“Hi there.”

  Arctic Guy gives him an icy look. “Who, or should I say, what are you?”

  “My name is Flame Boy, and I’ve come to fight for truth, justice, and the American weight.”

  “That’s way, stupid. ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Flame Boy says. “I’m kinda new at this.”

  “What’s the matter? Couldn’t they afford to send a real superhero?”

  Before our hero realizes he’s been insulted, Arctic Guy leans back and blows a mighty blast of super-cold air. It is so chilly that Flame Boy’s flame immediately begins to flicker.

  But that’s nothing compared to Arctic Guy’s breath. It’s not that it’s bad, but it would sure be better if the guy cut back on those onion-flavored frozen yogurts. Even that wouldn’t be so bad if he’d just stop with the garlic and clam sauce toppings.

  But the freezing cold and foul smell are nothing compared to the overwhelming force of the wind. It’s a hurricane. So strong that it is all Flame Boy can do to hang on to the side of the refrigerator and keep from being blown off. But as he hangs on his flame starts to flicker out.

  And still Arctic Guy blows.

  Oh no. What a terrible dilemma. If Flame Boy lets go, he’ll tumble back to Earth where the chances of finding another fire-eater to shoot him back into the sky are pretty slim even for this story.

  Yet, if he hangs on to the side of the refrigerator his very flame will be blown out (if he doesn’t die first from the smell of onion, garlic, and clam sauce).

  Then, just when his indecision couldn’t be getting any more indecisive——

  Suddenly I stopped typing. I had my answer. Like Flame Boy, I had to do something. I had to make up my mind. I couldn’t just sit around and wait to be destroyed.

  I saved the Flame Boy story, shut down ol’ Betsy, and walked over to my second story window to look outside. It was a scary sight. Six Wally McDoogles all standing guard with toaster helmets and vacuum cleaners.

  Off in the distance, something caught my eye. It was then I realized the nightmare had only begun. . . .

  Less than a block away, running toward me as fast as their little tootsies could carry them, were the other six me’s.

  And directly behind them, closing in fast on his giant electric-powered chair, was the dreaded WUM.

  There was no time to waste. I reached down to pull up the window, but it was stuck. I tried harder. Still nothing. It was then my razor-sharp intellect kicked into gear, and I remembered it would be easier to open the window if you unlocked it. I tell you, sometimes having such intelligence can really be scary.

  I threw open the window and leaned out to shout, “Okay, guys, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  The six Wallys standing guard with their time machines looked up to me. “Are you sure?” they asked.

  “Of course I’m not sure. But when has that stopped us from doing anything in the past?”

  “Or the future,” they agreed.

  I headed back to scoop up ol’ Betsy and returned to the window. Without a word, the six guard Wallys aimed their vacuum cleaner nozzles directly up at me. In perfect unison they snapped on their machines and

  WOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhh . . .

  Chapter 6

  Grand Central

  I don’t want to say time travel is uncomfortable, but picture a hungry boy and a very delicious hamburger. Now picture that hungry boy gobbling down that very delicious hamburger.

  How is that so uncomfortable, you say? Just ask the hamburger.

  First everything went black. Then I was pitched to and fro. Then fro and to. I was toasted. I was baked. I was sliced, diced, and turned into julienne fries. And, just when I thought I was done with all the food comparisons, I was fried, poached, and scrambled.

  I’m not sure how long I was traveling like that. (It’s hard to keep track of time when your body is being pulverized into pre-chewed food goo.) All I know is I eventually landed, face first, in some very soft grass. My heart swelled with gratitude. Not because the traveling was over and not because I landed face first. I was simply grateful for still having a face.

  I opened my eyes and sat up. I was in an incredible rain forest. Giant trees, lush ferns, and trickling waterfalls surrounded me on all sides.

  “Wow!” I cried as I rose to my feet. (Not because of the beauty, but because I still had feet.) I made a quick check of the rest of my body parts. Talk about lucky. I only had a minimum number of bruised body parts and broken legs.

  And luckier still, there were absolutely no other Wallys floating around. Not a single vacuum cleaner whooshing, not a single toaster burning. Everything was incredibly quiet and very, very peaceful.

  I tell you, if this was the future, you could sign me up for it any day. Of course, there seemed to be a noticeable lack of shopping malls, movie theaters, and video games, but I was sure I could find some way of wasting all my time and money.

  I noticed a nearby stream winding through the ferns. I picked up ol’ Betsy and made my way toward the water. The bank of the stream was soft and mossy. A large gray rock rested nearby, and I started to climb it. It was a lot softer than the rocks back home. But that wasn’t the only difference. It also felt a little warmer. Then, of course, there were the eyes, nose, and teeth.

  EYES, NOSE, AND TEETH?

  Whatever it was I was climbing, suddenly stirred awake. And before I could hop off, it rose into the air.

  How odd, I thought. Not only is this rock alive, but it can fly.

