Frank Einstein and the Space-Time Zipper

  CLANG CLANG CLANG.

  A shape-shifting mechanical monkey bangs his cymbals in waves of purple, then breaks.

  “Meooooowww,” calls a cat.

  “Follow those!” calls an amoeba-looking Frank.

  Flexible morphing through space and time and multiple dimensions, Janegoodall and Watson follow Frank down through around back over into below past a rainbow-light-shifting spot.

  “Hellllllp!” yells what looks like a hairy mushroom on top of a pair of tiny wingtip shoes.

  “T. Edison?” guesses half-transparent Janegoodall.

  “Ooook ooook!” calls a starburst of chimpanzee arms and legs up in a waving tree.

  “Mr. Chimp!” says still-fractal Watson.

  A large robot with a colander head steps from behind the tree. “Lasagna”

  The smaller robot behind him rolls his webcam eye. “Oh boy.”

  “Klink and Klank!” calls melting-Frank. He gives them both a hug. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Space-time traveling, same as you,” says Klink.

  “Could this get any weirder?” asks Watson.

  A Janegoodall laugh echo-warps and boomerangs around. She looks over what would usually be Watson’s shoulder. “Oh yes, things could get weirder. Hello, Einstein.”

  A geometric manshape stroking a floating tabby cat head floats down next to the four kids, two robots, and one chimpanzee.

  “Hello, Einstein.”

  “Grampa Al!” yells Frank, oozing over into his grandpa’s folding arms.

  Frank Einstein, Grampa Al, Watson, and Janegoodall wobble and expand and contract and attach to one another in a shimmering cluster of soap bubbles group hug.

  “I can’t believe we found you,” blips Watson’s bubble mouth.

  “Frank has only been gone for ten minutes,” pops dome-head Grampa Al.

  “Which has been twenty-four hours back on Earth,” wiggles Janegoodall.

  “Ahhhh, space-time dilation,” beams Grampa Al.

  “Meooow,” confirms floating cat-head Igor.

  Expanded Frank turns a swirl of colors. “And we used that twenty-four hours to improve the Space-Time Transporter . . . and change it into a Space-Time Zipper.”

  “Great!” says half of Grampa Al’s spiraling head, eyeballing a suspicious kaleidoscope of jagged shapes in the distance. “Because something big is headed this way. And I think we should get out of this 4-D universe before it gets here.”

  “This is a 7-D universe,” reports Klink. “You are seeing seven dimensions.”

  Klank pouts. “No fun for us. Because we are only built to see three dimensions.”

  Watson shakes his pulsing head in disbelief. “I have no idea what any of that means. But I’m with Grampa Al—let’s get busy and get out of here.”

  “Right,” says Frank. “We just need to reset the Space-Time Zipper.” Frank holds up the Pull Tab of the Space-Time Zipper. “Ohhhh no.”

  The Space-Time Zipper Pull Tab is not attached to anything.

  “Heeeeeelp!” squeals the spinning blob on the wing-tip shoes.

  “T. Edison!” calls Frank. “We know you copied our invention. But for once, you can do something good. We can use your Space-Time Zipper.”

  “It is a T. Edison Space-Time Relativity Fastening and Unfastening Device,” T. EdisonFungus answers. “And I thought of it all by myself.”

  “Yeah, sure you did,” says Watson. “We don’t care what you call it. Let’s set it up!”

  T. Edison holds up his invention’s Zipper Teeth.

  But T. Edison’s Zipper Teeth are likewise . . . attached to nothing.

  “Noooooo,” says Janegoodall. “Klink and Klank! How did you and Mr. Chimp get here?”

  Mr. Chimp somersaults down from the overhead branch in what looks like a series of time-lapse photography.

  Klink answers, “We modified the NASA space capsule used by Mr. Chimp’s grandfather.”

  “And I helped, too!” says Klank.

  “Fantastic!” says Frank.

  “Maybe we can use that. In sequence.”

  The sky darkens and the kaleidoscope spins.

  Mr. Chimp holds up his lever control box. Attached to nothing.

