For Abigail Contessa and her very cool mom, Molly Choi
Twelve-year-old Gerdie Baker frowned at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. She had long and lumpy limbs; huge, Hobbit-like feet; hair like a tumbleweed in an old cowboy movie; and an unfortunate under-bite that made her look like a caveman. She was a mess, which led her to one undeniable conclusion: She must be a Bigfoot. Like Bigfoots, she lumbered when she walked. Like Bigfoots, she scared small animals. Like Bigfoots, she grunted when she ate.
Since her parents weren't Bigfoots, she concluded that she must have been discovered in the wilds and transplanted to the suburbs of Akron, Ohio, for study. It was the only reasonable explanation.
To prove her theory she had done a few simple calculations:
· There was a 40% chance that her family had found her on a camping trip, shaved her down, and taught her to speak.
· There was a 35% chance that she was part of an experiment by the Department of Fish and Wildlife in hopes of integrating Bigfoots into modern society.
· There was a 23% chance that from a cage in a traveling sideshow.
· And then, there was the teeny-tiny 2% chance that she wasn't a missing link at all but a twelve-year-old girl suffering through a very awkward period. This 2% was only on the list because Bigfoots are not known for their math skills, and so the fact that she could construct these possibilities left a hole in her theory.
She was devising a new list of theories on why a Bigfoot might know calculus when she heard a loud squeal coming through her open bedroom window. Gerdie walked over and looked outside into the backyard. There she saw cake, balloons, a deejay, streamers, punch, a karaoke machine, and two dozen pretty girls in cheerleading outfits having the time of their lives. Her birthday party was obnoxious.
Her mother had gone all out this year for Gerdie and her sisters, Linda and Luanne-otherwise known as the Baker Triplets. But Gerdie could not bring herself to go down and join the fun. Just because she shared their DNA (as her mother claimed) didn't mean she was one of them. Linda, Luanne, and their friends were all gorgeous, like they had stepped out of a fashion magazine. "Gruesome Gerdie" looked like she had crawled out of Field and Stream. Her mind couldn't help but calculate what would happen if she were to show her face at the party.
· There was a 54% chance that the girls would laugh at her.
· A 29% chance that they would stare at her like she was from another planet.
· A 10% chance that someone would scream and/or faint and/or vomit.
· And a 7% chance that someone would call Animal Control and have her shot with a tranquilizer dart.
Nope. She didn't belong down there…yet. But soon, very soon, she would be one of the pretty ones. She, too, would be the center of attention. You see, Gerdie Baker had plans. Which was probably further evidence that she was not really a Bigfoot. Bigfoots don't spend a lot of time thinking about the future. She would have to increase the 2% to 3%
She sat down on her bed, snatched a notebook off her nightstand, and opened it to a math problem. This one was more complicated than anything she had ever attempted. It stretched out over dozens of pages, x's and y's holding on to pluses and minuses like life preservers in a murky sea. Soon, she would fish them out and unlock their mysteries and her miserable life would change forever. If only she still had her-
There was a knock at the door.
"Leave me alone. I don't want any cake," Gerdie shouted.
But the knock came again.
Setting down her notebook, she crossed the room and threw open the door. There was no one there. She craned her neck into the hallway, but it was empty. She glanced down and saw an envelope on the floor. It was addressed to her. She scooped it up.
Inside was a note that read, There are presents for you downstairs.
Gerdie sighed. She might as well go down, get the presents, and get it over with.
In the backyard a sea of surprised girls stared at her. The 29% had been correct. She could almost hear the confusion in their minds as the guests tried to understand how she could be related to Linda and Luanne. Maybe coming downstairs hadn't been a good idea.
"Have some cake, Gertrude," her mother said as she approached with Gerdie's sisters in tow.
Gerdie eyed the birthday cake. It was shaped like a megaphone-the kind cheerleaders use at football games. It read, Happy Birthday, Luanne, Linda, and G.
"G?"
Gerdie's mom looked defensive. "Honey, Gertrude is a long name. There's only so much cake! Where are all the friends you invited?"
"She doesn't have any friends to invite." Linda laughed.
"I used to before we moved," Gerdie cried. "I had lots of friends."
