Here by Mistake (22 page)

“I got us in this mess,” Brandon said. “But I’ll do a dance if these keys get us out. Thanks, Reginald.”

Quint, Sarah, and Stephen also thanked him. Reginald blushed. “So, when do we go?” he asked brightly.

Quint sat up straight. Sarah and Stephen exchanged glances.

“What d’you mean, ‘we’?” Brandon asked, hoping it had been a joke.

Reginald’s smile disappeared. “I want to see the niche.”

“Not a good idea, Reginald,” Quint said. “It’s big trouble for us if we’re caught tonight, and big trouble for you if you’re with us. Whatever happens, I’ll see y’get the keys back. And no one’ll ever know y’helped us. That’s a promise.”

“I don’t care about that,” Reginald said in his nine-year-old wisdom. “I want to see the niche. And . . . I want to go to 2005.”

Brandon’s chair almost slipped out from under him. “What?” he exclaimed. “You can’t. You don’t belong there.”

Reginald crossed his arms on the table and put his face in them.

“What about your mom?” Sarah asked. “She needs you.”

“That’s right,” Stephen put in. “What would she do without you, Reginald?”

Reginald mumbled something into his arms.

“What?” Brandon huffed.

Reginald raised his teary face. “I said she’ll be good without me. She doesn’t even know I’m around sometimes. I—I want to go to 2005, B.” He coughed and buried his face in his arms again.

Brandon looked around the table and saw that no one knew what to do. He leaned over Reginald. “You can’t come and that’s it.”

Reginald mumbled something.

“No,” Brandon snapped.

Reginald raised his tear-streaked face again. “I asked
why not
?”

“Because you’re already
there
.” Brandon shoved his chair back and sat facing the entrance hall.

Reginald pulled out his shirttail and wiped his eyes with it. “I’m there? You know me there?” he sniffled. Brandon didn’t answer. He turned to Stephen and Sarah. “You all know me there?”

Sarah nodded slightly.

“I knew you from the day we went through the niche to now,” Stephen said.

Reginald tucked in his shirttail and slid off his chair. He walked around Brandon to face him. “That wasn’t fair,” he said accusingly. “You should’ve said you know me.” Brandon turned away from him, and he cried: “You don’t like me in 2005, do you, B?”

Brandon dragged his chair back to the table. “Leave me alone, Reginald.”

Reginald came and stood behind him. “Yesterday when Jack hit me and I was on the ground you looked at me real funny—like you knew me,” he said. “And at first you looked at me real nasty.” He made a fist and punched Brandon’s shoulder. “You’re not my friend in 2005, are you, B?”

Brandon leaped up and stood over him. “Don’t hit me, Reginald, I mean it,” he yelled. “No, we’re not friends in 2005. You’re fifty years old in 2005. I don’t hang with fifty-year-olds; I’m fourteen.”

“Mr. Coster’s older than me in 2005,” Reginald countered. “Are you his friend?”

Brandon opened his mouth and closed it.

“Hah,” Reginald said.

Brandon felt an urge to grab Reginald and throw him out the back door. He dismissed it and took his seat. “Okay,” he said miserably, “just take your keys and go home.”

Reginald seized Brandon’s wrist and smacked the keys into his hand. “Keep them. Just tell me why you don’t like me.”

“What difference does it make?” Brandon moaned. “It hasn’t even happened yet.”

“What hasn’t happened?”

A stabbing pain hit Brandon behind the eyes. How could he tell Reginald about Jonesy? Did this kid really need to know how he’d end up in forty years: fat, alone, mad at everyone, crying over a name he was called when he was nine? He couldn’t tell him. But what else could he do? Reginald wasn’t giving up. Quint, Stephen, and Sarah were just sitting there. The worst of times—the words from Stephen’s book came back to him now in force. Could these times get any worse? Brandon pressed his palms to his aching eyes. He was about to find out.

“What hasn’t happened?” Reginald repeated.

“Okay,” Brandon said. “In 2005 we’re next-door neighbors. You’ve always hated me and my friends. You’ve always yelled at us for nothing. When I was ten my football landed two feet on your grass, and you tried to kick me when I went and got it. The day we went through the niche you ripped into Stephen for walking across your yard. He thought he was walking in my yard. You called him a school reject. He’s the best student in the school.”

Reginald’s mouth hung open. “I yelled at you? I yelled at Stephen?” He felt behind him for his chair and sat down. “Um, um, why . . . why’d I do that?”

