Samantha Smart (12 page)

One entertaining distraction, at least, was the growing number of costumed people on the streets. Today was October 31, and young folks everywhere were gearing up for an evening of trick-or-treating. Even the
New York Times
had an especially eerie-looking front page, adorned with pumpkins, witches and black cats in its margins and with the huge headline
HALLOWEEN
written in bold, gothic-looking type. Even though she fancied herself a bit old for that sort of thing, Samantha thought it might be fun to go out in the watery city seeking whatever kind of candy it might offer, or at least get a hold of one of those mini-surfboard scooters that looked so cool.

At the moment, though, they were twiddling pencils and the like, hoping some idea might hit them. Suddenly, The Professor lifted his head and opened his mouth, raising one finger in the air as if he were about to have a revelation. Samantha’s pen stopped moving in circles and she looked at him in hopeful anticipation, but then he closed his mouth into a frown and put his hands and head back down. She resumed wearing a circular hole in her piece of paper as she drew mindlessly with the pen. Finally, she plopped it down on the paper.

“Look, I’m going to take Polly to the park. Can I have a few dollars for a taxi-boat?”

“Mmmmpph,” The Professor acknowledged her, absently fumbling in his lab-coat pocket and handing her a crumpled up wad of bills.

“Thanks.” She sighed, coaxing Polly into her backpack and turning to leave.

“Oh, Samantha–” The Professor came out of his thoughts for a moment. “Try to steer clear of that Jordan fellow.”

“I will,” she replied, departing. She was almost certain that Jordan had not spotted her in 1931, but still was, herself, quite nervous about running into him again.
Though,
she thought,
I could perhaps try to learn more about whatever it is he’s doing, and why.
Her thoughts and feelings about Jordan tumbled around in her head and heart as the rest of her body trudged up the stairway to the main lobby, and she pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. She walked briskly by the massive
barosaurus skeleton and was headed toward the main entrance when she heard a voice that made her stop dead in her tracks.

“Samantha!” a boy’s voice yelled. “Samantha Smart!”

She was briefly terrified. There was only one boy in this alternate timeline who knew her by name, and that was Jordan Anderson. But the voice didn’t sound like Jordan’s; it was a little deeper and sounded almost... Spanish. Slowly, she turned around, trying to pinpoint where the voice had come from, though the most likely source seemed to be a trio of costumed kids about thirty feet away. Two of them seemed too small for the voice; they were dressed as an Arabian princess and a cute kitten of some sort, while the likely shouter stood in between them wearing some bizarre, grayish animal outfit that could have been a pig or a turtle or–

“Samantha?” The princess spoke now.

“Brianna!?” Samantha replied hopefully, walking towards them now. “Brianna, is that you?”

“Of course, silly,” the princess quipped back in a snooty tone, taking off her mask. The others lifted their masks as well, revealing her other two best friends Suki and–Marvin!
Of course,
she thought,
the Spanish voice...

“Marvin!? Suki!?” Samantha was overjoyed. “I can’t believe you guys are here! I’ve missed you all so much!” She hugged them all in turn, almost tearing up as she embraced little Suki. “How did you guys get here!?”

“Um, Brianna’s chauffeur,” Suki replied. “Where’s your costume? I thought we were all meeting here to go to the Heatwavvve
show. You knew we were supposed to dress up, right?”

Samantha looked at all of them and her smile faded. They had no idea what was going on, where they were.

“Yo, your mom’s been looking for you, Samantha. She’s really freaked out, I think. Maybe you should call her.” Marvin let out.

I wish I could,
Samantha thought.

“Yeah, she called my house, too,” Brianna said. Where’ve you been, Samantha?”

“You guys don’t know about the flooding. You must have–Marvin, come with me for a second. Can you guys wait here for just a minute or two?”

“Sure... I guess.” Brianna crinkled up her brow in a puzzled expression. “What do you mean, flooding?”

“All right–everybody just–follow me for a sec, okay?” She pulled Marvin’s hand and the rest of the kids followed, out the main entrance and onto the steps, where they could see the flooded streets of Manhattan and the island of Vista Rock
.

“Damn,” Marvin said in disbelief. “When did
that happen?”

“We–we just walked in here a moment ago,” Brianna said, starting to panic.

“This isn’t possible,” Suki contributed.

