Richard W. Jennings

For those who've been reading The Time Machine, in which Fancy delivers unlimited specimens to Ricky for his science project, it should be noted that her contribution is significant in many ways, not least of which is the cost. A guinea pig at PETCO sells for $35. Sometimes PETCO has a sale in which they're marked down to $29.99 if you use your PETCO card. So in round numbers Fancy has provided Ricky with at least $3,000 worth of time travelers. Obviously, she has become a good friend. I do hope Ricky appreciates all she's done. — RWJ

© 2010 Richard W. Jennings. Y'all's tights observed.

The Time Machine
Chapter 22

Where Did He Go?

From relief, more than any other reason, the two young scientists gave each other a celebratory hug, although Ricky held Fancy a little longer and closer than Fancy thought was necessary.

As director of test animals for the Ricky Cleese time travel experiments, Fancy removed Emerson from the tube and caressed him reassuringly.

“What a good little guinea pig you are,” she cooed, scratching the wild-haired rodent gently behind his tiny pink ears.

Emerson seemed no worse for the wear, no more so than if he had just fallen from the top of a bookcase or been sucked into a lightweight vacuum cleaner, say, an Oreck, for example.

“What’s that in his mouth?” Ricky asked.

“What?” Fancy responded, still caressing the brave little animal.

“He’s got something shiny in his mouth,” Ricky insisted. “Surely it isn’t dental work. He was only gone for half-an-hour.”

Fancy gently pried Emerson’s razor-sharp incisors apart and retrieved a sparkling gold-and-diamond earring.

“Why, it’s mine!” Fancy cried in amazement. “I lost it during a tennis tournament last year!”

“That little guy’s been places,” Ricky observed. “It’s high time we sent somebody to find out where.”

That night after supper, Ricky thought long and hard about what he had witnessed that day.

From the evidence, he correctly deduced that there was a direct relationship between the power of the time gun and the weight and volume of the item being fired into the past.

That is, an Abyssinian guinea pig weighing slightly more than a common pigeon might travel backward half an hour, while an eighty-five pound weakling such as Warford Tuttle might go only a fraction as far. Possibly only a few seconds.

The problem for Ricky was that, despite all his measuring instruments, he was incapable of determining the precise formula. Math had been his downfall at Sunflower Meadow Middle School. He consistently got C’s and D’s and even F’s on the exams. As much as he tried, he just didn’t get it. Math not only was a foreign language to him, it was a distant world.

Not that he would ever have admitted such a thing to Fancy. She thought he was brilliant and that’s the way he wanted it to remain. Even the public school system had placed him in classes with the truly gifted kids, but it was because of his affinity for scientific topics, not for his math skills.

We all have our blind spots.

Some people who can recite every sonnet that Shakespeare ever wrote get lost the moment they leave their driveways.

Others can do equations in their minds, but can’t tell the difference between a Monarch butterfly and a chickadee.

Within the walls of the Sunflower Meadow Middle School, there are kids who can perform a Chopin nocturne on the piano from memory, but can’t remember anything on the periodic table in chemistry class. There are others who can kick a football between the goal posts from a distance of fifty yards, yet can’t name the first five presidents of the United States.

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, uh, John Quincy Adams, Johnny Cash? Who cares?

God has decreed that we possess unequal gifts.

The trick is to make the best of the ones we have.

Ricky understood this much: If Emerson could be catapulted thirty minutes back into time, then Warford would travel some distance less. Say, for example, that Emerson, after all his dining on treats at Fancy’s house, weighed just under three pounds, and say Warford, being both small and a picky eater weighed only eighty pounds, then one number divided into another number should yield the answer, right?

But which numbers? Ricky asked himself.

It was all so confusing.

Also, quite apart from the mathematical aspects of the situation, Ricky wondered if it would make a difference if Ricky oiled Warford before launching him, to reduce the friction within the walls of the time gun. If so, how could he persuade Warford to permit himself to be oiled? And if he did agree somehow, should Ricky douse his victim with a fine natural vegetable oil, such as extra virgin olive oil from Italy, or would a high performance synthetic motor oil work better?

Then, of course, there was always Crisco.

Ricky’s mind was spinning.

Maybe Fancy was right, Ricky thought. Maybe it was time for as vacation.
If three pounds equals thirty minutes, Ricky struggled to calculate as he fell asleep that night, does it stand to reason that eighty pounds equals eight minutes?

If only he could be sure.

Math, Ricky thought as he drifted into dreamland. What a booger!

"Bad decisions make good stories." — Daschell Potts, Ph.D.

Richard W. Jennings, Author

Moving to Padua, Italy, in mid-June. South Overland Park, Kansas townhouse for sale. Beautiful setting, adjacent to set-aside state-owned wilderness. Three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, all stainless steel appliances, many upgrades, park view, new ceramic tile floor in sunroom, new HVAC, new thousand-dollar high-efficiency Maytag washer, hardwood floors in kitchen and entry, private fenced patio, private drive and more. Below cost: $219,500. Not yet Realtor listed. Respond to richard@richardwjennings.com