named Jonathan Turner. Haven’t you ever noticed the initials ‘J.T.’ branded in the huge, square beam over the fireplace? Those are his initials, probably put there with a hot poker by his own hand.”
“Yes, I know, that’s all very interesting,” said Danny, with a shrug. “But you can’t see the past—it’s over with. I like science because it’s what’s happening right now.”
The Professor dipped a finger into his coffee and tasted it thoughtfully. “Hmm. So you think the past has vanished, do you?” he said. “Let me ask you something. You’re interested in astronomy, aren’t you?”
“Well, sure. You know I built that three-inch telescope with you, last year.”
“And you looked through it at Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the heavens. Do you remember how far away it is?”
“Eight and eight-tenths light years,” Danny said, promptly. “Fifty-one trillion miles.”
“Exactly. The light from Sirius took nearly nine years to get here, didn’t it? So the star you saw was not the star as it was when you looked at it, but the star of nearly nine years before. You were looking right smack at the past.”
Danny blinked. “Gee, that’s right,” he said. “I never thought of that.”
“Yes,” the Professor went on, with a faraway look in his eyes, “how strange and magical discovery can be—better than a fairy tale! Remember the seven-league boots in the old stories? Today, you can have breakfast in London, get on a jet plane, and have lunch in New York. Want to grow tiny? Look through a microscope! Want to talk to someone on the other side of the earth? You can do it in five minutes! We’ve had to change all our ways of thinking, all our old ideas. For instance—what’s the shortest distance between two points?”
“A straight line,” Danny said, automatically. “Not at all,” cried the Professor. “Look at a globe of the earth. The shortest distance between London and New York is a curved line, over the earth’s surface, as a plane flies. We’re living in an age of magic, my boy, where time and space have to be looked at with new eyes.”
He picked up his coffee cup and sipped at it. “Cold!” he said. “Heavens, I just can’t seem to get a hot cup of coffee.”
“If you’ll wait a minute,” Mrs. Dunn began.
“Not now,” said the Professor. “I must get back to work. You can bring me some sandwiches and coffee in a few minutes—an hour or so—”
He strode out of the room.
“Wait, Professor Bullfinch!” Danny called. “I wanted to ask you about your own test.”
He jumped to his feet and hurried after the scientist, but he was too late. He ran down the hall and got to the laboratory annex just as the door closed in his face. As he stood there hesitating, wondering whether to knock, he heard the sharp and positive click of the key turning in the lock as if the Professor had clearly said, “No admittance.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Professor Surrenders
Studying alone for a test is almost as hard as ditch-digging. But studying with friends can be as good as a party. There’s only one hitch: you have to keep your mind on your work. And puzzling over the Professor’s secret made this the one thing Danny couldn’t do.
Saturday morning, he met with his two closest friends, Irene Miller and Joe Pearson, for a session on American history. They met at Irene’s house, next door to Danny’s. Irene, whose father was a professor of astronomy at Midston University, was as deeply interested in science as Danny and planned to become a physicist when she grew up. Joe, on the other hand, wanted to be a writer and was notorious in school for his poems, made up to suit every occasion. The three settled down with their books in Irene’s room and started work, but Danny couldn’t keep his eyes away from the bay window. It faced the back yard, and sitting in the window seat, Dan could just see the corner of the Professor’s laboratory jutting from the rear of his own house next door.
At last, he put down his book with a sigh. “If only I could find out what he’s doing inside there,” he said.
Joe stretched out his lanky body in the armchair, and put his open history book on top of his head. “Maybe some of these names and dates will soak down into my mind this way,” he said, sadly. “We’re not going to get much studying done if you keep worrying about the Professor.”
“I’m not worrying about him,” said Danny. “I’m just curious.”
“Uh-huh. And every time you get curious, I get into trouble,” Joe moaned. “Like the time you were curious about what would happen if you made an air conditioner out of some ice cubes and my mother’s vacuum cleaner. I was the one who had to clean up the mess and dry out the vacuum cleaner.”
“I’m sorry about that, Joe,” said Danny. “But it did blow cold air, didn’t it?”
“Oh, sure. Only it would have been better in July, instead of January,” Joe mumbled. He pulled the book down over his face like a tent. “Let’s see…the First Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia on September 74th.”
Irene giggled. “I think there’s something wrong with that date, Joe,” she said. She knelt in the window seat next to Dan and looked down into his back yard. “I wonder why the Professor hasn’t told you anything,” she said. “Could it be some kind of top secret work for the government?”
“I doubt it. We’d have had all sorts of generals and FBI men around. No, I think he’d tell me what it is if I just had a chance to ask him. But you see, he only comes out of the lab for a few minutes at a time and then he’s so deep in thought that he doesn’t seem to pay much attention to what I say.”
“Well, why don’t you just look in his window?” Joe suggested. “I wonder if I could make up a poem about this history? What rhymes with ‘congress’?”
Danny stared at him. “Look in the window?” he repeated, slowly. “Maybe you’ve got something.”
“I haven’t got a rhyme for ‘congress,’” Joe said, shaking his head.
Irene looked worried. “But Danny,” she said, “I don’t think the Professor would like that.”
Danny ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said. “I think Professor Bullfinch keeps the lab door locked because he doesn’t want to be disturbed. But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind my just looking. The thing is, it would be disturbing him if I went and stuck my head up against the window. So maybe if I could figure out a way of looking that wouldn’t really disturb him…”
He jumped up. “Hey, let’s go down into your back yard for a minute, Irene,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Good-by, good old First Continental Congress,” Joe said. “Here comes trouble.”
They ran down the stairs and out into Irene’s yard. A high lilac hedge separated it from Danny’s yard, and at the far end the lawns gave place to a pleasant little wood of birches and maples, now just leafing out in the fresh green of spring. Danny went round the lilacs and through the wood to a spot near a thick, ancient maple where the youngsters had once
