JAMES PATTERSON AND TAD SAFRAN
James Patterson is the internationally bestselling author of the highly praised Middle School books, Katt vs. Dogg, Ali Cross and the I Funny, Jacky Ha-Ha, Treasure Hunters, Dog Diaries and Max Einstein series. James Patterson’s books have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide, making him one of the biggest-selling authors of all time. He lives in Florida.
Tad Safran is a storyteller. He has written them for TV, film, podcasts, newspapers and books, always with the same goal: to entertain, intrigue and amuse. He lives at the top of a hill with his wife and twin sons who make every day feel like Christmas Day, i.e. messy, noisy, exhausting and quite wonderful.
A list of titles by James Patterson appears at the back of this book
ILLUSTRATED BY CHRIS SCHWEIZER
Young Arrow
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Young Arrow is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Text and illustrations copyright © James Patterson 2024 Illustrations by Chris Schweizer
James Patterson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, some names of real people or places have been included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of non-historical persons or events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such non-historical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.
First published in the UK by Young Arrow in 2024
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN : 978–1–529–12074–5
Interior design by Neil Swaab
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To the most important people in any child’s life: parents. And, more specifically, mine. –TS
6/7/24 3:53:27
CHAPTER 1
In normal circumstances, Pew and Basket Church, aged twelve, would have very much enjoyed the scenery. Lush green forests. Rolling hills. An expansive blue sky, painted with broad bands of pink and orange, on which a flock of fluffy white clouds seemed to be contentedly grazing.
But, as it was, the strong probability of imminent death somewhat overshadowed things. They were, at that moment, perched on a slippery, narrow ledge at the top of the tallest, darkest tower of their vast, gray orphanage. In front of them was nothing but air, and one hundred feet below them, an expanse of bone-crushing granite paving stones. Behind them
was an aggressive pack of frothing hounds with a taste for orphan.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” said an annoyed Pew, pointing sternly at his twin sister.
“Do you really want your last words to be ‘I told you so’?” responded Basket.
“Yes, I think that would be appropriate.”
“Well, I’m going to get us out of this,” said Basket defiantly, her long blond hair swirling in the wind and slapping her face.
Basket considered the options carefully. She was generally very confident about her ability to get out of sticky situations. She was not necessarily right to be confident about her ability to get out of sticky situations, but she was confident all the same. And, sometimes, just having confidence is enough to get you through. In this specific situation, however, it was not. Because, with a loud crack, the narrow ledge on which they were standing broke.
Pew and Basket Church hurtled down and down, clinging to each other while screaming loudly and bracing themselves as the rock-hard ground approached faster and faster. What had been “a strong probability of death” became “a total certainty of death.” Pew and
Basket Church’s all-too-brief lives were sadly coming to what would no doubt be a very gruesome and messy end. Before they find themselves ringing the bell on any heavenly gates, however, maybe it’s worth taking a moment to learn exactly how they arrived at this situation.
CHAPTER 2
Pew and Basket Church are twins. Not identical, of course. Pew is a boy and Basket is a girl. Pew is tall and somewhat clumsy while Basket is quite short yet very nimble. And, interestingly for twins, Pew is Black and Basket is white.
Despite their obvious differences in gender, height, weight, and skin tone, any observant person would quickly figure out that they were siblings. They both had the same intense, intelligent eyes. They both had similarly thick, expressive eyebrows. They both had full lips that naturally curled up at the edges and which flowered into a sincere, bright smile when either was happy.
They were discovered as babies in a basket behind a pew in a church by someone with very little imagination, hence the names Basket and Pew Church. They were then delivered straight from the church to an orphanage that had been constructed long ago out of imposing boulders of miserable gray limestone and granite. A watchtower lurked in each corner, connected by high walls that ensured the courtyard within was cast in a cold shadow no matter where the sun was in the sky.
Despite its austere appearance, however, the orphanage was an extraordinarily happy place, full of fantastic toys and delicious treats. Kidding.