“You all had better come with me,” Samantha said, leading them down to a taxi-boat and motioning for everyone to get in. “Belvedere Island,” she said to the driver, who sped off toward the castle.

Her friends sat dumbfounded as they approached the shore, and everyone got out of the boat while Samantha paid the driver. She let Polly out of her backpack, and she immediately began jumping all over Marvin, who had frequently walked her with Samantha back in Brooklyn.

“Hey, Polly! Hey, girl!” Marvin stooped to pet her affectionately. “Still sneakin’ in the museum, huh?” Polly licked his hands and made little whining noises.

“Samantha, what is going on here!!?” Brianna demanded at last.

“Come on,” Samantha said. “I’ll try to explain this as best I can.” She found a bench under a shady tree and sat her costumed friends down. She then proceeded to explain the whole predicament of the alternate timeline, the tree diseases, the global warming, the postman, Vincent Bergen and Violet Edelstein, the coffee, the letter and at last, the sinister true self of Jordan Anderson.

“So that’s what’s up here,” she finished. “Somehow, you guys must have wandered into this timeline just as I did, at the museum.” There was a long silence.

“Right,” said Suki.

“Like, I’m sure,” Brianna offered.

“Check, please!” Marvin shouted, getting up.

“You don’t believe me,” Samantha sighed. “I don’t blame you. This is all extremely hard to believe. All I can say is, you will come to believe it. Look at Central Park,” she said. “Those are your own eyes you’re using; I’m not projecting a movie on the insides of your eyelids.”

“Though that would be phat,” Marvin chuckled. He was always funny and good-natured, no matter what the situation.

“So, you’re saying you’ve been sleeping in Professor Smythe’s office, in the basement of the museum, and that yesterday you traveled back in time, using an ancient Mayan time machine made out of... out of–big rocks, to try and change some event in the past that caused this–this reality
here to happen?” Brianna summarized, still in disbelief.

“Pretty much,” Samantha nodded, grinning hopefully.

“Cool,” Suki smiled.

“Well, I guess the Heatwavvve show’s off, then.” Marvin shrugged. “Fine with me. I always thought they wuz chumps. I was just goin’ ‘cause I knew da ladeez
wanted to check it out.”

“Marvin,” Samantha said, chuckling, “what exactly are you supposed to be in that costume?”

“Yo.” He got up and began to go into one of his mediocre rhymes, “I’m an Aardvark, chillin’ hours before dark, makin’ my mark on the bleak remains of Central Park, yo, it’s all so sudden, time machines and global floodin’, Heatwavvve
’s
hunk is proven a villain, but Dr. Marvy’s still willin’, chillin’... ”

“Ugh. Please make him stop,” Brianna said disgustedly. She was not taking this as well as the others. “What about my family? All our families? What about Mrs. Newberry?”

Mrs. Newberry was Brianna’s family cat, a pure white, long-haired monstrosity that wore a collar of what looked like diamonds around her neck. The Knowles family was
pretty well-off.

“Believe me, Brianna, I miss my family too, even Todd. I haven’t seen them for days... but you have to understand - chances are, any of our parents were never even born
into this alternate reality. I know it–it takes a bit of getting used to, but the only way I’ve figured out to even try to get back home is by doing what Professor Smythe says. I’m... I’m sorry.”

Brianna pouted, and the others all looked more thoughtful now, too.

“Listen,” Samantha sighed. “Don’t take my word for it.” She tapped the talk button on her wrist communicator.

“What’s that!?” Marvin marveled.

“Shhh!” Samantha shushed him. “Professor? Are you there?” She tapped the button off and a crackly voice came back at her.

“Yes, Samantha?” Her friends looked awed.

“Professor, I need you to meet me as soon as you can. I’m on Belvedere Island.”

“What is it?” the voice inquired.

“There’s been a–a new development,” she said, looking around at her friends.

“On my way.” The Professor signed off. Samantha turned off the device to prolong the life of its battery, as she almost always did when not using it.

“That was Professor Smythe?” Suki asked. Samantha nodded.

“Where did you get that cool radio-thingy?” Marvin blurted out.

“Professor Smythe built it,” Samantha responded. “It works through time, even, believe it or not. It’s really quite handy.”

“I’ll bet.” Marvin gaped, shaking his head.

“I want one!” Suki implored, her eyes lighting up like a small child’s on Christmas day.

