“I’m sure he’d enjoy that,” she said.
So me and Baxter ran upstairs to the kitchen. The pet store bag was still on the counter. I found the ball—and actually the package called it a Superbouncy Ball, but since it was just sitting there in the shrink-wrap, how would you know?
I unwrapped it, and then we headed out to the yard. The ball was superbouncy, which was really fun because that made Baxter superbouncy, too. I threw it, and he followed the bounce, running after the ball and catching it in his mouth right after it had thwacked down on the ground and was coming back up.
TJ arrived, chewing a big wad of gum. I grabbed onto Baxter’s collar since he was looking a little exuberant, and we all went down to the lab.
Professor Reese showed TJ a T-wave. Then he wandered over to spin in the spinny chair, and she sat back down in a boring chair to look into the spectrometer again.
Baxter trotted to his bed. I snuggled in next to him. When I looked up, Professor Reese was peering into the spectrometer again and thinking—hard, it seemed, because whenever I asked something, she was dreamy and quiet and didn’t finish her sentences.
“Are you going to work in the lab all day?” I scritched Baxter’s chin.
“ . . . hmm? . . .”
I noodled Baxter’s ears. “I could take him on all his walks today, if you want.”
“Yes, well . . .” But then she was thinking again.
I patted Baxter’s tummy and started thinking, too—only, instead of T-waves, I thought about Baxter.
Sometimes he was all bony, like he had a dozen elbows sticking out everywhere, and it took a second to find a place to cuddle up next to him. But as soon as he relaxed, all the elbows went away, and then he was a big fuzzy pillow. I rested my head against his belly and wondered how that was possible and if everybody was like that or just dogs.
Meanwhile, TJ had gotten up and was fidgeting around the lab, picking up stuff, even dumb stuff like a coffee mug full of pens, and putting it back.
Pretty soon, I started feeling sleepy. My head rose and fell as Baxter’s breathing snuffled down his long nose and got quiet and full of sighs.
And then TJ said, “What are those numbers for?”
He was standing next to the map of Portland, pointing to a little slip of white paper stuck under one of the red pins (the where-Baxter-actually-found-the-hat pins). The map, I now saw, had a tiny slip of paper stuck under each pin, which I hadn’t noticed when I’d walked in because I’d been so busy thinking about spectrometers and elbows.
But when TJ is fidgety, he notices stuff, even stuff Mom doesn’t want him to. Plus, he likes numbers in general, so he notices them even more. “45.533529, –122.689605,” he read off one of the slips.
“ . . . hmm?” Professor Reese looked up from the adjustable eyepiece. “Those are GPS coordinates.” She turned back to the spectrometer.
“Oh.” TJ wandered over to the bookcase to fidget some more.
But I thought, Wait a minute, what? Because I knew GPS coordinates showed you exactly where something was. Like, exactly. Like, careful-we-have-to-land-this-rocket-ship exactly, or aaah!-the-asteroid-hurtling-toward-Earth-will-land-in-this-spot exactly. Not oops-lost-my-hat-around-here somewhere.
“You wrote down the GPS coordinates for your hat?” I asked.
“What? . . . oh yes . . .” Professor Reese said and drifted back to the spectrometer.
I squeezed out from under the desk and sat up. “For your hat?” Baxter squeezed out from under the desk, too, and stood next to me, leaning against my shoulder. “Why would you do that?”
TJ wandered toward the back of the lab, running his hand along the electronic console and fingering the lights and buttons.
I wrapped my arms around Baxter’s ribs. He rested his chin on the top of my head. “Why would it matter exactly where it was, as long as you found it again?”
“Hmm? . . .” Professor Reese said, refocusing the eyepiece. “Don’t play with the teleporter, dear . . .”
TJ snatched his hands away from what used to be a tanning bed and shot me a look like, Huh?
“Wait.” My head clunked on Baxter’s chin as I scrambled to my feet. “What did you just say?”
Professor Reese’s face popped up from behind the spectrometer. “Oh.” Her eyes got big. “Uh . . . what did it sound like I said?”
“It sounded like, ‘Don’t play with the teleporter, dear.’”
“Oh my.” She looked a little sick. “I didn’t mean to say that, but apparently I did.” She took a deep breath. “And now it looks as if I must ask you two a very important question: How good are you at keeping a secret?”
10Baxter and the Boop
“I’m excellent,” I told Professor Reese. “I’m the best secret keeper ever. Just ask anyone.” Then I thought about it. “Well, don’t ask anyone ’cause nobody ever believes I am. But really, I’m excellent—”
“What do you mean, teleporter?” TJ broke in. “That’s crazy!”
“At first glance, it would appear so,” Professor Reese agreed. “But it’s true.”
“A teleporter. A teleporter.” TJ’s eyebrows climbed higher and higher up his forehead. “Like you stick something in and push a button and it ends up somewhere else? You mean teleportation?”
“I do.” Professor Reese nodded.
TJ’s jaw dropped so far his gum fell out of his mouth, and he had to catch it, quick. “A teleporter! Cool!”
Professor Reese grinned. “I know!”
“So T-waves are . . . ?” I asked.
“Teleportation waves,” she said.
“And your hat wasn’t really lost, was it?” TJ asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve teleported it. Twice.”
TJ shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone.” He stuck his gum back in his mouth. “They’d never believe it, anyway.”
“Exactly,” Professor