"No, you hung around with the nerd herd," Luanne said. "The biggest collection of waste cases in the history of Nathan Hale Elementary. Moving us here was the best thing that could have happened to you."
Gerdie sighed. They had moved from Arlington, Virginia, a year and a half ago, and she had never adjusted. "Well, let's open some presents."
Everyone gathered around a table stacked high with boxes wrapped in pretty bows, and Gerdie's mom handed them out one by one. It took nearly a half hour of unwrapping before she uncovered a present for Gerdie.
Gerdie opened it. It was a dog collar. Linda and Luanne laughed the loudest in a chorus of giggles. Gerdie wanted to throw the collar into the crowd, along with a few well-aimed punches. But her mom quickly handed her another present. "Don't be mad. The girls are just teasing."
Gerdie opened the small box and suddenly her scowl was replaced by a toothy smile "It's an Inimation 410A!"
"A what?" her mother asked.
"It's a state-of-the-art scientific calculator with over four hundred mathematical functions. It has a two-line display with thirty-two levels of parenthesis! It does formula notation; variable statistics; fraction and decimal conversions; Boolean operations; probability searches; degree, radian, and grad conversions; sine, cosine, and tangent calculations; as well as exponent and trigonometric functions. It also has a hundred and fifty megabytes of memory storage, plus it runs off a solar cell."
Gerdie stopped talking. She knew everyone was staring at her-even the party clown.
"It's very advanced," she finished quietly.
"What a nerd," Luanne said as she, Linda, and her mother left Gerdie to go to the patio, which they were using as a dance floor. Their mom was entirely too old to dance with the girls and their friends, but it didn't stop her from teaching them a goofy dance she called the "Electric Slide." She was giggling like a twelve-year-old.
Gerdie looked around. Who would have bought her such an amazing present? She shook her head. Oh, who cared! She couldn't wait to test it!
She turned to run back to her room, but standing behind her was a man built like a tree with thick arms and legs. He had jet-black hair with a white stripe down the middle-just like a skunk-and it hung down in his eyes. He had a long, shaggy beard, and an eye as white as snow. At the end of one of his arms was a silver hook where his hand should have been.
"Here's one more," the strange man said, handing Gerdie a thin envelope with his good hand. Just like the envelope upstairs, it was addressed to her. "My employer hopes you have a happy birthday."
"Huh? Who is your employer?" Gerdie asked, but the man turned and hurried away. "Are you with the caterers?"
But he was gone. Gerdie shrugged off the odd encounter and opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of plain white paper that read:
X = 41.6443/3
"What is it, Gerdie? You look like you don't feel well," her mother said, stepping off the dance floor for a breath of fresh air.
Gerdie didn't answer. Instead, she darted into the house, up the stairs, and back into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She snatched her notebook off the bed, then fumbled to open her new calculator with nervous hands. Once it was powered on, she typed in her equation. Then she punched in the mystery number for the value of x and pressed the Equals button. Suddenly, the calculator buzzed and blinked and bounced around in her hand. Its plastic case got so hot that Gerdie dropped it on the floor. There was a POP! and a CRACKLE! And then the screen went black.
"No!!!" she cried, scooping it back up, ignoring the burns to her hands. She punched the buttons, but there was no life left in it. She tossed it aside and buried her face in her pillow. Tears streamed out of her eyes, soaking her cheeks and lips. She needed the answer to her equation! It would change everything.
And then she heard the Inimation 410A hum to life once more. She sat up, wiped her eyes, and looked down at the calculator lying on the floor. On the screen was flashing a number:
17
17
17
Gerdie couldn't believe what she was seeing. The math problem she had labored over for more than a year and a half was solved. The dark ocean had calmed and the numbers had found dry land in the form of the beautiful number 17!
Gerdie raced to her closet and threw open the door. Inside was a tube of blue-and-gray drafting paper. She unrolled it on her desk and smoothed it out to reveal the plans for a bizarre-looking machine. It had buttons and knobs and two glass tubes rising out of the top. She studied it like it was a masterpiece hanging in an art museum. Then she glanced down at the mysterious letter still crumpled in her hand. Attached to the paper with the equation was another letter, this one on stationery from a place called the Arlington Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It was signed, Happy birthday from your pal Heathcliff. Gerdie smiled.
