Margaret Haddix: Sabotaged

“You know we didn’t do that,” JB said.

A single tear rolled down Andrea’s cheek. Almost all of Jonah’s experience with girls crying was with Katherine, who was given to big dramatic wails, “Oh, this-is-so-unfair!” In fifth grade Katherine had had some problems with friends being mean, and it had seemed to Jonah as if Katherine had filled the house with her loud sobs every night for weeks: “I can’t believe she said that to me! Oh, why-would-anyone-say-that?”

Jonah had gotten really good at tuning out all of that. Somehow, Andrea’s single tear affected him more. It seemed sadder. It made him want to help.

Andrea was already brushing the tear away, impatiently, as if she didn’t want to acknowledge that it was there.

“Don’t do this to me,” Andrea said. “Just send us back. Now.”

Her voice was hard. She could have been a queen ordering soldiers off to war or calling for an execution.

“Uh, Andrea, that’s probably not a good idea,” Katherine said. “I mean, you will have Jonah and me there to help and all, but being in a different century… it’s probably smart if we can find out as much as we can ahead of time.”

By this, Jonah knew that even Katherine was scared. Maybe she was also hoping that there was still some way to avoid going back in time.

“JB can tell us what we need to know once we get there, right?” Andrea asked, her expression still rigid.

“I could,” JB said. “I will be in contact with you through the Elucidator the whole time.”

Jonah grimaced a little, remembering how much trouble he and Katherine and their friends had had with an Elucidator in the fifteenth century. Part of his problem was that he still didn’t understand it completely-it was a time-travel device from the future, capable of doing much more than Jonah had ever witnessed. But it impersonated common objects from whatever time period it happened to be in. In the twenty-first century, it mostly looked like an iPhone.

In the fifteenth century, it had looked like a rock. It had still managed to translate Middle English, communicate back and forth with JB, turn Jonah and Katherine and their friends invisible, and-oh, yeah-annoy Jonah’s friend Chip so much that he’d thrown it across the room.

Jonah tried to figure out how to mention the problems with the Elucidator without sounding cowardly or scaring Andrea. But she was already answering JB.

“Fine,” she said. “Then give us an Elucidator and let’s go.” She sat up straight, and her chair seemed to rearrange itself in a way that made Jonah think of mother birds pushing baby birds out of the nest.

“I don’t think that that’s the best-” JB began. He stopped, a baffled look coming over his face. He turned slightly, no longer addressing Andrea. “Really? Are you sure?”

He took a few steps away, like someone suddenly interrupted by a call on a wireless headset. Of course, Jonah couldn’t see even the slightest trace of a headset near either of JB’s ears. By JB’s time, Jonah figured, they might be microscopic.

“Yes? Yes? You ran that projection? Just now?” JB paused. “Yeah, Sam, I know it’s your job to think of everything, but still… that was fast.” Another pause. “Oh, when Katherine asked, not Andrea. That makes more sense.” He waited, then gave a pained chuckle. “No, of course I won’t forget the dog.”

He looked back at the kids.

“I’ve been corrected,” JB said. “My top projectionist says it would be best if we sent you right away and then filled you in on everything once you get there. It seems counterintuitive, but projections often are.”

“Projections?” Andrea repeated nervously.

“Predictions,” JB said. “Forecasts. Before any time trip, our projectionists run checks on as many variables as they can think of, and as many combinations of variables, to see what would lead to the best outcome.”

“But,” Jonah began, “you said the projections don’t always…” He stopped himself before the last word slipped out. It was going to be work. The projections don’t always work. JB had told them that. But again, Jonah didn’t want to scare Andrea. He finished lamely. “The projections don’t always… make a lot of sense.”

“Exactly,” JB said. “Which is why we’re sending Andrea back with two untrained kids. I didn’t think I’d ever have to do anything like that again. And you don’t need any special clothes this time, but you do need…” He opened the door he had used before and whistled out into the hallway. “Here, boy!” he called. “Here, Dare!”

A shaggy English sheepdog came padding into the room.

“Oh!” Andrea said, clearly surprised.

“Didn’t JB tell you?” Katherine said. “That was one of the experts’ projections, that this was the only combination we could succeed with: you, me, Jonah, and the dog, all going back in time together.”

“Um, okay,” Andrea said.

JB rolled his eyes.

“Believe me, I’ve never sent a pet back in time before,” he said. “I mean, kids and a dog? If it was anyone else giving me that advice, I’d tell them they were crazy. But Sam is the most brilliant projectionist I’ve ever worked with, so… meet Dare. Your fourth traveling companion.”

The dog padded right over to Andrea and put his big head in her lap. He gazed up at her sympathetically, as if he knew that she’d been crying a moment ago, and he completely understood and would sacrifice his own life if that would make her feel better.

How do dogs do that? Jonah wondered. He was a little afraid that the dog gazing at her might make Andrea cry again, but she just buried her face in his fur and gave him a big hug.

“Nice to meet you, Dare,” she mumbled. Jonah noticed that she sounded happier than she had meeting him and Katherine. She lifted her face and peered up at JB again. “And the Elucidator?”

JB pulled something small out of his back pocket-it looked like the Elucidator was currently impersonating a very, very compact cell phone. He pressed a few buttons on the “phone,” and slid it into a pouch on Dare’s collar.

“All set,” he said. “I’ll talk to you again once you get there. All you have to do is link arms and hold on to Dare’s collar.”

He waited while the three kids got into position. Jonah was kind of hoping he’d get to stand next to Andrea, but Katherine ended up in the middle. JB reached down and touched something on the Elucidator. “Three, two, one… bon voyage!”

The room disappeared.

Does anyone ever get completely used to time travel? Jonah wondered.

He knew, because he’d done it before, that it just seemed like he was falling endlessly through nothingness, toward nothingness. He knew that eventually lights would rush up at him, and he’d feel as if his whole body was being torn apart, down to each individual atom. And then he’d land, and he’d sort of feel like himself again. After a while.

He knew all that, but it was still horrifying to fall and fall and fall…

It must be worse for Andrea.

“Are you doing all right?” he yelled across to her, the words ripped from his mouth by the air rushing past.

Still, she nodded. She had a resigned look on her face, as if she was braced for anything.

Or-as if she didn’t really think this was that bad, because she’d already gone through something that was much worse?

Jonah reached out to her with his free hand. If he linked his left arm around her elbow the same way he’d linked his right arm around Katherine’s, they could travel through time in a circle, with the dog in the middle. When he and Katherine and Chip had traveled back to 1483, they’d formed a circle like that, and it had been comforting, a way to close out at least a little of the void around them.