The Green Glass Sea (12 page)

“But, ” she said, waving a stern finger at him, “you have to promise not to talk to the other men about work the
whole
time. ” That was usually what happened. The kids ran around, the women sat around the fire and talked, and the men walked a little bit away and spent the afternoon talking science and drawing equations on boulders with charcoal.

“I promise, ” he said. He pulled out his silver pocket watch and snapped open the case. “Almost eight. I'd better be going. ” He drained his coffee cup, rinsed it, and put it in the wooden rack. “Are you sure about the Sandovals?”

“I'm sure. I have to do a book report for school, and I want to work on my time machine. It's almost done. ” She had built a gadget that connected an alarm clock to the radio—not her crystal set radio, but the tabletop model the army had issued them for the house—so that she could wake up to music in the morning. But one of the parts kept sticking, and she wanted to fix it.

“Okay then. ” He pulled on his jacket. “Wish me luck with the brass. ”

“Good luck, Dr. Kerrigan, ” Dewey said, saluting with two fingers, “Give 'em hell. ”

Jimmy laughed and went out the back door into the crisp morning air.

For most of the morning, Dewey read
Caddie Woodlawn
, which had won some medal and was about a girl on a farm in olden days. It was kind of boring until the girl started to fix a clock, which Dewey liked. She wrote her book report, two pages, in ink, with Papa's blue fountain pen, starting over twice because she made a mistake, and cross-outs looked messy.

She finally put her homework into her school satchel a little before noon and went back to her bedroom to get the pieces of the time machine. Soon the kitchen table was covered with bits of wire and parts from her new Erector set. She had found a pair of wire clippers at the dump—with just one tip broken off—and that made work much easier. She didn't have to bend a wire back and forth, back and forth until it broke. The cutters bit into the wire with a satisfying snap. A few little pieces had flown off onto the kitchen floor, though, and she hadn't found all of them.

She was giving it a final run-through when someone knocked at the door. “Come on in, ” she said, loud enough to be heard outside. “I've got my hands full. ”

The door opened, and Papa's friend Terry Gordon peeked around it. “Hi, Dewey. Is your dad around? He's not in his lab. ”

“Hi, Mrs. Gordon. Papa's not here, either. He's got meetings with Oppie and some brass people today. I don't know where, exactly. ” Dewey put down her screwdriver.

“Oh. Really. We were supposed to have lunch. Well, another time, I guess. ” Mrs. Gordon started to leave, then saw the tabletop full of wires and whistled. “Boy, you
did
have your hands full. That's an impressive contraption. ” She stepped into the kitchen.

Dewey nodded. “It's my time machine. ”

“Are you planning a trip back before the war? That would be nice. ” Mrs. Gordon leaned against the counter and smiled, so Dewey knew she was just kidding.

“Sometimes I'd like that, ” she agreed. “But this is more practical. When I get this last piece fixed, it's going to turn on my radio in the morning. I hate waking up to the alarm bell. Too loud. ”

“I'm with you there, ” Mrs. Gordon laughed. She leaned down to look at the machine, then frowned. “It would help if I could see, ” she said, and slid her glasses down from the top of her head. “Now how does it work?”

Dewey looked at her in surprise. “You really want to know?”

“Yes, I really do. ”

“Oh. Okay. ” Dewey was pleased. She looked down at the machine. “It's pretty simple. First I have to plug in the radio. Papa won't let me take it apart, because it's electric, and that can be dangerous, but as long as I keep the back on, it's okay. ” She looked up to see if Mrs. Gordon was following, and when the woman nodded, she continued.

“Then I wind up the alarm clock and set it to when I want to wake up, just like a regular one. But when it's time, instead of ringing the bell, the little hammer hits this dowel and pokes it through the tube, and it hits this gate. ” Dewey pointed to a pivoting piece of wire. “The gate opens, and the ball bearing rolls down the ramp onto the paddle wheel. The weight of the bearing turns the wheel, and that works like a pulley, and winds this string. ” She touched a piece of kite string with her index finger. “The other end of the string is glued to the radio knob, and when it's wound tight enough around the pulley, it turns the radio on. But not
too
loud. ”

“That's really ingenious, ” said Mrs. Gordon. “Did you read about it in a book somewhere?”

“No, I just kind of made it up. ”

“That's where the best ideas come from. ” Mrs. Gordon picked up the ball bearing and rolled it around the palm of her hand. “Well, since your dad's not here, would you like to have lunch? I'm starving. And I'd love to hear more about your inventions. ”

Dewey considered this for a moment, then nodded. “My stomach was growling, so I was just about to take a break and make myself a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich.”

“Sounds lovely, ” said Mrs. Gordon. “If you want, I'll make two of them and you can clear a space on the table. Or we could eat in the living room, if that would be easier. ”

“No, ” said Dewey. “We eat in the kitchen. ” She began to pick up the pieces of her machine. “Will you cut the crusts off mine? I don't like that part, but the ducks in the Pond do. ”

“Sure. Maybe I'll trim mine too. I always feel bad for those ducks when it's cold. Do you like your sandwich cut into squares or triangles?” she asked.

“Triangles, please, ” said Dewey.

They ate and talked for almost half an hour. Mrs. Gordon had lit a cigarette and was telling Dewey about teaching chemistry at Berkeley, when she glanced down at her watch. “Oh, good gracious, it's after one. I have to skedaddle. ” She picked up her plate. “I really liked this. Maybe we could do it again sometime. ”

“Okay, ” said Dewey.

“Good. See you soon. ” Mrs. Gordon let herself out the back door.