"Thank you, Heathcliff. This is the best birthday present ever."
THREE DAYS LATER
Gerdie tightened the final screws on her creation. She stepped back to admire her beautiful invention. Two glass tubes rose from the top like bunny ears, straps hung down like limp arms, and its faceplate had a dozen different dials and parts from old video game consoles. In truth, it was an ungainly misfit, but then again, so was its creator. No matter: The government would pay her a fortune for the machine once they saw what it could do.
She tapped the power button and heard the motors turning. A fuzzy map formed on one of the tiny monitors, and after peering at it for a long moment, she punched some coordinates into the keyboard on its side. It weighed a ton, but she hefted the device onto her back and reached over to push the record button on a mounted video camera. A good scientist always documented her successes and her failures.
"Well, this is the maiden voyage of my machine. I still don't have a name for it, but I'll worry about that if it works. If all goes according to plan, I will vanish from my bedroom and reappear half a block away in the church parking lot," she said. "If not-I don't know. I've never built a teleportation device before, using my allowance as the budget. I know it's probably dangerous to test this in the house, but I just can't resist!"
She awkwardly turned to look at the movie star photos she had taped to her bedroom walls. "If this thing works, I'm going to use every penny to make myself look like you-hair, makeup, dental work-everything. I'll be an all-new me, and Gruesome Gerdie will be a thing of the past."
She flipped the activation switch. Above her head she could hear the glass cathode tubes warming. She gazed upward just in time to see a powerful charge passing back and forth between them, creating a tiny lightning storm of crackling energy. The electricity formed into a spinning ball of perfect light that grew and grew. Its surface was clear and white, but when Gerdie ran her hand through it, she left streaks where her fingers had glided-like smearing icing on a birthday cake. The circle grew bigger than her whole body, and then it floated down from above until it was directly in front of her face. There was an odd tearing sound, like someone was ripping a huge piece of paper in two, and with shocking force Gerdie was dragged into the energy circle.
A split second later she was freezing and blind. She rubbed her eyes into focus. To her surprise, she was not in her bedroom or in the church parking lot. Instead, she was alone in a frozen wasteland that stretched as far as the horizon. Ice covered everything and snow was coming down in blankets, each tiny crystal like a razor cutting at her exposed skin.
"Where am I?" she said, teeth chattering, to no one in particular. There didn't seem to be a living soul for miles. Had she plugged in the wrong latitude and longitude? Had she assembled the machine incorrectly? Had her equations been incorrect?
No! That wasn't possible. Gerdie took great pride in how thorough she was. No matter how simple the problem, she accounted for every possible solution. Her teachers often complained that she made things intentionally difficult. She had once used a whole ream of paper to prove the answer to 2 + 2! Still, here she was, in a place too cold even for Santa Claus. No, something else was wrong. Heathcliff's number must have altered the machine's basic function.
Shivering, Gerdie pushed the plunger on her machine, but nothing happened. The battery was dead. Her device had a self-charging fuel source, but it would be ten minutes before it was ready to teleport her again. Unfortunately, she was wearing a pair of linen pants and a short-sleeve shirt. She wouldn't survive that long. Her fingers and toes were already numb.
"Help!" she cried. "Is anyone out there?"
Suddenly, she heard something odd. It sounded like footsteps, but how could she hear someone approaching with the roaring wind all around her? "Hello?"
There was no response, just more heavy footfalls, so Gerdie decided to move toward the sound. The weight of the teleportation device wasn't making it easy to trek through the deep snow, but she struggled forward. She climbed up an icy slope, where she thought she could actually hear the heavy breath of her rescuer. But when she reached the crest, she saw something that just couldn't be possible. It was nearly twelve feet high and covered in thick, curly hair. It smelled of mud, and it had long curving tusks that sliced through the air, pointing right at her. She had seen paintings of such creatures in books, and even a skeleton up close at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., but they weren't supposed to exist anymore. Even if she had teleported to the North Pole or Antarctica, or wherever she was, the last woolly mammoths died ten thousand years ago.