It’s an orphanage… In a book.
It was an awful, cruel place.
Having been there since they were babies, Pew and Basket had no frame of reference for what may or may not be nice in a home, but they were pretty sure that this orphanage was the worst, most dank, unpleasant, dire place in the world, staffed by the nastiest, most needlessly mean people ever born. Every day, the adults
who worked there reminded Pew and Basket that they were nobodies, nothings, insignificant annoyances without purpose or place in this world, abandoned by parents who didn’t want or love them.
If you’re told something awful about yourself day after day, it’s easy to start to believe it. But not Pew and Basket. They were convinced that the staff was wrong. They held firm that they were special. That they did have purpose. That they were loved…by at least one parent who they would, someday, be happily reunited with.
There were two very good reasons the twins clung to the belief that they were special. Firstly, the orphanage was an enormous, sprawling place. It housed dozens of classrooms, a vast kitchen, a cavernous dining hall, and eleven dormitories, each of which could sleep fifty children. And it was staffed by twenty-seven guards, thirteen administrators, five (totally unqualified) teachers, and three (even more unqualified) cooks. And yet, despite all the space and the staff, Pew and Basket were the only orphans there. Just the two of them.
It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through for
two children who were inconsequential nothings and nobodies.
The second reason they suspected they were special was that each twin had an extraordinary sense. Not “sense” as in they were sensible…although Pew happened to be pretty sensible. No, “sense” as in “the five senses.” For Pew, it was his sense of smell. He could sniff the air and tell you the contents of a closed fridge down to the exact number of pickles. Eyes closed, he could smell the difference between a falcon and an osprey as they flew overhead. He could tell if people were afraid, vain, or nervous just by smelling them. And Basket? She could hear. She could hear a secret whispered in the house next door. She could hear whether it was foggy or clear outside without looking. She could tell the difference between the wind blowing through an oak tree or a sycamore tree just by the minuscule sound variances made by the differently shaped leaves.
They kept the secret of their sensory gifts to themselves, never revealing that they knew a lot more about what was going on than the staff of the orphanage could have imagined.
No doubt by now, you agree that Pew and Basket
Church were special, even if you—like them—don’t know why or to what end.
There was one more thing that made them extraordinary. But not even Pew and Basket knew what that thing was. Not yet anyway.
CHAPTER 3
Their days began each morning when they were rudely jolted awake by an earsplitting bugle call blared over loudspeakers. The bugle call wasn’t even at the same time each day. If it were, they might naturally have learned to wake up a little beforehand to soften the shock. Instead, it blasted randomly so every day began with maximum suffering. That was followed by a cold shower and an even colder breakfast.
The rest of the day was taken up by long, dreary lessons taught by staggeringly ignorant and dull teachers. (Maybe some readers can relate to this?) To make matters even worse, all subjects—whether astronomy, Latin,
or lithology (the study of rocks)—were taught out of monumentally complex textbooks designed for PhD students and not twelve-year-olds.
There was art history, but no art. There was music theory, but no music. There was English grammar, but no English literature. In short, there was a never-ending collection of facts to be crammed into their heads, but a total absence of inspiration. The result was that these two twelve-year-olds knew way more about a far wider spectrum of subjects than most adults.
When lessons were over at 4 p.m., however, they were allowed to relax and play in the Recreation Room, which was full of games, toys, puzzles, art supplies, sports equipment, remote control vehicles, and other wonderful diversions that might amuse and delight twelve-year-olds. The room was open until 8 p.m., so as long as they finished their homework, completed their chores, ate their dinner, and served any punishments before 8 p.m., they could head straight to the Recreation Room until it closed.
In all their years in the orphanage, however, can you guess how many times they had been allowed to finish their lessons, homework, chores, dinner, and
punishments before 8 p.m.? If you guessed zero times, you would be right.
In short, the orphanage was a nasty place.
“It’s bad enough we have to scrub the floors,” said Pew one evening, “but why does the water have to be full of ice and—”
“—the brushes so small,” interrupted Basket, holding up a brush designed to clean fingernails, not the stone slabs of a room the size of ten tennis courts.
The two siblings were on their knees scrubbing the seemingly endless flagstones in the entrance hall of the orphanage. The skin on their knees was shredded and their knuckles bled from being scraped on the stones, which were as jagged as cheese graters.
Pew dipped his brush into the square bucket of water and then into the square tub of soap. Yes, square.
One of the many peculiarities of the orphanage was the total absence of anything round. Anything that you’d expect to be round—like a trash can or a drinking glass or a bowl or a pot or a pan or drainpipes or even a toilet—all were, in fact, square.
“Less chat. More scrub!” barked Ms. Grot, the British warden of the orphanage. She was a large, square
woman, as wide as she was tall, with small piggy eyes sunk deep in her fleshy face. Two snarling dogs strained at leashes held in her meaty hand. She pointed a thick finger at the floor. “You missed a spot. Now hurry up or you’ll get no dinner.”
“Oh, no,” muttered Basket sarcastically. “Whatever will we do without stale bread and last month’s rotting leftovers from the staff dining room?”
They could see the rage building in Ms. Grot’s body. It seemed to start in her toes and visibly rise up, like hot magma under the earth’s crust, until it burst out of her mouth.
“CAREGIVERS!!!! ” she shouted.
That’s what they called the guards in the orphanage, which was ironic because not one of those ruffians in white coats could have possibly cared less about Pew’s and Basket’s emotional or physical well-being.
Two huge “caregivers” lumbered up to Ms. Grot and stood to attention. Or as close to attention as their vast, hunched shoulders and stupid faces would allow.
“Take Church, P., and Church, B., back to their room,” Ms. Grot barked before adding with a malicious grin, “and put them on dice duty as punishment.”
“Punishment for what?” protested Basket.
“For sarcasm, impertinence, ungratefulness,” replied Ms. Grot, “…and eye-rolling.”
Each caregiver grabbed a child by the back of the shirt and lifted them off the ground, carrying them like rag dolls to their room. Pew and Basket’s accommodation was a “room” like the guards were “caregivers” and dinner was “food”—the truth was very different. If you take a room, add bars to the windows and a lock on the outside of the door, it’s no longer a “room.” It’s a “cell.”
The guards dropped the twins onto the hard, bare floor, where they began “dice duty,” which involved painstakingly painting the dots on the sides of thousands of blank dice until their eyes watered and their fingers ached. (It’s entirely possible that you might have dice painted by Pew and Basket in a game on your shelf right now.)
“Why do you antagonize Ms. Grot like that?” asked Pew.
“Because it’s fun,” explained Basket. “And we don’t have a lot of fun here. So I feel we have to take it where we can get it.”
CHAPTER
4
The following day the twins had just completed the painting of the ten thousandth pair of dice when their lunch trays were shoved under the door and skidded to a halt next to them. Lunch was a stew of rotten potatoes in a sauce of furry tomatoes with occasional lumps of what tasted like tire rubber…mainly because they were lumps of rubber cut from the old tires taken off Ms. Grot’s car. Next to that was a hunk of bread so old and rock-hard that, when tapped on the bars of the door, it made a CLANK CLANK sound. Bread should not clank. If ever you are given bread that clanks, put it down. Which is exactly what Basket did. No matter how much her stomach grumbled, Basket couldn’t force herself to eat this muck.
“I’m going to escape for a bit,” said Basket.
“Now? Seems early,” asked Pew calmly.
“Yes, but”—Basket listened for a moment—“I don’t hear anyone nearby. Do you smell anyone coming?”
Pew sniffed. “Nope. Coast is clear.”
Basket then carefully scraped the dirt away from the edges of a stone in the floor and lifted it up. Underneath was not a passageway that led out of the orphanage, but instead was Pew and Basket’s most treasured possession: a book. For most people, reading a book is just a pleasurable pastime. A way to experience the lives of different people in different places. Maybe a means to learn things they didn’t know. Or, for some, it’s a delightful way to become sleepy before bed. For Pew and Basket, this book was all those things, but so much more. It was a transportation device that allowed them to escape their miserable lives. At least for a little while.
The huge tome, four inches thick, had been in the basket with them when they were found, and it contained an overview of all the history of all the world in language that was engaging and entertaining with photos and illustrations that fired the imagination.
Why this one specific book had been in the basket, nobody knew. But the Churches were glad it was, as it transported them to ancient Mesopotamia and medieval France. It allowed them to ride with warring Mongolian hordes and to experience the fall of Rome. It introduced them to every important figure in history and gave them the basic facts about the major events of everywhere through every era. Pew and Basket devoured it, as world history was not among the subjects taught at the orphanage.
Knowing how cruel and arbitrary Ms. Grot could be, they were sure that one day she would take their history book away from them. So, years ago, Pew and Basket had hidden the book under a stone and told the guards that, during the night, voracious mice had eaten it away entirely, leaving nothing but a few crumbs of paper.
Basket had only just started reading (for the twentieth time) about Napoleon’s rise from minor Corsican artillery officer to French emperor when Pew’s sensitive nostrils caught a whiff of something unusual. He sniffed the air two or three times, his head tilted back, his nose held high.
“What is it? Is someone coming?” Basket asked,
shoving the book back under the stone and scattering dirt over the top of it.
“No…I think it’s a”—Pew sniffed again—“a fresh lemon.”
“A fresh lemon?” questioned Basket. “That’s unusual. The staff must be having fish for dinner.”
Pew sniffed some more. “No. That’s not it, because I’m also getting eggs…brown sugar, flour, vanilla, unsalted butter…” He looked at his sister. “I’m pretty sure someone just brought a lemon meringue pie in.” He sniffed again. “Too little lemon zest. Slightly burned.”
“Impossible.”
“Not at all,” contradicted Pew, “it’s all too easy to underzest and overcook a lemon meringue pie.”
“That’s not the impossible bit,” said Basket, her lips pursed tightly. “Let me see what I can find out.”
Basket closed her eyes and concentrated as her hearing sensibilities went on a high-speed tour around the corridors and rooms of the building until they landed on the voices of some guards. She listened for a moment and then opened her blue eyes wide.
“Good lord, you’re right! Someone did just bring in a lemon meringue pie.”
“For us?” Pew asked, barely able to contain himself. They’d never tasted a lemon meringue pie. Or any kind of pie, actually. Or cake. Or cookies. Or brownies. Or eclairs. Or tarts. Or doughnuts. Or muffins. Not even a scone, which is only just sweet enough to qualify as a pastry.
As Basket listened some more, Pew watched excitedly for news until he saw his sister’s face drop.
“Of course it’s not for us,” she said, dashing Pew’s hopes. “It’s Ms. Grot’s birthday.”
Pew looked puzzled. “I’m assuming she has a birthday every year,” he pointed out, “and they’ve never brought anything nice in before. Not for her birthday nor anyone else’s.”
“Shh,” insisted Basket, listening again. “Turns out it’s her fiftieth birthday. Kind of a big one, so they’re making it a special occasion. All the guards are gathering in Grot’s office to surprise her with a lemon meringue pie.”
“I should’ve known it wasn’t for us.” Pew kicked a paintbrush across the room. “Nothing interesting ever happens to us.”
Basket’s face then lit up. “No, Pew, this is interesting.
This is more than interesting. This is perfect.”
“How is this ‘perfect’? ‘Perfect’ would be the guards gathering in our cell to present us with a lemon meringue pie.”
“That would be ‘good,’ maybe ‘excellent,’” Basket admitted. “But ‘perfect’ is all the guards in Ms. Grot’s office. All of them, Pew.” Basket’s eyes sparkled in a way that made Pew nervous. “All of them. Every single one. You know what that means? This is our chance.”
“Our chance for what?” Pew asked. “Certainly not our chance to find out what lemon meringue pie tastes like.”
“Better. This is our chance to find out what freedom tastes like. We can escape while they’re all distracted. Really escape.”
CHAPTER
5
“N o,” hissed Pew. “Not another one of your harebrained schemes.”
“Harebrained?” replied Basket indignantly. “Name one harebrained scheme I’ve ever suggested!”
“Building a glider out of used toilet paper rolls and flying out the west tower,” Pew replied without even the briefest of pauses.
“That could’ve worked according to theoretical physics, Bernoulli’s Principle of Flight, and Newton’s Third Law of Motion.”
“Yeah…and how long would it have taken to gather enough toilet paper rolls to build a glider large enough to carry us?”
“At our current rate,” Basket muttered, “102 years. But still, it could’ve worked if launched on a night with the perfect wind speed and thermodynamic conditions.” Basket swiftly moved on with renewed enthusiasm. “But this is a real chance for escape. There are no guards patrolling!”
“It’s too risky.”
“Risky? There’s no risk”—Basket laughed before conceding—“if it works.”
“How exactly do you propose escaping?” Pew asked. “Even if the guards are not patrolling or watching the doors, we’re still locked in our room.”
“Watch,” said Basket, who was already carefully chipping away at her piece of stale bread with the pointed end of the paintbrush. Soon, it became clear what she was crafting: a key.
“You’re kidding me,” said Pew.
“Take it,” instructed Basket. “Take it. I can’t reach.”
Against his better judgment, Pew grasped the bread-key and slid his long arm through the bars of the door. Reaching as far as he could, he found the lock and slid the bread-key in. Taking a deep breath, he twisted it, praying that it wouldn’t snap off, leaving
them to explain why there was a key-shaped piece of pumpernickel in the lock of their door. Basket could barely breathe as Pew’s hand gingerly rotated.
CLICK!
To their astonishment, the door swung open. Basket immediately ran into the hallway, grabbing her brother’s sweaty hand as she passed. Hearts pounding, they ran along the guard-free hallways and down the guardfree stairs, and finally arrived at the huge, heavy front door. They were exhilarated to find that, for the first time ever, it, too, was guard-free. A mere four inches of carved and lacquered oak stood between the Church twins and eternal freedom. Filled with a giddy sense of nervous excitement, they wrapped their hands around the enormous brass handle and pulled the door open, only to very quickly become aware of the one slight flaw in their plan.
Dogs.
While it was true that all the guards were away from their posts, Ms. Grot’s fierce, underfed pet guard dogs had apparently not been invited to the lemon meringue party. Six snarling canine thugs stood in their way, baring their teeth and staring at the Churches, as if
deciding who to eat first. Long, elastic strings of bubbly drool swung from the sagging jowls of these powerful hounds, who had been bred and trained by Ms. Grot to specifically chase and maul fleeing children. The Churches stared back at the dogs for a moment. The blood that had been coursing so rapidly through their veins seemed to instantly freeze in fear. Their dreams of imminent, sweet liberty were replaced by more urgent dreams of their calves not becoming chew toys for Ms. Grot’s psycho dogs.
And so the Church twins ran.
They ran as fast as they could. With the mongrel mutts growling behind them, the twins ran to a tower and sprinted up the steps, two at a time. Up and up and up. Until they arrived at the top of the tower and there were no more steps. They climbed out onto a ledge while the dogs crept menacingly toward their cornered prey.
This pretty much brings us to where we started.
The brighter reader will remember that the twins had a brief conversation about last words, Basket promised to get them out of this situation, the ledge crumbled, and our tragic young heroes took the express gravity elevator toward the ground floor and certain death.
CHAPTER 6
If there was anything Ms. Grot liked more than lemon meringue pie and being sung to, it was the birthday bumps. The feeling of weightlessness as she was thrown in the air caused her to giggle like a child…not a child in her care, of course. There hadn’t been a child’s giggle in the orphanage in living memory. There had been recent reports of tittering at night, but that turned out to be the rats chewing on metal bed springs.
Excited for the birthday bumps, Ms. Grot giddily followed the “caregivers” outside. She watched as they gripped the edges of a large, strong sheet and pulled it taut for her to climb onto. But at the very moment the sheet was stretched to its fullest—WHUMP,
WHUMP—two bodies descended from the heavens and landed squarely in the middle of it before bouncing safely onto the ground.
Those bodies belonged to a very relieved Pew and Basket Church, who were delighted to find themselves not human marmalade spread thinly across the granite paving stones.
They had miraculously escaped a terrible fate, which was something to be celebrated, but they now found themselves facing their worst non-death-related nightmare.
Poison-spitting fire rhinos?
Flesh-eating scorpion rats?
Bloodsucking leeches with chronic gas?
No. Pew and Basket would have happily faced all those traumatic scenarios to avoid the punishment Ms. Grot had dreamed up for them: separation.
After spending every day of their twelve years on this planet together, Pew and Basket were going to be taken away from each other. Into separate rooms. In separate wings of the orphanage. For an entire year.
Naturally unable to sleep that night, they were silently slumped at the table in their cell. Their dinners
had grown cold in their square wooden bowls. With his square wooden spoon, Pew pushed around the fish eyeballs floating in a broth of tepid seawater containing a few limp noodles that looked suspiciously like worms.
“You should stay in this room. I’ll go,” said Pew.
The cell wasn’t much, but at least over the years they had made it their own.
“I couldn’t let you move,” replied Basket. “I know how much you like your routine, and you have everything here.”
“But our history book is here,” Pew whispered. “You can’t go a year without reading it.”
They sat in silence again. Pew was steeling himself to take a mouthful of the soup when something dropped—smack—on his head before falling to the floor with a dull thud.
“Ow,” said Pew, rubbing the back of his head.
Pew was sitting below the high square window in their cell. The window had vertical bars that served the dual purpose of stopping orphans from climbing out while still allowing the bitterly cold night air to come in. A package had dropped from between the narrow
bars. It was about the size of a large box of chocolates and was wrapped in plain brown paper.
“What’s that?” marveled Pew.
“Only one way to find out,” replied Basket, picking it up, immediately intrigued by the possibilities of what might be contained within.
They had never received a package before. They had never received anything. Not even a letter. For someone to go to the trouble of getting it to them inside their child prison, it had to be something important. Basket listened for a moment to see if she could hear something that might give her a clue as to the identity of the deliverer. She heard nothing, so, at Pew’s urging, Basket tore open the mystery package, reached inside, and pulled out…
A hat.
The twins looked at each other, puzzled. It was a black silk top hat. The type that presses down flat but then pops up to its full height when given a tap, which Pew did.
“A hat? Is that…it?” asked Pew. “Look again. Maybe there’s a note?”
“No,” Basket said, disappointed, shaking the package. “Nothing. Just…the hat.”
“Who would send us a hat? And why a hat? It’s not traditionally the sort of thing an orphan might want, is it?” said Pew.
“Not that I know of. I’d have thought chocolate…or dynamite would be more useful,” said Basket.
Pew took the hat and felt around the inside of it for some kind of hidden, useful contraband. There was nothing.
“I’ll bet it was Ms. Grot. Or one of the guards,” spat Basket.
“Yes. Probably a ruse to get our hopes up. A cruel joke. Will they never tire of inventing ways to make our lives more miserable?”
“I won’t let them get me down,” Basket muttered defiantly.
“Me neither,” said Pew, slightly less defiantly.
Basket drew back her fist to punch out the top of the hat, but before she could, the hat began to make a noise. A sort of whirling, spinning, whooshing noise. And it began to shake like it was experiencing its own mini earthquake. Shocked by the hat’s seismic activity, Basket dropped it onto the floor, where it continued to convulse in a very disturbing manner.
Mesmerized, Pew and Basket stared down at the round interior of the hat, where a twisting, multicolored vortex had appeared. They watched it glow brighter and brighter until they had to cover their eyes. They finally heard a strange schlurp sound, and then there was silence again. When the twins removed their hands from their eyes, there was a man standing in their cell, fastidiously brushing dust from his clothing.
CHAPTER 7
The man looked about forty years old and was wearing the outfit of an eighteenth-century gentleman: a black frock coat, white lace cuffs, a white silk cravat, black knee breeches over white stockings, and black shoes with large silver buckles. He had the slightly world-weary expression of a high school teacher who, in his youth, hadn’t expected to ever apply for a teaching job.
“Pew and Basket Church?” inquired the gentleman with a slight bow.
“Yes,” Pew said.
“How did you get in here?” Basket demanded.
“I came from the hat,” the man said as if it was obvious. “That’s why I slipped it between the window bars.
Because you need a round conduit in order to time travel, you know.”
They didn’t know, actually. This was, in fact, entirely new news to them.
“This is my first time in the twenty-first century,” the man admitted to the dumbstruck Churches. “Not a fan.” He sniffed. He noticed Pew and Basket staring. “I’m a time traveler,” the man explained in a slightly annoyed manner. “Same as you two, of course. And time travelers need a round conduit at each end in order to travel through time, right?”
“They do?” asked a startled Basket.
“Yes,” the man said impatiently. “Hadn’t you noticed that there was nothing round in this place?”
They had noticed that. They had often speculated as to why that was, but “preventing time travel” had never even been suggested as a possibility.
“That was done on purpose,” explained the man, “to stop you two from time traveling out of here.”
Pew, always logical, even in this bizarre situation, pointed out, “This place was built a hundred years before we were even born, so how could they have built it with us in mind?”
“Because it was built by a time traveler, of course. To stop you, in a hundred years, from time traveling, and to stop anyone from time traveling to you, which brings us back to my brilliant idea to slip a pop-up top hat into your cell. Or else I’d never have been able to get in here.”
“Why are you here?” Pew asked.
“To tell you, Pew Church, that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth,” he answered grandly. Being “born with a silver spoon in your mouth” is an expression. It implies that someone was born into a wealthy family and given great advantages in life.
Basket burst out laughing. “Yeah, we’re loaded. Just look at all our wealth.” She dramatically gestured around their sparse, cold room. “And anyway, we’re twins. How could he be born with a silver spoon in his mouth and not me?”
The man continued very deliberately, “I didn’t mean it figuratively. I meant it literally. The very moment Pew was born, a silver spoon was placed in his mouth. And here it is.”
He held up a gleaming sterling silver spoon that was uniquely designed and intricately engraved with
a scrolling, twisting, vinelike pattern. Pew marveled at it. He’d never owned anything so beautiful. In fact, he’d never owned anything at all. But, to Pew, this was more than just a beautiful object. It was evidence that he had a connection to a life and people outside of this orphanage. Basket looked on jealously before the strange man turned to her.
“And you, Basket, were born with a silver fork in your mouth,” he said, holding up a fork that exactly matched Pew’s spoon.
A huge smile burst onto Basket’s face as she reached out for her fork.
“Not so fast,” said the mysterious man. “I need to confirm that you are who I suspect you are. I’ve been looking for over a decade, and in that time, I’ve been wrong more than once.”
CHAPTER 8
“Thumb, please.”
From his pocket, the man produced a small, wellworn wooden box. He flipped it open to reveal an ink pad inside. He took Pew’s hand.
Pew obliged by sticking out his thumb as if he were trying to hitch a ride from a passing vehicle. The man pressed the thumb into the ink pad and then rolled Pew’s inky digit onto a piece of paper. The twins shared a glance, wondering what the man intended to do with the fingerprint. Their unspoken question was answered a moment later when the man brusquely took back Pew’s spoon and placed it next to Pew’s thumbprint. Reaching into another pocket, he produced a small,