that make us ?” asked Wayne.
“Let me see,” said the Professor. “You were all born in 1943, is that correct?”
“Our birthdays are all within six months of each other,” said Becky with a nod.
The Professor did a calculation in his head. “Then you would all be around sixty-six-years-old,
give or take a few months.” “I’m sixty-six ?” asked Becky with a look
of distress. “But you don’t look anywhere near that age, Becky,” said Wayne.
“Thank you, Wayne. That was sweet,” said Becky, who was beginning to resign
herself—at least for the moment—to her present state of “Age Change-Derangement-Estrangement.”
The Professor heaved a heavy sigh of fatigue. “I suspect, though, that none
of you will be able to guess why the machine has added so many more years
to our physical ages.”
Rodney and Wayne shook their heads.
“It was my fault—entirely my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I suppose it was because
I was too tired. I had two pieces of paper. On one piece I had written ’eleven
years, eight months, one week, four days, thirteen hours, ten minutes, and forty-five seconds.’ That is how much aging would have to occur to restore us
all to the age we were at the moment when the original age reduction occurred.
On the second piece of paper I had jotted down ‘sixty-four years, seven months,
two weeks, one day, three hours, fifteen minutes and fiftyeight seconds.’ That
was my exact age at the pivotal moment of the age reduction. You see, I had
been using my own age as a base variable to calculate the constant that represented
the difference between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ of our ages. I accidentally
inputted this second figure—my age—when I was setting the coordinates for the
machine.”
Rodney looked at Grover and Petey who were both scratching their heads. “In
other words,” explained Rodney, “instead of having eleven-and-a-half years added
to our ages, the machine added sixtyfour-and-a-half years.”
“That’s right. Due solely to human error. My error. It was a disastrous,
numskull mistake that will now have grievous consequences for us all.”
“What kind of consequences?” asked Grover, who did not like the word “consequences”
even when the word “grievous” wasn’t attached to it.
“Well, you no doubt see them all about you, already. There is no one left in
this town now who is below the age of fifty-two. There are no more children—no
more spry young people to give our town energy and vim and, and…”
“Verve?” asked Grover.
“Yes, verve. There are, conversely, people now living among us— if you call
lying in a bed and sleeping for most of the day living — who are as old
as 153—for I know of at least two residents of Shady Acres Nursing Home who
had already passed the century mark.” “But I don’t understand, Professor,” said
Wayne. “It seems like a pretty easy thing to fix. You just go back down to the
lab and enter the correct age coordinates and ‘Wham! Bam! Allakazam! We’re all
back to our right ages again.”
“If only it were that easy, Wayne,” sighed the Professor. “But unfortunately,
as I found myself in the midst of that rapid aging process a little while ago—a
process that was wholly unexpected, and which startled me immensely, well, I
let out a most frightening shout of dismay. Right there in my laboratory I screamed
like a terrified little child. And the intensity of this unexpected eruption
from my vocal cords surprised Gizmo, my cat, who had been sleeping soundly next
to me, and she sprang into the air in that way that cats sometimes do, in which
all their limbs become extended and all of their claws protracted, and she came
down not upon that same spot on the floor in which she had uplifted herself,
but she came down—I am sorry to report—right upon the back of my poor terrier
Tesla, protracted claws and all, and a most terrible
“Let me see,” said the Professor. “You were all born in 1943, is that correct?”
“Our birthdays are all within six months of each other,” said Becky with a nod.
The Professor did a calculation in his head. “Then you would all be around sixty-six-years-old,
give or take a few months.” “I’m sixty-six ?” asked Becky with a look
of distress. “But you don’t look anywhere near that age, Becky,” said Wayne.
“Thank you, Wayne. That was sweet,” said Becky, who was beginning to resign
herself—at least for the moment—to her present state of “Age Change-Derangement-Estrangement.”
The Professor heaved a heavy sigh of fatigue. “I suspect, though, that none
of you will be able to guess why the machine has added so many more years
to our physical ages.”
Rodney and Wayne shook their heads.
“It was my fault—entirely my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I suppose it was because
I was too tired. I had two pieces of paper. On one piece I had written ’eleven
years, eight months, one week, four days, thirteen hours, ten minutes, and forty-five seconds.’ That is how much aging would have to occur to restore us
all to the age we were at the moment when the original age reduction occurred.
On the second piece of paper I had jotted down ‘sixty-four years, seven months,
two weeks, one day, three hours, fifteen minutes and fiftyeight seconds.’ That
was my exact age at the pivotal moment of the age reduction. You see, I had
been using my own age as a base variable to calculate the constant that represented
the difference between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ of our ages. I accidentally
inputted this second figure—my age—when I was setting the coordinates for the
machine.”
Rodney looked at Grover and Petey who were both scratching their heads. “In
other words,” explained Rodney, “instead of having eleven-and-a-half years added
to our ages, the machine added sixtyfour-and-a-half years.”
“That’s right. Due solely to human error. My error. It was a disastrous,
numskull mistake that will now have grievous consequences for us all.”
“What kind of consequences?” asked Grover, who did not like the word “consequences”
even when the word “grievous” wasn’t attached to it.
“Well, you no doubt see them all about you, already. There is no one left in
this town now who is below the age of fifty-two. There are no more children—no
more spry young people to give our town energy and vim and, and…”
“Verve?” asked Grover.
“Yes, verve. There are, conversely, people now living among us— if you call
lying in a bed and sleeping for most of the day living — who are as old
as 153—for I know of at least two residents of Shady Acres Nursing Home who
had already passed the century mark.” “But I don’t understand, Professor,” said
Wayne. “It seems like a pretty easy thing to fix. You just go back down to the
lab and enter the correct age coordinates and ‘Wham! Bam! Allakazam! We’re all
back to our right ages again.”
“If only it were that easy, Wayne,” sighed the Professor. “But unfortunately,
as I found myself in the midst of that rapid aging process a little while ago—a
process that was wholly unexpected, and which startled me immensely, well, I
let out a most frightening shout of dismay. Right there in my laboratory I screamed
like a terrified little child. And the intensity of this unexpected eruption
from my vocal cords surprised Gizmo, my cat, who had been sleeping soundly next
to me, and she sprang into the air in that way that cats sometimes do, in which
all their limbs become extended and all of their claws protracted, and she came
down not upon that same spot on the floor in which she had uplifted herself,
but she came down—I am sorry to report—right upon the back of my poor terrier
Tesla, protracted claws and all, and a most terrible
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