Authors: Julia Watts
Cal’s smile was knowing. “Oh, I understand. You’re used to being in charge and being a winner. You’re tough on yourself and on everyone else.”
That drew her full attention. He continued, “So, you have a lot going on? It’s all manageable. People play soccer in London. There has to be someplace you can practice. And pianos! They have pianos in London, too. Have you asked your parents to help you find a place to practice while you’re there, or were you too busy being mad?”
He paused, pulling handfuls of golden dog hair from his navy Bridge Mid Beagles shirt and shorts. Southpaw, inexhaustible source of spare fur, stayed immobilized on the floor with his eyes closed. Cal stroked him with the toe of a running shoe.
Liv picked up her sandwich and nibbled at the crust. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“Debate team is trickier, but you can get some topics from Mr. Harper and email your arguments to the team. And why couldn’t they email you back? It’ll keep your skills sharp and show Mr. Harper you’re trying.”
Liv took a bite, chewed slowly, then said, “How’d you get to be so smart?”
Cal’s only answer was a grin. He rose to his feet. “Now, Anthony and I are going to start planning our London adventure. A nice, normal adventure...” His voice lowered to a whisper, . . . “with no time travel.”
Liv watched him disappear up the stairs. He was right. She could face anything—she had time traveled. She, Anthony and Cal had journeyed to the past. They’d changed history, and no one else knew. Well, almost no one.
That put her problems into perspective. Temporary inconveniences. She said to Southpaw, “Let’s go, boy!” He responded by running to the wall peg where his retractable leash hung.
A two-mile run was just right for Liv. She was sweaty and feeling great. She’d gone full-out most of the way, slowing down only when Southpaw stopped to sniff bushes and trees.
Back at the house, Mrs. Wescott finished scrubbing peeled baby carrots for Liv’s eighteen-month-old sister, placed them in a bowl on the table, then heaved Anna’s booster seat onto a chair and whisked Anna into it in one deft motion.
Liv admired her mother’s efficient movements. She was just as graceful and in control as she had been while she was a children’s clothing executive, before Anna’s birth. Liv noted that Anna’s bib looked new. Probably Mom’s latest design. She had a feeling it wouldn’t be long till her mother was back in the business. Liv smiled and hummed a tune as she headed upstairs.
Fresh from a shower and dressed in her favorite jeans shorts and Gap T-shirt, Liv opened the hall closet door and shoved her wet running clothes and towel down the laundry chute. Laughter came through the open door of Anthony’s room and she followed the sound.
Anthony sat cross-legged on the floor, typing into his laptop, while Cal sprawled on the bed looking over his friend’s shoulder at the screen. Anthony raised his head to glance at Liv. “If you’re looking for Southpaw, he’s hiding out from Anna.”
She followed the direction of his nod and saw a golden tail sticking out from under the bed. Anthony closed his laptop and reached up to the nightstand for a bag of chips. She accepted them, rattling the bag to be sure Southpaw heard. When nothing happened, she opened the bag and pulled one out, waving it around to spread the aroma.
“Chips are his favorite,” said Liv. “Maybe he’s stuck.”
Cal leaned over the opposite side of the bed until his head touched the floor and lifted the bottom of the bedspread for an upside-down view of Southpaw, then slid off the bed and rejoined Anthony and Liv.
“He’s in there pretty tight and his eyes are popping out. I hope he can breathe.” Cal lifted the foot of the bed at one corner, and Liv jumped to her feet to help him with the other.
Anthony called out, “Be careful! I just put the box in there yester—”
A sharp clunk was followed by the sound of dog elbows and hind toenails on the wooden floor under the bed. Southpaw was moving, but not toward them. Anthony grasped the disappearing tail with one hand and reached for a leg with the other one.
Liv asked, “While you’re pulling him out, want to explain why you moved the box from our agreed hiding place?”
Anthony grimaced and inched the dog a little closer. “He found it under the guest room bed and brought it to me. I hid it in my closet with some shoes, then behind my bookcase, and he found it there, too. He’s gotten the scent of it now and he thinks it’s a game!”
