Cragbridge Hall, Book One: The Inventor's Secret (29 page)

How could they stop this?

He realized he’d stopped counting. Where was he? At almost thirty seconds. He skipped a few numbers, hoping he was close to where he should have been in the count.

One thousand thirty-four. One thousand thirty-five.

The gorilla crept across the floor, using the seats as cover. Rafa made it to the far wall, out of sight of those on the stage. With amazing dexterity, the gorilla climbed up a beam beside the stage and up to the lighting above. He was easily thirty or forty feet in the air.

One thousand fifty. One thousand fifty-one.

• • •

Crossing to the past felt strange, like taking a scalding shower for a fraction of a second, followed by the chills, and the same nausea Abby often felt after a long car ride.

She caught the railing with her hands, but her feet slid across the metal until her body was fully extended. After such a strange sensation crossing over, she was glad she’d caught on at all. Abby tried to stay calm and hang on, but her feet kept slipping.

“Dad! Mom!” she yelled.

Her father’s eyes bulged for a moment before he hustled across the railing toward his daughter.

“Abby!” her mom cried out, racing behind her husband.

Abby clung on with everything she had. Finally, her father came close enough to extend his hand. Abby’s mother held him securely. Abby took her father’s hand, and he lifted her up to where another railing extended out toward the middle of the ship, giving her a secure place for her feet.

The lights of the huge ship flickered out. Abby couldn’t see a thing.

“Brace yourself against the railing and the floor of the ship. We only have a few seconds,” her father cried out.

Abby threaded her arms through the railing and pushed one foot against the wooden deck. Abby felt her father and mother do the same, but surrounding her.

What sounded like an explosion, followed by the rattle of a massive chain, echoed through the night. The whole boat shuddered.

“Hold on!” Abby’s mother screamed.

More explosions. Abby heard shattering glass and tearing metal. And then she knew she was falling. It felt like one of those rides at an amusement park where you free-fall for several stories, except this time, there were no safety restraints—nothing to keep her safe. The stern of the ship fell backward, over a hundred feet toward the ocean.

• • •

The gorilla managed to swing himself from one set of lights to another. In the background, the
Titanic
rose higher out of the water. Derick was counting his second minute.
One thousand seven. One thousand eight.

Grandfather cried out. Had he seen something? Derick looked again to see his grandfather standing, watching the
Titanic
intently. The guards were too. Were his parents okay? What was happening?

The lights on the massive ship went out.

The gorilla swung to the next set of lights, catching it by only a few fingers. He dangled directly above the guards and Oscar Cragbridge. With the stage below him, the gorilla was less than thirty feet above the ground.

The
Titanic
fell, crashing into the water.

One thousand thirteen. One thousand fourteen.

One of the lights near Rafa shifted out of place and fell to the ground.

One thousand nineteen.

The team of guards, their attention ripped away from watching the
Titanic
, looked at the fallen light. In a second, they’d see Rafa. They’d shoot him before he could do any good.

One thousand—who cares?
Derick couldn’t wait. He barreled into the room, running his rhino in as fast as he could. He tried to roar, but it came out more of a groan. His entrance felt anticlimactic, but it would have to do.

The guards whirled, triggering their guns to come out of their sleeves and aiming at the charging rhino.

• • •

“Let’s move the keys now,” Coach Horne began, “back to the—” He didn’t finish his sentence. He stared down the barrel of a gun, attached to Mr. Hendricks’s hand.

“Everyone in!” Mr. Hendricks yelled, and motioned with his barrel for the group to enter the past, to go onto the
Titanic
.

“You’re insane!” Coach Adonavich said.

“No, I’m not,” Mr. Hendricks said. “This is a chance of a lifetime. We can change everything.”

“Oh, this is bad. So bad. So terribly bad,” Carol mumbled to herself.

“How do you know that we do not share your opinion on time travel?” Coach Horne asked.

“Because I know very well who is working for Muns and who is not,” Mr. Hendricks said. “And none of you are. In fact, I appreciated receiving the locket you used to wear, Horne.”

“It was you who took it?” he asked.