Dewey sat in the kitchen for a few minutes, finishing her milk, and thinking about the last half hour. She had never known a real woman scientist before, just men like Papa. She liked Mrs. Gordon a lot, and wondered how someone so nice could have a daughter as bossy as Suze. It didn't make any sense. She washed the plates and put them in the rack, then laid her time machine out on the table.

She made sure all the pieces were hooked up, set the alarm clock for 3:00, and went into the living room to read. For a few pages she found it hard to concentrate, because all she wanted to do was look at the red plastic clock on the kitchen wall and see what time it was. But then she got caught up in the words, as usual, and forgot all about it.

So she was startled, just for a moment, when “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” began playing in mid-song. Then she remembered, dropped her book onto the couch cushion, and ran into the kitchen. The clock said 3:00, straight up. It worked! Dewey did a little skipping dance and laughed out loud. She could hardly wait to tell Papa.

She moved the machine back into her bedroom and reassembled it on the bookcase by the wall, where there was a plug for the radio. She set the alarm part for 8:00 in the morning and smiled, thinking about how nice it would be to go from dreaming to music. Then she returned to her book.

When it got dark outside, about 6:00, she turned the lamp on. She looked up every few minutes, or when she heard a noise, hoping it was Papa coming home and she could tell him her news. She waited and waited, but after a while gave up and made dinner.

Lighting the kerosene stove was not one of Dewey's favorite things—if you didn't do it just right, it could explode, and that was scary. So she was always careful. The macaroni and cheese burned a little on the bottom, but after she scraped off the brown crunchy parts, it was pretty good. She rinsed the pot under hot water, using the scrub brush to get the last bits of sticky burnt cheese off, and found herself humming part of Bach's
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
. It was one of Papa's favorite songs, one of the few phonograph records they owned, and he had been playing it a lot in the last few weeks.

But when she turned off the water and stopped humming, the music continued. She walked into the living room and looked at the record player. It was closed and silent. Not that she expected it to be playing itself, but where else could the music be coming from? The Sandovals played only mariachi music, or big bands.

She walked back into the kitchen to dry the dishes and saw that the clock said 8:05. Eight! Dewey hit herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. Oh. The music was her radio! The Hill's station, KRC, always played classical music after dinner. An alarm clock couldn't tell the difference between 8:00 in the morning and 8:00 at night. At least not a civilian clock. Army clocks did. 0800 was morning. 2000 hours was night.

She turned off the radio and reset the gate and the ball bearing and the dowel. Just to make sure, she waited half an hour, then set the alarm for 8:00 again. Eight in the
morning
.

Dewey stayed up as long as she could, waiting for Papa to come home and tell her about his meeting. But at 10:30 she finished her book, the third book that day, and didn't feel like starting another one. She was tired, and if he
had
gone back to his lab, he could be there for hours. She brushed her teeth and went to bed, falling asleep to the slow, steady tick-tock, tick-tock of the mechanical clock that seemed to echo in the empty house.

DEWEY'S RADIO CAME
on at 8:01 Sunday morning. Church music, which was pretty, but not her favorite. She put on her glasses and loped down the hall to Papa's closed door. Breathing, and some snores. Good. He'd come home. She went back to her room. Papa liked to sleep in on Sunday mornings, because he could.

Dewey got dressed in corduroy pants and a heavy wool sweater that was warm but itched a little and was too long for her arms. In the kitchen, she scrunched up the sleeves and poured another bowl of Kix. She really wanted oatmeal, because it was a chilly morning, but that meant lighting the stove, and she wasn't sure she was awake enough for that.

Papa finally got up around ten. He came into the kitchen barefoot, his blue bathrobe flapping over the striped legs of his flannel pajamas. He needed a shave, and his eyes looked red and watery behind his glasses.

“Morning, Dews, ” he said. He lit the stove and poured water into the Chemex carafe, then sat down and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing up in little tufts.

“Are you okay?” Dewey asked. He looked tired. He always looked tired these days. But this morning he looked worse than usual, like he was getting a cold.

He smiled, a little smile that barely moved his mouth. “I'll live. ”

“Are you sick?”

“No, I, uh—” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I was working in the lab, a little after ten, I think, and I heard a thud out in the hall. I went to see. Three guys were trying to carry this big lab fixture, a glass bowl about four feet across, over to a party in the men's dorm. For a punch bowl. They asked me to give them a hand, and once I got there, I had a couple of drinks. It wasn't real punch—I mean, the boys were just dumping liquor bottles willy-nilly into the bowl. I think there might have been a can of pineapple juice too. I don't really remember. ”

“You got
drunk
?” Dewey asked in surprise. Papa often had a beer when he got home from work, or a whiskey after dinner, but she'd rarely seen him have more than one.

“A little, ” he admitted.

“How come?”

He shrugged. “I just didn't want to think about the war for a while. I didn't want to think about any of this. ” He gestured with his hand, but Dewey knew he didn't mean their kitchen.

“Then we're not going on a picnic today. ” Dewey looked down at the table and picked at a flaking bit of paint with her thumbnail.

“No, no, Dews. We'll go. Don't worry. ” He patted her hand, then got up and poured steaming coffee into a thick china mug. It smelled like burned nuts.

“Would you see if there are any aspirins in the bathroom?” he asked. “Bring me two—no, make that three. ”

Dewey brought him the chalky white tablets, and he swallowed them with a gulp of coffee and a grimace, then sat back down. “There. When those kick in, I'll be right as rain, ” he said. “We'll leave in an hour or so. ”

“Okay, ” Dewey said. “I got my time machine to work. ”