Anthony ignored Liv’s stare and said, “Well, he’s a retriever, right? Anyway, I stuck it up here between a couple of slats, and everything was okay until now. Wait a minute—I have him around his middle. Come on, boy.”
Southpaw emerged, covered with dust, with the box in his mouth. Liv and Cal gasped together, and Anthony remained perfectly still.
Liv recovered first. “Here boy, bring it to me. Come on.”
With a wag of his tail that sent dust bunnies flying like dandelion fluff in the wind, Southpaw came, holding his treasure. “There you go, just let me have it. That’s right. Oh, no! Anthony, you didn’t tape it shu—”
The catch on the front of the box was undone. They watched as two little doors swung apart, revealing a set of drawers. The box didn’t work for everyone, but for some it allowed the holder to time travel, the year determined by the combination of opened and closed drawers. Southpaw lowered his head, and gravity pulled two of the drawers open. Liv lunged for him, held on with all her strength, and closed her eyes.
She’d expected to skin her elbows on the scratchy pile of Anthony’s indoor putting mat. Instead, she opened her eyes to find herself and Southpaw inches deep in spongy leaf mold, the odors so pungent she could taste them. Filtered sunlight dribbled through a canopy of green. They were in a forest. Southpaw barked, too thrilled with all the new smells to be bewildered by the change of scenery.
Keeping him in a full dog-hug, Liv looked around for the box. There it was. Southpaw had released it from his jaws. The drawers marked thousands and hundreds and were opened to the notches for one and six, so they were somewhere around the year 1600.
It was just out of her reach. Southpaw squirmed to get free, and two beady eyes stared at them, their owner slowly raising its black-and-white-striped tail. Liv’s brain processed all that information in a millisecond, including the distance to the skunk— about five feet.
But she hesitated. She needed to secure the dog, reach for the box, and somehow manage to get the drawers closed. That would take them back to the present. Would her movements upset the skunk?
Southpaw saved her from having to find out by giving a loud “Woof!” followed by a low growl in his throat. Liv reacted fast this time, sliding the fingers of her left hand around his collar and reaching for the box with her right.
Only when she held the box safely in her grasp did she look in the direction Southpaw now faced, to the right of the skunk. Standing in partial shadow, not ten feet away, was a full-grown man with copper-colored skin. Bare-chested, he wore a deerskin loincloth and carried a small bow with two arrows. His obsidian-black hair was pulled back from his face into a ponytail and held by a rawhide strip.
He was clearly astonished by their presence—his mouth gaped open and his forehead wrinkled into a frown. Afraid to break eye contact, Liv returned the Brave’s stare. Would a smile or wave be a sign of weakness? Could he reach them before she closed the box?
Southpaw strained against Liv’s hold on his collar, ready to attack. His movement broke the standoff. Liv ducked to adjust her grip, and an arrow whizzed past her ear.
She saw his hand tremble as it gripped the second arrow. He was as nervous as she was! Even so, she couldn’t be lucky enough for him to miss twice. Liv forced herself to swallow her fear and push the drawers closed.
Through the blur, she watched the skunk, displeased at losing his first target, shift his aim toward the Brave and register his opinion.
“If I were speaking to you, which I’m not, I’d start by saying that any moron would have taped the drawers shut after the first time the golden retriever outsmarted him!”
Liv was back in Anthony’s bedroom, on a tirade. Southpaw had fled downstairs, and a terrarium-like smell lingered in the room.
“Next, I’d say that if the retriever did it three times, your average moron would have gotten the box out of the house and let his friend take it.” She offered the box to Cal, who accepted it without protest, avoiding eye contact.
Anthony turned back to his laptop. “Yeah, well, at least I have a friend.”
It was true. She could count her acquaintances by the dozen, but it wasn’t easy to operate near the force of nature that was Liv without getting tossed around a little. It wasn’t like laid-back Anthony to shoot off a retort, and the silence between them grew, while Cal shifted in his seat.