“No. We have a professional for those things, but I was happy to take it and work through its challenges from here in the school. Now go in.”

Coach Horne looked at those on the
Titanic
, which was standing nearly vertical, and then back at Hendricks. “No,” he said. “I think I’d rather make you shoot me, make you a murderer, than let you shift the responsibility to a tragedy in time. I’ll die either way. If you believe in your cause so much, kill me. Eventually someone will come to this basement, and they’ll discover—”

“Get in,” Mr. Hendricks said. “I’ll reverse the tragedy when the time is right, and you’ll be back. But for right now, I need you out of the way.”

“You don’t know that,” Coach Adonavich said. “You don’t know for sure if you’ll be able to reverse this whole thing or that we’ll come back.”

“It
will
work,” Mr. Hendricks said.

“I know how he got to you, Hendricks,” Horne said. “It was when your wife died. He’s probably made you promises about bringing her back. You don’t know that he’ll be able to keep those promises, and even if he could, bringing her back might kill countless other people.”

“It will work!” Mr. Hendricks shouted.

“I’m not stepping in there!” Coach Horne yelled back. “You’ll have to kill me. You’ll have to create your own tragedy that someone else will pine over, that someone else will wish hadn’t happened. You’ll have to take the responsibility.”

Mr. Hendricks flicked his finger. A bullet rocketed out of the barrel.

33

Death Trap

The
Titanic
broke in half. The weight of the front part of the ship under water put too much pressure on the rest of the ship, making steel plates, wooden decks, and cables to the smokestacks all splinter and snap. The back part of the ship that was still above the water slapped down against the ocean.

Abby couldn’t believe how much the impact hurt. The ship beneath her took the brunt of the impact, but she still felt bruises on her shoulder and back. A trickle of blood dripped from her forehead to her cheek.

Abby’s father groaned. She found him quickly and made her way to his side. He looked up at her. “We have to get out of here,” she said. “It’s going to sink.”

“How do we get out?” Mom yelled, scooting next to her.

“They should be able to move the perspective on the Bridge so we can walk out,” Abby said. “Just reach out, search around, and look for anyone stepping in to get us.”

They all moved around, waiting for some sensation, some portal back to their time. Nothing happened.

“Maybe they can’t move it once someone comes in,” Abby guessed. “Maybe we have to go back the same way.”

“You came in way up there,” her mom said, pointing up in the air.

“Wait for a minute,” her father said. “The ship will rise again right before it goes down. We should be able to reach the portal then.”

Abby clutched the rail and waited.

• • •

Derick loved the look of surprise in their eyes. Who could blame them? There was no way they would expect to see a charging rhino in a university’s lecture hall.

A gorilla fell down on top of two of them and bashed the gun barrel of a third.

The three remaining guards shot at Derick. He thrust his rhino head to one side, and with a swing of his horn and the momentum of his body, he uprooted a string of metal stadium chairs from the floor and flung them in the air. Bullets ricocheted off the metal, but two pierced the rhino avatar’s tough skin. He’d been shot. He felt like pieces of hot iron had poked through him.

In the lab, the real Derick screamed in pain.

Rafa leapt on top of another guard, and with a blow to the head, knocked him unconscious. Another guard turned on him, but Rafa managed to propel himself with his long arms and kick the man right off the stage.

Feeling lightheaded and weak, Derick lost control of his body. He stumbled forward, trying desperately to somehow guide his huge mass toward the guards. He plowed through row after row of chairs. He lost control of his feet and awkwardly rolled over and over, seats flying in every direction.

Rafa ran toward the one remaining guard. The man raised his gun. Derick, his vision hazy, saw the guard aim at Rafa. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Just before the guard got off a shot, Derick hooked a nearby chair with his horn and hurled it in the man’s direction. The chair only grazed the man’s back, but it distracted him enough to make the gun’s aim go wild, giving Rafa the chance to knock him over and dislodge the barrel from the man’s wrist. The guard tried to rise again, but with a sweep of Rafa’s long, hairy gorilla arm, he sent the last of the guards into unconsciousness.

From his seat, Grandpa spoke. “I really hope you are avatars, or I’m in some serious trouble.”

