Mark Dunn - The Age Altertron

between those two ensued.

“I reached into the fray to break them up, and in so doing I lost my balance — for this is the way with people of advanced years: they sometimes lose their equilibrium and stumble and fall — and I did so in a most inconvenient and destructive way! For I fell directly into the Age Altertron and jangled loose its circuitry board and caused a

little unintended arcing between its electrodes, and this produced a little fire, which grew into a slightly bigger fire, and before I knew it, I was spraying my arcing, flaming, smoke-belching Altertron with a fire extinguisher. And when the smoke cleared and all the extinguisher foam had dissolved away, there was nothing left before

me but a broken, wrecked shell of what that machine had once been — a testament to fatigue and stupidity and the tendency of dogs when attacked by cats to defend their canine honor at all costs. “Everyone was counting on me and I let them down. I let you down.” The Professor shook his head and closed his eyes and became very quiet.

Rodney and Wayne and their friends exchanged looks of concern. “You didn’t let us down, Professor,” said Wayne. “No,” agreed Becky, “you just made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“We just have to build ourselves a brand new Age Altertron— an Age Altertron II!” said Rodney with forced cheer.

“How long do you think that will take?” asked Wayne. Professor Johnson opened his eyes. “You boys will have to be the ones to build it. Under my direction, of course. Because I am much too weak and frail to do anything but to tell you two what to do. Do you think that you can do it?”

Rodney and Wayne nodded. “Excellent. Then all is not lost. But first, let me sleep, for I am very tired. I must have twenty-four hours of rest to recuperate.

While I am sleeping, boys, go down to my laboratory and take an inventory of all of the parts of the wrecked machine.” (Yawn.) “Set aside those which you think we can reuse and throw out those you think we cannot.” (Yawn.) “And feed Tesla and Gizmo their breakfast.” (Yawn) “And tell your mother, Grover, that she isn’t to overly tax herself at her now-advanced age, and may come to my house to cook for me only when she feels she is able.” (Yawn) “For that matter, I cannot eat much solid food in my present state anyway, but will be nutritionally satisfied with some oatmeal or Cream-of-Wheat or some other form of soft cereal or custard. If my cupboard is bare, then please go to Toland’s Market, Grover, and procure soft foods that I can gum. Goodnight, children. I will speak to you again in twenty-four hours.”

In which Jackie Stovall finds his voice and a worthy mission

o there it is,” said Rodney, using one of his father’s favorite phrases.

“Yes, there it is,” said Wayne in agreement.

The two boys stood in the Professor’s laboratory surveying the damage from the stumble and the fire. It was morning now, and Grover and Becky and Petey had gone home to rest. “We should get back home ourselves and make breakfast for Aunt Mildred,” said Rodney, stepping over Gizmo, who was crunching her cat food. In the other corner of the laboratory Tesla was eating dog kibble, but keeping a wary eye on his now-mortal feline enemy. “Let’s stop at the market and pick up some food that Aunt Mildred can eat.”

The boys passed the Professor’s key-rack mounted on the wall next to the door to the garage. A special key chain hanging there caught Wayne’s eye. He stopped and pulled it down to give it a closer look. The key chain dangled from a woman’s head sculpted in metal. The woman’s hair was flowing straight back as if she were facing a strong wind. “Hey, look at this, Rodney! It’s just like the hood ornament on the Professor’s car.”

“That’s because the key chain is probably made by the Nash Car Company. Put it back, Wayne. We have to get to the store.” “Why can’t we take the Professor’s Nash to the store? He won’t be able to use it any time soon.”

“Because it’s the Professor’s car, not your car. Put the key chain back.”

But Wayne didn’t obey his brother. Instead, he opened the door to the garage and turned on the light. There sat the Professor’s 1946 Nash Ambassador convertible. Even though it was ten years old, the car looked as if it had just rolled off the car lot. It was black and sleek and outlined in glistening chrome. Like most of the cars of its day, it was sloped and curved as if it had muscles. The tires had white walls to them that had not even the slightest smudge of dirt. “Isn’t she a beauty?” said Wayne. “I’ll bet the Professor has someone come in to clean and polish her every month.” “I’m not going to let you drive the Professor’s car, Wayne.” “But I’m sixty-six years old!”

“ No , Wayne.”

“But Dad let me drive his Fairlane.”

“Yes. Around the parking lot at the supermarket.” “But Rodney! That’s exactly where we’re going! To the parking lot of Toland’s Supermarket!”

“Absolutely not, Wayne.” Rodney snatched the key chain out of his brother’s hand. “The Professor has enough to worry about without you demolishing his car.”

“Then I’m just going to sit in it.”

“Aunt Mildred is probably really hungry, Wayne. We have to get to the store.” Rodney pushed his brother out of the way so he could close the door to the Professor’s garage. He returned the Nash key chain back to its hook on the key rack.

“Did you see how the grillwork shined, Rodney? How do you get grillwork on a car to shine like that? Say, Rodney, have you ever seen so much shiny front grillwork on one car?”

“You think about cars too much, Wayne. We have a lot of other things to think about right now.”

Wayne nodded. He reached up and longingly touched the Nash key chain. Then he touched the two keys hanging from the chain, one of which would start the engine of his favorite car in the world — a car he wasn’t allowed to drive, even though he was now sixty-six-years old.

When Rodney and Wayne got to the supermarket, they noticed something strange. There was a small crowd of people gathered outside. Most of the men and women were either the same age that Rodney and Wayne now were, or a little older. One of the men looked like a grown-up version of Davy Rockwell, a boy in Rodney and Wayne’s class at school.

“Is that you , Davy?” asked Wayne.

“Yeah. Is that you , Rodney and Wayne?”

The brothers nodded. Wayne was about to comment on how

different they all looked, when Davy called out to the people around him, “Hey, lookit, everybody! It’s Rodney and Wayne. Hey guys, how come we went from being babies to this ? What happened?”

“Yeah, what happened?” asked Sharon, a blond-haired girl in Rodney and Wayne’s class who now had streaks of white running through her hair.

Before either of the twins could answer, a boy named Virgil, who had been the president of the Eighth-Grade French Club and always liked to use a little French when possible, said, “So I’ll get to be a thirteen-year-old again soon, no? N’est pas, mon amis?” (“Is it not so, my friends?”)

Rodney didn’t want to tell everyone that it was on account of the Professor’s accident that over fifty years had been added to everyone’s ages. So he said, “The Professor is working on the problem. We are hopeful that things will be back to normal in no time.”

Then Rodney turned to Davy. “What are all these people doing out here? Is the store closed?”

“Kind of. It’s closed to anybody who needs to buy food for their really old family members.”