“How?Why?”
“Sit down, son.”
The words worked on Jack, even against his will.What he wanted to do was pace in front of his dad.
“It was an accident,” his dad said.“I was working on my science project—”
“Your science project?”The words sounded like they burst out of Mel.“How old were you?”
His dad’s cheeks flushed.“I was seventeen.”
Perhaps he looked as incredulous as he felt.
Jack sank back on the stool.“A science project?”All they’d gone through to get those goggles and it all started with a science project?He didn’t have words.
“A time travel science project,” Mel asked.
“I was gifted and you had to really up your game to win.”His face took on a reflective look.“And there was this girl.”
“Of course there was a girl.”Mel sighed.“Is she Jack’s…”
He shook his head.“I was tutoring Ness…”
“And you wanted to impress…”
“She was popular, nice to look at.I was tutoring her for a physics exam.”
“I’m guessing she wasn’t gifted,” Mel said dryly and Jack was surprised into a choke of laughter.
His dad grinned, too.“Well, no, but she was…” he stopped, looking confused.
“We get the idea,” Jack said.
“You wanted to impress her so you showed her your science project.”Mel sighed.“At least it wasn’t etchings.”
Jack chuckled.
“Etchings?”His dad frowned.
“It’s a twentieth century thing, dad,” Jack explained.“A kind of euphemism for showing a girl, well, something else.”He found he couldn’t explain it completely, not to his dad.
His dad’s frown deepened, then his eyes widened and his grin was wry now.
“I didn’t dare show her…etchings.Her dad was scary.”
For an instant the teenager he’d been shown through.
Maybe Mel took pity on them.“So you showed her your time…machine?And something went wrong?”
His dad leaned back in the chair.“It was working perfectly.”
“Until it wasn’t.”Mel’s tone was dry as the desert they’d left behind.
“It swallowed us both up.I remember holding onto my tablet and Ness as tightly as I could.”His gaze grew distant.“It was crazy, spinning like that, but also kind of…”
“Fun.”It was Jack’s turn to to with dry.
“Well, until it stopped.Once minute we’re spinning around and the next we’re standing in this field and surrounded by soldiers.I didn’t spend a lot of time looking, but I was pretty sure we were in the past.”