“You haven’t done it yet,” Stephen said. “He’s talking about things that won’t happen for years.”

“That’s right,” Brandon said. “It’s stupid to talk about them now.” He tried to give back the keys, but Reginald just sat on his chair. Then he got up and bolted from the room. Brandon ran after him. Reginald made it to the front door but didn’t press the latch. Brandon took his arm and pulled him into the living room. They sat down together on the hearthstone.

“Sorry I yelled at you and Stephen, B,” Reginald murmured. He was hiding his face.

“Forget what I said,” Brandon told him. “That’s forty years from now. That’s not why you can’t come to 2005.”

“Then why can’t I?”

Brandon took Reginald’s head in his hands and turned it toward him. “There can’t be two of you—there can’t be two of anything—in the same time.” He told how the keys from 2005 had burned up back in New Orleans.

Reginald shuddered at the story. “That could happen to me. But . . . I won’t see you anymore. After you run into the niche tonight, you’re gone.”

“You’ll see me in 2005,” Brandon said uneasily. “You just won’t be nine.”

“That’s no good. That’s too long. And you hate me in 2005.”

The stabbing pain returned, and Brandon pressed his palms to his eyes. “I . . . didn’t tell you all of it,” he said quietly. “I ripped into you all those times you ripped into me. You’re fat in 2005, and I ripped you for it. I did it behind your back and I did it to your face, in front of my friends. The day we went through the niche I did it so bad you flipped out and cried. And you were fifty. If I think back, everything you ever did, I did too. I didn’t know you, and I didn’t want to. Now I know you and . . . I . . . know more than I used to. If we get back, I don’t know. But I won’t hate you. And I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Reginald took in every word. “Zowie,” he whispered. “This time travel stuff’s no joke.”

“Tell me about it.”

They were quiet for a time. Reginald was twisting and untwisting his sneaker laces when suddenly he broke into a smile. “I’m lucky. Jack Halstead and the other kids never met time travelers, but I did. Maybe I’m a loser, but I know time travelers.”

“You’re not a loser,” Brandon said. “Don’t ever say that. I don’t think you’re lucky, either. But for sure you’re not a loser.” He took the keys from his pocket and laid them across Reginald’s knee. “If you walk out now with those, we’re done,” he said, nodding at the front door. “If you let us use them, we might get home. Our time travel’s up to you. Show me the loser who’s got it like that.”

Reginald gave a start and his keys hit the floor. He picked them up and set them on Brandon’s knee. “I can’t go to 2005,” he said sadly, “but I want to go to Kingsworth.”

Quint, Stephen, and Sarah came into the room. Brandon stood up and tossed the keys to Quint. “Reginald’s not coming to 2005,” he announced, “but he’s coming with us to the factory.” He braced himself for an argument.

“Sounds good,” Quint said. “We leave at six thirty.”

The grandfather clock had not finished chiming the half-hour before Reginald had the front door open. Everyone pulled on their jackets. Stephen donned his backpack. “Okay,” Quint said, and they stepped into the freezing night.

No one spoke on the walk up to Broadway. Brandon and Sarah were following Quint and Stephen. Then Reginald inserted himself next to Brandon, and Sarah dropped back to give everyone more room. Brandon watched Quint’s breath rising in the night air. Quint was the locomotive; they were the train. And this train was going all the way to 2005.

Turning onto Broadway, they passed several closed shops and one open bar. The only people in sight were a few men inside the bar and one outside, leaning against the building. Then Kingsworth Shoes came into view across the street. The rooftop sign was brightly lit, but the front was dark except for a single light over the entrance. Quint made no move to cross the street.

“Hey,” Brandon said.

Quint beckoned him forward. “We’ll pass it and cut over t’the back,” he whispered. “Not so many street lights.”

Two blocks on they crossed Broadway and continued north on Mill Street. At Springfield Avenue they turned right and headed back to the factory. Springfield Avenue was indeed much darker than Broadway. A sharp rise in the sidewalk stopped Reginald’s foot and sent him flying. Brandon caught him and set him back on his feet. Sarah craned her neck to see past Quint. Then she checked behind her. She saw no one.

Brandon leaned to Quint’s ear. “Does the factory have motion detectors?” he whispered.

“What detectors?”

“Never mind,” Brandon said, grateful for once for 1965’s primitive technology.

