The Mystery of Silas Finklebean by David Baldacci, Rudy Baldacci Page A

since.”
    “But you disappeared a long time ago,” said Howie. “And you haven’t aged.”
    “That’s one thing I discovered when time traveling. If you’re not in your own time, time essentially stands still for you.”
    “So you mean you’re, like, never going to die?” asked Meese.
    “That’s pretty darn cool, if you ask me,” added Si.
    “It’s not really cool if you don’t have anyone who cares about you,” explained Silas. “All my family and friends are long gone. I simply don’t belong here.” He stared at them. “What I would really like to do is go home, to my own time. Will you help me?”
    Freddy looked at him oddly. “Wait a minute. I saw you in the basement of the Burger Castle and you were floating in air. That got us curious, and then we found the logbook with the plans for the time machine in there. Can you explain that?”
    Finklebean looked embarrassed. “Can we put it down to an amazing coincidence?”
    “I think not,” said Theodore, his eyes spinning rapidly. “I calculate the odds of such a coincidence to be 4,893,987,634 to one.”
    “Boy, even
I’m
not that lucky,” said Si.
    “Spill the beans, Finkle
bean!
” cried Howie, “or we leave you here to rot.”
    “Well, all right.” He led them to a machine over in the corner of the room. “Even though they took my time machine away, I still have the benefit of today’s technology. This is a quantum unimolecular imaging time-warp transponder with holographic capability. I call it QUIT for short.”
    “Hey, I know that word,” said Wally.
    “Yeah, as in you never
quit
eating,” said Ziggy.
    “It allowed me to send my holographic image back in time. I saw you in the basement that night. I had read of you and your father’s accomplishments as inventors in the history books. I knew that of all the people who had access to my lab in the castle since I’d left, you or your father were the only ones capable of building the time machine from my plans. So I tried to help you along the way.”
    “Wait a minute. My dad and I are in the history books?” asked Freddy. “WOW!”
    “That’s right. It might have been easier for us if I’d been able to talk through the QUIT, but I’m not sure that part of the device works.”
    “I think most people thought you were a ghost and ran away. That’s what we did at first. And all that came out of your mouth was a long moan,” said Freddy. “At some point one of the owners of the Burger Castle must have walled up the passageway to your lab. We only found it accidentally. We also discovered a corridor going across the street and a trapdoor into another building.”
    Finklebean nodded. “I owned another place across the street. It was a huge playhouse for the town’s children. I thought it would be neat to also have a spooky corridor and trapdoor for kids to explore.”
    Theodore said, “The Patty Cakes restaurant must have been built on top of it.”
    Freddy exclaimed, “But that still doesn’t explain how we ended up in the exact year where you are!”
    Finklebean just shook his head. “I don’t really know. As I said, I’ve tried to use the device to communicate with people over the years, but I guess I just scared them away. One time I thought I had actually contacted my family and let them know what year I was in, but I don’t know if they got the message or not. I guess your coming to this year must have been a coincidence after all.”
    “Hmm, I wonder,” said Freddy.
    “I miss my family,” said Finklebean sadly. “I never got to see my daughter grow up. All the money and fame in the world can’t make up for that.”
    “Well,” said Freddy. “It looks like you’ve learned your lesson.”
    Finklebean clapped his hands together. “You mean you’ll do it? You’ll take me home?”
    Freddy looked at his gang. “What do you think?”
    “I say we bust the bean out of the future!” shouted Wally. “And put him back where he belongs.”
    “YEAH!”