The beast seemed as startled by her as she was by it, and it reared back on its hind legs. When it came crashing back down, it roared and stomped its huge feet. Gerdie was sure it would charge and crush her flat. She stepped back, missed her footing, then felt herself plunging downward as her machine dragged her to the bottom of the icy slope. She tried to get to her feet, but the weight of the teleportation machine would not let her stand. She struggled out of its straps, then did her best to pull it behind her. She couldn't abandon it. It was her only way back home.
But the mammoth was charging toward her, its huge head down and its tusks aimed at her heart. She rolled into a ball, and the giant creature ran right over her, missing her entirely. Somehow it managed to miss the machine, too.
She scrambled to her feet, but a blast of cold air hit her hard. She lost her grasp on the machine and fell, rolling like a snowball, end over end, until she stopped at the mouth of a cave. Standing over her were three figures wrapped completely in animal hides. They held spears and grunted angrily at her.
The trio leaped forward with spears in hand, but instead of killing her they ran right past and attacked the mammoth. Their weapons were crude-nothing more than sticks with sharp stone points-but they were thrown with deadly accuracy. One went into the creature's front leg and the second into its head. The third caught the beast in the heart. It wailed in agony, finally falling forward onto the snow. The creature was dead.
As she watched, stunned, Gerdie was lifted to her feet by strong hands. More of the strange warriors had stepped out of the cave and were helping her. They pulled her inside the cave, deep into its darkness.
By the light of flickering torches mounted on the walls, she caught glimpses of cave paintings: hunters fighting herds of mammoths, strange deerlike creatures, something she thought might have been a saber-toothed tiger. The paintings looked fresh, as if recently painted.
With each step she felt the bitterly cold air growing warmer and warmer. Wherever these people were taking her there was a fire. Finally, she was led into a huge room. At its center was a bonfire with nearly forty people gathered around it-children, babies, parents, elderly men and women. All were wearing animal hides, like her saviors, and a few held long, pointy spears.
Several of the women sprang into action. They escorted Gerdie close to the fire and gave her a crude cup full of an earthy tea. They urged her to drink. The liquid rolled down her throat like lava, warming her to her toes.
"Where am I?" she asked.
The crowd looked at her oddly. It was obvious they did not understand her. Who were they?
And then a theory began to unfold in her mind. Clearly, she had not been teleported as she had intended. Could her ugly little machine actually allow her to travel through time?
And then her heart was racing. "My machine," she said, trying to mime the size and shape of it. "It's out there. I need it!"
The people watched her panic with confused faces. They had no idea what she was saying. They would be no help. She would have to go back out into the snow and get her machine. She couldn't be trapped in the past forever.
Just as she was ready to bolt for the exit, the three warriors who had killed the mammoth came in and joined the crowd. One of them held her machine. Overjoyed, she raced to them. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! You have no idea how important this is to me. It's my only way home and…"
The warrior removed her hood and gave Gerdie a shock even more powerful than coming face-to-face with an extinct monster. This "Eskimo" was small with kinky red hair and bad teeth. She had big feet and long arms and legs and a face like a Bigfoot. She looked exactly like Gerdie.
The other two warriors lowered their hoods and Gerdie got another shock. They looked exactly like her sisters, Linda and Luanne. She scanned the cave and quickly picked out a perfect match for her mother. Old Mr. Carlisle from next door was feeding the fire. A carbon copy of her seventh-grade teacher, Ms. Romis, was hovering nearby. Almost everyone she knew had a twin in that cave.
Dumbfounded, she sat down on the ground and gazed at her invention. It wasn't a teleportation device, and it certainly wasn't a time machine. One look at these people with their familiar faces and she immediately knew what this ugly, backbreaking, wonderful device really did. It had taken her to an alternate reality. She was on another Earth.
She sat pondering what it all meant. Would the government want such a machine? Was there a practical use for it that would win her the money she so desperately needed for her plans?
As she contemplated this, she felt something jabbing her in the foot. She reached down and found a smooth stone beneath her heel. She almost tossed it aside without a glance, but then the firelight glinted off it. She examined it more closely. It was as big as a marble, but each of its crystal facets was clear and flawless.
"This is a diamond," she said to herself, then looked at the hovering crowd of cavepeople. "I found a diamond on the ground. Do you have any idea how much this might be worth?"