They crossed a driveway leading to the Kingsworth parking area and continued along the rear of the factory. Coming to a break in the wall, Quint stepped off the sidewalk to read a sign under a spotlight. “Employee entrance,” he whispered. They turned into the break.

A walkway led them to a pair of steel doors, the handles of which were chained and padlocked. Quint took out Reginald’s keys and pushed the first one into the lock. It turned easily and the lock clicked. Quint carefully drew the chain through the handles and handed it to Stephen. Then he slid the second key into the right-hand door and released the deadbolt. “Go,” he whispered when he had the door open halfway. Everyone hustled inside. Quint followed and closed the door behind him.

They were in complete darkness. Quint snapped on his flashlight and reset the deadbolt. Then he turned around and his light revealed a massive wood door. “It’s an anteroom,” he said, handing Brandon the flashlight. “Point it there, B.” Brandon aimed the beam at the doorknob, and Quint took Reginald’s last key in hand. The lock clicked and the door swung forward. Everyone stepped inside. Quint closed the door behind him and relocked it.

They stood at the edge of the factory floor. Far down the center aisle the south wall’s frosted windows were glowing from Broadway’s lights. Lamps left on in cubicles along the east and west walls were throwing enough light for them to move about. Quint switched off his flashlight.

“That was easy.” Brandon smiled.

“Uh-huh,” Quint said, clearly in no mood for jokes. “My man, give me the chain.” Stephen handed it to him, and he tucked it behind a storage cabinet to the right of the wood door. “Remind me t’get it when we go,” he told Reginald. Then he looked about him. “Okay, where’s the space y’mom rents out?”

“Over here,” Reginald said. He led the way past six benches of machines with stiff sheets stretched across them.

“Leather,” Brandon murmured, smoothing his hand over one of the sheets as he walked by.

“And machine oil,” Stephen said, sniffing the air.

They followed a conveyor belt to the loading platform and turned into an area with no benches or machines. Reginald stepped through an opening in an unpainted plywood partition and pointed to the darkness ahead of him. Quint snapped on his flashlight and swept it over the area. The light danced across at least twenty crates, stacked three high.

Brandon ran to the first stack. “I need the flashlight,” he said excitedly. Quint hurried over and shined the light where he was pointing. The scrawled word “BIRMINGHAM” jumped out at them. “Look,” Brandon exclaimed, “it’s Aunt Faye’s stuff.”

“Keep y’voice down, B,” Quint said. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.”

They checked the stacks and searched the surrounding area. Then they checked the stacks and searched the area again. The niche was not there.

Sarah covered her face with her hands. “Oh, no.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Quint muttered.

“It’s here,” Brandon insisted. “They must’ve put it out on the floor.”

“Why don’t we just check the whole place?” Stephen said.

Quint threw up his hands. “What the hell. We’re here.”

They returned to the machine floor and walked the perimeter, shining the light into every space large enough for the niche. Then they worked their way up and down the rows of tables, benches, and machines.

Twice Reginald exclaimed, “There,” when the light bounced off stainless steel.

“No, Reginald,” Brandon said. “The niche is yellow.”

They finished at the loading platform. Reginald took the flashlight and checked under the conveyor belt. Then he climbed up on the platform and swept the light over the wall. Wide, black strips hanging over the openings to the loading dock blocked the beam. “That’s okay, the niche wouldn’t fit in those,” Brandon said. Reginald gave him the flashlight and slid himself off the platform.

Quint was leaning against the conveyor belt, head bowed and hands in his pockets. Brandon went up to him. “Hey.”

Quint looked up, but his attention was drawn to the door they had come in by. “Did y’all hear . . . ?” A muffled slam confirmed his fear. “Oh, no. Someone’s comin’. Quick! Up there.” He swung Sarah up onto the platform. Then he helped Reginald, who had slipped in a panic to climb back up. Brandon and Stephen hoisted themselves, and Quint did likewise. “B, get in there,” Quint said, pointing to the first opening. “Stephen, get in that one. Reginald, that one. Sarah, there.” Each pushed through a set of black strips. “Don’t talk, don’t even breathe,” Quint whispered frantically. He threw himself into the last opening.

And just in time. The massive wood door opened, and two figures stepped onto the factory floor. Brandon peered between the strips and saw the bigger one point a flashlight at the wall. “Here it is,” he heard a husky voice say. The figure punched several buttons, and overhead lights turned the factory from night to day.