“Right,” said Professor Steg. “Grab me that special-shiny-greeny-stone.”
I went over the side of the gondola and down the rope ladder. I pulled the emerald out of the eye socket.
Below me, on the plain, a number of brightly colored ponies were gathered, and when I picked up the emerald, one of them shouted up at me. “You must be the man without the milk. We have heard about you, in our tales.”
“Why are you a pink pony with a pale blue star on the side?” I asked.
“I know,” said the pony with a sigh. “It’s what everybody’s wearing these days. Pale blue stars are so last year.”
Professor Steg leaned over the side of the balloon’s basket. “Hurry up!” he called. “If the volcano is going to go off, it will do it any moment.”
The volcano made a noise like a huge burp, and the middle of it collapsed into itself.
“We thought it would do that,” said a green pony with a sparkly mane.
“There was a prophecy, I suppose,” I said.
“No. We’re just very clever.” All the ponies nodded. They were very clever ponies.
“I am so glad there were ponies,” said my sister.
I got back into the balloon basket. Professor Steg unhooked the first emerald from his Time Machine and replaced it with the one that I had just taken from the weathered face of Splod-in-the-Future.
“Do not, whatever else you might do,” said the professor, “touch those two stones together.”
“Why not?”
“Because, according to my calculations, if the same object from two different times touches itself, one of two things will happen. Either the Universe will cease to exist. Or three remarkable dwarfs will dance through the streets with flowerpots on their heads.”
“That sounds astonishingly specific,” I said.
“I know. But it is science. And it is much more probable that the Universe will end.”
“I thought it would be,” I said.
“You look so sad,” Professor Steg told me.
“I am! It’s the milk. My children are breakfastless—”
“The milk!” said Professor Steg. “Of course!” And with that, Professor Steg pressed the red button with his heavily armored tail.
There was a ZOOM, a TWORP, and a THANG, and we were hurtling through the cosmic void.
And then it was dark.
Very dark.
“Oops,” said Professor Steg. “Overshot a little. Only by a week, though. Hold on. . . .”
Professor Steg leaned over the side of the basket.
“Excuse me?” he said. “Is there anyone around?”
“Only me,” said a very surprised-sounding voice from below us. “The priest of Splod. Who is that up in the sky? Is it a bird? You do not sound like a bird.”
“I am not a bird,” said Professor Steg. “I am a marvelous yet mysterious and prophetic voice, telling you a mighty prophecy. So mighty that . . . Um . . . Very mighty indeed. Listen. When a huge and good-looking spiny-backed individual—”
“Monster,” I told him. “The prophecy said monster.”
“Accompanied by a scrawny human being of revolting appearance—” said Professor Steg.
“That was not necessary.”
“—lands in a Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier, you must not sacrifice them. You must instead take them to the volcano and give them the Eye of Splod. And this shall be the way that you shall know them. The human being will hold up some milk.”
“Is that the prophecy?” said the voice.
“Yes.”
“Is there anything about crops in it?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Oh well. Thank you anyway, prophetic and mysterious voices from the air.”
I pressed the red button.
Daylight. We were in the middle of a very familiar volcanic eruption. “Quickly!” I said. “Give me the emerald!”
A little way away I could see a balloon being blown through the sky, while fire and ash were swept around it by the wind. I could see me in the balloon, standing next to Professor Steg, with my mouth open. I looked miserable.
Professor Steg—MY Professor Steg—gave me the emerald.
I raced down the rope ladder and placed the emerald back into the face’s eye. Then, as the volcano stopped erupting, I looked around for the milk. I knew it had landed on Splod’s head when it fell.
Fortunately, the milk had fallen into a small drift of volcanic ash, and was unharmed. I picked it up, brushed it off, and started back up the balloon ladder. Professor Steg pressed the button.
The sky went dark.
We were FLOATING above a landscape of ominous towers and disquieting castles. It was not a friendly place. Bats flew across the sky in huge flocks, crowding out the waning moon.
“I don’t like this place,” I told the professor.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “It looks as if it would be very nice when the sun comes up.”
There was a loud FLUT!, and where the bats had been fluttering, several pallid people were now standing. The man in front had a very bald head.
THEY ALL HAD
SHARP TEETH.
“Ve are wumpires,” they said. “Vot is this? Who are you? Answer us, or ve vill wiwisect you.”
“I am Professor Steg,” boomed the Stegosaurus. “This is my assistant. We are on an important mission. I am trying to get back to the present. My assistant is trying to get home to the future for breakfast.”
At the word BREAKFAST all the wumpires looked very excited.
“Ve have not had our breakfast,” they told us. “Ve normally have vigglyvorms, vith orange juice on them. Orange juice makes vorms ewen vigglier. Like vandering spaghetti. But if ve cannot eat vorms ve vill eat assistant, or ewen roast professor.”
One of the wumpires took out a fork, and looked me up and down in a hungry sort of way.
The baldest, most bulging-eyed, rattiest of the wumpires said, “Vot is this box?”
“It is my finest invention,” began Professor Steg proudly, but I interrupted.
“It is to keep sandwiches in,” I said.
“Sandviches?” said the wumpire.
“Sandwiches,” I said, with as much certainty as I could muster.
“Ve thought it vos a Time Machine,” said the head wumpire, with a sly, sharp smile. “And ve could use it to inwade the vorld!”
“Definitely sandwiches,” I told him.
“Vot happens if I press this button, then?” asked a lady wumpire. She had long black hair that covered most of her face, and peered out at the world with one suspicious eye.
She pressed the button. We went forward six hours in time.
“See?” said the professor happily. “All this place needs to brighten it up is a little bit of sunshine.”
The head wumpire said, “Vot?” and dissolved into a cloud of oily black smoke. So did all his friends.