  Watson pops. “Oh man! Three space-time travel inventions? And all three of them are busted. Could this get any worse?”

  “Meoooow,” warns Igor’s waving head, looking toward the approaching dark shape.

  “Yes, it could,” says Janegoodall. “Because that approaching funnel of darkness looks exactly like what we did not want to run into—a black hole.”

  Crrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh

  Wwwwwwwhhhhhhhhoooooooosssssshhhhhhh

  Sssssspiiiiinnnnn, mmmmmeeeeelllllttttt, ooooozzzzze . . .

  The bubble cluster of friends and enemies and robots huddles in the middle of the worsening seven-dimensional cyclone.

  Colors shapes sounds/height width depth/past present future, all twist and flash and spin around them.

  “Klink! Klank!” yells Watson, unraveling. “What do we do?”

  “Hmmmm.” Klink quickly calculates all possibilities. “I do not have any answers for this problem.”

  Klank shakes in 3-D fright. “Lasagna? A nap?”

  Frank Einstein thinks.

  “I’ll be danged,” says Grampa Al. “Never seen anything like this. No way to escape. This might be the end.”

  The approaching black hole warps space and light and time.

  “It’s not like a black hole sucks you into anything,” Janegoodall explains. “It’s more like all space-time goes over a waterfall.

  “And once we go over that waterfall, we can’t swim out faster than the speed of light that we are falling in.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel sooo much better,” says Watson. “Aieeeeeeeee! Now I am really freaking out!”

  Watson splits into a twirl of Watsons.

  FunhouseMirror Frank Einstein thinks.

  “Maybe . . .”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Just like you said before, build on what everyone has done . . . use everyone . . . Klink and Klank, Janegoodall, Watson, T. Edison, and Mr. Chimp. And . . . the energy of the black hole itself.”

  Crrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssshhhhhhh . . .

  Wwwwwwwhhhhhhhhoooooooosssssshhhhhhh . . .

  “If we all work together, I think we have one shot at this.

  “Or we waterfall into nothing.”

  Frank sketches out his plan in the inky air, using his headhand.

  Everyone else is all eyes.

  And ears.

  Really.

  “OK, we use T. Edison’s teeth, pull tab, and lower stop.”

  “I doubt this invention will work,” says T. Edison, handing over his zipper teeth.

  “Janegoodall, can you rethread our Pull Tab?”

  “Yes.”

  “Watson—you and Grampa Al rewire both Power Cables into the Upper Stop.”

  “On it.”

  “Klank—can you hold the whole thing up across those branches?”

  “Does Garfield like to sleep in?” Klank picks up the giant Zipper. “I just hope I don’t get blown up like I always do.”

  The space-time cyclone howls louder.

  The light begins to shift.

  Janegoodall looks up. “Aaaaand that is not a good sign.”

  “Klink,” says Frank.

  “Yes, that is my name,” says a still slightly miffed Klink.

  “We need you most of all.”

  That brightens up Klink.

  “To make this space-time fold, we are going to need massive power.”

  “Obviously.”

  “We use Einstein’s most famous formula.” Frank points to the black hole looming. “And tap into the most massive object in the universe.”

  Klink lights up at the thought. “Oh yes. Then the energy will be equal to the incredible mass of the black hole, times the very fast speed of light squared.”

>   “Exactly!” beams lightbulb Frank. “But how do we connect?”

  Klink whirrs and blinks. And whirrs once more.

  The sky turns a deep purple.

  A whirling tornado of Klink ideas twist overhead, then spin down a drain.

  “Ooook,” says a now-glowing Mr. Chimp.

  Klink nods his glass-dome head. “ ‘Ooook’ is exactly right.”

  Frank turns into a question mark.

  Mr. Chimp holds up his grampa Ham’s old space capsule control board.

  Frank turns into an exclamation point. “Of course!”

  Klink continues, “But if you connect—”

  “Oooooh ooooh ook,” Mr. Chimp stops Klink.

  Klink understands. Klink nods.

  “Can you do it?” asks Frank Einstein.

  Mr. Chimp signs:

  Stars above begin to wink out, waterfalling into the black hole.

