“Max! Snap out of it! You’re spacing out again!”
The booming voice shocked Max into action. He bolted upright in his seat, trying to focus on the face looming in front of him. Beady, black pupils probed him like a giant insect inspecting its prey.
For a moment it seemed as if it were only a familiar nightmare until Ms. Stolty boomed again, “Perhaps if you would quit staring out the window, sniffling and sneezing, drifting off and daydreaming, you might actually find the time to complete your exam like the rest of the class!”
Muffled laughter echoed around the classroom. Max eyed the smirking faces and cringed. It wasn’t as if he had committed a crime. All he had done was drift off for a minute during….
The test!
“It’s a shame, Mr. Kellerman,” Ms. Stolty said, frowning, her fleshy cheeks flapping back and forth. “Nearly every question you answer is correct. Now, if you could stop zoning out long enough to finish the entire test, you might actually live up to your potential! After all, it is your mid-term!”
Ms. Stolty snatched Max’s exam before he could even remove his pencil, scoring a dark, diagonal slash across the page, as if to underscore his failing.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! The sound of the bell ended the longest fourth period in history.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Stolty warned.
“Hey, nice work there, Kellerman!”
Max groaned inwardly. Just the sort of response he’d expect from Kyle Saunders, the only seventh grader with a driver’s license.
“But hey, at least you didn’t drool down your sleeve like last week!”
“Ignore him, he’s a total butthead,” came the voice from the desk behind Max. It was Sam, his fifth period lab partner. She gave a sympathetic nod as she passed by, carefully avoiding the crush of students pushing and elbowing their way through the door.
Ms. Stolty was last to exit, head tilted back, nose high, making it a point to flip the lights off as if nobody remained in the room. Tiny specks of dust floated aimlessly in a shaft of late afternoon light. Max breathed a deep sigh and gathered up his books, backpack, and large collection of tightly wadded tissues strewn about his desktop.
Okay, so maybe I do drift off, he thought. And maybe I do “space out” at times, but sneezing and sniffling? How does that qualify as wasting time? And even so, I can’t help the sneezing part!
Max could back up his statement with hard facts. He was a walking Wikipedia of obscure facts that he hoped would pay off some day when asked the final question on a TV game show of his choosing.
“So, Mr. Kellerman,” the game host would say, “you hail from Providence, Rhode Island? Luckytown!” Max would nod politely. “For ten million dollars, approximately what percentage of the Earth’s population sneezes when looking into direct sunlight?” Max would cock his head and pause for a moment, as the studio audience leaned forward in suspense. Then he would calmly and confidently reply, “Sir, that would have to be twenty-five to thirty-three percent!”
The surprised yet insincere game show host would turn to the audience and declare, “Well, that’s correct, young man!” The crowd would gasp, clapping wildly at Max’s vast reservoir of knowledge. And so as not to appear outdone, the host would read from his notecard and ask, “I don’t suppose you know what causes this reaction?”
“Actually, I do,” Max would reply with attractive modesty. “It’s because some people have nerve endings in their noses that are connected to the nerves in their eyes in such a way that it causes them—no, actually it makes them—sneeze.”
The host’s mouth would then gape open in amazement, and the crowd would erupt again in cheers. Ms. Stolty would, of course, be the first to announce the news. “I always knew Max had it in him, such an exceptionally bright young man,” she would say. “I always said he had potential….” And blah-de-blah-de-blah it would go, with everyone nodding in agreement that Max had finally discovered an actual use for his potential.
But for now, that just wasn’t so. Max slipped out the classroom door and into a moving wall of bodies. Music blared everywhere, locker doors slammed shut, and shouts bounced about the hallway. An unmanned skateboard whizzed past, nearly wiping out two other students as they ran to beat the next bell. Max hurried as well, even though band was his next subject; Mr. Scottsburg wouldn’t care if he were late since he was rarely on time himself. Max pushed against the double doors that led into the vast, windowless music room and worked his way through the tiers of outstretched legs, untied shoes, and fallen music stands. Finding his usual seat in the wind section, he slid his overstuffed backpack under his chair and opened his alto saxophone case.
Whack! Max felt an open-handed smack on the back.
“You were so busted!” his best friend, Derek, laughed.
“It’s not that funny,” Max grumbled as he slipped the strap of his trusty sax around his neck. “And besides, I’ll still make an eighty-five anyway and get at least a B-plus. Can you match that, Mr. ‘Can-I-study-with-you-the-night-before-the-test’?”
“Hey! I had other options,” Derek insisted. “I just wanted to help you brush up. Anyway, what’s with the sneezing fit and the dazed look in class? You are in serious need of sleep. Even Sam noticed it, dude, and she sits behind you!”
Max bit down on his bottom lip, replaying the event in his mind. “It could be that photic sneeze reflex, what some people call the ‘ACHOO syndrome,’ that genetic thing I told you about when the sunlight stimulates the nerve endings in the nose, making you sneeze. Or it could just be allergies, which would explain the tiredness, and you know how that makes Ms. Stolty go crazy—”
“Max!” Derek interrupted, looking bewildered.
“You’re not following this, are you?”
“Actually? No, not a word.”
“Okay, how to put this?” Max paused to collect his thoughts. “Derek, do you ever feel like you are going right along, and then suddenly your brain freezes, like it’s on pause? Sort of like the rainbow wheel on the computer, just spinning but going nowhere?”
“What?” Derek questioned, one eyebrow raised slightly higher in disbelief.
“Um…? No?”
“Really? ‘Cause sometimes I get this glitch-y feeling, like time stops for a minute, then suddenly starts up again. Like today, I’m taking that test one minute and suddenly everyone’s staring, and Ms. Stolty pops up out of nowhere. Not sure just how that happens.”
“Could just be that your noodle is cooked,” Derek replied. “It’s like eating pizza and Twinkies and then playing video games all night. It leaves you with that totally zoned-out feeling.” Derek bit down hard on a Granny Smith apple he had scavenged from his backpack, spraying a perfect arc of apple juice across Max’s instrument case, while hitting Max in one eye. Max winced, shaking his head. Derek had the unusual knack of transforming a simple question into a baffling answer. What’s more, every response seemed to involve food—a subject never far from Derek’s mind. But to Max, that wasn’t important.
“Gotta question,” said Max. “You’ve known me since second grade. How many times in the last five years have I ever copped a sugar buzz? I don’t buy your theory.”
“Well then, how about buying this?” Derek pulled his chair alongside Max’s, swung the shiny bell of his new trombone up to Max’s left ear, and gave it a blast.
“Hey! That ear has to last me a lifetime!” Max’s voice echoed inside his head.
Derek gave Max one more blast for effect.
“Okay, man, so you’re freaked out because you have some weird sneeze disorder or you tend to zone out in class, big deal! And sure, you get busted now and then for going comatose, or whatever it is that you do. Practically everyone does it once in a while. Ease up.”
Max sighed. “I guess you’re right. But it’s happening a lot lately, and I can’t seem to stop it.”
* * *
The doorway bell chimed brightly as Max entered his uncle’s bookstore. It sat tucked away in a modest row of shops in the College Hill area of Providence. For Max it was a home away from home. The smell of musty paperbacks and polished oak floors held all the comfort of a nicely worn blanket.
“Hey, Max! Great, you’re just in time!” a muffled voice rang out from below the
front counter.
“Uncle Owen? Where are—”
Max’s uncle popped up suddenly from behind the frosted glass counter, releasing a plume of dust from a carton of unsorted novels. He squinted as he read the title of each one, mumbling and nodding, as if recalling an old acquaintance.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” Max replied willingly as he surveyed the countertop for the ceramic dish of York Peppermint Patties left out for coffee-drinking patrons. It was all part of a daily ritual. Max had successfully petitioned his uncle on the importance of an afternoon snack to ward off low blood sugar. It was one of a number of perks that came with the job.
“Could you help me sort through this shipment of books? They’re getting pretty stacked up back here.”
“No problem,” Max said, as he swung his heavy backpack off his shoulders and onto the floor behind the cash register counter. He gazed up at the faded colored spines of a thousand book jackets. They lined the towering shelves across from him, an endless treasure trove of obscure and exotic knowledge. Another whirl of dust stirred as he grabbed the first set of books from the cardboard box.
Achoo! Max sneezed abruptly.
Achoo! Achoo!
A package of tissues automatically slid toward him from across the counter.
“Thanks, Uncle Owen.”
“Hey, I met an interesting man today,” his uncle said as he tucked a tattered romance novel into its proper place. “A German physicist whose ancestors once lived in a castle near Heidelberg. His name’s Von Guttenberg—Dr. Hans Von Guttenberg. How’s that for a name? He was searching through some of those old out-of-print books I salvaged out of your father’s basement storage room. Figured it was about time. Intriguing gentleman.” Max ran a cloth across a long, empty shelf in preparation for more books.
Achoo!
“Sorry!” Max said sheepishly.
“Don’t be,” his uncle said, turning to locate another full box. It didn’t surprise Max that his uncle met so many interesting people, since the bookstore was a magnet for odd characters. One man was planning to build a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark and use it as a combination zoo and museum. Another lady claimed she had set the Guinness World Record for reading eighty-four books out loud and backwards in pig Latin.
“So what was this guy looking for, Uncle Owen?”
“Well, funny you should ask. He said he was studying the phenomenon known as déjà vu.”
“Déjà vu? Sounds more like French than German.”
“It is French. It means the illusion that something you’re experiencing for the first time has happened before. It happens to everyone at some point.”
Max stopped to think for a moment. “You mean that weird feeling when something happens, but you could swear it’s some kind of slow-motion mental replay?”
“Yes, but that’s just it… you haven’t actually thought of it before, it just seems that way, a trick of the imagination.”
“Or so they say…” Max half wondered, half muttered out loud.
“I’m sorry, what was the question?” Uncle Owen inquired, cocking his head slightly to the side to hear better.
“Oh nothing,” Max insisted. “Just curious as to why this guy was researching that particular subject?”
“It seems Von Guttenberg has a notion that it’s no illusion at all. A bit of pseudoscience nonsense, if you ask me, but it takes all kinds.” His uncle tried to squeeze Beekeeping for Dummies into a narrow slot at the end of the shelf. “It just won’t fit,” he said, gritting his teeth and pushing harder.
“Give it here, Uncle Owen,” Max said. “How about if I put that on the display table in the back?”
His uncle nodded. “And while you’re at it, clear a spot for homework.”
Max went off to the reading room at the back of the store and placed the oversized book in the center of the table, alongside a volume on advanced origami. He paused, marveling at the diverse subjects lining the shelves around him. NASCAR racing, the Great Wall of China, humpback whales, small engine repair, dark energy—the topics seemed endless.
As he turned to leave, Max noticed another title, handwritten and taped over the cover of a tattered, leather-bound book on a small reading table in the corner of the room. He moved closer to make certain he had read the cover correctly. Nemesis and the Vault of Lost Time. Max glanced around the room, checking to see if anyone had been reading the book and perhaps had left it laying out for reference. But the room appeared empty.
He pulled a chair up close to the table to get a better look. The binding was fragile, its thumb-worn pages brown with age. Gently he turned the book’s cover open to peer inside. There, on the first page, someone had transcribed a short note in the margins. The penmanship was crisp and angular with a forward slant to it. The ink was a deep blue and more recent, compared to the older text, which had faded over time, making it nearly illegible. Curious, he read the note out loud.
“As the Earth revolves, each breath grows shorter. The daylight
dims and the shadows lengthen. Things once imagined appear to be, when
time releases those from the deep.”
Max squinted to make sure he was reading the handwriting correctly. He tilted the book forward to see more clearly in the light when he felt a bony hand grasp his right shoulder.