“Well,” Samantha chuckled, “you may get your wish. We’re sort of... in need of some new people just now.”

Brianna was still sitting quietly, looking at the ground. Polly was sniffing at her leg and she reached down to scratch the dog’s neck.

“Oh, Polly,” Brianna sighed. “If I’d known I was going to be stranded in an alternate future, I would’ve worn something much more fashionable than this silly princess costume.”

*

Professor Smythe arrived on the scene in something like twenty minutes. After Samantha’s round of introductions, he sat down on the bench and tried to assess this latest change in their situation.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “we now have a larger pool of ‘agents’ to choose from, I suppose.” Marvin and Suki looked excited at the word “agents,” though Brianna remained obviously unenthusiastic.

“Yeah,” Samantha piped in. “I mean, it’s kind of a lucky break, isn’t it, Professor? These guys showing up just when we needed someone else?”

“Perhaps... ” The Professor mused, furrowing his brow. “But it also concerns me. More people from the ‘correct’ timeline accidentally being ensnared in this ‘incorrect’ one. Could there be others? What if random people, whom none of us even know, are blundering into this timeline just as you have? What if they, like us, cannot get out?”

“No,” Samantha shook her head. “We’d know, Professor. We’d see people standing on the museum steps staring in disbelief at this flooded New York, don’t you think?”

“Mmmmm. I suppose that’s true. Then I am forced to wonder if your friends’ arrival here is really so random at all. You kids say you were going to a Heatwavvve
show for Halloween?”

“Yes,” said Suki. “It was a big show... a dance party, kind of. I was kind of psyched for it, but I have to say this has turned out to be a lot more... interesting.”

“Word,” Marvin echoed her sentiments, still staring around him like he was on some giant movie set. The Professor stared quizzically for a moment, translating the boy’s American slang in his head as best he could, then shook his head.

“Well,” he concluded, “I suppose we may as well proceed according to our plan. We’ve got the extra personnel now and I can’t think of anything new to do to fix our situation.”

The group got up and walked down to the Belvedere docks, hailed a taxi-boat and ferried back to the museum. They got some funny looks as they filed down the stairs with The Professor, costumes and all, but no one said anything to them or tried to stop them. When they reached the office, The Professor unlocked the door and let them all in.

“Wow.” Marvin drooled. “That’s a nice computer. Can I check it out?”

“Em–er–I’d, uh, I’d rather you didn’t actually.”

“I won’t hurt nothin’, I promise,” Marvin continued.

“He’s really good with computers, Professor,” Samantha vouched for her longtime friend. “He may even find something useful that we haven’t.”

“Oh, um, well... very well, it’s all right, I suppose,” The Professor agreed reluctantly. “But don’t
mess up the desk!”

Marvin eyed the piles of papers and coffee cups that occupied The Professor’s desk and wondered if it could, indeed, become any messier.

“No problem,” he said, sitting down at the console. As he began clicking away, Samantha addressed the others.

“So, we need to send someone else back,” she said firmly. “I’d go myself and so would Professor Smythe, but as I’ve told you, we’re already there, and so can’t go back again. Or shouldn’t, anyway.”

“I’ll go!” Suki volunteered. She was very excited at the idea of time travel, and also relished any opportunity to use a cool electronic gadget like the wrist-communicator as she was very fond of such things.

“I appreciate your bravery and your enthusiasm,” The Professor responded. Suki smiled. “However, I am afraid that we must first ask Marvin.”

Marvin perked up his ears. “Yo, wassup?” Suki frowned.

“Marvin, I hate to sound, well, sexist,
but I fear that this particular mission may in fact involve physical violence. I hate to send any of you young people into such a situation, but as it is utterly necessary, it is my duty, then, as planner and organizer of the mission to make sure I send the most capable person for the job, and the least likely to be hurt. You being, well, frankly, male, and as such almost twice the size of Suki, well, I think you might be best able to handle this.”

“Yeah–ain’t no hood from Detroit nor Chicago can kick it as good as M.J. Santiago... ” Marvin rapped, still clicking on the computer.

“I’m sorry, Suki–but believe me, we may have a mission for you yet before this thing is all over.”

Suki nodded quietly.

“What’s the ‘J’ stand for?” Brianna asked Marvin.

“Jelly Jive Jazzmaster Jackson,” he replied in his rapper’s egotistical tones. Brianna rolled her eyes.