The Gonkers Time Travel

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  By Mary C Pearson

  copyright 2013 Mary C Pearson

  There were seven of them. Four were girls and three were boys.

  Because they lived in the city and the city had become so full of evil their mother never ever let them play outside. Not unless she was right there staring at them. Pretty tricky being creative when your mother is always looking at you.

  Then came the Event. Logan was the one who came up with the name for it. Lillian wanted to call it the big magic thing but Lucien said that was too many words and Molly suggested they could just use the initials: the BMT, but Finnegan thought that sounded like a sandwich and it made him feel hungry. Magdalene was too little to have an opinion and Fred Therese was only a babe in diapers-- cloth because their mother was kind of a hippy. She made their own clothes, breast fed the babies, made soap and toothpaste and shampoo out of mysterious healthy things that came in the mail. And their aunt, Geneva, made them homemade bread and bone broth soup. All of this is boring background stuff but it needs to be shared before you can really know the Gonkers.

  The other thing you need to know is their ages: Logan 9 (almost 10), Lily 8, Lucien 7, Molly 6, Finne 4 , Maggie 3, Fred is 10 months. And so on the night when they got to go to the carnival at Cathedral and all the other kids from their parish were there they were able to sneak up to the bell tower.

  Father Andrew was there.

  “Whoa!” Logan stopped where he was, which caused Lucien to bump into him hard.

  “And who might we have here?” Father Andrew wasn’t a tall man but anyone seems tall when you are 9 or younger.

  None of them wanted to answer because they had no good excuse for sneaking around in the church but Lillian spoke up. “Isn’t it a very lovely night for a climb? I mean it was getting kind of stuffy in the church and…” Her voice trailed off. It wasn’t much of an excuse, she knew.

  For a minute he just stared at them. Then he said in a stern voice, “Did you happen to notice that the stairwell was roped off?”

  The children nodded.

  “And that there was a sign that read do not enter?”

  The children nodded again.

  “We’re very sorry,” said Lucien. Then he smiled, bravely showing his most persuasive dimples. “But we were just hoping to have an adventure.”

  “An adventure…? Hmmm.” Father Andrew stroked his very dark, very full beard. “Well that is a reasonable desire,” he said.

  Which surprised them. Very seldom do adults understand such things.

  “I may be able to assist you there, that is, if you pass the test.”

  And then he gave them a map of the Cathedral and told them to find each of the hidden treasures.

  The Event

  Very suspicious, the children thought. Especially after they had been searching for awhile. There were twenty items on the list and although they were all in clear sight no one had ever before noticed the stained glass patriarchs, like Abraham and Moses, or the statues of saints like Augustine and Catherine and the big iron statue of Kateri Tekakwitha. There were mosaics ( paintings made out of glass chips) and tapestries, which are cloth depictions from the Bible, and there were relics (bone fragments mostly) of dozens of saints buried in front of the altar. They found them all. The very last item on the list was just the big old Bible from which the Scriptures were read at Sunday Mass. Seriously…?

  Just as they they were thinking they had been royally hoodwinked by the priest, there he was.

  “And this,” he said mysteriously, “is where the adventure begins.” Then he walked away.

  “Some advenchoy,” said Molly, flipping through the pages. There weren’t even any pictures, unless you could count the ornately decorated first letters of each chapter.

  “Maybe if we were to read a bit,“ suggested Lillian. So she cleared her throat and began out loud: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph, too, went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem--”

  Suddenly Lillian felt a very queasy feeling in her stomach and everything went kind of blurry grey. There was also a spinning sensation and when the spinning stopped the first thing she noticed was sand. Where there had been marble floors there was just a very lot of sand stretching off in every direction. She could see some kind of settlement very far off. And there were travelers carrying their baggage on the backs of lumpy camels, but the people were not near the five children.

  So there they were. Not all of them-- Fred Therese and Mags had stayed behind with their mother. But Logan through Finne in their jeans and casual shirts and wearing crocs on their feet.

  “This is not good,” said Logan.

  Where were they?