The girl that looked just like Gerdie gestured to a corner of the cave. There, lying in a pile, was a heap of diamonds, unwanted, like discarded trash.
Gerdie hopped to her feet, preparing to stuff her pockets to the limit with jewels, when her machine came to life. With its batteries fully charged, the little ball of light appeared and grew. Before she could get her hands on another jewel, there was a flash and she was gone.
A moment later, she found herself back in her room. Out the window she saw angry people. Some were looking under the hoods of stalled cars. Others were pointing at their darkened houses. Gerdie suspected her return was responsible for the blackout, but it was a small price to pay. She had created something the greatest scientific minds could only theorize about. She looked down at the sole shiny diamond she had managed to bring back home, and suddenly, Gerdie Baker wasn't so sure she wanted to sell her ugly old invention any longer.
YOU SEE THIS, PAL?
IT'S MY EYE AND IT'S WATCHING YOU.
EVER SINCE WE MADE YOU A FULL-FLEDGED MEMBER OF NERDS, I'VE NOTICED SOME TROUBLING BEHAVIOR FROM YOU AND I'VE COME TO A CONCLUSION…
…YOU'RE LOSING YOUR MARBLES!
I THINK THE STRESS OF BEING A SECRET AGENT AND A KID IS GETTING TO YOU. YOU LOOK TIRED AND DISTRACTED. IT'S NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF-BEING A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ESPIONAGE, RESCUE, AND DEFENSE SOCIETY CAN BE DIFFICULT. WHEN I WAS A MEMBER OF THE TEAM, I WAS STRESSED OUT ALL THE TIME. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN LET THE MENTALLY UNBALANCED STAY ON THE TEAM.
WHO AM I?
HMMM…YOU'RE HAVING SOME MEMORY PROBLEMS. THAT'S NOT A GOOD SIGN. MY NAME IS MICHAEL BUCKLEY. I'M A FORMER MEMBER OF NERDS. MY CODE NAME WAS BEANPOLE, AND I WAS THE GREATEST AGENT NERDS EVER SAW.
YES, REALLY!!!!!
ANYWAY, WHEN I RETIRED, I TOOK ON A NEW JOB: DOCUMENTING THE CURRENT TEAM'S CASES AND KEEPING MY GREAT BIG EYE ON NEW RECRUITS. I'VE TALKED TO THE BOSSES ABOUT YOU. WE'RE CONCERNED, SO WE'RE GOING TO GIVE YOU A TEST TO SEE IF YOU ARE MENTALLY FIT TO BE A SECRET AGENT.
WHOA! SLOW DOWN WITH ALL THE QUESTIONS. THE TEST WILL TELL US HOW YOU REACT IN HIGH-PRESSURE SITUATIONS. THE BIG SHOTS WANT TO MAKE SURE BEFORE WE TOSS YOU OFF THE TEAM.
THE TEST IS PRETTY SIMPLE: A SERIES OF MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS SIMILAR TO THE TESTS THEY GIVE POLICE OFFICERS, FBI AND CIA AGENTS, AND MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY.
HERE'S A SAMPLE QUESTION. ANSWER IT HONESTLY:
______________
1. ARE YOU CRAZY?
a. YES! ABSOLUTELY, YES!
b. KINDA
c. PROBABLY
d. I'M FINE, BUT THE VOICES IN MY HEAD DISAGREE
OK, I'M A LITTLE TROUBLED BY YOUR ANSWER. ARE YOU HIDING SOMETHING? HEY, WHAT'S WITH ALL THE FIDGETING? YOU LOOK NERVOUS. WORSE, YOU LOOK GUILTY! WELL, YOU CAN LIE TO ME, BUT YOU CAN'T LIE TO THE TEST. SO IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE AN AX MURDERER OR A PYROMANIAC, YOU MIGHT AS WELL FESS UP NOW.
HMMM…DENIAL. FINE. READ THROUGH THIS CASE FILE AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS. WHEN YOU'RE FINISHED, WE'LL TOTAL YOUR SCORE TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH.
UNTIL THEN, THIS IS MY EYE…
…WATCHING YOU.
ACCESS CRANTED BECIN TRANSMISSION:
