Spoonbenders

“Close your eyes, and do what you normally do when you’re remote-viewing.”

“That’s what I’m saying—I can’t do that.” He looks at Teddy. “I have a…routine I’ve got to follow.”

“What kind of routine?” Smalls asks. “Meditation? Some of our operatives—”

“You don’t need him to leave his body,” Teddy interrupts. “Just record his resting tau state and we can get down to business.”

“Will that give us what we need?” Smalls asks Archibald.

“One way to find out,” the tiny bald man says. He flips two switches on the control board, and puts his finger over a third button. “Beginning measurement…now.”

He presses the button. The needle of the biggest gauge slams into the red zone and stays there. A whine starts in one of the machines, and grows higher in pitch.

“Huh,” Archibald says.

A flash erupts from one of the devices. A loud pop! sounds from below, and all lights in the house go out.

Buddy hustles to the basement, where Mary Alice and Julian, Graciella’s oldest son, sit in front of the now-blank TV, holding game controllers. “What happened?” Mary Alice asks.

Buddy goes to the far wall, flips open the fuse box, and resets the circuit breakers. Lights come back on, as does the TV.

Buddy walks past them and sets to work on the window shades with the drill that he’s retrieved from Frankie’s tool bag. Each shade has a flange that rests against the wood. He doesn’t have time to be clever, so he drives screws directly through the flange into the wood. He really wishes he’d remembered this earlier. He could have made locking hooks. (Except he wouldn’t have made hooks, because he didn’t remember doing that. He was so tired of Future Buddy being such an idiot.)

After he’s finished, Julian says, “That was…loud.”

Buddy puts away the drill.

Julian says, “And it’s pretty dark in here.”

“It’s perfect,” Mary Alice says kindly. “Less glare.”

Buddy goes into the laundry room and gets down the supplies he bought a few weeks ago. One of them is a shallow metal dish. He fills that up at the utility sink and brings everything out to the big room. He sets the bowl on the floor, and hands Mary Alice the plastic bag. The girl looks confused.

Buddy’s sympathetic. For the longest time, this was the memory that most confused him. But now, it makes perfect sense. “I’ll be right back,” he says.

He hurries to Mrs. Klauser’s house and knocks on the front door. He can hear Miss Poppins barking in excitement, and a second, even higher-pitched noise. The yipping increases in intensity when Mrs. Klauser opens the door.

“I was wondering if I could borrow Mr. Banks,” he says.

She laughs. “Take him all day! I don’t know how you talked me into this. He’s a terror!” But she’s smiling. She’s more energetic than she’s been in months.

Buddy acknowledges Miss Poppins with a pat to the head, but then scoops up the ball of white fluff next to her. Mr. Banks is barely two months old, all head and paws, and his puppy coat is so soft. Buddy holds the little creature’s face to his own, and it licks his face. Mr. Banks still has that lovely puppy smell.

He carries the dog back to the house, and as soon as he enters the backyard he has the attention of every child. They rush him. Squealing.

“Don’t scare him,” Buddy says. “This is Mr. Banks. I wonder if you could take care of him for me, for just a while?”

This is a rhetorical question. They follow him as if he’s the Pied Piper, and he walks them into the basement. Even Matty, now freed from the smoking devices and the attention of the government men, has been attracted by the commotion.

Buddy says to Jun, “Have you ever taken care of a pet?”

She nods excitedly. “I have a cat.”

“Then you’re in charge. Don’t let them squash him.” He puts the puppy in her arms.

He does a quick head count: three Pusateris, the twins, Mary Alice, Matty, and Jun Lee. Eight is the correct number, so that’s a relief.

The children don’t notice him leaving, and no one squawks when he closes the steel door. He checks his watch. 11:32. So little time! He sets the timer beside the door to thirty minutes and presses enter. The magnetic locks engage with a reassuring thunk.

MATTY

He was still shaky after frying the house’s electrical system, but he had to admit that the puppy helped calm him down. When the lights blew, Grandpa Teddy had rushed over and unplugged him, over the objections of Destin Smalls. “One test!” Teddy said. “That was the deal.” They kept arguing, and Matty escaped to the basement with the other kids to play with the dog.

Even Malice was enjoying herself. Somehow she’d gotten possession of a bag of pet toys. Inside was a real bone, a rubber ball, and a selection of squeaker toys in the shape of small animals that Mr. Banks would supposedly be happy to kill. She distributed them to the younger kids, and they seemed more excited by them than the dog was.

After playing Santa, Malice sat down beside him. He realized that the smell of her also calmed him down.