
! And while you're at it, apologize to them.”

“But—”

“Now!”

  •  •  •  

Mr. Peebles did not care for the cat crate, but I bribed him with some of Barney's cat treats and soon was on my way to the Tisks. Mr. Peebles complained every step of the way.

“Shut up,” I told him. “At least you don't have to apologize to that book-wrecking old bag.”

“Mroooow!”

“Whatever.” I was in no mood to argue. I didn't mind giving the cat back, but I
hated
apologizing to
anybody
—even if I happened to be in the wrong.

Mrs. Tisk opened the door about two seconds after I rang the bell. I saw Dottie standing behind her.

“I found your cat,” I said.

“Tsk,” she replied.

I opened the crate. Mr. Peebles ran between her legs, into the house, and hopped into Dottie's arms.

“I'm sorry,” I said, my jaw almost breaking from the effort of squeezing out those words. “He followed me home.”

“Tsk,” said Mrs. Tisk.

Mr. Tisk came up behind her. “What is going on here?”

“This is the girl who stole Dottie's cat,” said Mrs. Tisk.

Mr. Tisk peered out at me. The two of them filled the doorway. “Oh,” he said.
“You.”

“Yes. Me,” I replied. “And I didn't steal him. He followed me home, maybe because he doesn't like living with people who hate books.” I probably shouldn't have said that last part, but he was making me mad.

“You are a very rude young lady,” said Mrs. Tisk.

“I know you hacked
Charlotte's Web
,” I said, getting madder. “And I'm going to prove it!”

She slammed the door in my face—again.

The next morning Mom pulled out all the stops for Sunday breakfast: toaster waffles
and
microwaved bacon. Mom and Dad had already finished eating when I got up, but they were still sitting at the table.

“How did it go with the Tisks last night?” Mom asked.

“I gave them their cat back and said I was sorry.”

“Good.”

“Even though I wasn't, really. After what they did to Charlotte.”

“We'll get your book problem straightened out tomorrow,” Dad said.

“I'm sure the Tisks did it,” I said. “I mean, he
said
he was going to burn every last copy.”

“You may be right,” Dad said. “But there are many other possibilities. As I told you before, we'll get it all straightened out on Monday. You'll just have to wait.”

I am not good at waiting.

  •  •  •  

I can be a little obsessive sometimes, which is to say most of the time. There were many things I could have been doing that day, but the only thing I wanted was to find out what happens to Charlotte and Wilbur. If anybody other than my dad could undo the damage to
Charlotte's Web
, it would be Billy Bates. Maybe he could help me with the Flinkwater thing too, if we weren't rudely interrupted again by his tutor.

Given the violently insecticidal tendencies of his robot butler Alfred, I was relieved when Billy answered the door himself.

I saw why at once. Alfred was on the floor, decapitated. Billy was holding his head—or rather, his sensor array—under his arm.

“You tore Alfred's head off?” I said.

“Just a tune-up,” Billy said. He tipped his own head to the side to look at me from a slightly different angle, as if he was trying to figure out who I was. “Can I help you?”

That was a weird thing to say. How did he know I needed help?

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “I have a mystery that needs solving. Two mysteries, actually.”

“Um . . . okay?” He was still giving me that odd look.

I launched into the whole
Charlotte's Web
thing, and told him about what had happened with the Tisks, and how I'd sort of kidnapped their cat, and how it had all started because I had to write this paper for school, and . . . well, when I get talking, sometimes I talk a lot. I finally ran out of things to say and awaited his hopefully helpful response.

He said, “Okay, but . . . you are . . . who again?”

“I'm still who I've always been,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“I'm Billy,” he said, not at all helpfully.

“Well I'm Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Billy blinked, then said, “Wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Longest serving first lady of the United States, March 1933 to April 1945. United States delegate to the United Nations, 1946 through 1952.”

I said, “Huh?”

“You seem too young to be
that
Eleanor Roosevelt, whose first name was actually Anna, and who died on November 7, 1962, at age seventy-eight. Were you named after her?”

“No! Billy, cut it out! I was kidding!”

“Your name isn't Eleanor Roosevelt?”

“No!”

“Then what is it?”

I gaped at him uncomprehendingly.

“Seriously,” he said. “Have we met?”

I punched him in the stomach.

I
know
not to hit people. It's barbaric, rude, dangerous, and unseemly. But then so is pretending not to recognize one's Longtime Acquaintance and Beloved Fiancée and Soul Mate and True Love. Billy was just asking to be punched.

Billy said, “Oof!” and staggered back. “What was that for?”

“For pretending not to recognize me,” I said. I felt bad about it right away, even though I didn't hit him that hard. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Yes! Okay! Just don't do that again.”

I unclenched my fist. “It was a one-time thing,” I said.

“It
hurt
!”

“I'm sorry.”

“You can't just walk into somebody's house and hit them. And besides, how am I supposed to recognize you? I don't
know
you!”

For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe he wasn't pretending. And that scared me worse than anything.

“I'm
Ginger
!” I said.

“Then why did you tell me your name was Eleanor?”

“I was being sarcastic,” I said. “How come you know so much stuff about Eleanor Roosevelt, anyway?”

He shrugged. “I know lots of stuff, especially American history. I have a really good tutor.”

Oh-ho,
I thought. “You really don't recognize me?”

He shook his head.

“Do you know when Eleanor Roosevelt was born?”

“October 11, 1884. Why?”

Ah-ha,
thought I.

“Billy, have you had trouble remembering anything else today?”

“Um . . . not that I know of. Of course, if I can't remember something, then how would I know I don't remember it?”

“Good point. But it's kind of a big deal when you can't remember your girlfriend!”

“I have a girlfriend?”

  •  •  •  

It took some convincing. I showed him some of the selfies we had taken, then we went downstairs to his subbasement lair and looked up the article about us in the
Flinkwater Times
from when we saved the town from the SCIC plague.
^I

“Wow,” he said. “I don't remember any of that! What happened to me?”

“I think you got unREMEMBERed,” I said.

Billy thought for a moment, then said, “Oh. It's like in
A Study in Scarlet
.”

“Exactly.”

  •  •  •  

Sherlock Holmes was one of Billy's heroes, along with Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, and Doctor Who. I liked Sherlock Holmes too. I had recently read
A Study in Scarlet
, in which Dr. Watson discovers that his friend Holmes doesn't know that the earth revolves around the sun. Holmes, amused by Watson's stunned reaction, says, “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” Holmes goes on to explain:

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. . . . There comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

Billy said, “My memories of you must've got shoved out of my head when Mr. Rausch downloaded
A Comprehensive History of the United States
into my brain.”

“The whole book? How did he do that?”

“I'm not sure,” Billy said. “It's all kind of a blur.”

“We have to get him to reverse it! Tell him he has to take some of that history out of your head and put me back in.”

“But what if my memories are just . . . gone? It's not like you can store memories on a flash drive.”