  “Any time now would be good,” says Janegoodall.

  Mr. Chimp leaps into action. He wires the antique control panel into place. He somersaults up to the top of the waving tree with cables of pure blue light. He waves OK.

  “This is either genius . . . or pure crazy,” says Grampa Al.

  Watson’s eyes bug out. “Thanks for that cheerful thought.”

  Space-time creaks, crackles, builds to a roaring crescendo.

  “Ready, everyone?” Frank yells over the din. “Klank, grab the Pull Tab. Yank it on my count to zero!”

  Frank takes one last look at the 7-D universe. His closest friends. His fiercest enemies. His robot pals. Their past, present, future weaving a tapestry of space-time.

  He hears Albert Einstein:

  “Death signifies nothing . . . the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

  Frank Einstein nods, then counts, “Five, four, three, two, one . . . pull!”

  Klank pulls.

  Mr. Chimp leaps into the heavens on bolts of blue.

  Everything goes white.

  Then black.

  The sun sets slowly in the western sky of Midville.

  In the junkyard behind Grampa Al Einstein’s Fix It! repair shop and Frank Einstein’s laboratory, just above the storm sewer behind the washing machine and junker car, nothing moves.

  The last red-orange rays of the star that Earth orbits light the top of the giant maple tree in the alley.

  Venus, Jupiter, and a crescent moon track their paths, as ever, across the evening sky.

  In motion too slow for the human eye to track, the stars of constellations spin overhead.

  The solar system twirls.

  The Milky Way galaxy spins.

  Stars are born, grow, collapse, die.

  Back in the junkyard, still nothing.

  Sometimes plans don’t work out.

  Oftentimes inventions fail.

  Who can know how things work out?

  There is a theory that every possibility works out.

  That there are multiple universes.

  An infinite number of universes.

  One for every combination of possibilities.

  For the universe where you didn’t make the bus this morning, you missed the class on stars, you weren’t inspired to become a scientist, and the world didn’t get the invention that you would go on to make, which would change everything . . .

  But in this universe, in this moment, in the junkyard behind Grampa Al’s Fix It! repair shop and Frank Einstein’s laboratory—

  Nothing.

  No one.

  Until zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipppppppppppppppp!

  At precisely 08:08.08, the yellow lightbulbs of the junkyard arrow sign suddenly flash, then light up in sequence. Blinking. Pointing.

  The space-time just above the picnic table unzips . . . and a jumble of bodies and robots and starlight and cosmic dust crashes out into this world.

  Watson conks his head against the busted washing machine with a bonk and an “Owwwwww!”

  “Whooo hoooo! We did it!” cheers Janegoodall, sitting on top of the junker car.

  T. Edison crawls out from under a pile of old bicycles. “I told you it would only work . . . if you used my part of the invention.”

  Grampa Al, sitting on top of the pile of vacuums, legs crossed, laughs and laughs, and laughs some more.

  Klink rolls out from under a pile of old cans. “Exactly as I had calculated.”

  Frank Einstein, standing on top of the MIDVILLE STORM SEWER cover, beams. “Exactly.” He looks around the junkyard, never happier to be in the middle of all of this junk. In the middle of his friends. In the beginning of his life. “And we did it with help from everyone.”

  Frank holds a piece of pipe like a scepter.

  “Thank you, Watson. Thank you, Janegoodall. Thank you, Grampa Al. Thank you, T. Edison. Thank you, Klink. Thank you . . . Klank?”

  Frank and everyone look around the junkyard.

  “Klank.”

  No Klank.

  “Klank!”

  A noise, a bent piece of aluminum siding moves.

  “Mmmrmrmnkjfkhfk.”

  “What is that?!”

  “The 7-D jumble has fallen into our universe!”

  “Smash it!”

  Frank edges his pipe under the siding.

  “Mjsdvijisjijhsfihiuh.”

  Frank takes a deep breath, flips the siding over, and raises his pipe to bash the 7-D invader back to its own world.

  “Hoooorah! We did it!” cheers a colander robot head.

  “Klank!” Frank yells in relief.