  “Wheyoo do you suppose the Cathedral went?’ Molly wondered. She still spoke with a little lisp.

  “I wish we ate before,” Finnegan rubbed his belly.

  “So I guess Father Andrew wasn’t fooling us after all,” Lily gave the others a triumphant grin.

  “Won’t Mom be worried about us?” Logan said, ever the sensible one.

  “Who caiooz?” This came from Molly and she was more than sick of being cooped up.”What now?”

  “We walk, I guess,” said Lucien. He took Finne’s hand and headed toward the shadowy buildings off in the distance. It was evening and although it looked cold out it really wasn’t. There was a bit of a wind and sand was being whipped at them, but it didn’t seem to sting as much as they thought it would.

  “How much foyther,” Molly was dragging her feet and beginning to fall behind.

  Lily grabbed her sister’s hand. “I’ll help you walk.”

  “Maybe if we sing a marching song, Suggested Lucien. “That’s what foot soldiers do.” “The ants go marching one by one…”he began bravely.

  “Hurrah,” the others sang, but with very little enthusiasm.

  Weirdly it helped, though. The rhythm kept their feet going and before they realized it they were entering the city gate. There were a lot of other people converging on the city-- the children supposed it must be Bethlehem.

  “Now what…?” asked Molly. They were standing in a very central area with people swarming by on all sides. They were dressed like Bible pictures of Jesus’ time. It was odd they weren’t reacting to the children, dressed for the year 2013.

  “Find a place to stay, I guess,” said Logan. “Say,” he reached for the nearest white-robed figure but his hand slipped right through what should have been the man’s arm. “Are we ghosts?” When he said it he appeared to be speaking to the Arab-looking fellow, but the man seemed not to notice Logan or the others. “I guess so.” Logan answered his own question. Then he sat down. “I’m tired.”

  “I want a sloppy Joe,” Finne whined.

  “I don’t suppose we could eat the food here even if we could find some.” Lily slumped down next to her brother and tugged Molly onto her lap. “You can have my piece of taffy though.” She handed the piece of pink candy to her little brother. “I was saving it.”

  “What about the rest of us? We’re all hungry and some of us might need a bathroom, too.“ Lucien cleared his throat. “So how do people usually get out of magic adventures? You read a lot, Lily.”

  “I have no idea,” said Lily. “Every book is different.”

  Logan picked up a pebble and started to play with it.

  “Don’t fidget.” Lily took the pebble. “You’re the oldest. What should we do?”

  “You sound like Mom, and how should I know? I’m only nine.”

  “Almost ten.” Lily reminded him.

  “You guys oy wimps. We have the boyingest l
ife on the pyanet and then something magic happens and you all compyain. I know what I’m going to do. Foyow them.” She pointed. Just entering the city square was a donkey being led by a bearded man and on the donkey was a beautiful teenager who was obviously distressed.

  Christmas

  “Oh, she’s right,” Lily said, scrambling to her feet. “After all they are the main characters.”

  “Main characters. What does that mean?” Logan got up though, hauling Finne behind him.

  “You know, the stars of the Christmas story.” Lily stood her ground. “And that’s how you usually get out of a magic fix. You have to get to the center of the action. And usually you have to become involved in some way.”

  “That might be tough,” said Lucien, “if we’re just ghosts here.”

  “We can twy” Molly scampered after Joseph and Mary and the others were close behind.

  Joseph had stopped the donkey and was speaking gently to Mary in a foreign language. Then he left her alone. She was breathing shallowly and looking nervous.

  Molly hugged Mary’s leg to the best of her ghostly ability. “It will be all wight, Maiyee. My auntie Gen had hew babies at home and it was fine.”

  Mary stopped rocking herself and almost seemed to focus on Molly for a second. Then she went into an even worse spasm and began panting in earnest. Luckily Joseph was back. He lifted Mary from the animal and gently led her to a cave. The children remained outside. The sky was lit with ethereal brightness and mere moments passed before they heard the cry of a small baby.

  “Aren’t there supposed to