“They are,” Ms. Entrese said, running down the aisle. “Oscar, the rhino is your grandson.”

“Derick?” he said, standing up and shuffling toward the edge of the stage. “Are you okay?”

Derick managed to get to his feet and shake his rhino head. Sparks erupted from the bullet wounds.

“You’re amazing,” Grandpa clapped his hands. “How did you ever learn to control something as large as a rhinoceros?”

Derick groaned in pain and fell down to his belly.

“Derick!” Grandpa moved toward his grandson. “Are you okay?”

Derrick managed a nod. “Abby’s trying to get her key to bring Jefferson and his wife back,” Ms. Entrese said, pointing to the screen.

“I saw her enter,” Grandpa said, and turned to watch the deck of the
Titanic.
After locating Abby and her parents to confirm that they were still alive, Grandpa turned to the rhino. “Derick, are you and your friend in the lab at Cragbridge?”

Derick nodded, his vision tunneling.

“You must help your sister,” Grandpa said. “I’ve heard enough while being tied up here to know that Muns has been monitoring the school. He must have a mole on the inside. He’ll get the others’ keys, and then he’ll trap them all back in time.”

• • •

Coach Horne grabbed his shoulder, where the bullet had entered.

“No!” Carol cried.

Coach Adonavich gasped and took a step back.

“Get in the Bridge!” Mr. Hendricks yelled.

“Never!” Coach Horne said. “You do it. You take responsibility. Put my blood on your hands!”

“Stop this!” Coach Adonavich screamed.

Carol started to cry.

Coach Horne took two steps forward, but Mr. Hendricks pulled the trigger again. The huge coach stumbled back, shot in the leg above the knee.

“Enough!” Coach Adonavich yelled. “Stop this.”

“Fine,” Mr. Hendricks said. He quickly pulled out all three of the keys and put them in the pocket of his blazer. The scene of the
Titanic
faded, and the sound from it died down. Mr. Hendricks spoke quieter now. “It will be just as easy to come back and change all this.” He set his gun sight on Coach Horne’s heart.

• • •

The stern of the
Titanic
groaned and rose out of the water again. The sinking half was pulling the stern up as it fell farther into the ocean deep.

Abby and her parents clung to the railing as they moved higher and higher into the air.

“The way back in should be here,” Abby said, reaching for the air before her, hoping to feel the same sensation as when she’d come through. “They’ll have it open for us.”

“Is it working?” her mom asked.

“I don’t know,” Abby said. “I can’t feel it. Maybe it’s farther out. We might just have to jump for it.” She reached again, but nothing happened.

“But what if it’s not there?” her mom asked.

“Then we fall into the water with everyone else,” Dad said. “We’ll have to risk it.”

34

Skid

Open it,” Carol demanded. “Let them back in!” She looked at Abby on the ship, feeling for the way back, but the Bridge was closed. “Please!”

“No.” Hendricks wiped sweat from his temples. “She has to stay out of the way. And so do all of you.”

“What are you going to do?” Coach Adonavich asked.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated,” Mr. Hendricks said. “We were supposed to know the secrets by now. Oscar wasn’t supposed to let anyone get hurt. He was supposed to tell us. But now I’ve got to ...” He looked at the two coaches and Carol, and raised his barrel at them.

“I don’t want to die,” Carol sobbed.

“None of us do,” Coach Adonavich said.

Coach Horne moaned, still nursing his wound.

Mr. Hendricks pointed the gun at Coach Adonavich, then at Horne, then back at Carol. “I don’t want to kill you ... It’s just that—”

“I have too many things to do,” Carol cried. “I’ve never been married. I’ve never even gone out with Derick. I have a great idea for a new reality TV show, and I’ll never get to pitch it, so they can tell me it’s terrible—”

Mr. Hendricks walked toward her with the gun. “Look. There is a lot on the line, and I don’t have many options at this point.”

“I’ll never get to go to that new water park. I don’t remember its name, but it has the tallest waterslide—the one that drops you like fifty feet, but slows you down with air pressure. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” Her voice grew louder, but she didn’t even look at Hendricks. “I don’t want to die!”