  Next I noticed that this particular living rock just happened to be attached to a very large living neck.

  How odd, a living rock attached to a very large living neck.

  Which was attached to an even larger living body.

  How odd, a living rock attached to a living neck which was attached to a—“Great Jurassic Park!” I shouted. “I’m on a dinosaur!”

  Now, I’m sure all you dinosaur freaks out there want to know exactly what type of dinosaur I was on. And having one of those inquiring minds, I normally would have found out. But, at that particular moment, I was somewhat preoccupied with another tiny little matter like . . .

  RUNNING FOR MY LIFE!

  I leaped off Dino Boy and hit the ground just in time to do my usual tumbling and rolling routine:

  “Ouch! Ooch! Ow! Boy does that smart!”

  Then I jumped up and dashed into the forest as fast as I could.

  Unfortunately my new friend had the same idea (without the tumbling and rolling part). Apparently he didn’t appreciate being awakened from his beauty sleep (and with his looks I could see why), so he lumbered to his feet and started to chase after me.

  THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. . .

  The ground shook with every step.

  Now, I’ve never been very good at dinosaur tag (especially the part where they tag you “it” and smash your little body three feet into the ground). So I did what I always do when I’m in trouble. I screamed my head off:

  “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

  But there was nobody there to answer. Well, nobody except this outdated reptile with the bad disposition. And by the way he was snapping and snarling, I figured the type of help he had in mind was not exactly the type I needed.

  Directly ahead of me I saw a large field that looked like somebody had cleared it. I knew I had to stay in the forest and use the trees for cover, so I veered to the right, all the time doing what I do best—screaming:

  “HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME! . . .”

  Meanwhile, the pet reject from the Flintstones was right behind me doing what he did best.

  THUMP, THUMP, THUMP . . .

  His feet were coming closer and closer.

  Now, not being entirely sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, but knowing it wasn’t dinosaur toe jam, I found the strength to run even harder. What was going on? What was this Barney wannabe doing in my future? Come to think of it, what was I about to become in his present?

  And then I heard it:

  “Wally, over here!”

  I looked over to the clearing and saw all twelve of my little photocopy-me buddies floating above it. “We cleared this field for you,” they shouted. “Come on!”

  “What’s going on?” I cried.

  “We made a mistake. Instead of transporting you to the future, we accidentally sent you into the past.”

  Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Now everything made sense. The rain forest, the dinosaur, the fact that twelve of me had tried to do something right. No wonder it turned out so wrong. This wasn’t just a normal kind of McDoogle catastrophe. This was a McDoogle catastrophe times twelve!

  “What do I do?” I shouted.

  “Run out into the middle of this clearing.”

  “What?”

  “Our Time Cleaners are all set. Run into the middle of the clearing, and we’ll suck you into the future.”

  “If I run out there, Dino boy will see me and kill me.”

  “Not if we zap you first.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No, just a little clumsy and accident-prone.

  Hurry!” they shouted. “He’s almost on top of you!”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw his giant feet pounding right behind me.

  THUMP, THUMP, THUMP . . .

  The way I figured it, I had two choices:

  1. Continue starring in this prehistoric movie gone haywire, or . . .

  2. Make a break for it and hope the boys with the household appliances would get it right.

  It was a tough decision. Fortunately, old Big Foot was there to give me a hand. Well, actually a tooth . . . actually several teeth.

  His head appeared behind me, and before I could get out of the way, he opened his mighty jaws and clamped down. Luckily, all he managed to grab was the belt loop to my jeans.

  But that was enough.

  He lifted me high into the air.

  “AUGHHHHhhhh . . .”

  Next he began tossing me back and forth like a rag doll.

  That was the bad news. The good news was that Mom always made me wear my brother’s hand-me-downs, which were always about three sizes too big. This came in handy when I wanted to look like a bag lady or some hip-hopper. It came in even handier when being picked up by a cranky dinosaur.

  The pants were so big that it only took three shakes of Dino’s head before I slipped out of them. And, as luck would have it, my Fruit of the Looms and I flew right into the open field. Right where the twelve of me were standing and aiming their vacuum cleaner nozzles.

  “Ready!” they shouted.

  “Please, God,” I prayed.

  “Aim!”

  “Please, please.”

  “Fire!”

  “Please, please, please—”

  WOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhh . . .

  Once again I was sailing through darkness, feeling a lot like a pre-chewed Big Mac.

  When I finally landed, it was on something far less pleasant than the soft grass of the rain forest. In fact, it felt a lot like a bunch of computer monitors, keyboards, and hot coffee.

  SIZZLE. POP. SPARK. SPARK. SHORT. SHORT.

  Come to think of it, it sounded like a bunch of computer monitors and keyboards . . . with the hot coffee spilling all over them:

  SIZZLE. POP. SPARK. SPARK.

  SHORT. SHORT. SHORT. SHORT. SHORT.