  “We did it, we did it, we did it. And I did not get blown up.”

  Frank bends down.

  “I cannot believe it. I am perfectly OK.”

  Frank smiles. “Yes, you are, Klank. A couple quick fixes . . . and you’ll be good as new.”

  Frank picks up Klank’s body-less head and puts it on the picnic table.

  “Fantastic,” says Klank’s head. “And—lasagna!”

  Grampa Al and Watson and Janegoodall laugh.

  “But where is Mr. Chimp?”

  “Mr. Chimp!” calls T. Edison.

  Klink points up to the heavens. More specifically to the Andromeda galaxy in the northern sky.

  “Mr. Chimp knew he was not coming back. He is in his own universe now.”

  Igor the cat meows.

  “I always knew that monkey was his own . . . monkey,” says T. Edison proudly.

  “Ape,” Janegoodall corrects T. Edison.

  Frank helps Grampa Al down from the pile of vacuums.

  “Thanks, Einstein.”

  “No. Thank you, Einstein. Thanks for helping us think like scientists. Because now, more than ever, we are going to need to be scientists.”

  “Oh no,” says Watson. “Why?”

  Frank Einstein looks up at the stars, planets, galaxies spinning above them. He hears Albert Einstein again:

  “Once an event occurs, it becomes

  part of the fabric of the Universe.

  We make our own mark on the Universe.

  Our actions create space-time Universes.

  We need to take care of our Universes.”

  “Because now Mr. Chimp has shown us that we can explore and discover and take care of . . . a whole universe of universes.”

  FRANK EINSTEIN’S COSMIC ADDRESS

  Frank Einstein Workshop and Laboratory

  The Junkyard behind Grampa Al’s Fix It! Repair Shop

  And the Old Garage next to it

  11235 Pine Street

  • Filled with twenty years’ worth of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing parts, appliances, and tools.

  • Also piano keyboards, watches, toasters, webcams, hamburger grills, stomach exercisers, TV remotes, magnets, aluminum flex-duct hoses, batteries, locks, speakers, Shop-Vac, wheels, a glass dome, a silver trash can, an old stove, tongs, a colander, wires, screws, bolts, nails, lights, vacuum cleaners, bicycles, radios, a few cars, springs, chains, lock
s, and a broken HugMeMonkey! doll.

  • Frank Einstein’s Workshop and Laboratory is part of the larger Town of Midville.

  THE TOWN OF MIDVILLE

  • In the middle of the United States of America.

  • Population 6,543.

  • 7.3 miles across.

  • Home of Frank Einstein pals Watson and Janegoodall.

  • Also home of T. Edison, Mr. Chimp, and the T. Edison

  Laboratories (later renamed ChimpEdison Laboratories).

  • Also home of the Midville Mud Hens baseball stadium, Midville City Hall, Lake Midville, the Midville Dam, the Midville Forest Preserve, the Midville Power and Light Company, and Midville Park.

  • The Town of Midville is part of the larger Planet Earth.

  PLANET EARTH

  • Formed over 4 billion years ago.

  • 7,928 miles around its middle.

  • The only planet with liquid water on its surface and an atmosphere containing 21% oxygen.

  • Not an exact sphere—more a slightly squashed sphere.

  • 93 million miles from the sun, it orbits in 365 ¼ days.

  • Spins around on its axis once every 24 hours, making daytime on its side facing the sun, nighttime on its side facing away.

  • The Planet Earth is part of the larger Solar System.

  The solar system

  • Composed of

  – The Sun, a giant gas-burning star

  – 8 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,

  Uranus, and Neptune

  – And lots of dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, meteroids, and comets.

  • 1 million Earths could fit inside the Sun.

  • The Solar System is over 7 billion (7,000,000,000) miles across.

  • Ancient man used to believe that everything revolved around the Earth. Scientists discovered that everything actually revolves around the Sun.

  • 4 inner “terrestrial” planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) are made up of mostly rock and metal.

  • 2 outer “gas giants” (Jupiter and Saturn) are made up of mostly hydrogen and helium gas.