Finally, Liv spoke. “That’s cold.”
Anthony rubbed his hand over his face. “I know. I’m sorry, Sis. I’m sorry I put you in real danger. I’m glad you’re okay.” He walked over to her and gave her a hug, then brushed forest debris from her shoulders. “Brush off your own backside—it’s covered with dirt, too.”
Anthony’s trademark grin reappeared. “Since you seem to be speaking to me again, you can fill us in on how you came by that dirt, and if we need to do anything about it.”
“If you mean did I change history—no, I don’t think so.” Liv chuckled in spite of herself. “Unless you count one very surprised skunk and the really unhappy Brave who got sprayed instead of Southpaw and me. We may have accidentally added to the Native American folklore, but other than that, no harm done.”
The three of them let out a collective sigh of relief. It could have been much worse. When Cal had discovered the box containing the ancient South American gold medallion in an old house last year, they had begun what seemed at first like harmless adventures.
But the golden disk from the mysterious Colombian treasure of the Quimbaya had tempted them. It hadn’t taken long to graduate from sightseeing in the past to trying to prevent disasters, and they soon learned that even the best actions can bring unintended consequences. There was no way to sleuth out every detail of how the world was changed now because of them. They weren’t even sure they wanted to know.
The silence was comfortable now. They’d long since talked things out and said everything there was to say on the subject.
It was Liv who broke it. “Okay, guys, time to get organized. We can start with some group ideas—where to go, what to do. Hold on—I’ll get my iPhone.” She moved toward the door, stopping to pull a twig from her hair and drop it into Anthony’s trashcan.
Anthony squirmed. “No offense, but Cal and I were making our own plans.” He raised the cover of his laptop. “Check this out: Sir John Soane’s Museum. Old Sir John was an architect who collected cool stuff. It says on Wikipedia that he bought the sarcophagus of Seti I for his house!” He clicked on a diagram of the museum. “We ran across it while we were surfing the Web for places to go. An Egyptian tomb in your basement—wow.” He sighed.
Liv left them to it. She might as well throw her running clothes into the washer. She could come back in a few minutes, and no doubt Anthony would have led Cal through several more Web sites, maybe even coming up with a few that would interest her. As she headed down the hall, she heard him exclaim, “Look at that ship. It’s loaded!”
After a quick spin of the dial to Warm-Cold/Permanent Press, Liv bounded up the basement steps, two at a time. She ascended the main stairs and approached her brother’s room. Their backs were turned to her, and Liv heard Cal ask, “Not even a closet or a drawer?”
Anthony replied, “No, Southpaw would just sniff it out and scratch and whine. That would give the housesitter a reason to snoop.” Liv hesitated at the threshold.
Cal continued, “Not my house. My mom says they’re going to pull everything out of my room to paint while I’m gone. She’s even talking about painting my furniture, so there’s not one safe place to hide anything in my room. I’m so tame and lame I usually have nothing to hide, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Liv stepped into the room and reclaimed her seat on the beanbag. Anthony looked from his friend to his sister, then to the old wooden box. “That settles it, then. We take it with us.”
Cal asked, “Um, isn’t that maybe a little impulsive? I’m thinking there are several ways for things to go wrong if we leave the box here, but more like thousands of ways if we take it with us.”
Anthony shook his head. “If something happened here, what could we do about it? It’s worth the risk to keep the box with us—keep it from getting into the wrong hands. If either of you has a better plan, now’s the time to share. I’m all ears.” He closed his laptop and turned to face them.
Cal sighed. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this, but it beats worrying every minute if our hiding place was good enough. What do you think, Liv?”
Liv reached out and ran her finger over the top of the box, tracing the mother-of-pearl inlay in the dark wood. “I think our trip just got a lot more complicated.”
The Wescott family van cruised along the interstate, headed for the tri-county airport. They had picked up Cal at his house only five minutes before, and already Liv was wishing she could toss him out at the next red light.