Chapter Two Take off

“What’d you say a brooch was?”

“I think it’s like a small metal thing that you put on your clothes? Wikipedia…”

“Why would you put metal things on your clothes?” Tookie snapped his gum. “That’s dangerous.” He kept snapping his gum and squinting his eyes at Marianna that she started to feel nervous and a little stupid.

“I don’t care about why. That’s not the point, okay?”

Tookie shook his head, leaned further back in the rocking chair, and then snapped his gum again. “How far back in this thing do you think I can go?”

“That’s dangerous. You shouldn’t even be sitting in that; it’s an antique.”

“Like everything else in this house.” He craned his neck around to survey the room.

Mariana stared at him, her best friend, her incredibly monotone and serious best friend, who Marianna would’ve assumed was a pedabot himself if he hadn’t had all that flesh and hair. He certainly had the personality of one. He and Andii got along just fine. Anyway, he always brought her a little down. But he also brought her a little rationality.

“So are you ready to go?” Marianna said.

“Oh. Right. Yeah. We can be back before dinner, right?”

“Sure,” she lied. As if she knew how long this was going to take. They would have to find some good disguises, and what if the climate was different? Would they need winter coats? Those don’t even exist anymore! And what if they somehow got separated? Would their chips be deactivated by going back in time? So many things could go wrong! But she had to do it. She HAD to!

They pulled the BRATT out of her closet and unfolded it. Tookie instantly grabbed the user manual and started reading all the cautions.

“Cheena!”

“They say you need to make sure you blend in.”

“Andii, where are you!?”

“And they say we shouldn’t say anything about the future, because that could mess everything up or something.”

“Can you put this collar on Cheena? I’m going to go tell my mom that we’re leaving.”

Tookie dropped the manual when he took the collar and stared at it and then the dog, back and forth. He sighed. “Fine.”

In no time at all, Marianna was back in the bedroom, with permission to leave and a backpack full of fuses. Cheena had tackled Tookie and they were wrestling on the floor. Marianna laughed and her heart grew because of the life she saw in Tookie. It was mind-boggling.

“Let’s go!” squealed Marianna, sitting in one of the two cramped seats. She slapped her leg and Cheena jumped up, though a little hesitantly. Tookie sat down in the other seat very casually, making sure to buckle his seatbelt. The BRATT company still hadn’t perfected the jostle problem. “Ready, Andii?”

Andii nodded and compacted herself into a very small version of herself, small enough to go in Marianna’s faux-wool jacket pocket. It was the closest thing she could find for a winter coat in her mother’s closet. It had to be cold in 2012!

Marianna snapped the BRATT door shut, put on the time traveling sunglasses that Tookie was already sporting, pressed the appropriate buttons, and then they were off in the dark with a bit of a jostle. And it was only two minutes into their journey that Tookie gasped and yelled out, “The manual!!”