  I opened my eyes. Yup, just as I expected. There I was sprawled out on a bunch of broken monitors and sparking computer terminals . . . with spilled cups of coffee pouring everywhere.

  “We have touchdown!” somebody shouted. “Mr. McDoogle is in the lab.”

  There was a spattering of applause as I sat up and looked around.

  The place was like a giant control room. It was perfectly round with a dozen people sitting around an oval table with computer monitors in front of them. They were all dressed in futuristic clothing that looked like part cellophane wrap and part aluminum foil. Oh, and one other thing . . .

  They were all me.

  I gave kind of a half wave. “Hi, guys,” I said.

  “Hi,” they all said in perfect unison.

  “Welcome to the future, Wally.”

  I looked up to see another one of myselves holding out his hand and offering to help me off all of the smashed computer stuff.

  “Thanks,” I said, throwing my feet over the side and noticing I was wearing the same getup as the rest of them. “Sorry about ruining all the equipment.”

  “We were expecting it,” he grinned. “After all, we’re all Wally McDoogles, right?”

  “Yeah, uh right,” I said, suddenly unthrilled about the idea. “So exactly where am I this time?”

  “This time you’re where you’re supposed to be,” he said. “Twenty-five years into the future. In fact, we built this little room just for your visit.”

  “No kidding?” I looked around. It was pretty impressive. Besides the dozen me’s sitting in front of their computer screens, there was a giant 3-D TV image floating in the center. A giant 3-D TV image of a very familiar looking person running to catch a very familiar looking baseball at the All-City Championship baseball game.

  “Hey,” I said, “that’s me.”

  “And me,” the other twelve said in unison, “before we tried to change things.”

  “Oh, that again,” I said, pushing up my glasses at exactly the same time they did.

  “Yes, that again,” the first Wally said sadly.

  “Listen, how can changing one little thing cause so much trouble?”

  He sighed and answered. “There was a plan, Wally, and we messed it up. And by messing it up everything went haywire.” He reached for a piece of paper on the nearby console. (It took a little doing to find one that wasn’t soaked in coffee.) Once he found it, he drew a straight line across it. Next he wrote a few numbers along the top. “This line, here,” he said. “Let’s pretend it’s God’s will for your life. And these numbers here are your age.”

  “Way back here at age thirteen you decided you wanted to make one little change.” He added a tiny line that angled down ever so slightly from the first.

  “You can barely see it,” I said. “That’s not enough to do anything.”

  “Not at first. But what happens if you keep following that line out to say five years from now, or ten, or thirty, or fifty, or a hundred years?” He continued drawing the new angle until it ran off the bottom of the page.

  “See how that one little difference gets bigger and bigger as the years go on?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s how it is with God’s will. It may not seem like a lot at first, but if we keep following our way instead of His, and if we don’t turn around and ask Him to fix it, things get worse and worse and worse.”

  I stared at the line. “And that’s what you think I’ve done?” I said. “Made a little change at the beginning that keeps getting worse and worse just like that line?”

  He nodded.

  “But what’s wrong with catching a ball? Doesn’t God expect us to do our best?”

  “Of course He does. But He wants us to do it through practice, through hard work, and through perseverance, not by taking shortcuts and cheating.”

  “Hey, I never cheated.”

  “Oh really,” he asked. “Then what’s this?” He reached down to a keyboard and typed in a few strokes. The TV picture that floated in the middle of the room changed. It showed a few seconds later . . . right when the vacuum cleaner version of me was shoving Billy Buckleman to the ground so I could catch the ball.

  “Okay,” I admitted, “maybe that wasn’t so nice. But you can’t tell me that a bunch of other stuff happened just because of that one little detail.”

  “Everything on that diagonal time line happened because you and I tried to rewrite history, because you and I tried to outthink God.”

  Unfortunately, he was starting to make sense. So I did exactly what I do when Mom and Dad make too much sense . . . I changed subjects.

  “So where are all your Time Cleaner thingies?” I asked, as I looked around the room. “What happened to all those vacuum cleaners and toasters that are supposed to send me into the future?”

  “Oh, we still have them. But we thought it would be safer if you just watched the future up on that giant video projection.”

  I looked up to the TV image floating in the middle of the room. “That can show the future, too?” I asked.

  “Yes. We’ve got every year of your life recorded, from the moment you first caught that ball, until the moment you die.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “This is no joke, Wally . . . except for all the funny stuff that keeps happening to you for the rest of your life.”

  I gave a weak smile. “How much can I see?” I asked.

  “We figured three sections would be enough. Three very different times in your future that will help you understand why you must go back and fix things.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  He turned to one of the nearby Wallys and ordered, “Put up the first Wally scene.”

  “Yes, sir,” the other Wally replied as he typed something on his keyboard. “Wally McDoogle ten years into the future.”

  Immediately, the first picture of me was replaced by another. I was older, wearing sunglasses and real cool clothes made of gold thread. And, as always, I was munching away on another Gooey Chewy bar.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8